Chapter 104: Day 138 – Blue

I didn’t want to jinx it, but things seemed to be going well. It was a lot easier to convince people they were outclassed when I could simply teleport them into a judgement chamber. Oh sure, some people did have defenses, so maybe that tactic wouldn’t always work. It nearly didn’t with Tekaomi, who’d put some sort of bubble around herself that repelled the teleport Field, but I could dump so much mana into my teleports that those defenses didn’t matter. I hadn’t overpowered the [Purgatory] Field though, and I suspected Tekaomi could see through it, which was more or less what I expected from a fourth tier.

At any rate, she seemed friendly enough with Keri and wary but polite to Iniri, so I let them talk. It wasn’t like I didn’t have enough to do and really they’d only need me for when I put Tekaomi back. The army itself I set right on the border with maybe a quarter of their supplies, stealing the rest for Iniri to distribute. Amusingly enough most of the Classers and pretty much all the support personnel practically ran across the border, with the road and pair of walls at the mountain pass marking very clearly where that was. The Tarnil side was undefended, which wasn’t much of a surprise. Well, undefended by soldiers, anyway. Now that I was the wall, I could defend things pretty damn easily.

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I really couldn’t track what Iniri was doing with the cities. I could see that she had sent a whole bunch of agents in each, and that they were talking to a whole bunch of people, but it was all people and politics and stuff that I was more than happy not to have to deal with. I kind of understood where Ansae was coming from sometimes, with how much work it was to get people to do stuff of their own accord when I could just make things happen. Not that I wanted to be a tyrant, but it was tempting sometimes.

So far, the only request Iniri had made of me, and it was a very polite one and easy besides, was to change the colors. So easy that I just had to think it, more or less, proving that [Customization] was definitely becoming more powerful even though it didn’t actually have ranks. All the remaining cities were coastal and they’d all been, once upon a time, gaily painted with some local pseudo-stucco to protect them from the salt air. That was easy enough to mimic and was far less eye-searingly annoying than all that white, so I altered the stone’s colors into pale or bright shades. Salmon, orange, lilac, seafoam, those kinds of colors, rather than primaries like red or blue.

It was actually kind of fun, but eventually the cities would have to be rebuilt entirely. I was partial to having regular layouts rather than the narrow, twisting streets of Meil, but there was no way that any remnant of Tor Kot’s occupation would be allowed to remain. The original cities had been effectively razed and rebuilt, and even if there were records somewhere of what they looked like originally, which I doubted, it was a great opportunity to build fresh.

That only took part of the morning, so I asked Shayma to talk to Taelah. It looked like I’d actually have some time and I wanted to address her and Anton’s Village before the monsters that the Shadow guy had sicced on me appeared. I could see them dipping in and out of my influence down below, catching hints here and there as they traveled through the tunnels. It was the same scythe-bone-things I had seen before, [Scalemind Abominations] every one.

It was going to take a bit for Anton’s Village to all get together, so I spent that time fixing up my LAEs. With my enhanced spatial abilities I could boost the energy density by four orders of magnitude, meaning just redoing the already-existing LAEs was a significant upgrade in lethality, to the point where I was actually starting to worry about ionizing the atmosphere or something. I’d gone from a ten thousand increase in energy density to a hundred million increase in energy density.

I couldn’t even use them full power without issues, because there were pretty sharp limits to how potent in-atmosphere weapons could be without turning into enormous explosions. At least, strictly physical weapons. The regular LAEs boosted by Shayma’s magic didn’t seem to run into that issue, nor did Iniri’s version of them. Mana softened the iron rules of physics a bit, but sometimes it was good to have those rules in place, because I could well imagine nobody here had any experience with flaming gouts of atmospheric plasma.

Still, without mana of its own it would ultimately be susceptible to mana defenses, like how magical darkness had shut down my LAEs, so when I was thinking of better weapons and defenses I had to try to bring magic into the equation. The electrical generation I was starting was part of that, since I had a couple ideas of mid-to-long-term complexity, but until it got integrated into my Skills and Abilities or at least my Dungeon Categories it was going to be fairly crippled. That didn’t mean I couldn’t use it, though, nor did it mean I didn’t have any idea of how to force my dungeon biology to accept it. I might have to overcharge-explode a bunch of storage crystals, but I’d learned how to manipulate them better .

Beyond that I had just about enough stuff for a second [Mana Diamond Anvil]. Though no amount of supermaterials would ever be enough, I needed to at least make dozens of Anvils so I could have a reasonable amount. I could think of dozens of uses for a lot of it, and there were bunches more materials to try. Especially heavy exotics, if I ever got access to them. Apparently even Ansae didn’t have ready access to osmium, iridium, uranium, plutonium, or tungsten. It would probably take alchemy to extract those, assuming they really even knew about them, and even then it might come out with some mana-altered version of the stuff so I wouldn’t recognize it.

Kind of like I didn’t recognize the materials used in the weapons Shayma had broken. The hafts of the weapons Tor Kot had left behind were made out of [Isric-Saturated Yelm Wood] while the blades were [Isric-Saturated Mobindum], which meant nothing to me. They were both stronger than steel, maybe about the same level as Cultivated Steel, according to Shayma, but whatever special effects the weapons had carried were gone. Though just looking at them I was impressed all over again that Shayma was so superhuman as to shatter them barehanded, even if she had to pull on my mana to do it.

Then there was the chance to remake the core room. A one meter diameter sphere, appropriately enlarged on the inside, was more than big enough for the cottage, so it was way the hell easier to both hide and to wrap in layers of adamant stone and cultivated steel. Outside that I made a buffer zone a half-meter wide before Expansion and swamped that with [Purgatory] and [Panopticon]. Then I coated everything inside with Cultivated Steel and Alchemical Diamond so I could dedicate a couple new-model LAEs to filling the area with lasers on demand. Or permanently. Between them, the new Core Defense and LAE creations netted me a nice chunk of experience that I could invest back into Shayma. I was thinking I might well boost [Forging], since that was her hobby of choice. Besides, at some point my Affinity-saturated crystals actually had finally transmuted their contents and the higher her Skill the more she could do with them.

The affinity crystals had become full of [Steelwoven Momentum], [Steelwoven Ember], [Steelwoven Marl] and so on. At the very least I could use them in making new stuff for all my Companions and allies. I decanted them to see what the stuff looked like and it didn’t even look like steel anymore. Instead of being a nice shiny metal they looked more like crystals with the character of bismuth, rather than quartz or diamond, and they had a slight glow appropriate to their Affinities. Since the setup clearly worked, I stuffed more [Cultivated Steel] into the crystals and let the next batch cook.

Then it was back to magnets and electricity and trying to mana them up. I already knew that electricity was within the portfolio of storm Affinity, and my best guess for magnetism was earth or metal Affinity. I hoped it was the former rather than the latter, since the idea was to take stuff that already integrated with my mana and biology and system and just add more forces. So, I took one more storage crystal, shaped it into a cylinder, and wrapped copper coils around it.

My generator was not enormously powerful or complex, just my previously built magnet hooked up to a water-powered turbine and sheathed in more copper. It wasn’t the most graceful electrical circuit known to man or dungeon, but it did produce enough current to start heating the copper which was all I asked for. Nothing happened at first, which was about what I had expected, so I grabbed some storm Affinity out of the mana flows and lined them up with the cabling.

I’d been hoping for some mana-fied version of electricity but what I actually got was something else entirely, despite the name giving me hope for a few seconds. It unlocked a [Storm-Earth Transformer], which sucked up storm Affinity mana when I built it and output earth Affinity instead. It also unlocked the category of conversion crystals, but apparently I had to find them out myself since the Storm-Earth version was the only one that showed up. The idea of converting mana types was intriguing, even if I didn’t strictly need it, but a portable version could be an astounding trade good.

A similar attempt to try and put mana into the generator only resulted in [Kinetic Stormbuilder], which sucked up kinetic Affinity mana and spewed out lightning-laced mist. Actually, that was really damn cool but not what I was trying for. It seemed I’d be stuck with doing things the hard way for a while. I was going to absolutely subject my Anvils and storage crystals to electricity and magnetism, though with the former I’d want to wait until I had more just in case. By the point that I’d figured that out, Anton’s Village was all gathered up so I put the experiments on hold.

They weren’t in the audience chamber, though it probably had room for them, because they’d already made their case and really all that was left was to establish the actual agreement. They were gathered out in a clearing between the fields and the houses of the farming chamber, which seemed appropriate. They were [Farmers] and [Ranchers] and earthy folk, and really that’s all that I wanted or needed them to be. [Blue’s Sagacity] was helping here. I needed to start this Bargain as it was meant to go on, with Anton’s Village being my workers and dwellers, not supplicants and servants.

They all assembled in groups of families and extended families, with the elders out front, talking with Shayma individually and respectfully. Anton’s Village had been interested in this Bargain before, but Taelah had carried some tales about what she’d seen. Even if the elders were quite firmly fixed on living simple lives, they weren’t so stupid as to reject that sort of potential for their children and grandchildren. They liked their quiet life, but that didn’t mean they’d force it anyone with different dreams.

We’d also talked about what sort of ceremony Taelah wanted. It surprised me not at all that she preferred something private; the village tradition was for the happy couple to go to an Elder who took their vows and declared them married. Naturally, Ansae had immediately volunteered for the Elder role, and it was hard to argue that anyone had a better claim on being my elder than her. Also, it seemed to touch Ansae’s fancy more deeply than a passing whim, so I’d accepted and it was planned for immediately after the Bargain.

Shayma got their attention by using my presence. It was turning out to be a versatile thing, at least how Shayma wielded it, able to channel some combination of my and her emotions into something that wasn’t mana and wasn’t a Skill. It was something that seemed to glimpse at the true nature of a Power, something that could break the rules of the world. In this case it merely demanded attention, quieted murmurs, and calmed a couple of quarreling children.

“Today you make a Bargain to bind Anton’s Village to Blue’s service. You have all agreed to it, and you will all be bound by it.” She surveyed the gathered people, and nobody said a word of dissent. The actual nature of the Bargain was something that I’d chewed on for a while, discussing it with Shayma and Taelah and Ansae.

“The Bargain is this: I will be your foundation, your world, and your future. I will give you the opportunity to become, and in return you must give me your best.” It sounded simple, but the profound nature of it all both appealed to me and made me feel it was properly binding. Plus I didn’t promise them an outcome, just an opportunity, and while Ansae was understandably wary of a Bargain that I couldn’t close out with my own effort, I wasn’t a dragon roaming to and fro. I was the land, so a land’s promise was appropriate. [Blue’s Sagacity] agreed; I could make Bargains Ansae literally couldn’t. Shayma repeated it exactly, and Taelah and the other elders bowed their heads.

“We agree,” they said, not quite in chorus, a ripple of those words passing through the assembled villagers. They didn’t all need to agree, of course, as the Elders spoke for them. But they were there and might as well, feeding into the kindling of this particular Bargain. After the one I’d made with Iniri I believed I had a better handle on how they felt and, if not how they worked exactly, at least an idea of what was a good idea and what wasn’t.

Instead of a massive bonfire, the feel of the Bargain taking hold was that of a tree driving roots into the ground, growing downward in order to grow upward. It was a quiet thing, rather than the enormous and obvious consuming of Tarnil, but it had a certain strength to it. The actual sensation of the Bargain didn’t last for very long before it sort of dissolved into me, becoming part of me, but I had a good feeling about it.

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Then it snapped out over Anton’s Village, dropping into each person, old or young, and changing things ever so slightly. The Village was its people, and it was now just The Village. It had moved past being Anton’s Village, left that as its history as it became something else. It would earn more names in time, I was sure, but for now it was simply my Village.

Which meant I needed to get them set up in the caldera quickly, because it would be far better than the hacked-together growing chamber and if nothing else it’d be open air. I could probably do that while the expansion was still in progress, as I had some control over how the spatial stuff worked and could keep it from stretching houses over several hundred kilometers, but there was still more preparatory work to do.

Besides, I had Taelah to attend to. The rest of the Village traipsed back home because while the Bargain had given them opportunity, they were the ones who had to put in the work if they wanted to seize its benefits. Taelah and Shayma continued on I sprouted a Portal to my new core chamber in front of them, and they stepped through.

“I still say you should have made it big enough for me,” Ansae said, not actually grumbling about the size of the core room. She had to be in her amazon form to fit, since her natural form would have crushed the cottage and only barely fit on the central island to begin with. “Honestly, it’s not my fault everyone else is so small!”

“Hush, you. I don’t think Taelah is quite ready for that anyway. For some reason you tend to scare people when you’re a multi-ton dragon.”

“I don’t see how that’s my fault,” Ansae grinned, then covered most of her teeth as Shayma and Taelah approached the cottage. Though Taelah didn’t seem outwardly nervous, she did have her hands clasped tightly together, and didn’t really seem to see the surroundings. Otherwise I knew she would have stopped to look at the crystal and latticework chrystheniums that framed the entrance. Shayma escorted her into the cottage, where my core was, and Taelah stopped to stare at it, then at the three-meter scaled amazon looming beside it.

“Um,” she said, leading me to notice that she wasn’t flattened by Ansae’s aura. Which I more or less expected, but I did wonder if it was because she was part of The Village or because Ansae was being considerate. Or both.

“This is Lady Ziir,” Shayma told her, and Taelah curtseyed deeply. She had been warned that Ansae would be presiding, but it was difficult to adequately prepare someone for Ansae’s sharp-edged smile.

“Pleased to meet you, Lady Ziir.”

“And I, you,” Ansae rumbled, amused at the mortal that didn’t quite blanch before her. “It’s not every day you see someone who decides to marry a Power.” Taelah flushed but lifted her head proudly.

“I know what I want,” she said, and Ansae nodded approvingly.

“An excellent virtue. Are you ready?”

Taelah drew a breath and nodded, stepping forward. Shayma was off to one side, as witness. This was not to be a long ceremony, nor an ornate one, but it was important nonetheless.

“Taelah Marn, you are here to be joined with the Power Blue for the rest of your mortal life,” Ansae stated, entirely serious now and all playfulness gone. “What vows do you bring?”

“I vow fidelity to Blue, constancy to my obligations. Obedience to Blue, that I follow his rightful wishes. Companionship to Blue, that I will be there for him all of my days.”

“Blue, what vows do you bring?”

“I vow to provide a stable house, that Taelah has a foundation, to be a caring partner, that Taelah may rely on me, and to give her children, so that Taelah has a future.” Obviously Taelah couldn’t hear me, and according to both Shayma and Ansae my voice was so devoid of distinguishing characteristics that it was effectively impossible to reproduce with illusion. So instead Shayma was projecting my responses onto my core, black-stone letters imposed on glowing crystal.

“Do you each accept each other’s vows?”

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

“I pronounce you wed.” Ansae grinned widely and toothily. “Enjoy yourselves.” Taelah flushed again and glanced back at Shayma, who smiled and gestured toward a far door.

“Blue has set up something for you there.”

Taelah nodded and stepped over to the door, opening it to reveal a brightly lit garden and a warm little cabin visible through a portal I’d set into the doorframe. I’d made it up beforehand in a chamber not far from the core room, since Shayma had her cottage and Iniri really liked the hot springs, so I figured Taelah deserved a place of her own. Considering all my new plants, it’d been no trouble at all to seed the chamber with a bunch of chrystheniums and then link in the appropriate Affinity flora, giving her a rainbow of plants.

Her face lit up with a smile and she walked onward toward the cabin.

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