Chapter 60: Fifty eight

“I haven’t pissed anyone off,” I snapped defensively in response to Corvus’s query as to who I’d pissed off enough to fill my lab with snakes.

 

“The only people I’ve interacted with from the encampment are my team and you.” 

“It could have been the girls who set the bounty,” Pia chimed in, drawing everyone's attention to where she sat next to Kip. “I mean, our campsite is near the fence and it’s not exactly hard to slip past a bit of rope.” 

“But how would they know where Kadia was camping, or that the tunnel led to her lab?” Roderick questioned, shaking his head dismissively. 

“Is it possible the snakes just found their way in on their own?” My brother asked. 

“No, Leo ate most of them, but from the remains I could tell it was over a dozen cobras in there.” I reminded him, patting the Leosaur cub curled up on my lap. 

“Which brings us back to the question of who Kadia’s pissed off enough to fill her lab with snakes.” Darius said with a sigh. 

“Why does it have to be me?” I whined and pointed at my team. “It could have easily been someone they pissed off.” 

“Foxy has a point.” Victoria agreed, turning her head to look at Pia and Kip. 

“We haven’t pissed anyone off, recently.” Kip defended quickly, and Pia nodded along with him. 

After another ten minutes of debate, we were still left with no leads on who could have put the snakes in my lab. Not only would they need to go out and catch the snakes, but they’d need to insert them one by one into the small air hole I’d left in the tunnel's door, or down the air shaft. 

The teams who were camped nearby claimed to have seen no-one in the area when questioned by Corvus, which I found a little suspicious. It would have taken time to get those snakes into my lab, and strangers in our camp should have been noticed. That left the possibility of it being a guild member, but the only one who’d be inclined to something like this would be Corvus. I didn’t believe it was him though. For one he wouldn’t lie to Darius about it, and second, he knew I’d react badly to having my personal space messed with in that way. 

In Avalon, Corvus once snuck into Markion’s house in the capital city, and entered the basement lab my brother had set up for me. The lion had flooded the basement with water, even bringing in some fish he’d caught. 

When I’d logged into Avalon that weekend, ready to spend some time grinding up alchemy levels, it had been to find my lab flooded. My high grade alchemy pot, which I’d saved up hundreds of gold to buy, had been ruined by being submerged in the water, and it’d taken the entire weekend to drain the lab. 

 After that incident, Corvus swore he’d never mess with my lab again, and we’d both agreed that each other's belongings were off limits in our pranks. Though, that agreement hadn’t stopped him from painting Arion to look like an overgrown Zebra. 

“Kadia, remain behind for a moment.” The guild leader said, dismissing everyone else from the tent. 

As the tent cleared of everyone aside from Darius and myself, an awkward silence filled the air. Shifting in my seat, I peered at the guild leader from the corner of my eye, and saw his face was void of any identifiable expression. When the tent was empty, Darius stood and moved to a table set up along the back wall where he poured the contents of a jug into two ceramic mugs. 

Placing a mug in front of me, the guild leader retook his seat. Giving the mug a cautious sniff, I found it was filled with Bron’s home brewed honeyed mead, and took a sip. 

“I’ve been extremely lenient with you over these past few weeks in consideration to your circumstances, and to be honest, if you were anyone else, your actions earlier would have resulted in a demotion of your rank.” Darius began, and I lowered my head, staring silently into my mug. 

“Have you been praying to Celeste?” The guild leader enquired. 

“Celeste?” I asked in confusion and he nodded. 

“Yes, Celeste. The goddess of new beginnings, mental health, and harmony.” 

“I know who she is, I’m just confused why you think I should be praying to her. My patron god is Trismegistus.” 

“Your patron may be Trismegistus, but that doesn’t mean you can’t pray to Celeste. She is the goddess of mental health, and as such, she acts as a psychiatrist of sorts to us digital beings. There is also the option of visiting her temples, where you can speak with her priests if you prefer to speak to a digital being as opposed to an artificial one.” 

“So, you’re telling me I need therapy?” I scoffed, tightening my hold on the Leosaur dozing on my lap.

“I suggest that you consider it, yes.” 

“And if I refuse?” 

“I won’t force you, Kadia. I’m simply worried about you,” Darius said, his voice thick with concern. 

I wanted to scream at him, to yell that there was nothing wrong with me, that I was perfectly fine, but I knew it would be a lie. 

“I’ll think about it,” I whispered, pulling Leo up from my lap and holding him close to my chest. 

“That's all I ask.” 

Leaving the command tent, I decided not to return to the lab right away. I wanted some time alone with my thoughts, and whilst I was enjoying the companionship of being with the team, I found them draining to be around. 

As I reached the entrance to the encampment, I glanced at the small tent set up as a makeshift guard hut, and saw a woman clad in leather armor sitting inside. Seeing I was looking in her direction, the woman on guard duty gave me a slight nod, before returning her attention to the people walking back and forth past our encampment. 

What’s the point of having a guard at the entrance, if we’ve only got a rope fence separating us from the settlement. I scoffed, turning to walk along the perimeter of the encampment. 

There was a clear path around the camp, with everyone's tents being pitched at least two feet off the fence line. As I walked, I passed another leather clad guard, who I presumed must be the patrol Corvus mentioned would walk the perimeter at sporadic intervals. Darius had instructed Corvus to increase the patrols, but I doubted that would do much to help secure the encampment.

 What we need is a wall. Like what the Whispers guild has around their own encampment here and at the dungeon. Why didn’t the guild hire the Whispers to construct a wall around our encampment for us? Was it a financial issue? Darius is sinking a lot of guild funds into preparing for when the barrier falls, so perhaps he didn’t want to waste money on a wall. 

Reaching the guard tent, I stood at the entrance of the encampment, staring along the rope that marked the perimeter. Should I attempt to wall off the encampment myself? It would likely take me hours to form a wall around the encampment. However, if it meant protecting my lab, I was more than willing to give up a few hours of my time. 

How high should I make it? I mused as I began walking around the encampment again, surveying the area more closely this time. 

On my third pass, I began raising and hardening the sand near the entrance in an upwards slope. Once I’d raised the sand up half a meter, I continued walking, raising the sand up in front of my feet. I’d decided to raise the wall in increments, and to build it wide enough that the guards could walk around on top of the wall for their patrols. As I walked around the encampment, I cleared my mind of all thoughts beyond raising the sand directly ahead of my foot steps. 

Again and again I walked around the camp, paying no mind to the guards staring at me wide eyed as I walked down a set of newly formed sandstone stairs next to their tent, before ascending a second set of stairs opposite it to begin my next lap around the encampment. My transmutation amulet felt hot against my collarbone, as I continuously fed my mana into it to power the transmutation of sand into sandstone beneath my feet. 

Hours later, I sat atop a newly formed wall and stared out across the desert at the dungeon in the distance as the lightning sky revealed the dome shaped building on the horizon. As I admired the color-filled sky as the sun continued its ascent over the horizon, I ran my fingers over the amulet I wore. 

While working on the wall, I’d seen glimpses of a transmutation circle in my mind, its curving arcs and faint symbols fading each time I attempted to focus on it. I suspected that if I continued raising the wall, repeating the same process over and over again, the circle I saw would become clearer. 

Staring out over the desert, I allowed my thoughts to drift over the past weeks I’d been in Kaledon, and the incident that brought me here. I wasn’t ignorant to the fact that the world around me seemed designed to distract me from such thoughts, and had long ago drawn the conclusion that someone, likely Celeste was screwing around with my head. 

The Government claimed the artificial beings who oversaw the virtual worlds did not have such access to our minds on such a level, but clearly that was false. This was proven with the virtual conditioning experiments that took place long before the virtual life initiative was put into action. Over a thousand prisoners were placed inside a specially craft virtual environment designed to rehabilitate them. If the results shown in that experiment could be achieved with just therapy, as the papers claimed was all that occurred in the simulation, then why hadn’t human on human therapy shown the same result? 

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“It’s quite the view.” 

The sound of a low voice broke me from my thoughts, and I glanced up to see Corvus walking along the top of the wall towards me. I inclined my head in his direction, but didn’t verbally respond as he dropped to sit beside me on the wall. 

“You attracted a lot of attention with this little wall of yours.” The lion continued.

My ears twitched in his direction as I heard the clinking of metal against glass, and I glanced over to see Corvus dipping a spoon into a half full jar of fire berry jam.

Seeing he had my attention, the lion Bakeneko smirked at me as he shoved a spoon full of the jam into his mouth. 

“You’re as much of a freak as Darius is,” I muttered, seeing him eat the spicy jam without even flinching. 

“I’m not even half the freak our illustrious leader is.” Corvus joked. “If you think I am, then you haven’t seen him eat cereal.” 

“What's wrong with the way he eats cereal?” 

“He puts the milk in first.” The lion whispered conspiratorially. 

“Blasphemy,” I hissed in reply, ears pinned back against my head.

We sat in silence for a while after that, Corvus spreading spoonfuls of spicy jam on bits of bread, while I ate the last of the fruit I’d had stored in my bag. Leo sat on the opposite side of me, his head resting on my thigh as he stared cautiously at the lion who’d invaded our space. 

“I suspect we might be getting a few requests for your wall building services.” Corvus said suddenly, glancing down at a group of people walking along the outside of the wall below us. 

“Aren’t there earth mages around?” I said, gesturing to the dome shaped building in the distance. 

“There were, but they’ve long since departed back to the Almer mountains.” 

“The Almer mountains? Why there?” 

“That is the home of the Dwarves, they are the race most proficient in earthen magics.” 

“I guess that makes sense if they’re a stereotypical Dwarven race and live inside mountains.” 

“They are, and they do.” Corvus confirmed. 

“I don’t have time to go around building walls for others, I only built this one on a whim.” I told Corvus who inclined his head. 

“I’m not suggesting you build walls for everyone who comes calling, but, should an allied guild make a request,” Corvus began, and I sighed. 

“If one of Eternia’s allies asks for a wall, and provides suitable compensation I will do it.” 

“How much would you say is suitable compensation?” 

Tilting my head to the side, I contemplated that for several moments. Gold wasn’t something I was worried about, as I’d easily be able to make gold through selling things I created. Even with the guild taking their cut, I didn’t think I’d ever be short on gold. 

“I want high grade mana crystals.” I concluded. 

I’d been disappointed to discover only a small cluster of Arcanium crystal in the dungeon, and none of it had a mana density stronger than a low grade crystal. 

Throwing his head back, Corvus laughed so hard he had tears pressing at the corners of his eyes. “I’d forgotten what expensive taste you had.” 

“Are high grade mana crystals worth a lot?” I asked, confused, and a little offended by his words. 

“High grade mana crystals are something one might rarely find in a dungeon's boss room, which is the location with the highest density of mana in a dungeon. Typically, only low or mid-grade crystals are found in dungeons, because they are harvested before reaching a higher density. If you have control over a dungeon and prevent anyone from entering it for a set amount of time, then it is possible to mine higher grade crystals. Outside of a dungeon, they’re almost impossible to find, and any places they can be found are heavily guarded.”

“That means with the high volume of people entering the dungeon here the chances of me finding any high grade crystals inside is basically nil.” 

“Unless you discover an area that no-one else has been in,” Corvus said suggestively, and I sighed, ears drooping in disappointment. 

“Then I need to get my crystals via other means.” I mumbled, patting a hand on the wall beneath me. 

“Three high grade crystals for a wall this size, more if they want me to dig out underground living quarters.” 

“And if we asked you to do that for the guild?” 

“I’ve already built the wall, can’t exactly charge for it after the fact now can I?” 

“I meant the underground living quarters, or above ground housing if it’s easier for you.” 

“Under would be cooler during the day,” I informed him, stroking a hand over Leo’s back as I glanced behind me at the encampment. 

“I don’t really want to spend a lot of time digging out housing that will only be used short term, I’ve got other projects to work on.” I said, biting my bottom lip as I thought about the time that would be wasted on such an endeavor. 

“When the guild moves on, we’ll sell our current encampment to another guild for a high price tag. But, that won’t be for a long time, as this settlement will likely form into a small town, as most areas near a dungeon do. If  you build an underground encampment, we’ll claim the land here and when we sell it, it’ll be at thrice the cost of buying the land token.” the lion explained. 

“How big is the encampment?” 

“Close to two acres.” 

I was a little surprised at that, as I’d thought it was much smaller. Though, with almost forty tents set up and fourteen hunting teams currently occupying the encampment it made sense that the area we occupied was that large. 

“Draw up plans for what you want built, and I’ll tell you if I can do it. I won’t know how long it’ll take, or what I’d want as payment until I see the plans.” I said reluctantly, knowing I was about to lose out on a lot of time in my lab over the coming days. 

Though, perhaps this would help me decipher more of the transmutation circle that had been revealing itself to me as I’d worked on the wall.