Vignette - Cultivator

“What path have you imagined, Candidate?”

“With meditation I will draw in the qi of this world and condense it inside myself. In time I will condense a core, a self sustaining reactor that will passively draw in world qi to strengthen itself and me. Then by circulating that qi in specific patterns through my body I will manifest spiritual phenomena“

Chapter 11

“♪Well here we are again, it’s always such a pleasure, remember when you tried to kill me twice?♪”

It’s time for testing. Human testing… might not want to repeat that to his testees.

Definitely not!

So the checklist first, he unpinned the paper in question from the wall and did a final review.

Weapons and five charged storage cards each for 10 people? Check

Assorted tools and traps ready for demonstration? Check

Stronghold repaired and ready? Check

Porcelain goddess empty and cleaned! Double check. Best idea ever using a “remove- material” rune to cut the basins inner opening. Just re-trigger to empty the contents to a storage tank below. Maybe it would be good for fertilizer or something later.

Observation deck for watching the defense? Check

Kitchen for Mama to cook a victory feast in? Double Check...and gruel for me...dammit.

Alles ist in Ordnung!

“Akil, am I forgetting anything?”

“A foolish question Timothy, you are always forgetting something. It’s just whether it's important or not that is in question.

His eyebrow twitched “...Am I forgetting anything important then?” he ground out.

“Yes”

The twitch was maddly expanding. “Will you tell me what it is?”

“No, you will figure it out eventually.”

He threw his hands in the air in frustration, but not in surprise. It wasn’t the first time this conversation, or a close variant, had occurred.

He took a moment to perform the usual ritual of deep breaths and brought his mind to an artificial calm. He mentally walked through all his plans and checklists, looking for anything he had left out.

Finally he gave it up. Like broken glass on the floor, he would eventually find it… with his bare feet. For now he had important things to do!

“Please summon my minio… ahem, my helpers and particularly my parents!”

He had spent too long in his own head and it was showing. He felt like an extra in the animaniacs. Just a wee bit to zany. Hopefully seeing human beings on a regular basis could bring him back a bit to center..

“Woish..sh..sh..sh” Several dozen portals opened in quick succession. His eyes bulged out in surprise at the number.

Stepping through was a shocking array of colors. Not people yet, he wasn't ready for that many people, just seizure inducing colors in combinations that would shame an anime protagonist.

He had to look away.

Just a moment, to reset.

Reboot in progress please wait….. Ding, Please log in!

Enough, he turned back, his cheeks weren’t wet. Not at all.

“Welcome to casa de Timothy, I hope your travel plans included portal insurance, for refunds or complaints I direct you to the sphinx” He gestured to Akil, a manic grin on mad scientist features.

A moment for his calming ritual to take effect and he tried again. “On a more serious note, I am Timothy Mason, I recognize some of you,”

Indeed there were His parents smiling and waving. Mary's husband Jackson was there and several others who his keen powers of observation indicated were similar enough to be family. That or the fact that they were embracing each other…

There was Uncle Rick, not blood but might as well be, a fixture of his childhood. A neighbor and much loved second father. There was his son, Erik the police officer. A high school friend of his eldest brothers before he ran off for two terms in the army.

There was Amy, his brother Jason’s ex, (and wouldn't that be amusing to rub in later) tall blond and willowy. Sweet as southern pie...until you got to know her… don’t date crazy, it's fun but not worth the headaches.

Them and more, friends of his family, friends of his.

He found one person conspicuous by her absence. Lizzy, four years his girl, one year not. That particular forlorn hope was not to be.

He continued, “but to most of you I am a complete stranger. That will need to change. We will have to work together to survive. I hope for more than that in time, but for now simply surviving will be difficult enough.”

He took a deep breath, allowing the dramatic pause to draw them in. At last he could wait no more.

“And that's why I have Lasers!” He pulled out his demonstration wand, turned to the demonstration hanging dead earth pig and with an elaborate flourish demonstrated how to miss.

He glanced back at the unimpressed faces with a bit of shame on his own. “..uhmm, Mulligan?”

This time without the flourish be pointed and reduced the 200 pound pig into garish scraps and grotesque fragments, flying through the air in all directions with considerable velocity.

Despite how many times he had seen it, his features still took on a greenish hue.

Nausea temporarily stole the shine from his success; he nevertheless threw it off and raised his wand in a victory pose.

“Don’t worry, there are more!” He looked hopefully at the crowd, but received no response… from them at least.

Akil on the other hand “They can not speak with you, you pompous jackass. Get on with the show.”

Right, where was I?

“Ahem… sorry forgot the restrictions for a moment. So a few other quick demonstrations then we can move on to the practical exercise portion of this conference!”

“The laser wand” He removes the storage card and holds up the polished cleft stick. “Simple and easy to use, take an essence light supply card” He holds up the glass card to demonstrate.”and and put in the cleft end of the wand, this handy notch on top of the card will fit into the bottom of the cleft, then this rawhide thong at the top wraps the two cleft ends and holds the card in place.” He demonstrates the assembly then fires the laser into the ground well away from the crowd.

“I have not come up with many other card types yet. But I do have a water storage card as well.” This card had large bulges on either side of a flat middle section, it was not visible from the outside but each bulging side had a void filled with water essence covered by a thin skin of essence stone.

Subbing out the cards he demonstrates a short spray along the lines of an old water gun, “It's not for combat though. It’s actually a bidet.”

He considered the two cards, “You probably don't want to mix them up.”

He looks at the crowd for a moment, just to see if they were impressed. Many of them had a hand over their eyes, maybe he had been too crude in introducing something like a bidet?

Old habits kicked in. When presenting to a large crowd, it was best to pretend they were not there. Stage fright was no joke and despite the popular claims, imagining a crowd of overweight conference goer’s naked was not likely to reduce stress levels.

“This is a shovel! Not just any shovel but a doozy of one!” he grabbed the 10ft pole leaning against his cottage. Remember, the Red end means Death!”

He assumed they would be skeptical at this point, after all he did call it a shovel. That was ok, he had prepared a demonstration.

Placing the red end against the ground 5-6ft to his left, he made sure he was standing in the middle but well outside the field effect. Triggering it removed the usual square block and dumped the resulting dirt out the back of the pole, all in less than a second. Almost as if the pole was a hose… and the dirt was water... nevermind.

“It’s good for about 20 min of work but will then need a full day to recharge. To make sure you pay attention when using it we have another pig. Akil if you would be so kind.”

With the usual ghost to solid fade in another earth pig corpse landed in the hole. Activating the shovel again removed another squarish chunk of dirt… and a squarish hunk of pig blended into a frappe.

He had to take a few more moments to get over being green.

“...gulp...ahem. So please if you are using the shovel, stick to this one simple rule. Don’t be a Dumb Ass. DBADA. I carved that acronym into the handle” He pointed at the polished and green dyed letters.

There, safety problems averted! Move on to the fun stuff!

“So that was the shovel, you saw the laser, what was next…. Ah!” He quickly jogged over to a wooden strip embedded at a 45 degree angle into a small hill of dirt, two branches T’d off the long front strip to stake the tool in place. The result was about 2ft tall and 10ft long. A small forest of wooden poles had been set up vertically in front of the berm.

“I call this the claymore! I would prefer not to smell like vomit for the rest of the day so I will demonstrate it on wood. You will be grateful for that in a moment.”

The berm was set up end on to the crowd so they would get a better view. Standing behind the berm he touched one of the legs and triggered the trap.

“Wssss..” a mound of sawdust poured from thin air down onto the flat stone.

A moment of stillness passed, then the tops of the poles slid down a perfectly sharp 45 degree angle and fell with a resounding clatter.

“So... “ He picked up a handful of sawdust and threw it in the air. “It’s a bit gross, but as a last ditch close in defense it will do the job. Once activated Mr. Claymore is not your friend! Please don’t stand in front of it. You will notice the DBADA carved into the front, yes?”

“That should do for now, I have other magics, like condensing dirt into bricks and joining bricks together. But for now I need 10 volunteers to defend the fortress” the gesture he made towards the massive Motte and bunker was completely unnecessary.

“I did not think there would be so many, so I am a bit short for weapons at the moment. Just these 10 sets,” another gesture to a table underneath the cottages front window. The rest of you can take turns with this one” he drew the wand from his belt and set it on the table. “Each card is good for 8 shots, and those shots are addressed ‘to whom it may concern’.”

At last finished with his spiel he turned back to look at his audience, stress leaving him completely and a true honest smile took its place. “So let's get-”

Akil broke in with his usual cheer, the grimace born by most of the crowd indicated it was not for Timothy ears (mind?) alone, “A moment Candidates, as this is the first time Timothy has allowed anyone else to use his enchantments, he is unaware of the processes and limitations guardians work under. Please begin your resonance adaptations while I explain.”

Several members of the crowd headed over to the table in a gaggle, led, he was proud to see, by his father.

“Activating enchantments you didn't make takes a delicate adjustment period. It is safe for them here, but on earth it can burn out the mind of the careless. They have to adjust their will to your resonant frequency. This adaptation process can take several hours but after that they should be able to use any other spell or enchantment you provide. This process also exemplifies the difference between guardians and those who blaze a trail.”

His father and ten others were sitting down with the wands in their laps, eyes closed.

Each of his other tools had someone sitting with it as well. From shovels to the demonstration claymore.

Akil continued as Timothy watched. “You found your own connection to the magic field. You seem to like the term resonance so I will stick with that. Your resonance is perfect for you. It is not perfect for them. When it comes to magic they will never be able to feel as much or as clearly as you do. They received a generic resonance connection instead of a personal one. The golem who aided them reached through their minds and grasped the magic field. They learned a working resonance from that event and having heard it they can’t unhear it enough to listen for their own personal connection. The plus side is that they can progress very safely by tuning themselves to the resonance of others. Multiple others should they choose. Having heard the perfect pitch you would not be capable of tuning yourself to any other.”

“Returning to these gentlemen, after mimicking your resonance they will need to carefully judge how much of a burden it will be to use the items in question. You, Timothy, understand exactly what the enchantment is trying to do. You made it after all. That makes it fairly cheap, in terms of will power, to use.”

“They don’t understand at all yet, so it will be immensely expensive. One storage card will likely be all the shots they can safely take and that only because they have been training their wills with dedication for the last five years. As they use it they will slowly start to understand how it works and it will get cheaper. You could jump start the progress by explaining, in extreme detail, what your thoughts were as you made the enchantment.”

Timothy gave that a deep thought. He would have to take to the classroom apparently. But first he could try to get as many resonating as possible. He pointed to the fortress and offered to those standing around awkwardly. “Well sixteen of you can practice in the claymores up there.” he gestured to the eight visible wood strips, two sets of four like ladders on the side of the motte. He hoped they could figure out where the other eight were....

“That should get everyone something to do. If I counted wrong the goddess could be another… “ He trailed off with his cheeks starting to burn with the mental image.

Here meditate on this toilet to receive enlightenment! He really hoped he hadn’t miscounted.

“Ok, I'll give the rest of you a tour of the bunker. It's what I intend to build to protect us on Earth, only smaller. There wasn’t enough room here to really get going…” He trailed off as he headed back to his drawbridge. Crawling across the spike filled trench on his hands and knees took up far too much attention for him to speak.

Safely on the other side he continued, “We will need farming space but you will find it already has some living spaces dug down into the motte.” trudging up the stairs he stopped at the first spiked barricade. “These swing over and latch. No need to give the beasts an easy way up.” he demonstrated for a moment then continued up to the open door of the bunker.

“This might be a bit cramped,” he stepped inside and walked around the table and throne to the far corner where a trapdoor in the floor. He pulled it open and secured it to the wall, revealing a ladder that descended down into the dark. Turning back he found the room stuffed full. He fearfully began to count, hopping the number was 16 or less.

Luck was with him, 14 people remained and one of them was even his mother! “..whew..ok on each wall you will find wood rods coming out of the wall. “He pointed to one and continued “Notice that their heights descend from right to left. The attached claymores are in the same order on the same wall.” He gestured to the trap door “Feel free to take a look, I have some snacks and a stone barrel full of water down there as well.”

“RAP” His mother had knocked on the table to get his attention. With an eloquent raised eyebrow she pointed to the throne.

He really did not want to explain that one, should have thought of it sooner... “Well “ he hedged, after several moments with no good excuses coming to mind, he caved “Battle can be pretty unsettling. Instead of having to clean up vomit every time, I added the throne. If you activate it, it will empty itself into the storage tank below.”

She smiled sadly and shook her head and gave him a big hug before moving over to a claymore control rod like the rest.

He had company, lots of people in his own little world….and all of them were sitting down and navel gazing. Oblivious to him and to each other… now he would have to find something to do for several boring hours…

Life had given him lemons today, hopefully he could give life a firm kick to the testicles in return.

“...haaa.” He sat down at the table, Pulled the “Pen-is-mightier” from his back pocket and set about making more laser wands.