Forged Legacy

Chapter 173 - Built for Hell

The group made their way outside, finding an empty patch of asphalt where they could test out Steve’s new holy bolts. Pointing the sword into the air, golden-white flames congealed at the tip of the blade before shooting high into the air. It reminded Harvey of the wand he’d been given as part of his starting equipment during his own trial. It had been an effective weapon, even saving his life when he jammed the thing down that first F-Grade elemental's throat.

“You got a melee and a ranged weapon all wrapped up into one,” Harvey grinned.

“So, what do we do now? I know the plan is to focus on building up our defenses, but I’m not exactly sure how we’re supposed to help with that,” Steve asked.

“I’m sure Celeste will have orders for us soon,” Cash said.

“In the meantime, I would really appreciate it if someone did a quick supply run for me,” Harvey said.

“Oh? Already got an idea for some good traps?” Cash asked.

“I’ve got a few, but right now I want to start working on a shotgun,” Harvey began. “After I finish your shield.” He added when he saw his father’s smile begin to fade.

“A shotgun? You really think you can build one from scratch in the garage?” Tyler asked, surprised.

“I forged a revolver, didn’t I?” Harvey shrugged.

“Don’t get me wrong, a shotgun sounds awesome, but aren’t there better things to be working on right now? We all know Hell’s invasion’s going to come Saturday, and I think a few good traps will do more than another gun,” Cash suggested.

“I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I’m choosing to have faith that there are smarter people than me handling that back in Elysium. I want to focus on what comes after. Whether Celeste comes with us or not, I think the four of us are going to have to spend our Sunday in Hell,” Harvey explained.

“That’s a risky move. I didn’t want to say anything while Celeste was around, but I’m not exactly in love with the idea either,” Cash wavered.

“You don’t have to come,” Harvey said warmly. “None of you do. I just don’t see any other good options. We can wait and hope that one of these days a battle goes far enough in our favor that we can push into demon territory, but in the week I’ve been here, things have only gotten worse.”

“I know. It’s just that nobody’s ever done it before,” Cash continued.

“Has anyone ever tried?” Harvey pressed.

The angel wavered before eventually nodding no.

“Here. Let’s workshop the idea a little. Let’s say our disguises work as intended and we’re able to wander a little without raising any alarms. What are the odds we can even find a lieutenant in 24 hours?” Harvey asked.

“Pretty good, actually. Each side of the trial grounds is a mirror of the other, so we already know where the nodes are. The lieutenants can’t leave the node without opening it and giving us access to the essence locked within,” Cash explained.

“Perfect. So we know where they are. Can we get close to them without fighting an army of demons first?”

“That kind of depends. Records from previous trials show that most nodes are surrounded by various dens of iniquity. Casino’s. Nightclubs. Things like that. How accessible the lieutenants are varies, but I’m guessing most spend Sunday enjoying their sin of choice.”

“Great! Those all sound like places any normal demon would want to be, especially when they know you angels are too honorable to try anything. That gives us the perfect excuse to wander in and look for our target. We might even get lucky and bump into one on the dance floor, and if we do, I want a shotgun ready to blow a hole in their chest.”

“We’d have to get pretty lucky,” Tyler snorted. “Isn’t a revolver a little more discreet?”

“I’m not walking into a room full of demons with five bullets. I keep running out of rounds at the worst times. Not that there are good times, but still. Conjuring bullets directly into the chamber with Echo Forge cuts out half the reload time, but a pump-action shotgun would let me keep blasting until I run out of essence,” Harvey replied.

“You’d still have to eject the shells. Why don’t you make a rifle with a bigger magazine?” Steve asked.

“Because I’m not confident forging parts precise enough to build a rifle that reliably ejects the casings,” Harvey crumbled, getting more and more frustrated with every question. “Listen, I know what I’m doing. All I need is someone to go pick up some aethersteel for me, but I’m happy to go get it myself.”

“No…” Cash winced. “I can get it.”

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“Sorry,” Steve added. “We’re just a little nervous, that’s all.”

Harvey sighed, placing a hand on the angel's shoulder as he transferred almost all of his merit over to him. “I get it. We’ll take this one step at a time. Please just buy me as much as you can with that merit I sent you, and I’ll get to work on our other projects while you’re gone.”

Steve and Tyler smiled at him before following Cash back into the church, where they’d teleport to the market in Elysium. Harvey turned the other direction, jogging through the quiet neighborhood back to his parents' house. He checked in with his mother, assuring her the others were fine, before stripping off his armor and heading to the garage. Everything was just as he had left it after finishing his Prophet’s Suffering bullets that morning, a pile of dragon-tooth shavings still strewn across his workbench.

[Let’s get to work!]

Harvey lit the forge, pumping the bellows while he went over the plans for his father’s shield. They’d already measured everything out, so forming the molds with Artificer’s Toolbox didn’t take long. The plan was to pour a thick slab of silver, 5 feet tall and 2.5 feet wide. Now that he’d gotten a bit more familiar with Heaven’s essence-infused silver, he knew that a slab that size had roughly enough essence conductivity to support three medium-sized essence crystals embedded in the metal. They would be used as supplemental power for the various inscriptions Harvey added that required more juice than simple reinforcement and self-repair arrays.

Picking out the crystals, he set them into the mold before letting the putty harden. Melting enough silver would take a while, so he had time to go over the designs for his shotgun.

He’d relied on blueprints purchased from the gunsmiths of Elysium for his revolver, but after comparing them to designs already stored in Julian’s vast knowledge base courtesy of the Aurelia AI model he’d built for Empire Engineering, he found that Earth already had better blueprints he could use.

Normally, the hardest part of building a pump-action shotgun was designing a mechanism that could reliably eject the spent shell and insert a new one from the magazine tube. A spent shell getting lodged in the ejector port at a critical moment would lock up the gun and become a life-threatening distraction. Lucky for Harvey, he didn’t need to worry about manually loading the next shell, so he could focus all his tolerances on making sure the extractor snapped that shell out every single time. Once it was clear, he’d conjure the next one straight into the empty chamber, then pump the bolt closed and seal everything tight for his next shot.

One mold after another appeared on the workbench as Harvey tended to the bellows and his crucibles piled high with silver. The parts were bulky and simple compared to any modern shotgun he could buy back home, but they should work for his first attempt. The thing was going to be heavy as hell since he planned to forge every piece out of aethersteel, including the stock and the grip, but that wasn’t much of an issue with his superhuman strength.

I need to figure out how to make plastic once we get back to Earth.

[Or at least how to carve some wood.]

Maybe we can find an old machine shop or something and find a way to convert the power tools to run on essence. We’d be much better off machining these parts than trying to hammer and file everything smooth. I’m already dreading how much the grip is going to grind on every reload.

[Or you could just get good? Then the parts would all slide smoothly.]

For a mind made from the combination of a firefighter and an engineering AI, your insults should be better. I swear they never made it past middle school.

Similar to the shield, Harvey suspended three large essence crystals inside the molds, two in the stock and one in the receiver, making sure they wouldn’t get in the way of any moving parts. He debated using resonance crystals instead, but chose to keep the gun a blank slate and let his inscriptions do the work. Locking the gun to a specific resonance, like fire or lightning, might limit its versatility, and he wasn’t sure whether adding both would cause complications down the line.

This thing’s gonna be awesome, Harvey marveled as he surveyed his collection of molds.

[I still think the barrel should be bigger. You’re gonna have to make your own shells anyway, so why not make it a literal cannon?]

Because the whole point of building this is to get more shots off. Any bigger than this and I’ll run out of essence in less than a minute.

[But think of how many demons you could kill in that minute?]

The others returned just as Harvey finished pouring the last crucible of silver into the mold. Cash took his request to buy as much aethersteel as he could to heart, pulling out a pile of the stuff large enough for his next five weapons from the slipsack tied around his waist. The thin strands of gold dancing within the chunks of silvery metal reminded him of the aurora borealis, reflecting the forge's light in a mesmerizing pattern.

“Thanks, guys,” Harvey said.

“No problem. How are you not sweating through your shirt out here? I can barely breathe,” Steve replied.

Harvey hadn’t really noticed, but he wasn’t sweating at all. After weeks toiling beside a poorly sealed forge, he’d gotten used to suffering through the heat. Now, even with the forge as hot as he could get it to melt the extremely durable aethersteel, his skin was bone dry.

“Must be my new Forgefire Mark,” Harvey shrugged.

Cash, Steve, and Tyler rushed inside, leaving Harvey to his work. The bellows groaned as Harvey pumped oxygen into the forge as fast as he could. Artificer’s Eyes showed the crucible teetering on the edge of the aethersteel’s melting point, and it took constant work to keep the fire hot enough.

[Careful. Careful,] Julius repeated as Harvey maneuvered his tongs around the crucible.

I don’t need you to remind me!

[Focus!]

I’m trying, but someone won’t shut up!

The molten metal looked almost like marble as he poured it into the molds. A gentle hiss escaped the pour hole as air rushed to escape the cavity within. Like his revolver, Harvey made sure to cast each piece slightly larger than necessary, leaving him room to compress the metal with his hammer. He could probably get away with simply casting the pieces thanks to aethersteel’s insane durability, but he wanted to avoid developing bad habits. Magic materials helped him cut a lot of corners, but he wanted to extract every ounce of potential rather than letting them mask deficiencies in his process.

With his parts all cooling, Harvey stopped feeding the fire, set down his tongs, and peeled off his heavy leather gloves.

[What next?]

I’ve got a lot of ink to mix over the next few days, so I need to be smart about my blood loss. What do you say about having another vision?