Eramith
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Book 2: Chapter 32
🕑 Added 2023-05-09 13:00:05 +0000 UTCFelix quickly fed Nova 30 mana batteries then patiently waited out the 5 minutes. Everyone in the building seemed to be nervously adjusting their equipment and checking through their inventories at the last minute. Noah and Amelia were embracing each-other and Will and Alan whispering in each-other’s ear. After 5 minutes were up, Felix felt the biggest lurch in ambient mana yet as everyone attending vanished from Trenus and reappeared in what looked like a greyscale nightmare.
Everyone seemed to be in the same relative position from where they started so Felix looked around and saw Noah, Benjamin, Will and Alan standing around him. Behind him, the crowd of people that were standing outside of the city council building. There were a handful of people a few hundred meters in front of him that would have been spread throughout Atalus. Looking beyond them, there were large groups representing each of the major cities of Trenus in their relative position. To Felix’s right was The Lodge, his left was Sprouts and Coastwatch. Then Snowvale, Trelas, Orselle and Lav’gur a little further out. In total, no one was further than a few kilometers from each-other, the empty space between the cities evidently scaled down by a large amount. After a minute or so to adjust, a screen appeared.
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World Event
Welcome to Ky’bel. This city was once a Galactic Capital and home to Erolan, one of the most controversial leaders in the area, at the time. Erolan’s home was attacked causing him to hide his wealth throughout the city. The greatest of his treasures were stored in a pocket dimension stored in his statue. The key to open it was split into 12 pieces and spread throughout the city to make it’s retrieval nearly impossible. Once all 12 pieces are gathered near the statue, Erolan’s pet, his champion, will be summoned. Defeating this champion is the only way of getting into the pocket dimension and to Erolan’s final vault.
The key fragments as well as a vast number of minor treasures are located within vaults and treasure caches filed away throughout the city.
Erolan’s story that was previously shown when the world event vote concluded along with this screen may be resummoned at any time.
You may leave at any time by initiating the teleport however you will be unable to return. The event space will remain open until Erolan’s final vault is breached at which point the space will close after 1 day.
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Felix looked around and took in the environment around him. A few kilometers in front of Felix stood a massive statue some 50 meters tall made entirely of stone. It stood with it’s front leg slightly bent, almost lunging forwards holding a glowing orb with two hands just in front of it’s chest. The orb glowed shedding a crimson light around it and the statue was positioned as though it was trying to squeeze the orb. The statue wore long hooded robes, almost like a cloak with sleeves. Beyond the statue stood a massive circular wall that surrounded the city of Ky’bel. None of that stood out to Felix, at least not as much as the weather did though.
They stood in a vast field of what Felix assumed was green grass, though it was hard to tell. The sky was filled with a massive spiral of roiling clouds that converged on the center of the city. The clouds were so dark, they were almost black, with the light that filtered through giving the environment a washed out almost greyscale look. Flashes of lightning shot through the clouds constantly with thunderous booms following them shortly afterwards. As Felix stood looking up at the clouds, his cloak was being whipped around by winds that couldn’t seem to decide which direction they wanted to blow.
The strong storm winds and sudden change in location didn’t seem to bother Nova in the slightest as they peeked over Felix’s shoulder and looked around. Felix looked over at Noah and met his gaze as he looked around for himself.
“You gonna head off right away or do you want to come talk to the other cities with me?” Noah asked just loud enough to hear over the winds.
“Sure, sounds like a plan. I’d like to be aware of roughly what everyone is planning if possible so I’ll follow you for now.”
Noah nodded to Felix then Benjamin in turn. He led them over in the direction of Trelas, behind them and further away from the statue. Looking around, people from each of the cities seemed to just be loitering about, almost everyone waiting for direction. There were some from each of the cities and especially those from between them that headed straight towards the city.
Noah, Felix, Benjamin, Will and Alan all met up with Jack, Martin, Amani and Otto. Jackie it seemed had run off towards the city on her own but her representative was there as well.
“As we talked about before? Think we should set up further from the statue? If that’s where the final boss is going to show up…” Jack yelled out above the winds.
“Good idea. We’ll keep a few hundred meters between each camp otherwise feel free to set up wherever. Once we have, we can figure out how to split up the city.” Noah nodded in response to Jack’s question.
“Mind doing that now? I’ve got a few that would like to get started as soon as possible.” Amani asked. She didn’t seem to need to raise her voice much as it’s melodic tone was perfectly audible as though it pierced the winds.
“Sure thing. Do we have any idea of the layout of the city?” Noah asked.
Everyone took a minute to open their maps and shook their heads.
Noah turned to Felix, “Felix, can you give me a general idea?”
Felix nodded and jumped into the air, flying straight up until he could see the general layout of the city. Despite the clouds in the sky and the winds whipping in every which direction, Felix had no trouble seeing the city hundreds of kilometers away. No where around him did he see a single drop of rain. As he ascended, the city came into view and Felix simply let go of his spells and let himself drop until he was a hundred or so meters above the ground and he cast feather fall. He pushed himself back towards the group as he fell as the winds had pushed him while in the air.
He turned to Noah, “It’s a really big circle. There are three walls, the outer one, another in the middle, and another in the middle of that one.”
“That’s rather simple.” Noah scratched his head.
“You can fly?” Jack asked incredulously.
“Uh… yeah…”
“Well, we can just cut it into 8 slices then. How about the cardinal direction, North, East, South, West and the in-betweens?”
Everyone seemed to nod in agreement so they allocated the slices to the relative positions of the cities. The Lodge would get the north slice then in a clockwise direction was Snowvale, Trelass, Orselle, Coastwatch, Orselle, Sprouts, Lav’gur and Atalus. No one from Lav’gur was at the meeting, but it was too confusing to split the city into 7. After agreeing upon the split everyone moved off back to their people.
Felix followed Benjamin who was going to claim land for Atalus’ camp while Noah went to inform the other residents of Atalus. They wanted to be further from the statue and closer to the other cities which necessitated moving. All of the cities began setting up large tents with thick posts to keep them stable against the wind. It seemed like everyone had planned ahead and possibly even practiced as tents were erected in less than 10 minutes for the camps that didn’t move from where they landed. Once the large main tents were set up, smaller tents and structures were erected all around them for individuals, food storage and communal areas. Felix helped Noah with setting up their tent, flying up and using spells to hammer in the posts. They then nailed a thick cloth to the posts that felt like it had been waxed to stay waterproof.
Felix looked around at the other cities, taking in the differences between the tents, some wooden structures and the general layouts when something caught his eye. He flew over to Trelas and Snowvale’s combined camp and walked up to Martin who was in the process of piecing together what appeared to be a large dune buggy. It was a large metal vehicle with wheels that extended out of the main structure supported by springs. The body was large enough to fit 3 pairs side by side and was mostly enclosed with the only window being the windshield. On top of and to the side of the vehicle were cannons that mounted to the frame. At least, that’s how Felix imagined the vehicle because right now it was completely in pieces laid out on the ground approximately where each piece would go.
“That… is awesome.” Felix said.
Martin looked up from what he was doing with a smile, “Pain in the ass to transport though. Had to split it into pieces to get it all into our inventories. It’ll be much more impressive in 30 minutes or so when it’s all put together.”
Felix looked around at the rest of Martin and Jack’s camp noticing that everyone else was busy setting up tents and even some machines of their own. “Do you need help with that?” Felix offered.
“Uh…” Martin winced, “Alright, but you can only do what I tell you to, ok? Initiative is very bad, got it?”
“Sure thing.” Felix chuckled as he knelt down near Martin. Together they put the structure together in just under 10 minutes. Felix followed exactly what Martin told him and didn’t stray at all though Martin relaxed after a few minutes when he realized Felix wasn’t an idiot. Martin also did an amazing job at making the vehicle come apart into pieces that were relatively easy to reassemble. The whole process was not complicated at all and was more akin to lego than it was to building a vehicle.
“Thanks for the help.”
“No problem. So uh, how’s it move? I take it it’s an enchantment?”
“Sort of, more like an inscribed spell.”
“Can I see it?”
“Uh… Sure.” Martin led Felix to the back of the vehicle where he opened a hatch revealing a large metal plate with enchantments on it.
“It’s going to take a little while to charge up and it doesn’t have a massive range, but it’s better than walking. It’s also mostly how my class works.”
Felix raised his hand in front of him towards the enchanted plate and looked questioningly at Martin who hesitated then shrugged and nodded. Felix touched the enchantment and gently filled it to the brim with mana. He was actually rather impressed with the enchantment Martin had come up with, he had essentially created a bunch of inert enchantments that were used just to store mana. Felix pulled his hand away and looked at Martin who’s left eyebrow was raised while his head was cocked to the side, “What did you do?”
“I filled the enchantment. Waiting for it to charge is boring.”
“Wai… Uh… You can do that? How?”
Felix shrugged, “I just push mana into it. You should probably look into batteries though, those are much easier.”
“I’ve wanted to but I haven’t figured out how just yet.”
“I can give you the schematic if you’d like?”
“Really? You’d just… Thank you, yes please.”
“You got a pen and paper by chance?”
“You memorized it?”
“Yeah, photographic memory skill. It is very handy.”
Martin led Felix to the nearby tent where there was already a table set up and Jack was poring over a map of the city, which was just a large circle at the moment. Martin handed Felix a piece of paper and a metal pencil with a charcoal core and he quickly sketched out the schematic for a mana battery. He made sure to trace a mental image to make the drawing as accurate as possible. He handed it to Martin who took it carefully as though the sheet might disintegrate if he was too rough with it.
Felix lightly shook his head then walked over next to Jack with Martin’s pencil still in hand and gestured to the map with it. Jack back away a few steps and let Felix get full access. Felix proceeded to fill in the city with the rough layout of the blocks and buildings he could make out from the air along with the statue and a few other landmarks. He used his memory skill to overlay his memory, skew it until it was an overhead view then traced it to make the map as accurate as possible.
When he was done he stepped back with a satisfied nod and Jack walked back up to the map. Felix handed Martin back his pencil which was an awesome instrument, it was essentially a mechanical pencil except it was just a piston, not a button. Jack spoke without looking up from the map, “Where do I get myself one of you? Or even better, where can I learn to fly?”
Felix chuckled, “Martin could probably make you a jetpack of some sort.”
Jack looked to Martin with wide eyes, “Well why the hell haven’t you?”
“Now that I can make batteries I could, before you would barely make it off the ground or it would be size of a small plane.”
“Oh, speaking of batteries. Here.” Felix pulled five mana batteries out of his inventory and handed them to Martin, “These are batteries but they can’t be recharged, they’re really just solid mana. In case of an emergency or just for testing, if you want.”
“Oh wow. This is awesome, thank you. How much mana in each of them?”
“250,000 points.”
Martin gaped, “EACH?”
“Yeah.”
“What the fuck. That’s bigger than my entire mana pool. Where the hell did you get these? Are you sure you can just give them to me like this? You won’t need them?”
“I made them. Yeah I have a ton more in my inventory.”
“Holy shit. Thank you.”
“I got a request in return if you don’t mind. Can you take me for a ride in the vehicle?”
Martin shrugged “Sure, it’s probably not as exciting as you’re imagining though.”
Felix shrugged, “Maybe, it looks damn cool though.” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
