CC 9: Tenacity ~ Thirty

“We have a handful of hours until the next Beast wave, and you're choosing now to be stingy with sharing the resources we will need to survive?” Master Stu Sarcasm scoffed and folded his arms in front of him. “How very like a human, pretending to be all friendly and useful until they can war profiteer off of us.”

All that earned him was an amused stare as Joe continued writing out the notes for his next project. “I think lack of visibility was the biggest source of frustration, at least in terms of knowing where the monsters were during the most recent attack.”

Stu wasn’t happy about being ignored, but Joe didn’t particularly care. The council was trying to make him come to them and stand around, waiting anxiously for them to finish their deliberations, but the Ritualist wasn’t interested in their politicking. He stayed at the entrance of his ASPECT tower as his workers tossed in bodies, making sure no one could come and force them to stop without dealing with him directly. He was interested in experimenting to see if he could create some kind of… maybe a drone that would wander the killing zones and send back images? Or maybe a kind of crawling camera?

But now that Stu had actively sought him out and was attempting to annoy him, he wasn't going to get much in the way of work or planning done. Not with the constant interruptions. Joe let his quill pause, quivering in the air as he formulated a proper response.

“Tell me something, Stu.” Joe chose his words carefully before fully committing to the conversation. “Your entire society and currency system was based on reputation, which was accrued by collecting resources, training to higher skill levels, and trading off finished products. Correct?”

“I don't see where you're going with this, but yes.”

Joe waved one hand at him, as if he were indicating that the Dwarf should calm down. “Just hear me out. Let's do this as a rapid fire back and forth, okay? When a Dwarf collects a lot of goods, then charges a large premium of reputation to give back the final product, they're esteemed members of your people.”

“Yes.”

“Many of the oligarchs that used to be the leaders of your people earned their reputation based on funding battles, building fortifications, and supplying weapons to the Legion. They didn't do this for free, but for an excessive amount of reputation.”

Stu rolled his eyes and nodded, “Yes, that is correct.”

“So when a Dwarf is shrewdly collecting lots of materials and goods, then making a huge profit even during times of conflict and strife, they are to be commended. Yes?” Joe was smiling gently at this point, but it seemed that his Dwarven conversation partner didn't understand where this was going.

“Absolutely. If they do extremely well in managing their assets and subordinates, they’ve proven that they have what it takes to be in charge of larger and more important things.” Stu looked around at the other Dwarves that were finishing with the last of Joe’s corpses, who had paused to listen in, and seemed to be just as confused as the Master was. “This is a basic tenant of the Oligarchy.”

“Okay. Now…” Joe tucked away his notebook, lifting both hands into the air as he spoke, gesticulating in hopes that somehow he'd be able to force the concept into the Dwarf’s thick skull. “So when I, a human, take the resources I've earned and collected, train to a higher skill level, and trade off the finished products-”

“War profiteering.” Stu firmly stated, causing Joe to throw his hands in the air and turn away. “We won't stand for this, Joe! You forget that you’re not a Dwarf! You don’t get our benefits.”

The Ritualist didn't bother looking back, simply raising his voice as he walked into his workshop. The bodies were almost completed, and if Stu caused problems, the loss would be minimal. “All I've done is take what I'm owed for my work. If you don't like how many of the creatures I get to process, you’re welcome to go and face them in open combat yourself. I'm sure your sharpened wit will be enough to slay thousands of the monsters that want to tear everyone here into shreds.”

He closed the door behind him, not bothering to wait for a response to his words. “Seriously, did losing that title truly drop their estimation of me that much? Was all the work I did for the Dwarven people only given consideration because I was an officer of the Legion?”

There was no easy answer for his question, and as he thought about it, he realized he'd never had a discussion with another human who was working with the Dwarves. There was no way to tell if his experience was unique, or if this was the standard. He had seen how the Elves treated humans, but had generally expected that they were just terrible pointy-eared sacks of feces. Were the Dwarves just as bad? Was this just a cultural difference that he didn't understand? It was possible that this was just how they treated outsiders, but it felt extremely personal to him.

“Whatever. Right now they're just bitterly complaining that I’m doing better than they are. No one’s made a direct move against me.” Taking a deep breath in and closing his eyes, he let it out after a long moment, trying to imagine all of his annoyance going away with the outrushing air. When that was complete, he felt more energized and determined to succeed.

“I need to figure out how I can make actual, defensible walls instead of these… large rock paths.” In his notebook, he had set that as a medium priority, because there was no way he could take complete control of that project. Something at that scale had to be managed by whoever was in charge, else he would be pointed at as the reason for losses if the walls were destroyed. “Yep, no reason to assume that liability unless I have some other assurances in place.”

Happy that he'd clarified his needs for himself, Joe flipped his pages until he got back to the issue of generating visibility for himself, as well as everyone else. This was a tough nut to crack, as he'd never needed to create a ritual that would do so many complicated things on its own. Almost all of his most powerful constructs to this point had a very specific purpose, and they did that very well. “Only way to eat a whale is one bite at a time, so let's break down what it needs to do… first, it needs to travel a set path. Then, capture images, and somehow project them back to a command station?”

Eventually, he merely shook his head and set the notepad down. “I've got to be overthinking this somehow. Most of these, individually, seem doable… you know what? I've already figured out a way to capture images and project them. The barrier that I put above the city is a prime example… what if, instead of making rituals that crawled along, I just made reflective barriers at an angle over each of the open kill zones? Then we could see what was going on in there, and they wouldn't be able to see us watching them!”

He already had everything he needed for that project, even if it would require multiple people watching the projections in order to work correctly. “Sometimes the low-tech option is just the way to go. I could over-engineer the abyss out of this, but for what? A single issue that I might never have to worry about again?”

In a flurry of focused activity, Joe dedicated an hour's worth of work to assemble several of the prototype rituals. Understanding the need for a measured approach, he chose not to create everything required for the entirety of the maze in one sitting. Instead, he chose to test the effectiveness of his preparations and put together a proof of concept. Gathering his newly prepared tiles, he rushed out into the bitter cold and ventured directly into the maze.

Filled with a mixture of excitement and nervous energy, Joe activated the first of the tiles, unleashing its magical effects. Watching the sky, and the enormous rectangle of reflective energy above him, he swiftly traversed the open space, strategically positioning the tile to cover the maximum area it could affect. As he hadn't precisely measured the walls, it was an imperfect fit. He didn't mind that so much. “Perfect is the enemy of good, and I can always improve on this later!”

Even more determined now that he'd seen his ritual in action, he quickly pressed onward, navigating the maze and diligently documenting the outcomes; mind already racing with ideas on how to refine and optimize these rituals for future use. “If I'm going to have these at each of the openings, I'll have to place them carefully so that whoever is watching can see each of them. That means that the further out I go, the higher the ritual will have to be placed in the air. Probably would've needed to do that anyway, otherwise the view would just be blocked by the wall.”

After setting up the few rituals that he'd created, he hurried back into the Village to inspect his work. Joe looked at the actual view that was created, comparing that with his notes and writing down what he would need to do to adjust their angle and reflective properties. At one point, he stepped directly into the focused light reflection, and his eyebrows shot up. Joe quickly wrote down his observation, murmuring to himself the entire time. “Even with the sun completely blocked by the thick clouds, the reflection does generate some small amount of heat. If I set one up at each of these walls as they're built, there's a good chance that I could treat this like solar heating for the area!”

The last ritual that he was able to set up before receiving notification of an impending Beast wave was a large reflective mirror placed directly in the mouth of the maze leading into the Village. This one he angled so that the defenders would be able to see directly down the entire corridor, and the monsters would see the line of defenders as if they were coming in a straight shot.

“If I play this correctly, there's a chance that the monsters will build up a ton of speed and try to ram the ranks of the Village.” He chuckled darkly to himself as he struck a line through one of his notes. “Of course, they won't realize they're attempting to slam directly into a reflection… and there’s a wall there. Right, I think my best option would be to just place an enormous chunk of metal there, sink it deeply into the ground to make sure it remains stable, then cover the side they’ll ram in spikes; possibly other nasty surprises as well.”

The Ritualist understood that such a basic trap would only deceive the frontrunners of the approaching wave, but that didn't diminish its value in the slightest. In fact, that was likely to be the most important aspect of this illusion. Only the fastest or toughest of the wave would make it through all of his ritual towers, especially when those had been augmented by the network of future defenses he'd planned. There was only one obstacle to his plans: he did not have an obstacle to put in the way.

Undeterred by this fact, he improvised and adapted to the situation at hand. Joe decided to exploit the ritual he'd just set up, ducking behind it and angling his Field Array to create what could either be considered a serrated edge that the largest of monsters would tear themselves up on, or enormous spikes that would impale hopefully dozens of smaller creatures.

Joe exercised much caution, mindful not to excavate a pit deep enough to provoke burrowing creatures. When he was finished, he looked over his work and was… merely satisfied. It wasn’t the grand solution that he envisioned, but it did represent a solid starting point for his future plans. He had barely tapped into his plans of starting off his expansive network of traps and protections that he would be designing to assist his ritual towers. Still, a few low-tech traps might be exactly what they needed.

The most recent Beast wave had been eye-opening in the fact that sometimes, relying on a magical solution was just flat-out going to fail.

“I do love a good challenge.” Joe chuckled as he prepared for a long haul of innovation, meticulous preparation, and—hopefully—successful solutions.

You have slain a Defeatist Fluttering Penguin!

“Ahh! Time to leave.” If his towers were already killing off the fodder beasts, that meant the more powerful creatures mixed among them would almost certainly be rushing through the walls at this very moment. Joe turned and high-tailed it out of his position behind the illusion he had created, dodging a half-dozen arrows loosed at him as the gathered defenders flinched in surprise as someone appeared out of nowhere. “Abyss! Same team, same team!”