Invent ~ 17!

Fire poured out of Joe’s fingers as he traced lines in the air, using both hands to rapidly draw out the ritual diagram with light gray aspects. When that was completed, blazing white aspects replaced the gray, and he flipped to using a Common-ranked Inscriber in each hand.

Sweat rolled down his face, wiped away in the same instant by his Neutrality Aura, as the second circle rapidly approached completion. Then his left hand twitched, sending the aspect he was using nearly a half inch out of the correct pattern. Joe vaulted backward as both circles erupted into blazing flames that melted the stone below and ignited the air. The circles burned in reverse order of their creation, like a fuse on a powerful firework.

As the stone settled into a solid mass once more, Joe stepped forward and began again. Major Cleave sighed and continued watching the surroundings for any threat, completely ignored once more by the Reductionist. This time around, Joe set out both his Beginner and Apprentice ritual stabilizers in a pleasing pattern around him. “This is only a double circle. Stabilizers at a rank above the intended diagram should fully offset the instability… right?”

He only had eyes for the ritual as he started over. His test ritual had failed exactly as expected, and now he wanted to see what it felt like to be in a ‘stable’ environment. His hands moved again, but this time the air itself almost felt like a solid to him as he pressed his Inscribers forward. Joe knew that he could push through it, but also that it would be a bad idea. This time, the double circle completed without issue.

“That was a good test. Perhaps something a little harder just to see how unstable this really becomes?” Joe looked at the ritual that was hanging in the air above the rubble pile one last time, not seeing any issues. He turned on his heel and started walking away, only to stumble as Major Cleave called out.

“What is this? Are you just going to leave random magical effects laying around for people to stumble into?” The Dwarf’s question had merit, so Joe slowly walked over and activated the ritual, pushing on it slightly to make it hang in the air about eight feet off the ground at the lowest point.

“No stumbling into this for people.” Joe’s distracted words made Cleave bristle. “Good call on that.”

“What does that do, Sir?” She watched as the ritual ever-so slowly rotated in the air.

“Cleaning service.” Joe muttered as he pulled out a book and thumbed through it. “It’ll grab any garbage and collect it here, if there’s no trash it’ll just keep things organized for people.”

“You just made a garbage collection service for the town? That easily?” Major Cleave gaped at the ritual in wonder, suddenly happy that it existed instead of what she had been feeling toward it: pure annoyance. “What kind of range does it have? This place has been turning into vermin paradise. No one’s been bothering to take their filth to the lava pits like they were supposed to do.”

“Uh… range.” Joe looked at the ritual, his eyes becoming unfocused for a moment. “I altered that, pushed it up and added aspects… looks like about a mile or so? Didn’t need a zombie brain, I just used Uncommon aspects for that section. Yeah, should be pretty effective. But, ah… this isn’t what I’m excited about.”

His eyes wandered to his notifications, where a bit of his confusion was focused. “I’m getting skill ranks too fast. Not sure why.”

Somatic Ritual Casting (Novice IX).

“Too fast?” Major Cleave questioned him. “That isn’t right… typically your skill levels only increase rapidly when you are doing something that you can show a higher skill level in than you should have, or with bonuses.”

“In that case,” Joe looked at his Expert rank in Ritual Circles, and his clothing set of the Silkpants Mage which granted twenty-five percent magical skill increase speed, and narrowed his eyes, “Perhaps it is actually a little too slow.”

“Are you often called a maniac, sir? Just wondering for, my uh, report on people that are insulting toward you.” Major Cleave coughed as she frantically backpedaled. Joe glanced at her with a smirk. “Just… most places don’t have magical garbage collection. Certainly not due to a random test of your skills.”

“It tends to just happen around me.” Joe shrugged and started walking. He needed some distance from his new, about-to-be tiny landfill before he started on the next ritual diagram. The one he had been practicing… he stopped, turned, then ran back and collected his ritual stabilizers while Cleave watched him critically.

“I’m just having fun while I still can.” Joe hurried over to his new set-up point and started setting out the stabilizers. “Soon enough I’m going to need to devote time and effort to either fortifying this place, or push to help with the war effort. Until then, I’m going to run with making super cool magic.”

“‘Super cool’… magic.” Major Cleave deadpanned as she dodged a half-eaten mango that was floating toward the new dump. “I suppose you do make ‘interesting’ practical effects, such as your garbage collection; but I’ve seen magic that would grow hair on even your head, turn it white, and make it fall off again. Also, we’ve only on Svaltarheim… I can’t even imagine what people in higher planes have accomplished.”

“Not all magic needs to be terrifying and part of a grand design.” Joe chuckled darkly as he started designing his next ritual in a specifically non-grand-design sort of way. He made no promises on the ‘terrifying’ portion. “For instance, this is going to be a ritual that collects moisture from the air and turns it into usable water. Normally, I’d only need to make this a Novice ritual, but we’re in a volcano. So. Uncommon at the least. The inner circle condenses water, the second one collects it, and the third will increase the range to the entirety of this enclosed space; allowing none of the water to escape.”

“Essentially, you’re making this place into a giant terrarium?” Cleave chuckled at that and pointed into the distance. “People were wondering when you were gonna bring in water for the bathhouse. Is this what that’s for?”

Joe paused long enough that the ritual almost went out of control. He hurried to make the next few marks, muttering grimly. “How did I forget to add water to the bathhouse? Forget that, why did no one mention it till now? Disgusting.”

Over the next few minutes, the Reductionist finished the third circle. It completed with a flash of light, and hung in the air waiting to be activated. “Now all I need is a… no, a well would be a bad idea. Hard to dig that out when there’s only magma below the surface. Either a cistern or a water tower, then?”

“Until you make one of those, why not set it up at the bathhouse? Let the fresh water flow into the tubs, and leave a stream of water for anyone that needs it?” Cleave offered when she noticed Joe struggling to find a use for the ritual.

“Thanks!” Joe pushed on the floating ritual diagram with his mind, moving it along until it was where he wanted it. He angled the ritual so that the collected water would fall into the currently-unused pipes, leaving plenty of room for the water to be diverted if needed. Devoting some mana to the ritual, he activated it and watched as a slight fog rose around the center of the diagram. “Huh… may need to bring in a few water mages or get people to start dumping a lake or three in here. Something to kick this off.”

“You think that would work?” Cleave wondered aloud, not sure if she wanted the answer or not.

“Fog… that reminds me, I could go drink a lake or three with… um, ignore that. To your question. Well, we can wait until people sweat or use the latrine enough that the collected water is usable, but I think more people would be comfortable if we…” Joe looked over and saw that Cleave’s eyes were boring into him. “You know, I think I’ll keep the details of how we’ll accrue liquid in here to myself.”

“Yes.”

“In that case, I’m going to create a backup system and not tell you what it does.” The Reductionist chuckled as Cleave came to a stutter-stop, closed her eyes, and took a calming breath. The human ignored her for the most part, only glancing over at her intermittently as he spent an hour in the open with Cleave watching his back; slowly creating a Ritual of the Ghostly Army. He would need to find a source of water that was unclaimed so that he wouldn’t cause any problems with the locals, but he could hold onto the ready-to-use ritual diagram nigh-indefinitely.

Was it wasteful to use this ritual in this manner? Maybe. Should he hold off on using what the system had once classified as ‘dark rituals’? …Perhaps. Would it be fun to use it in here and scare the population witless for a few minutes? Most definitely.

With a water source secured, or at the least knowing it would be eventually, Joe looked at his quests and decided that he had put off creating the remaining buildings long enough. The two of them walked around the space, collecting anyone they ran into. Soon Jaxon, Bauen, and all of the others whose names he hadn’t yet learned were gathered. Only Stan absolutely refused to participate.

“Hello, all! This should be the last time for quite a while that we need to gather like this.” Joe started, getting a few jeers and cheering at that statement. “I need some helpers, and I’ll pay twenty reputation per person for each hour you give me tonight.”

“What’s the job?” someone called from the back.

“We’re making this Camp into a proper Hamlet!” Joe firmly announced. “Over the next short while, we’re going to create six new buildings. If we have time after that, a wall around the new village, followed by a few more residences or workshops. We’ll vote. After that, if anyone has a particular request, we’ll try to get to it then. Helping me out now means we get to a building you actually want, sooner rather than later!”

The promise of useful buildings was what got a few to work, though there were some that only wanted to pad their reputation. Joe made sure to carefully memorize the few people that just wanted to do this project for the sake of doing it: he was going to make sure they got the best rewards of all.