CHAPTER 12 - DISCIPLINE AND INGENUITY

  Levan fell into the packed crowd of fleeing people. Them, with their horses, carts, families and belongings, and him—with his [ Bloodstained Acolyte’s Tunic ], his [ Bloodstained Acolyte’s Pants ], and of course, [ 3x Stone ] [ 2x Wood ].

  Ah, who could forget about good ol’ [ 3x Stone ] [ 2x Wood ]?

  Not him, that’s for sure.

  They sat hidden away in his Aetherial Stores, weightless in their pocket dimension.

  He ignored the conspicuously missing item in his {Aetherial Stores}—[ Shortsword (Authorized) ].

  You’re dealing with enough, Levan told himself. It’s okay to prioritize.

  So he did.

  First, he tried listening.

  He hovered near groups of people, catching fragments of conversation without context, before suspicious glances drove him away.

  He looked like an outsider.

  I am an outsider.

  A hundred thoughts bounced through his mind—frantic and unending. With them came the sights and sounds of siege: the smoke, the sting of embers, the rock dust in his eyes.

  The temple.

  The summoning circle.

  The slabs.

  The other Chosen Souls.

  Levan watched the young man he’d been talking to catch up with his wife and take his child into his arms, and Levan’s jaw went slack.

  Oh, crap.

  A weight sunk into him, coating all of these separate thoughts in cement, pulling them into a big jumble, and then plummeting from his brain and into into his stomach.

  Every single thought merged into one, intimidating question:

  Chosen Soul—Chosen for what?

  Levan felt suddenly alone. Suddenly queazy, like he was back in the Emberlaines, caught somersaulting in the current.

  He faltered, another citizen of fallen Sandesar nearly barreling into him. He turned back to the city. Was there something he was supposed to do? Was he supposed to save the city, somehow? Was that why he was called? Had he screwed up already—was there some answer, some key he held? Had he already screwed everything up?

  He didn’t think so—there was nothing he could do, and Sandesar had fallen long before he’d opened his eyes on the cold stone of the temple.

  But still…

  Chosen for what?

  He could ask the Codex.

  Not now, he told himself, tearing his gaze away from the smoking city, turning his back, rejoining the caravan of citizenry. All that can wait.

  Right now, you just have to worry about surviving. Just get out of here.

  The thought faded.

  In the meantime, there was something productive he could do.

  He was given an Ability Core. Had he chosen the right one for escaping a city under siege? Maybe not, but he’d gotten out.

  He could learn.

  He could gain some semblance of control.

  “So,” he said aloud, though quietly enough for no one to hear. The change in subject was already making him feel better. “I’m an Aetherial Crafter. What does it mean?”

  [ Codex > Previous Dialogues > You have received summaries of the Aether Elemental Affinity and Crafter Ability Core. ]

  “Jeez, don’t take it personally,” Levan said. His mood was improving even as the sun rose. “I just mean in the grand scheme of things it’s brand new. I don’t get it. I want more than just a summary.”

  There was a pause, and Levan could imagine a tiny spinning rainbow pinwheel within Codex, or maybe a “Loading…” screen.

  [ Tutorial: Crafting ]

  [ Craft a Stone Pickaxe ]

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  [ Task: Acquire Materials ]

  > Stone (Material) | 3/3

  > Wooden Handle (Crafted) | 0/1

  — [ You Have Discovered a Crafting Recipe! ] —

  — [ Recipe: Wooden Handle ] —

  > Materials:

  > Wood, x2

  Levan looked around. He was still embedded with the caravan of fleeing citizenry. Not really an ideal time to pull over and start making tools.

  I’ll be fast.

  He moved to the side of the caravan and bent down, taking the [ 3x Stone ] and [ x2 Wood ] from under his arm, placing them on the packed dirt road.

  “Watch it,” someone mumbled.

  “Sorry, just tying my…sandals,” Levan mumbled, but the man had already passed. He aligned the rocks in a crescent shape, hoping it did a decent job of resembling a pick, and put the wooden fragments from the splintered building beams in roughly a handle shape.

  The flight of Sandesar was still passing behind him, and he could feel the eyes on him.

  “Oh, please, gods,” Levan said, shifting evenly to his knees, bent over the arrangement of stone and wood fragments.

  “Behold this prayer, prayed to you by me in prayer. I pray, that through this prayer…” he began, hoping no individual person behind him would able to hear more than a couple of words before the stream of other people carried them onward.

  Okay, he thought, do the thing.

  Nothing happened.

  [ Task: Craft a Wooden Handle ]

  Duh. Craft the handle first.

  Levan frowned. He smushed the sticks together.

  Then his head rocked back as if someone had punched him in the face.

  An image held dominant in Levan’s mind.

  A wooden handle in a pair of weathered hands, by a man who Levan couldn’t see, sitting alone in a workshop. Sunlight filtered in through a window above the man, and dust and wood shavings danced in the air, despite the silence. The man hummed to himself, something atonal and not his focus, while quiet, powerful concentration held the piece of wood. His boot, well-crafted leather dusty from the products of the workshop, tapped up and down on a thin block of wood, which pedal-spun a stone wheel. The wood buzzed softly as he rotated it against the stone, working out the last details. It was rough, still—there was more to do. But this would do. And he’d done it a thousand times.

  And somehow, he was the man in the workshop.

  I’ve made a thousand of these, Levan realized, vaguely aware of his presence outside of Sandesar amongst the fleeing populace. I know how to do this.

  Through Discipline and Ingenuity.

  “It goes something like this,” Levan said aloud in revelation, aligning the two fragments of wood in a way that exceeded the natural. The wood morphed, retaining color and even scarring from the siege, parts of it burnt—but the length, the width, the density changed.

  On the ground, aligned with the three stones, was a solid and uniform wooden handle.

  Levan breathed out, as the vision of the man in the workshop faded like a half-remembered dream.

  [ Crafted: Wooden Handle | Type: Crafter Material | Quality: Moderate ]

  [ Experience Gained: +13 ]

  [ Crafting | Skill | Lvl 1 ]

  —[ You Have Discovered (4) New Recipes! ]—

  > Recipe: Stone Pickaxe

  > Recipe: Stone Axe

  > Recipe: Stone Shovel

  > Recipe: Stone Hammer

  Levan checked behind him, making sure the caravan wouldn’t pass him by without noticing only for the soldiers to follow him out of the city and kill him before he noticed. He was among the tail end of the populous now, that was for sure. Everyone who could was hurrying. He had to hurry, too.

  The [ Stone x3 ] on the ground over the handle looked sloppy and uniform—but that’s what the sticks had looked like, too, before he’d transformed them into the handle.

  I’m not sure I have time for a nice little tableau of a man in a workshop this time, Levan thought.

  [ Codex > Ability Core: Crafter > Discipline & Ingenuity | Your access to Discipline and Ingenuity is connected and eternal. Tapping into these sources of power to craft will become second nature. ]

  Levan tried what he did last time, placing his hands on the stone.

  There was no tableau this time, though he had a feeling he could search for it and find it if he so chose. Now wasn’t the time, though—not with the soldiers who could descend upon him any moment, the Soliptic Order plunging fast blades into the last priest who got away.

  But the sensation remained—a fusion of Discipline and Ingenuity, enforcing his focus and opening his mind like a blooming flower to the way things worked and fit together.

  He physically bent the stone, forcing them into a crescent shape.

  But the craft wasn’t done.

  The pickaxe head, now complete, did not register to the Codex—or maybe to his Ability Core, he wasn’t sure—as a distinct item. Not yet. Which was strange, because it was. He could hold this arc of stone in his hands, theoretically use it as a backscratcher or non-returning boomerang or crappy, handle-less pickaxe if he wanted to.

  Why wasn’t that a recipe?

  [ Unable to Create Recipe ]

  [ Reach Crafting Level 2 to Create Your Own Recipes ]

  Noted.

  He needed to hurry and get this thing crafted.

  The last bit was the binding. Wasn’t that what Fabrimancy was for? The magic to fill in for bindings, adhesives, straps, clasps, and the like?

  Fabrimancy.

  Fabrimancy.

  Fabrimancy!

  He demanded power, and, to his surprise, he got it.

  In fact, Levan got his choice of the two.

  Within him were two wells of power: Discipline and Ingenuity, granted by the Crafter Ability Core, and the Aether Well, granted by his Elemental Affinity. To accomplish this act of Fabrimancy he would need to chose a well to dip into.

  This was, even to him, a minor act of Fabrimancy. He needed not to descend a bucket, but merely bend slightly and drag scoop his fingers across the waters.

  He chose the Crafter’s Well—a stream of Aether Particulate would do no good here, and might even garner the attention of whatever wizard or sorcerer— or whatever they were called in this world—who had conjured the hurricane of Aether Particulate by the city walls.

  The gliding of his fingers across the water—that was all it took to affix the head of the pickaxe to the handle—then it was done.

  [ Crafted: Stone Pickaxe |Type: Tool | Quality: Moderate ]

  —[ Task Complete! ]—

  > Craft Stone Pickaxe: 1/1

  > Experience Gained: +27

  [ Crafting (Skill) | Lvl 1 ]

  Okay. So that’s how it works.

  There was more—more on the precipice of his senses, but this was enough to digest for now. Levan saw bits and pieces of it—Recipes, Disciplines, Workshops, Specializations, and more. But he kept it at bay for now, and the Codex, capable of delivering its opinion only through contextually passive aggressive, apparently agreed that now was not the time.

  Wearing nothing but the bloodstained robes, and holding nothing but a pickaxe, Levan rejoined the caravan of fleeing citizens, checking behind him constantly for killers in dyed red leathers to catch up with him.

  He made his way forward, seeking once again the anonymity of the dead center of the caravan.

  When the wave of soldiers emerged from the city behind them, no one ran. Levan expected a stampede from the rear as people scrambled away from certain death. But there was no stampede.

  Anxiety began to hunch, hackles risen within him.

  But when he crested a hill to find a wave of soldiers directly ahead of them, and still no stampede or frantic flight, the anxiety elevated to fear.

  When the now homeless citizens of Sandesar began to form a line for the soldiers ahead..that’s when Levan realized he was in a different—and more dangerous—situation than he had imagined entirely.