"So," Ilya tried and failed to push Blake's construct away at the bottom and straightened her...robe. "We're both in a pit." She looked at the corpse of the dead demon and shivered. "What do we do now?"

"Now, my dear, we go back to the orc tower." He pointed to the altar. "That little rock there will take us. But I thought we'd better talk first. Do you think we can go back to your house safely?"

“I don't know.” Ilya frowned in thought. "The king knew my name. He called for me when we ran. I'm sure he learned where I lived."

Blake nodded, thinking the same. Though it didn't mean they kept guards there watching, and the secret little alcove by the river had served them well before. He looked at Ilya fidgeting slightly with her hands and raised a brow.

“What is it?”

“Nothing, it’s just…” she looked away before meeting his eyes. “After the demon, I was given a…bloodline, by my Gods. It changes things.”

“How so?”

She gained a little tinge of yellow, and Blake was struck by the rather inappropriate thought of what exactly was under that robe.

“There are very few orcs left with such things," Ilya explained. "It doesn’t always pass from parent to child, it’s just...a possibility. From the ancient days, the children of the great heroes who slew the demon that ruled us carried a bloodmark, or title, the gods called Highborn. Now I have it.”

Blake raised a curious eyebrow to spur her on.

“It means…” Ilya went even more yellow. “It means I'm now part of that legacy. It makes me something like a princess of the towers.” She turned and swore, the color fading slightly. “If only I was male. I would be owed allegiance of all the Stoneblood. As it is the most I can do is claim the tower lord as a mate.”

“Forgive me, but I’m rather pleased you’re not a male.” Blake grinned, but turned more serious. “I don’t think it changes anything, Ilya. King Gromsh doesn’t care about tower lords or clans or probably bloodlines. As we’ve seen, he’s happy to kill leaders who disagree. We can’t rely on anyone helping us.”

Ilya nodded sadly. "You're probably right. Do we...go back to your previous plan? Preparing orc warriors to fight him?"

Blake had been giving that considerable thought and shook his head. "No," he said, staring at nothing as he considered. "I can't trust it to work. And I'm afraid he'll slaughter them. There's no reason to throw away your people's lives. We need to find out his routine, ambush him when he's alone. Kill him together."

He looked up to see Ilya's eyes were glistening slightly. "All my life I was taught humans hated us. That they thought of us as animals and vermin." Blake said nothing and Ilya lowered her gaze. "What will you do? When he's dead?"

Good question, he thought, still not sure himself.

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," he said. "I'm not ready to face him. I need time and privacy and this place is going to kick us out in twenty-four hours." He stopped and considered the Maker's Hall...Lumiere and his new Artificer 'sense'. "Start thinking of somewhere we can go. We need to make one little stop before we leave."

He stepped towards his remaining constructs and Ilya sagged.

"We have to fly again, don't we?"

Blake grinned as he rose into the air.

* * *

"Lumiere!” Blake said as he entered the Maker’s Hall. “I'm delighted to see you again."

The floating torch seemed entirely less enthusiastic. Ilya stepped in behind him with wide eyes, grinning like a girl as she ran and stared at the incredibly high ceiling and metallic walls.

"This is amazing!" she shouted, obviously delighted with the echo.

"Pest control...welcome...welcome back." Lumiere zipped towards them with an even more fake than usual smile. "Would you and your...guest, like a tour of the Maker's Hall?"

"We would absolutely love one." Blake grinned. Then he 'activated' his new runic Artificer sense and inspected the little construct, smile widening as enchantments flared over the creature as obvious as the words in a book.

Though Blake wasn't sure exactly what he was seeing. He understood the alphabet, even the 'language', but not the meaning of all the words.

"Navi, can you identify everything I'm looking at? The enchantments I mean? Can you see them?"

"Yes, Master." Blake and his familiar both stared intently at Lumiere until the creature's fake smile dropped and his eyes flickered back and forth.

"If you would not like a tour now, I really must insist you..."

"True Making Construct,” Navi intoned. “Practical Object. Bound with a Maker's Mark and enchanted with Perpetual Light."

True Making? Ha! That meant Blake could create something just as sophisticated as the floating tour guide!

"What's a Maker's Mark?"

"An option of True Making, Master. It binds the construct permanently to whatever the creator's purpose, but comes with certain limitations."

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Blake frowned. "Can it be broken?"

"Apologies, Master, that is beyond my knowledge."

Blake expected it was also beyond his knowledge. But he was getting more eager to test his power properly by the second. It likely meant he couldn't take the construct out as he'd planned, but it was worth coming and worth taking a look at the other constructs as well. Who knew what he might learn if he just...

"You can, however, always deconstruct it, Master,” Navi suddenly chirped. Blake blinked.

"I can what?"

"A special function of your True Making is 'Unmaking', Master. There will be a variety of conflicting impediments, but you need only focus on the construct and..."

Blake instantly activated his power and focused on Lumiere.

"Wait...what? Stop! What are you? I am the special property of the Curator, and he will..."

Lumiere stopped as if frozen in time, and Blake's vision swirled with options and messages. A thrill shot through his body as he realized what it was saying.

It appeared Blake could pull apart literally any object he wanted, not just magical ones. Size and substance mattered, of course. When it came to constructs specifically it seemed the 'type', and the creator's attention also mattered.

Unfortunately for Lumiere, being a 'Practical Object' apparently put him at the lowest tier, as did a complete absence of his creator's attention. The only thing that helped him was his 'Maker's Mark', but that looked like it added a per cent cost. And the base cost was too low to matter. Blake triggered the effect, and watched his mana drop by less than 5%.

Lumiere shimmered, than shattered, his pieces vanishing before they struck the ground.

[True Making Discovery! Enchantment: Perpetual Minor Effect.]

[True Making Discovery! Maker's Mark.]

Blake smiled as he watched the text scroll, very pleased he'd thought to return. Apparently he had a great deal of learning to do, and almost simultaneously as he considered this more text appeared before his eyes.

[Objective: Discover another Maker's Hall and learn its secrets. Reward: a random Major Enchantment.]

"Damn you, roboGod," he muttered, feeling unbelievably compelled to do exactly that. He wasn't very pleased about dancing to an alien's tune, but he wasn't sure what choice he had, either. He also reminded himself to guard his thoughts. Always.

"Did you see these pictures?" Ilya shouted from somewhere ahead in the hall. "This is amazing! It looks just like people! Do all humans make things like this?"

Blake smiled, enjoying her enthusiasm, thinking this wasn’t made by humans.

Then he walked towards the armory, whistling with his hands behind his back. He had twenty-three hours left in this place, and he intended to make use of every single one of them.

* * *

[True Making Discovery! New Form Type: Defender]

[True Making Discovery! New Enchantment: Auto-Renewal]

Blake first pulled apart every statue left in the armory, slightly annoyed that he’d wasted two in combat and testing. He tried de-constructing the broken parts but this proved a waste of time.

"Wonderful find, Master! Your constructs have different archetypes, each with strengths and weaknesses. Currently you are limited to a 'standard' arrangement. But this new body type will give you new options. You'll have to discover the details through trial and error."

Blake nodded, very pleased with the find and explanation. As he'd tried to design the constructs it had seemed like he had infinite possibilities in terms of shape, and yet most of his 'models' came back with errors. He was guessing these new types would give him more real flexibility.

When he was finished with the armory, he took Navi over every square inch of the Maker Hall, scanning and looking for hidden doors or secrets. But he found nothing useful. They still had twenty hours, though, so he told Ilya he was going to practice some new magic.

"We should leave here completely ready, though. So I'm thinking about twelve hours of practice, then we make a plan, sleep and leave."

Ilya nodded, clearly a bit taken aback. "Do you need so much time? To practice I mean?"

Blake smiled politely and withheld the laugh. He suspected he could use twelve weeks without getting bored, such was the complexity of the construction magic.

"I'm afraid so." Blake finally opened True Making to build something new, and on something of a whim, decided the first thing he'd make would be to entertain Ilya.

As before he could select the ‘form’, the duration, and affinity. But there was an entirely new category—‘Practical Object’, like Lumiere, vs ‘Combat’ as seemed to be the standard option from before.

He chose Practical Object, which apparently gave him an empty canvass to imagine literally anything he wanted. For a moment he blanked in astonishment, then imagined a chair. It took blurry form until he forced his imagination to get clearer with the details, which were instantly represented with the power.

“My God,” he mumbled, then cycled through a dozen objects as quick as thought. Most were blurry and misshapen until he forced his brain to get more detailed, but the flexibility was astonishing. And he suspected he’d get better.

For now he tried to imagine a little robotic house cat, and was instantly prompted with which ‘stats’ to add—Mental, or just Physical? Well, that was new. He chose both, and instantly received yet another complex list of personality and features. Fortunately there were some ‘templates’, and he picked ‘Friendly Animal’, then slid the duration to twelve hours.

Just like that, his power locked his body into a brief channeling power, the energy shaping and focusing until the thing he’d imagined looked up at him from the floor. And meowed.

“Ha!” Blake grinned as Ilya covered her mouth.

"What is it? It looks like...a tiny plains cat!"

"That's what it is,” Blake said. “We humans have cats as pets sometimes." He could control it directly if he wished, and mentally gestured for it to wander. "Off you go." He waved. When the little creature found Ilya it ran straight for her, purring and rubbing like a real cat.

"It's so cute!" Ilya laughed, looking almost frightened to try and touch it, but eventually kneeling and letting the thing leap into her arms.

Blake smiled, then turned back to his profile. The power to amuse women and probably children—check. Definitely worth giving up super enhanced mind-bending Professor X potential, right?

He joked, but he knew the potential of these constructs was incredible. Though the actual use of the class was bloody complicated.

He started again, this time with a Combat model and to try this new 'Defender'. His options were quite a bit different than before as well. He could give the Combat constructs personality just as he could with the Practicals. Hopefully this meant far less detailed instructions and micro-managing, with something more like 'Commander's Intent' like the army. Or, he supposed with a grin, Constructor's Intent.

Damnit that was a good one, he thought, where was Mason when you needed him? Well, maybe Carl.

He went with the basic template of ‘Obedient Bodyguard’, arcane affinity. Then he flinched as the prototype model appeared before his eyes.

Holy hell. He blinked in surprise. Defenders could be bloody huge!

Without worrying too much about the detail, Blake made something that resembled a giant ape to last about ten minutes, and for his own amusement, created it pretty close to Ilya.

This time his mana dropped a good 15%, which actually was pretty damn fantastic. However he realized he was also able to control the speed of the cast, and making it faster seemed to double or even triple the cost. But since he was in no hurry, he set it to the minimum and remained basically frozen for damn near two minutes.

Then from nothing at all, a swirl of blue particles formed next to Ilya and her cat, spinning and growing until the seven foot blue ape was a couple steps from the unsuspecting orc girl.

She looked up and shrieked in panic. Blake couldn't help but laugh.