Chapter 110: 110: Quality of life

Calvin stepped out of the Unqua on the other side of The Crack, stretching his back as he was able to stand up. Riding triple was cramped.

“So the first thing we need to address is weapons and armor.” Calvin said, rolling his neck. “Can’t have quality of life without preserving it first. Especially if we’re gonna walk everyone out of here without incident.”

“And how do you propose we go about arming everyone?” Rufe asked, glancing around. “There isn’t exactly a lot of steel down here, and we don’t have the additives to make proper glass weapons.”

“I was thinking that.” Calvin said, pointing at the strange, lightweight, alien metal that made the railing. There was miles of it, at least, stretching all the way around the enormous platform, and it was tough.

Calvin pulled out a glass fragment and scratched it against the railing, hard. It didn’t make a scratch.

Harder than glass. Or at least harder than my arm can push glass.

“That stuff? We’ve tried to work that before. Sal spent an entire year on it, but every time you heat it up hot enough to melt, it turns brittle. He tried everything he could think of. Of course shaping it doesn’t work very well either. We don’t have anything hard enough to cut the damn stuff.”

Calvinian Summoning.

17/18 Bent remaining.

Calvin created a horde of normal sized Knick-knacks, their metal bodies barreling out of the green smoke pouring out of his hands. Rufe choked back a shout and stumbled back. Calvin rubbed his hands together, looking at the railing stretching out into infinity.

Secure the railing. At Calvin’s mental command, the Knick-Knacks placed their hands on the railing, holding it steady.

You’re gonna want to use Viscosity. If you do Strength, it’s more likely to crumble and lose pieces.

Apologies, future people who get tossed down here. Calvin silently apologized for the lack of safety, then pulled out a vial of water and cast Shifting.

Viscosity Shifting.

16/18 Bent Remaining.

Calvin targeted a single ‘object’ that was a thin ribbon of air outside the railing, with thin leaves that cut into the railing itself, giving it the viscosity of water. Well, 75% the Viscosity of water.

That was enough. With a gentle tug, each of the Knick-Knacks pulled a metal bar away from the railing, A small drop of thick metal juice forming at the edges.

Calvin dismissed the spell before any of the metal liquid could drip.

“How in the Here did you do that?”  Rufe asked as the Knick-knacks began stacking the identical bars on the platform.

“Things tend to get…odd around Calvin.” Kala said, wobbling her fingers, watching the walls for creepy crawlies.

“So, Rufe,” Calvin said, hefting a bar of the alien metal. It was hollow, which was disappointing, but there was still a substantial amount of material to work with as the bars themselves were big as his bicep, and the hole relatively small. “What do you know about injection molding?”

The old hunter blinked, brows furrowing. “Wazzat?”

Get me some stone. Calvin thought to the Knick-Knacks, who rushed off and began separating a large chunk of stone from the far wall, using their own bodies as a path for the others to move the slab.

“I can guess from the name, but I’ve never heard of that before.” Kala said, scanning the walls.

“It’s pretty simple,” Calvin said, watching the slab of stone set down in front of him.

He closed his eyes and pictured an Uleisan-style saber.

It needs sprues. Calvin pictured two rods extending off the back of the pommel, going in slightly different directions.

Viscosity Shifting.

15/18 Bent remaining.

Experimentally, Calvin targeted the air next to him as the donator of the viscosity.

The slab of stone began to leak liquid rock out of two holes in the far end.

Drafting has reached level 2! 10% correction.

The hardest part was getting all the liquid rock out. Calvin tried blowing it out and got a face full of cold wet rock.

I hope you didn’t swallow any of that. Elliot commented. Calvin hadn’t, but he realized it would certainly not be pleasant for rock to harden coating his insides.

New spell idea!

Indeed.

Finally, Calvin just created compressed air inside the mold, creating a twin stream of liquid rock that shot out onto the platform, making an odd pebbly texture on the ground when Calvin dismissed the spell.

15/18 Bent remaining.

I think you just reinvented spackling. Good job. Now you can live your dream of being an interior decorator.

Once that was done, A Knick-Knack injected liquid metal through a simple pipe with a plunger, until the mold couldn’t accept any more. Calvin dismissed the spell, then the knick-knacks cracked it open.

12/18 Bent remaining.

Ugh, Calvin thought as he spotted the flakes of leftover liquid stone peeling off, making a pebbled and pitted surface. The blade was missing a chunk, and the handle had a bubble in it next to the two awkward sprues sticking up out the back.

“It’s crap,” Calvin said, scowling. “We’ll try again. I’ve got an idea for a much more efficient way of doing it.”

“It’s beautiful,” Rufe said, picking up the amateurish sword. “I haven’t had a real weapon in…gods…fifteen years?”

He glanced up at Calvin “Excuse me,” Rufe lifted the blade over his head and brought it down on the stone slab, sending an ear-splitting screeching noise through the hall as he buried the blade halfway through the chunk.

Rufe tugged the blade out with ease, and inspected it: No damage.

“Well, at least we know it didn’t make it brittle,” Calvin said, nodding as Rufe started giggling to himself. It was good to know the proof of concept was successful.

“Now.” Calvin said, clapping his hands together. “I just realized I was trying to make that sword like a smith, and not like a Wizard-King. Let’s make something to write home about, eh?”

How do you mean?

Reversing the mold process.

Ah.

This time, Calvin had the Knick-knacks bring him an even larger slab of stone.

Viscosity shift.

11/18 Bent remaining.

Calvin hollowed out a large pit in the stone, wider than his head and a couple inches deeper than the length of a sword.

Then he filled it with enough liquid metal to bring it to the brim.

10/18 Bent remaining.

Calvin dismissed the spell, turning it from a shimmering pool of silver liquid, to a solid, static, matte color.

“So you’ve got a huge cylinder of solid metal?” Kala asked, glancing over her shoulder with a frown.

“Exactly. Then we do this.”

Viscosity shifting.

9/18 Bent remaining.

Calvin targeted all of the metal except for a mental image of five closely nestled swords and the sprues between their handles keeping them together as one contiguous object.

Drafting has reached level 3! 15% Correction.

The metal inside the tube turned shimmery liquid again, and Calvin reached inside, dipping his hand in the silver fluid. He grabbed the five swords by the sprue and pulled them out of the bath like a magic trick.

Which I suppose it is.

Viscosity Shifting.

8/18 Bent remaining.

Calvin targeted the pentagonal sprue with the last spell, and the five swords separated from each other in his hands.

“Here,” Calvin said, handing Rufe one of the new ones.

It was better than the first attempt in every way. Five good swords for four Bent rather than one bad one for five.

I’ll bet if you scaled up the manufacturing process, you could make something like five hundred swords for four Bent.

I’m not sure I could accurately picture five hundred of anything in any detail, Calvin thought, looking at his batch-made swords. They were perfectly smooth, handles gently ribbed, guards exactly the right size and shape, and sharp as Vashniel’s spear, but only because he was able to accurately picture them down to the tiniest detail.

What the hell did I get you the Drafting Skill for if not creating large amounts of arms in a small amount of time and Bent?

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I only need to make about a hundred of them.

“Sword?” Calvin asked, offering Kala one of the blades. The princess accepted it gratefully, putting her stone axe with a bone handle aside.

“This’ll work,” She said, hefting it.

“I think I’m gonna cry,” Rufe said, running a thumb over the dreamlike smoothness of the side of the blade. “Can you make spears?”

True. Spears are better for fighting animals with, and there aren’t any thinking Warped monsters.

Calvin shrugged, glancing over at his pot full of Abyssal metal. “I don’t see why not, but let’s not hang around here forever. I’d like to do the rest of this back at the village. Let’s load up the Unqua and get out of here.

Calvin peeled several thousand pounds more metal off the side of the platform, combined them and reduced the resulting lump’s weight with Shifting before putting it in the Unqua

If riding the thing with three people’s weight was cramped, three people, five swords, and a massive lump of fused metal pipes was almost intolerable.

Although Kala sitting on his lap was fun.

Silver linings.

It was all worth it when they got back and Rufe started passing out swords, and people’s faces started lighting up.

Down here, a weapon wasn’t a fashion statement, or a just-in-case, it was often the deciding factor of who lived and who died. One of the biggest reasons these legends hadn’t taken the halls away from the monsters was that they only had sticks and stones. Well, bones and stones.

“Can you make silverware?” a woman asked, running up to Calvin with wide, imploring eyes.

“False teeth!?” said one man, predictably toothless.

“A peg leg that doesn’t cause infections!?”

“Real cups!” They were beginning to crowd around him now.

“Those beads that you put in your a-“ The middle aged man had a cloth forced into his mouth by a nearby woman, in the manner of a garrote.

They clamored for a thousand different things, and Calvin found his mind struggling to keep up with it all.

“Now, now, stop crowding him,” Loren said, the old man pushing his way through the crowd.

“Pakta, get me some vellum and my writing kit, we’ll make the kid a list instead of shouting in his face.”

“I can make most of the things you’ve asked for,” Calvin said, raising his voice to be heard over the crowd that was currently choking the cavern. A few people were even poking their heads out  of their unqua tents, tiny and doll-like from Calvin’s point of view.

“But I can’t do all of it. Not without help. I don’t have the Bent.”

“What do you need?” Loren asked.

“I need some volunteers from the women to donate Bent.”

The crowd was quiet for a breath.

“Why women?” one of the men at the back asked.

“Yeah,” Kala said, arms crossed, brows raised. “Why women?”

“’Cuz that’s how the Ability works,” Calvin said with a chopping motion. “You already knew that.” He turned back to the assembled villagers. “If you’re uncomfortable giving me the Bent directly, my lovely assistant will be more than happy to take Bent in my stead.”

Chained spirit.

8/18 Bent Remaining.

Nadia popped out of the green smoke billowing out of Calvin’s hands, in a seated posture, and for an instant, it looked like she had a book in her hands.

“Awk!” Nadia fell on her butt, eyes wide.

“Hi, welcome back,” Calvin said, leaning over her Supine form

“Are we fishing again?” Nadia asked, her arms clutched tight to her chest in a defensive posture.

“Nope. You’re the friendly neighborhood Bent Siphon for the meantime, like in Uleis.”

Nadia’s gaze radiated a faint disappointment before she blinked, her emotions back to neutral and her expression haughty, even on her back.

“I guess dealing with bone-wielding cave-dwellers is marginally better than entertaining myself,” She said, climbing to her feet.

“Village of The Abyss, meet Nadia. Nadia, meet The Village of The Abyss. Calvin said, motioning to the leather-clad princess’s sinuous form. A few of the villagers were having a hard time looking at her face, and Nadia preened at the attention, puffing out her chest.

“She’s a middling succubus I vanquished last year, then bound into a summon,” Calvin said. “Careful not to pay too much attention to her, though, succubi gain power from lustful stares, and she can literally suck your brain out through your cock with her six-foot long tongue.”

Nadia’s brows went up, and Kala hid her smile behind her palm, affecting a gasp of concern rather than a grins.

“That’s right!”  Nadia said with a sultry smile, adapting quickly. “Careful, boys. Lose your way and I’ll take your soul back to my master in the Abyss. The real Abyss, not this paltry imitation.” She raised her nose haughtily.

“I thought you might like a mythos.” Calvin whispered into her ear. “More fun being a barely restrained, soul-sucking demon than a deposed princess, am I right?”

Nadia scanned the crowd of frightened villagers, her expression thoughtful.

“For once, I think you are,” she said with a demonic grin, sashaying into the group of villagers, who backed warily away from her.

“Now now, donating Bent doesn’t hurt,” she said, practically purring as she settled into her demon persona. It fit her like a glove. “It’s actually quite pleasurable.”

Wow, she’s really enjoying herself, Calvin thought as he watched her begin slowly making the villagers more comfortable around her. Speaking of Nadia pretending to be a succubus…

Can you copy Chimera over to Chained Spirit? Calvin asked Elliot.

Sure, why?

I’ve got an idea for Nadia that I want to work on when we have free time. But first, can I move parts from slotted monsters across Calvinian and Chained Spirit?

Let me see… it looks like it would work, but only one way. You would need Chimera in Calvinian Summoning to put Nadia’s boobs on your wasps.

Damn, foiled again.

Seriously?

No.

So, what, you want to give her bat-wings, little horns and a tail to make her closer to your fantasy Waifu?

I was thinking about taking Variety is the Spice of Death, stocking up on monsters down here, and integrating Warped monster organs to give her spell-like abilities.

Oh…that’s not half bad. Why not just give her Bent though?

Because I can take the mutations away if I have to, or change them to meet a specific task. It’ll also be good practice for researching new spells and testing the effects of their abilities.

Guinea pig Nadia. I see. Good call.

And when we’re not studying the effects of various organs, I can give her Tarak wings, horns and a tail. Calvin thought with a grin.

There he is! Elliot said, snapping his fingers.

“Before we move on to that list, let’s make sure we have enough metal here to get everyone armed!” Calvin said over the murmuring knot of people crowding around Nadia.

Once they were done with arms, they would move on to armor.

Now that he had the vat created, he only needed to spend three Bent to create five swords. One to add more Abyssal Steel to the mixture –

Abyssal Steel? Is that what we’re calling it?

You got a better name?

…nope.

One Bent to add more liquid steel to the pot. One to make the swords, and one to disconnect them from each other.

Three Bent per five swords.

Sixty Bent to arm everyone.

With Kala’s help, and a few volunteers, he could be done by the end of the day.

Armor would be a lot trickier, more pieces, more complicated, and different sizes for different people.

I’ll deal with armoring a hundred people tomorrow. Calvin thought as his Knick-knacks began moving the big rock cylinder full of metal. For now, let’s get these people armed with proper weapons.

Macronomicon

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