"The size is unfortunately a necessary workaround given the current constraints of core design," Padri explained as Daniel goggled at construction in front of him. "My latent Craftsman powers allow for limited flight, though I would be loath to augment it with Artificer items as the main core is already close to its mass limit. The addition of magical weapons to the arms was only possible due to the multicore design, which you may note on either elbow."

Daniel inspected the area Padri indicated and saw they were more spherical in design than they needed to be. The wood also had a clean break, with no physical connection of anything on either side. He rolled one of his golden-scaled wings up his arm to look at it, then looked back at the giant wooden death statue. Damn it, his is cooler. "How did you get it here?"

"Manually." Padri used a brief burst of flight to reach the chest cavity of the mech, which was about two meters off the ground. After half a minute he had a section open where it looked like someone his size could barely fit. Considering avianoids were thinner and lighter than other races on average, Daniel doubted he could. With his claustrophobia not entirely banished, he also wasn't sure he'd enjoy being locked in there when the panel that swung out sideways was closed.

The Engineer nestled inside, sitting in front of the mechanical doomsday device that was one of his modular cores. It had been placed center mass, within all of the layers of wood that would act as armor for it. Padri worked several levers to demonstrate how the limbs moved, but nothing he did influenced the arms past the secondary cores. "As you can see, the design is extremely limited in combat. I cannot do much beyond move with what I've worked into this, although the hope is that a pilot will be unnecessary. Including space for them at all is simply so that they can be protected as much as the construct is."

"Marvelous," Lograve complimented, the Arcanist circling the mech while trying to gather every detail he could. "How did you put this together so quickly?"

"The cores are the most time-intensive quality," Padri answered quickly while he sealed the cabin. "An advantage to Craftsmen powers compared to the Artificer class is that work simply requires physical alteration. This is contrasted, of course, by the wider scope of the Artificer class." Having said that, Padri turned to Daniel. "You have the second sending stone?"

"Yeah." It was a palm-sized object that retained the slightly cold to the touch sensation of the wyvern bone. As a level 2 sending stone, and a smaller one at that, it had a range of about 10 kilometers. "I haven't heard anything come through it so hopefully there's no one on the frequency."

"Yes." Padri removed a wooden construct from his bag of holding that looked roughly like a speaker. It was obviously what his sending stone had turned into given the oblong nature of the central piece. "First, before we begin, please test your stone."

Daniel raised the item he'd just made and spoke a few words into it. To his surprise nothing came out on the other end, but Padri didn't look disappointed. "Good, good."

"It is?" Both Daniel and Lograve asked at the same time.

"When I processed the first stone, I specifically attempted to remove its ability to broadcast. I wanted something that received only, and if my creations are to employ stealth, it would not be efficient for their orders to be given to the enemy as well." Padri was walking behind the mech as he talked and paused as he looked up toward its back. "Ah. How embarrassing, but I neglected to consider the lack of scaffolding here. Could one of you help remove this?"

Daniel joined the two and saw that the Engineer had mounted one of his cutters to the back. Considering that you could combine a bag of holding and two pathfinders that it effectively turned it into a mobile repository. It was impressive how well thought out Padri's first design had been, especially because of what he did next. After Lograve's ice had carried the passive cutter down, Padri removed the panel containing the bag of holding and slotted the sending stone into the underside of the vaguely bird-shaped drone.

"Better to test on something that is not weaponized first. Hmm." He looked around and saw the Spinner Project group half at work, half watching what they were doing. "Your sister should be here. This is her idea, after all."

Yeah, great point. Glad you made it right after you put the idea of a rampaging mech in my head, Daniel thought privately while Lograve telepathically called Alex over. Still, she was doing well with advancement and was nearing balanced attributes. Her endurance had hit 10 the day after flight training and while she hadn't awakened the power that should've given her yet, the relief she'd had from removing the disparity was almost enough for her.

"So, we're doing Evangelion now?" The question was mostly meant to tease Daniel since they were the only ones who probably the reference. Lograve had had access to all of Earth's culture, but he'd shown before that there were gaps in his knowledge. Since the show had come out a year before Alex had been born it was somewhat out of vogue.

Niche topic or not, Padri didn't need context to gather some meaning. "You've seen this before?"

"No," Alex replied quickly. "I've just heard stories about it."

Ah, it's like you back before you stopped caring who knew Hunter was a person, Lograve reminisced, before covering for Alex as he had Daniel in the past. "Hardly surprising. Golems exist elsewhere."

"Right, right." The Engineer gestured to the cutter currently equipped with the sending stone. "We're ready to begin testing. I thought it would be appropriate for you to do the honors."

"Me? Alright." Alex shrugged and held out a hand for the stone. Daniel didn't hand it to her.

"Sorry, it's level 2. You won't be able to hold it." Instead he held it up to her like he was a reporter. While Alex couldn't hold the item, her voice would travel through it all the same as long as he activated it for her. "Whenever you're ready."

The Virtuoso considered the wooden swept wing in front of the group and decided on a simple order. "Fly forward." Everyone held their breath, and after what seemed an eternity, the Padri Cutter began crawling forward unbidden by any other mechanism built into it. The Engineer actually removed the pathfinders built into it to be sure, but it was in fact the sending stone.

"Fascinating," he said breathlessly as the cutter continued moving across the courtyard at slower than walking pace. "Did you intend to set that velocity?"

"I didn't have anything in mind," Alex answered, watching with as much interest. She'd downplayed the impact of her input before, but credit to the Engineer, Padri had continued to stress that she had been the source of this.

Off to the side, Lograve was taking notes. "I wonder if it is a default speed set by the core, then. Should we try telling it to stop, and then go again?"

"Yes," Padri decided instantly. Alex told the construct to stop, and then repeated the initial command as closely to the first time as she could. All watched as the cutter resumed its lazy course across the courtyard.

"It's slightly faster," Daniel commented, Quick Mind showing a speed difference in the decimal place. Small, but there. "Subconscious input maybe?"

"It would suggest that commands need to be precise. We should indicate a specific integer value next."

Alex, showing no exhaustion with being used as the group's guinea pig, spoke into the stone again. "Stop. Fly forward at exactly one kilometer per hour."

Daniel, now fulfilling the role of a stopwatch with his mental processing power, let it go for half a minute before Quick Mind returned his result. "It's not 1 kph even, but it's close enough."

The four spent an hour with the cutter discovering more about how it interpreted commands. For one, it would continue flying forward at a specified speed if given another movement command that didn't override the first one, such as flying up. It could task itself toward a location, but moved in a straight line and would push against anything in the way. Pathfinders remained superior in that regard as they would allow for pathing, though with a sending stone in place an operator could remotely activate or deactivate that guidance.

With some shuffling in parts, the team also found that the modular core could withdraw anything stored in its dimensional compartment and deposit it, as well as put in anything that it could maneuver over. When given impossible commands, such as dividing by zero as recommended by Daniel, it would simply reject them and continue what it had already been doing.

"The core will respond to any order given directly, and obey the letter of said order," Padri summarized. "Does anyone disagree?" When no one did, he added with some disappointment, "Less intelligence in the core than I would have hoped. It lacks problem solving. It is sufficient for the cutter, but the battle suit cannot function at the speed of spoken orders in battle. Not if it requires this degree of precision. We would need to designate every small movement, every target to engage."

Feeling some familiarity from Padri's complaints, Daniel realized there was someone who could offer advice. He wasn't as reluctant to air the suggestion as he would've been a month ago. "Guys, I know someone who could help."

…

"What the fuck is that thing?" Tlara asked as she stared up at the mech. The Beastmaster had been relaxing and doing who knew what in her room for most of the day. While people had hobbies to occupy them, Daniel wasn't sure what she did to keep herself busy. Willow had let it slip at one point that she'd basically vegged while they had been in Aughal, and as she'd been paid a decent sum while hunting with them previously she had enough for a comfortable life given Daniel was fronting both housing and gear costs.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

"I have yet to name the model," Padri answered the question she hadn't really asked. "It remains to be seen if standard humanoid form is appropriate for my aims. It is easy to work with given our familiarity, though admittedly less aerodynamic than the cutter."

"Ok. So why am I here?"

Padri, who had taken over sending stone duty once they'd attached the sending stone to the mech's main core, issued a command. "Right arm up fifteen degrees."

"Fuck!" The Beastmaster took a step back as the wooden construct taller than the houses moved its shoulder, sending a mass of wood weighing more than she did upward. "You made a golem?"

"An inefficient one. At present it poses little threat to anything. I would appreciate any insight you might have on how to better command it." Both Daniel and Padri looked at Tlara expectantly. Padri for her advice, and Daniel for her to gouge the Engineer.

As it turned out, he'd underestimated her. "Yeah, alright. So it's like some fucking brainless monster then." Tlara did a circle around the mech as Lograve had once done, spending less time going over the details. "I mean, it's hard, but it's not difficult to set something like this up."

"I… do not follow."

"Can that thing remember what you tell it to do?" Tlara asked. Somewhat sheepishly, the group realized there was one aspect of the mechanism they hadn't tried yet. In fairness they'd only been at this for an hour or so, and this was the exact reason they were asking for advice. "Just give me that," Tlara sighed, holding out a hand. Daniel was nervous as Padri relinquished control of the death machine, but he could afford Tlara some small amount of trust here. She'd earned that much.

"Hey, you fucking thing," Tlara called out, "Give me a punch, a block, then another punch. Do it fast." The mech tried to comply, but it couldn't control anything above its elbows as the sending stone was attached to the main core. There was an obvious workaround in adding additional control units to the secondary cores, but neither Daniel nor Padri had had time to set that up. This was explained to Tlara after she vented her aggravation at the mech for failing to comply.

"If it helps, we have tried seeing if they can do sequential commands." Daniel took Tlara's eye roll in stride. It was hardly the worst thing she could do with her recently acquired heterochromia.

"Yeah, I know you have at least half a brain. Fuck, if hands are out… Just raise your legs. Right, then left." The mech complied, raising its knee to the same height every time despite Tlara not specifying one. There was definitely some input it was taking beyond pure vocal control, but Daniel had at one point asked the cutter to fly forward while thinking really hard about it doing a barrel roll and it hadn't taken that hint. "Ok, now do I what I just told you to do." The mech complied, matching the same height as it marched in place. Tlara gave one last command before she handed the stone back. "Whenever someone tells you to walk, you do that and move forward."

"Interesting, but I do not think-"

"Walk." Everyone watched as the mech rumbled into motion, despite the fact that Tlara didn't have the sending stone. Padri looked at her like he had at Alex when she'd had the idea that started all of this.

…

"Never would've thought they'd get along," Lograve commented after they'd retired from the testing. It was later in the afternoon now and people were starting to come back, getting caught up themselves in the spectacle.

"Eh, makes sense. Padri gives her control over something like that, it's practically flowers in Tlara language. Now, if they do start actually dating instead of training that mech, I'll have to make sure there isn't an alchemist in town that can make a love potion."

Lograve grimaced rather than reciprocate the humor. "If there is one, Zolyra will sort them out. Not that they'd have that excuse, but I'm glad to see the days of open charm and theft season are behind us."

Before Daniel could comment on that, Hunter walked backward through the front with Tak following. "Big."

"Very," Tak confirmed. "Hello everyone! We killed some level 3s today."

"'Nothing bad'?" Daniel asked Hunter with an eyebrow raised. "What if one had been like the wyvern?"

"It was fine, only two with some weaker ones around them. Wasn't a problem." Daniel had to give Hunter some props, he was a better fighter and that was counting what Beast Mode gave him. As Blood Union allowed them to focus a lot of buffs on one person, and his bond with Tak made him even more unkillable, he wouldn't like the odds of a bondless Daniel beating Hunter despite the fact that he had better attributes and far more powers. "Had Sigron to help anyway."

The Knight nodded, showing no wear on either his body or gear. He'd still refused replacement armor after demonstrating multiple times that his bond could repair his current set. Daniel wasn't sure if it would function with new armor, or if the Knight was just being humble. There was some degree of Thomas to the man, in that Sigron felt there was a debt owed.

Daniel wanted to tell him that they were even, or that he owed the Knight something, but it would've just been retreading old ground. "Well, I guess there wasn't a reason to worry. Bring anything back?" Daniel asked the Totem Warrior with the Monster Scavenger power hopefully.

Tak tilted his head back and forth a few times. "It was a pack of cloudbats. Got some bones, but not much else."

"Well, every bit helps. Thanks. I cracked sending stones today so I can make some for the team. You three are up first."

"And what about for your long-suffering tutor?" Lograve asked behind him.

Daniel shrugged. "You could have the one I just made if you pry it out of Padri's hands. It comes with a mech."

"Yes, that is one flaw in the design," Lograve remarked seriously. "You'll have to work with him on encrypting the signal, if that's even possible. Unfortunately for all my talent I lack the class to contribute."

"What?" Hunter asked, trying and failing to follow. He still put the rest of the pieces together after recalling what Daniel had told him after Padri had first shown up at the compound. "Alex's idea worked?"

"Yeah, kind of. Tlara's helping work out the kinks." Daniel felt the slight twinge of discomfort through the Empathic Link when he mentioned her. Hunter had not fully forgiven the Beastmaster, and he wasn't sure if she'd earned that either. At the least he trusted they could fight together if needed.

"Alright. Going to go advance. Take back the body?" Hunter asked shortly.

"Yeah, no problem." Daniel accepted Beast Mode back, as well as the powers he'd given to Hunter prior to the hunt. Rather than immediately dispel it he allowed it to settle. Outside of the odd spar he'd let his brother inhabit it for the most part. Hunter padded away, but Tak stayed behind and took a seat. As Alex had rejoined Project Spinner, thoroughly enjoying having a student again, that left just Lograve and the Totem Warrior as functional conversants.

"He is doing better. With the body," Tak clarified. "Very strong. Very… conflicted. I think it is something he wanted, but it is not what he expected it to be."

"If it weren't for Tlara I'd say this is the oddest bond I've ever seen. Sharing a body." Lograve was giving him a slightly perturbed look, but he'd long since grown used to the happenings around Daniel.

"It's not the same body." Daniel brushed the fur on his arm self-consciously as the Arcanist stared at him. "Fine, it is. But it's also not. If one of us is hurt the injury doesn't come over with the body, it just looks the same."

Lograve raised an eyebrow. If one wanted to continue distinguishing him from Tounaki they'd mention that the Pyromancer would have asked a question related to Shuni, but the Arcanist refrained from that. "Well, you've at least made up for losing that old Totem Warrior class. How many powers would you say you have left to awaken in that form?"

"Around ten," Daniel answered after taking a quick count. "Every fight that gets tough I usually get one, maybe two. The problem is those fights usually give me enough potential to unlock a new one too."

"Hah. That's suffering from success for you. Let's hope Padri channels some of that for all our sakes." Lograve formed a small, floating man made out of ice above his hand and with some effort melted it into water. As a less static form compared to ice it was harder for the Arcanist to maintain active control, even with the benefits level 4 gave his feature. Still, he managed to shape it into a copy of Padri's work and have it mime fighting. "With enough of these, I think we can throw Soraso off his throne without a drop of blood spilled."

"You think we have enough wood for all of that?" Daniel asked skeptically.

"Erh, damned Threst and its environment. Beautiful until you need something basic like farmland."

"It is nice though," Tak chirped back. "I couldn't fly well in the Thormundz. Here is easier. It will be sad when we leave." Daniel had to admire the absolute lack of doubt in Tak's voice in that moment, but it didn't last. "I… I have been thinking of my hidden power. Could you try to identify it again? You said, with the monster domain, you were seeing more."

Lograve's face darkened as he no doubt thought back to the time Tak had been stuck as a monster while in Eido. It was something he would've hated to see. "I do, but the monster stuff isn't as… clinically put as what belongs to the Octyrrum. I don't know if that would help, and there's what happened to Khiat to consider. Tak, I don't think you should ever use that power again. Willow could sense me when I was affected by it, and she can only see spirits in the real world."

"Hmm." Still troubled, Tak declined to agree or disagree. Daniel knew what he was thinking, that if their backs were truly against the wall he'd use it. In the power core, he'd nearly made the same decision. Tak had used his power multiple times, spent a month in it and still come back. Yet, there was that fear in the back of his head of the one time one of them wouldn't come back.

"I'll admit I am completely useless there when it comes to advice. Willow would be your best expert," Lograve said with some chagrin. "Just a bunch of precocious younglings aren't you? Rediscovering domains and saving souls. When I was her age I only cared about what wine we were having with dinner and how many times I could wake up the next morning with a hangover and a partner. Having just one in bed is so utterly boring."

Sigron exhaled a laugh at that and Daniel got it a second later. "Wait, having either a hangover or a partner, or…"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Lograve asked, faking a scandalized tone. At least, he was pretty sure Lograve was faking. "One wonders what deviancy this new flame of yours is inspiring. Murdon's is bad enough. Fireball Storm? Let's hope she doesn't develop like Rasalia did or my friend will wish his ancestry was more in tune with her class."

Tak was about to pile on with his and Hunter's favorite accusation of his nosiness when there was a loud crack from outside. Daniel and the others rushed outside, fearing that Padri and Tlara had just given them another reason to call for Builders. While that wasn't exactly the case, it might have been.

Standing in the center of the courtyard was the wooden construct in what might have been a lunging position with one arm extended toward the ground. The end of said arm had a massive wooden sword sticking out of it and it appeared to have been swung so hard it had broken clear through the stone of the courtyard. Tlara was in the process of taking a few dozen steps back from the thing while Padri had his arms crossed and a mortician's collectedness.

"Perhaps 'as hard as you can hit it' is not the best phrasing, but I would count this as progress. Sufficient power to be sure, but we should use this on one of your more expendable monsters to live test its stopping power." He turned and saw that Tlara was now preparing to fly away. "Wait, where are you going?"

"Guess the honeymoon's over," Daniel joked. His spirits remained high as he saw Khiat poking her head out of her room, finding yet another strange situation had developed while she'd been resting. The archer's sleep had been going a lot better these days now that he'd sound-proofed her room, though it came with the drawback of missing events until they caused minor earthquakes.

At least this time we were close to dusk, Daniel thought. And we're working on getting Ashier to bring her family. Have to remember to keep enough armor material for them. With the refresh of the wyvern supplies he had a decent amount, and the bat bone helped too, but duskers were big. He'd put it at around ten times the amount required for a leather shirt for himself. Projects big and… very big, he mused, eyes wandering from the still titan to its Engineer trying to chase Tlara down. But we're making progress. I just hope it'll be fast enough to make a difference.

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