Calvin and Amy stopped by to poke their head in and check on Ian. They were excited to see what upgrades he’d gotten, but he was fast asleep. It would be good for him to rest. Calvin desperately hoped that Seth could come up with a solution for Ian. He’d been instrumental in their success so far. He was coming into his own power and seeing him lose so much hurt them all.
They made their way through Olympus, stopping to check on the various efforts to get the town back in ship shape. The citizens were working hard and there was no sense of drudgery in their actions. They were all dedicated to fixing their home and making it safer than ever.
The nanites were hard at work all around them, cleaning up the rubble and rapidly repairing the walls. This would be the ultimate focus. Calvin thought back to Tank’s explanation of Knox’s attack on their settlement. The walls needed to be much stronger. He would meet with Andy and Seth to see what improvements they could make.
Passing the training yards, they could see the soldiers hard at work. Liam and Sasha were running them through various drills, incorporating lessons they’d learned from the previous days of fighting. Tank was there with them as well, providing his tactical expertise. It was going to be a massive benefit to them having fighters who were actually trained in this stuff. Calvin nodded over to them and they returned a salute as he passed by. Tank watched the salute and gave Calvin an appraising look, then nodded to himself and saluted as well.
They were on their way to Seth’s workshop. They’d really wanted to find out what he got at level 20 but also to probe him about the million other things on their to-do list, like Ian and the walls.
Entering Seth’s shop, they saw that it was much the same as it always was. The shop’s workbenches were filled with an assortment of materials and gadgets, scattered everywhere. The floor was littered with broken machinery, remnants of Seth’s failed experiments that he had obviously neglected to clean up. Standing near the back wall, Seth operated one of his barrier drones, projecting a barrier in front of him. Using different tools and materials, he tapped on the barrier, producing a series of ripples that spread across its surface. He muttered his observations to himself, carefully noting the various effects as he went along.
“Hey Seth.” Calvin greeted.
“Cal. Hey Amy.” he greeted back. Freya bounded over to him to collect her daily scritches tax, “Hi there Freya. I hope you’re keeping Calvin out of trouble.”
She yipped and a treat popped into reality, directly into her open mouth.
“You guys should come check this out.” Seth said.
They approached the barrier drone, not detecting anything out of the ordinary.
“What are we looking at here?” Calvin asked.
“Well, this is just the standard issue MK-1 Barrier drone. Marshall named it Wally.” Seth said as he shook his head in mock shame.
“At level 20, I picked up something incredible.” Seth said, then flashed up his skill prompt for them to read.
Energy Architect: An artificer is adept at many things. They are generalists and have a wide variety of capabilities, able to specialize wherever they see fit. Energy Architecture is one such specialization. The artificer gains supernatural insight to the flow of energies of all types, understanding their very nature. An Energy Architect will be able to apply these insights to directly manipulate the flow of energy, supplementing not only their own creations, but all energetic objects. Selecting this skill may have significant impacts on the skills and evolutions offered to you in the future.
“Sounds pretty good. I’m not entirely clear on what it does though.” Calvin said.
“I figured, and I’m still learning it as well. Watch.”
Seth tapped the barrier with a metallic rod. The ripples pulsed from the point of impact like a small stone dropping into a pond.
“You see those ripples right? I can see their structure now. I’ve come to understand that those ripples are the nanite energy working to distribute the force applied across the barrier. Which seems like a simple enough concept. What I’ve also come to understand is the source of that ripple. The nanites communicate with each other. The ripple is a physical manifestation of that communication, spreading across the surface, and causing them to adjust orientation to suppress the conflicting energy.”
“What’s that mean for us?”
An enormous grin formed on Seth’s face.
“Well, check this out. I’ve been able to tap into that communication, and the source of their energy.” he tapped on the array on the barrier drone. “Go ahead and step back a bit.”
Seth etched a rune into the array, and placed a small essence stone in the center. Instantly the barrier nearly tripled in size, and changed color from a golden shimmer to a deep ocean blue.
“Woah!” Calvin exclaimed.
“Amazing right? I can make it even bigger. It’s much stronger in this configuration too. The shop is a little cramped to go much larger. Give me some time and I can integrate something like this into the walls. There’s a downside though.”
“What’s that?” Calvin asked, staring at the barrier in amazement.
“The barrier drones contain their own energy source that’s built in while producing it. That stone I placed on the drone was an essence stone, the rune uses it like a battery. In order to power barriers like this for the walls, we would need to provide an energy source. I can create rune pathways to them so that casters can channel their own energy into the barriers to power them, but that reduces their ability to fight of course. Any essence stones we find should work, the attunement doesn’t matter. I’m also working on some ideas to create a sort of artificial essence stone, but running that theory through Andy made me realize I’m quite a ways away from that.”
“We’ll get missives on the board right away for essence stones. This is pretty huge.”
“It gets better Cal, I wasn’t going to show off the best part first you know.”
On the workbench, a sentry drone lay dismantled. Its components were laid out like an exploded blueprint of the machine.
“I also have been able to examine the energy weapons on this drone. Applying the same concepts, I can not only enhance their firepower… I should be able to adapt the firing mechanism to create defensive turrets for the walls. Also, now that I understand the energy flow much better, I can adapt bio-energy into them for healing. Lots of projects, so that might fall to the bottom of the stack for a bit. I’ve also got the drone kit working on some higher-end prototypes for more powerful drones. All in all, we’re going to have options, lots of options.”
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“So, we’re going to have a proper fortress soon?” Calvin asked. He was close to rubbing his hands together like a businessman who’d just struck an amazing bargain.
“Soon-ish. There are still many things I need to learn, and materials we’re going to need. I can start laying the groundwork though and who knows, I might have a breakthrough on the power source thing after sitting with this ability some more.”
“What about Ian? Will this help there?”
“Definitely. I can already make some rudimentary prosthetics. That part wouldn’t be too tough. It’s a bit different than your hand though. There’s a lot that would go into being able to control and move around on new legs, and I’m not a professional in that area of medicine. I could make legs, I could help him learn to control them, but I’m not entirely confident he’d be able to get around like he used to. At least not yet. We’ll get him back on his feet, but it could be a while before he’s running around adventuring.”
“Understood. That’s all we can ask. Keep me updated on your progress here. This is good stuff. We’ll be around town, have Andy page us if you need me.”
Calvin slapped Seth on the back as they departed.
They found Marshall chatting with the pharmacist. Calvin hadn’t had the time to stop by and introduce himself properly yet. She was about the same height as Marshall, and nearly the same age too as far as Calvin could tell. They’d been discussing her skills and what sort of things she was able to make.
“Sup Cal. Have you met Liara?” Marshall asked.
“I haven’t. It’s nice to meet you. Sorry to interrupt, I was just checking in on Marshall and thought it would be a good time to come by and see how things were coming along for you as well.”
“Nice to meet you too. Things are going great, we’re getting the shop back up and running. Thankfully my supplies I’d created were mostly undamaged.”
“Supplies? What are you able to produce?”
“Potions, pills, medicines. Seems like the sky’s the limit. Right now I can do some pretty basic resource potions, some antidotes, and I’ve got one type of elixir that greatly improves toughness for a short time. I was just talking with Marshall about that actually.”
“Yeah Cal, you came at a good time. Liara is basically a genius.” he gave her a cheeky smile.
Amy looked between the two of them and finally understood what was happening. Marshall was flirting. Oh, poor, poor Liara.
“So, I hit some pretty big upgrades at 20, and came over here to do some strategizing with Liara. Check this out.”
Marshall flipped up his skill prompt.
Patient Zero: The combat medic maintains battlefield command over bio-energy. Select a target as Patient Zero. A wave of bio-energy erupts from the target spreading throughtout the battlefield. If the target is hostile, all negative biological effects such as marks and toxins are spread to all enemies contacted by the wave. If the target is friendly, all positive biological effects are spread to nearby allies. This effect does not increase or reset the duration of those effects. This is a continuously evolving skill, having many options to evolve and grow with the wielder.
“I was thinking about Amy’s toxins, and my Bio-Mark skill. But then I had a thought, what about Liara’s medicines. Her elixirs that enhance toughness, or anything that performs healing over time, should spread as well. She was going to cook up some things for us to test out.”
“That’s a pretty good skill Marshall. I can see why you wanted to come straight here to talk to Liara about it.” Amy said. She tossed a wink at the now blushing Liara. “C’mon Cal, they’ve got their hands full with all this medical stuff.”
They had spent several hours moving about the town and helping out wherever they could. Things were coming along very well and Olympus was slowly getting back to its original state. Maybe even a little better with some of the improvements they were making. Calvin had asked for everyone to meet up by their cabins later and it was getting close to that time, so they began to meander back. They had just one more important mission on the way.
“Hey Cal. Got your order prepped and ready to go! I threw in some stuff I’ve been trying out, let me know what you think.” the chef at Ambrosia said.
“Thanks Stan, I’m sure it’s going to be amazing as always.” Calvin said as he picked up the crate of food. The incredible smells threatened to overcome Calvin’s willpower right there in the shop. But he called upon his inner strength, knowing that if he showed up without the food he’d promised… there would be hell to pay.
Everyone was seated around the fire when they’d arrived. Even Ian was there, having been helped out to the fire by Tank and Marshall.
“Thanks for coming by everyone. Dig in and we’ll get started.”
“No need to thank me Cal. Any time you offer to buy dinner, I’m here.” Marshall said.
“I know it was probably hard for you to cut your date short, but hopefully we’ll be quick.” Calvin said with a sly smile.
Everyone was happily tucking into Ambrosia’s amazing food. If there were any positives to speak about in the new system-governed universe… the food was way up there at the top of the list.
“Alright, we’ve got a ton of things to consider. Thanks for taking the time to meet with us Tank.” Calvin nodded.
“We have several issues in the pot right now. There’s the system quests, defending Olympus, and the threat of Knox. All of these are a top priority and they’re all conflicting with each other.” Calvin began.
“What are the conflicts?” Tank asked.
“Well, the way I see it, the system quests have to get done. The penalties for not completing them, while vague, sound like they could be very bad. The system doesn’t issue rewards and penalties lightly in my experience. In order to complete those quests, our most powerful people need to leave Olympus. This puts the defense of Olympus at risk. We also know that Knox is out there, and that also requires our most powerful people to deal with. Leaving Olympus for any of those objectives, leaves it open to monster attacks, or Knox. Splitting our groups doesn’t seem like an option in either case, we know Knox is extremely powerful and we can assume the quests will be difficult as well.”
“I think I can help with that decision.” Ian said, “Obviously I can’t go with you, but I’m not going to sit around and be useless. Seth will at least be able to get me somewhat mobile, even if I have to be on crutches. I should stay here and support the defense of the town. I haven’t selected my skill yet for level 20, I was going to wait to discuss with you all to figure out what we needed the most, I have two options in particular that we’re going to want to consider heavily.”
“If Ian stays behind, I should stay as well.” Seth added, “I can get barriers up, and Ian can help charge them. At least if Knox shows up, we’ll have that added layer of defense.”
“We’ll lose out on quite a bit of firepower out there having both of you stay behind.” Calvin said. He didn’t really love the thought of being without Ian and Seth both.
“Reaper and Crash can fill in those spots. If firepower’s what you need, they’ve got it.” Tank said.
“What about you?” Calvin asked.
“I would stay here and work with Liam and Sasha on coordinating the defenders. Liam and Sasha have the leadership and I can supply the tactics.”
“Ok, the idea is growing on me a bit. I do have a pretty major concern still. If something happens, if more monster waves show up, if Knox shows up, if the system decides to send spaceships down and start blowing everyone up, we’ll have no way to know and no way to get back and assist.” Calvin said.
“That’s what I wanted to wait and discuss. I have two skill options that benefit us in different ways. First, I have a portal skill.” Ian said before showing them all the prompt.
Quantum Anchor: The nanomancer has absolute control over the nanite fabric. Quantum Anchor allows the nanomancer to create a spatial anchor. Activating Quantum Anchor allows the nanomancer to create a doorway linking their current point in space to their anchor, allowing instantaneous travel between the two. This is a continuously evolving skill, having many options to evolve and grow with the wielder.
The group’s eyes went wide while reading it.
“The only problem I see with this skill is that I don’t know if I have to be present to activate it. Andy wasn’t able to help there. I was hoping that Seth and I could infuse this into a rune, like a portal mine.”
Seth pondered on it for a moment, “It’s possible. The mines we’ve used before don’t cast the skill they were infused with. They release the energy that was used to attune it. If the energy of this skill is directly tied to the anchor, then it should work, but we wouldn’t know until we test it.”
“That’s the reason I didn’t pick it right away. It’s a risk if the test doesn’t work, then it’s useless since I can’t go with. The other skill is more directly useful to us. It’s called Meteor and it’s just like it sounds. I can channel a bombardment of meteors. If monster waves show up, this is basically a trump card.”
The team sat with those choices. They could see why it was tough. The portal would be the top choice for sure… but it was a risk. Ian would have to select it, and if it didn’t work, they’d lose out on the defensive potential from Meteor. Meanwhile, Meteor was powerful, but it still left Olympus without reinforcements if something were to go wrong. The team spent the next hour deliberating over these choices.