Chapter 57

Under the rays of the midday sun, Varrus had set off with Syra to find the perfect picnic spot. 

Riding upon the back of a hawkstrider, Varrus was side by side with Syra, admiring the city. 

Elves were hard at work, tearing down damaged structures, and carting off rubble. It was amusing to see them constantly casting cleansing spells upon one another as dirt and grime accumulated underneath their fingernails, and sweat coated their brow. 

Varrus had been used as free labor from his dad back on Earth enough times-digging holes, laying bricks, climbing ladders, etc-that he found the constant fussing over a little dirt to be endlessly amusing. 

The perfect, ever handsome movie star-looking Elves were burning through their Mana Stones to look pretty. 

Good lord, this city was never going to be rebuilt if it was done by these hands! 

The House architect saw Varrus riding by, and gave him a curt nod. He then chanted a spell, and a nearby pile of Vanderbricks™ magically levitated upward, and began to stack upon one another in swift order. A special blue, magical past had been spread across each brick as they flew off the pallet, acting as the adhesive binding them together. 

Varrus could only hold the reins to his hawkstrider a little tighter in shocked surprise as he saw this display of magic. 

To the average Earthling, this would be something special considering most construction projects could take months, if not years to complete. Ultimately, however, it would be expected, because this was a world based upon fantasy. 

However, what Varrus saw was more than just a brick wall. His vision had him imagine the sheer potential of this technique. Where the average man saw a simple pile of bricks, Varrus saw a fortress, a bunker built in an instant! It may be a QOL spell disdained by most mages, but architectural spells were low-key OP, and were heavily slept on! 

When he had a chance, Varrus would have to study up on this technique. Because anyway he could build a fallout shelter mid battle, then that would be one more defensive weapon to wield against his enemies. 

For example, what was the one thing that survived nuclear blasts time and time again? 

That's right. 

Brick! 

Varrus had been thinking small time. Hurl a magically enchanted, legendary tier brick with telekinesis? Child's play! 

Building a dozen bunkers, or even a fortress deep within enemy territory? Just like the Romans of old? That was a man's romance! 

Suddenly Varrus's tower defense aspirations were becoming ever clearer. He felt like a kid discovering Lego for the first time! 

The only thing missing from this turret defense plan was a turret, and Varrus had just the thing in mind. 

The Skyrim creation, Dwarven Autocannon was one of the perks he unlocked from the Smithing skill tree. But it wasn't until he witnessed his House architect that he found a use for it. 

A single brick resisted Helios's all out attack, suffering significant, yet not critical damage. Based upon the armor rating system he had developed earlier, these bricks were B tier, or equivalent to glass armor in strength! 

This feat proved that the Vanderbrick™ was rated E for Elite resistant. He was curious how a heavy set structure, or thick wall would hold up against a Hero. This would require more testing. 

"Cute." Syra said from her hawkstrider, and flashed Varrus a smile. 

Blinking his eyes, Varrus realized he had gone into the deep end of a nerd-out for the hundredth time, and returned Syra's smile sheepishly. 

"Sorry, I was just thinking about tower defense, I doubt you would be interested. Besides, today is a rest day before the big party tomorrow. Let us enjoy our time together." Varrus said as he shoved those thoughts of tower defense to the side. 

"Tell me about it. I want to know everything about you, Varrus." Syra said with a hint of obsession. 

Varrus squinted his eyes to see if he was being pranked. Because if she was serious, then talking about his love for tower defense would be like introducing a girlfriend to WoW, DND, MTG or any dozen other nerd related activities. 

He had known a cute girl who liked LOTR Online back on Earth, but he stupidly told her he only played WoW…well, he was married to Syra now, so he was already a taken man, but she didn't exactly seem like the nerdy type when examined on the surface. 

Then again, she did know a shit ton of herbs, and their uses. His beautiful murderess wife was more than a meat headed Amazoness, no matter what the absolute manslayer strapped to her back would lead one to believe. 

She was brawn, brains, and crazy! Just the way Varrus liked it! 

If he could corrupt her to the darkside, perhaps he might be able to force Rho'dan to join them for game night! 

'Alright, play it cool Varrus, you don't want to scare her off. Just imagine her naked-no, no, just don't fuck it up!' 

Varrus took a deep breath, gave her a thumbs up and tried to keep it cool. 

"...if you say so! So tower defense is just like the Arcane Tower we have back at home. I have a new cannon I haven't tested out yet, one that can automatically attack enemies, like the golems that patrol Silvermoon. When I saw the architect seamlessly construct a wall from that pallet of bricks, I was inspired to build towers and defensive emplacements all over the country!" Varrus said hurriedly, and in great excitement. 

Seeing Syra look at her with a seemingly perplexed expression, he felt like he was explaining how to use Microsoft Word to his tech illiterate parents. Varrus opened his mouth to explain more, but she placed a finger on his lips. 

"I think I've got it. These turrets you were describing would automatically lock onto our enemies, and kill any dissenters who would oppose my brilliant husband's rule?" Syra said with stars in her eyes. 

"Well, yes, but no." Varrus weakly muttered, almost inaudibly, as he didn't really think about using these towers as tools of oppression, and more as a means for security. But when she put it like that, Syra wasn't exactly wrong, now was she? 

"Oooo, you said it was untested? Let's go play at the Dead Scar, and find some targets! Come on, there's no time to lose!" Syra shoved Varrus on the shoulder, then whipped the reins to her hawkstrider, taking off at a dizzying pace. 

Varrus felt almost discombobulated from the sudden burst of energy coming from Syra. She was waay more enthusiastic about this new weapon than even he was! And what was this talk of playing at the Dead Scar?! 

Shaking his head in exasperation at Syra's spontaneity, Varrus followed suit, and whipped the reins on his hawkstrider so he wouldn't fall too far behind. 

"Kooargh!" His hawkstrider cried back, and chased after Syra. 

Syra grinned back at him, and winked in challenge. 

Varrus rolled his eyes, but blew her a kiss, and pressed his mount to go ever faster, accepting the impromptu race. 

"Ouaargh!" Syra's hawkstrider screeched in a high pitched croak only a bird could as she too began to increase in speed. 

Coming across uneven pavement, and broken glass, Varrus had to maneuver his ride to the left, only to immediately pull it to the right as a group of laborers jumped out of the way. 

The way they looked at him and Syra screamed 'slow down you crazy kids.' But Varrus only caught a glimpse of them before all they were left in his dust. 

He was slightly embarrassed, but Syra's taunting smile, and graceful flowing blonde hair were much more important to him than some old men on the side of the road. 

The way the sun shimmered off her supple skin, he felt goosebumps rise up his arm as he recalled just how soft she was, like a model from a lotion commercial, only better. 

Her competitive spirit, and radiant positivity brought out a peele of innocent laughter from him. 

Taking a deep breath, Varrus took in the moment, and exhaled as he felt the stress leave him. He had been busy plotting the demise of the traitors the last few days, and it had been eating up at him on the inside as he thought about the most efficient way to nab them. At the same time, he apparently had to plan an actual party, but thankfully he had an awesome wife and guard to rely upon for ideas. The point was, tomorrow would be a big day, one in which 98% of all internal division would be taken care of. Once that was accomplished, he would feel free to hand out the gear to the Sunfury. 

Betrayal from Kael or his army, while possible, wasn't something overly concerning to Varrus. They were hellbent on getting revenge upon the Undead, and would focus all their efforts to that end for quite some time. 

Varrus would make sure to loudly brag about his masterworked armor at the party, but at the same time, demonstrate one of his Master tier Destruction spells on a set of thorium armor to let the people know that he could make a set of thorium for every Elf in the city, but it wouldn't stop him from nuking them off the face of the planet. 

He had made some sets for his most loyal guardsman, but they numbered in the hundreds at best, which wasn't very impressive compared to the 15,000-30,000+ sized army Kael had mustered. The only difference maker was in the quality of enchantments. All his people received Common or Greater Soul Gems for their enchantments. In contrast, the Sunfury received Petty, Lesser, and Common. 

Betrayal was always a possibility, but if he couldn't even place a little faith in his best friend, then he might as well turtle up in a cave like it was a game of Warsong Gulch, and farm levels nonstop for years. However, he wasn't a xianxia cultivator, and that wasn't living. Besides, he was the key to the general population's mana control. The chances of the rank and file Elf turning on him was close to zero. Only those outlier cultists, and the 1% who hated him beyond reason were of any threat. 

Whilst he was thinking about the stresses of tomorrow, Syra once more brightened his day. 

"Hurry up! Loser has to massage the others back!" Syra added some stakes to the race, upping the ante. 

'Jokes on you, I'm into that shit.' Varrus smugly thought to himself as he eyed her lithe, yet athletic form. 

Slowing down just a hair so that he could admire the moment, and let his wife have the W-not that he had a chance to win against her head start unless he cheated with magic-but despite such a short time, marked restoration to Silvermoon was underway. 

Along the way, Varrus took note of just how clean the city felt. Whilst there was still a huge amount of destruction, and rubble lined the streets such that it resembled Berlin after the Soviets had made a visit during WW2, the air didn't have the taste of death, or the pungent odor of decay. The closest Earth event Varrus could relate it to, would be if someone found a way to completely remove the radiation at Chernobyl overnight. The change was simply remarkable. 

Over the last four days, he had purged a large quantity of the city, averaging 5 miles a day. He estimated he should be done cleansing the Dead Scar within one or two more weeks, then he could begin work on the isle of Quel'Danas, and the rest of the kingdom. 

Of course, he also planned to blast the non-corrupted land too. Just because he couldn't see the plague with the naked eye, didn't mean some critter, or Old God voidspawn wasn't lurking about. There was no kill quite like overkill after all. 

As he was musing about his achievement, and future plan, Varrus came upon one of the remaining sections of the Dead Scar within Silvermoon. 

Crawling out of the blackened earth, a dozen generic looking, stumbling zombies were being toyed with by his wife. 

Dressed in her safari outfit, Syra looked somewhat comical lugging that giant fantasy sword of her around as she danced around them, and pushed them back with the flat of her blade. 

"I win! Now show me how strong your cannon is!" Syra said cheerily. 

Varrus placed a hand on his forehead as he was certain the double entendre went right over her head. She was clever, ruthless, and wicked with a blade, but surprisingly innocent. Most dirty jokes went right over her head. 

"Say hello to my little friend." Varrus said in a faux Italian accent, then plopped down a Dwarven Autocannon. 

The Autocannon was similar in shape and appearance to the Pixar lamp, and was very much unlike a traditional cannon in appearance. Standing vertically on a tripod/circular base, the so-called cannon resembled a turret more than anything else. 

As demonstrated by previous experiments, Varrus could make any Skyrim design with any metal, and for the Autocannon, he chose iron due to its availability. The big difference between using iron and thorium was the capacity. Iron cannons contained a 'magazine size' of 250 shots, whereas thorium allowed for 3,000 shots before it needed to be recharged. Fortunately, they should be topped up with Mana Stones, so Varrus wasn't too worried about the difference in materials. 

Due to the Dwarven Autocannon perk, it dealt 40% of his Smithing skill as damage. So, every attack was worth 40pts. That wasn't exactly stellar dps, but it was enough to take out any unarmored Human in one hit. Any Elite, or even Regular soldier in heavy armor should be able to block this. In effect, it had the power of a basic firebolt spell. 

However, there were a few other perks that modified its damage even further: 

Electrobolt (2) - Every fifth Dwarven Autocannon shot is an electromagnetic blast that moves slower than a regular shell but deals shock damage to Health and Magicka equal to 80/240% of your Smithing skill level.

Remote Control - Your Dwarven Autocannon now fires regardless of the distance between it and you.

Spin Up - Your Dwarven Autocannon gradually shoots faster over time, gaining 2% firing speed per shot, up to 200%.

"This is your cannon?" Syra said in unconcealed disappointment. 

"It looks different…but it can still get the job done. Watch it go to work!" Varrus defended, then waited for the cannon's automatic defense feature to kick in. 

Syra saw a fireball leave the barrel of the cannon, and backflipped out of the way, and skidded next to Varrus. 

Taking him in a hug from behind, she placed her chin on his shoulder, happy to support her husband with his experiments. 

Varrus spared her a quick kiss on the cheek, then turned his attention back to the action. 

The slobbering zombies had chased after Syra, eager to taste on her flesh. 

However, they were met with the fury and destruction of an exploding fireball. 

Falling to flame and turning to ash, Varrus got a lot of information from this brief encounter. 

The fireball was an AOE attack of about 5ft of splash damage. 

Shooting at a rate of 1 fireball every 5 seconds, the fire rate was significantly faster than a traditional cannon, and only slightly faster than the Arcane Cannons Telonicus had invented. He was curious to see what kind of cannons the Dwarves could make using the power of runic inscriptions, but that could wait for another time. 

With the Spin Up perk, this 5 second interval was reduced to 1 fireball every 2.5 seconds. Meaning that whilst the damage was lackluster, where the Autocannon really excelled was its machine gun-like fire rate. 

That meant an iron forged Autocannon with a capacity of 250 mana could theoretically blow its entire load in 100 seconds, or a little more than a minute and a half. 

In conclusion, it was a useful weapon, but not game breaking, like the enchantments, or to a lesser extent, the pimped out armor. 

He would certainly find time to produce a few hundred to place as sentry turrets, and if he had enough raw materials, he could spam them in the hundreds or thousands, and create a true tower defense grid. 

If anything, he should learn how to craft golems, bunkers, and other construction related magic now that he had already mastered the Arcane arts of Brick! 

The only issue he faced was what made or broke every nation, supplies. Once he was done cleaning up Silvermoon, and sent Kael off to war, he had to pay the Kobolds a visit. 

If he was going to realize his dream of an autonomous fighting force, then creating a supply line was #1. 

"You look sad. Did I bait them incorrectly?" Syra picked up on Varrus's melancholy at his unrealized dream, and said with some worry. 

"No Syra, you did wonderfully as always. I'm simply disappointed in the weakness of these turrets." Varrus said glumly, kicking some loose dirt with his boot. 

"They are not weak, Varrus. I want you to feel something, to let you know how I feel about this." Syra approached Varrus, and lifted his arm, placing his hand over her heart. 

Varrus raised an eyebrow in confusion at her seemingly random actions. 

"You feel that rapid pulse? That's excitement. It doesn't matter how weak, or how practical this invention of yours looks. It is your invention. I am proud of you, Varrus." Syra then clunked her forehead into his, and stared lovingly into his eyes. 

"Heh, you know what? You're right! So what if it can't blast apart an Infernal in one hit! They're still viable! Thank you Syra, for helping me see that." 

"It's what I do." Syra playfully booped Varrus on the nose, and winked. 

Varrus messily rubbed her hair, and pulled her in for a hug. Closing his eyes, all was peaceful, until he heard her stomach grumble. 

"Pfft, hahaha!" Varrus pulled back, and laughed. 

When he saw the small glare she sent his way, he only laughed harder. 

"Oh Varrus~ here's an extra helping of bread!" Syra moved like lightning, force feeding a sandwich into Varrus's laughing face. 

Varrus blinked in surprise as tomato and mustard coated his cheeks when the soft bread missed his mouth, and fell apart on his chin. 

Scowling at her with a surly pose, it was Syra's turn to point at him, and laugh uproariously. 

Varrus wanted to be mad, but her bell-like laughter was music to his ears, melting any snap-rage like icy fjords meeting spring. 

Instead, he pounced on his wife, and rubbed his condiment covered face on hers, smearing mustard everywhere. 

Syra stopped laughing for a second in shock, then as Varrus laughed, she laughed with him. 

Days like today were important, because war would soon be on the horizon. 

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AN: Read 25 chapters ahead at: patreon.com/KarpQQ