The Wanderer's Rebirth: Other Paths

After his talk with Celys, he finally managed to enchant the circuit breakers in the mess hall. Which would also allow him to extend the electrical capacity of his house.

Then, after a quick tutorial for the volunteers on how to use the griddles, stovetops, and ovens, he made himself scarce for a while, retreating into his study.

There, he was comfortably surrounded by his many books, figurines, and various collectibles. Some were even genuine. Most, though, had been made by him once he’d finished building his house.

There were things ranging from banners originating from his favourite video games and books, all the way to various replicas of armour and weapons. He wasn’t sure how serviceable the armour would be, but at least it looked nice.

He idly wondered if he’d ever be able to fully replicate any of those things, though. Thus wondering, he sat at his desk, a replica of the one he’d been using in his mind when he meditated, and turned on his laptop.

He wasn’t sure what he wanted to do, so he wound up just messing around with a few different games over the next hour. It felt weird, almost alien, to finally sit down and play a game again. Sure, he had hundreds, if not thousands, of games downloaded and waiting to be played. Sure, he’d pirated the vast majority of those games, and had even gone so far as to acquire the server files for any of the games that required such. But it still felt weird.

He wasn’t sure if it was due to the world he found himself in, his expanded understanding of things, or even if it originated from being turned into a High Elan. But things felt… off. Even more than the PTSD from the years of video game shaming he’d gone through would explain.

He sighed, then shut down the laptop before closing the lid again.

‘You’re probably just worried about those girls,’ Avi said kindly, surprising him with her tone.

‘You’re probably right,’ he sent back, thinking of the many things they’d eventually need, and the others that they’d need right now.

‘You’ll manage,’ Avi said airily, flicking her hair over her shoulder as she did.

Which managed to once more stun him with just how… perfect she looked. After a moment taken to recover, he nodded then headed back outside to check on everyone.

Once outside, he saw that everyone had gathered inside the mess hall for breakfast, if his nose wasn’t wrong in what it was telling him. Nodding, he looked around a bit before deciding on his next project.

He walked around to the back side of the new mess hall and looked at the tree that would be in the way. Thinking about it more, he supposed that maybe he should build further back considering the company he figured would show up later that evening.

Nodding to himself again, he made his way once more to the back of his house. There, directly behind his house stood the greenhouse, so he’d have to build just a bit south of it, for the small field of bamboo stood just to the north of the greenhouse.

Thus decided, he got to work.

* * *

Shae’ra’s eyes widened as her spoon stopped on its way to her open mouth.

“What’s wrong?” Imryll asked, looking, and sounding alarmed.

Shae’ra quickly shook her head, not wanting to scare her young friend, nor the other girls who were sitting at the long table with them.

“It’s nothing,” she lied, waving off their concerned looks with her free hand. “I just felt a bit of mana, that’s all.”

Imryll blinked at her curiously while the other girls looked confused.

“Why would that bother you?” Imryll asked, still not quite convinced that there was nothing to worry about.

“It just surprised me, that’s all,” she said, trying to reassure the young night elf.

“It surprised me, too,” Fyrellia said from across the table, looking to the west side of the hall as her tail swayed back and forth. “What’s he up to?” she wondered out loud, making Shae’ra want to smack her for not being considerate of the younglings with them.

“Probably just another building being put up,” she replied casually, causing everyone to stare at her incredulously.

Arise, the dark elf that had been sticking with the succubus and erynese, gave her a shrewd look.

“Did you witness this mess hall being built?” Arise asked, hitting the nail on the head.

“Yes, and it was quite the spectacle,” she replied with a slight smile.

Arise looked at her appraisingly while Fyrellia looked down at her bowl of mostly eaten food before she began stuffing her face as fast as she could.

Qyress, the erynese, saw that and seemed to catch on and also started eating as fast as she could. Then, the sharper ones seemed to catch on to what was going on, and soon everyone was eating as fast as they could, Shae’ra included.

She didn’t want to miss watching the young master working, for the first time had been beyond fantastic. So much so that she’d been too stunned to remember most of what he’d done, just leaving the sensation of the flowing mana behind in her mind.

It took them less than two minutes to finish up and place their dishes on the counter before they rushed outside to see what was happening. As they went, she made sure to keep an eye on the two demons and her dark cousin, not knowing if they’d resort to pushing a youngling out of the way to get there faster.

By the time they arrived, she was both surprised and impressed that none of the three had behaved inappropriately on their mad dash. Then those thoughts were washed away in the waves of mana that were coming off the young master.

He’d already cleared the ground, a space slightly larger than the mess hall, if she was estimating it correctly. He was in the process of doing his weird… dance, when he stopped and turned around.

She was impressed with just how red his face became, obviously embarrassed. She didn’t know why he’d be embarrassed, though perhaps it had something to do with his odd dance.

“You’re fine,” Asami Miki called out to the young master from beside her, causing her to jump slightly in shock. “Just keep working!”

The young master blinked at Asami Miki, then at the rest of them before taking a deep breath and turning around again, muttering something that she couldn’t understand.

From that point on, it got a bit… boring, though fascinating at the same time.

She’d initially thought that his use of [Earthshape] was somehow tied to his dancing, but was proved wrong. He just stood there as flows of mana danced around, causing the earth to move and the cleared brush to suddenly ignite and turn to ash.

She watched, fascinated, as the ash was then moved to a bin that raised up from the ground closer to the stunning house of glass that she just now noticed. How she’d missed such a thing was beyond her, especially with how eye-catching it was. But that’s how it was.

Then the earth seemed to flow out of the way as stones rose up from beneath. Her jaw dropped as the stones then began to flow like water, taking on different shapes as they came together to first form a wide stretch of what appeared to be a floor. Then they dipped down and formed a vast, if shallow, basin.

From there, low walls of stone were raised, only a couple of feet tall. She turned as motion from the side caught her attention and saw those same golems from yesterday coming up from what looked like large cellar doors at the base of the house, on the west side of it. They were each carrying a huge stack of boards, or just logs, that they then placed along the low walls, spacing them out as they did.

She wasn’t sure what some of the wood was, but it wasn’t all the same stuff that he’d used to build the mess hall. She caught a faint scent that was both sharp and oddly pleasing to the nose, making her think of cedar, though the colour was a bit off.

They watched as the frame of the building was made, magically floating into place and somehow fixing solidly in place. Then the far walls went up. It was amazing to watch as the building seemed to come into existence as though appearing from far to near.

When the building was done, to her eyes anyways, the young master casually walked inside, leaving them standing there in stunned silence. Then Asami Miki and Myra hurried to follow the young master inside, breaking the silence, and their inaction.

A veritable flood of people hurried to the doors and tried to get through it all at once until, of all people, Qyress began to loudly organize the press of people. Ironically enough, it seemed as though her status as a demon garnered no little respect amongst the younglings, allowing her to quickly sort out the press of bodies.

Inside, she was greeted by what looked to be a small lobby with a few benches along the walls and a door directly opposite them. Well, a doorway, anyways. Instead of a solid door she saw vertical strips of cloth. And no young master.

She then quickly made her way through the hanging cloth and found that there was a wall in front of her, dividing the way into a t-section. She quickly chose to go left and found herself in what appeared to be a changing room of some sort.

Shae’ra looked over and saw that it hadn’t mattered which way she’d chosen, as some of the girls were coming in from the other side. Looking around, she saw many shelves divided into cubbies lining the walls, as well as several long benches in the middle of the room, and another cloth dressed doorway.

Walking as quickly as she could manage and still be dignified, she went through the hanging cloth and found herself in a much larger, and very open room.

To her left and right, she saw what appeared to be spigots coming out of the walls, confusing her greatly. She noticed that the floor sloped down slightly, leading to what appeared to be drains build into the stone floor. Suspecting what the spigots were for, she turned to inspect the rest of the room.

There, near the large basin, stood the young master. As she watched, the stone flowed a bit more, creating two stairways leading down into the basin. Then a narrow ledge formed a couple of feet below the lip of the basin, looking oddly like a long bench.

Then stone began to rise from the centre of the basin, creating what almost looked like several natural boulders clustered together. Then the physical changes stopped, but the mana kept flowing.

Now, Shae’ra was no [Sage] when it came to mana, its many nuances and applications, but she had seen her fair share of its applications over the years. And what she was seeing made her gasp in shock, a gasp that was repeated by Fyrellia, who was standing beside her.

From what she could discern, the young master was enchanting the entire area!

Too stunned to stand, she felt her legs giving out from under her. Now seated on the stone floor, she just continued to stare at the impossible happening before her eyes.

* * *

Hmm, pipes here… drains there…. I’ll need a few… he mumbled in his thoughts, not comfortable speaking out loud with such an audience. It had been bad enough when they’d seen him pretending to be an earth bender….

He dismissed those embarrassing memories as he focussed on the last parts… well, the almost last parts of building the communal bath. He then retrieved a few Dust Crystals and got to work.

A heating enchantment here, there, and there. Another to slowly circulate the water through the pipes and around the bath. The last one he placed was a facility-wide [Cleanse] effect to make sure that no bacteria, mold, fungus, scum, or viruses would survive. Well, and any dirt that accumulated from bathing. It was specifically targeted at the building itself, the pipes, and the water in the bath.

He idly wondered if he could add a [Recycle] enchantment that would reclaim any soap, shampoo, or conditioners used, but just let it go. It would likely be a crazy amount of work, let alone insanely complicated to pull off. Much easier to just [Cleanse] it all away and provide new stuff for the girls.

The last problem was the water. He didn’t want to use [True Creation] in front of them all, wanting to keep that card close to his chest. Which meant that he’d have to either do that when no one was around, or assign a dozen people to manually carry it in.

Well, it’d at least give them something to do, he thought with a mental shrug before finally turning around to face his audience.

Then just about ran when he was their expressions.

He wasn’t good with praise in general, but the looks of almost worship on their faces nearly killed him. Short of teleporting away, he was stuck.

* * *

“Move aside, the young master is tired from his exertions,” Asami said, waving to the gaggle of gawking girls as she pulled Joram along behind her.

Snapping out of their dazed state, they quickly made way for her and Joram, allowing her to escape with him.

She didn’t stop until they were inside their bedroom. Once inside, she turned and locked the door, then pulled Joram to the bed where she pushed him over.

“Gah!”

“You’ll be fine,” she said as she reached down and swung his feet onto the bed.

She then crawled in after him and took up her customary spot on his chest.

“It’s time for my morning nap,” she said, snuggling into him a bit more.

“I-,” he started to protest, but she cut him off quickly.

“’-am going to be your pillow’,” she finished for him, smiling when he just sighed in defeat.

As she lay there, she again noticed how his body relaxed as he entered [Meditation]. She’d have much preferred his other reaction, but settled for snuggling instead.

With yet another common sense-breaking display, she was sure that he’d be getting much more attention from the girls, let alone from the women of Kirkwall who’d been there to witness it.

Shrugging that off, she contented herself with listening to Joram’s thoughts.

She was glad that he was still planning on experimenting with his [Create Dungeon] Skill, as she thought that it would prove to be one of the most interesting of his abilities. She was also sure that they’d need both the income that came with killing Dungeon Monsters and the experience it would give to those doing the killing.

She approved of his ideas on creating a Dungeon closer to home, though wondered if making one in the basement was wise. That said, allowing the girls to hunt in the dungeon was a good idea. Especially since they’d eventually need to defend themselves.

What she found odd, though, were his thoughts on gaining Titles and Achievements before gaining a Path. She knew that he’d done it, but he was a bit of a special case. His [Pathless Slaughterer] was certainly an Achievement worth trying to replicate, though she wondered if it would be practical to do so.

Needing to kill one hundred foes before taking a Path just to get the first level of the Achievement was… hefty. That said, she didn’t know if the person would need to kill the foe by themselves, let alone if the foe needed to be an active threat or not. Which would rule out killing caged monsters.

As interesting as all that was, she wasn’t sure that she liked the idea of having children killing so many caged monsters. Sure, it was one thing to fight for your life, quite another to kill a defenseless being. Even if they were basically mana constructs. Callous killing never left a person… whole, or quite right in the head.

She then relaxed as his thoughts turned to the fantastical things from his world. From amazing devices that flew you through the air like birds, to somewhat terrifying weapons. She knew from his thoughts that most were basically made up, mere fictions. But she was once more impressed to the point of astonishment that his benefactor had also left such a trove of knowledge for him before vanishing.

It was harder than anything she’d ever had to do to keep quiet about what she gleaned from him, especially after he started using [Barred Mind] in an attempt at keeping his thoughts private.

She suspected that his companion, Avi, knew that it hadn’t worked, though. The looks she’d send her way were just too… knowing, to be anything else. But that just made her smile more, for Joram had a very smart woman sharing his head that would speak sense to him when he started getting… weird.

She smiled again, then reached up and wrapped her arms around his sides. He was definitely the best! Smart, comfy, and comfortable to be around with how his mind felt to her. It was like sleeping under one of the great children of the World Tree as a sunbeam warmed her fur.

Now, if she could only figure out how to unlock his heart, she’d be golden!

* * *

Avi watched, amused, as Asami hugged Joram tightly, snuggling him for all she was worth.

If Asami knew just how much she affected Joram, she’d likely shout in joy. Then promptly jump him.

She wondered when Joram would ease up. It would certainly help him to relax more. Though, the growth of [Clear Mind] would likely suffer for it. Still, sometimes sacrifices had to be made when one took into account one’s happiness.

Still.

It was hard being a purely mental construct. There were things that she wanted to do, not the least of which was to be slightly more autonomous than she was currently.

Much like her other self had become.

She smiled as she watched Asami settle on Joram. It was such a similar sight to another one that she smiled again. She wasn’t sure if Joram himself knew it, but he was pretty much a kemomimisuto, a person who loves animal-eared people. He also liked tails more than he would admit. Specifically, a tail attached to the tail end of a sexy gal. Like Asami, or Myra.

Or any of the other beautiful women around him, for that matter.

Smirking, she started to go through the bits of information that were slowly making their way to her from her other self. Her own “Prime” version, if you will.