Factory Core

by Jared Mandani

  It seemed as if Archwright Bomfrey had been waiting all this time to make some sort of important point, and it was now that he found the opportunity to do so. “I know that you warriors, with your haughty pride and limited vision and understanding, sneer at such things,” said Bomfrey, staring with a cold glare at Khazum, “but an alliance with the other races is the only way to defeat the Demon Horde.”

  “But—” protested Khazum, before Bomfrey silenced him.

  “The only way, Khazum,” he said firmly, and the king and other members of the council nodded in silent agreement. “That said, my lords, there is another problem we must face, one that is more urgent than that of how we can convince the lords and kings of Elves, Men and Beastkin to join with us against these monsters.”

  “And what might that problem be?” asked the king.

  “My lord,” said Bomfrey, taking care to sound modest and deferential, “it is obvious that the Demon Horde is advancing faster than we could ever have imagined. Indeed, their advance is looking unstoppable. Even if we begin evacuation from Karak-Drang this very minute, how long do you think it will take to get all of our people out of the city, through the treacherous tunnels and caverns, and up to the Above World?”

  “It will take some time, and—” began the king.

  “Too much time, my lord,” said Bomfrey. “The demons will catch up with us; we will be moving slowly, with women and children. They will slaughter us in the tunnels and caverns. Few, if any of us, will make it to the Above World.”

  Bomfrey paused here for effect, to let the gravity of this statement truly settle in.

  “But the guilds, my lord, have planned for such an eventuality. We have a device which will turn the tide of this war. It will allow the remaining dwarven population to reach the Above World in safety, without us having to lose a single life.”

  The king and his council looked intrigued, and they leaned in closer to listen to Bomfrey as he continued.

  “And,” said Bomfrey, the light of inspiration now sparkling in his eyes, “it will not only allow the dwarven population to escape without any further loss of life; it will decimate the Demon Horde.”

  “It will win the war for us?” asked the king, both surprised and intrigued. “Without any further loss of life?”

  Bomfrey nodded. “It will, my lord. If you allow us to activate it, that is…”

  “What is this device, Archwright Bomfrey?” asked King Odok-Kram.

  “We call it,” said Bomfrey with a mysterious smile, “the Factory Core.”

  CHAPTER 2

  “The Factory Core!” exclaimed King Odok-Kram, his eyes widening with surprise. “But that project was forbidden by my father during his reign! Your guilds were supposed to destroy the plans for the Factory Core! It was deemed too dangerous, too unpredictable. You knew this, yet you pursued it anyway?”

  Archwright Bomfrey’s jaw tightened, and his eyes hardened with defiance, but he nonetheless managed to keep his rising anger in check. “I apologize, my lord,” he said, “but it was a command we could not follow. Yes, the Factory Core project was risky. Immensely so, I admit. But we could not just abandon it. Not with the potential it had.

  “I’m sorry, my king, but we disobeyed your father’s command and continued to work on it in secret. And now, now are you not thankful that we did? The Factory Core, if unleashed, could turn everything around! We can not only save our people from the Demon Horde, we can smash them back into the depths of their Infernal Realm, and seal them back inside there forever!”

  King Odok-Kram’s face was stormy with anger, but he knew that Bomfrey had a point. The Factory Core was the only hope the dwarves had of getting out of the Below World, out of their under-mountain cities, into the Above World, without being slaughtered by the demon armies.

  “I cannot believe that you have done this,” growled the king, “that you and your guilds so flagrantly disobeyed my father. But you are right. As a boy, I was told about the potential of the Factory Core. And yes, my father was worried about what would happen if things went wrong with it, but he was also in awe of its power.”

  “Well I have never been informed of the existence of such a thing!” boomed General Khazum. “What on earth is this ‘Factory Core’? What evil wizardry have you inventors been dabbling in now?!”

  “It is no evil wizardry, warrior,” rumbled Bomfrey. “It is the most advanced technology our workshops have ever produced.”

  “There is magic involved, though,” said King Odok-Kram. “I know enough about the Factory Core project to know that.”

  “We have used powerful runes, yes,” admitted Bomfrey, “but no evil magic. There is no necromancy, no black sorcery, no—”

  “Ah!” shouted Khazum triumphantly. “So you admit that you have used magic!”

  “Be silent, General,” warned the king. “Now is not the time to argue about such things.”

  “I apologize, my lord,” muttered Khazum reluctantly, curling his thick, scarred hands into fists.

  “We have also used soul gems,” said Bomfrey softly, almost guiltily.

  “Soul gems!” yelled General Khazum, jumping up from the table and slamming one of his fists onto it with such force that a thudding boom echoed through the whole council chamber. “That’s almost necromancy right there! And necromancy is punishable by death!”

  “But it isn’t necromancy,” said Bomfrey calmly. “Not when we are using soul gems taken as booty from war. Booty that your army took from the last war against the Goblins, General Khazum. The Goblins trapped the souls in the gems, not us. And in the most potent of these soul gems are souls of great heroes; heroes of the races of Dwarf, Elf, Beastkin and Man.”

  “He is right, Khazum,” said the king. “It is not necromancy if they did not kill and capture the souls themselves. And it was your army that gathered these gems as plunder of war, among other booty that you took from the Goblin King when his castle fell to your forces.”

  General Khazum could not deny this, so he simply scowled and grumbled under his breath.

  “Using these soul gems, and the most powerful ancient runes,” said Bomfrey, smiling smugly now, “along with the best minds of our engineers and inventors,” he continued, “we have created a weapon so powerful that not even the Demon Hordes can stand against it. This is the Factory Core. It is a mobile factory, one that can produce items without workers, by using its own machinery. And it can grow, by building more machinery inside itself, and adding parts to itself. And the most potent factor, its most important strength, is that it is, courtesy of the soul gems … alive. Aware. Capable of not only observation, but of learning, understanding, and adaptation.”

  “Alive?” asked Kazum skeptically. “Capable of learning? But it is an object, a factory!”

  “Not when imbued with soul gems,” countered Bomfrey. “Then the souls of the ancient heroes become one with the Factory Core, making it an organism. A superorganism, with the powers of many minds and many lives all melded into one mind, one life … with power and intelligence that will be immense.”

  “It was exactly this power that my father feared,” said King Odok-Kram gravely. “If we lost control of the Factory Core, and it turns against us…”

  “We have no choice but to deploy it,” said Bomfrey quickly. “Yes, perhaps there are risks … but the Demon Horde is closing around us like a fist. They will crush us, they will exterminate us. We cannot run, we cannot hold them off much longer. You all know this! There is no time left. We either activate the Factory Core, or we all die. That, my lord, is the only choice we have. The Factory Core, or death for us. And then for all things in the Above World too, when the demons make their way to the surface. You must allow us to activate the Factory Core my lord … you must. There is no other way.”

  For a few tense moments, there was nothing but silence in the hall, and everyone waited in suspense for King Odok-Kram to make his decision. He stared for a while at the table, and it
was obvious that a million thoughts were running through his head. Finally, he looked up, his expression severe and his eyes stony.

  “You have my permission,” he said softly, “to activate the Factory Core.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Archwright Bomfrey radiated an air of triumph as he entered the castle-like Head Workshop, followed by other prominent members of the various inventors’ and engineers’ guilds—and General Khazum and a few other dwarven military commanders, who scowled and muttered under their breath as they entered the unfamiliar halls of the workshops.

  The Head Workshop was like a labyrinth; full of copper pipes of all diameters running in complex mazes along the walls and ceilings, with passages leading off down spiral staircases or up to higher levels, via steam-powered elevators.

  Smoke bellowed out from massive chimneys that stuck out of the Head Workshop like porcupine quills; unlike the smaller steam-powered motors, like those in the miners’ rock-blasters, or General Khazum’s exquisite suit of armor, which ran on steam generated by tiny, energy-infused crystals that could heat water to boiling point in a matter of seconds, the vast steam engines that drove the many complex devices of the Head Workshop were primarily powered by coal.

  The smoke that gushed out of the hundreds of chimneys traveled up through a system of vents carved into the bodies of the mountains under which the Below World was located; this was how this particular mountain range had gotten its name; the Smoky Mountains, as Men and Elves called them. From afar, the vast, jagged mountain range looked as if it was permanently shrouded in storm clouds. But when one got closer, one could see that the darkness was actually smoke from the ceaseless coal fires that the Dwarven Clans burned deep in the belly of the mountains.

  Everywhere in the Head Workshop there was copper, brass, bronze and steel, as well as ornately-carved wood. Wood was a rarity underground, as it had to be brought in from the Above World at great cost. Only the wealthiest places could afford wood fittings down here, and as they were some of the most prominent members of dwarven society, the inventors and engineers had plenty of it.

  General Khazum and his subordinates acted as if they weren’t impressed, but the sight of so much varnished oak, teak, mahogany and ironwood gleaming in the light of the arc-light bulbs that illuminated this place had the military men secretly writhing with envy.

  Bomfrey led the delegation through the maze-like corridors at a brisk pace; this was a moment for which he had been waiting for decades, and he did not want to delay the activation of the Factory Core any longer than he had to. As they entered the chamber which housed the Factory Core—a huge, dark vault hidden deep in the bowels of the Head Workshop—Bomfrey whispered a silent prayer of thanks to the God of the Forge, the Dwarves’ head deity.

  He waited until everyone was in the massive vault—with its arched ceilings which were over fifty feet high, and its walls which were crisscrossed with an array of copper pipes—but did not turn on the lights just yet, keeping them all in suspense in the gloom for a while longer.

  “Engineers, inventors, and … warriors,” said Archwright Bomfrey as soon as they were all assembled in the vault. “This is the moment we turn the tide of this war. This is the moment we take the first step toward taking back what the Demon Horde has taken from us. This is the first step we take toward reclaiming the citadels, mines and cities already lost to the demons. This is the moment we change everything!”

  The engineers and inventors cheered, but the warriors were less enthusiastic. Still, they too realized that this was their last hope, and that conventional weapons could not win the war against the infernal horde.

  “I have waited for this moment for many years,” continued Archwright Bomfrey. “For most of my life, in fact…” As he said this, his eyes began to gleam with a strange light, a glow that seemed to be coming dangerously close to all-out madness, as if he was possessed. “The souls of the heroes from past Ages imprisoned in these soul gems,” he continued, pulling the small leather bag that contained the soul gems from inside his robe, and holding it aloft, “will power the greatest weapon the Below World has ever seen … and, likely, the Above World too. Nothing in the histories of Men, Elves, Beastkin, Orcs, Goblins, Trolls or any other races can compare to this. The Factory Core.”

  A suspense-filled hush fell on the gathered dwarves as Archwright Bomfrey opened the drawstring of the leather bag, and reached inside to pull out the soul gems. To the heads of the guilds, who gathered around him in a circle, he gave one soul gem each. And then, when General Khazum finally joined the circle too, Bomfrey handed him a soul gem as well—the smallest one, which contained the soul of a minor Human hero. Khazum took the soul gem with a dark scowl, but even though it was the least of the gems, he could feel its power throbbing like the thumping heart of a great giant in his palm. In the shadowy gloom, the soul gems, which were gemstones of many different colors, glowed like lanterns, throwing their ethereal light onto the dwarves’ faces.

  “Once we set these soul gems in place, and pour molten gold into the runes, the Factory Core will come alive!” announced Bomfrey. “So, before we give our creation life, let us look upon it.”

  He clapped his hands, and dwarves who had been waiting for this signal flipped on the arc-light switches, flooding the cavern with bright, almost blinding light. As soon as they did this, gasps of awe and wonder rippled through the group of dwarves as they laid eyes on the Factory Core for the first time.

  It simply looked like a building at first; a low, square building of dark grey stone, almost like a small military fort, with the front being around twenty feet tall and fifty feet across. There were no windows in this “building”, and only one entrance. At the front there were two great steel-reinforced oaken doors, into which a number of ancient and powerful runes had been carved.

  “Doesn’t look like much,” grunted General Khazum.

  “You haven’t seen anything of its true potential yet, Khazum,” countered Bomfrey, his eyes still shining with the glow of near-madness, which was only amplified by the red light radiating from the huge soul gem he held in his hands. The most powerful of the soul gems. “Come, my friends … into the Core!”

  He strode up to the Factory Core and with great effort pushed open one of the huge oaken doors. The other dwarves followed him, somewhat nervously, into the darkness inside. Another dwarf, carrying a steam-heated pot of molten gold, followed them in as well. The liquid gold would be needed to activate the runes.

  What they found within was an intricate system of passages, which twisted and turned like the corridors of a maze, making the Factory Core seem far larger than it actually was. Curved stairways led up and spiral staircases led down, while dozens of doors branched off into the obscurity. For anyone who did not know their way around, it wouldn’t take too long to get hopelessly lost in here.

  All along the walls were intricate, complex networks of copper pipes; clues as to what this “building” really was. And if any of the dwarves walking through it had examined it carefully enough, they would have seen many hinges cut into the stonework, which allowed the walls, floors and ceilings to shift and move. With enough movement and constant repositioning of walls, the ingenious internal structure of the place could turn, essentially, into an infinite labyrinth, in which a hapless adventurer could get lost for days, weeks. Or even permanently.

  “This is one of the production rooms,” said Bomfrey as he opened one of the many doors and stepped inside.

  As the others entered the room, they saw a forge, and a great number of mechanical arms powered by steam-driven pistons. There were also a number of assembly tables set up, and a great deal of complex machinery, with an intricate system of pulleys, levers and gears.

  “The Factory Core can create weapons in here and send them out into the maze to hunt down and destroy enemies who wander in. Or release them out into the world beyond the Core to work as search-and-destroy units.”

  Even General Khazum and his
military cronies were impressed by this. They examined the machinery with quiet awe.

  “We need to set some of the soul gems in place here,” said Bomfrey. “Obviously, as this is the weapons room, we need the souls of great warriors.”

  He called forward a few of the inventors and engineers, and they set their soul gems—those of great fighters from a past Age—into various sockets in the machinery that drove the arms and assembly line of this workshop. After that, molten gold was poured into rune carvings on the stone floor. As soon as this was done, the runes glowed with an almost blinding brightness for a few seconds, and the walls of the Core rumbled as unleashed magic coursed through them. Then the soul gems in the sockets began to blaze forth intense light, as the souls of the heroes contained in them began to fuse with the structure of the Factory Core.

  “It’s working,” murmured Archwright Bomfrey in a hushed, awed voice. “It’s working … the Factory Core is being brought to life.”

  The gears and wheels and pulleys, and the motors that drove them, began to cough and splutter and shudder, and then all of a sudden they roared to life. The dwarves cheered as the machinery began to run.

  After almost two years of utter despair in the face of the Demon Horde invasion, they had finally found hope. At the moment it was just a spark of hope … but it was there, and it was more than they had had for a very long time.

  “Come!” said Bomfrey, now wildly excited. “We must go and install the rest of the soul gems, and activate the remaining runes.”

  He led the rest of the dwarves through the Factory Core, right to its heart: the huge steam-powered engine that drove the mechanisms that controlled the entire structure. Along the way they activated other runes, and inserted other minor soul gems into various sockets. When they reached the heart of the Core, though, Bomfrey took out the huge soul gem he had kept until the end.

  “This is the heart of the Factory Core,” he announced as they all entered the huge engine room, with its impossibly complex machinery and enormous steam-powered motor. “This is where we put the soul of the great Dwarven Emperor Gra’had Akzad. One of the greatest dwarven kings in all of our history. His spirit will lead the Factory Core. Come! I will insert his soul gem, and then we will activate the runes … and then you must all leave, and quickly.