"Well Boris, what do you think?"
The council had moved down to his workshop, to be able to hold a meeting, because he refused to stop working. He didn't complain about them coming down, because he could focus on two things at once, with Joe helping. There did need to be a meeting, so they had teleported the large table and chairs down to be able to sit.
"Honestly, your majesty, I hope to never see the thing that you intend this beast of a machine to fight. I'm still not sure that putting the spirit of the swamp king you talk about in it is a good idea."
"Don't worry. He's a friend. You've seen his kin among the barbarians."
"With all reverence your majesty, I don't have a bit of talent in either ANIMAL or NECROMANCY. I understand steel and fire well enough, and I understand building things, but spirits, friendly or otherwise, are beyond me."
"Fair enough. I'm not done with the design just yet anyway. Has the design team agreed on the changes needed to turn my prototype generator into the TRUE SUN generator over the Citadel of the Sun?"
"Yes, your majesty. It will produce hundreds of times the mana required to keep the mountain with your palace afloat."
"Good. And the smaller versions will be constructed and maintained throughout the land as required?"
"Yes, plans for the smaller optimized versions have been made, and the second generation protoype has been constructed on the small scale. The power of the generators has increased by more than the cube of the radius of the generator as you explained. We have achieved 63% efficiency, but expect the theoretical threshold of 69% to be reached only after centuries of refinement."
"That's fine. The first CAGED SUN was plenty when my subjects were less than 100,000 but only a little more than sufficient when it has 3 million people to provide for. It doesn't have enough extra to be as useful to me as in the beginning."
"Your majesty, nobody else has that problem," Boris said with a chuckle. "I can barely channel more than 100 units of mana continuously. And I'm done after an hour. None of us can even guess how much was used to rebuild the nursery. We've been too afraid to even try."
"I earned several divine blessings that let me handle more mana without nasty side effects like dying."
"Oh, and the report about the stabilized mithril came in. Only the advanced earth mages among my people were able to detect a difference, and even they couldn't find a difference in how the mithril performed, compared to our mined mithril. Creating the pipes and generators out of stabilized mithril and adamantine that were enchanted to resist the heat, has been the only thing that allowed us to surpass the 40% efficiency threshold. Too bad none of the tests yet have allowed us to enchant orihalcum any easier. We're still not sure how you managed to enchant your last staff blade so many times. The current limit for Cassandra is two and only three others have succeeded at more than one enchantment."
"Brandon, now that NURKONG is wounded and two of the invading factions have been destroyed, we can use GATE within the realm. We still need to be cautious and not to make permanent portals between realms, but you are going to oversee the portals between the 12 cities and capital. Make sure the portals are tied to the city and not straight space, as I intend the capital to be mobile and the land cities to move at least once, once we reclaim the wasteland."
"Yes, your majesty. Your majesty?"
"Yes, Brandon?"
"I was wondering…if…well the truth is…"
"Goodness, Brandon. I hope when you were asking Sara to marry you it didn't take this long."
*Cough* "Your majesty?"
"Yes, I don't mind officiating the wedding before I leave again. TELEPORT was my first spell for both movement and gate, so the fact that the heads of each school are getting married is terribly ironic to me. Oh, don't look so surprised, she's sweet and you've obviously liked her at the training sessions and council meetings. I thought Daisy was about to ask Gregor to mind control you into asking her out. It's a good thing you got the nerve. Just because you are the head of the GATE school, doesn't mean you have to run away all the time."
"Um, I mean. And it wouldn't be proper to uh…well."
"Relax, she loves you. She thinks that shyness is cute, actually."
"Uh. Thank you, your majesty."
Joseph chuckled at the poor boy as his face turned bright red. People all around the table chuckled as well.
'He's doomed,' said Joe. 'Sara's going to eat him alive.'
Joseph had to agree, but kept it to himself as other members of the council began to bring up their topics to discuss. Once he had dealt with everything they could think up, he had them teleport the table and chairs back to the normal meeting room, before turning back to his mech. It was almost done. Just a few more tweaks…
XxxxX
"Well, Joe it's finally ready."
"It doesn't transform."
"It doesn't need to."
"True. Let's get everyone together."
Several hours later, Joseph stood in a field just outside the castle. The mech stood behind him, in all its glory, and before him the field was filled with people. All of the spirit mages were chanting 'KENRICK'. Most of the necromancers were, too. Even the barbarians were chanting, and some of the students.
"Tekaun?" he turned to her as she approached him.
"My Kenrick. The prophecy was that not only would the high shaman get a great beast, he would also give it a body of its own that wasn't a body. I believe this machine you made is that body."
"Oh. Why didn't you tell me that prophecy before?"
"It wasn't a prophecy about the child of prophecy. It was a prophecy for the high shaman. The sign of the most powerful of us. It seems obvious, but we have only been looking at the prophecies for the child of prophecy. We never considered that would be the same person."
"Well, then, watch this, but don't try and do it until you feel ready. It will kill you if you get it wrong."
"Yes, Kenrick."
He turned his back on the crowd, to face the mech, and the crowd quieted. It was time for the show to begin.