This is Our Land (Emerilia Book 5)

by Michael Chatfield

  “The Yacozi?” Malsour said.

  “Jacuzzi, yes!” Gelimah said, his excitement not even slightly dulled by Malsour’s inability to remember the name.

  Malsour smiled, as the Mana depleted headache creeped in. Raising an entire keep and a barracks with just two people was not easy on the Mana usage.

  The more I use it, the stronger I’ll be with it, Malsour thought as Gelimah rambled on. In power and strength, Malsour might be the strongest Dragon other than his mother with all he had gone through with the Stone Raiders.

  Still, he had been shown that not even a Dragon’s power was absolute.

  ***

  Dave looked around the seeder’s bridge. Nothing had changed since he’d last brought Ela-Dorn and Gal to the portal storage. He moved to the elevator, taking it to a slightly scarred and burnt room.

  “Well, looks a bit worse for wear with all the experiments Deia and I put it through.” Dave smiled as he looked at the different soul gems that were suspended in mid-air by glowing runes beneath.

  He checked over his Magical Circuits in the room, wiping them clean by conjuring over them and removing the conjured item. Once they were all cleared, he started conjuring into the metal of the room. For his next experiments, he was going to need some more powerful shielding.

  He created an inward Mana barrier as well as power taps for the barrier to the vault soul gem he’d left charging off the wide area runes collecting free Mana. The barrier appeared around the center of the room, containing Dave and whatever destruction he might create.

  Dave pulled out a piece of steel Dragon scale armor. His eyes glowed silver as his Touch of the Land allowed him to see into the basic makeup of the armor. He laid it down on a workbench and looked at it.

  “Well, I’m decent in close combat, but long range, not so much. That redirection thing I had with the gauntlets was pretty cool. Though it’s overkill for anything but a massive army and it kind of gives away my position.” Dave continued to look at the armor. “Okay, I’m decent at throwing a spear and if I add in those explosive shafts, then it would get caught or hit something and then explode. I could make it optional if I wanted to take someone down quiet or just blast an area. Though, sometimes I won’t get enough time to throw a spear.”

  Dave stood and walked around, eyeing the armor.

  “Steel and silver—it’s not going to be strong enough for what I need. I’m going to need Mithril and silver; Maybe a core of ebony.” Dave tapped his chin in thought, conjuring what looked like a wrist band, not too dissimilar from the bracelets the Dwarves wore to show their time in the Warclans, or whether they were married.

  “Okay, so, if I can’t always throw a spear, why can’t I make one? Just like Malsour’s metal spears he sends flying. Though if I modify the spear, I could make all of the power that makes it into a Mana bomb. For that, I don’t need a massive spear. I could just have a smaller one—be faster to create and could fire at speed.” Dave sat down at his table, pushing the Dragon scale armor away. Nervous excitement filled him as he looked at the simple band in front of him.

  “Well, let’s get started.”

  Dave’s body started to glow with runes as his perception of time sped up. As he worked, silver runes slowly formed in the lined white surface of the Mithril. He pulled out a soul gem with a variable power output. He activated it; a slight humming filled the air before settling down. The runes engraved into the Mithril glowed with power, creating long lines of magical coding around the band.

  He made a quick line of coding under the band, making it float in mid-air. He activated the different runes. A spearhead formed in mid-air, racing across his experimental warehouse and burying itself into a wall.

  “Crap.” Dave destroyed the conjured spearhead and activated runes around the large warehouse he used for his experiments. He also changed into his own armor.

  “That would have been risky with the exploding spearheads,” Dave muttered, changing the settings on the band’s runes.

  Another spearhead launched out ahead of the ring. It slammed into the surrounding Mana barrier. The Mana making up the spearhead turned into pure energy, tearing at the barrier, resulting in a sudden and violent explosion.

  “Well, that’s awesome.” Dave grinned as he looked at the Mana barrier. He closed his eyes, his mind allowing him to think back on what he had seen.

  “Okay, so, bit too close to the hand. Put it forward an inch or two—don’t want to conjure it inside my own hand.” Dave opened his eyes. The runes changed slightly. Another spearhead shot out ahead of it.

  “Perfect. Now let’s see how fast this thing is.”

  A dozen spearheads shot out in a matter of seconds. Dave stopped shooting, whooping and jumping around in excitement.

  “Okay, now for the full-length spear.” Dave activated the band. A spear appeared, parallel with the band’s opening.

  “Far enough away. Okay, let’s give this a try.” Dave put his hand in the bracelet. The spear disappeared.

  He cocked his hand backward as if he were about to throw. Nothing happened.

  Dave continued to move his hand around, trying to find the sweet spot. Finally a spear grew out of thin air, starting in his hand and spreading out into a shaft and spearhead.

  “Okay, so, going to need to fix this whole activation thing, but other than that it should be okay.” Dave threw the spear and it hit the barrier.

  Dave pulled off the bracelet, modifying its command circuit before he put it back on. He cocked his hand back. Another spear started to form. Dave threw it before it had fully formed. It continued to grow in mid-air but quickly fell in height with the added weight.

  It hit the barrier but without the power of the first spear.

  “Okay, so, it works, but it isn’t the best. How about the explosive version?” Dave shifted a band on the bracelet. He held up his hand. A spear grew to full length before Dave threw it.

  The resulting explosion made the barrier turn a darker color for a few seconds. Quite the achievement for a barrier powered with several vault-class soul gems.

  Dave laughed at his work; he clapped in excitement and did a slight jig.

  He held his palm up. Spearheads seemed to appear in front of his hand in a steady stream. They raced across the room to hit the barrier. Explosions thundered through the room as they hit the barrier.

  Dave stopped and looked at his bracelet.

  He laughed out loud. Realizing how maniacally and evil doctor he sounded, he quickly looked around to make sure no one could hear him before cha cha-ing from side to side, with his face a picture of pure excitement.

  “This is freaking awesome!” He laughed, taking it off, and moved to a worktable. He pulled pieces of metal from his bag of holding. He noticed with his senses that someone was approaching. Well, two people were approaching but one was far away, looking at different machines in the seeder.

  “Hey, Induca, what brings you to my evil lair?” Dave said, doing his best to look like some slightly mad hermit.

  Induca rolled her eyes. “Suzy wanted to look at the portals and the Altar of Rebirth. I just heard you blowing things up. Thought it would be more interesting.”

  “Hah! Damn right! I’m the master of blowing things up.” Dave smiled from ear to ear.

  “I was also wondering if I could buy some rings from you,” Induca said.

  Dave sat in his rolling chair, holding his scruff. “What kind of rings you thinking?”

  “Something to increase my ability with Fire spells. I’ve realized that while I am a Dragon, I’m not impervious to everything,” Induca said, somewhat sheepishly.

  “Good, because everyone needs help, even Dragons. Now, I don’t know if rings to increase your Affinity would be as helpful as you’re thinking. I’ve always found that increasing my Intelligence was the best thing. We can try out both, though.” Dave closed his eyes. A silver band formed, runes covering the interior and exterior.

  “Going to need a metal conjuring device
and some kind of engraving tools,” Dave muttered to himself.

  “What did you say?” Induca asked as Dave grabbed the ring and passed it to her.

  “I’ve found that while I can make things by simply conjuring them, having other machines to augment my ability greatly reduces the cost to me. So, if I created a magical factory that could make conjured metals, I could then engrave runes in them with a carver instead of having to channel all of that energy myself. The headaches I get from pouring my armor’s energy into my own Mana pool are not fun.” Dave sighed, unconsciously rubbing his temple at just the thought of those headaches.

  “Well, how much would that cost be?” Induca asked.

  “Well, that ring right there cost me roughly one hundred Mana because of my good control, though something like that soul gem based armor—that took nearly fifteen million Mana.”

  Induca’s eyes went very wide with Dave’s explanation.

  “Now, put the ring on and tell me what you think,” Dave said. Another ring appeared in mid-air in front of him. He looked as if he barely noticed it.

  Induca put the ring on. She blinked rapidly for a few minutes, looking around as if seeing a whole new world.

  “Okay, cast a simple spell to compare between the two rings,” Dave said.

  She made a simple flame, closing her eyes to get lost in the magic of the simple flame. She opened her eyes once again and took the ring off. “Damn, that was kind of a rush. Next.” Induca passed back the ring.

  “I make good stuff.” Dave smiled, floating the other ring to her. He grimaced after a second. “Damn, that sounds weird—makes me sound like some kind of weird drug dealer, not a smith making a bunch of rings.”

  Induca smiled at his antics and put the second ring on. Once again her eyes closed and a flame appeared. After some time, the flame fell away.

  “So, which one do you like more? Ring one or two?” Dave asked.

  “Ring one. It wasn’t just that my Fire magic got stronger; it seemed to open up my mind more,” Induca said.

  “I’ll make you up two of the first ring to stack the stats in your favor and a third for a reactive shield,” Dave said.

  “A shield?” Suzy walked into the room.

  “Hey, babe. Find what you wanted?” Induca asked.

  “Kind of.” Suzy greeted Induca with a kiss.

  Dave was happy to see that Suzy didn’t think of her sexuality as something to be hidden away from prying eyes anymore. She didn’t go out of her way to show it off to others, but at the same time it didn’t shame her; it was just a part of who she was.

  “Well, Deia, Anna, Suzy, and I all have Mana barriers with our Abscondita armor. You and Malsour don’t, which means that if anything is shot at you and you don’t know it, then you’re going to get hit. I can make a ring that gives you a pretty strong barrier, so that you can cast your own or fight on. It will be hooked up to the soul gem I gave you and I can make all of them soul bound, though it takes a bit of time for me to get that all done with my other projects. I can have it ready in two days. I need to recover my Willpower,” Dave said.

  “Make it three days. We’re off to Verlun,” Induca said, her arm around Suzy’s waist.

  “I can do that. When you two leaving?” Dave asked.

  “About now.” Suzy started to move for the door.

  “Say hi to Deia for me, and try to stay out of trouble!” Dave yelled.

  “You have meetings with Ukon tomorrow, and Kol wants to talk to you about hiring,” Suzy said.

  “I thought I was getting three days off!” Dave complained as Induca and Suzy made their retreat.

  “Things changed. See you in three days!” Suzy yelled back.

  Dave sighed and looked around his experiment warehouse. His frown turned into a smile as he spun around in his wheely chair. “Still a day down here. Let’s see if I can’t get some of those programs I was thinking about started.” Dave opened up his bag of holding, pulling out soul gems, as well as different metals, materials, and other items he’d collected on his travels but hadn’t had the time or safety measures to play around with.

  He pulled up his interface and locked a notepad to the table, so he could make notes on it without it following him around the entire time.

  He sorted out his pieces, rolling around with glee. Excitement filled him as he looked over notes he’d had on different materials and ideas he’d come up with. Rubbing his hands, he returned to his main testing space. First he conjured a simple stand and connected it to a power source. It was as if he were guiding the metal into a new shape instead of trying to form it all by himself.

  He put it on the table. A blue flame appeared at the peak of the stand. Dave turned a dial along the neck of the burner, changing the power of the flame. He turned the dial low; the flame disappeared.

  Dave pushed it off to the side. Next, he built a simple carver. It was a hand-held device with a spinning Mithril tip that could cut through nearly any material, easily engraving runes and magical coding into multiple surfaces. Dave tested it out on an ingot he had. “Okay, might have to make a few of these for the smithies. Be a lot easier than using chisels.”

  Dave spent the next couple of hours forming a factory off to the side. The production line was just a few meters long. It took half an ingot of steel, a small bit of silver, a lesser soul gem, and a needle worth of Mithril. Placed into different hoppers, they would be heated up, formed, engraved, filled and connected before coming out the other side.

  The upfront cost was as high as making twenty of the carvers. Though this could make five of them an hour, requiring nothing from Dave but more materials.

  “Using conjured items to create real ones. I feel like I’ve still just barely scratched the surface of my skill’s abilities.” Dave looked to the time; he’d spent five hours on the factory. He sent a message to Kol about the carvers, promising to show him one the next day.

  Dave stretched in his seat and took a deep breath. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t dreading this.” Dave looked at his forearm and the runes there.

  “Dreading what?” Bob appeared behind Dave.

  Dave promptly shrieked like a small child and jumped about ten vertical feet from his chair.

  Bob laughed so hard when Dave landed that he’d fallen off his chair.

  “Oh! I’ve got to do that more often! It’s so hard to creep up on you with that damned spell you’re constantly using.” Bob wiped away tears that had formed at the corners of his eyes.

  “Ass,” Dave said, getting his heartbeat under control.

  “So, go on. What were you saying before you tried to compete for highest squalling vertical jumper?” Bob devolved into laughter once again.

  Dave glared at him as he tracked down his chair, putting it upright and taking a seat, facing Bob.

  “Sorry—just, so loud!” Bob continued his fit of giggles.

  Dave conjured and destroyed one of the chair legs that Bob was in.

  “Ah!” Bob fell out of the chair suddenly. His feet went over his head before he landed. He got up slowly, looking at the grinning Dave. Bob smacked his hands against his pants and shrugged. “Well, I guess I might have deserved that.” Bob chuckled. “So what you got for me?”

  “I’ve got some alterations to make to the runes I conjured within my body. Though I’m not really sure what is going to happen,” Dave admitted.

  Bob cleared his throat, as he held up his chair and looked for a way to fix it.

  Dave conjured another.

  “You not going to destroy this one?” Bob asked.

  “Not in the next three minutes,” Dave said.

  “Boo-yah!” Bob jumped up in the seat, his Gnome body enveloped in the large chair. “Okay, so what are you not sure about with the new runes?”

  “Okay, so, with metals, I can put silver into the runes, so that they work better. With my runes, I made very quick impressions in my body. I’ve had to work to keep them active, something I didn’t know until I had increased m
y Intelligence. What I want to do is not just create impressions within my body, but magical reservoirs, sort of like chakras of Mana. They are not just impressions but part of me that amplify my Mana through integrating into my body,” Dave said.

  “Do you know how dangerous that is?” Bob asked.

  “Very, but I have a secret.” Dave smiled.

  “What?” Bob’s scientific curiosity put him at the edge of his seat.

  “I can conjure things within my own body, and I’m also highly adaptive. I would need to internalize something to create a natural Mana retaining ability, so that my runes would just work naturally,” Dave said.

  “Okay, so, what are you going to use for that?” Bob asked.

  “I have samples of Demon, Dragon, Arch Lich, and sprite blood. I have no idea how I could use them, so, I’m going to need to experiment. In the meantime, I can form new magical code across my body to increase my power output,” Dave said.

  “Okay. If you give me those samples, I can use those and other samples to possibly create something you could use as this medium you want,” Bob said.

  “You sure?” Dave asked. It would be a lot of work off his shoulders.

  “Look, I don’t have all that much to do up there, mostly just hang out with Fire or Water, make plans, watch you lot, and think about what we need for the future.” Bob shrugged.

  “Where do you live, anyway?”

  Bob tapped his chin in thought. He pulled out an amulet and tossed it to Dave. “Put that on and I’ll show you.” Bob smiled, clearly excited to show something off.

  Dave pulled the amulet on. It had runes similar to the ones across the seeder that made it nearly impossible to detect. They were so good that Dave had only found the thing because of its complete absence.

  “Hold onto your chair.” Bob smiled and light enveloped them both.

  Chapter 32: A Voyage Into The Dark

  “Diana, I can’t in good faith send them out there just yet,” Sato said to Councilwoman Wong.

  “You’ve done hundreds of hours of testing on those ships. I know that Captain Adams is more than confident in her ship’s capabilities. She and her crew are ready and waiting to be used. Edwards informs me that we will have a full refit corvette ready for use in two days. How long will it take for Adams and her crew to get used to and run full tests on the new ship?” Wong asked.