With Morgan sleeping in a bed I walked over to a workbench and realized something, my weaponry was ineffective. So I unbound my pact weapons and began recreating them or modifying them to hell and back, a Jack or Harry bringing me materials whenever I needed them as I worked on my sword and firearm. My claymore no longer has that weird second form; instead I had reforged it into a proper Flametoung Claymore Gunblade, the sword having a heft to it now due to heavier and denser materials. It honestly looked like the Mandervillous Gunblade from FFXIV, but heavier and more cursed looking.
The enchantments to the gunblade had turned the flametongue weapon into being wreathed in black and gold flames; because while reforging it I had also slipped my necrotic spores with Sunbeam and Moonbeam as the flames occasionally revealed a BLINDING white stream of flames. I almost bound it once more when I remembered something Sindri and Brok taught me long ago while I was with Kratos and Atreus.
"I am the one who presides within life and death like an old friend, forever wandering and watching, by my hands and soul. I bless you with the name Sköll in honor of an unlikely friend lost to Fate."
When the name tied to an ancient and known mythological figure was muttered, I could hear the howl of a wolf with the violent and hateful heated air swirling up around me suddenly. The gunblade sized claymores flames raged into the form of a wolf chasing something before the flames calmed down and flickered along the weapon gently. Binding the blade to my soul once more as I just took the time to stare at it, feeling something trying to make itself known within my chest as I did so. Grabbing the custom made sheath for it, I sheathed the weapon. Strapping it to my back at an angle I could draw it at will without issue even if most would call it impractical to do so. The weapon still counts as a blade given it was mainly all blade in the end even if it could act as a heavy powered gun.
My firearm was similarly remade, yet it was heavier than even my claymore due to the materials that went into it including a piece of a dwarf star. The weapon was remade into a more beastly looking Ace of Spades as I just wanted it to be a reminder of the one character in a game I wanted to just befriend more than anything else. The handcannon styled firearm was my Arcane Firearm for my Artificer class so I had to mainly make it from wood, wood that was strongly modified using Druidism and Artificer abilities to their full abilities.
The firearm though was also heavily enchanted with almost microscopic like veins covering every inch of its body. Mending, Witch Bolt, Sword Burst, Thunder Clap, Arcane Weapon, Fear, Counterspell, Dispel Magic, Ice Knife, and Regenerate covering it in support and offensive matrix's that were self repairing and almost feral in nature as the firearm released cold wisps of electricity in the shape of swords. Looking at it I knew exactly what it must be called; it was going to do a lot of what the word represented.
"I am the one who presides within life and death like an old friend, forever wandering and watching, by my hands and soul. I bless you with the name Vindicare for you shall punish, avenge, and claim many lives along this blood soaked road I tread."
When I named it, the stench of ROTTING blood came off of the weapon with a deranged and almost gleeful vengeance at the name it had been given. An eye of frozen heated plasma shaped like swords blinking into existence briefly before it vanished. Holstering the weapon onto my left hip I cracked my neck and knuckles, looking at my armor that Gond and I had made together before grunting and taking it off. Getting down to remaking it as well, Arthur visited me during the process with something I wouldn't ever think to be given.
It was the remains of a LIVING King of Knights armor, Arthur offhandedly mentioning he had found HP's King Arthur's true grave and took the armor with permission from his otherworldly counterpart. Arthur insisted I use it when he found out I was also remaking my own armor, I didn't argue as he pulled out his lance to enforce his point as he leveled it at both armors. The end result was something unexpected when Arthur and the remains of Gond's divinity essentially named it for me.
Looking at the armor now dubbed Eternal Camelot by Arthur and given weight by the lingering divinity of the Artificer God. The armor shone proudly with a dark and gold shine with a form reminiscent of Arthur's own armor, the Lion King looking upon me fondly as his lance disappeared.
"An armor fit for a lord presiding over a world in the image of Humanities bastion against the end. I think King Arthur of Harry's world would be proud of it as well seeing as how his armor has found a worthy bearer after centuries."
Snorting at those words I seriously doubted that it was a good thing the armor of any version of King of Knights really should've been given to me. That was even more certain after I had become a Wendigo, because I certainly don't deserve such a thing even on a good day. On a good day I would probably save Humanity willingly instead of saving one or two people like Romani and Mash from sadder fates. During the entire time I worked Morgan was sound asleep without a care in the world, his body caught up on the sleep he very likely missed on Talos.
After some thinking I made a folding door style of the Immovable Rod, carving and etching an entrance to my Demi Plane onto it, then doing a few tests of opening and closing it. The door leading to a confined and secured room in my plane just in case he lets Typhons through it by leaving it open or something else asinine.
With the Immovable Door made I grabbed Morgan and carried him back to Talos, binding the door to his soul along the way with some guidance from The Undying. After all that I also placed a very minor if not needed suggestion into his mind with my patrons help. Ensuring that the stubborn ass scientist if he needed my help he'd just have to enter the door and I'd know. Setting Morgan down in a security office chair with the door folded up and sitting in front of him. Magic items and magic were truly wonderful things to use, and create or interact with because I could FEEL the life in both.
What Sköll had done wasn't a one off, the Claymore Gunblade was now for all intents and purposes sentient due to its name. Same for Vindicare, the hand cannon was for all intents and purposes FERAL with its purpose because of its name. When someone mystical says names have meaning or weight, they aren't fucking with you. Names and meanings to magic mean EVERYTHING they are what give it substance and direction. They give it a goal and purpose to REACT, to be SPORADIC in changing how it works. Eternal Camelot is going to work much the same, the armor was already toughening and becoming unchanging unless desired.
It was honestly pretty fucking fascinating to experience daily, magic was something I just clicked with like firearms. It all just felt like second nature when I learned it with Atreus, even without my classes from DND streamlining the usage of it more effectively. After making sure Morgan was safe and heading back to my Demiplane I popped my neck while walking over to one of the many doors I had created while raising Harry.
Each door was incomplete, missing just one symbol to be completed and leading to a world unknown. Above each of the doors was a plaque listing the world connected to it starting with World War Z even though I never made a doorway there. The Undying have made it instead although it was more vague… the door felt like it could lead to different instances of the world just not the one I left behind.
Completing the matrix for a new World Gate besides the one leading to Prey, I watched as it came to life. The door looked like a swirling vortex awaiting to be finalized in its destination. I didn't even have to wait for the one who would be my ever faithful shadow to arrive, the Alpha Werewolf tackling me through the gate with a cackling howl. Rory wasn't with her so it would just be the two of us it seems. As we went through the gate I took the moment to notice the difference in the space around us without looking at the dark swimming tendrils within it to avoid looking at potentially something dangerous.
It was beautiful if not unnerving that this was essentially a straw or something more… graphic… made from magic and science to travel between worlds. We were thrown into the world, just not on the ground, but in the air above a giant machine floating in the air that looked like a Nautilus attacking a city. Machines flooding out of it alongside a blanket of black metal swarming the city below it and us.
[Cauldron Blueprint, AI Personality Matrix Blueprint, Master Override(Whole Body) selected]
While the word Cauldron should have tipped me off, there were too many instances of someone calling something a cauldron in multiple different worlds. So to find out which cauldron was being referenced without immediately checking the blueprint shoved into my head, we crash landed onto the giant floating machine. Before anything could react I was already hauling us off the side of it with a Dimension Door, plummeting towards the earth once more before we fell through another Dimension Door.
Crashing into cold if not warm metal instead of pavement with us now inside the machine that had all too noticeable ways inside constantly swarming with machines. Machines that were currently glitching trying to process our existence and sudden appearance. Pushing Sasha off of me I drew Sköll from my back and began cutting machines in half, aiming the large gunblade at the more menacing machines and pulling the trigger. A beam of burning silvery light erupting from the gunblades center that and a gun barrel nestled within the base of the weapon.
The machines either out right exploded, melted, or gained a burning hole that ate almost entirely through them. I also paid close attention to Sasha throughout everything going on, the werewolf had no problems killing the weaker machines. Even if she did technically die a few times once ganged up on. Eventually I found an access point of some sort for the larger machine around us, and pulled the adrenaline high werewolf close using Dimension Door. With her next to me I cast Sanctuary, a golden dome of light exploding outwards from where we stood. Pushing away the machines around us and covering any chance of them spawning inside the dome.
"If they break through, keep them off me as long as you can. I will be learning of, and potentially controlling, our new enemy."
"Whatever my alpha says!"
Sasha was basically naked at this point, her fur clumping together with blood and machine fluids. Yet she gave a toothy beaming smile with her tail going as if it was a rotary blade. Sighing at her I shook my head amused, she was literally a bitch and murderous with everyone else given she ran a large werewolf pack. One of the largest in the northern hemisphere with them living most in the Antarctic. Yet here she is essentially puppy braining with love around me even now after a few years. My armored clawed fingers light up with a holographic light, spearing them into the access port. I felt them exist both physically and metaphysically as soon as the tip of my claws touched it.
An incomprehensible amount of data flooded into my mind instantly. My head possibly exploded a few times before mostly just switching to frying my brain. Frying it over and over yet I persisted in going through it to find what I needed. Chaldeas connection to me stirring, the burden lessening greatly at that moment. Yet that wasn't all I could feel, my Artificer class was reacting strongly to the machine. It was rapidly evolving with each new dataset introduced to it, machines and abilities already known being affected by the changes going on. My Eldritch Cannons summoned themselves, their bodies looking like sleek mobile railguns as they used the remains around us.
Between the two cannons was a forming digital silhouette of my old self, the me during my time with Kratos. I was confused at this development until I realized something: that version of the past was pointing at one of the machines trying to breach Sanctuary. Something clicks within my mind, my body already on the move. The machine's metal body barely held out before my claws dug into it. I left Sanctuary's bounds, claws ripping out something highlighted by the holographic glow around my hand. Kicking off the machine's body I was back inside the boundary, following the ghostly movements of the past version.
Fuckin hell this was trippy. Flash of Genius is literally giving me a hint at what to do in such a short time by visually showing it all. Inscribing a few things with Dwarven, Primordial, and Fae runes onto the part I ripped out I didn't even blink as I impaled it into my left eye. Flinching when I felt the wires come to life and connect to my brain, I could FEEL them burrowing into my brain like roots. The piece of tech lighting up and changing colors from crimson to Hazel.
I could now see everything about this machine as the holographic glow on my claws disappeared. The machines around us stopped moving entirely before their optics changed colors. The Horus we were aboard stopped producing the nanomachine swarm, raising my arms I could tell its tendrils and drills were raised.
"FUCK YOU TED!"
Slamming my arms down with a snarl, the tendrils slammed into a large swath of machines causing the apocalypse. Flattening them while it drills at the end of the tendrils act as meat grinders to break down and recycle machines. I was both excited and enraged, because I was in Horizon Zero Dawn. Enraged because I was in Horizon Zero Dawn at the literal END OF THE FUCKING WORLD. SO MANY THINGS I COULD TAKE TO LEARN FROM AND IT'S ALL BEING DESTROYED BECAUSE OF TED PHAROE!