The Observatory
When I step away from my mobile home I am quickly joined by the dolls and the animals. All ten of my furry friends and feathered followers enter their true forms the moment they step away from the carriage I have grown increasingly fond of and spread out around and behind me.
My dolls are also with me. Both are armed with their new equipment and gazing at the building ahead of us. The observatory is a gleaming building that towers over us and as I gaze at it I reach into my vault and withdraw the portable monitor I own.
Just in front of the observatory there are various marks in the grass and dirt sprawled ahead of the observatory. I study them as I feel the weight of the monitor fill my hand while the thing phases into reality. I see footprints and other signs that the area has been disturbed fairly recently, which is intriguing. Some of the footprints are human in shape, while others are not, and some of the human shaped footprints are remarkably small.
I kneel down and grab a handful of the dirt to lift to my nose. I inhale lightly and feel a litany of information fill my head thanks to my powerful senses. As a culinary warrior I am a chef, through and through, and that is helpful in this moment since I possess remarkably keen senses.
The scent of the dirt is infused with the smell of iron, but the iron smell is itself mixed and comes from more than one source. As I touch the dirt I begin to gain glimpses into the past, including handy revelations about the source of the footprints. I begin to process these handy memories even as I turn and look at my dolls.
"So… I think I know what happened." I begin, curious to hear what the others will say when I'm done speaking.
"Humans, or at least creatures that resemble humans, came here some time ago with what looks like… dwarves." I state, as I watch and rewatch the brief snapshot of the past I have access to thanks to psychometry. These remarks cause my dolls to look at each other interestedly.
"It seems that they saw something of interest here. I'm not sure what, exactly, but sometime recently they came up here, a sizable group of them, hung out for a few days, and then left. That was a few days before I woke up in your chamber in the estate. So I have to wonder if Amy was here, spotted by them, and then something happened?" I muse, aloud. I then think about something odd, and turn to Beth for answers,
"So… is there a way she, Amy, could even get in or out of the observatory? It's been locked down for… years, almost certainly." I remark, which causes Beth to immediately answer me.
"Amy is a magic clockwork type doll. She has a hard outer body but is made up of a strangely ethereal type of slime and can use that slime to slink in and out of the observatory. Her slime can't persist for long outside of the shell but she can explore the world by using her slime. She almost certainly could enter if she could use her slime to slink into tiny cracks. And that's if she hasn't further honed her magical abilities. If she has… Well, in that case she might well just be able to teleport in or out of the observatory. And she probably has further honed her innate magical skills." Beth remarks, her demeanor taking a sad turn at the end.
I realize how imperfect the simplest explanation for her being here would be since she can't stay in the observatory for long unless she has improved her magical abilities, which is plausible enough all things considered, but since she seems to not be here that's hardly an issue. I accept this explanation and walk past the area where the footprints are, until I'm in front of one of the walls of the observatory where a door should be. As I reach the wall Raquel calls out to me.
"You mentioned that you saw dwarven footprints. If you really did see them then it'd be a good idea for us to investigate that more fully in the days to come. Dwarves would appreciate your craftsmanship and would be fascinated by us." Raquel tells me, causing me to nod and smile. This world seems to thrive on the fantasy tropes I was mildly familiar with back on Earth, which could be fun to mess with in the future.
I begin to fiddle with the monitor in my hand as I gaze at the wall. I don't even need to look at it to know how to maneuver through the menus until I reach the part of it that tells me that the observatory is locked down. Funnily enough, so is the primary part of the estate now that my dolls and I are out of it.
I click on the monitor and change the status of the observatory. Doing this causes the observatory to rumble slightly. I hear a subtle sound emanate from the wall in front of me and a second later I am a bit surprised to see the smooth wall vibrate and a door phase into existence.
"Ah, magic." I remark, unfazed by this sudden and strange development. I approach the door and open it with ease, faint echoes of memories filling my mind's eye as I do so.
Just past the door is a large foyer, and at the end of the mostly empty space is a pair of stairways leading to a second floor. On this floor, the ground floor, there is a single door at the end of the vast space, and on the second floor there are three doors.
I step into the foyer and am followed by my dolls and creature companions. The animals all seem relaxed, and the dolls don't seem bothered by the room either.
"Okay… I guess the best thing for me to do is go and touch doorknobs." I remark, which confuses both of my dolls. I laugh and realize they don't know about a specific power in my possession.
"I'm psychometric. I can touch objects and perceive their pasts. So if I were to grab a random sword in a business that buys and sells used weapons I could see how it was used by its past owner. Bigger objects are… less useful, for some reason, when it comes to this power." I explain, and the two dolls suddenly get what I'm saying. They react to this with looks of shock, as they both understand how powerful an ability this can be. Raquel is the one to ask me something now.
"Is that how you knew what you were talking about earlier? When we were outside of the observatory?" She asks, and I nod brightly at her. This causes the beautiful doll to smile at me, something that it's hard not to appreciate given the elegant beauty of her face.
I walk over to the wall of the foyer and touch it but when I do I only get seemingly half-remembered snapshots of the past. This is something I've seen before, when touching objects of some thus far unclear, but large, size. I'm not able to tell what my exact limit is, but it never fails to be a bit of a task for me to actually use my powers on something bigger than a carriage, even if I can make faint details of important past events relative to the object in question.
For some reason overly big objects don't seem to mesh well with psychometry, and the few memories they give tend to be less than great compared to other recollections I collect. Curiously this does give me a new skill, which is handy since it's the "Psychometry" skill. I speculate that this might someday allow me to use psychometry on bigger objects, which would be remarkably helpful. I turn and glance at the dolls behind me.
"You two have been in here before right?" I ask, and the two of them glance at me and nod.
"So then do you know the layout of this place? If not, it's fine, but I would love a guided tour to the place where you think Amy would be the most likely to try and spend her time given the curious limitation she faced." I explain, which causes them to smile slightly. Raquel steps forward, walking towards me.
"In that case, I can definitely guide you to the beating heart of the observatory. There's a data gathering room in the middle of the building, connected to a grand telescope. That room is akin to the room you found Beth and I in, but for magic dolls as opposed to organic ones. The telescope is currently obscured, due in part to the protective measures associated with the 'Locked Down' status, but we can change that from the central room." Raquel states, as she reaches me and steps towards the door on the first floor. When she reaches it she opens it and it reveals a long hallway. I sigh when I see the thing, firmly reminded of the hallway back in the house I've been living in for some time.
I join Raquel just past the door and am followed closely by the rest of my friends and allies. When I reach the door I extend a hand and put it on the doorknob just to see into the past and I am unsurprised when, after scanning the memories I have just absorbed, see a figure in the observatory earlier this very month. The figure in question is indeed a doll!
Less than three weeks ago the doll was here. I allow myself to grow familiar with her smooth, wooden face and the delicate features someone expertly cut into whatever block of wood her shell is made of. I also grow familiar with the strange key embedded in her back, a massive thing made of bright yellow wood that slowly turns as she walks, as though someone has wound it up for her and each motion takes vital energy. The doll is beautiful, if clearly inorganic, and moves with an eerie, inhuman grace.
"So… I have some news." I state, when Beth and Raquel are close to me. They look at each other, their eyes filled with knowledge of the implications of my remarks given my earlier revelations about my abilities, and then look at me.
"I saw Amy. She was here earlier this month. Her whole body, shell and all, used this door twenty one days ago." I explain, which causes my companions to sigh in relief.
"In that case, we should definitely go to the data room. Your psychometric abilities will prove incredibly helpful there." Beth replies, before turning and beginning to walk towards the room. Some of the animals with us begin to follow after her, and Raquel and I do as well.
There are a number of doors lining both sides of this hallway, and for a moment I want to look inside of them. This desire only lasts a faint few seconds, however, because even as Beth eagerly walks towards the door leading to the data gathering room I faintly feel a soft vibration seem to come from the floor underneath me. It is a curiously quick sensation, lasting scant few seconds and making it difficult for me to precisely track it. I intuitively sense that the feeling will return and I pause my movements just to be sure to track it when it happens again and when I do feel it it seems a bit more violent. It… it feels like something underneath the observatory is shaking the building but doing so incredibly subtly.
It takes me a beat to realize the implication of that, and I do right as Beth reaches the door at the end of the hall. I feel my heart pound in my chest as I instantly make use of the non-verbal communication aspect of the party system linking Beth and I to type out a warning right as she begins to open the door leading into the observatory. I'm unsure whether or not she reads the warning, as she opens the door anyway and when she opens the door I hear her audibly gasp, right before my enhanced senses hear the faint noises of someone notching an arrow to a bow on the other side of the door.
Raquel and I both dart forward, moving impossibly fast and streaking down the hallway. We both watch as Beth plants a foot firmly on the floor and I get to see her ring glow and transform into its shield form. Beth quickly repositions the shield, moving it from her side to in front of her in an instant and I suddenly hear the sounds of weapons beginning to streak through the air towards my companion. I reach Beth's side right as an arrow thuds into her shield, and I am surprised when I see the figure responsible for the strange attack. I also touch the wall beside me and in doing so gain surprising memories of this place's very recent past.
The room just ahead of me is a massive chamber. All but one of its massive walls is covered in populated bookshelves, and the last wall is covered in a strange machine that vaguely reminds me of an old wall-mounted computer, the sort one might see in an old photograph. The space between the bookshelf walls and the strange computer-like device is mostly filled with the scattered remains of books that were once on desks. Some desks have now been overturned, while a few have rotted away and the books once placed on them lie on the floor. A number of undead monsters are glaring at Beth and climbing out of a hole in the middle of the chamber, one that I can tell did not exist mere hours ago.
"Undead huh? Between this and the dwarven footprints I saw earlier this observatory feels pretty significantly more fantasy than Oceanos or home do." I lightly remark.
It seems that my decision to unlock the observatory has delivered more foes for me to test my metal and mettle on. I smile as I feel the weight of my sword in my hand, and I feel Beth hand me her shield. One hand of hers goes to her back and I raise the shield in time to protect her from weapons flung by our foes, such as daggers and small lumps of various metals. Beth draws her bow, and Raquel appears beside me, knives already visible in her hand.
She flings them at our enemies, and two of the arcane weapons strike true, cobblering some of our foes and sending them flying backwards. The enemies we are facing are pretty generic seeming undead monsters, zombies and skeletons, though in both cases they aren't zombies or skeletons of humans but of something much bigger and stronger. I can't be entirely sure but I suspect that we are seeing zombies and skeletons of orcs and other more muscular types of undead.
I myself join the fray and take aim at the more dangerous of the two types of undead: the skeletons. The clattering undead possess bows and other weapons and are slowly shuffling towards my dolls and I, and thankfully even as I point my blade at my foes we are joined by our small horde of furry friends and creature-companions.
The birds fly past me and begin to use the same technique they used while they were enslaved by Sophia's forces, flinging dark feathers at our foes with terrific aim that absolutely demolish those who they hit. The tiger and the wolves dart past my companions and I, entering the fray with terrific power. The creatures are not well disciplined yet, but they have spent enough time together and are wearing the outfits I made for them that help them enhance their coordination, so they are still just coordinated enough to work decently together.
The wolves love to tackle skeletons, seeming to enjoy the sight of their bones soaring in the wake of being tackled by beasts that weigh close to a ton. The tiger powerfully pounces on foes and efficiently ends them, killing enemies in two strikes and seeming to focus on zombies considerably more than skeletons. The birds mostly focus on enemies who turn their attention towards them. My dolls just enjoy attacking whatever is closest, and it's a sign of how well my group works that in seconds it becomes considerably harder for them to aim since we annihilate many foes nearly instantly.
I aim and cast a simple but potent spell, hitting one of my foes with an unfocused bolt of purple arcane power. The spell is vaguely akin to a famous D&D spell, "Magic Missile". The moment I hit my target, a skeleton that is hanging back and readying its bow, I instantly utilize my "Arcane Dispersal" perk, the same one I used while fighting the tamers who had fused with their wolves. I do this to undo the spell animating the skeleton, which is simple enough as the magic was not hugely complex, and the skeleton completely collapses, clattering to the floor and dropping its bow.
I grin at this display and continue to do exactly what I have just done. I point my blade at a foe and then channel a spell through my blade, never anything complex or expensive, and I let loose my magic. The undead here are not smart and they never dodge, so I am able to be quite effective at this. A second later with as much focus as it takes an intelligent college student to do very basic math I activate my perk and disperse the magic holding the undead together. In every case this proves quite effective, and I delightedly watch undead I hit with hilariously simple magic collapse thanks to my power.
As this is occurring I get more money and occasionally skill books from my fallen foes. I also unlock more skills, and I sense my power as a clergyman rising ever so slowly. It's an interesting sensation.
Unfortunately more and more undead seem to continue to come from the hole, replacing fallen soldiers in this eerie horde with worrying ease. I eventually call out to my allies, animal and non-animal alike, and tell them to push forward to the hole from which the undead come out. It seems that repairing is necessary to starve off the simple army of the walking dead.
My dolls and I step fully into the arcane room and we move forward. I focus on the undead that climb out of the hole and have the capacity to harass and harry our flying friends, while my dolls are less discriminate in their aim, and their efficiency helps allow my animals to have more time to target foes without being subjected to counter attacks by other undead monsters.
We slowly make our way deeper and deeper into the room. The hole is still some distance away, and I am suddenly grateful for some of my perks. I possess the ability to instantly repair things so long as I expend some magic to do so, and that ability may well prove invaluable here.
Thanks to the fact that I have used my simplest magic so far I have been able to remain effectively full of arcane power even as I close in on the hole. I also possess potions that I have made that restore arcane energy, and I have a perk as a culinary warrior that lets me reapply the effects of things like potions so long as it's been less than a day since I first imbibed them. This means that even though the hole is big I have three full bars worth of arcane energy to use and try to repair if not the whole thing then as much of it as I can…
"Use the tables for cover!" I shout as we begin to reach some of the overturned tables which litter the room. I myself use incredibly basic wind magic to reposition the tables so they help block my foes, even as I continue to blast select foes with my, against undead, instant destruction attacks. Beth and Raquel do as I suggest, moving behind tables as they advance forward, and in doing so effectively ensuring that any enemies determined to try melee attacks will not get the chance.
It takes several arduous minutes but we eventually reach the hole and I take Beth's shield and protect myself with it as I glance down into the hole. It is a long, dark thing and I can see more undead slowly climbing up it. I logically knew they had to be climbing, a difficult task for intelligent athletes, but seeing them actually slowly ascend up dark walls is a bit frightening. Some of them roar in apparent displeasure or something akin to mindless fury when they see me, which makes me grin at them.
I step back from the hole and return Beth's shield to her before beginning to engage with various menus I have access to as a gamer. I mentally move through several such menus until I find the one associated my crafting ability. In this particular situation what I need is a move that can render my home uninvadable by my foes. I have a few ways to do something like this, but the most immediate is to mess up the tunnel that allows the seemingly endless horde shambling up the tunnel from getting here in the first place.
My allies notice that I'm up to some shenanigans and silently elect to give me cover while I do whatever I'm about to do. The birds continue to launch their powerful feathers at our foes, while my dolls use their ranged weapons. The wolves and the tiger patrol the edges of the hole, circling it and waiting just in case an undead foe actually manages to reach the top of the thing.
As an entry-level alchemist I possess a fun perk. Alchemists, in this world at least, are effectively chemists but with a bit more witchcraft and very tiny levels of whimsy. One aspect of this means that alchemists are fantastical munitions makers, and one perk, "Grenadier", reflects that.
As a "Grenadier" I know how to make explosives, and as a gamer I can make things that I know how to make instantly so long as I have the proper ingredients. The mental menu I access whenever I opt to use my crafting ability is a dense one, and it takes me a second to fully navigate it. I eventually find an item dubbed a "Holy Hand Grenade (Not that one)", which amuses me.
It is a simple creation, requiring some metal, holy water, and alchemically charged components. I summon some water using a spell and I pull it into my vault, before fusing it with an empty potion bottle. With a thought I expend some arcane energy and transform the water into holy water, which is a critical component of what I plan to make. I instantly transform the water into holy water, using my powers as a clergyman, and then I internally use basic alchemical processes to instantly create the alchemically charged components, modifying several items already in my possession, which together will serve as the explosive part of the grenade.
I create metal using my "Universal Bartering" perk and then fuse everything into one item using my crafting ability. Metal is expensive, but I've gained enough loot from defeated foes that it covers the cost and then some.
In some ways what I've just done is the perfect example of the potency of a single person delving into multiple paths to power. Thanks to my incredibly rare nature as a master of several paths and as a less skilled, for now at least, practitioner of other paths I can do something like this alone. And furthermore since I'm a decently skilled practitioner of another path, that of the tamer, I have friends who can cover me while I'm doing all of this!
I retrieve my latest creation from my inventory and smirk at the thing. It superficially resembles the actual holy hand grenade from that Monty Python movie. I feel the radiate power of the weapon in my hand and I can't help but smile even as I pull the pin and drop the object into the hole. I ask my companions to move back, and they do as I ask.
The grenade falls for several seconds, long enough that some of the undead that were closer to the top of the hole actually manage to pull themselves up before I hear an explosion and feel the room slightly vibrate. The quaking tunnel vibrates so strongly that the handful of skeletons and zombies that had reached the observatory plummet, and I smirk as I listen to their infuriated rattles.
I also receive an array of alerts informing me of the dozens of undead I have just defeated and slain. These alerts eventually change, congratulating me on acquiring the "Paladin" class among other things, as well as noting the total amount of experience I have just gained, multiple new skills including "Combat Alchemy", and about the skill books I've managed to acquire.
I dart to the edge of the hole and kneel down beside it. I put my hand where the floor of the arcane study and data gathering room is broken. Pouring my magic into this is not easy, but I will my energy to exit my body and enter the space that I'm touching. This causes the floor to shimmer and glow ever so slightly, before beginning to repair itself. At the same time a small amount of light begins to creep into the room from the hole and when I glance into it I am delighted to see rocks filling much of the tunnel and that each rock is faintly illuminated by radiant energies.
The holy hand grenade's description did mention that it would infuse a place with holy energy, which is akin to radiation to humans and other living things but for the undead. The undead are still an unnatural force and I'd need to collect and touch some of their remains to begin to piece together where they came from to figure out how to permanently stop them but this should work for now. And there is plenty of bones and skin strewn about this room, more than enough for whatever I need.
My reservoir of supernatural energy is eventually completely depleted, and sadly I've not yet repaired even half of the floor. I reach into my vault and retrieve a potion I made precisely for scenarios like this, one that benefits from multiple perks, and I down it ungraciously. It immediately restores my stores of arcane power, and so I get back to work, now armed with slightly more dense arcane power and also passively benefiting from a boost to my regeneration rate.
I resume my work, and my companions all turn to look at me curiously. What I am doing is only possible because of my potent mix of abilities, and funnily enough there's still a lot I can't do. I can't raise the dead as undead monsters, I can't fly, I can't make true dolls, and many other things. That said, what I can do is pretty impressive. It was my wisdom and knowledge of my perks that allowed me to gather all of the components I needed to do this, and end the fight.
It takes me all of my magical energy and a single usage of my culinary warrior ability to once more experience the effects of the potion, for me to finally fully repair the observatory. When I'm done I get up and look at my companions.
"So… We need to divide and conquer here." I state, smiling at my friends.
"I am going to need you to gather the bones and other things left behind from our foes so i can psychometrically go through them, while I use the big device to try and figure out what happened to Amy. I may need to shut this place down again, if we can't figure out whether or not the undead are likely to return." I tell the dolls. They nod at me and immediately begin to do as I have asked.
The creator of this place was a magic user of some sort. I don't doubt that he ensorcelled this place to have powerful defenses against magic, defenses I probably shut off when I opened the observatory up, because the undead were not here before I unlocked the observatory. I would have seen them with psychometry when I entered the room earlier, and I did not see them in anyway when I gained memories of this place's recent past. It seems that they arrived later than my dolls, animals, and I did, perhaps minutes ago.
I turn and glance at the gigantic computer-like device at the end of the room, even as I wonder what secrets I will discover by grabbing bones and touching the weapons of my fallen enemies. I head over towards it, and touch one of several monitors which line the wall. In doing so I gain new, partially obscured memories and watch as the monitor comes to life, immediately welcoming me to the observatory in the same strange script as the monitors back in my home. I grin at it, delighted to see this triumphant victory with my own eyes.