Untapped ~ Chapter Nineteen!

Joe had fully intended to get Boris settled then vanish into the wilds around the town for a few weeks while they geared up for the upgrade. But the moment his feet touched the bottom step of the stairs into the secret chambers, he realized they weren't alone down there. Though the air was filled with a thin cloud of incense, the light haze wasn't able to hide the shocked group staring at him from across the room.

Taka. Kirby. Robert. Big_Mo, and… Hannah. 

All five were gathered in the ritual chamber, clearly having been startled out of whatever they had been doing. Whether that was carefully reading through a book, hunching over an experimental ritual diagram, or tossing a stuffed version of one of the Wanderer’s leaders onto a pile, each of them froze like they had been caught doing something unsavory. 

Robert was the first to react, his jaw snapping shut before he lurched to his feet and took an incredulous step toward their one-time leader. “Joe? You're back?”

That simple question broke the ice, and the air was soon filled with the sound of chairs scraping as they were pushed back, an incomplete Novice circle popping into a wave of heated air after being ignored for too long, and four people closing in on the bald Ritualist and speaking in unison.

“I thought you'd never come back!” Big_Mo seemed almost overcome with excitement, appearing to need to hold himself back from lunging at his long-lost mentor. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am about-”

“Abyss, feel the power coming off of him! How strong did you get, Joe?” Kirby loudly spoke over the others, reaching out and flicking his Exquisite Shell, which let out a soft *chime* as if she had tapped a crystal chalice. “I bet you've got all sorts of cool new things to teach us! Anything to get my army of minions up and running. This world needs an overlord, and it should be me.”

Joe noticed the only one who hadn't come over was Hannah. She had stood up but was staring at the ground, shoulders trembling as she waited silently as though preparing herself for her funeral. Wanting to figure out what that was all about, Joe quickly smiled at the others and said a polite few words then stepped to the side and walked over. They, noticing his destination, vacillated between not saying anything or trying to stand up for the person who had inadvertently gotten him exiled.

Hannah looked up, and Joe had to work not to flinch away. Her skin was pallid, so pale that the individual veins under her skin were clearly highlighted as though someone had drawn on her face with a pen. Her face was gaunt, eyes sunken, with deep bags underneath them. Framing her face was greasy, filthy hair, a perfect match for her clothes. 

Trying for a casual tone, he opened his arms for a hug, “So, it’s been a hard couple years, huh?”

A scornful laugh popped out of her, but Hannah didn’t refute him, only shaking her head before slowly meeting his eyes. “You don't know the half of it. I'm lucky I didn't get thrown out of the guild, because there was definitely nowhere else for me to go. Worst part? The only way I could earn money for this last year was to stitch Rituals of Glimmering on the plushies the guild is selling of you. Kind of hard to distance myself from all this when I’m seeing a tiny version of your face twenty times a day.”

“Why did you stay on Midgard?” Joe half-turned to include the others in this question as his Neutrality Aura began breaking down the filth in the room, though he kept most of its power especially focused on his previous mentee. “That goes for all of you. It doesn't look like you've been able to make practically any progress since I left.”

“Oh, but we have!” Taka’s face lit up as he half gestured across the room. “We've been using the funds we've been earning from the guild by doing some ritual work for them to make all sorts of different stuff. Or, well, try to. I earned a subskill of Ritual Magic thanks to all the calculations I was doing, but for the life of me, I can't figure out how to teach the others how to get it.”

“Before I forget, again,” Joe stopped the enthusiastic young man before he could start a formal presentation of his work and gestured at the Scholar in their midst. “This is Boris. I've hired him to be the official curator of the Pathfinder’s Hall, so you'll see him around. If you don't bother him, I'm sure you'll all get along just fine.”

“Nice to meet you, Boris. Spare bed is over there.” Big_Mo gestured to a doorway just to the side of the stairwell back up to the main part of the Pathfinder’s Hall. “You look like you're about dead on your feet.”

The Scholar simply nodded once and shuffled away, vanishing into the bedroom. Kirby leaned close to Joe, her wide eyes narrowing as she looked at the details of his Tower Ritualist robes and gloves. “Looks like you've been busy and some kinda crazy successful. I want to learn everything I can about what you’ve been up to; how about we all relax and do some catching up?”

A few hours later, they were chatting and laughing, having been able to recapture some of the comfortability they once had. Finally, almost seeming like he were going to explode if he didn't get it out of him, Taka pulled out an iron key covered in dense calculations at the tip, which Joe recognized as forming about one-tenth of a completed circle. “Can I show you what I've been working on?”

Joe's eyes lit up with excitement for the sheer fact that he had not a single idea what he was looking at. “Absolutely. I wasn't trying to stop you; there was just a lot to go over.” 

“Probably could’ve written two trilogies out of all of that,” Kirby grumbled incredulously, thinking over the tale Joe had spun about his time since leaving Midgard. “Here I've been plodding along, only able to research rituals after standard working hours.”

“Yeah, what is up with that?” Joe inquired of the group as a whole, who shifted into an uncomfortable silence once more. “It's been two years, and this place is basically a clone of a town back on earth, complete with work shifts and random trinkets for sale.”

“A billion people happened, Joe,” Hannah chimed in glumly. “You don't understand what it was like. I don't want to say that being exiled was awesome for you or anything foolish like that, but the fact is… when you need to compete with that densely packed of a population for resources—everything from food to hunting spots—progression grinds to a halt. Things have been getting better recently, but only because people have been able to rapidly expand out. There’s dozens of new towns every month, pushing all the way out almost to the edge of Ardania.”

“Not to mention, ritual magic isn't exactly cheap. I can't think of any single discipline that is more resource-intensive.” Taka’s words made Joe wince, and he resolved right then and there to figure out how to open the path forward for being a Reductionist for all of them. 

“Well, I’m back, and we’re gonna get all of you power leveling with me, so that’s a thing of the past now.” There were a few moments where the others seemed surprised, then they quickly started to get excited. Joe wasn't one for making idle promises, and they all knew that.

“That's cool and all, and I’m totally on board, but let me show you this!” Taka waved his key back and forth to draw their attention back to him. “I call it the ‘remote access key’. You start by making any other ritual, then, in place of the standard activation sequence, you overlay it with the Student-ranked ritual I designed, which acts as a unique identifier and allows you to activate the first ritual from a distance.”

Joe politely murmured a few words of encouragement but wasn't fully sold on its utility. “So… don't take this the wrong way, but I've found at least four different ways to activate rituals at a distance; what makes this different?”

“The difference is that the ritual is already primed.” Taka grinned as he saw Joe begin to understand. “Meaning anyone holding the key can activate it… and I haven't found an upper limit on the distance yet.”

“So, anyone who has the key can use the targeted ritual, without any need to figure out how to activate it on their own? No need for a good grasp on the fundamentals of Mana Manipulation? Training?” Suspicion flashed across Joe's face. “Did you figure this out so you could find a way to sell rituals anyone could use?”

“I absolutely did,” Taka rubbed his hands together gleefully. “You should see the profit margin on even Beginner-ranked rituals. I can't imagine how much you'd be able to generate with… how powerful can you make them? Master rank? That's comparable to an Artifact-rank building, like the Pathfinder’s Hall we're standing in!”

“I love the concept, and fantastic work coming up with this! As for selling, that just isn’t all that important to me anymore. I can’t even tell you how happy I am to say that.” Joe offered a crooked smile. “Money is great for buying things I can't make myself, but that's pretty much just food and clothing at this point. Not much on Midgard is worth bringing to higher worlds, and I can tell you that gold and silver only matter as crafting materials up there. On that note, who else has something neat to show?”

Hannah half-heartedly raised a hand, looking like a functioning member of society instead of a crypt dweller now that Joe's auras had brought her up to peak health and cleanliness. “I wasn't going to bring this up, but since you mentioned you couldn't generate food with rituals… don't laugh, okay? But sometimes it was easier to get my hands on ritual materials than it was to go grocery shopping. Here, this is a copy of what I called the ‘Ritual of Marching Fishes’.”

“Plural of fish is fish,” Taka muttered under his breath, clearly annoyed at how quickly they had moved on after talking about his contribution. 

“It lets me summon a large number of regular fish, and they stick around after the ritual ends, if I start to butcher them.” Even as Hannah spoke, Joe's eyes were drinking in the ritual diagram she had provided. 

He tapped a small section of it, but before he could ask what it meant, she brightened and explained, “I was using it so often that I got bored, and I found out that, if I add in a piece of metal I've been carrying around—doesn't matter if it was something like a ring or just a copper coin that had been in my pocket for a while—I could add a secondary effect. In this case, it lets me kind of command the fish. I can make them move in a certain direction, stuff like that. Not super useful unless there's water around, but… still kind of fun.”

“Sounds like you’re on the path to figuring out either some kind of rudimentary version of Ritualistic Enchanting or Ritualistic Forging skill,” Joe murmured as he handed the ritual diagram back to her. “Frankly, it could go either way, especially if it’s only metal that it works with. I'm sure we're going to get a lot of use out of this, or a good meal in a pinch!”

Clearly wanting to be a part of the conversation, Kirby leaned forward and handed Joe another document with an exasperated look on her face. “Here. I was trying to figure out a way to leave a trail of darkness where I walked, to give me proper evil overlord vibes. Somehow, I made this instead.”

“Ritual of Cloud Step.” Joe read out loud, his eyes flicking down to start going over the details of the circles. “Student-ranked? Impressive. Produces a rainbow fog under the target's feet each time they fully extend them or take a step. Okay… I'm looking for what it is that makes this Student ranked. It's really well put together, very tight design, and I don't see many ways to improve it or let it be a lower rank. Why then…?”

“It lasts so long. A solid six hours, at least.” Kirby’s lips pulled back in a sneer as she stared at the document. “Not to mention, it fails to describe exactly how large that ‘puff’ of rainbow fog is. You're basically making a decent-sized cloud with each step, and it holds together for several minutes at a time, shifting through the colors of the rainbow, until it finally bursts into sparkling raindrops that fall to the ground. Not exactly the vibe I was going for.”

Unlike the others, Joe didn't immediately hand the diagram back to its creator. Instead, his mind was spinning with ideas as he stared at the magical symbols. “Would you mind if I kept this for a while? I was able to memorize the other two right away, but I might need a little while with this one. It… this could be really useful to me, pretty much immediately.”

“Keep it,” Kirby waved flippantly. “I've moved on to barrier-type rituals anyway.”

Big_Mo eagerly shifted forward, pulling out his own document, but a single glance had Joe shaking his head. Instead of accepting the proffered item, he extended his hand and manifested several copies of the Standard Ritual Combat manual. “Sorry, buddy. I already have an enhanced version of that one for you. Actually, these are for all of you. I finally found other Ritualists out there, all the way up on Vanaheim. Turns out they've been working on becoming high-level combatants for a long time, imagine that. But, if I'm not mistaken-”

Joe clapped a hand on the dejected Big_Mo’s shoulder, a wide smile on his own face, “-creating that should have at least given you the first level in the Enchanted Ritual Circles skill. Am I right?”

“You already know about that?” The surprisingly muscular man reluctantly grinned. “Never mind, who do I think I'm talking to? Do you know how I can improve it?” 

“As a matter of fact, I do.” Now, the bald Ritualist turned to include each of the others in the conversation. “Like I said, now that I can come back here as needed, I can offer advice, goodies from other worlds, and bring your baseline power up to snuff. I'll walk you through all of this, but the best thing for us to do is get you out there practicing ritual combat. There's an entire quest line for it. How about all of you get geared up, and I'll take you hunting for a couple weeks?”

“Right now?” Kirby blinked rapidly in surprise at the sudden shift in conversation. “Joe, we can't just walk away. We have jobs.”

Giving her a few moments to think about the words she had just said, Joe patiently bobbed his head and waited. Then, clearing his throat, he raised an eyebrow and replied, “That doesn't sound like something an overlord would say… that’s minion talk.”

Her response was completely over the top. Kirby let out a sharp gasp, blanched, and stumbled away looking as though she were about to faint. “W-what? No! You’re right! I'll go get packed!”

Any of the arguments the others were going to voice faded as the delicate-looking Ritualist ran off to her room. Big_Mo shot Joe a questioning look. “Are we leaving right now?”

Joe started to respond, but before he could get a word out, he felt a sharp tug on his mana. Before doing anything else, he summoned his notifications.

Query has activated! No reply.

Skill increase! Query (Student 0 → Student I).

“Let's call it soon.” Joe allowed his eyes to roll upward slightly, fixing on a point above them where the temple attached to the Pathfinder’s Hall. “I have a meeting with my faction leader. A long overdue conversation. Get ready and plan not to come back into town until we’re done.”

They parted ways, and in a moment, Joe was alone in the underground chamber. Taking a deep breath, he steeled himself for an in-person meeting with Tatum. “To the temple I go-”

Joe froze, his foot halfway to landing on the first step, as the hidden portion collapsed, the stairs dropping into the floor and forming into a long tunnel with a gentle curve. “No. This isn't… is this a secret passage between the Pathfinder’s Hall and the temple? Celestial feces, I love this place.”

He ran his hand along the newfound rough stone wall, fingers following a slight groove which had formed in the masonry as it had been created. Even though he’d technically been the one to construct the place, it was clear that the powerful Artifact had gained awareness and begun adjusting itself to better suit whatever personality it had started to develop. 

Seeing as the construct was directly influenced by Occultatum—better known as the ‘Hidden Deity’—Joe wouldn't be surprised to find all sorts of new outlets and tucked away corners. It didn't take long to reach the end of the tunnel, and as the floor began sloping upward, the ceiling began to crack. Warm firelight washed over him, and the stone moved out of the way as dark water began pouring in. 

Instead of soaking him, the fluid he recognized as coming off of Tatum's shrine instead ran down the slope, only to be sucked into the same channels cut into the tunnel he had been running his fingers along. As he ascended into the temple, Joe found himself pausing as he looked around. Even after everything that had happened to him—moving between worlds, wars against monsters and Elves, gaining an immense amount of power—the Pathfinder’s Hall was still the first truly powerful permanent thing he had created.

The room had expanded further since the last time he had been there, as though the world were slowly being persuaded to allow the space to warp slowly over time. The book-shaped altar in the center of the pantheon display stood proudly, ink-like water pouring from its stone pages and into the stream which ran around the room. Thick shadows played across the wall, only made darker by the strong flames flaring from the shrine of Tommulus and the matching sconces that had sprung up around the area. 

Yet, there was a surprising amount of greenery in the space as well. A full-blown miniature, delicate forest flourished along the edges of the stream, looking more like an illusion than reality as the roots of trees dipped into the black water, and tiny deer no bigger than his pinky peeked out of the underbrush, only to vanish into the miniscule forest. 

Wooden bridges spanned the water, clearly having grown alongside the room as it expanded out, to create either a direct path to each of the shrines or a pleasant indoor park someone could roam around to allow their mind to calm. Taking the direct path, as he was known for, Joe strolled to the central altar, allowing his palm to land firmly on the surface of the book. 

In an instant, he was somewhere else.

The stars seemed different overhead, long streaks of light instead of far-distant pinpricks. Blinking a few times, he looked around, finding himself atop the peak of a mountain in an open-air temple once again, with only shifting clouds hiding the world below and strange, impossible lights flickering far, far above.

“Joe.” The warm voice wrapped around the Ritualist like a hug, and Joe looked up to see Tatum in his gigantified form sitting in a contemplative pose as his gaze shifted to his first-ever follower. “It's good to have you back.”

“Same,” Joe murmured, and for a long few minutes, neither of them spoke another word. Instead, they shared a moment of quiet recognition, gratitude, perhaps even relief. Then the Ritualist tilted his head back, his gaze drawn upward to see what had been holding Tatum's attention. He felt a shudder go through his muscles but found himself unable to tear his eyes off the sky.

What he had mistakenly taken as some form of distorted view of the stars was instead an impossible canvas of shifting, crackling lines of power and meaning stitched together on an impossible canvas of black lavender. His eyes widened as shapes began to take form—symbols, ideas, hints of inspiration he didn't fully understand, but desperately wanted-

Then it was gone, and he felt a deep sense of loss as his eyes darted around, seeking the odd snaking ouroboros wrapped around a world—no, it was a world, or was it-

Darkness filled his vision, and for a moment, Joe was concerned that he had been struck blind, only for his other senses to kick in and inform him that there was a hand draped over his eyes. “Joe. Don't do that. Even I don't dare stare into the void for too long. When a truth has been lost, passed entirely out of living memory, it falls into the void. But deep truths like that don't like to be hunted. They unravel if you seek too much, and a mortal mind will go mad trying to force it to stay. Whether it is ancient wisdom, inspiration, or even a glimpse into the future, none of that is something you are meant to find in that way.”

Joe exhaled sharply, realizing that the pounding pain behind his eyes, which had gone unnoticed until now, was already beginning to fade away. “Noted. Yeah, not sure what that was, but… it was so interesting.”

“You know what else is interesting?” Even though it was clear that Tatum was simply trying to redirect Joe, the Ritualist couldn't help but get excited as he saw the sly smile on Tatum's face, and the broad wink he sent his way as the deity loudly proclaimed, as if there were someone listening in: 

“You've been a loyal follower of mine from the start. Faithful, even when the path was hidden. Finally, finally…the time has come for you to claim some of your rightful rewards.”