Eventually, Wolfe went up to see what had been left for them and put away the cases of gear and rations, then stopped at a poorly handwritten note.
[Careful, motorcycle bites]
Wolfe laughed at the note but covered his hand with [Lightning Armour] before opening the unmarked metal crate.
Sure enough, it shocked him as he opened the lid and laid it flat. High-Speed Stealth Infiltration Vehicle MkV. The label perfectly matched the large wheeled dirt bike inside the crate, painted in winter camo.
The shock came from a broken metal band, which grounded against the battery when you tried to open the lid. The scorch marks were clearly visible, and Wolfe could only shake his head at the shoddy packing job.
It was an electric motorcycle, intended to be nearly silent, and from the look of it, there were more of them, many more.
Wolfe ducked his head outside and found a small girl hiding in the bushes, keeping watch over the area as a lookout so that passing army units wouldn’t detect their supply runs.
“Hey, scout. Did you guys give us all the new dirt bikes because one of them bit someone?” He asked softly, making the girl giggle.
“It was tempting. That thing bit me hard. But there was a whole truckload of them, so we gave you one-quarter of them. The big boss wants to ask you about charging them as well. We are always short on electricity in the village.” She replied.
“That shouldn’t be a problem. Tell her to bring me a power pack or whatever you’re using to charge them, and I’ll inscribe it to stay full. Then you only need to bring it here or have me send out a witch to refresh it once a month.”
The girl nodded, then looked around furtively, like she was afraid to get caught doing something bad.
“You know, I’ve got a bit of witch blood. Do you think you could get me one of the special guns?” She whispered.
“Even with witch blood, you won’t know until somewhere around age eighteen if you can form an aura. But if you’re here a lot, I can make you a regular gun with special bullets.” He replied with a wink.
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Wolfe left her waiting and went into the new supplies to get her some ammunition. She should have a pistol, but Wolfe grabbed a new one from the crate anyhow and quickly enchanted a single magazine for her.
He was getting very good at enhancing weapons now, and it only took a few seconds to enchant the whole magazine by simply focusing on imbuing the effects he wanted on the bullets.
“I’ve got it ready. Twenty-one shots with [Chain Lightning] enchantments on them. Use them sparingly because the army guys will hunt you down if they find out, and we can’t allow them to get that ammunition.” Wolfe whispered to her when he came back out.
“Thank you so much. It must be so great to be able to use magic. I’ve always dreamed about it. Not many hybrids survive to eighteen, and even fewer can use magic, but I think I’m the one to beat the odds.
I mean, I’m not even sick or anything, and my mom was a real witch. I can even talk around her. That’s got to be the sign that I’ll be the next witch for the village, right?” She asked excitedly.
Wolfe smiled at her enthusiasm. If attitude counted for anything, she would definitely be the next magic-using hero of her village.
“I think you’ve got a good chance. How long until you’re eighteen?”
She counted on her fingers for a second, then shrugged. “This is my fifteenth winter, and I was born in the spring. The new moon before the spring solstice.”
“You’re almost there then. Just hide well and stay warm. I’ll come to check on you later.” Wolfe replied.
As he went inside, he noticed that she was curled up over one of the air vents from the bunker, letting the hot air blow up inside her blanket. The bush also wasn’t a real bush. It was part of her disguise, which had branches and bones attached to it to make it blend in with the surroundings.
It actually worked better than his attempts at creating camouflage had. He had thought she was hiding in a bush, but she was the bush, and the ground had been dug out under her so that her body made the ground appear flat when she hid.
It seemed that he had a lot to learn about hiding in plain sight.
Wolfe retreated back to the lower levels, where the witches had a plan made to use earth magic to finish their living space upgrades since they had detected an area that wasn’t as hot under a hundred meters away. The tropical heat was nice, but it made going outside in the winter a real shock.
They had also hung a Geiger counter in the main room, showing negligible radiation here.
“The radio said that the mundane army is using nuclear weapons again and spilling radioactive or poisoned water in the village wells to chase the residents out. I think they’re close to breaking, and they’re going crazy.” Priya explained.
If they couldn’t have it, nobody could. It was far from a new idea, but they should know better, considering that the central half of the continent was still basically uninhabitable because of tactics like that.
“They’re also baiting us out to attack another pair of convoys. No way did they actually broadcast the coordinates for their evening camp.” She added.
Wolfe handed her the intelligence that was left with today’s shipment. “Look through this. We have obtained motorcycles, so we will hit everything but the two. Not to necessarily eliminate them but to harass and slow them. They will realize soon enough that they don’t want to play with us.”
“And what about those two?” Ella asked.
We will have our friends scout them again and see if they’ve got anything worth taking. If they don’t, we let them pass. The witches will do something if they’re really coming from those locations.