On the following day I spent my time working on the order of Lord Quay. Mr. Heart and I were both waiting for the soldier to deliver an answer. He appeared just before noon and brought news that I would indeed be able to take over for Mr. Heart. It seems the request for him to participate was irregular anyway, so as long as someone of sufficient ability came along that would suffice. I was then consequently ordered to appear at the northeastern exit of the town in the early morning tomorrow.
While I had to take my own clothes along, anything else including provisions and accommodation would be provided for me. When the soldier left Mr. Heart was quite happy and then took some more time to go over a few more details of dismantling. I wanted something to compare the monolith to, once I finally saw it up close, so I asked:
“I am nervous, because I have no idea what I have to expect from this monolith. How many really dangerous constructs are out there?”
“There are actually very few constructs of a scale which makes them really dangerous. The order we are working on right now is already far out of the norm. Yet it is fundamentally very simple. Of course it might become part of something much greater, but personally I doubt it will be more than some added clever controls.
The problem is that an archivist took a look at the monolith and refused to get involved. That speaks volumes about it. You should not hurry and be really thorough. Only constructs beyond a certain scale require this much effort, and I fear this is one of them.”
He had become thoughtful just now, so I pressed him on.
“Have you seen any of those great constructs?”
“I haven't really gotten any closer look at the archive, so I can't tell you much about it...”
Mr. Heart was avoiding something and I started to become really interested.
“But you do know something?”
“This isn't something I can just carelessly talk about.”
“You just sent me on a dangerous dismantling mission. I am risking my neck, so you can continue on another project...”
“Alright, I will tell you about it. It is a sort of secret kept in the line of scribes I am part of. It is a bit early to tell you about it, but you still are my apprentice of sorts.
There is an artifact my master possessed that is unique. I have never taken a look at it. My master only told me that it was best described as an enchanted item, but that this enchant exceeded anything he had ever seen before. He only looked at it a short time and it nearly drove him mad. After that he had the sense to lock it away and I followed his advice not to look at it. There is some history about a few people who tried to comprehend it and started to indiscriminately kill everyone around them and destroy anything that was in their way until they were taken down.
I still wonder if it might have been worth a look at least. An art beyond enchantment? The things that might become possible with it...
At any rate, there are things out there beyond our comprehension and you would do well to be careful when working with any of them.”
I was taking an interest in this strange artifact. It might be for the best if it was out of my reach. My experience already told me that there really were hidden monstrosities in this world, and items might be no exception. Besides, I would soon have time to study a very complex construct and it might not be any less dangerous.
I went on to spend more time working on our main project. Although there was nothing new I learned about inscription per se, I had to invest a lot of effort to produce the best components I could and was therefore sharpening my skills.
Scribe has increased to level 15.
Later on I headed to the adventurers guild in the hope to find out some more things about the mission. Since a few adventurers were also coming along it was very possible that Arienne or Richard's group were taking part. They were probable choices for such positions, because they seemed to be among the most capable of the local guild.
I was surprised when the bar was really crowded. I spotted Richard's entire group on one of the tables and headed over.
Me: “Is everyone here going on the big mission?”
Richard: “Not everyone, some are also here out of curiosity, though everyone in our group will go. Are you also participating?”
Me: “Yes, I somehow ended up with the task of dismantling.”
Richard: “I didn't know you were that good. I will keep it in mind if I ever need someone to deal with magical traps or the like.”
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Brinnia: “You should avoid those missions. It means you are going against intelligent creatures, if not humans. It's best to let the guards deal with bandits.”
Tarvek: “Most guards hardly have anyone capable of dealing with complex magic. There is a reason why they often have to call in specialists.”
Me: “Why do they not employ someone permanently?”
Tarvek: “That's far too expensive for the few times a specialist is actually needed. Only large military forces can afford that luxury, and they can make use of them more often too.”
Me: “You know a lot about the guard and military.”
Tarvek: “I have been in the guard and then in the army as well. It was no bad job, at least I didn't think that way.”
Me: “Why did you become an adventurer then?”
Orlund: “Now that I also want to know. You never told us before. You also do dangerous missions as an adventurer, but as a guard you get paid regularly. It's much more comfortable than searching for missions all the time.”
Tarvek: “That's exactly the problem. After I became comfortable I stopped developing. At first I was learning a lot of new things and constantly improved my fighting abilities. Then after a while it was only repetition. It might have been fine if I had been part of an elite force, but in the regular army growth is very limited.
If I ever want to reach the level of the champions, I have to seek out challenges.”
Me: “Champions?”
Richard: “The four Champions the absolute elite force of our kingdom. They are extremely strong and are used to solve difficult crises.”
I still had a lot to learn about the different levels of strength, and how different people fared against each other. So far I had seen a few people or entities of remarkable power. How did the champions fare against Parangante, the aura in the northeast, or how did they compare to people like Catherine?
Richard turned over to Tarvek.
“I know you are a better fighter than I am, but I didn't know you had such high ambitions.”
Tarvek: “It's not that actually becoming a champion is my goal, but I definitely want to improve my abilities a lot more. I am not immortal, so I can't wait around. No offense!”
Me: “None taken. I really respect anyone who is this driven by purpose. There is something else I wanted to ask. How do adventurers and soldiers work together? Doesn't it become quite chaotic?”
Tarvek: “When the military or other forces hire adventurers, they are very selective. You will only be invited if you have a good reputation or the right referrals. As long as they are part of the mission they have to listen to a superior officer. It's often better to work with disciplined but weaker adventurers than with willful stronger ones.
For this mission they went all out and recruited a lot of people. The guild is in a real turmoil right now.”
We sat together for a while longer and talked about the mission. We didn't come across anything noteworthy afterwards. When the crowd around us began to disperse, we agreed to meet at the guild tomorrow and then head to the official meeting place together.
When I headed home I realized that I hadn't been contacted by Parangante today either. I already expected her to call for my next visit right when I was tied down with the mission. A worry for another day.
It was a bit late to make big preparations for the mission, but I had a whole night just to myself. I began with some more study of the trap constructs, but aside from improving my grip of the concepts, I didn't learn anything new.
When the book didn't offer me anything more, I began on my first personal project. I decided to start with making a barrier scroll. It was not the most inspirational or complex idea, but that was half the point. I had some hope to get it working in a comparatively short amount of time. It would also allow me to begin collecting experience, instead of pondering over what to do. If I successfully built something, I could later improve upon it.
Instead of starting with a construct right away, I first tried out some enchantments to work out the basic functionality. I enchanted the table at my home to block any physical attacks at the distance of one meter. I could easily sphere and was even able to reenter. So slow movements could pass. Then I tried to quickly dash inside, but hit a wall. I was prepared and had gone in with my shoulder first.
When I tried doing some attacks with my fists the barrier had already dissipated and the enchantment worn off. I renewed it and lightly struck a few times against it, before it also vanished quickly. While I hadn't put in that much mana, it was still disappointing.
From there I began to work on directed shields and slowing effects, which was really funny if I attacked and my arm moved as if it was submerged into water or even denser liquids.
Enchanter has increased to level 5.
When I was satisfied I started to build a very simple construct. It would put up a barrier in front of me when activated and hold against a moderate strength. Then I began playing around with adding energy reserves that would only be activated at will and a time limit to the activation. There it already started to get complicated, because upon reaching the time limit the mana drain had to stop. The solution I found was to drain one power cell after the other instead of all at once, but at a slower speed. That might not work out if I had to block massive attacks, but then I might use crystals and invest the time to work around that problem.
For now I put my mana into a slowly increasing amount of power cells and linked them up with the construct. When the morning was close it had a capacity of around three times my personal mana pool. A few test runs might be sensible, but I didn't have the time for that now.
I only now realized that I hadn't drained any of the crystals that I kept with me. Filling them up with some spare mana had become second nature to me, and by now I had ten completely filled up crystals lying around. They were only capable of holding around 300 mana without releasing or corrupting it. I knew now that this was hardly a large amount because I had seen the special crystals Mr. Heart used as base for the constructs we made at work.
He probably had only given me ones that were very cheap and disposable. They were nice to have around, but a high quality one with a large capacity didn't take as much space. Perhaps it might even be possible to wear jewelry for storage. If everything went right I should be able to afford something after the mission.
I quickly headed out of town for some early morning training, but restrained myself from doing anything excessive. I did train with a moderate amount of body reinforcement to get used to it though. On my return I quickly packed together a few necessities. I took along my canteen, spare clothes for a few days, the newly created scroll and then I added one of the health potions and three mana potions.
When I put them in I was about to take another one and, as a force of habit, drink it. I stopped myself just before opening it and put it away. I might get by without them from now on. Afterwards I hid my few remaining potions and part of my money away. If someone broke in to steal it, it would be annoying, but not a real issue.
In a way I was glad to go on a trip, at least for a few nights it would break the usual rhythm. Of course I might have to pretend getting some sleep, especially since I had such a central role. I might argue that I only required little sleep though. With my pack on my back I headed to the guild.