The Bandit Raid Pt 2 (I)

One Month, B-Day, Midnight

The army was slowly creeping towards the fort, still a good distance away. Volgo had to whip a few of his bandits to get them moving, but it was worth it. This bitch had made a fool of him, taking out not just a few of his men, but killing close to one hundred fifty brigands by herself. He was going to make her pay for this. She was only one woman, no matter how strong she acted towards the last force he sent, he would break her and maybe allow the rest of the army to use her as they saw fit. Her life as a free woman was over once he got close enough.

The scouts had confirmed the fort was still there, with almost no activity or movement that they could see. There were a few more protrusions they didn't know about, probably more corbels for that whore to hide behind on her pathetic walls. While she was ready for an attack from one side, she wouldn't be ready for a flank attack, which was why he split his forces in two, one coming from the South East, the other lead by him coming up from the North. It took longer to maneuver his men into position since most of them were meat heads that just wanted to get a chance to play with her and didn't understand tactics or strategy.

"Volgo, hey, I… I don't see anyone in there, are we sure she hasn't abandoned it yet? I mean… she probably knew we'd be coming right?" One of his lieutenants asked. "Which is why we are going in there to check you imbecile! If she's gone, we'll find her. She couldn't have gone far either way." He sat there on his horse waiting for the final confirmation that everyone was in position. "The wizard Taldesian is ready. You sure he can handle her if we can't?" Volgo looked at another lieutenant and slapped him upside the head. "Of course he can! There's no way she could have magic protection. Now! Everyone! Move forward carefully! If the fort doesn't see us coming, then we've got this in the bag!" The ex-captain pulled his sword and held onto his reins, pushing forward slowly. Once they were within five kilometers, they started to move faster. It was like a swarm of bugs coming to chew up some tasty morsel. She probably didn't have a clue just how angry he was. Maybe if she begged, he'd kill her after she serviced all of his men.

Unfortunately for him, that was when the automatons registered he was in position. Giant concrete walls erupted from the ground behind all of them with massive hydraulics, with Volgo stopping with eyes wide in surprise. "What the…" "Volgo, what the hell is this?" The Bandit leader looked at the fort as it lit up brightly with torches that weren't on fire, with white fireballs launched into the sky, turning the night into day. "It's a trap."

Meanwhile

"Madam, hostiles are in position" one of her V Lights informed her. "Roll out the welcome mat." The trap walls erupted from the ground at the three-kilometer limit, completely blocking them all off along with the fort wall lights engaging, spotlights turning on and flares launched just above the stupid fish in a barrel. She could see with the spyglass where Volgo was, and just as his head turned, she knew that he had found himself in a deadly trap.

That's when he knew, he done fucked up.

Auto mortars started to fire, the electric field posts engaged, the fifty V Lights took aim for anything running for the walls while another fifty acted as support. Auto turrets swiveled into position like CIWS systems on an aircraft carrier, with Selene casting Reinforce Armor with scrolls on everything defending, saving her mana for other things. She popped her elixirs, potions and cast X Greater Greater Resistance, X Greater Medium Resistance and X Greater Light Resistance… she knew about the magic caster already. She was hoping he'd show up. There was already a plan put in place for him which was quite simple. The whole fort looked like some giant beast waking up, ready to tear into the not insignificant army.

The mortars landed, with the rounds being cluster fragmentation rounds designed for maximum dispersion range… that blast range was a good ten meters each time one hit. Spider mines were crawling over the walls to go find a hapless bandit to latch onto then detonate, causing as much damage as possible. If they couldn't manage to latch on or it would cause damage to the unit, it would just get close and detonate. Bodies were flying into the air from the blasts, with maybe a few hundred at most trying to charge the fort, which was more than welcoming. V Lights hit with pin point accuracy, auto turrets shredded groups with good fields of fire, and when some of them started to use metal shields to protect them from the bullets, the auto cannons popped out and fired blasts of grapeshot to dissipate the lines.

This wasn't a battlefield, it was a slaughter. But Selene didn't care. She thought back to how many lives these assholes had destroyed, how many they had killed, raped or stolen from, the families that had to run for the hills because of them. She was taking joy in watching the bodies flying into the air, the screams of their dying… it was justice for the very same they did to others, to Glass Dale. Three bandits somehow were brave enough, or stupid enough, to continue charging at the fort walls, being lucky enough not to be hit by bullets or artillery. Then they hit the electric fence field. One flash fried from the power pumping through them, the other two jerked for a little bit, with one somehow surviving and crawling towards the wall still hell bent on making it in. A quick bolt from an ornithopter ended that.

Volgo attempted to run away, straight towards the walls in hopes that the artillery would blast a hole in it and allow him to escape. Unfortunately for him, the auto mortars were very, very accurate and could predict where he was going. The walls were also very thick and could ignore tens of mortar rounds fired at them before a breach would happen. His horse was hit by an explosion, flipped end over end with him still riding due to the stirrups, and slammed down on the ground, the horse barely crushing his right leg as he pulled away and tried to crawl. There were bandits clawing at the trap walls trying to make their way over, even attempting to push each other up to make a human ladder. Sadly, they barely made it up to twenty feet… before the flame nozzles engaged. Selene was wearing a gas mask not because of any poison, but because of hating to smell the cooked flesh of humans. She wasn't very partial to long pig. The smell would eventually go away once the bodies were incinerated.

The dev had gotten some shots in with a three-barreled arquebus, but she didn't have any perks to assist in accuracy, which made at least two of the shots completely miss. It was her first time, plus she was just screwing around with it. As she swapped to her longbow for this, as the enemy was now much further range than last time, she emptied an entire quiver at the mass of screaming and panicking brigands going anywhere they could to get away from the fort spitting death and destruction. The entire time, Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture was playing in her head, complete with cannons firing each time auto mortars or auto cannons dispersed another round of pain. Her manual mortar system was swapped to auto mode due to her first three shells not landing near bandits at all. She hadn't taken the fortifications skill yet.

Suddenly, the world started to go slow, very slow. Time hadn't stopped, but things were moving at a snail's pace around her. The wizard had shown up. He floated down from the sky and was barely a foot above the ground, looking right at her. "I figured I would be needed for some whore such as yourself." She got up, resistant to the effects due to the spells she cast and walked down her stairs straight towards him. "Unfortunately, I'm going to have to end this quickly, as I don't really believe Volgo wants any more of his men killed right now, dullards as they are. I'm afraid he isn't going to be playing around with your body while your living. Make your peace." He aimed his staff at her as it glowed.

"Elevator going up." The wizard looked at her in confusion. "What?" A stalagmite explosively launched upwards from the ground, completely ignoring his slow time spell due to it being a unique developer ability and partial to her resistances, which she knew wasn't the tenth-tier spell time stop. Selene didn't actually know if there was a slow time spell in Yggdrasil's spell list, at least one that she could remember. The reason being that if someone wanted to slow time, they would just add speed boosts to themselves and move even faster, defeating the purpose. It was possible he had used the third-tier spell Slow with Widen Magic. The huge spike rammed straight through his pelvis, punched upwards into his chest and came out of the top of his head, a little bit of it showing from his mouth. His staff dropped to the ramparts floor, with his body twitching a foot off the ground as his corpse slowly went limp. Although Her Molecular Reformation was only at twenty percent power and control, she had used it once before she even upgraded the stats to produce a stalagmite from the ground on a goblin. This was easier to fire off now with the twenty percent upgrades, as she was completely calm, and it was just larger for a human.

The dev even doubted if any of the spells he would have cast would have caused any damage unless he had some sort of penetrate effect up to combat her resistances. Given that she had not only X Greater Greater Resistance, X Greater Medium Resistance and X Greater Lesser Resistance, but also one Lesser Elixir for each resistance type and one potion for each resistance type, her total resistance at the moment was something around five hundred percent. Even with penetrate magic capabilities, he would have at most dropped her resistances to around two thirds of that, maybe half if he really pushed it. The other effect was she had two immunities, as Arcanic's Wizardry provided anything at two hundred percent an immunity. Those spells that are immunity breaking or ignore defenses go through only that immunity, with a second immunity provided at four hundred percent that bypasses the ignore. Getting to that number was tough enough in Arcanic's Wizardry, but that was because there was no quality tier system for the spells, making mages who got to that resistance rating "tank" mages who try to outlast any damage launched at them. There was a penetrate rating for some spells that could be enhanced just like Yggdrasil, but the rating made players use lower tier spells sometimes because it would puncture the defenses, even if it did next to no damage. There were ways to protect against that though.

"Oh, crap, I didn't even give him a chance to fire what he was going to fire at me. Oops." She checked her combat log really quick as the slow time spell dissipated, the battle continuing as she just stood there on the fort grounds while her automatons laid into the remaining bandits. She had seen through her eyes in the sky Volgo crawling on the ground, followed by a targeted mortar shot she requested from one of her auto mortars specifically for him. His head was flung through the air, landing a little closer to the airlock gate. She checked the log and realized the wizard was getting ready to cast a Grand Fireball, a fourth-tier spell from Yggdrasil, before his untimely demise.

Yup, these guys have access to Yggdrasil spells, but that was probably low end. Most high-level players are casting tenth tier spells, not mid-grade stuff. I'm starting to get an idea of just how powerful people are around here. I'd still like to work out an experiment later though, with a few subjects to test something new on. Probably also need to add some time dilation protection to the steampunk units I have, among other resistances.

That something new was a special item she had seen in countless games as a feature, and in some others as a tool that could be crafted. That was to check on a person's level and stats. She couldn't do it right now unless they were in her inventory, which she wasn't about to start doing to everyone out there. That's a great way to lose friends. Her first thought was potentially adding a perk that would allow it, but on second thought that was a waste of a perfectly good point. Instead, she was going to see about crafting an item like a spyglass or magnifying glass that was enchanted with not only enchanting essence, but also use a perk tome in the enchanting process. If it worked, it wouldn't take a perk slot, just use the materials involving the tome. If it didn't, she had a fall back option.

The death screams and cries for help were dwindling, with a quick command from her for her ornithopters to go in and clean up, making sure none of them lived. She knew she was being ruthless, but she was tired of them trying to walk all over people. The fact that each one might have had a murder under their belts, and it made it much easier for the order to finish them off. As she took off her gas mask and looked out over the walls, seeing the flames of the grass burning and craters covering the area, bodies everywhere, she sighed. The smell of cooking bodies had gone away to just smoke and a slight smell of phlogiston.

"I've always wanted to say this… and no one can rag on me for saying it… I love the smell of phlogiston in the morning. It smells like… victory."

Once she was sure the army was wiped out to the last man, she had her automatons head out and collect the bodies for a bonfire of phlogiston, then grind the bones. She would then enchant a "holy icon" which wasn't exactly holy, just enchanted well over ten times, to dispel any ghosts or undead resurrection effects on the battlefield. That would keep any undead bandits from appearing, which she doubted would happen, but was just being careful. Once she set her automatons to the task, with the trap walls still up, she decided it was time for some decent shut eye after a hot bath.

There was one made for her by an X Light butler next to the cabin, with a waiting cotton towel, as she had crafted a few with removing the cotton requirement and replaced a tiny bit of linen and tar to make some steampunk elastic in the alchemy stations. She hoped in the future she could get her hands on more sheep for wool, or if possible, cotton seeds to grow instead of removing it as an exotic material. She still hadn't found any, with the alewife back in Gold Pine not knowing what cotton was. "Oh shit, I nearly forgot about them. Oh well, I'll go tell them the good news tomorrow once I have the scouts find their camp." Selene took her armor and clothes off to take her bath with lavender scented soap, the X Light butler cleaning the armor and clothing with an X Greater Scrub Spell due to the limited mana bar she was able to infuse it with, although the butler would need to inject mana potions into a small port just to regenerate the mana pool. The Scrub spell was almost exactly like Clean spell from Yggdrasil, a tier one cast. The difference was Scrub had a combination effect of oiling or lubricating equipment as well, making sure that guns wouldn't jam, joints were loose and functional, no rust was on metals, etc. It wasn't the best choice to use on a painting or picture frame, as it would just white wash the whole thing, but it would make a window crystal clear. The X Greater tier allowed an entire fort to be cleaned at a moments notice, probably a whole city if channeled.

"This has been my second bath in a month. From now on, I'm doing it every day. No more being grubby. I'm getting back to being hygienic." While she enjoyed her bath, the butler put her armor in a large storage chest inside the cabin, no longer chainmail as instead she now had a steampunk Kevlar vest with a small exoskeleton inserted into it to allow tools to be equipped as small spare mechanical arms from the back that could use precision tools. They weren't exactly great for combat, but definitely helpful for holding things, or if she got around to crafting something with her hands instead of her inventory, assist in that as well. It wasn't exactly the best armor, as she already knew about using steampunk mechanical powered armor which sort of looked like a mixture between a dive suit and wearing a whole bunch of tubas with gears and piping running along the outside, with a steam and lightning emitting power backpack attached. The vest, despite being made of something similar to Kevlar, looked kind of like any other quilted vest, with some easy padded pauldrons and quilted pants over her regular wool clothing. With it on, she looked fairly fashionable, if one could be fashionable while wearing body armor. It provided better protection than chainmail, was far lighter and was easier to remove or put on. She just needed a pocket watch and she'd look like she was crossdressing as a gentleman.

Once she had finished her bath and used the scissors to trim herself again along with a new comb and brush, she got her new cotton pajamas put on and the improved bed that no longer used straw, but cotton and box springs mattress with linen underlining she crafted. She still wanted the seeds to get a plantation going for others to feel how comfortable it was and maybe sell some of it, but until then she'd sleep even better tonight. In her eyes, using the alchemy stations to somehow make steampunk memory foam was a great goal. As she laid down in her upgraded bed, the thought of twenty-five hundred men dying just outside her gates didn't affect her at all. Once she got some sleep, it was going off to tell the villagers of Gold Pine the good news.

One Month, 8 am

Asterion finally had a chance to run around after being cooped up for the past few days, which Selene was happy to oblige as she rode him to Gold Pine to see if it was burnt to the ground. Some of it was torched, damaged or pillaged, which was a shame, but it could still be rebuilt. Her scouts had detected a camp hidden up in the Azaltos mountains, and with casting speed spells on Aster, allowed her to make it there by noon. As she headed up the small almost undetectable path to the camp, the villagers saw her crest the top and hop off her horse. "Hey lass! It's good to see you! How is your village doing? Have you come to hide with us here?" Giles asked her as Abby was carrying a pot of water. "I've come to tell you you're safe now, the bandits have been dealt with. All of them. You can head home finally." Everyone looked at her, with some of the villagers standing up. Giles stopped smiling confused. "Wait, all of them? That was… wasn't it said that it was an army of-" "Twenty-five hundred, yes. Actually, all total it was around twenty-seven hundred." Everyone started to gather around. "How do you know this Selene?" he asked in shock. "Because… because I took care of them. All of them. They're all dead."

Giles just glanced around, trying to say something but no words were coming out of his mouth. "Are you the trader that kept coming to Gold Pine?" The mayor asked, Stafinson she thought it was. "Yes I am." The mayor walked up to her and studied her face. "Who defeated them?" he asked. Selene looked around at everyone then back at him. "I did. Giles… I… kind of lied about being from a village. I've… I've been living out in the boonies for this entire time at a fort I built. They happened to come for that fort. I fought back with some help of course." Everyone started whispering amongst themselves. "She's a wizard, or a witch! Is she a good witch?" "She healed my son and she's been helping us before we abandoned our homes. If it's true she defeated the bandits… she's a hero! A saint!" "She's blessed, a true hero sent to us in our darkest hour!"

"Enough!" the mayor yelled as he looked at her. "I… don't know how to thank you on behalf of our village. You came to our aide when no one else would. No one else could." She felt put on the spot. "I don't really need any payment or thanks, you're going to need everything to rebuild, and I'm sorry but I didn't exactly do it just for you. I was attacked, plain and simple. I'll do what I can to get you some resources to fix your homes, they're… kind of… well…" she trailed off and looked at the ground. "Destroyed? I somehow knew it would happen. At least no life was lost. We can rebuild, slowly but surely. Now that the bandits are gone, traders might feel it's safe to travel there, give us some decent goods. They'll have to keep up with you though… I mean… well, I guess you aren't exactly a trader now, are you?" she shook her head. "I was just trying to get by. I needed seeds for my gardens and some… stuff… to help me out a bit. I'm pretty much set now. I… hope I'm still allowed in Gold Pine after lying like that, but it was for my own protection. I've seen how people treat someone who can cast spells or do what I can do. Burned at the stake is only one of the very bad ends."

"Burned at the stake? Ms... Selene is it? People here have only ever done that if they have caught someone of evilness so notable that-" She interrupted. "-People have done that to others for political reasons. Some of those witches and warlocks were burned just because people hated them or feared them, even if they didn't know any spells or were any threat. It happens. You can't blame me for hiding in plain sight as a trader at first, then later to help heal. I was cautious." All the villagers felt a little sorry for her, as that was true, they couldn't deny it. "Ms. Selene, I assure you, none of us feel that way. We're glad to have known you. Now, enough with this talk about wizardry. Our "heroic trader" has come to let us know that we can return to our lives, free from the banditry of those heathens who would steal and pillage our homes! Ms. Selene, it may take us some time to pack, would you be willing to be our honorary… er…" The mayor looked up at the sky and scratched at his short beard, trying to find what to say. "guest?" she asked. "Yes. Would you be willing to be our honorary guest? We… might not have anywhere inside to drink, but it would be nice to have you there for a small party."

"I'd be happy to come by. If I had to take a guess, tomorrow? It will take you some time to get back to Gold Pine and set up your tents, there's plenty of time tomorrow to party." He clapped his hand on her shoulder and nodded. "We'll see you then."

The Next Day

Selene didn't know what to bring, she knew she was the honored VIP but wanted to bring a sort of house warming gift for them now that they had to rebuild some of buildings. While the entirety of Gold Pine wasn't destroyed, the inn was set on fire along with the general store, multiple houses were collapsed as well, fences were torn down. If she hazarded a guess, about fifty percent of it was unlivable. Given how hardy these villagers were, they'd probably have everything back up and ready within a few weeks as if it never happened.

"That's it! I'm gonna bring a cart full of… of…" she fell silent as she realized she could pull things from her inventory now around them and they'd know she could cast spells. There was no need to use a cart or make Asterion pull anything heavy beyond the wolves hitching a ride. He no longer had to be a draft horse, just run around and enjoy life. Now that she even had access to vehicles, he might not need to carry her much in the future. She'd still ride him often enough to make sure he stayed healthy, however. Most Equestrians would be screaming with envy at the fact she had a huge warhorse as her personal ride. There was the slight issue of… Riding was not Driving for skills. Vehicles required Driving, so until she got more skill points, which she was going to do now with Universal Skill Potions being far more affordable, she would ride Aster around. While she obviously knew how to drive a car, attempting to drive a steampunk vehicle might be different.

Her list in her inventory she would bring now would be some of her own booze which was much stronger, hoping to not annoy the alewife in the village; some wood she had gained from crafting supports for the mine with only a few twigs and then dismantling them; some metal ingots for Giles to help fix up the place with some decent rivets; thatch which she hoped she could recommend not using for their roofs anymore and instead tile with wood and tar; some clay and stone if they needed to fix the streets or anything else; linen clothes which she had gotten now to Uncommon due to not needing any exotic materials to move up the quality tier. From what she now saw, there was now nothing stopping her from just pushing out one hundred of each quality until she reached Ascended, or until she got beyond six exotic materials. However, due to the major bandit battle that she now refers to as "B-Day," her level shot up to thirty-five easily. She distinctly remembered this as there were constant bouts of lightheadedness through out the fight, but she brushed it off as needing a little more rest or not eating properly before the fight. She now worried if she leveled too fast, it might cause issues with her brain, potentially medical problems like with tech tiers or large skill improvements.

That reminded her, as she checked up on her sheet and saw her level had shot up, so was her tech up ready for Renaissance Era. She now had official muskets to replace the arquebus, with soon to be Advanced Steampunk in the very near future. She was already beyond the halfway point to the next tech tier; Selene had done a whole lot of actions in that fight. The other major thing she now had was at level thirty she received one choice of an automatic spell unlock at maximum power or research a specific consumable. She knew exactly what she was researching. Universal Stat Potion. She could learn the spells each day, having that potion unlocked was worth millions of its weight in star metal or whatever else precious materials. If she could somehow in the future get a perk potion, she'd be set.

She now had one hundred thirty Attribute Points available, two hundred sixty Skill Points available, sixteen Perk Points available and a decent number of spells and special abilities. There was always room for more though, but right now she wasn't working on any stations. Today, she was going to relax a bit and have fun. She increased her Logistics to fifty percent, drastically improving how fast smelting was now done and making Crafting Time in stats almost an afterthought for some stations with tools, with three new abilities added. The first one was "Cut Through Red Tape" which was a passive that removed the crafting time of any station she would need to build, whether it was a lowly campfire or a massive textiles factory, allowing them to be built instantly. They still needed materials to be built, which made Crafting Cost very useful.

The second new ability was "An Army Moves on Its Stomach" which doubled the amount of food crafted in her inventory from the ingredients provided for every mouth that was in her "Army" or party, but not outside of her inventory. Considering she tended to cook with the wolves, this wasn't as great as she wanted it to be, unless there was another fight that stopped her from going out and hunting. Hopefully, in the future, she'd build her own ranch. In her eyes, if the animals she was growing for food had Growth Spurt cast on them, then slaughtered, they wouldn't live such bad lives. Quick and efficient, she had gotten already used to the whole scene of guts and blood now, somewhat desensitized to it. She still cared about the feelings and pain she caused, but it was necessary to survive. Maybe something in the next few Steampunk Eras or a future Era would allow her to just grow meat trees. Regardless, if there were just her three wolves with her, that would double the food three times, or eight times the amount she previously had. That was a lot of food that could sit in her bags until she teched up.

The final new ability was called "Communications Is Key" which allowed her to instantly communicate with any of her guild if she made one somehow, her party or as she wanted to call it her "fireteam" given she was happy with how her automatons worked, or special friends. This apparently was heavily encrypted as well, which surprised her when she tested it on one of her "drones" back at the fort and saw the effect, although the chat was crystal clear with drone fourteen acknowledging her order from outside the fort. This might mean it wasn't a normal message she was sending, but a military grade transmission that nothing could listen into. Was there scrying in this world? Some way to eavesdrop on communications with magic? If that was the case, this ability was extremely useful. Once she received the ability, she noticed there was an odd whispering in the back of her mind. It turned out to be her army communicating between each other and not going insane, providing updates at the speed of steampunk computers. She could turn it off and on at will to not hear non-emergency issues. It seemed pretty interesting to her hearing her drones report in on nothing moving outside, drone six swapping with drone twelve on the ramparts, among other things.

The dev also added thirty points to Gathering and Metallurgy, causing any materials or resources to provide a fifty percent boost, including ingots. Her Drillers were just filling her inventory with ore now, and an interesting thing she noted once she reached Renaissance Era was all her materials, at least the ones she didn't collect herself, were still in her inventory. That meant that the automatons weren't considered "her" gathering, despite it being in her inventory and used to craft ingots and tools. This almost nullified the issue of teching up, as she could just send autos out to hunt for her or pick the gardens after Growth Spurt was used while her wolves get fat and pampered.

An ability she received from Gathering was "Renewable Resources" Which took whatever she gathered from a place and would regenerate that amount equal to her Gathering Skill percentage within one week. This was an active ability, which if she shoved points into it and only took less than the amount of resources from a certain area below her Gathering skill, it would keep coming back. That kind of made her wonder how that worked on animals, then that made her not want to know. Spring would apparently come more than once a year for them.

Her final new ability she gained from Metallurgy was "Forged in Myth" with every craft that used metal had a chance of being produced one quality tier up. The chance was equal to her Metallurgy skill halved, so twenty-five percent, which seemed like pretty good odds for her automatons to turn into beasts on a battlefield before even being launched.