CC 9: Tenacity ~ Twenty-Six

Despite his bravado with the receptionist, it took more than a week's worth of hours to gather enough resources to complete the final building required for tiering up. Although he had attempted to ensure that every building he made was entirely useful, there was only so much he could do. To his delight, the water tower where his filtered blood-based water was deposited was considered a monument, advancing his Apprentice Rituarchitect class quest. Now there was only one monument to create before that quest would be considered complete.

Joe had caused quite a stir by snatching the Unique building slot and creating his A.S.P.E.C.T. tower. By a ‘stir’, he supposed that it could have been considered closer to a riot than anything else. Their argument was that if he would have devoted that building slot to something else, such as single family apartment complexes, nearly a thousand Dwarves would have a place to call home currently. Frankly, the human didn't understand what the issue was with living in bubble tents.

It was an adventure, something fun and new!

At least, that was how he sold it to the crowd. Eventually he had to make a small concession, offering to hand over the water tower—in combination with the blood-filtering ritual—to the Dwarven Council before the mob finally backed down and returned to their own pursuits.

All pre-morale building slots have been filled! Commencing countdown until the first of twenty-five Beast Waves occur for settlement rank increase. As your Village is attempting to upgrade into a Town (Uncommon to Rare), you will be subject to a set of elite monsters every five waves, with one boss monster per ten. Monster waves will occur at maximum eight hours apart, and at minimum four.

Feeble mortals from the summer realms! Your insignificant Village’s audacious growth has gained you the unenviable attention of your Superiors. Rumors are spreading of the pathetic nest you build, where even a pigeon would be too ashamed to roost. Tremble before us as we gather to strike you down, you foolish invaders, you blight upon our domain!

The flavor of the message was completely different between the two sets of notifications, almost as though one was just a simple chatbot sending information their way, and the second was a direct message from a high-end barbarian General of this world’s forces. Still, Joe felt confident that he was going to be able to weather anything sent his way. Over the previous week, he'd set up a permanent Aspect Array, recharged and rebound his ritual orbs, and created dozens more buildings—mostly ritual towers for defense.

He was even a good chunk of the way into designing the Ritual of Slaughter, though he was taking his time with it. Mainly, Joe was uncertain what qualifiers he should use as the requirements for activation. It wasn't enough to assume that every monster that came through would be two-legged, as only the Penguins had so far had that attribute as they waddled along the open spaces between walls.

Struck by inspiration at that moment, Joe whipped out a quill and started writing down his thoughts. “What if it's all about the points in the maze out there that they walk through? What if, instead of saying ‘it has this attribute’ the ritual simply says, ‘it isn’t a human or a Dwarf, and it went through this point in the maze’.”

Scribbling furiously, he pared that down slightly further. “It's so much easier to decide what not to account for, instead of saying what it must be. How could I possibly make a set of all characteristics that’d be needed otherwise? Yes… I think this is exactly what I'll be doing. If monsters pass in front of a Ritual Tile, let’s say within forty feet north-east of it, that puts all monsters between that section of the walls in range. Then, if I can set it up where they have to circle the entire city another time in order for this second condition to be met, that’ll make an even more stringent requirement! That means a more powerful activation sequence!”

As the inspiration swept away, a broad smile remained on Joe's face. He jumped up to the top of the walls, moving to find the position he wanted for the oncoming tide of monsters. Inspecting the towers, he found that there was only minor damage currently. That was simply a result of existing, so he couldn’t fault the Dwarven bakers that he’d hired. They hadn't been able to set up shop yet, so Joe had been able to offer them the job of running his Rituals of Repair, and they were glad for the work. “They sure did drive a hard bargain though… the next Unique building I make’ll have to be a greenhouse, or they might actually start a riot.”

As a compromise between the fulfillment of Socar's relentless demands for perfection in the placement of the towers, as well as Joe's insistent need to construct them in sets of prime numbers, a grand total of twenty-nine common ritual towers now stood poised to unleash their lethal magics upon the savage beasts that would be churning the ground between the walls of the village. Unwilling to completely trust the human who was creating so much opportunity for them, the Dwarves demanded the right to assume responsibility for the defense of the city itself.

In a bid to find a solution that both groups could agree upon, the towers had been strategically positioned along the outermost walls where the concentration of monsters was highest—therefore minimizing the risk of inadvertent harm to their allies whilst maximizing the damage Joe would be able to do against the onrushing horde. This was perfectly acceptable to the Ritualist, as he’d be able to claim the greatest number of monsters as they attacked. The fact that his allies wanted to be the final say on if they succeeded or not was understandable, if frustrating and concerning.

The Dwarves didn’t fully trust him, and Joe in his own way found the distrust to be mutual. There was always a chance that the Dwarven Council would order the ranks of warriors to simply step aside: allowing direct access to the Town Hall. It was a low chance, as there would be an uproar, and Joe had made his position on that matter perfectly clear.

He’d leave.

The Ritualist was uncertain if that was as much of a caution-inducing fact to them as he hoped it was, but he also wasn't going to fully burn that bridge by declaring that they would become his enemies.

“Only a few more hours, and I'll be able to start claiming aspects by the thousands, cores by the hundreds, and planning out the final vestiges of my Ritual of Slaughter.” Joe was murmuring to himself as he approached the small group that he'd joined. They’d gotten used to coming to this spot at the start of each day, and with a new upgrade being announced, they’d all hurried here to see if there were any last minute events they needed to plan for.

The Ritualist started explaining his new plan for his ritual to Socar, who was happy to help adjust the placement of the ‘flags’ to maximize their effect.

“Still trying to figure out why you're always calling them flags. In this case, it’s a motion detector, isn't it? Let’s just go with that.” Joe gently teased the Mage, who furrowed his brow as his mouth twisted into a frown. The bald human started chuckling immediately: Socar didn’t like using modern terms for his work, and it was easy to rile him into a tizzy. “Thanks for the help, friend. We have about eight hours still before combat should begin, I might go and start putting these in place. I only have… probably a couple hours of work left on making the ritual?”

“What are you going to use as the fifth and final part of the activation?” Heartpiercer suddenly interjected into their conversation, “That's the one that’s going to be the most important, right?”

Joe nodded agreeably, even as he scrambled to find a reason not to tell her. He’d gotten so used to his rituals being mysterious in everything except the final effect, that he was extremely reluctant to share the details of this hopefully powerful version. Still, she’d earned enough trust from him that he managed to force himself to share. “I think I'll have it hold off unless something manages to land a blow on the Town Hall. That’d make the most sense to me. If something manages to get past all of our defenses, defenders, and last resorts, it’ll find one last surprise waiting for it.”

“Smart…” Bauen tugged at his beard consideringly. “With such a stringent final condition, the excess power should clear out any other monsters that have broken through. Not only would that give us a good opportunity to regroup, it might be strong enough to clear out all of the low level monsters that are still moving through the killing corridors.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Joe was the first to leave the group at that moment, but each of them scattered to either take a position for themselves, or finish a completely different task. Hurrying to his workshop, which was now dwarfed by the gaping maw of the A.S.P.E.C.T. tower directly adjacent to it, Joe got to work figuring out how to convert his thoughts into diagrams and formulae for the ritual.

By the time the unpowered ritual was ready to go, and Joe stepped out of his workshop, he realized that the amount of light in the sky had noticeably started to dim. Under the false sky he had created, that was something that he hadn’t really needed to account for. “Would you look at that…? We’re approaching the night of our first day on Jotunheim. It's been an eventful day.”

He considered the event he'd just initiated, and the fact that it would likely be full dark by the halfway point of the waves. “Well, abyss. I suppose I could’ve planned that better. Now I need to go find some ‘volunteers’ that can help me get this ritual up and running.”

Over the next hour and a half of arguments, pleading, and various threats directed toward him, Joe was informed in no uncertain terms that the Dwarven Council didn’t appreciate his attempts to place an unknown, untested magical effect on the Town Hall. Certainly not while a flood of monsters were closing in on them this very moment.

The human could only slink away with his gathered group, tail tucked between his legs to show his understanding and consternation. When he was alone with his followers, he turned to them with a morose expression… which vanished in an instant as he clapped his hands. “I’d completely forgotten that we don't need to be over there in order to activate this! I'll just set it as a key point for activation later.”

Utterly nonplussed, the assembled humans and Dwarves tried to think of an excuse they could use to back down. Joe could tell that a few of them were even considering running and informing the council what he was up to. Before anyone could move, he activated an enormous ritual that placed a bubble over them and hid their actions. With a glint in his eye, and a lopsided grin on his face, Joe finished preparations for getting the Ritual of Slaughter in place.

“Shall we get started?”