Field test

*****Admin*****

Ah, so that's some of the background events that happen in that world. Everyone is usually too busy being the protagonist or trying to get laid to notice the plight of normal, common people. Honestly I will purge every reincarnated fuckwit. And the ROB who gave them the chance.

- A whole group of ROBs feel a chill down their spines-

Hmmm, I honestly thought he would join Loki or Hephaestus. Hermes, although quite self-serving is a pretty good choice. He has all the intel on what's going on. He can't help with logistics but if you need help with an INVENTORY and a SHOP, I will personally smite the ever-loving-shit out of you. Dimensional collapse be damned.

I believe I have chosen well. The one mistake was to make him a teenager. But that worked out in the end. He uses the services available to relive his urges, instead of trying to screw everything with a hole.

Note to self: fuck with Zeus in every possible reality.

- Zeus faces existential dread in every multiverse-

I need to setup rewards for him for completing missions not given by me. The chain quest given by Ouranos and this new mission as well.

Let's see…

*****Cassius*****

The squad and I had just been teleported to the Northeastern outskirts of the Dark Elf city-state of Zorya. Drow is an all encompassing term for elves who practice banned, forgotten or taboo magic. Most develop a trait respective of their magic and associated practices. The most common is a change in skin tone. The spectrum ranges from a pure white to jet black, so it's hard to tell if you don't know who you're dealing with. The hair and clothes will sometimes give you a hint, but it's best if you just ask.

The mountain elves live in large underground cities much the same way as their dwarven counterparts. Due to mountain elves calling themselves the Drow, and having darker skin, all non-standard elves a simply called Drow. No matter where you are people never change. The country of Umberous resembled Ancient Greece, as it consisted of city states that controlled their respective regions. There was no king as such, the county for a lack of a better term was ruled by a council. The mutual destruction of the Dark and White elves on Hjadningavíg, has seen more and more Dark elves become a subject of slavery and oppression. Some elves here are from Hjadningavíg, both White and Dark, they saw the conflict as pointless, and left to relocate.

Anyway, we started moving towards the city. This was the major supply point for the frontier forts on the Southwestern border with the mostly human country of Aglaria. It was prosperous and overpopulated. They were going through food shortages and famine due to said food shortage. The king and his court decided a good old fashioned war would solve many problems. They blamed their problems on the Drow, and launched an invasion into their lands to cleanse the land of darkness. They were getting their asses handed to them, but the Drow were about to reach a breaking point. The humans had one thing the Dark elves didn't, numbers.

The 3 million regular soldiers of the Aglaria were accompanied by able bodied support staff and mages. So the final number was more like 5 million possible combatants. They fought with medieval tactics. It should be easy enough to cause confusion within the ranks, it's just not feasible to eradicate millions. Possible yes, feasible no. The vast majority of the soldier were peasants or peasant conscripts. Riled up by their government and forced into a situation that would not benefit them. More were arriving everyday. The farmsteads being tended to by their families they left behind. I have no quarrel with them. The commanders and officers on the other hand are fair game.

A message from the Chat-Group broke me out of my thoughts.

{Mission: Assist the Dark elves in repelling the invasion of their home.

Optional: Recruit members for the Hermes familia.

Optional: Recruit members for your squad.}

Well it's a good a time as any to field test the weapons in the Warcage and see about some of the golems in the SHOP.

We were stopped after a few minutes by a group of Dark elves. They really do come in all shapes and sizes. The group was a mix of men and women. They were dressed pretty similarly, Dark clothing and armour. The differences came from a few sigils on their aforementioned clothing and armour. Also the skin and hair colour. A elf who looked to be somewhat important due to a bit of gold on her armour asked "who are you? What is your purpose in these lands?" They were all on edge. Understandable, I mean there was Cypher playing around in the forest surrounding the road. The wall of the city was at least 10 minutes away.

Did I mention I brought Cypher along? Well why wouldn't I? Especially after he "insisted." Honestly the face he made was too adorable, I couldn't say no. Also who was going to take care of him? So yes, Cypher was running around scaring the crap out of the birds in the background.

Coming back to the dark elves who intercepted us, there were more in the forest. Most likely archers or mages. The MAP showed that most of them were neutral. A few were hostile, but that is to be expected, they were after all in a war with humans, a large group appearing behind their lines was obviously not favourable to them.

Asfi took the lead and explained our purpose here, showing a letter from Hermes and a job request that was submitted to the guild. I didn't know about the job request initially but was filled in later during a briefing. A lot of useless chit-chat later we were taken to the Queen of the city. She was not in the palace as we originally thought, she was in the dungeons "interrogating" captured enemy soldiers.

We were told to wait in the garden near her solar. Cypher refused to become small, his reasons being that he is too strong to have to worry about anything. He's not wrong, for now. He'll grow up in time. Mentally he's a five year old. Meaning he's as honest and savage as a five year old. Thankfully no one can understand him, or I would have to kill a lot of entertaining characters. I've been mentally conversing with him ever since I tamed him, he knows what's going on, but he isn't seem to properly settle into the fact he is on the surface yet.

Waiting for the queen to arrive I went though the SHOP and browsed the golems available. The cheaper options weren't really options for my current purposes. They were more akin to training tools. You could buy them and then program them to perform specified functions. They were great for building upon a pre-existing template. The options I was interested in were the UAVs and UGVs. A "golem" that looked like a AH-64D Apache was what initially interested me. Fully armed and able to transport three people into an overwatch position, one in the gunners seat and two on the fuselage. There were also A-10, UH-1, AH-6, MH-6, UH-60, AH-1Z and Mi-24 available. There were other aircraft available as well, but I was more interested in something that can provide CAS and MEDEVAC if needed. The UH-60 could do everything I wanted it to do and could transport me to wherever I wanted to go. Cypher would have to become small or run on the ground, but I think he'll enjoy flying with an open door.

For UGVs there was a multitude of tanks and armoured vehicles. A few were of inters to me but were not really necessary at the moment. The dream of owning a tank was actually possible, but besides using it here in this mission, I won't be able to use it in the dungeon. Smaller golems were available. They looked like sci-fi robots. They had cannons for arms and miniguns and rocket pods on the shoulders. They were also expensive. I rather have a squadron of attack helicopters.

I was interrupted from my window shopping by the arrival of the queen. She was all woman, curves, muscle, the poise and look of a warrior. She reminded me a bit of my wife, just from the aura she exuded. She was around 6' without heels, wore red clothed and armour, and carried two shamshir at her side.

I was leaning against Cypher when she walked in. I did not get up to greet her or anything. One, it was too comfortable. Second Cypher was napping and purring. I do not want a cranky Cypher. He woke up but was still pretending to sleep. It's basically a show of dominance over the 'strange cats' for Cypher. Sometimes this boy...(sigh)

*****

After a long discussion, it was decided that at least the city of Zorya would be willing to send willing recruits to the Hermes familia in exchange for a godly patronage. Either Hermes or someone interested in creating a nation would reside in Zorya. That was not expected. But I can see what they were getting at. The benefits of having falna outweighed the downsides of dealing with the whims of a god. Asfi not knowing what else to do, agreed. Agreements written and signed,, we were given rooms to sleep. Well I say we, I was stuck in the garden with Cypher as his teddy. I woke up when Asfi came to call me for dinner.

*****

It was midnight and the half-moon was out. Me and Cypher decided to go hunting. The other side also employed mercenaries. People with falna from several gods in the region. We were going to take care of them first. I wanted to have a plan for their camp and know where all the important people stayed so I can have Asfi fly over and bomb them. Which reminds me, I need to make her a proper launcher as per her new requirements. She can keep the prototype.

The new launcher is effectively a 25mm rifle. All HE-AP rounds, with a fire rate of 60 rpm. I just need to make the parts, and ammo. I'll do that tomorrow, and have her test it out. She has enough ammo for now. I didn't give her any more smoke or flash grenades. She barely uses them.

Cypher and I made our way to the frontier forts. I used a runic spell for flying and took us there in under an hour. We headed to the southern fort. It was heavily contested and the fighting here was a lot more concentrated than in the centre and westerly forts. The terrain here favoured the cavalry, with wide open grasslands and plains and gentle rolling hills providing concealment of units for launching ambushes and counterattacks, the Dark elves were being besieged, and would give out in a few weeks time. Not due to lack of supplies, but due to strategy and unfavourable conditions.

We landed on hills behind enemy lines and setup a post. I would provide overwatch and Cypher would "hunt properly."

The Warcage had a few suppressible large calibre rifles. I was using a suppressed M200 chambered in .408 with a milti-scope. Usually in the MARSOC I would use a NV device that goes in front of the regular scope. That allows for greater precision as the zero of the regular scope is not changed. This scope was zeroed in for 500m and could zoom in 50x. It looked like a normal scope, but with a bit of work and finesse, I'd managed to give it night vision and infrared along with a rangefinder and wind speed indicator. I did that by combining several different scopes and seeing what works and what doesn't. This is the result of about 80 scopes combined together to test things out. I did something similar with the suppressor, it took 13 large caliber suppressors and a dead owl to get it whisper quiet. I don't know how but it works, so I'm going to take it for it's field test.