Brockton Bays Marvelous Mage

I woke up the following day to the sound of Alya warning me I was about to have company. Sure enough, by the time that I managed to wipe the sleep from my eyes and sit up, I could hear someone climbing up a nearby ladder to the roof. Alya whispered that it was Sarah, so as she got to the top, I spoke up, still facing the opposite direction.

"How did keeping an eye on the police go?" I asked, the woman stopping mid-stride. "They didn't do anything stupid, did they?"

"No, they did not," She responded after a moment, making her way over to me and sitting on the nearby lip of the roof, her legs hanging over the edge. "They finished their jobs and cleared out. John and a few others went back to grab anything worth saving. Now they are setting it all up."

I stood up and stretched, wincing at how obvious it was to me that my steel absorption had run out. I was just a basic squishy human. As I stood, I could peek down over the edge of the roof to see people moving back and forth between buildings with a purpose. Some people were even harvesting food from the rapid-production trees I had grown.

"I'm gonna have to go to the store and get more fruit so I can grow more trees," I said, pulling my arm around and cracking my back. "These won't be enough to support everyone."

"It's much better than nothing," She pointed out. "Why not just take the fruit from the trees?"

"All of them are sterile," I explained with a shrug. "The seeds wouldn't grow anything special even if they weren't, at least without me helping them along, but the PRT likes to flip out over anything that a cape touches that can reproduce."

"Huh… well, you give me some cash, I can go do that for you?" She offered. "Just tell me what you need."

I turned to look at the woman, trying to read her. She looked back without flinching, simply raising an eyebrow at the prolonged attention. So far, the scarred woman had been critical of my desire to help and doubtful of my ability to do the same. But she had never done anything to hinder me, and she had been friendly in her own sarcastic way. Seeing no reason not to trust her, I nodded.

"That would actually be incredibly helpful," I said, reaching into my pocket to pull out a clip of money. "Make sure it's just stuff that grows on trees. They are the most robust and can handle the stress of what I'm doing to them. Feel free to spend the change."

I said, holding out a hundred-dollar bill for her to take. For a long moment, she stared at it before letting out a huff.

"Damn, Arc, didn't realize you were a big spender," She commented, just a hint of distaste in her hand as she reached out and took the bill with her unbandaged hand.

"The PRT and Central Hospital are paying me to heal head trauma, stuff that Panacea can't do," I explained. "I need a chunk of it for my own projects, but I'm hoping to talk to Tony and start feeding money into his soup kitchen or any of the other ones around town."

For a moment, she looked at me, her working eye widening a bit, before shaking her head.

"Should have figured," She muttered to herself. "Alright, boy scout, I'll do your shopping. You gonna be busy?"

"Yeah, I need to head back to where I'm staying, move some stuff around, and try to figure out how I'm gonna keep all you guys safe when I'm not around," I explained. "Part of me doesn't want to leave, but I don't think the E88 will strike back that fast."

"Just talk to John and Charles before you go," She said before making her way back to the ladder along the side of the building. "Good luck."

The spirited woman left quickly, and I listened to her descend the metal ladder, letting out a long breath when she was gone. That was one thing off my plate, meaning I could focus on making this place safe.

"Alya… do you think I should abandon my forest home idea?" I asked, looking down over everyone. "Staying here would make protecting people much easier."

"It would also complicate nearly everything that you do with magic," She pointed out. "You are already pushing the limits of your fake power excuses. What are they going to say when you start doing rituals in front of everyone? Is there anything you can do with your rituals that will let you move around the city faster?"

"Probably, I just need to sit down and do some thinking," I explained. "Alright, let's fill in John, and then I'll head back to the shop."

I quickly climbed down from the roof, thankfully remembering that I wasn't nearly tough enough at the moment to be leaping from the roof unaided. I found John and explained what I was going to be doing, before doing the same with Charles. They both agreed that it was unlikely that the E88 would attack so soon, as they would need time to get all the facts and rally the troops.

I left at a run, making a beeline for my civilian clothes, changing into them quickly, and heading back to my shop. I climbed through the window and looked around, taking note of everything that I wanted to take with me. It was time for me to move out of here and start moving into my forest home. Yes, it wasn't quite done, and no, I wouldn't be growing a home tree until I was sure the Docks community was safe, but the basic rituals I had completed were more than enough for me to feel safe keeping my stuff there.

My first round of moving included all of the clothes, money, and other easily transportable stuff I had accumulated so far. All of that fit easily into a few bags I had purchased, which I stored by the window to take with me when I left. Everything else, including the generator and lights I bought, as well as several other things, were stacked on the couch. I could grab those at night under the cover of darkness.

Eventually, I also wanted to cut the partional apart so that it was easier to transport and then reassemble it at the forest compound. For now, however, it would stay where it was since it was too hard to move, and I didn't have that kind of time. Besides, having a partional I could use in the city would be handy, so I might just end up leaving it as it was and building a second at the forest compound. It wasn't like I was running low on the cash necessary for the ingredients anymore.

I grabbed my bags and left the shop behind, making my way out of the city. I did my best to act like a guy just going for a hike, carrying his camping gear. When I finally arrived at the compound, I stored everything inside the storage trees, with plans to move most of it once I had grown a place to sleep and live. When I was done with that, I sat down along one of the storage trees and looked down at the large ritual pad. I had a pencil in one hand and my notebook in another.

"I need two things right now," I said, Alya taking her semi-physical form to help me bounce around ideas. "A way to protect the Docks community, and a way to travel around quickly."

"So your enhanced running isn't working?" Alya asked, floating around a bit, her legs fading and flickering as she did. "You are moving fairly quickly now."

"For patrolling and general movement, it's alright," I said with a shrug. "But if I'm living out here, it's not nearly good enough. It's gonna take me ten, maybe fifteen minutes to run from here all the way to the Docks community, and that doesn't include changing or anything else. That's not nearly fast enough, especially because the next time the Empire comes knocking, they probably won't be waiting for me."

"Well, since you already have a partial solution for moving around quickly, you should probably focus on protecting the community," the elemental pointed out. "Any ideas for that?"

"I've got dozens of them!" I said, shaking my head. "But half of them are going too far, the other half is going to get even more unwanted attention. I know it's too late to try and blend in and hide, but I would rather not send up additional signal flares just yet."

"Okay, well, what do you have so far?" Alya asked, brushing a cool, calming breeze over me.

I started listing out ideas, going over some that I thought were crazy and others that I didn't think would actually work. Most of these centered around rituals since, at the moment, it was my most flexible and potent ability. After about thirty minutes of spitballing, I boiled it down to a list of ideas, with pros and cons listed out in my notebook.

"Okay. So I could create a handful of D&D style wands," I said, reading off from my list. "Basically one spell per wand, with a limited amount of casts per day or recharge."

"To keep them from being too powerful," Alya guessed, and I nodded in agreement.

"Exactly. On the plus side, it's not much different from making tinker tech. Sure, they will look like wands, but tinkers are bullshit, so I don't think anyone will question it," I pointed out, chewing my lip. "The PRT is probably not gonna like me just handing out tinker tech, but if I keep them nonlethal, it should be fine. That said, I could also just buy them a bucket of Tasers, so what's the point?"

I tapped my pencil on my lips, nodding as I thought it out.

"On the other hand, I think I can make a bunch of stun wands with the leftovers from my staff…" I said, scratching my chin. "Maybe I should make some of the wands regardless?"

I sat in the chair, trying to imagine the ritual required to make a low-level stun wand. Before I could get too deep, Alya spoke up.

"What else do you have?" She asked, pushing me through my momentary distraction. "That's a good start, but they need more."

"Right, well, I'm pretty sure I can… set up some sort of short absorption with a ritual," I said with a frown. "It's going to have to be something edible. Otherwise it shouldn't be too difficult with my levels in geomancy and ritual design."

"But…?"

"But being able to empower other people is a massive red flag," I said. "Everyone automatically thinks of Teacher, a Trump/Master that could give people minor powers but was also mind-controlling people. They Birdcaged him."

"Anything that connects you to a villain that bad is something we should avoid for now."

"Of course, though I probably won't be able to avoid that for long," I pointed out. "Either way, enhancing people will put another massive target on my back, just as big, if not bigger, than being a healer. A healer is enough to get people to pay attention, but the ability to empower other people? I'm going to have the CUI on my ass."

"What are the other options?"

"I thought about offering them items that enhance them, going the same tinkering route that I would for the stun wands," I explained. "But then I risk those getting stolen. Plus, making an object that enhances someone isn't much better than me directly enhancing someone. People aren't going to look at it any differently than me handing actual out brute ratings. Though the items would possibly help me avoid the suspicion of being a Teacher clone, so it's a bit better, I guess."

We continued to go down the list, discarding and discussing our options, before we finally landed on one that had stood out the most to me as we were making the list. Sparked by a bit of inspiration from Heap, the idea of creating a golem was pretty enticing.

"It can fit in the same tinker adjacent creation that the other things did," I pointed out, standing up to pace. "They are flexible, and I know they are possible since I can already see some of the more basic ritual parts needed… They do give a glimpse into what I am capable of, as making minions usually gets some attention, but it's nowhere near anything some of these other options would. I honestly think golems might be our best bet. Not to mention the poetic justice."

"Poetic Justice?" Alya asked curiously.

"As far as I know, the idea of a golem, at least from my world, originates from Jewish folklore. It's said that a Rabbi created a golem from clay to defend his people from violent persecution. The story takes place a long time before Nazis, but it is still poetic."

"Well... what were the remaining options?"

"After golems, I could buy a dog or other animal, then empower them with rituals," I explained. "Which might be cool, but I'm pretty sure it leads into one of the branches of the ritual creation subject that are cut off, like chimerization."

"Anything else?"

"Just a few variations on empowering people or objects," I answered, shaking my head. "Honestly, I get the feeling that golems are a big part of rituals. Designing them should be relatively easy, and they should be pretty potent."

With at least a vague idea selected, carving it down into something more workable was relatively easy, especially with Marvelous Mage seemingly eager to feed me information about golems. The first design practically wrote itself. I ended up writing a multi-stage ritual, one of the best ways rituals had to create more complicated creations. It was nothing on the near programming-like fidelity that enchanting had, but it could still do interesting things.

Essentially, to form a golem, you needed a core. This core stored the mana reaction used to power the golem. Depending on the material used in the core and as the foundation for the golem, the core could fuel a golem for years and years before it needed to be recharged, which would require another ritual. The core itself started as a sphere of stone and was then added to with gems and other bits to upgrade certain aspects. Each piece would need a separate ritual, meaning that just making a single, relatively utilitarian golem could still take three or four of them. Since I was looking to make an advanced combat model, I would need over a dozen of them.

Luckily, so far, these separate rituals turned out to be relatively simple.

Once a core was finished, a material for the golem needed to be selected and then charged with magic, using, you guessed it, another ritual. The interesting part was that what material you used had a profound effect on the golem itself, beyond how durable it was. Stone was slow but tough, more so than you would assume. Metal was tough as well, but had more flexibility and speed. Wood was average, but any noncatastrophic damage would heal over time. With the proper preparation, it was even possible to make things like lava or ice golems, though they seemed like more trouble than they were worth.

While I would probably dabble in a few materials, the easiest choice for me seemed to be wood, since druidcraft gave me plenty of ways to manipulate it.

Once I was done designing everything, I quickly put my notebook away, but not before tearing off a shopping list. I had a lot to buy and not so much time to do it in. The quicker I got a couple of golems built, the better.