Even the little time Rory had taken to raise his Sigils’ Tiers had caused the bodies to begin to deteriorate. There wasn’t any time to lose at all. Rory checked his Weaving’s description quickly to make sure he really could Weave away Sigils from corpses.

Sigil of Weaving

[Teal I] allows object conversion into up to Legendary rarity [Teal I] Sigils in a 56-meter radius, combination of up to 14 Sigils, extracting Warded and absorbed Sigils, and varying created Sigil Tiers.

Stats

Type: Concept

Rarity: Legendary

Tier: Teal I [0%]

Efficiency: High [67%]

Those were a lot of functions. This was the first time Rory had checked his Sigil of Weaving in ages, it felt like. There was a lot more going on than he had expected, but for now, he was just glad to see that his Weaving was capable of removing Sigils from bodies.

He focused on the first corpse before him, that of a middle-aged man with a balding head. His skin was clammy and there was a small scar on his upper lip. For a second, Rory wondered who he was and what his life had been like before the apocalypse turned everything inside out.

Then he shoved all that out of his head and used his Weaving. It didn’t take long before a Sigil materialized in his hand, displaying the image of a what looked like a fire extinguisher blowing out its contents.

New Sigil!

You’ve obtained a Sigil of Extinguishing. Put out not just fires, but all Sigil effects with a little puff of your overly mundane aura.

[Teal I] allows diffusing all Sigil effects in a 58-meter radius and holding a 12-meter radius magic-diffusing aura for 8 minutes.

Stats

Type: Concept

Rarity: Exceptional

Tier: Teal I [0%]

Efficiency: High [73%]

Rory marvelled at the Sigil there. It would be quite handy, especially at its current Tier, to get it to disable the effects of Sigils they didn’t want. No wonder the Homeworlders were upset at losing such an ability. He’d have been upset too.

And that was just the first body. It was all too likely the rest of them held interesting Sigils as well.

He looked down to see that there wasn’t much difference in the corpse itself. Rory had been afraid that his Weaving would leave the body mangled or something to that effect. Luckily for him, there was no such effect. They looked mostly fine, if just a little deader.

Rory used his Weaving on the rest of the corpses one by one. As the tiny room wasn’t big enough to allow focusing on some of them, he and Evelyn had to drag a few outside before Rory could continue Weaving. He had to admit that he felt like some kind of strange grave-robber over the course of the Weaving.

Finally, he was done. Each of the corpses had given him one Sigil, so now he had a total of three. Since people could hold at least five Sigils, and Rory suspected these ones might have held more, he had no idea what determined which Sigil it was that he received

For now, he simply checked the Sigils he had found.

New Sigil!

You’ve obtained a Sigil of Portals. Summon a portal to another dimension to bring in or jump through locations in your own universe. Just make sure you have your portal passport ready.

[Teal I] allows summoning 3 Otherworlder portals and 16 interconnected portals per day.

Stats

Type: Concept

Rarity: Mythic

Tier: Teal I [0%]

Efficiency: Extreme [85%]

New Sigil!

You’ve obtained a Sigil of the Scout. Surveillance is the most underrated skill in existence. Little beats proper foresight, so be prepared to be prepared.

[Teal I] grants 20% boost to inherent stealth, speed, and defence, and boosts effectiveness of appropriate Sigils.

Stats

Type: Concept

Rarity: Exceptional

Tier: Teal I [0%]

Efficiency: High [70%]

Rory stared at the new Sigils. He was silent long enough that Evelyn came over and joined him, watching the crystal coins in his hands intently despite likely not being able to read their descriptions.

It made all too much sense why the Homeworlders had wanted to recover the corpses from the sewer dungeon. These things were powerful. The possibilities provided by the Sigil of Portals were boundless in their potential use, and making it work cleverly could be game-changing from the perspective of the war. After all, manoeuvrability was a big impact thing for conflicts of that scale.

The rest of the Sigils were strong too. Ned already had a Sigil of the Scout, but Rory suspected his wasn’t at Teal yet. This could really change things up for him. Finally, that Sigil of Extinguishing had far too many potential uses as well.

“What are we going to do with them?” Evelyn asked.

Rory turned to her. “Have you seen their descriptions?”

“Not yet.”

He handed her the Sigils, and after a few moments, she gasped.

“These are…” Evelyn shook her head. “Incredible.”

“Right? We could get a lot of good use out of them, but at the same time, if we sold them, think of everything we could demand.”

“Selling wasn’t an angle I had thought about, hmm.”

Evelyn had a far-away look, probably trying to determine what would be a good exchange for Sigils of that calibre. Rory appreciated that she was immediately baulking at the idea of selling the Sigils.

He knew that giving the Sigils they had to the either the Homeworlders or the Otherworlders—if they didn’t already have them, or similar Sigils—would tremendously boost their chances of winning the war. As such, it could be argued that Rory’s group was directly assisting in the war effort, something they had decided as a group not to do.

They decided to talk to the others about it first.

A lot of them were staring at the Sigils with the same awe that Rory had experienced when he had first Woven them into being. They understood both that they were powerful and that the consequences of what they did with those Sigils could be far-reaching.

“What are we doing with the bodies?” April asked.

“I’m not sure,” Rory said. “We could bury them, but I don’t know if the Homeworlders want them back or not.”

Evelyn raised her hand a little to draw attention to herself. “We could keep them preserved again until we’ve made contact with the Homeworlders. Well, I could keep them preserved.”

“That might be for the best.”

“But for how long?” Viv asked. “We don’t want rotting bodies in the infirmary.”

“Guys, guys, guys.” Ned looked around at them all with a heavy frown. “We’re supposed to be discussing these Sigils, not some corpses.”

Rory sighed. “Keep the bodies preserved for now. I’ll see to contacting the Homeworlders regarding… everything, soon. But, as Ned says, first we decide what to do about the Sigils. As a group.”

Dez cleared his throat. “I know some of the rest of us might have different ideas, and we can vote of them all, but let’s state out those ideas first. For me, I vote we use them. We train them up, raise their Tiers, make them stronger, and if the Homeworlders eventually come calling for ‘em, we can sell them to the Homeworlders at a higher price.”

“What if they immediately demand them as their Sigils?” Viv asked. “We should prepare for every possibility.”

Rory nodded. “I agree. With both of you. My vote goes to using them for us for now as well. We’ll decide later if we want to offer them for sale to either the Homeworlders or the Otherworlders. As for if the Homeworlders demand it, I’m not sure they’d return the Sigil of Weaving if they’d taken it and we’d demanded it back.”

“So… screw them?” Trish asked with a grin.

Rory thought that was a bit immature, but also, after what the Homeworlders had done, he wasn’t feeling particularly charitable. “We can even do an auction. See which side has the better offer in return.”

That was a little biased towards the Otherworlders, since they were likely to possess far greater resources in terms of what they could offer. But considering their recent experiences, nobody really cared.

“Anyone have any other ideas?” Rory asked.

Nobody did. Rory smiled at the general approval and decided to stick with that plan for now. If the Homeworlders had any troubles, they could pile those on their issue with Rory having the Sigil of Weaving.

“With that set aside,” Rory continued. “I was thinking I’d focus on you guys for a while. My Weaving is at Teal now, so I can control the Tiers of the Sigils it creates. That means I can create the Sigils at the right Tiers for everyone to help you all grow.”

“Boy, do we need to grow,” Trish muttered.

She was right. The grudging looks all around showed that everyone else knew it too. The Homeworlders had been a lot stronger than them on paper. They needed to train and get to their level.

“We’ve been working on it, though,” Dez said.

“I know.” Rory smiled at them encouragingly. “But now, I can help a lot more too.”

They decided to spread out and spend the rest of the day working on their Sigils. With Vern nearly done with the Potion of Purification for Dez, he would soon be ready to improve his Sigil. The poor guy looked both excited and relieved at possibly soon being able to get out of the palace for once. Rory gave him some embracing pats on the back, then helped the others for the time being.

For most of the others, it was only a matter of letting them use their Sigils while he used his Weaving on the effect of their Sigil use. Rory Wove Miles’s Stormfire, Viv’s Omnipresent Sabre, Allen’s Wood, Trish’s Steel and Concrete, and all the other elements everyone had. It only took a couple of hours until the others started breaking through to Teal I, and then going even further as well.

The fact that Rory could select what Tier his Woven Sigils appeared in was a big, big help. While Weaving, he simply had to keep in mind what Tier he wanted the Woven Sigil to be, and it appeared at that Tier. Very handy.

Rory found he couldn’t Weave Sigils to Tiers that were higher than his own. By the time he had made that discovery, all the Weaving had raised his Sigil of Weaving’s Tier to Teal II. But that highlighted the main point. His Tier selection for the Woven Sigils was limited to the Tier his Sigil of Weaving was at. That made sense. Otherwise, he could simply Weave Sigils that were far stronger.

Another interesting ability he now had was combining Sigils that were previously seemingly incompatible. Dez had once mentioned the idea of combining Sigils of Steel and Rubber to create a material that was both flexible and strong, but that had seemed too fantastical to be true. It had been true then too.

But now, his Weaving’s descriptions stated that he could combine Sigils that were supposedly incompatible. Rory tested it to great effect and found it to be wonderfully true.

The very first thing he did was Weave another Sigil of Rubber. It was a little hard to find, but he eventually took a glove from one of the random stuff they had salvaged. Then he combined it with the Sigil of Steel.

Dez had been overjoyed to discover that he could now possess a Sigil of Rubbery Steel. The new material wasn’t both bendy and stiff at the same time. Apparently, the Sigil user would have to focus to select either property at any given situation. That was fine though. They could basically combine Sigils to perform multiple functions and potentially free up other slots for more Sigils. Similarly, Trish added her Concrete to her Steel to create Sigil of Reinforced Steel.

Allen turned his Sigil into a Wooden Gargoyle. It both allowed his wood to grow on pure stone and allowed him to transform into gargoyles that were made of wood or other plant matter instead of plan stone now. The new versatility that offered was tremendous.

The others had similar ideas.

Viv got a Sigil of Omnipresent Thunderclaw, which turned her metallic blue rock jet black. All the lightning she summoned was now bright crimson instead of flickering blue, and her sabre was a bolt of livid lightning instead of plain crimson energy.

Miles combined his Stormfire with Earth to summon miniature volcanoes out of the ground. Ned turned his plain Water into waves of Steam that could also fry anyone within the vaporous cloud with little thunderbolts. Lorne had a Sigil of Air that was now a Sigil of Storm after combining both Water and Lighting with it. Vern could now apply multiple effects to his different shackles, adding a freezing effect to his Wraith Shackles and a burning effect to his Light Shackles.

One of the last people Rory helped that day was Arie. None of them had yet decided who exactly was going to receive the Sigils of Extinguishing and Portals, and Rory didn’t recall having granted anything to Arie yet. So, he offered her the Sigil of Portals.

She accepted it. The test proved eye-opening. Rory was able to travel through some of the interconnecting portals to go from one end of the palace to the other. It was a fascinating rush to simply walk through the portal as though he was entering a different room. There was no other strangeness associated with it except for the wonder at travelling long distances so easily.

When they tried opening a Portal to another world, they found they couldn’t make it function properly. The portal Arie created was just a flat mirror they couldn’t enter at all. Rory figured there was more to the Sigil of Portals they didn’t know about yet.

The rest of the day passed rather peacefully. Rory was simply happy to train with and help the others. If only their entire stay at the palace could have been that peaceful. Well, that was exactly what Rory was attempting to achieve. Hopefully, not before long.