The Two Week Curse

by Michael Chatfield

  “Those are robotic helpers. It’s their job to move materials to the new work sites. The markings are where we’ll build houses, academies, workshops, and other areas for the dungeon,” Rugrat said.

  “Houses, an academy?” one of the soldiers asked, looking stunned.

  “Well, we can’t very well keep sleeping on the ground.” Erik smiled.

  The soldier looked away awkwardly as he caught Sergeant Choi’s glare. “No, sir!” the soldier responded, embarrassed by his outburst.

  Where the robots dropped off the materials, the marked-off area would show where the materials were to be placed.

  “You might need this,” Egbert said from behind Erik and Rugrat, tossing them two scrolls.

  The soldiers all gripped their weapons tighter, seeing the skeleton.

  “Don’t worry about him. That’s Egbert.” Erik looked at the scroll.

  It was a spell scroll.

  “Binding scroll—it allows one to bind materials together,” Rugrat said.

  ==========

  Technique Book: Materials Binding

  ==========

  Do you wish to activate this Technique book? Doing so will destroy this Technique book.

  ==========

  YES/NO

  ==========

  Erik called up Egbert. “How many of these scrolls do you have?” Erik didn’t want to waste them.

  “About fifty or so,” Egbert replied.

  “Do you have any other technique books?” Erik asked.

  “I’ve got spells from Novice to Expert. Most are simple spells for building,” Egbert said.

  “Go to Elise when she wakes up and give her a full accounting of all the materials and items that you have,” Erik said. If I can get my hands on some healing spells, or on spell formations so that I can make my own spells…

  Erik was pleased with the spells he had, but it felt as if he were using a multi-tool for everything; he didn’t have the tools for more complicated procedures or problems.

  “Understood,” Egbert said.

  Erik closed the channel and pressed YES on the scroll.

  The scroll started to burn up, shooting out a ray of light into his brow.

  ==========

  You have learned the spell: Materials Binding. Your spell book has been updated.

  ==========

  Rugrat did the same. The soldiers could only look on in anticipation.

  Erik moved toward where the hospital was to be built. He easily picked up the stone bricks. His strength was great enough that the heavy slab barely weighed anything. He carried a handful of them and looked at where there was a glowing blue light. He placed a brick down where it appeared and another light appeared next to it.

  Erik bound the stone with the floor. He pulled on it, but there wasn’t the slightest bit of give. Satisfied, he repeated the process, putting the next brick into its place. The building blueprint showed him exactly where to place the next piece.

  Erik quickly ran out of stones. As he stood up, he could see a percentage bar in the middle of the hospital.

  ==========

  Hospital: 1% Complete

  8 Hours til completion

  ==========

  “Catch!” Rugrat yelled out.

  Erik, catching the rock, looked over to Rugrat. “Really?”

  “Speed things up a bit!” Rugrat yelled back.

  Erik felt a new energy filling him. He put down the stone brick and bound it to the floor; he stood up, catching the next brick that Rugrat had thrown over and bound it. He moved forward, catching another, and continued the process.

  ***

  “Much too dirty in here. Hopefully the new masters will be able to build the new homes quickly,” Egbert tuttered as Elise’s eyes trembled before she opened her eyes.

  She frowned as she looked up at Egbert, who was inspecting the smithy she was sleeping in.

  “Egbert?” She pulled up her blanket.

  “It’s not like you’re naked. Look at me—I’ve got my bones out all the time. Much more freeing, I tell you. Erik ordered me to give you this. It’s a full accounting of all the resources and items that I contain.” Egbert pulled out a scroll and passed it to Elise. “I’ll go and see if I can help out the masters now.” Egbert turned and left the smithy.

  Elise looked at the scroll in her possession. Egbert was a strange one but she didn’t feel any malice from him.

  Why do I feel that he’s begrudgingly happy under it all? Maybe he’s been missing contact with other people? Elise didn’t know the workings of an undead skeleton’s mind and let it go as she opened the scroll.

  It was itemized into different categories with separate stats for different items. She opened it up and her shock only increased. There didn’t seem to be many simple things. Spell technique books were something that were originally from the Second Realm. Only someone from a powerful nation or sect in the First Realm would be able to acquire them. Just looking at this list, there were dozens of different basic spell scrolls and technique books.

  “Expert-level information books?” Her eyes went wide as she shook.

  Finding these in higher realms is hard unless you have a powerful backer. Is this the information that Erik and Rugrat want to place in their library? Getting just the chance to read a Journeyman book might be some people’s aspirations in the Mortal realms!

  Elise quickly put the scroll away. She needed to find Erik and Rugrat. She headed out of the smithy to the main area around the dungeon core. Already Jasper had his people preparing breakfast. Elise looked around before seeing a patrol. She quickly moved over to meet them.

  “Miss Elise,” Sergeant Niemm said in greeting.

  “Where is everyone? Shouldn’t there be more people?” Elise asked.

  “Ah, well, most of them are helping with the hospital and the barracks,” Niemm said with a smile. “Mister Erik and Rugrat started working on it early this morning. Others who weren’t able to sleep went over and started helping out. I’ve never seen a building built so fast!”

  “Where is the hospital?” Elise remembered the two talking about it, but they had been planning everything out after she left.

  “Down Nine O’clock Street that meets up with the beast stables.” Niemm pointed to one of the rune roads.

  “Thank you.” Elise moved down the road and could see the one-story building. It hadn’t existed last night but now it was in the last stages of building. There wasn’t a slate or tiled roof; instead, the roof was made from furs to protect from the draft.

  All around here, there were markings that broke up the space. Piles of bricks lay in the middle of these locations. Around the hospital, crews were hurling bricks from these piles to their fellows who laid them down, following the blueprint. Their hands glowed with magical runes as they cast spells on the bricks and the floor.

  Elise was in shock as she looked around. There are fifteen people who are using spells? There were only five spellcasters when the beast horde arrived! What’s going on?

  She walked up to one of the blueprints where people were chatting with one another, quickly assembling the building at an incredible speed.

  ==========

  House: 15% Complete

  4 Hours til completion

  ==========

  “Miss Elise, is there something I can help you with?” Gu Tao, a burly-looking fellow, stood at the pile of bricks. He was throwing the bricks as if they were nothing. Everyone’s levels had shot up, greatly increasing their attributes.

  “Umm…” Elise’s mind was still reeling. “Will this house really be finished in four hours?”

  “If we had more people, we could do it faster.” Gu Tao frowned. “Also, these don’t have any runes in them and they won’t be finished with lights or a roof until the second crew comes through. We’re just making the walls and then the structure for the first and second floor.”

  “Do you know where Erik and
Rugrat are?”

  “They’re probably up at the barracks. I heard that they might be racing each other at who can lay bricks faster.” Gu Tao laughed, looking toward the beast stables.

  “Thank you.” Elise followed where he was looking. She could see that there was a building in the distance now next to the beast stables.

  “No problem, miss!” Gu Tao said.

  As they were talking, he never stopped throwing, supplying three different bricklayers as they simply caught, cast their spells, and caught the next, moving along the wall at a walking pace.

  Elise moved toward the barracks and looked around. It looked as though everyone who was awake was working in the outlined areas that were meant for houses. Egbert was talking with a group. Elise walked nearby, listening in.

  “Now these are mining picks. Make sure that the edges are smooth. If they’re not, it will be hard to fit all of the piping and the cover stones,” Egbert said.

  Elise watched as she was walking. The crews turned to face different ways; glowing squares appeared in front of them as they swung their picks. The front group was meant to break up the rock while the second cleaned up the excess.

  With their strength, each blow with the pick sent rocks flying. Their picks started to get into a rhythm as they walked forward. Behind them, they left a two-feet deep path. Panels were brought over and laid next to this path. They were rune panels, complete with sewer lines. The runing had been carved out and used by Egbert to keep the dungeon core alive; otherwise it was completely fine.

  She could see the entire dungeon being built up at a speed visible to the eye. The sense of progress had her excited about what was to come and pushed her fears away.

  “And you were scared that this was the wrong decision,” she chided herself. But making any kind of big leap like this would make one hesitant.

  She made it to the barracks. The walls here were much thicker and different sections were in various stages of progress. She walked through what looked to be the main gate. The towers on either side were being built.

  People were talking and the sounds of work could be heard all around.

  The soldiers, in their shirts and pants, helped out. There was a cafeteria, housing, training areas, an armory, and then the massive thick walls that enclosed the entire place. There was enough room for two hundred people, not just the sixty or so who had stayed as part of the army.

  They were only focusing on the walls and some of the housing; the rest would be completed later if more people joined the military.

  She saw Erik and Rugrat were building the outer wall facing away from the city. The stone was as big as a man’s torso, cut into blocks.

  Erik and Rugrat handled them as if they were just large boxes, easily catching them, placing them down and using the spell she had seen the other builders using to fuse it to the other materials around.

  To keep up with them, two soldiers were throwing to them each.

  In the space of a few minutes, they had done the base layer and they were moving higher.

  “Done!” Rugrat jumped off the wall just a few minutes later and dropped to the ground.

  Erik put the last stone in place and jumped down to the ground as well.

  “What’s going on?” Elise asked.

  “Just a bit of friendly competition,” Rugrat said.

  “No, like last night I went to bed and there wasn’t anything—now there are houses popping up, you made a hospital, and there are roads going in!”

  “Oh, that,” Rugrat said. “We did some planning and then we wanted to test out how these blueprints really work.”

  Seeing the playful grins on their faces, she could tell that they were indeed telling the truth. The previous images were once again shattered as she couldn’t help but show an amused smile.

  “Oh, Egbert gave me this this morning.” She held out a scroll to Erik and Rugrat.

  Rugrat opened it, with Erik looking over his shoulder. He perused through the scroll, his eyes getting bigger as he looked through it all. Rugrat’s hands paused as they got to the smithing materials section. “Where’s that skeleton!” he yelled out.

  Erik grabbed the scroll from Rugrat and moved through to the section on Alchemy materials. “You go toward the six—I’ll go to the twelve! Get his finger bones!” Erik yelled. The two of them ran out of the barracks.

  “He’s down the road, near the hospital!” Elise yelled out.

  The two idiots who had been sprinting to the right and left curved back around in a comical display of speed as they left trails of dust running into the city.

  “What was that all about?” Blaze asked.

  “Well…” Elise thought about the things she had seen on the scroll. “I think that we’re in for some big changes.”

  “Big changes? You ever seen a house built in an hour?” Blaze asked.

  “Not really,” Elise said.

  “Even though these are blueprints, making so many buildings, someone would be able to learn something about construction. I swear that half of the people here will reach at least Apprentice skill level in construction!” Blaze said, loud enough that the soldiers heard.

  They had been paying attention to their conversation and slowed their actions down; now they sped up.

  Elise saw the sly smile on Blaze’s face. It was true that crafters could increase their skill level by working with a blueprint related to their skill. It guided them to build higher quality items than what they could make themselves. If they could learn from the blueprint, then they could increase the quality and level of their own creations.

  One might need to grind out plenty of blueprints, but the allure of learning a skill was high: they could get a random item, more Experience, and the modifiers could make their lives easier.

  Elise thought on the markings she had seen around Alva. There were plenty of buildings to grind out.

  Chapter: Academy Staff

  Rugrat and Erik had found Egbert with Elise’s instructions and looted his spatial bones. He cut a sorry figure, missing so many bones, as Erik and Rugrat rushed off again like bandits.

  Rugrat ran right to the smithy while Erik went to the Alchemy lab.

  Most people were awake and having breakfast, leaving only a few people in the smithy.

  Taran was already heating up the forge. Thankfully, with taking down his old furnace, he could use his fuel to start this furnace instead of relying on the Mana-powered flames.

  “Taran!” Rugrat stormed into the room.

  “What is it?” Taran’s brows knit together at Rugrat’s wide smile and excited expression.

  Rugrat didn’t say anything but threw out several blueprints onto the work surface.

  “More blue…” Taran’s heart thudded in his chest as he unconsciously adjusted his hands, holding the blueprint like a cherished child. “Oh, look at you—just…perfect.” There were tears in Taran’s eyes as he stroked the top of the forging blueprint lovingly.

  A few people nearby glanced at one another in question.

  “Is Taran crying?”

  “What did Rugrat give him?” another asked, looking in at the blueprints.

  “I just have some coal in my eye, you bunch of eavesdroppers!” Taran yelled, rubbing at his eyes and slamming the door shut.

  The two eavesdroppers looked at each other.

  “Definitely crying.”

  The other nodded in agreement.

  Taran moved to the workshop’s surface and looked over the forging blueprints. There was three in total. Two apprentice and one Journeyman level forging blueprint lay in front of him.

  Rugrat laughed and waved Egbert’s fibula. Materials appeared across the furnace room—all kinds of metal ingots, and even five smithing manuals.

  Taran stumbled backward, his face white as he looked at Rugrat’s smiling face. He nearly sat down, but seeing it was a pile of materials, he hurriedly stood up, still cradling that first forging blueprint i
n his arms. Seeing this all, he had moved straight past crying to shock.

  “Right!” Rugrat said, his eyes shining as he saw it all. “These are all from the gnomes who were here before as well as the previous master. He was a smith and formation master. Everything he had he gave over to Egbert, who gave it over to us now. Manuals, blueprints, materials.”

  This was the wealth of the gnome civilization that had lived in Alva Dungeon. Their inheritance wasn’t light.

  Rugrat looked at Taran. The look in his eyes made Taran hold the blueprint in his arms tighter.

  “Though only people who attend the academy will have access to the blueprints, the manuals and other information will be for everyone.” Rugrat had dropped the hook and Taran had gone for it completely. Now he was reeling it in.

  Taran had a depressed look on his face. He had to admit that Rugrat had him good.

  Manuals were good, but they were theoretical. Taran had reached this skill level in smithing making hundreds of items, working with all kinds of materials. Practical experience was the basis of his skill. To him, the manuals were only surface material compared to what he might learn using these blueprints.

  “I’ll be your damn smithing teacher,” Taran muttered.

  “Good to hear, Principal Taran!” Rugrat announced.

  “Principal! Wait a damn minute!” Taran waved a finger as Rugrat started to stoke the furnace fire.

  “You going to stand there or you going to forge something, man!” Rugrat yelled as he waved the leg bones again, collected the treasures back inside and tossed it to Taran.

  “Why is it stored in a bone?”

  “Egbert might have a new set of trust issues,” Rugrat said seriously.

  Taran opened and closed his mouth and looked at the leg, fighting between disgust and knowing what was inside. “Argh!” He let out an angry growl but put the forging blueprint down on the workstation and pulled out iron ingots from his own storage ring as he started to heat it up.

  ***

  Jia Feng looked to the others who had been gathered with her by Jasper.

  He had been given an order by Erik to round them up. Jia Feng was the most advanced cook in Alva Dungeon. Shi Wanshu was the architect of the logging camp and the watchtowers. Both of them had benefited from the different technique scrolls that they had been awarded.