Building a magic system on threat of destruction

A blue screen appeared in front of Riniox. The general information, stat section, and skill section were listed. The screen was huge, the skill section full to bursting with thousands of individual skills. Riniox flinched in surprise as the screen was much larger than she had expected.

“Are they supposed to be this big?” she asked, eyeing Jack's much smaller screen.

It was impractically big, easily taller than she was because of how full it was. Jack spoke up, “Well until I make a way for it to consolidate this information, the size will depend on how many skills you have.” Maybe he could add a scroll bar? Or could he make the skill sections collapsible? Jack sighed internally, there was just so much to work on.

Continuing, he said “You seem to have a very large amount of skills. More than any of the other people I’ve studied in any real detail.” He was also interested to note that the woman was listed as a demon. She fit the profile he supposed, terrifying, with strange skin color and horns from her head. She didn’t have a pointed tail that he could see though.

She grinned at the words, “I assume that means I’m better than a lot of people, right?”

“Better? Well, that’s kind of relative. You probably have a more diverse skill set than a lot of people, but some of the skills are probably…not that noticeable in the day-to-day.”

Riniox frowned at that, and looked back at the sheet, reading over the skill list slowly. Jeler peered around her, craning his neck to read the words as well. His ears perked up as he read something, “Boss, you have a baking skill? I’ve never seen you even use an oven.” He turned to look up at her, shock on his face.

“I baked with my father as a child. But I haven’t done anything like that in a very long time…” She seemed to look at this list with new eyes, scanning frantically and muttering to herself.

Seeing that his boss was distracted, Jeler seized this opportunity. He slunk over to Jack and pulled him away from the tall woman. “Hey,” he whispered to Jack. “you said that this thing improves combat ability? What does that mean?”

Jack could guess why Jeler was asking, Riniox had been a little too happy to learn the system could make her stronger. It had been pretty scary, seeing how she focused in on that aspect of it. “Well,” he whispered back. “It’s designed to help people grow beyond their limits. Earning power-ups and permanent improvements from Deis. But it’s diverse, it will do that for all areas of a person’s life, they just have to put effort into those skills and abilities.”

Jeler considered this, then sighed. “Well, I might as well get it out of the way then. The boss is going to want everyone in the group to get this magic at some point.”

Jack nodded, then began to cast the [Status Granting] spell again.

Glimm patiently waited for Reph and Dirge to speak. They had been quiet since activating Jack, both clearly lost in complicated emotions and thoughts. Glimm herself had complex feelings about the whole situation, but her partners needed her support right now. She had taken charge when Jack had woken up, trying to handle the situation in the simplest way possible, but this was hard. The trio had spent an entire day putting Jack together based on diagrams they barely understood, all while feeling hurt and loss over all the work they had done before.

Now? Now they were done. Deis had allowed them to work on something that would give them a huge amount of insight. All it had cost them was some happiness. Well, that had been what they thought the cost was, and then Deis had told the whole world about Jack, and where he was. He hadn’t said Jack was a bore-bot with three kinds of internals, but soon people would flock here, and they would see him.

Jack would be safe from most people, he was an agent of Deis! The High Deity’s servant! But the three of them would probably be dragged back to the bore-bot capital and put on trial. It was a problem, but not an immediate one. For now, her biggest concern was her partners. The three of them had been through tough spots before, and they would get through this. She just had to do her part and help Dirge and Reph through this.

So she sat in front of them, letting them sort through their feelings and thoughts. This was how she helped them, often serving as the sounding board, or letting them retreat into their minds and patiently wait.

She had heard Riniox and Jeler go back into the basement, and knew they hadn’t come back up yet. They would watch Jack for the moment, and hopefully, her partners could pull themselves out of their funk by the time they came back.

It took ten long minutes before Dirge spoke up. “Do we run?”

It was a heavy thought, but Glimm had considered it herself. Running would keep them alive, at least for now. But she shook her head. “No. Running implies guilt. We would be hunted down as soon as Jack is discovered, and whatever punishment we get would be harsher than if we stayed.”

Dirge absorbed those words, then slowly nodded. “What do we do then? Reph?” Both of them turned to the still silent bore-bot.

Reph didn’t respond for a long moment, his head still hung low. Then, looking up at them, he spoke in a voice heavy with emotion. “Jack will need help. We don’t know what the long-term effects on his body will be from the three types of internals, so we should stay and take care of him. Maybe by performing this duty for Deis, the High Deity will grant us mercy on this matter. The elders and government back home can’t punish us if it would anger the God of gods.”

Glimm thought it over. It was probably the best course of action, but it ignored a large part of the problem. “And our child?”

Reph didn’t speak for a moment. “We will be watched for the rest of our lives. Even if it was on the High Deity’s order, we made a forbidden kind of life. They’ll split us up, and keep us from interacting with others. We…” He choked up a little, sadness threatening to overwhelm him. “We will never be able to finish our work. We will never have a child.”

The mood in the room grew dark. The three of them knew that Reph was likely correct. If they were spared, they would be confined separately for the rest of their lives. Their names wiped from history so that others would not share their ambition.

“You’re wrong.” Reph and Glimm looked at Dirge in surprise. The bore-bot continued, “We will construct our child! This is not the end!”

Dirge stood up, practically yelling now. “We have no more excuses, we are out of time. That’s why we have to do this now! To bring our child into this world, we have to start right now! We have Jack, his body can tell us what will work and what won’t. We can still do this!” Dirge turned to their two partners, reaching out their hands.

Glimm smiled and did something out of character. She would normally wait for Reph to come to terms with something this important, but she had been given hope again. She stood, accepting Dirge’s hand, and reached out to Reph. He looked scared as if having hope would bite him in the back. But he saw the confidence on his partners' faces, the determination in their eyes. He came to a decision and reached out his hands.

The three bore-bots walked back down into the basement, determination visible in their movements. But before they could take advantage of their newfound energy, something shocked them into inaction. They stopped at the bottom of the stairs and took in the scene before them.

Jeler and Riniox both had huge blue rectangles floating in front of them. The two boxes kept hitting each other anytime one of the two would move, shoving one of the two mercenaries away. Jack was on Rinioxs shoulders, trying to reach up to the corner of her floating blue box.

“Just hold still, Jeler.” Riniox commanded.

“I’m trying!” The two of them were trying desperately in order to not knock over or bump things with the screens. Already multiple chairs, tools, and materials had been scattered around the room by accident.

After a moment, Jack gave up trying to reach whatever he was trying to get from the shoulders of the demon and decided to leap instead. He jumped from atop her and sailed directly into the close button for the screen. Instantly, the screen vanished, and Jack fell towards the floor.

Glimm panicked slightly at the drop, but Riniox was able to safely catch him before he hit the ground again. Once she put him down, the tall woman was able to help Jeler close his status sheet. She would have been able to reach her own close button if not for Jeler. The narrow confines of the lab made it next to impossible to maneuver when the two screens had been present, and reaching up to close it herself would have pushed Jeler across the room into potentially sensitive equipment.

Everyone in the room quickly helped tidy up the mess they had made of the lab before Reph began to address Jack.

“Jack, I’m…sorry for my rudeness earlier. I should have spoken with you, welcomed you at the very least. I allowed my emotions to get the better of me. I hope you can find it within your benevolent heart to forgive one such as myself.”

Jack was a bit surprised. The robot was showing an extreme amount of politeness to him, too much in fact. “Hey, don’t worry about it.” He stuck his hand out for a handshake. “No harm done, besides, I’m guessing I have the three of you to thank for making me this body. So thank you very much!”

Reph stared at Jack's proffered hand. Then he took it, holding it firmly and shaking it with conviction. “You’re very welcome.”

Jack smiled, then said, “Alright, I’ve got a whole bunch of questions, then I have to do a whole bunch of work. Mind if we get started?”

The group of people gathered before him exchanged glances and then nodded. Reph took charge and spoke, “How may we help you?”

“Well first,” Jack said, humor in his tone. “I’d love to get out of this room.”

“Oh, of course!” Reph seemed apologetic, and the three robots gestured for Jack to climb the stairs. He didn’t see the looks that passed between Riniox and Jeler.

Jack made his way up to the first floor of the building, which was a largely open concept. The rooms were large, with large doorways between each of the rooms, and no doors visible in any of the holes except for what appeared to be the front door of the house. Though, calling the splintered remains hanging from hinges a door was a bit of a stretch.

Jack stepped forward and walked out the front door. He was in a green valley, with mountains on all sides closing them in. There were buildings scattered around the valley, with people of all shapes and sizes running around and performing tasks. Anyone that saw him, stopped and stared, as if unbelieving their own eyes.

Jack was looking around in excitement, before looking up to the sky. Then, he froze in shock. His brain protested, not able to believe what he was seeing. A huge sun stood in the sky, pure white and shining. But behind the sun, Jack saw something impossible. He could see water and land on the other side of the sun in front of him. In fact, slowly spinning, he saw that there was no blue empty sky at all, but instead, land that circled up distantly in every direction. It was as if someone had flipped the Earth inside out, leaving the middle empty save for the very edges.

His mind reeled, and he suddenly felt panic. There was no way something like this could support itself! It was impossible. The whole thing would come crashing down on top of them! He felt his body shaking, and if he had been able to breathe, he would have been hyperventilating.

One of the robots approached him, reaching out a hand and saying something. But Jack couldn’t hear it, his panic too strong. Before the robot reached him, he collapsed.