NOVEL NEXT 129 - The office-worker’s fantasy part 5/5: firing your boss
Gemmy relayed their idea for his plan across their bond.
None of the others understood the science behind it, which was hardly a surprise, but they gave him their assent.
He could use their Gems to cast his Warp Skill. They would do the bare minimum to keep the Merchant locked down, crippled in place.
And so he got to work.
His magic flowed into the Diamond Hand, into the crevices and whorls his power was already accustomed to.
He could no longer speak to the Dungeon like it was an extension of himself, but he projected his Influence throughout the room thanks to Rory's aura. Within that space, he could build and bend and forge.
He had been no mathematician, and barely a scientist, but he was vaguely aware of the existence of other geometries, ones where if you stepped in, you could not step out. Black holes, obviously. But if he mimicked a black hole, he wanted to create a barrier that didn't also suck them all in with it.
But if not immense gravity, then perhaps just the folding of space. A unidirectional portal, so if you crossed the boundary, you merely ended up at the other one. Like being stuck on the surface of a globe.
That was one part.
But that would just cut it off from the Dungeon entirely, shunted into a pocket subspace where it could keep getting stronger.
Unless he made it so the surfaces allowed power to go in, but not to come out.
He couldn't think of the spatial geometry that would enable that, nothing as simple as layered portals or a singularity, but this was magic. He had faith it was possible. He visualized the end result and let his Skill work.
And then the Merchant of the Damned vanished, replaced with a perfect black sphere. When light went in, it didn't escape. This spell could have so many other applications if he could replicate the conditions under which it worked.
Down to 10% of your total capacity, Gemmy pinged in his mind. The cost of using his power had been substantial, even with the help of the others.
Though it exerted no gravity, it still looked like the event horizon of a black hole, and it would be as trapping as one. Over eons, light would get sucked in and the inside would become an incredibly bright reflecting zone, but he hoped it wouldn't come to that.
"Is it over?" Mary said.
"Not yet," Archmund said. "Can you all take out your Gems?"
They all took out their Gems.
From every single Gem, now that the beast was contained, he cast his Infrared Lance at the dark void.
As much power as he could muster, into that simplest of Skills, his Infrared Lance. Cast into his twisted space, it would travel until it could travel no more, burning through the Merchant of the Damned until the creature's flesh was enough to stop its path. All of the energy would be used for combat purposes. The inside of the space would heat to unbearable temperatures, cooking the Merchant in its place.
He went full blast, firing as much as he could. Until his ears were ringing and his head was spinning, and vision was double in his eyes.
Stopping you here, Gemmy chimed in his head. Any more expenditure, and you wouldn't be able to maintain your Bodily Barrier.
He was reduced to mortal.
But wow, Gemmy was turning out surprisingly useful. If he'd been left to his own devices, he probably would've pushed himself to his absolute limits.
He fell to his knees. Even if he hadn't completely drained all his power, he still felt far weaker than he had in a long time. It would take time for him to recover.
But he felt a hand on his back, four pairs of concerned eyes on him, hands pulling him up.
Mary hoisted him up. "You can lean on me, young master."
"Y'know, just a few hours ago, I was afraid we'd have to be dragging you out of here."
She smiled. Beatrice snorted. Gelias and Rory hid their chuckles.
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And even through his weakening senses, Archmund could feel his Influence slipping, could feel his grasp on the Dungeon's space fading.
"Fight's not over," Archmund said. "Watch the void."
But really it was. If it could survive that, none of them could possibly win.
The Merchant broke free, but it was haggard. It was falling apart. It had taken the last of its power to defeat Archmund's warped space.
"Congratulations," it said. "The job is yours."
Then it crumbled, dark suit and white skin falling apart like sand, leaving only its core. But its core was not a Gem of the traditional kind. A trophy, the kind one might get for some petty workplace golf tournament.
"To the victor go the spoils," Gelias said.
Archmund staggered forward and picked up the Gemstone Trophy.
Immediately, some of his strength returned. The Suppression on him released. He could stand up straight again. He realized he had access to that core power now, the power to Suppress others' abilities.
Or his own.
He had a choice, he realized.
It would be lonely at the top. He could create a perfect earthly empire for himself and live in luxury alone, but to do so would to have no peers, no equals, to be lonely save for nemeses and heroes sent against him.
Or he could Suppress himself and live like the normals, only allowing a bit of his brilliance to shine through when he needed to. For obvious reasons, that was out of the question — but he didn't rule out the possibility of tactically Suppressing his abilities for advanced techniques.
But, perhaps, there was another solution.
If he didn't want to rule alone, and if he didn't want to lower himself to the level of the mediocre crowd, then perhaps he could make more people like himself.
Raise the floor instead of lowering the ceiling. Make basic changes to quality of life so that everyone had the opportunity to chase discovery and enlightenment, so that the best might shine.
There was an old sentiment from Earth: a thousand people with the potential of a brilliant scientist like Albert Einstein died toiling in fields.
And, well.
He didn't have much faith in the current human capital of Granavale County.
Subsistence farming was an immensely inefficient use of human labor. Cottage industry was hardly better, as it didn't scale and was vulnerable to mechanization.
But he had the power to turn any Gem into a source of heat.
And, conveniently, he had a bunch of cylinders —mugs — that could control temperatures and therefore were implicitly resistant to thermal shocks.
But it would be his mechanization, his transformations, his developments that overturned the world. He had no desire to be crushed by the inexorable tides of society, so he would open the door to a better future.
But he had enough time to nurture upcoming generations.
This time, once they returned to the surface, relatively uneventfully, Archmund only needed to recuperate for three days. And this time he wasn't completely out of it. He drifted in and out of consciousness, usually waking in time for meals when Mary spooned porridge into his mouth.
Or so Gemmy told him.
You're still here? Archmund thought.
I am ever at your service.
Do you actually have a voice and a consciousness, or are you just how my mind interprets a magical connection between me and the underlying systems of the universe?
Probably the latter! As far as I can tell, I resemble a mix between Clippy from Microsoft Word and Navi from the Legend of Zelda!
He really wasn't sure how to feel about that.
You should feel annoyed! Both of these were viewed as highly annoying in your memories of Earth!
Is there a particular reason my mind interprets whatever you are as annoying? Why couldn't you be helpful and cool?
Gemmy didn't respond. Archmund supposed that was part of the whole "annoying" thing. He tried something else.
Where am I, and where is everyone else?
You are in your bedroom. They are still in their guest rooms.
And how do you-slash-I know that?
He pushed himself to a sitting position. His muscles were barely even sore. He was getting used to this, not necessarily the best outcome.
He pulled open his bedside drawer. He'd stowed his Gemstone Tablet in there, since he'd managed to keep his consciousness until he'd made it back home this time. He was really starting to get better at this, but he couldn't help but wonder that if he ever actually went to war, this habit of passing out after massive fights would come back to bite him.
For a moment, he felt unwell, oddly silent, oddly empty. But when he took a deep breath and looked within, he realized the empty spaces in his soul were no illusion or rank anxiety. The presence of Gelias, Beatrice, and Rory had left him now that they were no longer in battle, a void where their power had once merged with his.
He opened his Gemstone Tablet and scrolled over to Management Mode.
As the holder of the title [Granavale Heir], you have limited access to Management Mode within your demesne! Currently, Redmont, Blackstone, and Greenroot have accepted your hospitality, you have some track of their location!
And they were all in the guest bedrooms he'd assigned to them.
"Can I view their stats?"
No. There are other capabilities you can harness, however.
A little disappointing. But he supposed he understood. Oh, there were plenty of ways to infer the measure of a person on Earth. The Myers-Brigg personality test, which was pseudoscience made up by a nutritionist (or some other non-psychologist). The enneagram, which was similar. Astrology, the oldest of arts, which posited that people could be influenced by the hour and date of their birth — unlikely to be meaningful on Earth, but potentially significant here. But the gold standards by the time of his death were personality battery tests like the IPIP-Neo Five Factor model or the HEXACO, which built on IPIP-NEO but added a sixth factor.
Now there was a thought. He could develop and deploy a version of IPIP-NEO to determine the best people to staff his enterprises, which the top companies in his old world did. Or, perhaps more useful, he could develop a test that could assess people's Stats.
Assuming one didn't already exist. But if it did, he could make it better.
He swung himself out of bed, staggered over to this desk, and began rummaging for a quill and paper. There were letters to write, trade deals to ink, ideas to propagate.
It was time to build the future.