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

Dave

It could have been a lot worse. Those were the thoughts I used to try and comfort myself as I went over the losses in my head. Only five people were dead, all Reltleons. They had apparently been in the path of the 'best' as he was escaping with William. It was still far too many.

It had been hours since my family had left, almost all of which had been spent in a frantic clean-up and assessment of just how bad of shape we were in. Despite the friends I was surrounded by in the meeting room, I still felt alone again. The time I had spent with Alex and John had made me realize just what I had stupidly missed out on for so long.

But they would be back. They would rescue William and return safely. And while they were gone, I would sort out the mess from the home front and get all in order so that things would be safe when they got back.

Pushing away the distracting thoughts for the moment, I looked up at Glunderlin. The man who had suffered the biggest losses and had managed to report it much calmer than I had been taking the loss of my grandson. "We will find a spot to designate as a cemetery and give them full funerals," I said somberly.

"Thank you, but it's their families that will need the kind words. I instead need to ask a different favor," the Reltleon responded.

"Of course, anything," I replied honestly. His people had given us a lot, and I would gladly repay what I could.

"I need to attempt my own training. For my people's sake, I have to try to grow stronger. I don't even know where to start. Reltleons have mostly stayed out of this side of Spiral things since the loss of our planet. It wasn't something we had time for, and I'm starting to believe that was a mistake," he answered.

"I'm sure we can find a way to help with that. Obviously, there's a lot we need to work on now, but I promise we will figure that out, too." I nodded at him as I made my promise.

It wasn't the earth-shaking type of favor he could have asked for. But that didn't matter. I could hear the desperation in his voice. I'm sure it sounded similar to my own these last few hours. It was clearly a deeply personal thing the man felt he had to do, and I very much respected that. People needing you really changed your outlook in ways I would never have predicted.

The door to the room banged open as two smaller figures, followed by a large bear, barged in. One of them, Orglina, was yelling at the other, her brother, a very injured Glorp. "Glorp, I know you want to help, but the medic said you need time to heal!"

"Before anyone tries to join her in yelling at me. I know she's right. But I also just got her to give me the full breakdown of everything I missed once I lost consciousness, and it's important that I come here and apologize," he said, pulling a wounded arm away from his sister slowly.

"And what exactly do you think you have to apologize for?" I replied, having a pretty good idea of where this was going.

Much like the rest of us, he was also blaming himself for the outcome of the attack. As much as there were other things that needed to be addressed, it was important we got this talk out of the way. Glorp needed to understand none of this was his fault, because the longer he let himself ruminate on that thought, the worse it would get. I knew this from experience. It was the same reason I was trying to force myself to accept my own innocence in William's loss, as hard as it was.

"People are dead. William is gone. I should have been able to save them. The jesters didn't manage to get into my head, and I still couldn't save them!" The words turned to a deep shame as he spoke. He looked ready to both cry and hit something simultaneously.

"You did save your sister, though. And she gave Mel every bit of info she had, so he didn't fly blind into a mess. Had you not done that, everything would have been much worse. Without your actions, Mel would likely have been stuck fighting the 'best' alone. It wouldn't have fled, and how many more people would have been lost?" I got to my feet as I spoke and hugged Glorp.

"Dave's right. Look, I want to blame myself too, but all we can do is learn and move forward and do our best to make sure it never happens again," Glunderlin added.

"In the grand scheme of things, the losses here were remarkably low. I know that doesn't change the pain we are all feeling. And of course, the jesters have to be made to pay for attacking us, but the city is still standing. Sure, they bloodied us, but ultimately we won this fight, and we will get the prince back," Pryte said firmly.

"I promise I'll do better next time," Glorp said as he pulled away from the hug.

"We all will," I replied, giving a smile. "Red, close the door. The three of you can stay for the meeting, but remember everything we discuss stays in this room." I scanned the three of them as I said this for soul knots and found none.

Normally, I was sure Pryte or Timon would have given me a look for allowing Red and Orglina to stick around. Today I spotted none. Considering the meeting wasn't really need to know anyway, plus their actions during the attack, they deserved to learn about how we would rebuild what had been destroyed. I wasn't sure if it would help them feel safer, but it couldn't hurt.

"What are we doing about the four with the soul knots?" Grant asked, breaking the brief silence that had settled into the room after Glorp and Orglina found chairs.

"Not a lot we can do unless Dave has figured out how to remove soul knots," Karlinovo answered.

"I haven't. But the moment Elody recovers enough, that will be the top priority. I still need to check every person in the city for any new ones as well. Right now, as it stands, I can see the damn knots. I can even somewhat manipulate them. But that's it. I can't do anything about actually removing them or seeing what is tied into them," I said, frustration in my voice. I hated being this useless at something.

"We need to attempt to contact the chronicler who found us before. It's likely he has the answer." Karlinovo leaned forward and grabbed a small sandwich from the table as he spoke.

"Otis? He did say he'd teach us. Any idea how we send him a message?" I asked. It was a good idea, probably the best idea of how to handle this so far.

"No, but I'll think about it," Karlinovo answered.

"We also need to rework the gate system. I'm not sure exactly how the jesters locked us out yet, but I intend to make it impossible in the future. The damage that was done to some of the parts thanks to the flood of dungeon energy will need to be repaired as well," Quarilyn said. It was the first time she had spoken since we sat down.

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She wasn't normally a big talker in our meetings, but with Yorela on the rescue mission and Elody in recovery, more was going to fall to her. I hoped we weren't putting more on her plate than she could handle. Despite the time she had been here, and her presence in most of higher higher-level meetings, I still didn't know her very well. Of the former librarians, I knew her the least by far.

"What kind of time frame do you expect on that?" I asked.

"Fixing what we damaged, I should have done in a couple of days. The redesign, possibly a month if I can figure out the framework. How far had Earth come with work on encryption?" she asked in return.

"That would depend a lot on what you mean. I know there are a lot of modern computer cipher solutions. I'm pretty far out of date on the topic, though. Why?" If she needed an expert, that could be harder to acquire with the new GPA situation.

"I want to encrypt the gates in such a way that they can't just be locked down, or rerouted, without a number of us in agreement. The math to work this out will take some time, but with what I've seen here already on some of your advancements, it seems entirely likely that what I have in my head has already been designed. If we can track down an expert, it would make things much easier," she answered.

That had been what I was worried about. I didn't like the idea of trying to get anything from the GPA at the moment, especially when we didn't understand their final play with the competition. Wait, had they possibly known about the jester attack? Maybe it was time to push them for information.

"I'll see what we can do. It might just be time for a sit-down with the GPA anyway. I have some very pointed questions to ask them." The idea that they were involved with this rekindled a rage I had earlier managed to get a grip on. Could I keep myself in check during such a meeting? Did I need to?

"If that's the plan, I've got a lot of work to do. Breaking a jester isn't going to be easy," Timon added.

"I doubt the GPA fully knows what's going on. I would have to assume, as we already discussed, they are being manipulated by larger forces. What we should do, though, is inform them of the jester attack and judge how they react to it. That is, unless we just want to be done with them. You feeling ready to just take over the world, Dave?" Pryte said, looking toward me.

"I really feel like doing that is going to be easier said than done. Running this city alone is a nightmare, and I really don't want to be some kind of dictator. Hell, how would we even control the planet with the resources we have?" I asked.

I had considered wiping the GPA out several times now. The problem was that they were just a reaction to an extreme situation. The people of Earth had just gone through hell, and they had no idea how to fully come back from it. So, of course, new strange alliances would be formed. Old political affiliations were hard to hold to as the concept of a much wider universe settled in.

We had cycled through hundreds of scientists in Alexandria already. And while I knew both the GPA and the president before them had ordered them to keep what they learned here secret, expecting that to have remained true was a fool's errand. There was also the fact that giants had delivered food across the planet. While the people may still be ignorant of the full scope of magic, the System, and what was coming, they knew everything had changed.

This always led back to the question of how to assume full control of the planet in a way that the people were okay with. The question of whether I wanted to had always been answered from the start and was a firm no. But the further things progressed and the more problems we ran into, I'd since recognized the reality that it would one day happen. Assuming I lived long enough for that day to come.

Wait, dammit, that last thought had triggered something I hadn't considered. "Pryte, what is the line of succession for the Empire of Dave?" I suddenly thought I knew what the plan was for whoever was behind the GPA, and the likely promise that had been made.

"Alex, William, then it jumps over to John and any children he may have. From there, it becomes complicated. With no exact heir, it could be dissolved, or another group could take up the banner of the Empire and continue it. I see where you're going with this, though," Pryte answered, looking concerned.

"Well, I don't, so could someone please explain? Did you just figure out why the GPA wants me to compete?" Grant asked

"Maybe, big maybe. And keep in mind this would only be their motivation, not the actual reasons behind it. Someone has likely convinced them that they can take control of the empire if Dave and his successors are gone. It's possible whoever that is promised something that would potentially remove a few of them, and then hope for Dave to be killed later," Pryte answered.

"It's also possible they thought I'd vanish chasing after my grandson, which is almost what happened," I added.

"The only problem with that theory is how they knew any of this would happen long enough ago for putting the soul knots in place?" Glorp asked.

"They probably didn't. No, there's some other conspiracy going on with the damned jesters that we don't have a full grasp of yet. Pryte, you need to look into factions with core babies. Stick with the weaker ones. Actually, start with the other two squads that were on the fifth floor. Only Dave, Glorp, and Elody made it to that finish line, so that means the jesters have soul knots in more than just our people," Timon said.

"This has nothing to do with us specifically, does it?" I asked, realizing where Timon was going with his line of thinking.

"I don't think it does. If I'm right, the jesters have been acting as a low-level faction in the Arena for a while, getting their soul knots into whoever they can. That prophecy we heard, at least one of the lines would line up with them." Timon paused for a moment, his face scrunching up oddly before continuing. "Yeah, I can't make this all work with the information we have. Pryte, you need to find out about other missing core babies, then I'll see what kind of theory I can come up with."

There had been no humor in anything Timon had said. The mantis hadn't cracked a joke since the moment we returned, and that alone was enough to worry me. What exactly did he think was happening at the Spiral level?

"We're going to go around in circles if we keep tossing out ideas with no concrete proof. That said, I'll see what I can learn about missing core babies and other times the Arena has had issues on the fifth floor. In the meantime, though, we all have a ton of work to do." The slight annoyance in Pryte's words, as well as the words themselves, brought us back to what we really needed to discuss.

"Glorp, work with Trolke, but only as much as you are able to safely, on getting all the damage rebuilt. I want you to prioritize your recovery. Orgalina, make sure he does that. Glunderlin, tomorrow we start going through everyone for soul knots. Grant, I want you to assess our weakest points. I want ideas on how to better defend ourselves. Quarilyn, continue what you were working on," I said as I looked around the room.

No one questioned my orders, which meant it was time for a harder meeting. "Alright, Ivan, Timon, Pryte, and I need to go talk to the four with soul knots. Then I'm going to bed. If anyone needs anything else tonight that isn't an emergency, make Pryte do it," I said as I stood up.

"Yeah, if it's not an emergency, hold on to it until tomorrow," Pryte replied.

The falling out between Roger and Lewis was not something that anyone who knew them would have ever predicted. I doubt even more so that they could have ever foreseen the future that would burn across the stars of countless realities. It was only in my last few years that I have I discovered the sad truth of what really ended their friendship. I wish I had learned of it before Roger's death. I believe it would have helped ease one of his greatest burdens.

Long before they were the larger-than-life figures lost only to the most ancient of legends, they were just men. They were from one of the rare human planets found deep within chaotic space. This was nothing like the chaotic space people know today. The chaos that surrounded the first Spiral in its youth wasn't as much a place of deadly peril as this new strange space is today. It was a nursery where planets grew into their mana flows before joining the greater Spiral society.

Even I know little of the earliest years the two men worked together and the mysteries they dug deeply into. I do know that when their planet joined the first Spiral, they brought with them a new soul-core bond that helped fight against the soul hunters that had become nearly a plague on the residents of the first Spiral. Through their efforts, they were able to drive the creatures back to whatever strange realm they had come from.

What I have recently come to learn, though, is that in this final confrontation, Lewis's soul was infected by one of the beasts. The infection had to have lain dormant for decades to have avoided any detection, but eventually it grew. And with that growth, Lewis became a new person. If only we would have realized the nightmare that would follow.

The Network of Neighbors, a Beginning, and an Ending by Ernest Comb