It Is Magic All The Way Down – Chapter 140

Ace face palms, “Okay, so we don’t need to worry too much about mind control because that idiot true immortal who stumbled upon our dimension bought a system biased against it. Is there anything else worrying you would like to add?”

Kelly shrugs, “I’m sure I know all kinds of worrying things but nothing right now that relates to mind control.”

Ace sighs, “I can’t even make mind control spells illegal because I don’t have some easy line to draw. Is a fear spell mind control? What about when someone tames a monster with a skill? I can’t even outlaw the use of them against sapients because of all the edge cases! That monster, what if it becomes sapient after being tamed? Does a magical instrument that projects emotions count? Whatever, dropping it for now. We have things that are more temporally important.”

“Just on the first day that we’ve had visitors, we’ve already gained four new people and they aren’t in the know. We aren’t going to induct them into our group obviously, so with every passing day things edge closer to a breakpoint. We need to become a real town. I’ve done the math and we aren’t making enough with the current delving. It depends on our luck but the soonest I see us having enough at the current rate is maybe a week and a half.”

“I want 10,000 copper coins A S A P! That means we need to up our delving by a lot. Originally I had half hoped we could let the people from up river do part of the delving for us but if people keep staying here, that is not workable. Doctor, will we be able to commit to some intense delving?”

Doctor looks up at the ceiling and sighs, “As it is, the thing that will hinder us is stamina. Everyone is stronger than ever but despite humans starting out as a stamina hunter, our modern bodies are not up to the task. I can put people back together as much as you want, but recovering stamina is currently beyond me.”

Ace frowns, “Isn’t tiredness just a matter of acid build up in the muscles or some such? You should be able to magic it away.”

Doctor shakes his head, “Was, stamina was related to the build up of lactic acids in the muscles if you are okay with ignoring mental tiredness. However, let me ask you a question. How do you think the human body can suddenly lift absurd amounts of weight when the strength stat goes up?”

Ace shrugs, “Tougher muscles or maybe a denser body structure.”

Doctor shakes his head again, “If only it was that simple. Everything is magical now, including physical tiredness. Part of an increased strength score is related to the muscles being reinforced with mystical energies. Not just the muscles, either. Every part of the body is reinforced. After all, without reinforced bones your muscles would break them and without reinforced skin your muscles would burst out.”

“As for stamina? Part of becoming tired, besides those lactic acids, is the breakdown of the mystical energies. My magical healing should in theory take care of the acids and will if there is enough of a build up. However, it is better to not go overboard. The mystical energies are used up and need to naturally get replaced. If you heal the acid build up a person could hurt themselves.”

“With that in mind I’m sure you are thinking, then why don’t you replace the energy? I wish it was possible as that would make things so much easier. I can’t though as the body breaks down those mystical energies in a way that matches it. So no matter how much I flood a person’s body with power, they can only recover at their normal rate”

Ace sighs, “Anyway, to speed the process up?”

Doctor laughs, “Obviously the common things like resting in an energy rich environment will help. Though ironically enough, the best answer is to rest inside the dungeon. While it is more charged here than anywhere else around. The most important part is that the dungeon seems to suck out the broken down energies allowing for faster replacement.”

Ace nods, “Fair enough, and with the instances we have the space for that. Susan, How much defense do we need on the settlement? I want to send every able hand we have in order to grind out some money.”

Susan shrugs, “We don’t really need all that much outside. Me, my husband, and Jim. As long as one of us is on the lookout, things should be fine. As long as the delves are staggered we should be able to see trouble coming and hold it off. Too bad we don’t have anyone capable of scribing some scrolls. While the rest of the universe looks at them as a poor man’s enchantment, that is exactly the kind of thing we need right now.”

Ace holds up his hand, “What do you mean by a poor man’s enchantment? Wouldn’t it still need masterwork paper to enchant?”

Susan shrugs again, “Yes and no. To enchant a piece of paper you would need a masterwork piece of paper. Scrolls, however, are not enchanted pieces of paper. Rather through the use of magical inks in a manner similar to potions you are storing an effect. Also like potions, the scroll will only hold the power for so long before becoming useless. Though I guess a masterwork piece of paper would be capable of holding the power indefinitely, ignoring all the better uses for said paper.”

Kelly speaks up, “Could you use a similar principle to make temporarily enchanted armor?”

Susan shakes her head, “The reason why scrolls use paper or some similar material is that the magical inks get absorbed into it to a certain degree. I guess you can make a shirt into a scroll but the problem is that scrolls don’t survive use. Higher quality paper will limit how much of a scroll is destroyed when used so you can have multiple effects on a single scroll, but that is about it.”

“Plus, scrolls don’t do passive effects. You might have a scroll that shielded a person for a minute but you couldn’t have a scroll that automatically shielded a person. Besides that, unless you’ve trained with scrolls, which is something most don’t bother with, you need to actually read off of the scroll to use it. Not just memorize what the scroll says and repeat the words later. Actually look at the scroll and read the words. It needs that connection to your mind and for humans the eyes are the easiest route. Though I guess someone that was blind could probably read a braille scroll. Interesting area of research but not really important right now.”

Ace nods, “We will definitely have to look into it. Though I don’t think anyone right now has a skill for calligraphy or what have you so it can wait. Jimmy, how are you doing with the bone carving skill book and how close are we to having a proper place for the system anchor?”

Jimmy smiles, “I’ve gotten the skill. Of course the book didn’t survive, but we knew that was going to happen. I guess there is probably some parallel to scrolls. Anyway, I feel a connection between my new skill and my carpentry skill through architecture. I suspect that there might be some sort of synergy that I can work off of. Though that does mean that we need to start harvesting the bones unless the dungeon starts dropping them.”

Susan smiles, “From my understanding of the situation it should. While the dungeon itself has control over the actual loot items, the regular drops such as meat are more automatic. Since we now need bones and have someone with a skill to make use of them, bones should start dropping as loot. I suspect however that we might want to directly harvest the bones of the tougher creatures directly. Drops don’t seem to have as much oomph behind them as what we take using skills. Good thing we have a few people capable of butchering the kills. The question is, do we need them right away? Since you mentioned it, there must be a reason beyond just wanting to try your skill out.”

Jimmy coughs, “It is partly because I want to use my skill. The reality of it though is the fact that while the building we put the system anchor in doesn’t matter too much, using local materials will help the system lock in. The system has to deal with all of the universe, or at least the bits that are magical, and so doesn’t pay too much attention to things on an individual basis.”

“We just make the building out of wood and stone? It won’t be bad but this does mean we get a more generic setup. Add in those bones and maybe the system shop will be selling bone carving tools right out of the gate or there might be quests related to getting more bones. Though just the fact that I have a bone carving skill will angle things more in that direction.”

Ace nods, “I do see a bright future for your bone carving skill, especially if it resonates with your carpentry skill. Do you need a lot of bones or would just some decorations be enough?”

Jimmy shrugs, “I’m only getting nudges from my architecture skill for this part so I can’t be too precise. Somewhere in between is the feel I’m getting with the only solid bit being that decorations won’t work. The bone needs to be directly included in the building's structure. This might mean I can get away with some trim but we will have to see.”

Ace sighs, “How far along are you on setting up the town hall?”

Jimmy looks away and lets out a weak laugh, “Um, well. It was on the back-burner.”

Ace stares at him with a tired gaze, “Hasn’t been started then?” Jimmy nods.

Ace shakes his head at this and sighs, “Well I guess we can talk more about where to put it. We discussed using it to block off areas and various other things. Anyone have a better idea than what we came up with before?”

Kyle smiles, “I might have an idea. Everything was about using the building around or as an important building. It isn’t really though. Not in the same way a castle would be. Rather, the system protects the building already so we could place it somewhere unimportant yet odd. As it is, we’ve covered up the entire area around the dungeon and I’m sure no one else is bothering with that.”

“Right now no one has any experience but given time someone will notice that it is a strange thing to do. We can’t exactly change things now as others have noticed it already but we don’t have to do much. Since we already have it there, we can keep it as part of our history.”

“The problem is that people will still feel the need to snoop around. Sure, we will have guards and such, plus people in the area at all times. But all it takes is one extra sneaky fellow to bring the world down on us. With that in mind, we need a diversion. If we build the town hall somewhere within the area, we will enclose it with the next wall and not directly in between the dock and the gate. It will attract attention.”

“We just have to be cagey with why we built it where we did. Plus it will allow visitors to access the services without entering our area. Overall a decent use of a system structure. Though we will probably have to bang on the ground every once in a while to check for people trying to dig tunnels under it.”

The others take some time to think over Kyle’s suggestion. While there are a lot of interesting uses for a town hall, everyone will be able to learn the ins and outs of the hall easily enough. It isn’t like Jimmy is the only architect on the planet. With how important the building seems, it would be hard for others not to think they are using the building to hide something. Just the fact that the system protects it to a certain degree is already enough to sky rocket the town hall’s importance.

Doctor shrugs, “We would have to talk to the others but that sounds like a reasonable plan.”

Susan nods, “A good way to hide something others don’t know about is to have it right out in the open while pretending to hide something else. Me and my husband once had a very valuable sword in our house for a couple years and everyone just thought it was a display piece while all our friends would constantly try to crack the wall safe we had behind a picture right next to it. Of course that wasn’t going to work as the safe was actually actually welded shut and empty besides.”

Jimmy looks a little down before sighing, “I did have a nice place planned out. But yes, I will admit this is probably the better option. If only we could make the entire enclosure around the dungeon the town hall, but the area is too big. I’ll figure out where to put it tonight and set things up.”

Ace shakes his head, “You can figure out the placement after the boat comes and goes but don’t set up anything. Wait until we have the next batch of people tomorrow. I want someone to notice you rushing out there and setting up the foundation. Of course they should think that we haven’t noticed them doing so and think they saw it all on the sly but I’ll leave the details up to you Susan.”

Akhier

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