Born a Monster

539 Mending Fences, The Plan

“So,” I asked, as the fencing appeared in the distance, “which among you has blacksmithing skills?”

“Why would any of us have that?” Mohr asked.

“Who has time or experience to waste on that?” Negla asked.

“Isn’t three enough classes to divide among?” Doran asked.

Zoltar coughed. “Why are we talking about metal-working instead of this dust?”

Nogar might have been smiling from behind his bandana. “Ah. Dust. Yes. Earth, stirred by wind. If only we had a Storm Acolyte, to still those winds.”

“I’ve got better things to spend my mana on. Maybe the magical creature should use its mana.” Zoltar replied.

I sighed, calling up cultivation totals that might be used on a Merge Metal spell, or a version of Shape Earth that opened the soil, and closed it again, say for a section of fence. They were there, but they were sparse. Almost as if I hadn’t been preparing myself for such labors.

Laugh. Laugh all you want. If you had to replace sixteen segments of cold iron fencing, how would you go about it.

.....

Yes, sixteen. The invaders had started at the northeast corner and replaced them so haphazardly that many sections had fallen over (or been pushed), and they all needed to be re-done.

“Spirits of Water, of the River and the Ocean, hear my plea.” I said.

“Apollo, father to my soul, hear the request of your spiritual son.” Doran chanted.

“Blaze of fire, hear my prayer, heed my call...” said Mohr.

I was too wrapped up in my own incantation to comment. “It is I, Rhishisikk, Water Adept and Shaman, to ask again a favor. If you allow, I would borrow again the eyes through which you see the mystic world. Mystic Sight!”

“Mystic Sight.” cast Nogar. Show off.

“Why waste your mana?” Negla asked. “The wards are all messed up. I don’t even need mystic sight to tell you that.”

“The wards,” Nogar said, “are broken about this corner. It is a wonder we are not swarmed by ghouls, nocturnal though they may be.”

“So why are we still walking forward?” Mohr asked. “Do we want to become champions this badly?”

Negla took a sniff of the air. In the side of my vision, it seemed she grew a canine snout, but it was only her nose when I turned to look more fully.

“That’s odd.” she said. “I scent neither ghoul nor morlock, at least not recently.”

“Do you smell anything they might be afraid of?” Nogar asked.

She shook her head. “Plains cats, mice. Neeglings. Nothing to make the denizens of the dark avoid this place.”

I don’t know why, but my left foot became cold at that time. I looked, nothing supernatural about it. Like ghosts trying to eat me, for example.

“The Sun itself seems not to properly fall on the ground of the graveyard.” Doran said. “And that may be the cause of the chill in the wind.”

Zoltar chuckled. “Or,” he said, “The wind here comes down in a column from higher in the sky, as it often does upon graveyards and openings inside the earth. That air, naturally, is colder, as it is high on mountains.”

“Good to know it’s a natural cold.” Nogar said.

“You whine about such a small lack of warmth.” Negla said.

Mohr shrugged. “I’m not warm, but I hadn’t noticed the breeze as being cold, but soothing.”

Doran rubbed his nose. “And dusty.”

“Oh.” I said. “I think I see the cause for that.”

“Enlighten us.” Nogar said.

I pointed to the broken fence. “The grass. The shrubs. Both inside and outside the original fence line. It’s dead.”

Nogar tsked. “Spreading death energies. Beware the difference between Death and Death.”

We all knew what he meant. Every Mouse Deserves Cheese, the four types of Taint. Evil, Madness, Death, and Chaos. Like four elements of Taint, to oppose the four classical elements.

I wonder, some times, if there is a fifth corruption, applicable to the five elements as I knew them.

What? Oh, yes, I let my focus slip. Sorry.

So we approached with moderate care, and then greater after:

“There, and there.” Nogar indicated. “Those are streaks of Tainted Death.”

I returned my focus to the spill. “It’s not very pure, for Taint.” I said. “But it will make putting the ward back up interesting.”

“Hm.” Mohr said. “Beyond my sin armor.”

“We need you, friend, to weld the fence together.” Zoltar said.

“Well,” Mohr said, “then which of you is going down there and absorbing all that Taint?”

“None of us.” Negla said. “We have a Hunter.” she nodded at me. “And there are Neeglings nearby. Not exactly sheep, but Taint will claim them like any other living thing.”

The cold had spread to my right foot, and was rising together up my bones toward my knees. Again, there was no visible reason for this, even when I examined the soles of my feet.

“Neeglings are often Aware.” I said. “Sentient.”

“We are definitely sentient.” Doran said. “And unlike Neeglings, we all enjoy our various connections to magic.”

“And to the divine.” Negla said.

“And to the divine.” Doran agreed.

“Are you getting cold feet?” Zoltar asked me. “Over some Neeglings?”

“It’s a matter of principle.” I said. “Neeglings or not, anything capable of asking to be left alone to live ought to be left alone.”

“But the non-sentient ones?” Nogar asked. “We can use those?”

“The problem is they would spend time with other Neeglings, and the contamination would spread to the intelligent ones.” I said.

“But if we kill them, say with arrows?” Doran asked. “And burned the corpses in a pile?”

“I’m not risking my aura for that.” Mohr said. “And I notice a lack of trees or other fuel for a hot enough fire.”

“What if we enchanted foliage, imbued it with mana, and let the ritual itself burn the bodies?” Nogar asked.

“That seems complicated.” Zoltar said. And then he sighed. “But it may be what we need to do.”

After two minutes of discussion, that was the best plan we could come up with. Basically, a Fire Trap Ward, powered by a mana battery, upon which the corrupted bodies could be piled and then the ward activated through physical means, such as a burning arrow.

After a bit more debate, we decided that a rating five ward with a two minute duration should be enough to burn the corpses at least enough to give us a day to restore the ward.

“Can we do that?” I asked. “These aren’t small sections of fencing. That’s a lot of ward.”

“We can copy the pattern from the neighboring segments.” Nogar said. “And look, much of it is already in the artwork of the fencing itself.”

I sighed, but didn’t even try to disagree with him.

“There is the matter of binding the fencing.” Mohr said. “I thought there were only four or five segments to weld. I have not enough mana for all of these.”

Let’s see. Two links, sixteen segments, that was thirty two, plus two on the other side made thirty four. I whistled. “If my math is right, that’s over a hundred fifty mana.”

“I can do it with a hundred thirty six.” Mohr said. “But I’d need a fire nexus to tap. No mere bonfire’s going to get that done, even without what needs to go into the Fire Trap.”

“Bweh.” I said. “In a few hours, I can provide thirty six of that. Mostly converted from other mana types.”

“So four full recharges of the magic creature.” Mohr said. “And that’s before we get into the enchanting of the fence segments, and then integrating them with the rest of the ward.”

“But surely you have batteries for containing Fire mana?” Doran asked.

Mohr nodded. “All sixty points that I can safely channel in a day.”

“Wait.” I said. “If we have a day and you have sixty points limit per day to put out nearly twice that...”

“New scars.” Zoltar said.

“No.” Nogar said. “Our new friend has the right of it. It’s too many castings to do with anything other than an inherent. Pushing that ability...”

“Two days at best.” Mohr said. “I’m no good on this task as the world’s most muscular candle.”

Negla pursed her lips. “There must be something else we can do.”

“Meld Metal?” I asked.

“That’s not a real spell.” Doran mocked.

“Oh, it’s real enough.” Nogar said. “But one needs to be attuned to Metal, either as an element or a faith. Maybe a priest to one of the Forge Gods, like Hephestaos.”

“Not actually family to Apollo.” Doran said. “Different mothers, different... well, depending how you gauge fathers...”

Mohr rolled his eyes. “So we’ve got one day to do two day’s worth of magic in?” He shrugged. “We’ve done more with less.”

<System, purchase spell Meld Metal, ten uses per day. Pay equal from all eligible cultivation and experience pools, but do not include development points.>

[Purchase complete.]

It spat out a list of pools and expenses, which I dismissed.

.....

Negla kicked me in the tail. “So we’re waiting on you. Get us some live Neeglings.”

<System. Ability. Beast Sense. Activate.>

There may have been a better plan, but I didn’t see it.

We didn’t see it.

Neither did we see that things were already going wrong.