Master of the Hoard - Chapter 36 (Patreon)

If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door - Milton Berle

It was back to work for us. I fell into my usual rhythm once again. The added familiarity of overseeing construction was a lovely break from my routine and work progressed fast. I suddenly had a couple of constructions I needed to create and be prepared for, and my mana reserves were up to the challenge. I created the newest Shadow Door in my room as soon as the first snippet of an upwards-facing tunnel was initiated.

I kept on checking in with Roth to see how progress on the increases were going. One conversation did a bit of a number on me. Sometimes, you get those moments, where you realize you've been doing something wrong and you don't understand how you haven't been called out on it yet.

Roth was complaining about the speed of the training, gesticulating at the assistant trainer who was currently undergoing a series of low-weight repetitions with a handful of builders struggling to keep up. "See? He's doing good. Takes few breaks, keeps an eye on the others so they don’t slack off. He's even come up with a couple of good ideas. Even so, our gains are at the same pace, maybe a bit faster than when we started. It's annoying."

"Roth, damnit. We’ve been over this. You know how the first levels are the fastest to obtain?" I could see the realization in his eyes and smiled. "Exactly. The first few increases are bound to be the easiest. In fact, you being able to keep up the pace and even increasing it is a sign that you're doing damn fine. How is the progress going now?"

He gave it some thought and smiled fondly. "Eight for me so far. Moiven over there has had five. Even the slaggards have three increases since we started in earnest. Most are at four."

"Exactly. That's what you need to look at. On average you have received the equivalent of four levels in just a couple weeks. That's incredible. Even if you were to double or triple the time you needed for an increase, it would still be worth it."

"Oh." A wide grin spread on his face. "I like that. I'm glad your scaly highness got here."

"Likewise. Hey, what are they doing in the corner over there?" I indicated a claw at a quartet of Talpi who were circling around, taking potshots at each other with staves carved of bone.

"Oh." He grimaced. "An idea of mine. Not too sure it works. See, if somebody just dodges, it’ll give you Agility and only a bit of Toughness. If you spar, it's Agility, Toughness and sometimes Strength. I’m not sure, but it looks like the gains come faster the harder you train. So these four will fight these mock battles for a bit to see what happens."

"Mock battles..." I mused, while my mind suddenly got to racing. "God. I'm so dumb."

Roth, to his credit, didn't comment, but just looked at me in puzzlement.

I shook my head in consternation. "Okay, Roth, you are going to see an increase in your workload right about now."

His face scrunched up and he clenched his paws. "But I... Why?"

"We need to carry out mock battles. Several times a week. Three, maybe. Not just inside the Training Chamber either, although I do love the fact that they're increasing their attributes while they train."

"O-kay? Say we do that. Why?"

"Several reasons. First off, we have a new group of soldiers with us, and we haven't done anything at all to include them except making them work alongside us. That's an error on our part. My part, really. Regular training regimens where they're part of the groups should help with that." My mind was already elsewhere, but Roth's unhappy look brought me back to the present.

"Do we need to? I don't like them. Besides, you said they were going to be on the front? Take the punches. Just send them off and fight."

I pointed a claw at the squat Talpus. "That just proves my point. We might not like them, hell, I don't. They're dull and a pain to talk to. Still, if we need to be able to use them in a combat situation, we need to be able to make better use of them than just point them at the enemy. Apart from that, I might not always be present to order them around. In that case, you need to be able to manage at least a minimum of co-operation." Roth oozed annoyance but didn't complain. I didn't let up. "Besides, there's something else we need to have in mind. How do Talpi usually fight?"

"What? We've talked about this. Ambushes, traps, a bit of magic. Sometimes, throwing rocks at weaker enemies."

"Exactly... and how often do you believe that is going to be relevant in the future?"

His face fell. "Oh. I see what you mean."

I nodded. "Exactly. I blame myself for not spotting the issue earlier. Now that the dangerous threats nearby are handled, the future will most likely hold even more difficult encounters. While traps and magic are helpful, small ambushes and hit-and-run tactics will not always work. We need to figure out how to adapt the fighting methods of the Talpi and we need to do it together with the Crawls."

Roth was getting nervous now. His frustration was emanating off of him and he clenched his paws together. "But... why me? I don't have the time. I’m training all the time, and you have me working on ranged weapons. That's plenty difficult."

I smiled, not unkindly. I doubted he could tell the difference when my huge teeth were close to him, but still. "I asked the same question of my old boss, when I was first taken on as a foreman. You keep throwing tasks on me and there's no way I can handle them all. What do I do?"

"That's it! Exactly. What did he say?"

"It's been a while, but it was something like this: Delegate. Push it downwards. Add to the responsibilities that those in your charge take care of and decide which tasks you absolutely need to handle yourself. Some will grow with the task, others won't. Then you learn from it." I nodded at the other trainer. "In your case that would mean adding to the burden of your two assistants or finding others to help you."

Roth looked at the assistant, who was completely absorbed in his training, but it looked like his mind was elsewhere. Poor sod didn’t know what was about to hit him. After a while, Roth shook his head and turned back towards me. "These mock battles of yours. How many should we be? And how do we do it?"

"That's up to you. I think you have what it takes to handle the task. I have only two conditions: I want Crawls and Talpi to be mixed up and fight alongside each other. Doesn't need to be every time, but you need to grow accustomed to it. Also, you will need blunt weapons for the task. I don't want anybody permanently injured from this."

"...I’ll need somebody to to help with all of this."

"You're always welcome. My door is always open."

He shrugged. "Oh, I know. One of those Shadow Doors, right? If it was activated I wouldn’t be able to see it."

"That’s not... never mind."

Roth took to the task with a passion and soon thereafter, we would have mock battles three times a week in addition to the training schedules that everybody still needed to keep. I discussed his plans with him, pros and cons of different types of challenges, setups and squad sizes. Mostly, I was talking out my ass. What little I knew about armies and actual fighting came from books, movies and games. However, with the real life and death experiences Roth had amassed in his short life, it seemed like he was able to distill what was useful from my doubtful advice. Our talks were all over the place, ranging from shield phalanxes over capture the flag assignments to pros and cons (and construction) of different types of weapons.

My Clencher friends were going to be the best pets ever. I managed another two additions to my minion count, though they didn't quite make the cut to "Named pet" status yet. Ursam, however, was really becoming a nice addition and I enjoyed our daily walks. Sometimes, we walked alone and sometimes, I'd take another Clencher along. Half the trip was just walking, getting him accustomed to standing by my side regardless where we were and what we were up to. The other half were exercises. Slowly, I was upgrading the difficulty of the tasks, including directional commands, "fetch" and "wait here." I even tried leaving Ursam for five minutes, waiting a bit away where I could still see him on the minimap. He was a damn good boy. We still had a bit to go, however. Once, we stumbled upon a group of fat, bat-like,  green-winged creatures sleeping in a low tunnel. Ignoring my "heel" command, he broke off to tear right into the group, leaping and swiping left and right. Once the worst carnage was over, and the rest of the flying creatures had fled, I added a few more steps to the to-do list. Not the least of which was that I needed him to learn to "let go". It took ten minutes before he unclenched his bones enough for the last mistreated, trapped carcass to drop to the floor. I reveled in the fact that he had kept his agressions to the animals, however, and, from then on, teamed up with the scouts to receive a daily update on the presence of harmless creatures for practice. Following that day, we rarely went a day without having at least one encounter and my huge companion grew both in thickness and competence. Not to mention the constant experience gains we both received.

As for the constructions, they went swimmingly. The escape tunnel was finished in five days, not a week, and I finished the Shadow Door on the far side right afterwards. The lair had just been upgraded to death trap status. Following that, we realized that there would be no room for all the Crawls to operate in the limited space of the tunnels they were excavating and we moved almost all of them to excavating the remainder of the rooms in the lair. It was monotonous, dirty and hard work, but they seemed to revel in it.

Our Farm took two steps forward and a couple steps back. Our scouts were becoming more adept at locating useful seeds and plants that could be replanted. Regardless, the first bunch of plants and seeds in the Fields almost all died, because they were unaware of how farming worked. However, with having Laive in charge, they kept a close eye on what worked and what didn't, and she became a regular visitor in my room, most of the time asking questions I had no way to answer. One time, however, I was forced to have a bit of a talk with her. Apparently, she'd appropriated Jazinth's help for a full two days, solely for the sake of observing and micromanaging the consistency of the soil and water contents of the Fields. Eventually, she learned that when I said she could appropriate what help she needed, there was a limit.

Rummaging around inside my mind, I removed some of the cobwebs and found my old checklist for this new and dangerous world. I smiled at the progress. Imminent survival? Check. Long term survival? Yup. An acceptable long term solution? Making great headway. The only part that was still evading me was the “real answers” part of the list - and Timothy wasn’t helping.

In truth, my relationship with my very own Timmy Smurf here in his forcefield was still very random. Some days, there would be no contact whatsoever, and then, out of the blue, I could have a handful of minutes of normalcy, blessed conversations that smacked of home. What little time I had, taught me a smattering of random facts about the kid. First off, how he was a kid. Well, twenty-something. No difference. Second, he also had a blessed sense of humor, sarcastic enough to be biting without any hints of actually being a dick. Oh, and third, he was very much not all there! Whenever his presence snapped my way, he would behave like a regular person, joke, laugh and talk like nothing mattered, but the slightest hint about his situation would send him sliding back into his pain-filled solitude. Even if I did nothing, the longest conversation we had was a ten-minute debate about the usefulness of real newspapers. Unsurprisingly, he wouldn't know a real newspaper if I smacked him over the head with the Sunday issue of the New York Times. To my dismay, however, even though I was getting through to him on a regular basis, he wasn't improving. Even though I was able to catch and hold his attention, he would inevitably snap back to his semi-catatonic state.

I had already decided I wasn't going to tinker with whatever spell had him trapped, given that it was clearly way above my level. However, seeing Tim's constant pain and getting to know him made me reconsider my stance. Hence, over a couple of days, I removed my focus from waking him to his surroundings or the spell, in the hope that I would find something that could save him from his torment. At first, it was more an exercise in confirming what I could not do anything about. The force field surrounding him, for instance. The Inspect skill did nothing. A small test with a trapped critter ended with me grimacing at the sight of the charred corpse of the critter slowly being devoured by the blue energy. Prodding it with inanimate objects had no effect and I had no intentions of trying to destroy the damn thing. Given how intertwined the twirling ribbons of energy moving inside the forcefield were with Timothy, destroying the force field might very well take him along with it.

With my reduced options, I spent my time trying to understand the force field itself. Sure, for all I knew, I might as well be a chimpanzee trying to understand the solar system by watching a model hanging from the ceiling, but it was the best I had. As the week ended, I was learning. Not much, but I was learning. On several occasions, I had noticed strands of energy moving from my hoard and into the heart of the mountain itself, as if towards the elusive Deyra, perhaps. Here, it was all a matter of growing the eyes accustomed to seeing correctly, that and me having increased my Mental Power and control several times over probably helped. I don't care to consider the amount of times I tried to follow the elusive tendrils on their journey. Picture watching a pot of spaghetti and trying to map out the journey of a single piece. Now picture the contents of the pot being in constant motion and half-translucent. Yeah, that was pretty much it. I soon noted one major difference from what I had noticed regarding my hoard. Here, the bluish tendrils erupted from the earth, connected to the force field and started their swirling motions through and around Timothy, yet they never returned.

My breakthrough came following another lucid moment on Timmy's side, where he was introducing himself again. He wasn't present for a long time, maybe only thirty seconds or so. Hence, I was just mumbling along, still trying to follow one of the elusive strands all the way, when it happened. He broke down mid-sentence, erupting into inconsolable sobbing, and at the very same moment, a single blue tendril started from his chest, disappearing into the earth. A moment later, my mental cries filled the room. "Arthor. Get over here! Now, damnit!"

A minute later, the tall Talpus came jogging into the room, eyes swerving to either side. He squinted at me and then at Timothy who was back doing his mid-morning pain-induced back stretches. Poor bastard. "What?"

"You need to tell me about mana." Before he got mad, I told him what I had just spotted.

Distractedly digging into his fur, he responded, "My knowledge is limited. Like I told you earlier, our magic doesn't originate directly from Deyra. This... seems to do just that."

"Just indulge me. Please."

"Very well." He looked at the floor for a while, thinking. "What you need to understand is that mana points is just a number. Having a lot of mana in itself is nothing special, it just enables you to cast better and more spells. Your Mental Power is what defines exactly how hard you hit and your Mental Control is how well you are able to handle the mana. With that said, if a spell costs more mana, you can rest assured that it's more powerful than those that cost less." He grimaced and made a cutting gesture with his paw. "Disregard that - it was not important. Let me start over. See, I told you earlier you wouldn't be able to learn our sort of magic and that part was true. However, you might learn something from the way it works. See, our tribe is a unit. We might not look like it, and we sure don't always act like it, but mentally we belong together. And we belong to Deyra. That part is important. Every single one of us knows from birth that we belong to her and she to us, and as such, part of our collective mind connects with her on an unconscious level. My ancestor, Miervin, was supposed to be able to see this connection with her naked eye. When I hit level 10, I felt like I almost saw it too, just beyond the edge of my vision. A collection of unseen cords, tying together our essences and connecting them with our creator. This means that, when we thrive, our collective mana pool grows, but when one of us dies, that part of our connection dies with him, diminishing our strength."

I had to ask. "How about lately?"

He frowned. "Our numbers have never been lower, however, our strength is increasing in leaps and bounds. Both my attributes and mana pool are at an all time high."

I decided not to remind him about the fact that I'd killed a good bunch of his people and beckoned for him to continue.

"There is not much else to say. Just this one thing: Deyra provides our connection and we make use of it to cast our spells. Our connection isn't direct like yours is and therefore the arts of manipulating mana are completely different."

"How about this, then? Does the link go both ways? Does Deyra also take through your bond?"

He shook his head. "No. Well, in a way, yes. When we kill an enemy, the force of life within that animal is returned to Deyra, releasing that energy back from whence it came."

I cocked my head at that turn of phrase. Probably another of his memories. "What if you manage to cast a spell that takes you beyond the reserves of mana you have available?"

"You don't. You simply don't. Not more than once, at least. The pain when the spell tries to take the energy from your life force instead of your mana pool is..." his mental message petered out as his gaze wandered towards the groaning form of Timothy. "Well, chew me over like I'm a caterpillar. You think...?" He pointed at the groaning form.

"Maybe that’s it? The way I understand it so far: my hoard has a connection with Deyra, right? I have seen those tendrils digging deep into the ground and returning when they have made the connection. It was hard to follow, but it was there. And every single construction I create after that, I provide the mana for the initial connection and then it... how should I say this? It sort of snaps into the grid through the hoard and proceeds to milk the mana it needs from that connection?"

Arthor looked at me with a measured expression. "That's one of the least moronic things I've heard you say to date. Continue."

I made a slashing gesture with a claw. "Okay, so....what happens when you cut the connection? Say that I remove my hoard right this moment. Then we have a number of constructions that need the connection with Deyra to persist. What happens to them?"

It was the first time I'd seen Arthor completely lost and it was kind of enjoyable. A sense of being affronted emanated from him, like the lack of ability to answer was a personal insult. "I... don't know."

"Okay, let me come with a guess. We had a lot of philosophers and scientists back on my Earth. People, whose only job was to think, to try to make sense of the world, understand how everything worked, label things and put them into boxes. Personally, I believe most of 'em were just too lazy to get a real job. Still, now and again, some of them actually struck gold and found a nugget of truth." I waved a paw around. "I generally don't remember this stuff, but this one made sense to me. Nothing comes from nothing. It basically means that the energy has to come from somewhere. It also has a lot of other meanings I couldn't begin to explain. But, and this is my guess, what if the Soul Carver who used to live here happened to have all sorts of constructions in the different rooms, but every single one of the others petered out when they ran out of mana?"

The Talpus watched the whirling forces within the force field, gritting his teeth. "So, basically, the connection is trying to drain the mana it needs to run from this person constantly? But that would mean that he has suffered from a constant mana backlash over..." He trailed off again.

"Yeah. I don't think he's doing too good. I've been able to get through to him at times, and it's like he's removed his mind off to somewhere else – he’s not all there, that’s for sure. Still, I want to make the pain stop for him. Can you help me?"

He squinted at Timothy again. "I don't know how, but I'll try." His comically sized paws massaged his brow. "How do you envision your mana?"

"I... don't? I choose the constructions or spells I need and then the rest takes care of itself."

"Hmm - then that is the first attempt we will make. If the construction needs mana, mana it shall have."

The next few hours were an exercise in futility. I was going to be skipping my usual visit to Roth today, but if there was a chance I could fix this, I would use the entire week and still count myself lucky. The only changes we experienced was in Arthor's worsening mood. Every single approach or method to focus, access my mana, feel its presence or... anything really, was met with no result whatsoever. We'd moved over to the hoard at some point to have my source of mana within sight. It still failed.

Finally, he flung up his arms in frustration, growling. "I don't know what's more annoying. The fact that you're dumber than the Crawls or that you don't work like normal people! How hard can it be? It's right there!" He pointed towards the hoard. "Just reach out and grab it!"

I tried once again, concentrating with all my might, sensing nothing at all within the hoard. No stored mana, no pool of languid, dreamy force of potential for me to dip my claws into - none of the things that Arthor had- "Oh my FUCKING God!"

I have never seen a dragon facepalming, for a reason. The snout is in the way and also surprisingly sensitive. The result was that I hurt and looked stupid at the same time. Once I was done cursing, I told Arthor, "Okay, remember how you yourself told me that dragons are different from Talpi? How would I be able to keep regenerating mana on excursions, if I had to stay within the reach of the hoard? The center of my mana isn’t within my hoard. It’s inside me." I shook my head in annoyance and focused within myself. After a moment, I found it. That shiny, languid center, glinting with untapped potential. "Okay, got it. What do I do?"

Another hour went by and I was finally able to manipulate my mana somewhat. I was able to access my mana and move it around like a giant, intangible pseudopod. It didn't DO anything from what I could tell, but the mere fact that I wasn't completely control-impaired was nice. I let go of the translucent feeler and was suddenly met with a notification.

[You have gained a new ability: Mana Manipulation

You are able to let your mana range outside your body. The mana resonates with magic and will allow you to detect magical residues in your surroundings. The degree of control and efficiency of your Mana Manipulation depends on your Mental Control and Mental Power.]

“I got it. I got it, Arthor. Let’s do this.” In moments, we were back next to Timothy. “Erm. How should I do this?”

The tall Talpus shrugged. "I wouldn't know. We've been over this, dragon. You receive your spells, skills and constructions, you aren't able to actually evolve and learn new spells like us." His snort was surprisingly humanlike. "You'll have to make do with being gigantic and overpowered. Maybe just try to stretch that blob of mana towards him?"

"Stretch my mana... okay, sure. Let's see if it works. What are you doing?"

"Oh, nothing. I'll be right outside, down the hallway, at a safe distance. Good luck."

I grumbled a bit about ungrateful critters, but waited until he'd left. Then, I put myself as far as possible from the force field and tried reaching a thin, transparent finger of shadow-mana-stuff outwards, held my breath and... nothing. Not a damn thing. Really? I waved my intangible limb around in frustration, cursing all the time I'd wasted. Wait. I froze, moving closer to the force field. My shadow magic reached through the force field, highlighting a small area right below Timothy, where the threads of mana emerged from the ground. There was nothing to see at all with the naked eye, but when I waved my pseudopod over it, the inscription appeared, floating in thin air. I still couldn't do anything with it, though. Yet the fact that my magic enabled me to see magic was an incredible find. I couldn't wait to brag to Arthor. First, however... I needed to try something. Keeping my magic fixed on the circle, I pulled up my mini-map. Nothing. Okay, final chance. I activated my Inspect skill, focusing on the inscription - and there it was. Clear as day.

[Protective Soul Circle - unclaimed.

This construction protects the creature sealed within. It provides the creature with all nutrients needed for survival and fresh air. The protective circle is dual-layered, protecting from both physical and magical dangers.

This Protective Circle is currently not connected to a mana reserve.]

There was a button too, hovering tantalizingly right in front of me - except it was greyed out. Damnit.

[Claim Protective Circle. Cost: 500 mana]

Yeah. I would need at least an additional 12 Mental Power before I would be able to claim the circle and, hopefully, release Timothy from his pain-filled prison. That was 3 more levels. As I left, I told him "Hang in there, Timmy. I'll get you out." There was no response, but I nodded at him as I left the room to go tell Arthor what just happened.