The Newt and Demon-7.44 - Mountains or Ocean

Alise pressed the heel of her palms into her arms, groaning. “What are you talking about, Theo?” she asked. “Mountains or ocean? What?”

“Do you want our new coliseum atop a mountain or in the middle of the ocean?” Theo asked, wiggling his eyebrows. “Both are very exciting for me.”

Alise’s head thumped against the desk. She released another groan before running her fingers through her hair. When she eventually looked up, she took a steady breath and shook her head. There was a deep red mark on her forehead. “I seriously don’t care. And I know I can’t stop you.”

“Fair enough,” Theo said. He turned back to his companions. “Let’s poll the citizens. Put the adventurers you assembled to work, Aarok. Make them ask the locals which coliseum they want.”

“Sounds like an excellent use of my time,” Aarok said.

“I can help, too!” Tresk shouted.

After organizing themselves in the office, the group headed out to round up the adventurers. They would track the poll through the administration interface, making sure no one person’s vote was counted more than once. Theo didn’t mind which option they picked. Either location would make for an impressive arena and he didn’t think either would be more work than the other. Thanks to his Earth Sorcerer’s Core and his absurd willpower, it would be a breeze… Mostly.

“Let’s go!” Tresk shouted.

“Yes, let’s neglect our duties,” Aarok said, twirling his finger through the air.

“Come on. We have some time to spare. The dream team will take care of the dungeons,” Theo said, patting the grumpy half-ogre on the back. “Time to get into the spirit of the newest shiny thing that has caught my attention.”

Grumbling, Aarok led the way out onto the streets. It really wasn’t that busy today. The lizardfolk docking at the pier was likely the most interesting thing that would happen today. Otherwise, Aarok and the adventurers would just pull guard duty the way they always did.

Theo approached random people in town, getting their name and which location they wanted the new arena to be built at. There seemed to be no agreement which spot was better, but he took each vote and added it to the tally. The alchemist checked his interface as he went. The most interesting thing was how much progress the adventurer team had made with the dungeons. Now the River Dungeon had been destroyed.

Two more to go.

After polling for a while, Theo took a break and headed over to the pier. He climbed one tower, nodding to Zan’kir as he leaned over the side.

“Have you come back to taunt me?” Zan’kir asked, rubbing the rail gun and tutting. “She wanted to fire. You have denied her request.”

“She’ll get over it,” Theo said.

“I’m gonna fire a shot for fun,” Zan’kir said. He aimed the weapon and let off a shot. Theo was happy he covered his ears for that one. “I feel much better.”

Theo shook his head, looking out to the bay. It was expansive enough out there for him to move a bunch of dirt and stones to create an island. He would place it to the north, as he could draw material for the sheer mountains in that region. These were the same mountains he drew stones from to prop up Qavell.

The more he looked at the shape of the bay and the barrier islands, the more he thought reinforcement of those islands was a good idea. Perhaps he could work on that while he was at it, giving the alliance better control of the area. Allowing people to enter the bay might have been an oversight, but the amount of work required could only be justified with extreme boredom.

It took more time than Theo expected for the poll to complete. It was close, but the ocean-based arena won. He suspected it had less to do with the ocean being a scenic place for an arena, and more to do with how it would give people access to the bay itself. Yeah, the ocean was the coolest spot for it, and the alchemist had no intentions of delaying the construction.

Theo swapped in his Earth Sorcerer’s Core and made his way to the road outside of Qavell. People watched with curiosity as he walked along the coast, skirting the water’s edge until he found his way off the sandy shores and onto the path of stone. Pulling large sections of the mountain out from under would cause rockslides. Which might fall onto the city above.

Unlike the alchemist’s last attempt to seed the ocean’s floor with stones, he had an advantage this time around. The bay’s bottom was much shallower than the open ocean, and his understanding of the sorcerer core much greater. A crack formed on the sheer wall of stone as the alchemist exerted his will on it. Unseen magic drove seams between those stones, pushing them further apart until the wall crumbled.

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“Whoops, gonna need this…” Theo swapped another core for his Water Sorcerer’s Core in time to stem the tidal wave that followed. As the stones fell, they sent water spewing high into the air, that water eventually falling to catch the light of the sun. The rainbow that formed seemed in contrast to the silly level of destruction he could bring with his sorcerer cores.

The sensation of manipulating two elements at once was novel. Theo felt his mind splitting into two segments. One for the water, one for the earth. He dragged massive chunks of rock into the water, piling them high before moving to the smaller pieces. He laced those over the top of the causeway, sealing the arrangement together. When a large rock dropped into the water, threatening to send another wave out into the bay, he tamped it down.

“Look at him work!” Ziz shouted, pumping his fists into the air. “You’re hired!”

Theo turned, smiling at the half-ogre. “How much am I getting paid, boss?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Ziz said, crossing the fifty-feet of causeway the alchemist had already constructed. “Very slick work. You got any idea how big you want this thing?”

“No clue. My plan was to walk this out to the barrier islands and set the platform there. This causeway is only temporary.”

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“That far out, huh?” Ziz asked. “Might be out of range of our guns.”

“New guns,” Theo said, nodding to the distance. “We’ll reinforce the barrier islands with new towers. I’m thinking we’ll use… that island as a base for the arena. Got any designs in mind?”

“Not until you tell me the size,” Ziz said, crossing his arms.

Theo grabbed another cluster of rocks, watching as they soared through the air. Ziz winced as they hit the water yet produced no splash. He clicked his tongue.

“Seriously, do you need work?”

Theo laughed, shaking his head as he moved more stones into place. He pushed his power further, drawing on every part of his will. Sweat formed on his brow as he released another cluster of stones. He sagged as they hit the surface of the water, shaking his head to fight back the oncoming stupor.

“Wait a sec,” Theo said, opening his inventory and sifting through the disorganized thing. “These powers are expressed through a person’s aura. Right?”

“I have absolutely no idea.”

Theo withdrew a potion from his inventory. “Aura Potion,” he said, swirling the contents of the vial. He quaffed it, feeling a surge of power rush through his body. “Oh, yeah. Let’s see what we can do with this…”

Reaching out to his pile of rocks, Theo scooped up a mass twice as big as the groups he had been gathering. Ziz skittered back as the rocks hovered above their heads. Dust and smaller stones fell, clattering against the ten-foot-wide causeway. The half-ogre let out a frightened peep.

“Now we’re cooking,” Theo said, lowering the stones into place. “Nothing like halving the time to do a job. Am I right?”

“So right,” Ziz said, breathlessly.

“This property comes from a very common reagent. Throk’s Weed. That’s a hybrid plant which was growing on the farm,” Theo said. His will didn’t feel as strained compared to before. The Aura Potion had not only strengthened his willpower-based abilities, but it had refreshed whatever invisible resource it drew from. “It was the third property, and I really didn’t know what it would do.”

“Oh, fascinating,” Ziz said, whimpering as another cluster of stones flew overhead.

“So, I’ll work on the causeway—which will give me a path to bring the stones over—and you get working on the design. Just assume it’ll be as wide as the barrier island. Circular structure, I think…”

“That’s not much to go off of…”

Theo shrugged, dropping his most recent load of rocks and snatching a smaller one from the air and drawing it close. He imagined a structure and punched his willpower forward. As though imprinting the structure onto the stone, his aura chipped away the rocks. Left behind was a circular arena similar to the images he had seen of a coliseum back on Earth.

“Oh. That’ll do,” Ziz said, grabbing the sculpture from the air and looking it over. “I’ll make some adjustments, of course.”

“Yeah, that’s just a rough design,” Theo said.

“Looks finely crafted to me,” Ziz grumbled. “Guess I’ll make designs based on this.”

That was much easier than putting it all on paper. Theo didn’t know a thing about doing the architectural diagrams Ziz could do, so this was the next best thing. The alchemist got back to work, but bored locals gathered near the shore to watch him move the massive stones. Only when he let a massive boulder ‘slip’ did they get to a safe distance. Making his way across the bay, he watched as the ocean beyond the barrier islands drew closer.

Creating the causeway between the mainland and the islands took less time than Theo had expected. He jumped from the rocky bridge onto the soft sands of the islands. The open ocean rolled over the far side of the island, a chilled breeze blowing in to rustle the grasses and tropical plants that grew there. It brought with it the scent of the ocean and the sounds of sea birds flying overhead.

Theo waded into the water of the bay, nodding with satisfaction. It wasn’t actually very deep on this end of the bay. He waded a few hundred feet out into the bay, and the water only came up to his chest. While he was only measuring by eye, the alchemist figured this area would need far less stone than he first expected. Laying a sturdy foundation for the arena was necessary, otherwise it would just collapse into the muddy bottom of the bay.

Heading back for more stone, Theo shook his head as he passed curious citizens on their way to the barrier islands. As expected, they were having a ball. Building the causeway so wide had been a bit of foresight the alchemist was proud of. He walked between the mountain and the barrier islands, holding the rocks above his head and creating massive piles on the far side. Citizens would clap politely when he let them fall to the ground, often cheering when the ground rumbled enough to knock someone over.

Setting the foundation of the building was difficult. But the layers of mud and silt responded to the combination of Theo’s Water and Earth cores, allowing him to scoop it out with ease. He dug until he found hard ground underneath, depositing the mud onto the island’s ocean-facing side. He then pressed the large blocks as deep as they would go, layering smaller ones atop that until it all came several feet over the bay’s high tide. Using this as a blueprint, he labored away until the sun grew dim in the sky.

Theo’s work was broken when Tresk and Alex descended from the sky. The dragon-goose landed with much drama, spewing fire into the sky and roaring. “Working hard out here?” she asked, jumping from Alex’s back.

“It really is fun,” Theo said with a smile. He looked back at the foundations he worked on, nodding with pride. “We’re going to have some water flow issues in the bay until I add a permanent solution for the causeway.”

“Oh, who cares?” Tresk asked, waving a dismissive hand. “This is a cool project.”

“Agreed. Very cool,” Alex said. “What is the purpose again?”

Theo had to explain what they were working on. He wanted an area out on the barrier islands for a few reasons. The first was the arena, of course. But he had another motive. Reinforcing the islands to give them more warning against attackers would be lovely. And he had heard about sea monsters roaming the world. Where were they? If a giant poison whale, or something just as absurd, came calling he wanted to be prepared. How would one fight such a monster anyway?

“Think we can bring this area into the city?” Tresk asked.

“I don’t see why not. Might be expensive, but the bay is a single purchase in the interface,” Theo said. “We should rope in all the way to the islands, and the entire strip of land. If we can reinforce this area, I’d sleep a lot easier. How many layers of defense do we have against sea-borne attacks?”

“Uh, let’s see,” Tresk said, putting up fingers and counting the items off. “The towers, then the wall at the harbor. So, we have two layers.”

“Yeah, we need more layers,” Theo said, rubbing his chin. “And no part of the defenses are without a population.”

“So, you want to have walls where there’s nothing inside. Got it,” Tresk said. “Hey, man. I gotta say, that sounds like a lot of work.”

Theo shrugged. The next biggest thing he needed to work on was bringing the rest of the elves back and then the shards. After that, his schedule was free. “I think I have plenty of time,” he said. “We can also use this as a way to reclaim a lot of space. Imagine if we filled even a quarter of the bay.”

“We’ll circle around to environmental implications later,” Tresk said, patting him on the back. “Because that sounds like a great way to mess up an ecosystem. Right now? Let’s get some grub.”