Chapter 39 - Last set-up

End of the day. We had finished producing all servo-motors we would end up using for the prosthetic. Tomorrow would be the carving of the wood and the creation of the wire, maybe even creating the anchor to join the hand and the arm, but the actual operation would need to wait for an anaesthetic.

A bath and a good hearty meal later, I was now in bed with the trio, Vi at the far right, then Crisnée, then me, then Noa. It was really cute, the children had established a rotation system so they could sleep with me in-between them in a fair proportion.

Let’s go through the long scan report, shall we?

Yes!

Psaï had waited a bit before opening it, as we were a bit more focused on crafting and needed to actually sleep at night, not go through planet-sized scans.

But you could at least have said it was finished.

No, you would have jumped on it like a cat on a mouse, and you not remembering that I actually said that it would be ready soon only assured me into my choice.

Right, right, just show me the data please.

I think I heard a little sigh coming from her but she showed me the scan without grumbling.

Opening the report.

A mental construction of the planet appeared in my mind, slowly turning on itself.

...Wow.

Basically? The world was a mess. All the Manaflux but Coriolis were either completely destroyed or barely holding together. Without those natural fluxes that were like oceanic flux, but for mana, the Leylines had even more difficulties filling their natural roles, replenishing and dispatching mana all over the crust and from the core to the outer layers.

And that was only the first readily apparent thing.

The second was that, apart from this continent and some groups of isles around it, the rest of the world was basically still extremely active volcanically.

There had been five continents before I sunk one and, from the four remainings, three of them were extremely harsh environments where human life was either highly improbable or impossible.

And we can’t even see if there’s settlement or ruins on those because of the ash clouds…

This was pretty annoying, to be honest.

Another secondary effect detected by the scan was that Ashes stockpiled over those landmasses because of chaotic wind and, once in a while this massive ash cloud would move around.

You could even see the effect on the continent I was right now as the last wide blanket of ashes wasn’t even two years old, maybe not even one.

At least humanity seems to cling to life.

Indeed.

Lots of cities and sizable settlements had been detected, totalising a population of around 7 million humans.

It was around 1200 times less than during my time, but 7 million was already a pretty good number seeing the conditions of life.

Ah yes, because ash wasn’t the only problem. Monsters seemed to be everywhere and in very large quantities and, during the 7-days scan, more than twenty major attacks had been detected. This was a world of constant battle.

Interestingly enough, the monsters were the factor that could show how young the country where I was, Ashenmark, was, because the monsters’ populations were fairly close to the human settlements and much more abundant than in other countries.

More threatening than monsters, flashes of mana had been captured by the MIDAR, typical of Spell construction, and about a third of them happened during attacks on settlements.

There’s probably more remnants of the Swarm lingering everywhere, with the same problem as Lebaclas, trying to stay awake using harvested soul mass.

Probably, yes. Do you think those are the ‘demons’ Ophelia talked about?

Maybe, maybe not. We’ll need to ask.

But in the end we’ll need to hunt them down, either to control them or to kill them.

I’m not sure about that. It’s not like they seem to crush humanity, no? Lebaclas was repelled by all the Shi users and, seeing those scans, I don’t think it’s very that different in other places.

Besides that, I could finally see how damaged the Leylines were. And badly didn’t start explaining it.

They were in a very shitty state, some of them even dying.

I really hope Ark Genesis survived the volcanic eruption, or we’re quite screwed.

Genesis was made in case this kind of thing happened. It couldn’t hold humanoids but, otherwise, it’s pretty much indestructible and useful. I’m sure it’s somewhere.

The question being: Where? Not on this continent, or it would have pinged us back. Maybe at the bottom of the sea, or on one of the other mess of landmasses.

We really needed to find Genesis if we wanted to properly fix the Leylines but, right now, it’s not like we could do anything else, so I put this goal at the back of my head and went back to the scan.

In all the noise of info, one last thing had caught my eyes.

A very faint living signature in the Godnod trench, nearly 14 kilometres under sea level.

It seems like at least one of our friends survived the apocalypse.

Well, I mean, even you couldn’t kill her so it’s not that surprising. I sincerely think nothing short of the whole planet exploding could be enough to slay her. Even for dragons, she’s insanely resistant after all.

True.

I used to have two dragons in my life, this one, hiding at the bottom of the ocean, and one other, one I used all my strength to not think about.

A bit disturbed by the thought, I kept skimming through data for another good hour but, tired, I finally closed the data feed and went to sleep, snuggling in Crisnée’s arms and using her drumming heartbeat to rock myself to sleep.

***

The next day went by like a blur. I knew exactly what I needed to do and it wasn’t particularly exciting, so I worked quite mechanically, lacking some of the enthusiasm I showed until then.

Even PsaÏ found it boring. I mean, we both liked much more to create complex Spell-infused systems, so polishing wood and crafting wires wasn’t the epitome of our love for crafting.

At least not for us. In contrast, I needed to literally talk non-stop to quench Vivianne’s curiosity.

Which wasn’t bad, mind you. This way I was training her, both in soul and knowledge, a true win-win situation.

In fact, I even shortened the cooldown time of each word to 15 seconds, two times faster than before. I was extremely happy to have someone to talk to, and the growing complexity of our discussion only made me even more joyous.

I always loved talking with people curious about what I was doing, and Vivianne was the perfect audience to do that.

I loved her very much.

***

Having finished the wire, the pieces of fingers and even the anchor for the hand, I asked Vi to take us to the barracks instead of going home.

Now used to the kids, the guards in the main hall greeted us politely (well, they greeted Vi, they just ruffled my hair or something), and one of them escorted us to Elody, as Ophelia was surely busy in the Echo Chamber, a place normal soldiers weren’t authorised to access, if I understood correctly.

Surprisingly, the guard took us to the third floor of the barracks, a place way cosier than the two first floors or the cellar.

Overall, the place was tinier and not built for high-density passages, and the people I saw moving around were few and far between, as well as clearly non-combatants.

It’s the administrative part.

Seems so.

Not long after, we stopped in front of a door just like any other.

“Toc-toc-toc.” The Guard knocked at the door.

“Come in.” The voice was tired.

The guard opened the door and announced us. “General? Ophelia’s apprentice and her little sister.” He said.

From behind a wall of paper stack Elody’s exhausted eyes met mine and her usual stern face melted a little.

“Thanks soldier, dismissed.”

“Yes Ma’am.” He scurried away, intimidated by his commanding officer.

Once he had closed the door, Elody pointed toward one of the chairs standing in front of her desk, inviting Vi to sit while her smile grew a bit more.

Isn’t her Shi like, White?

Yes?

Isn’t it, like, purity, ascension, the kind of thing you often link with peace of mind and absence of emotions?

Maaaybe? To be honest their Shi thingy is still pretty blurry.

Figures.

“Hello, what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?” She asked with a serene voice.

Hello.

“Hi!” Vi moved me a bit so I could face Elody properly.

“Ayna asked me to come see you or Ophelia, so here we are.”

Elody nodded slightly. “I’m sorry, I’m knee-deep in bureaucracy so if you could state your business quickly, it would be really helpful.” She wasn’t aggressive or anything, just very direct.

Understood. Need powerful anaesthetic.

She squinted her eyes. “I am sorry, I don’t understand.”

I bit my cheek (tried, it’s a bit harder to bit things when you don’t have teeth) and tried to reformulate it.

I need something… to make someone… sleep deeply.

She read my sentence multiple times and frowned a bit.

“So you need something to make someone sleep?”

I nodded.

Very very strong.

“Something very strong…”

Like Mom’s liquid.

“...Ah! By liquid, you mean potions?”

One nod.

“...Oh. You need a powerful sleep potion. Okay, I get it now. I’ll just make a request to Elanna then. When do you want it?”

Tomorrow.

She raised her eyebrows again. “Tomorrow? Why such a hu- No, whatever. I’ll see if I can have that delivered to you in the warehouse, but it may take more than one day. Your Mom doesn’t always have everything in reserve and, as you may have seen, she needs to work quite hard to satisfy all the commands of the city.”

Yes.

“Good. Something else?”

Yes.

“What is it?”

Sleep a bit. You look bad.

She read the sentence then looked at me, surprised.

“Well, it’s not like I’ve got the choice. This city doesn't protect itself without people working, you know?”

Don’t worry. City’s protected.

After all, I had ordered Lebaclas to use its Yiburis to block potential monsters attack. This should do the trick.

“Well, even if you say that, it’s not like I could stop. Keeping a garrison like this one running is really work-intensive.”

True. Just don’t die of too much work.

“Ah. Well, thanks for the concern. Now I need to go back to…” She grimaced and pointed at the papers. “...this.”

Thanks for the help.

“You’re welcome.” And she went right back into the paper stacks.

***

After this discussion we went right back home, as neither me nor Vi knew when the two others would end their training.

Maybe if we had the info we would have waited for them, but not without knowing anything.

We were, unsurprisingly, the first to come back home, and ended up helping Dad for today’s dinner, a Sauerkraut.

Vi helped Dad mash the potatoes before attentively following his explanation on what meat to use and how to cook them so they would dry during the simmering in the casserole.

This ham hock looks so good. Just looking at it made me salivate.

Remember the Tartiflette incident. Keep in mind the limitations of our body.

Yeah yeah I know.

Though it really does look good.

I swear, when I’m old enough I’ll eat as many great dishes as I want!

That’s a good vow, I support it.

Thanks Psaï.