“Open the resource chests,” Malsour said across the support party chat.
Around the citadel, resource chests were tipped. Mounds of resources fell out of them as automatons and people started to let the resources out.
“Begin,” Malsour said as he gained control over these resources.
The material piles seemed to melt, disappearing from sight. They were being pulled on by the Blood Kin and Malsour into the ground.
Malsour pulled down tons of resources. As they moved through the ground, he formed them into various threads. They encompassed the foundations of the citadel and spread out over the surrounding area. The Blood Kin also made their own metal plates.
These metal plates came together to form a single sheet underneath the citadel. From this, metal supports twisted down from the edge of the metal sheet, creating a cone that pointed down into the ground.
As the Blood Kin made these different strands, working together so that their magic was impossible to tell apart, Malsour formed a massive magical coded formation on the underside of the massive metal sheet. Thick, coded lines moved from the formation to the supports, following them downward.
From these supports, it seemed as if metallic roots sprouted from them and spread out through the surrounding dirt and rock.
A thick column from the center of the steel plate started to form, covered in the geometric lines of magical code that was being formed on this ten-meter-wide pillar that extended all the way down to where the other one hundred or so supports met up in a point.
Time lost meaning as this work went on.
The Blood Kin would constantly consume their blood essence crystals. They were in awe of the power and control that Malsour showed with his work, increasing their own depth of knowledge and abilities in manipulating Dark Mana.
The main supports were finally finished as the roots continued to spread out through the rock that lay within the supporting beams and around them.
To someone who knew the human body, it might look like the circulatory system. The main beams were the arteries; the roots were the capillaries that stretched out to reach into the surrounding material, becoming thinner and thinner as it reached out to all of the ground around.
Malsour breathed heavily, his body covered in sweat and his head woozy from the power expenditure. It had taken nearly nine days for them to work together and bring this about. To the Blood Kin and Malsour, it felt as if it had been as short as hours but as long as years.
Malsour turned his attention to the metal plate. The roots had not simply grown down but they had also spread up and into the citadel, its towers and surrounding walls.
The soul gem construct that covered the citadel welcomed these roots and actually spread them throughout the Citadel.
If only we could hook up a fusion reactor to the citadel, we could change this all in a matter of days instead of weeks. Malsour sighed to himself.
Malsour finally opened his eyes, his face pale, a coughed his entire body shaking as he continued to cough, his original paleness turning a fierce red as he tried to fight the coughing. He got some water from his bag of holding, quickly drinking it to relieve his parched throat. He was hungry and tired as hell but instead of resting, he slowly got to his feet. His half-draconic form disappeared as he returned to his human state. He drank Stamina potions, although they didn’t have much effect as he’d been using them nearly constantly for a week and a half straight. He didn’t even touch the Mana regeneration potions; they had little effect on him now. He had used them so many times in a row that they barely helped to regenerate his Mana any more.
What he needed was rest to recover his Mana and get back to his peak condition.
With his senses, he looked out over the city. While he and the Blood Kin had been making changes underground and through the city walls, Dave and Steve had been making a lot of changes to the soul gem construct that was spread out over the massive defensive works.
Dave looked up from where he had been working. It didn’t look as if he had taken a break either. “Looks like you’re just in time for the fourth change,” Dave said.
“I hope that the metal plate is enough,” Malsour said.
“Just reached one hundred percent,” Steve said. The ground shook as a faint glow of power spread out over the citadel and its defensive walls.
The citadel shook as stone changed to metal in places, condensing and giving greater support. It grew higher and the curtain wall gained strength. Casting balconies and archery positions appeared; positions for ballistae and trebuchets formed on the roof of the citadel.
The towers didn’t move but instead gained more metal reinforcement. The outer wall became eight meters thick and twenty high; the ground behind it also rose. The eight towers dotted around it also grew in size and prominence, overlooking those pristine, smooth gray walls.
The secondary inner walls started to gain metal sections in places as the ground inside also reached higher, with the inner castle on top.
The defenses looked much like a birthday cake instead of being on top of a hill now. Instead of the gentle elevations, the defenses were laid out with painstaking detail, altering the world around it to give greater defensive abilities.
This was a castle with defensive walls no more—this was a true citadel.
On the roof of the central tower, a large magical formation could be seen forming in the air before it slammed down into the stone and metal of the rooftop.
A blast of magical power rippled outward as magical formations appeared on the roofs of the already large towers around the main castle. As they finished, four smaller pulses spread outward. On the eight towers around the outer wall, more magical formations appeared.
As these finished, a magical pulse went out; as it touched upon the inner magical formations, they lit up the formations once again. A phantom image appeared above the outer towers, then the inner towers and finally the central tower.
Mana poured out of these formations in a stream, creating a cone shaped Mana Barrier around the citadel.
“You ready with that power coding?” Dave asked.
Malsour sent his senses downward through the structures below his feet. “Yeah.”
“Good.” Dave stood. The central area under the tower was still massive, with the first two floors open for anyone to look at; above, large lights illuminated the space in the center of the floor with the ono in it.
“Could you bury the construct and Mana well?” Dave moved toward one of the towers that was a part of the inner citadel.
“Can do.” Malsour looked to the soul gem pillar that held the Mana well. Power descended through the thick coded lines that surrounded the Mana well.
A hole appeared under the Mana well that disappeared underground. The floor sealed up as the soul gem around expanded over where the Mana well had been. He watched the Mana well and the core of the soul gem construct descend until it was right above the massive metal plate under the citadel, above the metal pillar that stretched down to the base of the support cone.
Threads spread out from the soul gem construct, across the metal plate and reaching up and into the citadel, connecting to the soul gem that pervaded the structure above the ground. The threads came up and connected to the soul gem constructs that had spread over the towers around the inner castle.
Malsour was tired but he wanted to see what Dave did next. This was the culmination of all their work over the last couple of weeks.
Dave made it into a tower; around the inner castle, instead of going upward, he went downward. Steve and Malsour followed him. They went to an inconspicuous-looking doorway. Dave opened it up and they found themselves in a closet.
“I’m not as powerful as you, but I can do this,” Dave said. Dark Mana surged around him as the floor beneath them started to drop down and then moved on a slant.
They reached a point directly underneath the center of the tower in the citadel and above the center of the metal plate where the soul gem constru
ct and Mana well were.
Dave pushed his hands outward. The open area they were in expanded into a horseshoe.
“Looks a bit Enterprise-y,” Steve commented, looking at the different consoles that formed the horseshoe.
“The Enterprise has the open side of the horseshoe pointed at the screens—we’ve got the closed end,” Dave said.
“By Fire, can we stop talking about your damn television and just see if this all works?” Malsour asked.
“Someone’s grumpy.” Steve chuckled, his eyes flashed for a moment. “I’m connecting to the soul gem construct and sending a thread back up to us to connect into the consoles.”
“Good.” Dave commanded the ground to create chairs and areas where consoles would be, as he smoothed out the floor and walls. He threw out mage lights, illuminating the space fully so that not only people with a mastery of night vision could see.
A sprout of soul gem cracked through the floor, forming into a console at the rear of the command room, which was raised a bit higher to see the other consoles. It was clear that the commander of this room would sit here.
The soul gem construct finished forming the console and spread across the room to create the floors and reach out to where the other consoles would be before it stopped.
“We’re going to need a hell of a lot more power. That’s all I can do right now without more juice,” Steve said.
Dave closed his eyes and checked his senses. He opened a nearby chat, encompassing all of the modified citadel. “Do not step outside the walls of the citadel, or come within five kilometers of the citadel. If you are leaving, please do so through the ono. Tell everyone who enters these rules. If not, you or they could die,” Dave said.
“Nice. Really uplifting. You should do speeches for your day job,” Steve said.
“Ass,” Dave said, unable to fully suppress the smile that rose to his lips.
“Well, I hope this new power system of yours works,” Malsour said.
“You and me both.” Dave pressed different controls on the console as well as using his own interface to change settings and prime a program.
Runic lines across the citadel walls and the supports, pillar, and the roots that came off them, running deep into the ground, all lit up.
At first nothing happened, and then Dave started to feel that the area around the citadel was cooling. In his senses, he could feel all of the heat energy around the city being pulled inward by the various runes, converted into Mana and poured into the soul gem construct that started to slowly grow more.
The temperature outside started to drop, faster and faster, going from a hot, sunny day to a crisp autumn day.
“Okay, so the heat exchangers are working.” Malsour used his own senses and feeds to the Aleph automatons to see what was going on outside of the city.
“I just hope the cold exchangers do as well,” Steve said.
The soul gem construct that weaved through this massive structure both underground and above it grew faster and faster, strengthening its ties to the different parts of the citadel and connecting to more and more of the supports. The more supports they attached themselves to, the faster power was pulled into the citadel as it wasn’t lost in transferring it through the supports’ runes.
The metal supports were good with the runes but the soul gem construct was many times more powerful. Because they gathered power faster, they were also a better material to code. As they seeped into the metal runes, they had the effect of making them much more powerful, making the temperature around the citadel drop faster and faster.
“Welcome to a winter wilderness.” Dave sensed that the ground around the citadel was actually freezing over.
“Readying the cold exchanger,” Steve said.
The ground temperature around the citadel reached minus five centigrade before the power they were getting was diminishing returns.
“Switch,” Dave said.
“Cold exchangers are active,” Steve said. This was one of the projects that had been giving the three of them and the other coders a headache for a while. Turning heat into power was pretty easy, and spells could be made from Mana to create something cold. So if there were runes that could convert heat into Mana, then there had to be runes that could convert cold into Mana. At least, that was their running theory and hope. If they could have two of these systems that collected this ambient cold or hot energy, as long as they were in atmosphere or a place that could be heated and cooled, then they could get power.
The runic lines for the heat exchangers dimmed as runic lines for the cold exchangers spun up. The heat exchangers didn’t turn off but seemed to dial down.
The ground around the citadel started to melt rapidly.
A notification appeared next to Dave’s screen as power started to seep into the citadel.
Dave, Malsour, and Steve let out excited cheers.
“It works! It fucking works!” Dave yelled, high-fiving Malsour and hitting Steve’s hand. “Fuck, that’s hard!” Dave yelled, his hand numb from high-fiving Steve.
“Sorry—that’s what she said?” Steve laughed.
Dave let out a frustrated sigh and threw a wrench off fo Steve who was nearly falling over, the satisfying noise of crystal hitting metal didn’t stop him in the slightest.
“This—this is huge. With this, we can power this citadel indefinatly. It could take off relying on just the vault soul gems,” Malsour said, his face filled with joy.
“Seriously you guys gotta stop I’m going to break something!” Steve continued laughing, if he was physically capable of it, there would have been tears streaming down his cheeks.
Dave and Malsour continued to ignore him.
“It’s going to take a hell of a long time to get this system to try to power up all of the citadel’s soul gem constructs that are running all over the place, but at least we can do it!” Dave said, joy on his face. They hadn’t had a proper meal in a week; they were tired and needed to have a long shower but now that fatigue seemed to fall away in the face of their excitement.
This wasn’t going to another planet or seeing the beauty of the universe laid out before them. Those things inspired and made one’s heart beat with passion. This was created for one reason: to survive. Their laughs reflected their crazy idea coming together, of the hope and worries that had plagued them but coming to a realization that they would work—that their idea, as audacious as it might be, could work!
Dave opened up his notifications, finding three screens waiting for him.
Quest Completed: Librarian Level 6
Use research to prove a theory (2/2)
Rewards: Unlock Level 7 Quest
+10 to all stats
600,000 Experience
Class: Librarian
Status:
Level 6
Effects:
+60 to all stats
Read 5% faster
Understand 10% more of the information that you read
Quest: Librarian Level 7
Use research to prove a theory (2/3)
Rewards: Unlock Level 8 Quest
Increase to stats
Dave quickly opened his character sheet to check it.
Character Sheet
Name:
David Grahslagg
Gender:
Male
Level:
240
Class:
Dwarven Master Smith, Friend of the Grey God, Bleeder, Librarian, Aleph Engineer, Weapons Master, Champion Slayer, Skill Creator, Mine Manager, Master of Space and Time, Master of Gravitational Anomalies
Race:
Human/Dwarf
Alignment:
Chaotic Neutral
Unspent points: 0
Health:
49,100
Regen:
24.42 /s
Mana:
15,930
Regen:
58.95 /s
Stamina:
5,420
Regen:
51.
40 /s
Vitality:
501
Endurance:
1,221
Intelligence:
1,603
Willpower:
1,179
Strength:
552
Agility:
1,028
“Balancing out the cold and heat exchangers,” Steve said, distracted for a moment.
Dave and Malsour held their breath in anticipation. If the two exchangers could be balanced out, then they would be getting power from both as they pulled in the cold and heat energy around them. By creating a balance, they would get a continuous stream of incoming energy that was higher than just one or the other exchanger working.
“We’ve just hit balance.” Steve smiled to the two others.
Malsour checked the power numbers. They weren’t as high as the Mana well, and nowhere close to a fusion plant, but it was more energy than they were getting before. As the soul gem construct filled in the runes along the supports, then the rate of power they would gain would only increase, allowing them to get three or four times the energy from their exchangers compared to the Mana well.
“As soon as we get all of the different components of the exchangers covered in soul gem construct, I want to halt all progress and focus on holding energy and creating vault soul gems,” Dave said.
“The resources we used to make this citadel weren’t inconsiderable. We can only make one or two others,” Malsour said. Their plan worked but having just one working citadel would only provide limited help.
“It’s time I went back to Earth,” Dave said.
Chapter 3: Descend into Chaos
While Dave, Malsour, and Steve worked on the citadel, Emerilia had gone through some major changes.
Of Myths and Legends (Emerilia Book 9) Page 3
