The Third Realm

by Michael Chatfield

  While they had been traveling, Erik had been asking Delilah about her family. It sounded like casual conversation but he was actually testing to see what kind of people they were. Seeing them all fighting on their walls, the way that they cared for one another, their willingness to share their food and home and the genuine concern and care they had toward Delilah, he could tell that they were good people.

  It put a weight down in his heart as he had been hesitant to accept them at first. Even if Delilah was to become the council leader of Alva, she might have her attention waver when thinking of her family in the Second Realm. He had seen she was already distracted by them and it was slowing her progress in Alchemy.

  “Thank you, Teacher.” Delilah came out of her bow with tears in her eyes.

  Erik nodded to her, not sure how to react.

  She smiled and wiped her face, turning and heading back to her family.

  ***

  Joseph Ryan watched Erik as he sat on his sand ray.

  The others all treated him with respect, but they also joked and came to him without fear in their eyes. He had seen quite a large number of people in his life and as he had gone into the cities a number of times to sell his wares, he had built up a sense for the people he sold to and those around him.

  Erik was hard to see through. He was a fighter, a healer, and an alchemist. Joseph had never heard of someone having so many different trades.

  With all of those trades, how can he focus or grow just one of them?

  When Delilah had said that she wanted to bring them to the city, but they needed to make an oath, they were hesitant at first. He had never heard of a city called Alva Dungeon before. He thought that they were rare places, akin to legends.

  Looking at their fields and seeing what she had become, Joseph and the rest of the Ryans packed up. They took some of the materials left behind by the raiders, and gifted their compound over to one of the families who had outgrown their own compound.

  They were placing all of their bets on Delilah.

  Joseph couldn’t help but smile to himself as he looked at his Delilah. There was a new confidence to her. She had always been a good-looking girl but she cared little for that fact, looking for ways to improve her abilities, to become someone the family could rely on. When the chance to become an apothecary came around, she jumped at it.

  He didn’t know what had happened for her to reach this stage; she only said that she owed everything to Erik.

  Joseph wanted to ask more but Amelia stopped him from doing so. Some of the people from Alva sat on the Ryan family wagons. Their sand rays pulled the sledded wagons across the sand dunes. The sand rays’ speed was faster than any other beast Joseph had seen in the desert.

  It wasn’t long until Taeman city came into sight and they quickly passed through the gates. The sand ray riders dismounted and the rest of the Alva members, even Rugrat and George, were walking.

  The children were all looking around at the massive city, their mothers and fathers making sure that they didn’t go running off or get lost.

  They reached the totem when a trader approached them.

  “Such fine mounts but the cost to move them through the totems must be incredible. I have recently procured beast storage items from a clan of famous beast tamers!” the merchant said.

  “Go on,” Erik said to the man.

  “These are the finest beast storage items. With them, you can store your beast in an item. They will not be without food or water. When using the totem, you will not have to pay extra to take them, or when you are in different environments not suited for them, they will be safe within the storage device!” the man said with an eager smile. “One could even use it instead of a tent if you needed to!”

  “How many do you have that would fit our beasts?” Erik asked.

  “I have plenty! Plenty! How many do you need?”

  “How much for each?” Erik asked.

  “Thirty-five for the lesser grade, fifty for the common, and one hundred and twenty for the greater. The lesser can just fit your beasts, the common will give them room to move around, the greater will allow three of them to stay inside comfortably.”

  “Would one be able to store plants in these and other living items?” Erik asked.

  “Yes.” The man nodded.

  “I will buy one hundred of the greater storage devices and fifty of the other kinds,” Erik said. “I will pay one hundred gold for the greater, forty for the common, and twenty for the lesser.”

  The trader, coughed, stunned by the numbers.

  “Do you take Mana stones?” Erik asked.

  “Yes,” the trader was able to squeak out. “I will have to gather the supplies.”

  “We must leave within three hours. Is that enough time?”

  “Certainly!” The trader clasped his fists and bowed before rushing away.

  The total came to a staggering thirteen thousand gold, but Erik and the others seemed unaffected by this number.

  “Blaze, you’ll have to put out a mission to get more of these,” Rugrat said.

  “I haven’t even taken the job yet!” Blaze grumbled, but pulled out writing materials and put it down.

  The others smiled and chuckled at his actions.

  The trader returned with two assistants just an hour later, looking out of breath.

  The storage items looked like small wooden boxes covered in runes.

  “It’s not a true formation but rather a spell that has been burned into the boxes, simple but effective.” Rugrat looked over them all, his eyes missing nothing. “They will last for at least ten years before they start failing and the space inside starts to become unstable, I would guess.”

  The trader didn’t say anything.

  “Very well.” Erik pulled out a box and passed it to the trader.

  He lifted the lid, dancing lights playing on his face. He quickly closed the box and put it away. People looked around, feeling the Mana in the area suddenly rise.

  “It is an honor doing business with you.” The trader ushered the assistants forth, covered in the boxes.

  The people from Alva, including Delilah, took the boxes, using the ties to put them on their hips. They took the animals into the new storage devices and let them out, making sure they worked as advertised.

  The others disappeared underneath their cloaks.

  “Good doing business with you,” Erik said. They headed off toward the totem once again, the cart and animals all stored away as they reached the totem.

  A few screens appeared in front of Erik as he input a few commands. He then pulled out Mana stones again. The totem flared to light and the heat of Taeman city disappeared, replaced by the cold and damp.

  Joseph now understood why they had given the Ryans warm clothes. Seeing the kind of wealth that Erik had just spent, he felt like paying back their debt would be difficult to the extreme.

  “We’re halfway there,” Rugrat said as they headed through the town. It was barely a corner of Taeman city. The wind howled above, stripping those below of any warmth as winter had arrived.

  They left the city behind and went out into the forest.

  George returned to his full size as they reached the forest.

  Blaze let out a whistle. In just twenty minutes, a few dozen panthers appeared.

  Their journey across the First Realm to reach Alva had begun.

  Chapter: Changes to Alva Dungeon’s Military

  “They’re all gathered,” Glosil said as Erik looked up and then over to Rugrat.

  It had been a week since they returned from their little adventure. The Ryan family was moved into a few homes that Delilah had bought for them. They were still learning the city.

  Joseph had headed off to the farming fields to get a job and was learning from the farmers there. Amelia had gone to the healing house, hoping to learn the healing arts. Kyle went to the cookhouse, Greg to the tailors. Zhiwei had entered the barracks and was tested, becoming a trainee alongside John. Nolan followe
d his father to the fields, and the rest were undecided, still taking the dungeon in.

  Once Erik and Rugrat returned, Rugrat had the blueprint office make a blueprint for the Mark 1 repeater crossbow.

  An order had been placed with the smithy, formation workshop, wood workshop, and tailors for swords, spears, repeating crossbows, and armor.

  Other orders were also placed: for meals; clothing, from one’s boots to underwear, socks, pants, shirts, and headdresses; simple storage rings; Alchemy concoctions; healing, Stamina, Mana, Body Cultivation, and Mana Gathering system aides; as well as a variety of poisons and an explosive factory that was under the careful watch of Erik, Delilah, Fehim, and a few trusted alchemists.

  Alva had been building up their strength for a long time, but now with these orders they were not only improving their strength, they were looking to reduce the time it took to make different items. Weaving machines, sewing machines, presses, molds: these tools and instruments were introduced to the academies, increasing output in leaps and bounds.

  Merchants, seeing the use, were already building workshops that looked to buy this technology from the academy and the government of Alva Dungeon.

  Once the orders had been filled, Erik agreed to sell off the design blueprints at a reasonable cost, leaving it to Egbert, Elise, and Delilah to deliberate over the cost of the new machines.

  Erik also talked to the beast tamers as well as armorers; their job: to raise enough beasts for the Alva Dungeon military and to also armor them. The beasts took time and resources to raise. Losing one of them was like losing not only a pile of gold, but time that couldn’t be earned back.

  Already the merchants were buying a few of the weaker beasts that the military didn’t accept so that they could trade various goods across the First Realm. They had a variety of species of beasts from the sand rays, to the panthers, wolves, and tigers—even a few bears.

  Alva Village of old was hard to compare with the current Alva Dungeon.

  ***

  “Good.” Erik looked over to Rugrat, who put down a pencil. On his desk was the dismantled Big Momma, his personal service weapon and his M40 sniper rifle.

  A stack of blueprints were off to the corner of his desk, each of them detailing the parts of the weapons, as he wanted to create records of them first.

  The Mark 1 repeater crossbow was powerful, but more importantly it was accurate and had a long range. It was the equivalent of a modern AK: its power was strong, but it was unwieldy unless someone was properly trained with it. And unlike the AK, it was much more complicated and the possibility of it being broken was high.

  Rugrat had a plan to merge modern firearms from Earth with the techniques of the Ten Realms.

  His first plan was to build a simple rifle that would work in the Ten Realms and that they could easily replicate and supply ammunition for. Then he had plans to increase its abilities, component by component.

  It would be a large undertaking but with Rugrat’s Smithing Book and the crafters of Alva Dungeon working together, Erik was confident that the project could show benefits in the future.

  Rugrat stood up and pulled on his tunic, forcing his arms through his rolled-up sleeves and adjusting them meticulously so that they were perfect.

  Erik grabbed his softcap as he stood. They were both wearing camouflaged tunics and pants made of splotched green, black, and brown.

  While wearing their combat fatigues, they seemed to change. Rugrat looked more of a pit bull and Erik let out a subconscious pressure on those who saw his stony expression.

  Glosil saluted; Erik returned it. Glosil headed out of the office and into the training area of the barracks.

  Erik didn’t need to look over his uniform, checking it with a few touches. “Time to make a military.” Erik moved his arms. “I think I’ve cut off circulation.”

  Rugrat let out a low grunt. “Then you know it’s right.” He cracked a grin.

  Erik let out a laugh and walked toward the door, his face turning stony as Rugrat followed behind him.

  They walked out, looking at the parade square. Some one hundred and fifty people stood in ranks according to their squads in front of the office.

  All of them were at attention. A few shuffled around, looking at Erik and Rugrat as they walked up to the parade square.

  “You there! You here to hang out with your friends! Stand straight!” Rugrat bellowed, his trained eyes picking out those moving around with ease.

  The people on the parade square snapped their eyes forward and reduced their movement, not wanting to be his next target.

  “Looks like they’ve forgotten everything we’ve taught them,” Rugrat said to Erik.

  Erik could feel the tension in the air, see the people gritting their teeth and glowering at the wall ahead. Rugrat’s words ignited their fighting spirit, ready to prove they had worked their hardest to remember their training as it had been passed onto them or grilled into them when they needed to defend Alva Village.

  “Most of you know who we are. Those of you who don’t, this is Company Warrant Officer Rodriguez. I am Captain West! In two months, training for the Alva Dungeon military will begin. Those of you who pass will remain in the Alva Dungeon military. Those of you who don’t will be asked to leave. You will be allowed to try to test out later on if you want to. The military isn’t for everyone and there is always the Adventurer’s Guild.

  “We will teach you how to not only be fighters, we will teach you how to become soldiers! Now you might be thinking, well, I know how to fight—I can kill beasts. Know this: killing beasts and killing a fellow human are vastly different and we will be going up against other humans. If that isn’t for you, there are many other professions that Alva Dungeon has to offer where you can show off your strengths.

  “Training will not be easy. We had just a week to train people before Alva Village’s defense. This training will take a full three months. By the time you are done, you will be as strong as someone from the Third Realm. You will have skills that will allow you to close with the enemy and destroy them, no matter the terrain or situation. Sects focus all of their resources to make just a few powerful people to uphold their sect’s power. We don’t have the resources to waste and even if we have some strong people to back us up, used together, those strong people can be of a lot more use in other areas.

  “A strong formation master can make a powerful barrier. A smith can make a weapon capable of slicing apart the most powerful armor; an alchemist, a concoction to bring one back from the dead; a tailor, armor that will allow one to survive the most vicious attack. With these strengths added together, with men and women who work together as one, operate as a single entity, who do not fight the enemy head on unless totally necessary, a military that can use tactics like those used against the Zatan Confederation, just a handful of people were able to topple an entire country that was formed up of five million people.”

  Rugrat stepped forward. His eyes looked over everyone there. His brows pinched together, a stony expression on his face as he stood at parade rest. “We will teach you weapon handling, hand-to-hand combat, ranged combat, tactics, how to think and to breathe. We trained your bodies with the defense of Alva Village; now we will train your minds. I hope you liked your time off, because now it’s time we started really training.”

  Erik nodded and stepped forward. “You each have some strengths that you have developed but you have been operating in parties, sections or by yourselves. Now we will pull you in as a whole. If you want to come to the Fourth Realm, the battlefield realm, you will not be fighters or warriors: you will be soldiers.

  “Soldiers have a greater strength than any fighter or warrior. They do not care for things like a fair fight; they do not care about going up against a stronger opponent. They work together as one machine, one whole to complete their objective and push forward.

  “Others in the Ten Realms focus on raising the power of a few. Here, we look at raising the power of the whole. None of you are
important; none of you are any different. You are brothers and sisters in Alva Dungeon’s military, men and women of green. You are nothing but dirt that we will forge into iron, an iron shield to defend the person to your left, a sword to kill the person attacking the person to your right. You will live for each other.

  “Rugrat and I are not of this world, not from the Ten Realms, but we come from a place where ranged weaponry has turned from an option into a way of war. Entire nations—an entire realm—used ranged weapons, fighting across its entire surface twice. We come from a history where a few thousand men held a pass against an army of one hundred thousand for three days. Their lines did not fall and they were only killed when they were outflanked. They gained their people three days in the face of their deaths and the face of overwhelming odds. Empires have risen and looked to conquer the world, spreading from every corner to take over massive parts of our realm. Time and time again. Empires that spanned the entire realm, others that took over entire continents. All of them won with battles and war. It is with that history and that knowledge that we will burn into your brains, ingrain into your bones so that when we reach the Fourth Realm, there is no question, there is no pause—there is only action and reaction!”

  Erik and Rugrat could see the fire in their eyes, the willingness, the hidden demons deep down that desired transformation, desired to be unleashed, to be turned into a tool, a weapon.

  It was a visceral thing that gripped one’s stomach and made them run into incoming fire, that made them hoist a shield to put on their armor. Wars might have changed, and warriors had turned to soldiers, but one could not hide the fighting instincts of humans. It was built into their bodies, their minds.

  “For the next three months, you will not be sitting by idly. You will each undergo procedures to increase your Body and Mana Cultivation. You will be issued a new kit, standardized weapons. These items will be owned by the Alva Dungeon military. From now on, when you get loot, it will be turned over to the Alva Dungeon quartermasters and a bonus will be issued at the end of the year. For things like blueprints, the same conditions put forward previously will be put forward now. Don’t worry—your wages will be increased as per your station. As well as death benefits. Our goal is not to loot or to pillage, but to increase our strength so that we can defend Alva Dungeon and destroy those who threaten our people,” Erik said. “Warrant!”