thomasdarkrose
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Fabricator v2 - Chapter 25
🕑 Added 2023-09-04 13:06:10 +0000 UTCAN
I usually hate putting these up at the top of my chapters but in this case I'll make an exception.
After seeing what was said in the last chapters comments, I've made a teeny tiny change to how that chapter ended.
Mittelt shuddered a bit at the tone he used. It was the same tone he used when leading them during the Great War, the tone of Azazel Governor General of the Fallen Angel Army. Mittelt told him almost everything, from beginning to end without leaving anything important out. Junichiro might be her boyfriend, but it was also her assignment to protect him, even from himself. She would tell Azazel-sama everything she felt she could and let him decide on the appropriate course of action.
So, minor change is Mittelt did NOT tell Azazel about the compass. If you guys had such an issue with it, I can guess how many people on FF.net would react. I don't feel like dealing with that, so she didn't tell. I put that up here so you all wouldn't be confused by the beginning of this chapter.
On with the show!
TL;DR: Mittelt didn't tell Azazel about the compass, the end of the last chapter got retconned before even being officially published.
-----Line Break-----
Mittelt hung up her call with Azazel and let out a long sigh. She'd been grilled about how they found the cave and Excalibur's long lost Scabbard, but she'd kept her promise and hadn't mentioned the compass to Azazel. If Junichiro hadn't promised to destroy the thing when they were done exploring, she'd have had no choice but to tell Azazel about it.
Even without mentioning the compass, Azazel had been thunderstruck by what she'd told him. The little brat he'd found in a junkyard was now a powerhouse, or so he'd said. Mittelt hadn't argued the point. Azazel had also confirmed that the cave had indeed been Albion's last known lair. He'd sent the group that died there personally and always wondered what happened. It'd gotten lost in the cracks of time and no one had ever found out.
Mittelt lay in her enchanted bed and let out a long sigh as she tried to relax her tense body. While she hadn't lied to her boss about anything, she still felt a fair amount of fear keeping something from him. Though she figured the worst Azazel would do would be to fire her, in which case her life wouldn't change all that much. She'd just live with her boyfriend, like she already did. He definitely made enough to take care of the both of them. Though if she got a share of the treasure they just found, she'd be filthy rich herself.
She drifted off to sleep with images of herself Scrooge McDucking it into a pool of gold coins.
-----Line Break-----
The next morning, Junichiro walked into the kitchen following the heavenly scent of waffles. As he stepped through the doorway, Mittelt turned to look at him, “Good timing. The first one should be done in a minute.”
Junichiro happily sat at the kitchen table and watched Mittelt at work. Over the duration of their relationship they'd started cooking for each other at random times. They still swapped back and forth for dinner meals, but breakfast and lunch they either made enough for the both of them, or they were on their own for something simpler.
“Thank god it's waffles and not pancakes.”
Mittelt snickered, “Yes, yes. I am aware of your dislike of pancakes.”
That was an argument that Mittelt had never won, even with her thousands of years of experience. Nothing she could say or do could convince Junichiro that pancakes were as good as, or better than, waffles. When the first waffle came out a minute later, it was accompanied by plates of fresh bacon, sausage, and scrambled eggs. He looked over the spread and hummed, “Feeling pretty western this morning?”
She smirked, “We are in Britain.”
He looked at her blankly, “That would suggest an English Breakfast would be appropriate.”
Mittelt wrinkled her nose in distaste, “Beans are nota breakfast food.”
“No arguments from me about that.”
In actuality, Junichiro wasn't really a fan of the majority of beans in existence and tended to avoid them. Mostly due to the texture, the same reason he didn't enjoy peas all that much. Mittelt knew all that, and he knew she disliked anything too greasy.
After making a few more waffles, Mittelt joined Junichiro at the table and began making her own plate of food. There was no use putting the discussion off so, “I spoke to Azazel last night. I kept my promise about the compass, but I had to tell him about everything else we found, including the scabbard. I did mention you had a way to hide its aura so he's not too worried, but he is insisting on seeing it in person when we return to Kuoh.”
Junichiro considered that for a moment. He wasn't thrilled that Mittelt had told Azazel everything but he did recognize it was her job. He also wasn't too worried about Azazel telling anyone else or being too interested in the scabbard himself. While the scabbard was impressive, it wasn't a Sacred Gear and was therefore not all that interesting.
Although....
What if they could turn it into a Sacred Gear? Sacred Gear's did require powerful creatures or items to be made and he could easily see the scabbard being Longinus class all on its own. Hell, just the Ruler aspect was damn near Longinus by itself. Add in the six other abilities, near-invulnerability and near-immortality and it was definitely Longinus.
Though that did give him another thought. Issei was able to merge Ascalon into the Boosted Gear allowing him to use the sword and its abilities without having to actually wield the sword in his hand. He'd even extended the blade of the sword once, something the sword couldn't do on its own, so the Boosted Gear might even enhance the stuff placed inside of it. If he stuck the scabbard into the Boosted Gear... wouldn't he be able to use all of its abilities while storing it inside of his soul? Also, what about combining its powers with Boosted Gear? The Scale Mail balance breaker was already strong defensively, add in the near-invulnerability of the scabbard?
Junichiro quickly shook his thoughts off. That was a rabbit hole that he would wait to explore when he stole the Boosted Gear from Issei. Something he felt he needed to really focus on in the near future. For now, he focused back on Mittelt, “That's alright. I'm not thrilled about it, but I get it.” He tapped his chin as he thought, “Calling it the scabbard all the time is a bit much. I think it deserves a proper name, so let's call it Avalon from now on.”
Yes, he stole the name from the FATE series. He didn't feel like thinking of anything original. Mittelt just nodded and accepted it, already used to Junichiro naming various things due to his work, “Anyway, he'll just take a quick look at Avalon. Though he did mention double checking your aura suppression to see if he could help improve it.”
Junichiro just rolled his eyes with a bit of a chuckle, “Of course he wants to.”
Though Azazel hadn't visited in a year, before coming with the Sword Birth offer, he had offered to come over and 'inspect' Junichiro's work on many occasions. Just to help Junichiro out, of course. Junichiro only ever had one answer to the requests, “Not necessary. I don't mind him getting a feeling of if it's working or not, but I don't need his input on it.”
Mittelt just nodded along, already expecting the answer, “He's also going to send someone in the next few days to collect all of the bodies. He's hoping to return the bodies to their prospective factions to build a bit of good will.”
Azazel's desire for peace was not a secret from anyone. The problem was building trust between the three factions. A gesture like returning the bodies of missing people from the war could help smooth things over a little built and build some good will. Junichiro just nodded, “No problem. After breakfast we're leaving though. I want to get on the way to the next item on my list of bullshit powerful objects to hunt down.”
Mittelt froze for a moment before letting out a groan, as if she was physically in pain. She looked at him with almost dead eyes as she asked, “What's next?”
“Excalibur Ruler.”
Mittelt actually looked surprised at that, “Really? Why? You already have its ability thanks to Avalon. What good would the sword do for you?”
Junichiro's grin was a combination of playful and cocky, “What can't I do with it? I could offer it to Azazel in exchange for something. I could offer it to the church for something. Hell, I could offer it to any pantheon, or faction, in exchange for something else useful. It's an extremely potent bargaining chip.”
That actually caught Mittelt by surprise, “So... you'd just trade away the one piece of Excalibur that's said to be the most powerful?” She thought about it and shrugged, “Makes sense. There's a ton of things you could ask for in exchange.”
Juncihiro nodded, but his words had been a lie, of sorts. He definitely planned to trade the fragment away, but he had only one place he wanted to trade it to, the Church. Though he would only trade it to them if they actually possessed an item he wanted. He wasn't sure if they had it, hell he wasn't even sure if it was a canon item or something from a fanfiction or conspiracy video. If it did exist though, well it would let him take one of the most dangerous Sacred Gears he knew of off of the table and put it on his side.
Either way he had plans for that and would start making his moves in the near future.
“If they have what I want I'll trade it to them. Otherwise, I'll just find something else interesting to trade it for.”
Of course, knowing the Church, if he did trade it to them it would just end up stolen at some point anyway. Either by Kokabiel for his dumb plans, or by Vali and his buddies for their dumb plan. Dumb plans all around really.
Once he finsihed his breakfast, he addressed Mittelt once more, “Do you want to join me for the drive?”
She shook her head, “Nah, I'll stay here and do some reading.”
She immediately pulled out a fashion magazine and got right into it. He just shrugged and made his way out of the ATV's trunk and into the driver seat. After setting the Loot Compass in place and selecting the next item on his list, he took off. The still active rune powered wards around the ATV leaving him unnoticed until the stealth systems kicked in.
-----Line Break-----
The flight this time was a rather short one. Junichiro judged he was somewhere in Scotland... maybe. Geography had never been his thing. Either way he was still somewhere in Britain since he hadn't crossed any large bodies of water to leave the island nation. He was circling a small mountain range, or maybe a collection of giant hills. He didn't know when terrain went from 'big hills' to 'small mountains.' Either way, Excalibur Ruler was located either on or under one of the central... he was just going to refer to them as mountains.
He carefully drove the ATV down until he gently landed it on the rough ground near the area he believed Excalibur Ruler was hidden. He briefly wondered if he was about to find yet another dragon hoard. He hoped so!
A quick shout down into the back of the ATV had Mittelt joining him outside. She looked around to get her bears and then focused on Junichiro, “So it's around here?”
He nodded and looked at the compass in his hand, “My guess is it's hidden under the mountains somehow, but that's just a guess based on stereotypes and tropes.”
Mittelt snorted, “That means you're probably right.”
They both laughed at that a bit. Once they finished, Mittelt's wings appeared on her back and she proceeded to stretch them, “We'll fly around and check the compass to see where the item is exactly as far as X and Y go. From there we can figure out Z.”
Junichiro nodded sent a burst of magical power into the boots on his feet. The enchantments embedded in the footwear sprang to life and caused two small wings to appear on each boot near the ankle. Mittelt looked down at the boots and snickered, “I hope Hermes sees those one day.”
Junichiro rolled his eyes and promised to make something else to let himself fly until he got his own wings. He decided he'd spend some time to make a sword in Sword Birth that granted the user the power of flight. He could make it a small sword and shape it like a ring easy enough. That should put an end to the Hermes jokes and potential lawsuits from said god.
It took some time but the pair eventually arrived in the area where the compass began spinning in a circle indicating they were directly above the sword. Looking down they could see they were directly over one of the steeper slopes on one of the mountains. It would be a rather treacherous spot for any normal person to traverse. The pair just floated down while keeping the compass centered on the treasure.
Without a word, Junichiro began using the exact same method he'd used to dig down to the scabbard. A hole quickly opened up and plunged down. Both of them flew down at a casual pace while he continued to dig and provided magical light when it became necessary. After digging down roughly five hundred meters, Junichiro addressed Mittelt, “How high up would you say that slope was when we started to dig?”
“Mmmmm roughly four hundred meters.”
“We're definitely under the mountains then.”
Just as he spoke, the latest section to be dug out went directly into a wide open area. Junichiro chuckled ruefully, “Trope confirmed.”
Mittelt snickered along with the joke. They quickly lowered themselves into the area and were surprised at what they discovered. First and foremost, they were definitely not inside of another cave containing a dragon's hoard. Instead, they found themselves located inside of an underground cathedral. The place had clearly been made by skilled hands. Even with his expert eyes, Junichiro couldn't spot any visible flaws. Upon landing and looking closer, he couldn't even find any tool marks within the stone.
Mittelt looked around with a small frown, “This place... I think I know what this place is.”
Junichiro looked at Mittelt curiously prompting her to continue, “I don't know what the term the church used is, but it's a cache of sorts. During the war there were rumors that the church officials felt some items needed to be hidden, protected, preserved, or saved for later use. The rumor went that they took some of their more powerful things that had no current possible users and hid them in special locations. When someone worthy was found, they would be give the location where they would undergo trials of some sort to claim the item in question.”
As she spoke, they examined the area and could see only one 'correct' entrance, their entrance through the ceiling obviously being the 'wrong' method. As the place looked like a complete church, including pews, Jesus on a cross, a lectern, and an altar, all carved from the stone. The place had clearly been well planned out in advance before any work began. Everything was a 'single piece' meaning nothing could be moved and had been carved where it was.
It was only after looking over the entire place that they followed the compass to where it was pointing. Naturally, it was pointing at the altar. Mittelt snorted, “Typical.”
Junichiro nodded in agreement, though that didn't stop him from pulling out various wands and performing magical scans on the altar to check for anything nefarious. One could never be too careful when raiding a religious site. His prudence proved worthwhile as he detected several weakened enchantments layered onto the altar. Much like the chest he'd found the scabbard in, time had weakened the protections on the altar.
He was beginning to see a theme in the enchanting done by people, other than himself. His enchantments were always rooted by a rune sequence of some sort. Even if the runes were minimal, they were always there. The reason for this was simple, it prevented the enchantments from fading away over time. The right sequence could even boost the effect of an enchantment or go so far as to make the enchantment stronger over time.
However, the two major enchanted items he'd run across, so far, had their enchantments layered directly on them. This worked, obviously, and could last a fairly long time, also obviously, but just as obviously would lose strength over time as the enchantments weakened due to not having a proper anchor to keep them attached and fed with additional power over time. The enchantments that had protected Avalon and now Ruler, had been cast by very powerful individuals, but even so that power still faded with time.
With a final wave of his wand to check his results, Junichiro addressed Mittelt, “If we came here even a hundred years ago, the enchantments on this thing would force us to go through the trials before we could unlock the altar and claim the sword. Now though...?”
Junichiro summoned up his preferred rune carving tool and began carving a runic array into the top of the altar. Mittelt watched curiously and asked, “What's that going to do?”
“The person who enchanted the altar might not have been the most faithful. Either that or they just thought having a back door only they knew about was a good idea, for whatever reason. Whoever did the actual spellwork left a password hidden in the enchantments that, when spoken, would disable everything protecting the sword. Now, obviously, we have no idea what that password is, what language it's in, or anything like that. I also can't just magically get the protections to tell me what it is. What I can do though is what a hacker might call a code injection attack. These runes will send a strong pulse directly into the section meant to hear the password. Due to the degradation of the enchantment, this will overwhelm it and force it to think that password was correctly given.”
Mittelt blinked at the explanation and then started laughing, “Y-you're hackingthe enchantments left by the church?!”
Junichiro grinned while nodding, “Yup. There are other ways I could crack this altar open, but the injection attack is the fastest and easiest. Whoever did the work did some seriously good work and clearly knew a lot about enchanting. Most avenues of attack are counted for. You'd be shocked how many people don't think to protect against things like simply dispelling the magic of the enchantments. This person didn't. Whether pride, ego, or nefarious purposes, their password back door made all their other great work moot.”
As he finished speaking, he slapped his hand into the center of the runic circle he'd carved into the altar and channeled his magical power into it. There was a bright flash of light from the runes signifying that they worked. The pair watched in silence for a moment and nearly jumped when the sound of stone grinding on stone echoed through the empty church. The top of the altar was slowly sliding open on a hidden pivot point and they could both feel the holy aura of Excalibur Ruler as it opened.
They could both feel the difference between Ruler and Avalon instantly. While Ruler was no slouch of a weapon and could even be considered powerful on its aura alone, it was utterly dwarfed by the power of Avalon. The sheer difference in the aura the two holy items gave off was unbelievable. Feeling the difference between them, Junichiro could understand why the church would be so obsessed with the original Excalibur to the point of forging its broken pieces into the vastly inferior blades that the fragments became.
Mittelt looked at the sword laying in the open altar and frowned, “You know, before yesterday Excalibur Ruler here would have been the single most powerful Holy Sword I've ever personally come in contact with. After Avalon though? This thing is trash! No wonder you're so willing to trade it!”
Junichiro could only nod in agreement while pulling out his scanning wand and other tools once again. Neither of them were stupid enough to just reach inside and grab the sword. With the protections it had, it wouldn't surprise either of them if there was one final trick or trap left. It was good to be cautious because traps in a place containing such a powerful treasure would never be something as simple as a giant boulder rolling toward them. Either of them could easily destroy a rock.
Their caution, while prudent, wasn't necessary in this case. Neither the sword nor the velvet cushion it sat on contained any final traps. Junichiro put his stuff away before retrieving the sword. As he gripped the handle, he could feel the blade reaching out to judge him as all powerful swords were capable of. The moment the sword touched his core, it began vibrating at a high speed filling the air with a metallic whine like a tuning fork.
Junichiro smirked as he could plainly feel the sword's excitement, let alone hear it as the sword practically danced and celebrated its joy in his hand. Mittelt arched an eyebrow at that and spoke rather sarcastically, “Gee, I guess it likes you.”
Junichiro snorted at that, “Maybe a little, but I think it likes being back with Avalon more.”
The pair snickered at the excited sword as it continued to celebrate in his grip. Once it calmed down they would resume their examination of the hidden site and see if there was anything else worth taking with them. Until then, they would have to listen to Excalibur Ruler celebrating.
-----Line Break-----
AN
Yes, another one. Though this one is important so please read it all!
I just wanted to let you all know that there may be delays in chapter releases for the next 2-4 weeks. The reason is very simple, my mother recently had surgery. She has had issues with her ankles and knees for a while now. She recently went in for surgery on her right ankle. Originally she was supposed to stay with a friend. Said friend is a flake and ditched my mother to go to New York after breaking up with her boyfriend.
Thus, I am the only one who can take care of her while she recovers. I don't mind, but she lives 4 hours (one way) away from where I live. She is staying with me, but this means that her check up appointments will be all day affairs for me. I will literally be spending 8+ hours of my day just driving. Thankfully she only has a few and they're spread out some.
However, due to it being her foot that got sliced open and worked on, she can't walk and can barely hobble since she's forced to put all her weight on her other bad ankle and knee. Fun stuff right? Anyway, I am taking care of her and her two dogs and it's taking a fair bit of my time and attention, pulling it away from other things.
That's what family does for each other though, right?
I'll continue to try to write as much as I can, but things might be a bit slower for a while. And, just a super heads up, but if no one closer can take care of her for the next surgery, she might be staying with me again.
That's all for now! See you with the next chapter or in the comments!
Comments
Evening Star
I like the chapter and how it's going for Junichiro but NGL I don't like what Mittelt is doing. How is he supposed to trust her if she's going to tell Azazel everything he finds/do? Protecting him is one thing, this is another imo.
SilverWolf
Thanks for the chapter
