Sometimes, brute force really was the answer.
Henrietta had managed to get over whatever absolutely ludicrous hangup or blindspot had been causing her to not simply subsume every half-decent combat dragon that she came across and produce an absolute army of inklings, and done... just that.
She had all but completely filled up her Sketchbook in doing so, but First Tower and Ironworks were protected well enough by an absolute sea of black-ink creatures. It rankled some perfectionistic part of her that she hadn't ruthlessly squashed, but it had allowed iron mining to resume and turned guard duty into more of a relaxation post than anything stressful.
The inklings weren't perfect, though. Even though they should have been able to take care of anything short of a multi-ton dragon, somehow there still seemed to be an occasional beast that slipped through.
But that was fine. Oliver working on mechanical automated defense would hopefully be a better strategy long-term, that would scale far better than she could, but if an army of magical constructs was what they needed now, it was Henrietta's duty to ensure that it happened. She was just glad for Oliver's wards, because she truly doubted the 'flood with bodies' tactic would have worked nearly as well if it were trying to defend all of First Tower in detail.
She had to fight off the sense of guilt she had that maybe they could have preserved more of the First Tower infrastructure if she'd been more decisive. That if she'd been quicker to cast aside her hesitance, better prepared for an attack, things would be better. And... maybe that was right. Her failures had caused them to lose weeks of progress. She couldn't just ignore that, yet as the leader she was the one who could absolve failure of duty.
And a good leader did absolve failure of their underlings. Because individual failure was inevitable. To claim perfection was to claim that they were a greater, superior form of existence. Divine. But they'd fought wars over that, and those claiming superiority had been proven most wrong. But the mindset was too easy to fall into, the eternal trap set for any 'leader' who decided to absolve themselves of all wrongdoing, insist that their failures weren't such, suggesting that their actions were unquestionable and that it was bad to doubt them, crushing dissent... that they set themselves as divine.
And that was the most unacceptable of all.
So, Henrietta needed to deal with either the guilt of having handled an attack worse than she could have or the guilt of freely absolving herself of responsibility. Neither was particularly great.
She hoped that simply setting it to the side and dealing with more tangible, more present concerns was the right approach, because Oliver had provided her such a convenient focus.
"So we're back to copper," Henrietta brought herself back to the present. "Does it need to be copper, or would any non-iron metal work?"
Oliver stopped to consider. "I think I could make it work with any non-ferrous metal. Or maybe just nonmagnetic? Well, bronze is probably the best, but copper can definitely work, and anything else would take additional experimentation."
"How much copper do we have at the moment, again?" Henrietta hadn't been keeping very close track.
"Not a ton," Oliver shrugged. "I lose some every time I remelt it and cast it just from general waste, even with me trying to salvage what I can. It does not like being shoved into a mold. Almost all of what's left is locked up in various things... I don't even know what all at this point?"
Alyssa was on Ironroad duty at the moment, overseeing their unpowered cart as it was pulled along and guarded by a team of inklings, so Henrietta couldn't immediately call the Ranger over. "Leave the Window with me. When Ride returns, I'll have her use it to search for a suitable deposit."
Oliver nodded, and Henrietta went to take her seat as she took over guard duty. "Do you already have plans for your next tasks?"
"Uh, yeah. I want to take another look at the brick kiln, I got a low-priority warning about it earlier. Then, I'm going to see about making the non-enchanted parts of some more ballistae."
That sounded reasonable enough, and Henrietta dismissed him shortly thereafter. She settled in for her stint as guard, fiddling a bit with the Window of Words and Winds as she did so. It was definitely a unique and fairly powerful focus, but it was frustratingly difficult for her to actually use properly. Some of that was no doubt just due to her [Inscribe Documentation] being level 5, but really she just felt like some old grandmother being flummoxed by the newest bit of tech.
Especially with how easily both Oliver and Alyssa seemed to handle the artifact. They both seemed able to get it to just do things, practically at the speed of thought. Meanwhile, Henrietta was having enough trouble just pulling up the skills on her Status. It wasn't a touchscreen, didn't have any traditional inputs, and trying to control it as an extension of her skill just made things go haywire.
She probably just needed to use her mana a bit more carefully, tone down her 'movements' to not overshoot, or something similar. Most of her normal manipulation was about going all in, giving maximum effort to whatever had demanded her attention, and this was a very different skill.
She'd done everything shy of sniffing each inch of the tablet individually, looking for interface points, when she finally got to a blank screen. A bit more experimentation lead her to realize it was a persistent note-taking space, and while Henrietta wasn't as good as Alyssa was at using her skills together synergistically, she leveraged [Refined Calligraphy] into using [Inscribe Documentation] as its 'pen' to help her
She also inadvertently picked up ?Universal Canvas? for the skill as she did so. That wasn't expected, but it did make everything go much smoother thereafter as she copied over her existing notes. Having a backup, as she was just reminded, was a quite good thing. While the tablet itself was in high demand, the only time it would be inaccessible to her would be when Alyssa was on a long trek that specifically required it. Whether that made it the primary or backup copy was yet to be seen, but either way this notespace would be useful.
Henrietta tapped her metaphorical pen against the screen. 'Improve living conditions' was a recent addition to this stage of her goals, but it was definitely an important one. They were definitely stable at this point, but most of their active annoyances - like the crinkly clothes they were wearing - weren't readily solvable at the moment...
Henrietta frowned. That wasn't true. She could make inkling outfits for them. Those hadn't gotten many complaints, and could at least supplement their papyrus clothing. Why had she just written it off until the future? Why had nobody else said anything?
There was probably a lot of things she could use her inklings for that weren't just animal constructs. Hells, animal constructs were on the less common end of what she used them for before the Jump. Granted, she had previously used it to keep a vast array of tools available for her usage as the ultimate utility belt, which was less useful presently.
After all, any tools they'd made were already readily accessible. They were quite rooted to First Tower for the most part, and it wasn't hard to hop over to the kitchens or First Forge for one of the things kept there. And if she subsumed a tool, then the original would be broken and useless. That could be offset somewhat by her making multiple copies, but the utility just wasn't there. After all, most of the tools they made had only taken a day or two to make at most, so if they needed duplicates... they could have them that way. They had plenty of iron, after all.
Though now that she was thinking about it, there was definitely a benefit to be had with her ability to modify the things in her Sketchbook for some shapes that would otherwise be impractical. And duplicates could be used to kit out her team fairly easily.
They wouldn't be magical, she didn't have the proper inks for that, but there was definitely something that the entire team could benefit from having on-hand beyond just clothing. Bags. Writing implements. Rope. Water bottles.
She ought to re-transcribe her to-dos more often. Simply adding and crossing things off was so much less enlightening than this.
Hmm. That the clockwork hearts would be dependent on motion slide technology had come to her previously, but she hadn't fully connected the dots about that limiting them to usage only in areas where Oliver could use [Order Mana]. That wasn't ideal, but it wasn't as though their Artificer couldn't make one that didn't depend on his rune-setting capabilities. It was just something that she needed to keep in mind for where they could use their clockwork hearts. Or, they could find a workaround?
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
It was somewhat curious, actually, how Henrietta's thoughts lately had shifted away from their primary Factory-related goal being a self-improving iron mine, into creating a clockwork heart production line. When it had happened, she didn't really know, but it was definitely a combination of realizing that there was such a thing as too much iron, and also that her envisioning of how production lines would work was... quite wrong.
But, she could adjust and adapt. Higher-sophistication items being automatically created was a better metric for the advancement of their Factory than quantity of raw materials anyway.
Factory defenses was something of a new category, and Henrietta knew she was missing things. She'd need to talk to Jacob later to get his opinion. But more 'guns' and improved ammo was an excellent start to what would no doubt become an incredibly intricate dance in the future. She knew that there were dragons out there that the ballista would do absolutely nothing against, and from her perspective it was just a matter of time until they needed to fend them off.
Automating the Factory Defenses, making it such that guard duty was no longer a thing, wasn't simply an issue of it requiring their time. It acting as a rest period was perfectly serviceable. The real trick would be distance. Right now, it was possible to have Alyssa babysit their shipment of iron coming in. In the future, though? That would be far less true. There were only five of them. They needed the leverage granted by industry if they ever wanted to scale.
Amusingly, a dragon managed to break through the defensive lines of inklings at that very moment. Henrietta almost absentmindedly squished it with one of her tendrils as she shuffled her papers to pull up her individual-person task list.
Over time, they'd drifted away from what each person was working on in the Factory, per se, and more towards their secondary priorities. The things which only they could do, which they were supposed to learn, and so forth. But really, both were important and separate.
Henrietta paused as she finished entering their primary tasks. There were a number of things that she wanted to say in regards to her ideas about how various tasks could be done, but she didn't want to micromanage her team.
They didn't need her to tell them, for instance, that Alyssa's [Flamewind] would probably help a ton with making a wood kiln, and that Oliver ?Inlay?ing the skill into something was probably the easiest way to integrate it. She could keep those sorts of things in her mind, and perhaps in some separate notes, but coddling her team would just be insulting.
So for now, she was keeping it general. Clark was working on charcoal, Jacob on lumber. Alyssa was on iron, but would be pivoting to copper. Oliver was working on their enchantments, and that left her to work on transportation. It was a good split, she felt.
"Coming through, boss!" Alyssa called out, and Henrietta's eyes flicked up to see the Ranger herding a small crowd of inklings pulling a transport cart through the metaphorical gates of First Tower.
Actually, is there any reason we can't have actual gates? Henrietta suddenly wondered. It was possible they couldn't, she knew that the aggression-directing wards had something to do with directing assailants towards somewhere easy to attack, but it was possible that an unwarded wooden gate might still count as 'easy to attack' enough to make the rest work.
"Ride," Henrietta set aside her musing for later and greeted the other woman. "Drop off your cart then return here."
She saluted, lumbered off to the ore-pile, then a minute later bounded back to Henrietta's watchpost.
"We're going to need copper," she began. Before Alyssa could object, she pushed forward. "I know that you didn't find anything even after a fair bit of effort last time, but we have three more things going for us now. The first is your higher level and better stats."
"I haven't been putting anything in Power, you know," Alyssa pointed out. "I'm not exactly bounding forth in how strong I can make my spells."
"I'm aware it's not your style. But other than your improved [Rustlewind] level, that is the most minor factor. I also have the divination tablet for you, which should aid in your search, and-" Alyssa started to speak, but Henrietta didn't allow her to quite yet. "And if all that proves insufficient, you can go to Smith and have him help with casting support. Either him using ?Duplicast? and ritualing with your [Rustlewind], or helping you devise a level-boosting spell. We have a lot of tools available to us now, I want to ensure we use them appropriately. Now, questions."
Alyssa briefly looked a bit sour, then half-squinted in thought. "I think I had a question, but I forgot it. So... yeah. Oh, right! Priority?"
"Doesn't have to be today, we're not waiting on copper, but the sooner the better. So unless you're worried you'll forget something about the Blast furnace, head out as soon as you're ready."
"...Assuming I find something?" Alyssa hesitantly asked.
"Naturally," Henrietta tried to hide her embarrassment from the slip-up, to uncertain results. "I want you to start using your skill right away though. Don't interrupt Smith if he's working on something that looks important."
"Does Oliver ever work on important things?" Alyssa joked earning herself a level stare. "Yeah, yeah. I know what you mean," she acquiesced. "I do need the tablet, though."
Henrietta handed it over, and Alyssa started wandering off, eyes fixed on the screen. "Huh... I haven't seen that before."
"Anything important?" Henrietta called out to check.
"Don't think so!"
Suddenly deprived of what she'd been doing a few minutes before, Henrietta shuffled her papers, killed a couple of dragons, and kept watch until it was Jacob's time to take over for her, idly mulling over how they might get bronze. Assuming they didn't have tin deposits in the area, which was quite likely, alchemy would be absolutely vital to that particular development. The thought excited her, but it was also daunting with no clear starting point.
She retreated to the common area for food, and found Oliver and Alyssa both intently staring at the tablet, the former looking over the latter's shoulder so intently he was almost resting his chin on her. They were talking softly, but a mixed scent of divination as a whole wafted over to Henrietta, making it clear what they were working on.
Clark greeted her unusually quietly, handing off a new plate... huh. Who had made new dinnerware? Most of them had done a bit of pottery-work here and there, but whoever had made this had actually glazed it. It was a purplish-brown color, contrasting strongly against the bright red of the clay's normal pigmentation.
"Was this you?" she asked the Healer, then realized she should probably be clearer. "Did you make the new plates?"
He nodded brightly, and spoke under his breath but with all his normal exuberance. "Yeah! I thought the old ones were kinda depressing, so I asked Oliver how to make a glaze and he did his internet search and found out all you really need is ash, so I did some tests and figured out something that worked! Do you like it?"
He had such a hopeful expression on his face that Henrietta wouldn't have been able to say anything bad even if she wanted to. "It's quite excellent, Haleford. Thank you very much."
Clark beamed, and Henrietta took a couple bites of her dinner, which today was some kind of meat on reed skewers, as she approached the scheming mages.
"Smith. Ride. Have you had any luck?"
The pair shared a glance. "There's something weird/There's something neat," they each spoke over one another.
"It's neat!" Oliver insisted, "We don't understand enough about how this works to say it's weird."
"No, it's weird. Neat is reserved for when something is harmlessly weird in a way that you wanna look into more," Alyssa shot back. "But I suppose you find anything weird to be neat."
"Yeah?" Oliver sounded genuinely confused, and Henrietta bit back a smile but decided to stop them before they got too carried away.
"Is there copper or not?" She looked directly at Alyssa. She was best handled with direct attention, getting defensive if it seemed like she'd be competing with someone else for speaking space.
"There is, I think."
"We're pretty sure."
"It seems possible," Alyssa sniffed. "Aren't you the one who says we need to be less confident about things?"
"And what makes it weird?" Henrietta asked.
"It doesn't show on the map itself," Alyssa said.
"There's just an arrow at the edge of the screen, we can't see it directly," Oliver continued, "But I would have thought-"
"Thought that the map was my maximum range," Alyssa cut back in.
"But you know where you'd be going, yes?" Henrietta confirmed, getting affirmatives back. "Alright. Then it sounds like you've got your plan? Is there anything that I'm missing?"
"It's still weird," Alyssa said.
"It's still neat," Oliver said louder.
Henrietta sighed, took a seat, continued eating her dinner, and resolved that she'd stop them before they got too carried away. Whenever that might be.
Patreon, which is where copper can be found.
Discord exists too.
Is Factory more Fantasy or more Sci-Fi?
