Invent ~ 14!

Joe looked on wistfully as Havoc was struck by lightning and had acid spraying away from him in a nova. The Dwarf vanished, and the people maintaining the area swore heartily as they looked over the damage the Dwarf had done to their spell diagrams and teleportation hall on the way out.

“I swear, if he was anyone except the Lord of Slaughter, I wouldn't go through the trouble of fixing this and bringing him back.” The Dwarven mage that had activated the teleport enchantment grumbled heartily. “Why would someone even go to the Deathyards? What was with all those active effects? His entire ticket price is going to have to go back into making this functional again!”

Not wanting to get caught up in Havoc's monetary issues—or get charged on his behalf—Joe hurriedly made himself scarce and went back to his hole in the ground that would one day grow up into a full-fledged town. Before he got halfway home, he was already getting spammed with quest updates informing him that his rituals had hit a ‘hostile creature’.

By the time he was back to his workshop, the quest had been completed.

Class Quest completed: Beginner Ritualist III. Congratulations! I’d call you a dirty cheater if it wasn’t likely the most intelligent choice you could have possibly made. Here’s your reward, don’t expect to get off so easily ever again! Reward: Unique Core x49. Artifact Core x1.

Joe stared at the vast amount of wealth that had literally just appeared in his Codpiece of Holding in total shock. This quantity of Cores would let him either create weapons at the Expert rank in the form of war rituals, or simply create massive long-term investments as a swarm of Unique buildings. “Not even gonna think about that Artifact one… there’s no way that one is gonna stay with me. Sure, I could use it for a Master-ranked ritual, but I’d never survive the experience. Havoc must have gone to a dungeon and cleared it or something. That’s a Boss Core if I’ve ever seen one.”

Now he desperately wanted to know what had happened in the ‘Deathyard’. Yet, currently time wasn’t his friend. Joe knew what he had wanted as soon as he saw all the Unique Cores. There was one long term investment that he could make right now. “Aspect Jars… specifically Natural Aspect Jars. From the look of these, even though they’re all ‘Unique’, they’re the same and right at the cusp of stepping into Artifacts themselves; with each of them being worth a whopping ten thousand experience to absorb.”

He shook his head at that thought, it was one thing to know that Havoc was practically a force of nature, and another to see the results of it in action. “Set up a Field Array, ensure I have the required aspects… a thousand each to make their Natural Aspect Jars? A worthy investment, but ouch. Start small, I’m not gonna bother with a Trash or Damaged… an upgrade for Common it is.”

Joe’s Field Array was altered to be the exact size of the Core, then he started flooding the blazing ball of light with aspects. The radiant daylight emitted at all times by the Core slowly and subtly shifted to a pure white emanation, swallowing down a thousand aspects in an instant.

Item created: Natural Common Aspect Jar. 0/10,000 Common aspects. This jar can be used to store and retrieve Common aspects. As it is a naturally formed aspect jar, it will collect Common aspects from its surroundings over time. Current rate of collection: 7 Common aspects per hour.

“Six days until I get a return on my initial investment.” Joe shook his head in dumbfounded glee. “If only I had enough Artifact, Mythical or Legendary… no, just see where I am now and be happy. Okay, I don’t have enough Rare, but I do have the rest.”

Using the same Field Array, he slotted a new Core and set up an Aspect Jar for Uncommon as well as Unique aspects. “Just like that, now I’ll be ready when I go to set up my secret building in the dumpster of the capital. No one will expect a secret landfill building. But getting there… and going against the monsters already in there… abyss. Havoc took all my attack rituals.”

He seethed for a moment, frustrated that he hadn’t been able to see his last several days of work in use. Joe acknowledged that frustration and moved on, knowing logically that he had made the correct call. Still, he wanted to watch magic streak through the air and reduce his enemies to slag. “Slag… ahh, I should perhaps practice summoning or, no, I need to do more with my Ritual Orbs. Having only one that can use a spell against Elves or humans is getting tiresome.”

Joe pulled out the Orb that had Cone of Cold assigned to it, and a quick glance at it made him wince.

Ritual Orb 1: Spell trapped within: Cone of Cold. Bound Core Power remaining: 375/1,545. Cost per spell use: 195.

“Glad I checked.” Joe called up his memory of how to remove the Core and place in a new one, happy to remember that he could just slot a new Core as needed. “That’s inefficient though… Mana Batteries work just as well, and are much more highly stabilized. Oh, and rechargeable. I guess I know what I need to do next.”

Joe stepped out of his workshop and paused, ensured Neutrality Aura was active so that he wouldn’t offend anyone’s senses, then started looking around to see if Major Cleave was nearby. He found her a foot and a half to his left, and smiled at her instead of squealing like a stuck pig. Improvement! “Hello, Major. I’m on my way to bring a Smithy up, would you care to join me?”

“Huh. Polite today, aintcha. Do you want something from me…? Anyway, the Legion says I go where you go, so you’re stuck with me until that changes.” There was a long pause, so Joe started walking, almost missing the quiet follow up of, “Still, nice to be invited for once. You should know, Stan’s here, and he brought a wagon of goods that you need to go pay for.”

“Stan… Stan… oh! The newly-hired administrator who roleplays a certain purple depressed donkey from a children’s show.” Joe nodded sagely, rubbing at a non-existent beard. “I hope he brought along a few cores and other such essentials; I have no idea how I’m gonna get these other buildings up otherwise.”

He certainly wasn’t going to be spending Unique cores on raising Common buildings. On that note, he hurried over to the clearly visible wagon in the distance and waved at Stan, who was vigorously—for him—shooing off overexcited engineers. “No. Stop. Go away. This is for the town. I am an official of this place.”

Joe wobbled as though he had been hit with a sleep spell when he heard the Dwarf speaking, managing to put on his professional face just as the new hire saw him. “Hello, Stan! I’m so glad you made such good time! Can I help with anything right away?”

“Need a place to store all this stuff.” Stan looked around the crowd, who were trying to catch a glimpse of what he was hauling. “Perhaps you could send off the vultures?”

“I need a core, Uncommon should be fine. Used my last one making an apartment building.” Joe chuckled softly as Stan blinked slowly at him. “I can use just one to bring up six individual structures, including a warehouse and apartment. So, got one on you?”

“Fifty reputation each. Discount applied as you’re directly using it for the improvement of the town.” Stan told him a moment later. He reached into the wagon, dug around, then handed over a Core. “Did I hear you made an ‘apartment building’? What level of rent have you specified?”

As soon as that question was asked, the engineers in the area all let out loud groans, except one that directly shouted at Stan, “Why would you do that?”

Stan looked around at all the freeloaders, and his eyes narrowed slightly. “How are we going to increase the reputation of the town if we don’t have the funding to improve it? Are you fine with this being an unranked Camp, with a poor reputation? I’m not. Joe?”

“I’m not either.” Joe agreed after he had waited just long enough to get the engineer’s hopes up. They walked away, muttering that they should ‘get moving before they started getting charged for loitering or something’. “I’ll leave all that to you, Stan. Make the prices fair, please? We really need to start getting people here so we have defenders, crafters, and-”

“I’ll take care of that.” Stan informed him firmly. “Feel free to trust my judgment. I have business contacts, know high nobility, and understand the value of land and work better than nearly anyone in the Oligarchy. Don’t worry, I only need to sleep once per month.”

Joe thought about the soul-crushing business Stan had been running for who-knew-how long, and simply decided that since he had chosen to hire the man, he would trust him all the way. “I’m all in, Stan. You tell me what you need, I’ll make sure it happens.”

“What sort of structures do you have access to right now?” Stan inquired directly as Joe started leading him to the area marked out in chalk by Ciril; Joe knew better than to just plop a warehouse down in an arbitrary area. Instead of answering, Joe handed over a list of buildings that he had prepared exactly for this occasion. Stan looked over all the special buildings Joe had marked down, shaking his head. “Only thing on there I want to see you bring up are the Common buildings you found when you got to this zone.”

“What? Why? I think that a trophy hall would go a long way to building morale!” Joe argued instantly, pausing and rethinking his statement. “Of course, you know what is best for city functionality, and I’ll lean on that knowledge, but I’d love to know the reasoning behind your choices.”

“All of those special buildings are useful in a City. A Tier five population center.” Stan emphasized his words so they would stick in Joe’s mind. “If you put those up in a Camp—a Tier zero population center—which you’re trying to turn into a Hamlet, Tier one, you’re just asking to be forced to knock down every building and start over. You only have a set amount of… let’s call them ‘upgrade points’ per city tier. If you don’t meet the requirements for going up a rank, even if you have ‘neat’ buildings, then you’ll need to smash them and put in less ‘neat’ ones and more ‘functional’ versions.”

“Ah…” Joe looked at the Pyramid of Panacea nervously, “Is that going to work against us?”

“Big time.” Stan nodded at Joe, then crooked a slight smile. “But settlements spring up around large, important structures all the time. At least they did before the war. Now? Forts spring eternal. Is this the place?”

“Looks like it. Hold on.” Joe sent his mind through his storage ring and searched until he found what he needed, pulling out his little-used Rituarchitect Survey Grid. Touching the wand-like item to the blueprint he planned to use, a translucent blue gridline appeared in the air. He worked to line it up with the outline that Ciril had put on the ground, fairly surprised when the lines matched up nigh-perfectly.

“You must have gotten assigned a great city planner.” Stan deadpanned. Or, Joe realized, that might have been his ‘excited’ voice.

“I honestly think the two of you would hit it off.” Joe didn’t mention how badly that made him want to groan internally. One endlessly grumpy human-disdainer, one verbally anhedonic. The staff he was building for this city was so~o fun. “Please ‘Stan’ back, I’m gonna get this building up.”

There was no reaction from the Dwarf. Joe *tsked* at that. Another person without a sense of humor.