Gathering the Pieces

“We've been working on a few things, especially using that crystal you brought us.” Ria says, tapping out a tune on the device by her side. “It’s a remarkable mana battery, we barely had to do anything to prepare it, and it can even hold crystalised mana. Well, in theory it can hold crystalised mana. The way it handles enchantments, too. I love it.”

“I’m glad you like it, I’ll want to hear all about it later, but for now I need you to stay focused. I’m here today to supply a small army with weapons and armour. Do you have anything that’ll help?”

“Most of our projects have been... interesting.” Wally, comes crawling out from behind his computer screen to catch my attention. “I’ll put aside the failures for now. We have a programmable mana bomb, just fill it up with mana and it pops into whatever spell you have crammed into it.”

“A failed mana battery.” Ren whispers at my side.

“We have that armour you wanted us to make. 20 samples, each can be charged with 24.926 units of mana and reactive mana defences. It’ll take a hit or two.”

“I’m still improving it.” Ria says to that.

“We’ve also managed to develop mana rifles, but we want your help to improve the bullets. I’ve been told that your annihilation magic would be a good spell to attach to them?”

“I’ll translate it into the bullets if you have the time.” Ria says, pulling out a collection of uncharged pellets.

“You can do that?” I ask.

“Of course I can. How do you think enchantment works?” She asks. “We’re able to copy the magics that we observe down into physical enchantments. Changing them is a little challenging, but it’s sort of the biggest thing us enchanters have to master.”

“How come enchanters aren’t considered the most powerful, dangerous mages around?” I ask as she pulls me over towards a testing area, where all sorts of tools and targets are set up in a shooting range.

“We aren’t?” She asks with a little laugh, pointing me towards a set of tall wooden stands marked with concentric rings. Clearly targets. “Shoot at them, I’ll observe and try to copy it down. It might take a few times.”

“How powerful?”

“The spell can scale easily, right?” She asks. “It doesn’t matter if you use only a little power or a lot, it’s the same effect on a different scale?”

“Yeah, essentially.” I reply, blasting at one mark with a small annihilation bolt.

“Then it’s fine as is.” She says thoughtfully as she looks over at the target. “Interesting… There’s fire in there too?”

“Something I learned recently. I keep the annihilation in thin threads through the target, then fill those threads with fire magic to make use of the mana-less space for a bigger effect I explain as she closely looks over the target.

“That’s… interesting.” She says. “The spread of threads is chaotic, it could be more efficient to have them evenly spaced. Also, it’ll be more powerful if you can better balance the conjuration of fire and the retained mana density.”

“Uh…?”

“All of the mana is converting into heat which is too easily dispersed by the mana density of the surrounding ‘flesh’ of the target.” She explains a little more clearly. “You want some of the mana in your spell to attach to the fire, giving the flames more mana density.”

“Ah, is that so…” I say, trying to change the spell as she describes. It’s not something easily done, with so much being translated through emotional intent and done by feel rather than numbers.

“I should be able to modify the spell a little from here.” Ria says, painting markings on a sheet of paper.

“Is that what my magic looks like?” I ask. The paper is covered in complex intersecting lines, circles and shapes.

“My interpretation of it.” Ria says. “Each enchanter has their own style, so this is all just my way of writing it down.”

“That sounds… difficult.”

“Sometimes.” She grumbles, fixing a few things on the parchment. “It’s… fun, though. Oh, when you’re done with all this. I nearly have my own personal project finished. You were interested, weren’t you?”

“Of course.” I say. “It’ll be finished soon, will it?”

“Yep. I’ve prepared everything. Now I just have to get it working.” She mumbles happily. “I’ll have it ready to show you. I’m sure you’ll like it.”

“I’m looking forward to it.” I say, begrudgingly guiding her back to more immediate concerns. “When should these bullets be ready?”

“Give me two days?” She asks, looking at the large pile of bullets. “I have the spell ready, so it’s not too difficult. Just a lot of careful brush work.”

“Is there anything an amateur could help with? We have people down in the ruins that would love to help, but…”

“No, it’s stuff that I have to do personally.” She replies.

“Ah, we do need you to fill up all these mana batteries!” Wally says, running over with a sack filled with shards of dark crystal. “They’re for your guns and armour, so I’m guessing you’ll want them all charged up.”

“I’ll do that then.” I say as Eshya and Nel take the bags for me.

“They’re light.” Eshya says, lifting the bag up and down to test it’s weight.

“It’ll feel heavier when they’re full.” Nel replies, easily shouldering her own.

“Oh, about that other thing you wanted us to make?” Ria says.

“It’s no rush.” I reply. “There’s nowhere for it until we take the city anyway. Just make sure to keep some of that crystal aside for the project.”

“Of course.” She replies. “Come back again soon.”

“We will.” Nel replies. “I’ll make sure she doesn’t forget it.”

“Wait… didn’t I make a similar promise recently.”

“With me. Yes.” Nel says, “We should have some time around sunset tonight, once we’re finished with war preparations.”

“Ah, okay. Sounds fun.” I say, nodding as we rush on to the next thing.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The massive tree falls with a thundering crash, catching on the branches of the trees beside it. Birds and beasts scatter while crying out in frustration and fright. Thankfully none of them are coming down to fight us over it.

Bessy floats into the air and starts cutting away the branches holding the tree up, one by one, slowly dropping it to the ground right by us.

“You can carve it into boards and start work on bessy’s armour?” I ask, looking at the massive trunk trying to imagine how much work there is in this coming project.

“Yes, empress.” The tall insectoid man says with a deep bow.

Hoid. He’s familiar as any of my other citizens, which means I haven’t had much of a chance to actually get to know the man. Apparently he’s a capable wood worker, not a mage like the wood weavers that we’re fighting, but a crafter.

“I’ve already made designs to your specifications. It will be simple, but I think that’s for the best.” He says, his formal nature leaving him as he excitedly talks about his work. “I can have the wood shaped by tomorrow morning, then it should all be joined by tomorrow evening.”

“You work fast.” I reply, looking between him and the tree.

“We have to, don’t we?” He replies, his excitement fleeing for a moment. “Excuse me, I need to get started right away.”

“Right, I won’t get in your way.”

The man opens his shell to reveal a set of wings that he flutters about before flying atop the large fallen tree.

“Stand taller and don’t lower your chin.” Veralia says, commenting on my stance. “When acting the role of a noble, you must always stand tall and never slouch. Also, your words lacked the power and formality required of your station. It was good that he addressed you properly, but it is best to foster a more respectful nature from your subordinates.”

“Aren’t you meant to be teaching me how to bow and scrape, not how to get others to bow to me?”

“Receiving respect due to you is an important aspect of learning how to give that same respect to those above you.” She replies. “Now, would you like me to keep going?”

“Sure.” I reply, barely containing a sigh and avoiding another scolding.

Her lessons are a good distraction, I can ignore them when I have other tasks to work on, but it keeps me from obsessing over things that are already under control. If Hoid fails in his project, I already have plans to deal with it, obsessing further is just an unneeded distraction.

She continues to teach me more as I head out towards Red.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Good clean kills, you’ve done well.” Red says, looking out over her group of warriors, even the vampire lizards are huffing in exhaustion as they stand over the bodies of the large naked apes that they’ve slaughtered.

There are groups of soldiers at the perimeter watching for anything that might attack us while we’re weakened, and others watching the ground, ready to jump at any moment in case any wood weavers try to attack us.

“What a nice collection of mana you have for me.” I say, looking over the bodies.

“Don’t touch them.” Red retorts, giving me a short glare. “We’ll take them home whole and gut them. You can play with everything we don’t use.

“Aww, I only get the scraps?”

“While I admire your will as an empress, it’s your abilities as a compost heap that we need today.” She replies.

“What am I supposed to say here…?” Veralia despairs, looking between me and Red. “If this is intentional… I suppose it’s fine…? I mean, it’s not. It’s clearly not okay, but… are you just messing with me?”

“It’s just a little chit chat.” I say to my manners teacher. “Let’s get going. I know an alchemist who’d love a taste of this fresh flesh.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Thresh stands frozen as she looks at the butchery before her, hands twitching as she battles within herself, trying to figure out what she needs to take first. She’s like a starving man at a free buffet, she’s standing there twitching as she tries to figure out what to pile onto her plate.

“I need everything!” She shouts, rushing in. “There’s so, so much!”

“Focus on healing potions and poison treatments.” Nel says, stepping in and slowing her down. “What here would help with that?”

“Okay, okay.” Thresh says, slowing down and thinking. “I need the livers, kidneys, hearts, bone marrow, and as much of the blood as you can get without it mixing with other liquids.”

It doesn’t take long for her to dive into her work, mixing potions of all sorts as she madly rushes about trying to do as much as possible while talking to herself, crying praises about her new Skills.

With the good meat, and Thresh’s ingredients separated, I’m left with a slightly smaller pool of bloody organs.

“Here.” Eshya says, hefting the empty mana batteries Ria gave us to fill. “You think there’ll be enough mana?”

“If not, we’ll have to go hunting for more.” I say, stomping through the guts, and filth, pulling out the mana before shoving it into the stone. It sucks up mana like a sponge, though it doesn’t work quite the same as my armour. The mana inside shifts into a different state becoming static, but without leaking.

There is just enough mana to fill them up to the point of late liquid stage, verging on crystallisation, while toping me up to just over 2000 points again. That said, my own mana quickly starts falling again. Hopefully it’ll become more stable when I’m done with my physical integration of my mana form.

“What’s next?” Vii asks, hopping excitedly from foot to foot as she looks over the bloody corpses.

“We have some killers to talk to.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“You want to hire us?” Darrell asks, smiling bright as he hefts his axe. The rest of the team at his back seems equally keen for a fight.

“Two things.” I say, holding up my hand. “First of all, I want your expert knowledge on some of the stronger beasts down here. Those swarmer birds first of all, the ones near the gremlin city. How aggressive are they?”

“If you fly, they’re mean.” Charé perks up. “They’ll cut you right to shreds. On the ground, you only need to watch for their hunt flights. They’ll be moving around in a big arrowhead formation. If you see that, run, hide, or blast them with whatever you can to make them look for something else to eat.”

“Anything else?”

“Don’t steal their eggs.” She continues, “They mark their eggs with some sort of magic. Even if you eat them right away, the birds will find you and do their best to kill you. The one guy who survived had to stay holed up for a whole month before the birds would leave him alone.”

“Now that sounds interesting…” I say, already adding a few points into my plan. “Do you know anyone who could steal me a few of those eggs?”

“It’ll be expensive… but I know a guy.” Darrell says, his excitement stifled as he continues. “You want to hit the city itself, don’t you?”

“Raid the city.” I say firmly. “I’m sure you’re already aware that we don’t have the forces to take the city. We want to make them bleed. Weaken them to the point where it’s more of a fair fight the next time.”

“Sounds like you have a plan.” He says, leaning forwards on his axe as he starts smiling again. “

“We have a plan, then a few more in reserve for when that one fucks up.” I say. “That said, I’d like as much help as we can get. How many other slayers do you know that would be interested in a hit and run on the city?”

“Interested? All of us.” He barks a laugh. “Whether we’ll risk it depends on the pay.”

“Nel?” I call for help.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“You wish to move your people here?

“There is room, but are you sure about this?” the lord says. “I can’t force anyone to go with you when you eventually decide to leave again. In fact, I would have to stop you if you were to try and forcefully take anyone with you.”

“What kind of villainous dictator do you take me for? You can’t force a person to stay loyal to you.” I reply. “If anyone wishes to stay here afterwards, then they may. Rather, I’m more interested in discussing how we can pay you back for this favour.”

“There’s no need. It is my responsibility to assist the people living in this cavern. Shelter is freely offered.”

“Thank you, but I still would like to do something for everyone here.” I say. “To be honest, our hunters have been a little too successful lately. So if it doesn’t trouble you, I’d like to set up a feast. We’ll supply food and drink and everything else needed.”

“A celebration?” He asks. “I won’t refuse it, but what is it that we’ll be celebrating?”

“I’m not sure celebration is the right word. It’ll be a send-off. I think a feast is a good way to send our soldiers out to war. After all, some of them won’t be coming back, and I’d like to at least give them one good day before that.”

“I see… I’ll make sure that everyone is made aware of it, and I’ll have a space cleared out for it. May I ask, what is going to happen with the base where you’ve been living?”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Do not, I repeat, do not touch this thing.” I say to the warriors gathered around me at our underground home. “This is the final trap, we use it only when this base has fallen and we’re retreating. It is insanely dangerous. Do you all understand?”

“Yes, ma’am!” The soldiers shout while Red and the twins nod sagely.

Countless familiar faces look back, Rare, our cute little dragon, Shy, our stealthy hunter with rounded animal ears on her head. Lui, Slan, Korgan, Arn, and many more. Which of them will still be with us when this is over?

Who are we sacrificing by choosing war?

Who isn’t coming home afterwards?

I shut down the thoughts, focusing on the task at hand.

“Good.” I reply. “When our battle in the city is done, there is going to be a response. They’ll almost certainly make their way here, in more numbers than we’ve ever had to face before.

“Our goal isn’t to hold this place, so do not let yourselves get killed. We’re fighting to slaughter them, to kill as many as we can before we retreat, and we will retreat. It’s better that you leave alive and killing nothing, than dying after killing dozens.

“The lives of our foes are worthless, but you are not. Do not die.”

“Understood.” They shout, Red tilts her head with a strange expression, though she doesn’t speak out against my words.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“You have to make sure that all your anger and frustration is channelled into something productive. Don’t let your violence be fuelled by these emotions, that is the way of beasts, and we are not beasts.”

I’m screaming inside, but it’s not quite loud enough to silence the voices of the combat students sitting in meditation before me.

I look around at the others that have come for this meeting, but everyone here but us radiates a calm Zen, like monks in meditation. This is not what I was expecting, and not what I was after.

“It’s difficult. I know.” The crazy ‘warrior’ elk says, bowing towards me and my girls. “Just try to listen to the universe. It is peaceful and it is calm. Our role is to give that calm to the beasts that are acting out, not to spread violence and hate.”

I grit my teeth and force a smile and a nod as I imagine his head as a trophy on my wall.

I think I’ll have a better chance of finding recruits by making a list of the combat course students who decide not to show up to this hippy, ‘love and peace’ meditation circle.

When the meeting finally ends, and the students all go their own way, their expressions are concerningly relaxed. There’s nothing I can do with them.

Which means that I’m done.

It’s time to wait for our preparations to come to fruition. I try to take a calming breath, but frustration and excitement blend together in my guts, and I can barely think.

“Finally.” Nel whispers, clinging to my arm as we all head back to our dorm together. A message pops in on Chip, interrupting us.

“Damnit. There’s always something!” Nel growls as she checks the message.

It’s from Red.

“We’ve detained an enemy lieutenant. You’ll want to come down here for this, he’s saying he’s here to help us kill Paskel.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Skills & Stats

~Mana Form:

Current mana density: 2042 units

~Mana distribution:

Defence: 88/88%

Offense: 0/68%

Mana sense: 0/96%

Recovery: 0/44%

Gluttony: 0/34%

Misc.: 0/44%

Efficiency: 88/100%

~Favourited Skills:

-Chip Shredder

-Multi-mind

-Tag

-Mana surge movement

-Reactive defence

-Fire burst punch

-Annihilation magic

-Charged casting (Annihilation)

-Mana form flow fixer

-Branching magic

-Swimming