Harding said relax for a bit, so Henry took him at his word. He spent the next two days the way any sane person would after back-to-back operations in freezing mountains – sleeping in, eating well, and getting his workouts in while the rest of the team did more or less the same.
That said, two full days of nothing wasn’t really in his DNA. So after booking spots for Sinclair’s team, he wandered over to the Guild and dug into whatever regional documentation they had available – terrain surveys, old expedition reports, anything that gave him a better picture of what was out there. He also pulled the Guild’s active quest board, because Harding’s new ammunition wasn’t going to test itself.
The upgrade was significant enough that Henry wanted real combat data before they relied on it in the field, and real combat data meant a target that would actually stress the weapon system across its performance range. That narrowed the options pretty quickly.
Most of the quest board was standard fare – pack predators, territorial beasts, a few undead clearance jobs – and none of those would tell him anything he couldn’t already predict. What he needed was something with enough armor that their current loadout struggled against it.
Bralnors fit the profile almost perfectly. Like Crystallons, they were closer to lithoids than conventional fauna – mineral-based biology, magically sustained, with dense crystalline plating across most of their body mass. Unlike Crystallons, though, they were big and heavy, built more along the lines of a rhino or an elephant than anything agile.
That bulk was exactly what made them useful here: their hides were dense enough that standard 6.8 had historically bounced off anything above Tier Six, which made them a natural benchmark for the enhanced rounds.
Not to mention, the Guild offered solid bounties for Bralnor materials on top of it, so the operation would pay for itself regardless of how the testing went.
The real question was how far up the chain he should push it. Ideally, he would’ve gone straight for a Tier Nine Gigolith, since that was where the data would matter most – if the high-end rounds could crack a Gigolith’s plating, everything below it was a solved problem. But a Tier Nine engagement this far from Armstrong, with no reliable quick-reaction support, was a gamble he couldn’t justify on a test run. Granted, he technically had access to air support, but an airstrike wasn’t exactly going to help him evaluate small arms.
So he worked down from there: Tier Seven Monoliths for the low and mid-tier compositions, Tier Eight Megaliths for the upper range. The Monoliths would give him a baseline; if the enhanced 6.8 could penetrate what standard 6.8 couldn’t, that alone validated the lower end.
The Megaliths were the real test. If mid-tier rounds could handle a Megalith and the high-end stuff punched clean through, he’d have a pretty complete picture of what the team could now engage without calling in fire support.
He cross-referenced the quest board with the terrain surveys he’d already been reading, confirmed there were active Bralnor populations within a reasonable operational radius, and flagged two quests that matched his criteria. Good enough. He’d finalize the plan once he saw what Sinclair actually brought them.
Which brought him to this morning – two days later, sitting outside the inn in the early cold with Ron’s impressive recreation of a vanilla frap, waiting for Sinclair’s convoy.
He heard them before he saw them. The low diesel rumble carried well in mountain air, and a few minutes later the lead UGV came around the bend, followed by three MRAPs in the middle and a second UGV bringing up the rear.
Locals along the main road stopped and stared, as usual. Kharvûk had gotten used to Henry’s single MRAP by now, but a full convoy was a different conversation.
Henry set his coffee down and walked over as the convoy pulled to a stop.
Sinclair stepped out of the second MRAP, stretched, and took a look around. Two of her analysts climbed out behind her, along with a security detail that started unloading gear before anyone told them to.
“Donnager.”
“Sinclair. How was the drive?”
“Long. Scenic, though – temperature and monsters notwithstanding.” She brushed some road dust off her jacket. “Last stretch through the valley was actually nice. Reminded me of driving into Anchorage, just with bigger mountains in the background.”
“Yeah, that novelty wears off once you get to day two. Then it’s just cold.”
Henry helped Sinclair and her people get registered, then left the gear to the security team.
Once they started settling in, he and Sinclair grabbed a table downstairs and ordered breakfast. The inn’s kitchen had been one of the better surprises about Kharvûk – hearty, well-seasoned, and quick enough that Henry had stopped worrying about their stay.
Sinclair looked around the dining room while they waited. “This is nicer than I expected.”
“Yeah, the whole city’s like that,” Henry said. “I came in expecting some kind of frontier outpost and it’s just a real city. Markets, districts, the Guild running everything. They’re actually pretty good at it.”
“What’s the food like here?”
“You haven’t tried Dwarven yet?” he asked.
Sinclair shook her head.
“Well, you’re in for a treat. Dwarven cooking is heavy – roasted meat, stews, thick bread. Think like a good German pub. Beer’s great, too, or so I’ve heard. Though Hayes is probably the better guy to ask when it comes to that stuff.”
Their food came out shortly after – an egg and sausage plate with a dense grain bread on the side that Henry had gotten used to by now. Sinclair tried the sausage first.
“Okay. Yeah, this is good.”
“Right?”
She finished her bite. “So what’s the Guild actually like to work with?” she asked after a while. “The packet made it sound like a medieval PMC.”
“I mean, it kind of is,” Henry said. “Hedrin runs a tight operation. Classic adventuring setup – though pretty well put together for what’s basically a pre-industrial outfit. He usually listens to Tormund, so you’re gonna want to work Tormund’s case first. Then there’s Commander Drunn, the Ovinne military’s liaison. He’s aggressive, wants to act on everything yesterday, but he’s sharp enough that it’s not just bluster.”
“And the Tier Nine?” she asked.
Henry thought a bit about how he wanted to frame it. “You ever seen The Boys?”
Sinclair chuckled. “Indeed I have. Is the situation that bad?”
Henry shrugged. “I mean, he’s not gonna laser anyone. But the energy’s there.” Henry took a sip of coffee. “Brilliant, probably the most powerful person I’ve met on this side, and very aware of both of those things. Nobody really pushes back, because he’s Tier Nine and they’re not.”
“Pulling rank’s the same across universes, it seems. Anyway, your AAR made the rounds. The Nobian assessment got real traction back home.”
“Yeah? How much?”
“Enough that we’ve been going back and forth on it for the past couple days,” she answered. “Consensus on our end is that the Nobians have a real shot. Whether they succeed is a different question, but for the sake of contingency planning, we’re gonna pretend they will.”
Henry figured as much. “In that case, you might want to get Drunn and Hedrin on the same page. The Guildmaster won’t issue any quests for Velkrath outside of containment, unless he’s sure it’ll be a clean sweep.”
Sinclair nodded. “The Ambassador’s actually given me authority to negotiate precision strikes. Surgical, limited, nothing that touches the mining infrastructure. If Drunn’s already arguing for action and the holdup is casualties, I’ve got something for that.”
They kept talking for a while after that, mostly focusing on the political dynamics around the Guild and Ovinnegard’s Council. Henry walked her through what he’d picked up over the past couple weeks.
Sinclair provided updates on the base, which was busy as always. A couple of new teams had come through the gate, the research division was expanding faster than anyone had planned for, and there was an ongoing debate about resource and personnel allocation. Now that they could actually make stuff with Gaerra’s exotic materials, everyone wanted a piece of the pie – from the various departments in the Manifest Project to the President himself.
Apparently, the researchers used that as an excuse to justify how much they’d been fucking around. He’d heard Harding’s version over the radio, but the full picture was even better – a room full of defense scientists treating experimental weapons like a theme park ride, held in check only by the medieval inconvenience of actual recovery time.
“Yeah, I heard about that,” Henry said. “But Dr. Fischer? Are we talking about the same one? The super professorial type?”
Sinclair nodded. “Mm-hmm.”
Henry grinned. “Huh. Don’t think I ever could’ve imagined him to be a troublemaker, let alone get put in time out.”
“Really? Well, you only say that because you’ve yet to see the weapons. It’ll make a lot more sense when you do.”
Henry set his plate aside and stood. “Alright, if they’re really that fun, let’s check them out.”
They headed outside. Sinclair threw open the rear door on her MRAP and pulled out a hard-shelled transit case from the back. She set it on the tailgate and flipped it open.
Six M7s sat in the foam, and Henry could tell immediately that these weren’t stock.
The platform was the same – same ergonomics, same rail system, same general profile he’d been carrying since they came through the gate. But the standard M7’s mix of aluminum and steel had been swapped out for mithril wherever it mattered: the receiver, the barrel, the bolt carrier group, anything subject to high mechanical stress or serving as a substrate for enchantment.
The stock had been reworked too – same length of pull, but the buttpad was thicker and wider than standard, with what felt like a denser foam underneath. Given what the hotter compositions were apparently doing to people’s shoulders back at Armstrong, that made sense.
The mithril had a subtly different character than steel, a faintly lighter tone with a silvery luster that didn’t quite behave the way normal metal did under direct light. It was understated compared to the enchanted weapons he’d seen at the Guild, which tended toward the ornamental, but there was a quality to the finish that suggested the material was doing more than what the eye could fully resolve.
And considering the material was used for a gun rather than a sword, understated was probably the right call.
He picked one up and turned it over in his hands. Lighter than a standard M7 by a noticeable margin – not dramatic, but enough to shift the balance point forward. A different weight profile meant a different weapon in practice, even if it looked identical on paper.
The recoil characteristics would be a different story too, especially with the hotter compositions. He’d need some time with it before he trusted it in the field.
Sinclair pulled a smaller case from behind the first. “Here’s your ammo, color-coded. Green’s the low end; blue’s mid-tier; red’s the hot stuff.” She glanced at him. “Don’t be Fischer.”
Henry chuckled. “No promises.”
He opened the ammo case. The cartridges were visually distinct from standard brass – warmer in tone, closer to orichalcum’s natural copper-gold, though the color was muted enough that Lamarr’s team had probably alloyed it with zinc for the mechanical properties a cartridge case needed. Though whether it was plain zinc or a mana-infused variant, he couldn’t tell just by looking at it.
He picked up a green round and rolled it between his fingers – heavier than a standard 6.8 with a noticeably smoother finish, and the color coding on the tips made the three compositions easy to distinguish at a glance.
He set the rifle back in the foam. “The guys are gonna lose their minds over this. Sera, too.”
Sinclair smiled. “We’ll need some time to sort through the intel, so don’t worry about rushing it. Have fun.”
She turned and left to handle her team.
Henry carried both cases inside and up to their common room. He set them on the table and flipped the larger one open.
“Yo, is that what I think it is?” Ron said, damn near teleporting out of his seat. “Oh shit, oh shit.”
“Dawg.” Ron picked one up and just held it for a second, staring at it. “This shit is gonna make me cry. I’m deadass about to shed a tear right now.”
Sera picked up the third and went still for a moment. “Oh, you may relinquish all hope of seeing this returned – I am quite besotted already.” She turned it over once more, then looked up at Henry. “And you understand, I trust, that at Christmas I shall expect something of equal temptation.”
Henry wasn’t sure how he was supposed to top a prototype mithril rifle built by a classified defense program, but he had months to work that out. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Hayes inspected one. “Hot damn. Yeah, that’s clean.”
“Right?” Ron shouldered it and swept it across the wall, grinning like a maniac.
Yen didn’t say much, but he was just as enthusiastic as the others. He picked one, handled it for a moment, and nodded. For once, he actually flashed a grin.
Doc grabbed one from the box and turned it over. “It’s rather light, isn’t it?”
Henry nodded. “That’s mithril for ya.”
He opened the second case. “And here’s our ammo: green, blue, red. Green bumps us from 6.8 to about .300 Winchester equivalent. Blue hits almost like a Ma Deuce. Red is anti-materiel and will fuck your shoulder up without a suit, so leave it alone until we’ve got the envirosuits. Or unless you’re Sera.”
Ron stared at it for a second, then looked up. “So when we leavin’?”
“C’mon, do you even have to ask?” Henry packed up the cases. “Right now. Let’s take these babies for a spin.”
Ron couldn’t have looked more pleased. “Say less.”