The Merciless Alpha(erotica)

I got to watch the new maidens interact with my matrons as we ate lunch. I could see Diamiutar, Heilantu and Lymarith preparing packs for each of us, ensuring we would have the bedrolls, food, and other supplies we’d need. They would have time to finish them while we went and visited with Durithana.

I was impatient to get my new weapons and get things moving.

“Well, I’m going to go see if Durithana is ready with my gear.” I declared, pulling my rifle from where I’d leaned it to eat.

Tavorwen, Creadean and Narusil made it clear they were coming too.

I was shocked walking into Durathana’s workshop. There were seven she-elves running around.

“Ah!” The elven smith greeted me, “You’re here!”This text is property of Nô/velD/rama.Org.

She came over with a grin on her face, “The Elder’s are giving you even more preference than I’d thought! One word from me and instead of the two assistant smith’s I’d expected, I got three full smiths and three enchanters.”

“First off, let’s get your longbow swapped out.” Durithana requested, holding out her hand for my rifle. I dropped the magazine, made sure the chamber was clear, then handed it to Durathana.

The barrel got swapped for the new barrel in moments, the new barrel painted with some sort of shifting paint.

“One of the enchanters had nothing better to do while we were working on your other firearms and gave it an adaptive paint job.” Durithana explained, “IT will blend with whatever is around it.”

I had to admit, it looked fucking awesome.

“How long would it take to do this adaptive paint on the rest of my rifle?” I queried.

“I could do it in around an hour.” One of the enchanter’s replied.

“Great. I’d like that.” I accepted, and the enchanter took my sniper.

“Now, here are the cases with your new silence casting cartridges.” Durathana explained, handing me the magazines. “Leave the old one with us and we’ll update it too.”

“Now, here are our new weapons for you.” Durithana declared.

One of the smiths was finishing assembling the combat rifle. The handgun looked fully assembled. There were four magazines for each weapon.

“We wanted to run a test for the weapons, to ensure we made them properly….” Durithana admitted, and all the smiths and enchanters hovered excitedly nearby. There were a few versions of a few pieces for both weapons. And I realized they weren’t confident they had made it correctly the first time, and thinking about it, it was impressive they had made my bolt-action sniper correctly the first time. The self-reloading systems for these weapons added additional complications.

I had to admit, I was excited for the test too. Both weapons had adaptive paint like my sniper’s barrel now had. The elves had a way of making everything sleek and elegant. I had no idea what type of wood they had used for the pieces on a rifle I’d expect to be plastic or another synthetic material, but both were carved with inlays and runes.

We trekked down to the firing range, and I got to shoulder my combat rifle for the first time. The curvature of the stock against my shoulder fit perfectly. I took aim at one of the wood targets and squeezed out a three shot burst. It was weird the flash of complete silence that enveloped me every time a round fired. Making the sounds of nature sound in short staccato bursts. The target was busted, but I fired a few more rounds at the increasingly small target. The weapon’s kick was not nearly as hard as I had expected from similar rifles I had fired back home. It actually made me overcompensate and my first round was low because of it. I had requested a simple aiming reticle, which had been modified with a viewing crystal, a dark notch to line up with the notch at the end of my barrel, the viewing crystal seemingly making minor adjustments for range as I shifted between targets.

The twenty-seventh round jammed. I was pleased with the performance, but the elven smiths were livid. Demanding the rifle, which I cleared and handed over. The weapon was disassembled with proficiency that would put most earth records to shame, two parts were swapped out and the combat rifle was reassembled and returned to me.

The process repeated four more times, before I was able to put well over a hundred rounds through the rifle without a single jam.

“Good.” Durithana finally declared. “That should be satisfactory.”

I put a few more rounds through it, verifying the lever switching from auto to semi-auto worked as intended.

“Perfect.” I declared.

The elven smiths smiled with pride.

“Now for the handgun.” I declared, taking the small weapon.

I’d tried to map out a weapon somewhere between a Glock 19 and the M9, common sidearms I had used, but the elves had put their own artistic touch on it and the weapon now looked nothing like either. It was a nine millimeter handgun, though perhaps the conversion to notches had moved it closer to a full centimeter in diameter. The handle fit extremely comfortably in my hand and the thin trigger was responsive in my hand. The round again made a small moment of absolute silence in the otherwise noisy forest as it fired. The second round jammed.

The elves seemed miffed. And again the elves disassembled the weapon, argued shortly about which new parts to try next, then assembled the weapon for me. This time, something went terribly wrong. The weapon was ripped from my hands and flew out into the clearing. My hand was bleeding and my thumb was dislocated.

I started running through the not-short list of curse words I had learned in the military as one of the enchanters hurried over. I was too distracted to note the words the mage chanted and the cuts closed and my thumb popped back into its socket. The pain faded and I began flexing and assessing the damage to my hand. Post healing magic, it was as if the injury had never happened. The sweat on the mage’s brow showed that the healing had not been effortless for her.

“Thank you….” I murmured, still amazed at the change in my hand.

“My pleasure. Master Thomas.” The mage assured me.

The smiths retrieved the weapons, and surveyed the damage. The barrel had to be switched out and the offending part was determined. One of the smiths began murmuring words of magic over the weapon, the scratches and deformation from the detonation reverting.

One of the smiths began apologizing profusely, insisting they had done their best to follow the schematics, but she had been sure that her slight modification would help.

“You were doing your best and I don’t blame you for it.” I assured her, “It could have been a failure on my part to clearly detail something about the piece.”

The smiths nervously presented me the repaired and reassembled firearm.

While one of the more catastrophic failures, I’d had weapons misfire before. I took the weapon, loaded it, and squeezed out a round. It fired smoothly. Then I started popping off rounds, and ten rounds in, it jammed.

The smiths were unhappy with the jam, but looked over the weapon, only switching out one piece this time.

I switched from semi-auto to full auto. The weapon dumped rounds into the target. I could feel the recoil vibrating my hand and making me almost numb.

“Much better.” I decided.

The smiths were relieved.

“Now your larger firearms have straps to carry, but how do you carry the smaller weapon?” Durathana asked.

“Oh, holsters are common…” I explained, trying to describe how the holsters were shaped and functioned.

“I could make something like that out of leather while Yulintra re-does the paint on your rifle.” The enchanter who had healed me offered.

One of the smiths asked if she could fire the handgun, and I assured her that would be fine. I explained to her the important points of gun safety, got her to assume a proper stance, and showed her how to hold and steady the weapon and how to aim.

She squeezed off a single round, her eyes going wide. She quickly handed me the weapon and began nursing her hand.

The smiths were chattering all the way back to the workshop, swapping ideas for how their design could be improved.. The one who had actually fired the weapon insisting the recoil needed reduced significantly, glancing at my hands nervously.

Yulintra began the work of mixing a few powders into a paste and spreading it on my sniper as she chanted, sweat moistening her brow.

The mage, Liafur, who had healed me, took some leather and began quickly forming a holster, borrowing the weapon to verify size. By the time Yulintra had finished with the paint on my rifle, Liafur had a fairly simple holster ready, it would connect to my belt and buckle down to my right leg just in front of my dagger.

The smiths took a minute to make sure I could carry both rifles on my back without them banging agaisnt each other, though if I moved too quickly, they might bump a bit.

I felt better. The sniper could function at long range, the combat rifle would be good for intermediate range and high numbers of targets, and my handgun could work for short distances.

Now all I needed to do was return, collect my maidens and we could head out.

This was it. It was time to take the fight to Kathra. She would pay for all she’d done.