After the first bit of flashiness and self reflection, I paced myself mana-wise while also making quick progress on my devious plans for Base Arachne. The design I had in my head was so ridiculous that I found myself chuckling even as I used my steps to mark out the distances of seven other columns identical to the first.

The squad assigned to the base looked at me funny as I continued to raise pillar after pillar. Once I was done, I took a good hour break to let the soreness in my body pass. Even if the time between casting the Skill let my mana regenerate, the side effects weren't so quick to dissipate. With the early success in reshaping my Skill to make ramps, and now columns, I was confident I could make my plan happen. It's just going to take a day or two...

A glance at my Status and then at the line that marked Communication told me that Daniela was out of range, but Samuel, Ava and Alan were not. The thought of Alan sent a jagged spike of pain into my gut but I pushed past it. They would be okay while I worked on Base Arachne. It was a productive way of helping Wildwood while figuring out where I stood.

Feeling the urge to distract myself from my thoughts I once again threw myself at the construction. The looks from the posted squad continued to grow as the day turned to night. They offered me a hasty dinner from their supplies, but all three were mute through the meal. There was an intense glimmer in Larry's eyes, but he also didn't say anything.

After that profoundly awkward experience, time went by in a blur of mana soreness and dirt. While building I didn't try to think overly much, just letting myself get lost in the process. The smooth grain of compacted sand on my fingers, the earthy scent that clung to me as I cleared away sections of overgrown old world ruins and the strange satisfaction of using their remains to construct something new. The chains of responsibility that I carried close were hung up for a minute, allowing me to really experience what all that pressure had allowed to grow within me.

Very quickly, the general shape of the structure started to materialize. After reinforcing the wall around the old building, I improved the ramparts from wood to stone. The front, where the gate was, I raised higher and left four large gaps. To the upper pair above where the ramparts actually reached I added two small platforms using on the inside. Once those reinforcements were complete, I stretched slats of stone from the wall towards the eight pillars around the base's sides. That process took a day in and of itself, but I hardly felt it. Despite the soreness in my body and a budding headache the more I tried to manipulate and I threw myself even harder into the project.

The following day, walls sprung up to form small 'watchboxes' at the top of each of the eight pillars. Even without the utility of my crystal pickaxe, I found that targeted with a little shaped nudge from my Freeform Skill worked just as well to create features for my structures. Even if my hands ended up covered in mud, and the windows, doors and crenellations I created were by no stretch of the word aesthetic, they were done entirely under my own power. There was something humbling and distinctly invigorating about that prospect.

With the rough extension of the watchtowers, I turned my attention to the main building. Liberally using , after checking that the guards weren't within the building and supplies were cleared out, I proceeded to demolish entire sections of it. In their place I raised mana-created stone that seamlessly blended with the walls that remained. When I wasn't satisfied with the first floor as enough of a square footage expansion, I spread the footing with the passive form of my Skills. On those reinforced pads I raised a pair of towers on either side of the new building. Thanks to my improvements in control, I was able to use short spurts of to create a pair of winding staircases that led up the side of the main building.

As I considered how I needed to implement the new access design for the fort in the Bunker Camp, I had a sudden epiphany while staring at the dead end of my staircase. All my efforts in using to create openings had been a concerted effort of punching circular holes of various sizes so I could push the mud-like state of the rock and create the actual gap. Each of those had been based around using the absolute minimum amount of mana to get a controllable amount of mud. What if, instead, I try to spend what I need to fulfill my objective? It's not a stretch from what I did when I made those columns using .

"!" I shouted, not using a percentage to control the Skill, instead letting my visualization guide the Skill into reality. A semi-circle at the top, and a tall rectangle for the main portion of the opening. It was a simple shape, and nothing in the description of the Skill said it had to be circular in shape. However, the new application sent a sharp jab of pain right to the back of my mind even as the normally circular band of umber glyphs shifted in the air. The glyphs stretched, creating the outline I had imagined, before my mana winked into the spell chain. It wasn't even ten percent of my mana pool, but the strain was much more acute.

My hand gripped the wall as everything spun. I wasn't sure how long I stood there panting, but it was enough for the liquifying effect of my Skill to run out. However, the Skill didn't disengage before proving my hunch. The semi-circular portion at the top of the wall and the upper portion of the 'rectangle' had slumped to the ground. The resulting section was the smoothest I'd been able to produce. I didn't bother to look at the knee high mound of hardened mud at the foot of the opening, because I knew that was more an effect of not removing the stone rather than my Skill experiment failing.

While I was racking my brain on why the spell chain had changed relative to the other modifications I'd done to and , vibrosense blared around me as the entire structure I was on lit up with ripples. formed in my hand on instinct. None of the stationed Guards wanted to come close when I was working, instead opting to call out if they needed anything or to let me know it was meal time. They were hoping to avoid taking a wall to the chest like Larry did when he was over eager on day one.

The ripples were light and bipedal as they approached the building, but they were moving too fast to have good intentions. The only thing that could have bypassed the guards and matched that description was a humanoid Tendril. Fully intending to catch it by surprise, I leapt out of the opening had created and released the shard of cinnabar that had formed on my palm.

"Ronan what that--"

My eyes flew wide open as I saw Daniela around the corner. They then snapped down to the explosive crystal I'd just released. Horrible things flashed in my mind as to what might happen if it took the slight brunette in the chest, so I dumped as much of my mana into in the blink of an eye. My mana flowed into my helm and then shot right into my friend before the cinnabar struck. As the covering of rock started to crawl over her skin, twin blasts of flame bloomed out of her hands and propelled her further away from the attack. This gave her more than enough time to be encased in stone all the way to the small of her back even as the crystal fragmented and peppered the cocoon.

The impact with the ground one story down did more damage to her than the mitigated explosion did, but Daniela still shrugged it off and burst out of the positively fuming. Literally. Burning chunks of the armor I'd conjured for her peppered the muddy grass between Base Arachne and the wall, retaining the flame for much longer than simple sandstone had any right to.

"You ignore us for weeks and then the first thing you do is try to blow me up!" she howled, flames escaping out of the fire gills on her throat. "If you wanted to be left alone all you had to do was say so you jerkwad!"

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"I-I--" Words failed me in the face of Daniela's bluntness.

"Cat got your tongue, rock brain? Answer me! Why have you been avoiding me, Ron? Why!" Danny howled.

"I don't know what I'm doing, Daniela!" I snapped, feeling some heat of my own rising. "Can you just understand that I need time to process all that happened? All the things that I am responsible for, I-I..."

"So you talk about it!" Daniela said, shoving me in the chest with enough force to remind me I wasn't the only Q6 in town. Almost unexpectedly, her information jumped at me as if she'd willed it to me.

"Danny, you didn't tell a bunch of people to charge to their deaths!" I yelled.

"That decision wasn't made final by you. Maybe you supported it, but you aren't the only one grieving and they understood the risks. Did you even remember that the memorial is tomorrow? You've been a ghost ever since you talked with Tec and now I find you out here? Doing what? Living out your life doing extreme home makeovers?" she snapped.

"Daniela--"

"Mr. Terrigan? Is everything okay?" Larry called. The young elf didn't wait for a response as he used a gust of wind to propel himself onto the roof. At least, that's what he intended. His angle was too sharp and the burst of wind sent him careening into the side of the building.

His fingers managed to grip the ledge even as I winced inwardly. My thoughts floundered a bit at the youth's interruption, but before I was able to get my thoughts back on track he clambered up only to be struck by the fact that there was a fiery latina beside me.

"What's his deal?" she snapped.

"The T-T-T-Torch..." Larry stammered.

"What did he just call me?" Danny's eyes narrowed on Larry.

"He doesn't know what he's talking about. He's not even part of this conversation," I said, stepping between the elf and Daniela. She was already running hot, and it wasn't directed at Larry. The kid didn't deserve the ire that was rightfully mine. Not that I want it!

"You and I aren't done, Ronan. There's been more than enough dung piled up on top of our relationship and I think it’s high time we clear it away," Daniela said, stabbing her finger into my chest. "I better see you in Wildwood tomorrow, because I'm not going to blow smoke up your ass like everyone in town. Those deaths we lay at the feet of the Dreg, not you."

Danny kept her eyes locked on me. Thin veins of red permeated her iris and they almost seemed to glow with the intensity of her stare. They almost demanded that I challenge her, so that they could release the beast lurking under the immaculate curls. When I couldn't muster up a response, she huffed smoke in my face. Without missing a step, she backflipped off the building. Twin spurts of flame let her spin in the air and she landed in the ground silent as a gust of wind. If vibrosense wasn't lighting up her steps in progressively smaller ripples, I might not have heard her at all despite all the growth to my Perception.

"M-Mr. T-Terrigan?" Larry asked, after Daniela left our line of sight. Releasing the breath I hadn't realized I was holding through my teeth, I turned to the elf.

"Are you alright, Larry?"

"Oh, ah, yeah," he said. For good measure, he patted himself down as if he'd somehow missed an injury from his brief interaction with Daniela. "I did have a question."

I'm seriously not in the mood for this. Why do I-- "Go ahead."

"Am I going to be that intense when I reach Quotient 6?"

I couldn't help the harsh laugh that escaped me at that. Thankfully, Larry didn't seem offended, just confused as his gaze shifted from me to where Daniela's silhouette had last been.

"Not necessarily. Daniela and I have a... confrontational connection. The surface I think has made those confrontations sort of escalate," I said. Why am I telling you this? Not that I didn't want to talk about it, but Larry was a stranger. He couldn't understand.

"I totally understand, sir. Most of the time I just want to strangle my little brother. Somehow, he really knows how to get under my skin," Larry replied, nodding sagely.

The youth's response was not what I expected, but it made a sort of sense. I viewed both Daniela and Samuel, as well as most of the people of the Bunker, as family. Being age-contemporaries certainly made me feel like they were my siblings. The context of which this connection was revealed however still left me with a frown intense enough to drive the energetic youth away all by himself.

Both happy and sad that the relationship between Daniela and I was recognized as so close, I finished the broad changes to Base Arachne while my thoughts drifted. The second staircase opening I formed with my primitive technique, but I didn't forget that there was still plenty for me to learn about my Skills. With a flourish I created four rooms on the second floor and one additional staircase in the center that led to the roof. These areas were much rougher in spacing than the rest of my work, but I doubted the posted Guards would mind the new sources of personal space.

As much as I wanted to keep sinking time into building, it wasn't appropriate. There was a time and place for everything. My place, as much as I wanted to avoid the ache it caused, was with Wildwood's leadership at the memorial.

So, it was when I was putting the final crenellations on the much taller roof space that Creek found me.

"Thank you for all your help, sir," the older man nodded respectfully.

"Really, there is no need for all that formality," I sighed, my arms dropping to my sides as I leaned back against the mana-created stone and really paid attention to the sun starting its descent into night.

"Ronan, sir, I can understand your worries. I will take a little responsibility in deceiving you," Creek said.

"Huh?"

"Your guilt has not gone unnoticed. Neither has your presence. As part of my daily report I informed Councilwoman Sarah that you were here and she urged me to speak with you. However, not only am I not a very verbose man but I also know when what someone needs is an outlet. You performed well and above on the one I sought to give you," Creek replied sheepishly. His ridges twitched, visibly marking his nerves.

"You didn't really need an upgrade to Base Arachne did you?" I said, the dots connecting. Creek nodded. "Wow. So much for my double-human-potential-Perception."

"Ronan... The reason Councilwoman Sarah urged me to talk to you is because she noticed how much you are laying on yourself. As much as I didn't want to overhear your discussion with The Torch, she isn't what I would call quiet." Creek paused, wringing his hands as he worked through his own thoughts. "Those people we lost in the fight against the Dreg... They aren't the first we have lost. They won't be the last, if this blasted planet has its way. I was young when the Fall came, but I still remember the constant fear and helplessness.

"What those people that died and those that survived experienced was not helplessness. It was fear, true, but tempered by the fact that it was their choice. For once in many of our lives we'd opted to charge at the problem and make it submit to the full extent of our power. Such a thing was only possible because you and the other bunkerites lifted the blinders we've been holding on to so tightly. That, somehow, the world was going to go back to the way it was. By all intents and purposes you are all fresher to these carnages and yet it was your group that acted with the conviction necessary.

"Those deaths are not on you. They gave their lives so that we might all live ours. It is a burden we must carry, even as we continue to defend the rest of us unable to by putting our lives at risk."

Creek didn't stick around for long after revealing his well-meant deception. He squeezed my shoulder and walked down the central staircase I built. My eyes lingered on the purple and orange majesty of the sunset even as my mind spun a million different ways. Of all the things I thought I would deal with while on the surface, living with the consequences of my actions and how people viewed me were not some of them.