TS6 - Chapter 11

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The next attack arrived four hours later, and took the form of a mass battle between the ninth-tier Lesser Dragonkin and the defenders of the city. Thorn found himself awfully confused, seeing as neither the Dragon Guard nor the Temple Guard participated in the fight. He had wanted to go to the Wall to assist in the defense, but Governor Orson stopped him, pointing to the fact that the Dragon Empire's army hadn't sent out any of their more powerful fighters.

"What does that have to do with anything?" Thorn asked, his brow furrowing as he watched the assault on the city wall. "If they're attacking us, why can't we just crush them?"

"There's an unwritten rule," Governor Orson said, "that those in the higher tiers are only supposed to fight people in the higher tiers. Since they're only sending ninth-tier warriors, then we have to defend with the same. If we start killing all of their soldiers, then what's to stop them from doing the same to ours? And if that were to happen, well, it would just escalate, until nobody was safe."

"And people actually abide by this agreement?" 

Flashing a wry smile, the Governor scratched his cheek. 

"Well, sort of," he said. "Everybody tries to keep things from getting out of hand so that the Arbiter doesn't step in. Because when he does, everybody loses."

"I've been meaning to ask about that," Thorn said. "The Arbiter, I mean."

"I don't know that there's much I can tell you," Governor Orson replied. "Nobody knows who the Arbiter actually is. All we know is that the Arbiter has near-absolute control over the endless battlefield. Even the god beast aspects don't dare fight the Arbiter."

Thorn was going to continue asking questions, but before he could, he saw Mina walking over. Her eyes were ringed with exhaustion, and her shoulders slumped, but her gaze carried a deep sense of satisfaction, letting Thorn know that she had succeeded.

"I'm ready," she said. "But we're going to need a couple of things."

"Like what?"

"Like a way to lock down space."

"Sure, I can do that," Thorn said, but Mina shook her head.

"No, I'll need to be able to do it. If we're going to succeed, I need you to build me something that can keep someone from transferring through space."

"Sure," Thorn replied, leaning on the wall, as he watched the battle in the distance. "How long do we have?”

“Fifteen hours? Something like that? Maybe a little bit more?"

Thinking for a moment, Thorn nodded. 

"That should be enough time," he said, as he turned to the Governor. "Excuse me, Governor Orson. I have a few things to prepare before our adventure tonight."

"I still think this is a foolish idea," Governor Orson said, his face hard-set. "I don't think there's a need to take such a risk."

"Don't worry," Thorn replied, patting the Governor on the shoulder. "It's really not that much of a risk. I'm more than confident in my ability to escape, if anything goes wrong, but the advantage, if we succeed, will simply be too high to pass up."

Knowing that he couldn't convince Thorn otherwise, the Governor just nodded and waved his hand. Thorn and Mina took their leave, retreating to the room Thorn had been assigned.

"Akira, can you do me a favor and make sure nobody comes in?" 

Jumping down from his shoulder, Akira nodded, and her tails shook as she divided into a dozen copies. This was her new favorite trick, and she took every opportunity to show it off. The twelve copies spread out throughout the room, making themselves comfortable on every surface that could be laid upon, as Thorn closed his eyes and summoned the entrance to the Great Forge.

Ever since Thorn's bloodline had advanced and he had become a Starforger titan, he had felt the restrictions around the Great Forge loosen up. Previously, if he set an entrance to the Great Forge in a world, it wasn't something he could move. Now, however, he found himself able to open up the doorways more freely, though he was still restricted to opening a doorway once a day, Thorn was confident that he'd be able to move the door leading to the Great Forge wherever he needed it to be. After the doorway formed in front of him, Thorn and Mina entered, walking through the long, large halls, with their intricately carved history displayed on both sides.

"This place gets more incredible every time I come here," Mina said, looking around.

"It does," Thorn replied, grinning. 

This wasn't the first time he had been in the Great Forge since advancing to the tenth tier, and every time he entered, he realized just how impressive the Great Forge was. With every increase in his rank, the Great Forge had expanded both in size and functionality, and he was uncovering new features all of the time. Given how large it was, he was starting to wonder if it was an entire world unto itself.

He could sense that Velin was in the gardens, and so he stopped to say hello before heading toward the forge to create the item Mina had mentioned. His control over the space had continued to grow stronger, and he had discovered that he was able to move many of the tools the Great Forge provided into the main forging area after the rooms they were in were unlocked, allowing him to incorporate things like the Void Forge into his normal forging process.

Mina's request was fairly simple, the ability to completely lock down space to prevent teleportations. Thorn felt as if such an item would be highly useful, but also knew that it could be just as dangerous for the person activating it as for its target. For example, Mina, like many magic users, relied fairly heavily on Blink as her primary means of defense. While Thorn didn't use the Blink spell very often, his martial arts, Titan Steps, also relied on folding space in order to transport him across distance instantly. He was curious to see whether or not he would be able to build a device that would lock down the space for other people while still giving him, or whoever was wielding it, free access to their movement abilities.

Pulling up a stool to one of the workshop tables, Thorn sat down and began to sketch out a few different concepts. His first was a simple necklace, but the more he sketched it out, the more it seemed like it would be a cumbersome affair. His next option was a plate that could be tossed out and activated, disassembling to create the anti-movement field. After considering it for a little while, though, Thorn decided he didn't like that design, as it was too hard to hide. His third design was a pair of bracelets that each split into three distinct pieces that could be deployed to surround an area, completely locking down all movement inside of it. Of the three different designs, the bracelets were his favorite, though something still felt off, and with a frown, he stood up and paced back and forth, completely lost in thought.

Mina, who had been chatting with Velin in the garden, wandered in and saw him walking back and forth, deep in thought. Rather than bother him, she jumped up onto the work table, swinging her legs as she looked over the three designs.

"I got it," Thorn said, excitement blazing through his eyes. "What if we just took it a step further? Rather than just locking down the space, we might as well lock down the target as well."

Striding over to the table, he crossed his arms over his chest as he stared down at the design. "You only need this to affect one person, right?"

"Yes," Mina replied.

"Then what if we created a feedback loop using their mana? That way, it'll only affect them, severing their ability to move. Actually, if we do that, we can reduce the number of components from six to four."

As he spoke, Thorn sketched out a second version of the bracelet, this time dividing it into four pieces. This would allow for one bracelet instead of requiring two. Next to the bracelet, he began to draw a complex runic pattern, muttering under his breath as he scrawled each of the twisting lines. To Mina, it looked like almost complete gibberish, though her perfect arcane affinity allowed her to sense the power that each line contained.

"I don't know how you do that," she said, as Thorn finally finished the design. "And that looks like way too much to fit on the bracelet."

"Oh, this won't go on the bracelet. It'll go in the bracelet," Thorn said, running his hand over the completed mana circuits. "This is actually going to be divided into the four pieces here, here, here, and here, and rather than being two-dimensional, it's going to be three-dimensional. We'll carve it inside of the bracelet. The important thing, however, will be figuring out how to get the target's mana. To that end, I'm including an absorption function that'll work one of two ways. If you're attacked, the bracelet will automatically absorb the mana from the attack, allowing it to serve as a defensive artifact, and then, once it's absorbed the mana, it will be able to lock onto that target, completely immobilizing them."

"And this'll work?" Mina asked.

"Yeah, it should," Thorn replied, scratching his chin. "At least, conceptually. We'll see once I actually make it."

With a wave of his hand, he activated the Great Forge, adjusting the temperature as he walked over to a large pile of metal ingots, which he began to pick through. After a few minutes of consideration, he picked three different ingots and carved off a bit of metal from each of them, tossing the slivers into a crucible where they would be mixed to create a new alloy.

Noticing Mina's curious look, Thorn began explaining what he was doing as he did it. "We've been making minute adjustments to the immortal iron alloy that we think will help improve the malleability while it's being enchanted. One of the biggest problems with immortal iron is that it's too stiff, too strong, making it an absolute pain to enchant. We can still use the nanites, but that takes a really long time. So we've been testing to see if we can get a new mixture that will make it pliable at very specific temperatures."

"Don't you run the risk of losing the enchantment if the artifact somehow heats up later?" Mina asked.

"Yes, but heat is always going to be a problem, and the temperatures we're talking about are so extreme that they're very unlikely to happen outside of the forge, but even if they do, we're building in a layer of cooling to the device using a supplemental enchantment," Thorn said. "Anything that can break that supplemental enchantment will also ruin the artifact, so it becomes a bit of a non-issue."

Testing the temperature of the metal in the crucible, Thorn created four earthen molds and poured the molten metal in. Setting the crucible down, Thorn placed a hand on the first mold and began to draw the heat out of the metal, slowly enough that he wouldn't destroy the structure of the alloy he had created, but quickly enough that it went from white hot to cherry red in only a few minutes. 

Picking up each in turn, he examined each piece carefully, looking for any sort of imperfection. The metal was still bright red, but his perfect fire resistance kept him from any harm. Selecting a hammer from the rack, Thorn sat down at the anvil and began to carefully work the tiny piece of metal into the right shape. His blows were simple and light, but the unified force that they carried was anything but. With each stroke of his hammer, the thin bracelet transformed, mana carving its way through the center of the piece to form the intricate mana conduit he had sketched out.

To Mina, it looked like Thorn was simply tapping the piece of metal lightly, and after half an hour of the same highly concentrated repetitive work, he finally put the piece to the side, picking up the next. It was two hours before he was finally done, and though all he had appeared to do was tap the bracelet pieces with the hammer, they now looked nothing like they had before. The rough pieces of metal had transformed into smooth, polished rods, each one approximately a foot and a half long.

Taking the four bracelet pieces, Thorn grouped all of their ends together on the anvil and lifted his hammer, pausing for a moment as it hovered above his shoulder. He exhaled, power flooding into the room, and his hammer fell. Mina, sitting nearby, felt her heart lurch and then stop. Everything was frozen for one brief second before her breath returned with a gasp and her thoughts restarted.

A flicker of a frown appeared on Thorn's face, only to vanish as he concentrated again. A second blow, the same as the first, caused the strange moment of nothingness again, and after delivering it, Thorn held up the four pieces of metal to look at them. Where they had been touching, they were now completely bound, unified into a single piece, as if they had never been separated in the first place.

Though he wasn't satisfied that it had taken him multiple strikes, Thorn knew that it was the best he could do at the moment, and carefully setting his hammer aside, he began to weave the bracelet pieces together, creating a complex pattern that combined all four of the long rods. Occasionally, he would pick up his hammer and deliver another blow, targeting a specific point to meld them together once more.

Time passed slowly, but Thorn never faltered in his work, always careful, always precise, his fingers never once stopping as he created the thin bracelet. When he was finally finished, he took nearly an hour to look over the bracelet, examining it inch by inch in excruciating detail, checking it for any sort of fault. When he finished, he looked up at Mina, who had been sitting there the entire time, watching him in fascination. 

"Here," he said, tossing the bracelet to her, "test it out."

Catching it, she looked at the beautifully woven bracelet, and then back at Thorn. 

"How am I supposed to do that?" She asked.

"Just put it on," Thorn said.

With a nod, Mina slipped it onto her wrist, as Thorn conjured a tiny bit of shadow above his palm that morphed into a miniature arrow. 

"It'll block attacks a lot stronger than this, but this is just to show you how it functions," he said as he released the arrow, sending it flying towards Mina, who had to suppress her instinctive desire to get out of the way.