day 24
Bloodstone awoke, there was a warm arm draped across his chest, and what felt like a wet spot by his neck. From the scent he knew it was Violet, he didn’t recall getting into bed so he must have been carried or dragged. He felt the spot and checked it was just water, or drool. Slowly sliding out from under her arm he put a pillow under her to support her so she didn’t roll. He looked over and not only was Violet in the large king-sized bed, there was Xyrdiane on the other side of the bed and turned the other way was Rana. Rana opened one eye and yawned, Bloodstone shook his head no slightly. She closed her eye and rolled over.
He quietly picked up his shirt and put it on, opened the door to the hallway and stepped out. It was a bit colder in the hallway, not uncomfortably colder, but a cold enough to notice it. He turned to head down the hallway and stopped as Isabel was standing waiting for him.
“Is now a good time to have our talk?” She asked
“I guess so, what did you want to talk about?” he said offering her his arm. She fell in step next to him and took his arm.
“You said you would explain how you fixed my eyes.”
“I did say I would” He said heading up to the top of the wall. Two guardsmen acknowledged him and let them pass. It was still dark out and the sky was just starting to brighten.
“Yes, I don’t think I had green eyes.”
“He stopped on the wall and looked into her eyes,” I feel you have beautiful eyes, no matter what color they are.”She blushed and started to look away. “I like green eyes, and if I was going to have to fix them why not give you a color that’s both alluring and something I like.”
“I would have been happy with brown eyes, just to be able to see again. Though it seems you have learned about magic in a much shorter span of time than you should be able to.”
“It’s not just magic, I have been learning about the technology from my world as well, on a more fundamental level. I figured out a way to make invisibility undetectable.”
“Your getting off track, you said you did more than fix my eyes and you said you would explain what you did.”
Bloodstone laughed, “What would be the best way to explain. Let’s start at the beginning, your eyes were damaged, when a demon thing clawed your face, it did more than that it destroyed your eyes, it was like scrabbling an egg. Someone seeing you bleeding and dying use a healing potion on you. A healing potion work on the principle of fast regeneration, it makes the cells replicate faster, the problem with that is that if it’s all scrambled it will just get back together in a mess. Does that make sense?”
“I think so, so my eyes were like scrambled eggs?”
“The analogy works. So, there are two choices, replace your eyes with new ones or fix the damage. Neither option is very attractive, one would mean having to make new eyes to replace your damaged ones, that can get complicated depending on how and what they are made from. The other option is the equivalent of unscrambling an egg, it can be done but is very time consuming.”
“You didn’t do either of those.”
“No, I made the changes to your eyes with transmutation, it’s the study of making one thing into another, most of your eyes were beyond recovery, and were just scarred tissue, I had to make a spell, that would transmute your blind eyes to functioning eyes. I like the first spell I made, it just did the bare minimum, so I refined it, to you it seemed like the first time, to me it was months and months of practicing the spell, until I was happy with the result.”
“Months? You only cast that spell once. Do you mean you were returning to the hour before each time?”
“Yes, months, “He said stopping and looking deeply into her eyes, “I had to, it also let me learn other magic, I told you I would explain what other power your eyes have. You will probably have noticed that you see perfectly fine no matter the light, I increased the amount of rods and cones in your eyes. The tissue that lets you see is a hundred times denser than a living creature. I also made it so that your visual spectrum is wider than most creatures, you may have noticed colors, that seem unfamiliar. I wouldn’t be able to help you with that Rana might. I also made it so that your eyes give off their own subtle light, its biological, and its why I chose green”
“Why?” she asked, “I would have been happy with just normal eyes.”
“Think of it as a gift, and making up for the darkness you endured. I don’t want you to ever be in darkness again.”
There was a slight clapping off to the right, “That’s pretty, it’s too bad you brought the girl, I’ll have to kill you both.”
They both turned, and there was a man standing on the wall, he stood in the shadow of the one of the guard posts that rose up from the wall. He was in shadows, and his features couldn’t be seen. “Sutter sends his regards.” He then drew a dirk and took a step towards him.
“I don’t suppose I could counter his offer?” The man didn’t reply, and stepped forward to stab Bloodstone. There was a flurry of movement as he stabbed at Bloodstone several times, then retreated.
“You just ruined a good shirt, I do have a question for you.”
The man growled and attacked again, this time he was grabbed around the neck as he stepped close, the dirk stabbed at him several more times. “Do you know how to fly?” He asked as he threw him from the wall.
There was a look of shock and fear as he went over the edge.
“Isabel, can you keep an eye on him and could you scream really loud?”
Without hesitation Isabel screamed at the top of her lungs, and looked over the edge. Six guards ran from the far end of the wall towards them, the sky was still starting to brighten up.
“I think he survived the fall,” Isabel said.
“Oh, I’ll be right back.” He said and leapt off the wall.
The guards rushed over to where Isabel was standing, “What’s going on miss?”
“An assassin, he attacked the Lord Bloodstone, He just went after him.” She said pointing below on the blight side of the wall.
Two of the guardsmen ran to the guard station and raised the alarm.
One of them said, “He jumped?”
The assassin landed on the dirt and looked up, one of the rings he wore glowed as it slowed his fall. He cursed under his breath, His target was wearing magic armor. He could get back to the other side it would be a long walk on the wrong side of the wall. There was the sound of something landing nearby, and he turned and saw his target looking at him.
“Nice trick with the ring, come quietly and we can sit down and have breakfast, otherwise, I may get pissed off.”
He backed away slowly.
“Really, you ruined my shirt, and got blood all over and my shirt.”
“Why won’t you die!” the assassin hissed.
A crossbow bolt appeared in the dirt next to the assassin. Seeing it he turned and ran into the blight lands away from the wall.
“Uh, you might want to not run out there……and he’s gone…” Bloodstone shrugged and started walking towards the door.
Bloodstone sat on the stool while Isabel poked at his bare skin. “I saw the blood, are you sure he didn’t stab you.”
“Well the edge scrapped along my skin, and did give me some shallow cuts. They healed pretty quick.”
“What if he had a poisoned blade?” She asked poking him in the ribs.
“Uh…”
“Yeah, you are not invincible, I really didn’t expect you to jump off the wall!”
“um..”
“What do you have to say for yourself”
“He ruined my shirt.”
“Your shirt, you could have been killed! You have no sense of perspective, even Amethyst says you’re crazy”
“There a fine line between genius and crazy.”
“Well stop playing on that line your starting to freak me out.”
“Let me guess you have been talking to people from my world, your starting to sound like them.”
“This isn’t about me!” She said poking him in the ribs.
“Ok! Ok!, ill be more careful.”
“You didn’t even have a weapon when you jumped, what were you thinking!?” She asked.
“Uh, I didn’t think about it, until I landed.”
Isabel threw up her hands, turned and started walking towards the door “Ugggh, your impossible!”
Bloodstone grinned, “Of course, I do see your point, and I should go make myself a better weapon.”
Isabel stormed out, slamming the door behind her.
An hour later, Bloodstone stood in the middle of the street outside the fortress. A single guardsman walked with him.
“My lord, is this wise?”
“Well I can’t go out to the fortress in the blight a land, that’s an eight hour ride, so where is this blacksmith.”
“This way” he said and headed off into the town.
The first heard the ringing of steel on steel before they found the blacksmiths shop. There were two apprentices working the forge and bellows. A third muscular man was working on a glowing piece of steel.
Bloodstone and the guardsman waited until he was done. The blacksmith looked over at them, “Hi Sven, who’s your friend?”
“This is Lord Bloodstone, he wants to ask you some questions.”
The blacksmith looked over at Bloodstone, “So what can I help you with?”
“I want to know if I can borrow your equipment here, I need to make a sword.”
The blacksmith scowled, “you have any levels it blacksmithing?”
“Not anymore, I had five full levels of blacksmith and gold smith at one point.”
“What do you mean not anymore,” he asked.
“They all merged into my main class”
“What is your main class?”
“It’s an [EMPTY] Class.”
“What kind of class is that?!” He looked over at the guardsman, “Is this some kind of joke, I have work to do.” He pulled the glowing piece of metal from the forge and started to work on it again.
The piece he was working on slipped from the tongs and when the hammer blow struck it flow off the anvil, towards Bloodstone. In a single fluid motion he caught it before it could hit the ground. The piece was still glowing a dull orange when he set it back on the anvil.
Both the blacksmith and the guardsman stared at the piece and then at Bloodstone. The blacksmith grabbed his hand and looked at it. “How do you do that?” The two apprentices were staring as well.
Bloodstone looked at him then the metal, “I have superior heat resistance.”
“I am a level thirty eight [blacksmith] and all I have is heat resistance. What class gives you the ability to pick up glowing steel?”
“Well it’s from the monster I killed yesterday.”
“Monster?” He said looking at the guardsman.
“I think they called it a gray stone walker, it was the reptile one.”
“I heard about them, how did you kill something like that?”
“Blew its head apart,“ the guardsman said before Bloodstone could answer.
The blacksmith picked up the piece of metal and placed it back in the forge. “If I let you use my tools, what’s in it for me?”
“How about level forty?”
The blacksmith scoffed, “I haven’t gained a level in almost a year, what makes you think you can get me to level forty?”
“Let’s negotiate, I want to use your anvil, and some iron stock. In exchange I will give you two levels and the cost of the materials I use.”
“You going to do all the work that needs to be done around here?”
“What about in addition I pay your wages and those of your apprentices for the day and fix up your forge.”
“That would be payable up front?”
“Of course, I will want a clean place to work. This will take about two or three hours to make a sword.”
The blacksmith scoffed, “You’re going to make a sword in two or three hours?”
“No, I am going to enchant a new sword in three hours.”
“I would almost pay to see that.”
“Well I do think that a day’s wages would be worth it?”
“I said almost, so my wages and the apprentices, for the day. Two gold, I would imagine a lord wouldn’t have any problem with two gold.”
“No problem, how about this, I will give you twenty gold, and you don’t talk about what happens here.”
“You will pay me ten days wages to keep quiet?”
“And two levels of blacksmith”
“Ok I will take that deal just to see what you are going to do.”
“Shake on it?” Bloodstone said as he began counting out coins onto the anvil.
The blacksmith waited for the twenty coins then scooped them up off the anvil. “I think we have a deal.”
He held out his hand to shake on the deal. Bloodstone shook his hand and transferred two levels of blacksmith.
“HOW!?,” the blacksmith said staring at Bloodstone and holding his hand.
“It’s one of my specialty classes, there’s no name for the class, and you are welcome” He said releasing his hand. “Now I have work I need to do, you wouldn’t happen to have an extra anvil?”
“I have a small one, I used when I first started here.” He turned to his apprentices, “Go get it out of the basement.”
They complained but left to go get it. They returned shortly with a small anvil.
“You want some steel stock?”
“No I need iron.” He started looking through the stock and pulled out a handful of rusty nails. “More like these” Bloodstone said.
The apprentices, pulled out a rusted iron piece from behind a bench, the blacksmith gave them a look. “What, they have been there since before we started working here” The dark brown-haired apprentice said.
“This should be good.” He pulled out a stack of gold coins as well as three green gemstones, and set them on the small anvil. “Let’s see that iron.”
They handed him a twisted piece of rusty iron, it looked like it had been an attempt at art, it however wasn’t recognizable as anything other than a twisted lump of metal. The Blacksmith gave the apprentices a look, and then said, ”My apprentices are being cheeky, that’s a project I have been working on since I was an apprentice.”
Bloodstone raised an eyebrow, “So can I use it or not?”
The blacksmith sighed, and then gruffly said, “Fine sure, whatever”
“What was it supposed to be?” Bloodstone asked looking at the rusty twisted metal.
“It was supposed to be, a… never mind”
“Well it’s going to become an important part of your forge in a few minutes. First, I need to make it something different, I will still need more iron.” He placed the iron into the forge, and dumped the two dozen nails into the fire.
He reached in and pulled the iron out with his bare hands. “It’s weird not feeling the heat of glowing metal.” He began to use a hammer to mold it into a circular shape. He put it back into the fire and pulled out the nails one by one and began to heat forge them together.
“Do you make your own steel here?” Bloodstone asked the blacksmith.
“No, I usually have deliveries from the other districts, never got the formula right for good steel.” The blacksmith said a bit softly.
“Well I guess I will need a crucible to melt steel in, uuuggh just one more setback.” He walked outside. The cobblestone street was still damp from the rains, and he walked over to a large muddy pool by the side of the road. A large glob of mud floated out of the water and rose into the air. Several onlookers stopped to stare. He walked back into the smithy with the muddy ball floating behind him.
“What’s that for?” one of the apprentices asked.
“I am going to make a crucible, for melting steel in. Now for the sand.” He pulled one of the three bags of holding off his belt and began scooping out sand and dumping it into the mud. Ten large scoops later, the mud had changed color from a deep brown to a greyer color.
“It’s moving,” The other apprentice said in awe as he watched.
“I’m mixing it, less messy this way, and I don’t get clay and sand or gunk on my hands.” Bloodstone grinned.
“How it is just floating there?” The guardsman asked.
“Telekinesis” As if that explained it. The muddy globe hovered and elongated and began to move towards the forge. As it floated above the fire, it began to dry out and began to look like a deep crucible.
The material began to dry out more and floated above the flames.
Bloodstone removed the metal and shaped it more using the floating crucible to measure the metal. He then began to shape the metal into a spiral with a single line going from the end of the spiral to the center. “I made one of these for the smith working in the fortress. It’s going to be a thermal coil, the material can take the heat, at least for a while, and by a while I mean a few years at least. I will show you how it works once I am done.” He let the metal cool on the small anvil.
“What are you going to use that coil for?” The smith asked.
“Well the biggest issue you have is inconsistent heat. I am kind of shocked no one has gone through the trouble of making you smiths more efficient, it seems that the classes don’t work together, on common improvements, just each class for themselves. He looked up at the blacksmith, “I’m going to show you a way to make steel, it’s not the best way, and I am going to leave some important parts out, however I will be making at least enough ingots for two or three weapons, you can keep the extra.”
He then stood over the anvil with the coil and began to chant. The coil began to glow softly a dull red, and as he continued to stand over it he moved his hands in intricate patterns. The metal began to glow brighter red, as he continued it began to glow yellow then a bright white. The heat being given off was intense, and everyone except Bloodstone took a step back. And with a gesture he stopped and the white light vanished as if by a switch. Bloodstone wiped some sweat from his fore head, “That took a lot of concentration.” He glanced over at the floating crucible and picked up the coil and placed it in the fire. “Now if I heat this crucible like this it will shatter as the water escapes. To fix that we remove the water, by turning the water into its components.” Bloodstone cast a spell on the crucible and there was a soft hiss and then the crucible was bathed in a blue flame.
The crucible hung in the air giving off the almost pure blue flame, and then as it had started it suddenly went out with a pop and a slight hiss. “Well that went faster than I thought it would.” Bloodstone said more to himself than the others. “Ok I am going to fire the crucible, and then let it cool.” He grabbed the crucible from the air gently and placed it on the coil in the fire. “Now this is going to get hot.” He said another phrase, “Heat at six” the coil began to glow.
“What are you going to do with the crucible?” The blacksmith asked.
“I am going to make a batch of chromium cobalt steel, with some nickel and other metals.”
“What is chromium or cobalt or nickel, never heard of metals like that?”
“Oh right, you have other names for them, chromium is a yellow dye used by leather workers, Chromium is used by glassworkers to get blue glass I think you call it kobold ore, and nickel is found in sky metal.”
“Where did you get sky metal?” He asked.
“I knew where to look for it, and have some skills that help me find things like metals.”
“Handy skill” The blacksmith said
“Helps when your wife is a geomancer as well”
“Why do you need those rare metals, it’s not like you can make a weapon from them?”
“No but I can make a special alloy from them”
“Well get on with it then, you are wasting time.” The blacksmith teased.
Bloodstone stared at him and began pulling metal fragments and powers in jars from a bag of holding. He set them on the nearby bench and arranged them in a specific order. He then looked the glowing crucible it was glowing a deep red. “Coil off” he said and the coil stopped glowing. The glowing crucible floated over and gently was place on the small anvil. He then began to drop in the bits of metal one at time into the still hot crucible. Then he took measured amounts from each jar and placed them one at time into the crucible as well. The heat given off was warming the entire area, windows were opened and a nice cross breeze began to cool down the room.
The crucible once filled was then floated back to the coil, “Coil to nine” he said and the coil lit up with a white energy. “Now we just have to wait for the metals to melt. Oh yeah, I have one more thing to add.” He pulled out a small dagger. He dragged the razors edge across his palm and dripped blood into the crucible.
Twenty minutes went by and the materials began to liquefy. While he waited he pulled out four metal ingot trays with three ingot indentations. He then poured the silvery metal into the trays filling three completely and the last one with one ingot before turning off the coil.
The sound of steel on steel rang through the blacksmiths shop. Blow after blow stuck the glowing steel, shaping it, stretching it. The blacksmith watched as the three billets of steel were forged into one piece and then worked into the shape of a sword. “Have you made a sword before?”
“Just the one, for the adventurer, I had some help. This steel seems harder than what his was made out of” he set the hammer down on the anvil and put the steel back into the forge, the coil glowed, releasing heat.
“What kind of blade are you going to make, and why are you hammering down the center with that tool?”
“To be honest, I need a way to make the sword not shift in the sheath”
“Why not wait and make the sheath tight on the blade?”
“I have to lock it into the sheath, if it shifts it will cut through the sheath when I am done. “
“Looks like a long sword, though a bit of a thin blade” The blacksmith said critiquing.
“I have been weaving magic into the blade, shaping it and the magic as I go.”
“What are you going to use for the handle?”
“I haven’t thought that far ahead, any recommendations?”
“What do you have for making the hilt and pommel?”
Bloodstone looked around, “I don’t really have much I am open to suggestions.”
One of the apprentices, who had been watching wide eyed as he had made the different things to make the sword, “Mr. Bloodstone what about using oak for the handle?”
Bloodstone looked at the apprentice, “You know where to get some?”
“Yes sir, I will go get it,” he said getting up and heading out.
Hours later, Bloodstone was still working on the blade, using a file and sharpening the blade. The blacksmith had resumed working and kept glancing over at him.
The blade was unremarkable, and plain, the only real ornamentation’s were on the pommel of the blade, where several gemstones had been set it both the cross guard and the pommel. They were all a deep green color, and glowed slightly with an inner fire. Each time he ran the file along the blade the gems flared and pulsed.
“I think that’s sharp enough, I can’t make it any sharper.” He held the blade out and looked along the edges. “I got the bow out from the quenching, care to look tell me what you think” He said setting the blade on the bench the hilt was oak wrapped in a green leather. Next to it was a sheath, wrapped in the same green leather.
The blacksmith looked over at him and the sword, put down the hammer he had been using and picked up the blade, looked it over, “Looks ok, let us see how it holds up.” He then struck the anvil with the flat of the blade, there was a metallic ringing, and he looked down the bland again. “Seems ok, will it cut?”
Bloodstone smiled, “Don’t try it on the anvil.”
“Do you think you can cut steel with it?”
“Try” He said, “Though not the anvil” He looked around and found a piece of scrap bar and hung it off the edge of the bench.
The blacksmith swung and there was a loud metallic clang as the end of the bard fell to the ground. He gently set the blade down on the bench, and picked up the piece that had been sheared off. “If you could teach me how to make blades like this, every gold rank adventurer would want a blade made from my forge.”
“I can teach you the metal smith part, the enchanting you would need…a class to do it.” Bloodstone grinned wider, “I can give you the class you would need, learning how to use it would require some extra learning on your part. I will even help your apprentices.”
“In exchange for what?” He asked.
“No, not an exchange. I want you to be able to make weapons like this. You and your apprentices keep the secret of how you gained the class. It is going to take some time and effort on your part, to get to this point, I can show you some of it, the rest will be up to you and your apprentices.”
The blacksmith stared at the sword on the bench then back towards the forge where a second batch on metal was being made. “Why are you making this kind of offer?”
“I offered the same to the another blacksmith, he wasn’t sure either. Think about it, and if you’re truly interested, come see me in the fortress.”
“I think that’s fair and reasonable,” He turned back to work on the metal he had in the forge.
Bloodstone picked up the sword and slotted it into the sheath and then strapped it to his belt.
The blacksmith looked up, “How dangerous is that blade against a living thing?”
“Lethal, and in the hands of someone really skilled, it would be absolutely devastating to anything its swung at. I am still working on gaining levels as a swordsman, it is kind of a cheat, to have a sword this sharp, it is also why the sheath and the sword lock together. I also have a name for the blade, Verdant Quercus, means green oak”
The blacksmith said the words to turn off the coil in the forge. “How long will the flame coil last?”
“No idea if it stops working, I can make another one.”
Bloodstone left the blacksmiths shop, the apprentice who had brought him the oak came out and caught up with him. “My lord, I would like to know if you would allow me to learn your art?”
“Don’t you still have an apprenticeship with Mister Jadavan?”
“I do sir, I have already reached level eleven in blacksmithing, I want to learn to make magic items.”
“You know how to read?”
“Yes, my lord, and my numbers as well its required to be a blacksmith.”
Bloodstone thought about it for a moment and then pulled a single book out of one of his bags, and handed it to him. It was a spell book they had bought weeks ago, and had been filled with spells. “I’m going to let you borrow this, you’re going to have to get a new blank spell book and either learn to copy them or have someone copy them for you. I am guessing you have already been tested for an aptitude in magic?”
“Thank you, my lord, and yes, I didn’t pass that test.”
“Well my test is very different, if you can’t understand the book, come see me tomorrow.”
He handed him the book and the apprentice clutched it close, and then ran back into the smith shop.
“Are you not getting his hopes up to be a mage or an enchanter?” The guardsman asked.
“Not at all, I never said he would be a mage or an enchanter, he’s going to be something more important.”
“Mages and enchanters, are the only classes I know of that can make magic items oh and wizards, but even then, it takes years to get to that point.”
“I know of one other class that, specializes in making magic items, I have some levels in it, and I don’t need any more.”
“What is the other class”, he asked.
“It’s not recorded by your king in his books, so I am not going to tell you. Someone like me with the odd classes I have can become very wealthy if I wanted to. Truth to tell, I don’t need too since Lady Coreen manages the finances on Rhir.”
As they walked back there was one moon in the sky casing its glow. No one was out as it was late in the evening. “How sharp is that blade?”
“Sharp enough that if someone was dumb enough to try and block they would definitely get cut.”
“What is to prevent someone from stealing it?”
Bloodstone held out the blade and sheath after untying it from his belt. “Go ahead try and draw it”
The guardsman pulled on the sheath and blade to draw the blade. “Is there some trick to it?”
“Yes, there is, I want to see if you can figure it out. You watched me make the blade and the sheath”
The guardsman looked closely, “I don’t see anything that would cause it to lock.” He handed it back to Bloodstone, who drew the blade partially from the sheath and then slammed it back into the sheath. “It’s a matter of strength, see if you can draw it now”
The guardsman tried to draw the blade again, and it still would not pull free. “Must be something special about the sword.”
“It dark, it better light you most likely would see the catch.” He put the sword back on his belt. “If you want, I can fix your blade to be as sharp as mine, you would need the special catch though.”
Day 25
With the old Lord having left, a new routine began to settle in with Bloodstone and his wives. They had decided on a spot to build a new manor, that would both be close to the wall and far enough that it would not cause any issue with defense of the wall or impede any traffic. There was also a place where they could connect to the wall and its security. It would also mirror the other side where the other manor was. No ground had been broken as they were still awaiting approval from the King.
The weather was still rainy and an occasional squall would blow through drenching the area. The rain also made the roads muddy as well as the walls themselves slippery. Bloodstone sat in the audience room, in the manor. There were only two guardsmen who stood by the open door. Sarah walked in and headed right towards him. “I have been looking all over for you”
“Really, what for?”
“I wanted to talk to you about the conversation we had, I understand you were being mean to make me see how I was acting. I wanted to apologize, for my behavior.”
“No need, it’s already been sorted, have you decided what you want?”
“I want to go home, and to stop being afraid”
“I can’t get us home, at least not now, I am not even sure if there is an easy way home. There are just too many unknowns.”
“What do you mean?”
“We have a movie clip of a transition from out world to here, and that doesn’t help. Most of the history of this world has been hidden or destroyed. We are blind, and what we don’t know can kill us.”
“As for being afraid, I can only tell you that that’s normal, move past it.”
“How? You seem to take it all in stride, and they said you jumped off the wall”
“Don’t mistake confidence for courage, I knew I could make the landing. I also know that I need to contact everyone from our world, the problem is that I have nothing to tell them.”
“Wouldn’t more people from our world be able to help?”
“Maybe, maybe not. Rhir is on the border to some nasty monsters. Should we be hijacking a ship and leaving, or should we have everyone come here?”
“You can make someone really powerful and get us home”
Bloodstone understood where she was going, “Whom would you trust? Me? My wife’s, my kids? Don’t misunderstand, it’s a good idea, but not practical.”
“You could give someone a bunch of levels”
“It’s not the levels that are important, it’s the skills.”
“Skills? Oh! How many skills do you have?”
“About a hundred different skills, some are passive, some are usable skills. Think about it, that’s a lot of skills, and that’s probably a small percentage of the skills available. I have a slight advantage, in that I think differently than most people.”
“I still don’t know what to do, I thought about it, I have decided that I will be whatever you need me to be. You made a deal with me, yes it was when I was dying, you kept your end of the deal. You never once forced me to honor the deal you made.”
“You don’t have to follow through, the deal was to get you to live.”
“Lord Bloodstone, I pledge myself to you and your cause, I am a [cook] a [trader] and a [mage]. You saved my life, brought me back from near death, allowed me to walk when I should be paralyzed. You only asked that I live. You can make me anything you wish me to be.”
“I still have some monster classes left, I can change them into any class, there is a class I would like you to become, it has to be your choice to become it and then carry out my request.”
“What class?”
He leaned over and whispered into her ear.
“Wouldn’t that… how would that work?”
“Good question, do you think that you could handle something like that?”
“You are serious?”
“As a heartbeat, there are some things we would need to discuss before I gave you said class.”
“Like what?”
“Like keeping it a secret, and we will need to experiment with it as well.”
“What if I used it on you?”
“I don’t see that as a problem, as long as we agree on some ground rules. You want to be useful to me, that’s one way. I have a few other ideas.”
“Such as?”
“Rather not talk about them now. I do have a question, if you recall, what kind of phone were they using when they got that message?”
“It was an Apple Iphone, I never got to read the messages, like I told you before. They were being very protective of the phone”
“You didn’t have a phone when you were brought here?”
“No, I left it in my dorm, I was running to the convenience store to get soda”
“I imagine there is some group back home trying to figure out where people are disappearing to. Think about it, I don’t recall anything in the news about missing people.”
“I never thought about that, I bet my parents are freaked out.”
“Well, I imagine the FBI or local law enforcement trying to find a lead, there isn’t a commonality between any of us. I would like to get any phones or pictures so we can at least give closure if we do get back. It’s why I took pictures of the rest of the people who had died. I realize we may never get home, it’s just so we can document it for the future.”
“Why did you ask about the phone?”
“I think we may need to contact everyone, it’s not like we can help them at least right now, I think there might be a way, at least to save the information.”
“what about someone like the king who has a phone?”
“Good point, we need a way to verify they really are from our world. Though someone could be forced to answer questions, I think we can chance it.”
“Where did your computer end up?”
“I have it, the problem I have is limited space and unlimited data. I know the amount of data I can store, pictures, video, and documents and books from our world. I have a couple of flash drives and that helps a little, the big issue is that eventually I will run out of space.”
“Can’t you make new computers or phones?”
“Not easily, I know how processors and boards are made, I can’t just manufacture them out of thin air. I must have some idea on the construction, of each chip. To do that I would need to take one apart, I can’t do that without damaging the systems.”
“Oh. What if you got other phones?”
“Still the same issue, it would take time, time we must help build the wall, I think that that is important, possibly more important than anything else we might think. Newton and Beth are going to start working on industrial levels of concrete, and rebar. With magic we can get heaters and move to the next level, I am going to be working on getting help making the precursor technologies and items to make that big step forward.”
“How does me having that class help? Or contacting other people?”
“It frees up time if we can delegate some of the tasks to other people. Fighting really isn’t the way, though if we have to, we will.”
“I’m not really much of a fighter”
Bloodstone laughed, “Don’t sell yourself short, you are more of a fighter than the others, you survived. Grow stronger from the experience, learn from it. We have your back, and that should mean something.”
“Ok do it, I want to see if I can use a class like that.”
“Well there something else I want you to do, first.”
“What’s that?”
“You need to go back into the blight, with us.”
“Us? Who else did you plan on going out into the blight?”
“Me, my wife, pretty much everyone. The thing is you haven’t really been in a fight.”
“What about the thing with the kings me, that seemed like a fight to me, and when I was almost killed.”
“Those were not fights, I am talking a fight where you know for a fact you are going to win. I also talked to the commander and he informed me that the scouts saw a large group of demons heading this way, so we crush them and then check on the outpost.”
“You sound so confident, are you sure you are not being over confident.”
“Maybe, are you in or out?”
“I’m in, so when will you change my class?”
“I want to leave you with [mage] and [cook], the [trader] class we can use,” he said grinning. “I can change it right now if you want”
“Well I have twelve levels I can add to it, whats your trader class up to?”
“It’s eight”
“Twenty levels that’s descent, there is just one issue, you can’t tell anyone you have that class.”
“You mean because people would want to try and use me?”
“Meaning that the less people know the safer you are.”
Rana and Xyrdiane walked into the room. “Know what?” Rana asked
“Well if I told you more people would know and that would make someone less safe.” Bloodstone said with a straight face.
“Who?” Xyrdiane asked.
“Sarah, we can pick this up later if your interested.”
“Why not just get it over with, its not like they will tell anyone.”
“Tell anyone what?” Rana asked.
“About a class that I was going to give to Sarah.”
“What class?” Rana and Xyrdiane asked at the same time.
“I would rather not say it aloud, it is bad enough a number of people know that I can shift classes, I have had guardsmen and soldiers asking me to shift classes they don’t need around earlier today. Nothing major, I would rather it be on the down low that I can change a class to something new.”
“What like Violets class?” Xyrdiane asked.
“Yes, though I think that’s what she is on the inside.”
“So what class?” Rana asked.
“Just watch, and please don’t blab about it.” He held out his hand for Sarah.
Bloodstone quickly absorbed the [trader] class and then dumped a full 20 levels into the special class.
“Are you serious!?” Rana asked staring at Sarah.
“What?” Xyrdiane asked.
Rana leaned close and whispered something into her ear. “No Way!”
Sarah looked over at them,”Whoa!, I just got a bunch of skills.”
“I bet, “Rana said taking three steps back from Sarah.
“Oh Wow!, I can see all the skills you have!” She said looking over Rana and Xyrdiane. “What’s Eye of the gazer”, she asked.
“It’s a null-magic field.” Rana said softly.
“Oh.” She then looked at Bloodstone, “What the….twenty thirty forty… how many skills do you have?”
“You tell me.”
Sarah kept looking at him, “A hundred? Some I get some of them are just wrong.”
“Like what?” Rana asked.
“Like Obfuscation of the truth, what is that?”
“Sounds like hide the truth, how would that work?”
“Don’t look at me, I have no idea how it works either.” Bloodstone said.
“Speed rowing, seriously, Why?” Sarah asked.
“I think I got that from the pirate class.”
“Oh, speed rowing, how weird.”
“What about my skills,” Xyrdiane asked.
Sarah looked over at her, “They seem normal enough, that’s odd you have some of the same skills Bloodstone has.”
“I would imagine that’s because he had the Geomancer class at one point.”
“That makes sense.”
“Now for the important question, what new skills did you get Sarah?”
“I thought you didn’t want me to talk about it.”
“True, just don’t go crazy.”
Sarah laughed, “And what and go taking peoples skills?”
“Precisely”
Kiki walked in with a large half eaten sandwich, “Whatcha all doing?” The sandwich was a big chunk of meat and bread and little else.
“Uh nothing, where did you get the sandwich?”
“The kitchen” She said taking another large bite and chewing it.
Everyone else rushed out of the room, presumably towards the kitchen.
Kiki swallowed, “Mrs Amethyst says you shouldn’t spend all day in here.”
“I see and you came to tell me that?’
Kiki nodded, taking another bite.
“When do you stop eating?”
Kiki looked at him and said, ”when I am sleeping or pooping.”
“TMI” He said laughing and walking past her.
“What’s TMI?”
“Oh, too much information”
“I don’t get it.”
“Nevermind lets find Lady Amethyst.
Later Bloodstone, Newton, Beth, Miguel, Sarah, Lady Amethyst, Kuya, Eve, Zach were in a locked room. No one else was allowed into the room.
“Since we are all from the US, I wanted to know what you though about locking down the phones, not just ours but every ones that came to this world.“
“Isn’t that a bit much, what if they need the phone”
“I was thinking that the phones can be a valuable resource, and we should also give them a chance to reclaim the phone, and know they are in contact with the rest of us. Like private communication. The problem I see is that there could be others, like the king who have acquired a phone off someone who died or perhaps traded for it.”
“Well I don’t have a phone, why am I here?” Miguel asked.
“Your from our world, and you can give us some insite.”
“What are you proposing?”
“I have been doing some experiments, and can make program that will take over the phones, I haven’t tested it on the iphones, but I do know it will work on the androids.”
“Why though?” Eve asked.
“Well if I can get the software on the system we can open communication to the others who have phones, the problem is that what if someone not from our world like the king has a phone, how would anyone know. We can warn the king or give him a cheat sheet, as a sign of good faith, and may have him realizes there are more people that can help than he knows.”
“So how would you do that?” Newton asked.
“I happen to have eclipse on my laptop, and some other software for use on phones, getting it to the phones is more of a problem, I think I have it mostly worked out.”
“No why would we mess with other people’s phones?”
Bloodstone set his phone on the table. “It’s just a camera, and a computer, along with any other specialty software you have on your phone when you were brought here. I am proposing that if they want to use a version of our network they play by our rules, or they don’t use the network. For right now, we just want to talk with people from our world, and help them and figure out where they are and where they came from. We can also use it for other things.”
“Like what?” Sarah asked.
“Well in theory if we had an active network we could in theory apply other spells to the phones, we just need to have them agree to the service.”
“What kind of spells,” Beth asked.
“Self-recharging, long distance communications, maybe even teleportation, and one of the problems we are going to run into at some point is that we will need expertise that none of us have, It would be good to pool our knowledge and also document who else has been brought here and open communication between the different people. For right now we can’t help them directly, we can give them someplace to go or at least know who’s out there and how many. “
“How are you thinking of distributing the program?” Miguel asked.
“Glad you asked, I think I can make a device, that can act as a GPS and network relay, the only issue is how far up could we get it and what it might need to cover the entire world.”
“You haven’t made it yet”
“No, I wanted to talk with all of you first.”
“Do you have time to do that?” Eve asked.
“Not really, that’s why I wanted to ask you first, before I pushed things any farther.”
“Why should we care about anyone else?” Sarah asked.
“It’s the right thing to do, to make contact, and perhaps see if anyone has any information we can use. As a gesture we can make the phones work again.”
“So how would you make sure that they are not locals?” Newton asked.
“We could preface it with questions about our world only someone from our world would know. History, Math, Science, Music, Pop culture, and anything else you guys think of.”
“What like what was Ash’s first pet called?” Zach asked.
Everyone looked over at Zach.
“That might work, I can tell you all want to yell at him, think about it who would know that?”
There was a groan around the table, “You want us to come up with a bunch of questions and answers?”
“Yes, the problem is that, the answers can’t be sent, just in case someone decompiles it, or breaks it.”
“And a construct would be given these answers and be able to tell if someone is a native of from our world?” Miguel asked.
“Unless someone wants to check every answer to verify it?”
There were more groans, and dissent. “Should I send a preliminary message? I think I have enough of an idea how to send a burst message. They wouldn’t be able to reply, we could warn them in advance, that if they want the phones to work, they would need to do something. Maybe reply to a certain number in a text? To opt in or out? I would then never message them in the future.”
“I think that would be fair.” Eve said.
“Who thinks it is a good idea?” Bloodstone asked, only Eve, Newton and Beth raised their hands.
“I don’t have a phone, I don’t care” Sarah said.
“My phone won’t work with that dad,” Kuya said.
“Ok, I will work on getting the initial message and have you all look at it, before I send it.”
They all filed out of the room, Amethyst was the only one still sitting, “I don’t know if it’s a good idea or not, we should be trying to get home not contacting other people.”
“Don’t they deserve to try and get home as well?”
“You don’t know that you can get anyone home, since you are not even sure if there is a way home.”
“I know, I have to do something, moving in one direction limits us, if we pursue multiple tracks, maybe we can get lucky and find a solution we might not have thought of. Or someone else may have information that we need.”
“What are you going to say to the unknown people?”
“Something simple. How about this, A global text message, Greetings phone user, due to limited power we can only send this one message, however if you reply, the next time we broadcast you will be able to send it to us. We are working to make a working phone system, if you are interested, in a reply message as opt in. More to come. Stay safe!”
“Nothing about who we are or where?”
“No, we have no idea who might have the phones, it gives them a chance to message for help or opt in.”
“You mentioned teleporting, would you really teleport them here or teleport to them?”
“That’s a long way off, I’m still trying to figure out how to integrate a spell with technology, I have the basics figured out. Spells are larger, than you would think they would be.”
“Well I don’t need my spell book in the phone,” She said and summoned the book.
“Is it solid to you?”
“Yes, oddly enough it smells like paper, and there is a hint of the ink.”
“Best illusion ever, it’s weird that you got that and no one else did.”
She shrugged, “I expected to have a spell book if I was an enchanter.”
“Speaking of being an enchanter, were you able to find out if you can enchant metals?”
“I did find those spells, weird they were in the back part of the book, past a few blank pages.”
“Did you figure out how to add spells to your book yet?”
“I did, it seems that certain spells can be added, others can’t.”
“Was there iron or steal in the book?”
“Yes there is one for iron ore, and copper ore”
“I will have to see if I can get some.”
“Let’s get moving before they eat all the food.”
They left to go eat.
—
Later that night Bloodstone was staring at a screen, it flashed a few bars across the screen and then listed seven strings of numbers, and a distance. The computer still hummed a small device was connected to a usb device plugged in on one side.
The numbers shows distances in meters and all of them were fairly close, within a hundred meters or less.He looked at his phone sitting on the other side, it was off. He changed two parameters and clicked run again, again there were bars, and the list popped up, nothing had changed. There were only eight listings
“So nothing within five thousand meters, or it’s not going out that far.“
“You got it working?”
“Sort of, it just gives a distance, a can find the information even if the phone is off.”
“What if it’s on?” Lady Amethyst asked.
“There’s no noticeable effect, at least nothing anyone else can see and they have their phones on, we would have gotten a knock on the door if anything had changed. I’m going to make it a thousand kilometers and rerun.”
“Can you tell what kind of phone they are yet?”
“Not yet, there is a lot of data that can be pulled I just don’t want to pull a bunch of data from the phones, since we have storage issues.”
“Really, even with the computer’s hard drive you can’t get more data?”
“I am targeting the sim cards so there is no phone data, but it gives a localized effect, where we can try and figure out the distance. I can also have it search for Micro Sd cards, in a meter radius. I have an extra sim card that I stuffed into my phones cover, the original one from my old phone. The extra card won’t fit but it can be used to multi target my phone.”
“These two are yours and that one is mine?” She said pointing to the list
“Yup eight sim cards, so lets see what we get with a bigger radius. Huh, twelve cards, taking the ones we know are ours that leaves these four; these two are about the same distance, so possibly two in the capital and two where that group the king send east.”
“Still no way to scan them all for micro sd cards or connect to the phone?”
“No only one a time, so far, I’m going to build a file, and then use that to pipe to the second program.”
“It’s late, I am going to bed.” She turned put her phone away.
“Good night, I am going to go to bed shortly myself.” He typed in a much larger number and had the results go to a file. He then got up while it ran and got up and left, locking the door behind him.
A number of numbers scrolled across the screen with distances, two of the numbers were identical but had different distances. The program crashed.