Building Up, Building Out

With the pixie out finding the rest of her own breakfast, and the naiad returned to her stream, you pass once more into your lair. To strike out, you must first build your strength. Among your greatest assets is the land that is yours, but you've barely made anything of it yet. You approach the task systematically, tapping every surface around you. There are options to dig deeper down, to build out the earthen structure; garrisons, armories, tunnels, workshops, and on it went.

You can dismiss most of the rooms and features as irrelevant to your current situation. That's not to say they couldn't be useful, if not for extenuating circumstances; a garrison does no good without soldiers, and a treasure room means nothing if a random Hero can blow the doors open and take everything. That being said, there's so many that it's a little difficult to keep it all straight in your head. At least, until one in particular catches your eye.

Room Feature: Lesser Enchanted Pool

Requirements: Water Spring, Medium or Larger room, Elder Tree Roots, Soul Crystal 7

That was interesting. And unlike some personal quarters you could never defend, or a gate heroes would just knock down, it has potential. It's less clear than you'd like, but sometimes you need to take the odds into your hands. With a tap, the Soul Crystals in your inventory—seven levels-worth, with the addition of Ladrieth's—vanish, and a progress bar appears in front of you.

You've seen this before.

Bashing the ground to fill up a progress bar is not, upon consideration, especially dignified. But it produced an interesting result.

Secondary Skill, Novice; -15%. No Tools, -50%. Total Build Speed: 42.5%

Which reveals both that ethereal crafting somehow relates to the function of an enchanted pool, and that some skills can contribute more to a given task than others. It's difficult to judge the implications of either, but better to know sooner rather than later.

When the bar fills, the bare center of the room suddenly shifts, and you nearly fall face-first into a pool of water. Pulling back, you can see that it's a perfect circle, with seven glowing lights evenly spaced around it. Two long, trailing roots drop through the bottom of the pool, winding across the floor before climbing the wall across from the entrance.

Even without touching the water, kneeling by the pool, you feel the ever-flowing currents of magic change around you, as they might around a particularly potent spellcaster or work of magical artifice. Now they are shifting, swirling, concentrating around a singular point: the center of the pool. Your enchanted sconces are pulled in, the nine blue flames leering over their silver seats. This is a potentially potent tool, if you can master it.

Your own spellcasting abilities are severely limited, but in this you might be able to cheat. You reach out into the pool with what power you have, and you speak the name of your home, bidding the land that is yours to submit.

Ley Focus Claimed!

You've taken control of a local focus of magical energies. You can use it to project magical effects over the nearby landscape. The more power that pours into it, the stronger it will grow. But be wary, for such things are coveted by all.

On a hunch, you gestured in the air a few times to call up your Fame tab.

Fame: 253 [+?? Pending]

Created Local Ley Focus! +30

Claimed Local Ley Focus! +20

Considering the description of the alert, something occurs to you. You close your eyes, concentrating as you reach out over the pool. You only know one spell, but magic is part of your being. You reach down, deeper, deeper, and—yes. You can feel the power of your given word binding you; your oaths of allegiance manifest as power.

One reaches above you, to the tree, to Holly. Another you can feel flittering about, thrumming with anxiety and hope, the pixie. And one winds outwards, like silver and gold and starlight all corded together. That one must be Ladrieth.

Acting half on instinct, half on a guess, you gesture downward, directing that bond through the Ley Focus at the heart of the pool. You open your eyes to see the blue light shudder throughout the room, and colors whorl and shift on the water's surface. The figures take shape: Ladrieth and her guildmates, standing on the banks of what you recognize as part of the naiad's stream.

The other woman, Wylahael, is giving her an unamused look. "You sure you remember where it is?"

Ladrieth huffs. "Of course I do. We've got to go a little further than I thought, but it's definitely this way. Don't trip, guys."

It occurs to you that, if any of these three was going to trip, it would probably be the sorcerer, not the ranger or the paladin

Regardless, it sounds like they're coming your way. You had best be prepared.