Chapter 210: An Invitation
byA few months went by, and the cactus syrup and pulque gradually began flowing again, and they were finally able to relax. The mood in the Stronghold turned completely around once they weren’t starving, and since most of the less invested Climbers had left for the lower Floors, they didn’t have to share as much as they might’ve.
Will had to finance a couple emergency trips down to buy flour and sugar in bulk, which cost a decent chunk of Influence, but nobody actually found out how close his supplies got to being completely empty.
Once food was no longer at a premium and the Stronghold was no longer backed into a corner, Will was able to drip-sell Sammohan’s magical ores for a better price, with a warning to Sammohan that the price might fluctuate drastically now that Ghoul was able to escort caravans through the 8th Floor more easily.
On one hand, the ease of transport might lower their price.
On the other, the increased access to flash glass and anchorite in the lower Floors might drive increased demand, so there was really no way to tell. At least, not for amateurs in the ways of macroeconomics like Will and Sammohan.
Sammohan also brought in a lot of iron sand, but most of that stayed in the 10th and 9th Floor, where people needed knives, hinges, tools, etc.
Other Floors had their own sources of iron that didn’t need to cross the 8th floor and 4th Floor barriers, so the relative value of transporting it was poor, which was why Sammohan traded most of the iron in the Stronghold itself for food, pulque and tools.
He also had found some rock salt deposits, which meant they had an excellent export to sell to Bakton Keep specifically.
The fae lands didn’t have anything as uncultured as massive salt deposits just jutting out of the ground.
Despite The Burned Stronghold being just as safe as Bakton Keep, people still preferred to do high-value trading on the ninth Floor because of the Debt that forced people to honor their agreements, so Will wasn’t able to sweep that ‘trade center’ business out from under Bakton.
As it was now, The Burned Stronghold was a small frontier town with a history of food problems that produced some rather valuable ores and supplied a few key materials that the floors above and below were missing.
That made them valuable enough to keep around, but not necessarily enough to thrive.
What does Akul have that we don’t? Will thought, reviewing his map. He’d expanded his map out to a hundred miles in every direction in an afternoon by flying in a spiral outward from the Stronghold.
Akul has huge tracts of fertile farmland. Controlled, predictable monster spawns. Water.
The monsters on the 10th Floor were generally ambush predators who didn’t run around on the surface too much because they were always trying to preserve water.
The ones that did run around were dangerous and unpredictable. Fast and sharp little bastards that would reduce a farmer out standing in his field to bones in a matter of seconds.
The land was garbage. The soil was sandy and dry. Up in the higher hills it was just a thick layer of clay rather than anything that could be called ‘soil’
Note to self: See if we can’t make something with the clay up in the hills.
It wasn’t like every hill had good clay though, and Will wasn’t able to see what lay under the surface of the terrain.
Will frowned.
Or can I?
Will’s map was flat. Despite raising and lowering to show the detail of the terrain, it still only showed him the surface of the terrain.
Even if it could show under the surface, how would Will even see the three dimensionality of it?
Will cocked his head.
What does Map have to say for itself?
Map**
Passive:
You have a map.
This map is a mental construct that contains an accurate, self-updating record of terrain in a radius around the user. Current location, heading, Abilities, and manifestations therof are displayed on this map. You may summon this map and dismiss it at will, and it will only be perceivable to you.
Radius scales with Acuity. Beyond this radius, the map does not update, but will retain anything that was already filled in.
The map has an alternate mode that displays an in-depth map of the user’s body.
Toggle: 7 Focus
Manifest a physical copy of the map.
Well, it says in a ‘radius’. Radii are used for both circles and spheres. There’s nothing in the language that tells me this wouldn’t work. Just for all practical terms, it feels difficult.
Most Cantrips are made from either half-activations of an Ability, or a deliberate abuse of vague wording of an Ability.
Mason’s ability to fling tiny firebolts was an excellent example of the former, while Will’s earth spikes were an example of the latter.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
Let’s deliberately abuse the wording.
Will cocked his head again, looking at the map. This time with the intention of tilting the map with the same angle as his head.
The left half of the map turned a solid grey, while the other half became empty, as the left half dipped into the ground while the right half stretched into the empty sky.
Neat. What if…
Instead of tilting, Will tried to lower the map by a couple feet, shaving off several layers of the surrounding terrain.
The buildings seemed to disappear, turning into a solid block of grey stone with a handful of holes for sewage. A few more feet and suddenly a cross-section of the city’s sewer system popped out.
Add another cantrip to the list I suppose, Will thought, turning his attention to the hills outside the Stonghold.
Select: pure, high quality clay.
A handful of spots glowed on the map where good clay was exposed to the air, but there was no way of knowing how deep the vein actually went…until now.
Will manually pushed the depth of the map down, stripping the several inches to several feet of dirt and roots away.
Most of the patches of clay disappeared, but two of them revealed themselves to be enormous deposits of the stuff that nearly covered an area the size of the Stronghold itself.
Will placed marks on his map with notes to himself to pester Sammohan about them.
Select: flash Glass
Select: Anchorite Deposits.
Will gave the two highlights different colors and began sifting through the surrounding lands.
I’m impressed, Sammohan, Will thought as he surveyed the map. Sammohan had found one of the bigger deposits of Anchorite and was currently digging his way through it.
Flash glass was harder to come by, as the slightly iridescent material tended to be found in sand form. It was brittle without being processed and needed to be strained out of the sand it was embedded in by separating it through physical processes.
Anchorite was tough to transport because it was heavier than it looked, and it resisted change in its inertia beyond what its mass would dictate.
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