by Jez Cajiao
12 Manastones (average or higher in size)
420 Units of wood/ 210 Units of stone (as desired)
Note: This structure requires a constant influx of mana to remain operational year-round, depending on the climate that is desired inside. Cost ranges from 1-1000 mana per day, per wing.
The star shifted, three small planets rising into view and spinning slowly. One glittered as it spun, a thousand colors and more shifting and drawing my eye, and as I stared, I seemed to fall down towards it, beginning to comprehend the myriad possibilities of Magical Construction. I saw fantastical Towers and knew I was viewing what the Great Tower had once looked like, and could again, clad in shining marble, reflecting the sun, pennants streaming in warm breezes as children played in pools on its balconies. I saw the living, beating heart of the Tower, drawing in ambient mana and releasing… something… into the air. I saw the people breathing it in and growing stronger, healthier.
I saw the people of the Tower, tall and strong, and I knew instinctively that they were all blessed by the construction, that they’d live longer than any elves, all thanks to the wonderful life-giving facets of this place.
I saw cities that reflected the sun like jewels in the sky as they floated past. I saw their mere presence destroying the undead and healing the sick.
I saw fields of crops blossoming, reaching upwards in joy, as people stood on the cities that flew past, singing of their love and peace. I felt my heart lifted by the possibilities, and I saw briefly, the iron fist inside the glove, as people worked at magical crafting stations, making swords that glowed with power, forged by simple apprentices, so strong were the facilities.
I knew I could lose myself in exploring the possibilities, so I pulled back, soaring back upwards to see the steadily burning star gleaming in the sky, with another world drawing closer.
I flew to it, finding it much simpler, but so much steadier, as well. It was the only way I could describe it. I saw facilities that gave bonuses, and cost far less to build, such as a logging camp that produced half again what a normal one could, but instead of being magically enhanced, instead it was efficiently designed. The blades of the saws were smoothly flowing, driven by a waterwheel that spun practically without effort.
I saw the logs being drawn along clear channels, hoisted in artfully designed slings and sliding into the building without a single wasted motion.
Where the last world had been a fantastic imagining of what could be, this world seemed full of another kind of magic.
Here, I saw the flow of perfection in craftsmen. Each worker knew their job and moved as though they’d done it a thousand times, their actions steady and easy. Six men and women took up ropes, three on a side each, and pulled, lifting a tree trunk that had just floated downstream into the channel.
They moved as one, the dripping trunk lifting into the air, and another team pulled a winch, swinging the suspended tree across to where the first group lowered it. In seconds, a huge redwood had gone from peacefully floating down the river into being sawn into planks, and there wasn’t a single wasted motion anywhere that I could see.
The people laughed and joked, calling to their friends as they worked, with a clear, contented voice rising in song in the distance. It made me proud to see how well they worked together, and it made me desperate to see this in my own lands.
Again, I knew there was so much to see here, but I couldn’t take the time, so I looked up to the star above and felt the sky rushing past as I rocketed upwards.
Soon, the final world rotated around, flowing into view in the distance, and as I fell towards it, I saw a new kind of beauty, and also a terrible one.
I saw Weapons of War so magnificently crafted that they were unstoppable. I saw Airships, ships that made my own small fleet laughably weak and ill-considered. A single ship the size of a cruiser flew past me, and I watched it in awe; the sides were smooth, with carved ports out that glowed, unleashing a barrage of light that scoured hordes of the undead from existence. It looked more like a space shuttle engineer or a stealth bomber designer had made this Airship. It was all sleek lines and flowing, deadly grace, and behind it came more.
I saw the Sunken City, or at least its distant cousin, soaring along, no longer a jewel of beauty or a rotting corpse like the one we were scouring now. Instead, it was a terrible and majestic weapon. It flew forward ominously, with flares of fire, beams of light, and shells that, upon impact, spread the deepest darkness across the land.
I saw soldiers in armor that would have made the Terminator weep for desire, wielding weapons that crackled with constrained power.
I saw a single Legionnaire leading hundreds of War Golems and watched him leap from the edge of the city, floating down on wings of light, as Golems that made my own look misshapen and weak thundered along at his command.
I watched the enemy fall, smashed from existence, and I saw the soldiers lifting the innocent to the cities, bringing them to safety, and to life.
I looked everywhere, stunned by all I could see, until I felt a hand shake me gently, and I looked up, tearing my eyes away from the portal that hung before me, instead focusing on Oracle, who smiled at me.
“You’ve been silent for a while; are you okay?” she asked, and I swallowed hard, nodding.
“The possibilities…” I said slowly, shaking my head in amazement.
“That is what I offer you freely, my Champion,” answered Jenae’s voice. “All those things, and more, are possible with the knowledge I possess, but to attain them all would take an age, and would require many other secrets to be unlocked. Do you wish to assign a specialization now?” she asked, and I drew in a deep breath.
“Would it help the Tower if I did?” I asked, and Jenae replied smoothly.
“It would. Even though you haven’t earned enough to unlock that field yet, I could funnel your climbing mana to it; then once it unlocks, I will pass the knowledge to the Tower for you, depending on what it is. Have you made a decision as to what you want to choose?”
“I have,” I said hesitantly, well aware that anything I selected could help tremendously, but equally the wrong choice could leave me regretting it forever.
“And?” she prodded. I drew in a deep breath and reached out mentally, making my choice and seeing the star reach out a tendril of steady white light, moving ever closer to the world as it orbited.
“And I choose ‘Mundane’,” I said, closing my eyes and explaining. “I desperately want the rest, Goddess, do I not, but we have only a bare few crafters as it is, and of those, almost none are magical or have a magical specialty. To instead increase the… smoothness… of the people, the flow of their work, it’ll affect everyone, not just the handful that are working on magical things. Add to that, the Manastones we have will make a huge difference to the Tower’s condition when we return… I think it’s the best choice.” I confirmed, forcing a confidence into my words I didn’t feel.
“A wise and sensible choice, Jax; well done,” Jenae said, and I felt Oracle squeeze the back of my neck reassuringly, rubbing the knotted muscles there, and I let out a relieved breath, deflating as I released it. Blessedly, I suddenly felt the nameless terror of picking the wrong thing recede.
Until next time.
“So, boss, are we going?” Grizz asked simply, gesturing towards the stairwell down into the darkness, and I nodded grimly, dismissing the notifications. A last one tried to pop up, and I glanced at it as I closed it down.
Congratulations! You have killed the following:
5x Adventurers (Himnel) of various levels for a total of 39,712xp
38x Undead of various levels for a total of 9,787xp
A party under your command killed the following:
176x Undead of various levels for a total of 51,709xp
Total Party exp earned: 51,709xp
As party leader, you gain 25% of all experience earned.
Progress to level 19 stands at 149,236/265,000
“Hey, Yen…” I called out to her, s
eeing the details as it closed. “That must have been mainly you, wasn’t it?” I asked, getting a gleaming grin reflected in the firelight.
“Oh, it was the whole team…” she insisted, trying to sound humble, but her grin gave it away.
“Enough to level?” I asked, and she nodded enthusiastically.
“I was close anyway; the Skyking and the city fights were good to me,” she admitted happily, and the others spoke up too, making me smile as I realized literally everyone had gained at least one new level in the last few days.
“Well, congrats to you all,” I said as I swept up my bedroll and dumped it into my bag, then started pulling my armor back on, and finally tugged my naginata out of storage.
A few minutes passed as we all made last-minute adjustments to our gear, and I spun the naginata gently, shifting my shield around to make it more comfortable. It was a bastard at times, using them both together. The length of the naginata made it awkward at first, and it would have been impossible had I used a ‘full length’ naginata, as I’d seen in some of the training videos back on earth, instead of my own shorter version, which was why I’d not taken a shield originally. Fortunately, gaining the DEFENSE skill for my naginata when I’d reached level ten with it had made it easier.
Add to that, the hours of drills that Augustus had put me through, while mainly with a sword, had trained me in the shield’s usage, and it’d made it easier.
I shifted the shield again on my arm, trying to make it more comfortable, and finally accepted that I needed a lot more strength to pull this combination off. Packing the shield back into my Bag of Spatial folding, I quickly checked my stats again as I walked over to the top of the stairwell, pleased to see that the ‘organic growth’ of my strength was going nicely. It was probably the best way to think of it, after all, I decided, as I could both invest points to increase them or invest time and hard work.
“Jax…” Jenae’s voice returned, and I stopped, realizing that she was speaking just to me this time.
“Yes?” I said quietly, directing my voice to her as we started down the stairs. I felt Bane take a deep breath before pushing out his Worldsense in a long, powerful blast.
“We need to talk about your stats… and soon.”
From below came a loud crash in the distance, and suddenly, Bane was backing away quickly and gesturing at us all to move, to run…
“Maybe another time!” I called out loud, and I felt her presence recede like the tide, just as a low grinding noise in the distance started up. It was joined steadily by more, the rumbling, grinding sound growing slowly and echoing up towards us as we ran for it, dashing back up the twisted, damaged stairwell and out into the room above.
The room with only one exit.
Chapter Fifteen
“What is it?” I heard Grizz ask, and I shut my mouth with an audible ‘clop’ as he beat me to it.
“I don’t know,” Bane said, and everyone paused, wondering why he’d made us run. “There’s something big down there. It’s at the outer edge of my range, tucked inside a cavern, but it’s huge, solid, and covered in living things. Whatever they are, those things became solid like stone and vanished into big constructions, things that are headed right for us now, faster than any horse I’ve ever seen …”
“Shit,” I said. “Okay, people, all we know right now is that’s there’s a lot of them, and they’re fast. Bane was right for us to retreat to here. We can use the stairwell as a choke point…”
“The bottom,” Grizz interrupted, and both Yen and Tang nodded emphatically.
“What?” I said, my train of thought broken.
“We need to start at the bottom, not up here. There, we’ve got the stairwell all the way to use as a choke point; up here, we take a step back and it’s all over.” It made perfect sense as soon as he said it. I glanced at Bane, and saw his shoulders sag as he realized the same thing.
“Fuck!” I grunted, waving my arm forward. “Right, then; everyone, back into the stairs!”
Grizz was the first, leading the way, with Bane on his heels, Tang then Yen, then myself, Jian, Lydia, Miren, and Stephanos. Arrin brought up the rear, huffing as he went. As we ran down the stairs, I had to hide a grin as Jian lightened the mood for us all by complimenting his girlfriend, Miren, on the fact that she, barely half the size of Arrin, was holding up better in the same armor than Arrin was. That, of course, led to comments about Stamina, and as we all took up station at the bottom of the stairs, squinting out through a doorway into a corridor that opened into the darkness, Grizz and the rest started picking on Arrin and commenting on the shame he must feel.
The fact that Miren was half elven and had racial traits of increased Stamina, Strength, and Agility was conveniently glossed over.
Arrin, huffing and gripping his side as he tried to catch his breath, pulled out a magelight and charged it before passing it to Grizz and leaning against the wall, panting and giving everyone the finger.
Grizz looked to me, and I nodded my head toward the corridor. He took two steps down, hauled back, and threw it like a professional baseball player, sending the small gem hurtling down the darkened tunnel.
It hit the ground once, twice, then a third time, before bouncing off a section of fallen wall and coming to a stop, its light reflecting off a puddle it’d fallen into.
We all held our breath, watching down the corridor and listening as the rumbling grew louder. Soon, I started to pick out differences in the sound, as more and more tones and noises grew distinct.
“There’s at least a dozen of them,” Bane called to us from somewhere in the darkness, and I grunted, realizing the stealthy bastard had vanished again. As I looked around, I realized with annoyance at my own lack of observance, so had Tang.
That left Grizz, Lydia, and me in the center of the doorway, spaced out slightly, but still feeling like we might bump into each other with every movement. Jian, Yen, and Arrin had taken up positions behind us, and Miren and Stephanos behind them.
“This is so not the right weapon for this…” Lydia muttered, hefting her mace and shifting her shield to the side, trying to get the base set right.
“Tell me about it,” Grizz said. “I can’t get a decent swing in here. Hey, boss, fancy swapping?” he asked me jokingly, and I snorted.
“Not my fault you two can’t pick real gear…” I said, my voice dying away as the first of the enemies rumbled into sight.
It was… weird.
It was composed of a single large wheel, which was hollow, and seated inside of it was a small figure… a figure with eyes that glowed.
It opened its mouth at the sight of us huddled in the doorway, and screeched a single long cry, brandishing a weapon that looked to be a cudgel made of wood with spikes all over it.
The wheel immediately picked up speed, blurring toward us, bouncing and clattering across fallen sections of wall and floor, while I focused and used ‘Examine’.
Gnome Badunka Rider
The role of Badunka Rider was once a position of power and respect in Gnomish society, but centuries of isolation have changed that. Now, the Badunka rider is the lowest of the low, permitted food, water, and territory only if they can deliver fresh meat and salvage.
The Gnomish Badunka Riders have found a way to infuse themselves with the essence of Stone, granting them a terrible solidity… for so long as their mana lasts.
Weaknesses: Water, Air, and Death magics do 25% more damage.
Resistances: Earth magics used against this creature will heal it.
Level: 13
HP: 1410 (30)
Stamina 40/40
Mana: 411/500
“Shit!” I cursed. “It’s a gnome ‘Badunka’ rider, whatever the hell that is, but it’s got crazy health; over fourteen hundred, with an insane mana pool as well! Earth magic heals it, water, air, and death work better against it…”
“Great, well, I’ve got fuck-all of those!” Yen growled, and I winced, reaching into the one pouch I’d kept
with me that was still almost full. I tugged out two of the three ‘Darkbolt’ Spells and tossed them over my shoulder to her and Arrin.
“Keep them for later; no time to use them now,” I ordered, even as voices lifted from the right, further down the corridor, as the first rider closed the distance.
“Keep one for me…” I heard Tang call, and I winced again, nodding. It made more sense to ensure everyone would be able to do a little magic, after all, and I should have thought about it before the beginning of another skirmish.
The Badunka rider took a deep breath and wailed again, its voice echoing weirdly off the walls and roof as it closed the distance.
As soon as the gnome passed Tang, he struck, lashing out with his sword. It slammed into the tiny figure, who continued to scream until that point, when it suddenly changed from a solid, ongoing cry into a screech of pain. The creature’s arm flailed wildly about in the air with the wooden cudgel until it was snapped back, throwing the gyroscope it was riding into an uncontrolled diversion. It screeched in pain and fury, then hit the wall, bouncing off and tumbling end over end. Sparks and parts went flying as it dissolved into a mass of tumbling, flaming wreckage.
By the time it skidded to a halt, less than four feet from the doorway to the stairs, it was unrecognizable as the strange device it had been mere seconds before, but even as we gaped in shock at the damage, it started to move.
A metal panel, laid halfway across the rider, was suddenly and violently shoved aside, as the gnome straightened and dragged herself out of the wreck. She, and it was clearly a ‘she’ now, with the sides of her head shaved and her remaining hair woven with tiny rings, glared at us, her gaze moving from one to another as she shook her arm out, and the blood stopped flowing from it.
She didn’t look to be in any pain as a grey-white, rough textured stone seemed to build up around the wound, bubbling over and covering it. Instead, she seemed to grow more and more angry as she looked from the wreck to ourselves, dragging the cudgel out, slapping it into her palm threateningly, and screeching again.
We glanced at each other, the sounds of more riders growing louder and louder as they closed the distance.