Magical Engineering [Progression Fantasy, LitRPG] (Book 3 Complete)

Orglina

"Okay, Red, let's start at the school, maybe she's there, and if she's not, we can still check if the other kids are okay. I hope they are," Orglina said as they passed back into the city.

"A good idea," the bear said in what sounded like an attempt at a whisper.

Orglina was glad they were lucky that the jesters were far too busy with Mel to have noticed how comically she had failed. As they moved through the city as quickly as they could, several jesters appeared from behind a smaller building, each of them with their own terrifying smile revealing a hint of sharp teeth. She knew the monsters would haunt her dreams for the rest of her life, but that was a problem for later. First, she needed to make sure she, her family, and her friends all lived to have those dreams.

As the moose started its charge, Orglina, holding on for dear life, the first of Mel's drones came hurtling from the sky into the smiling group. The explosion singed some of her hair, and she was sure both of the animals had experienced something similar. That didn't matter nearly as much to her as the small crater in front of her did. Much like their bodies, the monsters' smiles were a thing of the past.

No more jesters barred their path, and soon Red was slamming her body against a school door, attempting to get inside. "Get behind me!" a voice yelled from inside.

Orglina knew that voice. She liked the human it belonged to. "Grant, it's me, Orglina, and Red and the moose, we need to find Quarilyn!" she called through the door, hoping he believed her.

A head popped out of a nearby window for just long enough that Orglina recognized it as the same one that belonged to the voice. "Open the door!" he yelled moments later.

Inside the room stood Grant and several dozen children hiding behind makeshift barricades. They were all shaking in fear, but despite that, each one of them was armed. "Mel gave us orders to find Quarilyn. We need her to get the gates working again!" Orglina cried as she ran to the large military man, giving him a hug, incredibly glad to see someone else fighting back.

"Mel's here?" Grant said as he let out a giant sigh of relief. "Okay, that means we can actually win this. I assume the plan is to get Quarilyn so we can get Dave back then?"

"Yes!" Orglina replied, deeply glad to have found another friend.

"Do you know if Mel needs more help out there?" Grant followed up, looking down at Orglina as though he thought she was in charge. She had no idea how to process that. The idea of being in charge of something like this was almost as scary as the jesters, almost.

"I don't think so, he told me to focus on finding Quarilyn no matter what. I think the jesters can get into people's heads, too. Everyone started getting real weird when they showed up. So, probably best we focus on that," she answered, words pouring much too fast from her mouth.

Why had Glorp and she both managed to escape when so many others had fallen? She pushed back the tears that the thought of her brother caused. He would be okay, Mel said so. He was just healing safely in the forest now. She had the real work to do.

"I saw Quarilyn leaving one of the offices upstairs earlier!" one of the kids yelled.

"How long ago?" Grant asked, turning to them.

"Um, maybe fifteen minutes before you grabbed us, I think." His voice broke a bit as he responded. He sounded just as scared as Orglina had been.

"She has a lab below the school. There's an entrance from the basement stairwell. Here, take this," Grant said, tossing her something. "It's one of the few walkie-talkies that works. I don't know how well it will work in the sub levels, but keep it anyway. Press the red button to talk. Do not press it unless you are talking. Otherwise, you won't hear me. I'm going to stay here and hold the door. I'll do my best to let you know if the jesters get inside."

"Got it, come on, guys!" Orglina shouted with mild excitement. This was starting to seem like she might actually be able to do what Mel had told her to.

Quarilyn

Several loud knocks on her door broke her concentration. She had been trying to further reduce their mana load for their side of the gates. She had been working for months on an idea of utilizing the existing highway network, with the Traveler's blessings, of course, and their own existing gates as a way to kill two birds with one stone. It would create a network they fully owned, and give them highway access again. While she wasn't sure this would entirely solve the issue, especially as the highway breakdowns were concerned, it was a good step in the kind of research they should be doing.

"I'm coming!" she called, more tersely than she had intended, but she did hate being interrupted in the middle of math.

She took a brief moment to calm her annoyance, closed her notebook, and stood up. As it was likely just a student looking for some extra help, she didn't want to give them the wrong idea about any anger. Taking one last deep breath and feeling her usual smile come to her face, she opened the door. Her smile vanished in confusion.

"Quarilyn! We need you to get the gates back online!" Orglina yelled.

Quarilyn blinked several times, staring at the collection before her. How had the moose even gotten here? "I'm sorry, what? What's going on?"

"We need your help. Mel told us to find you while he fought the jesters!" the young Chlropian yelled, desperation in her voice.

There were jesters in the city? What had she missed? "Okay, slow down. I think I'm missing some very important details. How many jesters are in the city?"

"More than I count. They attacked in ships. Glorp saved me, but he was nearly killed. The animals saved us both. Mel showed up. He's fighting the jesters, said we have to get the gates back on!" She hadn't slowed down at all, but Quarilyn was reasonably sure she understood enough to know what was going on, and it was bad.

Actually, it was likely worse than she had considered. There were no city alarms going off. None of her fellow former librarians had come to find her. Mel was almost certainly out there fighting alone. If the gates were down, that meant Dave was stuck off-world.

"Dammit. This is bad." She rubbed her temple as she said this. She needed to think. She didn't have the information to make the gate work that Dave had used. Hell, if that gate was down, she wasn't even sure they could bring it back up.

"Wait, is Ivan still in the dungeon? Please say he is," she said, a few ideas suddenly popping into her brain.

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"Yes, that was where we were originally going to go!" Orglina replied, some calm returning to her voice.

"Okay, okay, we can do this then, maybe, very big maybe, but we can try. I wish we had more time to plan this, but if wishes were horses and all that. Is there anyone else still free in the city?" They needed to get to one of the offices in the hall.

"Grant is upstairs, he's guarding the door," Orglina answered.

"I am also very useful in a fight," the bear added, showing her teeth as she did.

"Okay, come on, we need to get to the hall, and likely that's going to require fighting our way there." These were the times Quarilyn almost wished she were as good at fighting as Elody or Yorela.

Mel

Mel was impressed with himself. He was fighting three 'greats' and he had barely tapped his mana pool. It was even possible if he went all out, he could take the three down, but that would just make things worse. Right now, the 'best' hadn't gotten involved, and as long as they were kept out of the fight, the safer things would be for those below.

He released another wave of drones, letting one of the jesters score a painful hit as he did. But the benefits far outweighed the pain. Killing the smaller ones was the real way they were going to win this. He didn't want to go one-on-one with the boss until he had a fresh-faced Dave and Timon backing him up.

Hopefully, whatever Dave had done to his soul would stop the jesters' tricks. Timon, he was sure, would be fine. That Mantis was damned impressive when he wanted to be.

Grant

"Not asking anything easy here, are you?" Grant said the moment Quarilyn had explained what she needed. He understood the reasoning and didn't have any counterargument, but he was going to make damn sure they prioritized the communication systems of this city once this was over.

"Do you think I want us to fight through the jesters?" The annoyance in her tone told Grant she had missed his sarcasm. He made a mental note to avoid it in the future with her.

"Sorry, bad joke. Okay. Orglina, you and the animals are staying here. I need you to take over guarding the school. Quarilyn and I will make for the hall. If anything happens to us, it's probably time to try and get everyone else out of the city," Grant explained gently. He had no idea if he should even have them wait around to find out.

The only reason he was leaning toward the idea was that he had already barricaded the school at least, and it wasn't like the Alaskan wilderness was that much safer for a group of kids, intelligent polar bear and moose or not. Too many, mana beasts were showing up these days.

"Are you sure that's wise?" Red asked. He liked the bear. He could appreciate the need to attack Rabyn, even if he had grown past his hatred for the Orc.

"Nope, but it's what we're doing. You are making sure these kids stay alive. I'm getting Quarilyn to the hall," he replied matter-of-factly. "We don't have time for a fight, so the moment this door closes behind me, get that stuff back in front of it."

The sight of Mel above them, matching each of the larger jesters, blow for blow, was something Grant hadn't expected to see. He assumed it would be some sort of desperate struggle, considering how things had gone so far. This explained so many of the rumors he had about the man. He could easily imagine the Cloudform as some amazing fighter within the Arena. The fact that Sanquar supposedly put him to shame in his prime was another thing altogether. Just what could that bird do?

"Down!" Grant roared as a jester appeared from around a corner, launching a magical attack before it spoke. He hoped that meant Mel had them scared. The bolt of blue electricity grazed his shoulder, burning slightly, but not enough to stop him from returning fire.

He shot one of the few rounds they had managed to produce so far in Alexandria from his cannon. It caught the jester square in the chest, detonating on impact. The creature's mouth opened for a split second before the explosion ripped it to shreds, whatever it had been trying to say lost along with its life.

They broke into a run, any hope of stealth gone after the brief fight. Mel's drones continued to rain from the sky, taking out jester after jester that appeared in their way. They managed to get to the hall without firing another shot, and Grant was glad for it. He knew how limited their ammunition supply was, and he had every intention of helping Mel the second he could safely do so.

Karlinovo

"Dammit! Whatever they did, they locked down the gate from their side. The only way we are getting it back open is if we build another one, and as brilliant as I am, that is not at all my specialty!" Karlinovo threw a screwdriver against the wall as his anger flared.

The fact that his quickly cobbled together dungeon mana interface he was using to connect to the soul chat, felt like someone was stabbing him with a fiery needle every second wasn't helping his mood at all. That he knew part of this was his fault made it all the worse. He should have had a strong communications network up by now, but the damn interplay of mana flow, dungeon energies, and this universe's own oddities was making it much harder than he would have expected. Once this crisis was over, he was done accepting those excuses from himself.

"Do we have any idea what could be happening back in the city?" Bert asked, putting a hand on Karlinovo's shoulder as he spoke.

Karlinovo liked the man. He liked both these men. They were pure scientists, and even if they didn't have the mana knowledge base he did, the things they could do without it were impressive. They were the ones who had solved the missing dungeon energy mystery, not him, so the attempt at calming him down was a welcome one. He wouldn't get anything done right if he were a ball of rage.

"Yes, sorry, my anger isn't helping anything. Someone had to have purposely done this. There is no way this is a mistake or an energy flow situation. If it were, we could turn it back on from our end using some of the dungeon's energies. While they might destroy the gate long-term, it would still allow us to turn it back on. And the fact that we can't do that means someone is blocking us over there," he replied, explaining the thoughts that had started him down the path of anger in the first place.

"Can anyone hear me? Is anyone there?" a soft voice asked. It had come from one of the only connections they had to the city. Karlinovo even knew that voice. It was the best person he could have hoped for.

"Quarilyn, what's going on with the gates? I cannot get the one up from this side?" he asked, trying to control his elation.

The idea that the city was in danger had gotten to him far worse than he cared to face at the moment. His second chance at life had given him a new perspective, and while wanting to explore that was part of his fear, a bigger part was how much he had grown to like these people. Dave had managed to collect a city of them who wanted to learn and change the Spiral. These were lofty goals worthy of his mind.

"The city is under siege by jesters. They've locked down all the gates. I'm going to do everything I can to bring the connection back up to you guys, but you are going to need to be ready to get the gate to Dave working the moment you step through. We have no idea how long Mel will be able to continue holding them off," she answered, causing his stomach to drop.

"How bad is it?" he asked, stuttering slightly and already dreading the answer.

"Not as bad as it could be, but nearly as bad as you are likely imagining. Mel's return is probably all that has saved us. But right now we need to focus. Grant is giving me a look that says we are on a ticking clock. So once I get this gate open, can you get the main up?" Her question followed up on an answer that gave Karlinovo some hope.

Mel's return did mean they stood a fighting chance if he could get Dave home. He had failed enough for one day. "Yes, I'll get them back," he said, determination in his voice. The city would stand, no matter what it took.

One of the most fascinating features of card magic is the way some of them construct decks to work from. As a note, not all card magic requires the use of a deck, but of those that do, there is a strategy for exactly what cards are placed within it. I've yet to see anyone able to handle an unlimited deck size, so this suggests much like the soul-core reaction, there is a limit to the integration of magics the body can withstand.

The man who explained his own card loadout to me would only do so under the promise of anonymity. Apparently, certain cards are much rarer than others, and due to what he had, he felt his life was in danger if people knew he held them. In his case, he used a deck of twenty cards within his heart. Once placed there, his mana channels would move their properties to the parts of his body where they most resonated.

Some of the cards boosted his running speed, others enhanced how fast he could heal. But the one he said was the most valuable in his whole collect was something called an expansion card. Apparently, most people could only hold a maximum of ten cards within their hearts, but using the card he had found as a child, he had been able to double the cards within his own deck, and that had been his great secret to all of his accomplishments. As I was about to leave, he leaned in and whispered one final secret card to me. It was something he had been afraid to try yet, and for now kept sealed in his vault. He called it a card empowerment card, making sure to emphasize both of the times he said the word card.

Magica Esoterica Volume 1: Deckbuilders by Averew