Beauty X Beast ~ Fifteen!

Danielle gripped the light, wooden practice sword, her hands steady though her heart was racing. Taking a deep breath to calm herself, she prepared for another bout against the unnerving figure standing on the motion capture pedestal across from her. The suit of armor was featureless and devoid of any hint of personality—as though she were dueling an empty shell.

Over the past torturous hour of slow fighting, she had attempted to engage the guardian in conversation, but no matter whether she asked questions or tried to banter, all her efforts were met with cold, unyielding silence. Danielle glanced over at the Beast, nodding once to show that she was as prepared as she was going to be—despite her trembling muscles unused to the current exertions. Opposite her, the armor moved into position with deliberate, mechanical precision, brandishing a carbon steel longsword perfectly mirroring the shape and length of her wooden weapon.

“Just get on with it, Enchantress,” the Beast called with no small hint of annoyance. “We’re getting behind schedule, and we still have spears, halberds, and flails to practice with.”

Though Danielle was frustrated with the automaton’s goading, she didn't take her eyes off her opponent. “I know we're moving slowly, but that sword has to weigh twenty pounds. If I misjudge where it's swinging-”

“It's not going to hurt you. We've been over this,” the impatient machine cut her off, “At the speed it's moving, unless you throw yourself against the tip of its sword, its weapon won't even break your skin if it landed.” 

Instead of answering, Danielle simply gave a single, sharp nod. In response, the guardian raised its weapon in a salute, signaling the start of their ‘duel’.

A bead of sweat trickled down her temple and dripped down her cheek, as her opponent lifted its sword into a high guard position then pulled its blade down in a controlled swing. Danielle mirrored its movement, focusing on the sword above all else. With each move, some of her tension vanished—and soon, she was back in the flow of false combat. 

As with every new position they had practiced, Danielle started by simply mimicking her opponent's actions, often finding herself just a moment behind. But as she repeated the movements a second time, then a third, her skills gradually began to guide her hand. Before long, her lightweight practice sword was slicing through the air with a mesmerizing fluidity. 

What initially felt like clumsy swings swiftly evolved into precise, controlled strikes. Now that she was back in motion, Danielle no longer struggled to keep the weapon aloft; her body naturally adapted to following the optimal path for each movement. Each step, pivot, and retreat became a seamless set of motions, then a flowing routine. 

Movements rapidly began to feel almost instinctive, boosting Danielle's confidence in continuing further, and soon the rhythm of the practice started to feel comfortable. “Do you think I will actually be able to pick up a sword and fight, if I find myself in a bad situation?”

“If you can find a sword that weighs two and a half pounds and will hold up against the heavier swords of stronger, experienced combatants, absolutely.” The Beast’s scoffing words felt like a glass of water splashed on Danielle's face, and she found herself blushing with some small embarrassment. “I'm not trying to teach you how to fight; I'm trying to make sure you are repaying my master’s generosity. These exercises are meant to help refine his automatons, making them more efficient fighters if they ever need to take the field, not put you in a duel.”

Distracted by the reminder that her movements might eventually be used in combat on a large scale caused Danielle to falter momentarily, but she shook her head and reset her position as she heaved for air. “I'll do… whatever it takes-”

“To what? Pay him for his tutelage, room, and board? Don’t bother trying.”

“No.” Danielle stepped back, and her opponent did the same. She turned and glared at BST model three. “I'll do whatever it takes to keep learning and keep working to hold onto this. I can feel it. This is the opportunity that is going to take care of me and my father for the rest of our lives. When I leave here, I'm going to be able to compete with people who have been trained at the Royal Academy of Verdelune. I'll be an asset wherever I go, and I'll do whatever it takes to make sure that dream becomes a reality.” 

Closing her eyes, she lifted her sword and moved through the form once more, each motion executed with the same care and attention to detail as a high-level calligrapher's brushstroke. Danielle felt the heft of the sword, the resistance of the air, even how her own muscles were beginning to sing a song of strain against the repeated movements. 

She’d been near-exhausted half an hour ago, and was now shaking as she repeated the motion again and again, remembering that perfection wasn’t the point—it was important to have worse-than-optimal versions of the same movements. An acrid smell of heated metal caused her eyes to pop back open, and she looked on with concern as the soldier in front of her began to smoke from its shoulder joints. “Beast? Is it supposed to be doing that?”

“Why do you ask questions you know the answer to? Step away from it, quickly.” At the sound of the Beast’s voice, the crystals around the platform began descending into the floor. The metal soldier dropped its guard, its arms swinging down and causing the sword it held to bounce off the ground repeatedly until finally coming to a stop. “Let's call that a break while I get another version in here.”

Then both its arms fell off, clattering against the stone surface and causing Danielle to yelp and leap away for fear of getting her toes crushed by the heavy metal. With a gulp, she silently thanked the system that the platform had been deactivated and hadn't pushed her closer to the collapsing hunk of scrap. “Yeah. A break sounds good.” 

The Beast’s cables carried him to the platform, and he quickly scooped up the fallen pieces of the metal soldier. To Danielle's surprise, he didn’t immediately cast the broken parts aside, instead laying the damaged automaton out on a nearby workbench. His massive hands unfolded into an extensive set of tools, which each moved independently of each other, and he lowered them onto the fallen machine.

Even though her body was barely able to muster the energy to cross the distance between them, her mind was absolutely burning with interest. The Enchantress hurried over, eager for a chance to watch artificing in action. The Beast had pulled the torso of the soldier apart in moments and was already removing damaged sections along the joints as she stepped up alongside him.

Rusted, stripped gears were pulled and cast aside. From the joints, down the arms, and even into the chest cavity, the Beast continued to pull damaged shards of metal, remaining silent even as the work continued far longer than Danielle had expected it to take. Appalled at how much effort was necessary for this process, Danielle finally blurted out, “How long has it been since some basic routine maintenance was done on this poor guy?” 

“Though it’s none of your business…” The Beast replied calmly, “this is the first time since the end of the war that Comte LeKrout has reactivated one of his metal soldiers. Effectively, it has been ten and three-quarters of a year since these were in use.”

“It shows,” Danielle muttered as she moved in closer to examine the design. There was no disparagement in her voice. Frankly, she felt a hint of relief that the uncaring, featureless creature wasn't out waging war against neighboring kingdoms. “How many of these did he have going at once? They must have been terrifying on the battlefield.”

“At the height of the war, LeKrout had fifty thousand metal soldiers marching at once,” the Beast replied after a moment of consideration, sneaking a glance over to capture her reaction to his words. “There were certainly pros and cons to the use of them. First, though they never tired, they needed regular routine maintenance, due to overuse. Happily, the maintenance was able to be performed by nearly anyone with a mechanical bent.”

Danielle started to have a bad feeling about where the conversation was leading, “So many…? So you actually know for a fact that anyone with a mechanical skill can assemble these? Because you had actually scooped them all up.”

“Indeed.” The Beast solemnly nodded, never once slowing in his efforts. “The expense in metal alone was the tipping point to begin the war against Verdelune’s northern neighbor, which you would now know as simply a vassal state. Their production of high-quality iron was necessary simply to produce such a force. Yet, nearly any well-trained soldier was a match for any five of these.” 

The Beast trailed off, focused on extracting a particularly stubborn metal shard which had embedded itself in the outer casing of the soldier. Once the piece was free, he returned to explaining, “Although they are exceedingly dangerous in large numbers, as you've noticed by now, they don’t have the same range of motion as regular soldiers. They don’t have classes or skills to empower them beyond their physical form. Against elites, they were nearly useless.” 

There was a lull in the conversation as the Beast pulled out a rough circle of metal and began to spin it at high speed, lowering it into the chassis and using it to grind away at a metal shaft that had fused to the mechanisms in the soldier's shoulder. 

“Even so, against the common militiaman, conscripts pulled from farms and a softer life, they were a scythe reaping wheat.” 

Danielle blanched as she realized the strategy her kingdom must have employed. “Which would allow Verdelune’s highly trained soldiers to focus exclusively on the elites, even while they needed to try and push back the wave of metal cutting toward them. It must have been quite… effective. Why did Artificer LeKrout stop making them and step back from the war? If he was able to field so many combatants, the kingdom must have sang his praises at every opportunity.”

“They did,” the Beast replied shortly. “However, that is not my story to tell.”

So saying, he stepped back and moved to the side of the room, where bins of spare parts were stacked. Selecting a large box, he brought the entire package over and began unfolding it. Sealed away within were shining gears and mechanisms, pristine versions of what was currently piled alongside the fallen soldier. Most surprising to Danielle was the large diagram attached to the inside of the box. 

She pulled it off, her eyebrows raising as she found a step-by-step guide to assembling one of the soldiers. 

“You must have had hundreds of people tasked with constructing these for the war.” Her words came out slowly as she thought over what sort of logistical issues they must have been working to overcome with so many activated automatons. “How was he able to decommission all of them? Or… was he even able to stop them?”

“As you've seen for yourself,” the Beast rumbled at her, clearly becoming agitated at this line of questioning, “There is more to their function than the mechanisms alone. The runescripted core is a marvel created by Comte LeKrout, and he alone understands the inner workings. Without his insights and willing participation, it would be nearly impossible for someone else to use his designs. If they wanted to recreate the system, they would need to do so from the very first etching. All attempts to recreate his work have been met with failure, which is why Verdelune is actively pursuing his return to the war effort.”

As the Beast began assembling bits and pieces into the soldier, Danielle read over the diagram, slowly shaking her head as she went farther and farther. As she scanned the last image, she scoffed and scathingly muttered, “Minimum viable product…” 

Pulling out her notebook, she started drawing out her own design, based on the decades-old version. The current schematic was extremely simplistic, barely meeting the requirements to cause each joint to articulate, for each limb to have enough torque and energy to move. As she worked, Danielle muttered her thoughts aloud, “We need to account for the sword, as well… I'm willing to bet these fighters fall over at least once in every ten swings. They’re too top heavy, so without a proper counterbalance…” 

Halfway through her redesign, she paused, stumped and frustrated. There was just some information she didn't have yet, some knowledge of materials and tensile strength—not to mention what was actually available here—which prevented her from finishing out the design. Reluctantly, she closed her notebook and looked up, only to find that the Beast had been watching what she was writing… and his eyes were glowing a deep red.

“That looked extremely promising. Why did you stop?” The Artificer spoke through the Beast, his voice as gentle as the mechanical rumblings would allow. “That wouldn't have worked for mass production, but it's along the lines of what I’d want for my personal houseguard. Would you like to finish it, or…?”

Danielle brightened up immediately at the offer. “Yes! But, I need some help. Could you explain to me why the crankshaft is positioned at a thirty-seven-degree angle instead of…”

Her questions and his answers ricocheted back and forth, with the Enchantress writing out her suppositions and the Artificer pointing out flaws or intriguing possibilities. Before Sneezy could demand that Danielle come to the dining room and eat her dinner—at least before his third demand—they had worked out an initial prototype. She looked at the complex design, completely enamored with the idea of ‘hydraulics’ that had just been explained to her.

“Is that why you have so many hoses installed across the Beast’s frame?” Danielle turned to scan the titan of metal, her eyes locking on the numerous dangling tubes. “Why wouldn't you encase that in an exoskeleton of some kind? Armor? Wouldn't someone cutting through those make it lose much of its functionality?” 

Hesitation turned into a drawn-out sigh, and finally the Artificer answered her question. “Unfortunately, at the moment, I am unable to continue working on the BST model three. I am… otherwise precluded from adjusting its setup, as I am entirely focused on another project. I can't leave my current workspace without severe risk to what I'm working on, and the Beast is the only one of my automatons I can remotely interface with to this extent.”

“Oh… that’s…” Danielle trailed up, uncertain what she could say that he wouldn't already know. “If there's anything I can do to help…?”

“There is one thing.” The Beast’s hand dipped down, cradling the metal soldier's head and lifting the machine into a sitting position. “Could you please explain why you etched a face into this helmet?”

Looking at the goofy caricature of a face she’d brushed into the metal while the Beast had been stripping it down and reassembling it startled a laugh out of Danielle, and it took her a moment to regain her composure. 

Then she nodded seriously, though her twitching smile took away from her attempt at sincerity. “Yes. It was very creepy. Trying to copy this thing while it was faceless and blank is just… harder without something to focus on. This will help me mimic it a little better, and I'm sure I’ll be able to mimic its fighting style more easily.” 

“You drew two eyes, a triangular nose, and a mouth with a tongue sticking out of the side,” the Artificer pointed out incredulously. “That's going to make it easier for you to replicate its combat style? Do you expect me to believe that?”

“Absolutely, I do.” Danielle bobbed her head without cracking a smile. 

The red eyes studied her for a moment longer before yet another sigh came from the entity. “I don't know why I believe you, but somehow I do. Carry on with your strange choices.” 

Danielle yelped as her left arm blazed with light, her gaze drawn to the system notification beginning to scrawl across her skin. “You're kidding me…! You actually took that seriously?”

“Of course I did.” The Artificer looked at her in confusion as she read over the updated information of her skill. “While I much prefer tried and true methods, and worry that changing them could disrupt the balance I've worked so hard to achieve, I'm open to embracing new methods when you can explain their merit and prove it. Yet, I find myself confused as to how that ended up increasing one of your skill levels?”

“I needed to convince someone to embrace a new concept they were skeptical of without providing them any factual evidence,” Danielle distractedly explained to him. “I hadn't expected a silly little doodle to be the tipping point.”

Skill increase! Unified Radiance [Level 5 (Moderate) → Level 6 (Considerable)]!

Requirement to advance to level 7: Restore a severely neglected outdoor area in such a way that it becomes a sought after spot of tranquility for the owner of the land OR successfully change the opinion of a highly influential individual about a deeply held belief during a presentation of something you created or altered by at least 80% of its original design.

“Huh,” she muttered as she tried to decide how she’d go about achieving her next level. Danielle paused when she realized she was excited to make progress—she’d only been here a short while, and already she was ten times as comfortable in her own skin as she had been surrounded by dozens of people attempting to ply her with compliments. 

Turning to the Artificer, she showed a crooked smile, “Any chance you have a particular patch of grass outside that you want to look extra beautiful? I know how much you love your grass.”