“Wonderful, wonderful,” Malcolm said, moving quickly into the back of the shop, only to return with a stack of five tomes, as if he’d been expecting her.
“Just happened to have these ready, did you?” Micaela asked.
“Well, I did hear something about a certain construction project being undertaken. I felt it would be wise to prepare the available spells,” Malcolm replied smoothly. “Though, I do wonder, are the rumors of an Order House being constructed true?”
“Yes, I’m building an Order House,” Micaela answered, then asked, “Why?”
“Wonderful, wonderful,” Malcolm said with a large grin. “Well, in that case, let these spells be my contribution to the construction of such a fine establishment.”
Micaela was really eyeing him suspiciously now. She asked, “What’s the catch?”
“Catch?” Malcolm asked innocently. “Why would you think there is a catch? I am just helping what is soon to be the most powerful force in Hurligville succeed.”
“Most powerful force, huh?” Micaela asked, not believing a word Malcolm just said.
“Of course, once your Order House is complete, you will more or less own Hurligville. You will be able to appoint its citizens to positions of power, reassign work duties and the like,” Malcolm explained.
“So, I could reassign you to guard duty?” Micaela asked.
Malcolm swallowed nervously and nodded. “You could indeed. However, I would hope that my generosity and skill as representative of the Mage’s Guild would entreat you to think kindly of me.”
And there it was. Micaela understood what Malcolm was angling for. He wanted to ensure Micaela wasn’t going to fire him.
“Don’t worry Malcolm, I have no intention of interfering in how Hurligville is run,” Micaela promised. “Homer will remain mayor and he’ll decide what’s best for Hurligville just as he has always done.”
“Well, that is your decision of course,” Malcolm said.
Micaela nodded. “Now, about those free spells you were offering.”
Malcolm set the five tomes on the counter, one next to the other.
“First, and one of the most important ‘Construction’ spells, ‘Blueprint’,” Malcolm said pointing to the first book. “This allows you to absorb blueprints and to project them onto a location. This is extremely important as it gives anyone assisting you a pattern to follow.”
Micaela nodded and accepted the tome. It prompted her immediately.
Blueprint - Construction Spell – Magic Tome 200/200 Charges Remaining – Teaches the magic spell ‘Blueprint’
Would you like to learn ‘Blueprint’?
Yes
No
Micaela gave a mental ‘Yes’ and received the appropriate message.
You have learned the ‘Construction’ subspell ‘Blueprint’
Skill: Construction
Rank: I
Level: 59
Experience: 89.14%
Description: Construction is the ability to build. You have the ability to build everything from a simple well to an ornate castle.
Subskills:
Brick Laying
Enables you to place stones or bricks as part of building a structure.
Foundation:
Enables you to construct a solid base upon which to build a structure. Enables you to dig a foundation to construct a multi-level building two floors up for each floor down. Enables you to construct support pillars. Enables you to tap into existing water supplies.
Framing:
Enables you to use wood or metal to create the frame of a structure.
Hammer and Nails:
Enables you to use a simple hammer and simple nails to join wood together.
Subspells:
Blueprint:
Subspell Effect (Active): Enables you to absorb construction blueprints and project them onto a construction site for 1-hour.
Mana Cost: -100-MP for Small Structure, -500-MP for Medium Structure, -1,000-MP for Large Structure, -5,000-MP for Massive Structure
Micaela was pleased with the new subspell. Actually, she was kind of intrigued that there were subspells. ‘Construction’ was considered a skill which typically required Stamina Points or SP to use. And yet, there was the skill description which now included a subspell category.
“Okay, what’s next?” Micaela asked, excited to see what else might come out of the tomes in front of her.
About fifteen minutes later, Micaela was happily exiting Malcolm’s shop with a good number of subspells that would be extremely useful in constructing the Order House.
Fuse Stone:
Subspell Effect (Active): Enables you to fuse two stones or bricks together without mortar.
Mana Cost: -100-MP per cubic foot
Fuse Lumber:
Subspell Effect (Active): Enables you to fuse wood together without pegs or nails.
Mana Cost: -50-MP per cubic foot
Reinforce:
Subspell Effect (Active): Enables you to harden stone or wood to increase density and remove cracks or breaks.
Mana Cost: -500-MP per cubic yard
Cut:
Subspell Effect (Active): Enables you to magically cut stone or wood into specific shapes and sizes.
Mana Cost: -200-MP per square foot
The last of which was the most important for what she needed to do. Unfortunately, it was much like Sergeant Butters suggested, it would probably take far too long for her to cut through that much stone.
So, with great reluctance, Micaela entered Giggle-Ana’s shop.
“Hello,” Giggle-Ana greeted her as soon as she was through the door. “How can I help you?”
Not entirely sure of how to respond, after the way the woman was so hostile to her husband the last time she was here, she answered directly. “Hello, Sergeant Butters said I should talk to you about blasting through the bedrock I’ve encountered at my build site. I need to hire you.”
“Ooh, exciting,” Giggle-Ana replied. “It has been so long since I last got to blow anything up. This is going to be so much fun.”
Part of Micaela wanted to hate Giggle-Ana. Another, more insistent part of her, wanted to declare Giggle-Ana her new best friend. “We hit the bedrock at about thirty-one feet down. We need to go another eleven feet to hit the forty-two-foot mark.”
“My goodness, that is a deep hole. Three floors down if I am not mistaken. That will allow you to go up at least six floors. An impressive structure in our little town,” Giggle-Ana said, sounding more than a little impressed. “I think I can help you, but I will need to see the build site first.”
“Do you have time now?” Micaela asked, hopeful she would be free now. Otherwise, her construction project was stopped in its tracks.
“Sure do,” Giggle-Ana said.
As soon as they were outside, Giggle-Ana gave her husband orders, “Watch the shop, I will be back later.”
To which Kirlan grunted in annoyance. Still, he set aside whatever he was working on next to the furnace and went inside.
“Lead the way,” Giggle-Ana said.
It wasn’t a long walk to the build site where a perturbed looking Marie and Sooty waited. Loral was there as well but she didn’t appear to be concerned.
“Where did you go?” Sooty asked first.
“We hit bedrock,” Micaela replied, then with a motion to Giggle-Ana, she added, “I went to get help.”
Sooty grunted.
“Giggle-Ana, this is Marie Tuesday, Sooty Wednesday, and Loral Wednesday,” Micaela introduced her companions. “Everyone, this is the town Engineer, Giggle-Ana.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Marie said first, followed quickly by Loral. Sooty just grunted again.
“Anyway, this is the build site. As you can see, the bedrock slopes gently away from the mountains in the north. We’ve removed all the dirt we can, but it will take a while if we were to use picks to mine out the stone,” Micaela explained. “I learned the ‘Cut’ subspell, and while it woul
d be faster than trying to mine it out, it still won’t be as fast as if you were to blast the stone free.”
Giggle-Ana nodded a few times. “I understand,” she said as she pulled a long and large ladder from a small bag that was tied to her belt. Clearly, the bag was much larger on the inside than the outside.
With the ladder in place, Giggle-Ana led them down into the pit to get a closer look. After touching the stone in a few places she finally spoke, “Alright, I can blast out the rocks, it will take me a few hours to set up. What I need from you is for you to use your ‘Cut’ spell to cut around the outer edges of the hole. It will reduce the chance of my explosives damaging the walls and undoing all your hard work.”
“I can do that,” Micaela said. “It will take a few hours, but I can definitely do it.”
Giggle-Ana nodded again. “Good, then I will return with my explosives shortly.”
Micaela followed Giggle-Ana back up the ladder and waved with a friendly grin as the Gnome went on her way.
“What do you want us to do in the meantime?” Marie asked before Micaela could climb back down into the pit that was the start of the foundation.
That was a particularly good question, and one Micaela didn’t have an immediate answer to.
“We could get to work on the dirt we dumped,” Sooty responded first. “Right now, there are several mounds of dirt lying near the moat. We need to spread it out along the edge of the moat to make it into an actual berm.”
Marie groaned, then said, “Great, more dirt in places it does not belong.”
“At least the Doghouse Inn has nice baths,” Loral volunteered.
“Fine, let us go then,” Marie said, reluctantly leading the trio of Dwarves away from Micaela.
That left Micaela on her own once again. Climbing down into the pit, she went to work, really testing out her new subspells. First, she tried ‘Blueprint’. She didn’t exactly have a blueprint for her Order House to work with, but she knew what she wanted. Thankfully, it still worked. All around her, a glowing blue structure appeared, fitting inside of the pit perfectly. The semi-transparent structure lined the walls until they disappeared below the bedrock. Micaela moved to the shallowest corner first. Mentally aiming the subspell downward and imagining a straight line being cut into the stone and directly down. The spell hit and sent a small explosion of stone and dust into the air. When it cleared there was a foot-long groove cut into the stone. More importantly, she could still see the semi-transparent blue of the projected walls inside the groove.
Micaela grinned, ready to have fun with her new skill. She attacked the same spot again, cutting another groove below the first, trying to be mindful of not going too deep, lest she cause herself foundational problems. Micaela quickly lost herself in cutting stone. Only stopping when Giggle-Ana returned.
“Not bad,” Giggle-Ana said, checking Micaela’s work. “Still have a whole wall left to go,” she said, pointing to the wall that had the least to cut downward.
“It shouldn’t take me long to finish. That wall doesn’t need to be cut down as far as the others did,” Micaela replied. “How long will it take you to setup your explosives?”
“Maybe an hour,” Giggle-Ana said. “And yours?”
“Maybe an hour,” Micaela replied.
“Well then, may the best woman win,” Giggle-Ana said, grinning impishly.
Micaela would have loved to watch Giggle-Ana work, but she had an entire 25-yard wall to finish cutting.
It was tedious by that point, but she had gained quite a few levels to her construction profession.
Skill: Construction
Rank: II
Level: 2
Experience: 12.22%
Description: Construction is the ability to build. You have the ability to build everything from a simple well to an ornate castle.
Cut:
Subspell Effect (Active): Enables you to magically cut stone or wood into specific shapes and sizes.
Mana Cost: -100-MP per two square feet
Not only did she reach Rank II in ‘Construction’, upon doing so, the amount of stone she could cut doubled. All her subspell effects moved from one-foot to two-feet. That was a huge victory in itself. Unfortunately, it didn’t do much to help Micaela finish her wall before Giggle-Ana finished setting up her explosives.
All around the pit, Giggle-Ana had drilled holes in the rock under her feet, though Micaela didn’t remember hearing a drill being used, but that was what it looked like. In each of the drilled holes, a fuse ran to the north wall and then up and over the hole’s ledge, presumably to a location where Giggle-Ana could light all the fuses at the same time.
“Finally finished?” Giggle-Ana asked, noticing Micaela had stopped and was now studying the Gnomish woman’s work.
“I am,” Micaela replied.
“Then get up here so we can light these babies,” Giggle-Ana said from the top of a ladder, laughing maniacally.
Micaela was sure happy to have use of the ladder to climb out. And as soon as she did, Giggle-Ana pulled the ladder out of the hole and shoved it back into the tiny bag she originally pulled it from.
Above ground, Micaela followed the fuses almost a hundred yards away from the foundation pit. At the end of it was an old fashioned detonation plunger and a broadly grinning Gnome.
“Fire in the hole!” Giggle-Ana bellowed, pushing down on the handle so hard she lifted her feet off the ground.
Micaela turned swiftly to look at the source of the deafening detonation. Unfortunately, after an initial burst of orange from the hole, dust and debris filled the air.
“That was so much fun,” Giggle-Ana gushed and giggled excitedly before coughing as the dust cloud reached her.
Unlike Giggle-Ana, Micaela was pouting, or she was until she also began coughing. “I wanted to blow it up,” she whined once some of the dust cloud settled, kicking a small piece of rock debris that landed near her.
“Giggle-Ana!” Dogson shouted as he stormed out of his inn. “Warn a Dogman when you are going to do something like that.”
At least Giggle-Ana had the wherewithal to look abashed. “Sorry,” she said softly.
Dogson huffed. “Sorry my ears,” he said. “You are not sorry at all.”
Giggle-Ana failed to hide the small, delighted smile from her face. “It was just . . . it had been so long since I last did something like that. Did you see any of it?”
“No,” Dogson snapped angrily. “But you owe me a dozen glasses, three plates and six windows.”
Giggle-Ana quickly looked to Micaela and pointed a finger. “She will pay.”
“Oh, no I won’t,” Micaela said. “I agreed to pay you for your services. You are responsible for any collateral damages.”
“But . . . but . . . Dogson,” Giggle-Ana whined loudly.
“Do not come complaining to me about this. You should know better,” Dogson chided. “Now, you get to explain to Rita exactly why you did what you did.”
Micaela wisely kept her mouth shut as Giggle-Ana was led away by the Dogman. Though as soon as the pair was out of earshot, she broke out in a fit of giggles. After how poorly Giggle-Ana had treated Olaf those first months in Hurligville, it was about time she got a little comeuppance.
Looking back to the hole that would soon be the foundation of her order, Micaela could at least see through the haze of dust that still hung in the air. It took a few more minutes before the dust settled enough that she felt comfortable approaching the hole.
The bottom of the hole was now filled with chunks of rock. And until it was all removed, she wouldn’t really know what she would be working with. And to remove the rocks and debris, she needed to consult her spirits.
Another activation of ‘Spiritwalk’ and Micaela was back in the Astral Plane.
“Moving rocks now?” Mover asked.
“You got it, big guy,” Micaela confirmed.
Mover grunted. “Fine. Where do you want me to take it?”
Micaela hadn’t th
ought about that. With Sooty, Marie, and Loral all off working on the moat and having taken the wagons with them, she had nowhere to put it.
“I guess, just pile it up here,” Micaela said, pointing to an open area of the street.
Mover grunted and sank into the ground. Not even a minute later, chunks of rock and stone began moving along the bottom of the pit, up the wall and into a pile in the street.
“And I suppose I should just sit here and let my Spirit stat naturally grow,” Micaela said, pouting once again.
It was a few hours later that the debris had been completely removed from the foundation.
Micaela returned to the Mortal Plane and looked for a way down without Giggle-Ana’s ladder when she spotted the woman in question as she was escaping Dogson’s.
“Giggle-Ana,” Micaela waved to the gnomish woman.
“Micaela, good, you are still here,” Giggle-Ana said. “We have the little matter of my payment.”
“Right, how much do I owe you?” Micaela asked.
“Well, seeing as I had so much fun doing it, I will only ask you to pay for the materials,” Giggle-Ana said. “So that will be 22-Gold, 13-Silver, and 1-Copper.”
“Okay, and how much to rent that ladder for a couple days?” Micaela asked.
“Well, seeing as I had so much fun, you can borrow it for free,” Giggle-Ana said.
Micaela smiled gratefully then paid the woman for the work. After a quick farewell, Micaela was ready to climb down into the hole and inspect what was left.
The blasting managed to remove most of the rocks, but it was neither smooth nor level. Using her ‘Blueprint’ subspell, she overlaid the transparent blueprint of the foundation floor. It made it glaringly obvious where things needed to be trimmed or filled in, which also gave her a use for some of the excess stone.
World Tree Online: The Order of Epic Grinders: 4th Dive Page 12
