BOOK 5: CHAPTER 18: THE FIRST DISCIPLE

“Fischer?” Maria asked, her voice a welcome addition to the harsh sounds of wood being sawed, sanded, and filed. I breathed deep, letting the room’s aromas wash over me, hints of pine, lacquer, leather—and crab—creating a surprisingly pleasant amalgamation.

“Fischer!” Maria repeated in a yell.

“Sorry—was lost in the moment. Yes, sweetheart?”

“You know I love you, right?”

I cracked an eye. “Why do I feel like that sentence has a ‘but’ attached to it?”

“Because it does.” She pointed down at my modest collection of items. “Those are your materials?”

“Yep!”

“That… that doesn’t make sense.”

“What are you talking about? Of course it does.”

She raised a brow and picked up a long strip. “Leather.”

“Yes.”

Next, she lifted a palmful of jagged offcuts. “Metal spikes.”

“Ya-huh! Good for offense and defense.”

“Oh, they’re offensive all right, just not in the way you think.” She grabbed more offcuts, these of the long and wooden variety. “And this? The first two make sense on their own, as does that spool of string, but what in Zeus’s barbed beard do you plan on doing with this bamboo?”

“Stuff.”

“... Stuff?”

“Maybe I’ll need them, maybe I won’t. Are you saying my last ingredient isn’t worthy of a few bamboo poles? What if bamboo is vital and I have none on hand?”

“Yeah!” hissed the last ingredient. “What if it’s vital?”

Maria narrowed her eyes at the section of sturdy carapace visible beneath the rest of the materials. “Which brings me to the crux of the issue.” She flicked a strip of leather away and lifted the palm-sized crustacean from the pile. “Why are you included as a material?”

Snips let out a few bubbles that drifted into the air, her eyes glinting. No words were necessary. Our connections told me the simple truth: she was a crab, and crabs enjoyed hiding.

“As to why she’s here,” I said, “instead of hiding out in the ocean with her crustacean familiars—don’t give me that look, Snips. You’re my familiar. Even with most of my power being absorbed, I can sense where you’re at.” I patted her head, then turned back to Maria. “Snips is here because the item I’m trying to make is for her.”

She smirked at me. “I already knew that.”

“You did?”

“Duh. Why do you think I’m so confused by the bamboo? Speaking of, care to enlighten me? No need to be so secretive if I already know what you’re creating.”

“Nope.” I gave her a toothy grin. “I have to keep at least one surprise.”

“Fiiine,” Maria drawled, spinning. “What about this, then?” She gestured at the surrounding room. “What the frack is this?”

“This is our workshop,” Brad replied from behind his bench.

“And watch your swearing!” Greg added. “Our apprentices are impressionable!”

Maria rolled her eyes, ignoring them. “You know what I mean, Fischer. Why are you doing this here and not with the tailors? They made the last one, right?”

“I’m here for inspiration, of course!”

Snips nodded along.

Maria squinted at us. “Riiiight. Inspiration. Guess I’ll just have to take your word for it.”

I glanced up with a soft smile and caught her sporting the same expression. Neither of us needed to voice the fact she could barge into my mind and plunder the knowledge if she wanted to. That would be a terrifying prospect for many, but not me—I trusted her unconditionally.

“I love you,” I said.

“And I love you.”

“Love,” agreed Snips from the crook of Maria’s arm.

Behind us, Greg turned and grinned at Brad, then mimed being sick. A pink blur slammed him into the wall with a boom that shook the building, the workshop going silent as all heads whirled.

“Bad Greg!” Slimes chastised, sticking to the bricks above the woodworker’s crumpled form. “Very rude!”

Greg groaned as he struggled to his feet. “Couldn’t… help myself…”

“Back to your projects, everyone,” Brad said. “And let my brother’s lesson be yours too. Our god-queen rules with an iron fist.” They did what they were told, many sharing amused looks with their neighbours.

I laid my materials out across the bench, and with a nod to myself, I picked up the bamboo. Maria’s curiosity washed over me, as did Snips’s, woman and crab both unsure of its purpose. I grabbed a chisel, pressed it into one end of the fibrous plant, and split it right down the middle.

“Oh!” Understanding bloomed from Maria as she finally realized my goal. “Wait, are you sure that’s going to work?”

“Nope!” I set the chisel under a tiny bunch of fibers, separating it carefully at first, speeding up as I approached the end. “I don’t see why it wouldn’t, though. Ruby gave me the idea with her weird rod made of stitching. If she can make string rigid, why can’t I make bamboo more flexible?”

I held up the foot-long strip and focused my awareness on it, extending a single tendril of chi.

“The only issue is time. It took Ruby weeks, and she’s more aware of tailoring and its intricacies than I am of… woodworking? Leatherworking? I don’t even know what this really counts as.”

I willed the wood to soften. Nothing happened, and I smiled at myself. Part of me had secretly hoped this was one of those things I could brute-force.

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Maria patted me on the shoulder. “You’ll be fine, dear. I’m sure you’ll find some other impossible task to complete before the end of the… day?”

Resolved to make some mistakes, I’d flooded dozens, then hundreds more branches of essence into the bamboo fibres as she spoke. I half expected the bamboo to explode—they flowed in all at once after the now-customary slight delay caused by the network. Instead, my microscopic strings echoed the will I’d woven into the first. They contorted, twisted, and changed, each attaching to and mimicking the shape of a fibre.

“Huh.” I raised my now-bendy length of wood and jiggled it about. “How about that?”

Snips leaped down onto the bench, her lethargy replaced by open wonder.

Maria sighed. “Well, you’re as annoyingly competent as ever.”

“Naturally. I wouldn’t embarrass my lady wife with incompetence. She’s overtly violent, you see.”

“Hmmm. Quite.” Rather than violence, she leaned to plant a tender kiss me on my cheek. “Now I know you won’t cause me shame, I’ll take my leave.”

I grabbed her softly by the arm before she could go. “You’re sure you don’t need me there?”

“I’m sure.” She swooped back in, gave me another kiss—gifted my butt a quick slap—then patted Snips atop her sturdy carapace.

“Say hello to Pistachio and his lady friend for me.”

“Will do,” Maria’s eyes lingered on me for a moment, then she turned and dashed from the building.

I returned my attention to the workbench in an attempt to banish the thoughts of her silhouette from my mind. It worked. Mostly.

Holding two vaguely eye-shaped pieces of leather, I started sewing with the stitch Ruby and Steven had shown me so long ago. I already knew exactly what I wanted to create, so my will flooded out. Though it probably wasn’t necessary, I leaned on my old trick of partitions, using one side to envision this garment’s purpose, the other on suffusing the materials with reinforcing and pure essence.

It wasn’t easy, but neither was it difficult. The countless tendrils extending from my core and Domain strained me terribly, most of the power still being drawn into the ground. Despite the drain on my resources, my body was light as a feather. The process felt right. This item was for my trusty guard crab. The earliest of all my animal pals to awaken. My first disciple.

Fond memories flashed through my mind.

The sickly, clawless crab covered in scars I’d discovered in the shallows. The one-eyed crustacean with deadly clackers who greeted me at my door the following morning. Countless meals. The shock and awe when she showed me her ability to shoot godsdamned energy blades like some kind of anime protagonist.

Skirmishes with Corporal Claws. Her general distrust of birds. The way her legs kicked out when I tickled her, seeking purchase on the sandy shore. Bubbles popping against my arm to wake me up. Her stalwart leadership of Tropica’s spirit beasts. Her loving reluctance—sometimes overshadowed by genuine fury—as she yeeted Rocky over the horizon, into low orbit, or both.

She was the best friend I’d always wanted. The companion I didn’t deserve. The crab I couldn’t live without.

There weren’t enough words to express how much she meant to me.

I faintly registered cold metal against my fingers as I started integrating the offcuts with the rest of the materials, but it remained at the edge of my periphery, the bulk of my awareness focused on things far more important.

Snips’s recent transformation coursed through my mind. Her willingness to cast aside her crablike tendencies had reflected just how far she was willing to go for Tropica—how far she was willing to go for me. Ultimately, it was an error, but that didn’t change the intent behind it.

Which made me consider her soul in the present. She was something unknown. Neither spirit beast nor elemental. Our bond was unyielding, yet distinct from master and familiar. She sat on the precipice of an advancement. I could feel it in my core.

Her future self—the crab she’d become—was beyond my comprehension. But it caused me no grief. Just like Maria, I trusted Snips as much as I trusted myself.

I offered that thought up freely, only for a similar sentiment to flood back across our connection, our streams of belief forming twin currents of equal strength.

To her, I was like an elder female, a mighty matriarch whose size and majesty scared most from her den. To pair with such a crab meant giving one’s spawn the greatest of chances, for none could provide as much safety, defense, and genetic advantage.

It was certainly a unique way of viewing things. Thanks, Snips. I think.

She sent a mental nod back, a hint of amusement joining her sincerity.

With that confusing message running through me, I focused in on the item I was crafting. My deft fingers had stitched the metal spikes between layers of leather, their tips poking out in places, jagged ends ready to snag and rend.

I stole a peek. It looked terrible, the different-sized offcuts ruining its uniformity. I couldn’t give it over like this. It was nowhere near good enough for my trusty guard crab, and I’d have to start again if its shape wasn’t altered upon completion. That was okay. I’d repeat the process a thousand times, happily scrapping any attempts that weren’t perfect.

Luckily for all involved, such an eventuality wouldn’t come to pass. Power swelled all around us. Some chi drifted in through the building’s walls as a haze. Thin tendrils joined them, this essence latching onto others, bearing the same pure power. Bubbles flowed up from underground, permeating the floor. It didn’t matter that most of my essence was being drained by the network. This act of creation had taken on a life of its own.

My attention wandered toward the room’s occupants. All were in the middle of building their own projects, yet every pair of eyes watched me, their work momentarily paused. They wanted to see the fruit of my labor. I’d have felt it in their cores even if it wasn’t plastered on their faces.

Curious, are you? A smile crossed my face as I placed the very last stitch. Then witness…

All at once, the frozen moment ended; bubbles, tendrils, and clouds of suspended essence slammed into the item before me. Like a reverse firework, the shapes grew brighter the closer they got, their power condensing.

I abandoned my senses and dropped into myself. Darkness surrounded me as I tumbled, ever down, and only when I reached the center of my partition did I allow my mind to open. My feelings for Snips poured out in ceaseless torrents. The memories from earlier returned, flickering before my eyes, each flowing into the next. All were fuel.

The item stretched, warped, then shrank in my mind’s eye, mirroring its physical form. Not once did I let go of what I pictured. Both the System and the world obeyed, bending to my will. The item’s outline sharpened, stabilized.

It gleamed like a miniature sun into the room, and with it came a sense of ecstasy, every cell in my body exulting in the sensation. Terror raced up my spine and filled my chest, sharp and sickening following the euphoria. It wasn’t a miniature sun—it was the beginning of an explosion, bearing enough to level more than just this building if left unchecked.

I instinctively reached for my essence to raise barriers of solid chi. The network defied me, continuing to devour my essence. Time crawled to a stop as calm certainty suffused me. I had to sever my connection to the tunnels. It was the only way. I pictured it as a giant faucet, and I mentally grabbed its handle, ready to turn it off.

Before I could, a stalwart companion arrived at my side, her awareness tapping at mine.

“Help,” hissed Snips, her slew of bubbles holding neither doubt nor hesitation.

That was all I needed. I ceded my will to her, returning her trust.

She started forming a blast shield with our combined chi, but stopped when she realized it wouldn’t have as much strength as my pure essence—if a single side failed, all the force could leave as a concentrated cone. Redirecting our intent, Snips did something remarkable. She willed the detonation to appear elsewhere, picturing a location where none would be harmed.

I’d never considered using my power to teleport force…

The resulting explosion rocked me. My eyes told me it was happening here, the beams of light brilliant and blinding. Every other sense, however, told me it was far above the building, almost all the force appearing in the sky hundreds of meters above us. The sound hit a moment later, as did the wave of pressure that shook any items not nailed down, tools tumbling from benches and walls alike.

Snips expelled remnants of my essence with a cute little burp, made all the more adorable by a few bubbles that drifted from her mouth to float in the air before her. I probably should have praised her, rubbed her shell all over while making a huge fuss. Instead, both Snips and I glanced down, looking at the System-made item sitting between us. Nobody said a word. The workshop was bathed in silence, broken only by the soft tap of carapaced legs scuttling forward across the bench.

Snips dipped her head, paused, then positioned herself between the leather straps. Without so much as a whisper of warning, the item shrank, snapping into place around the soul it had been created for.

Before I could inspect my guard crab’s new eyepatch, my oldest nemesis appeared, drawing me in.