by Matthew Peed
I reached into the bag that contained food for the times that Azra needed to eat. I was actually thankful that we had a previous mortal with us at this moment. Then I grabbed the salt, quickly made a tube, and poured it and some water into the pot. I capped it, then channeled mana into generating some electricity through a piece of copper inserted through the bottom. Once the voltage got high enough, the dissolved salt separated into a gaseous element that, I believe, was called “chlorine.”
I moved over to the pile of sulfur and was about to grab some when Natsuko nearly shouted, “What the hell?!”
I looked up and asked, “What?”
“That’s . . . that’s Cadum’s . . . shit,” she said with a few pauses.
I looked back to the pile. “Figures. A fire-breathing monster wolf would crap out some of the highest-grade sulfur,” I said with a shrug and grabbed some.
“Nasty! Make sure you stay away from me . . . far away,” she said with a shudder as she looked at my hand.
I channeled my mana into removing the . . . less desirable parts, then added the sulfur to my little science experiment. I created another set of tubes, then fed the chlorine into the sulfur, which slowly turned golden yellow as it condensed into a liquid. I spent a few hours working through all the steps, my recall of them seeming to improve as I worked on it.
A few hours before dawn, I was finished. According to my memories, what I’d made was called “mustard gas,” but I liked another name that seemed to be in my memories. I pulled my spiders to me and added a container into each, making sure to pull their memory cores so that I had all the information for Father.
The horde had calmed down when they’d failed to find anything. I figured that most would be pretty tired after the night of activity, and I wanted to act during the day when the mist would be hardest to see. I released my spiders, and they spent an hour getting to their locations. I wanted to get the maximum effect but only had so much of the materials. If I’d wanted to create them from my mana, it would have taken days. I made enough to cover about a kilometer or so, but the horde encompassed nearly ten kilometers, with certain monster types keeping to themselves.
Chapter 13
Regan
The last day had ended up being busier than I had expected it to be. Someone had found the secret path I had added to the library while making some improvements to the dungeon. It was a reward for people who sought knowledge. I was a bit surprised that the princess’s group were the ones to be first, but I guess it was up to fate. The researcher Vern had already reached the tenth trial, and her book had nearly three hundred pages of information written in it.
When I’d created the trials during my downtime, I had been worried some of the smarter ones might blast through them and make it deeper than they should, so I’d created Saga. She was based off a Norse deity that kept their tales and stories. I had used quite a bit of mana so she would be able to create a grimoire of sorts that could create what I liked to call “seeds.” I wasn’t sure what would happen when the seeds were filled, but Saga was linked to all the seeds and was able to judge their content.
Saga also filled the role of Jarvis, as she had a lot of downtime, at least for now. I wouldn’t have said this to Jarvis’s face, but she had much better specs than him when it came to memory and analytics. Jarvis needed to be upgraded, but it was harder to upgrade than create my more sentient automata. He would have to gather mana, then break through like a mortal.
After that, I got a message from Puppet and company that the horde was bearing down on the forest tower in a preemptive strike. I also learned that Puppet had inadvertently created some sort of monster that rivaled even the necromancers accompanying the horde. I cracked my mental knuckles and set the fort on the defensive for the time being. The automata wouldn’t venture from the walls and would destroy anything that attacked. Jarvis was watching over it, so if a group of survivors came then, he could at least detain them until I checked them over.
I moved over to the forest. A decent-size town that any city planner would be proud of now spread out over roughly two kilometers of space, as I had planned when the aura was spreading. The inhabitants living there might have felt that it had grown overnight. I created my avatar, then moved into the mayor’s office.
The two co-mayors stood over a holographic map that represented the town and the surrounding area for roughly twenty or thirty kilometers. They seemed to be discussing something about new additions to the town and how to locate them. I sensed the area, then felt a group of people who were heading for the town from the outer edges of my aura. The two mayors paused when they noticed me in the doorway.
“Creator!” the major said with a salute.
“Host,” Hiden said with a small bow.
“You two seem energized, what’s going on?” I asked.
“Creator, one of our patrols spotted a group of adventurers apparently out on a quest. They had taken a detour to inspect the tower. We were trying to decide how to handle them.”
I turned to look out the window. “Welcome them. Welcome them to Steel Spire, the Machine City. I want people to know of this place.” My reasoning behind this was that I could more easily obliterate anything that attacked this place as I was less worried about my core. If people saw this gigantic structure, they might be more inclined to focus here.
The major saluted and left the room. Hiden stayed behind, though.
“Sir Host.”
“Regan.”
“Sir Regan, is it really the right call to welcome people into the city? What if they report us back to the Slaves Guild?” Hiden asked, worry coloring his tone.
“What power do they have over me?” I asked and channeled some mana to cause the light in the room to dim.
“I’m worried due to this,” he said, pointing at the slave crest engraved in his chest.
I walked over and tapped it with my finger, drawing a bit of blood due to the sharpness of my metal appendage. The runes rearranged themselves, then finally came to a stop, appearing as a crystal surrounded by gears. I had to stop myself from chuckling. Whoever had created this particular slave rune was obviously just following some kind of guide or instruction manual, as there were so many spots for me to enter the “program” and alter the parameters. My action gave him quite a shock, but he recovered quickly.
“There, now no one but me can tell you what to do, and I’m far too busy to bother with that, so go do whatever you want,” I said a little more offhandedly than I meant to sound.
“Really?! A slaver can’t redo the crest if I get caught?!” Hiden asked seriously.
“Correct. I don’t know who made you a slave, but the mage they hired was an idiot or at least lazy, so it was easy to rebind the runes. That”—I pointed to the new rune—“will require someone with extensive knowledge of runes and magic to crack. In fact, it would be timelier just to kill you.”
His face brightened, and he said excitedly, “Sir Regan, this may not mean much to you, but I swear my fealty to you. Not only did you create this wonderful place for us to live but you also removed the hatchet over our necks. I can’t speak for the others, but from now on, I’m your man!” Hiden went down on one knee, tears trailing down his cheeks.
I tapped my chin. While I really didn’t have a need for him, I knew he could be useful for a future project I had in mind. I pulled some mithril out of my inventory and created a small dagger. I enscripted it to do the same thing I had done to his rune. It would work on most slave runes that I could think of, except maybe a necromancer’s slave rune or collar. It acted like an autohacking program and would attempt to alter the rune until it was under my control or the blade was removed.
Some people might consider this unethical, but in my defense, those who did were already permanently slaves. Without ripping a piece of their souls out, I couldn’t do anything else to save them. Just look at Azra. Her personality had changed when the dungeon had affected her slave rune. At least this way the people could be free fr
om any mortals who wanted to enslave them like animals.
“After we deal with the monster horde, I want you and a group of trustworthy people to head to the nearby towns and buy up all the slaves that are on the market. I’ll prepare all the funds and whatnot. Lead the groups back here and allow them to choose.” I handed the knife over. “A life of slavery or a life of freedom as a citizen of Steel Spire.”
“I’ll do as you say!” Hiden bowed, then walked out.
I followed him with my senses as he rushed to the other mortals and offered them the choice. I was disappointed I didn’t get any mana from it, but if I were able to pull all the slaves in the kingdom and empire to me, then I would have a decent mana gain either way.
The major showed the adventurers to an unoccupied house for them to use and explained that the forest was dangerous at the moment. They looked around in awe the whole time they walked through the town, so I left them alone for the time being. I moved up to the tower platform. The wall around the town had changed into one much like the one around the fort, but it only protected the inner city at the moment. I concentrated on the outer line of my aura, where I created another wall, only this one was less durable.
If I held them at the wall, then all was well; if they made it into the city, they would be subject to more of the tower weapons than just the artillery. I went along the wall, adding more turrets of various kinds, then moved farther out, where I added traps along the forest floor. I wanted this horde over with, as I had other things to concentrate on.
With that taken care of, I moved onto the bridge of my airship. It was still docked at the bay so as not to drain the batteries. I was tempted to turn the reactor on. While it produced pure mana, along with all the mana I would get from the complexity of the transformation, I was worried the pure mana would be cut in half every time I leveled. I was almost confident it wouldn’t, but something just held me back. It never hurt to keep a trump card in reserve.
I looked at the empty bridge, then waved my hand. As I summoned my magic, the image of a captain from an ancient set of movies came to mind. He was a pirate, but a good man. More importantly, he was a good captain. A grin came to me when I thought about creating another couple of ships and have them be captained by people from this set of movies.
The magic took effect and seemed to embrace the entire ship. A moment later an automaton decked out like a pirate stood in front of me. He had a peg leg—as I had thought of the later stages of the movies—but all in all, he seemed pretty tough. He had a beard that was made out of a soft metal. I was sure it would make dwarves in this world jealous. He paused as he looked over the ship.
“This be a mighty fine ship,” he said in real appreciation.
“Thanks, Bar . . .” I stopped myself; that was a little on the nose. I considered for a moment. “Thanks, Benjamin. She’s yours to take care of from now on.”
“Much obliged,” Benjamin said as he tipped his hat. He pulled his sword hilt out, which I noticed was just the hilt, and channeled mana into it. There, a stone converted it to light that extended to about a meter. “TO YOUR POSTS, YOU SCALLYWAGS!”
The ship seemed to breathe for a moment. Then, down in its belly, which was just a cargo space, a giant summoning circle formed. From it poured nearly two hundred pirate-based automata. Some of the better-dressed ones made their way to the bridge or assumed spots throughout the ship.
“The crew all be accounted for, Captain!”
“Thank ye, First!” Benjamin turned to me. “Ye be the owner of this vessel. Point us where ye want us to pillage and plunder!”
“A monster horde is approaching.” I paused as I considered my options. “Crush them.”
“Aye, AYE!” Benjamin shouted excitedly. “Orders, boys. Time to set the coast aflame! Take us out of port, helmsman!”
“Aye, aye, Captain!”
The helmsman operated the controls as if he had known them his whole life. The engines flared to life as the dock clamps retracted, and with a shudder, the ship was free of the tower. It moved out of the bay slowly, as it had quite a bit of length, but finally exited safely. Once out into the open, the air mana started to react to the ship where some runes for mana absorption were placed. I had placed them there for defense, but the ion repulsors moved the air in a way that they started to absorb the excess mana. Thankfully, it didn’t affect the ship’s flight capabilities.
As I watched the interplay of the three, a visual effect outside reminded me of the water-based craft back on Earth. The air mana acted like waves that broke against the ship as we cut through the sky. I was honestly quite mesmerized by the effect.
“Owner, be this yer first time on the sea?” Benjamin said with a smile.
“Indeed. Not sure if it applies to now, but I can see why men were called to the sea.”
“She be a dangerous mistress,” Benjamin said with a serious tone.
The airship gained speed as it headed in the direction of the horde. While we traveled, I worked on a few more creations that should help in the upcoming battle. It was a pain, as I had to channel mana into creating an aura around my avatar, but it was a trick I had practiced every now and then since the first attack on the valley.
~~~
A few hours into the night, the ship’s sensors started picking up aerial targets that were moving at ridiculous speeds for living creatures. I created my staff and stood up from the chair I had been sitting in. I don’t feel fatigue, but it gets tedious to stand for several hours on end.
Flying monsters of all kinds covered the horizon. Some that looked like they shouldn’t even be able to fly seemed to hover with the pack. Birds, winged beasts of the land, and horrors that seemed to crawl out of people’s nightmares were assembled as they flew toward us.
“Full stop!” Benjamin ordered, and the ship halted. Gravity magic kept everyone from flying forward due to the momentum. “Prepare to broadside!” he added, and the command was echoed down the line.
The ship turned ninety degrees, and several dozen ports opened on the hull. Arc, machine, cannon, flame, and a few more types of turrets made their appearance. A translucent barrier appeared around the ship as well.
Benjamin seemed to pause for effect, then shouted, “FIRE!”
A hailstorm of weapons fire arced toward the oncoming flying monsters. Sometimes the bodies just seemed to fall, while other times, the bodies exploded into a splash of gore in the air. Beams of energy sliced through dozens if not more at a time. An explosion encompassed several dozen meters and took out dozens of monsters in one hit. The downside for the horde was that they were so many that no matter where we fired, we would hit something.
The airship, having made its presence fully known, became the number one target for all the monsters in the air. The wave started to act like a set of pincers as the outer edges curved in toward us. I also sensed something . . . powerful moving behind the wave that was about to reach us. I sent a mental command to the automata waiting in the hangar bay.
The bay doors opened, then two dozen Raptors sped out as several trails of smoke shot out in front of them. Four dozen explosions cleared the air, allowing them to make their way around the outside of the wave. Groups of monsters broke off from the horde to intercept, but they couldn’t match the speed of the Raptors I’d built. Turrets from the ship followed the Raptors’ trail and annihilated everything that followed them.
The wave finally seemed to reach the conclusion that they weren’t going to be able to approach the airship without most of them dying in the process, so they started to circle us, doing their best to dodge or block the incoming attacks. A bird that had wings of flame built up a surge of mana, then sent it toward us. Hundreds of other attacks quickly followed it.
“Brace yourselves!” Benjamin shouted.
All the turrets stopped firing, and the barrier’s color darkened until it was almost black. I watched as the multitude of attacks seemed to move in slow motion before they collided with us. I glanced and noticed Benja
min had a smile on his face. Well, I had created him for this purpose. I was glad he was enjoying himself.
The attacks slammed into the ship and managed to push it a few meters down. Effects of all kinds took place on the barrier as it fought to maintain itself. Hexagons became visible as the barrier compensated in places that were hammered more heavily than others. I looked over to the energy storage and noted that they had drained a few days’ worth of energy with that attack.
“Return fire!”
The turrets opened fire again, only this time the monster wave was sending an equal amount of flak our way. The barrier moved like a disco ball as the colors changed from absorbing so much damage. Some of the damage was absorbed by the runes around the ship, but there was so much that they couldn’t cover everything.
The ship was continually shaking from the impacts but was steady enough that a glass of wine would only shake and not move. I looked outside, but it felt like the number of monsters was barely changing, let alone going down, and we were cutting down several dozen every second. I was about to move to the deck to contribute some more, but Benjamin held his hand up.
“Men! Take a walk!”
“Aye!” the crew screamed as roughly a hundred of them ran to the edge of the ship. Gems inside their hands and feet lit up as they jumped off the deck. I watched in awe as they pulled beam sabers out that were like the captain’s. Their flight ability was quite high as they maneuvered around not only enemy fire but friendly fire as well.
As they made their way to the front line, I studied the magic behind their flight gems. I noticed they were condensed versions of the ship’s, but had a much more limited flight time, as they were being powered by their internal mana stone. But once they returned to the ship, the ship would recharge them in a matter of minutes. They reached the front line of the wave and sliced their way through like a hot knife.
I turned my senses to the powerful sensation I had felt earlier. The Raptors had reached it and were currently engaging it in combat. It looked like a giant bat that had darkness coiling around it. Green cracks ran along its body and led to a collar around one of its limbs. Puppet had reported something like this to me, a hell wolf that had been corrupted due to the collar’s influence making it more powerful.
