The rest of the day passed without much excitement, apart from Truck announcing that he was leaving for more entertaining pastures for a little while. Rory had wished him luck.

Like him, most of them had been distracted with worries. Jerome had spotted the Thundershell coming from his perch on the left tower, but by the time he’d managed to get down and warn them—man was apparently too self-conscious to start yelling—Allen had already engaged it.

That also meant they needed to actually patrol the area instead of hoping monsters would blithely announce their presence. If they could enter through the front, nothing prevented them from vaulting over the walls on the side or sneaking in through the back.

Which was why they paired up in two-person groups and patrolled the palace’s perimeters. At least it would allow them to collect all the fallen Mana on the ground too.

Rory had sent Jerome and Mikey back to their posts, wondering if perhaps he could loot megaphones from an abandoned shop or something. What they really needed was to figure out a way to communicate over long distances, which was difficult without functioning phones. It taught him not to take such modern amenities for grant—

Oh. Phones.

It was almost evening by the time Rory had experienced that enlightenment. He’d been busy Weaving away more trees, both the roots for Sigils of Support, then helping lug back the fallen lumber for salvage later, and then resting to recover from his flaring joints.

Now, however, he had a phone to dig up from somewhere in his backpack. The hall was empty other than May sitting quietly while Trish chopped wood in one corner. Miles had kindled a small blaze before leaving for his patrol. It was nice to have some warmth and light.

When Rory finished Weaving, he had a pinkish Sigil with the image of two small heads talking over a distance.

New Sigil!

You’ve obtained a Sigil of Communication. You can now communicate with holders of this Sigil.

[Argent IX] allows calls in a 6,400-meter radius for 540 seconds.

Stats

Type: Concept

Rarity: Remarkable

Tier: Argent IX [0%]

Efficiency: Medium [48%]

“What are you making now?” Trish asked. The light of Rory’s Weaving must have distracted her.

“Something to help us talk to each other.”

Trish raised her eyebrows. “Uh…”

Rory sighed. “Over long distances, I mean.”

“Oh. Alright. Does it work?”

“Hmm, not sure…”

Well, Rory was sure it would work. What he wasn’t sure was how it would function. None of them could really spare another Sigil slot just to be able to keep in touch with one another.

“What’s got you stumped?” Trish asked.

Rory did his best to explain the conundrum. As he talked it out, he realized he might need to Weave a phone again and not focus on anything this time. Maybe one of the other options would reveal something useful.

“Well, it sounds you want to recreate a phone that runs on Mana instead of electricity,” Trish said, looking away and rubbing her chin. “That’s pretty interesting.”

“You’re… actually right. We just need to figure out the components of a phone, then, and make sure it runs on Mana.”

“You sound so surprised. What do you think I was studying at college before all this crap started?”

“Um, some sort of engineering?”

“Computer Science.”

“Oh. Sorry, my bad.”

Trish muttered something unpleasant that was too low for Rory to catch, then proceeded to lay out what she called a phone’s basic algorithm of operation. One selected someone to connect to, called them over a chosen network, then communicated via that network. Rory wasn’t sure he understood so he obtained a phone from Trish and Wove it anyway.

[Sigil Options]

You can now pick a Woven Sigil from a maximum of five options. Choose wisely.

Sigil of Selection

Type: Concept Rarity: Remarkable Efficiency: Medium Allows narrowing down a broad category into smaller choices

Sigil of Automation

Type: Concept Rarity: Remarkable Efficiency: Medium Allows automatic task performance without user input

Sigil of Communication

Type: Concept Rarity: Remarkable Efficiency: Medium Allows long distance communication

Sigil of Activation

Type: Concept Rarity: Exceptional Efficiency: Medium Limits Sigil use to activation via external stimulus

Rory’s eyes widened at all the options he had received. He hadn’t figured one tiny device would be so complicated. But the real problem was that one phone would only give him one Sigil. Essentially, he was going to need multiple devices to recreate a single phone’s capability. They were going to need a lot more phones.

Or Rory needed to make his Weaving perform better.

“What’s the problem now?” Trish asked.

“We’re going to need a lot more phones than we have already,” Rory said.

“Doesn’t one work?”

Rory explained the issue. Trish had a thoughtful look on her face, which quickly gave way to a mischievous grin.

“All the more reason to let me head out,” Trish said. “I’ll find any stragglers and perform some tactical scavenging to make sure we get what we need.”

Rory took a deep breath. He needed to control his instincts to scream danger at every suggestion. “Tomorrow,” he promised. “First thing in the morning, if you want. Let’s just survive the night. Then we’ll start going out in parties to help anyone we find and see what we can salvage.”

Trish looked satisfied with that, if not exactly happy, and returned to her wood-chopping. Rory took up the phones they had in the area, using his Weaving to obtain the different component Sigils.

But a recreated phone alone wouldn’t be enough. Cell phones ran on batteries, and Rory needed a power source of his versions too. This was different from something that worked passively like the stat Sigils. Communicating was an active ability, something that was sure to require an active source of energy. The easiest option was, of course, Mana.

Rory took a pinch from his supply and used his Weaving directly on it, focusing on its ability to drive Sigils.

New Sigil!

You’ve obtained a Sigil of Mana Empowerment. With the power of this Sigil, you can now use Mana to drive nearly anything.

[Argent IX] allows basic Mana empowering.

Stats

Type: Concept

Rarity: Exceptional

Tier: Argent IX [0%]

Efficiency: Medium [29%]

Now Rory had everything he was going to need. Well, almost.

One of the Sigils, the Sigil of Activation, said he could use a stimulus to use it externally. Rory took a length of wood from Trish, ignoring her protests at him not paying for it, and started tapping a column with it. He focused his Weaving on the tapping action, eventually receiving a new Sigil.

New Sigil!

You’ve obtained a Sigil of Tapping. Tap, tap, tap away. That is all you can do. Good luck if this is it.

[Argent IX] allows tapping.

Stats

Type: Concept

Rarity: Ordinary

Tier: Argent IX [0%]

Efficiency: Low [5%]

Well, that was a useless Sigil by itself. This system hadn’t been kidding when it said he could Weave literally anything into a Sigil. But no matter. Rory had what he needed. He took the Sigil of Tapping and used his Weaving to combine it with the rest of the ones he’d received from the phones, turning them into a single Sigil.

New Sigil!

You’ve obtained a Sigil of Calling. You can now perform long distance calls with whoever or whatever has these Sigils.

[Argent IX] allows selective calling in a 12,800-metre radius for 1,080 seconds.

Stats

Type: Concept

Rarity: Exceptional

Tier: Argent IX [0%]

Efficiency: High [51%]

The Sigil showed the image of an old-fashioned phone, curved with knobby heads at either end. It glowed green for a moment before the light faded.

There. Rory finally had a substitute for a phone. He was going to have to Ward it and make sure it worked, but he was reasonably confident it would.

It had taken five cell phones and half a length of wood to create one Sigil of Calling.

Considering that there were twelve of them and they’d scrounged up a few electronics from the bank, Rory ought to be able to make a couple more. That was all they’d need for the time being to let Trish venture out while still keeping in touch.

The rest of the evening and night passed uneasily, the little moment of peace they’d had in the early afternoon now feeling like a distant dream. Tired and achy though Rory felt, he walked around the hall and gathered up the nearby armour. May helped him, for some reason. He was grateful for it. Once the others returned, he’d have Sigils of Armour for them all.

Since the wood they were burning gave off a faint smoke, Rory wondered if he could Weave up a source of light for them as well. The choice was either continuing to burn wood—he didn’t like the smoke, nor the fact that they might cause small-scale deforestation at this rate—or use up Mana they might need to fight monsters.

Rory cursed silently. Things couldn’t be a simple choice without consequences, could it?

Nobody really got to rest much over the night. Now that bedtime had arrived, they decided to reduce the watch. Rory, May, and Trish were the only ones told to sleep all the way until dawn. The others took turns to sleep a few hours, keep watch for monsters, then sleep again in a continuous cycle of worry and near-panic.

They were even attacked at some point. Rory woke groggily to the muted sounds of explosions and shouting. It died quickly though. Viv returned to inform him and the others who were napping that it had been another Detonetal they’d taken care of. He asked her to sleep what remained of the night with him, and she let herself rest for some time too.

But Viv was gone when Rory properly awoke at the crack of dawn. That Sigil of Prime of hers was incredible.

Trish was up around the same time as Rory. Most of the others were still asleep though, getting some well-earned shut-eye. Outside, it wasn’t hard to see the evidence of more fights. Monsters had invaded from both sides of the palace, Detonetal corpses strewn along the roads that led to the rear.

The back itself had escaped unscathed, but that likely had more to do with Miles’s antiques. He’d gotten spooked and set a large section of the backyard ablaze with his flames. Thankfully, the damage wasn’t too extensive. It had only left a basketball-court-sized area scorched and stinking.

But the main thing was that they couldn’t keep this up forever. If every night passed like this, they’d all die of sleep-deprivation or worse.

What they needed was something to take the load off the defenders. Some kind of defence system, or perhaps—

Traps.

Rory hurried back into the hall and pulled open his backpack. It was filled with all the Sigils he had received over the course of their journey from the last couple days. Rory dug his hands in and pulled out a fistful of Sigils of Flarespike. He knew just what to do with those.

“Something up?” Dez asked, watching Rory hurry outside with his whole backpack slung over his shoulder. “You want me to carry that for you?”

“Don’t worry about that,” Rory said. “Just take me to where the nearest monsters are.”

Dez complied. He led Rory to where the Detonetals had fallen on the left of the palace. Viv was observing the corpses with something akin to professional interest, and as interested Rory was to know what was going through her mind, he was too excited to see if his idea was going to work.

“What’s going on?” she asked when she saw them approaching.

“I think he’s found a jackpot,” Dez said.

Rory laughed. “You’re not wrong.” Then he wrinkled his nose at the stench. Did Viv not mind the odour of decay? “Give me some space, please.”

They all stepped back as Rory paused beside the nearest Detonetal. He used his Weaving, focusing on the fact the creature before him, focusing on the idea that this was a monster, an Otherworlder come to attack them.

In moments, he had his new Sigil, one that showed him an image of sharp horns, fanged jaws, and evil eyes on a field of red.

New Sigil!

You’ve obtained a Sigil of Monstrous Essence. Monsters are more in deeds than appearance, but if you wish to give off the vibe of a monster, look no further.

[Argent IX] allows minor monstrous aura simulation in an 18-meter radius.

Stats

Type: Concept

Rarity: Uncommon

Tier: Argent IX [0%]

Efficiency: Medium [43%]

Rory pulled out one of each of the Sigils of Flarespike, Automation, Activation, and Mana Empowerment. When he tried to combine them with his Weaving, he got a strange notification.

[Different Sigils need to be in the same tier to be combined]

Huh. He should have figured that. Good thing it was an easy problem to fix. Rory had received a large number of Sigils of Flarespike, and he pulled out a few to combine them with his Weaving. He didn’t stop until he had a Sigil with its Tier at Argent IX.

Then he combined all the Argent IX Sigils to get a reddish brown one with an image of fiery spikes bursting out of the ground.

New Sigil!

You’ve obtained a Sigil of Flarespike Mine. Scare off trespassers by spiking their predecessors’ corpses with burning spikes.

[Argent IX] allows 4 Flarespike eruptions in a 4-meter radius.

Stats

Type: Element

Rarity: Exceptional

Tier: Argent IX [0%]

Efficiency: High [57%]

Rory smiled at the new Sigil. Huh. Interesting that the Sigil’s type had changed. It had been an Evolution type Sigil before, but now it was an Element one. Maybe a Sigil’s type said more about what it worked on.

“What are you going to do with that?” Viv asked.

“This.” Rory surveyed the area a little. There was a wall bounding off the woods on the palace’s side. He knelt and placed the Sigil against the earth, Warding the Sigil into the ground. The Sigil sank in, its image glowing red. “We have successfully set a trap.”

New Achievement!

Trapper! Conflict is fun and all, but if you look at it from a fussy point of view, trapping your enemies is the surest path to victory. Can’t lose when you can’t fight.

Rewards

All traps will automatically grow stronger when the Sigil advances in Tiers.

Viv had torn apart the Detonetals to pieces, some of which were small enough for Rory to pick up. He did so, cringing at how mushy it felt in his grip, then chucked it to the spot where he had just Warded the new Sigil.

As soon as the broken chunk of the Detonetal struck the Warded spot of ground, and explosion rocked the area. Four, four-foot tall rocky spikes shot out of the earth, sending up a plume of dirt and dust, a blistering blaze erupting out of tiny holes near their pointed peaks. One of the spiky ends had speared through the monstrous chunk, burning it to a crisp.

Rory grinned at their stunned looks. They finally had a solution to all these monster attacks everywhere.