SoK Chapter 205

TJ grunted as he lifted the collapsed stone off of the remains of the ruined ritual circle. The first time this had happened, everybody involved had fought but succeeded in keeping their patience. The second time, TJ was the only one who managed to keep from cursing the stupid thing out. The third time, he joined the others in their frustrations as they commiserated and raged. Now, three full days’ work and twelve attempts later, the failure was more expected than any success. It was nearly dinner time, and they’ve been at it all day for days and TJ couldn’t muster anything but a sense of finality. 

The first experiments had revealed that having easy access to the skies was absolutely needed in order to use Storm Serpent’s Awakening. When TJ had tried to conduct the ritual while standing in what was effectively a teepee made out of stone, the Skill had, somehow, made a foot–thick bolt of lightning fall from a clear sky and destroy the structure down to bits of gravel. Their following experiments came in various shapes and sizes, each one focused on learning how much of the sky needed to be visible to keep the ritual from revolting, if they could use a removable top to the arched roof, if leaving the walls completely open would permit the skill to succeed, and more.

This time, TJ had found failure in a 5 foot wide hole in the ceiling. They hadn’t even tried to cover the hole yet, figuring that if the structure as a whole worked, they could work on whatever they needed to to create a covering. As he’d started channeling the ritual, for a couple minutes, TJ almost thought that it was going to work, but then, in what he could only feel was a profound betrayal, wind screamed through the hole on the top of the roof and ripped the stone apart in four sections.

“You know, I don’t think that the ritual wants to be closed up.” Sarah said as she walked back. She’d just returned from another leveling session down below, having brought many of the weakest members of their community down there to kill bunyips and goblins that’d appeared on the shores of Tempe Town Lake. It was obvious that there was something down there keeping the other monsters away from the fringes, because there had to be more of a complete ecosystem down there than they’d seen lately. Regardless of any similar certainties, TJ couldn’t spare any of his thought process for that for now. Instead, he raised an exhausted gaze to the Valkyrie, mostly succeeding at keeping his scowl from coming through.

“I think we’ve all come to that conclusion already. Do you have anything intelligent to say or are you just trying to get a rise out of me?”

“I’d say they’re getting a rise out of you is at least moderately intelligent.” Sarah joked back. “But I really don’t think that any presence of a roof is going to end up with the roof falling apart or the ritual failing. I feel like you’re not going to be able to cover up this ritual at all, it’s too tied to the skies and storms. A storm can’t really exist in a closed space, can it?” Sarah asked with genuine curiosity.

“Not in the terms that I understand it.” TJ agreed. “Over everything else, the biggest issue is that we’re continuing to deal with is that the ritual circle needs to be preserved to make this all work. We’re building a protective covering for the circles, after all! We’ve talked about carving it into stone and inlaying the carvings with magical materials, but that’s expensive and the materials are being put to good use by Michelle right now. Once I’m done here, there are things I want to do with them as well, so here I am, stuck banging my head against the wall while hoping to preserve the materials.”

“Well if you have an idea that might work,” Sarah asked with a squint, “why aren’t you trying? We’re just going to continue getting more valuable materials every day.”

TJ pursed his lips and refused to answer, instead allowing his mind to wander and truly entertain the idea of what he’d do to create a permanent circle and a building along with it. Couldn’t permanently cover the circle, but needed to protect it. Maybe create a solid foundation, then have some sort of a solid but mobile cover that they could bring to put over the ritual circle when not in use? If he was going to do this, spend the materials to make the circle, he’d already mostly worked out a way to have a more “basic” version of the ritual circle serve as the center. There was a way to use Ritualistic Transfer to inscribe the circle with circuits that he understood to be functional for all rituals using a circle. Thank the Skills for that, he supposed.

Through that established center circle, he could adjust the rest of the parts of the circle to function depending on whatever ritual he would be doing. So, continuing with the thought experiment, he had the base figured out, he’d just been trying to save the expense of valuable materials, like the bloodsoaked claws of the Asanbosams and the remains of the golem. Moving forward, it would be better to try it anyways. After all, Sarah was right—he was always gaining more things to experiment with. Sure, nobody had come across any of those in a while, and TJ didn’t know if they ever would again, but that didn’t matter. He made the internal decision to give it a try, and as soon as he did, he had a thought occur in conjunction with this thought about a semi permanent cover. He stopped trying to uncover the remains of the ruined ritual circle, and instead turned to William.

“How much stone do you think you can create or bring up here for our next attempt?”

The older man wiped the sweat from his brow as he took a deep drink from a water bottle. As a Zealot, the man’s Strength was prodigious, at least compared to other Classes at around his same level, and he’d worked tirelessly these days to continue experimenting alongside TJ.

“I’m not creating stone, not really. Instead, I can move it from somewhere else here, and I hesitate to draw much stone here because it’ll weaken our foundation. But if I had all night and I drew stone from further away, from places that we don’t care if they collapse, then I’d imagine that, given enough time and MP, it’s effectively limitless. In a more practical sense, I could make a full building, and after that, I’d have to spend hours in order to bring each new cubic foot of stone.”

TJ nodded and chuckled.“You ever seen the Mesoamerican pyramids?“

A flicker of recognition crossed William’s face, and he let out a long breath as he met TJ’s gaze. “More than that, I’ve seen them. They’re impressive, but that’s a lot more stone than I think we’re willing to bring and use on one building. If I had another four or five people who could do this with me, maybe it would be worth it, but we don’t.”

“Don’t misunderstand.” TJ raised a hand. “I’m not looking for some hundred–foot–tall whatever. If the base is maybe fifteen feet in both directions, I think that’ll be more than enough. Just two steps to the pyramid, the big fifteen foot one on the bottom, then a seven foot one on top. On the lower level, I’ll inscribe any additional circles, like the ones for the recipients of Storm Serpent’s Awakening, and then I’ll put a permanent circle up on the top level using some materials that’ll last to at least light wear and tear. Then, we can make what’s basically a heavy canopy to cover it whenever it’s not in use. If that’s the case, it won’t be too hard to uncover it when it’s time for me to use the circles.”

William squinted as he started to think about the logistics of it, his mind and Skills granting him a better understanding of the mechanics and volume of creating such a thing than TJ could imagine. Minutes passed, and after spending the time muttering calculations of quantities of stone while looking at the remains of their latest attempt, he nodded. Without further speech from William, TJ felt the Zealot’s focus shift into the stone around them. In response, the ground rumbled as William worked on preparing the stone and materials to construct TJ’s new temple, or pyramid. TJ nodded and focused on staying out of the way instead of bothering the man willingly helping him. For things like this, there was nothing TJ could do to help, anyways and talking to William was just a distraction. Instead, TJ went to collect the materials for creating this permanent, valuable ritual circle, and he already had a couple things in mind.

Once he had the remains of the shambling mound, the Asanbosams, and the golem, TJ went through the steps to prepare and activate Ritualistic Transfer. As his own resources fought against the resistance of the Elite tier monster materials, the shaman forced the metal to melt as he pushed his own blood into the nervelike remains of the shambling mound. Both resisted, the ore and metal wanting to remain pure while the shambling mound remains wanted to call organic matter to itself instead of the or from the golem. TJ’s will wouldn’t be denied. 

As the individual stands of the shambling mound threaded through the ore and metal and somehow purified them, TJ continued to push more and more of himself into the metal he was forging before he finally transformed into a coatl to give himself greater Attributes and resources to pull from. Bit by bit, a crimson circle formed, eventually becoming the base of TJ‘s ritual circles, a 5 foot diameter circle with faint runes threaded throughout it. It shimmered in the light of the stars, and as TJ looked at the glimmering metal, he realized that he’d been working on the creation of this single item for hours. They slipped away like minutes, and already the base of his pyramid, or temple, had been established. 

Fifteen by fifteen feet of stone had been laid out, though the center of the pyramid remained empty. With the remedial volume finding formulae still in his head, TJ figured that it was nearly half done, and William was nowhere to be seen. No doubt getting a rest to recover his MP. Looking at it, TJ knew there was nothing else he could do right now, so he took the circle under his arm, or tried to before then realizing it was too tall to do so, so instead he held it awkwardly on top of his shoulder, where he learned that he was still too short to walk like that without it dragging on the ground. He made his way to where Luz lay sleeping and grumbled to himself about his own selfishness. He’d taken this girl on, and though he wasn’t her father, he’d promised to act like her guardian if nothing else. After saying that, he promptly lost himself in doing a million other things instead of being any sort of a parent to her. Was this how he was going to treat Junior as well once they were back in contact?

Various other thoughts filled TJ‘s mind as he allowed himself to slip into dreamless sleep.

When the morning came, Luz was gone, having not even attempted to wake him before she left. Just another reminder that he was losing limited opportunities to build a relationship with the child, and TJ cursed himself for his single–minded focus on getting levels and getting stronger, even as he knew he also had to credit that with his continued survival. How could he be a good father figure, to say nothing of a real father, if he was never around? Well, the estimations of what made a father were going to change drastically with the apocalypse. It wasn’t going to be his place to sign Junior up for soccer or go to his parent–teacher conferences. Instead, TJ needed to keep Junior alive. Of course, that was a duty that all parents had since time immemorial, but in the world before everything went to hell, that wasn’t so complicated as it was now.

Could TJ trade times of tenderness for ensuring that he could continue to provide a safe home to children, and his child specifically? He could relatively easily make that trade when it came to Luz being the one that was turning away from him and towards others, but if it was Junior? If his little boy didn’t jump on his chest at 6:30? Could TJ accept that?

He knew what the answer was long before he mentally asked himself the question. It would break him if that happened. So, that returned to the question of how was he going to be able to continue to take care of all these people as the Nascent Storm Serpent, as well as having precious time with his child? The question went unanswered, no easy response existing. He supposed he didn’t need to have the answer quite yet, but saying that he didn’t have one and wouldn’t have one for a while was a weak answer at best.

There was nothing to do but continue to move, and TJ walked among his people and gave his greetings as he continued to carry the precious ritual circle with him while looking for Luz. He’d slept with the circle underneath him, unwilling to allow anything to occur to the precious, unfinished item. William was already hard at work, most of the center of the pyramid now filled, and the time was near at hand for TJ to create the top of his pyramid. And he’d do that, after he had dinner with the little girl who was currently playing horsey with a not–transformed Molly.