Leveraging my skills and expertise, my experience with connected communication enchantments, and standardized magic batteries, it took surprisingly little time before I had working teleportation gates.
Building the artifacts was simpler than debating whether I should actually deploy them. I could easily create a teleportation network for the Guilds, or the Church, and connect the cities in a way that only commercial airlines had done on Earth.
Is that the right thing to do, though? While magical teleportation would not have a carbon footprint like airlines did, it would still require using the batteries, which I had my crafters make to improve the lives of the citizens of the Kingdom.
If merchants could teleport their goods instead of traveling with them, it would hurt the economy that was springing up around tarands and adventurers as guards. It would deplete the battery resources, and even if we raised the prices on those or put tariffs or taxes on teleportation, merchants would still use it for the speed, safety, and security of their cargo, and simply raise the prices of goods. That could end up driving inflation, and end up reducing the quality of life for the people who could no longer make ends meet.
I had already built a second communication network for the Church, which was being deployed and would help streamline census data and civic needs, above and beyond using flying messenger beasts. I had also built out more for the Guilds to connect all the other walled cities, considering future expansion of Guilds into each city, as well as making a backup set for both networks to be locked away until it was ever needed.
Communication was a necessity in my books, but would immediate magical transportation actually help each of the cities, or result in an over-reliance from areas of concentrated strength like the capital?
I debated just making a few key ones, like something to connect Haklan and the capital or Mirut and Gurt, but even with just that I could see how it could end up disrupting entire ways of life. The peace of Mirut could be easily broken, overrun by tourists. The beautiful culture of the south could be homogenized by the overbearing northern attitudes of the more wealthy Horuthians.
In the end, I decided to destroy my notes on teleportation gates and stop production. The single functional teleportation gate would be secured in the palace, known only to my most trusted people, in case a use for it ever became both obvious and critical.
With that sorted, I refocused my attention on storage artifacts. I found it surprisingly tricky to make these in a way that felt safe to release. My first attempt resulted in simply accessing my own pre-existing inventory. I was unsure if this would allow everyone to access the same inventory space, whatever space I was accessing with my skill, or if it would create individualized storage spaces keyed to each person who used the enchantment.
In any case, it was a bad direction. I did not want a public inventory, nor private personal inventories that could not be accessible by others.
After several revisions, I had something that was more in line with my intentions. I enchanted a ring with a hidden engraving that turned it into a storage artifact which accessed its own inventory, married to the ring itself. If destroyed, the contents would be destroyed, but if transferred to another user, the contents would then be accessible by the user.
That way, inventories could be searched by authorities when there was suspicion of theft, like any bag or container. The space was limited and would not grow with the user, but I could make larger and more powerful enchantments which would create larger spaces, which would have more value. I decided against that, though, as just like with teleportation, I did not want to hugely disrupt transportation and the jobs it created.
Instead, I would keep the storage rings fairly small. Large enough to transport precious materials which could be damaged, like potion vials, or to transport potentially dangerous materials, like dungeon core.
Even though I created them with those limits in mind, I was not sure about spreading them far and wide, at least not immediately. I made enough for my inner circle, my friends and family.
As usual, they were rather impressed.
“This is phenomenal,” Sera whispered as she transferred something in and out of her inventory. She checked her magic meter. “It barely even costs any magic. Where does it go? How is it possible?”
I did not actually know how to describe the inventory subspace and could not even say where the items actually were when they were inside it, so I just shrugged. “It’s a secret.”
Sera laughed, incredulous. “You never stop surprising me, Pilus.” She leaned over and gave me a kiss.
“I’ve got one for each of the kids, as well, when they’re old enough for them.”
I got similar responses from all of my friends and the rest of my family as I handed them out. My sister Mari was already in her priestess residency, and doing phenomenally, so I gave one to her directly. My baby brother Varus was still doing a soldier apprenticeship, so I gave his to our parents to hold on to until he was older and responsible enough for it, while also giving them each one as well.
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Nodel, Morgun, Atlessoa, and the rest of my core staff all got their own as well, and I had several put aside for trusted friends outside of the capital like Regan, Gorban, and Shirel, for when they were next seen in person by someone trustworthy enough to hand them off. I considered making the journey myself by teleportation, but it was already too hard to explain how I could even make this kind of artifact; delivering it by an impossible means of travel might just be too much to handle.
I delivered one to Rena while dropping off the fertilizer potions I made, and checked in with the bushcaller program, happy to see the young chicks that had hatched running around the modified enclosure. The hens were using the nest boxes more often than not, and with a new generation bred, Nasha could start making selections about breeding stock to keep and which undesirables to cull.
With intensive and carefully planned breeding, it was possible to see a lot of behavioral changes in a very short period of time. As experiments on Earth had shown, physical changes tended to follow from behavioral selection, particularly when selecting for tameness. I hoped I would get to see some of it in my lifetime.
A year prior, in Haklan, when the wyvern escaped the dungeon, I had worried that I had done something horrible in my selfish pursuit. My actions had no doubt resulted in a worldwide change, and unlike the ones I initiated on purpose, that one had the potential to be devastating. I was happy to see that the Kingdom was finding a way through it, and was in many ways thriving from it. Admittedly, I did not know how it was affecting other parts of the world, and if there were people that had been harmed by it.
Once I had more skillfruit from Rena, I would need to advance 3-Point Magic and try to expand my scrying reach. While the Kingdom seemed to have things in hand, I was still a bit worried about the rest of the world.
* * *
As much as I loved my family, spending too much time holed up in the palace was a recipe for repeat wanderlust. Despite being passionate about tinkering with new magical inventions and pushing the envelope in this world, I was trying to keep myself better balanced. Spending time with my kids was a joy, but there was such a thing as too much of a good thing.
So, I had been prioritizing spending more time out and about in the capital. Bil the stone mage was often found taking on civic projects and in discussion with other mages in the capital; Deklan the adventurer could often be seen at the Adventurers Guild, training with other adventurers and taking some local quests; Pilus the king was known to have continued having an interest in the Tamers Guild and could be found at the farm sharing his knowledge and expertise.
It was serving me well, and I felt connected to the capital, the people, and the Kingdom. I was enthusiastic and pleased about the progress with the bushcallers, and we were starting to share them with some of the local farming families who might benefit from them. The bushcallers had proven to be more productive than blueflit for eggs, as I had hoped, and it was nice to also share egg-based recipes with local chefs and create a market for them, especially deserts, though I was still trying to avoid eating too much of that sort of thing myself.
In order to allow myself more liberties when it came to eating, I had helped create a proper weight set at the Adventurer Guild, styled after the dumbbells and barbells I was familiar with from Earth. For most people, there was not the same need to exercise in this world since the way of life was more demanding, but it was useful for me and could be useful for others.
I was at the Adventurer Guild when Horg received a message from Gorban in Haklan. I had been working with some of the younger adventurers who were interested in learning how to tank for their parties, trying to share the Strength and Shielded skills and hopefully help save future adventurer lives. One of the receptionists found me out in the yard and hurried over.
“Deklan? The Guild Master needs you in his office.”
“Sure. Be right there,” I said, suppressing a frown. I excused myself from the adventurers I was talking with to head back inside the Guild building and navigated my way through the crowd to the staircase leading up to Horg’s office. I knocked once before stepping in through the doors, and paused when I saw the expression on my father’s face.
Dispersing my illusion, I stepped up to his desk, where he was holding the communication artifact.
“What’s wrong?”
Horg sighed, and handed me the artifact.
Oh no.
I realized that Gorban had not responded right away, and focused my attention on the artifact. It was another moment before he spoke again.
A chill washed over me as I processed Gorban’s words. Bigger and faster than a wyvern, quadrupedal, and gold. I had no doubt that I knew what this was: a true dragon.
“Fuck,” I muttered out loud.
As I handed the artifact back to my father, I looked him in the eye.
“Get in touch with Regan. We need an update when it’s approaching Roko. And… prepare to rally the entire Guild,” I warned him. “We might be in trouble.”