The Making.

I stomped into the cave, dragging the entire small tree through the narrow crack. I dropped it carelessly and punched the wall next to my collection of totems, a recess the same shape as the others Tobias had made formed under my fist.

“Careless…”

I channelled a totem and pumped all my mana into it, making a long lasting [Healing Hearth Totem] doubling down on the regeneration of all my other totems.

“What happened!” Tobias demanded helping Elina lie Paula on the table, she was looking much better the wounds on her legs healing fast.

Delia walked over and grabbed the corpse of one of the worms, tossing it towards Tobias.

“These things are in the river, only one hour upstream.” She looked shaken, Keisuke was pale.

“Disgusting.” Tobias picked up the foul creature and looked it over. “Are we safe here?”

I thought for a while.

Shaking my head. No.

I pulled my Codex out and mentally doodled a quick sketch, it looked like the plunge pool beneath the waterfall. The entrance to our cave was now raised up high from the surface of the water, and there was an overhanging lip protruding out like a ledge preventing slimy worms from slithering up the wall.

I showed Tobias, and said. “We lift the whole thing… Together.”

He looked at my drawing and slowly nodded, “It will take a long time to move that much rock. We can flow the ravine around the cave, taking from the top and adding to the bottom.”

I had recovered some mana so I dropped an [Earth Spirit Totem] making it wide enough to cover the whole base out past the entrance.

He felt the effects immediately, and nodded testing the effects on a nearby patch of rock.

“Find Oleksiy? Jack?” I asked Indaya and Elina. We needed to make sure they knew about the worms, they weren’t terribly strong but the venom could wipe us out if we were unprepared.

“We will bring them back, watch the waters.” Indaya took charge and jogged out of the cave, slipping into the pool quietly... Elina following.

“Delia can you make a ladder?” Asked Tobias, already planning out the new height of our cave.

Delia started conjuring spools of rope and I cut some branches from my tree, scraping the bark off them and rounding the ends with thick notches. They would be rungs for the ladder.

Tobias sat in the centre of the cave and started concentrating hard, as I worked on the rungs I pushed [Earth Manipulation] into the walls around us. I was really experienced with the Manipulation spells, and so even if I had lost the levels I had earned in the transfer to Potestas... I still felt that they were simple to use.

I would soften the surroundings and Tobias would flow the stone and dirt from above to below raising the entire cave gradually. We had to keep stopping for breaks, and I kept refreshing my totems. But after a few hours, the cave was only a few metres from the top of the ravine.

Everything in the cave was the same, Tobias had amazing control over his chosen elemental focus of earth and stone. He even kept the stream flowing through the cave, making the outlet a small pipe that poured from under the new ledge.

I had made the exit concealed. The side closer to the waterfall was pulled inward and the side facing the ravine pushed outward, nestling the landing around the corner. It was hidden from view, anyone looking up the ravine would miss it.

It was thick, and wide enough to stand three people on side by side. I had made razor thin striations in the stone down to the plunge pool, making it extremely hard to climb up to without slicing yourself to ribbons.

I created a spiked awning for the waterfall entrance, no good protecting it from below if you can just clamber in from the top. Delia and Keisuke made a trip to the rock pools above us and harvested some plants, I replanted them strategically along the outcrop increasing our camouflage.

Delia had also finished making the rope ladder. It would allow people to climb up from the pool below us, and I had carved a staircase a few meters up so we could walk up to the rock pools without climbing. Tobias or I would have to shift a large stone door to open the passage.

I was done, not even feeling that tired. Tobias however was conked out, but he had spent around five hours straight moving hundreds of tons of stone and dirt, tiny sections at a time.

While I fixed the smaller details.

It was getting late, and Indaya hadn’t returned with the wayward Oleksiy and Jack yet. We were debating going out to find them.

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“We have no idea where they even are! If they return while we are away we could miss them. It is better to wait before sending a search party.” Abu said, he was being logical. Search parties could easily miss a wounded person in the thick scrub of the jungle.

You could walk right by them, close enough to touch and never even know.

“They are capable, I do not doubt their abilities.” Keisuke said, inspecting the rusty looking ball I had ripped out of the ground.

“We will wait till dawn, if they have not returned we will mount a search party for them.” Paula made her self clear, looking much better after basking in the ‘Infused’ totem for a few hours. It compounded with her own new [Regeneration] skill and the [Healing Hearth Totem] giving her the maximum regeneration possible at this level.

I had at some point during the day, made her a super concentrated [Rivers Lament Totem]... Just to purge the last dregs of toxin in her blood, Abu kept her under observation as well.

I nodded, it was no use worrying.

They would return on their own, I trusted them to make the right decisions in the field.

All of us had passed through the Eligere we were all Delegati.

We had work to do.

----------------------------------------

I settled down in the early evening to work on my eucalyptus tree, it was solid hardwood. And I would need to do a lot of chopping and carving with my knife to shape it correctly.

Tobias had made a third large room full of worktops, and benches, and shelves... While we were getting attacked by the lamprey worms.

I set my tree up on one of the stone tables and started treating the wood.

Magic made life so easy… [Fire Manipulation] heated the timber evenly, [Air Manipulation] started pressuring it... Pushing down hard in all directions and [Water Manipulation] pulled the sap straight from the recently green tree. I poured the oily sap into buckets, and took my clubbed axe and tossed the stone away… leaving me with a handle again.

I took my obsidian dagger and attached it to the handle lengthways making a crude axe. Delia [Enchanted] the dagger earlier, and I knew it was tough enough. I chopped a section measuring around a metre and a half long, off the top end of the tree. Retrieving the dagger from the handle I started trimming down the object into the desired shape.

I was making a mahuituil like the Lizardman captain had been using, with our limited resources it was a solid option. It was almost entirely wood, and I would be able to attach sharpened stones, obsidian or even metal to make a deadly edge on both sides. Lessening the amount of metal we needed to craft for ourselves. It was a deadly design, and with some help from Delia’s enchanting it would last me a long while.

I had found that I lacked the temperament for more precise weapons like swords or bows while in the Eligere, I tended to end up using clubs and spears. ‘Maybe I was just a barbarian at heart?’

‘Maybe it was Kraas’vub’s bad influence on me, savage little bugger.’

I had the basic shape of my mahuituil finished, the tip was rectangular and as wide as a palm and a half, tapering down the length to a circular pommel at the end of the long grip. It was around about four centimetres wide, and squared off all the way down until it smoothed into the slightly oblong handle.

I had made sure to flatten the edges of the handle to make sure it wasn't too round. It would force my hands to aim the killing edge at the correct angle, so I didn’t just end up slapping them with the flat of the bladed club.

I went to ask Keisuke if he had seen any obsidian along the river.

“Ah! Crass-sama you made a great find!” He greeted me excitedly, his ever present calm broken.

“Its iron!” I looked at him dubiously. Basic iron wasn't that great of a find, It was terrible for holding an edge and it wouldn't make a very good sword or knife.

“I can make steel!” He was chattering on faster and faster about charcoal, and drop forges, and heat treatments with fire spells, and making the perfect blades…

‘Where did my stoic Samurai go?’

“OK.” I responded, so this is the thing that he enjoys enough to make him excitable…

‘Sword nerd…’

I was happy we had a strong material, we could make long lasting tools and weapons with carbon steel. Another cornerstone of civilisation…

He didn’t answer me about the obsidian, too exited to have the opportunity to create steel from scratch… So I left to make some more handles.

I made a few for axes and some for shovels and some for swords I even made a nice shaft for a spear. [Carving] and my high attributes, making short work of the beautiful hardwood.

I even made some wooden cutlery and plates, so we wouldn't be eating off leaves.

I collected the buckets of sap and stripped off all the remaining leaves, tunnelling out a large stone cauldron that ventilated into the open air overlooking the waterfall. I set down a [Fire Spirit Totem] and started boiling the mixture of leaves and sap. Adding buckets of water and crushing the leaves as I went.

It smelled lovely, very different from the tanning solution. I called Tobias over to help me make a thin netting of stone, carefully lifting it out through the cauldron removing the left over leaf matter. I had boiled it into a thick eucalyptus oil useful for protecting wood and even making lacquers. I coated the various woodworking I had done and set them to dry.

It was a few hours before midnight and the others still hadn’t returned, I had sent Grubs as far as I could down the ravine. To let me know if he spotted them…

Tobias was the only one who had gone to bed, everyone else was working away. Waiting to see the others come back.

“Sleep… I will watch…” If we didn’t rest tonight we would struggle to find them in the morning, no use torturing all of us.

And my high Vitality was keeping me fresh.

I took the unfinished mahuituil and began carving it slowly. I opened myself to my [Spiritualism] skill and let my hands flow without thinking, letting the spirit of the wood guide me. I sank into a meditative state, gently feeling the ebbs and flows of the Ethereal Sea suffusing the area.

The others went to bed one at a time, until I remained alone. Grubs was perched up, at the mouth of the ravine, watching for signs of the others.

I carved whirling patterns into the flat sides of the club, making the savage tool into a thing of functional beauty. I didn’t know what it would look like in the end, but I knew it would fit the spirit of the tree.

I carved until an hour before dawn.

Grubs had spotted them, they swam up the narrow ravine. Ending in the plunge pool below us, they cast around looking for the entrance to the cave. Grubs scuttled along, sliding over the rocks, He hissed at Indaya, promptly leaping onto his exposed head.

Guiding the confused explorers over to the now uplifted and hidden cave.

I walked over to the landing and dropped the rope ladder down to them. I had, with Delia’s help... lashed it to a pair of stone pegs protruding from the side of the spiked awning. Allowing anyone climbing it to bypass the bladed bottom of the landing and step off the side of the ladder onto safety.

Indaya and Elina climbed up and waited for Jack and Oleksiy to grab on hauling, the two up with pure strength. I prepared my totems and spells, wondering if they were badly injured while calling for the others who were sleeping.

Jack flopped onto the ledge and I dragged her clear of the landing into the dwelling, Elina following with Oleksiy. I looked Jack over, pumping a [Close Wounds] into her as I scanned her for injuries. A few scrapes closed up on her face and hands but I couldn’t find any other visible wounds.

“You … OK… Jacky?” I asked her softly, trying a nickname to make her feel more at ease.

“Aye Crassie we’re OK… had a rough day, but we have news.” She was exhausted. Heaving breaths almost rattling her across the stone floor.

“Good… Here food…” I stood up and wandered over to the kitchen area. I grabbed some smoked catfish, flash heating it with my magic.

She inhaled the food, almost choking. Delia handed her some water.

Oleksiy was slumped in a chair, Abu checking him over.

“We found their city… The Lizardmen…” He managed to gasp out, Exhausted.

‘Did he say city???’