by Simon Archer
Let There Be Life
Forger of Worlds Book 2
Simon Archer
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
8. Queenie
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
21. Gobta
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
24. Barnabas
Chapter 25
26. Gobta
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
33. Queenie
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
42. Erlking
A Note from the Author
1
As we approached the portal to leave Jane’s world and return to the Hall of Mirrors, I found myself staring at two hobgoblins dressed in red and white checkered robes, which was a bit odd, to say the least.
“Hello, Adventurers,” they said in unison as the left one stepped forward to greet us.
“We are the guardians of the portal, and we have a simple task for you, should you wish to return home,” he said before the right one took a step forward.
“Yes, for we will offer you a simple test. Should you get it correct, you will be able to return to your world, but should you get it wrong, you will be transported to the punishment world.”
“What is going on, master?” Queenie, the Ant Queen follower I’d acquired when I’d defeated her in my first dungeon, said as she turned to look at me, confusion etched into her pretty face. See, even though she was an Ant Queen, she still looked rather human, what with the perfect hourglass figure, large breasts, and a cute face. In fact, if it wasn’t for the antenna, dragonfly wings, and multifaceted eyes, she could have totally passed for human.
“Gate guardians show up sometimes,” I said with a shrug. “Or at least they did in Terra Forma.” That was the game I played before being recruited on this crazy, insane quest to build my own world, establish an empire, and then ultimately defeat the primordial deity of destruction, Zaxcs. “They will ask us to choose between a portal, and the correct one will let us leave, while the wrong one…” I shivered. I did not like punishment worlds. They were always exceedingly difficult to live through.
“This does not seem difficult,” Gobta, the Hobgoblin King I’d slain to save this world said. Yeah, he was my minion now too. That was my real power as an Auramancer, to copy the patterns of defeated foes and revive them from Auric Limbo. “We simply ask them which portal to take.”
As he spoke, the single portal the hobgoblins had been guarding split into two.
“Oh, it is exceedingly difficult,” the checkered hobgoblins said with far too much amusement in their voice. “For, from this point forward, one of us will speak only truth, and the other will speak only lies.”
“Oh, okay,” I said as I laughed. “I got this one. It’s a pretty simple riddle actually--”
Before I could finish speaking, Gobta rushed forward and cut the left Hobgoblin in half with his giant flaming sword, and as bits of charred hobgoblin crumpled to the ground in a bloody heap, he turned to the remaining hobgoblin.
“Is he dead?” Gobta asked.
“No,” the Hobgoblin replied completely straightfaced.
“He is the liar,” Gobta said confidently before turning to look at me like a proud puppy. He gave me a quick nod before turning back to the guard. “Which portal is the one that leads us home?”
“The left one--”
“We should go right!” Gobta exclaimed excitedly as he turned back to me, and when he looked like he was going to explain himself further, I waved him off.
“Wow,” I said as I rubbed the back of my neck. “I’ve never seen the riddle solved quite like that.”
“I do my best to serve you, my liege,” Gobta replied before giving me a quick bow.
“That you do,” I said with a smile before entering the portal and leaving Jane’s world behind.
A moment later, after my atoms had reorganized themselves into the proper order, I found myself standing in the small shrine that was my home in my own galaxy. It was basically a giant hallway filled with endless mirrors. However, since most of them were still locked away, only a few actually looked into other worlds.
As always, it took a second to get used to because, in this realm, I was a god, and with that power came a full onslaught of senses. See, in this solar system, there were sixteen planets, a few dozen moons, and too many asteroids to count, and I could know most everything about them, from what atoms were in their atmospheres to more mundane things like the density of the rock beneath my feet or the weight of the ice on the closest planet. There were limits because I was still only level thirty. At the same time, it was always a bit overwhelming to have information suddenly be in my brain, and since I’d been lower level when I’d last been here, the extra information I had access to now took me a couple of extra moments to parse.
I quickly shut down all the extra information coming in before focusing on the new message that appeared in front of the portal to Jane’s World.
You have unlocked the Bazaar trading world and can now use it to buy, sell, and facilitate trade with new worlds as their portals are unlocked.
“Sweet,” I said as I opened my inventory and found I now had a trading crystal that let me access Jane’s world. In Terra Forma, using a trading crystal could open a temporary portal to the Bazaar that would allow me to buy and sell items as I went.
Additionally, as I did more trading and unlocked more worlds, the general level of the technology and items available in the Bazaar would increase. That would be good because, in addition to allowing me to upgrade my own gear, as well as that of my followers, I would be able to upgrade the worlds I unlocked easier as well. All that combined together to make me more powerful as the God of this dimension.
“You seem very pleased, master,” Queenie said as she and Gobta came over to me.
Like I thought would happen, they were the only two of my summons here. The moment I’d entered the portal, my massive army was gone, sent back to Auric Limbo, but since I was in my godly realm, it would take no effort to summon any of my followers since I had a nearly unending fountain of Aura while here.
“I am.” I smiled as I thought of all the things we could do with the trading world unlocked. “We will get to see Jane a lot more too.”
“She will like that,” Queenie said with a nod. “I found she was quite fond of you.”
“I think the entire town found that out,” Gobta said with a grunt before smacking me on the shoulder.
“She is a bit energetic,” I said with a shrug before turning my attention back to my galaxy. Then, with a small effort of will, I teleported the three of us from the Hall of Mirrors. We appeared a moment later on the main planet I’d worked so hard on last time I’d been here. It had taken a considerable amount of effort to fix this planet because it had lacked a spinning dynamo in the center of the planet which meant it had no electromagnetic field to shield it from solar radiation nor had it been dense enough to have much gravity.
Now, though, it felt solid, and since I’d modeled the
place on Earth, the gravity felt familiar in a way I couldn’t quite explain. Better still, I knew that both the gravity and the electromagnetic field now being generated by the planet would be more than sufficient to keep any atmosphere I added on the planet instead of allowing it to be jettisoned into space.
“Well,” I said as I smacked my hands together, “looks like we have a lot of work to do, but before that, I think it’s time we gave this planet a name. I’m thinking Ares, what are your thoughts?”
“What does that name mean in your tongue, my liege?” Gobta asked as he looked around. “Red planet?”
“Kinda,” I replied with a laugh. “Back where I come from, there was a red planet named Mars, and this one seems similar enough to it that one.” I smirked. “Besides, Mars and Ares were the names for the God of War, which was what that planet was named after.”
“You wish to name your planet after the God of War?” Gobta asked, clearly pleased. “I think that is a great idea.”
“I agree, master.” Queenie looked right at me. “After all, we must one day face Zaxcs, and there will be no better place to do it than from a planet designed for war.”
“Well, then I think we’re in agreement.” I stomped my foot in the dirt. “I dub this planet Ares.”
“Ares!” They both cried in unison, and I couldn’t help but be strangely excited to begin our next phase of terraforming.
“Well, is everyone ready to get to work?” I asked because there were still a ton of things to do.
While the planet was starting to heat up now that atmosphere could no longer vent into space thanks to the gravity and magnetic field shielding the planet from solar winds and the frozen carbon dioxide and water had started to melt, there really wasn’t enough in the air to matter.
Even with all the carbon dioxide, methane, and other gasses that had been released thanks to all the volcanic activity and earthquakes that had occurred when the planet stabilized after I’d melted the core and mantle of the planet, I could tell we needed to add something like six quadrillion tons of gas to the atmosphere to get to Earth levels. On top of that, most of what we had here was methane. While it was a good greenhouse gas for warming the planet, wasn’t optimal for life. At least, not the life found readily on most worlds. To actually have a usable atmosphere, nearly eighty percent of the atmosphere needed to be nitrogen and another twenty or so percent had to be oxygen, and neither was really in the air currently.
That was fine, though, because I’d sort of expected that.
“What do you want us to do, master?” Queenie said as she studied my face. “Because I can see the plans forming in your mind already.”
“Well, I need you to find me ice.” I gestured at the sky. “We need to find all the easily available ice, and I need to know what kind it is. Then we have to bring it here.” I stomped my foot on the ground.
“Consider it done,” Queenie said, and then I felt the pull on my Aura as she summoned several Scout Ants and sent them out into space to do what I’d asked. “I’ll have a full report soon enough.”
“Great,” I said, knowing she would tell me the moment she’d finished the solar system survey.
“And what would you like me to do, my liege?” Gobta asked.
“Oh, that’s easy.” I smirked. “I want you to move the ice to the designated spots on the planet while I’m sculpting the surface.” I gestured at Queenie as she dealt with her Scouts. “You’ll be in charge of what happens on this planet, while her job is to tell her ants what we need and coordinate the efforts in space since sculpting will take a huge portion of my power and attention.” I glanced from Queenie to him.
“Plus, while Queenie is good with the ants, she doesn’t have a good grasp of what, well, people need.” I smiled at him. “I assume you, especially given your powers,” he was a necromancer, after all, “that you have a really good handle on how the world should work, so I expect you to utilize that knowledge as we terraform the planet.”
“Ah.” He nodded. “It is true I have extensive knowledge of both life and death, but these planets are currently dead.” He kicked at the earth to emphasize his point. “That said, I can help you to plan what we should do here. I will begin my survey of the planet, and if it pleases you, my liege, I would prefer to do that on foot so that I can really get a feel for the place.”
“That’s fine,” I said even though I wondered how long that would take. Maybe not that long since I figured that Gobta could draw on my godly powers to enhance his speed and senses here, just like Queenie could.
“Good luck on your sculpting,” the Hobgoblin King said before he turned and began to walk away.
I watched him go before shutting my eyes and allowing a picture of the entire planet to build in my head. Thanks to the volcanic activity and the earthquakes, the planet wasn’t as flat as it had been. There were definitely some variations of more than a few thousand feet, but I knew we would definitely need some deeper areas to accommodate the ocean. Otherwise, the vast majority of the planet would just be water, and let’s be real, no one wanted to live in Waterworld.
Once I got the picture down, I slowly rearranged the pieces in my mind, modeling it off the peaks and valleys of the Earth so we would have deeper oceans, a lot of plains for growing and settling, as well as some rockier areas for mountain biomes.
Then I took a deep breath, knelt in the earth, and called upon the power over earth I’d gained when Queen Mab had gifted me the title of The Cold and Dark. As my earth power into the ground, I felt Aura begin to flow out of me and spread into the ground beneath my hands in an ever-growing wave. It slowly washed through the surface of the planet until I’d created a basic framework with my Aura similarly to how I did it when I made my Auric Armor. Then I interposed the image of how the planet looked in my mind into the crude Aura construct I’d just made and used more power until they were seamless copies.
“Now for the fun part,” I said as I took a few deep breaths even though I didn’t need to breathe and there wasn’t any air, anyway. “Time to transform the world.”
Earth magic burst out of me as the whole of the planet began to rumble and groan. My Aura surged with godly might as I forced the stone beneath the ground to grow and change shape. Strain filled me, and as sweat grew on my brow before instantly evaporating to join the atmosphere, I knew one thing to be true.
This was going to take a while.
2
Thanks to the increased speed of sculpting when using my earth magic in conjunction with an Auric Armor matrix… say that ten times fast… I was basically done reshaping the planet’s surface when Queenie and Gobta appeared beside me, both gesticulating wildly.
“What’s up, chuck?” I said, glancing at Gobta as I let go of my hold on my power and wiped away the non-existent sweat on my brow with the back of one hand. “And chuckette?” I turned my gaze to Queenie.
“Master,” Queenie started before throwing an angry glare at the Hobgoblin King, “This idiot says that the methane ice we’ve found on the blue planet…” She pointed into space, and instantly, the image of a bright blue planet about four back from where we were, appeared in my mind’s eye. “... shouldn’t be used because it’s dangerous.” She rolled her eyes. “Can you believe this madness?”
“No,” Gobta said, trying his best not to appear as agitated as he was. “What I said was that most life cannot breathe methane, and it will also mostly go into the atmosphere once it's melted because it isn’t liquid under normal circumstances, so we really need to find normal water to fill the oceans.”
“Who needs to breathe?” Queenie poked the hobgoblin king in the chest. “You think that’s air you’re breathing now?” She threw her hands up in exasperation. “See what I’m dealing with?”
“Yes,” I said with a nod. To be fair, they were both right. We did need water as well as a bunch of other stuff, but we could also use the methane to help increase the greenhouse gasses on the planet and move the temperature more toward the habit
able range.
“My liege,” Gobta said, breaking my concentration, and as I turned toward him, he gave me a conciliatory smile. “I merely want to suggest that we go to the moons that orbit the ringed planet and begin there.” As he spoke, once again, two moons popped into my vision. “They both have actual water ice, as well as a bit of nitrogen ice.” As he spoke, the image drilled in on the larger of the moons where I now saw one of the scout ants pawing at a frozen sheet of ice. “And we have reason to believe that there’s actual liquid water beneath the ice.” He shrugged. “Since we need to remove all the ice anyway, we may as well start there and see what’s down below--”
“And when we all get eaten by a giant subterranean sharktopus creature, I will dance on your grave, necromancer, mark my words,” Queenie exclaimed violently. “Also, that ice is much more difficult to collect.”
“Ah,” I said as I considered their words. “Like, okay, here’s my thing.” I looked at both of them in turn. “We need like two quintillion tons of water to fill the oceans I’ve sculpted.” I gestured at our surroundings. We were standing in what would one day the bottom of the third, and deepest, ocean on our planet, and it would get even deeper once we added water and the weight of the ocean caused the ground to compress even more. “So, if we melted down all the ice on both the planet and the two moons,” I once again settled my gaze on each of them for a long moment, “how much would we have?”
