“You heard what Norgim said. As soon as the clouds clear of resonance fractures, it’s pretty much a green light.” Lara said with a smile, patting Lannister on the back.

Lannister sighed, “Jay could have moved on by then. We might as well wait for the next report from William. This was a waste of time.” He said, pointing at the elaborate manaweaves, hexagrams and other parts of the portal that were ready to send them near the savage lands dungeon, through an unanchored portal.

Lara smiled slyly, “You don’t understand. When the sky clears, it’s ‘pretty much’ a green light.” She said, winking.

Lannister raised a brow and looked at her. Seeing her mischevious smile for a moment, he smiled right back.

“Yeah… that’s basically what he said.”

Lara shrugged, “Basically.”

***

Asra held a satisfied smile as she pulled the noonleather blanket around herself and went back to sleep, satisfied after a good feed. She took more blood than usual, but Jay had just slept so he wasn’t feeling too drained and began to command.

(Blue, hunt the fire lights. Leave Red and its two guardians to protect me, and your five minions to protect the bridge.)

Jay was certain the flood water would recede, so he kept the bridge guarded for now.

Blue nodded, and most of the skeletons scampered off, diving into the water—they were heading directly to their weapons, the area they dropped them earlier to carry Jay’s throne.

“Ah, Heavy…” Jay glanced around and spotted his heavily armored skeleton. It was still holding Leech, the black talking orb stolen from Viladore.

Jay had Heavy set it down away from the shack behind a rotting log, so that Hegatha’s greedy hands wouldn’t latch onto it, and Asra’s curious eyes wouldn’t gleam at it.

We might actually finish my construction project today. Jay thought, seeing that his mana was full after a good night’s rest.

Asra was guarded by Sweeper, Hegatha guarded by Dark. Jay didn’t really care if either of them saw him crafting, but the more secrets he could keep, the better.

(Red, it’s your turn to dig.) Jay commanded, and began crafting it a simple shovel.

Jay already had a roof with four beams, so crafting a four wall panels was a simple task, and together they both completed all four in record time. As for the floor panel, it had to be partly melted on each of its corners and slotted into the four beams, then attached, repaired, and reinforced with more triangle bone struts joined to the beams.

Each edge of the cube was sealed with a healthy drizzle of melted bone and expertly molded till each corner was square. Taking some inspiration from Leech’s command key, he made sure each joining wall was refined to a perfect edge, only stopping once they had a sharp, satisfying feel when he ran his finger across, scraping the dirt and oil off his fingertip.

[Necromantic Construction (7%)]

Jay stood before his construction, and used living blueprints a few times on it, storing it in his gauntlet and making it appear again. There was something so satisfying about watching the cube impossibly fold up into a smaller version of itself and disappear into a sliver of green gas, then do the reverse when he brought it out again.

It was a 10 by 10 foot cube, with four 3-foot stilts poking out of one side. These were the 13-foot beams Jay had made, and were the supports to hold it above the ground. The cube unpacked from the living blueprints skill in random rotations, often falling sideways and sometimes upside down, but Jay found that he could apply a little mana and spin it upright before the blueprint skill ended and it unfolded.

“Now we just need a door.” Jay said to Red.

Red looked back, its hollow eyes offering up nothing but its detached stare.

“Ah, you’re right. We’ll need a staircase too.” Jay said with a nod.

The cube room was perfectly sealed at every side, airtight. Jay was tempted to drop it in the swamp to see how it would float, but for the sake of his mobile room and personal comfort, he restrained himself.

Instead of crafting a set of stairs, he made a ramp. It was a simple thing to just make a smaller rectangle and meld it to the structure.

As for the door, he chaneled his mana into his fingertip and pressed it into the wall, but instead of pulling his finger down and melting out a rectangle shape, he stopped himself.

It wouldn’t have been straight.

“Hmm…” he took a step back, wondering how he would make a straight line to follow, then gave Red some commands.

(Red, get one of your guardians on the roof.) He ordered, pulling out the length of ghost silk twine the skeletons had crafted.

The skeleton sprung up and jumped onto the roof with little effort, and caught the twine. Instead of giving order, Jay glanced at Red, hoping it would understand. He paused for a moment, then frowned as nothing happened.

(Dangle the twine over the side and have the other guardian pull it tight.)

The skeletons obeyed and Jay finally had a straight line. He adjusted the skeletons so it was horizontal—or at least looked horizontal, and lined it up with the hole he poked through. Finally, he began to trace his finger along the twine and make a straight line. The rest was easy and by the time Jay had to cut the last line to form the rectangle door, the guardian skeletons adjusted themselves.

“Good.” Jay smiled, and a moment later the rectangle door slab of bone fell away, slamming onto the ramp and landing in the mud.

Yet this only led to more problems: attaching the door with some type of hinge.

Jay never really even looked at hinges, they were something he used every day without any thought. As for crafting some from bone, he wasn’t sure if he even had the skill level level.

“Ah…” he pursed his lips and scratched his chin as he looked around.

“Oh, right.” He turned to the shack. It was decaying, old, but still had a door, and it would have used simple hinges too. Jay stashed away his construction project and went closer to investigate.

The door hinge was simple: A cylinder that goes into a loop.

Shouldn’t be too hard. I’ll have a decent room… no, a house, made in no time. Jay thought.

Asra didn’t wake up again, but Hegatha was still shifting about in the shack, and Jay planned his next steps, to begin his investigations of this strange woman.