Trial by Conquest: Scene 24 (Patreon)

Author Note: Previous chapters often contained more than one scene per chapter, but from now on, we'll be counting releases by the scene rather than the chapter. Thus, we start at scene 23 depsite the fact that we've got a lot more than 23 scenes so far. The main exception to this will be when a scene by itself clearly doesn't warrant a full release by itself.

Scene 24:

“So, what was your world like before you joined the Trial?” Wild Flower asked. With her green skin, leafy lingerie, and bronze Roman helmet, Wild Flower hopped from rock to rock along the river bank like a dancer straight out of some avant garde theatre production.

Max thought about the question. He still didn’t remember anything about his life before arriving in Isolation to compete in the Trial, but he did know stuff. Like, he knew how gravity worked, what a sword was, why people dreamed, and where to look in a standard Titan-class starship to find the male-designated bathrooms. It should be possible to build up a picture of his prior world based purely on the stuff he knew. So, what did he know?

Max raised his hand to look at his blue skin as climbed over a random tree that had fallen into the flowing water.

“It was a world very different to this one,” he finally said. “We had a lot more technology.”

Wild Flower beamed at him. “Did you have huts as large as the trees?”

Max chuckled. “We had huts that reached into space.”

“Space?”

Max’s mind scrambled. “Err...You know how the sky goes black at night? That’s space. It’s quite a bit further away than the sky of day is.”

“Wow. That’s big. Why don’t the huts fall down?”

Max’s mind drifted to the orbital mechanics of space elevator construction, or at least what little he knew—whatever he’d been he was pretty sure it hadn’t been an engineer—and shook his head. No need try explaining something so advanced that he himself wasn’t sure of the details. “Good question,” he answered. “If you want to build something taller, you need stronger materials. Like, don’t build with wood, instead build with rock. If you develop technology far enough, you can craft materials that will let you build as high as the birds fly and even higher.”

“Oooo,” Wild Flower Ooooed, “How tall will the stone from the quarry let us build? I want to live in a tower as tall as the birds fly.”

Max thought about the question. “I don’t know. But you said you’d been to the Pyramid where the Spider Nymph lives?” His mind briefly wandered to the lethally attractive arachnid-themed femme fetale as he watched Wild Flower’s perky ass hop over a random pond of still water. “It’s gotta be at least as tall as that. I think it’s made of the same stuff.” It made sense to him that since what I could build was dictated by the Trial in the form of Deity En-Grams, that the dungeon home of a legendary creature would probably be among the tallest buildings that could be built using the material it was built from.

They eventually came to the crook in the river with a cliff face on the farside and Wild Flower waved him into quiet, her face suddenly turning serious. “I hear Draglins,” she whispered.

Together, they crept around the bend in the river, using the trees as cover, until Max could see what they were dealing with.

Wild Flower had told him about Draglins – small bipedal creatures that came up to the waist of a man. They kind of looked like goblins, but with oversized heads that more resembled a dragon. They had wide crests that protected their necks and reptilian tails that moved with a life of their own.

What Max instinctively thought of as a pack of the creatures were standing around the entrance to a massive quarry carved into the side of the hill. There looked to be an argument of some kind going on.

Creeping close enough, Max used his Analise skill.

--- Whoosh ---

Draglin

Alignment: Master Builder

Race Type: Uncommon

Making their homes in the many mines and quarries that dot the world of Isolation, Draglins are unique for their singular allegiance to the mysterious race of beings known as the Master Builders. During the Trial by Conquest, this unthinking loyalty manifests in near schizophrenic tendencies. A pack of Draglins will swear loyalty to whichever Master Builder was the last to visit their home, tearing down the previous civilization’s flag with a ferociousness bordering insanity, for clearly this individual who now stands before them is the ‘true’ Master Builder, and all others imposters. This will remain ‘true’ until the next Master Builder (or commander) turns up. The only time Draglins will leave their home is to cart mined resources to the nearest Master Builder settlement.

Powers: Natural Miner, Natural Lumberjack, Natural Builder, Natural Cartwright.

Fascinating.

And rather disturbing. These creatures were basically a kind of surf race, bound by the rules of the Trial to work the land and serve whichever Master Builder last passed by. In any other context, Max might well have blanched and refused to have anything to do with any of this. But this wasn’t any other context. It was this context, and Max wanted to keep both his own neck and the necks of his new friends and lost family. So, time to become landed aristocracy!

He nodded to Wild Flower and began to creep further, the better to hear whatever the smaller dracanoid creatures were arguing about.

“I’m just saying we should go investigate,” said one of the pack.

“No,” replied another. The draglins looked pretty interchangeable to Max, but he got the impression this one was a leader of some kind, or at least was held in higher respect. A necklace of pierced rocks hung around his neck, contrary to every other creature present. “We wait here until the Master Builder appears before us. That is the rule of the Trial and that is what we shall do.”

“But the rules also say we serve the Master Builder,” argued back the first. “How can we serve him when we don’t know who he is? The settlement to the south might be him!”

“Orrr, he could be an imposter!” snapped back the leader. “If he is the true Master Builder, he will seek us out.”

“But we’re nearly out of room on the carts for more marble. If we wait much longer, we’ll have to make another cart. And if we start now, we can begin the pathway through the forest to get to the village.”

“Mmm... that is true... but no! We will wait!”

Max had heard enough. Standing up out of the bushes, he strode towards the arguing draglins with a confident gate and a smile on his face. “Ho there, good people!” And immediately got four spears thrust in his direction for his trouble. Again.

“Wait!” Screeched the lead draglin, now hopping up and down. “It is he! The Master Builder! He has come before us!”

Immediately every draglin dropped to their knees and began prostrating themselves on the floor before him. “He has come. He has come!”

“Errr, yes,” said Max suddenly feeling incredibly uncomfortable, as Wild Flower stepped up beside him. “I come before you for back-breaking unpaid labour to build my civilization off the sweat of your work and crown myself king.”

“He speaks true!” Screeched the leader. “Raise the flag above the Amber Quarry! Raise it!”

Max bit his lip and watched as an irongrass pole was thrust out of the top of a nearby hut and a vertical banner, coloured amber and featuring a large black spider web, climbed up the pole while from somewhere trumpets blared and drums beat.

--- Trumpets and Drums ---

Congratulations, Master Builder, you have claimed ownership of a quarry. This is a resource building and will produce a base level of 2 units of stone per day. This stone will be delivered by the workers to the nearest settlement once every two days. A basic path between the quarry and your nearest settlement will be constructed to facilitate this. Upgrade the path and the quarry to increase the output of this resource building. Remember, even resources you don’t immediately need can have worth. Be aware, if another Master Builder or Commander finds this structure, they can claim it for their own. Non-settlement-bound structures are excellent solutions to this problem.

Like watch towers, Max thought. Which he already had the deity-engram for. Accessing his construction panel he made to slap a construction constellation down at the entrance to the quarry before belatedly realising he’d already maxed out the total he could have down at any one point. If he wanted to build an active defence for the quarry, he’d have to come back later once one of the other buildings was already complete.

“Well that was easy,” Wild Flower said cheerfully, slipping a soft hand into his while the two watched the quarry descend into what looked like barely controlled chaos.

Everywhere Max looked, draglins were running to and fro, lashing massive stone blocks to pullies and ropes, strapping themselves into harnesses attached to carts, shouting, jumping around, and generally acting as though it was the first day of a new variable-gravity Klein bottle football season.

“Yes,” Max answered. “Rather too easy. Now I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

If his experience so far was anything to go by, It would be just like the Trial to give him a freebie and then immediately dunk some massive problem on him just when he was getting comfortable.

Wildflower blinked up at him. “What’s a shoe?”

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