Heretical Fishing

An hour later, Paul caught himself still grinning as he watched the wall of the smithy disassemble itself. The stone bricks folded down over themselves, then slipped into the ground in large lines, vanishing from view. When just over half of the bricks were gone, he caught sight of Toby and Theresa within the neighboring building, whose closest wall was coming apart at the same rate.
“Oh, hey!” Paul said. “Fancy seeing you two here!”
Toby rolled his eyes good-naturedly, and Theresa tapped her chin in thought. “I say, these workshops appear to be faulty! Their walls just fell apart!”
Paul nodded along as the two workshops became one, some of the bricks folding up to join them together. “Thanks, Tropica.”
He wasn’t exactly sure that it
Tropica who’d granted his request, but it felt like the right thing to say. The formless soul below sent a pulse of chi in return, then sank from his perception.
Beside his massive forge, Fergus shook his head with a grunt from the smithy side of the room. “We can change it back later, right?”
“I hope so.” Duncan huffed beside him. “I don’t want to catch whatever illness of the mind woodworking seems to afflict on those who practice it with it…”
“That ‘illness’ is called oxygen, smith,” Brad said from the other side of the room. “You should leave your forge and try it sometime. It’ll do wonders for your intelligence.”
“Or lack thereof,” Greg muttered, not looking up from the block of wood he was planing.

Despite their feigned animosity, all four men bore similarly pleased expressions, as did the dozens of apprentices scattered around the now-singular building. Slowly, they all turned toward Paul and his two friends.

“So. Our young masterminds…” Fergus said, watching them. “What now?”
The three tacticians shared a look, their grins remaining. As one, their purpose flowed up from their cores, filling their minds and bodies. Paul strode toward the new section of wall before turning and addressing all present. He spoke with the air of what he believed a leader should be. “Thank you, everyone, for your willingness to work together. Though Fischer was the one to leave us in charge of the defense, it isn’t lost on us that you’ve put aside your preconceived notions of age and maturity.”
Someone raised a hand.
“Yes, Bonnie?”
“Uhhh, yeah, I think I can speak for everyone when I say we trust your leadership after you just marched in here and ordered
to change shape for you.”
He tilted his head side to side. “It was more of a request that I made of the village, but I understand. Do the rest of you feel the same?” He already knew they did; he wouldn’t have asked otherwise. Their answering cheers still made his heart sing. Who knew leading could feel so rewarding?
“In that case, I’ll say thanks once more. We appreciate your trust. As for the actual work… I think you’ll all greatly enjoy it. You especially, Bonnie.”
“What…” She leaned forward, her desire for adventure radiating from her core. “What are we making?”
He let just the right amount of silence lapse, the tension in the room building. “We’re going to finish a group project that Theresa, Toby, and I started over a month ago. Back then, we believed it was something that Tropica was missing. Now? It could be the very thing needed to sway the winds of battle.” That was based on information from Ellis, but they’d promised not to share it.
Paul whistled, and Borks charged into the room, then opened a portal. Hundreds of coconuts flew out, tumbling against the wall opposite Paul. As Borks retreated from the room—pausing only to accept an aggressive scritching from Theresa—Paul spoke a single word. Combined with the pile of coconuts, that single word made understanding resonate from the crafters’ cores, the joined excitement of so many cultivators making the ground shake.
***
Back within her clearing, Corporal Claws shot a withering glare toward Tropica. She couldn’t say what so many cores were agreeing on, but that was irreverent—all that mattered was that it would possibly overshadow her own malfeasance.
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“
mistress,” corrected RPM, unhelpful as ever. “And
”
Rather than launch him for his insubordination, she sighed. “Yes. Now get in the forge.”
He took a few milliseconds too long, so she launched him anyway. He chittered maniacally as he struck the inside wall and rolled around, flooding the structure with chi. Before following suit, she gazed back at the pile of materials she’d gathered. Dozens upon dozens of fulgurite branches, each filled with the dancing tongues of lightning essence. Would it be easier to create weapons from them now that she had become an apprentice Maker? It had certainly made it easier to break the pieces off the giant tree of glass.
A villainous laugh started down in her abdomen, building as it climbed free of her needle-sharp teeth. There was only one way to find out what becoming a Maker had changed. She chucked a small stick of fulgurite at her gyrating familiar, then leaped in after it. As she and RPM traveled in loops around the inner wall of the forge, their giggles rose, their efforts in sync.
They lost themselves to the process. Only the coming and going of the sun and moon told of time’s passage.
Three days later, with the sun’s light just cresting the horizon, they finished the project they were working on. Claws went to retrieve another artifact and froze when she felt power swelling within Tropica. It was something she recognized well: the System, coming to aid in the completion of something vast. She glared toward it. It was the dozens of cultivators again, those who’d made the ground shake. They had succeeded.
RPM landed by her side, scowling fiercely—well, trying to. He wobbled on the spot, dizzy from spinning for three straight days. Claws steadied him with one paw so he could cast the requisite scowl toward their rival crafters in Tropica. She nodded to him, and he nodded back. They knew what had to be done.
The pair gazed back at the pile of unprocessed fulgurite. It had diminished greatly, many of the lengths turned into multifaceted daggers by their efforts. The biggest piece in the unprocessed pile glinted at them, its elongated form poking out, begging to be used. Claws gingerly extricated it from the others and held it out before herself as she inspected its form. She’d not thought they would need to use it, but with the others threatening to overshadow her…
She let out a deafening whistle, and Borks answered her call a moment later, stepping through a portal in the center of the clearing. She patted the top of his head, then gestured toward the pile of completed daggers. He wagged his entire body as he placed them inside a pocket dimension. After giving the side of her fuzzy cheek a swift lick, he disappeared, his portal closing behind him.
Claws scream-chirped her gratitude. With his help, their contribution to the battle was guaranteed. A small voice in the back of her mind wondered what those dozens of cultivators had succeeded in making back in Tropica, but she covered her curiosity with a heap of imaginary stones. It didn’t matter. She was going to create something far grander.
She grabbed RPM under one arm, tucked the big length of fulgurite under the other, and launched all three of them into the forge.
***
Paul bathed in the euphoria. Though the light shining inside the joined building felt amazing, its touch flooding his body and making his skin tingle, that was nothing compared to the feeling of rightness coming from within.
He, Toby, and Theresa had been working on this for
without success. They’d tried countless materials, methodologies, and even professions. None of them had worked until now. The relief was indescribable. As the lines of their many creations solidified, the System’s transformation coming to an end, he took a shaky breath. It was fortunate that his last breakthrough had only been partial—he’d likely have passed out from overstimulation otherwise.
For three whole days they’d toiled, only pausing for brief breaks to eat, sleep, and use the bathroom. He reached down to pat the unconscious bear on his right. Teddy had been instrumental in the success of this group project, his ability to empower them staving off exhaustion. They owed him. Big time.
As the light faded from the room, Paul tore his eyes from the now-dozing bear to find a sea of stunned faces, all staring down at the pile of transformed items in the center of the room. His body moved forward of its own accord. Toby and Theresa stepped up beside him, and together, they gazed down at their spoils.
As the description filled his vision, there wasn’t a single sound in the room. He read it again, and again, and again, the truth of the words slowly sinking into him. He shook his head and returned to the present. Everyone had gathered around the stack of transformed items, their eyes clearing one by one.
The coconuts had been husked, and the shells within cut in half. Plates of metal lined the outsides, and the insides were filled with perfectly carved sections of soft-wood, increasing their buoyancy. They each had a leather strip attached. The ends of the leather had been nailed in place on opposite sides of the soft-wood inserts, but the System’s transformation had melded them into each coconut seamlessly. Paul leaned down and channeled chi into one of the leather straps, resizing it with a faint effort of will.
He couldn’t say for sure who laughed first, but Bonnie was the loudest, her exultation drowning out even the booming laughs of Fergus and Duncan. Conversation slowly rose as people animatedly discussed the experience. Paul and his fellow tacticians soaked in each word just as they had the euphoric light, revelling in the merriment of those they’d been tasked with leading.
“How many are there…?” Theresa asked, slumping to the ground to rest against the sleeping form of Teddy.
“Hundreds,” Paul answered. A sudden smirk split his face. “More importantly, what will our enemies think when they see them…?”