Chaotic Craftsman Worships The Cube

Flying through the sky after leaving the gate closest to the town they were heading to, the wind of their journey was enough to cancel out the heat of the location, so much closer to the planet’s equator than they’d typically be, while the kids looked down in wonder and excitement.

Thera was carrying them all, having made a clear barrier to do so, and it made it easy to take things in as the world passed by, letting them enjoy the sights of different forests and settlements until the one they wanted was within reach, landing just before the isthmus that linked to the peninsula housing the town, while the fifth among them continued to struggle.

“Relax,” Ben said as the other man continued to fight against his bindings. “This could have been a lot nicer of a trip for you if you’d just given in. Killi already gave me permission to take you; you’d lost from the start.”

“No, I still remember what happened the last time I went out with the two of you!” Verbum yelled, an unwilling participant in their trip who’d tried to escape the journey, even when they were well beyond the point it made sense to. “Last time I nearly died!”

“Please, you were completely fine. Thera and I did a great job of taking care of you then, and we’ll do a great job of taking care of you now. Hell, an even better one, considering that if there was even a remote chance of this being dangerous, we wouldn’t have brought the kids. Try to relax and think of it as a bit of a break before you go back to being abused by all the work the gods have for you. Now, can I untie you or not?”

“... Yes.”

“You won’t try to run away?”

“Where would I even go? It would take me forever to get back to a gate,” Verbum grumbled, but it was good enough for Ben as he freed the other man and let him walk on his own two feet as they all continued on to their journey’s destination.

A journey that Ben knew was at least somewhat self-indulgent. He didn’t need to fly out to Inux’s home to rebuild him, Ben may have told himself that a look at some of the talos’s fallen brothers would have potentially given him some extra bit of inspiration, but the real reason was far simpler. He didn’t know if things would work out, but if they did, he wanted the talos to wake up among familiar faces.

And if it goes wrong, then I can let them know what really happened to him, Ben sighed. He may not have wanted it, but if things completely fail, then it doesn’t exactly matter what he wanted anymore.

That was his greatest fear. Ben had Inux’s soul, but it was a soul that had controlled a robot instead of flesh and blood, and he had no way of knowing how that might have changed things. Even if normal souls wouldn’t think the way his own would, by acting as a record, Ben could stimulate them with his mind when he connected to them, but what if Inux’s soul hadn’t acted in the same way? What if it was merely a power source, and the man’s history and personality had failed to be recorded?

It would have been such a simple thing to check, too. Ben had the talos’s core stored in one of his rings, but he didn’t want to. If he knew, then that might have rendered the entire attempt meaningless before it could happen. Better to try, and better to hold out hope than to be left defeated before he even started.

With those thoughts and more on his mind as they all walked to the town, seeing the residents it held.

The maliae, the races the talos had been created specifically to protect, were walking the streets, a few glancing at the strangers who’d come their way. With a skin tone that matched Inux’s own bronze despite being beings of flesh and blood, all of them were as tall or slightly taller than Ben himself as well, bearing a common hominid body plan, yet that was one of the less distinct things he noticed. Across the world, there were plenty of races that looked somewhat human in his eyes and plenty more that didn’t, and as close as those ones were to his kind, what was more striking was a different matter of biology. The maliae had an uneven gender ratio.

It was likely less obvious to any casual observer, but Ben had been told a bit about the race before he went and beyond that, in his omnipresence with his soul stretched out around him, it was far more obvious, with four women to every man that made the value of the talos on their original world more clear. While it sounded like their original home was quite dangerous, add in the effect that would have been had on the population if a gathering of their males was wiped out and it was enough to make him wonder why the gods hadn’t modified the race to have a more even gender split.

Well, maybe the issue comes down to the base genetics they were working with, Ben thought, having a bit of sympathy for the surprising difficulty that came with certain desired modifications now that he’d been experimenting with such things himself. Or maybe it’s something they were working on in the background before their planet was conquered. Not hard to imagine that it just wasn’t something they considered a priority.

He made a mental note to ask Myriad to bring the question up with whatever surviving gods that species had, while also remaining aware of what he was seeing in all of the minds he touched as well. Fear and stress to a degree that left him groaning.

I don’t need to be worrying about how their gods decided to make them. It’s only been a few years since Inux left, how are they already having an emergency?

Of course, from the way Inux had spoken, he hadn’t been able to help with their emergencies for quite some time and given the ways the world had changed since then, it wasn’t unreasonable to think that other problems might have arisen as well, but it still left him stressed as they walked through the streets, Thera speaking up as they did.

“You know where we’re going, right?”

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“Yeah, I’ve already got the mind of the one in charge; it just looks like there’s something else we might need to deal with while we’re here. It shouldn’t take too long… okay, it should be done by today, I’ll build Inux tomorrow, and then we can head back home, which means also getting a place to stay sorted out.”

“Vacation!” Delair cheered, leaving Ben grateful that he’d already told Fontesh they might not be home immediately when he’d agreed to take his student.

“Even if you aren’t going to have much to do, you three can’t just run off on your own,” he told the children and Verbum. “This isn’t Stonewall or the magic towers. If you guys see anything you want to look at, then you have to talk to me or Thera, got it?”

“Got it!”

“Okay, Ben.”

“You know I’m an adult too, right?” Verbum said, being the only dissenting voice.

“You’re also the only one prone to panicking and passing out. You’re in my care right now too, I can’t just tell Killi I lost you if anything happens,” Ben told him, seeing the other summoned wanted to argue but stopped as they came to the small town hall in the heart of the community.

It wasn’t much to look at, nothing about its architecture particularly stood out to Ben, but it was serviceable enough to do its job as he let himself and the others in, finding a secretary sitting at the front desk.

“Can I help you?” She asked, eyeing the unusual group who’d travelled to their town, no two of the five appearing to be the same races, even if Mora, Ben, and Verbum all looked somewhat close.

“You can,” Ben answered. “My name is Ben, and years ago, the talos Inux came to me for help. I’m here to discuss what happened.”

Invoking Inux’s name got the response he’d been hoping for, he could see in her and everyone else’s mind on his way there just how loved the talos had been among them and it left the secretary to jump up, telling them to wait for just a moment as she went to find her boss.

“Good sign?” Thera whispered at his side.

“Decent sign, but it looks like the actual conversation isn’t going to go as well,” Ben said, having already taken the mayor’s memories apart to get to the root of who she was. “But don’t worry, I’ve got this.”

It was only moments later the secretary returned and led them to the main office, the door open, with the mayor already inside and waiting as she quietly appraised the five of them, speaking up before Ben got the chance.

“So, why now?” She asked in place of an introduction. “Why not back when he found you?”

“Because he asked me not to,” Ben shrugged. “But, I haven’t been resting on my laurels, and now I’ve come to do just one last bit of research before I try to fix him.”

The mayor scoffed. “Inux was dying when he left us; there’s no way he’s been alive this entire time.”

“You’re right.”

“Then what’s there to fix?”

“Listen, I can tell you think I’m just some charlatan trying to take advantage of you, but I have the sort of backing to prove myself,” Ben said, pulling out his card and hiding everything except his apostle title, his crafting, enchanting, material manipulation, and, for good measure, his newest third tier skill, soulcraft, before handing it over and watching her do a double take for what she’d found. “I don’t need to take advantage of you. If there was anything in your town I really wanted, then I could take it and all of you would be powerless to stop me. Instead, what I want to do is explain what happened between myself and Inux and what I’m looking for before I make my attempt at rebuilding him, and since I’m here and he made a good impression on me, I’ll even help you with the current problem you guys have going on.”

“Mmh, you heard about that already then?”

“I’m an apostle, I have my ways,” Ben shrugged, not feeling the need to let her know that the particular way was mind reading. “You’re having animal troubles; I can fix them while I’m here. Shouldn’t exactly take very long either.”

“... Fine, I’ll hear you out.”

Nodding in gratitude, Ben explained himself, even if he chose to keep some parts vague. Nobody needed to know he wasn’t even awakened when he’d met the talos, that would have only made things sound less convincing as he instead explained that while he’d failed to save Inux, he’d managed to hold on to the talos’s soul until the time came that he’d be competent enough to build him a new body.

“I’m not going to lie, I still doubt I’ll be able to make him something equivalent to what he’d lost,” Ben admitted. “And there’s other issues too. While I’m optimistic, given his nature, I’m not sure if his soul acted in the exact same way as a living person’s would, meaning I’m not sure if his mind survived. I could build the body and only be filling it with a meaningless blank template.”

“That doesn’t matter. What is it you want in return from us then?”

She wasn’t sure what she was expecting, be it wealth beyond their means, or perhaps something even less savoury. While not to the same extreme as the dryad she saw beside him, she knew her race had an uncommon gender ratio and it wasn’t like that didn’t affect how other species in the world might view them, but without even saying it, Ben waved her concerns off.

“Stop thinking something stupid,” he told her, frowning as he did. “I’m trying to build Inux a new body and I’ve gone over his original one in as much detail as I could. If they’re available, I would like to examine some of the other talos’s remains as well, in case anything survived on them that hadn’t lasted on Inux.”

Something he was already technically doing, having found where they were kept, respectfully in an underground tomb beneath their gods’ church, but even if he was examining them with all of the senses he could through his soul, he wanted to do a final inspection in person for whatever little extra it might give, even if he doubted it would be much. He could see what remained of their enchanting structures, some of them surprisingly well preserved since they’d broken down before Inux and as a result hadn’t been as used; and he could judge their compositions with his material sense. He’d gained a few more scraps of knowledge, but still he hoped for more.

Still, I brought Verbum for this exact thing, he told himself, trying to keep optimistic. The way the system stores information seems to be such a mess, it’s completely possible I’ll learn something new and relevant by having him look at them and hope something useful pops up. Just gotta be optimistic and hope they’re willing to go along with it.

It was a request that got a different sort of judgment, wondering if he had come to try to take advantage of what had been the mythic items of her people before letting the feeling pass. Even if she didn’t know what the skill did, the fact that he had one marked on his status as being of the third tier was enough to make her believe it when he said he could have simply done what he wanted without talking to them, the feeling only further confirmed with the levels of the other skills he revealed. Even if not a fighter, he was powerful, and he had the exact skill set that they’d been hoping for for so long, ever since the first talos fell.

“I understand,” she nodded. “In that case, go work on our animal problem like you said, and while you do, I’ll talk with the church to start making arrangements. I’ll let them know to expect you.”