CC 9: Tenacity ~ Five

After leaving the smithy, cubes cheerfully jangling together until he dropped them into storage, Joe heard a commotion in the distance and decided to change his heading to see what was happening. As he arrived at the scene, he was confused by what he saw at first—all the way until he made the realization that the World Boss didn't simply disappear. It had been crushed, yes, but its remains had been scattered all across the area. The commotion he'd been hearing was opposing groups arguing over who should get what, or if there was value in keeping the remains at all.

“Listen up, you daft a lot! All this foolishness is going to do is attract monsters!” One outraged Dwarf was bellowing at the milling crowd. His voice was already hoarse  from shouting, and the fist that he was not waving in the air was clenched around his beard hard enough that he was starting to pull out beard hair. “What do you mean cook it? Are you out of your minds? Do you have the slightest inkling if that creature’s flesh is safe to eat, or is it poisoned flesh? From what I can tell, the meat is a flexible stone, and its blood is flame in liquid form!”

“Don’t listen to him! Embrace your inner poultry lover, and savor the taste of success!” Joe wisely decided to duck at that moment, pretending that someone else had spoken as he stifled his chuckles. His mission of stirring up the crowd complete, the Ritualist took a moment to go over to inspect the huge pile of carcass chunks. He spared one glance back at the wild-eyed Dwarf that was shouting at his brethren, who was now clenching a fistful of loose hair in one hand as he hopped up and down in fury.

As Joe got closer to the piled corpse, he realized that the ambient temperature was sharply increasing. He was learning exactly what the Dwarves had already discerned: the body still had all the properties of the Lava Phoenix. Specifically, it was blazing hot; enough so that the bare stone below it was ever-so-slowly melting. “Err… maybe we should scatter its body around and use it to get this area warmed up?”

“Bald bro! Yeah! That’s what I was saying!” Someone chimed in on his accidental utterance. “But that scaredy bro is wimping out about the monsters ‘round here. He already stopped me from hucking a chunk of this into a fire pit. Twice!”

Joe winced as he realized that he'd just gained the attention he was trying to avoid when he had been pouring gasoline on the fires of their shouting match, but luckily someone else was nearby to make an executive decision. Havoc strolled up to the melting zone, a wide grin on his face and smoke puffing out through his nostrils. “That's pretty bold of all of you, putting together the remains of a Phoenix like this! I don't know if I like our chances against it if it manages to go through a rebirth cycle. But, ya know what? I applaud your fearlessness, and I’m ready to die together in a blaze of glorious fire.”

Joe hastily backed away from the corpse mound, and he wasn’t the only one. It appeared that no one else had considered the possibility of a fresh, furious Phoenix showing up whilst they were trying to figure out how to eat its original body. It took mere moments for the arguments to die down to nothing, then, all at once, everyone was clamoring for the remains to be destroyed or scattered.

Havoc just shook his head, pointed at Joe, then pointed at the immense hill of what could generously be called ‘meat’. The Ritualist nodded happily, understanding perfectly what Havoc wanted him to do. He moved over to stand next to the remains, set up a Field Array—as well as each of the aspect jars he had on hand—and began converting the carcass into his personal crafting materials.

He stopped almost immediately as he felt the magical weight of the incoming aspects. Eyes flaring wide, Joe softly groaned, “Legendary.”

There was a touch of frustration at the fact that he was going to be getting a less than perfect conversion ratio, but Joe grit his teeth and continued the process. As he was being careful to get every single portion of the Phoenix—while also pretending that he was merely doing so out of good will and not greed—Joe stayed there far longer than he probably should have. Yet, the payoff was absolutely worth the effort. The flaming bird had been the size of a small mountain, shown in its ability to grasp the Pyramid of Panacea in one talon and drag it into the ground.

Every speck of it was powerful, and he knew if he would've had an aspect conversion area set up with all of the aspect jars correctly put together, he likely would've even been able to gather a few Mythic aspects. However, as he was working with subpar collection tools, anything that may have been Mythic had been broken down to a lower form.

Joe had no complaints in the slightest about the windfall. Four and a half hours after he began, the final feather of the bird had been converted into aspects, and only the talons had been claimed by the council, deemed safe from causing the apex avian to respawn, and were no doubt slated to be shaped into weapons.

Aspects gathered

Trash: 210,123

Damaged: 52,234

Common: 25,687

Uncommon: 4,577

Rare: 4,388

Special: 10,003 (Zombified). 100 (Anima). 111 (Molten) 688 (Phoenix)

Unique: 6,879

Artifact: 5,518

Legendary: 12,902

Mythical: 0

The Ritualist was practically quivering in excitement as he looked at the massive influx that he'd been able to earn off of a single corpse. He had expected something to the effect of… perhaps a burst of additional Molten special aspects, maybe a few Legendary aspects, so earning a full five figures of the nearly-best aspect in a single sitting was an extremely pleasant shock. “The new aspect has me all excited… what’s a Phoenix aspect, and what does it do?”

Filled with eager anticipation, Joe could only fervently hope that this new material was going to be nothing short of extraordinary. The meager quantity he had acquired wouldn't allow him to have any margin of error for frivolous trials across multiple items. Instead, he would need to invest these precious aspects into creations that he already had extremely high hopes for, and cross his fingers for a favorable outcome. “Celestial feces, I got almost thirteen thousand Legendary aspects, yet I’m more excited about less than seven hundred of the Special? My brain likes to mess with me.”

Joe finished his project with a great sense of satisfaction and looked around the area expectantly. A moment later, slightly perplexed at his own actions, the Ritualist realized that he was waiting for someone to come bellow demands or whisk him away to tackle yet another task, now that he was free to do something else. To his surprise, as he began slowly walking away, the only interactions he had were other people offering him a nod, or a customary greeting.

It was a delightful departure from his new normal, and Joe decided immediately that he liked this shift in his daily dynamic. Still, his out-of-sorts reaction made him slightly introspective. “Have I gotten so used to being barked at, to following orders and instructions from someone else, that I feel a little bit lost right now that I’m charting my own course? Or… could it just be that I haven't had coffee in a while?”

*Burble!* AutoMate poked its head up out of the Ebonsteel mug that Joe wore attached to his belt by a carabiner, looking at him expectantly with the coffee beans that it had instead of eyes. A moment later, it began to quiver in place as a layer of frost covered the now-exposed portion of its body. Joe quickly dismissed the elemental and lifted his coffee mug to his lips. It was filled with cold brew, something the elemental had never been able to produce before.

“Oh, shoot! I should figure out how to repair this mug without accidentally unsummoning you.” Sucking down the drink as he looked over the damage that the mug had accumulated rescuing him from a heavy attack, Joe let out a satisfied sigh, nodding to himself as he practically skipped back to his guildhall. “Yep, that was the problem! Thanks buddy, I will make it up to you soon. Good, what else should I get done…? I can build practically any building I have in my stack of blueprints now. Maybe we should start with-”

As if the universe was conspiring to thwart his enthusiasm about doing his own thing, at that moment there was a notification that went out to everyone in the area: evidenced by the sudden cessation of movement and multitude of vacant gazes.

Congratulations! You have founded a Camp-

Congratulations! You have founded a Hamlet-

Caution! You are attempting to increase your town level from a tier one Hamlet to a Village! As this is the first time this message has been sent out, you will receive slightly more information than otherwise would be available. In order to increase your town ranking, your Hamlet will need to meet certain requirements.

1) Surviving Beast waves. (Hamlet → Village: 5 waves.) — Condition not met.

2) Filled building slots. (Hamlet: Trash: NA, Damaged: NA, Common: 20, Uncommon: 5) — Condition overridden due to extreme rarity. (Artifact ranked Alchemy Hall, Rare Smithy)

3) Morale modifier: 0+-25. — Condition met.

As conditions two and three are met, the Beast waves will begin sometime within the next 24 hours. Each wave at this town ranking will occur once per 12 hours. If at any time the Town Hall or guildhall is destroyed and a new one has been rebuilt, the town will revert to a Hamlet and need to go through all Beast waves once more.

Trying to understand why this message had appeared at this moment, Joe searched the area for what had changed, eyes landing on the pyramid had been fully repaired in merely a third of the time he'd been expecting. The facility was once a beautiful, shining beacon of hope for everyone.

It also filled him with a deep sense of dread that the ground began rumbling as soon as the message vanished. Looking out to the horizon, he tried to determine if the Beast wave had come early, but there was no sign of any monsters whatsoever. “Does anyone know what's happening?”

No one had enough knowledge to formulate a proper answer, but as Joe walked closer to the pyramid, he noticed that the shaking of the ground dramatically increased. Over the next few minutes, it grew more intense, then slowly began dissipating; almost as though the source of the shaking was moving into the distance. With no answers to be found, Joe simply had to shake his head and toss his hands in the air. Clearly the Artifact building had done something, but he had no idea how to figure out what that ‘something’ was. “Abyss, I built it! If anyone should have answers, it should be me.”

He needed to leave that mystery alone for now, and decided to join in the war meeting that was almost certainly happening in the guildhall. Joe hurried over, only to find his path blocked by countless Dwarves conglomerating around the guildhall, each of them having had the same idea about how to gain an answer to this dilemma.

Initially uncertain of how to skip the line and gain entry, Joe smirked as an idea blossomed in his mind. Activating Omnivault, the Ritualist effortlessly propelled himself over the crowd, gently pressing off of—and inadvertently blocking—a Dwarf, Joe executed a flawless front flip, crossing into the cozy entryway just before the door was fully closed in an effort to block off the cacophony of sound.

A hand slapped him out of the air, sending him spiraling through the air until he smashed into the wall. Moments later, those same hands were grasping his shoulders and helping him to his feet. Jaxon looked at Joe with great concern, an apologetic expression plastered on his face; where a red handprint was already forming into a bright bruise.

“Joe! Oh, my friend, I'm so sorry. Truly I didn't realize it was you coming in right behind me! I thought it was a giant mosquito after my blood again. You were moving so fast, and Joe… you were horizontal. Just like those pests flying around! Even after taking the initiative to swat you, I didn't realize it was you until a grinning, bald shadow struck me. That's always been you, so it slapped some sense into me-!”

“Careful over there! We just had the door fixed, and humans clearly don't make for good wallpaper. Just paint, but you need to hit them harder. Much harder.” Stu Sarcasm, Dwarven Master of Sarcasm jeered as he reluctantly allowed Joe into the meeting that was ongoing. Technically, the Ritualist had proven his worth by defeating him in a competition between masters, and should've been on the Council of Dwarven Masters. That technicality was likely the only reason he wasn't attempting to send the human through the wall himself at this point; but he was now clearly eyeing Jaxon as a possible target.

The fact that he had slapped Joe was likely the deciding factor in allowing him to stay in the room.

A notification pinged in Joe's ear, and a message suddenly arrived in front of his eyes. Then a couple dozen more, and he looked at them in confusion. “Mail? I wasn't getting emails… oh, shoot! Come to think of it, I've only ever opened these in my respawn room, or at a coffee shop. Do I not have… whatever passes for internet service in this world if I'm not the guildhall? Or maybe it’s just any specifically designated area?”

Seeing as the ongoing conversation was currently focused around small talk, Joe took a moment to skim the top few messages. “One from mom, I'll read that in just a minute.  this one is definitely spam, glad to see that some things never change. But this…?”

His eyes narrowed as he read the subject and first couple lines of the letter.

Subject: Bittersweet Safety.

Joe, I hope when you get this letter you are somewhere safe, and far away from the Elven theocracy. I've managed to secure my position in the Architects guild, and I'm sure you are thriving on Jotunheim. I know that I was not totally honest with you, but I hope that saving you at great risk to myself was enough to-

“Daniella.” Scowl distorting his face, Joe slapped the message away, his finger hovering over the ‘delete message’ button. Taking a few breaths to get himself in a calm state of mind, he simply closed it out and decided to deal with this issue later. Refocusing on the conversation, he realized that he had already missed some important tidbits.

“-saying we aren't ready to handle monsters. We’re finding attrition with the few random animals around here. I say we should just tear down the pyramid and be done with it.” Master Dreamstrider was saying, earning himself a dirty look both from Joe, and far more ominously from Jake the Alchemist. “We could get far more buildings, set up a few walls, actually get prepared for this place. Right now we're still recovering from leaving our world and people behind, we shouldn't have to dive straight into the next survival situation.”

Snow took his words seriously, not scoffing or insulting him for making such a self-sabotaging suggestion. She even nodded slowly, earning a considering look from Jake as he sized up the room, clearly intent on destroying everyone in it if they tried to mess with his precious baby. “I understand your concerns, but… think about what you’re saying, Dreamstrider. We're the Dwarven Oligarchy. We don't flee from a battle that we have the means to win. I think Havoc is correct, and I’m going to stand by that choice. We just need to buckle down and prepare ourselves to weather the storm. To that end, I’m ordering a hard ration on any drinks that impair judgment as we speak.”

There was a round of groaning from outside the building that shook the water glasses on the table, and drowned out Snow’s next murmur, a quiet and considering, “Besides, that monstrosity has a million points of Artifact-ranked durability. I don't know if we even could break it down in only twelve hours without going all-out.”

A Dwarf that Joe recognized from the reception area of the guildhall pushed through the crowd and handed Master Stu a folded note at that moment. The Master of Sarcasm opened it, cupping his hands to ensure no one around him could read the words, and allowed a smirk to grow on his face.

Jake coughed into a closed fist with a clear intention to be heard, earning dozens of eyes on him in the next moment. “On that note, I am uncertain if you have noticed, but there was a slight shaking of the ground-”

Havoc quirked an eyebrow and pointed at the wall, where two of the windows had shattered. Ignoring him, the Alchemist continued his train of thought. “As you should have seen when the pyramid was being drawn to this planet, the base of it contains a massive drill. I believe that it is currently descending deep into the crust of the world, looking for a source of lava that it can use to empower itself as it did in the… previous area we had settled.”

Jake was being careful not to say ‘Alfheim’, as that was a grim reminder that this society was now a Shattered Race. Even though he knew that he should be listening carefully to the Alchemist, Joe's eyes were drawn to Master Stu as he pushed the folded note he had received across the table to Grandmaster Snow, who opened it with a sigh, then seemed to read and reread the contents; a frown rapidly developing on her face. “When the drill has breached the mantle, I believe the Alchemy building will become even more durable thanks to the flows of magma that will funnel through it.”

“Do you think that’s why it was able to survive for so long in the clutches of the Lava Phoenix?” Joe's academic curiosity was piqued, and once more the Alchemist had his undivided attention. “Did it have a secondary layer of protection which was constantly refreshing since it was submerged in the superheated stone? That would also explain why we didn't notice the drill when it was first built… it didn't have to go further than a few feet before reaching magma-”

“Nerds.” Havoc hooted at them, forcing the two ‘humans’ to nod at each other in acknowledgment that they'd continue this conversation at a later time. “Here’s what I say. We all have our answer. Let's get the word out, it’s time to put the pedal to the grindstone. The Legion should start digging trenches, the civilians should contribute wherever they can, and the rest of us need to play to our strengths.”

“I can rally the engineer corps and Earth Mages to start building walls to protect the core of our location, providing a fallback point.” Bauen called out, allowing Joe to release some internal tension he hadn’t realized he was holding. He hadn't been sure if his favorite Dwarven engineer had survived the escape to this world, or the World Boss, until he had stepped out of the press of people in the room. “They’ll be rough, but we all know that walls don't count toward our building slots. Any protection is better than nothing at all.”

“Good, we have a rough plan.” Snow's gaze shifted toward Joe, a slight chill in them that the human couldn’t make sense of. “I know that you're likely considering going out there and setting up traps, or doing some other magical malarkey. Happily, we don't need strange, creative solutions to this situation. Killing monsters is something that we're extremely well acquainted with, and I have a request of you… if you're willing to work with us on this project. We can trust you to put in your best effort, yes?”

Joe's head tilted to the side, not quite certain why she was speaking to him as if he didn't have as much skin in the game as they did. Literally every building that existed in this world currently was—he amended that thought before he finished it. Jake was technically the owner of the pyramid. Still, he owned two-thirds of this Hamlet at the moment. “Of course I am willing to help however I'm needed. What can I do?”

“We need you to solve the housing crisis that we're undergoing at the moment. The environmental debuff is insidious, slowly increasing over time while numbing our minds to how severely it's impacting us. If something doesn't change soon, we’ll start to take losses. Also, morale will be impacted, which may cancel out our ability to undergo this event.”

By the time Snow had finished speaking, Joe had already generated and discarded three and a half ideas on how to handle the issue. With a wide smile on his face, he threw out a grandiose salute. “I'm on it.”

Snow sighed and closed her eyes as he turned on his heel and started walking toward the door, pushing gently through the crowd. She called after him in a slightly calmer tone, “Something normal, please.”