Invent ~ 11!

Quest updated: Novice Rituarchitect II. Buildings created: 3/10.

Eyeing the message as he listened to the odd sound of brand-new screws biting into wood all by themselves, Joe licked his lips and whispered, “Soon, my sweet class experience. Soon.”

To be fair, each of the buildings he had raised with the ritual had given him fifty experience each to his Reductionist as well as his Rituarchitect classes, but those drops in a bucket only added up over time. He needed nine thousand eight hundred and fifty to get to level eleven as a Rituarchitect, but under five thousand for his Reductionist class. At five hundred per completed structure that he could soon charge rent on, he’d be over halfway to his next class level thanks to his quest.

Title ‘Architect of Artifacts’ increases base stats of Common Apartment Building (50 units) by 10%, increasing Common Apartment Building to 55 units. Durability: 3,300/3,300.

“Look at that.” Ciril stared at the perfect, burnished orange glow that seemed to hang around the building thanks to the lights directly above. “I swear, every time you’ve made one of those, they look better the longer I look at them.”

Joe chuckled internally, knowing that he’d never inform the man that he had a title that improved the buildings after building them. It was too much fun to see him trying to figure out if he was going crazy. He looked around the area, noting the other two buildings he had managed to bring up over the last few hours: a barracks and the bathhouse.

As it turned out, the lighting had been coordinated with the planner after he saw them start being placed all willy-nilly, and Joe had managed to take a look at the new plan. He had been correct about what was planned under the daylight and purple lights, then been informed that areas under the blue light were for crafters, green was for administration and cleaning, and finally orange for housing the civilian, militia, and military members that lived here.

“I think we should call this place ‘Eternal Sunset Acres’.” Ciril informed the people around them. “A name like that lends the area a sense of mysticism, and should draw people looking to relocate.”

“Huh. I was thinking of ‘Empty Shoe Estates’ personally.” Joe shrugged as his words gained him a few disdainful glances. “What? You guys think that’d draw in the wrong crowd? People that want you to get off their lawn or something? ‘Shoe’ does sound like ‘shoo’, I guess. You win this one, Ciril.”

He had continued rambling until the staring became withering glares, then promptly looked down at his list and decided that they had done enough for the day. “Now that we have a place to sleep and clean up, let’s take off and meet up tomorrow. I have a few things to attend to.”

Various Dwarves who had volunteered to help muttered their farewells and drifted off. Joe watched where they went, noting that the population of the area was rapidly declining. Practically all the civilians in the area were tourists that had been in seclusion in the nearby caves, and had come out only to find that the area had changed drastically. The remainder were leftover Legion units who were planning to leave the area over the next few weeks. There would be a token force remaining, but Joe needed to build up the defenses of the area as part of his Ranker quest, so he wasn’t expecting too much help from the literal military.

“I’ve done my duty for the night, now on to other things I want to do.” Joe shot off, leaping forward along the ground, doing his best to stay as low as possible. He hadn’t seen any progress with Omnivault recently, so he knew he needed to spend plenty of time practicing with it in new and interesting ways. He turned and headed toward his space, the area that was just for him.

His purple light hanging in the open air was a welcome sight that drew him to his workshop, but the person hitting the door with what looked like a reinforced handbag was not. “You open this door right now, Jimathy!”

The lady was hollering as she battered the door. Joe wanted to chuckle at first, but then he saw that the blow had caused a full point of durability damage. She was swinging that bag with the force of a maul, and hitting his workshop!

He was next to her with one more jump, just as she was beginning to attack once more. Joe grabbed the bag, but was thrown into the building as it swung forward. He hit the door with a *crunch*, woozily noting the fact that at least the building didn’t take damage. “Why are you attacking my workshop?”

“Help! A thief is trying to steal my purse!” The words that blasted out of the painted lips could have been a sonic weapon back on earth, and the bag that swung down at him could have been mistaken for a warhammer. The first blow slapped Joe into the door, but he managed to get his wits about him as she tried again.

“Stop that!” He commanded in a voice resounding with pure authority. “You’re attacking a Major-General. Any further violence against me will get you… chucked in the lava or something. Knock it off.”

He resolved at that moment to make holding cells. The nice kind, where the detainee had books and such for entertainment. While the Legion could take care of any issues, being sent to the Ledger of Souls for a year was apparently a common punishment. That did make him wonder how they would handle the humans constantly respawning…

“Oh! Then you can help me.” The lady shrugged back her bright pink boa, which she was wearing in a volcano, what? “Jimathy ran off while we were playing, having decided that it was time for him to learn magic. He came to this house to start practicing, only to find that he was locked out! He got so upset that he refused to let me into the entryway to help him break down the next door! You’ve gotta let me in so I can help him smash the doors all the way in.”

There was a whole lot to unpack in that statement, but Joe started with the easy stuff. “Why would he… no, why would you think it was fine to break into my workshop and start messing with my stuff?”

“Don’t you get snippy with me, baldy!” A perfectly manicured, hot pink fingernail was jabbed at Joe, only stopping at his Exquisite Shell. “What? Are you using magic against me? Elf! There’s an Elf here! Legion! Come kill this Elf!”

Taking a deep breath, Joe looked through the small window on the door, seeing a hulking brute of a man slamming his fists into the reinforced inner doors; ignoring the fact that blood was pouring from his knuckles and staining the white stone floor. “Whoa. I haven’t seen someone act this entitled since I gave up eating fast food a decade ago; when I saw that lady slap the seventeen year old cashier because the ice cream machine was broken. Ya know, I really thought people would have changed when they had the ability to constantly improve themselves.”

“What did you just say?” The painted siren followed his eyes and shifted her tone into a sickly-sweet one. “I get it, you noticed his gains? Jimathy has been in the gym lifting almost endlessly since we came to this world. He has one of the highest strength stats out of all the humans in this, like, totally weird world.”

Joe tapped the door, and it swung open. He wanted to enjoy the benefits that came with owning the building, but the lady blasted past him and started yelling at the man for ignoring her ‘again’, then started swinging her bag at the closed door. Joe took a deep, calming breath… then bellowed, “Both of you, get out!”

“Whoa. You don’t get to talk to me like that.” The lady whirled on him, pointing her sharp fingernail at Joe’s face. “Babe, are you gonna let him talk to me like that? Aren’t you gonna be a good boyfriend?”

The constant *thud* of meat against metal paused, and Joe was thankful that he had taken the time to reinforce this building. He was unhappy to see the man turn around and look at him through eyes that could have been marbles; perfectly round, tiny, and solid black. Like a miniature shark. “Yo. You want some of this, bro?”

As the man flexed, Joe reflected that this guy had somehow gotten to this zone and joined the side of the war that was a perfect fit for him. Just as he was about to mouth off, a tiny asterisk appeared over him. Now that he noticed it, he saw it over the woman as well. Unsure what the image meant, he focused on the anomaly and it expanded into a message:

Private (PV1) Kettlebell. Crime: Threatening a superior officer. Punishment options…

The massive list that appeared next shocked Joe to his core. Some of the options were marked ‘Major-General’, meaning that he could only select them due to his rank. His mind reacted on autopilot, filtering the options to things he actually wanted to do. In an instant, he had found and selected ‘ban from premises’ for both of the humans. They found themselves lurching out of the building under their own power, shocked expressions on their faces.

“Du~ude. Is that what magic can do? I wanna piece of that.” Kettlebell ran back at the door like a linebacker charging a quarterback, only to be forced to stop. He fell on his face and rolled back until he was considered ‘off the premises’. “Ha ha! That’s what I’m talking about. Yo, Baldy. Teach me the magics.”

“Babe, you don’t wanna learn from him.” The lady, ‘Pink Flying Flamingos Are My Jam’—according to her Legion punishment option—hissed at her boyfriend. “Look, he’s all gross and weird. I bet he can’t even do magic. You can’t even do magic, can you, gross bald man? Hey, I’m talking to-”

Joe firmly closed the door and took a few deep breaths. “I’m gonna need to talk to the people who’re letting people into the Shoe. I have no interest in having an infestation of fungus like that.”

Doing his best to put the strange people out of his mind, Joe turned his attention to the parchment waiting for him. “Twenty-five attack and defense rituals. Beginner rank. This should take no time at all.”

Using his newly improved understanding of lower ranked rituals, Joe slowly decided on the effects that he wanted to see come to fruition. Once he had a goal, and actionable steps, he would begin the process. If he simply jumped into it without thought, he would only be annoyed at the result. “A goal without a plan is just a wish, so let’s begin.”

The first step was going to be deciding what the quest considered ‘defensive’. He supposed that he could simply try to make twenty-five versions of his Exquisite Shell, but wanted to get experience as well as complete the quest. After looking over his spells… he realized that he may not have another choice. That was his only defensive spell, and it wasn’t like he could turn his skills into ritual diagrams. That thought made Joe pause in excitement, but he eventually shook his head. “I’d have no clue where to start on that. With spells, it’s just rejiggering a known diagram to make it work. Skills? No idea.”

Feeling slightly self-conscious, Joe got to work making twenty-five variations of his Exquisite Shell.