“Do you have your own mold or do you want to use one of ours?” the attendant said.

“Yes, three of them actually,” Hugo said and handed over the porcelain molds he had made earlier. This was his second trip to the Heatweavers. Apparently, they had a molten container of void steel always available, they would pour it into molds on request. After that, the metal couldn’t be shaped. Hugo used his Avian Mage domain to calculate out the exact molds his Raven, Hornet, and Hawk would need.

Hugo watched with fascination as the molds were filled with liquid metal. When the blacksmith let go of each mold, it floated to the ceiling. So cool. After he paid four gold, the blacksmith hooked them from the ceiling and gave them to him in a bag with two straps. He made a point of saying that there would be no refund if his void steel accidentally floated away. Hugo laughed when he thought of how many people that must have happened to. Walking around town with the void steel backpack was fun. It was like he had an extra spring in his step.

He swung by a formation shop to get diamond crystals made. He bought three of them. Next stop was mana stones. With five of them in his bag, he was ready to start assembling his avians. He had the parts for two of them already fabricated, a Raven and a Hornet. He quickly assembled the Raven with nervous energy.

The avian had a rectangular body with rounded corners. It was two feet wide, three long, and one high. Although its innards were complicated, it was rounded and streamlined on the outside. Hugo thought it looked like a bar of soap. Once the final piece was inserted, a blue screen popped up.

Tether Target Found

An acceptable target for your Avian Tether has been found nearby. Would you like to link with this target?

Yes

No

Just like last time, the Raven started up and its impellers activated. This time the metal oblong was light enough to hover. With a minor mental flex, Hugo directed it around the room. It slammed into the wall. Hugo quickly pulled it back and inspected the wall for damage. There was a crack there he would have to pay for later.

For now, he opened the window and carried it out. With a bit more care this time, he directed the Raven up into the sky. It quickly floated up into the sky, clearing four stories before he directed it to stop. The next fifteen minutes were spent practicing. He found that he could fly in any direction, perform tight maneuvers, and zoom in on any object of interest. He guessed that its top speed was similar to his jogging speed. Or sprint before he was soulmarked.

He gave himself a tour of the city as he practiced, learning all about Makhanda. The Raven made it farther and farther away from him, without any indication that his tether had any limit. He decided to test how high up he could fly next. He sent the Raven straight up.

Up and up it went. Twenty stories, thirty. Soon the Raven caught the attention of a nearby impundulu. This one was in its lightning bird form. Hugo slowed his Raven down to give the impundulu a chance to inspect his creation. He felt like showing off a bit and had it do a loop.

As the optical sensor came around again, he saw the impundulu get within fifty feet. Without warning, a bolt of lightning shot out. Hugo felt the tether snap back. It was slightly painful, more of a shock to the system than anything. He leaned out his window to see a smoking hunk of metal fall to the city below.

That was rude. The impundulu had been close enough to see that the Raven wasn’t some random monster. It was clearly a mechanical creation. The lightning bird had just shot it out of the sky without warning. Maybe Hugo had run afoul of some unknown ordinance against flying machines within city limits. Now that he thought about it, he had seen airships near the edges of the cities out here, but none in the middle. Perhaps that was his mistake. He would have to ask someone about the rules later.

For now, he had another avian to test. The Hornet was quickly assembled next. Hugo snapped in the final part and stepped back. The Hornet was nothing like the flying insect it was named after. It looked like a metal hotdog and bun, two feet long and one and a half wide. He giggled to himself at the thought of a flying hotdog.

This time when he established the tether he noticed the difference right away. Despite having the same diamond crystal acting as its optics, the visual wasn’t as good. It could still see just as well as Hugo could, but was unable to see farther or zoom in.

He was itching to try out the hornet’s main weapon, but the crack in the inn wall convinced him to try it somewhere else. He directed the Hornet to hover near his shoulder and walked out of the inn. He got a few strange looks, but no one gawked at him. His Hornet may be unusual, but they saw strange things around here all the time.

It took Hugo longer than he wanted, but eventually he was at a nearby archery range near the southwestern wall. He flew the hornet into place alongside the other archers and took careful aim. He found that he could instinctively tell the range of his target and the hotdog section of the Hornet automatically made minute adjustments to stay on target. With a mental flex, he gave the order to fire. A tight ball of energy flew from the Hornet. It sped across the range faster than an arrow. With a crack, the bolt impacted the center of the target and shattered it.

Hugo pumped his fist. The schematics had indicated that the Hornet’s weapon was weak, but that was almost as strong as his explosive bolts. Twenty seconds later he felt like the Hornet was ready to fire again. He shot another energy ball at the target. It hit in the same spot, sending stone fragments to the ground. He would have gotten a big head if the formation mage by his side wasn’t there. The woman had a metal bow almost as big as she was and fired ballista size arrows. Based on the impact on the stone target, Hugo guessed that she could take down a hydra on her own.

Five minutes later, Hugo had to stop because his target needed to regenerate. There was a ritual under each of the targets that slowly reformed the stone. The formation mage next to him had needed four different targets to keep up with her practice. The Hornet was precise though, all of his shots had hit, even when he was moving the avian around to simulate battle conditions. He also got the feeling that he was using up the mana stone powering the Hornet, perhaps a tenth of its power was already gone.

Next, Hugo headed over to the nearby Harvester Hall, his Hornet following him like a pet. He planned on posting an escort job to get himself up to rank sixty-four. Hopefully he could find someone willing to take him within his budget. He was confident in his ability to take down some monsters on his own, but there was no way he would be going out there alone. That’s something that only the fictional and the dead did.

The harvester hall was mostly there to service active harvesters. They needed a place to sell their monster parts, get healing, and discuss monster herd movements. They also did escort jobs on occasion.

They turned Hugo away as soon as he got there.

Escort jobs were common enough around here that they had weekly meetings for them. High ranked harvesters and clients would get together every Firstday to negotiate terms. The meetings were also a good way to get to know each other before they were stuck with each other for days at a time. Since today was Forthday, he had to wait.

In retrospect, this was good for him. He had time to prepare for the trip and put his best foot forward. He was sure that someone competent would get a better deal than someone who would need to be coddled. Before he did any of that, he put ten points into his resilience stat. It made him much more sturdy and brought his health up to seventy. That was much better than the twenty points he had before. He felt better about heading out into the wilds now, and he still had twelve free points for when he wanted to specialize later.

He spent the next few days fabricating and inscribing. When he was done, he did a few rituals, the optimize and duplicate ritual. By the time he walked to the escort meeting, he was loaded for bear. He brought everything he had made so they would know he was capable.

The meeting wasn’t scheduled for another ten minutes, but as Hugo walked in there was already a loud buzz of conversation. Dozens of people milled about, chatting with each other. It was easy to tell the difference between the career harvesters and those that were here to rank up. The harvesters were muscly and armored in well worn armor. The ones here to rank up were in brand new armor, or none at all.

Hugo stood off to the side while he observed the crowd. He wondered if he was supposed to just start approaching various harvesting groups. Just then a tall impundulu walked into the room and clicked his mouth to get everyone’s attention. He had a uniform on and everyone grew quiet when they saw him.

“Alright everyone, bit of a busier day today, so I would appreciate it if everyone followed the rules,” the uniformed impundulu said, “In a moment I will split up the room by rank and you will have a chance to chat with the available teams for that rank. The harvester society will not facilitate negotiations. You are on your own there. It’s this next part that we care about. After you have an agreement, come up to my desk and register your trip.”

He looked around to make sure everyone was paying attention and said, “Clients, this is the most important part. Your life literally depends on it. If we know who went where, we can attempt rescues if you bought insurance. If you don’t register, there is nothing preventing unscrupulous types from robbing and killing you outside the city. Do not skip this step!”

Next, he pointed to the far end of the room. “Alright, let’s get started. This end of the room is for those that want to rank up to sixteen or below. This part of the room is for those that want to rank up to thirty-two or below. This section is for those up to sixty-four and below. If you want to rank up beyond that, leave a message with the front desk. Those requests are much more rare and we set up those meetings separately. Oh! One more thing. Make sure you are negotiating with someone that has a harvester badge on. Only those with a badge are certified to take you out of the city walls.”

Once he finished talking, the room split itself up into three different groups. Hugo wandered over to the section for the higher ranked teams. He wanted to rank up to sixty-four. There were three different harvester teams standing there, one of which he dismissed right away. The team of all nox harvesters had already turned away an impundulu looking to rank up. They were obviously speciesist.

The closest group was a trio of harvesters. A human that looked bigger than a bear with slabs of metal hung across his body. A female nox in chainmail and silks. A tokoloshe with a hammer as big as he was. Hugo walked over to them, but before he could say anything, the tokoloshe spoke first. He pointed over Hugo’s shoulder and said, “What the hell is that?”