Rory wanted to exult more in the feeling of having achieved a third of what he needed to do to overcome the main obstacle to their attempt to set up the merchanting business—the letter of recognition from the Otherworlder Coalition. There was a small chance that the elves might not like it, but he was pretty sure Arelland would.

As soon as the Wraith actually brought him to the palace, that was. He had to once again wonder why the elf hadn’t heeded his summons yet. Of course, Arelland was likely under pressure with his duties to his people. But still, Rory felt a little put off by the continued lack of communication. The Wraith could at least have returned with a message from Arelland about his situation or something similar.

Shoving aside his worries, Rory followed Dez up the steps of the tower. The big guy and Jerome had come down with excitement dancing around their footsteps. Apparently, the dwarf was nearly finished, and whatever he had set up was amazing.

When Rory reached the top of the tower, he had to admit that it was a sight to behold.

There was a strange contraption sitting in the centre of the area. The strange cloud generator he had seen earlier with different components had now been fully configured to look like an orb with panels resembling an old-fashioned soccer ball. One end had a nozzle that widened outwards like a trumpet.

“How does this work?” Rory asked. He spotted the stove-like base glowing with a faint blue light. “And how dangerous is it?”

“Very dangerous,” Devrum said. Then he grinned. “For your enemies, that is.”

Rory couldn’t recall if he had ever seen the dwarf smile. Maybe they were making progress.

“We called you up for the demonstration,” Dez said. “I honestly can’t wait to see it in action.”

“Me too, man,” Jerome said.

Their excitement wasn’t unfounded. It was contagious, infecting Rory with a strange sense of expectant anticipation. Devrum must have been hyping up his gadget while he’d been setting it up.

“Prepare yourselves,” the dwarf said. “This will be loud, so I suggest taking care of your ears.”

Rory placed his palms over his ears. “I’m ready.”

His voice was muffled to him. Good. That meant his eardrums were as secure he could make them on his own. Dez and Jerome copied him, covering their ears as well.

Devrum toyed with the panels on his device. He moved some around and pressed others into the orb, and as the device powered up, the blue light started seeping upwards to cover the whole ball and light up the entire tower in an azure glow. In moments, Devrum assumed a position where he was standing a foot away from the contraption but with one hand on it.

“Here we go!” he shouted.

His hand pressed down on the panel it was resting atop of. There was a click and in the next fraction of a second, the trumpetlike nozzle blasted out a bolt of lightning that flew off into the distance.

Rory was taken by surprise and blinded by the sudden flash. When he could see again, after blinking out the lights behind his eyelids, he found that a spot just ahead of the ruined gates had been struck by the lightning bolt. The ground was scorched and partially melted there, smoke rising off the point of impact.

“Did you just shoot out a lightning bolt?” Rory asked, coughing in the light burning smell. It was soon overwhelmed by the stormy odour.

“I did,” Devrum said, grinning again. Then he sobered and stepped back. “This isn’t going to be easy to use by any means. But you have a Safe Zone up, so that gives you room to practice. I’ll be around to provide some training as needed.”

Rory looked between Dez and Jerome. The former stepped back, leaving the latter looking incredulously between them all and the strange, lightning-shooting machine before them.

“You want me to run that thing?” Jerome asked.

“Sure, why not,” Rory said. “You’re the one who stays on the tower most of the time, so. Just make sure you give us a warning before you start pelting bolts from the blue.”

Dez clapped Jerome on his back. “You’ll do fine, man.”

“Oh, don’t worry.” Devrum inspected Jerome up and down before nodding as though he had found what he was seeking. “We’ll have you shaping up into a proper Bolt Pelter in no time.”

“You really call them Bolt Pelters?” Dez asked.

“The ones who throw lightning? Yes. What of it?”

“Nothing.”

Rory decided not to pursue that line of thought. “What are its specifications? How does it run and power itself? What are its exact capabilities?”

“Good questions. You can imagine it as a giant crossbow that throws lightning at your target. I believe the range for the model we have, which is a Cirrus, is around seventy-five meters. All it needs is water, and you should be able to get at least thirty bolts out of it from one full tank, so make sure you keep it replenished. I believe a Cirrus’s lifespan is around eighty-five thousand bolts, so I think you have some time before you have to replace it.”

“Thanks for the information,” Dez said.

“How does it run?” Rory asked. “I’m just curious how it transforms a tank of water into lightning. I imagine that cloud generator you mentioned has something to do with it.”

“Correct. The cloud generator replicates the conditions of the atmosphere needed to create clouds. In this case, it has been modified to produce heavy storm clouds. The rest of the machine is optimized to cause careful friction and elicit a lightning bolt.”

“This is incredible. I know I’ve granted you all some Sigils you think you need, but this makes me feel like I’m in your debt. If you ever need anything besides Sigil things, please let me know, and I’ll do my best to find a way to make that happen.”

Devrum nodded as though he hadn’t expected anything else. “This is certainly not an act of generosity. Not really. We will be seeking things in recompense, though the minelord hasn’t revealed the nature of what he might want yet.” The dwarf started turning away, and Rory thought he was done, but then he whirled back. “Oh, you may also need to configure your Settlement to allow it to function.”

“Configure the Settlement? Hmm, I’ll check the [Status] then.”

Rory and Dez left Jerome with the dwarf to train. He heard them both enthusiastically talking about using it again, so he figured he ought to get down and inform the others about what had happened. No doubt, there would be a lot of questions about a random lightning bolt from nowhere.

Especially considering the last time there had been lightning within the palace grounds.

After explaining the situation to Viv and some of the others, he opened up the [Settlement Status], specifically its Sigil of Security and Defensive Measures. Its Tier had risen a little, like the other Sigils as well. Things would be interesting when they reached Teal.

[Defensive Measures]

You can now pick 1 instant, 1 major, and 2 minor defensive measures. Choose wisely.

Minor: Changeable bonuses [Tier I]

Survivalist: Continued hardship allows 20% greater survival even when stores are low Lightning Tower: Attack with a lightning bolt every 10 seconds at any enemies within range. Effective range is a maximum 10 meters beyond Safe Zone. Endurance Expert: All party members have resilience, endurance, fortitude, and defence raised by 10% Forager Force: All Mana in a 10-meter radius around party members outside the Area of Influence will gravitate towards them at 0.02 m/s Home Ground: All outgoing damage by party members increased by 25% in the Settlement’s Area of Influence

Rory was glad he could change the Minor bonuses offered by the Sigil of Security. For now, since they wouldn’t necessarily need to engage with monsters inside their Safe Zone, he removed the Home Ground and picked the Lightning Tower. Apparently, the dwarf was right. Rory could control whether or not the device functioned in the first place externally.

While he was busy with the Settlement, the others prepared lunch. Their food supply was dwindling, so they decided to go out later today to recover the rest of the groceries.

The fare was even less filling than normal because May decided to get a slowly-recovering Sue back into the main hall to have lunch with everyone. She needed help, of course, which they were all glad to provide as well as they could.

By the time they were done, they had Sue against a column with May providing her little spoons of canned soup. Sue ate it gratefully.

“How are you feeling now?” Rory asked after he’d had some crackers. If he wasn’t wrong, he was sure everyone had grown a lot thinner from when he had first seen them.

“Better,” Sue said. Her voice was stronger than before, less shaky and weak. “But I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get back to what things were used to be like.”

“Things hardly ever go back to what it was like.”

“Even for me, huh?”

Rory stared at her, sitting morosely, broken and weak and swaddled in blankets and bandages so that only her face was still visible. May pressed the spoon against Sue’s mouth, and she resisted for a moment before swallowing what she was offered.

“We’ll find you a wheelchair at some point,” Rory said. “And then we can—”

He stopped. Wheelchair. Of course, they could get a wheelchair for Sue to move, but what if they could get more. Rory’s mind immediately jumped to the mech suits the elves used. If they could get one of those, somehow, then there was a great chance that Sue wouldn’t be as bound as she felt she was right now.

“What’s up with you?” Sue asked, looking at him with a suspicious look.

Rory wasn’t sure he ought to reveal his thoughts and get her hopes up. After all, he had absolutely no idea how he might go about procuring an elven mech suit. “Just thinking about possibilities.”

“What possibilities?”

“Ways I can help you.” Rory focused his look on her and pressed his hand on her shoulder. “Listen to me, Sue. I’m going to find a way to help you. You won’t have to keep feeling like everything is bleak. I’ll find a solution, I promise.”

Sue blinked. She stared at him for a long while. “You don’t have to go to so much trouble just for me. I know I keep complaining, but I don’t regret what I did. I don’t regret being here, is what I mean. I’ll manage.”

“I know you will. You’re strong, for you and for your sister. And you’ll get stronger still, just you watch.”

Leaving her with that promise and the hint of tears in her eyes, Rory left her to enjoy the rest of her food.

Conditions were favourable for them to get going on the grocery trip. There was still light outside and Devrum had reported there had been no sightings of giant monster armies anywhere nearby. Besides that, the war seemed to have petered to a standstill for the moment as well. Now was the perfect time to replenish their dwindling food stores. Well, apart from April’s vegetables.

But as he got ready to call in the others, there was a shout from down the hallway. Miles came running in, half his body wet and dripping.

“Flood,” he shouted. “The bathrooms are flooding.”

Rory’s heartrate spiked. Panic reared its ugly head, but Dez, ever the cognizant leader, yelled at everyone to remain calm while a group went to check the issue. Rory, Dez, Devrum, and Viv headed over to the bathrooms, Miles in the lead trying not to jump out of his skin.

“You really need to not come barging into crowded areas and make everyone start panicking,” Dez said. “It’s not good for morale, man. We got to keep our cool.”

“Right, right, sorry about that.” Miles bounced from one foot to the other. “I just got really scared when I saw the flood. Trust me, it’s not pretty.”

They didn’t have to walk for long. Rory could already hear the froth and slosh of water, and as they hurried onwards, they found themselves at the edge of Miles’s flood long before they had reached the bathrooms. Rory wrinkled his nose. There was a deep, heavy stench coming from the dirty water.

Dez cursed. “It’s spreading too fast.”

“Miles, what exactly happened?” Viv asked. “Did you break a faucet or something?”

“No!” Miles shook his head. “Nothing like that. I needed to wash my face, and I did. But after I turned off the faucet, the water didn’t stop coming out. Then all the faucets started spewing out more water, and the toilets, and basically every place that had any water in them. It was… freaky.”

“Do you smell that?” Dez sniffed, then his face twisted. “I think it’s sewage.”

“So the water is coming out of the sewage system?” Viv asked.

“Looks like it.”

Rory had to shutter the temptation to take in a deep breath. His nose was already dying at the stink. Inhaling too heavily would likely make it refuse to function correctly ever again. “I can stop it for now with my Weaving, but it’ll only be a stop-gap solution. Can’t hold it back forever if it keeps coming on and on. We need to figure out what’s happening with the sewage system.”

“A monster happened,” Devrum said. “That is often the one and only true answer.”

“What?” Viv asked.

“I suggest that you check the source of your… sewage system. You will likely find the culprit causing the problems there.”

Rory and the others nodded. It was as good an idea as any. They decided to execute a rapid plan then and there. While the others would investigate the source of the backwards sewage at the sewage treatment plant, Rory would remain behind to attend to the overwhelming water flow.

Sighing, he watched them go. Hopefully, they’d bring the mask he had asked for soon enough. He was going to have to walk into the muck and he really didn’t want to without covering his face.