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It took them a surprisingly long time to realise that something was wrong, and by then my hypothesis was proven.
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Bzzzzzt…. Zap!
“Fuck,” Matt exclaimed as he jerked his face away from the runaway reaction. “What happened? I hardly fed any essence into the rune!”
“Here,” Verdant pointed to the small crystalline plate clamped to his desk. A thin spiral of angry, black smoke was slowly rising up from one of the symbols he had carved into the practice plate. Three weeks ago, they had come across a thin, tall building at the edge of the Eastern part of the city. Matt could still remember his excitement when he realised he had found a Rune Crafter’s workshop. Books filled with recipes, a range of styluses for engraving, and stacks and stacks of thin crystal plates like the one he was currently working on. Since then, he had ridden that wave of intense curiosity, doing his best to combine his duties to the growing settlement with his explorations into the world of symbols.
Verdant had proved both a patient and skilled teacher, even if Matt would have liked her to sometimes just tell him what he did wrong. Instead, she insisted on him figuring it out for himself. “What do you see?”
Matt shook his head to clear it and peered down at what the Fae was pointing at. The connection from the input array into the first capacitor bay looks fine, no scorch marks, and–
“Aloud, Matt,” Verdant said. “Let me hear your reasoning.”
Matt sighed and leaned back in the chair, casting a look at the book resting on the other desk, open to a page showing a drawing of what was supposed to be a simple wave modulator. When successful, the rune would transform a continuous stream of essence into discrete pulses. It was the first complete rune that Verdant had told him to try; not because it was useful in itself, but because it was one of the fundamental building blocks of more complex runes. Verdant had even claimed the rune to be so simple that anyone could draw it, which didn’t help Matt’s mood.
Matt had claimed the Rune Master’s workshop as his own, and was now sitting in the main laboratory in the basement. As Sanctuary was slowly becoming a city of, filled with people wielding strange and awesome skills, the utter strangeness of the situation was a constant source of awe and wonder to Matt. Walking through the streets, he had to shift his attention away from the constant streams of essence that saturated the air as people practised and experimented. Slowly, workshops were occupied with people who now only had an aptitude and interest for the various crafts, but many even had skills to help them.
An insistent buzzing drew Matt’s attention back to his work, and he leaned forward to inspect the engraved crystal plate. He let his eyes trace the surface before speaking. “The essence built up in this conductor here,” he pointed to an arrangement of thick lines. “Then it overloaded. That was just before reaching this inductor, which was supposed to buffer the flow, then…”
Matt scratched his head as he looked at the delicate double spiral, which was supposed to provide a dampening effect before the energy flowed through to the pulse capacitors.
“Those inductors should be able to deal with that level of essence. I balanced the capacitor bay with the input array like you taught me, Verdant.” He looked down at a notebook full of calculations. “The numbers work out.”
“They do,” she answered. “But…”
“But…” Matt began, before peering closer. “Ok, the overload happened before the inductors. Here.” He pointed to a place on the plate where a fine line was jagged with the aftereffects of the small explosion. “But if it happened before the dampener, the input amplitude is too great. Do I need to throttle it? How do I even do that? No. That can’t be right. If I throttle the input even more, it won’t trigger the transistor array. It was barely reaching the threshold as it was.”
Verdant let Matt struggle for another moment, before offering a suggestion. “Look closer there, where the burned-out conductor connects with the transistors. Close your eyes, picture the flow of essence. There’s the signal from the array, then…”
Matt did as she suggested, closing his eyes and trying to see the flow of essence. When they first found the Rune Crafter’s workshop, Verdant had pointed out how its owner must have worked blindly, drawing symbols and runes from memory with no real understanding of what they did. Matt was the only human, as far as she knew, who had ever been able to see the threads.
“Oh…” he breathed out. “There’s a feedback effect between this junction and the capacitor. It loops! The transistor array needs to output the excess essence into a diode?”
“Exactly!” Verdant buzzed with excitement. “Because, after–”
“After the first time the array is triggered, there will be a continuous flow, which will loop back into the trigger input if we don’t direct the flow in a single direction. Which is why we need a diode symbol!”
“Exactly,” Verdant smiled down at Matt. “Now, try again.”
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Matt had just grabbed a new plate from the stack in the corner of the room, and was using chalk to sketch out a version of the rune design which would leverage the strange diode symbol, when Vic knocked on the doorframe and stuck his head through the door.
“Matt, council meeting. And a new group of newcomers.”
“Thor is back already?” Matt put the chalk down and drew his hand through his hair, not noticing how the gesture left his head covered in white flecks. He looked out the thin window high up on the wall, and was surprised to see the soft colours of evening. “Oh. It’s later than I thought.”
He stood up from his desk and stretched, noticing how his lower back had become a knot of tension. Groaning as he tried to settle his tense muscles, he went up the stairs with Vic. He collected his guandao from the rack next to the door, exchanging a silent greeting as he felt the weapon’s core reach out towards his own in a strange type of handshake. As the city had grown, more and more people walked around with skills and classes, powers and attributes that put Matt’s own abilities to shame.
Since their foray into the Tower Trial dungeon, their group hadn’t had much time to run dungeons or fight to gain power, instead being forced to do what they could to help the growing settlement. He still spent every morning and evening practising the guandao form or in meditation, but even as he felt his core growing more dense and powerful, it was a far cry from the demonstrations of power he had read about in some of the books he’d found in the abandoned city.
Now he stood with Vic on the threshold of what he hoped would one day be his own contribution to their success: a shop which Matt hoped would one day hold his own symbols and rune designs. Outside, he could see people walking by, or standing on corners just talking to one another. It had been nearly a month since Harl and Duncan and the children had arrived, and since then more than two hundred more people had taken up residence in the city. It was almost surreal to see the place coming to life around them.
“It’s quite a sight, isn’t it?” Vic said.
“I still don’t believe it. Some weeks ago, we were fighting a group of white lurkers right there,” he gestured to the space in front of the building, “and now there are children playing. Playing! Can you imagine… It’s the middle of the day, and instead of working the fields they are…” He turned to Vic with a big smile.
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“Yeah,” Vic grinned back. “Before coming up here, I stopped to watch them. They were just coming out of school.”
“School…” Matt’s voice trailed off. “It’s weird how quickly that has become something normal. Sending the children to learn instead of working… I’m wondering if that’s not one of the keys. In the long run. One of the keys to succeeding long term. We have to protect this place, we need to sustain the city. Not just survive this month or this year, but keep it going… That’s how we win. That’s how we last. I think it’s maybe even more important than the System. Duncan’s school changes our perspective fundamentally, forcing us to look forward.”
“And he’s so good with them,” Vic added.
“Duncan? Yeah. I even heard Thor talking about setting up some kind of secondary education for them. After they learn to read, to farm, to craft; Thor is planning some kind of Academy. You should have heard him yesterday. An academy for magic, to do more research into the System. Have you seen his study?”
Vic nodded. “Just from the outside. I didn’t dare to step inside. There’s paper everywhere. I heard he’s working on class synergies now, whatever that is.”
His voice now more subdued, Matt asked, “Do you think we’ll have the time? For…”
“I think… Maybe. It depends on this first year. What I saw in Brook was… I think we have time.”
“Yeah, that’s true. You came back yesterday? What did you learn?”
“Now that was a strange place. Have you heard about the social programmes?”
“Yeah, Mia told me. Is he really feeding everyone?”
“Yes, and the city is… Is full of all kinds of people. And every morning, they leave the city to work the fields, and every evening they march back in. It was so weird. All those people. And I… I think we still have time. Everything seemed calm. Hawth’s campaign apparently ended with our battle, and it doesn’t look like Duke Carrow is preparing for anything new. If anything, it looks like he is drawing down their forces. The mustering field was nearly abandoned. Harvest is coming up, also.”
“Yeah, with the whole social programme setup… They need to get the harvest in to keep it going through winter. Maybe that means they won’t have time to hit us, even if they… When, they learn about this place?” Matt was hopeful.
“Maybe. Oh, how about this… I was hanging out outside a tavern, listening to gossip, when this weird man entered and sat down. A cultist, I think. He was wearing a robe…” Vic’s voice trailed off as he looked at Matt. “Actually, now that I think of it, his robe was very much like yours. Not as nice, not as much fancy embroidery, but the cut was the same. With the hood and all. Anyway, when he entered the tavern, people moved away. They tried to hide it, but it was like he created a… a space around himself as he walked. People were afraid of him, but acted like he wasn’t there. He sat down all alone, and I kind of forgot about him. Then… and this is where it gets weird. The atmosphere had been easy going. People laughing and talking. Drinking, you know, just… And suddenly, people were shouting and yelling at each other. I don’t even know what they were angry about. People who’d been smiling and slapping each other’s backs a few minutes earlier were throwing punches.”
Vic shook his head. “I ran for the exit. I wanted to get away from that scene… But I noticed the guy in the robe. He was sitting still, quietly and all by himself still. His eyes were closed, and he was smiling. It was… so weird.”
“Huh,” Matt said. “What do you think that was about?”
“No idea, really. But I had this… feeling. The cultist was enjoying all the fighting… And there was something about him. A strange power… It reminded me of you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t really know. There was just something… There was power there. It’s just a hunch, but…”
“You think the cultists have powers like the nobles?”
“Maybe. Yes, yes I think so… Anyway, about us. I heard some people talking about farms and villages being abandoned, but nobody spoke about a cave, or magic. I think some people might have noticed people disappearing, but it’s not really that unusual these days. And I would have seen it if they were preparing to attack. There would have been signs.”
“Good. I think Pete’s more than busy with the Northern tunnels.”
Vic looked up at Matt. “Did they find the dungeon yet?”
“No.” Matt shook his head. “They are trying to clear the tunnels, but even the defence constructs are struggling. The monsters are still escaping, and they are holding them at the tunnel entrance. The monsters are very similar to the shadow spirits from the Tower Trials. Steel doesn’t do it. They need magic. I think Thor will help them after the meeting.”
“What’s on the agenda today then?”
“Normal stuff.” Matt yawned, realising he needed sleep. “Census numbers, logistics, food forecasts… And those new people Thor brought in.”
They continued their conversation as they arrived at the large central gardens, and followed a quietly winding path that took them past the small tea house. A young woman was sitting on a chair outside, sipping from a steaming mug and keeping a watchful eye on a small boy who was throwing small pieces of bread into the lake, where the golden fish was greedily accepting the donation. Matt smiled at the woman and nodded, but hurried after Vic, who was moving with impatient steps up ahead.
At last they arrived at the City Hall, and quickly climbed the stairs to the council chambers. It seemed like yesterday that they had discovered the place, sitting around the table and exploring Mia’s Mayor interface. Now the table was nearly full, and Matt walked over to take his seat at the far end, next to Pete. Thor was sitting across the table, and Matt smiled and nodded at the tall man. The slightly larger chair at the end was still empty, and Matt idly wondered where Mia was when he noticed the two newcomers sitting slightly apart from the others at the far end of the table.
Matt smiled and nodded. “Welcome, you are the new arrivals?”
The two men looked alike, both their faces sharp with angles that were hardly softened by shaggy haircuts and patchwork beards. One of them was slight of build, leaning back in his chair with a small smile breaking through a neutral expression. The other man leaned two muscular forearms on the table, his eyebrows drawn together as he stared with what looked like open hostility at Matt.
The larger man opened his mouth to say something, when the smaller man put a hand on the man’s arm and said, “Indeed we are. Just arrived this morning… This is some place you have here.”
“It is, isn’t it?” The large man was still staring daggers, and Matt wondered what was up with that as he focused on the smaller man. “I’m Matt.”
Something shifted in the man’s eyes. “Aha! So you are Matt. Duncan spoke about you. You discovered the cave? The pattern?” Matt smiled and nodded, and the man rose from his chair and approached Matt. “I’m Shawn, and that is my brother, Terrence. We’re from–”
The other man, Terrence, interrupted his brother. In a surprisingly high-pitched voice, he leaned back and asked in a voice too loud for the room, “What are we waiting for? That man spoke about magic. Power.”
Matt didn’t like the look in the man’s eyes. “We’re waiting for the Mayor… I don’t think it will be long. And yes… I think we have another two people waiting for the first dungeon, where you will get your first skills. You can join them. After that, it’s really up to you. If you do the Class Assignment Dungeon, you will get a class, which will give you even more options. But it’s dangerous… Not everyone does that. Even if you don’t get a class, you’ll get skills.”
Matt looked at Thor. “What was it you found out? An unclassed gains gets one free point per level, and can only use one skill?”
“Something like that,” Thor answered distractedly, his eyes focused on the newcomers. “But it’s not just a matter of picking up the powers. It’s not as easy as looking at that patterned ceiling. The dungeons can be dangerous, and with that level of risk… it’s not for everyone.”
Terrence sat up straighter and raised his voice. “What are you–”
Thor continued in a calm voice, “And if you defeat the dungeon, and if you get skills and powers, what do you intend to do with them?”
“That is none of your business” The large man was almost shouting now, and Shawn leaned in to whisper something in his brother’s ear.
“I apologise,” Shawn said a moment later, when Terrence had calmed down. “We’ve had a long journey. A long few weeks. But yes, why is it your business why we want power?”
A soft voice answered from the door. “To answer that, I think we need to start at the beginning.”
The door shut behind Mia as she walked into the door. “Sorry to keep you waiting,” she said and moved over to the end of the table. She took a moment to scan the room with her eyes, stopping momentarily on the newcomers, before sitting down.
“You are Terrence and Shawn? Welcome to Sanctuary,” Mia smiled. “We have quite a lot on our agenda today, but we like to start the council meetings by welcoming anyone new to our city. I understand Duncan has done the normal introductions. Is it correct that you are joining us with six adult men and three women, no children?”
“Why, yes,” Shawn began. “Sorry, who… Who are you?”
“I’m sorry,” Mia smiled. “I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Mia. The Mayor of Sanctuary.”
“You are what?” Terrence said, mouth left gaping as he looked around the room. “You are the Mayor? But, but.. You’re a girl. A small girl. Is this a joke?” The man looked around the room, as if waiting for someone to laugh at his expense.