by Dakota Krout
After working out the spell circle on a separate piece of paper and validating it thanks to his Occultist bonus, he started the process of infusing the ritual with mana and linking the blueprint. This was always the most delicate part, but he had faith in his success even though this was a student-ranked diagram. His copy of the blueprint appeared in the ritual circle and seemed to struggle to escape. As the mana-infused ink dried on to the paper, the entire thing shuddered slightly once more… but stabilized. Whew!
It was already lunchtime, and Joe had only been able to create a single ritual diagram to create a single building. Actually, now that he thought about it, that wasn’t a terrible amount of time to make something that would become a permanent fixture. He smacked himself in the face when he remembered that there was a bonus to creation speed he could have gotten from the ritual room of the Pathfinder’s Hall, but instead of falling into despair, he sighed and decided lunch needed to come before his mood. Actually, his mood was likely being affected by hunger and thirst.
“Cleanse.” Joe watched as his mana appeared on his fingers and turned into water. That water found a vein on his arm and poured in, hydrating him better than an IV could have ever hoped to do. “Food next.”
After getting a quick bite to eat, Joe decided to do the calculations for the building before seeking out Mike again. He was muttering aloud without realizing it, “Reducing the cost by a flat fifty percent, down another twenty-three percent from the ritual magic skill… Coalescence, so another twenty-one percent… looks like this is going to come out to about seven hundred mana for initial investment, then fifty mana per second for about thirty seconds. I have… ugh… nine seventy-six.”
“That means I’ll need at least one other mage on this with me. More if I want to keep my Mage Armor active. I wonder if… heh… let’s see if we have a magic Mike.”
Chapter Four
“You want me to participate in making the building?” Mike didn’t even look up from the forms he was signing rapid-fire, getting through a massive stack of documents in only a few minutes. “Why?”
“Multiple reasons, one of which is to allow people to see one of their top guys going out to help them directly. It’s a public relations win, a morale booster, you know it would be.” Joe smiled winningly, but Mike just waved his hand for the next reason. “Alright, the other reason I want this so much is so that you realize exactly what’s going on when I pull magic out of my butt and create a building. It’s really cool but very draining. I can't do it constantly, and I want you to see why I won’t do this sort of thing all the time. Also, here is a list of extra components I need beyond the building materials. Also, what are the… contribution points I’ll get for this?”
“Two thousand, the same amount that will be given to a logistics group that supplies raids on dungeons in the near future. We can negotiate future rates after this first building goes up.“ Mike took the list, looked it over, and looked up at Joe with raised brows. “Why do you need some of these things? Termite spoor… for instance?”
“That’ll do for the time being. Now, the odd items on the list. Lots of reasons, but that one specifically because this area has a huge termite problem, and this will automatically add anti-infestation protections to the building. The rest of it is the cost of building a Common-ranked barracks in a day from the ground up. Also, I added in extra room to each building so that they can be upgraded if we ever find better designs for them.”
Mike looked over the list once more, signed it into a requisition order, and handed it to one of his aides. “How important is it that I participate?”
“You join in, or I won’t.” Joe’s smile showed teeth.
Mike nodded slowly, his eyes narrowing a fraction. “I see. Let’s make it happen. Where should we deliver all these… goods?”
“Wherever you want the building.” Joe paused and raised a hand to his chin. “Also, it might be better to do this on a spot already cleared and prepared. The mana cost especially will jump if we need to tear up the ground and knock over trees. Having a foundation in place would be best, but it won’t work for my modified plans. In the future, we can work that out ahead of time.”
“Alright, when are we doing this?”
“As soon as you can get all the supplies in place.” Joe turned toward the door. “Everything else is already built into this ritual blueprint. All we need to do is power and activate it.”
“Is it reusable?” Mike leaned forward interestedly.
“No. Since I made the ritual by using a blueprint instead of scanning an already-built structure, we only get to use it once, then I have to make the whole thing again. Also, word of warning: anyone else activating it would need to pay the full cost of all materials and mana.” Joe smiled at Mike and opened the door. “Let me know when you are ready for me. I’ll be working on my skills over at the training grounds.”
Joe went over to the mid-range spell practice area and worked to familiarize himself with his newest powers. Effortless Shaping, contrary to its name, required an exact picture in mind when working to make something out of darkness. It was intense mental work but was such an insignificant drain on mana that Joe had to assume that was where the ‘effortless’ portion of the skill name came from. Beyond that, getting details too close to each other tended to make them blend, which could really only be fixed by gaining skill levels. Sadly, the lack of needed mana was quickly made up for when Joe solidified the shadows into… anything.
He could invest ten points of mana per skill level and had found that larger amounts of mana would let him do more damage or stabilize the structure for longer periods of time. Right now, shadows would ‘bleed’ and slowly vanish when they were exposed to bright light. Joe had found this out when he was running mana through a ritual and one of the lines snapped. If he had been doing anything important with it, he would have been in a lot of trouble. Joe had gotten very lucky in the past, especially during the war when his basic enchanting ritual was stuffed under a tent. That could have gone very badly.
So, training. Perfecting his shadowy shapes and holding them under the sun to find ways to make them last longer and hold more detail was the only thing he could think to do for training himself in this regard. Also, solidifying the shadows required him to pour mana into the shape, and he wanted to be able to do that faster. Over the course of a few hours—and thanks to the boost from proximity to the Pathfinder’s Hall—he gained a few skill levels.
Skill increase: Effortless (Darkness) Shaping (Apprentice VII). Boo! Did I scare you?
Skill increase: Solidified Shadows. (Apprentice VII). You looked scared.
Skill increase: Cleanse (Apprentice VII). Strange that you increased three skills and they all became the same rank and level. +1 Luck.
“Alright. I’ll take it.” Multiple hours of hydrating people around him upon request had also paid off, it seemed. Joe looked at the shadow skills almost greedily. They were the only Legendary and Mythical skills he had, and he couldn’t wait to see what kind of bonuses he would gain from them as they ranked up.
“Joe, ready to get this over with?” Mike came trotting up, a few of his aides in tow. “Let’s get some people housed before darkness sets in. Whoa, what happened here?”
The ground was torn up all over the place, and a few of the targets had brutal scarring on them. Joe looked at his handiwork and winced; he hadn’t been thinking about what others would see when they watched his spells going off or what they would think when they saw the torn-up landscape.
“Miss a lot, don’t ya?” Mike commented dryly as he took a look around. He smirked and started walking away, Joe following after with a bright red face. “I can see why you wanted to practice.”
“No, I don’t miss a lot. I was trying new spell effects!” Joe’s defensiveness caused the small group to snicker, and he realized that he was being intentionally baited. “Laugh it up, big guy.”
Mike’s lips twitched, but Joe couldn’t see it happening. By the time th
ey got to a cleared lot, he had his face under control once again. “Here we are. All of the normal material needed for building this barracks are over here, and here are the items you… requested.”
“Great!” Joe grabbed the bag, looking through it and inspecting the quality of each of the items in it. “Alright… good. Yeah, we should be all set. Let me place this… how do you want the building oriented?”
“Lengthwise, like this,” one of the aides spoke up, gesturing with his hands, “with the doors placed here and here.”
“Right.” Joe took a deep breath at the order that was inconsistent with the blueprint they had already agreed upon. He took another, just so that he didn’t say anything he would regret. “Hey, Mike, interesting issue here. You wanted the doors shifted around? To be different than what was on the blueprint?”
“It was more of a last-minute judgment call.” The aide waved his hands flippantly. “It isn’t that important… if you can’t do it.”
“Good, because it isn’t happening,” Joe responded bluntly, shocking the aide into red-faced anger. “I told you, Mike, whatever is on the blueprint is what is made. There are no alterations that I can make right now unless you want to wait until tomorrow. I would need to make this ritual diagram from scratch, from blueprints that are correct, and that took me… oh, about five-ish hours today?”
“As he mentioned, it wasn’t that important.” Mike stared at the now-wilting aide. “Frankly, I’m not sure why it came up.”
“Because you are trying to test me, Mike.” Joe sighed and cracked his neck. “Stupid power games and attempts to mess with me to see how far you can push me. Standard military fare, and it doesn’t bother me much. But… it does bother me a little. Add on twenty-five percent to the contribution points we agreed on, or I’m out. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”
The group around him went quiet at the direct challenge to Mike. The man in question sighed and nodded. “You drive a hard bargain, Joe.”
“It’s okay, Mike. You could triple what I’m earning. The currency is worthless right now.” Joe didn’t break eye contact.
“So was bitcoin a decade ago,” Mike grumbled halfheartedly. “You got it, Joe. My bad. Look, it’s just something pretty deeply ingrained in me.”
“I’ve had my fill of military, Mike. As much as I respect all the people in it, my time there is done, and I’m very happy with that arrangement.” Joe looked at the aides and made a motion at the edges of the property. “Can someone grab a stick and rough out where the building should be going? Gonna have to destroy it by hand if we get it wrong, and I don’t know if a lot of people will be on board for that.”
When all the preparations were complete and a drop of blood from both of them had been added to the silver focus chalice, Joe looked over at Mike and smiled darkly. “Ready? Here we go!”
With those words, the Rituarchitect poured mana into the ritual blueprint he had created, and a holographic double ring expanded away from the men and eclipsed the entire lot. “In structuram, pulchra placent?”
The two men running the ritual were lifted off their feet as wood, nails, and pipes began flying toward them and assembling themselves into barracks form. The ritual turned sideways, and as it passed over the area… it acted like a printer that left behind completed buildings. A massive three-D printer! Mike got a beautiful view of the entire process, and really seemed to be enjoying himself. Then Joe got down to twenty percent of his mana, and the draw switched over to the Vice Guild leader..
“Son of a…!” Mike exclaimed in sudden shock. Joe chuckled; his body was literally designed to move around massive flows of power like this, but he didn’t need to let other people know that. Let them think that he got mana-sick like they did, and his work would be even more respected. Also less requested, if he made the person bothering him participate.
The ritual drained Mike down to ten mana before switching back to Joe. The Rituarchitect had been able to regenerate two-hundred and eighty mana over the intervening fourteen seconds. That, coupled with the almost two-hundred mana he had remaining from the first round, afforded him another ten seconds of mana input before it switched back to Mike. The man lasted three seconds, then the drain was back to Joe, but luckily, the ritual only lasted another second before finishing. Then the diagram burst into intense, blue flames and vanished.
They settled on the ground, both heaving great gulps of air and staring at the bright sky. Within a few moments, they were able to sit up and look at the building they had just erected. Mike was the first to speak, “It looks excellent. I… can see why you would attach a high price for your work, though.”
“I’d get a carpenter to look at it, but it should be perfectly safe for people to sleep in there tonight,” Joe informed the Vice-Guild leader.
No Class experience gained for buildings Common-ranked or below!
“Good show.” Mike looked at the building once more. He squinted and pointed up. “No shingles on the roof?”
“Well, Mike,” Joe stood up, brushed off his Robe of Liquid Darkness, and shrugged, “no shingles on the blueprint.”
Chapter Five
“We’re back, Joe!” Alexis ran over to Joe as he was leaving breakfast. Joe’s bad mood over being interrupted halfway through his daily characteristic score training vanished like fog on a sunny day.
“Alexis!” Joe opened his arms, and his teammate gave him a hug. “It’s so good to see you. How was your trip?”
“Pretty great!” Alexis smiled even as her eyes went flat. “We were able to improve our skills a lot, gain some good experience, and even prevent a few war crimes from occurring.”
“War crimes…?” Joe almost didn’t want to know. “As in?”
“The Wolfmen are sentient or close enough to it that slaughtering innocents is a really bad thing,” she quietly informed him, even as she pulled him along to see the others in the party. “Thanks to Bard keeping people calm and Poppy stabbing a few of the most vicious people in the face, we stopped… a lot of things that shouldn't have even been considered.”
“That’s good. I’m proud of you guys,” Joe told the three as the other two came into view. “When you went off to finish off that race, I was really worried that you would do some things you might eventually regret. I’m glad to be proven wrong.”
“Ah, no’ wi’ ma pretty lass keepin’ us in line!” Bard called over, causing Alexis to simultaneously roll her eyes and blush. “It’s good ta see ya, Joe.”
“Even better to be seen!” Joe smirked at the trio. “Hi, Poppy!”
“Ah, our fearless leader!” Poppy swept off his oversized, feathered hat and sketched a bow. “How it warms my heart to be in your presence once more!”
“Right.” Joe snorted and slapped the man on the shoulder. “All we need now is Jaxon, and we’ll be back to full strength!”
“I’d like to contend that we are at full strength whenever I am here.” Poppy sniffed at the air haughtily. “I’d also–”
Joe splashed the duelist in the face with a Cleanse spell and then decided to make the most of it when he realized that the three of them actually stunk pretty badly. Water spun out from Joe and washed over the three, cleaning them and their clothes at the same time. “There we go. You guys should be losing that debuff right about… now. Much better!”
Poppy spat to the side. “Hey, thanks, but a bit of warning, yeah? That black water is cold.”
“Any plans for the day?” Joe looked around at the others and got shrugs in response. “Actually, weren’t you all supposed to be gone for a few more days?”
“Ah. Yeah, but when no one could log out, food started vanishing way faster than we had plotted for. Not only that,” Alexis took a swig of water from her canteen, “morale was pretty low at that point. We figured ‘good enough’ and got moving back here.”
“Oh, well, good.” Joe smiled around, but his happy look slowly faded. “I, unfortunately, seem to have been nerfed during our time apart.”
/> “Wha’ d’ya mean?” Bard questioned with a furrowed brow. “Ya doin’ alright?”
“Yeah, but I lost my direct connection to my deity.” Joe sighed softly. “Gonna need to do a lot of work to restore him, and I really need to test out my current combat ability.”
“We caught a quest about cleaning out some caverns nearby that might connect to a deeper level of those mines we collapsed,” Poppy offered quickly. “It looked fun, what with the total lack of information available and a dark, cramped space.”
“Sounds just about perfect. You all okay to get going?” Joe looked around, and everyone nodded eagerly. He really hoped that they were eager to fight and get back together, not to see how weak he was. They started walking toward the gates, and Joe was just about to ask a question when he saw someone familiar.
“Jaxon! There you are!” Joe called happily. He had been the most concerned about Jaxon; the man had a tendency to break people accidentally or start fights accidentally or get warrants for his arrest accidentally… Joe had been worried. “Everyone just got back a short while ago. I was hoping that we could get up to date on our adventures. What do you think?”
“Excuse me, get out of the way.” A pompous man Joe recognized from the late-night meeting a few days ago seemed to be nearly hyperventilating over Joe interrupting him, his fists clenched and pale as he continued shouting at Jaxon, “We told you what would happen if you came back, and you are–”
Joe stepped closer to Jaxon, still chatting happily to bait the youth into doing something stupid. The young leader seemed absolutely shocked that Joe had done so and decided to play right into Joe’s hands. “Are you not in the Guild? I said, get out of the way!”
“Right, that’s enough. I’m Joe. Who are you?” Joe turned to the other man and subtly pulled in shadows at strategic locations on his body. This combined with leaking his mana had the interesting effect of creating a seemingly powerful aura of magic that stifled those around him, and adding a point or three of mana to slightly solidify the shadows created an actual physical pressure that made it hard to breathe.