64: Monster
The workshop was silent. Since Pravala only needed to be present when the craft was finished in order to make a newly-evolved skill level ninety-four, it meant that Eris was able to do everything up to that point completely on her own. Of course, that left her wondering just how powerful anything she made would be after she was Pravala-boosted given her crazy skill evolutions. If the math for Adept Artificer, as an example, held up in the same way that Novice Artificer did, then bringing the evolved version up to level ninety-four would presumably bring the Quality bonus when she was only using her own tools to a staggering fourteen-thousand two hundred and fifty percent.
A bonus that was applied as a multiplier after the twenty and thirty-thousand percent bonuses she was directly providing to Durability and Potency from her insane CP efficiency. Of course, that was if she and Pravala chose to boost Adept Artificer. It was chosen by default previously because Eris simply didn’t have any other worthwhile options. Now though, with her multiple evolved skills, there were a few different options depending on what Eris wanted to go for.
For now, though, Eris just pushed those thoughts away- just like the hammer and chisel she had been gently bringing against the five-sided pillar of white marble. When she folded her arms over the table, Eris didn’t care that little flecks and chunks of marble were digging into her skin. She just rested her face in her elbows and let out a deep breath.
She felt like she was going to vomit.
It held itself like a weighted ball of infected puss contained in her stomach- one that her body desperately wanted to get rid of but couldn’t. That feeling in her gut was revolting beyond measure. She was horrified by it, but also horrified by herself for even deciding that this was the best course of action. She could do little more than remind herself that this was something that had to be done, and she was the only person that could do it.
Still, though- it was a lot harder to keep convincing herself that she was doing the right thing when she was actively planning to murder dozens of people.
Was this how Pravala felt, when she decided that the best way for her to potentially save the world was by enslaving an entire village? Did she sit in silence with nothing but the thoughts in her head, feeling sick with the idea of what she needed to do but knowing it was the only option?
What about Vojemala? She was the one that forced Pravala, and by extension, all the innocent people under the Summoner’s thumb, into the Obelisk- presumably for nothing more than an experiment to test the strength of this prison and see if it could hold back an apocalypse. Did the idea that she would be ruining over a thousand innocent lives for hundreds of years torment her, or was she actually able to sleep at night?
This was a group of fourteen hundred people- completely innocent people- who had their entire lives destroyed by two Echoes- and yet neither of them seemed to be acting out of malice. Both of them simply saw the lives of these people as a sacrifice that needed to be made for a greater good- Pravala to kill Akkaru’um, and Vojemala to trap it.
And Eris wasn’t any better.
After all, Pravala could transfer any of her injuries to any of her bonded targets. Eris could do little more than hope that it was random as to which target the wounds were transferred to. If the plan to kill Pravala didn’t happen absolutely perfectly and end the woman before she realized what was going on, there was a high chance that several enslaved were going to die. Eris hated the fact that she was signing an unknown quantity of people up for imminent death, but she at least felt a little more comfortable knowing that the chance of her plan killing Bailey or Elmas was two in fourteen-hundred.
It was easier to sacrifice people she didn’t know in her plot to murder someone in cold blood.
Eris lifted her face from her arms- wiped away a bit of marble dust that gathered on the bridge of her nose, then stared at the white-marble structure she’d slowly been chiselling to life. Twenty-six inches tall, five geometric sides, and slowly tapering to a blunted tip. About as thick around as Eris’s forearm, and rising up from the table in a perfect mimicry of the very thing that brought her to this place.
The miniature, white-toned Obelisk stared back at Eris like a mockery. She never even really intended for it to turn out that way- it just kinda… did. This place had extremely limited materials to work with, meaning her options were even more so. Pretty much the only thing she had to work with was fish, wood, two types of weird underground grain kinda close to wheat, a couple different kinds of stone, some simple gems, and some basic metals from ore taken out of the mines.
The most special thing in this place was the Ichryte. Precious metals were great at conducting and directing magic into certain forms- the more precious, the better the conductor. Gemstones, on the other hand, were amplifiers and maintainers. When magic was put into them, they multiplied that amount and kept that magic for long periods of time, but always modified the magic to attune to the elements of the gem. For example, any kind of magic could go through gold and remain exactly as it was, but any magic that went through obsidian glass- for example- would always be changed to incorporate elements of fire. Every gem had their particular attunement, and though they were potent for the creation of magical items, were limited in their ability to create varied effects.
Ichryte, however, was unique among gemstones because of its attunement. That was because Ichryte was literally attuned to the unattuned. Even if the magic that went in was purely elemental, with absolutely no option for anything else, Ichryte brought it back to a neutral state. Sure, it meant that the magic then couldn’t be aligned to any kind of element later, but it retained the benefits of being completely neutral and thus usable for non-elemental effects, while also amplifying the magic and maintaining its heightened effectiveness.
It was also only ever found in the Obelisk, and only by some of the highest level parties that entered. To be completely honest, the most special thing about Ichryte was how hard it was to obtain. It was no less ‘powerful’ than any other gemstone, it was just more versatile because of its attunement and all but legendary according to any of the gemcarving books Eris skimmed through. Now, Eris was trapped in a prison realm that had entire thirty-foot geodes filled to the brim with the stuff being discovered every couple of months in the mines. She had access to more of it in the last two and a half weeks than the Syndicate had probably seen in decades.
Despite that, Eris could only do so much. Access to all that Ichryte let her experiment and make stuff like the Adjudication’s Altar and the entire plan to supercharge other crafts, but she still needed to make the stuff that was actually capable of doing what she wanted.
For this, the best thing Eris could manage was a desperate hope that she could take apart the Band of Second Presence and successfully reuse the Neutricore leather. Eris wasn’t even entirely sure what a Neutricore even was, since Elmas’s description of it was intentionally lackluster. Apparently, it was one of the most esoteric and strange monsters ever found in the Obelisk, given that it existed only in the minds of other people, and was effectively immortal since it endlessly reproduced through its own image. Because of that, Elmas refused to draw a picture of it- since that would literally birth a new Neutricore right on the spot. Even scarier, though, was the fact that Elmas herself had no idea what it looked like, and was never told that information. Apparently, the image that a person could form in their mind with concentrated focus was enough to bring another Neutricore into the world. Literally thinking about the creature could bring it to life.
Of course, Eris considered the idea of using a Neutricore to fight against Pravala, but ultimately decided against it for several reasons. First, it would be impossible to even produce one without Pravala immediately knowing about it, and if what Elmas said was true, every single person that looked at one would cause it to exist in their own minds, therefore spawning a brand new one that they themselves would have to fight, a new one that if anyone else looked at, would spawn another, and so on, and so on, and so on.
And that was saying nothing about the consideration of the fact that Pravala was literally bound to over a thousand people. If Pravala did look at a Neutricore and spawn one in her mind, would that cause one to spawn in every single one of her enslaved’s minds? Eris doubted it, but that didn’t mean the chance wasn’t there. As nice of a secret weapon that a Neutricore could be, it was just far, far too risky and completely impossible to control. Not to mention, since Elmas had no idea what it looked like, none of them would even have anything to go off of when trying to picture the creature in their minds. It didn’t matter how many problems arose after birthing the creature if none of them could even make it exist in the first place. That left nothing more than a strip of leather, produced by the Obelisk as a reward for the party that took one down and entrusted into Elmas’s care so she could do her job with supreme effectiveness.
The strip of leather that Eris slid over to rest directly in front of her on the table before lifting fine-pointed tweezers.
Generally, taking apart magical items to reuse the materials was… ill-advised. It was like trying to take the nails out of a finished piece of furniture and use them for something else. More often than not, attempting to remove those nails would bend or break them, and that was even operating under the assumption that the already-used nails would happen to be the perfect size to fit into the next project. However, even if no physical damage was dealt to the material and it could be perfectly reused, the magic itself was also a tricky part to play.
When magic was put into an item, it wasn’t just the material that influenced the magic- the magic also influenced the material. It wasn’t really perceivable by any means, but it still left behind ‘scars’ of the previous function. Unless the materials were used for the exact same end result, the created magic item was inefficient- not to mention unstable. For example, removing the sapphire pommel stone from an ice-enchanted sword didn’t exactly mean that Eris could just stick a citrine in its place to attune it to lightning- the metal of the blade had been ‘scarred’ with ice already. It would still work well enough, but the enchantment wouldn’t be quite as strong because it wouldn’t be pure. Like melting down ore to get the metal, but not dumping the slag before casting the ingots.
Objects from the Obelisk, however, were an entirely new brand of issues.
Based on the best assumptions from scholars and researchers, any magical objects produced by the Obelisk didn’t seem to be ‘fabricated’ as much as they were ‘manifested’ into existence. Nothing ever made by the Obelisk had any of the traditional signs of being physically made. A halberd’s metal blade had no seam where it met the wooden shaft- as if the wood itself turned into metal and grew outwards to make an edge.
Clothing or robes had no stitches on the sides- just a continuous length of fabric that was naturally shaped in the exact way it needed to be. In fact, the thread itself never seemed to end. It was as if it was one, unbelievably long circle of string woven with itself until it was a complete shirt.
The leather bracelet held in Eris’s grip was no different. The pale brown surface was naturally indented with abstract designs that seemed like they should almost form shapes Eris would recognize, but nothing quite lined up the way it should. In fact, every time Eris looked down at it, the shapes all seemed to be in different positions- like the band was deciding how it looked and froze in appearance every single time that it was being observed. Furthermore, there was no seam where the leather of a bracelet would naturally be sewn back onto itself to make a loop. It was just a perfect circle with no start or end.
Even the lines of golden thread running parallel to the edges just like stitches seemed to be nothing more than decorational. Looking closely, Eris couldn’t even see the holes where the thread would have been fed through the leather. It was as if the leather itself just grew tight loops that perfectly resembled stitches for no discernable reason.
An experimental tug on one of those golden loops with the tweezers revealed naught as well. The thread shifted as it would naturally, but where it fed back into the leather- where a sewn hole would be- there was zero give at all. Every single bit of this magic item was one piece, which meant that the only way for Eris to ‘take it apart’ would literally be to take a knife and cut the object in half.
Obviously, that would only be Eris’s last resort. More than anything, Eris was hoping beyond hope that incorporating some kind of effect from the band would be as simple as taking the band and just attaching it to her new creation- like attaching a knife she already made to a tripwire and making a trap out of it. Making things using entire finished pieces as building materials was most definitely possible and had been done to great extents.
A group finds a really good dagger in the Obelisk, but prefers something with longer reach? Affixing it onto the end of a custom-made wooden shaft and turning it into a spear had been done dozens of times.
A ring gives a pretty great effect? Fashioning the ring into a pendant that fits onto a chain is extremely easy, and then that’s a functional necklace.
By the gods, the entire art of cooking was the biggest example. If a Culinarian made a perfect, juicy venison steak with whatever special effects they wanted, that was a completed meal. However, there was nothing stopping them from cutting it up and putting it into a stew or a pasta to either alter or enhance the effects.
Still, Eris could do nothing more than hold that hope in her heart as she gently slid the Band of Second Presence over the top of the miniature Obelisk. The leather loop lowered until it finally became snug around the tapering length of the statuette about halfway down, then thankfully did just what Eris expected it would- the same thing it did whenever the redhead put it onto her own wrist. It expanded.
Since there was no seam in the leather, and it would need to fit around a person’s hand in order to be put on while also ensuring that it remained secure when worn instead of slipping off, the band acted identically to many, many other Obelisk objects. They- to a limited extent- resized themselves automatically to fit whoever attempted to use them. As the bracelet was lowered around the marble pillar, Eris watched the leather grow, but somehow never appear as if it were stretching. It was like more of the item was simply being manifested into existence to accommodate the circumference of the miniature Obelisk it was being lowered onto. That meant it slid easily all the way down until the band nestled into a groove chiselled towards the base- surrounded above and below by small and extremely precise holes Eris carved using a hand drill.
Unfortunately, that was the last point that Eris could reasonably let herself stay alone in the workshop. After all, this was easily the most important part of the entire escape plan, so disregarding Pravala’s massive power boost was beyond idiotic. All she could do was complete as much of the craft as she possibly could before actually finishing it, so that the Summoner would ideally be around for less than five minutes, tops.
Though at this point, Eris wasn’t even sure whether she hated the woman because Pravala did such horrible things and was driven to insanity by her own guilt, or because that woman was a living example of what Eris would need to become.
If the end always justifies the means, just how far were the means allowed to go before they weren’t justified anymore? Would the world forgive her if she had to cross that line?
Could she forgive herself?
Eris grit her teeth, stood from her stool, then walked to the door of the workshop. Thankfully, all she needed to do was open it slightly, stick her head out from the crack, and call out to an older gentleman that had been walking along a nearby path. He wouldn’t understand her, but the woman listening through his ears would.
“Alright Pravala, time for the boost.”