[Stargate and GATE Inspired] Manifest Fantasy Chapter 89
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Blurb/Synopsis
Captain Henry Donnager expected a quiet career babysitting a dusty relic in Area 51. But when a test unlocks a portal to a world of knights and magic, he's thrust into command of Alpha Team, an elite unit tasked with exploring this new realm.
They join the local Adventurers Guild, seeking to unravel the secrets of this fantastical realm and the ancient gateway's creators. As their quests reveal the potent forces of magic, they inadvertently entangle in the volatile politics between local rivalling factions.
With American technology and ancient secrets in the balance, Henry's team navigates alliances and hostilities, enlisting local legends and air support in their quest. In a land where dragons loom, they discover that modern warfare's might—Hellfire missiles included—holds its own brand of magic.
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Note:
I got sick last week and I'm still trying to get back into work, so I'll probably take next week off as well. Hopefully I'll be back for an uninterrupted summer.
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Chapter 89: Test Run
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Henry laid out the plan on the way downstairs.
He had two Bralnor hotspots within operational range, both with active Monolith populations confirmed by recent Guild surveys – one twelve miles west in a glacial basin, and the other about twenty miles northwest along the same basin. It was the perfect setup, considering he had exactly two MRAPs and a full team that had been itching to shoot something ever since they opened the case.
He split them into two groups: himself, Ron, and Sera in the lead MRAP; Hayes, Yen, and Doc in the second. Henry’s group would run the first site while Hayes held overwatch, and then they’d swap roles at the second. That way everyone got a turn behind the new hardware and nobody got stuck spectating.
Once they confirmed everything, they loaded up and rolled out.
The drive west took about forty minutes along a mountain road that cut through a series of switchbacks before dropping into a wide valley. About eight miles in, Henry finally got a look at the glacier. And he had to admit, it was a sight he wouldn’t soon forget – if ever.
A massive shelf of pale blue ice filled the gap between two peaks, with a frozen runoff plain spreading out beneath it for as far as he could see. The tundra below was sparse and wind-scoured, broken up by fields of dark stone jutting out of the snow at odd angles, and the ridgelines on either side were tall enough and steep enough to block out most of the sky.
Henry had seen Denali National Park from the air during an arctic warfare rotation through JBER in Alaska, and that had been the benchmark until now. But Denali was one mountain dominating a flat horizon. This, on the other hand, was an entire landscape operating at that scale – every feature oversized and stacked on top of each other with the vertical density of the Himalayas.
Not that he’d ever been, but he’d seen enough National Geographic to have a general sense of what the approach to Everest looked like. Even despite that, he still thought that the Ovinne mountains would give it a serious run for its money. The colors were sharper, less hazy, with a clarity to the light that made the ridgelines look almost artificial, and the glacier had a luminance to it that no photograph could’ve done justice.
“Dude,” Ron said from the back seat. “Wish I could put this on my story.”
Henry pulled out his phone and saved a picture. “Yeah, no kidding.”
“So much for my vaunted familiarity with the eastern passes,” Sera murmured. “Against this, they scarcely count at all.”
They followed the road down to where the valley floor leveled out. There, the terrain shifted from packed snow to rocky tundra – low scrub, gravel flats, and increasingly dense clusters of stone formations that looked like they’d been shoved up through the ground by something underneath.
Their map put the Bralnor population about a mile ahead, scattered across a craggy stretch where the glacier’s ancient retreat had left behind a field of house-sized boulders and broken ridgeline.
Henry slowed the MRAP and glassed the area through the windshield.
It honestly took him a second to pick them out, because Bralnors at rest looked almost indistinguishable from the terrain they lived in. Their plating was the same slate-gray as the surrounding stone, with a rough crystalline texture that looked more like a mineral deposit than chitin or carapace. Camouflage wasn’t exactly the right word for it – they weren’t hiding so much as they simply were, in material terms, part of the same geological palette.
Once his eye adjusted, though, they were hard to miss. There were six of them visible from this distance, maybe more behind the larger rock formations. Each one was built along the general body plan of a gorilla – broad shoulders, long forelimbs, a low center of gravity – but scaled up to something closer to the size of a modest house, with limbs thick enough that the plating on their forearms alone probably outweighed most of the creatures he’d fought so far.
The two nearest ones were stationary, settled into the rocks with their forelimbs tucked under them. If Henry hadn’t known what he was looking for, he would’ve driven right past them.
A third lumbered along the base of a boulder cluster, and that was where the scale really registered. The thing displaced stone as it walked, kicking up dust every time it lifted a foot. The crystalline formations across its back caught the light differently when it moved, shifting in color depending on the angle – something he hadn’t noticed on the stationary ones.
Henry found a ledge about five hundred meters out that gave them a clean line of sight with decent elevation and enough room to set up prone. He pulled the MRAP in behind a rock formation that provided partial concealment and killed the engine.
Hayes pulled in twenty meters to the right and held position.
Henry keyed the radio. “Hayes, you’re on overwatch. Hold fire unless they cross the trench.”
“What trench?”
Henry stepped out and read the terrain between their position and the Bralnors. Their ledge was elevated, sure, but the slope wasn’t anywhere near steep enough to stop something with that kind of mass.
“Where shall I place it?” Sera asked.
Henry eyeballed the measurements. “Eh, just in front of us. Make it deep.”
Sera assessed the terrain for a moment, then stepped forward and extended one hand toward the ground. The earth responded without much protest – the tundra surface cracked and folded inward along a line roughly forty meters long, soil and loose stone displacing downward as the trench carved itself out in a smooth, continuous motion. She adjusted the depth once, widened the far edge slightly to create an uneven lip that would be harder to climb out of, and let the magic settle.
The whole thing took about fifteen seconds.
Henry patted Sera on the shoulder, then keyed his mic again. “That trench.”
Hayes whistled. “Copy that.”
Henry walked back to the MRAP and grabbed two envirosuits from the Holding Cart – one for himself, one for Ron. They wouldn’t need them for the green rounds, but if things went well enough that they wanted to skip ahead, he’d rather have them on than have to walk back.
Sera didn’t need one, which she’d made a point of mentioning twice since they’d left.
Henry and Ron suited up. The envirosuit fit well enough over standard gear, still uncomfortable as shit despite their familiarity with these bulky things. Henry flexed through the range of motion – adequate, if not exactly comfortable. Good enough for prone shooting and booking it, at least.
He pulled three rifles from the case and handed one to Ron and one to Sera. Then he grabbed the ammo.
“Green first,” Henry said. “And set your rifles to single. We’re here to collect data, not mag-dump into a rock.”
Ron looked like he wanted to argue that point but didn’t.
Henry rolled his eyes. “Fine. Mag-dumping later, once we’re done.”
Ron gave a silent fist pump, which Sera mirrored.
Henry grinned. “Alright. C’mon.”
They moved to the ledge and set up prone, spacing themselves about five meters apart with clear lanes to the Bralnor cluster below. Henry loaded a green magazine, seated it, chambered a round, and settled into his position. The mithril receiver felt different against his cheek – cooler than steel, with a faintly smoother surface texture that he’d need to get used to.
He ran through the usual checks and confirmed the range to the nearest Monolith at just under five hundred meters.
And then it occurred to him that they probably should’ve put a few rounds into a hillside first, just to see where the new stuff was landing. Higher velocity meant a flatter trajectory, so the zero shouldn’t have been off by much – but ‘shouldn’t’ and ‘wasn’t’ were different words.
“You know,” he said, “we probably should’ve zeroed these before we got here.”
Ron didn’t look up from his optic. “Where’s the fun in that?”
Henry almost said something responsible, then decided Ron had a point. “Yeah, fair point. Shall we?”
Sera raised a hand before they started. “Mind your blows, if you please. Avoid the crystals, for whole fragments fetch the Guild a finer price. Strike at the joints and the belly; those ought to yield.”
Henry nodded. “Copy.”
They each picked a Monolith from the cluster – three of the six, all on the near side and relatively isolated from the others. Henry took the one farthest left, Ron the center, Sera the right. The remaining three were clustered closer to the boulder formation, far enough away that they might not even register the others getting torn apart.
“On me,” Henry said. “Three, two, one – fire.”
The first thing Henry noticed was the recoil. Or rather, the lack of it. The green rounds were supposed to hit harder than standard 6.8, and the ballistic data said they did, but the rifle kicked less than his old M7.
The bolt cycled with an oddly muted impulse, more of a firm nudge than the sharp kick he was used to. A faint glow pulsed along the forward rail, barely visible in daylight. Whatever enchantments the lab coats had cooked up worked. The shot broke clean, and the follow-through felt almost too easy.
The results downrange, on the other hand, were far more dramatic. His round struck the Monolith just below the shoulder joint and punched through the outer layer of plating, sending a spray of rocky shards out the far side. The creature stumbled sideways, caught itself, and let out a grinding sound that carried all the way up to the ledge.
Ron’s and Sera’s targets reacted about the same – staggered, visibly damaged, but still standing. The three they’d hit were still trying to figure out what the hell had just happened to them. After all, getting shot probably wasn’t in a Bralnor’s usual repertoire of life experiences.
The others near the boulder formation had stirred, but none seemed to have connected the noise to the damage.
“Again,” Henry said.
The second volley went out. Henry’s round caught his target in the same area, and this time the Monolith buckled and dropped, hitting the ground hard enough to crack the stone underneath it. Ron’s went down too – a clean second shot through the neck joint that dropped it almost instantly.
Sera’s was still standing, but barely. She put a third round through its underbelly, and it collapsed sideways into a boulder with a crack that echoed off the ridgeline.
“Good shit!” Ron called out.
“Remember to keep count of how many rounds it takes, and where you hit it,” Henry said.
The remaining three Monoliths had lumbered toward their downed companions, which made them considerably easier to deal with. Henry, Ron, and Sera worked through them while they were still clustered together. The first two dropped in two rounds each, while the third took four as a result of conveniently angling its plating toward them.
It had taken fifteen green rounds across the three of them to put down all six Monoliths. That averaged out to just under three rounds per kill, which made the green composition a solved problem against Tier Seven – especially if they ran full-auto.
The basin went quiet for about thirty seconds before the ground started vibrating.
Two Megaliths rounded the far side of the boulder formation. They were half again the size of the Monoliths, but the real difference was in the plating – denser, smoother, with visible bands of alternating color running across the surface like layers of compressed stone. Where the Monoliths had rough, uneven surfaces that blended into the terrain, these looked like the terrain had been refined and pressure-forged into armor.
The ground shook with each step as they walked toward the pile of dead Monoliths.
Henry reached for the blue magazines. “Swap to blue. I’ve got the lead target.”
He ejected the green mag and emptied the chamber, then loaded the blue. This time, the recoil was slightly heavier – above what a normal M7 would produce. The enchantment flared brighter along the receiver, a sharper blue-white pulse that lingered for a fraction of a second before fading.
The round struck the lead Megalith dead center below its chest plate. A web of cracks radiated from the impact point, and a chunk of plating the size of a dinner plate fell away. The creature staggered sideways and let out a low grinding sound, head swinging as it tried to locate the source.
Yeah, that was about what he expected. Blue wasn’t going to make this quick.
“Sustained fire on my target,” Henry said.
All three of them opened up on the first Megalith, cycling through rounds at a steady pace. Each impact added to the damage – more cracks, more fragments breaking loose, sections of plating starting to spiderweb – but the damn thing just kept absorbing it. It was like shooting a concrete wall and expecting the other side to give.
And of course, the second Megalith didn’t just sit on its ass while they dumped rounds into its companion. It caught on quickly and turned toward the ledge.
Henry was almost worried that they’d actually have to rely on the trench, but they finally managed it. Somehow, it took thirty-two rounds of blue between the three of them before the first Megalith went down. Ron’s shot was the one that did it – found a gap where the plating had cracked away and hit something structural, because the creature locked up mid-step and dropped like someone had flipped a switch.
“Damn,” Ron muttered.
The second Megalith had closed to about three hundred meters during the engagement. Its crystalline plating had started glowing with a deep amber pulse Henry hadn’t seen from the Monoliths. He’d fucked around and wasn’t too keen on finding out.
“Swapping to red,” Henry said. He dropped the blue mag and loaded a red. “I’m going first.”
He settled back into position, found his aim point on the Megalith’s forward left leg, and squeezed.
The rifle slammed back into his shoulder hard enough that he felt it through the envirosuit’s padding, through the buffer, through everything. The enchantment along the receiver flared white and held for a full second before dimming. Dust kicked up on either side of the barrel from the muzzle blast alone.
The impact itself was every bit as violent. The round hit the Megalith’s forward left leg and simply deleted it – everything below the joint blew apart like a shaped charge had gone off inside, scattering crystalline fragments across a twenty-meter radius. The Megalith slammed into the ground and stayed there, limbs locked, plating flickering.
Henry pulled his eye off the optic. “Holy fuck.”
“Yo – hol’ on, lemme try.” Ron swapped his magazine and fired. His round did the exact same thing to the other front leg, and without anything left to stand on, the Megalith slammed chest-first into the ground and stayed there.
Ron let out a whoop that probably carried halfway back to Kharvûk. He turned to Sera. “You’re up, you’re up.”
Sera already had her magazine swapped. She took aim at the Megalith’s upper back where the plating had fractured, and fired. The round punched through and out the other side, and the creature went still.
“Again!” she exclaimed. “Henry, you must permit me another shot. This was glorious!”
“It’s dead, Sera.”
“Then let us find some other thing to test it upon.”
Henry laughed. “We’ll get there. Doc, send a drone over the basin. I want to make sure we’re clear before we head down.”
“Already on it,” Doc answered. “Give me a few minutes.”
While the drone swept the area, the three of them sat back from the ledge and let the adrenaline settle.
Ron broke the silence first. “So I’m guessing we won’t be needing that TOW anymore, huh?”
“Give it time,” Henry said. “If they cracked the rifle, they’ll crack vehicle munitions eventually. Harding already mentioned it.” He ejected his red magazine and looked at the remaining rounds. “What I want to know is how much these things cost, because the General conveniently left that part out.”
Ron thought about it. “I mean, long as we got a steady supply of treant cellulose and fyrite, the lab coats gon’ keep makin’ ’em. That’s all the propellant is, right?”
“Sure, but where are we getting that supply? That stuff doesn’t grow on trees.” Henry caught himself. “Well, maybe the cellulose does, but not the fyrite.”
Sera gave a smug grin. “On that count, you may set your minds at ease. Both materials are common fare, and any Guild market or Red Sail post will furnish them cheaply enough. What ought to trouble you far more is the mithril. I scarce like to imagine what a whole vehicle might demand.”
Henry shrugged. “Maybe the dwarves can help, if we ask nicely enough.”
“If we pay enough,” Ron said.
Henry nodded. “Yeah, that.”
Doc’s voice came through the radio. “Basin’s clear. No additional contacts within a half-mile radius. You’re good to move.”
Henry stood up and stretched. “Alright. Let’s head down, then.”
They topped off their magazines from the ammo case, packed up, and brought the MRAPs down to the basin floor.
Time to see what a dead Bralnor was actually worth.
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