94: Gemstones Not Bricks

We found Troy acting as a translator for the obrec as they haggled with some of the university staff over prices. It sounded like a difficult time, to be honest, because each side valued things at vastly different levels. The obrec had no use for a flat screen TV after all.

“Troy, we need to talk, like right now,” I called as we came within range. “Big problem!”

He reacted quickly, speaking first to the obrec, then the uni people. To me, he asked, “Here, or in the grove?”

“Grove,” I told him, and snatched all three of us in without any more discussion on the matter.

“What happened?” he asked, not at all fazed by the sudden transition. Guess he’d done it before.

“We saw James,” Catherine began, jumping in to explain. “He was meeting someone who seemed to be from the CEO’s group, looks like they left some people behind.”

“Shit, we’ll have to weed them out,” Troy grumbled, rubbing at his stubble for a moment in thought.

“No, James killed the cop dude, with magic…” I told him with a shake of my head. “He seems to be a mage now, and from what we caught of the conversation, he’s working for Fennimore.”

“He’s also apparently been here since long before we got back,” Catherine said, finishing where I left off.

That had Troy stopping to stare at us both, before he winced and swore, “Fuck, that is really not good. If he’s a mage, then he has a grove, and if he has a grove, it means he can just… steal whatever the hell tech or information he wants and pass it to Fennimore instantly. There’s no way that slimy bastard would need a man on the inside for any other reason.”

“Not to infiltrate us to make attacking easier?” Catherine asked, wide eyed with worry.

“Why would he need that? Avonside was all but defenceless against someone like him,” Troy replied with a bitter laugh. “He probably has more bodies he could have thrown at us than we had bullets. In fact I guarantee it.”

“Wait…” I murmured slowly, thinking back on what Fennimore had said. “He said he knew that another age of war was coming, spurred on by the tech we brought in. He said he wanted to stop it… but what if he was lying? He knows he could be the next conqueror instead, all he needs to do is get his hands on the theory behind all things gun related and he’s off…”

“Oh,” Catherine squeaked, eyes going wide. “He probably also knows that if he attacks now, we’ll just burn everything… so he can’t get it by force.”

Troy nodded, deep in thought. “If anything, he needs Avonside to be left alone and without any idea of what’s going on.”

“He picked the wrong guy to be subtle then,” my little sister snorted, a wry smile flitting across her lips. “James is dumb as a brick.”

“Don’t be mean to bricks Cat, it’s not nice,” I laughed, nudging her in the side with an elbow.

“Cat?” Troy asked, tilting his head and glancing between us.

“She chose the name Catherine,” I explained, taking that arm and snaking it around her shoulders now.

In a rare display of proper happiness, Troy grinned, “Congratulations Catherine, it’s a pretty name.”

“T-thanks,” she smiled shyly, biting her lip and staring down at the ground.

“Back to the task at hand though, we’re going to need to track down James and incapacitate him,” our leader said, smile fading as fast as it had appeared.

“I’m super busy with everything already, so is Cat here…” I said slowly, wondering how we could track people.

“Hold on, as much as I hate to say it, going after James probably isn’t the best course of action,” the girl in question said quickly. “If James has been here for a while and he’s probably stealing information for Fennimore, he’s already achieved what he wanted. There’s no point in jumping him.”

Troy stared at her for several long seconds as thoughts whirred through everyone’s minds. Finally, he nodded, turning to gaze down at the Order’s valley. “Alright, new plan, because you’re right. If we take James out, Fennimore will know he’s been had, might even step up the timeframe of his plans. That would just leave us with even less time to prepare.”

“That’s… as far as my ideas go, I don’t have any idea what to do instead,” Cat said sheepishly, scrunching up the front of her shirt into a ball.

“That’s fine,” Troy replied. With a raised finger, he pointed down into the valley, “Instead, we need to move faster. We need to get as much as possible moving within the Order, recruiting included. We’ll also need to warn our people to be careful, just because we think James’ primary goal is stealing information, doesn’t mean he won’t kill one of us if he’s given the chance.”

“We could even prepare things for Avonside’s defence without them knowing, store it all in our groves until it’s time to move everything in place,” I said thoughtfully. “They can’t see anything we do in here, so that’s a plus.”

“Indeed, although I think I’ll still task some of the others with tracking James’ movements so we know what he’s stealing,” he said with a weary sigh. “See if we can’t intercept some of it and feed bad science back to Fennimore.”

“I was really hoping that life would chill the fuck out for a little while,” I groaned, scuffing at the dirt with a shoe.

“Me too,” Cat grumbled, copying my movements.

****

I constructed a storehouse within the Order compound first, with the ground floor and upper floor for non-perishables, along with a basement that was cooled to below freezing. These buildings were done with the help of an engineering student that we offered to pay, since I had no fucking idea what I was doing as far as non-plant-based buildings went.

His name was Rueben, a scrawny looking dude with glasses and a perpetually worried expression on his face. He wasn’t actually worried though, he actually seemed to be ever so slightly awestruck by me and the grove.

“H-how much stronger can you make the wood?” he asked as we were contemplating the support beams.

“Very,” I smiled, pulling out my new phone. “Let me look up exactly how though.”

Catherine and I had gone and finished our wifi task after the meeting with Troy, and after a little tweaking we’d managed to get a plant to work as an amplifier for the signal. Having perfect signal anywhere in the grove was pretty fucking cool.

After reading through a few studies on the reasons behind the strength and toughness of various wood types, I went ahead and designed my own for the task.

The next building was a lot harder and required a whole lot more thought. A workshop for potentially explosive projects from our magitechts would need to be robust, so we went for double thickness on the stone walls this time. I had to consult with Claih and Bray on several occasions to get it right, including designing a bunch of random shit like a forge and all that. Honestly, I just did what they told me and hoped that it was correct.

We also laid out a central circular plaza, where the big ass pillar of crystal would end up. Next came a barracks, but that ended up causing some friction between myself and Troy.

“No, they need to be bunking together, it builds camaraderie,” he told me sternly, which elicited a groan from me.

“We’re not turning this into a dumb bootcamp,” I grumbled, hand on hip. “Look, this isn’t going to be an army. We don’t want to produce a bunch of footsoldiers, we want heroes. You don’t make heroes with a sausage factory machine thing.”

Visibly reining himself in from just dismissing my idea outright, he took a deep breath and asked, “Explain?”

“Soldiers have their place in a brutal world like this one, sure… but that’s not what we’re doing here is it?” I queried, gesturing to the plaza that was swarming with cobblestone-laying buns. “We want heroes, individuals… people with hearts and brains to make decisions that will help people. You don’t get that from shoving everyone down into a standardised basic training.”

“You’re talking about more than just sleeping arrangements in the barracks here Ryn,” he pointed out, but he seemed to be listening.

“There’s always a theme when it comes to this kind of thing in media, a big one. Individuality, freedom, and specialisation. I think, instead of trying to throw everyone into a basic training that might weed out important skills, we focus on finding good people and then help them be the best they can be in the fields they excel in,” I explained as calmly as possible.

“And for that to work properly, people need their own rooms, a personal space,” he murmured, turning to stare at the area we’d marked out for the barracks.

I nodded. “Our Order hinges on our members being good people first and foremost. We can sort out the rest of it once we have those good people. We want to find a bunch of gems in the rough, then cut and polish them according to their natural structure, not grind them down into mass produced bricks.”

“Cute metaphor, but they will all still need a certain standard of skill with arms, as well as survival skills within field operatives,” he warned me, almost as if he was asking for me to fix that problem too.

“Okay so, theoretically, say you find someone who is exceedingly good with a magitech gun, but bad at taking care of themselves in the wild,” I said, thinking out loud. “You pair them with someone who is a survivalist expert, maybe someone who is also good with a sword or something. We build teams, use them to cover each other’s weaknesses, all that stuff. I don’t know how to figure all the problems out, but if you go about this the way an army does, you’ll just get an army.”

“Fuck, you’re right…” he groaned, rubbing at his eyes with thumb and forefinger. “I’m going to have to rethink some stuff around how we train operatives, but you’re right.”

“Another thing...” I grinned wryly. “We’re not calling them operatives, that’s lame. We’re in fantasy land, so we’re calling them knights.”

He gave me a big eye roll and a snort for good measure. “Yes, Ryn.”

“Good, now let me get back to building you a village with my mind,” I laughed, shooting him a smug look.

“Your girlfriend is right,” he chuckled goodnaturedly, giving me a mimed cuff up the side of the head. “You’re a brat.”

“And I’m proud of it.”

QuietValerie

I'm putting Ryn on hiatus for a while in order to not burn myself out on the story like I did with Pellan, forcing myself to write a story I wasn't enjoying. I will definitely come back to Ryn though, so don't worry. This is one of my flagship stories and it's going to continue for probably hundreds more chapters. Thanks for your understanding, see you in a while :)

Awooooooooo. Got it done!!! Okay so... I'll probably write until chapter 100, then focus on a different story. Digital Galaxies is just... it's calling to me, and I'm so excited to finally flesh out some story elements from Trouble that I can't pick up in Trouble itself.

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