Stone Raiders' Return (Emerilia Book 6)

by Michael Chatfield

  He checked his inventory and the vault-classed soul gems that were stored within. He headed out of the command deck and toward the portals. It didn’t take him long to reach one of them.

  “Well, you look like a good choice.” Dave pressed his hand against the portal. A notification popped up in his vision.

  Magical Circuits

  You have found a complex series of Magical Circuits. Are you interested in trying to learn from them? The Circuits will be destroyed in the process.

  Cost: 10,000,000 Mana (Due to your Affinities, cost is reduced to 8,750,541)

  Reward: Unknown

  Y/N

  “Not quite yet.” Dave pulled out a carver, and then nine different vault soul gems. They were the first ones from his new factory. It took nearly a day to just form one of them; thankfully he had a massive power grid at his disposal to charge them all.

  Dave used the carver to engrave a magical circle with magical coding within around where he was standing before making circles with magical coding on the floor around the vault soul gems around him. It took time to carve the runes and fill them with silver.

  He checked his preparations and then looked back at the portal. He sat down and opened up his character sheet. “Okay, might as well go for a ride. Let’s put 45 points to Intelligence and 35 to Agility.” Dave input the stats and checked his sheet.

  Character Sheet

  Name:

  David Grahslagg

  Gender:

  Male

  Level:

  188

  Class:

  Dwarven Master Smith, Friend of the Grey God, Bleeder, Librarian, Aleph Engineer, Weapons Master, Champion Slayer, Skill Creator, Mine Manager, Master Summoner

  Race:

  Human/Dwarf

  Alignment:

  Chaotic Neutral

  Unspent points: 176

  Health:

  29,300

  Regen:

  15.86 /s

  Mana:

  9,130

  Regen:

  20.05 /s

  Stamina:

  5,740

  Regen:

  26.75 /s

  Vitality:

  293

  Endurance:

  793

  Intelligence:

  913

  Willpower:

  711

  Strength:

  574

  Agility:

  535

  Dave felt the rush of new stats fill him. His mind opened to the universe as the desire to run, to be let free of gravity’s limits, washed through him.

  He equipped his armor for safety reasons.

  Thoughts rushed through his mind but he pushed his hand out, pushing it against the portal.

  Magical Circuits

  You have found a complex series of Magical Circuits. Are you interested in trying to learn from them? The Circuits will be destroyed in the process.

  Cost: 10,000,000 Mana (Due to your Affinities, cost is reduced to 8,750,541)

  Reward: Unknown

  Y/N

  “Yes,” Dave said.

  The soul gems around Dave glowed brighter. The lights within them swirled with energy that lit up the runes and the circle, forcing their way through Dave.

  His body lit up with runes, glowing silver through his armor. His eyes also glowed silver. He closed his eyes, his glowing eyes still visible as he looked up at the ceiling.

  Power ran through him and through the portal’s runes. After a few moments, the portal started to fall apart. Millions of singular runes dissolved as heat passed through it, making the entire portal unstable.

  Dave’s mind took in the influx of information. There was so much, there was no ability to compare it to the rest of the knowledge he held on teleportation.

  It was a flood of information. Time didn’t seem to hold Dave as the soul gems around him started to dim with the loss of power. His magical circle and runes turned to smoke while the runes across the portal were nothing but charred outlines.

  Dave dropped his hand, knowing that he had all of the knowledge of the Magical Circuits contained within the portal.

  Dave started laughing, his voice suffused with the powerful Mana that ran through his body. He felt that if he tried to stand, he would collapse.

  “Now, onto the really important stuff,” Dave said in his deeper and powerful voice. “Now, I should make three different blueprints of the house for Deia to look at—more than three and we won’t come to a decision. We’ll have to incorporate security measures as well as modern coding. Don’t want anyone getting in and using my seeder. Also, Deia would be annoyed if I didn’t have showers and some proper rooms for friends to stay. We’ve got that land from the smithy and ceramics factory being moved away—might as well use it.” Dave opened up his interface and began to work. His body gave up after just twenty minutes.

  He had a smile on his face as his runes dimmed and his eyes closed. He fell backward, snoring lightly as his body and mind worked to recover from what he’d done.

  ***

  Deia looked up as Malsour reappeared in the house, carrying Dave on his back.

  “What the hell happened?” Deia moved away from the small kitchen area that looked out over the porch.

  “Seems he took a portal apart and then passed out. Also, going by his higher level, I guess he put some stat points to use.” Malsour put Dave on the bed.

  Deia sat down beside him and checked him over.

  He seemed fine, just asleep. He moved slightly as she touched his forehead. His eyes opened slightly. He opened his interface, using a few commands to send something.

  “Night.” He grabbed her hand and tried to pull her to bed as he rolled over. Deia pulled her hand back, as Dave fell back asleep.

  She looked at her interface that was telling her she’d just got a message. She opened it up to see three files with rather complex blueprints.

  “Malsour, this looks like a house to me.” She shared them with him.

  He opened them up as well. “Well, it looks like he wasn’t just breaking portals apart down there. It looks like he made three different designs for your house.” Malsour opened different files, sharing his interface with Deia as holograms of the houses appeared.

  Deia’s eyes lit up with excitement as she studied the different houses.

  ***

  Quindar and Fornau flapped their wings, bringing themselves in to land near the road that led to Cliff-Hill, but not so close that anyone would see or hear them.

  Quindar looked at the two sleeping babies who rested in a sling across her chest. She made low clicking noises, her finger tracing over their smooth skin.

  Fornau moved close, carrying two more sleeping bundles in a sling.

  “Look at them, so cute,” Quindar said. Kora and Hormul’s little hands gripped each other’s as they slept.

  Fornau smiled at his children and his wife, put his arm around her shoulders, and kissed the side of her head.

  The heat rose on her cheeks as a shiver went down her spine. Even with four children and being married for a few hundred years, with just a look and a kiss, he could make butterflies turn in her stomach.

  “They’re perfect.” Fornau looked at his four kids. They had locked them into their Human forms; it was the best thing to do. They still had access to an abnormally large Mana pool, but four Dragon children wandering around was a recipe for disaster.

  “Well, let’s get a move on. It’s already dark—we don’t want to show up when everyone is going to sleep,” Quindar said.

  “This way, my love.” Fornau’s Earth magic made the trees and foliage move out of their way as they walked to the road and then up toward Dave and Deia’s home.

  They found Malsour studying the house, with screens from his interface floating in front of him.

  “Uncle!” Fornau said, loud enough to catch Malsour’s attention, but not enough to wake the children.

  “Fornau! Quindar!” Malsour looked away from the house and gr
eeted them, looking down at the four newest additions to the family. “They are precious,” Malsour said, his voice low, a large smile on his face.

  Quindar smiled at his clear joy.

  “Come, come, let’s get you all inside.” Malsour guided them toward the house. Inside, Dave was asleep on his bed. Deia sat next to him, eating from a plate as she talked to Induca and Suzy.

  They got up to greet their guests, devolving into cooing and ahhing at the four sleeping babes.

  ***

  Fornau had been relieved of Viola and Urvo. The four women, cuddling the sleeping bundles, talked about children matters.

  “Fornau, I was wondering if you could help me with something.” Malsour jerked his head to the door.

  “Certainly, Uncle.” Fornau followed Malsour outside once again.

  Malsour shared a message with Fornau. It was a hologram and blueprints to an extensive house.

  He looked over the designs, impressed with what he saw. “This is beautiful and functional,” Fornau said happily, tracing through the designs.

  “I was hoping that you could give me a hand with it. I can do most of the structural items but that grand tree weaving through the courtyard might be just your thing. Also, this area out here has been a bit depopulated with the smithy and factory that used to be here. Was thinking you might know something to do with it all,” Malsour said.

  “Shall we chain spell?” Fornau smiled.

  “I’ll tell the ladies first.” Malsour ran to the house, talking to the ladies quickly, and pulled Dave out of the house andlaid him down on the ground.

  With a quick spell, he was able to sink the original house—it still contained Bob’s teleport spell to the seeder below them. They’d use it as part of the foundation and Dave’s laboratory.

  “Ready when you are,” Malsour said once only the roof of the old house was showing.

  Fornau opened his bag and pulled out trays of seeds. He threw a few down, guiding them through the ground to where he wanted them to stay.

  Malsour began firming up the cliff-edge, pulling from bedrock well below the cliff, pushing it up and through the dirt to create a foundation. It was much easier to use already existing rock and then command it to grow, instead of making it yourself.

  The foundation made the ground shake slightly as it spread outward. A basement formed, growing up and into walls and floors, breaking through the dirt. Malsour made the old house move out of the way and to the side of the house before pushing up the basement below it.

  Fornau had his seeds in position and moved the dirt out from the basements and toward where the smithy and factory had been. Grass and trees started to grow over the area, making sure few people could see to the house. He created softer wood trees so that they would absorb noise.

  The house was made up of three main sections. The biggest was the one that backed onto the cliff, and then there were two other sections that grew off it at a forty-five-degree angle, making a lazy U-shape. The basements interconnected under the ground. Stone and interwoven steel made up the floor, growing to create the supporting pillars.

  Between the three main sections, there were open areas. Fornau created food gardens here, with one of his fruit trees in each small growing space. The trees grew nearly every kind of fruit once every month or two, depending on sun and water.

  The three main floors went up just three feet before stopping. Supporting pillars continued on their way up, crossing over to one another for mutual support. Instead of being just reinforcement, they looked like organic supports.

  “Malsour, can you give me growing plots every five meters around the structures?” Fornau asked.

  “Can do,” Malsour said. Holes appeared in the ground. Malsour changed the structure to make sure there were no weaknesses and that water and time wouldn’t degrade his work.

  Fornau guided another group of his special trees. The building plans called for timber, but Fornau preferred to grow it.

  Calling his creation trees was a bit of a stretch. They didn’t have leaves and could support themselves with just having sun on their bark and some water on their roots.

  They grew like wildfire; their branches and trunks wove together, creating walls, using the supports Malsour had created as guides as the first floor and its walls came together. Then the second floor, with balconies overlooking both the cliff and the area in front of the house. Covered walkways stretched between the main buildings.

  An elevated deck ran out from the side houses, extending back and toward the cliff behind the main house. Growing pots appeared in the deck.

  Within the main house, there was a courtyard in the center. Fornau guided his last seeds there. Tree trunks sprouted from the ground, coming together three meters up and weaving together. Their limbs stretched outward, creating walkways through the trees on the second floor, complete with railings. The trees parted, creating a passage through them, and came together again. It grew above the house, the six trees’ canopy sprouting and spreading apart leaves grew to cover the courtyard’s open roof and spread over the surrounding roof.

  Fornau took a deep breath, looking at the house he and Malsour had formed together.

  The tree limbs and organic-looking supports came together in what looked like a massive two-story, three-building home.

  The women hurried to the house, eager to look it over.

  Malsour clapped Fornau on the shoulder. “Well done. That was impressive,” Malsour said with an approving smile.

  “It’s always a great pleasure to build something as beautiful as this. All I had to do was follow the blueprints and add a few extra flourishes.” Fornau smiled as they walked toward the house.

  “Well, enjoy your rest. I’m going to work on some magical coding so it’s not freezing and we have most of the facilities up and working.” Malsour smiled.

  “Mind if I join? It’s been some time since I’ve had some adult conversation and I’m interested in this magical coding,” Fornau said.

  “Always happy to teach, though I guess we should get Dave inside.” Malsour moved to Dave, who was still fast asleep on the ground.

  “He must’ve really needed to sleep,” Fornau said.

  “He boosted his stats and then took apart a portal. Think of it as massive Mana use backlash.” Malsour shook his head, picking up Dave and putting him over his shoulder with relative ease.

  ***

  Dave woke up to the sound of people talking and children playing with one another.

  He sat up, his body tired from the day before he remembered what he had done—the portal and the extra stats. His notifications blinked at him angrily. He was about to open them when he realized he wasn’t in his old bed anymore. He was lying on a bedroll in a large room.

  He focused on his senses and ever-casting Touch of the Land.

  “Whoa!” Dave jumped up out of bed, energy coming back to him. While he’d been asleep, it looked as though Deia had picked a house and then someone had worked on it. The signature of Fornau and Malsour’s Mana ran through the house.

  Dave looked about, noticing there was just one thing missing—lights! Malsour had installed some, but not many.

  Dave pulled out a soul gem, some ebony, and a carver. He left his bedroom using stairs and the walkway to make it to the rightmost building and the basement. As he went, he used the carver on the soul gem, carving runes into it. He got to the first floor, which he had turned into a testing area.

  He put his tools down on a workbench and looked around the room.

  “First rules for laboratories: Mana barriers!” Dave wielded his carver and moved to the walls.

  Once the barriers were up, he fixed up a soul gem, placing it in a corner and commanding it to activate. Veins grew from it, spreading outward through the house, creating strip lighting and windows.

  It didn’t require nearly as much as complete buildings made from soul gems but Dave commanded a number of petty soul gems to travel through the ground, to collect Mana from the surro
unding area and direct it into the growing soul gem.

  Dave left his lab. Feeling hungry, he ate some jerky as he walked through his house. It would take some work to finish—some coding, furniture, defenses, escape routes. He wasn’t going to take any chances with his house.

  Active Skill: Teleportation

  Level: Master Level 1

  Effect: Understand the theories of teleportation, understand teleportation mechanics.

  “Damn, guess that there aren’t many people who know about how the theories and the mechanics work, probably why I jumped from Journeyman to Expert. Also, might be the fact that I am understanding a whole hell of a lot more about teleporting! Okay, headache.” Dave rubbed his temples. The pain slowly subsided before he continued to look through the notifications.

  Active Skill: Spell formation

  Level: Expert Level 8

  Effect: You use 25% less Mana and your spells are 81% stronger.

  “Sweet. I miss you, skills.” Dave sighed, looking at them, and paused in his walk. He looked around at the house he was in.

  A sad but pleased smile passed over his face. His world had changed since he had built his first house. He’d built a life on Emerilia, he’d made a home, was engaged to a woman he loved and he was in the most powerful guild on Emerilia.

  “Not bad, not bad at all.” Dave smiled to himself, taking a deep breath, and headed into the main house. He entered a large living area where everyone was gathered. He caught Deia’s eyes as she bounced a giggling babe on her knee.

  “Hey, Fornau and Quindar, sorry I was out when you arrived,” Dave said.

  “It’s good to see you again, Dave.” Quindar smiled.

  “I have to ask you about your plans. They were great, really well detailed, though I changed a few things,” Fornau said.