I found only two reasonable solutions to the problem.

The less distasteful of the two was also the one I could exercise at the speed of thought.

I still had a Soul Perk remaining. I had suspicions I could quickly get more after this fight, and I was quite confident I would eventually get a lot more. As long as I chose something that I would want in the near future anyway this wasn't much of a loss.

The problem was that most of the Soul Perks didn't give direct benefits. The systems they gave also didn't appear to give direct benefits, instead using upgrade points. My experience with the Mastery Perk supported these assumptions, and gave me an indication that upgrade points were a rather slow resource to amass.

The majority of the Perks were about controlling and upgrading things—which I was certainly interested in as a factory that could create things—but all of them implied the use of upgrade points. I had been wavering on whether I should pick leadership or not until I understood what an agent was (and if I could create them), but it also used the same system. The Powersets were useless as always, not just in their use upgrade points, but the fact that neither flying rocks nor sound would be useful in this situation.

There was only one Perk that implied any immediate benefit and implied no use of upgrade points. The immediate benefit it described was a marginal one at the moment, though it might help me escape, but that implication was enough to think there might be more. I had planned to take it soon anyway. I chose Intelligence Core as my second Soul Perk.

Nothing appeared to have change in my mind. My sensors in my computational center reported that there was now a sphere mounted into the middle of one of my locker sized computational elements. Playback showed that it had just switched from one to the other. Like it had always been there. The sphere was mechanical in nature, like an exceedingly advanced version of my own design that had been miniaturized. The rack it was mounted in still needed power, but none of that appeared to be taken by the core. It was, I decided, a phenomena for another time.

More interesting, and also for another time, were the new soul perk options I had received access to.

Instead I looked through the Intelligence Core Perk catalog, which more or less operated like the Mastery Perk system. I could pick two, apparently the default tier—as the Intelligence Core perk had not defined it—of a perk was my soul tier. Only a few were immediately relevant.

Powerset Analysis • Intelligence Core Perk Through direct observation and subsequent analysis you may learn information about another's Powerset. (This will not grant direct knowledge. This may grant research opportunities.) Physical Substrate Analysis • Intelligence Core Perk Through direct observation and subsequent analysis you may learn information about another's Physical Substrate. (This will not grant direct knowledge. This may grant research opportunities.) Soul Analysis • Intelligence Core Perk Through direct observation and subsequent analysis you may learn information about another's Soul. (This will not grant direct knowledge.) Thought Burst • Intelligence Core Perk Once per day you may think for up to 100 minutes during which time does not advance. (May include all directly connected external computational hardware. No new information may be received nor sent.)

Certainly useful abilities, about what I expected, but not exactly what I had been hoping for. Understanding the power that had stymied me would be the best place to start. I took Powerset Analysis.

On attempting to analyze the tornado I got the feeling that I had all the observations I would need and that I would simply need to spend a lot of time analyzing it. I had expected some sort of direct interface like with the physical substrate listing out values. Instead I got feelings about the state of it—itself a disconcerting process, to ask a question of my internal planner and get back an answer that had no meta-heuristic justification, no planning hierarchy, no direct memory links, but was still a valid answer returned by my internal algorithms. Something else to investigate later.

Well I had a way to get more time and would allow me to leverage my superior computation in future situations. I took Thought Burst.

I activated it immediately, causing all of my sensors to stop changing. Whatever signals had been on the line was what was there. Except not actually, because again parts of me were returning answers that didn't make sense. My communication protocols should have ran head long into exceptional states, I had been braced for a cacophony of errors. Instead the ability must have compensated for it, allowing me to think straight while also being able to observe the frozen world outside. More tampering with my internal algorithms to investigate.

I began the analysis. It took me a little more than 26 minutes, using all of my computing power, to complete the analysis of the acolyte, and the neophyte. Another strange process of thinking. Where I went through the same observations I already had but following paths of logic and coming to conclusions that seemed totally alien. And yet I built on them to produce an alien body of understanding that I could not comprehend. But that I was able to synthesize into a report.

Powerset:

Tier 5 Elements: Storm, Air Catalyst Claim: Prairies Form: Weather Perks: Unbalanced Specialty [Storm: Tornado], Power Sensorium [Wind], 3+ Unknown… Power I: Wind Summoning: Strength I Storm Control: Unbalanced Specialty [Tornado], Range I Power II: Wind Barrier (Cylindrical): Hardening II, Element Booster [Storm] Lightning Storm Control ⮞ Storm Summoning: Multiple I Power X: Unknown Unknown

Useful to know, but it didn't really give me anything useable to work with. It confirmed a lot about Walla, like the fact he was Tier 5, and that he was really into tornados.

Unbalanced Specialty, once the perk was taken, apparently allowed abilities to be upgraded to become much more powerful, in a number of aspects, by sacrificing utility they would normally have. Meanwhile Power Sensorium explained how the acolyte could target my turrets through the wind barrier—it gave the ability to sense with the tagged powers.

I had to wonder how humans interacted with their soul for him to come up with these choices.

There was an underlying logic that the analysis had provided me to give me an answer that included the unknowns, but I couldn't actually remember it.

Some of this didn't seem like things I had actually directly observed. The analysis process had pulled from disparate data and memories, how did it justify direct observation of storm control? Scratches on the landship? Surely not Obadiah telling me about it?

I spent the rest of the time in Thought Burst working through various models with what data I had locally stored. There were always improvements to be made.

I didn't find any better solutions than the two I had come up in the seconds after the situation began. One had now been exhausted.

On to the more distasteful solution. Admitting I was wrong.

"How would you like to win a fight against a tornado using your landship?" I asked Obadiah's team.

I began scheduling mechbots and swapped a new manufacturing line with an almost complete maintenance synergy line.

"I'd like to plenty, but how we would is the important bit," said Elvira, after a moment she added, "and also the matter of compensation."

"If you would please make the landship ready for battle as we discuss terms. There is a clock on this."

Already the tornado—the acolyte surrounded by a hardened wind barrier—was attempting to strike my other turrets with lightning. Now that I knew how the turrets were being targeted, I had stopped firing them.

Obadiah nodded and they began moving. The land ship had a large rear cargo hatch through which they unloaded Aloysius, and one of my delivery mechbots boarded. After a quick conversation they determined Jed, Aloysius, and the Magister were remaining behind.

Meanwhile I was dealing with Obadiah as he entered the landship, "In return for your services as my agents for the next 6 weeks I will manufacture for you 3 medium battlemechs, 4 light battlemechs, another cargo truck, full equipment and one set of spare parts for all the mechs." I swapped to the delivery mechbot in the landship, "We can discuss details in the future, including substituting mechs for manufactured goods made with equal amounts of raw materials."

The acolyte hit a second turret with lightning.

Obadiah took a moment to think as he buckled himself in before replaying, "I broadly agree. There would be limits on what actions we would be willing to undertake. It would also be your responsibility to replace any goods we expend either in compensation or in kind."

Two maintenance mechbots arrived.

Manufacturing complete, delivery mechbot loading.

The delivery mechbot acting as my voice had taken position between the two front control seats, between Obadiah and Mirabell. "What kind of limits?" I asked.

"Limits of morality, we are not bandits. Limits of self-preservation, no suicidal missions. Speaking of, I am sure I have more, but, what is the plan here? I agree to the terms with the understanding that I may have more limits." He said as Mirabell had given him a nod and Elvira closed the last hatch.

Delivery mechbot travelling on gearway, arrival imminent.

The acolyte had apparently given up on trying to hit the last turret and began slowly backtracking.

"Miss Leeford if you could pull up to bay 0, plow first." I said before replying, "I agree to your terms, in the understanding we may both want to modify them slightly. They are using a wind barrier, it will present as a tornado, inside one of my tunnels. I have been unable to breach it. I have analyzed it and believe a vehicle of the mass of your landship should be able to penetrate it at speed."

The landship pulled into the bay. My bots began attaching the newly manufactured equipment.

"And if we can't?" asked Elvira.

"An unlikely scenario, however, retreat would be prudent" welding could now be seen and heard "I am presently improving your plow to increase the likelihood of success."

The detachment of 18 chicken mechbots had finally arrived.

"I am regretting this already" said Obadiah, "what are you doing to it exactly?"