Riordain's fear finally crested into a desperate, suicidal bravery. To the Aen Seidhe, death at the hands of a human was a tragedy, but death at the hands of this "Unchained Predator" felt like an inevitable cosmic sacrifice. With a cry of "Ess'athane!" he lunged forward, his silver-inlaid elven blade whistling through the air. The strike was perfect, aimed straight for the gap in the giant's neck seals.
CLANG.
The blade struck the dark iron of the Praetor Suit and didn't just stop—it shattered. Shards of elven steel flew into the mud like glass. Riordain stared at his empty hilt, his arm vibrating from the kinetic shock of hitting something as solid as a mountain.
Henry didn't even flinch. He just looked down at the broken sword shards, then back at Riordain.
"THAT... WAS... EXPENSIVE... PROBABLY," Henry rumbled, his voice echoing like a sub-woofer through the clearing.
The Elder, however, had stopped trembling. As the armored giant leaned forward to offer the crate, a faint breeze carried the scent of the White Raffard's Decoctions toward her. She expected the copper tang of blood or the sulfur of the abyss. Instead, her nostrils were met with the crisp, sweet aroma of buckthorn, honeysuckle, and high-quality Dwarven Spirit.
She reached out with a trembling hand, snatched a vial from the crate, and uncorked it. Before Riordain could stop her, she took a cautious sip. Her eyes widened. The liquid was smooth, cool, and tasted of mountain herbs. Within seconds, the chronic ache in her joints from the northern dampness simply... vanished. There was no burning toxicity, no darkening of the veins—just pure, restorative energy.
She let out a long, weary sigh and planted her palm firmly against her forehead in a massive facepalm.
"Bloede Dh'oine..." she muttered, her voice dripping with the kind of exasperation only a centuries-old elf could muster. "He's not here to eat us. He's... he's a peddler. A seven-foot-tall, metal-clad, monster-shredding peddler."
The camp fell into a stunned, awkward silence. The terrifying predator wasn't an omen of the White Frost; he was a door-to-door salesman.
"Elder?" Riordain stammered, still clutching his broken hilt. "He just shattered my family's blade by existing!"
"And now he wants to sell us medicine, Riordain. Move aside." She stepped toward Henry, reaching into her pouch for a handful of coins. "One bottle, Master... Merchant. And please, try not to break any more of our warriors. We're short on steel as it is."
Henry's HUD pinged with a satisfying chime.
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[ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: FIRST TRADE SUCCESSFUL! ]
[ REWARD: 100 POINTS & 'SENSE OF CAPITALISM' PERK. ]
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Henry carefully took the coins with two fingers, looking like a tank trying to pick up a postage stamp. "THANK... YOU. COME... AGAIN."
He turned and marched back into the woods, the heavy industrial metal music fading into the distance, leaving the Elves to stare at the yellow bottle and their own bruised dignity.
******
Henry stood at the edge of the clearing, his HUD pinging as the [SYSTEM] processed the tiny pile of Orens he had just acquired. He was about to stomp back into the brush when a small, trembling voice broke through the fading bass of his suit's "Ambient Hunt" track.
"Wait! Great... Lord... Merchant?"
Henry turned, his massive iron neck servos whirring with a mechanical click. A pair of young Aen Seidhe scouts—the very ones who had shrieked and tripped over logs earlier, convinced he was bottling the blood of the stars—were now standing a few paces away. Their fear hadn't vanished, but the sight of their Elder drinking the "liquid sunlight" and surviving had sparked a curiosity more powerful than their terror.
"Can we... see it?" the youngest one, Elivyl, stammered, his gaze drifting toward the glowing blue pillar in the distance. "The... the Mountain of Iron? Your... fort?"
Riordain let out a strangled gasp. "Elivyl! Get back here before he decides you're an ingredient!"
Henry looked at the young elves. He saw the shivering, the muddy rags they wore, and the way they looked at the Fortress of Doom like it was a beacon of warmth in a frozen hell. He thought about his "Build a Nation" goal. You couldn't have a nation without people, and you couldn't have people if you kept accidentally scaring them into cardiac arrest.
"FOLLOW... ME," Henry rumbled. He tried to make it sound welcoming, but it still sounded like a landslide asking a hiker for a favor. "STAY... IN... THE... BLUE... LIGHT."
The Elder watched in stunned silence as the two youths—who minutes ago were fleeing for their lives—actually began to follow the giant. Henry marched with a heavy, rhythmic stride, his Super Shotgun magnetized to his back.
As they approached the Fortress of Doom, the massive Sentinel gates didn't just open; they hissed with pressurized steam and glowed with a welcoming, neon-blue pulse. The elves flinched at the sound, but as the dry, perfect heat from the interior hit their faces—power generated from the universal battery—their shivering stopped instantly.
"WELCOME... TO... SENTINEL... PRIME," Henry announced, gesturing to the grand hall of obsidian and white marble.
The young scouts stepped onto the polished floor, their dirty boots leaving muddy marks on the pristine stone. They looked around like they had walked into the palace of a god, staring at floating crystals and the hum of infinite power.
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[ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: NEW CITIZENS DETECTED ]
[ TASK UPDATED: ESTABLISH INFRASTRUCTURE ]
[ REWARD: SENTINEL FABRICATOR - CLOTHING & TOOLS ]
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Henry looked at his two "guests" who were currently staring at a floating hologram of a Cacodemon in the trophy hall with their mouths hanging open. "DON'T... TOUCH... THE... RED... ONES," he cautioned, his voice echoing through the vast, empty fortress.