NOVEL NEXT [Vol.5] Ch.1 Reconstruction
The reconstruction process has been going well, though we aren't rebuilding everything to be exactly the same as it used to be. We started the repairs by rebuilding our artificial tide pools, and moving on from that to other necessary functions. After almost a year, we've gotten a lot of things back to the way they used to be, but we've maintained all our new defensive structures, and even expanded them to some degree. Elora insists that they aren't necessary, and that we won't be invaded immediately come winter, but we don't want to risk it.
I wish I could say that I had the freedom to work on interesting projects, but I was stuck working multiple jobs all year. Ultimately, we lost nearly half of our total population to the war, and so I had to increase the frequency of classes to keep up with the summoning of new population. In addition to that, many of our more complicated structures required repairs, and due to our initially reduced work force, I found myself being responsible for repairing a lot of that.
We still had a large retinue of dwarven soldiers on the island, so we at least had some amount of menial labor available. We reinstalled our crystal after the elves left, so this winter I suspect the trip to the mainland will be safe again. Until then, we'll have to continue to support the dwarven army.
Since I had the go ahead to put Elora to work, I had her begin working as an archivist for us. Given her fluency in a number of languages, though she initially lacked the ability to speak in the demon language, we had her begin recording things in dwarvish. There were a lot of records that had been neglected over the years, and many of them were now lost to time because the individual who had remembered them died during the war.
As such, Elora's first, and ongoing task, was to begin taking records of all the various historical events, followed by governmental records, and then, if there was any time left, the slow translation of all my previous recorded works from English on stone tablets to paper records in dwarvish. I still kept my original records in stone, in case anything happened to the paper records, but having a copy of many of my notes in dwarvish seemed prudent.
I also had Elora take a day each month where she'd be at the academy, teaching the basics of written and spoken dwarvish to anyone who wanted to learn it. Ultimately, she's filling the role currently that I had previously hoped that the two goblins we sent with Shasta would fill. Though they'll still be useful for us when they return. After everything that happened, I'd rather not rely too heavily on Elora.
I also took the time to return everyone's money from the vault that we stored it in, though quite a few individuals were no longer around to claim their money or goods. Their goods, I decided, would be distributed among the veteran survivors of the war, but their money would simply be collected. Considering all the demons on the island can trace their 'ancestry' back to Zaka equally, I didn't see any reason to distribute the money in the same way. The only reason goods were distributed is that the other two options of reselling them or destroying them didn't seem as fair.
During the war, many individuals gained levels, and I was no exception. It wasn't long after the war's conclusion that I reached level cap again.
<MYTHIC LESSER EARTH DEMON>
Level: 100
HP: 3744/3744
MP: 1872/1872
Traits: Mana Affinity, Earth Manipulation, Improved Dexterity, Heat Resistance
Magic: Improved Stone Shaping, Tectonic Sense, Improved Earth Spike, Thermal Hands
I was torn on what to select when I got the option to either evolve or prestige. On one hand, we just had a war and evolution would have allowed me to be more prepared if we suddenly had another one. On the other hand, I felt like I wouldn't get the opportunity to see the next prestige level if I don't take it here, given the ever slowing rate I've been gaining levels at.
As for my options that were presented at the time...
Available Traits:
Improved Endurance: Increases the amount of strenuous activity you can do at one time.
Heightened Reflexes: Shortens reaction time and allows for incredibly fast, albeit reflexive, dodging ability.
Heightened Strength: Greatly increases muscle mass and by extension strength.
Partial Sleep: User remains semi-conscious while asleep, allowing the performance of basic tasks. User requires a few extra hours of overall sleep to compensate.
Infuse Mana: Spell. Allows the direct and controlled infusion of mana into a surface. Variable Cost.
Available Species:
Ogre
Lava Demon
After I saw my options, I realized my decision was even harder than I thought it would be. I had another available species, and a few new traits that I was interested in. Partial Sleep seems incredibly useful, as it would drastically increase my productivity from physical activities, while Infuse Mana would likely open up many new avenues of research into materials that I previously was using tectonic sense to utilize. Of course, the other trait options were nice as well, improving my overall physical abilities isn't to be scoffed at.
Given that I've had many times in the past where I've had to do large amounts of menial labor, and how often that labor is tied to advancing technologies, I felt that partial sleep was probably the way to go. Infuse Mana was hard to pass on, but it is an unknown as to whether it is actually more useful than tectonic sense, or if tectonic sense will work for all cases where infuse mana would be useful.
Ultimately, I decided on prestiging and taking Partial Sleep.
<APEX LESSER EARTH DEMON>
Level: 0
HP: 1369/1369
MP: 1079/1079
Traits: Mana Affinity, Earth Manipulation, Improved Dexterity, Heat Resistance, Partial Sleep
Magic: Improved Stone Shaping, Tectonic Sense, Improved Earth Spike, Thermal Hands, Pulverize
After I awoke from my prestige, I was surprised to see I had gained a new magic. I recalled that when I first became a lesser earth demon, I gained earth spike for free, so I was a little intrigued by what the new magic did.
Pulverize: Spell. Converts designated cubic volume of stone into fine sand instantaneously. Costs 100 mana per cubic foot.
I've manually performed this task many times in the past using stone shape, but that process is somewhat slow due to needing to mentally control the pulverization. This seems like a quick and easy variant. I'm a little intrigued as to why I got this for free at this point, but regardless, it will be quite useful. Unfortunately, it was somewhat redundant with the mechanical pulverizers that I made previously.
I did end up getting a lot of use from the partial sleep trait though, as I was able to do simple stone shaping work while partially asleep. It was quite the odd sensation, almost like lucid dreaming. I did find it slightly inconvenient that I ended up needing to be in that state for an extra three hours, meaning about half my day would be spent in the partially asleep state. Though that was easily made up for by the amount of extra work I got done.
Plus, if it came down to it, I could easily fully awaken from the state if I suddenly needed all my mental capacity, I'd just need to resume sleeping after whatever pressing matter required my attention. My new wakefulness took some getting used to for others in the city though, as I'd often initially get asked questions when I was trying to sleep which would require me fully waking up to actually answer properly.
I took some of my time in my partial sleep state to build a memorial to everyone who lost their lives defending Kembora. I made a large obelisk where names were eventually carved for all the individuals who died. I also relocated the old, smaller memorial that I made years ago to be located next to the obelisk.
Among those we lost, there were a few familiar names. Zata, the personable goblin that worked in city hall, Boggs, the fisherdwarf, and Karta Debroik, one of the dwarven commanders. When we were training the army, I was surprised that Boggs had wanted to participate, but he'd insisted that with his high level, even though he didn't have any combat skills, he'd be useful. According to some of the goblins, he decided to participate due to our complete mobilization. It didn't sit right with him that when even our goblins who were craftsman were being drafted and trained up, he'd just sit idly by only helping them gain levels through deep sea fishing.
This was a notion that most of the other dwarves didn't share. Most of them have families though, so I understand their reluctance to fight. Boggs was always an enigmatic individual, so I suppose I shouldn't have been that surprised that he participated in the fighting. I've decided that we'll name the fishing jetty in his honor once it is completed.