A Jaded Life

As so often, reality was sadly a far cry from my imagination. Instead of starting out right away and pulling whatever building I desired from the ground below, I had to stay realistic and ascertain the conditions around our chosen location. Not only did I have to make sure the ground was solid enough to support the building that was slowly crystallising in my mind, but we also needed some sort of temporary shelter, or Lia and Alex would be in trouble quite soon. Furthermore, there was the question of our surroundings, I had no desire to invest multiple days of hard work into this spot, only to realise that it was flawed in some way and we had to move.

So, my first order of business was to start digging a cave into the quarry, much to Alex’ delight. Not that I was planning to use this one long-term, but they had yet to learn that. Before they could, I decided that Alex, Silva, and Luna would scout the area around us to try to find out if there was anything we should know. Lia, on the other hand, would stay behind with me, covering my back while my mind was otherwise occupied. I had no desire to get chomped on by some random critter while I was using my Earth Magic to scan the ground beneath us. Sure, I would feel the vibrations of any walking creature that wasn’t extraordinarily stealthy, but given that there were such monsters as the Shadow Hounds we had met months before or even something much more mundane, like some sort of large, flying insects or any number of raptors, I wasn’t about to take a chance and get caught out.

And it wasn’t like the other three desperately needed Lia to scout the area. By now, Luna was quite competent in mid-range combat, using her Life Magic to rapidly grow and control plants, making her an utter terror in any kind of vegetated area like a forest, while Alex and Silva were competent in their own right. Plus, all three of them brought their own area of expertise to the table when it came to special senses. Alex was knowledgeable about alchemical substances and what strange conditions they might cause, Luna had her divinely granted magical senses while also being able to sense souls and Silva had her canine senses, bolstered by a solid Intuition. Sure, the group wasn’t perfectly suited, but then, none of us was a truly competent scout. Either Silva or I were the closest, Silva thanks to her innate abilities while I had some experience and training from Mundus to fall back on, in addition to some lessons from Mrs Wu. Those hadn’t really been focused on wilderness survival but the topic had come up, simply because it could be necessary. In what context, I had no idea but then, I had little actual context to her abilities, only a lot of speculation.

Once the cave was dug, I planted myself in the middle of the quarry, simply sitting on the ground and letting my magic spread out to seep into the ground below. I needed to know what sort of material was below us, had the people who once quarried rock here managed to dig all the good stuff out or was there a solid layer below us, just hidden beneath a thin layer of earth? I didn’t know but I needed to, or the foundations of the building I wanted to make might crumble and the building fall.

Given that the current image in my mind was strongly reminiscent of the Frozen Citadel, only constructed from rock and not from Ice, having the tower fall over would be quite devastating. So, a solid foundation would be needed, which meant I had to learn the ground’s composition before solidifying certain parts, making sure that all the weight I wanted to put on top of it could be distributed downward. Additionally, I had to figure out the best way to get the rocks I needed for construction. Pulling them upwards from the ground was an option but I didn’t think it was a good one, as doing so would destabilise the foundations I was just checking.

Instead, I would likely have to harvest stone from the quarry walls around me, hoping that the quarry wasn’t too depleted, or rather, I would have to check before I started to work. Luckily, the foundations appeared to be incredibly solid, with sturdy rock going down as far as my magic could reach. Furthermore, as I delved into the magic I had spread out, I noticed that the Astral River was just a little thicker here than it normally was, possibly a side-effect of the nearby town, or from the strange sensation I had felt under the mountain or maybe even due to the intersection within the Astral River I had felt nearby. There were multiple possible reasons and I made a note to investigate but, for now, I only needed to know that I could wield my Earth Magic here a tad easier than I normally could. A small advantage but a welcome one.

Especially when I noticed that yes, the quarry wasn’t as depleted as I had feared, making me wonder why people had stopped using it. There had to be a reason but whatever that reason was, I didn’t think it applied to me right now. After all, some sort of well-meaning government regulation to preserve the habitat of some critter or another, or some other need, wasn’t all that relevant any longer. The only danger I had to be wary of was that I might destabilise the cliffs, causing them to crumble down and bury me. Not something I wanted to risk but, luckily, I was using my magic to quarry the rock so I could sense the conditions around the rock I was taking fairly well.

Like that, two days passed. The others were scouting our immediate surroundings in ever-widening circles, while I was primarily concerned with the conditions of our chosen home. The longer I worked, the more I realised just how suitable our spot was. The rock was incredibly solid, to the point that I realised it had been subtly altered by the strong presence of the Astral River here and there was no reason to fear it crumbling unless we were hit by a major earthquake. Not impossible, at least when going by the conditions known from before the Change but also not terribly likely.

There was nothing speaking against the spot, or the area in general, and there were multiple things speaking for it. The others had told me about a few small discoveries they had made in the area and, more importantly, about the small shapes they had spotted in the town about four kilometres from our spot. All in all, this was it.

And so, I started to build. At first, I used my magic to harvest rocks from the cliffs around me. It was an incredibly interesting process, I had no idea if it was the smart thing to do or if I was simply enamoured with the destructive potential of my magic and, at the end of the day, it didn’t really matter. I enjoyed sitting up high on the cliff, driving my magic into the soil in focused spikes and carving away chunks of rock that then followed the pull of gravity and heavily crashed into the quarry below.

It was incredibly loud, destructive and fun, something I enjoyed greatly, especially when I realised that I could subtly reshape the quarry’s walls, making them a little stronger and, more importantly, as smooth as I could casually make them. It wasn’t a mirror finish but anyone trying to climb them would be in trouble, as I learned when I tested things. Even rappelling down turned out to be a challenge, as I had managed to make the walls smooth enough that trying to push off them resulted in sliding away and crashing into them. Without my cloak, I would have been in trouble but the cloak, or flight in general, wasn’t something I could currently defend against.

By the time I decided that I had quarried enough rock, the ground below the cliffs looked quite interesting. The rocks, mostly dark grey granite but with some other, mostly even darker, rocks mixed in, covered large parts of the previously empty area, the sharp, broken edges of the fallen rocks giving the area an appearance of utter devastation. As if hundreds of bombs had gone off and reduced an area to rubble. Despite knowing what had happened, a small part of me wondered just how much damage I could do if I focused on actual buildings. Was I already at the level of an earthquake, similar to the way I had managed to conjure up storms on Mundus, powerful enough to devastate cities?

It was humbling, in a way, but also frightening. If I could get this much power, wouldn’t anyone be able to? They might take longer and a certain percentage would certainly die or give up, but some would make it. And that frightened me more than I cared to admit.