395 Dragon Puppe (1/2)
After the meeting, Nebs briefed him on town development and the need for better local roads. Three families in town wanted permission to buy land to raise livestock and several business owners from Free Trader City wanted to expand to Ionova.
”I'll have the quarry supply materials for making cobblestone, you'll have to find the stonemasons.”
Nebs nodded and made a note of it. ”I'll put the word out locally first.”
”As far as the business owners from Free Trader City lets hold off. Encouraging commerce is great, however, I'm okay with slowing it down if it means our local businesses develop to the point where they can expand.”
Nebula smiled at her boss. From a financial standpoint, Nix did things backward. Instead of maximizing profit, he was more interested in maximizing the potential of local businesses. However, she liked his approach better. ”Sounds good.”
***************
Nix arrived at HQ at exactly 1400. It was an accomplishment that gave him a great deal of satisfaction. ”I'm on fire today!”
Muncie looked up when he heard the sound of the gate opening, it broke his concentration, and the dragon corpse he was animating collapsed onto the ground. ”Damn...”
”You can get it to stand now?” Nix approached the dragon, he'd only managed to reattach the head, both wings were laying on the ground nearby, still unattached.”
Muncie nodded, when he last spoke with Nix, he could only manage to open its eyes. ”Making progress, but it's slow.”
”I have an idea, not sure if it will work.” Nix grabbed one of the chairs placed nearby and moved it closer to the dragon.
”More repairs? Did you manage to get more Dragon material?” Muncie helped Nix with the repairs, he knew that the Inferno Leader used nearly all of his personal resources just to put the head on and repair the damaged torso.
Nix shook his head and showed him the manual in his hand. ”Something better.”
Animation Manual [Minaturization Skill]
Description: Create smaller animations and
puppets using this ancient technique.
Miniature ratios come in .25, .5 and .75
Muncie's eyes widened. ”Where did you get this? Do the smaller ratios use fewer materials? How does being miniaturized affect strength?”
”So many questions.” Nix handed him the manual so that he could look at it. ”It's from Eidengal, the materials match the ratios exactly. In other words, half the size equals half the resources. Power isn't affected by miniaturization.”
Muncie paged through the manual. ”You were able to learn the miniaturization skill?”
”Do you know how rare this manual is? Vega could have made four dragons if he had this skill.”
”I'm glad that he didn't.” Nix opened the animator interface and attempted to Queue the Vega dragon, a long list of resources needed came up. It didn't help that all of them were super-rare; dragon bones, dragon scales, and so on. However, when he miniaturized it to .75, the list shrunk dramatically.
Muncie clucked his tongue. ”Still more than we have. I bet the smaller dragon would be easier for me to control.”
”Makes sense.” Nix adjusted the queue repairs to a ratio of .50, the required materials dropped to a manageable level.
”Now we're in business.” Muncie's face showed how impressed he was. ”You have enough to complete the repair.”
Nix nodded. ”It uses the full-size dragon corpse as resources for the smaller version.” When he dropped the ratio down to .25, a large surplus of materials was shown.
Muncie wanted more than anything to be useful. ”How big would .25 be? Maybe fifty feet? I think I could handle that!”
Nix looked at the surplus and felt warm inside. All of his dragon materials could be recovered. A bit more actually.
[You are attempting to repair a damaged dragon animation while decreasing its ratio to .25. Do you wish to proceed?]
”Yes.”
[Animation complete, leftover materials have been placed in your crafting inventory.]
Miniature Dragon
Description: This dragon animation
has been scaled to .25. It has been slain
in combat and may only be activated
by those possessing the Necro-Skeletal
skill.
Nix kept it stowed in his animator interface. ”As of right now, we no longer can operate here.”
Muncie sighed unhappily, he didn't even get the chance to mess with it. ”Where then?”
[Summons: Ducky]
[Summons: Fey]
Ducky and Fey appeared nearly at the same time. Each laughed when they saw the other.
The Water Witch smiled sweetly at Nix. ”We were playing hide and seek in the Nether with Leva. She'd going to be mad when she can't find us.”
Fey covered her smile with a pale hand. The Fallen Chancellor was exceptionally good at finding others. ”We on a mission Nix?”
Nix nodded. ”Want to join Inferno Muncie?”
Muncie nodded without hesitating, although he had worked in the bandit camp, it was his master that took the job. He was forced to follow along. ”Yes. What do I need to do?”
”You'll have to talk with Ducky. She vettes everyone who gains access to Haven.”
/Inferno: Ducky: I'll have a chat with him.
/Inferno: Nix: Be thorough with him, he's going to given access to Haven, his mission may help us when the final battle arrives. If you find anything suspicious I want to know.