The Newt and Demon

6.20 - Uh-Oh

Xol’sa did a better job of siphoning energy from the dungeons than Theo had expected. The magic that drove the dungeons was well beyond him, even if he understood their habit of drawing energy from the realms. There was some interaction between the heavenly realms, the void, and dungeons. The alchemist just couldn’t wrap his mind around it. Perhaps more Wisdom would help.

After Theo left Tero’gal, he checked his administration interface. While he tried not to babysit the projects going on in town, it was hard not to peek. The administrators were using town funds to buy Monster Cores. That just got the alchemist thinking about their taxation system, and how flawed it was. But he hardly cared. He siphoned all the money he made from his various businesses into the town. He didn’t expect it to happen at first, but Ziz was doing the same.

This would have been an unsustainable economy back on Earth. But this wasn’t Earth. The Southlands Alliance didn’t have to rely on things produced by extensive labor. Magic provided most of what they needed. But the people in the alliance were still very independent, keeping their own fortunes and contributing the rest to the cause. Tero’gal had developed on its own, becoming egalitarian without Theo’s intervention. He wasn’t sure if the spirits needed food, but they ate it. Food was produced through hunting, farming, or fishing and deposited into a pool. Although the spirits had splintered off, they still contributed.

It wasn’t worth worrying about how many coins the towns under his control were generating. That money would go right back into the town, improving it every step of the way. Alise’s latest report claimed they would have a stockpile of Monster Cores in a few days. More ships were coming and going from the port every day. And everyone was playing nice in the waters around Broken Tusk. The sailors had comments about the giant city right outside of the harbor, but it was business as usual. This world was filled with enough weird things that they hardly seemed to notice.

Business as usual.

Theo’s eyes watered as the wind whipped his face. Sarisa and Rowan hung their heads out of the train car, howling against the wind. Everyone was getting used to the trains and it was hard to tell if that was a good thing. The alchemist just wished there was something Throk could do about the wind. The reports coming in from Gronro were promising, though. Ziz had some kind of hidden time dilation skill for his cores. Theo was convinced of that. The man worked about 34 hours in a day. The thought was hyperbolic, but the evidence was there.

The train came to a stop at the station near Gronro, allowing the three passengers off. The half-ogre operating the train nodded, cautioning them to watch their heads and horns while exiting the car. Gronro was looking better than ever. Theo drew in a deep breath from the fresh mountain air, feeling the chill on his exposed face. Plant life had returned to the area in full. Shrubs and grasses grew everywhere. Even in the icy mountain region, pine saplings broke through the rocky earth. Heading to the northern side of town, and nodding to a gaggle of half-ogres and dwarves, Theo saw more signs of growth near the northern wall.

A dusting of snow clung to the ground just north of the gate, growing more intense the further the group walked. Sarisa complained, requesting Theo to teleport them. She didn’t seem to care that it was impossible. Rowan enjoyed the sights, though. Especially when the massive bridge came into view in the distance.

The normal teams Ziz employed weren’t working on the bridge project. Theo was confident he could spot a Broken Tusk half-ogre from two-hundred paces.

“Grot is doing big things,” Theo said, nodding with approval. He approached the bridge that spanned the chasm. A chasm that Fenian had created. “I guess I should have expected a dwarf to be so good with stone.”

The bridge was some hybrid between a suspension bridge and one with… pillars. Theo would be the first to admit he knew nothing about bridges. Massive towers rose on either side of the chasm, supporting braided cables that swooped along the length of the bridge’s road. It was wide enough for four monorail tracks to be placed. Far too wide for any practical purpose—this seemed more like something someone built to brag.

“Theo!” Grot’s booming voice echoed across the mountain pass. The dwarf rose from a group of citizens from Gronro. They were tweaking part of the suspension cables part-way down the bridge. “What do you think?”

“Do you guys sleep?” Theo asked.

“Hired help, ya silly demon. You didn’t see the gang of workers coming from the port the other day? Hundreds of ‘em. Elves, khahari. I saw a few broglings lifting stones. Funny bastards, those broglings.”

“Hired help?” Sarisa asked, scoffing. “Dang that’s a good idea. How many laborers did you ship in?”

“These were stoneworkers. People with cores for the job. Got ‘em out of Bantein. Gave us a discount. Since they think the alliance stopped the undead.”

“Yeah, don’t let them think otherwise,” Theo said. “We might need more help in the future. How long did you have them hired for?”

“They’re working on the next bridge already. Alise said she sorted out the details of the deal.”

Grot didn’t need to ask if Theo was unaware of the deal. He buried his head in the sand with administration work. “Excellent. I like that. How sturdy is the bridge?”

“Oh, quite sturdy.” Grot placed his hands on his hips, thrusting his chest out with pride. “Only the best workmanship in my town. Cost a pretty penny, but you paid for most of it.”

“I don’t remember agreeing to pay for this.” Theo searched the area, finding piles of supplies off to the side. Stones were stacked out in the open, while other things were kept in Dimensional Storage Crates. Lengths of monorail track were laid over the ground, no care to how they were stored. Throk had big things planned for these bridges, and no one was wasting time.

“Well, you did. Thanks for that. We’re heading north from here… Ah, well… Kinda. Fenian made a mess of the area. We need to angle northwest before we head true north.”

“How confusing.” Theo approached the bridge’s edge, tapping his foot on the stone. He shot a look at Sarisa. “Could you step on the bridge?”

“What? You want me to step there? I don’t trust it.”

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“The bridge is perfectly safe,” Grot protested.

Theo shook his head, stepping onto the bridge. It was fine. The wind picked up as he came to the midpoint, sending the bridge swaying slightly, but it was safe. A bit of play in the bridge’s structure meant the builders knew what they were doing. Although the span wasn’t that long, the bridge had been constructed in a grandiose fashion. He wouldn’t complain, since it made the Southlands Alliance look fancier than it was. The more the alchemist thought about it, the more he realized that a fancy rail system was pretty fancy. He didn’t know what the other nations had, but… come on. It was cool.

After making it to the far side of the bridge, Theo surveyed the area with his aura. “Far less necromantic energy than I expected. I think I should talk to Balkor soon…”

“Keep your god business to yourself,” Grot grumbled. “I don’t want to be involved.”

Theo didn’t want to be involved. But here he was.

Teams were working on the next section of bridge. Theo observed the foreign workers, noting how efficient they were. He chatted with a few group leaders, getting their impression of the region and the recent war. Most expressed regret for the loss in Vesta and Qavell, but they were hardened against this cycle. They were excited to see what could be built in place of those nations.

The tactical advantages of the bridges were obvious. It took effort to build them, but enough that collapsing them was out of the question. If another army of the dead were to crash over the landscape, the Southlands Alliance would destroy their own bridges, isolating but protecting them from the assault. Theo was happy with the progress, bidding Grot farewell and making notes on his administrator screen. He instructed Alise to assign someone to manage this project, or at least provide aid to Grot if he needed it.

The tour was fun. Theo enjoyed checking in on these projects, but the day was wearing thin. He didn’t need to ask Rowan and Sarisa if they were up for a trudge through the swamp. They wouldn’t be eager to do something so daunting, and he wouldn’t blame them. Clapping his hands together to gain their attention, he nodded with conviction.

“Okay. We’re having a free day.”

“Free day!?” Rowan shouted.

“Free half-day,” Sarisa corrected.

“Let’s head back to town. I’ll cloister myself in the manor or something and you two rapscallions can do whatever you want.”

“Oh, he treats us so well, brother.”

“Truly, a saint.”

The only thing Theo could think of doing was working on his alchemy and herbalism. Since he discovered the Night’s End flower, he had driven himself further away from his experimental garden. It would be worthwhile to explore different ways to cultivate reagents, but he could do that from the manor. It would be alchemical spitballing with a single participant. Maybe Salire would be interested in it, but he needed some alone time to figure this out.

The ride back to town was uneventful. While Sarisa and Rowan seemed excited about the break at first, they were more against the idea as Theo found a seat in his study. He promised to leave the mortal plane while they were gone, sitting in the void while they weren’t protecting him. That made them happy enough, and they scampered off to do their own things. The hired guard that appeared outside of the manor roughly ten minutes after they left didn’t evade his notice.

Theo fell into the endless expanse of the void, staying on the near side. One could think of it as left and right, east and west. He remained on the side closest to the mortal realm, studying the area as he thought about a solution to his problem. Tier 4 potions were an issue. They produced powerful potions with absurd effects. The only problem is that only one of them could be crafted or consumed a week, which was completely bullcrap. His plan was to harvest the free attribute points from discovering those potions, but it didn’t remove the problem.

Tier 3 potions were fine for what they did. They allowed a person to heal a large amount of health and mana, or to enhance their attributes in a blink. But it seemed as though the system only planned for Drogramath’s alchemy to go to the fourth tier, not bothering to design anything that came after. This might have been a problem with the wild reagents Theo had used. He suspected using wild reagents was the culprit, but that would require extensive experimentation.

“I doubt splicing is the key,” Theo said, listening to his voice echo through the endless darkness. “Mixing reagents just makes different reagents.”

Mixing reagents wasn’t the key to creating more powerful reagents. That meant the only way to make them more powerful was to… make them more powerful. Theo had little time to think about it in recent days, but it made enough sense. He had to find a way to enhance the reagents he already had. Perhaps that was from cultivation, some mana infusion, or something else that would kick-start his plants to be ready for Tier 4 and above.

As Theo thought idly about his problems, he gazed off into the endless nothing. This side of the Bridge was calmer than the other, providing a view of the blackness from all directions. Beyond that bridge were the heavenly realms, which clouded the horizon like a backlit nebula. The heavenly realms that rested beyond that point looked like glittering stars from here. He felt himself fading less on this side of the Bridge. Perhaps it was close enough to the mortal plane to anchor him. Questions had a habit of building themselves lately, spiraling into more questions that seemed impossible to answer.

Something strange caught his attention in the distance. Theo moved through the void, eyes locked on a patch of silver he couldn’t explain. He looked down at the amorphous shape of the mortal plane below, then forward again to the silver. He pushed his senses to wash over it, feeling something familiar. The alchemist understood how souls got lost in the void, but had never seen one in the wild. This soul felt different than the others he had felt. There was something fundamental missing within it.

“Hello, little guy,” Theo said. “Are you lost?”

But the sense of self within the soul didn’t respond in such docile tones. It raged against its bonds, forcing Theo to withdraw his hand. Moments lingered on in the void. He used that time to consider what was so strange about the soul. He realized it wasn’t that the soul was missing something. Something had been added. A thing that had no business in the void. It should have broken down when crossing the barrier between the realms.

“Now, why do you have a body?” Theo asked.

The mass of silver had no response. It didn’t want Theo inspecting it, but had little choice. Everything was laid bare in the void. That was by design. The alchemist prodded, finding other things within the glittering cloud of silver. He felt objects attached to the person’s body. Clothes, perhaps. None of it felt magical, but everything felt familiar. He wouldn’t allow an old hope to build in his chest. This felt nothing like her, and he knew better than to assume the impossible.

No, he was certain this was a dude. Lingering in the void… for what reason, exactly? Theo searched the area, not finding another similar soul. He marked this place in his mind and set off through the void, scouring the place near the mortal plane for inspection. There were a few more clouds of silver, but none felt like the first. They were all weaker in spirit, and had given themselves to the void. He returned to the first silver soul, almost pressing his nose against it as he inspected.

“Now, why…” Theo trailed off, his left horn scraping against the soul’s edge. Something resonated in that moment. The alchemist felt a vibration spreading through his body, as though his trespassing form knew something was wrong. The soul burst into light. “Uh-oh.”

Theo watched as the soul shot like a rocket, angled for the mortal plane. He chased after it.

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