2020-11-27 17:00:31It's been over a day since that very productive town hall meeting had come to pass. We all had a lot of fun coming up with stuff to improve after everything had been over and done with, and even now, I could see the beginnings of the various sectors of our small town developing into their own subsections on our isolated civilization. A few wooden planks were being erected at the outskirts of the settlement, and a ways away from that, what seemed to be the start of a watchtower was also starting to take shape. It might still all be wooden, but as soon as we got the resources, it'll all be turned into the sturdier and more reliable stone in which we'd also carve in some runes to make it more impenetrable.
Which was why I now found myself at the same clearing as last time, in front of my makeshift chalkboard brainstorming with Lace as to how we'd get our materials."Why me again, Leader?" the older woman asked, still skeptical as to why I chose her to help with th
Previous Chapter
Related Chapters
The Least Common Denominator XVI.II Geophysics
In hindsight, I should have seen this coming a mile away."S-So," my teeth clattered sarcastically, partly self-deprecating and mostly trying to keep our spirits up. "What did we learn?"Beside me, Lace shivered with reckless abandon, having foregone the strangely prim and proper demeanor of yore in favor of the usual behavior that I saw in her during the first time that we properly interacted, "D-don't... und-derestimate... n-nature?"The sheer cold of the stale air caught us by surprise the deeper we went into our expedition. It was probably night by now; my own sense of time muddled by the perpetual darkness surrounding me and my clearly panicked partner as we huddled on some corner of the cave system we stumbled upon. We were only supposed to be in here until just before sunset. But since hubris was hubris, and with my own tendencies to see thi
The Least Common Denominator XVI.III Geophysics
It was probably a few hours later when my... uhmmm... partner... finally woke up from her deep slumber. The fire keeping us warm had been reduced to a small flame even before I got pleasured earlier, but the warmth of daytime clearly permeated through the rock above and provided us some semblance of comfortable warmth deep inside the damp cave."Ughh...""Rise and shine, sleepyhead," I blatantly remarked, my patience kind of wearing thin due to the lack of stretching that was caused by the older woman's hold. "C'mon, Lace. It's probably close to noon at this point."Gently rising from my awkward position, I lifted Lace's head from my chest as I sat up straight towards the small flame. The older woman was grumbling on my lap, but I wasn't going to let her off that easy. We still had to get back to the settlement."C'mon.
The Least Common Denominator XVI.IV Geophysics: Olivia
"Where were they?"It had been over a day since Big Sister and that one other woman left for what was supposed to be a quick geological survey of their new mine. Olivia knew that her sister had other plans for the mine; the teachings in her mind telling her to exploit any and all manner of resources necessary in the most efficient way possible. She would have gone with the expedition, but Olivia trusted her sister to know what she was doing and had begrudgingly allowed herself to sit out on it in favor of doing more work for her ongoing project.Only now did she regret her foolish decision."I'm sure they're fine, little Olivia," Gramps assured, the older man sitting in front of a desk as she paced with anxious worry. "They're strong. They'll find their way eventually."The assurance did nothing to soothe the brunette's
The Least Common Denominator XVI.V Geophysics: Olivia
"If I was Sister, where would I put it..."The first few marks had been located etched into the wall; the 'x's evenly spaced approximately a few paces away from each other. Barring the other marks that denoted ores and other stuff that she didn't really know about, the next mark should be somewhere in the center of the cavern. Sister was particularly obsessive with uniformity sometimes, and if the pattern held, then it was a step towards following the trail that would lead her to the missing pair.With a raised eyebrow, Olivia paced back towards where she stuck her first torch, her eyes peeled just beyond her feet for the supposed mark that she so desperately needed. If she could just find it, then it would strengthen her idea that the marks were indeed spaced evenly, and from there, she could extrapolate the distance of the next mark and narrow down the possible answers from
The Least Common Denominator XVII.I Cartesian Plane
I supposed that I was getting some sense of deja vu, but the sight before me right now was the last thing that I ever expected to come across.“Leader?”Atop the hill that we found ourselves in, I stood aghast as the remnants of my old home stood out amidst the sea of grey rock that was the hillside that I used to live at.“I never thought I’d see this place again…”It was surreal. I didn’t even register the fact that Lace was trying to grab my attention as my eyes were glued solely on the remnants of my old home. Gone was the homely and comforting atmosphere that I felt whenever I saw the old stead, instead, only a strange sense of despair and nostalgia flooded my chest as I seemed to be unable to tear my eyes away from the ruins.“Sister?&rd
The Least Common Denominator XVII.II Cartesian Plane
“It’s okay, Leader,” Lace soothed with a voice that was far too effective for me to ignore, her hand gripping my shoulder with the warmth of encouragement. “We’re here to help.”“Yeah, Sis,” my sister added, giving me even more guilt about what I was about to do as she held my hand. “I’ll always be by your side, remember?”I felt the warmth of their words permeate through my being as I stood in silence. It was comforting, but I knew that I wouldn’t last. There was a reason I wanted this to be something of a private affair.And I won’t be budging anytime soon“T-Thanks…” I managed to sputter out before shrugging off the two’s gestures of comfort. “I-I’ll call for you both when I’m ready.”<
The Least Common Denominator XVII.III Cartesian Plane
My knees buckled as I found myself kneeling in front of what I now knew to be my parents' graves. Undeserved relief flooded throughout my body as I realized that I didn't have to face my parents' corpses anymore. But the short-lived relief was quickly surpassed by the growing confusion that was building up in my head. I couldn't even fathom how this had been erected, and when. And the most important question was still left unanswered:Who did this, and why?There was just no way that the nearest town could have even managed to see what had happened. While our family frequented the markets as both our source of food and income, we hadn't really made enough of a connection to the point that someone other than ourselves even knew where our house was located. As far as I was concerned, there were only three people that knew this place even existed."Wh
The Least Common Denominator XVII.IV Cartesian Plane
Having made my peace, I wiped off what few sniffles I had on my nose before calling out to my two companions. If they ever noticed just how much of a wreck I looked like, they didn't comment about it beyond their eyes widening a bit. I was grateful, perhaps; that they stuck around long enough for me to do my thing with my parents. I probably looked like shit while doing so, but I could finally focus enough that I got my thinking face back.Which meant that it's time to think about who the fuck had the time, knowledge, and resources to erect this ornate a gravestone in the first place."So, any idea on who did this?"I crossed my arms in front of my chest as Lace eyed the errant gravestone. Olivia was also doing her own once-over, but she only held a frown as she ran her hands across the engravings. At first glance, my sister seemed to recognize the
Latest Chapter
CV.V Cotangent
I don't even know what's happening anymore..."Huh... That looks far too complex even for you, Crimson," Phillipe snarked at my work. Technically Anne's as well, to be honest. "A square rune with that many parts? I don't think that'll work out in the long run.""You and me both," I rolled my eyes with the sarcasm of an overflowing dam. "Seriously, why are you here?""You're being annoying."I raised an eyebrow at the blunt delivery of his oh-so-important announcement. Giving him the best sarcastic inquisitive eyes I could muster, I let out a scoff as I began whatever this talk was going to end up as.'Right behind you there.'You always are, Ica. "And?"Phillipe smirked at me as if he knew exactly what I was thinking, "You're wasting
CV.IV Cotangent
"Let's go crazy..."With a borderline manic whisper, I let my imagination cut loose as my hand moved on its own. Traps within traps, earthen sigils meant to sprout at a moment's notice, the world was my oyster as the goodies slowly accumulated with each stroke of my charcoal.'Don't get too carried away, Master.'I know. I'm not dumb enough to overload the thing before it even came to fruition.And that was the biggest risk to such a massive array as well. With so many moving parts, any wrong line or overlapping rune will pretty much make the whole thing explode. I couldn't stress it enough, even to myself. Do not make this thing more complicated than it already is.'And yet here you are having fun with it.'Don't test me, Ica. Or maybe I'll just assert me being
CV.III Cotangent
Fiiiineee... You win, my precious Ica.The stuttering that ensued at the back of my head was like a soothing tune as I looked over my work. The communication arrays were gonna stay, as would the Essence storage runes at strategic parts of the palace grounds. Hmmm.... Wouldn't the communication arrays be two-way anyway? So why even bother with surveillance runes like last time?My hand moved to remove the minor additions I added on the dirt parts of the grounds, leaving me with more space to work with in terms of... well... anything, really. What kind of runes would even work on shaky ground? Dirt couldn't hold anything beyond the basic types of runic arrays. Anything more complex than a three-layered circuit would blow up instantly from the strain. I could maybe run- wait... why not just do that?The charcoal streaked across the outskirts of the pa
CV.II Cotangent
*ruummbbllee...*The sound of a sputtering engine echoed from behind me as I drew up yet another set of circles on the board. While I kind of put the general purpose of the massive multi-circuit array at the back of my head, I really should try and solidify that stuff properly before making the main control array, shouldn't I...'Good thing you remembered that, Master.'I grumbled through the dull pain I was feeling at my knees as I focused myself back on the doodle that was supposed to be a defense system for the palace grounds. It was far too small of a circle, now that I thought about it. The size of the drawing did little to help me ascertain the types of circuits that I drew on it in the first place. Squinting even further, it felt as if I was reading my own handwriting from how jumbled and nonsensical it all looked with hindsight.
CV.I Cotangent
Plans upon plans upon plans. I feel like I'm repeating myself whenever I say that I'm obsessed about things going right, and if not, to have plans to be able to properly react to the failure. Fool-proofing something small was easy. Doing it again for something on the scale of a war, however, was a completely different beast. The number of variables at play, hundreds to even thousands of moving parts to look over and take into account. The time, the weather, morale, even individuals that might have other ideas and could stray from the plans put into place... It was so much to think about that hours or even days of pouring over the relevant information wouldn't be enough to take everything into account into one's plans. And even if you think you somehow managed to achieve this impossibility, there will always be something so monumentally out of left field that could just absolutely destroy any and all plans along with its sub plans and
Interlude XXXIX: Grigori
GRIGORI⬛⬛⬛*RRRRRUUUMMBBLLEEEE!!!! RRRRUUMMBBLEEEE!!!*"What's wrong, Lord Stone?! Finally getting tired in your old age?!"Grigori grumbled in annoyance as he found himself standing his ground in his self-made fortress. Truth be told, the former Prime expected his fight to be over over ten minutes ago. However, he severely underestimated his enemies' hidden tenacity and downright stubbornness."I'm just getting started, kid!" he boisterously replied. "I'm far from being done!"Still, even as he said those words, Grigori was beginning to feel more tired than he initially expected. His reserves were starting to run dry from the constant back and forth that the combined forces of Lords Breeze and Inferno were throwing at him. And that's not to mention the current
CIV.IV Transistor
OLIVIA⬛⬛⬛"So Lord Iron truly took care of the problem?"Olivia held her breath as she found herself taking in the state that the young Num was just found in. Broken, battered, and bleeding all over, Tesla had clearly taken a beating of a lifetime as her head lolled in her unconscious state, her face marred with cuts and bruises as her white hair was stained brown with dried blood."Damn... I guess the ranking in the Prime Thirteen's not a joke, huh...""Lord Iron's the Sixth, after all. Lady Static's the Thirteenth...""Fuck..." Olivia swore under her breath, her teeth gnashing as she watched the Imperials gawk at her fallen friend. "How the hell do I get her out of there safely..."The warrior Den tuned everything out as she focused on the unenviabl
CIV.III Transistor
OLIVIA⬛⬛⬛*c..crackle....*The faint sound of electricity seemed to crackle from the distance as Olivia stood in the middle of her self-made carnage. The lack of common sense that she was witnessing honestly made her feel more irritated than amused as she slowly walked towards the panicking commander. Olivia had places to be, and possibly someone to save depending on whether or not Tesla could somehow relay to her that she was okay."No matter," she sighed. "You idiots wouldn't understand, I guess.""No!-"*SLASH!*With a quick step, the commander didn't even stand a chance. His sword fell with an unceremonious clang onto the ground as his head rolled off his neck like a piece of meat. Olivia didn't flinch as the idiot's terrified fa
CIV.II Transistor
OLIVIA⬛⬛⬛*CRACKLE! CRACKLE! KRAKATHOOM!*Olivia ran through the streets of Mathema like a woman possessed. Wreaking havoc across every Imperial contingent she came across, lightning followed her path as she relied on Tesla's ever-encompassing presence to deal massive damage on the enemy while despite being outnumbered by at least a hundred to one. She knew that Her Sister would no doubt disapprove of her current tactics, but if it worked, then why bother changing it?"If it ain't broke, don't fix it, right?"*KRAKATHOOM!*"AAHHH!!!!""IT BURNS!"With a smile on her face and blood on her blade, Olivia uttered her Sister's own words out loud as a reminder. Lightning crackled behind her, screams of her fallen enemies saturat
