Kien's P.O.V

  ...

  As I walked out of Anastasia's laboratory I remembered something about a thought experiment that reminded me of Anastasia's mission. The Chinese Room experiment, essentially a person is placed in a room alongside a rule book, a pen, and paper outside the room is a guard which can only read Chinese, meanwhile the person in the room doesn't understand Chinese and they communicate through slots in the door. The Rulebook that tells them how to write certain common phrases in Chinese. Without any prior knowledge and assuming the person in the room followed the rules correctly the guard would assume that the person in the room was also fluent in Chinese. Why was this important? Because to the guard the words have an actual meaning whereas to the person in the room they are symbols to get a result. My conundrum was, should Anastasia succeed, would these puppets have actual sentience or would they only be able to replicate symbols and gestures in order to elicit certain responses. Though in the end the difference would be semantics to outside observers it would be crucial for the purposes of my own morality. Although I guess we would cross that bridge when we got there, until then I had a garden to tend to weapons to forge and another civilization to bring to heel.

  Well she was deep in experiments Anastasia’s output of Puppets declined significantly so I had more time to outfit the ones we already had. The base puppets were few in number primarily because Anastasia had begun to upgrade them rather than scrapping them, mainly because many of them had begun to show signs of sapience as Anastasia had called it. On the topic of puppets I had already come up with three major arche-types for the upgraded human-based puppets, swordsman, spearmen, and javelineer. The swordsman acted as the skirmishers, the spearman the formation fighters and the javelineers as ranged units. Javelineers had the benefit of being able to act as spearmen should they get outflanked and forced into melee. They wouldn't be great mind you but they would outclass archers in a similar scenario.

  The swordsmen were outfitted with a kopis, a pelte shield, and light to medium armor. The Spearmen had a spear, wall shield, and heavy armor. Finally the javeliners had five javelins, a sling, and light armor. Together they would hopefully make a strong army capable of punching above their weight. Today we would see them in action. I had a force of three hundred and two, seventy five skirmishers, a hundred and fifty spearmen, and seventy five javeliners. There was a suitable scouting force poking around the area of the destroyed fort so I would be hanging back and seeing how the puppets handle the warfare. I had already outlined two choke points for them to hold. The Skirmishers would be acting outside the shield walls utilizing the uneven terrain and their short swords to their advantage. The final two puppets were the Puppet Commander imbued with a weaker version of my [Knights Bulwark] skill, and the Disciple of Kaihao.

  Moving forward I saw my army outlined we had greater numbers however too many would have diminishing returns so I had decided to only take the force out lines before me.

  ...

  Anastasia's P.O.V

  ...

  I stood over the still body of my favorite creation. Kien hadn't even noticed the creations' brilliance, though to be fair neither had she but still the puppet in front of her had by far the strongest spark of sapience, a subtle will that allowed for subtle shifts in the mana wirings and runes inlaid in them. Most of the puppets who had could only accomplish minor alterations and most were mostly accidently. The humble cook though had a drive, a reason, something about the act of cooking, no more so the drive to nourish others is what drove this puppet to greatness. It was revolutionary. This puppet alone rewrote its code to be able to better make food taking the crude recipe that Kien had been using to make a culinary masterpiece. Right now I was upgrading this puppet being careful not to even touch the circuitry leading the puppets brain lest I somehow interfere.

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  I was improving the puppets' Dexterity with its hands, its heat resistance, and the part that was the most intricate, the tongue. It would allow the puppet to be able to actually taste the creations he made and I had even added a stomach that would slowly convert the food to mana. However such delicate organs were hard to reproduce, however I was close I could feel it. With twitch I spooled some of my silk and reweaved the matrix carefully to not mess this up. Then the runes glowed, the specific sequence denoting that the organs were working!

  After several failed attempts I had pulled it off. I had given my creation the ability to taste! Dotingly I sowed up the cook and reactivated puppets Mana core and I watched as creation awoke.

  ...

  Back to Kien

  ...

  We arrived at the designated hold points unimpeded. I had the two flanks of the spearman form up skirmishers in front of the shield wall and the javeliners behind. The Javeliners had five salvos totaling to three hundred and seventy five javelins. With every array I waited to see the battle unfold.

  Two hours passed and at some point Anastasia seemed pleased but hadn't elaborated before the scouting army had fallen upon us. They had roughly three times our number at nine hundred however we had the advantage of a fortified position.

  "Enemies in the Caves we've found them" I heard a Scalefolk report and then without input from me the first salvo of javelins were loosed they flew, a most hadn't made their mark but enough did that 20 of the enemy army were killed or otherwise Incapacitated. The Scalefolk charged us as the second and the third salvos flew, the second salvo enjoyed the most success with casualties at 52. When they were in range the skirmishers struck the charging armies' flanks before pulling back.

  The small battle had already wiped a total of eighty six before the battle even began. However the Javelins would be useless for the rest of the battle due to the close proximity of our troops to the enemy. There were two primary stages of the battle where the most casualties occurred, the army in charge and during the rout of the losing army. The Scalefolk were stronger than the puppets and with their superior numbers they should be able to wipe out the puppet armies. That wasn't accounting elites which were the true backbone of post-system warfare.

  The Puppet Commander held the spearman's shield wall as the spears of the formation jabbed into the enemy ranks. Slings flew overhead and into the deep center of the enemy army. I estimated at about 35% losses the enemy commander would have to pull back and would lose a lot in the route.

  I studied the battlefield looking for the spark as Anastasia put it, the drive to go beyond or something like that. I didn't notice anything out of the normal, currently the Scalefolk were at just shy of 800 and the thirty we had lost were all skirmishers. Looking I saw that the enemy army had even noticed the second flank and I decided to give them a go ahead. This would allow us to take some hostage If we managed to sandwich them. Ordering the secondary flank to out maneuver and come from the rear of the enemy army.

  I smiled when I heard the shock as the Scalefolk reformed to try and protect their exposed flank. However the folly in whoever was in charge of scouting not to notice a secondary army was to blame for this easy victory. Meanwhile the Disciple of Kaihao was wreaking havoc through the ranks of the enemy as I watched the numbers drop from eight hundred down to a hundred before I felt comfortable taking prisoners.

  …

  In the palace complex of the Scalefolk

  …

  “The Scouting army has been defeated, your excellence” The Messenger reported kneeling before the dais where the feathered Scalefolk sat.

  “How many survived?” The Feathered Lizard asked, his voice smooth and serene.

  “None were recovered, though the scouts reported that there are tracts of scalefolk leading deeper into the caves, the current consensus of the scouts is that a large number were captured.” The scout reported. The scalefolk high on the dais weren't surprised the soldiers of his army were more used to parades and suppressing malnourished miners than actual warfare. The ritual was taking time. The priestesses were trying to create a tether to the divine being I had witnessed in my dream. An armored warrior molding the very earth, and offering protection.

  “Pull back for now I will have to ask the auger” The feathered scalefolk dismissed the messenger before calling for the aforementioned auger.