Eternium ~ Chapter 24!

<All done!> My words caught Dani off guard, and she tumbled through the air in surprise. <Wards set up every ten feet in the council chamber. Wards created at the mouth of the dungeon. Mana leaks in the dungeon, it gets funneled to me before it can escape. Fighting breaks out in the council, attacker goes *pop* and I get the Mana. Now no one can accuse me of not caring if their race survives!>

“Why can’t they accuse you of that?” Dani asked a few moments later, trying to pretend she hadn’t been caught off guard. “At least one person is going to explode before they figure that out, and then they’re going to think you trapped the place.”

I stared at her, trying to make a good comeback. An explanation. A… to the abyss with it. <I tried.>

“You sure did, Cal.”

<There’s a meeting today to discuss the progress on the soul-portal thingy. As far as I can tell, they are getting close to finishing it, but have no way to test it. In other words, this should be fun.> I laughed lowly, knowing that there would be a fight. There was always a fight. <Tempers are going to go out of control, and Mana will follow. Hopefully multiple people will attack at once, it’d be good to get rid of all the hotheads at once. Certainly don’t want them in me.>

“Speaking of you, how is the world coming along?” Dani sent happy thoughts as I did my best to complete a satisfactory answer.

<It’s fun! The first several miles are complete, and it’s getting faster and easier as time goes on. It’s as if… how best to put this… ah! My soul recognizes what I have been making. As long as I make more things that are similar, I am able to make them at a pace much faster than normal.> It was the best answer I could come up with. Soul-stuff was hard to explain.

“That’s excellent, Cal!” Dani applauded me verbally. So, you think that we’ll have enough room to keep people, then?”

<Oh, easily. I’m a little surprised at how few people are interested in going, but that’s fine by me.> I looked over my little world, taking the time to add a few details to one area or another. It would be important to add variety to the landscape and the plants eventually, but for now grass and endless plains would have to do. He had placed a few trees and various herbs to test what it took to make them here, and he had added plenty of ‘extra air’ plants, but otherwise the world was currently fairly monotonous.

But there was room, and there was air, and food, and this entire place was a shelter. <Water! Abyss! I forgot to add water!>

It was a good thing he had remembered, since there were only a few things people actually needed to survive. Forgetting one of them wouldn’t have gone over well, though he could have kept the people coming alive by force. He cut a few channels for water, and let his soul take on the image of the water that would fill them. As the life-granting liquid appeared, he felt something change.

<I ranked up! I’m A-rank one now!> Dani was excited for me, and I was able to guess the answer before she asked the question. <I needed to provide the basics for life! Now that life is sustainable, I’m betting that my soul-space has been recognized by Acme!>

“I hate to be a pill, but you forgot to add water to your world?” Dani paused for a moment, and I chose not to fill the silence. “Cal… what other basic things does your world need? Have you added Essence to the place yet? Free floating Essence, that is, not just what was used to make land?”

Celestial. Fecal. Matter. <Do you really…?>

“Think that it’s needed? Yes. Yes, I really do.” Dani watched me closely as I reached into myself and started allowing a portion of the collected Essence pour into the air. Some unconscious part of me relaxed, and I could feel my world actively growing instead of remaining in the state I had left it.

<I don’t understand…>

“Did it help?” My silence spoke for me. “Well, it was a power-rich place. Mana rich, Essence rich, but there were no resources available to expand with. I’m betting that it was like every bit of your soul was holding its breath, waiting for something to happen. Like being paranoid at all times.”

<I didn’t even realize how horrible it was.> Relaxation was flowing through me, and the strange bottleneck I hadn’t realized existed vanished. <I feel good. What’s next?>

Dani started to list off a few things that needed to be done, and I diligently worked my way through them. A few hours passed like this before one of the Bobs got my attention. “Great Spirit! You wanted to know when the next council meeting was going to be starting, you have only a few moments until they begin arriving!”

I sent a pleading emotion to Dani, who snorted and bobbed in the air. “You can go have fun, but there is still a lot to get done, so you are going to have to come back and work afterward! That section where the Mages were fighting is still all messed up, and you need to fix it!”

<Let Dregs do it. Why do we even have them around if they don’t do anything?> I grumbled the words even as I turned my attention to the chambers so far above me. I hadn’t seen this before, and I wanted to know what went on when people didn’t have anyone to impress.

An Amazonian strode into the chambers, looking absolutely exhausted. I actually felt bad for her for a moment. Typically, they only showed their proud side, hiding anything that could even be thought of as weakness. Losing their entire civilization to the attacks by The Master must have been a more serious blow to morale than I had thought it would be. At least, if this were the person I was going to base my judgement off on. Perhaps I had been too quick to judge them in the past. After all, if they were here and working with The Master even though he had destroyed them… 

The next person in was a High Elf, who seemed to glide across the floor and sit with exceeding grace. I looked on in surprise, and then started laughing. I was able to see under the robes he was wearing, and his steps had been so quick that it looked like he was bouncing in place like a hopped-up Basher. Was that what they did so they could look pretty when walking? Ha! Now, ever since the door had opened the Amazonian had regained her haughty demeanor, but now I at least knew it was an act.

Each of the groups that arrived had their own little ways to ‘subtly’ show dominance. Every time they did something ‘special’, it made me laugh. There was a new group that had joined: Wood Elves. They came into the room in perfect step with each other, and even more than that, they mirrored each other perfectly. When one turned to look to the left, they all turned left. Weird. I think it was a way to show unity?

Prince Henry and Queen Marie were the only group to walk in and have no apparent ego. They simply took their places and plopped down. I approved of this for a few reasons, and let them know. <You’re both doing great. Listen. You are representing humanity again, but you are also here for me. Whatever you do, don’t throw any Mana around in here.>

They nodded, keeping their eyes flickering between the other races and peoples. Watchful. I like that. Of course, they looked like they had been dipped in metal, specifically Mithril. That meant that they didn’t look particularly human, and in fact could nearly be considered on the same level as my Golems in terms of features. This armor was different than Dales, and would always cover them when they were in the presence of other people. Only when they were alone - or with just each other - would their armor melt away, actually into their skin.

The Master was the last to arrive, and he did so by simply stepping out of nothing and sitting down in his seat. The already-quiet room went dead silent, and so he began to speak. “Let’s discuss.”

Those words were enough for the room to erupt into shouting, and powerful lungs made for painful echoes in the enclosed space.

“We were brutally attacked-”

“Why do we bother with these lower-”

“Hello, it’s good to be included-”

“You were attacked? We were the ones-”

“Oh, stop it.” The Master’s words weren’t as forcefully ejected as the others were, but still he cut through the noise like a flame-enchanted sword through a Basher. There was a flare of light as a Guild member ignored him and sent a bolt of death at an unprepared necromancer. Luckily for the necromancer - and not so great for the attacker - my Wards latched onto the poorly-built spell structure; tearing the bolt apart and draining the man at double the rate of his Mana waste.

He dropped to his knees as power was pulled through him, and his arms began to glow. “What… what did you do to me, necromantic filth?”

Sadly, I hadn’t been able to create the Wards to the same intensity as the more dangerous skill rooms in my depths, as that required a three-dimensional space. The ceiling was just too high to be effective, and the shining man wasn’t near any walls. Too bad. Still, no one was moving to help the attacker, and his clothes started to smolder as Mana continued flowing out of him.

“I did nothing, this must be divine retribution!” The attacked necromancer replied smugly as he watched the Mage slowly burn to death. “You all saw, he attacked me for no reason!”

“I… *Pant*… I don’t know what’s happening!” The Guild member’s clothes officially burst into flame, but the small fire found no purchase on his powerful flesh. “I can’t… I don’t know what’s happening!”

“Someone get him out of here before he explodes and singes my scarf.” one of the High Elves made a ‘shoo’ motion, and a few Guild members grabbed the man and dragged him away. Of course, as soon as he got out of the room, his Mana stopped seeping away and he came back into the chamber. Ignoring the looks and his singed shirt, he took his seat and stared at The Master stoically.

“Apparently my words are not enough.” The Master growled dangerously, raising the hackles of everyone in the room. “The next person to make an attack like that dies. How does that sound?”

The room shook with his fury, the table cracked, and dust rained from the ceiling. The world around him began to lose color, bleached by his power. I watched with rapt attention, waiting for him to lash out. Instead he calmed down, and they began speaking about logistics and the morale loss of various populations. Then they began to talk on migration efforts, and I completely lost interest. Ah, well. It had been a fun attempt. Maybe my efforts would pay off in the future?

“I’m sorry I lost my temper.” The Master was visibly restraining himself, knowing that any emotional displays could only mark him as weak. That was not what he needed right now, especially as he had not been able to close his wounds. The fight against Xenocide had been a tenth of a second away from ending everything for him, and the accounting was still coming due.

The Master waited a moment, to see if anyone would speak up for him, but just like always before… it seemed he was going to have to rely on himself. “We simply do not have the time, we cannot spare the energy, and we cannot fight amongst ourselves. Two weeks. We have at most two weeks to put together a Mastercraft portal that should be the work of a generation. If we are going to save our people… put aside your hatred at least until your own people are safe.”

There. If self-serving interests wouldn’t end this internal conflict, the Master decided that he would just find another use for their energy. As a point of fact, the bodies of Mages provided rare materials for crafting.