With the arrival of Ajax Wills and his Force Rune to Adam's Base, many stagnant affairs finally began to show some hope, one of which was what Adam called the Power Crisis.
Providing the three bases with just minimal lighting while maintaining essential industrial operations was consuming most of the solar power generated, which was already deteriorating due to winter. Adam's base had eight solar plants that fed the entire operation, but unbeknownst to others, he was secretly powering the heaters across all three bases from the Fossil Furnace in the newcomers' base.
At first, he had a plan to make each solar plant twice as effective by stacking them close to a Holy Furnace to get the bonus effect. Functionally, the Holy Furnace is a Tier 3 building powered by a Solstone (Sun Shard); with a literal piece from the sun emitting such powerful Holy Power, the solar plants would receive twice the output.
This would effectively make the eight solar plants function as sixteen, which would be overkill in Wartopia's RTS, especially since this Holy Furnace would work both day and night, ignoring all weather conditions.
But standing between this and what Adam could achieve were two glaring issues: the first was the fact that Adam's base was still at Tier 1, as the new Command Center, a Base Bastion, was still under construction; the second was that the Solstone was unresponsive.
No matter how many prayers, rituals, and sacrifices were presented to the altar at the heart of the furnace (captured Dire Wolves), the Solstone showed no trace of energy fluctuation.
One would blame this on the fact that many conditions were not met for the activation of a Solstone, but the thing about these stones is that they are not typically so inactive in Wartopia's lore. Solstones were literal pieces of the Sun contained by divine power so as not to burn anyone in close proximity to them, but a direct touch to the flesh would incinerate a person in seconds.
As a matter of fact, the Solstone inside each Paladin would require rigorous training to activate its energy, as well as the addition of three organs and thirty-six energy vessels in the body merely to circulate it without burning the Paladin from within. Even more ridiculous was the fact that a Paladin's Internal Alchemy is essentially a miniaturized Holy Furnace.
So, in hindsight, the Solstone should not be so dormant, and a sufficient number of prayers would be enough to at least elicit some heat from it, but that hasn't been the case so far.
Adam, Captain Creed, and Sister Solana had tried for a month to activate this Solstone that Creed once acquired from a Rift Gate. Ultimately, they gave up, even after asking 200 people, both Earthlings and Wartopians, to kneel around the Holy Furnace and pray in the snow.
The trio was used to going into deep lore discussions, and Adam's insights proved so frightening, touching the boundaries of mind-boggling heresies that would make the Inquisitorium launch a purge campaign to hide the magnitude of this man's knowledge.
But as summons and summoner, Creed and Solana understood that part of them was compelled to protect Adam both from outside harm and self-harm. Being the only Solarium front in this universe, they could only stay true to what they knew and try to work something out between the two dilemmas they were navigating.
And so, when the Awakened were revealed to be Espers, Solana became adamant against allowing further transgressions against the Solar Dogma to continue and demanded that this must be dealt with. Captain Creed, on the other hand, tried his best to see reason between the Dogma and Adam's feelings regarding the incarceration of his fellow Awakened Earthlings, especially given the argument that Runes are the source of ESP in this universe, and an Awakened can be seen as a temporary Esper, one who would no longer be an Esper if their rune were taken away.
This also touched another sensitive subject: Adam's Puppeteer Rune, which was fixed to him not by any artifact, and was the rune he used for summoning Wartopians from their Eternal Rest to serve Sol Imperius yet again in a different universe. If that Rune made Adam an Awakened and could not be taken away, Adam would be the only Esper in this world.
With that argument, Adam presented her hands for Solana and told her to cuff him, but as the Nun refused to cause any harm to her Commander, he added that if a rule couldn't be enforced on him, it shouldn't be enforced on others.
Adam won that argument, and both Creed and Solana heeded his orders, taking its weight for the first time. Adam had only given those two canon character requests and assignments they were able to refuse, but this was the first time they yielded to a decision of his.
While Solana was the one who took most of the effort, Creed's consent meant more than hers, as Adam was very conscious about his very first summon and his promise of being worthy enough to give him orders one day.
But once the Esper problem was settled, Adam dropped his true bomb.
"I believe that if we use the Force Rune, we can tap into the Solstone's power and energize the Holy Furnace."
This made the two hesitate. For one, there were proper rites to ignite a Solstone; for another, it was using those ESP tools to manipulate a holy object. This time, even Adam admitted that his words sounded like plain heresy, but if the Runes were to be trusted as controllable and sanctioned tools for ESP, it wouldn't be heresy to combine the two, as in the case of the Banneret Paladins.
This, however, would be a conversation for another day, as Adam needed to experiment with the Rune Detectors and then go to sleep, as he had been awake for more than a full day.
Returning to his Lab/Abode, he told Kave, Megan, and Yuki to go around the base, using their runic abilities near areas with stationary communication telephones. Adam would try to reach them from his computer and would contact each telephone to see if he had the location and the rune type correct.
Lucky for him, the process required little configuration, since they were working with an existing, trusted diagram. Before long, any known rune usage inside or outside the base was visible on Adam's screen.
Some would occasionally flash inside the base downhill, but the best part was that all three Scanner Beacons in all bases could work together to triangulate the user's location very accurately, to the level where a unique signature could be detected from each rune.
By the next day, Adam had a few troops summoned, and after introducing them to old man Dusty, who would settle them, Adam went ahead and visited Senator Carter and Professor Hendrick to inform them about a new law regarding Rune Registry: not simply to show their rune, but to get licensed and registered to use it within the settlement and bases of the Solarium.
Using the unique signatures of each Runic Artifact, Adam would be able to tell what was going on inside the camps under his protection. Still, he kept the unique signatures of the Runic artifacts to himself, but it raised a moral question in his head:
Am I turning into a mass surveillance state, thinking about my own security before the people's freedoms?
That day, he wandered around the Civilian Base and visited many of its facilities. People saw him and asked him all sorts of questions, so in turn, he did the same.
There were those who were concerned about power and fuel. Adam spoke about the fact that while under siege by the dire wolves, all defensive turrets operated with that power, and outages would happen during fights, so he asked them to pray for the forces on the front.
Others requested the right to bear laser weapons, similar to those used by the military, due to their impressive power and visual appeal. Adam made it very clear that any civilian wishing to wield Blazers would only be permitted to do so through official recruitment and after completing rigorous training. He did, however, permit the right to own conventional firearms for self-defense, provided they were under the supervision of the Lawmen.
Adam also discovered that when he tasked Senator Carter and Professor Hendrick with informing the public about recruitment opportunities, they did not exert the effort he anticipated. While the professor might have harbored some reservations about military authority, the Senator proved less helpful than Adam had hoped. Consequently, many individuals were unaware of the numerous available military positions, and when Adam informed them directly, they were eager to join him at the base immediately.
For a moment, Adam suspected the Senator might be deliberately hindering his progress. However, considering the Senator's perspective, it seemed more likely he was attempting to build his own support base first, especially as the base's population was rapidly expanding.
Adam visited the Lawmen next and informed them about the laws regarding Rune registration. The Lawmen grew from 2 to 8; some of them were summoned, and two were Earthling recruits, trained in the military camp. The Sheriff was naturally Brya Vigil; Officer John Reeves was her Chief Deputy, with the rest serving as their Lawmen squad.
Adam sat down with his third heroic summon, Sheriff Vigil, the old lady with a wise smile and a deep look in her eyes, to gain insights from her regarding what to do with the Senator.
"The old man doesn't do much on his own, but he has his own lackeys: the infirmary's doctors, the Christian priest, and he also serves as the Head Chef, so he's well involved in all affairs of the settlement." She explained.
"And is he a problem to you?" Adam asked.
"On the contrary, he's a problem solver. People go to him with their problems, trust him with their needs, and he hands them their personal needs openly when he's serving them food." She replied before adding, "Which is in and of itself…"
"A problem." Adam nodded to her, assessing the situation of the camp, which he had badly ignored for the past month.
He was rightfully busy keeping the monsters at bay, but on the inside, he was losing political ground. If Creed or Solana were to hear of these problems, they would surely suggest the iron fist approach, but Adam was inclining toward a softer approach.
He didn't want to antagonize the people yet, and as the Lawmen were one of the most advanced forces in the Solarium, being a branch of the Ordinarium, they were closer to the public than the Bellarium; thus, Adam had to take advice from someone who knew what to do.
"What do you think, Sheriff?" He asked her, looking through the window that overlooked the cluster fortress, seeing the people coming and going in a lively manner despite the fight beyond the walls.
"I would say you keep your friends close and your enemies closer, Commander," she said, weighing Adam's reaction as she watched him.
He narrowed his eyes and turned to face her as she sat lazily behind her desk.
"You want me to give him a position?" Adam asked her.
"The Senator is a skilled statesman. You could easily get rid of him amidst all the chaos and wouldn't suffer much from it, but his skill set is valuable in times like these," she said, then let out a long sigh. "We, Lawmen, are of the Monitora Ordinarium, but in this base, we were given the jobs of the Exsecutiva Ordinarium and even the Orbis Ordinarium. Don't you think it is only fair to relieve us from our busy work? Make us less free so we can keep better watch over this place while drawing your political rivals with endless work."
"You just want to slack." Adam shook his head with a smile before asking, "So, giving Carter the IRS would make him manageable, is what you say?"
What Adam meant by "IRS" was immediately understood by Brya Vigil as Infrastructure, Reserves, and Services, a Wartopian inside joke, but a good summary of the duties of the Exsecutiva Ordinarium.
"He would be under your thumb, in a way. As you give commands, he must adhere to them; else, you can try him for insubordination. You can then bury him under an executive heap of superior clerks and scribes as you widen your operation on this nice world." Sheriff Vigil simply gave Adam a rundown of how to deal with Senator Carter.
"That's awfully political of you, Sheriff." Adam said, taken aback by the political acumen of the old lady.
"And when you elevate this operation, you, sir, can always feel free to remember that you have friends, such as I, in low places who can be a little bit higher."
"And opportunistic!" His eyes gleamed with admiration as he said so.
"Bless your heart, Commander." She smiled, raising the empty cup of brew she had on her desk.
If the Bellarium was a fiery hellhole where soldiers were expected to live up to fifteen minutes, the Ordinarium would be a pit of snakes where everyone shakes hands with their left and stabs with their right. Adam preferred the former, but it was high time he familiarized himself with the latter.
He returned to his base that day and prepared for tomorrow: squads of Men-at-Arms went up and down for redeployment, new survivors were integrated into the newcomers' camp, and others were accepted into the settlement downhill as soon as they were processed.
If this kept going, the delicate system wouldn't catch up. He was conflicted about the methods of setting people in order, but when the wolves come, they will not be conflicted about the methods of tearing people apart.
Two hands slapped his face, sobering him as he watched the sun set on another day, but defying this phenomenon that had lasted since the dawn of creation, Adam became determined to be the only human to do so.
He would fix the Force Rune, he would use it to ignite the Solstone, and with it, he would make the Holy Furnace his own sun, and monsters, nor politics, nor anything would snuff his will out.
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