According to Dad, Soporifics were effective as long as we did not damage the one affected by them. Which was good to know, but now that he was unconscious and tied up in one of Rhamiel’s Original Basic Dwellings, it also meant that they either had to wait for it to wear off or hurt him.
“I’ll do it,” Dad volunteered.
“No,” Mom said adamantly. “Nobody is hurting him.”
They had removed his armor, which was not easy without hurting him. His armor seemed still functional, though it was dented and punctured in several places, and the leather straps and padding were shredded.
And beneath the armor and the bucket helmet, Rhamiel was sure he expected something more than this. It was just a guy with short, messily cut brown hair and bronzed skin. His face was chiseled and bruised from the battle, slowly fading away as his health returned to full. He wore a messy linen shirt and dark pants, and they left his boots on. He was just a guy. Perhaps a handsome one, but there he ought to note the use of inimitable material limitations. Despite his wounds, they had tied him up incredibly thoroughly. They bound his arms and legs together and wrapped him twice over. He looked like a bundle of rope with a head sticking out of the top, but they were sure he could not escape.
“Then… what? We don’t know for sure how long it will last until the poison wears off, and it has already doubled the length of the normal poison,” Dad informed her.
“Can’t you just, you know, cure him?” Mom questioned.
“I could, but that would take time to take effect, and at this point, it was not helpful,” Dad said with a malicious grin, looking at the Hero.
“No,” Mom said, smacking his chest.
“Then what? Just sit here and wait?” Dad asked. “I repeat, we don't know how long we'll have to wait for him to wake up naturally.”
“You both are loud,” Graham groaned as he entered this small dwelling. He barely took one look at Mom and Dad before walking right up to the Hero and looking him over with a scowl. Shaking his head, his smile curled into a mean grin as he drew back his hand and gave him one hard smack.
The sound even made Rhamiel cringe, but it did the trick. The Hero woke up with a start, his expression Wild and his body thrashing to suddenly get free and strike at all three people in the room. Graham looked very satisfied; he backed away a few steps and allowed him to try to escape, cursing them all.
Once he stopped his struggling, the Hero looked at the three of them with anger burning in his eyes. “No, you are not going to kill me to power some evil Core ritual.”
“Who said anything about-” Dad started, only to be elbowed by Mom.
She approached slowly, and the Hero stopped his struggling but breathed heavily as if waiting for something to happen.
“What happened to you, John?” Mom asked tenderly.
“No,” he growled. “I am the Hero of Fallen Udarov, not-”
“Johnny Elf Charmer?” Dad interrupted.
The Hero’s thrashing stopped, his breathing slowed, and his gaze landed on Dad with a deadly intensity. “Elf Charmer? Assuming you are the real Corinth, do you know how much I hated that name before I left? Even now, I pretend that the Elites or Field Bosses are you just for motivation.”
“Why?” Dad asked, smiling. “You are a human, and you tried to hit on every Elf woman in the settlement. Especially Elgeia. Did you expect that there would be none of us who would hate you for it?”
“I wasn’t hurting anyone,” the Hero stated calmly.
“So? That doesn’t matter when we’re kids,” Dad looked at Mom and Graham in turn, then shook his head with a sigh. “But we aren’t kids anymore, John.”
“We thought you died years ago,” Mom said, looking full of concern. “We all thought you perished in that fight against the Coral Drake; one of your companions came back to the Hamlet and told us you had been slain.”
“Wait,” he paused and looked around. “Is Raol here?”
“No, he died against the Werejackals that destroyed the Hamlet,” Mom told him.
“Good!” the Hero barked, laughing and hooting. “Good! That coward left us there to die against the Drake. Took our food and potions while he was at it. We had to continue without provisions, and we almost died of hunger for a while. If he were still alive, I would break free from here and then kill him myself.”
“So… does that mean you believe us?”
“That you are you?” the Hero shook his head. “Nope, no way, impossible. No way any of you are stupid enough to work with a Core; none of them can be trusted.”
“What if this one was?” Mom questioned seriously.
“You are not listening to yourselves. Let me repeat myself, then, there is no way you are you because you would never work with a Core. Their kind began the Age of Decline, and they began this whole mess. We all know the Rules. You see a Core, you destroy it. What makes that a hard ask for you to accomplish?” the Hero questioned, whipping himself into a frenzy.
“It- He saved our Daughter,” Dad answered with a sigh. “It saved Joselin from a Maddened Werejackal.”
“You have a kid?” the Hero asked skeptically. Looking at Mom, he asked, “Please tell me that you didn’t have a little brat with him? That kid would be butt ugly.”
Dad took a step forward and clenched his fist, but Mom got in front of him. They looked down at the tied-up man and gave him a look that looked foreboding.
“I did,” she answered with a nod. “And I would suggest you do not speak ill of her, or I will not only hold back Corinth, but I will strike you myself, not to mention the fit the Core would have if it weren’t restraining itself. Our daughter formed a bond with this Core.”
“No,” he breathed. “Please tell me you’re kidding?”
“No, they aren’t,” Graham grumbled. “So, are you going to behave yourself long enough for us to explain this whole thing?”
The Hero looked at Graham with a smile, “Depends, are you going to cut me free?”
“No,” Graham said first.
The Hero let out a bark, “Wise, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do.”
“Seriously, he’s insane,” Dad stated. “We can’t trust him, ever. The moment we set him free, he will try to go after Rhamiel.”
“Rhamiel? Wait, who’s Rhamiel?” the Hero asked, now suddenly confused.
“The Core,” Mom said. “Why?”
The Hero furrowed his eyebrows and started to look around in a sudden panic. He began speaking in a hushed breath as he wiggled in his bonds. Then in a frenzy, his voice rose in earnest, and he looked pleadingly at Mom, “Oh no, I wasn’t going after a Core named Rhamiel. Seng said it's name was Thesa.”
“Seng is alive too?” Mom asked incredulously.
The Hero did not respond to her, “You gotta let me out. If this Core is not Thesa, then it must be nearby, and you are all likely in danger. I am going to assume all of you are not some memory constructs.”
“Oh, what tipped you off?” Graham scoffed.
“Just that Corinth almost apologized,” the Hero said. “There is no way the Corinth that I remember would even get that close to apologizing. And you, Elgeia, would never threaten physical violence.”
“And me?” Graham pointed to his chest.
“You are too smelly to be a memory construct,” the Hero shrugged as best he could.
He never saw the punch coming.
“Do you have any idea what he meant?” Rhamiel asked them. “About another Core being close?”
“It is concerning,” Mom nodded. “But I’m a little more curious about who else may have survived from his team. Excluding Raol, there were seven people on that Boss Hunting expedition. John here, Calia, Marko, Seng, Kane, Horace, and Lalita. I hope they're all alive, but if I can be selfish, I hope Marko and Lalita are alive.”
“Why?” Rhamiel asked, glad to be able to speak again. However, he only observed their conversation and did not interact with them. Given his fervor for his quest to kill him, he agreed that it was best that he didn’t speak or bring too much attention to himself.
“Marko is a Blacksmith, he maintained the expeditions equipment. Lalita is an Enchanter and she-”
“Kept up their magical equipment?” Rhamiel guessed. “I can see a pattern here.”
“Well, yes,” Mom nodded. “But Seng was a strong Priestess of Wisdom, probably his Oracle. Unless Calia or Marko’s growth went a little strange.”
“Huh,” Rhamiel hummed. “When will he wake up again?”
Dad shrugged, “I don’t know, it could be a few minutes or an hour.”
Rhamiel took a moment to use his Aspected Analysis Perk on the Hero, hoping that he could find a way to help him through his Status.
Of course, it was all blocked with those stupid question marks. No, this was less than helpful. Aside from his Level and Class, the only information it revealed was his full name.
“Level 163, that is pretty high,” Rhamiel stated. “Higher than anyone else I’ve met.”
“Seriously?” Dad asked. “That's impressive. It is assumed that you stand at least a chance against up to Country Bosses as long as you have actual skill.”
“Well, you did fight him. Isn’t he impressive?” Mom asked with a smirk.
Dad refused to look her in the eye and only grunted in acknowledgement.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Rhamiel enjoyed their playfulness; it brought a little bit of enjoyment to his world that had nothing to do with his settlement. But a feeling nagged at him; there was something he had to start working on, so he ignored them and looked at the Improvised PotionCore Battery that Lamar had made.
This peculiar item was not something he had expected to receive yet. That was what the Rhamiel Inquiry Hall was supposed to help create eventually. Still, he figured the Artisan had some skills for this. His MadWorks and Call of Inspiration Perks are making it easier for him to make discoveries.
But something had been nagging at his Core since Lamar revealed the Improvised PotionCore Battery before the Hero had arrived. Lamar had been for a while, and his Core Crystal had unique properties when introduced to Mana, which made sense given what he could do with it. His core generator, which multiplied Mana, funneled into it. And now this PotionCore Battery was the definitive proof that Lamar was right. But what could he do with it?
Looking for inspiration, Rhamiel pulled up his Character Sheet and looked it over.
Statistics:
Skills: Milestones;
Perks:
Something about this tickled him; much of it had not been explored, but there was more he was unable to utilize yet due to material constraints.
And yet, he could see one avenue for quick growth if he focused on it.
His Domain Skill was mostly passive since he barely had to focus to send just a trickle of Mana into it to keep expanding it. However, that was not the best approach. He had an excess of Mana, keeping expenditure low in case he had to do anything with it in a hurry.
And yet, there was something else here that he was definitely missing. Besides his Domain Skill, there was the Absorb Essence Skill, something that could be expanded but was not immediately helpful. The same was true for Mana Processing, a skill that helped him manually produce processed materials for his projects.
Structured Mindset and ManaTech Mastery cannot be simply trained. The former would grow with time, and, if experience were anything to go by, so would stress. And he wasn’t sure what would help develop the ManaTech Mastery Skill. It had grown, but no levels gained. Rhamiel assumed that he just needed to learn more to find more use for it. Still, he knew that was inevitable since he was already seeing a use for the Core Generator that he had gained along with the skill.
That only left the Perks, and immediately, he found something he had not touched at all.
Or not touched at all was incorrect. It was the main reason his Drones could build automatically, assuming he had a blueprint for it. It was a simple power, but one he had definitely taken for granted.
But then, he looked at the first line and dozens of ideas came to mind. The power to scan, create, alter, and store Blueprints? He could create his own blueprints, and that was positively game-changing with his accumulating knowledge. He imagined indestructible walls made of stone, bolts of lightning striking down foes, massive edifices used for the good of his citizens, and it was glorious.
But then he was left with a question. How did he start?
A cough interrupted his musing, and Rhamiel was forced to shelve this thought for a moment, intending to come back to his idea later today.
The Hero of Fallen Udarov had regained consciousness, and Mom was helping him drink out of a waterskin. The man sputtered out the water and shook his head to get the water off his chin.
Rhamiel watched as they returned to their conversation.
“We need to continue talking, John,” Mom said softly.
The man actually looked annoyed at Mom, his glare was harsh, as he said, “No, I am the Hero of Fallen Udarov. Not John Rasas.”
“Why?” Dad questioned. “Why the Hero of Fallen Udarov instead of your given name?”
“Have you not heard of Udarov?” The Hero said immediately, then began speaking before Dad could even respond. “Udarov is, or was, one of the greatest cities of the old world, from before the Night of God’s Tears. Its beauty is now haunted, a cursed thing tainted by that Vile Deity Core. Junine landed and slowly grew her power. The history of the City and its final years was written on the very living stone in still burning script about the City on pillars of splintered bone. It was bad, awful,” The Hero shook his head.
“What do you mean?” Graham asked. “Deity Cores work off myths and belief, gaining power the longer they steep in the worship of their believers. It makes no sense to kill them, instead of enthralling them or causing them to undergo a madness-induced metamorphosis.
What would make the Core do such a thing that would kill them all?”
“They- they aren’t dead,” the Hero said, shaking his head violently.
“What do you mean?” Mom asked slowly, eyes going wide. “Oh no, what-”
“They aren’t dead,” He repeated, voice rising in pitch and intensity. “They aren’t dead. They aren’t dead. No, no, no, no, Oh, Madness, They aren’t dead!”
Rhamiel received a notification from the System, and a bit of excitement filled him.
Splitting his attention was difficult because he wanted to focus on the Hero's rambling. Still, he also wanted to examine his new Tier One Core Generator. It took him half a minute to try to focus on doing both things at once, during which he discovered The Secret of splitting his attention. It was as simple as splitting his senses. While he kept his hearing focused on the Hero, he focused his sight on the new fixture.
And it was glorious. Standing near the previous Tier version, Rhamiel could easily see the difference between the two.
The most obvious difference is that the Tier Zero version was a ten-foot-tall obelisk. In contrast, the Tier One version was half again taller. The entire frame of both was a solid piece of sturdy gray Core Metal with offset plates of lighter gray shades. Rhamiel looked and found the slot where his Core was in one and where it would go in the other. Looking inside both, he found translucent, ice-blue boards hung up inside and interconnected with thin, thread-like cables.
However, in the Tier One version, he discovered the gold he needed for the construction around the slots where his Core would be fitted. It was in dozens of thin strands that looked almost fibrous, instead of metallic, coming in from every direction and disappearing into the ice-blue boards.
With the new Core Generator built, Rhamiel turned his attention to Lamar, finding him at the Lunch table that he claimed for his own work. He quickly told him that the new Core Generator was completed and that once he was moved over to the new one, he could disassemble the old one. He quickly created a new section of Core Power Cable, connecting the Tier One Core Generator to the older Core Cables that powered the Architects' Library Altar.
As soon as he was removed and put inside the new one, the Cables would immediately begin powering it.
“Okay, okay,” Mom told the Hero. “We don’t need to talk about that. It's okay.”
“No, no, it's not okay!” The Hero shouted. “That Core burns with thousands, shattered and defiled. The flames of ambition were a holocaust that scorched, ravaged, and twisted the City. No one was the same from its unnatural taint. And it's unfettered, Hell and Heaven in its every stray thought, and now it-”
Graham punched him again.
This blow did not immediately knock out the Hero; instead, he turned his attention to Graham with a disturbing intensity. “A city of the damned exists on this continent, propagating its might with any and all who venture into its Domain. And you, Holy Fist of Madness, you fetter yourself with the idea that Madness is freedom! That Madness is breaking free from a reality that shackled you! And yet, you shackle yourself still to these people, to civility, to the idea that you are still human!”
Graham punched him again, harder this time. This time, all of them heard something crack in the man’s jaw.
“Was that really necessary?” Mom almost shouted.
“Yes,” Graham told her sharply. “That was the raving of a man who has had his mind and soul ruined by Madness. The damage was bad enough that the man we once knew is likely gone, replaced by this… Hero persona.”
“Is that possible?” Dad asked.
“With Madness, yes. Especially if a Deity Core uses its power, then almost anything is possible. He should be glad only his mind got messed up and not any worse than it was. Madness distorts the body if it goes unchecked.” Graham looked at the unconscious man with a look that bore a hint of pity. “I may have to try to find this City, Udarov. If he could not stop the Core, I have no illusion that I could, but if it is run with Madness logic, then it would be worth my time to investigate.”
“Yeah, sure, just not yet,” Dad stopped him. “Let's see what more we can get from the Hero here before we try to mount an expedition.”
“Oh, we didn’t even get to ask him about the others,” Mom grumbled.
“No need,” Dad shook his head. “They are likely to close, but not too close. I can probably find them if I were to go and look.”
“If?” Mom said sourly.
Dad nodded, “Well, yeah. If he is this out of his mind, do we really want to try to find any others who could be like him? I mean, it could be pretty bad.”
“If?!” Mom asked louder.
Letting out a sigh, Dad nodded, “Alright, I’ll go. But I reserve the right not to bring them if it turns out they have become chaos-infused, slavering monsters.”
Mom nodded, leaned forward to kiss Dad before they separated, and he went straight towards the part of the Wall the Hero broke. Rhamiel had drones repairing the wall, but it wouldn’t be completed for another hour or so.
“So, what happened to him?” Rhamiel asked.
“I don’t know for sure, but Madness is by definition unpredictable. He could have witnessed horrific sights that broke his mind, the Core could have destroyed his old identity, and the Hero took its place, anything really.” Mom said with a sigh, answering Rhamiel.
“It is unfortunate,” Rhamiel said. “We could have used him.”
Mom shook her head, “We can’t think like that, Rhami, sweetie. People aren’t tools to be used; we are all unique, and John Rasas was a pretty unique person.” She smiled.
“Fair enough,” Rhamiel responded, unsure how to answer otherwise. “Let me know if you need me.”
And Rhamiel removed his perspective from the Basic Dwelling before she could answer.
He looked over the ramshackle building he had created with the very first blueprints he had received. It was shockingly terrible compared to anything else he had seen. There wasn't even a floor, just the hard-packed soil beneath the walls. This basic dwelling was something he was keen to replace as soon as he obtained more of the necessary components, namely as much iron as possible.
Turning away from that, Rhamiel felt a little trepidation at some of the words the crazy Hero had said. That the Core he was after was not him, but someone else was troubling. Perhaps another core was nearby, but he had no way of knowing that. At least, not quickly.
In the meantime, he had an Artisan waiting just outside his old tier zero core generator. His ravenous eyes practically sparkled with restrained glee in the midday light as he wrote in a notebook.
Before speaking, Rhamiel took a quick look at the notebook by attaching a thin tendril of Mana to the book, and was awfully surprised by the amount of notes the man could write just about the outside structure of the tier zero generator.
“Hello, Lamar,” Rhamiel greeted the man. “Are you ready to go?”
The man smiled widely, again revealing the hint of Madness that was evident in his features. “Oh, I am. I am ready for this new knowledge.” Lamar closed the book with his pen inside, then looked around the object with a different sort of gaze. “So, where do we begin?”
“First,” Rhamiel interrupted before the man jumped in. “You need to remove my Core and put me in the new one.”
Lamar seemed oddly giddy at the instruction, reaching into the obvious porthole and carefully removing Rhamiel’s Core.
“Okay, good,” Rhamiel said slowly. “Now you have to put me in the new one- Whoa, what are you doing?” he said with a sudden panic.
Lamar walked away to a nearby table and set Rhamiel down on it. Removing several tools from the belt, I began to work. He took a flat piece of wood and placed it against all of Rhamiel’s Core, making notes in his notebook. “Oh, I am just making some preliminary notes on your form. Nothing to worry about.”
He said that, but the words did not help Rhamiel feel better. The man measured and weighed Rhamiel’s physical form, used another instrument that resembled a two-pronged fork to gauge his magic, and even dropped a few drops of colored fluids to observe the chemical reactions. He took copious notes while performing these observations, and the longer it took, the more annoyed Rhamiel got. This was supposed to be quick.
“Are you almost done?” Rhamiel asked grumpily.
“Yes, yes, almost, Lord Rhamiel,” he quickly assuaged the Core.
Once satisfied with his notes, the Artisan reclosed his notebook and carefully picked up the Core Crystal. He walked over to the Tier One Core Generator and carefully slipped the Core inside until it fell into place.
Almost immediately, Rhamiel felt his Mana resume its previous course, steadily passing out of him, through the Generator, and towards his mana building. He immediately noticed the increased power the Generator could create with only a single point of his Mana.
“Wait, was it a single point?” The Core wondered as he went over the math, muttering in a maddened voice. “My Mana Power multiplies each point of Mana’s general power by 3.1, and this Core Generator multiples each point of Mana further. That's 3.1 times the new Core Generator’s multiplier of… four. So 3.1 times 4 is… 12.4 mana for every one point of Mana spent. And that's… wow,” Rhamiel finished his little rant with a happy little chuckle.
“Hehehehehe,” Rhamiel would smile if he could; the Joy overtaking him was practically palpable. He quietly wondered if everyone in his Domain could feel this Joy, so much Mana. Then a different thought occurred, and he was unhappy again, “And I have nothing but my Architect’s Library to use it on.”
“For now, My Lord Rhamiel,” Lamar pointed out. “I’m sure we will get more uses out of this Core Generator’s Mana very quickly. In fact, I have an idea that I am almost ready to share with you. But for now… May I begin the deconstruction?”
“What? Oh, yeah, yeah,” Rhamiel said, remembering the reason why he had brought the man over here in the first place. “Go ahead.”
That manic grin returned to Lamar’s face as he looked around and impatiently ran to the nearest table and dragged it closer to the Tier 0 Core Generator.
Rhamiel watched the man work for ten minutes before getting bored with just watching.
For a guy with Madness in his Status, he was slow and meticulous. After he managed to remove a piece, which took some carefully applied violence, he took copious notes in his book. Taking several measurements of each piece, including its size and Mana content, before setting it carefully to the side and moving on.
But before Rhamiel left the man to his work, he connected a thread of his Mana to the notebook to read it as he wrote and returned to the Hero.
“So, Core, are you watching me now?” he asked with a hiss.
“That is so creepy.”