Harper

"Oh, one more thing," Harper turned back around and went into her room/lab again.

Picking up her primitive wood spear with a fierce glint in her eye, she felt the texture of the leather wrap under her palm. Each was a leftover from her transition to this hostile world, the wood and the shield boar leather. This spear was the one she brought late to the fight against the Glass Beasts.

During Mathew's recovery, it was made clear that standard weapons wouldn't even punch into the empowered hide of actual monsters. Since then, it was converted into a sharp walking stick. For Harper, it was a memory of her shortfalling in the fights survival demanded. The one place she didn't pull her weight.

Wearing a quirk on her lips, Harper patted down the leather vest of pockets she wore. Cataloging each again for quick deployment. Her duffel bag was nice for storage but didn't provide ready access segregated to ingredients. Instead, she'd fill the bag with anything that caught her eye on this hike.

"Alright," Harper returned to the entry room where Ben waited. "I'm ready to go."

Ben's usual distracted self was missing. In his place stood a... not grim, stoic maybe guard. He felt less personable somehow. Harper didn't like it.

Ben replied, "I'll keep you under my stealth magic unless you have something particularly loud or flashy to do. I need you to let me know before you do. That way, I don't waste magic trying to hide too much. You probably won't be able to see me, and all sound will be silenced. When you want to talk, squeeze my hand, okay?"

Harper nodded in agreement.

Take care, Hint thought. I'll miss you.

Hopefully, not for long, Harper thought back.

Check with Gracie before you go, Hint hid a smile in her voice.

Following Ben, Harper laid her hand against the leather. Closing her eyes, she communed with the monster rated item. Gracie, as Hint named her, had grown as an item. The last time Harper had communed, Gracie was just a gem of shield power. Now Gracie was an ethereal beast within the mindscape.

Gracie trotted close and bumped into Harper's belly. The mindscape closed, and a blue orb was between Harper's hand and the door.

Scan.

[Gracie's force shield

A combination of shield and force power, this temporary tool will fade away within six hours of being formed or when used. When used, this will surround the user and expand until the power is consumed]

Thank you. Harper thought over.

Before she moved on, she scanned the door again.

[Hub's door - Gracie

Totemic door housing a shield boar monster aspect.

Skin of the Shield Boar: Passive shield protection of door and doorway

Totemic summon: Summons an energy body for Gracie to act with

Gift beyond the door: To protect those Gracie wants to when they leave the Hub, Gracie can gift temporary shield orbs. 0/1 available]

How? Harper thought. Mathew was the odd one out with 'official' crafted items that continued to develop over time. Maybe his advantages weren't quite so unique.

Putting the orb into an unused pocket of her vest, Harper followed Ben down the grey stone slope. Bracing herself to add even more burden against the fear of her full fortification magic, Harper activated her building skill directly for the first time in days. Moving her willpower into the channels of an advisement intelectus, the burden was blessedly gently.

Well, hello again. What are we working on today? Ah, Network Fortifications. Her building skill thought-spoke rapid fire. We have three main options within your grasp. From cheap to expensive: One, we can make a network by poles with lines to carry data and power. Two, we can make a road. That will let us fortify roadways and bolster transportation. It also conducts power and data. Finally, we can make wireless nodes that will act as transmitters and receivers. There are other ways to use Mass Fortify to create a network fortification, but they would cost more power than we are willing to spend.

Hey, why are you being so quiet? Building asked.

How are you a part of me? I am not that chatty! Harper thought.

Harper felt a shrug in response.

"We're going there?" Harper pointed to the chronosphere in the distance.

"Yup," Ben agreed.

Can I afford the road and the structure I plan? Harper asked her skill.

Yup, and if not, you'll regenerate the difference before too long. We will have to keep the 'road' to a path for now, but it can be grown over time, no problem. Building answered.

So Harper started walking straight down The Spire. Blue arcs of lightning had Ben side hopping away from her. He glowered. Harper laughed.

"It won't hurt you. Just shaping the rock and imprinting it with purpose," Harper paused. "Is this going to be a problem with your stealth plan?"

"Probably not. If I need a break, I'll let you know," Ben replied.

[Road - valid target

Assemble (34/10)

Data Node (0/100)

Energy Node (0/1000)

Empower (0/68)]

Overbuilding the minimum of the road only seemed to grow the cost for the empower option. Straight to the bottom of the Spire from the Hub was still the Territory of the Field Cats, but Harper didn't want the permanent roads to expand without care. Not that she was a civil engineer or anything, but city planning was best done before a foundation was laid.

With that in mind, she went straight down to the base of the Spire. There she made the road tee off. This would eventually make a ring to enclose the land claimed for the Hub. Harper followed the old edge of the Territory. Nearly every junction where one neighbor met another there were two paths pounded into the dirt. A natural road where opposing sides patrolled. Now the survivors of the Hub were following this natural order.

Having the power to stand at the same level as the local threats left her with giddy exhilaration. Mixed with the melting fear of spending her magic, the trip was growing into a fun one.

The tapping of her walking stick stopped when they reached the brambles formerly owned by the Bramble Weavers. Even with the unnaturally accelerated growth reclaiming the open air, it looked like a giant worm bored a hole through the plants.

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As she created another tee, this one pointed away from the Spire, Ben reached over and held her hand. The world warped as light and sound passed through a newly formed film. For a moment, she viewed the world through a surreal lens that she wished to capture in art.

"Thank you," Harper's voice died before she heard it. The sensation stacked on top of the surreal moment, she shook her head.

Hand in hand, they walked through a whimsical setpiece. Only the trail of stone pathing and cleared plants signified their progress. They stopped at least a dozen times for Harper to gather herbs, moss, and pods.

These moments with the stealth down made one thing clear for Harper. Even Ben and Grant, with their significant experience on Leternum, didn't truly know what they were looking for. Harper's synergy insights from her production skills let her sort the treasures from the trash. Not that the others gave her awful things to work with... but the things she could gather now were purpose made. Clearly usable with their primitive means or combining to ingredient types she knew she had.

There could be a whole job for gathering materials. Just like there could be a full-time job for cooking and several for building. Even alchemy and apothecary would be better as separate dedicated jobs. The Hub just didn't have enough people yet. If they had enough people, would Harper be relegated to only working with Grand Arrays?

[New skill awarded: Hiking 5. Hiking 5 overrides hiking 4.]

Another perk! Harper willed open this set of options for the first time.

[Hiking ~ perk tier one

Easy step - improve regeneration while hiking

Sure path - identify hazards more readily

Echo walk - store a fraction of distance traveled to cover distance instantly]

There were all excellent options, and Harper could already tell her min-max demon wouldn't be happy with her. Given that perk paths followed similar themes, it paid to figure out what each perk tree represented. After looking over her first notification, she was sure the paths represented efficiency, safety, and speed.

Logic said she should get easy step. It would let her hike more and level it faster. But she didn't really need hiking. It was only level five after a week, and most of those levels were from her higher level skills bleeding growth into it. Rule of cool won her over, and she selected echo walk. The idea of instant teleportation, even if it was an uncommon occurrence, still captivated her complete interest. A grin crept across her face as she felt the new feature settle in.

When she focused, she could feel an echo extracted from every step she took. Where the echos went, she wasn't sure, but as they compounded together, she could feel their cumulative power. By the time she reached the shimmering orb, that accumulated power wasn't a lot. Harper mentally adjusted her teleporting expectations from uncommon occurrence to rare.

Squeezing Ben's hand, she let go.

"This may be kinda big," Harper threw her hands out in front of her.

Drawing up her willpower, she pressed it into her building skill again.

Emergency shelter is what we are looking for here, Harper's skill thought to her. Trust yourself (me) on that one.

A wireframe of a domed structure filled her vision. By the lack of Ben's focus, it was clearly just in her mind. Arms still outstretched, she made adjustments to the design. The doors were going to be integrated components, blast doors, and there would be three of them so that it would be harder to trap someone in compared to covering a single door as her intelectus had designed.

Happy with the blueprint, grand arcs of blue lighting exploded from her chest and wound about her arms before spreading out in every direction. Each spark or beam of power took hold of raw material and drew it into the dance of flying objects she'd summoned.

Her blue arcs of power fused the stone into a dome with three cutouts. Like, a cookie with three bites missing. Already she was able to build in one sitting a larger structure than the woven wall the Hub started as.

[Emergency shelter - valid target

Empower (0/100)]

The door was made of hexagonal panels set into a frame. As she spent the last of her energy, Harper put swirls and simple embossed lines.

"We'll have to wait for my magic to recharge some," Harper turned to Ben. "Do you want to look around for more materials?"

"Yeah, whatever you want," Ben nodded.

He really is a great escort, Harper thought.

Within half an hour, her duffel and his satchel were full to the brim with materials gathered to serve a clear purpose.

"Why did you gather that one?" Ben pointed to the Errant Fern.

"A lot of people don't know that ferns propagate by spores," Harper answered. "In this plant, each spore is gifted an accumulation of wind. If I can extract and control that powder-based propulsion, then we may be able to safely deploy the more volatile concoctions I could make. With all the poisons we've gathered, safety is the number one thing on my mind."

A growl and snapping vines drew her back into the dangerous forest of beasts that wanted to kill her. Wide eyed with panic, Harper turned to the threat.

Dark and light green shot towards her. Falling backward, Harper threw blue arcs of her fear into the walking stick. The weak sharpened spear emitted a resounding crack as she batted the monster away. Its many front legs caught the nearby vines and pulled it back around for a second attack.

Harper had a handful of powdered mage ink ready. Its ability to absorb light made it decent as a blinding powder. Remembering the shield ball she moved to dig it out.

Before it arrived, Ben stepped forward and caught it. A pool of black seemed to form underneath him while black threads shot forwards along his arms. The cloth behaved as a living thing as it grappled the monster. Wrapping it up thoroughly, Ben closed his angry eyes. "Do you or Hint want this alive?"

Distaste turned her stomach. Hints experiments and power harvesting was something Harper abided mainly by not thinking about it. This was a choice to take part actively in it. Even if the end result was the same, making the choice directly felt like a bigger responsibility. She wouldn't be able to judge herself by the gentle measure of indirect guilt.

Pressing her lips into a line and letting some warmth fade from her chest, she nodded.

"Let's go back to the shelter. I can finish my work now," Harper turned her attention away as quickly as she could.

After a short walk and an angry blast of blue lightning and she'd completed the shelter's first enhancement.

[Emergency shelter - valid target

Empower + (0/5000)

Safety door (0/100)

Reinforce (0/200)

intelectus (0/500)

Data node (0/100)

Energy node (0/1000)]

That was a lot of options. Harper started with the safety doors. Finishing the 100-point expense let her and Ben into the structure. Each hexagonal panel moved out of the way on its own accord resealing behind them closely and quickly. Just like Harper had hoped, it became a wall someone could run through that would close behind them.

Actually, she'd thought of a magical force field, but she didn't have a proper shield essence. Then she'd thought of a door that would turn liquid to be run through and then return to solid. That was also beyond her current means.

So this was her compromise. Just because these shelters were built around a hopeful survivor didn't mean they wouldn't use them within a proper long-term plan. These lands were dangerous, and having safe places peppered across the Territory would significantly upgrade security. On top of the direct plan to keep sheltered people safe, it would also act as part of the information network.

Poking around the notification for details, she saw a need to add the data node and energy node. After that, she or Hint could finish the enhancements from anywhere in the network.

"I'll need about an hour to recharge enough magic," Harper smiled sheepishly.

"No worries," Ben smiled. "It's nice to wait here with you."

"Yeah, it is," Harper smiled back. Her eye was caught by the multicolored sphere in the center of the shelter. Scan.

[Spencer Mitch Elder

Earth raid transfer

Entry quest

1) Complete

2) Incomplete]

"Hey, look," Harper pointed. "He finished half the quest!"

Ben's head shake turned into a nod. "Yeah, look at that."

Despite the hour it took to finish placing the upgrades, the second part of the quest stubbornly refused to be completed. The only other things Harper did was leave a magical equivalent to a speaker and a camera. That way, one of them could monitor and communicate before rescue arrived.

Hint? Harper asked.

Yes, Warden, Hint's automatic response was replaced by excitement. Oh wow! A whole road and this inferior building. The world is so much greener than I thought it was. Like I knew from your memory, but it's totally different making my own.

Hint's childlike wonder continued to flow as Harper smiled.

This was a good thing they'd done. Harper knew it didn't come without risk, but here was a life to save. She could imagine anyone in their group being transferred into this thicket. Even Mathew probably wouldn't have survived the array of poisons and predators.

"That's all I can do," Harper reported.

Heavy with bags and light of heart. Harper turned back to her home.