Order of Architects: Book 2, page 1
part #31 of Small 'Fantasy' Series Series
Oleg Sapphire
Yuri Vinokuroff
The Order of Architects
Book 2
A Portal Progression Fantasy Series
Published by Magic Dome Books
The Order of Architects
Book # 2
Copyright © Oleg Sapphire, Yuri Vinokuroff 2024
Cover Art © Linni 2024
Cover designer: Vladimir Manyukhin
English translation copyright © Christopher Michael Jarrett 2024
Published by Magic Dome Books, 2024
ISBN: 978-80-7693-444-3
All Rights Reserved
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book is entirely a work of fiction. Any correlation with real people or events is coincidental.
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Table of Contents:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
About The Authors
Chapter 1
IT WAS A TOTAL DISGRACE! For an Architect, of course. They’d made me mad. Really mad. Granted, until I got my former power back, I’d still have to just struggle on, but my personality was just the same as it had been before I was reborn… or whatever I’m supposed to call it.
The Codex probably knows the proper term for what was unquestionably a miracle, but where am I going to find a Hunter who’ll explain it to me? Although… I’d probably survive without an explanation of it anyhow. And I didn’t really want to have to meet up with a Hunter in order to find out.
Anyway, what was I saying… Oh, yeah. My parents. I’d had it with them. They were seriously driving me nuts! How many times were they going to send all manner of shady individuals after me? Until their money ran out? That wouldn’t happen for a while. Despite the fact that they were having serious financial problems, their credit history was immaculate. They’d always paid off their debts on time. They just took out more loans in order to do so. Their little “borrow in order to pay back” scheme had worked without a hitch.
Or would they just pursue me until none of their hired thugs wanted anything to do with me any longer? That was even less likely. Firstly, I knew full well that there were people in this world that I wouldn’t be able to deal with quite yet. However, secondly, all those fools had just been disappearing without leaving any gory details for future contractors to hear of. And thirdly, human nature dictates that there are always idiots around, as attested throughout the ages and in a great many worlds.
That meant there was really only one solution — I’d have to eliminate their clients. That is, my parents. Eliminating them physically would, of course, be the most reliable option, but I didn’t feel such a strong dislike toward them quite yet. And anyway, given that I was in Liechtenstein, it simply wouldn’t be possible for me to do so, frankly speaking. I didn’t have the connections or the money for that.
The only thing I could think was that my parents had to leave me in peace. But how could I achieve that? I had no idea! Yet. I’d have to think about that matter very carefully.
Okay, let’s lay it all out. What did I have at my disposal? A rented house with an underground tunnel that led to the railroad station. My very own store, which I’d almost completely renovated. Some merchandise. Two faithful minions — Clayskull and Scrappy. But the main thing I had was my knowledge and skills from my previous life.
As far as my power was concerned… I was gradually improving my physical condition. That was happening by itself as I enhanced my Core. I was no longer the scrawny little whippet who’d obediently headed off into exile on that train. I wasn’t quite as visually imposing as Red quite yet, but I looked like a pretty tough young guy for my age.
My Core was taking shape. I was satisfied with its progress, and along with it, I was enhancing my body’s energy channels and, consequently, the power of the techniques that I could use. Right now, in a direct confrontation, I was probably a solid “Warrior,” according to the local ranking! Given the aces that I had up my sleeve, however, I could handle guys of a higher rank than me, something I’d demonstrated on more than one occasion. Experience is power!
Now, onto my problems. And I’ve got plenty of those. Firstly, my loan. Yeah, I had enough to pay it off, but it wasn’t closed-end credit — it was open-end credit, hah! Secondly, money. I didn’t really have any. But I did have a plan as to how I’d get some. I had some rather rowdy neighbors who wanted to snatch my store from me. Well, there wasn’t a chance that was going to happen. But I needed to deal with them fast in a “the best defense is a good offense” kind of way. I hadn’t yet visited my estate, but something told me I wouldn’t exactly be delighted with what I saw. Anyway, that could wait. Then there were the Shadows. As it had turned out, they were everywhere around here. That was both a good thing and a bad thing. It was good for me, as I’d be able to enhance my power using them. If there weren’t any stray Supreme Shadows around here, that is. I wouldn’t be able to handle those brutes right now, so I’d need to be a little more careful in that regard. On the other hand, Shadows were a bad thing as far as the general population was concerned, as the latter simply wouldn’t be able to stand against them. *Sigh…* Once again the old Architect within me was stirring, concerned for the well-being of my subjects. I mean, these folks weren’t my subjects, but still.
In my last world, some Orders had been skeptical of the fact that other Orders sought to protect humanity itself. People who only look after their own are stupid, and that’s all there is to it. The Hunters or Paladins didn’t come to the aid of such morons when they found themselves in trouble. If they did show up, it’d just be to stand at a distance and laugh at those idiots as they died due to their own obtuseness and short-sightedness. I’m lying, of course. If the Hunters came to the “party,” they’d get involved in the fighting… For the sake of humanity, of course! Idio… Ahem… I shouldn’t be running my mouth like that.
I needed to think about how I could get rid of the Shadows from the surrounding area, at the very least, so that I didn’t end up suddenly having to jump out of bed in the middle of the night, naked, just because some weak Shadow Seeker had led its rather-too-powerful master to me.
People in this world are fools to maintain such a careless attitude toward Shadows. They simply have no idea what Shadows are capable of. They just think it’s no big deal if the odd good-for-nothing, weak nobody goes missing from time to time.
But that’s just the beginning… Even more of those listless, rather dumb Shadows were breaking through into this world, seeking abandoned places just like these. But then other Shadows would start arriving… Indeed, there were already some of them here, just not in serious numbers. The people in this world simply can’t begin to imagine the kinds of creatures that are living here and what they’re capable of. Take Shadow Weepers, for instance. They’re creepy-looking things, but they’re funny… Although, they’re probably more on the creepy side. There’s no other way to describe them, when what they do is infect people and then cry when they see their victims’ flesh disintegrating as they howl in pain. And their laughter… They even shed tears as they laugh. They’re dark creatures…
Following the visit from the Chinese “delegation,” I immediately closed the store. Firstly, I’d earned a substantial amount from them and had even gotten a nice bonus. They’d paid me more than my asking price, which was most gratifying. There hadn’t been any deception or charity involved. The items they’d bought were, in fact, worth even more than they’d paid, but I didn’t have a reputation yet. However, I reckoned I’d earn a name for myself in the future thanks to my experience.
So as not to waste any time, I headed into my basement and began crafting things. I had a stock of clay down there that I now needed. I got down to work, and even the stench of the corpses didn’t distract me. The bodies were just lying there, but I was in no hurry to dump them in my garbage pit. Ideally, I still needed to make my pit deeper, but that wouldn’t be all that easy.
Anyway, time to get to work. I took the first chunk of clay and threw it on the table, where I examined its composition. It wasn’t ideal… I’d need to remove all the junk and various trace impurities from it, as they’d only damage it. I filtered the clay about five times and then doubled the magical saturation of the material. In the end, there was three times less clay then when I started. That wasn’t much… so I added some more. After two hours’ work, I had the perfect clay. It had acquired a blue-gray tint and was now worth quite a bit of money in and of itself.
The task had given me a few ideas regarding the direction of my business. Why not open my own construction store? Now to find some apprentices…
I used the clay to make twelve statuettes of four-armed humans that were between two and twelve inches tall. They were all of different sizes, but the most important thing was that they’d work as a team who’d complement one another. Creating the figures was only half the job, however. I still had to put some elementals, which are everywhere around here, into them, so I did that next.
To my surprise, no elementals responded to my summons the first time. Nor the second time. Nor the fifth. This situation didn’t sit well with me, so I used the Call of the Architects, as we used to call it.
The Call came from my very Core and was mixed with pure energy. What happened next was… a nightmare… The twelve figures became occupied by elementals in the blink of an eye. All twelve of them… The elementals even tried to occupy the figurines that hadn’t been fully assembled yet. I had to use my power to get them out of there. I couldn’t have disembodied legs just wandering around the room.
My brave little soldiers first started bumbling around and banging their heads, trying to either escape or find some work to do. It’d take some time before their coordination improved. I used my magic to shovel them all into a row, and I fixed them there.
“Listen carefully!” I began. “It was I who summoned you into these bodies! I am your master! You shall carry out my every command to the letter… My first command is that you must not harm your creator. The second is that you be neat and careful. Everything you’re working with is valuable and important to me. If you are ordered to move a glass, it should be delivered without any chips in it, and so forth. Understood?”
The figures weren’t able to reply to me audibly as they were earth elementals of a lower order, but they indicated their agreement mentally. Of course, they weren’t as smart and powerful as the previous golems I’d made, but their jobs would be simpler too.
I made sure they all knew the rules, which was important, before giving them their first orders. Using my memories, they were to completely loot all the bodies that were lying down there and then sort the plunder into different boxes. They just had to take everything that I myself had taken off of corpses in the past. Then there wouldn’t be any issues. Well, almost none… Three of them immediately fell off the table, they were in such a hurry… They got up and dusted themselves off, just as a person would, however, and went in search of the loot. They were made of clay, granted, but it was magical clay and was thus not so easy to break. They began pottering around down there, and in the meantime, I took another hunk of clay and began forming some bodies for them… Spare ones.
The idea is that, when one of these golems breaks, which can happen, the elemental immediately goes into a new body that it finds suitable in terms of its size. In that respect, these golems are different from Clayskull and Scrappy, who aren’t going anywhere without a new body. They just have to wait. I was intending to make true golems out of them, however. These little things, on the other hand, were just simple workers.
Some Ikhtsha and Ravargan runes, with various modifications, were responsible for the little creatures’ movement. The task of modifying the runes didn’t take that much time. It took far longer to check my entire security system, which had ended up being tested that day already. I had to put all the sharp spears back in their places and repair the mechanisms that been slightly damaged, before reloading the others. I hadn’t expected the system to be tested so quickly. In the future, I’d arrange it so that I didn’t have to lug stuff around by hand and I could just set it up automatically. The big advantage of having thick floors and ceilings is that you can hide all sorts of stuff in them. But even so… I was running out of space.
As evening fell, I headed out to a store, from which I returned with some bags full of food. This time, my provisions were better quality than the stuff I’d had previously. I mean, they weren’t as good as I’d gotten used to in my past life, but we keep on growing, so to speak. I brought all my food home and then stepped out onto the porch with a large mug of hot tea just to get some fresh air. It was about midnight, but it felt somehow too quiet. I decided to take advantage of the tranquility rather than going to bed.
First, I began communing with the earth using my power to find out if there was anything new about it. For example, in the back yard of the baron’s store, there were two corpses that had been tied up. The baron probably had nothing to do with them, as they were too old and were chained up. I reckoned it’d been someone punishing some fugitive slaves. There was also some money scattered deep underground too, but it was hard to determine its location precisely. The pipes, on the other hand, were easy to spot… There were cable ducts and sewers. All that stuff stood out from all the other small objects that were down there.
First of all, I slightly tampered with all the streetlights in the area, causing them to go out. The small street became pitch dark. Having done that, I was able to safely head over to the baron’s store. The huge gate opened without any problems. It didn’t make any creaking sounds, so I didn’t attract any unwanted attention.
I went up to the porch and discovered that the store had a security system. As soon as I stepped onto the porch itself, they’d know… Or rather, they would’ve known, if I hadn’t broken their little system a bit. I could now stand on the porch, and the security system wouldn’t kick in. Next, I rested my hand on the keyhole, and… began heating it up. I did so thoroughly, fusing the entire locking mechanism into a single metal block. Once the entire slot where the key was supposed to go had vanished entirely, I smiled approvingly.
Somewhat remarkably, there were about six people in the store. That is to say, it was well protected, but they had put too much trust in their security system. All I’d had to do was take it out of action, and they were completely defenseless. I left the scene and sabotaged the gate as I did so. Now, they wouldn’t be able to lock it using the key, however hard they tried. That was just a little detail, but I took pleasure from it nonetheless…
Having done that, I headed home with a sense of accomplishment and went to bed.
* * *
The principality of Liechtenstein
The city of Vaduz
The offices of the “Horns and Hooves” mercenary division
Edward Horn was experiencing mixed emotions. His squad of mercenaries, known as the “Horns and Hooves,” had received what appeared to be a run-of-the-mill contract. They needed to find a fugitive.
The fact that this fugitive was an aristocrat was neither here nor there. It was even something of a pleasant surprise. Edward himself wasn’t of noble birth, but as someone who knew the shame of being fired from the military, he loved such contracts. He’d always felt himself to be superior to those aristocratic bastards. It was their fault he’d been kicked out of the armed forces way back when. He’d killed an aristocrat… Although, was that such a massive deal anyway when the guy had been such an asshole? He probably shouldn’t have drunk so much and pulled out his knife, but who’d have thought the guy would die? Why did that idiot have to be so weak that he couldn’t even do a decent job of protecting himself?
Edward had come up with all sorts of excuses for his actions, and he even believed them. He wasn’t thinking about that, though. He was pondering this new matter, which hadn’t gone according to plan. He’d already lost so many men. He’d found the aristocrat, and he probably should have left it at that. They’d already paid him, after all. Ultimately, greed was to blame for all this… They’d offered him another contract for even more money. He needed to deliver the kid, who’d only recently showed up in the principality, to the designated location.
He’d accepted the contract… But he’d lost a lot of men… That had bugged him and made him mad. It had made him mad because he didn’t have any information about what’d happened. Initially, he’d received the signal from his group that they were about to get the operation underway, but then there was just silence… A silence that lasted a long time, suggesting that his buddies were dead. And that meant incurring financial losses — he’d have to make payments to their families — and he’d also lost face, which was a big problem in his profession.
