Celeste and Jasper looked at each other. It was the fifth day in this world, and they had found themselves only getting a trickle of Worship. Both of them had gained two this morning, which was nice, but it wasn't the numbers they had been hoping for.
Jasper looked over his completed project for powering the mine. He had spent most of the morning sinking his invention into the ground. Even with earthshaping and Celeste literally 3d printing piping, as Jasper needed it, the job was still a chore.
There was no hope that anyone would use this method to create power. However, as Jasper finished the work, it turned out that even he couldn't produce power from it.
While the game called him the god of knowledge, he was still limited to knowledge that had been discovered. As this was brand-new technology, he had drawn on some half-remembered knowledge from the real world. It became obvious that Jasper was not an engineer but a game designer, leaving him with a finished product that would not work.
In short, the system was overengineered and Jasper was to spend two of his Worship to make the thing produce energy. It was the last two he had since he had elevated The Scribe.
With the power source complete, the new mine was finished and built to Celeste's exact specifications. The Goddess of Tinkering was honestly quite proud of herself. She had managed to work wonders with her husband's well-intended addition to the mine.
With the mine done, Celeste had instructed a couple of the villagers on how to operate the mine, but there would still be trouble refining the ore and then transporting it.
The goddess sighed, knowing that she would have to use some of her Worship to try and improve the mine.
Celeste knew better than simply throwing all her Worship after the project. She had done that with the smithy, resulting in her not knowing what she was spending the Worship on.
Jasper told her how he had done it and stated out loud what kind of effects he wanted, and she thought that was also rather stupid. What if he didn't have enough Worship? What would have happened then?
Celeste sat down in the middle of the room, leaning back on the palms of her hands and looking up at the ceiling. She thought about it.
The goddess wanted this place to refine any ore... no scratch that. Any material that was pulled up from the mineshafts. No, that could go wrong. She wanted it to refine any non-organic material. Yeah, that was better. She continued to plan it out, specifying her intentions until it was almost foolproof while still being encompassing.
Refinement Mine Description [https://i.postimg.cc/HkkGw80J/image.png]
Finally, she smiled, happy with the result. It was surprisingly cheap, but then again, it was not something she could benefit from, and with the limitations that its speed was based on the output of the mine, it meant that she was still much better at refining and, as such, would not benefit from this building.
She accepted the pop-up and felt the Worship seep out of her. This time around, it was a much more controlled reaction instead of the overwhelming feeling of emotions pushing for change that had been her experience with the smithy. This was structured and organized.
Since Celeste was in control of the change, the Worship didn't make sweeping alterations to the building. It simply took on her desire for refinement and crafted a neat little machine that could separate elements from each other. It used Celeste's ability to "create" objects to create mineral bars, which would then be spat out, all ready for transport.
It looked like a massive hopper into which items could be dumped. Without any mechanical parts, it would simply extract and purify the input.
With that out of the way, Celeste and Jasper made their way back to Marcusburg. Both of them felt like the most important tasks had been completed for the town, and on their way back, they were discussing what to do next.
Celeste wanted to create running water and plumbing for the town, which would help them in the long run. However, Jasper wanted to explore the world. He wanted to see if he could fix a couple of major bugs before he had to progress the world.
Both gods stopped at the entrance to the city. They had both spotted a bloodied and beaten King Marcus who barely seemed to be able to sit on his horse outside of the town. He had taken quite a few hits, and from the looks of things he could barely stay awake.
"Get me some water," Jasper said, not even hesitating for a moment before he grabbed a couple of roots from his pocket.
With a flick of his free hand, Jasper summoned a gust of wind that lifted the king from his steed and helped him land softly on his back.
Celeste's powers quickly created not only water from the local well but also created pestle and mortar.
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"What are you planning?" She asked, and Jasper shook his head as he looked over the wounds that the king had sustained.
"The locals call it Kingstooth. They chew it to alleviate toothaches. However, if ground into a paste with the red berries that can be found in the forest, you can make a fairly weak healing potion." He explained, pulling out a small woven bag labelled "Blood berries" and pouring the hard shells of the berries into the mortar.
Adding in a bit of water, the resulting mixture was thick, frothy and deep red.
Jasper didn't seem to care about the consistency, pouring it into the king's mouth, forcing him to half choke, half chew on the mixture.
The potion started to work almost instantly, closing gashes and mending wounds. Jasper seemed satisfied, and the following mix he created was much more refined, instead focusing on ensuring that the mixture was consumable, not just functional.
The king had passed out, but Celeste still inspected him, looking over his wounds and trying to figure out what had happened.
It didn't take long to determine that King Marcus had been in battle and one that he had lost. However, his plate was still in one piece, but it had a ton of various cuts and nicks, which, thanks to Celeste's Power, was repaired between one second and the next.
"Looks like they managed to pour something into the armour, various sharp objects perhaps? Fool should have worn his helmet." She said, looking at her husband.
Jasper nodded in agreement, swallowing hard. "Yeah, it sounds like the orks are coming," he answered, knowing he would have to prepare defences for the village.
With a quick movement, he gave King Marcus the last healing potion. It wasn't easy to get the man to drink in his unconscious state, but with a bit of work, Jasper saw the last of the king's wounds disappear.
While many warriors had gone with King Marcus to ambush the orkish horde, around 100 capable people were still around, and they would defend the city to the last man standing.
Jasper actually didn't know how this battle would end. He could see the AI using the annihilation of Marcusburg as an excuse to have the Empire of Man send in armies of their own, spawning new players in the middle of a battleground.
Still, he could also see the orks winning and enslaving the humans, forcing new human players to perform guerrilla warfare. Jasper knew that the orks couldn't lose. At best, they could be driven from the city.
Of course, Jasper and Celeste could sway the tide of battle. They could probably even win the battle if they used their powers correctly. However, would that benefit them? They would likely make the starting zone of the game more hostile for the players that wanted to play orks, and beyond undoing the progress they had made, the AI would likely try and rectify it in some way.
Celeste looked at her husband, trying to figure out what he was thinking. It took some prodding, but finally, he shared his thoughts.
"I don't like it," Celeste said, clearly not wanting to abandon the people she had invested time, Worship and Energy into protecting.
"I know what you mean. While the personality of these NPCs is still fairly simplistic, we have an interest in not seeing the growth we have given them get undone," Jasper said with a sigh.
Celeste nodded, slowly improving the wall around the village, building it up to be more fortified. She had taken quite well to the tinkering aspect of her divinity, and she had found that working on something helped her think.
"We have two days left, right?" She asked while fastening a heavy metal plate to the wall, making it harder to climb and penetrate.
Jasper nodded. "Well, depends on when we log out on the last day, but essentially, yeah." He agreed, slowly cleaning up the mess left at the gates.
"Could we ask another group to intervene on our behalf?" Celeste asked.
There was a good chance that if Celeste and Jasper tried to fix things, they would probably sway the battle too much.
"We could try to get the aid of the Human Empire; however, that feels like a bad idea. King Marcus fought for the independence of this nation about a week ago. We have no idea where the dwarves or droves are beyond them being underground, but the elves might be able to help. They should be located not far from here." Jasper explained, and Celeste decided to pull up her map.
It was still wrong, seemingly showing elements that didn't exist in the world, but Marcusburg was highlighted with a name.
Updated Map [https://i.postimg.cc/mTB2fwSN/map1.jpg]
Celeste zoomed in a bit, deciding that she only wanted a local view of the area, but she found a limit to how far she could zoom in.
It couldn't pinpoint specific buildings, meaning the map was great for journeying from one place to another, but not for guiding her from building to building.
It made sense since she had the Journeying word.
Zoomed map [https://i.postimg.cc/0QDQtt1t/map2.jpg]
Celeste focused on displaying the map to Jasper, and thanks to the notifications being visible to other players, Jasper could easily see it.
He nodded, pointing at what looked like a desert to the west.
"This will be the direction that the Orks are invading, but I absolutely see what you mean. I didn't see the giant gate, nor the strange area behind it when we flew over the world. As far as I know, the elven kingdom is located around the grand world tree." Jasper said, and Celeste suspected that he was leaning on the knowledge from one of his powers.
The goddess nodded. "So you are suggesting that the elves might help us?" Jasper slowly nodded in return as his wife spoke.
"I think so, yeah. I mean, they probably want something from us, and we will probably have to spend some of our Energy in helping them. But it should be possible." They continued to talk for some time, discussing their options.
However, none of them had the Worship to spend to power people up.
The Scribe could probably protect the city, but Jasper wasn't really willing to gamble the old man's life just yet. The Scribe only had seven Veils each day, and they hadn't explored how long each veil lasted. While powerful, he was still mortal, and he would probably be overwhelmed in some way if the orks truly wanted to rush him.
Jasper and Celeste talked about kitting the entire town out with armour and weapons. Still, it seemed unlikely to work, as most of them weren't trained warriors, and even the orkish workers were capable of harming a divine being.
The gods circulated ideas for a bit before they both agreed that the elves would solve the current problem and help Jasper and Celeste progress to that starting zone and give the AI an excuse for incorporating another race into the starting zone.