The Newt and Demon - Chapter 4.35 - Baby Arm

The Dreamwalk was the perfect place to test the viability of the ocean freezing project. Theo stood with Alex on the deck of an imagined version of the Wavecrest, gazing down into the murky water. Somewhere below was the dream version of the dungeon, resting on the bed of the bay. Tresk was off somewhere, likely fighting dragons. She had been cagey about her progress lately, likely because she was hitting a wall.

Hitting walls like this was natural in the system’s progression. They popped up out of nowhere. Theo’s first theory was that they happened on multiples of 10, stopping a person’s progress before they could roll over to a new realm of power. While his [Tara’hek Core], [Governance Core], and [Toru’aun Mage’s Core] had experienced massive growth, the same couldn’t be said for his alchemy and herbalism cores.

The alchemist plopped one of Throk’s early sprayer artifices down onto the deck, fiddling with the spraying nozzle to aim at the water below. “Is the sprayer the right tool for the job?”

I’m just a goose, I don’t know. Alex honked.

“Then what happens if we cage the dungeon?”

Well, I know that one. The system will yell at you if you put objects too close to the dungeon.

“And how do you know that?”

Tresk tried to build an effigy of herself near the [Swamp Dungeon]. Since she’s the best adventurer, she wanted people to know. The system yelled at her when she built it too close.

“Alright.” Theo loaded his sprayer up with [Freeze Solution]. He flicked a switch on the side and let the device spray. Ice formed on the water immediately, freezing it solid in moments. Then the ice worked its way down toward the dungeon. “How waterproof do you think the stonework will be?”

Depends on who builds it. Ziz has an ability that creates a perfect seal between stones using mortar.

“So, you’re listening to what people say more often than I expected.” The ice bobbed in the water, pitching at a strange angle. But the sprayer continued its work, loading the bay with more of the solution. “This is gonna take a while.”

With the Wavecrest anchored firmly in the bay—Theo’s influence further keeping it still in the water—the alchemist set up his stills on the deck and got to work on grinding experience. Planters, stills, fermentation barrels, and rows of tables crowded the ship. Alex played on the ice as they chatted.

There was something very wrong with the way cores leveled. Logically, his personal level should have been an average of all his cores. That was clearly not the way things worked, since his average core level was about 20 while his personal level was 22. Instead, every action performed with a core provided an amount of experience to his personal level, depending on the core’s level. His level 6 [Toru’aun Mage’s Core] did not give as much personal experience as his level 23 [Drogramath Alchemy Core]. Making things more fiddly, his level 28 [Governance Core] didn’t give as much experience as the alchemy core!

“Slightly confusing,” Theo said, adjusting the direction of the sprayer.

Almost as though some cores are more important. Perhaps that’s the rarity?

That’s not what it felt like to Theo, though. It felt like the system wanted to base personal experience gain off of a single core, while the other cores were supplemental. For now, he shrugged it off. There was a good reason his experience was dragging with his alchemy core, and the slow pace of his herbalism core was clear. The new farm should help the herbalism core.

“But for my alchemy core,” Theo said, standing before a still and tapping his foot. “We’re missing something.”

The slightest twinge flickered through the alchemist’s mind. Alex was probing his thoughts, less elegantly than when Tresk did so.

Third tier potions! Alex shouted, honking and flapping over the ice. She pitched over, falling into the bay. She narrowly avoided being sprayed by the freezing solution.

“Yeah, I’ve just been brewing [Healing Potions]. But those are what I’m calling second tier.”

You should write a book.

Yeah, that was a good idea. If Theo’s plan worked with the temple, Salire would need a guide on how to level a [Drogramath Alchemy Core]. He pulled up his administration interface, created a private notes section, and wrote things down.

“Good idea. First, we’ll note how to brew first tier potions.”

That process was easy enough. A new Drogramathi alchemist only needed a simple copper still, reagents, and purified water to create essence. Then they only needed shavings to make a potion. The step that advanced a person to the next tier was pressure treating, done either in an evaporation pressurizer, as in his current model, or a pressure still. While Theo could create third tier suffuse potions, he hadn’t figured out the secret sauce for regular third tier potions.

“Something to do with the liquid, maybe.”

Tonight seemed like a good night for experimentation. While Theo thought about what to replace his still water with, he observed how well the [Freeze Solution] was working. A column of ice had formed under the surface, stretching at least half-way to the dungeon below. It had rolled over several times, creating odd sections of ice that stretched off in weird angles. But the sprayer continued its good work.

“I run into this problem often.” Theo stood over a still, looking down at the bubbling liquid. He had removed the lid of one to observe the effects of salt water mixed with reagents. It was reacting violently. “Hitting my head against a wall with no guidance.”

Be happy with the progress you have made. Alex followed her supportive comment up with an encouraging honk. The ice is forming well. What is the plan with the ice?

“My first idea was just to send Xol’sa down there to fix the dungeon.” Theo scratched his head, looking down at how the ice spread. It really didn’t consume that much solution. “Like I said, I’m thinking of building a waterproof tower around it.”

That sounds like a bad idea.

“I’ve had worse ideas. We’ve been talking about turning the dungeons into something like a theme park. If visitors wanted to use the [Ocean Dungeon], we’d need to have it accessible.”

Your first thought about that is an underwater tower?

There might have been a better way to do it. Theo couldn’t think of a better way, though. He needed to run the idea by Xol’sa before he pulled the trigger, but it was a straightforward way to get access to the dungeon. He had to consider how the monsters spawning from the dungeon would respond. How this affected a monster wave.

“What if I justify it by saying we’ll take the underwater tower above water? Turn it into a weapons platform or something.”

I’m not sold.

Theo grumbled. Most people just went along with what he suggested. Instead of trying to convince her with words, he imagined away the ice. He was happy enough with how it worked. They could dig down into the ice, creating a hollow cylinder all the way to the bottom of the bay. Instead, he replaced it with what he imagined would be the final product. A marble tower that went under the water, surrounding the rocky dungeon entrance below. He imagined a staircase that ran along the outside, giving easy access to the bottom.

From the deck of the boat, Theo looked out onto the bay. With monsters below and approaches from the sea from almost every direction, this place wasn’t defensible. The underwater tower sprung up, stretching high above the waves of the bay. The alchemist connected that tower with a new one on shore with a bridge, supported in the center with large marble pillars. Several more underwater towers rose from nowhere, filling the bay with weapons platforms. A ghostly navy loomed on the horizon.

“From here, we could hit anything between the canal and the barrier islands with Throk’s new weapons.”

Alright, I’m feeling this a little more, Alex said. A little town of interconnected towers. Maybe we can put platforms near the water so the fisher people can use them.

“Now we’re talking. Multiple uses. That’s how I’ll sell it.”

How viable is it to keep the sea out?

Theo didn’t have a good sense for that. He had a feeling that what he was doing in the Dreamwalk wasn’t falling in line with how things would work in reality. Stretching his senses over the dream realm, he pushed against it. It wouldn’t budge until Alex reached out with him. They forced it to follow something closer to reality, modeling the tower to be like something Ziz could build. A roar of water rushed into the towers, flooding them in an instant. They wobbled, almost collapsing.

Wow, that was completely expected.

“Alright. Just another problem we have to fix. Nothing to panic about.”

I’m sure we’ll find some magic water repelling potion you can use.

“Maybe. We can talk with Ziz when we wake up. See what he thinks about the idea.”

Yeah. Let’s go back to working on your alchemy problem.

Theo worked on the problem with Alex for hours. They tried various mediums for boiling reagents. Everything from Goblin blood to sand. Once that proved to be a dead end, they worked on changing the water used for distillation. That was more of a shot in the dark than anything, though. Altering the [Purified Water] seemed to be the way forward, but there were only so many ways to approach the problem.

The pair quickly found themselves resting on the deck of the Wavecrest, watching as most of the bay froze over. Theo left the spraying artifice on, even after he created a crowd of towers, just to see what would happen. The shadows swirled on the deck, and Tresk stepped out.

“Wow, sleeping on the job?” Tresk asked, pressing her boot into Theo’s leg.

“Meh, we’re taking a break.”

“A break from what,” Tresk said, gesturing at the towers. “Creating a bunch of useless towers?”

They’re not useless.

“Maybe not completely, but you guys suck at designing defensive structures.” Tresk waved her hand through the air. The dream realm bent from the enormity of her command. Theo thought it would crack under the pressure, but it held firm. A moment later, the scene had rearranged itself. “There. That’s a much better design.”

The location of the [Ocean Dungeon] ran in line with one of the canal’s walls. Tresk extended the edge of the canal all the way to the dungeon, ending that underwater wall in a tower. She mirrored the effect on the canal’s opposite side. All along the length of the wall were towers of increasing height. A wedge of other towers, expanding in either direction until they hit the coast, formed the shape of an arrowhead.

“If you’re going to go big, then go big,” Tresk said. “Once we have a tower over the [Ocean Dungeon], we’ll need a way to get people out here to maintain it. A big walkway makes the most sense. Then we go with the same theme, making towers with dad’s artifice shooters along the path.”

This was good. It reminded Theo of something he’d seen back on Earth. When medieval met with cannons, the design of defensive emplacements changed. What good was a straight wall of brick when a few well-placed shots from afar could make it crumble. Instead, they created forts with little points on the outside, allowing them to field long-range cannons that covered each other. Since Tresk designed the towers in a wedge, they’d be able to fire out to sea at the same time.

There was also something about the design that was imposing. It would tell visitors that they meant business, and they could stop people from coming into port without paying.

“I love this design,” Theo said, studying the towers. “Perhaps we can file this under ‘really cool but impractical projects’, if you know what I mean.”

“Yeah. That’s a lot of stone.” Tresk waved her hand again. The lead towers were replaced with stone statues of her and Theo. “I like this option better. Maybe we can put laser beams in their eyes.”

Theo looked up at the stone version of himself. The eyes glowed red, then it shot a solid bar of energy out to sea. The statues were too much, but this fell in line with something the alchemist had been interested in for a while. Ever since Ziz built the stone bridge over the river, he’d been thinking about structures that weren’t seed core buildings. The system-generated buildings were better by a long shot, but they came in predetermined designs. There was no ‘wall of towers with guns on them’ seed core. Not that he knew of.

Oh! We could put fire on the towers, Alex said, lighting the tops of each tower—and the statues—with roaring flames. A welcoming sight for our visitors.

“That makes us look evil.” Theo commanded the fires to dim. They crackled, then reduced to respectable campfires. “Better.”

I like mine better.

The group discussed the best way to defend the coast. They determined the best way was to just build a line of towers on the coast, never going out to sea. That left the problem of the [Ocean Dungeon] unresolved. By the time the Dreamwalk was ready to end, they had settled on the two designs and resigned themselves to asking around town for opinions.

“If we could just move the dang dungeon, we’d be set.” Tresk tapped her chin. “Whoops, that’s dawn. Let’s go.”

Theo had no say in what happened next. The Dreamwalk swirled around him, sending him tumbling back into his sleeping body in an instant. He rose, blinking away the confusion in his mind. It was better when Tresk gave him more warning than that. But the little Marshling was already out of her bed, scampering off without a word. The alchemist found his way to the dining room, getting a report from Sarisa while they waited for food.

The more time Theo spent around his new assistants, the more he had a sense for the magic that cloaked their forms. He’d been neglecting his magical training, but that was to be expected. Xol’sa had always been the person to push him forward. Now he was left to be distracted by whatever shiny new thing jumped into his mind. The reports delivered were mundane. Nothing had happened in the night, and the events of yesterday were all according to plan.

Once all the freeloaders had gathered for breakfast, Rowan served them. Theo charged them all with the task of thinking of a better defensive idea for the coast. The opinion was split, but it seemed Xol’sa would have the final word.

“You’re too many steps ahead, Theo,” the Elf said. “Get me down to the dungeon, then we can talk about what to do. Once I understand where the [Ocean Dungeon] is at, I’ll have a recommendation.”

Tresk forced the conversation away from the problem after that. Theo picked what he wanted from his breakfast before taking his tea, retreating to the garden. Ziz’s guys had worked through the night, which was expected. From his comfortable chair, the alchemist could see walls poking up over the shrubs and the fence. Those crazy Half-Ogres would work until they collapsed.

Xol’sa joined Theo out in the garden, eventually. He was joined by his minder, an angry little Marshling that the alchemist hadn’t had the time to meet properly. He was just there to make sure the Elf was alright, nothing more.

“I have the strength to see the dungeon today. If you have the desire,” Xol’sa said.

Theo wanted nothing more than to get the [Ocean Dungeon] under control. He agreed to the Elf’s plans, but didn’t depart immediately. That was wasted energy. Instead, he asked Sarisa to inform the Adventurer’s Guild and the administrators about their plan. They would need a unit of the regulars to guard them while they did their work, and some laborers to excavate the ice once it had been set. She departed after a quick bow, jumping over the fence instead of taking the gate.

“She takes things too seriously,” Xol’sa said, falling into a fit of coughs shortly after that.

“There has to be a potion that can help you.”

“If Drogramath’s power can’t help me, I don’t know if there’s a potion that will.”

An unexpected twinge of guilt shot through Theo’s chest. He should have never agreed to let Xol’sa spy on his realm. He should have known that there would be consequences—the rules were very clear about a mortal delving into the realms. It was a foolish thing to think the extra-planar Elf would have been an exception.

“It should heal with time. Right?”

Xol’sa managed to laugh before coughing again. “It is getting better Theo. There’s just some things that don’t heal overnight.”

“Like my little baby arm!” Fenian said, almost flipping his wheelchair as he entered the garden from the manor. He had his recovering limb exposed. Theo looked away as quickly as he could. It appeared as though someone had grafted a child’s limb to his body.

“That’s absolutely disgusting.”

“This is your handiwork, my dear alchemist. Bask in its glory.” Fenian edged closer to Theo, poking him in the face with his new limb. “Bask!”

“I’m basking, alright?” Theo asked, standing up and edging away from Fenian. “But that thing is creepy.”

“There we are. Keep basking.”

“The longer I know you, the more I realize how weird you are.”

Fenian pretended to be offended. “Theo, do you realize how long I spent fighting Karasan in the realms? Eons! We fought in the deepest dungeons and the highest peaks. Until… at last! I smote my enemy upon the mountainside.”

“But you lost the fight.” Theo narrowed his eyes at the Elf.

“Alright. I made that last part up. He cut off my arm and leg and I ran away like a coward. Are you happy? Now I am sad.”

Theo groaned, jumping over the fence so that the Elven trader could not pursue.

“I’m not done!” Fenian shouted. “Come back so I can wave my baby arm in your face again!”

“NO!”