The Chained Watcher

Backstory: A Simple Job

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(Yeah, Imma just call him Xelqua. It sounds too cool.)

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Ignoring the low Tier Watchers who had been assigned to cater to his whims while he was working, Xelqua continued working on the last tweaks he needed to do to the job he'd accepted. It's mostly a standard reinforcement, but the reason he had bothered with it was the little twist they wanted added, along with the amount of materials offered.

Ironically, lower Tier Watchers who manage to scrounge up enough of a payment for him to consider it worth his time tend to pay better than higher Tiers. They're all too aware of how higher Tiers tend to look down on them, so they do their best to make it worth their time. This one in particular had somehow managed to get their hands on a massive cache of materials of the twilight element, which is quite rare due to how light and darkness usually conflict.

If it was a higher Tier than him who had asked for this kind of job, he would have gotten maybe a quarter of what he'll be getting for this, maybe less. As it is, over three quarters of the cache had been offered up as payment, so he'll be set on twilight materials for a good while.

As for the request? They wanted to be able to reverse the reinforcement in an emergency, so that if their base gets raided they'd be able to collapse the ceiling and crush the invaders, or at least delay them enough to escape. He probably would have come for the payment regardless, but he likes getting to experiment like this. Adding twists is so much more fun than routine.

A wisp of magic condensed to the extreme crystallizes in front of him, and he links it to the reinforcement as the trigger to reverse it and send half the mountain above it crashing down. Add a little loop to thread a cord through so it can be hung around one's neck like a necklace, and it's done.

The low Tiers stiffen when his eyes fall on them, bowing their heads before he can say anything and waiting for his words. They're probably extremely bored, having been ordered by their superior to stay there unless he told them to do or get something. He just doesn't have anything he wants from them, apart from the payment he'll be receiving shortly.

"It is completed. Fetch the Facility Leader, that it can be confirmed." He doesn't mention the payment to them, since they don't have the authority to grab it and would only get in trouble for trying.

The one nearest to the door bows deeply, probably believing their glee to be more hidden than it is as they murmur, "As you wish, Enchanter Xelqua," and bolt off out the door. He can almost hear the thought of 'See you, suckers!' as they ignore the dismay of the others who haven't been given leave to go anywhere yet and flee down the hall with as much poise as one can have while pretending not to be fleeing.

He doesn't really want or need the rest of them waiting on him, but if he dismisses them then the facility leader might make the mistaken assumption that they had offended him and execute them in response. He also doesn't really care enough about their desire to leave to tell them to go away and leave him in peace. They know not to disturb him, so he hasn't bothered to pay them any attention.

In less than two minutes, the Facility Leader arrives, bowing their own head, albeit at a lesser angle than the low Tiers. They're eager, though they don't want to let themself annoy him by acting too enthusiastically. "Greetings, Enchanter Xelqua. I have been told that the enchantment is complete?"

Seems like his preference for skipping most of the formalities has become well known. Good. Spending unnecessary lengths of time on pleasantries has never been pleasant to him. "It is, though I would not recommend testing the secondary function. A method to uncollapse a section already collapsed would not be within your budget." Holding up the crystal, he said, "The bearer of this crystal will be able to invert the effects of select areas of the reinforcement, rendering it as pliable as clay and bringing the ceiling, along with a large quantity of dense rock, down in an instant."