Five days had passed since the three had left the dungeon. Five surprising boring days, when one looked back at the events which had happened before. Though, it also wasn’t that unexpected as they were stuck under a rather big rock. Literally, if one wanted to define the ceiling of a cave as a rock.
Sarah had already finished many of her preparations for her next project, yet the greatest task had still been incomplete, as they finished the dungeon: the creation of the actual spell circles for the ritual.
Work, the girl hadn’t completed on her own, as Sera supported her. Mainly since she saw a good opportunity to level two of her classes, though also as it was a welcome change of pace.
From time to time the beings of the realm still tried to interrupt them, however those were quickly and permanently removed by the third member of their party. Sometimes the warrior also took part in those fights, though her own work with the glowing metals had her usually occupied. It was fortunately not much of an issue, as those encounters were much rarer and easier to manage than those at the beginning of the last two dungeons.
Then finally they had finished the construct. Countless small engravings had been carved into the floor, walls and ceiling of the spherical cave with a diameter of about 5 meter. Layers and arcs of the two metals had then been placed inside the chamber, a structure which to the ignorant might appear more like abstract art than an invention with clockwork precision. Lastly the whole chamber had been filled with water and souls had been placed at the right spots.
[Meteromagical Gauger
Quality: excellent
Effects:
Allows the delayed execution of a spell of water-weather-affinity, regardless of affinity of the caster, once enough mana is supplied.
Description:
A 4 dimensional spell circle, which compressed countless instructions into a small space. Due to its intended purpose, even though high quality materials have been used in its construction, it is likely that it can only be used once.
While usually ritual sites aren’t classified as items, the scale, material and design pushed it barely over the threshold.
]
Apparently quite the achievement, the twins had managed to accomplish, according to Eas.
Though for Sera it was a bit overshadowed by another announcement. So she let he sister add whatever finishing touches she had in mind, while checking the other messages her-self.
[Your Artisan class has reached Lv 12.]
[Your Maid class has reached Lv 10.]
[Your ##### extra class has reached Lv 1.]
[The Crucible skill has been awarded.]
[Crucible]
[A skill unique to the ##### extra class. Your classes have started to converge. Experience you gain is shared among all non-extra classes. Experience required for future non-extra class levels is reduced.]
If she was honest, the girl had expected something flashier. But then again, it was just a skill awarded for having a rare extra class and getting eight others to level 10, if her gamer-intuition was right. So maybe she should just be thankful that it would allow her to continue her rather abnormal build, without lagging too much behind in regard to other levels. For the moment it had worked, but only because her sister hadn’t focused on clearing dungeons or quests which awarded levels. Levels, which were useless for the warrior, as her species couldn’t outlevel her class.
At least as of now. Maybe she could get another skill which allowed her that…
A while later everything was finally prepared.
Sarah and her party stood on top of a hill in a stone forest. Well, the mage stood and the other two girls sat on smaller pieces of rubble they had previously excavated from their cave. A cave which was now nowhere in sight.
Obviously.
The mage couldn’t have other people find her construct by accident or disrupt her spell.
A similar reason was behind their choice of location. The tall white-grayish stone trees of various levels obstructed any vision and made it hard to spot the party. And even if they were found, the apparently still living stone-plant-hybrids would offer some defense against long ranged magic.
The possibility of snipers was an issue, but going into a cave and dying to an assassin who flooded the cave system with poison also wasn’t good. So she took the more manageable risk, forced herself to trust in her preparations and finally got to what her sister would likely describe as “the fun part”.
Concentrating, the mage linked herself with the rite and started to collect the mana. Not that the action was quite obvious, as most of the spell circles were covered by sand or otherwise hidden for the moment. A precaution she deemed necessary as it would take some time for this step to finish. So maybe her earlier judgment about “the fun part” was wrong? Though if any beasts noticed their actions they would likely attack them, so some fun should happen for her sister.
Also all of this ignored that Sarah still had her soul orrery surrounding her. She had compressed it to some extent to reduce the likelihood of them being spotted from a distance and to have it also covered by the trees, but the glowing construct was eye-catching even for those without the ability to sense souls, when they came close enough.
Unfortunately there was nothing the girl could do about it, as shrinking had already inhibited her mana recovery enough.
At least Eas was nice enough to provide a number of how long the charging would take!
[Casting in progress, about 32 days remaining…]
It was a bit weird that such a timer appeared now, but it was also good to know that she had about 32 days time to think about what to do next, with the parts of her brain which weren’t occupied with handling mana.
So, why did it appear now? Was it because it was the first time she had cast magic of such a scale in the realms? Was –
[You have declared war against the Flame Sea Shore!]
“What?” Surprised by the sudden announcement of the system, Sarah needed a moment to process what had just happened. Though she was still concentrating on collecting mana so she didn’t have that much mental capacity left. If she didn’t have inflated mental attributes and souls to outsource parts of her work to, she would have likely been unable to notice those messages at all.
Though in the end, their guide was the first to act upon the message. “Damn! We have to get out of here! Why do i have to run into a war just days after escaping a demigod?”
Nia was already about to storm off with that outburst, but noticed that neither Sarah nor Sera seemed interested in leaving. So, after taking a deep breath and calming herself down a bit, Nia tried to convey the dangers they were in. “I know you were planning something, but you can take care of that later! I doubt anyone would be able to find whatever you have hidden here without knowing what to look for. Anyway, not sure who was interested in this realm, as they didn’t announce their faction, but i doubt either of you two would want to fight against which ever level 100-ish being had put up the declaration!”
“… level 13. And no, I don’t want to fight the faction responsible for the war.” The mage replied in a small voice.
“Sorry?” Nia asked.
Forcing herself to speak a bit louder, Sarah repeated her last answer. “The one responsible for the announcement is level 13.”
“Huh? why would you know…” Then realizing what was going on, Nia could only facepalm. “So you have… Why would you declare war against a whole realm at level 13?!”
Glancing to her sister, the caster decided against going through Sera with the explanation. She had started to kind of accept the new girl being around and with the spell still being in progress, she didn’t want to make things more complicated than they were. Even if it meant that she had to get out of her comfort zone. “It wasn’t like i did it intentionally. I didn’t know that an a bit larger spell would cause a war and you didn’t mention anything in this direction.”
“Well, i also didn’t expect someone at our level to be able to cause a war through spells or otherwise. That usually only happens once one reaches a much higher level and either forms bigger guilds or uses some privileges to purchase certain spells or quests from Eas. Also there would be a bigger reason behind those than ‘let me test out this new spell!’.”
“I didn’t just want to test out the spell, it’s also to level up my class!” Sarah corrected Nia. Not so much to actually prove a point, but to prevent people from getting the wrong impression of her. She wouldn’t face unknown risks just for a test, but once a basically assured advancement of her abilities through levels came into the equation, it made the decision much easier.
“Urgh, fine, not that it matters. I’m still for leaving, as all that doesn’t change that we could face and you could level your class in safer environments as before. Also in the future, ask me when you want to do anything! Not that you start another realm-wide war or worse.”
The twins looked at each other for a moment.
“We stay!” Sera answered, now also adding to the conversation. For her the prospects of seeing a war were quite exciting and facing enemies with much higher levels than her own wasn’t anything new to her.
“In the worst case we can still flee through the forest and once i abandon the ritual the war should end. Or is that assumption wrong?” Sarah supplemented, ignoring the last part of their guides statement.
Nia didn’t like how this was developing, but she also couldn’t stop them from throwing their lives away, with the contract in place. So after thinking about her own options, she replied. “Hm… no, i think you are right. But i also don’t know much about the wars, as i wasn’t expecting to participate in one this early.”
With them having decided to stay, at least for the moment, Nia suddenly remembered that she had forgotten to mention something. “Right! Quickly, open your quest menu and look for the war quest!”
