Inflame (The Completionist Chronicles Book 6) Dakota Krout (sci fi books to read TXT) 📖

to be able to impact something of that size. Or a significant number of smaller rituals. We'll put it on the back burner for now. Point is, I am pretty sure that when I activate this ritual, it will allow me to start withering all plants in range. Anyone or anything that starts releasing Mana will help to power the ritual once it gets going. My concern is that it does not differentiate between friend and foe.”

“What you should be worried about is someone breaking it.” Havoc rumbled as he eyed the paper that Joe was being so careful with. “I’m not just talking about this prototype. Elves are excellent spellbreakers. Got nothing better to do than look at strands of mana and figure out how to wiggle it. Plus, I got you those incredibly difficult-to-acquire scrolls so you could learn the spells, not so you could slap it into a one-time effect.”

“Yes, we will need to protect the ritual. As for the ritual diagram, well…” Joe shrugged helplessly. “I could have learned the spell, but I have a chance of failing, and I would need to use it constantly to get it to this level again. Right now, I can use it at an Apprentice level in a ritual, and I might be able to improve it further in the future. Even so, I had to strip away all of the ‘active casting’ portions so that it didn’t blow up in my face when I was converting it. It’s rare that it happens, but better safe than sorry. Now the scroll isn’t usable for learning to cast it, so is there any chance you can get me another Scroll of Mana Drain?”

“I just told you that scrolls are very difficult to come by… usually we can only get them if we take a major fort relatively intact. Think about how rare that is.” Havoc decided that Joe had a good point, however, and let the issue go. “So no, as far as this is concerned, we do not have a duplicate of the scroll. How will this be useful against the Elves?”

“Basically, I set this up, it passively drains the mana from anyone in the area, and hopefully kills the Guardian by destroying the root system.” Joe waved at the small model of a fort that Havoc had set up. “In terms of combat utility, as I said, it will drain the mana from the Elves as soon as they cast even a single spell, making them weaker over time and reducing their ability to regenerate their mana. This is perfect for an enclosed space like a fort; a place where we can set the bounds of the ritual without having to worry about our targets making a break for it or escaping. In addition, if they get drained far enough… it will start taking health from them if they try to cast anything. I can tell you from experience, that is very distracting.”

“I like it. Perfect little surprise.” Havoc waved at the little structures that Joe had set around the model, “Even if it will likely only work once. That should be enough to cover what we've done so far. What's the rest of this for?”

“Defensive structures.” Joe’s face scrunched up in frustration as he studied the figures. “I've been trying to figure out how to replicate your magitech cannons, but I'm running into issues with the power supply and enchantment, and… wait a second… why will it only work once?”

“Hmm… oh? You’re using a magical attack, right? Any Elves that survive will be able to parse that and create a counterspell. Big, magical effects only work once against them. Remember, they figured out a way to break what I hit them with, and we thought it would keep them away forever. Little ritual like this? A known draining spell? We’ll be lucky if they don’t break it while we are attacking.” Havoc’s eyes were drawn back to the defensive tower replica. “You said that you were having issues with power supply? Enchantments? Why are you having issues, and when did you have time to look at those enchantment formulae?”

“Basically, I need to study them for a long enough time to make my own versions. As for when I looked at those, a higher constitution means less need for sleep. Combine that with my coffee elemental-” Joe was going to say more, but Havoc cut him off.

“You don't need to do everything yourself, Candidate. If you can figure out how to construct the towers, we can have the enchantments ready to be placed on them. That's easy enough.” He paused for a moment to chuckle at Joe's slightly open mouth. “Modularity is a big deal to Dwarves. Things blow up too often not to have easy replacements. As for the power supply… what’s the issue there?”

Joe nodded in thanks. “That’ll work for the enchantments. I appreciate it. As to the power supply, I can't figure out what you are doing with these. As far as I can tell, every time you fire, the cannons should have about a… I’m estimating a twenty percent chance of just… self-destructing? I have no idea what you are doing here to keep that from happening.”

“Formations, arrays, and liquid cooling,” Havoc replied dryly, getting an eye roll from Joe. “You are correct; they tend to blow up for… just… no reason whatsoever. In all honesty, the Cores that power everything eventually overload. The enchantments don’t get damaged, and the towers themselves are not an issue; the actual trouble is the fact that we don’t have stable power sources. We use Cores directly, and that means we are taking Quintessence and trying to use it as a mana source. The inefficiency of doing things like this means that, obviously, they overload themselves sometimes.”

“The formations that we use are made to protect against this; they are the very reason for modularity. Essentially, we judge when a Core is about to overload and slingshot it