The sky poured out upon us. It wasn't called the rainy season for nothing and this time at least it was living up to its name. Days had passed since I'd seen the sun, but still there was work to do. As I lifted my hand rocks moved into place, the keystone of the new gate for the city settling into place.

Atal had taken some of my suggestions about increasing the city defenses to heart and this was the result of that. We couldn't redo the entire wall too quickly, but the gates could be remade and reinforced fairly easily. Truthfully we probably could redo the wall if we really wanted, but the time simply wouldn't be worth the investment right now.

The new gates was massive, stone, and vaguely medieval, with me having added a few touches here and there based on what I could remember. It had been the weakest point, and would probably be the location of any attack, but now it might well be the hardest part to assault.

On Earth this would have taken years, just moving the stone and materials needed, but with the amount of workers we had we could brute force it, ancient societies had proven how well that worked. Magic also helped, even if you could brute force some solutions superhumans and people who could just float things where they needed to go weren't to be scoffed at.

After a few final checks I headed home, returning to my weapons once more. There were a number of things now in my basement that would give people pause, perhaps one or two could even hurt Atal if needed, all heavily sealed in steel and stone. I slipped past these, moving to where I kept my magical crystals, today's work.

I'd thought about guns, at least cannons, but there were issues. All the chemistry I knew, all that I'd taken hadn't told me how to make saltpeter from scratch, or nitrocellulose, and I didn't know how to even cast something like a cannon. If those went wrong I wouldn't have a weapon to fire at my enemies, but rather a bomb near my friends, not an appetizing idea.

Biological weapons were basically a nonstarter too. Someone like my mother could have probably managed it, if they knew what they were doing, but I was no virologist and it would be a two-edged sword either way. The damage that could come back on us would make me want to avoid them.

Chemical weapons, those I'd actually had a bit of success with. The most dangerous thing currently in my lab was a small sealed steel ampere of what I was fairly sure was chlorine tri-flouride. It was something I'd remembered hearing about and with a lot of effort had managed to make through magic. That process was iffy at best, slow, and incredibly dangerous. For my labors I'd made something the size of a grenade that would absolutely ruin somebody's day, and I could make more, but I worried about the danger of even storing the stuff, it was a nasty, nasty chemical.

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Leaving behind the war-crime section of my basement I moved to where the magic happened, literally. I'd been experimenting for some time on the magical crystals, and today I'd be trying once more for a new one. Light had gone well enough, and now that I was satisfied that I could make them, and my magic reserved had grown enough for me not to pass out doing it, I was on to a new one, force. We needed something with a good bit of oomph to take on some of these new enemies, and this might just be the thing.

If I could find a way to project pure force that would be a weapon of choice. I sort of doubted it would have the visual effect of fire, but those were the two spells I used most, so we'd be working with them. And if I could get it to work well I might be able to do some great damage with it.

My current issue was that if I just made force then it tried to go somewhere. That meant that not only did I need to make one crystal, I'd probably end up making two at once. I needed both directional force, and whatever I was going to use to oppose it, be that a shield, or an opposing force. Eventually I'd need to manage all of this into something usable, but for now getting the first step done would be enough.

In my head I saw a day where one of my people could sit before a screen and input directions for the magic they wanted, and then let it fly. Simple scripts if and when I could get these tiny crystals to form outputs in the ways I wanted. Perhaps that would be dangerous though, and making many of these items would be neigh on impossible for most casters. Considerations for later, because I didn't even have a proper logic gate yet, for now I needed something that could do anything, could just use power well.

Hours later I stumbled from my lab, drenched in sweat and exhausted. The mana costs were too great, maybe if I could miniaturize? But how? I didn't even know what I was doing properly, much less how to control it better. Even with my growing reserved of magic I'd not managed to form a crystal that I could detect, never reached the point where it snapped into place.

Ida was in the kitchen when I arrived, working. From her stance I could tell something was bothering her. That seemed odd, nobody should have issues with her right now, her work had been exemplary of late.

“Something wrong?” I asked curiously.

“I keep hearing more and more about these invaders,” she confided, head low. “What if they get here?”

“Maybe they will,” I answered, which didn't seem to comfort her at all. “Maybe they won't. What we can do right now is see to it that we're as ready as we can be for whatever comes. Though honestly I never feel like I am properly ready for anything.”

“I'm afraid.”

“That's fairly normal. If you weren't I'd be more surprised. They're killing and destroying their way across our lands.”

“No, I'm afraid they'll take me, like I was before. You don't know what it's like, not having any control, knowing that at a whim you can die and nobody will care, powerless to do anything.”

“You're right,” I admitted. “Atal and his people scare me senseless, and he likes me. I can't possibly imagine what that's like. You're free to tell me if you want, or not, but there's one thing I know. Being scared right now won't help. We need to act, be ready, and fear paralyzes.”

“Not sure what I'm doing helps anyway,” she griped, still in the dumps.

“Today it doesn't. Tomorrow it won't either, but a month form now? A year? Ten years? It really could. We don't know what will come or when, and we don't know if or when this conflict will end. If we have to be ready for fighting a decade in the future I want to be the best prepared. What you're making will make armor, and protection for the wearers from it.”

“You don't have to lie to me you know?” she teased.

“I'm not. I feel inadequate all the time, like I'm not good enough, like it should be someone else. You know what? That's true too, there are certainly people smarter, cleverer, and stronger than me. Here's the thing though, I'm the one who's here, and so are you. You could go, you could leave, veer from this path and try to hide, but you aren't. Showing up is the first step, one so many never take.”

She smiled at that. “So just keep showing up then?”

“Until you can't anymore,” I nodded.