43 Chapter XVI: Spiders and Deals

A/n: I give my deepest thanks to Austin for their most generous support on Patreon.

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(General pov)

Early the following day, Reyvin went out in search of someone who could design his home and business, he could have technically done it himself but he knew he had no actual skill in construction, so all he could reasonably do was give ideas and make requests.

He managed to, after some searching, find the only remaining architect in Winterhold, most of the others having left for other holds after no one tried fixing the damage of the collapse or just plain died of old age without taking apprentices.

The only one who stayed was an older Imperial woman by the name of Julia who was down on her luck due to having no work and having to provide for her son who lost his leg, to the point she couldn't even afford to leave. So she made her livelihood by doing odd jobs for years at this point.

When Reyvin heard about this he grew doubtful she could still do the work after so many years, but after a demonstration with her drawing a quick plan for an inn with all the necessary elements and calculating the materials needed, he was convinced to hire her. The old woman thanked him profusely for the opportunity and got to work.

The construction would be costly and somewhat long, but Reyvin insisted on the building being built to the highest possible standard. When they got to the calculations for the needed amount of workers Reyvin shared his plans to use his animanculi for the digging and transportation of material to Julia's astonishment, after adding that to the equation the work would be finished much faster and quite a bit cheaper.

Leaving Julia to deal with the hiring of the still necessary builders Reyvin got to work on actually delivering on his promise of spider workers.

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Another week passed with Reyvin now focusing his efforts on getting his spider workers online, the smith had to repeatedly correct some parts that couldn't fit or couldn't hold the load of the constantly moving machinery, soul gems had to be bought and tested and the spiders themselves had to be actually programmed.

Thankfully the schematics came with instructions on how to do said programming and surprisingly a way to make the spiders take commands in Tamrielic instead of the weird humming or tonal magic the Dwemer had to use.

Upon reading this part of the text Reyvin realized just how ground-breaking this was, realistically no one made animanculi because they weren't able to command them without the tonal hum of Dwemer, but he now had the way bypassing that limitation!

Naturally, it wasn't as simple as just copy-pasting the instructions for a spider into a sphere combat model, but he now had the foundation with which he could build an army and he had years to do it.

He also remembered to put locks and passwords on his new servants, no reason to risk theft after all.

Finally, the time had come to test the spiders, and what better way to test them than digging the foundations of his own home?

The young elf gathered his friends and Julia around his future home while dragging around a large crate with the help of his new [giant's might] spell, people kept pestering him about his grand reveal but he ignored their questions and started placing iron spikes with runes on them on the edges of his plot.

When he was finally done with that he opened the crate and spoke "Begin digging operations"

Everyone looked at him weirdly until eight iron spiders covered in lightly glowing runes waddled out of the crate and started digging into the ground with extreme efficiency.

While everyone was gawking at him like he grew a second head, Reyvin placed another another couple of markers with different runes this time in front of the plot of land and said "Dispose of dirt and rock here" and the spiders started orderly piling dirt at that point as they dug it out.

Everyone started bombarding him with questions, most importantly where he got the schematics. He simply shrugged and said "Family heirloom" much to everyone's irritation.

As everyone was mesmerized by the spiders doing their work, the Archmage suddenly popped into existence next to the younger Dunmer and spoke in a very curious tone "Well well well Reyvin, you didn't tell me you had such toys, I am hurt" he clutched his heart dramatically.

"MOTHERFUCKER!" Reyvin jumped in surprise and turned to Savos "Seriously, could you not?!"

The older mer laughed "But then I wouldn't be able to see the fearless Flame-tongue jump in fright" a groan was his only answer.

Savos turned serious then "You didn't think such a discovery would have been an important thing to share?"

Reyvin raised an eyebrow "Am I under obligation to do so?"

The Archmage shook his head in exasperation "No, of course not, but you know damn well that cracking the animanculi question is something many people wanted to accomplish for millennia, and now you suddenly drag eight perfectly working ones like they were toys at the carnival, seriously do you actually want to get attacked for your knowledge?"

Reyvin thought about it for a moment and shrugged "It was never really my plan to keep it exclusively to myself, I would naturally donate the basic instructions to the college at a later date in exchange for some powerful spells or elixirs, but I am going to obviously take my time profiting of the discovery first if I can"

Savos scratched his beard for a bit and asked "And what would it take for you to let me make a copy for myself just in case?"

The younger elf mulled it over for a minute and spoke "I can let you make a copy, but only for experimenting in the next five years. In return you will lift my school restriction and get me some heart stones along with a fully prepared ritual to strengthen myself physically, protecting me from curious attackers is also a given."

The Archmage unlike the student didn't think for even a second and said in an excited tone "Done. Ill prepare everything and get back to you in a couple of days, good luck with your business" Before disappearing suddenly.

"I hate it when they do it to me, but I cannot wait until I can do it to others" Reyvin muttered with a smile before turning back to his spiders.

He spent the rest of that day writing down any problems with his animanculi and changing the design to improve them while answering any non-essential question about them to his friends.

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