Chaotic Craftsman Worships The Cube

Like seemingly everywhere else in the world that had an invasion point within sight, the city had been largely deserted after the coming of the second wave. There were subtle signs of damage all around to match those empty streets too, with the occasional collapsed building or sign of violent magic marking the fact that demons had made it within to cause some havoc before being eliminated.

Of the few others around, it seemed like it was largely handfuls of returning civilians who couldn’t bear to leave their homes and businesses, government officials who were doing their best to keep things running, and both members of various military organizations along with adventurers to attempt to protect the people who remained and who used the city as a handy base of operations for looking after everything going on outside of its grounds, with those groups looking like they were either going out or coming back from combat, plenty of the later having some superficial injuries to take up the time of whatever healers the place still had.

The state of it all didn’t particularly lend itself to basic tourism either. Sure, they found some open restaurants around if they wanted to stop to feed themselves but the things they’d normally try to do, be it seeing shows or visiting local museums or art galleries, were completely unavailable.

But then, maybe that’s not exactly a bad thing. It’s not like things went particularly well at the last gallery we saw and even if the mood isn’t great, at least it seems peaceful.

So what if the streets were empty? It wasn’t like they were completely void of options and the two chatted the best they could despite it all while following their noses down to the cost to enjoy what was available, taking advantage of the bright sky and cool breeze to relax for just a bit to try and forget what troubles they had, even if it wasn’t enough to get Ben to stop working.

He was still materializing all of the souls he could and he was still connecting to the few people they passed, both looking for new skills to add to his rings as well as to just train connect in general as he browsed through their minds and memories, not caring about whatever potential right to privacy they may have had in the face of his goal or raising his levels.

It was basically background noise to him at that point, something certain minds were regulated to do constantly for what bit of experience it gave him while they went, off to look for something to eat once they felt done at the beach.

They’d passed enough restaurants on the way there that seemed open that they weren’t worried about finding anything and it seemed like Thera at least had her eyes on a few, cementing their dinner plans for the time being. Or at least it should have until they were stopped in place.

“Hey there.”

Words that made Ben freeze as he whipped his head to see who said them.

They’d come out confidently from a man he judged as only a little older than himself, looking like a satyr in race, with large, goat-like horns sticking out of his head along with cloven hooves in place of feet. Someone he was confident he’d never seen before who surely had no reason to interact with them, but that wasn’t what made him stop. Despite being only a couple meters away, well within his range, Ben couldn’t read his mind.

He couldn’t sense him at all really, with no aspect of connect working on the stranger. Not just missing the mind aspects, Ben couldn’t link up with his soul either, keeping him from seeing and feeling the mysterious other’s skills in a way that instantly put him on edge.

It wasn’t like that should have been immediately suspicious to him, plenty of people had unusual skills, there was no reason not to think that something out there might have been able to interfere with his own, but it was the first time since he’d gained the ability that he’d been well and truly blocked off since he’d been given the skill and all the more so since he’d awakened it. Maybe the vast majority of people on the planet lived fine without such a thing but to have it stopped so thoroughly felt like he’d been cut off from one of his senses.

Worse was the fact that it was clear he wasn’t the one being talked to, with the mystery man’s eyes glued instead to Thera, his hand already offered out as Ben slipped in to take it.

“Hey there, can we help you?” He said as he gave it a shake, feeling Thera pick up his own edge as she prepared for some sort of confrontation, with the man before him looking more annoyed than anything else.

“Sorry kid, I’m not here for you, why not go somewhere else so me and the lovely princess can talk?”

He knows who Thera is then so he came to her with some intent, okay, then-

He wasn’t able to think another word. With the speeds Ben’s minds were operating on he was already going through it the instant the guy had ended his sentence but it seemed that man had acted to do something at that same time, as all at once, Ben was elsewhere, left plummeting through the sky while watching the city far below.

He was already thinking at his maximum speed so it felt more like he was hanging there than anything else, even if he’d instantly been thrown into danger for reasons he couldn’t have guessed at, made worse by the knowledge of how casually it had been done tied to the fact that the one who’d put him in that position was now alone with Thera for purposes he couldn’t guess at.

He could feel bind pointing him towards her too, letting him know that the mysterious space mage had largely just shot him upwards, with only a bit of an angle to keep him from going splat at their feet, but it was tied to a larger problem too when it came to surviving the fall. Ben didn’t have much mana left.

He’d been constantly materializing souls to chip away at his job, keeping only about fifty points of the stuff to avoid the effects of mana exhaustion but now that he was hundreds of meters above the ground that didn’t leave him much room to deal with the coming fall as he questioned if his defense enhancement would give him any chance of keeping from breaking his neck and feeling like the answer was largely going to be a no.

Yeah, defense enhancement would be a lot better if my base biological defense wasn’t so bad. Okay, what options does that leave me so I can survive and deal with this asshole then?

Relying on his defensive skills seemed like a quick way to get a broken neck and he wasn’t going to be regenerating some vast amount of mana to help ease his fall in the seconds it would take him to hit the ground, all of which cut his options significantly as he looked over his status for anything, with only one option coming to mind.

As he fell through the sky he did his best to spread himself out for what wind resistance he could while he forced himself to actualize at the same time, trying to create an upwards force against himself to slow him down before finding to his horror that he couldn’t.

At first, he thought it was another skill that just wasn’t working before coming to a different conclusion. When he was in his god’s realm, he could freely use the skill to move things the same way he could create them, but the mortal realm was different. He’d already shown that he could make things but he hadn’t actually tested if he could create some bare force, assuming he’d be able to despite already seeing differences in the way the skill presented itself between those two separate layers of reality.

So giving a prayer that he was right, Ben tried again, actualizing a board beneath him and moving that with his power instead, using the skill to lift it upward against his own weight and feeling another untested aspect of it stab into his mind with his thoughts exploding in agony.

He already knew that in the mortal realm, he needed to maintain the things he actualized and that doing so created a strain on him but another thing he hadn’t looked into was how the skill would stand up against whatever bits of force it faced, feeling the difference in the activity with his soul as his physical weight went up against the strength of his mind, with the latter feeling lacking despite the nearly twenty thousand points it sat at.

Still, it was working, slowing his descent to the point that he was comfortable thinking his injuries would hopefully be on the lighter side as he directed himself back to where he could feel Thera, using that as a focus to escape the pain he was putting himself through and letting him see her own reaction to his sudden disappearance as something else shot off from where he was sure she’d been, the mystery man feeling the brute of her wrath at a speed even a powerful space mage couldn’t react to as he was shot off into the sky while she flew in the opposite direction, following the feeling of Ben to reach him as quickly as she could and grabbing him safely in her arms.

“My hero,” He sighed, more than content to let her carry him down the rest of the way as he released the effects of actualization and tried to deal with the intense strain he’d put himself through, making a mental note to experiment with the skill more to try to avoid making such discoveries in a life and death situation in the future again.

With the pain he was in not only apparent to him, Thera rushed to look him over, even as she carried them both down.

“What happened? Did he do something else to you?”

“Nah, just dealing with my attempt to avoid going splat, I’ll explain later. More importantly, are you okay?”

“Aside from the fact that I may have just killed someone, yeah.”

“I’m pretty comfortable calling that self-defense but hey, looks like staying in an embassy is finally convenient beyond just giving us a room. Or we could run away and not look back if you’d prefer?”

“Let’s do the embassy and talk to uncle first. Worst to worst I’m pretty sure my mom can help deal with this if it becomes a problem and if anyone does try to toss me in jail for it, well… I’d rather not do this but telling my dad and aunts would probably sort things out really easily.”

“Have I ever mentioned how much I love knowing powerful people? Big fan of having your entire family to threaten others with. Not worrying about that though, did you find out what this guy even wanted before you sent him blasting off?”

“Ugh.”

Her face pulled into a frown the moment she remembered the few words he’d got out before she’d attacked, barely able to process it in the moment compared to the realization that he’d just attacked Ben but now there to be reflected on for all it was worth.

“Thera?”

“He asked me out to dinner.”