Shifted Tech II

Once she got to the edge of the village and the fence, she made Asterion leap over it and dash into the center, armor and all… to find everyone packing and getting ready to leave. "Giles! Giles! Where are you?!" she yelled out, taking off her coif and scratching her head while spinning to look for the man. Giles came out of the smithy holding a bag he was putting things in. "Lass! I'm still here!" he waved for her to come over. She trotted Aster to him and jumped off the saddle. Abby was just inside grabbing some pots she had along with some food for the trip. "I just had bandits where I live, five of them. I came to warn you." He let out a dry chuckle. "A little late for that Selene. We had a scared to death refugee from Glass Dale come into our little home, talked to the mayor. I don't know how she managed to make it all the way here, half starved and barely a word understandable from her ramblings. The bandits hit Glass Dale. They really did it, they laid siege to the town."

Selene stood there staring at him with eyes wide open. Bandits had assaulted a town, overrun the guards, and pillaged it. "Did… did she say how many?" "No idea, but an army is huge…" She looked away a little. "The general that came in a few days ago… he had said something about… about it being numbered close to two thousand." Giles gawked at her. "Two thousand? That's more than any guard force could handle! And the kingdom won't do anything!" he snapped as he brought his hand up to his forehead and pushed his hair back over his scalp, but he calmed down quickly as he blew air from his mouth. "What's everyone here doing? Packing up?" Abby grabbed another bag and put it in their wagon. "That's right lass. We're all heading up into the Azaltos mountains. The mayor knows of a small place we can hide, hopefully survive long enough for the bandits to forget about this valley."

The auburn-haired woman looked around. Everyone was getting their things, whatever they owned in their houses, with some already heading out. "There's going to be no more Gold Pine… no more trading…" she muttered out as children were put on top of wagons with scared looks on their faces, with the mayor at the front of the convoy and directing people to spots in the line up. They weren't quite ready just yet, with more people getting into position.

The general store owner rushed out of his building and threw some more things on his wagon. "Excuse me, excuse me!" she yelled out to the man as he ran back into the store. She sighed and walked away from Giles, who continued to grab things from the smithy to put on their own wagon. "Hey! You!" she yelled again just as the owner came out. He looked at her. "I'm sorry miss! But the store is closed indefinitely until… until this all blows over! I'm a little busy!" She exhaled loudly, not to sound frustrated, but to just help her breathe through all of this. "Before you go! I was wondering if you have any saltpeter or sulfur to sell?" she begged as he turned around for one more run. "I… I really don't have the time… I'm sorry…" She grabbed his arm. "Please. I really could use some." He sighed.

"I… I don't have any miss. I've never carried either of those ingredients you're looking for. Please, I have to get packed or they'll leave without me!" he pulled away and ran inside one last time. She watched as the village packed their things, got in line, with the mayor taking a head count. "Giles." She looked at him as Abby and he rode by her with the wagon, two horses pulling the wagon forward. "Lass… I… I hope your village fairs well and doesn't get found by those scum. Maybe… maybe we should ask you to come with us, but I somehow figure you'll say no." She looked up at him sitting with the reins in his hands.

What would stop me? I could go back for the wolves, sheep and Penny, grab my stuff, throw it in my inventory, then haul back here to meet up with them. Somehow… somehow, I don't think I'm going to do that… there's no guarantee where they go will be safe… and there's no guarantee they'll wait for me. They have no idea how far I live. By the time I get back, they might be impatient and just leave.

"I… don't think… I can do that… thank you though. I doubt anyone would wait for me to get my things and come back either." He nodded in understanding. They moved their cart into the line, with the mayor yelling to everyone to stay with the convoy and don't drift. Moira came up to her and stopped. "Eh Luv! I'm glad to see you. Sorry, we're closing shop now. We… I hope this isn't the end for my little inn. I… at least I know you're alright." Selene nodded to her. "Yeah, I'm ok." The innkeeper looked at the line and looked back at her large wagon with four horses and lots of stuff bagged up. "I… stay safe luv. Maybe we'll see each other again." The dev nodded, fighting back a few tears. "Yeah, that would be great." Moira slapped the reins down and got the horses moving. They then started to head out. The mayor saw her, noticing she was the trader that had helped bring in some decent items the past week or so. He nodded in her direction, and she nodded back.

Selene watched until they were all a good distance away, becoming a small line heading up North towards the Azaltos Mountains. Her eyes drifted around. She was standing in another ghost town. There was no one to talk to, no one to trade with, no one to hear stories from. She was alone, again. Most of the doors were closed, but some were wide open with people just abandoning their houses as fast as they could. A piece of paper was posted on the board just outside the inn with a face. It was a wanted sign. The face was of Volgo, or "Captain" Volgo apparently. It seems he went AWOL from the already corrupt military to go on a killing and pillage spree. She guessed he didn't like being held down by rules and even the basic semblances of law. He was bald with the tattoo of a snake on his head, three scars to the right of his left eye, two eyebrow piercings on his right, a scraggily beard that was woven into braids and what looked like a chunk of the top of his left ear missing.

There were two other scraps left and right of the wanted poster, with a list of his lieutenants. She didn't recognize any of them, so the one who escaped wasn't someone of high rank.

She took a deep breath and jumped back on Asterion and took one last hard look at Gold Pine. Another lost chance to settle the valley it seems from those people. The dev started heading back to the fort, jumping over the fence again and taking a little longer route to stay away from the bandit if he was still making his way back. She needed to prepare. If that man got back to his thieving friends and leader, they'd send something bigger after her. Considering she was just one woman that they saw, it might be more than five guys...

He wouldn't send the whole army at my little fort, would he? No, waste of effort. These assholes think one woman, or for that matter one man, is easy pickings. I'm not Rambo, and this isn't an action movie. I could seriously be killed, or worse…

She somehow knew she didn't have plot armor or some special guardian angel watching over her. She's had to fight this far to keep going, she wasn't going to go down without one hell of a battle. She might not have gunpowder, but there had to be something she could use to even the odds. As she raced back to the fort and got inside, she went straight to the mine and started gathering ore for the smelters, working as hard as she could to build up her defenses. That was only part of the reason, as she focused on as many actions as she could. Maybe she could get to Late Middle Ages and somehow build a fantastic castle they wouldn't want to attack… maybe.

It's over two thousand bandits, that's an army. Armies lay siege to castles!

"What the fuck am I going to do against that? What the flying fuck am I gonna do?!" tears were welling up in her eyes as the thought was at the forefront of her mind. This wasn't five guys at her gate in the open, this was an army coming for her, or at least a good amount more than five. Those were just scouts. Brazen scouts, who thought they could take one woman on a wall, but still.

One hundred. He, whoever this Volgo is, will send probably one hundred to attack the fort. I won't be able to fend that amount off, let alone two thousand. They're probably still in Glass Dale, gloating over their prize, they're rewards from the battle. Barbarians.

"Damn it!" she slammed her fist against the wall of the tunnel she was in, tearing out some iron ore. She breathed for a few seconds as she tried to think.

I need to mix things up. I can't do this without more people, I can't do this without help! I won't have robots until the twenty-first century though!

Her mind went immediately to her tech tree and started looking through whatever could help her. She needed bodies to fight, to help fire at anything that attacked the fort, but she was in the middle ages. Could she make summon spells? Her spell list showed X Minor Summons of various creatures. She'd get out some level ones, some fives maybe, easily killed by one hundred armed men. At best they would be a decoy to divert arrows towards, nothing much more than that. "There has to be a way!" she sat down while the smelters started working and stared at the tech tree. She hadn't broken down yet like she had before, but her mind had to go through what she had available. Early Middle Ages, Upper Middle Ages, Late Middle Ages, Renaissance, Colonial. She was missing three of those eras so far.

"God… I wish I had a separate timeline I could build off of here…" she said to herself, looking at Late Middle Ages. Her mind started wandering about to all of the different games she had helped develop, all the genres she had seen or books she had read. Her mind wandered to science fiction, to fantasy worlds, to movies. One particular she tended to gravitate towards was Steampunk. It was such an interesting thing to be in a fantasy sci fi era that allowed tesla cannons and steam powered robots walking around, even magical bronze creatures. The idea of Van Helsing fighting monsters, or mad science having a far drastic effect on the world was amazing to her. Why have a car when you could have an airship? Why use a normal sword when you could attach wires on the outside and charge it with lightning? There were even disruption systems to combat magic in some stories.

That's it… I wish I had that timeline embedded into the tech tree right now. That would really work in my favor. Just getting even a few of those creations would turn the odds against those bastards.

"Steampunk started usually Late Middle Ages right… god that would be amazing." She stared at Late Middle Ages, looking through the tech unlocks that flowed from it as the thoughts of it changing to steampunk ran through her head like a little kid's dreams. Mechanical arms, coal powered forcefields, auto turrets, Frankenstein monsters. Just as she was about to close the inventory and get back to work, a new link appeared as a side grade to Late Middle Ages on the tree. Early Steampunk Era. Her mouth dropped. Below that, Upper Steampunk Era, Advanced Steampunk Era. The links interconnected to each era, then side connected to the normal eras in the timeline.

I've gotta be hallucinating, I have to be, the mushroom spores must have gotten into my lungs or something. Did I just add a totally new era listing? I mean, this is a fantasy world after all, so… it isn't completely out of the picture. But if this is a middle ages fantasy world, then… they've never even seen steampunk. They don't know what it can do.

Her thoughts were reeling as she blinked multiple times trying to clear her vision, scared that the tech trees would disappear. The tech tiers were there. They were on the same tier line as Late Middle Ages, Renaissance and Colonial Era. She'd have to do twice the work just to get both done, with one being teched into, then slipping sideways to tech up the next. It was a new branch she had created. She could work on Early Steampunk Era, then get Late Middle Ages. That had to give her some edge in this next fight. She looked into at least a few unlocks in it just to be sure.

Basic Automatons. They're there as an unlock. This could work. I might be able to fend off one hundred bandits. I'll have to do a little finagling to get them weaponized without gunpowder weapons, but this could work.

She started to go through other tech, not just Early Steampunk, but also previous fortifications. Catapults, she'd need those as they were simple, Scorpios she could set up to fire if one or two came charging in, if they used ladders to climb up the walls, she would need spiked palisades on the walls to keep them at bay along with boiling tar braziers to pour down onto them. She was going to need arrow slits and upgrade the walls completely, instead of having them be the fifteen-foot-tall walls she had now, she needed to make sure they were double that and increase their thickness so that she could stand on the wall, not on a wooden catwalk. There would have to be stairs, the gate would need to be severely upgraded… did these bandits have battering rams? She would need more Arteirobolos to fire volleys out. That could take care of chunks of them while they head towards the walls.

Her first problem was getting to Early Steampunk in the first place. She had just gotten to Upper Middle Ages, it might take a day or two just to reach it now. The dev thought for a second, trying to figure out how to best use all available time. Could she temporarily skip sleep? How long until they came for her? If she had to guess, they'd have to head down the road to meet the army first, report in about the fort and her, then hit Gold Pine first as it was on the way, find nothing useful there, either torch the place or leave it alone and try and head for her. That might take… three days? Just running took half a day just to get to Gold Pine, if they didn't have horses which it didn't look like the five who came to her gate had in any way, about that time to reach this place. With one hundred men, roughly, they'd reach her just as she had gotten to Early Steampunk and got some automatons ready. She'd be pushing it, but it was possible. If she could also get Late Middle Ages, it would help. Maybe she could set an avalanche of rocks in one direction? Or if with steampunk create some steam weapons along the walls to scald them. There were more than just automatons available to her in those tiers, but they were the most noticeable. The problem was, a good deal of weapons wouldn't be possible due to missing certain chemicals, ingredients, materials and resources.

The problem was the timeframe. She'd need a lot more hours to work on mining, throwing it away once she performed the required actions, then upgraded to Early Steampunk, then mined some more. "Potions. Could I use stamina and anti-fatigue potions to stay awake and work through the night?" she immediately went to her garden and started gathering the required herbs, casting Growth Spurt and Nutrient Replenisher twice. Once she had the potions crafting, she used one of the spare anti-fatigue potions right now, as the adrenaline was wearing off for her. It was working, with her not waking up more. She was still tired, similar to the effect of coffee, but at least she could stay awake through the night and get an extra eight hours of work done.

She looked over at the log cabin, at the wolves sitting watching her. The final option was completely abandoning the fort and running, heading north to build a new one. She'd abandon the mine, her starter cave, the log cabin, the walls just to go build somewhere else. There was no guarantee she'd find another mine that would give decent materials, there was no guarantee they wouldn't search and find her again. She made her choice. She was going to stand and fight. But she was going to do it with help from steampunk robots.

Three Weeks, Two Days

Selene hadn't slept the entire night, focusing on upgrading the walls to thirty feet high and adding arrow slit emplacements for her to attack from. There were openings on both sides of each so that she could move from point to point and allow the automatons to attack once she built them. What would they look like? Would they be human form? Walking around, picking up a repeating machinegun and blasting down at the enemy, striking fear into the bandits as they run away, hoping not to get shot in the back?

That's right. I don't have gunpowder. Repeating crossbows? Would that work?

Three more Arteirobolos were installed, along with multiple murder drains added to the walls that would flow and intentionally splash to create as much havoc as possible down below. There were four catapults now made, each with a full stash of stones to throw for maximum AOE strike. Spiked palisades were installed inverted and aiming down towards any aggressors, potentially poking through openings of ladders if they brought them, or any grappling hooks. There were reinforced inner barricades as well for the cabin in the event they somehow managed to get inside so she had a second defensive perimeter. The gate had bracings installed that could be removed, along with the logs being placed in front of it each time no matter if she was there or not.

She had her head on a swivel, with sense hostiles upgraded to the maximum, X Greater. The range was no longer known, as she could set it to whatever distance she wanted now. The distance was set now for anything with twenty-five miles, because that was the distance humans could walk on average from one point to another in one day, morning to night time. She was unsure if this Volgo would push his men that far each day, as they were bandits and probably would rest far more each time. The brigands would probably be sitting around, gloating over the last kill or the gold they just stole. He'd want them to enjoy the pillaging, not the forced death march.

The outside of the walls also had extra defenses, with spiked barricades further out, a sunken trench right before the walls to make it more difficult to try and climb or dig with the foundation, standing torches she could light with firebolt if they attacked at night to see better given that the X Greater version didn't increase damage but provided more shots, allowing multiple targets at the same time, ten in total. During this time, she had to hunt for food and stock up until she reached the ability to tech up. She wanted to focus as much on fortifications as possible without being distracted. Despite all the work she was doing, and the actions she was performing, her experience wasn't going up too much, which was a shame. There might be a chance for her to get to level twenty, but it didn't look good.

What level are these guys? Level ten? Fifteen? Maybe, just maybe some level twenties? I wouldn't ever know, but regardless of that, even one hundred level tens will still take me out if I can't get steampunk. This has to work. My life is riding on this.

She cut back the tree line as far as she could, pushing it almost a kilometer back in all directions. She'd at least see anything coming at the fort, unless it was a really good archer. Did they have any of those? Her view of bandits was that they were stupid thugs that wanted to rape and pillage, but it might be possible they had some assassins or mercenaries that were actually good at their job. It might be that Volgo would send one of his lieutenants to handle this battle.

While she worked on the upgrades, there were tomes being crafted as well to bulk up her perks. She had made a fifty percent increase in mobility while using chain mail armor, a fifty percent reload speed bonus while using a crossbow, fifty percent bonus to damage when using boiling tar fortifications, fifty percent better accuracy when using catapults taken twice. Given that those were here only artillery until she could find the materials for gunpowder, she needed all the help she could get with those things.

There were more perks for helping with defensive actions, such as fifty percent bonus to Lesser Heals, Fifty percent bonus to Lesser Rejuvenate to keep fighting if she was tired, which she was using alongside the stamina potions and anti-fatigue potions right now. While she wasn't exhausted, her eyes were telling her sleep was expected soon. It was during the day, so that meant more work. Tonight, and only tonight, she'd try and get some sleep. Her body would fight her if she attempted to stay awake for more than forty-eight hours.

There was a perk for Firebolt as well, to allow it to instantly set a target on fire, along with the fifty percent damage bonus. She had four perk points left right now, and she was going to use all of them. There were two more tomes in the works by now, and she was going to make sure at least one of them was for Light Orb for a longer cast range to use it as a magical flare system due to not having any gunpowder, as well as a fifty percent resistance boost to poison while under the effects of a Lesser poison resistance elixir. She was worried above all things that someone would cut her while defending and it would be a poisoned blade. The elixir she had upgraded to the maximum potential, Ultra, which would provide fifty-five percent resistance to poison for twenty-four hours. Once she knew the battle started, she'd drink it, and the perk would engage, boosting it to eighty-three percent, rounded up. If she could drink a Lesser Poison Resistance potion, as well as perk that up, she'd have a temporary boost of another twenty-five percent just from the potion, then another twelve percent added in. Selene would be completely immune to poison, at least for the time the potion lasted. That was where the last perk point would be used, to Sexdecuple the time the effect lasted from one minute to sixteen minutes. This wasn't including casting Lesser Resistance on herself.

Her chain mail was being enchanted with ten percent increases to health, stamina, and weight reduction, to lighten the armor up and allow her to shoot a bow and crossbow easier. Between rapid fire and aimed shot abilities, she could probably get about five, six kills before it all wore off. If there were automatons assisting her, that would take out a healthy chunk along with the catapults. She dumped fifty Skill Points into Heavy Armor to help with movement. She gained two special passive abilities, "Move a Mountain" that dropped all chances of throwing her, toppling her or even moving her in combat by fifty percent, and "Throw Your Weight Around" That did the opposite towards an enemy. While the first would be useful only if she got into close combat, the latter might help if she needed to push a ladder off her walls or Sparta kick someone away.

Once the perks were finished, she was going to devote spare queue space to simply craft magical scrolls for one shot spells, and start working on Greater Resistance Spell. Having a few X Minor Lightning Bolts, Lesser Heals that wouldn't use mana, multiple Light Orbs, Firebolts that didn't use mana, Trip spells to slow advancing force would help without her constantly waiting on her bar to replenish. Her potions were getting upgraded a little as well, while she had the time. She finally gained Very Minor Healing Potions, which she didn't have before, along with Minor Anti-fatigue Potions, Minor Stamina Potions, X Minor Regeneration Potions for short term assistance with poultices if needed, more Very Minor Speed Potions to get around the fort faster and defend a different wall and plenty of poultice and bandages now tier 2. She hoped she wouldn't look like some wounded veteran covered in bandages and laying bed with her leg hanging up after this.

Surprisingly, Armored Skin wasn't going to be as much effect as she thought, as it only provided an armor rating to any unarmored part of the body. Given that she was going to be walking around in full chainmail armor, even with a chainmail coif covering her face as well. The only parts open would be her eyes to see through the coif. If they managed to hit her there, the Armored Skin wasn't going to do much anyways. The spell was mainly for if she wasn't wearing armor, to provide at least some protection from everyday work or gardening. What she was going to do, however, was cast it on the wolves to give them some extra defense if a stray arrow hit them. Hopefully it would glance off, but there won't be much of a chance if she puts them in the cabin.

Her entire goal right now wasn't to eliminate the whole force, but to make them give up and run for the hills. If she could manage to do that, then it would buy her extra time to advance her tech tree, get some better alternatives and hopefully prove she isn't to be messed with. If it didn't work… second line of defense, hand to hand, leg sweeps and shield bashes… it might get ugly. Most forces tended to break when they were at thirty percent or below combat effectiveness. That was a normal military though, these might be stupid bandits, maybe a few smart ones, but mostly stupid.

Suicidal overconfidence. It was usually programmed into AI for most games to give the player something to fight. You might be wearing full powered armor with a super laser and a tank next to you along with a full psionic suite of super powers, but that one idiot with a stick and t shirt is gonna come running at you believing he can win.

There was still some light left in today, which only spurred her on even more to keep reinforcing, to place cutting tools and ammo in storage crates on the walls, to make the fort as mean looking as possible. She still had time, to reach Early Steampunk and to make it out of this. Selene just had to keep trying. The tech up was almost here, she'd reach it by the end of tonight. Then she'd rest to get some much-needed shut eye. Once awake, she'd finally build her helpers.

"A fort was never designed to protect against a siege, but to deter the siege from ever happening. If a large enough enemy force is present, the goal of the defending force is to meet the enemy beyond the walls if possible. Only Castles or cities were ever laid siege to, due to the value." – Random Historian

She was going to have to ignore that advice and prove her fort could do it. She didn't have a choice.