Harper

"I'm going to get moving then," Ben said before vanishing before her eyes.

"That's a cool trick, you know that?" Harper spoke to the air.

Ben was right. They had to keep moving. With everyone else working their hardest she had to as well.

Making her way back to the Hub, she checked her Building skill progress. Every night that Hint spent building caused Harper's skill to grow. Albeit quite a bit slower than doing it herself, the gains were solid.

[Building 26]

That will take a while to get to another perk point. Harper thought.

One thing she'd noticed was that, with a few exceptions, the perk system started with three tier-one options. Each one purchased would unlock a perk on the tier one above it. It was still early to tell, but it also seemed as though higher-tier options were more powerful.

With this in mind, Harper tried climbing one leg of the perk tree. Each had a clear theme on building quantity. Her magic would do more for each point or let her copy a complex shape already created and only pay the cost for a simple form.

After selecting the tier five perk, she could view the tier six perk. Out of reach for now the promise of its potential drove her forward.

[Mass Fortify - Gain the ability to fortify a wider variety of targets. Can create Network Fortifications.]

A "wider variety of targets" seemed to include almost everything Harper knew to think of. People, armor, weapons, the land itself. Fortifying other magic appeared to be the only limit she'd found.

Networking Fortifications would interconnect all of the like things. For example, Harper could network structures with other structures but not with weapons.

The benefit of being networked depended on the target. Structures could reinforce each other so none would break until the entire energy pool was consumed. If Mass Fortify were used on the armor of an army, each soldier would gain a defense boost and share the force of attacks. That may not sound like much, but the strength of a punch being redirected to a dozen people would mean there was no damage at all.

Harper could already see the unstoppable legion of fighters pushing back monsters and expanding the Territory. Gathering more land to build towards quest completion.

Another time, for now, she'd tackle Grand Array skill.

Getting back to her room, Harper sat at the plain stone table that made up her primary workstation.

In Leternum, she would have to use energy to build a Grand Array. The wording of the quest made it seem as though the Earth Array required Alpha energy but that not all Grand Arrays would. So Harper would try using her Fortification magic to create one.

For safety's sake, she identified an array in her blueprint that seemed to reduce the energy in the layer below it.

Three parts to the array. Its input was a simple ring on the outside of the array, with two sides. The ring's exterior was a wall to keep things out, and the inside was a passive absorber. This seemed safe as it would only 'target' something placed inside it.

The array's conversion ring was a collection of curves that would diverge, curl back pointing backwards and converge with the main branch. Picturing water flowing through it, Harper could see how it would push back on itself. It was like a collection of spiraling tesla valves. There was an organic feel to it. Like a squid or an octopus curling its tentacles in on itself.

Its output was a tiny ring at its center where every branch terminated.

Redirecting her intelectus to copy the 'simple' shapes, Harper began to feed it her Fortification magic slowly. It was strange that her intelectus couldn't interact with each other. Regardless, that limit meant she had to direct the power herself.

Harper's Fortification magic arced out in blue sparks that laid into shape and interlocked with itself. Seeing the progress from just a few dozen points, she tried to calculate how much it would take for the whole thing. It was a greedy array. She estimated it would need to absorb hundreds of points at least but less than a thousand overall.

Which would be fine, except she had to hold the intelectus the whole time to keep it in shape until the array was fully formed. Exerting willpower was work. It ground away at who she was and drained away something vital from her experiences. Mathew described a cold grip on his heart, but that wasn't what it was like for her. Harper's willpower exertion let her panic take hold or at least claw its way into relevancy. As time crawled forward and her Fortification points funneled into the construct, the panic worsened.

Since leveling up her willpower and having Hint drain her magic, Harper hadn't had to deal with this part of her past. A portion of her thought she was cured. Holding her magic in place while more blocks of power interlocked disillusioned her.

A tear slid down her cheek. Why?

This was still better than she was on Earth, but why give her the hope of being fixed only to have it pulled away?

She would level more. Her advancement had already accelerated since Mathew took over the Territory. As her willpower ballooned, weakening enough that the trauma showed through would be rarer and rarer... but would it ever go away?

Better. Harper thought to herself. That was the goal. Perfect was the utopian wish, but better was the target for people who lived in the real world. This situation was still better than before and would get better every day. Making 'better' the goal returned a trickle of satisfaction to her psyche, only to have that ground away as fuel for her mental effort.

Distracting herself with the reagents she had on hand didn't last long. Preparing for the glass beasts and the Night Stalker drained most of the gathered supplies and didn't allow much time to refill the shelves. It only took her an hour to process the remnants of their war effort.

Raising her hazel eyes from the last reduction, she traced a rainbow vapor as it dispersed. One of her skills, Alchemy or Apothecary, gave her an intuition about it being a reagent itself should she find a way to collect it. Then she was again without distractions.

Breathing in and out carried her for another ten minutes or so. She never really was the meditating sort. Growling, she tried something more demanding.

Pushing more power into her Grand Array intelectus, she drew up the blueprint Earth provided. It cost her more, but if she poured enough of herself into studying, then maybe she wouldn't have room for her panic to matter.

[New skill awarded: Grand Array 2. Grand Array 2 overrides Grand Array 1]

The notification pulled her out from the depth of lines and their overlapping meaning. A memory tried to invade that moment.

Anger sparked, and Harper lashed out at her panic. For the first time in her memory, it worked. Willing her mind against the encroaching terror drained the color from the world and made the flame of anger dim.

Still, the fire of frustration at her weakness raged away. Panic burnt away in the violent lancing of a festering wound. Years of anger directed inwards found an outlet and burnt a hollowed-out space in her mind.

Numbing apathy remained. It was comfortable.

She was still sitting there at her stone desk. Harper hadn't gone anywhere, so the journey within her mind felt fake. Muted worry kept her from embracing this change as a real victory. Only time would tell.

The drifting of Harper's uncaring mind was interrupted by Ben knocking at the door.

"Come in," Harper said.

"Hey, I found some time to gather up some more ingredients," Ben swallowed. "So um, here you go."

"Thank you," Harper sounded automatic and robotic even to her ears. A stirring of motivation reached her mind. People don't deserve to live with empty shells.

Harper smiled. "I really appreciate it. I've been losing my mind over here working on a tiny Grand Array. This will do wonders for me. Anything I can get you?"

Ben's mouth stuck open without saying anything for a pregnant pause. "Nothing for me to ask for." He finally got out with an anemic smile.

"Okay," Harper said.

Launching more of her mind into the work of processing reagents was just what the doctor ordered. It was better this time. There was almost a sense of recovery in the distraction. Harper started by asking where the reagents came from and what they did in nature.

Something she'd put together over the last several days is that the effects Harper drew out of most reagents had something to do with what they naturally did. Interpreting if a land barnacle carried resilience, bonding, or parasitism specifically was a process of experimentation, but the background did so much to inform her where to look.

Looking back on her older work before she started asking questions about the ingredient's source, it was easy to see where she either missed the property being drawn out or accidentally destroyed her own progress.

Knowing how they fit into their environment also informed her better which mixtures would work together.

So she asked questions and took notes. All too soon, Ben had said everything he knew and excused himself.

Sending herself into the work of extracting, grinding, mixing, and boiling down kept her busy.

[Mending Resin

Penetrates as a liquid, dries as a glue, and over time takes on the properties of the surrounding material up to 77% of single material composition]

Harper closed the jar's lid and sealed it with a bead of waxy substance. Having finished a major step, Harper refocused on her Grand Array, sending the recovered Fortification points into it.

As they settled into place, a finishing process occurred. All the linkages between the Fortification points fused together and the dead shape came to life.

Scan

[Inferior refining Grand Array

Made from inferior energy, this array has low efficiency and an upper limit. Targets energy sources within the array and refines them to upgrade their tier. Natural losses in this process are increased drastically from the inferior grade of construction]

Harper laughed. Inferior, was it?

Not bad for a first try. That is what it was. Digging into the notification, she found it worked without additional energy for upkeep.

It was still early to tell how powerful Grand Arrays would be and if they would break down over time, but if they were genuinely permanent, then this was another system of power that would just grow over time.

Looking back at the whole process a better approach would have been to let her Fortification build up as much as she could stand before starting the process. She'd have to do that going forward. Hell, she could have done that from the start at the delay of losing a few dozen points.

Not the first time she'd suffered from being stubborn. Just like those times before, Harper leaned on the reward of a learning experience she wouldn't have had otherwise. If she changed being stubborn now, how would she grow and change later?

It only made twisted sense, but that was how brains worked sometimes.

Prismatic lines of light flowed across her face and drew Harper's thoughts back to the small Grand Array.

Time to test it. She tapped a finger to her chin, then placed the jar of Mending Resin into the center of the circle. After helicoptering over the experiment, she determined answers would take time.

Harper had no doubt that she'd done her fair share of work for the day, and she didn't care what time of day it was. Moving forward or not balance was important. The balance she found her first morning in this new world was something she wanted to find again.

Grabbing a snack of dried meat, she left the Hub. Hand lingering on the boar leather door, Harper stopped. Thank you again. She thought.

Stepping out to the slanted grey stone, Harper took a breath of the chilly air that slapped her hair into her own face. The refreshing cold filled her lungs and roused her to fully awake. There was a certain amount of freedom that this action spoke of.

The Night Stalker renewed a fear first imprinted by the Vampiric shrew's attack on her Hub. Getting back outside and enjoying the contrast of warm sun and cold wind was a statement her heart needed to say.

Walking around the broken rock, Harper tried to come to terms with just how mighty The Night Stalker was. The level of destruction to the whole landscape was comparable to the force of a large bomb, she was sure. It was unreal at first but experiencing the chips of rock scattering the slope and the meter high exposed rockface spiderwebbing the terrain, it became less and less deniable.

How did they fight it? Sure it was just the child, but still, the monster was on a scope so much grander than humans are. Harper wished to have that courage. To literally jump into its maw and be eaten alive. She shook her head.

Well, he'd get what he asked for, that was sure. An outside perspective on his advancement and where he needs to improve.

His perk selection was all over the place. Wide and shallow so that he could do everything. Not a min-max bone in either skeleton. Being unbalanced alone and well-rounded as a whole team would let his specializations shine.

Hmmm... what else? From their conversations, it didn't seem as though he explored very much with his mental powers or his stamina-based powers. With Conversion to refill his stamina he could chain them together, at least in theory.

Harper found her eyes drawn to the chronoshperes. Newcomers to the Hub. A selfish thought that they could face the monsters while she managed the Hub flashed through her mind. Wasn't that the reason she named it the Hub? Better to be the NPC in a game than the heroes making the sacrifices.

Harper would have liked to think that hero shoes fit her best, but she found herself brewing items and holding down the fort when faced with the real choice.

Her jagged contemplation was drawn short as a chronosphere on a distant ridge winked out.