This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/DrDoritosMD on 2025-10-14 21:45:02+00:00.
Blurb/Synopsis
Captain Henry Donnager expected a quiet career babysitting a dusty relic in Area 51. But when a test unlocks a portal to a world of knights and magic, he's thrust into command of Alpha Team, an elite unit tasked with exploring this new realm.
They join the local Adventurers Guild, seeking to unravel the secrets of this fantastical realm and the ancient gateway's creators. As their quests reveal the potent forces of magic, they inadvertently entangle in the volatile politics between local rivalling factions.
With American technology and ancient secrets in the balance, Henry's team navigates alliances and hostilities, enlisting local legends and air support in their quest. In a land where dragons loom, they discover that modern warfare's might—Hellfire missiles included—holds its own brand of magic.
Chapter 62: Hearts and Minds (3)
Note: Welcome to all the new readers! If you're enjoying the book so far I'd appreciate if you like and comment!
The silence that followed was pure shock, which Perry had expected, though he’d hoped for at least one pragmatist to recover quickly. They’d probably expected him to angle for enchantment techniques or metallurgy secrets, maybe request mining rights or exclusive trade arrangements – the kind of things that made sense in their framework of what nations wanted from each other.
Perry would want those things eventually, of course, but establishing America as a military partner first would make everything else follow naturally. Help them solve their existential problem, and suddenly discussions about technology transfer became much friendlier. That was the calculation, anyway, assuming they could get past the conceptual hurdle of what America could actually do.
War Domain recovered first, if only to confirm his hearing. “Beg yer pardon? The Elemental Dragon? Have ye lost yer wits? How in the stone’s name d’ye think to manage such a feat, when hosts o’ warriors’ve shattered against it?”
The answer involved cruise missiles and two-thousand-pound JDAMs, but it wasn’t like those terms would mean anything to the dwarves.
“We have weapons that can strike from… considerable distance,” he said. But how the hell was he supposed to explain effective range to people whose artillery topped out at a few miles? Simple was the only option. “Many miles away. Far enough that the dragon wouldn’t even know the attack was coming.”
War’s eyebrows shot up. “Miles? What siege engine reaches miles? Even wi’ enchantments behind ye, ye’d not reach such a distance with even the finest cannons!”
“Our cannons reach dozens of miles. And we’ve got other weapons that can strike at hundreds. Think of them as… extremely advanced artillery. Guided artillery. They find their own way to the target.”
“Hundreds of miles?” Forge’s voice rang with a craftsman’s disbelief, professional pride shattered. “We’ve metals that’d bear tenfold the charge, yet powder’s still powder. No mix I know could drive a shot so far an’ keep it straight. You’d need half a mountain’s worth just to send it, an’ still it’d tumble like a stone.”
“We don’t rely on powder for that kind of weapon,” Perry said carefully. “The projectile guides itself after launch. It can adjust its course in flight to stay on target until impact.”
“Guided, then…” Arcane trailed off. “But not by rune, nor by spirit. What craft, if no sorcery binds it?”
“Mathematics and engineering.” Perry didn’t bother explaining the concepts of GPS, radar, and internal guidance systems. He couldn’t. Well, maybe Wolcott could, but holding a lecture on missiles wasn’t the most productive idea at the moment. So, he simplified. “It’s complicated. But the short version is that the same principles that let us mass-produce those glasses let us make weapons that hit what we aim at. This would include the Elemental Dragon.”
Mountain hadn’t moved, but his knuckles had gone white against his armrest. Perry figured the dwarf was having one of those unpleasant realizations, like when embassy security learned what a drone swarm could do to their carefully planned defenses. All those murder holes and defensive angles Perry had catalogued on the way in – they’d suddenly become decorative.
“Yet ye’ve not.” Mountain’s words were slow and heavy, like he was holding back from speaking his true thoughts. “Ye come wi’ gifts an’ speech, askin’ leave. If such weapons are truly yours, why stay yer hand?”
Smart question. The real answer involved lawyers and ROE and not wanting to be the Americans who started bombing fantasy kingdoms, but the useful answer was simpler.
“We prefer partners to conquests. We’d need permission to operate within your territory. Freedom to position our assets where they’d be most effective.”
Mountain frowned, not bothering to hide his contempt. “Even if such weapons be real – an’ I’ll not grant that lightly – no foreign boot’s trod Ovinne stone these three centuries. We’ve held the mountains ‘gainst all comers, an’ never once by another folk’s hand.”
The obvious counterpoint would be the adventurers’ guilds operating across borders with impunity, but Perry knew better than to let that comparison leave his mouth. It was sophistry, and everyone knew it. Mercenaries with thin cover stories were one thing; acknowledged military forces were another creature entirely, and Mountain wasn’t stupid enough to conflate the two.
Perry leaned back in his seat and put on the most calming demeanor he could manage. “We’re not asking to march armies through your valleys. Just a handful of units that can perform targeted strikes against a specific threat.”
“Just?” Mountain’s voice carried three hundred years of defensive pride. “Ye speak o’ foreign weapons in our halls as though it were naught. Our fathers’ fathers bled an’ died to keep these mountains ours, an’ ours alone.”
Commerce cleared his throat. “The matter o’ coin –”
“To the slag wi’ coin! This is no tally o’ trade, but the marrow o’ who we are. We’ve no call for outland steel to fight our wars – save if every anvil shatters an’ the mountain itself yields. Only then would I stomach such aid.”
Performing patriotic opposition for the gallery like that – Perry recognized what it was. Theater.
Twenty years ago as a freshman congressman, he’d have been furious at the waste of time – how many people had died waiting for politicians to finish their performative disagreements before arriving at the obvious answer? Hurricane relief held hostage to jurisdiction debates, pandemic aid stalled for partisan points.
Mountain probably felt the need to register his objection strenuously enough that nobody could later claim he’d rolled over for the Americans. But at least he wasn’t blindly stubborn; he’d given himself a perfect escape clause in that last line.
It sounded poetic enough for the traditionalists, flexible enough for reinterpretation. When Ovinnish citizens needed saving, Mountain could claim the mountain had indeed yielded to the dragon’s storms.
Still would’ve been faster to skip straight to ‘three hundred people need evacuation,’ but Perry had learned to pick his battles. The higher he’d climbed from Congress to State, the more he’d managed to avoid these circular firing squads, choosing positions where results mattered more than rhetoric. Not entirely, though – nowhere was entirely free of it. But he’d managed enough that he could watch the passion plays instead of starring in them.
This time, the star of the play was Harvest. “My nephew has family in Greyhar. His wife’s borne him a daughter I’ve yet to hold. Three hundred souls till the fields there, an’ beasts circle them like wolves at fold’s edge. If this be no hour for last resort, then it’s the hour we bury our own.”
“Don’t ye dare –”
Harvest cut in. “The mountain’s yielded. Avalanches’ve sealed Greyhar an’ half the vale besides. Folk’re penned in wi’ no road out. If that’s not the mountain givin’ way, then what would ye call it?”
The Council fell silent. Perry knew better than to speak; this was their argument to have.
And that’s where Commerce came in, offering a middle path. “If these weapons be as ye claim, might they not win us a bit o’ time, enough to bring our folk out o’ Greyhar an’ the other villages?”
Perfect opening. Perry stood. “We could do that. But I have a better proposition. Let us perform the rescue operation.”
War’s head snapped toward him. “Ye’d risk yer own folk in dragon territory?”
“We have the capability to extract them quickly and safely,” Perry said, keeping it vague enough to sound confident without providing anything they could object to specifically.
Harvest leaned forward, and Perry could see the exact moment political composure cracked under personal desperation. “All three villages? Tannow, Greyhar, Karlsheim?”
Perry nodded. “All three.”
“How?” Mountain demanded, and there was the skepticism Perry had been expecting. “The passes lie buried. An’ if they didn’t, it’s three days through wild ground, beast-ridden every mile.”
Perry suppressed the urge to grin. He’d been waiting for this opening like a prosecutor waiting for the defense to ask the wrong question. “We wouldn’t use the passes.”
The confusion that followed was almost worth the buildup. He could see the gears turning through the dwarves’ faces – everything above ground belonged to either the ice or the monsters. They must’ve...
Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1o6st14/stargate_and_gate_inspired_manifest_fantasy/