Some magic.

You had some ideas on some magic you wanted to try, so you headed to the armory. The first thing you did was examine the bullets and the spells on them. You were surprised how simple the spells where. Just two runes, well, technically three. The hammer of the gun had a rune, and the primer on the bullet had a rune. When the two runes touched each other it triggered an explosive rune inside the casing of the bullet. It was very clever you thought to yourself, and you noticed that the two trigger runes were specific to each other. Which meant if someone else figured it out, and made their own gun with a rune on the hammer, then your bullets wouldn't function in their gun.

The artillery shells taught you another nifty spell, or rather a trick for the explosive spell. You hefted up one of the shells expecting it to weigh a lot, but you were surprised to find that it was maybe thirty pounds. Examining it showed you that the inside was pretty hollow, but that made sense since the explosive in your old world wasn't needed in this world. You did notice that there was another trigger rune on the tip of the artillery shell. Once fired it was armed, and then it would trigger the explosive spell in the artillery shell when that tip made contact with something. You were betting you could figure out how to trigger it when it was still in the air.

Looking at the grenades they had the same trigger rune that activated, only instead of triggering the explosive spell when it touched something, it triggered it when five seconds passed. In fact, everything seemed to be trigger runes, **** runes, explosive runes, or some combination. Maybe the oddest thing you examined was the ATV. It didn't have an engine, it just used **** runes to turn the wheels, and the engine noises it made were also spells. Spells specifically meant to make it seem like an engine was running you realized. All the vehicles were like that. Tactically the engine noise spells didn't make much sense, but when you really examined the spell they all had eight tendrils attached them. That would be difficult to remove you knew.

"Why would they make a sound spell so difficult to remove" you asked yourself and scratched your head in confusion.

"Because" Dawn says behind you making you jump. You spin around to give her a teasing glare, but she just chuckles.

"It was the rules of war everyone agreed on. Silent fleets of vehicles was considered a war crime. So they gave them the noises and motions of the vehicles from the past. Before magic became so prominent" she explains.

"Motions" you ask her.

"If there is no engine then why do you feel vibrations from the engine" Dawn asks you.

"Oh...how bizarre" you reply as you now notice the **** spells lining the vehicle to make it vibrate in sync with the engine noises.

"Maybe, but tech cities did not go to war very often. At least not until war was brought to them. So their ideas and rules surrounding war were a bit...naive" Dawn states.

"An important lesson for sure" you muse and Dawn nods her head.

"What is your opinion of humans" you ask suddenly.

"In what regard" Dawn asks just as suddenly.

"Just the first thing that comes to mind about us" you tell her.

"You are social creatures, who use **** as your only true form of conflict resolution. Talking through your differences, whatever they may be, does happen, but eventually conflict will happen, and in some cases **** really is the only path forward. Take your goal for freeing every ****. That can only be accomplished through fighting, because the other side will never give up their slaves without conflict. It is your nature...for now" she states.

"So you do see us one day eliminating conflict" you ask.

"Yes. I believe it is inevitable. Conflict is part of your nature because you live relatively short lives, but I believe eventually humans will live for centuries, and conflict will not be as appealing when that happens. I believe at that point conflict will only remain as a form of entertainment" she replies.

"That's logical. If we lived for a couple thousand years we'd be less likely to risk something that could result in our ****" you muse, and Dawn nods in agreement. You let out a deep sigh. You'd been fiddling with a bullet in your hand, so to test your ability to control the **** spell. Initially the bullet sort of twitches and dances in your palm, but after a little trial and error you figure out how to control it, and you soon have it floating in the air in front of you. Canceling the spell you catch the bullet as it drops. Dawn smirks at you.

"Even for an Intuitive you are fast to master your spells. Just be aware that particular spell is affected by weight" Dawn states.

"So trying to lift your T-Rex out there would be a bad idea" you ask teasingly.

"You can try if you wish" Dawn states and steps aside smirking again.

"I think I'll pass on that for now. I really just wanted to learn the **** and explosive spells anyways. Magic in general is terrifically useful, but in terms of the upcoming conflicts I can certainly find uses for both" you tell her. Dawn holds out her hand for the bullet you were toying with, so you hand it to her. She smiles at you and throws the bullet towards the box you pulled it from. She then fades out and then fades back in next to the box to catch the bullet. She gives you a wink and then places the bullet back into the box, and then fades out and back in front of you.

"You are insanely powerful aren't you" you ask her seriously.

"Maybe. I have a lot of advantages that humans do not" she responds "does that scare you" she asks looking worried.

"No, you don't. You do impress me though. Like...a lot. It is hard for me to understand how you see the world. How you're aware of everything in this place, yet still so present with me right now is one aspect of it. I can't even fathom how that is possible in my mind, but you just do it so easily. It is honestly hard for me to justify being the one leading us. It should be you" you tell her.

"There is more to leadership than just being powerful. I have seen how everyone looks to you for what to do, and I do as well. You formed a defensive alliance with the Amazons in a very quick manner. I do not feel like I could have done such a thing. I already consider you a good leader, and I look forward to the day you accept you are. For that will truly be a glorious sight" she says grabbing your hand. You can't help but smile at her statement.

"Maybe one day I will, and I hope with all of my heart you are all there with me" you reply squeezing her hand back.

"I think I can safely state for all of us that there is nothing that could stop us from being with you" she says staring into your eyes. You nod your head, but you still feel a little silly letting self doubt drive your brain for a bit.

"Come on" Dawn says pulling you along behind her "Annabel and Jane want to show you something" she smirks.