The Newt and Demon

5.65 - Ascension

Harvesting souls didn’t appeal to Theo. His mind twisted, trying to find a way that this could be a good thing. Any souls that were invited to stay within Tero’gal could be sent to the Realm of Healing to join Glantheir. Was dragging souls out of undead vessels better than allowing them to languish on the mortal plane? The alchemist didn’t care for philosophy, and decided it was the best of an unpleasant situation.

“We need to know what your new ability does for every potion,” Salire said. She was over her prior reservations and ready to move forward.

“Agreed,” Theo said, joining her in the whiplash-inducing change of heart. Best of an unpleasant situation. “But today felt good. We got some stuff done, huh?”

Salire snorted a laugh. “I guess. If you consider an hour’s worth of work good.”

“All in a day’s work,” Theo said, patting her on the shoulder. “I have another project to supervise. Bye!”

Theo left the lab while chuckling to himself. He went to his Herbalist’s Workshop to check on the plants in the back before heading off to the harbor. He didn’t need to get too close to hear Zan’kir’s guns firing. After getting to the harbor, the alchemist spotted Throk on one of the four boats, fiddling with the weapons as they delivered their anti-magical load. There were enough shells to last them a while, even at such an aggressive rate of bombardment.

But Theo wasn’t looking for Zan’kir or Throk. He felt Sarisa and Rowan close as he traced the river’s bank, heading toward the beach. As he expected, Ziz and his team were out there, scratching their heads by the water. The half-ogre spotted him coming from afar and laughed a booming laugh.

“You gave us one wild job, Theo!” Ziz shouted. “And a day to do it? Hardly seems worth the gold coin.”

“Make it ten,” Theo said, waving the question away. He was happy to throw every coin he owned in the ocean if it stopped a wave from destroying his town.

“Might be a lovely thought, you know? But your plans kinda suck. The wall has to wrap around our little bay.”

Theo looked out over the design of the landscape. Everyone called it a bay, but that wasn’t completely accurate. He didn’t know the right word for it, but it wasn’t a bay. The ocean outside of Broken Tusk was a curved section of coastline. The strip of land that afforded them access to the sea was beset on the north and south by hills and mountains. A chain of thick islands provided the bay-like quality of the area, breaking most of the waves that came from the open ocean.

Qavell would fall in the northern section of their waters, right along that mountainous coastline. It would be easy enough to build a bridge from here to there, but the problem of the wavebreak was still present.

“We’re talking about… what?” Ziz asked, looking back at his people. “An ahthalm of distance?”

A thousand feet. Maybe two-thousand feet.

“That’s not considering the curved feature you want to add.”

“I don’t want to do anything. That’s what you need to do if you want to stop a giant wave.”

That was fair enough. Theo engaged in some suggestions, most of which were shot down. But Ziz latched on to the idea of creating a stone base for a wall. After that, he went off and created an entire plan that shouldn’t have taken more than a few days at most. The stonecutters would bring all their reject stone—which was apparently a lot—and have the alchemist move it around with his Earth Sorcerer’s Core abilities. Ziz would exploit his ability to move pre-built sections of stonework, bolstering the loose stone foundation. The plan relied on the concept that if they placed enough stones in the sea, it would hold firm. The amount of stone they would use was staggering.

“Ten-thousand units of chipped, useless marble,” Ziz said, slapping his hand hard on Theo’s back. “Think you can move that much?”

“Oh, yeah. Hauling several tons of stone sounds easy.” Theo shook his head, swapping his Zaul core for his sorcerer core. “Come on. Let’s give it a try.”

While Theo waited for Ziz’s workers to go fetch some stone, he used the Earth Attunement skill to level the area near the shore. The plan was to pile enough stone underwater to bring it to the surface. Since it was high-tide, they didn’t need to guess. Before long, a worker returned. He stood there for a moment before a massive pile of odd-shaped stone blocks fell out of nowhere. Each block was larger than the alchemist’s torso. He could only guess the weight.

“We used these to practice,” Ziz said, still laughing. “Burned through quite a few. We had started chipping them down, making pavers and stuff like that. But you’re buying, so who cares!?”

Theo tested the weight of the blocks with his Earth Attunement ability. A single block wasn’t enough to strain the ability. Ten was the magic number. Blocks hovered in the air in front of them, straining the alchemist’s willpower. He let them fall, and the ground rumbled.

This project was like the bridge and tower project Ziz and his team had worked on. There were two differences that made this one different. First was the speed. This project needed to be done. Today would be best, but Theo could settle for tomorrow. Next was the scope. The bridge and tower system had to go out part-way into the sea. This causeway had to reach the barrier islands, if not further. Quick and dirty it was.

“Get to work!” Ziz said. He couldn’t stop laughing today.

Theo shoved a pile of marble blocks into the sea, tamping them down with his willpower. Ziz’s workers brought inventories filled with the material, fueling the alchemist’s work. Ten feet of the causeway was completed when they decided to test it. Sitting only a half-foot above the water’s surface, and more uneven than should have been acceptable, the causeway was sketchy.

“This will work perfectly,” Ziz said. “As long as we have enough stone, we’re good.”

“What if we don’t have enough stone?” Theo asked.

“Great question! We switch to earth and hope that works.”

“That’s barely a plan,” Theo said, jostling the rock beneath Ziz’s feet enough to send him pitching into the sea.

“Unfair!” Ziz shouted from the water, paddling back toward the causeway. “I’m gonna get one of those sorcerer cores. Maybe a water one. Chase you around with a little storm cloud.”

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Theo sent him into the water again, only to be shoved from behind. The water was cool, taking the alchemist’s breath away when he broke the surface. He looked back, meeting eyes with his betrayer. “You’re dead, Sarisa.”

Sarisa and Rowan, along with at least five of Ziz’s workers were soon swimming in the water. None were spared from Theo’s mock-wrath.That small moment of levity brought more of a Broken Tusker’s spirit out in all gathered than the alchemist had expected. They were hard workers, and fierce when it came time to defend what was theirs. But the heart of a Broken Tusker beat for the small joys in life. The group swam for some time, splashing around until more stone came to be moved.

Ten-thousand units of crappy marble wasn’t enough to get the job done, though. The slope of the ocean outside of Broken Tusk’s beach wasn’t drastic, but it was enough to require absurd amounts of material. They neared the towers and the stocks ran low. While Sarisa, Rowan, and Ziz contacted Gronro to obtain new stock, Theo pulled what stones he could from the rocky hillside to the north. The cliffs that ran along the shore were high, pulsing with green energy that represented low-quality stone.

Theo looked up at those cliffs, yanking at one large stone. The others above it followed shortly after, tumbling in a mass of dirt and stone into the water below. A wave crashed out, filling the air with the scent of saltwater mingling with dirt, spume spraying in all directions. The alchemist gathered the stones that had fallen, pulling them from the water and holding them in the air as he walked along the causeway. This wasn’t ideal, but he could extend the structure a bit as he waited for Grot to come through on his request for more rocks.

Ziz had an idea to weld a wall on top of the causeway, which might have worked. Theo didn’t want to consider the fact that the wall might fail, but catching a singular wave shouldn’t have been that hard. Right? He doubted the plan more by the moment, but it was better than doing nothing. He spent most of the day working on removing rocks from the cliffs, but the workers delivered fresh stones from Gronro before dusk. At a point, Sarisa brought him food out on that salty pier, forcing him to eat before continuing. Tresk and Alex joined him, annoyed that they weren’t diving into the Dreamwalk.

“Alright, fine,” Tresk groaned, picking up a small stone. She threw it into the sea and shrugged. “Am I helping?”

Theo worked with his laborers, adding more stones to the seabed to extend his causeway over half the length it needed to be. He read the reports of the day. There was no need to read about how many rounds Zan’kir had fired. The four ships had been bombarding the city for most of the day, only pausing when it fell back into the water. But the message was obvious. Qavell was faltering, as was predicted by the gods. If they kept up this pace of bombardment, the city would be too far away for the next leg of the plan. It needed to fall within range, allowing the alchemist to assert his authority over it after it fell.

“This is enough work. Right, Theo?” Tresk asked.

Theo looked back, watching as Ziz fabricated sections of walls meant to break the tidal wave. It would take at least another half day of hard work to get the wall done in time. The alchemist looked down to the uneven stones beneath his feet. He could take at least two steps on the causeway’s width without falling into the water. Two large steps. Expanding it was easier than setting the foundation, so he decided Tresk was right.

“Let’s go,” he said, turning and walking down the length of the stones.

Ziz planned to work through the night, so Theo left him with an armful of Greater Stamina Potions. Sarisa and Rowan seemed dead on their feet, and Alex had been honking her disapproval for quite some time. The group returned to the manor, falling into the Dreamwalk easily.

Tresk wanted to know about the new potions. Of course she did. But she had the good sense to wait until they were in the Dreamwalk to do so. It might not have been necessary with Theo’s new privacy bubble, but he appreciated the old gesture. Her reaction was predictable.

“Use it on a poison,” she said, wiggling her brows. “Come on.”

Theo laughed. He had quite a few nasty poisons in his arsenal already. He felt no guilt as his thoughts focused on the most devious poison he had. The Venom poison wasn’t kind. Normal poisons would inflict damage over time, often fading within minutes. Venom remained with a person for years. He imagined a vial of the nasty liquid, holding it up to catch a glint of the sunlight.

“What’s the thought?” Theo said, searching Tresk’s mind. “Insurance against Hanan? That’s some action movie villain stuff right there.”

“If I don’t give you the antidote,” Tresk mocked. “You’ll die in about a year.”

Theo chuckled, gripping the vial in his hand. He invoked the Spirit Weaving ability and felt the Dreamwalk push back. It didn’t like when he tried to do something he hadn’t done before. A flash of his willpower crushed any objections. Shadows oozed from his hands, wrapping itself into the purple liquid within the vial. Bands of black mingled with rich purples, creating a deadly mixture he wasn’t sure was ready for the world.

“Now that right there? That’s nasty,” Tresk said, rubbing her hands together. “That’s a war crime.”

Theo inspected the poison, confirming that it was diabolical.

[Venom]

[Poison] [Spiritwoven Poison]

Epic

Created by: Theo Spencer

Grade: Excellent Quality

Alignment:

Drogramath (Minor Bond)

Coat your weapon with a deadly venom.

Effect:

Venom floods through any target afflicted by this poison, dealing slight damage over a great period of time.This poison is likely to persist for days at the lowest quality, and years at the highest.

Venom is persistent and difficult to remove. Removal attempts are less likely to succeed.

Spiritwoven Effect:

The duration of this poison is increased to eternity.

The damage inflicted by this poison scales with time.

“Let’s test some more poisons,” Tresk said, rubbing her hands together.

The Spiritwoven Venom potion was bad enough. But Theo felt something within the Dreamwalk push back. It wasn’t an annoyed response of someone breaking the rules, but a warning. Tresk felt it. She looked around, eyes narrowed at the sky above.

“That’s a strange sensation,” Theo said. “It almost feels like…”

“The Dreamwalk is talking to us,” Tresk said. “You can’t hear it?”

Theo couldn’t hear anything aside from the occasional honk of Alex and the simulated sounds of nature all around. “Nothing.”

This was the most focused Theo had ever seen Tresk. She looked around as though trying to understand where the source of the voice was coming from. Her eyes went wide a few times and a look of confusion settled in over her features. The alchemist had never been worried about the plucky marshling. Not before that moment. He wanted to ground her in the moment, tearing her attention away from whatever the Dreamwalk told her.

“What does it sound like?” he asked.

“Like a dude. With a southern accent—all twangy and stuff,” Tresk said. Her daggers were in her hands. “Are you from Texas?!”

A rumble of something issued through the Dreamwalk. Tresk smiled back, chuckling at something Theo couldn’t hear. “Yeah, you’re right,” she said. “That would be silly.”

Pieces fell into place in Theo’s mind. He thought back to something Khahar had said as his thoughts raced. Something snapped into place and he understood the subtle hints the Arbiter had dropped. He looked over to Tresk and bit the inside of his cheek, drawing blood for his efforts. Most things in this world were powered by a will. Those wills weren’t normally attached to souls, but there were objects that might require something so potent.

“I’m guessing it wasn’t one soul,” Theo said, almost at his conclusion. “Tresk, have you seen any signs of…”

“Uh oh,” Tresk said. “Theo, if Hanan gets to the bay before I’m…”

The marshling’s voice faded into nothing. In an instant, Theo felt as though a piece of his soul had been ripped away from his body. She stood where she was for some time. But she faded away. Like her last words in the Dreamwalk, Tresk’s form echoed until it was gone.