The morning after Mavis arrived, Kazuto stood in the center of the basin, neck aching from staring at the sky. The concept of a dome was simple in theory. In practice, it felt like trying to mentally hold up a parachute the size of a football stadium.
He started small. He focused on a point above his head, maybe twenty feet up. He willed a single, flat pane of his barrier material into existence, horizontal to the ground. A ceiling tile.
« ACTIVATING [DIVINE OMNI BARRIER] – LOCALIZED PANE. »
A ten-foot square of perfectly transparent barrier snapped into place overhead. It was utterly still. No seams. It just hung there, defying gravity.
"Okay," he muttered. "That's a start."
He walked a few paces away and created another square, trying to connect its edge to the first one. The second square appeared, but there was a visible, hairline gap between them. Not a physical gap—the barriers themselves were solid—but a sliver of open air.
« NOTICE: SPATIAL CONTINUITY NOT MAINTAINED. BARRIER INTEGRITY ISOLATED. »
Right. They're separate objects. I need one big object.
He dismissed both panes. He took a deep breath. He imagined the dome not as many pieces, but as one single, curved shell growing from the basin's rim. He pictured it like a bubble being blown, expanding from the circular wall.
He pushed his will outward, focusing on the entire rim at once.
A low hum filled the air. A shimmering, translucent film began to creep inward from the basin walls, like an invisible liquid flowing across the sky. It was working! It was slow, but it was forming a continuous curve.
Then, about a third of the way to the center, the film flickered. A section near the eastern rim spasmed and turned a milky, opaque white. The hum became a strained whine.
« WARNING: MENTAL LOAD EXCEEDING OPTIMAL PARAMETERS. MACRO-FORMATION UNSTABLE. »
With a sound like a giant sheet of glass cracking, the entire half-formed dome shattered into a million shimmering fragments that dissolved into nothing before they hit the ground.
Kazuto staggered, a sharp headache blooming behind his eyes. He sat down hard on the dirt.
"Impressive failure," Mavis's voice came from nearby. She was leaning against a tunnel entrance, watching. "The scale was about right. The control was abysmal."
"Thanks for the critique," Kazuto grumbled, rubbing his temples.
"It wasn't criticism. It was data." She walked over, looking up at the now-empty sky. "You tried to do it all at once. You're one man, not a chorus of mages. Think smaller. Modular."
"Doom said the same thing about the tunnels," Kazuto admitted. "Don't dig the whole room. Dig a small space, then expand."
"Exactly. Can you make an arch?"
He stood up, walking to the basin's wall. He focused on a six-foot wide section. He imagined the barrier curving up from one point on the ground, over, and down to another point six feet away. A simple, footbridge-sized arch.
It formed perfectly, a smooth, transparent curve of solidified air.
"Good," Mavis said. "Now make another one right next to it."
He did. Then another. Soon, he had a row of arches against the wall, like a cloister.
"Now," Mavis said, a hint of real interest in her voice. "Can you connect them? Fill in the gaps between the arches with flat panes?"
He focused on the triangular gap between two arches. He formed a flat, triangular barrier to fill it. It clicked into place seamlessly.
« NOTICE: COMPOUND BARRIER STRUCTURE ACHIEVED. INTEGRITY STABLE. »
A slow smile spread across Kazuto's face. He wasn't building a dome. He was building a geodesic dome. A series of smaller, strong shapes locked together. It was a distribution network of barriers.
He spent the rest of the morning practicing. He created a small, igloo-like structure big enough for one person to sit in. It held. The headache didn't return.
While he worked, the life of Delivery went on around him. The dwarves forged bricks. The goblins traded. Mavis began walking the perimeter, muttering to herself, estimating angles and sightlines. She had accepted a job: designing the dome's support framework on Kazuto's stone map.
At midday, a new problem arrived. Not from the sky, but from the ground.
A group of five goblins approached the trade pile, but they weren't carrying foraged food. They were dragging a large, sickly-looking lizard with coarse, patchy fur. It was still breathing, but barely. One of the goblins pointed at the lizard, then at the dwarves, then made chewing motions.
Doom stormed over. "No! We are not trading for that! It's diseased! Look at its eyes!"
The goblins insisted, chattering. The message was clear: meat was meat. It was a valuable trade. A standoff began, the goblins growing agitated.
Kazuto walked over, wiping sweat from his brow. He looked at the miserable lizard, then at the hungry hope in the goblins' eyes, then at Doom's disgust.
"Can we heal it?" Kazuto asked.
Doom stared at him. "Heal it? To eat it later?"
"No. To… I don't know. To not have a sick animal at our gate."
Mavis drifted closer, watching this new absurdity.
Kazuto approached the lizard. It was a dumb-looking creature, with long ears and a twitching nose. Its fur was falling out in clumps. He had no healing skill. But he had a principle: no harm within the kingdom. Was sickness harm?
He placed a hand on the lizard's warm side. It flinched.
« ANALYSIS: ORGANISM SUFFERING FROM PARASITIC FUNGAL INFECTION AND MALNUTRITION. »
« QUERY: APPLY [DIVINE AURA OF SAFETY] TO INTERNAL BIOLOGICAL PROCESSES? »
Can you? Kazuto thought. Make its body… safe from the infection?
He focused not on a barrier around the lizard, but on the idea of safety inside it. He imagined the invasive fungus as a "hostile intent" within the lizard's own body, and willed it to be stopped.
A soft, golden glow, faint but visible, emanated from his hand and washed over the lizard's body. The creature shuddered.
The goblins and dwarves watched, silent.
The glow faded. The lizard lay still for a moment. Then it took a deep, clear breath. It lifted its head, blinked its previously cloudy eyes, and let out a confused, healthy-sounding baaa.
It struggled to its feet. Its fur didn't grow back, but the angry, weeping sores on its skin had dried and closed. It looked around, sniffed the air, and then began casually chewing on a thorny bush.
The goblins erupted into amazed chatter. They poked the now-healthy lizard, then looked at Kazuto with something close to reverence. They hadn't brought a meal. They'd brought a miracle.
Doom just shook his head, a baffled smile on his face. "You fixed it. You fixed the dinner."
"Change of plans," Kazuto said. "We're not eating the trade goods. It's bad for long-term business." He looked at the lizard. "We'll need to build a pen."
That evening, the atmosphere was different. They had a new, grazing resident (named "Lunch" by the dwarves, much to Kazuto's annoyance). They had the first connected sections of what Mavis was now calling the "Canopy Project" arching against the northern wall. And they had a strategist who was actually strategizing, scratching complex calculations next to Kazuto's simple map.
As they ate a stew of mushrooms and tubers, Mavis spoke without looking up from her scratching. "The dome is possible. It will take time. More than we might have. But it's possible."
Kazuto nodded, watching the goblins on the rim. They weren't just watching anymore. A few were mimicking his earlier actions, waving their hands in the air, trying to make their own invisible arches. They failed, but they were trying.
« NOTICE: SETTLEMENT COHESION INCREASING. NON-AGGRESSION PACT EXTENDING TO LOCAL FAUNA. »
The voice was right. It wasn't just a wall or a future dome. Something was being built here, something weirder and more fragile than stone.
He looked at the golden prison-cube. For the first time, the overseer inside was watching the daily life of Delivery not with hatred, but with a deep, unsettled confusion. The sight of a healed lizard, a witch drawing plans, and goblins trying to do magic seemed to break its understanding of the world more thoroughly than any barrier.
Kazuto finished his stew. The dome was a huge problem. The coming cleansers were a terrifying problem. But today, he'd healed a stupid lizard and made five goblins believe in something other than theft. He'd call that a successful delivery.
He lay back, looking up at the stars through the gap where his dome would one day be. The ceiling could wait. The foundation—this strange, shared sense of safety—felt a little stronger tonight.