Circle Work

"No, I'm here to buy something. A new case for the Green trident, the last one broke."

"What? How did you break that case? It was partly made with Dragon eggs."

"You know how it is, holding the trident is dangerous business. Your father should remember that, haha!"

"Five million. I want five million styrs."

"Geez, that costs even more than last time."

"Things have changed. Artifacts are growing rarer."

"Yeah, what's up with that? Why are they getting so rare?"

"You really think I would tell you even if I knew?"

"Ha, maybe. Given that I could take down your father with ease."

"It wasn't with ease."

"By the way, Zeeth. I have a few things to give you." Meres reached into his back and started yanking on something. Strings crawled out and latched onto his arm, "The table began rampaging and wouldn't let go of your items so here are a few of your things."

He tossed out his folded-up table, a small pouch on the table, and random rocks or pebbles on it. The table began moving around the room, rapidly spinning and flying around.

Far far away, on various sides of the planet, Afir was walking into the dark depths of a temple. Scales grew over his skin and his eyes glowed orange. Leathery wings burst from his back in a gust of wind and tornado, blasting out fifty assassins hidden in the shadows, knocking them unconscious or out the entrance. With a clawed hand, he punctured a solid metal and magical enhanced door and tore it off like cardboard. Broken gems and chunks of steel carved with circles fell apart and revealed a room where hundreds, possibly even thousands of artifacts stretched across the room, piling on top of one another and many of them carefully taken apart. Two people, both covered from head to toe in a yellow suit, were so immersed in working on a massive white cubed artifact they didn't even notice Afir.

He took a handful of broken artifacts and looked at them, noticing that they were artifacts of all sorts. Afir took out a square plate, put some mana into it, and said, "Balc, I found a hideout."

The two others finally noticed him when he spoke and one threw a ball at him. It looked like a beach ball, except it was stitched together with red, green, white, and any other horrid colors that don't mix. Like a zombie ball made of rotting flesh from multiple people. He stopped it in the air just before the ball was going to open up and release what he assumed was an explosion of dust and fire.

One of them reached for a red button on the side of the large artifact they were working on and tried to direct the other, younger one to do the same.

"Are you sure? It's not ready!"

"We don't have a choice!" the older one replied. They both pressed a button, one on each side of the artifact, and activated it. It opened with eight prongs from each corner that curled like fingers. The block swung in and tried to crush Afir, who simply caught the machine in his hand and crushed a finger. A circle was activated and oil and electricity flowed onto him, trying to fry him off. Nothing was even singed, even his clothes, a few professionally made animal hides put together, were staying perfectly normal.

The two others ran around the room and opened up doors on walls while pushing away artifacts. All sorts of large artifacts just like the one Afir was disassembling but in different shapes were started and attacked him. A cone smashed into him with its tip, bending the sharp end inwards but magic straps flew out and wrapped him. A massive sphere swung into him like a wrecking ball. His tail grew and tore the strap off, swung the sphere away, and blasted the cube back. While he was touching the cube, metal binds grabbed hold of him again and held him down for a large rectangle to glow and fly into him, creating a sound louder than thunder.

Afir reached his hand out, magic pulsing from his palm. A small dog-like artifact jumped up and grabbed his hand, turning and locking itself so that it couldn't be removed. Afir tightened his arm and the artifact exploded off his hand right before a large blue dagger burst through the ceiling and flew into his hand. Angular blue veins pulsed from his hand, stretching all over his arm the moment the large dagger flew into his hand. The same veins grew from the hilt of the dagger all over its blade-like wires and faded away. The entire thing changed from grey to blue when the sharp veins stretched out, the darkest blue around the hilt, and a lighter blue made up the sleep blade. The blade was curved several times and when Afir swung it once, ten different gusts of wind flew out, pushing all the machines back.

Balc, or Faber, walked calmly down the stairs into the room. "Jeez, Rafil, you couldn't have put those guys in a better place? I was hopping around trying to avoid touching them. Oh, you summoned a Sapphire Dagger."

"Guess what I found? Another stolen artifact base. This is the third one, who's doing all this?"

Back in the basement, Meres had already left the room after talking through the boring details buying some sheath.

"So Zeeth's your name, huh? Why did you hide it?"

"Just didn't want my identity getting out."

"Yeah, imagine the people asking you to join them to be their poster boy. 'The C rank hunter who scared away a dragon is part of my team, guys!' Those idiots. Trust me, you do not want to get to know my superiors, they are exactly that type."

"And you aren't?"

"Are you kidding? Of course not, I hate being on either end of it, that's how you scare away the good ones and invite the bad. Only those who take far too much pride in their fame or self-image like to stick around for those too long."

"That's good to know." Zeeth looked into the spatial bag and noticed a large clump of random artifacts he made and other chunks of rubble that Meres seemed to have scooped in carelessly while taking his artifacts. "By the way," he asked Dives, "do you know how I can sell some artifacts?"

"Actually, you came to the perfect person. I'm not only the recruiter for the Vanes, I am also a co-owner of this commerce building. Why? Do you have some?"

"Yeah, I have quite a few that I want to get rid of. I can't use them all and are starting to get in my way so I just want to sell them and make some money off them."

"Well, pull them out. Let's check what you have."

The first thing he pulled out was a long rectangular shield. He carved circled into it so that when it sensed heat and mana from a person coming at it, it would turn into an ugly, scary face, modeled after a character he remembered from a game.

Didn't really have a practical use other than scaring the enemy for a few seconds, really more for fun. Apparently, this shield would go for about 150 styrs for the quality of the physical shield, and anything with a working circle, no matter the use, was usually worth at least 30 styrs more than its counter with no circle.

His second was a hunk of metal that became a misshaped mace when mana was put into it, rough edges and cuts morphing into spikes and a single oblong piece became the handle. This hunk of metal took around three circles and easily cost upwards of 300 styrs. Morphing items, especially from scrap to weapon was considered especially cool and deeply treasured.

He continued pulling random weapons and gear that cluttered his space.

Dives tried to sort them all out and keep track of everything and he began numbering and writing notes for them once they got past six.

Excited, Dives said, "there is so much. Okay, this will take some time to process and check, but this should take you in some big ones. We will need to take a cut for covering up the circles and distributing-"

"Wait, take a cut?"

"Yes, we will take some amount of cash and in return sell them for you and cover up the circles you created. Or did you plan to somehow set up your own shop, label all your items, and get people to buy them at better and higher rates than us without trust issues and con artists?"

"No, I'm fine with the distribution part," he lied, he had no clue about any of that until just now, "But why would you cover up the circles?"

"It's common to do that for items that are too high in quality. We don't want to spread the information in circles and let them lose value. And that will take some time and money."

"But if you show the circles to people who are skilled enough to cover them, won't they know them?"

"They are trusted employees of the Vanes, they wouldn't divulge the secret to others- oh who am I kidding, the Vane company is full of lying, tricking bastards who do anything for money. Fine, I will have a very small team of only my closest associates taking care of your items, I can promise you that. Some of this stuff is really good, I wouldn't jeopardize our relationship for a little bit of speed. Where did you get all this?"

"I found many of the weapons in Magnator, I didn't make all these, but the circles were things I made."

"You've been to Magnator? And found all of these? Wait, you made the circles? Were you using any sources or did this come from your head?"

"Why? Is circle creation that rare?"

"Yes, absolutely. It is incredibly rare and while most people want to learn it very few are able to actually create something and even fewer can make something good or useful. Can you demonstrate to me how you would do it? As a businessman, I just want to confirm that you made these before I drag myself into any kind of a mess."

'Should I?' Zeeth thought. 'Meh, what's the harm? If I'm to rule the world, maybe I should begin to show my abilities to the world and show that I would be a good leader.''

He grabbed a piece of wood that Dives had placed on the table and the large drill next to it. It was a grey tool like a fat pen with three buttons on its hilt and a much smaller, sharp tip on the front where a normal pen tip would have been. He clicked the red button and the tip began spinning like a tiny drill. He placed the drill against the piece of wood and was surprised at how easily it carved through the wood like it was drilling water. Sawdust flew into the air as he carved through it. He wasn't quite so used to holding the drill yet so he made a bad circle. He took another try and recreated the circle he saw on the handcuff.

Dives watched him carve away, staring at every move. "How are you able to remember the circle?"

"I'm not sure, I guess I just remember it."

Had he not gained the knowledge of the dwarves, he never would've been able to remember all the distinct moves and characters. Only because he knew what they meant and what they did was he able to remember it all. But Dives had no way to know that and he didn't know this about himself yet, he simply knew that he could remember them.

Looking at his products, Dives suddenly became very serious. He clasped his hands together on the table, thinking. "How do you feel about working with us?"

"I told you, I don't want a restrictive contract."

"No, not a contract. At least not the one I was talking about before. A new one, all about your ability to craft. How would you feel about being a partner in business."

He went through a memory as a child. He was being talked to by a kind, plump woman. She said to him in a motherly voice, "hi, how are you doing?"

He stared at her, not knowing what to say or do.

She continued, "From today onwards, you will be living with us, alright? Your parents have to go away for a little while but they will come back. Can you be a big boy and live with us for now?"

But he knew. He didn't know how he knew, but he had a feeling that his parents were never seen again. Not by him, not by anyone he knew, never to resurface. And this woman, no matter her outer appearance, must've been in on it. Of course, he didn't have the evidence to accuse her so he simply stared and walked with her to a door.

He came back, trying to process one of his shortest but also most mysterious memories so far, and saw Dives.

"I'm listening." He replied.

"A new deal, we won't own you and we won't pay you an hourly wage or anything. But how about you create some artifacts for us while we buy them from you. We will supply materials and a safe working environment, in exchange you only sell the products you create with our material to us."

"Just a fair warning, I was told my artifacts just barely reached an F rank."

"We will be the judge, you simply create circles. How about it? No restrictions, no costly funds from you, simply create and sell."

"So you want to give me items for me to carve and re-sell them back to you?"

"Of course, we will only be paying for your services and the circles you create. If they are good enough, we can even get the owner involved and see how far we can get you up in the ranks, you can join as a premium high-class worker-"

"Dude, still not interested. I just wanna know, what are the specifics? What are you going to send and what do I have to make?"

"For now, I will send in maybe five low-class swords and you can make whatever you want, just make it a wide variation."

He was led down another floor, the third basement, and arrived at a large circular room covered by heavy steel. He walked into the center of the room and noticed it was split into nine parts, a circle in the center and eight parts dividing the outside circle as a donut cut into eight parts. Each part was blocked by a door.

"What is this?"