“As for you two,” Tim whirled around to face the slave criminals. They shuddered in response. “Good work. Makko you have been promoted to procurement manager. Goto, you’re head of security.”

Tim took a small chunk of iron and fashioned it into a thin box with a sliding cover. It was just big enough to hide the tiny scrap of orichalcum inside. He attached it to a simple bracelet and handed to Makko.

“Take this to adventure’s guild substation on W1. Ask for a private room for the bounty calculation. I’m sure they will question you heavily about where you got it. So you may sell the orichalcum for as low as fifty-percent of market value if they accept that your source is secret. Bring fifty gold back here and have anything extra transferred to this account.” He handed them a paper. ”Oh, and when you get back you may notice the building has changed a little, so don’t panic. Oh and get some nice towels.”

With the two criminal slaves gone Tim got to work remodeling the building. Tim descended down into the hole in the floor, a few moments later a massive block of white bedrock walked out. Tim followed behind and the block walked it to the wall. The floor creaked and cracked as it went. When it reached the wall it melted out and coated the wall. A few dozen more blocks and the warehouse’s exterior had become impossibly thick, like that of a castle.

Tim sat back and gulped down a mana recovery potion. Hoban walked around comparing the progress to the design sheets he held. He noted any inconsistency or damage and moved on. After Hoban finished Tim began his hundred trips around the warehouse. The range of Form was greater than that of Shape, but still not enough to reach across the expanse of the warehouse. So Tim circled it slowly, with each pass the wall rose a half inch. The rafters on the roof creaked and groaned as they shifted back and forth. Slowly the building grew to three stories in hight.

A load of lumber became boards that grew into a staircase along the wall. A floor grew across the warehouse two stories up. A lift with chains and a pulley descended from the ceiling. Additional rooms grew above and below the loft. The front area expanded back into the warehouse and grew two more useable floors. Windows barred with stone condensed to incredible hardness circled the second and third stories. A wide bay window grew out the third story above the entrance. Silica became glass and filled the windows. It was there that Tim rested and looked out upon the city. Hoban sat nearby looking at the building plans.

“Looks like all you have left to do is the roof and the basement.”

“And I need to redo the locks. But all that can wait until after the help returns.”

“You know, Tim, you never cease to amaze me. But what are going to do with all this?"

“The goons done know it yet, but they are about to become a part of the most unique boutique in the city. Oh, and of course this will a secret research facility. At least until I can get something closer to the guild. But damn that’s expensive.”

“With the orichalcum they are selling, you might have enough.”

“Maybe, but I don’t feel right abandoning this place yet. Not after all this work. This place will really start to feel like home after we bring furniture and install the water sources.”

“Speaking of drinking, let’s go get some lunch. “

Hoban and Tim took a rickshaw from the western district around to the northern. After about forty-five minutes they arrived in the familiar dirty back alleyway. Tim’s tummy growled in anticipation as the scent of fresh noodles lazed about in the breeze. They took their usual seats at one of the tables beside the road. Without hesitation, Hoban started to empty the wine. Aerith wandered down the street a little later than usual. Her well-worn robe was ripped and stitched back together clumsily. A red and purple bruise adorned her cheek and she smiled weakly through a cracked lip.

Tim’s chair fell backward and clanked on the dirty alley as he jumped to his feet. “My god, are you ok?”

“Yeah, it’s nothing,” Aerith replied weakly.

“It’s not nothing. What happened?”

“I…”

Tim placed a hand on her shoulder. She looked up at him, and the tears started to flow. She buried her face in Tim’s chest and held on as if he might be stolen away at any moment. Hoban was already onto his second bottle before she calmed down enough to talk.

Aerith sniffled but didn’t move, her dark hair hung down and hid her face. “It was Yukzie’s men. They didn’t even take the money this week,” she spoke softly.

“I’m so sorry,” Tim ground his teeth. “This is all my fault.”

“No, don’t say that.”

The gears slowly turned in Tim’s mind. He thought back to Makko and Goto. If he had just paid them off none of this would have happened. But now that they were in his care he could get them to expose the organization. Maybe even find a way to get to Yukzie. For the first time, Tim seriously considered murder. ”I’ll fix this, somehow.”

Aerith looked up at Tim with swollen red eyes. “Please no, you can’t get involved. I couldn’t stand it if something happened to you…”

She was close. Lost in her eyes Tim gulped and struggled for words. The lump of fire in his stomach receded and his muscles lost their tension. In his arms, Aerith felt thin, emaciated as if she might dissolve into nothingness. Tim gently slid a hand across her one unblemished cheek and felt her soft hair on his hand. He drew her in and Aerith closed her eyes in anticipation.

Hoban slammed down his cup and the two looked at him then looked away burning red.

“Now that you’re back to reality, how about we eat?”

They ate and joked and toasted to Tam. But the embers that still smoked within Tim wouldn’t go out. At length, they parted and Aerith smiled like a flower in bloom as he waved from the rickshaw. He rode the back to the warehouse in silence with Hoban. Venom poured out over the embers in Tim’s stomach and stewed. To step on that flower, to damage that bloom Tim wanted blood. Not until they were back at the warehouse he was able to wrest his attention back to work.

From the third story, above the entryway Tim crafted a secret staircase to the basement below. The space inside was wide and dark. There they sat under the glow of a single magic lamp and got to work on the next project.

Beside some parchment on the table was a portable stove and a lump of raw copper. Tim flipped over the portable stove. It looked like a hotplate with wooden legs and handles. On the underside was etched a beautiful magic circle.

“So what are you going to do with that?” Hoban asked as he uncorked another wine bottle.

“I once saw a magic circle, carved into a floor that was used for transportation. I figured there might be some clues to that here.” He tapped at the design on the portable stove. “Along with that, I have a few product ideas that we could develop to fund our further research. But that begins with extensive testing.”

“Hurray for trial and error.”

Tim took the piece of copper and turned it into a thin square. Form projected his will and copied the etching from the portable stove. The outer circle of the design was simple, and that made sense to Tim. It wouldn’t need to decipher complex instructions just get hot. He pushed some magic through the design. He could feel that a lot of it was lost in the process but soon the copper plate grew warm. Then it grew hot. Then Tim dropped it with a yelp.

Form blasted a stream of cool air on the copper while Tim rested his fingers in a cup of ice. When Hoban finally quit laughing they started the second test. For this Tim removed the symbols in the outer ring and tried again. This time the mana flowed through in complete chaos. Without order, it took a lot of energy to get the plate to heat.

For the third attempt, Tim added back the sigils in the outer ring and then doubled them. This time he felt the mana being pulled out of him. It flowed swiftly in directions that branched out into the metaphysical. Then he burnt his fingers again.

“Well, I think we discovered another function of the outer ring. It appears that is what gets mana from the user. Then it directs it down through the spell.”

“You’ve been right about everything else so far. So I’m guessing you’ve got this figured out too.”

After adding wooden handles Tim and Hoban spent the afternoon deciphering which components were for mana absorption and which were for direction. They celebrated their achievements that night on the ride home, unaware of how their discoveries would change the face of the city.

Dusk had just settled down upon the city when Tim opened the door to his room at the guild. For the first time in a while, it seemed empty and lonely. He thought of Aerith and the embers inside reignited. Tim plopped down on the edge of his bed. A dark countenance swept over him. Visions of bloodshed drifted through his mind, but he pushed it back down. It was his carelessness that brought her harm before. He would not be so thoughtless in the future.

Ready to wash up and get settled in for the night Tim turned to his phone for musical ambiance. But when he unlocked it a flood of messages lit up his alert bar. The demon army is attempting to breach the city from the south. The other eight were leading a band of mercenaries to intercept them from the flank. Erraat was about to be engulfed in war.