The Fifth Realm

by Michael Chatfield

  “The gnomes didn’t think small,” Erik said.

  “Of course not! Though, it was a bit of an accident. They were trying to escape from someone else and then were swept down a cave into what is now the Water floor. They built upward, building each floor.

  “Did you know, in the beginning, they would transport the dungeon core between the different levels? Ingenious, really, creating several dungeons layered on top of one another, turning them on and off at different times, managing them all with the dungeon core. Then finally the dungeon core, with the use of formations, was able to command all of the different floors. From being chased escapees, they created a nation, built families, and had a peaceful life, cut off from the rest of the realms.” Egbert’s voice was soft as his memories moved to a place that only he knew.

  “But now you and Rugrat are creating a new nation. Who knows where it will go.” Egbert infused his words with enthusiasm, drowning out the sad melancholy from the past.

  The past is written but the future isn’t. Erik felt the weight of responsibility on his shoulders.

  “All right, well, if we can get her and her husband’s agreement and an oath with the beavers, we can start to develop the Metal floor,” Erik said to Gilga.

  She turned to the beaver, talking. Then she made herself as big as possible, preening and showing off.

  “What’s she doing?” Egbert asked.

  “If I was a betting man, I’d say she’s showing off how well she has done with an oath to Erik. Beasts want to show off that they have the best of things.” Rugrat laughed and patted George.

  “How do you know?”

  “’Cause George is all upset at how much she’s bragging.” Rugrat chuckled and Erik joined in.

  Chapter: Council Meeting

  Erik and Rugrat spent their time working on projects that they had put off. Erik was in the Alchemy department, using the Expert-level facilities as he worked to create a stronger Age Rejuvenation potion and looked over information on pills and concoctions that would assist one in increasing their Body and Mana Gathering Cultivation.

  “There are many aids that can help, but really one needs an environment attuned to the different attribute mana.” Erik let out a heavy sigh and rubbed his strained eyes, the pages of the book giving him a headache.

  “Really, the best situation would be to wait for the floors to be clear. Then, like how I did with the Earth tempering stage of Body Cultivation, I go to the floors, take supporting concoctions, and then temper my body with the different forces of the Ten Realms.”

  He became quiet. “The one problem—well, not really a problem, but something to consider—is that now with firearms, increasing my Body Cultivation isn’t that high of a priority. The benefits are great, yes, but if I’m at range, then spells to increase the power of the rounds or to increase my accuracy would be more useful. I’d need a trainer in order to properly learn how to fight hand-to-hand.”

  He rubbed his face. More than anything, he didn’t want to waste his efforts. If he increased the power of his body and then didn’t use it, it was useless. He could use magic for his healing spells anyway.

  A part of Erik just wanted to fight hand-to-hand, so that even if he didn’t have a weapon he would be a fierce opponent.

  ***

  Rugrat was in the military workshop district, a section of Alva Dungeon’s farmland that had been reclaimed to create the compound that made munitions, weapons, armor, and other supplies. It was one of the first things that Glosil had done—consolidating all of the different workshops together and increasing production. With the growth of the military, just with training they would need an increase in supplies. They would also need to build up their reserves of consumables that would be used in a conflict.

  Rugrat was touring the facilities. He stopped as Taran guided him through.

  “Something wrong?” Taran asked.

  “That? What is that?” Rugrat saw someone putting a block of metal into a spinning machine and Rugrat’s stomach dropped.

  “That’s a spinning tool. We realized if we used something similar to your centrifuge to spin the metal, then we could round it out easier into a barrel. We have another machine that spins and cuts the inside of the barrel, adding rifling,” Taran said.

  “Dammit.” Rugrat groaned.

  “What is it?”

  “You did good—I messed up. We have machines like that on Earth, called a lathe, and then I guess that the other thing would be similar to a drill. Wow, that was dumb of me. I made it for him, just thinking about separating out blood and solutions, didn’t think of the smithing applications. What other things did I miss? Band saw? Router? Damn, maybe even a simple drill? Dammit! Shit! Dammit!” Rugrat walked over to a workbench and started listing down names and then doing drawings.

  Taran looked at the others in the room before he backed away from Rugrat slowly and then walked away, whistling.

  ***

  Jia Feng walked into the dungeon headquarters. Delilah was already there, working on some other paperwork.

  “You’re in early,” Jia Feng said.

  “Yeah, I had some things to catch up on. When I have spare time, I have been working with Erik on Alchemy. It all kind of piles up. You know, with everything happening across the realms, then in Alva and now in Vuzgal. Going to need a whole lot more administrators.” Delilah sighed and then turned back to her work.

  Jia Feng smiled and moved to her chair as she pulled out her own reports from the different departments. She had organized her own notes, filled with her own questions and theirs. She looked at the changes that had happened to the academy since their last meeting. The changes since Erik and Rugrat had left.

  The next to arrive was Elise and Blaze. Both of them looked tired as they walked in.

  “So good to see you,” Jia Feng said. Delilah got up as well and greeted them.

  “The time changes can be rough. Nice having the totem right in the dungeon now, though,” Elise said.

  “Makes it easier to get a few home-cooked meals.” Blaze smiled at Jia Feng.

  She let out a laugh. “What would the Adventurer’s Guild think if they knew their valiant leader was sneaking off in order to get pastries?”

  “I think they’d try to fight me for one if they knew how good they were.” Blaze laughed.

  “Well, seems lively in here,” Egbert said as he entered the room.

  “Have you sorted those books out yet?” Delilah asked.

  “Yes, I sorted out all of my personal collection! Alphabetized by character’s name and by author name!”

  “I meant the ones from Vuzgal.” Delilah sighed.

  “Good to see that some things never change.” Blaze moved to his seat.

  “Do you know what kind of items we have from Vuzgal already?”

  “So you just happened to forget what the inside of a machine shop looks like?”

  “What? I got your centrifuge thingy done!”

  “Taran is definitely making it to Master Smith before you!”

  “It’s Expert next, not Master!”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Morning,” Erik said as he and Rugrat appeared at the top of the stairs and entered the room.

  The duo looked tired but they had that look in their eyes. It didn’t matter how tired they were; there was still work to be done and not enough time in the day to get it all done.

  Jia Feng shook her head at them all and pulled out some food, setting it on the side. “If I know you all, then none of you have eaten anything yet and most of you barely slept!” She moved out of the way of the vultures—uh, council leaders.

  They moved en masse for the cart, filling up on food and drink, eating as they got to the table.

  Glosil was the last in. He looked around, moving to the cart and downing coffee, taking a second cup and then piling a plate with food before moving to the table.

  “Having fun with training?” Blaze grinned.

  “Ah, good, you’re
here. I need someone to take over training the officers. Here is the information.” Glosil stuffed a sandwich in his face and dropped a report onto the table in front of Blaze.

  “I’m not in the military now!”

  “That’s nice.” Glosil smiled and went back to his seat.

  “How am I supposed to train leaders?”

  “You’re the most qualified. We’ve got some information on it, but you’ll have to build as you go.” Erik cleared his throat. “This meeting is to get to see how everything is going, what you need, what can you supply, then overview of changes. Then we’ll open up a connection to the Metal floor.

  “First we’ll talk on Vuzgal, the changes and such there. Then Egbert, Jia, Glosil, Blaze, Elise, and Delilah.” Erik scanned the room as people continued to eat.

  “Okay, so we got one city, various gems, miscellaneous items, weapons and armor, tools for different crafting professions, as well as raw materials. Anything monetary—mana stones, copper, silver, and gold—has been turned over to the treasury or will be soon, which should mean more loans available for people. The other items will need to be checked. We would like to enlist the help of the academy for this. Then we can pull out any items that are useful for the academy—tools, special weapons, and so on.

  “The lower-grade weapons will be sold in auction to the traders of Alva. These trades will happen two months apart so that they can clear the first group of items out, sell them and have funds to buy more. Some will be sold by our stores and auction house that is being built in Vuzgal. Same goes for the gems. Some will be retained to be used by the formation department,” Erik said.

  “We were able to save a number of spell scrolls that we can use in further operations carried out by the military. All materials that can be used by the military have been turned over to them. Still, we were able to find a number of tools and kits such as this.” Rugrat pulled out a set of formation inscription equipment, cooking equipment, and woodworking equipment.

  Jia Feng’s eyes lit up, looking at the equipment.

  “We were able to get some of this appraised. These kits will be retained by the academy, but overall, their effects increase one’s ability to create a complete item. They increase the speed that one can work as well. For now, these kits should be lent out to those who are performing the best within their different departments.

  “There are also formations and clothing we were able to loot. Though our biggest wins are the manuals and books that Egbert is looking through. With these materials, the tools, and the books, Alva’s standard should be at least the mid Journeyman level. It is our hope that in the coming days we can grow our own Experts. It is time that we recruited more people. We have plenty of tasks and jobs. Vuzgal has only increased this need.”

  “What are your plans for the city? Is it focused on crafting, on mercantile dungeons?” Delilah asked.

  “All of the above?” Rugrat asked.

  Delilah’s eye twitched before she talked through her teeth. “For all of our sanities, please pick one thing to focus on at a time.”

  Jia Feng couldn’t help but smile at the boys’ awkward expressions.

  “Okay, well, first, we need to build up the military, but then we’re going to be clearing the lower floors, so we need to work around that. We need to have a force to control Vuzgal. Which means that we restrict how much land we sell. We build up our defenses, which won’t take long. While that is happening, the dungeons will naturally develop on their own and the Alchemist Association will basically take over the running of that so people don’t mess up their gardens. What about the traders? Can we start taking a chunk of the market?” Erik asked.

  Elise had a pained look on her face. It was a great opportunity, but just beyond reach.

  “Not yet.” She coughed and took a drink from her coffee. “So we have a lot of traders, but most of them already have their trading routes. I have looked into some of the information on the Fourth Realm. Trading is not so kind as it is in the lower realms. Traders are likely to kill one another so that they can get an advantage, or steal the other’s goods. We would be opening our traders up to that. We don’t have people we can trust with protecting them. So most traders will need to move through the totems. That is a lot of cash to move from place to place and they will need massive loans in order to make a return. So, in the short-term it is not quite possible.

  “That said, we can do things kind of behind the scenes: Open an auction house, sell items from the academy there. Open up stores that can sell off excess goods at cheap prices and purchase raw materials. Open markets and trading areas—imposing a light tax will be good for conducting business. These places will need to be regulated. Our system here in Alva is simple but effective and we can use it as a sample and scale it up to what we need in the Fourth Realm.

  “I have looked at the terrain. To the west, it is still a battlefield, so there is not much trade to be had there. The east and the Chaotic lands should have plenty of people looking to trade. If we can clear the road to the north, we can possibly get people through there if we keep our tolls at the totem low. We don’t want to reduce our prices too much or when we increase them, people will be displeased. If we can bring the people and the traders, then the associations are going to increase the quality of the products they sell. As long as there is demand, they’ll try to take advantage.”

  “So regulate the market, build stores, and build an auction house. Will that piss off the Blue Lotus, though?” Erik asked.

  “It shouldn’t. In fact, they might like it. There are a lot of useless goods that people bring to them. With another auction house, the Blue Lotus will get to show off how they are a step above. Might be an idea to talk to them and make sure you don’t step on toes there.” Elise shrugged.

  “How long do you think that it will be before we have Alva-based traders in the city?” Rugrat asked.

  “Months.” Elise shook her head. “It might be easier to make ties with merchants in the Fourth Realm. The amount of wealth that these traders have access to is high. Also, our traders have established their own trade routes—to suddenly leave for the Fourth Realm? They’ll want to, don’t get me wrong, but they’ll want to finish what they’ve already built. Be easier to bring in merchant administrators and run it from above, and the Alva traders can enter the marketplace when they’re ready instead of rushing in and failing.”

  “Okay.” Erik and Rugrat nodded.

  I never thought that deep into traders, just thought of them as selling our goods, but they have to build up a network of people who they work with. It takes a lot of time and work in order for them to succeed. Jia Feng thought to herself.

  “Okay, so we’ll need some help setting that up. We can get Hiao Xen, who is someone from the Blue Lotus we met in the Second Realm, to set up most of it, but best if we have some of our people review it and make sure we don’t miss anything. Then, I guess our plans are to move into crafting more,” Rugrat said.

  “Well, more being that it would be the main objective we have,” Erik added.

  Jia Feng raised her hand.

  “Jia Feng?” Rugrat stated.

  “I have heard that you plan to make Expert-grade facilities in Vuzgal? Will students from the academy have access to these?”

  “Well, actually there’s a lot involved,” Erik said. Rugrat indicated for him to go on. “Okay, so we know one of our biggest weaknesses is not having that many Expert-level crafters, which means we have a lot of crafters at the high Journeyman level but they have an issue with becoming Expert-level crafters as they don’t have guidance. Tan Xue has become an Expert but she has trouble as well.”

  “Yes.” Jia Feng frowned. When Tan Xue explained it to her, it made sense but it was also complicated. “She says that being an Expert is like finding the beginning of one’s path?” Jia Feng found all focus was on her as she fell into her teacher mode.

  “So in the Journeyman level, people gain access to their skill book. This allows them to assimi
late and remember information quickly. Now, that acts as a basis for people to expand their knowledge. When advancing into Expert, it looks like people don’t just use that information that they gather. They figure out a truth from it...a theory. This theory is backed by the information that they have gathered, and by pursuing this theory and applying it to their crafting, one is able to create higher level items.

  “Though there are right and wrong theories. Our people have been compiling different theories, proving and disproving them, testing them out. But there has to be others who have tried out these theories or have a higher level of understanding of the craft who could come along and tell us which theories are wrong and why. They can tell us what theories do work and we can build upon and expand from those. Instead of just throwing out theories into the dark and seeing if they work or not, we have a larger foundation to build upon.”

  “Okay, so if we were able to learn of Expert-level theories, then we could advance the strength of crafters?” Rugrat said.

  “Yes, and no.” Jia Feng had a complicated expression. “While we can figure out which theories are right or not through testing, knowing which theories are correct and applying that knowledge are two different things. I can tell you the recipe for a cake, but it doesn’t mean that you’ll make it the same way as someone else with the exact same recipe, or that it will be the same quality. There is a difference of applying the recipe as well as knowledge, tools, ingredients. This is part of why knowledge propagates slowly through the Ten Realms and that most of the information is passed from teacher to student. When the teacher dies and doesn’t have a student, then that information is wiped out.”

  “Our aim with Vuzgal for crafting has several points: To use the dungeon to attract Expert-level crafters. To build up the academy there to draw in students as well as teachers and support the academy here. Draw in crafters who want to build items. With the Crafting trial attached to the main Vuzgal Dungeon, we can observe their actions, create recordings, understand what the participating crafters are doing and learn from it. The academy will have Expert-level training facilities, high-level ingredients, tools, and resources. Then we will have external crafting workshops that we own so that crafters, even if they are unable to go to the Crafting trial dungeon, can still work in high-level facilities for a fee. We get money, sell them materials, and hopefully, they will sell their products within Vuzgal. Even if they don’t, if we can make Vuzgal a holy land for crafters, we’ll reap the benefits many times over,” Erik said.