The bended City.

Catherine groans as her consciousness returns to her. “What happened?” She mumbles, rubbing her head as she opens her eyes. First thing, she sees is grey haired half demon tightening one of many belts on his new outfit. “Catherine~” Ulal cheerfully muses, “Uklag? Is that you?” She asks perplexed at his new form. “Well, about 70% I suppose.” He responds, “Also I go by Lord Ulal now. You can lose the Lord if you want to.”

The Demonmagus takes a bit of metal and transmutes it into a glass of water. “Here, I guess you will need that.” Her throat is indeed pretty dry after the long chanting so she takes the glass and chugs it down without question. She watches as Ulal puts his arm into a fitting armour. The long gauntlet attaches to the pauldron through magical means and he moves his fingers with a satisfied smile. “Perfect.” He says.

“Where is the rest?” Catherine asks, only now does she realize where she is. “Starting the evacuation of the cave. We are leaving soon. Well, most of us, Droy is dead.” Catherine blinks, “How unfortunate. Celine must be pretty shocked.” Ulal shrugs, “Likely but that is not my problem. Get your ass up I want to teach you something.”

Catherine grabs unto the edge of the neargy crafting table and pulls herself up to look at what her master is talking about. On the table lie several gemstones of sorted by size and quality. “Gems are one of the weirdest materials to be used in magic.” Ulal says and grabs a handful of the low quality ones in his right hand. “That is for two reasons, one of them is that they are very difficult to produce, their unique structure is hard to understand. However it is not that difficult to combine smaller ones into one big gemstone.” He puts his left hand on the gemstones as well.

Runes flare up on the gauntlet and light shines through the small splits between his fingers. When he takes away, his left hand again there is a single gemstone. “Sadly it only has the quality of the material used.” He sighs and hands Catherine the fist-sized gemstone. “You can use this for whatever you want. The second point is that gems have a very unusual magical matrix called a ‘splinter matrix’. The amount of power they can hold is ridiculous but the enchantment you can put into them has to be as mind bogglingly complicated.

Because you can achieve the same results or only slight worse by staying away from these rare fuckers Enchanters usually don’t bother but for what I have planned next I will need those.” Ulal takes the few ones of supreme quality and combines them into a single jewel that radiates in the colours of the rainbow. “What do you want to do then?” Catherine asks. Ulal only gives her a sly smile as a response. “Telling you would ruin the surprise. Next however is this.” He wanders to the shelf with the plans and pulls out one with sure hand.

Back at the table re unrolls it. “Bended City Version 301.” Catherine reads the description on the corner. “I thought it was a failure from the start.” Ulal says and takes a pen. The plan on the parchment is merely the outer ring of the city and a rough outline for seven districts severed by canals. “But with my new demonic knowledge I know that this was the correct start. Yes, I can complete this.” With sure strokes, he starts to complete one district after another.

Catherine watches with great intrigue as blocks and buildings take the forms of giant magical symbols, containing smaller ones, containing miniscule ones. Each district is given a purpose and lines of power are distributed, mechanisms put in their place and all within only one hour. “Has your intellect become even greater?” Catherine asks in awe.

“No, well maybe, but this is not why I can solve this that fast.” Ulal responds as he draws the final lines, “This is a request of my old self. A last will of sorts. My whole being is forced to concentrate on this.” A last rune in the centre of the map and the drawing is complete. “This is the bended City project, finished. All that is left to do now is to build it.” Ulal muses and puts the pen down.

“While I make preparations for that help the rest pack up, we will leave in two days after we bury Droy.”