Moriarty Eco, stared at his cousins, one familiar, and the other foreign. The resonance he felt to his kin was there, but the individual who spoke to Autumn of all people like her equal, was absolutely new to him.
He sat within the overhang of the tree canopy above them listening. Observing the anomaly that seemed to be the young man that glowed in his sight. The young man's aura like a sunlit sky with the stars of worlds beyond still visible. An array of vibrant multi colored pinpricks could be seen hard at work internally within Arson. A multitude of energies, all with the potential for life, being replicated by his aura easily, fueled by the various kinds of mana held inside his body, was enough to give Moriarty pause.
“Explain,” asked Arson. Autumn shared a look with the young woman named Xani. Moriarty didn’t quite know Xani's value until her breakdown of the Perpetual Storm Garden they’d be trying to recreate. He was shocked by the insight, and even further shocked by the variety of subjects Arson was interested in.
“So to summarize,” said Arson, looking between the girls he primarily spoke to.
“The tree is the core to everything, so we will start by weaving the roots of the saplings we clone,” said Autumn.
“Then we will need to inscribe the branches with formations to manifest miniature storms above them, which may be tricky because most storm based mana once formed is lethal, especially to the environment the storms are born within, so we will need to figure out how to diminish the volatility somehow but I’ll work that out with time,” cut in Xani full of excitement.
“Other than that, I’m assuming you have the process you want to use in mind for the mana enriched soil,” Arson asked his sister. She nodded and he turned to Xani with a smile.
“And you and professor Vellum are going to work out how to recreate the inscribed mana stone system we need as a foundation?” Xani nodded and Arson smiled and looked directly up toward Moriarty and asked a final question.
“So what do we need you for again?” Moriarty jerked backward hard enough at the glare supported by a brilliant smile, that the branches nearby to him rustled far too drastically for him to remain hidden. The shock on Xani’s face quickly shifted into alarm when the tree moved, and Moriarty didn’t think the flying hands that began to appear from thin air around her were entirely defensive in nature.
“Seems my attempt at stealth was a failure,” said Moriarty. The young man, jumped from the tree’s branches and a stone pillar was created in an instant. The stone below Moriarty slid up to meet him, before the creation lowered itself like an elevator.
Moriarty stepped down before the pillar could once more become a part of the platform beneath himself. His arms crossed as he stared Arson down. Who didn’t break eye contact with Moriarty for anything, not even to blink.
“How did you know I was there, you one of those weird sensory types,” asked Moriarty. Arson’s brow furrowed, but he kept smiling at Moriarty, which for unknown reasons to him, completely unsettled him. He felt oddly picked apart, analyzed, and categorized more and more with every blink of time that passed.
“I have a dominion, don’t know how to control it yet, but it helps,” said Arson. His cousin had trailed off in a way that left Moriarty aware that Arson was waiting for something, and when he looked for support from his elder cousin Autumn, none was found. She too stared as if she expected Moriarty to answer his questions.
She can’t seriously expect me to bend the knee in any way for this orphaned trash, can she…?
“You sure about this one, Autumn? I respect your judgment as my most reasonable sibling thus far, but this guy is giving me spark this up to feel better about himself vibes?”
“No, little brother, he’s just a closed off individual when it comes to new people,” said Autumn with an awkward smile that showed her growing discomfort.
Moriarty was shocked to see Autumn show genuine concern on her features. She was aware of how Arson truly only worked with orphans, and even then, that was only after a large period of hazing and unhealthy trust exercises.
While Moriarty knew nothing of what Aura had experienced her first days working for Arson as Autumn did, neither truly knew the scope of what Arson actually had planned.
“You can’t expect me to believe this street rat is really worth all the hype you and the others claim, Autumn. I’m not as gullible as the rest of you, I’m an Eco, not an Archon,” said Moriarty casually.
“No, sister, I believe I have absolutely confirmed he’s the type to mess things up for me rather than help us get our realm truly recognized by the heavens. He’s one of them. No offense, sister,” said Arson. Moriarty didn’t know what Arson was implying, but Xani failed to conceal a snort of laughter, so he could assume, at the very least, his statement had been as disrespectful as he felt it had been, or more so.
“What do you mean by that exactly, boy? Your superior? Because, of course, I am that and so much more,” said Moriarty his arms opening slowly in a show of power.
“You're my superior, in what way exactly?” asked Arson. Xani scoffed, and Autumn shook her head, both girls instinctually taking a step backwards. Moriarty smiled at this reaction from the two, this exact scenario having had played out many times in his life before. He’d never lost to an orphan, street rat, low born Cultivator, or any of the like, so had no plans on starting now.
“Would you like me to show you,” said Moriarty, raising his open hands up, the action causing two hands to be created from the ground just behind Arson. Stone and metal woven in a blink as the giant appendages slid silently from below, clutching the air in an obvious threat.
“Please, be my guest,” said Arson, not even a single glance taken at what was manifesting not even a few yards away from him.
“It would be my honor, rat…!”
…
Xani shook her head. She didn’t know that Arson could actually beat the scion in front of her, but she’d seen Arson defeat a few opponents she’d once doubted anyone she knew would ever come close to be able to engage with in any form of combat.
She’d pulled Autumn closer to herself, and away from Arson, his Living Hand constructs raising off his shoulders, but to her surprise, Arson didn’t manifest his weapon from his inventory. Instead, his knuckles cracked, and he rolled his neck to stretch. Seeing this as his opportunity, Moriarty, slammed his hands together.
“Arson watch—“ Autumn tried to warn Arson before the hands could collide with one another, but to her surprise as well as Xani’s, two massively proportioned hands, were stopped by what looked like two gauntlets only slightly larger than Arson’s own hands.
A pressure wave exploded from the twin impacts. Arson’s hair ruffled by the stirring of wind and pressure. His living hand constructs, centered perfectly in the center of the massive elemental hands that had just attempted to squash him like a bug.
Arson then took a sprinter's stance. Both his living hand constructs now pushing back Moriarty’s elemental manipulations. One of the pair pushing so hard that Moriarty’s own construct was being torn slowly from the ground, a series of cracks becoming more defined by the blink at the giant hand's base.
“Start looking at the APK for me, Xani. Show Autumn what she needs to see if you manage to find it,” said Arson before he tore toward the stunned Moriarty in a flash of movement.
“Brother, wait,” tried Autumn, but her youngest brother was already honed in on his target.
“Don’t bother. We have bigger things to concentrate on than your family's apparent problem with pecking orders. Our chain of command ends with Arson, and anyone who doesn’t agree can bite embers and sparks for all I care.” Though Autumn didn’t agree completely, she nodded in confirmation, as even she struggled in recent days to not think of Arson as her own leader.
"Will he be okay?” Xani turned around and looked at the pair of combating cousins and shrugged. She honestly didn’t care if Arson won or lost, it wouldn’t change what he needed them to help him with, and losing to Moriarty may actually ingratiate Arson’s relative to their group far more than what was currently occurring.
Arson could be seen hurdling 3-meter walls summoned by Moriarty, closing the distance between him and his cousin in mere instances, destroying the attempt to fend off his approach. Xani couldn’t help but notice Arson wasn’t using his weapon, nor had he tried to strike Moriarty at a distance with the orbs of conductive water he was known to use above all else.
“Do you mean Arson, or Moriarty,” asked Xani. She’d already turned back toward the APK and started to lift the lid of the treasure chest. Multi-colored light escaped the closed space, along with a pressurized smoke and a hiss that drew Autumn's attention away from the fight.
“Arson. My cousin is a dungeon raider, he’s fought lions the size of small hills, he’s not to be doubted either.”
“Yeah, that’s nice,” said Xani, searching through the menus offered by the Architects Puzzle Kit. A search for Adroit Academy that Xani believed would be easy to find.
“What is this?” asked Autumn, her hand unintentionally reaching toward the lid as the mana from the chest spilled out.
“Shhh, you’ve already asked me too many questions today, but keep an eye on that fight for me, haven’t figured out how to look at things behind my head yet like my rival can,” said Xani. Growing annoyed by how many choices there were.
“Adroit Academy auction, Adroit Academy bar, Adroit Academy car-lot, Adroit Academy, climbing course, Adroit Academy dungeon zones,” Xani skipped all of the choices until she fell upon what she believed she was supposed to be looking for.
“Here we go. Adroit Academy Campus,” said Xani to herself than to the awestruck Autumn. The young woman behind Xani not glancing toward the fight for a moment.
Xani made her selection on the machine, and the scenery around the girls was changed.
Embers, Arson. You always leave the camera setting on the citizen perspective.
In an instant and burst of smoke and lights constructed a city far beyond the possible capabilities of the current cultivator within their realm layers to construct.
“What in the sparks?” Xani froze not only at the very refined Autumn cursing, but the city they stood within was artwork from edge to edge of what they could currently see. This made Xani wonder if they were in the richest quarters of the a city-sized campus.
“Yeah yeah yeah. Give me a moment to breathe, will you!” screamed Xani in response to the yells of confusion that came from the construction crews Arson had hired, they too wrapped up in the illusion created by the APK.
The treasure being used was a suspected heavenly toy for children of gods, powerful enough to envelop them all in lights twisted to recreate landscapes so perfectly the area they now all stood in was indistinguishable from reality.
Xani found the camera functions within the menus and altered them to be given a far zoomed out aerial perspective, rather than the first person zoomed in view that allowed Arson to walk the grounds of an area he was interested in trying to build. Arson more inclined to catch the details he felt were often missed from a sky down view, than Xani who preferred to always see the whole picture at once.
The city of art and majesty that was known as Adroit Academy’s Campus, was not the place they were looking for by far. Most, if not all, of the buildings were made from steel and marble. Statues that seconded as skyscrapers lined the streets. Each intricately designed building linked to the next in some way shape or form.
The tiered city flowed from its outward base, to its inward apex, but any who saw the sight would know the location wasn’t sitting on a large mountain, it instead was designed on a slope.
Autumn gasped as the camera stopped far enough away to reveal the center of the incredibly vast campus, its interior completely covered in a fog so thick it couldn’t be seen through. A small box sat centered in the fog that read, *Experience levels not high enough for this content, complete more constructions at lower difficulties before returning to attempt this project again.*
Once Xani read the words the city began to dissolve. Xani was sad to see the place disappear, even though she was looking for a completely different place. Never before had she seen such a place where buildings were in the shape of women and men.
Xani even saw the construction of a man lifting a little girl over a ledge above his head. The man’s body a climbing challenge of sorts that spanned thousands of feet from base to apex. The little girl he held up, into the next tier of the massive campus upper body, was lain into a park, as if she struggled to climb a ledge and needed help. Her arms, literal slides that led deeper into the recreational area.
How the truly lucky must live at the top…
“What was —“ Autumn tried to ask about the APK for a second time, but Xani wasn’t in the best of moods for multiple reasons, and cut in before she could even think of finishing her question.
“Aren’t you supposed to be watching that fight for me?” Autumn closed her mouth and nodded, while the treasure chest slid from the ground. A portal mouth the size of the open treasure chest, lifted into the air with a hiss of steam, the frame and body of the APK dematerializing in a breath.
“Hey Arson, you didn’t unlock the higher levels on this thing yet?” Xani yelled as she selected another choice she thought could be where they were currently located, only for yet another place to appear, and be completely foreign.
“No, didn’t think I would be able to use it after I got my core all those season cycles ago!” Xani frowned, and continued to look, growing more and more annoyed, having no plans on searching tens of thousands of options to find what they were looking for.
“So are you just wanting me to not watch what you are doing, or give you an actual play by play,” asked Autumn, who still struggled not to touch the device Xani used.
“Both… obviously.” Autumn nodded, and turned her back to Xani to watch her brother and cousin fight.
“Did I do something for you not to like me?” The question struck Xani off-guard, but she wasn’t the type to run from confrontation, not that she felt Autumn was being aggressive in anyway, more that she felt that her own feelings on Autumn’s involvement with the project was an unresolved friction that she’d only recently come aware of.
“You didn’t do anything really. I’m just bothered by how understanding Arson is being to all of you. I’ve been around him since I was prepubescent, and he felt that pranks were more important than being understanding. Now the lot of you get to come into my little brother’s life, and call him brother without having to be understanding toward him. Ehhh, eat a fat flaming coal and umm die, or whatever,” There was no response for a while, and eventually Xani looked over her shoulder toward the silent Autumn, the young woman’s dropped jaw, and widened eyes enough to give Xani the hint that maybe she’d said something wrong.
“What, too much truth? I do that sometimes…”