Chapter 8

  I woke before dawn, the faint purple glow of the approaching smaller sun barely filtering through the gaps in my shelter. Sleep had been fitful at best, my mind cycling through the same scenes over and over, the orc's frightened eyes, Darren's swing, Corwin's scream, that family totem in my inventory.

  Byte sensed I was awake and made a soft, questioning beep.

  "I'm okay," I whispered, though we both knew it was a lie.

  I pulled up my inventory, looking at the items that had transferred from the orc. The notification had called it "rewards," but sitting in the pre-dawn darkness, they felt more like evidence. Evidence of what, I wasn't sure. A mistake? A murder? Self-defense?

  The totem was still there, that small carved figure of an orc family. I pulled it out, turning it over in my hands. The craftsmanship was rough but careful, each groove cut with obvious love, the same detail I'd noticed when it first appeared in my inventory. The two larger figures stood with their hands on the smaller one's shoulders in what could only be a protective gesture.

  He had people who cared about him. Maybe people waiting for him.

  "Maura?" Felix's voice made me jump. He was standing at my shelter entrance, looking as exhausted as I felt. "Couldn't sleep either?"

  "Not really." I tucked the totem back into my inventory, not ready to share that particular piece of guilt yet. "How's Corwin?"

  "Stable. Josie and the other healers did good work overnight. He woke up about an hour ago." Felix's expression was complicated. "He's... processing."

  "And Jackie?"

  "Hasn't left his side." He sat down next to me, Byte immediately rolling over to him for attention. "John's calling a council meeting at sunrise. Everyone who was there yesterday. He wants to establish protocols for... encounters."

  "Makes sense." I paused. "How are you holding up?"

  Felix was quiet for a long moment. "I keep thinking about what you said. About the orc being an initiate like us. I gained two levels from that kill, Maura. Two levels from someone else's death."

  So that explained his jump to Level 5. Everyone who'd been there had gotten credit.

  "I'm a healer," he continued, his voice tight. "My whole class is built around saving lives. And the system just rewarded me for taking one."

  I didn't have an answer for that. Neither of us did.

  * * *

  By the time the sun rose, a small group had gathered in John's planning area, me, Felix, Tom, Jenna, and Elara. Darren was notably absent.

  "Where's Darren?" I asked.

  John's expression was carefully neutral. "He's... asked for some space. I've assigned him to solo resource gathering away from camp for a few days. He needs time to process what happened, and frankly, some people need time before they can look at him without..."

  "Without wondering if it was an accident," I finished quietly.

  John didn't confirm or deny, but his silence was answer enough. "Let's focus on what we can control. We need protocols for encounters with other initiates. Yesterday was chaos. We can't afford chaos."

  "The orc wasn't attacking Jackie," I said. The words felt important, necessary. "It was just standing there. Both of them were scared. If we'd taken five seconds to assess instead of reacting..."

  "Someone might have died," Elara interjected. "You don't know what it was planning."

  "And we never will, because we killed it before finding out." The words came out harsher than I intended.

  Tom cleared his throat. "What if we establish contact protocols? Raise hands to show we're not hostile. Keep weapons lowered unless directly threatened. Give everyone a chance to walk away."

  "The system encourages us to kill each other," Jenna pointed out. "Those rewards aren't small. How long before someone decides the points are worth more than peace?"

  The question hung in the air, heavy and ugly.

  "Then we need to be better than the system," John said firmly. "We establish that Galene doesn't attack other initiates unless in clear self-defense. We try communication first. We give people a chance." He looked at each of us. "And we make damn sure everyone knows that killing another initiate, even if the system rewards it, has consequences here. We're not becoming murderers for points."

  I thought about the rewards sitting in my inventory. 1000 credits. 200 points. A family's belongings.

  "What about other camps?" Felix asked. "What if they don't share our values?"

  "Then we defend ourselves," John said. "But we don't strike first. Agreed?"

  One by one, we nodded.

  "Good. Now, Maura, you mentioned yesterday that you might be able to get communication working. How's that going?"

  I pulled out my phone and the materials I'd been studying. "I've been thinking about this wrong. I can't make phones work without infrastructure, they need something to connect to. But what if I build that infrastructure? A local communication hub that phones can connect to."

  "Like a cell tower?" Tom asked.

  "Sort of. More like a magical walkie-talkie base station." I spread out the components. "The Identify skill gave me descriptions of what these materials do, but I've never actually worked with them. This is all experimentation. Trial and error."

  I picked up one of the Mystic Radiance Stones. "The skill description said this 'resonates with mystical energies' and could be 'used as a focal point for magical rituals.' I'm thinking it might be able to receive and transmit signals if I can figure out how to attune it properly."

  "And you know how to do that?" Elara asked skeptically.

  "Not even a little bit," I admitted. "But my Data Integration skill has been showing me patterns. The way magic flows through materials, how different components interact. I think I can figure it out, but it's going to take time and probably a lot of failures."

  John nodded thoughtfully. "What do you need?"

  "A workspace where I won't be disturbed. More materials like these." I gestured to the crystals and vines. "And honestly? Someone to watch my back while I work, in case I accidentally blow something up."

  "I can do that," Felix offered. "I don't have anything else I'm useful for right now."

  "You're a Level 5 healer," I pointed out. "You're useful for a lot."

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  "A Level 5 healer who couldn't save Corwin's arm," he said quietly.

  Before I could respond, John cut in. "Felix, I need you checking on Corwin regularly. The healing magic closed the wound, but we don't know the long-term effects. He lost a lot of blood, and that kind of trauma doesn't just heal overnight. I need you monitoring him." He paused. "But when you have time, help Maura with this. Having communication capability could save lives."

  The meeting continued for another hour, establishing patrol routes, watch rotations, rules of engagement for encounters. By the time we dispersed, I felt simultaneously more prepared and more aware of how fragile our situation was.

  * * *

  I set up a workspace in an empty shelter on the edge of camp. Felix helped me haul in a makeshift table and organize the materials I'd collected, Mystic Radiance Stones, Glowroot fibers, Techvine bundles, Luminara Crystals, and various other components whose purposes I was still figuring out.

  My phone sat in the center of it all, disassembled into its component parts.

  "Okay," I said, mostly to myself. "Let's see if this works."

  I started with the Mystic Radiance Stone. Data Integration showed me energy flowing through it in complex patterns, like circuit diagrams rendered in light. When I pushed a small amount of mana into it, the patterns shifted, reorganized, almost like it was trying to find a frequency.

  "That's interesting," I murmured, noting the response. "It's reactive to mana input. Maybe I can use that for signal transmission."

  Felix watched from his position by the entrance. "You're talking to yourself."

  "Helps me think." I tried pushing mana into the stone at different rates. Fast pulses made the energy patterns scatter. Slow, steady flow made them stabilize. "The system description didn't say anything about this behavior. This is new."

  "How do you know what to try?"

  "I don't," I admitted. "But Data Integration shows me how the energy moves. I'm just... experimenting. Seeing what happens."

  The first attempt was a disaster. I tried wrapping a Glowroot fiber directly around the stone and pushing mana through both simultaneously. The fiber glowed white-hot, the stone resonated at a frequency that set my teeth on edge, and the whole assembly detonated with a bang that left my ears ringing. Singed eyebrows. Scattered components. The acrid smell of burned vegetation filled the shelter.

  "You okay?" Felix asked, waving smoke away from his face.

  "Fine. Fine." I brushed ash off my sleeves. "Wrong frequency. The Glowroot amplified the mana instead of channeling it. Note to self: don't do that."

  Attempt two was subtler. I tried feeding mana directly from my phone's battery through a Techvine filament into the stone. Data Integration showed the energy flowing smoothly for about three seconds before the battery overloaded and died with a sad little spark. My phone screen went dark.

  "Please tell me you can fix that," Felix said.

  "Probably." I pried the battery loose, muttering under my breath as I coaxed it back to life with a trickle of mana. It took twenty minutes. "Okay, the phone's not the power source. Got it."

  The third attempt used a Luminara Crystal as an intermediary between the stone and the vine. The crystal shattered the moment mana touched it, spraying glittering fragments across the workspace like magical confetti.

  Attempt four: I tried a different configuration, wiring the stone in series rather than parallel with the fiber. The signal held for almost ten seconds before degrading into static and then nothing. Closer. But not right.

  Felix had moved from the entrance to sitting cross-legged beside me, holding components steady while I worked. "What went wrong that time?"

  "The signal degraded over distance. It needs something to stabilize it, maintain the frequency." I chewed my lip, staring at the arrangement. "Like a resonance chamber. Something that holds the vibration steady."

  Attempts five and six were variations on the same theme. Different configurations, different materials, different mana flow rates. Each one taught me something new about how the materials interacted, how magic and technology could complement or destroy each other. The shelter smelled of ozone and scorched plant matter, and my fingers were stained green from handling so much Techvine.

  "You're sure you know what you're doing?" Felix asked, offering me water after the seventh failure, a configuration that had simply hummed loudly for thirty seconds before going silent.

  "Absolutely not," I said cheerfully, already clearing the workspace for attempt number eight. "That's half the fun."

  Felix shook his head but smiled. "You remind me of the dogs at the shelter. When they wanted a treat on the other side of a fence, they'd just keep trying different ways to get through. Over, under, around, through."

  "Did they ever get the treat?"

  "Always."

  This time, I tried something fundamentally different. Instead of trying to integrate the materials directly into my phone, I built a separate device. I used the Mystic Radiance Stone as the core, wrapping it in a lattice of Techvine that I'd carefully stripped of its outer layer. The Identify skill had said Techvine had "natural affinity for technology" and "enhanced conductivity." I was hoping that meant it could channel both electricity and mana.

  Data Integration showed me where to place connections, how to orient the vines to optimize energy flow. It was like seeing a blueprint overlaid on reality, except the blueprint was teaching itself as I worked.

  "This feels different," I said, watching the energy patterns stabilize. "I think it's actually working."

  I connected the Glowroot fibers between the stone and a power source, a battery I'd salvaged and modified to accept mana charging. According to the Identify description, Glowroot had "luminescent properties" and "soft glow at night." But Data Integration showed me it was also conducting energy efficiently, more like fiber optic cable than traditional wiring.

  "Okay," I breathed. "Let's test it."

  I pushed mana into the battery. The Techvine lattice lit up with circuit-like patterns. The Mystic Radiance Stone began to pulse with a steady rhythm. And my phone, sitting three feet away and tuned to search for signals, suddenly chirped.

  "It found something!" I grabbed the phone, my hands shaking with excitement. "It's detecting a network. My network."

  Felix leaned over to look. "Does it work?"

  "Only one way to find out." I sent a test message to... nowhere, since I only had one phone connected. "We need another phone to test properly."

  "I'll get mine." Felix ducked out of the shelter.

  While he was gone, I studied what I'd created. It was crude, a crystal wrapped in vines connected to a modified battery. But it was broadcasting a signal strong enough for a phone to detect. If I could replicate this, scale it up, we could have a communication network spanning the entire camp. Maybe even beyond.

  Level Up!

  Level 7 Technomancer

  New Skill Available: Technomagical Construction

  The notification appeared in my vision, and suddenly I understood. The knowledge flooding into my mind wasn't instructions or manuals, it was comprehension. I could see how to build complex devices by combining magical materials with technological principles. It was like Data Integration had evolved, giving me not just analysis but synthesis.

  Felix returned with his phone. "Got it. What do I do?"

  "Just turn it on and see if it finds the network." I held my breath as he powered up the device.

  His phone screen lit up. Searching for networks... Connection found: Galene Local Network.

  "It works," Felix said, sounding amazed. "It actually works."

  I sent him a test message: Can you see this?

  His phone chimed. He looked at it, then at me, then back at the phone. A grin spread across his face, the first genuine smile I'd seen from him since yesterday.

  "I can see it," he confirmed, typing back: This is incredible.

  I leaned back, suddenly exhausted but also exhilarated. "We can expand this. Make the range bigger. Set up relay stations. Everyone in camp could communicate. We could coordinate patrols, warn about dangers, maybe even reach other groups."

  "You're amazing," Felix said, and there was something in his voice that made me look up sharply. "Seriously. Yesterday was... yesterday was terrible. But you took that and made something good out of it. Something that could help people."

  I thought about the totem sitting in my inventory. About the orc's family. About how the system had rewarded me for taking a life.

  "I'm trying," I said quietly. "I'm trying to do something that matters. Something that's not just... violence and points."

  Felix nodded, understanding. We sat in comfortable silence for a while, both of us processing the last twenty-four hours in our own ways.

  Finally, he spoke. "I should check on Corwin. You good here?"

  "Yeah. I want to build a couple more of these before I show John. Make sure it's reliable."

  "Don't explode anything while I'm gone."

  "No promises."

  After Felix left, I pulled out the orc's belongings again. The totem, the map, the gold coins. Looking at them hurt, but it felt important not to look away. These weren't rewards. They were responsibilities.

  The map showed regions I didn't recognize, marked with symbols I couldn't read. But there was one symbol that appeared multiple times, a location marker, maybe. A home?

  "I'm sorry," I whispered to the totem, to the orc who'd carried it, to the family it represented. "I'm sorry, and I'm going to try to be better. We're all going to try to be better."

  It wasn't enough. It would never be enough. But it was all I had.

  I tucked the items back into my inventory and turned back to my work. The communication network wouldn't build itself, and camp was counting on me.

  Besides, keeping busy meant I didn't have to think about the nightmares I knew were waiting for me when I tried to sleep.

  Outside, I could hear the normal sounds of camp life, people working, talking, living. Somewhere in there, Corwin was recovering. Jackie was staying strong for her brother. Darren was dealing with his guilt or his lies or whatever the truth was. The creature with the wrong laughter was still out there somewhere in the forest.

  And tomorrow, the tutorial shop would open. We'd see what resources the system thought we needed.

  But for now, I had work to do. I had a network to build, people to help protect, and maybe, just maybe, a way to make this terrible situation a little bit better.

  I picked up another Mystic Radiance Stone and got back to work.

  by BooksByMandiMay

  THE LAST TECHNOMANCER

  One satisfying career crisis, one planet abduction, and one very opinionated robot later, Maura Everhart has thirty days to survive a multiverse tutorial that wants her dead.

  Maura Everhart was having a bad Wednesday. Keys down a storm drain, a failing game shop, and a locksmith who charged like a surgeon. Then the sky split open, and every adult on Earth was yanked into a tutorial dimension for 30-days alongside initiates from 61 other planets.

  Choose a class. Level up. Don't die. Simple enough. Right?

  Except Maura chose Technomancer, an ancient class so rare the multiverse considered it extinct. Before vanishing the only other Technomancer reshaped the entire systems of reality. Now cosmic powers are watching, and not all of them want to see another one rise.

  Armed with an energy sword she barely knows how to swing, a mechanical robot companion with more attitude than a house cat on a Monday, and an INT stat that's growing faster than her ability to stay out of trouble, Maura has to do more than survive. She has to build. Innovate. Forge alliances with species she didn't know existed yesterday. And figure out why powerful beings are breaking the rules of the tutorial just to get close to her.

  In a world where death is permanent, magic is real, and morals are a thing of the past, the only thing more dangerous than the monsters in the forest is the secret Maura carries: she's not just a player in this game. She might be the reason it exists.

  What to expect:

  - LitRPG progression with stats, skills, levels, and loot

  - Crafting and innovation as core strengths, not just combat

  - Found family forged under pressure

  - Morally complex encounters where enemies aren't always evil and allies aren't always safe

  - A sarcastic, self-aware protagonist who references games and pop culture while trying not to die

  - Multiple POVs that expand the world beyond the main character

  - A slow-burn mystery about extinct classes, cosmic politics, and a multiverse with secrets

  Updates every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. First-person POV. Progression fantasy with heart, humor, and the occasional existential crisis.