Amun.
11th of Ianua, 1491.
Eldereach County, Bakewia. Shavew, Heather Brook District.
6:12 AM.
[Grandmaster Artificer, Step 12: Master Enchanter - To continue down the path of the Grandmaster Artificer, you must become renowned as an Enchanter by creating a name brand of one-of-a-kind enchantments.]
***
It took several days but eventually, my drive slowed to a reasonable enough pace to continue down the path of the Grandmaster Artificer. Still, though, there was much to do. Thus the noticeable pep in my step setting Skoll and Hati into a trot as I stepped into the moonlight to meet Ed.
Our plot of land outside the gate was a curious sight to the many passersby. Although a few were walking around at this hour, the same couldn’t be said inside the city proper; where, even as far as the Military District, I was sure they could see the giant sign floating above Ed’s shop.
It was an analog of neon lighting imbued with both lights, moonlight, and twilight set against a three-dimensional backdrop of darkness. It was the typical image of a car driving into the setting sun with the words cutting through them, canted so that the ‘C’ in Pascal made up the sun. Cliche, but… “It looks nice.” I frowned in approval.
“Thanks.” He yawned and motioned at my building in the same motion. “See you’ve made some changes as well.”
“Yeah.” I turned, looking at the curiously thick but low wall of black marble surrounding the structure. The structure was an oiled bronze fence that sat just inside the wall but wasn’t connected to it, boasting many gates that didn’t align with any openings on the stone in front of it. The building itself was octagonal, matching the same tones as the wall, save the white walls of the square hut on the second story. What was more impressive, however, was the main gate. Tall, arched, and radiating magic from the many enchantments imbued within.
“What’s it called?” he asked after noticing the lack of a sign.
“Eh.” I waved dismissively, “I don’t really care for a name. So, uh… the Divine Engineer’s Emporium. I guess we’ll call it Dee.”
“Dee?”
“These nuts.”
Ed rocked back on his heels, breaking out in a cackling laugh. “That’ll bring the customers in!”
“You know it.” I snickered. “Nah, but seriously, it’s ArcaTech Industries; or AI. I'm the ArcaTech, by the by.”
“AI, huh? Not ATI?” He asked after a bit more wooing laughter. “What’s your specialty?”
"You first,” I smirked, eager to hear his answer. Which, shame on me, for I should’ve known that, like myself, there were things Ed had been desperate to make since he was a kid. Namely, the very things that put him in my employ in the first place.
Just like back then, he lifted the veil and promptly planted me on my ass, my head shaking in disbelief while my widened eyes remained on his astonishing creations, no matter how much my head shook. Of course, Ed’s name brand would involve vehicles. And they came in all types, for all biomes, and all environments. There were models of the same carriages I had in my Shade Pocket. Some had rubber wheels, more had tracks, and others had wheels of wood banded with steel. More of them, however, held shards of the Grav Crystals found throughout my divine realm, turning them, essentially, into flying cars and hoverbikes.
But that was only the start. They too held the electronics we’d been working on to this day and even had many of the highly advanced tech Ed had been obsessing over since he’d learned of it. But so too did some models have magical and divine materials or enchantments to handle everything from power and communications to camouflage, armor, and armaments.
Of course, the same could be said for the cars, motorcycles, trucks, trains, and tanks he made. But even then, he made planes, ships, submersibles, and more, Omni-wheels, gliders, rockets, airships, crawlers, and tunnelers. Any vehicle one could imagine was on proud display in his spatially distorted showroom. Dune buggies and dirt bikes were organized neatly atop a faux beach, overlooking the scaled-down ocean where submarines breached the waters and ships meandered calmly next to jetskis.
Most importantly, there was a range of makes and models that could be afforded by everyone from the extremely wealthy to the veritably wealthless. Makes and models that used everything from bestial power or alcohol to magic and Vehsipane.
Alas, however, my question had been answered. Thus it was my turn. That, however, was a bit more complicated for me, for my products were things that were best shown rather than explained. Or rather, only one of them was.
With the sun beginning to rise, I figured it best to go ahead and show him before the mob of cats came to swarm around me, so I approached the outer gate with a raised hand and calmly said, “One hundred meters.”
A hardly perceptible rumble answered me before a flash of silver light splayed over the land for a fraction of a second. When it faded, the hut and much of the perimeter were simply… gone. All that remained was that low wall of black marble overlooking a pathed park with a small pond and fruit trees, raised planters, and even berry bushes. The gate also remained. Its arch, studded with enchantments, glowed subtly with a silvery light that seemed to pour down with the likeness of a misty waterfall, showing us glimpses of an octagonal building just beyond its threshold.
“Not exactly a singular enchantment.” I shrugged, backing away. “But I call them… er, Shard’s of Mani.”
“Oh, now you care about names.” Ed rolled his eyes and nearly rolled them out of his skull once I stepped five meters away from the gate, causing it to collapse into a pile of rubble.
“Safety feature.” I grinned at his agape expression. Then took a seat to smoke and discuss the other products I was to sell.
“I’m reluctant to give the vast majority of these things away. To sell them, even. At least to them.” I waved across the fantastical skies of Shavew and let my hand collapse weakly. “It’s like… after Hill Base, many of the places I’ve seen are the same. All across the Peninsula, millions of people are scared to leave the walls of their cities. They're illiterate. Impoverished. Oppressed. Living mundane lives while they dream of more.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
“I want to help them,” I said, looking into Ed’s smoky-gray eyes. “Not out of any sense of altruism but simply because I am able to. Simply because I have the knowledge, wealth, and power to fight anyone who would keep me from making these people’s lives better; if only to make the realm a more interesting place. Imagining seeing the same things in every realm across the Mortal Plane is... disheartening. But if I explore and subsequently change those places, and then leave, the Legions can explore those changed places in my wake sometime later. Allowing me to vicariously explore those places.
“Like in Hill Base.” I turned away, looking to the skies. “How many people in that place discovered talents and skills they never realized because of what we did? How many of them will go on to make some profound discovery, invent some new thing, or otherwise make Maru a more interesting place? Simply because they no longer have to struggle to simply survive.
“But that in itself is the problem.” I warily sighed. “What would I be, if not a conquerer, if I go about demanding people swear fealty to me to claim my knowledge and technology for themselves? What would I be, if I kill some monarch or emperor who refuses to let me help their people? More so, what kind of God of Freedom would I be if I refused to let my knowledge spread freely across the Mortal Plane? What kind of God of Freedom would I be if I kept the creatures and materials of Eotrom locked away from all but the Empire?”
“You may not be looking for an answer.” Ed began after a long pause. And he was correct, I wasn’t. But that didn’t mean I was opposed to one, and so, I nodded him forward. “I think you’re overthinking it. For as long as I’ve known you, you’ve never demanded anyone to do something they wouldn’t already do or otherwise agreed to. No matter how selfish your intent is, you’re a leader we want to follow. And you give us the freedom to. So." He shrugged. "If they don't want to swear fealty in exchange for your knowledge and technology, they don't get it.
“As for your second question. You taught me that a ruler is nothing without their people. So a monarch or emperor who refuses to help their people is no ruler to begin with. The morality of killing them would be dependent on the situation. But letting the empire or kingdom rot from a lack of leadership would be the true crime in my opinion. Well.” He retracted his words a moment later. “Not if the people were rotten to begin with.
“As for the third question.” He leaned back with a great sigh and stared upwards. “I see it the same way you see us. We’re explorers. More importantly, we’re your explorers. Obtaining that title can’t be achieved through hopes and dreams alone. We had to be trained and educated to the point of exhaustion for years before we gained your secrets. And by your hand. We had to earn much more than your trust and loyalty before we were worthy of being granted your knowledge, wisdom, and strength. Why should anyone else be different?
“In fact, I’d be pissed if it was different.” He nudged me with a hearty laugh.
“I hate how much sense you make sometimes.” I shook my head in mock despair. Then looked at him anxiously. “And the last question, Pascal the Sage?”
“Eh- aha!” He shrugged midway before a chortle interrupted him. “Well.” He began. “I understand why you’re reluctant. You’re a God of Nature and many of these creatures will throw things out of whack for a time. Not to mention the people who would hunt the creatures in hopes of obtaining crazy materials. However.” He paused to punctuate the return of the infamous shit-eating grin. “You seem to be forgetting two things. First, you're also the God of Change. Second, you have us.” He proudly thumped the tree showing beneath his coat with both hands. “There’s no way my legionaries will let the creatures of our home be poached.”
“Fair enough.” I nodded after a couple of moments. “That said, the Legions aren’t fully formed, so I’ll tell you what. After the first class is trained, I'll have finalized this warlock path for you all. When that happens, we’ll introduce the creatures of the realm across the peninsula. But that means we’ll need a unit to take up a permanent station here.”
“I’ve already planned for that.” Ed beamed with a slap against my shoulder. Then turned my gaze over to my workshop with a wave. “Now quit stalling and tell me about your lineup."
“Three things.” I raised my fingers. “Security. Communications. Bulk Storage. I assume the latter would be the most accessible.” I explained, dropping my fingers. “Spatially and, or temporally distorted flasks, barrels, chests, or water skins. Cupboards, closets, pallets, entire buildings even. Communications tech, on the other hand, will be the easiest to distribute. VoidNet is already up and running and more hardware and software are being pumped out by the day. Plus, now we have the Satellites. That said.” I smirked. “I don't just want to throw anyone onto our networks. VoidNet is for Eotrom and NoxNet is for the Legions, after all. Thus I made a third internet for the greater realms to use. The ManaNet.
"It's made the same way as dark radiation,” I explained. “Only, it’s infused with energy from my Mana Domain as well. As such, it can still communicate with the soul and can be transmitted to the dead, and through the void for instantaneous communication, but it uses a mana-based type of electromagnetic radiation I call Mana Rays. These will be the majority of my sales, I assume. But I also have the Shards of Mani for the wealthier clients- the security aspect.
“The gate itself is the shard. It’s not only soul-bound but soul-infused as well. With it, the owner can treat their property like a magical tower, control who or what is allowed entry, and determine the altitude, rotation, and orbit around their plot on the surface; which can be made into whatever they wish. And, as you just saw, the gate will collapse after an approved entity distances itself by a few meters, using a temporal enchantment to revert to its prior state on approach.
“The gates in the fence above, however, can be linked to any point on the ground that was marked with another enchantment. Or.” I grinned, nudging Ed with my elbow. “To any garages for any vehicles they may or may not buy.”
Ed’s grin widened as he looked past me, imagining the possibilities.
Turning, I saw a sight that made me grin just as wide. A familiar face among a band of nobles, more curious than they were angry, were marching with an entourage of halberd-clutching guards while their eyes darted between the two demanding structures and the strange men standing before them.
"Hail!"
***
Lily.
***
“Now this is nice.” The cool air. And the views! Paradise was beyond nice, it was entirely befitting of my station. “Isn’t that right, Frank?”
“Of course.” The little human barked happily. So eager he was for even a hint of attention. Still, though, he served me well. Beyond well. The Pink Moon was the finest brothel in Chor thanks to his incessant yammering to the public. With a city as hedonistic as this, he didn’t even need to. I could thrive off the sheer lust in the air.
Not to say I didn’t eat my fill every night.
Still, though, the place served me well. He got me this plot of land completely for free. Others got me furniture, jewelry, clothes, and money plus honey boys and serving girls of all types. I was smothered by success. I had been, at least.
Now, I was drowning in it.
I was looking down for a change, seeing the entirety of Chor from the comfort of the outer courtyard. It was by Munny’s order, of course. I was in the middle of having a snack when the enchantments, Mani’s Shards, appeared along with a letter telling me to begin selling them under the name of the ArcaTech. Weird, but they pulled this Pink Moon into the sky all the same. One of Frank’s girls went out at once. Soon after, estates, townhouses, and crude shacks alike began looking this fine estate in the eyes. I drew the building as high as it would allow at that point. Now, Chor was hardly a spot on the land below. Making my next job all the more difficult.
With unbridled reluctance, I lowered the Pink Moon’s altitude; though not nearly enough to be below those ramshackle huts. There, I sent a group of playthings out through the gate, emerging in the streets of Chor not a moment later to begin advertising for the Pink Moon.
We had our boys and girls. Now, we needed receptionists, bodyguards, and most importantly, bards; and the interviews were to be held immediately.
Just as they did with Frank selling those Shards, the crowds came running. Only this time, there was one soul near the end of the thousands-strong line that I was not allowed to charm.
Devil-God's Order.