SS - Chapter 45 - Fully Armed

Once we crossed the river we didn’t have far to go, we just needed to follow the edge of the lake around to the citadel. We’d only gone a couple hundred feet, when I noticed something.

“Do you smell smoke?” I asked.

“I do more than smell it, I see it!” Camille exclaimed, pointing to the citadel. There was thick black smoke billowing over the far wall.

“How could there be a fire inside the walls?” I shouted, sprinting towards the gates, “and why didn’t anyone contact us about it?!?”

“I don’t know,” Camille grumbled. “I was with you!” 

We rounded the side of the fortress at a dead run, making a b-line for the main gate. When we got close, I could see the portcullis was up and the guards were at their positions.

“What’s going inside? Why are you all out here instead of fighting the fire?” I snapped.

The little maids exchanged confused looks before looking back at me. “Hup?” the nearest one said, shrugging.

“Leave them,” Camille said softly. “It’ll take longer for us to interrogate them than it would for us to investigate.”

I nodded briskly before stepping through the gate and breaking out into a jog. I needed to find the source of the smoke. 

One of the first things I noticed was none of the maids seemed all that concerned with the situation, they were going about their business like nothing was wrong. The area also seemed to be relatively smoke free, despite how it appeared from outside.

“We weren’t seeing things,” I asked Camille as we circled the area, “there was smoke coming from inside the walls, right?”

“Absolutely,” she replied. “Well, either that or that pillar of smoke was much larger than we thought and one of the villages is on fire.”

“Don’t even joke about that,” I snapped.

We managed to make it halfway around the building before I spotted Alex organizing several squads of maids.

“Alex, what’s going on?” I yelled as we jogged up.

The little maid just cocked her head to the side in confusion, an act that was mirrored by the rest of her squad. “Hup?”

“The smoke! Where’s the smoke coming from? Is something on fire?” I asked anxiously.

Alex’s eyes grew wide in understanding, and she scurried towards the side of the keep waving at us to follow. “Hup!”

I broke into a half jog and followed her around the corner, only to come to an immediate stop. Just ahead of me was a massive workshop. There was a methodical, metallic ringing out from inside, and three massive smoke stacks spewing tons of black smoke over the wall. 

“Well… that’s something,” Camille exclaimed as she walked up next to me. 

“I completely forgot that I’d even ordered construction of the arsenal,” I muttered. 

“I thought you’d assigned your magic to other projects. I’m so glad you followed my suggestion,” Camille chirped. 

It took a moment for what she said to sink in, and when it did, I turned to look at her, wide eyed. “I didn’t.”

“You didn’t what?” Camille asked, confused.

“I didn’t follow your suggestion. I put it into a build queue, so the earliest it should have started was yesterday, when the roads finished. There’s no way this should be finished already,” I explained.

“Huh.” Camille muttered, rubbing her chin. “Maybe you got it as some sort of bonus?”

“I don’t think it works that way,” I mumbled.

I felt something pulling at my shirt, and when I looked down Alex jumped away with a smile on her face. She made a square with her fingers, and pointed it at the building. “Hup!”

“You’re right. What’s the point in guessing, when I can check?” I said. “System.”

I reached up to change the tab, but hesitated before selecting the Domain section, and instead switched to the identity function. The window flickered for a moment as it searched the area before finally bringing up a list of targets. I immediately poked the ‘Arsenal’ entry.

Arsenal (Citadel Structure)

Status: Active

Producing: Rifles, cannons, explosives, ammunition, gunpowder.

Information: The arsenal is a specialized production building that takes raw metal, and alchemical materials, to produce gunpowder based weapons. 

• Notes: This building is essential to the continued operation of this country's constructs. When queued for construction it receives half of the magic assigned to construct production

• The arsenal will build three times faster.

• The arsenal can create replacement weapons and ammunition for constructs without the need of raw materials. Instead it will require construct production to be enabled, and will reduce construct construction speed by half. Any weapons created in this way will be unusable by conventional forces.

“Huh…” I muttered. 

“What? What’s it say?” Camille asked, bouncing around me until I turned the window towards her. She took a minute to read it then raised an eyebrow. “Huh… Did you know any of that when you put it in the queue?”

“Of course not. If I did I probably wouldn’t have built it,” I replied.

“Right,” Camille nodded for a couple seconds, then shook her head and looked at me confused. “You wouldn’t have built it? Why not?”

“Because it cuts our maid production in half. You’ve seen how useful those little ones have been, I’d rather completely fill out our complement of maids than make sure they could rearm. It’s not like we need them to fight anyone right now,” I explained. “Besides, once we get a couple mines going we could probably run it without the drain on my magic.”

“Oh, that makes sense,” Camille said as she skipped up to the building. “It’s a pity, I would have like to see what it made, but maybe you could disable it temporarily?”

“Maybe,” I mumbled. Clicking on the domain tab I started digging through the menus looking to see if I had the option.

“Hup?” I heard Alex ask.

“You can show me what’s being made?” Camille replied, “Neat! Might as well take a look while I can.” 

I sighed, and clicked through my menus without looking up at the two of them. Although I could find where the arsenal was listed in the domain, I didn’t see any option to disable it. The upgrade might be permanent.

“Whoa! Is that a cannon?” Camille exclaimed, causing me to finally look away from my screen. A squad of maids slowly wheeled a full sized cannon out of the armory, only stopping once they’d cleared the entrance, allowing the massive embossed wooden doors to slam shut again. I stared at the weapon for several seconds. 

“Did you make that today?” I finally asked, once I’d found my words. “Since the armory opened? Don’t tell me it can make a cannon a day.”

Alex shook her head, and held up three fingers. “Hup!”

“It can make three…” I repeated, in shock.

“Is that good?” Camille asked.

“For a tiny place like this, unbelievable. I know it’s run on magic, but still…” I shook my head. “Do you realize how easily we could fortify our fortresses with these?” 

“Ummm… I suppose it depends on how many cannons we can shove in a fortress,” Camille replied. 

Alex jumped between the two of us, shaking her hands wildly to get our attention. “Hup! Hup hup hup.”

“What’s she saying?” I asked.

“I think they have something else to show us,” Camille replied. “That or she’s had too much water and needs a bathroom.”

The tiny maid stopped jumping, and turned to look at the girl, eyes narrowed.

“Nope, definitely the first thing,” Camille quipped.

Alex sighed, and turned to her squad. “Hup?” she asked. When one of the maids put her hand up excitedly Alex pointed at her. “Hup!”

The volunteer jumped in joy and sprinted towards the armory, cheering the entire way. The happy hups cut off when the door closed behind her. She couldn’t have been in there for more than five seconds when she emerged again, wearing an entirely different outfit. While all maids had armored breastplates and helmets, she now had armored skirts and something that was closer to a knight’s helmet with a visor.

Her halberd and rifle were gone, replaced by a miniature hand held cannon. “Hup, hup hup, boom!”

“Well, that’s new,” Camille muttered. 

When I glanced at Alex she just made the sign for the system window again, so I inspected the armored maid.

Maid Zoey

Title: Siegemaid Retainer

Skills: Advanced Siege warfare, Advanced Siege weapons

Abilities: Many hands make light work

Boons: Jack of all trades

Banes: None

Magic: None

Information: Siegemaids represent one of the various evolutionary forms of the basic maid construct. They trade in their rifle and haliberd for a powerful, handheld cannon that does extra damage to heavy units and fortifications. While exceptional at range, they lack the ability to defend themselves in close combat. 

This evolution path was unlocked by having an Arsenal in your Citadel.

You may now order maid squads to upgrade their weapons at the armory, and become siegemaids. Siegemaids gain additional bonuses while manning siege weapons, and can only make up fifteen percent of your forces.

“What? What’s it say?” Camille asked excitedly. 

“It says she’s another special type,” I muttered, before glancing at Alex. The head maid patted Zoey on the back proudly. 

“Neat! I wonder how many types of maids there are?” Camille said.

“I don’t know,” I replied, “but I have a feeling we’re going to find out.”