The morning light of the North filtered through the Fortress of Doom's massive viewports, casting long, blue-tinted shadows over the Refectory. The Elder and her scouts stood by the main airlock, their bellies full of the strange, cheesy bread and bubbling dark water that the giant called "Coke."
Henry stood before them, his Praetor Suit gleaming. He gestured to the Sentinel Fabricator, which hissed and spat out several neatly packed bundles.
"PARTING... GIFTS," Henry rumbled, handing them over.
The Elves opened the packages and gasped. Inside were garments made of a fabric softer than the finest Nilfgaardian silk, yet tougher than boiled leather—Sentinel-Core travel gear designed to regulate body temperature in the mountain frost. Alongside the clothes were small, sleek bottles of Perfume that smelled of mountain air and ozone, and several odd, bristled sticks with tubes of minty paste.
"TOOTHBRUSHES... AND... TOOTHPASTE," Henry explained, miming a brushing motion. "HYGIENE... IS... THE... FIRST... STEP... TO... CIVILIZATION."
The Elder took a bottle of the perfume, her eyes wide. "You give us the scents of the heavens and the armor of the stars... just for visiting?"
Henry offered a rare, genuine smile—one that actually reached his eyes. "YOU... BOUGHT... A... POTION. GOOD... CUSTOMERS... GET... PERKS."
Elivyl and his companion gripped their bundles, their faces beaming. "We will meet again, Henry Doomstar!" Elivyl chirped, no longer trembling. "Your 'Mountain of Iron' is much warmer than the woods!"
"YOU... ARE... ALWAYS... WELCOME," Henry replied, his voice softening.
******
The next day, the Aen Seidhe settlement had returned to its usual rhythm, but the atmosphere had shifted entirely. The oppressive, soul-crushing terror that had gripped the camp since the "Pillar of Fire" appeared was gone, replaced by something much more human: Gossip.
Groups of elves sat by the communal fire, no longer shivering in fear. Instead, they were passing around the "Mint-Paste" and smelling like high-end boutiques.
"I'm telling you," Riordain said, scrubbing his teeth with a ferocity that bordered on religious zeal. "The man is a disaster. Did you see the way he fought that Leshen? No finesse! No grace! He just... minced it. He's the messiest butcher in the history of the Continent."
"And that costume!" another scout laughed, draped in his new, self-warming Sentinel cloak. "He wears enough iron to sink a Skellige longship. He looks like a metal golem having a mid-life crisis."
The Elder watched them, a small smile playing on her lips as she adjusted her new, sleek travel boots. "He is a strange one," she mused. "A protector who looks like the end of the world, but smells like fresh mint and gives away his best 'blood-bottles' for a few Orens. A brutal, messy, ridiculous human... but our human nonetheless."
The camp erupted in laughter—a sound the woods hadn't heard in years. The Unchained Predator was no longer a nightmare; he was the neighbor with the weird castle and the really good snacks.
******
The Fortress of Doom was no longer a silent tomb of iron. In the weeks following the "Great Pizza Peace," it had become the strangest marketplace on the Continent. Henry stood in the central atrium, which he had reorganized into a showroom that would have made a Novigrad merchant weep with envy.
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[ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: KNOWLEDGE FABRICATION COMPLETE ]
[ ITEM: ENCYCLOPAEDIA SENTINEL - VOLUME I-V ]
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Henry stacked the freshly bound books onto a stone pedestal. These weren't just leather-bound tomes; they were Sentinel-refined paper, waterproof and glow-etched, translated into perfect Elder Speech.
"KNOWLEDGE... IS... POWER," Henry rumbled as the Elder and her council approached. "YOU... WANT... TO... UNDERSTAND... THE... WORLD? READ... THESE."
The Elves approached the books as if they were holy relics. They opened tomes on Modern Metallurgy, Hydraulics, and Basic Physics. Their jaws dropped as they realized the "Iron Giant" wasn't just selling magic—he was selling logic. The diagrams of molecular structures and planetary orbits made more sense than any nebulous "Chaos Theory" taught at Aretuza.
The Elder gripped the Book of Ecosystems, her eyes scanning the pages on nitrogen cycles and forest symbiosis. A slow, triumphant smile spread across her face.
"It is... as we suspected," she whispered, her voice thick with emotion. "Our ancestors were not mere 'tree-huggers,' as the humans mock us. We were the Guardians of the Balance. This book... it proves that every leaf, every root is a gear in a machine that keeps the world breathing. We weren't superstitious, Riordain. We were right."
"MARK... MY... WORDS," Henry added, leaning against a pillar. "PROTECT... THE... FOREST... BECAUSE... IT... PROTECTS... YOU. NOT... BECAUSE... A... SPIRIT... SAYS... SO."
He accepted their pouches of Orens and Nilfgaardian Florens with a satisfied nod. The points were rolling in, and his "Nation" was starting to think like a modern society.
******
While the Elves were busy having a scientific revolution, Henry retreated to the Combat Engineering Bay. He needed a sidearm. The Super Shotgun was his soulmate, but every professional needed a backup.
The Sentinel Fabricator hissed, weaving high-density alloys and energy conduits into a familiar, brutal shape.
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[ ITEM ACQUIRED: UAC EMG SIDEARM (2016 MODEL) ]
[ MODIFICATION: CHARGED ENERGY SHOT - INSTALLED ]
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Henry gripped the sleek, heavy pistol. It hummed with a low, blue light, drawing directly from the Unlimited Sentinel Saturation in the air. He aimed at a reinforced target dummy and held the trigger. The barrel whined as energy coiled, then released a bolt of blue plasma that punched a hole through three inches of solid steel.
"A proper sidearm for a proper Slayer," Henry smirked, holstering the weapon on his thigh.
He looked at his HUD. The Elves were now arguing about "Thermodynamics" near the pizza oven, and his scanners were showing something new. A lone rider was approaching the valley—a man with two swords on his back and a medallion that was currently vibrating like a disturbed hornet's nest.