Mythran's Master Of All

Ren woke up with Nathalia practically wrapped around him, and he smiled. He took in a deep breath and she woke up as well. She pulled back from him and smiled.

“Good morning.” Nathalia said.

“Good morning, beautiful.” Ren said and gave her a long, slow kiss. “I've got a lot to do today.”

“Do you?” She asked. “Is this different from every other day?”

Ren chuckled. “I'll take a break, don't worry.”

“Will it be with me?” Nathalia asked, her eyes full of hope.

“If you can stand to have me around, sure.” Ren said and grinned.

Nathalia snorted a laugh, and Ren kissed her on the nose.

“Once I get the first level built, I'll have to let it dry anyways.”

“W-what?”

“I'm making the Main House today.”

“Not that.” Nathalia said. “The 'let it dry' part.”

“I'll be casting it.”

“C-c-casting it?”

Ren nodded slightly. “I'll build a big mold for the walls, and then fill it. Pop it apart when it dries, and the first floor is done.” He said. “I'm tempted to just make a whole side and add the floor in later, though.”

Nathalia's eyes widened at Ren's words. “You're serious?” She asked. “You're really going to mold the Main House instead of just building it?”

“It's the best way to test my recipe.” Ren said. “Above ground, anyways.”

She shook her head. “Won't that take a lot more wood than building it?”

“At first....” Ren said. “...but, the wooden walls can be reused as many times as I want.”

Nathalia smiled. “I hope it works as well as you think.”

“It should. I just need a bunch more rebar for the walls. At the moment I only have enough for one wall.”

“You better get to work, then.” She said and sat up.

“I'd rather eat breatfast with my favorite fiance, if that's okay.” He said and sat up, too.

Nathalia chuckled. “I'm your only fiance.” She stopped laughing and looked at Ren. “I better be your only fiance.”

“Hey, I thought I was allowed to do whatever I wanted before the wedding?” Ren said and grinned as Nathalia swatted him on the head.

“Just because you're allowed, doesn't mean I want you to...” She said and took him into a hug. “...and I don't want you to.”

Ren hugged her back, then nuzzled her neck to make her giggle. “Where in the world would I find someone to compare to you?”

*

Elerlyth was quite frustrated. She'd been all over Aurora, again, looking for Mitchell. There was still no sign of him, and she sighed. Even her 'questionable' contacts hadn't come up with anything.

It's like he just dropped off the earth! She thought, and then froze. Oh, no way! She ran back to the Snoozing Bear inn, went up the stairs and entered her room, then flopped down onto the bed.

“Logout.”

********

Gloria took off the VR headset and got out of the recliner. “Those sneaky buggers!” She said with both venom and admiration in her voice as she sat down next to her computer. She pulled up her old hack file for the VR headset and grinned. “If my guess is right...”

Half an hour later, her probes and searches dug up the information she wanted.

“Ha! Hahaha!” Gloria laughed. “It wouldn't have worked if it was the old system; but when they changed to one permanent user per helmet...” She grinned. “...tracking him down this way was easy.” She looked at the Call ID her hack had given her. “Right, Mitchell? Or should I say, Micheal.”

*

“Oh crap!” Max, the head programmer at Sid TEC said. The program he had monitoring 'Mitchell' had just lit up like a christmas tree. “Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. CRAP!” He exclaimed. “CRAP ON TOAST!”

*

Gloria loaded the information she needed into her navigation hack and patched it into the VR headset. “Go ahead, tech guys.” She said. “You can change Mitchell's Call ID as many times as you want.” She smiled. “I've got his code pattern now.” She went back to her recliner and put on the VR headset. “Easy money.” She said and relaxed.

“Flow Login Start.”

*

Max was trying his best to undo whatever it was that had happened, but it was too late. He'd suffered a data breach and couldn't track it. After another few minutes, he gave up and called the boss.

“Sorry, sir.” Max said. “They've found him.”

“Is he online?” Edward asked.

“Unfortunately.”

“Damn.” Edward said. “Can we warn him?”

“No. It's buffered. He doesn't get anything right now.”

“Well, unbuffer it and get him back in the system.”

“By then it'll be too late.”

“What do you mean?” Edward asked.

“They'll already have him.”

********

Ren had a great breakfast with two of his favorite people, and then fed Princess. He went out through the gate, and Golir greeted him with a huge grin on his face. Ren greeted him back, and walked across the drawbridge, then up the road to his workshop. Carts were already arriving and dropping off workers. Ren had them all stop and he repaired the equipment and clothing of everyone that needed it, apologized for not doing it sooner, and then entered his workshop. He came to a stop when he saw what was there. Nearly the whole floor was covered in standing sacks of cement.

“Whoa.” Ren said, then started storing them into inventory. He had about half of them stored when the door to the workshop opened. The same group of 7 women stepped inside and stopped when they saw him. Ren turned around to look at the group.

“Ma'am.” Ren said and bowed slightly to the first woman, then repeated that with each woman in turn. “You've done a lot more than I had expected.” He said and waved to the sacks he'd yet to store. “I thought I asked you to take your time.”

“We did.” One woman said. “We've changed it to only 2 of us shovel, and 4 of us gather the sacks. We can keep a constant flow of powder and sacks going this way.”

Ren smiled. “That's great.” He said and then stored the rest of the sacks, and started up the forge and tossed in a few pieces of ore. “You've impressed me with getting so much done.” Ren said. “210 sacks is a lot to do in a single day.” Ren walked over to them, handed each woman a coin pouch to equip, and then gave them 2 gold coins and 10 silver each.

“Sir, this is...”

“Only a silver for shoveling, filling, and sewing each sack.” Ren said. “It's quite the bargain for me.”

The women looked at him like he was crazy, and Ren chuckled. “Don't just stand there staring at me.” He said and grinned. “You've got work to do!”

The women laughed and picked who would be shoveling first. Ren tossed more ore into the forge and eventually filled it. He skimmed off some of the impurities and then stirred it quickly. Ren heard something clink in Dorcot's work area and he walked over to it.

“Good morning, Dorcot.” Ren said to the dwarf.

“Morning!” Dorcot said. “Look at my latest creation!”

Ren looked over his shoulder and saw a diamond in the shape of a ball. “Wow.”

Dorcot grinned. “That's what I said when I got to the bottom of the crate!” He chuckled. “I saw this beauty sitting there and it just begged me to do this.” He handed it to Ren, who appraised it at nearly 75 platinum. Ren shook his head.

“Dorcot, you really do good work.” Ren said, then counted the facets. “You must have a lot of small ones left after this.”

Dorcot opened the middle drawer and it was almost completely filled. “I was about to go to the house and ask you to take them.”

Ren looked at him. “How long have you been here?”

“About an hour or so.”

“You've been here since before breakfast?”

Dorcot nodded slightly. “I always get up early to see Angeilin off to work.” He said. “Even though we're closer to where she has to go, it's still a long walk.”

Ren nodded slightly. “That'll be the next thing on my list.”

“Your list?”

“Things I've been meaning to do to get everything running properly round here.”

“I bet it's a long list.” Dorcot said and smiled.

“It gets longer every day.” Ren said and chuckled. He took all of the 1 gold coin diamonds from Dorcot's desk drawer, and put them into inventory to count them. They took up just over 4 slots. “856.” Ren said, then took out the sack he'd made to hold the small diamonds, and dumped the new diamonds into it to join their brothers and sisters. It was nearly full. “I think I'm going to need a bigger sack.”

Dorcot laughed and Ren smiled as he took out the half-sized crate of cut diamonds he had in inventory, and put the diamonds into the full-sized crate. Ren added the ones that filled the half-sized crate beside Dorcot to it, then stored the crate.

“I'm not sure what I can do with all of these, as some of the cuts aren't useful for what I want.” Ren said, then looked at Dorcot. “You've cut gems for royalty, do you know a good jeweller or jewel setter?”

Dorcot smiled. “Want to recruit another craftsman, do you?”

Ren chuckled. “I'd like to learn about it, actually.”

“That'll be hard, since Orimihr Juldor's been working in the mines for about 5 years.”

“5 years?!?” Ren exclaimed. “Why so long?”

“He used to work for one of the Main Houses, and one day, their entire jewellery collection disappeared.”

Ren's eyes widened in surprise.

“Yeah, it was suspicious to be sure.” Dorcot said. “A sword, 2 rings, a tiara, a necklace, and a set of armor was taken. Emeralds, rubies, and diamonds adorned them all.”

Stolen novel; please report.

“Any clues about who would do such a thing?”

Dorcot shrugged. “It was so long ago, I doubt even the people who were there would remember the details now.” He said. “All I know is that Delthid was so angry, that he quit in protest over it.”

“Delthid?” Ren asked.

“Delthid Kulduhr's the blacksmith who made the items that were stolen.” Dorcot said. “He'd perfected his forging technique on that sword. It only took 5 forgings to craft it.”