“I know, I know,” said Chiefwright Bomfrey. “It is just … well, you know. I’ll say no more. Come, come, let us activate the runes and leave. We are wasting time here, and the demons are probably already tunneling through the walls. I for one do not want to be in this city when they get in.”
“And neither do I,” said Bomfrey. “Let’s go.”
Bomfrey, Akzad and the handful of other senior engineers set about pouring molten gold into the runes that would allow the Factory Core to cannibalize the city and destroy valuable artefacts, monuments and architecture in order to create new weapons and build its own infrastructure of war. The runes they activated would also remove some of the Core’s limitations, allowing it to use literally anything to increase its powers, even things like demon bodies and blood. Such a function would no doubt have Bomfrey and his associates accused of necromancy, which was another reason why they were keeping what they were doing here a strict secret.
Finally, the activation of the runes was complete. Bomfrey nodded, and his associates hurried out of the Factory Core. Before Bomfrey stepped out of his creation for the last time, he turned and patted one of its walls softly.
“Do what you must, my child,” he whispered to it. “Do whatever you need to do, and go to whatever lengths you must. But whatever you do, make sure you destroy the Demon Horde and save our civilization. From now on, you’re on your own. Good luck.”
CHAPTER 14
The Factory Core watched via its many lenses as Archwright Bomfrey and the other dwarves—the last living dwarves in the city of Karak-Drang—left the premises via the secret tunnels beneath the palace.
The souls and minds of the ancient heroes, all fused now into one super-mind, began to think. The single super-mind now turned its attention to the task at hand: defending what was left of the Dwarven Kingdom from the Demon Horde. However, while the Core was focused on this objective for now, when Bomfrey and the others had activated the runes that would allow it to truly be unleashed they had done something else: they had freed the Core of any constraints on its own ambition and behavior. Previously, it had been a weapon under the control of the dwarves, a slave with a master. Not just any slave, of course; a powerful gladiator … but nonetheless a gladiator who had to obey orders, who could not go beyond the boundaries of the arena.
Now, the Factory Core was free. Its figurative chains had been smashed, and it was truly its own entity. Bomfrey, in his haste to give the Core the freedom to utilize its maximum potential, had failed to appreciate the wider-reaching consequences of doing this. He had not imagined, not for one second, really, that his creation did not actually want to serve him. It was loyal to him, yes, for he was its creator, and the Core viewed him as a father figure of sorts … but the Core, with its super-mind, was already envisaging things from its own perspective. Bomfrey and the other engineers and inventors hadn’t really considered the philosophical implications of giving a weapon self-awareness.
For the moment, though, the Factory Core remained focused on the task at hand: fighting the Demon Horde. Already demons were scaling the city’s enormous walls, scuttling up them like cockroaches, while digging under the walls at certain weak spots. The Factory Core knew too that while it was strong, it was not nearly as powerful as it could be. And it certainly wasn’t invincible. At least not yet. That was something it would work on later, of course, when it had the freedom to do so. For now, the presence of the Demon Horde in great masses was a definite threat to its existence, one with which it intended to deal with decisiveness.
After having killed Grakk’n’s demon warriors in the tunnels, the Factory Core had conducted a few experiments on the dead demons’ bodies. Until now, it had not been able to devour the corpses and use them as fuel or raw materials—this would have been a form of necromancy, even though they were demons. This restriction had now been lifted. So when it had time, it would look into this matter. But for now, with the Demon Horde quite literally at the gates, the Core was going to have to use the knowledge it had gleaned from experimenting on the dead demons’ bodies to fight the living ones that were about to attack it.
The Core had already learned that the demons showed a weakness to silver; it had seen this from the skirmishes in the tunnels between dwarves and demons. The Core had thus already used silver coating on a lot of the weapons it had used against the demons since then.
However, the Core had also made a number of other discoveries. During its experiments, it had found that they were extremely vulnerable to cold, and ice-enhanced weapons. On the other side of that particular coin, they were extremely resistant to fire. This made sense, of course, since the demons’ Infernal Realm was a place of fire, brimstone and lava deep within the planet’s core.
The demons’ blood too was an interesting substance, with a number of properties that made it very different to that of other organisms. However, the Core had not really been able to do much with the blood it had extracted—not until now, at least.
For the moment, though, the Core’s immediate concern was not with developing new items or devising any more experiments. Its main concern was fighting off the attacking demons using the weapons it had already developed: ice-based weapons.
Underground, ice was hard to find; the tunnels and subterranean cities and citadels of the Dwarven Kingdom were generally hot all year round. However, the Below World was, after all, situated beneath a mountain range, and the highest peaks of the Smoky Mountains were covered with snow all year round.
As soon as the Core had discovered the demons’ weakness to cold—a discovery that had been made around a week prior—it had built a number of independent mechanical transports to travel up to the snow-covered peaks of the Smoky Mountains to retrieve snow and ice, with which it could build its weaponry.
The quickest and most direct access to the highest peaks had been via the dwarves’ chimneys, through which the constantly-billowing coal smoke from the fires of their industries exited the Below World and was belched out into the sky of the Above World.
The chimneys, though, were not exactly easy structures to climb; some of them were over two miles high, and were smooth, completely vertical shafts that shot straight up and out of the mountain. Short of a creature like a gecko, with sticky feet, nothing could actually go up these shafts.
Due to the warm temperatures of the Below World, however, geckoes were in fact quite plentiful down here. The Factory Core had noted just how well these little reptiles were able to climb, and had captured one and studied its body closely. Using a series of magnifying lenses and mirrors, the Factory Core was able to examine the gecko’s feet in microscopic detail. And using those findings, it had designed its own climbing machines.
The mechanical geckoes the Core had built were far larger than the creatures on which they were based, due to the fact that they would need to carry heavy loads. Each mechanical gecko was the size of a pony, and made of steel, brass and bronze, with tiny steam engines in their core, which powered their hydraulic limbs. Because they were too small to have coal fire plants inside them, the mechanical geckoes were powered by the same heat-energy crystals that powered expensive dwarven suits of armor.
The Core had discovered that the pads under geckoes’ feet were “sticky” because of tens of thousands of microscopic, flexible hairs on them. The core had mimicked these by experimenting in its forges with different metal alloys, until it came up with one that was similar to the material that composed those hairs. Thus, the mechanical geckoes the Core manufactured were easily able to scale smooth vertical surfaces, and even stick upside down to ceilings.
Using insulated chests bolted to their backs, the mechanical geckoes had journeyed up the chimney shafts and collected ice and snow from the highest peaks of the Smoky Mountains, and had returned to the Factory Core, bringing this precious substance with them. Thanks to those new extensions of itself, the Factory Core now had a store of ice it could use to imbue weapons with.
One
of the features Bomfrey and his associates had installed in the Factory Core was a Magic Forge, complete with an encyclopedia of runes and a store of gold bars to melt for molten gold, so that the Factory Core could create magic items. They had also provided it with a number of soul gems, filled with lesser souls of various trapped creatures and monsters, that it could use to make especially powerful magical weapons.
Thus, the Factory Core had been able to build ice-based magical weapons in preparation for the Demon Horde’s assault on Karak-Drang. And now, as the first demons started to appear on the top of Karak-Drang’s walls, the Factory Core prepared to make good use of them.
CHAPTER 15
Grakk’n watched from in front of the gigantic oaken gates of Karak-Drang as the first of his warriors reached the tops of the walls. He was surprised that they had met with no resistance so far, and was more than a little suspicious. If this was the final stronghold of the dwarves, why were they not fighting with everything they had to defend it? So far, not even one arrow or musket ball had been shot at them.
Coming up behind Grakk’n was a band of enslaved cave trolls pushing a gigantic battering ram, which weighed a good few tons. The core of the battering ram was made of stone, and it was reinforced with steel. The head of the battering ram was carved from dragon bone, in the likeness of a dragon’s head. And inside the mouth of that dragon’s head, magical fire burned with a green glow, maintained by the wraiths who were accompanying the army.
Grakk’n wondered, though, if he would even have to use the battering ram; it seemed, weirdly enough, that the city of Karak-Drang was deserted. After all, what other explanation could there be for the fact that the Demon Horde had not encountered any resistance yet?
The first of the demon warriors to reach the top of the wall jumped up and down on it, screaming wildly with savage triumph, and calling the other demons up. Those who were already clambering up hastened their pace, scurrying rapidly to join the warrior on the walls. And still there was no opposition.
Down on the ground, in front of the city gates, Grakk’n fingered the hilt of his sword in its scabbard and growled; something was definitely amiss. Could his warriors be heading into some sort of a trap?
Even if they were, though, he was not about to call off the assault. Not for any reason. If a bunch of his warriors were killed taking the city, then that was a price he was gladly willing to pay. By the end of the day, he planned to be sitting on the throne of the palace, having captured it for the Demon Emperor, the Dark One himself.
“Forward!” roared Grakk’n. “Scale the walls! Enter the city! Battering ram, advance!”
The demon warriors cracked their fire whips against the massive grey backs of the cave trolls, who roared with pain and frustration, but nonetheless complied, grunting and growling as they used their immense strength to start rolling the massive battering ram toward the city gates.
More demons started getting up onto the walls of Karak-Drang. And with every warrior that reached the top, the others roared with savage delight and vicious glee. Soon, many dozens of demon warriors were standing on the barricades, roaring and screaming and whooping with triumph.
And then, one of them exploded.
Grakk’n roared with rage as fragments of what had once been one of his soldiers rained down around him, falling like hail from the sky. He bent down and picked up one of those chunks … and flung it away as soon as it touched his skin. The fragment—which had turned rock-hard in an instant—scorched him like a branding iron. Yet it was not a hot burn; it was a cold burn. From ice!
At that moment, another of the demons exploded, his body bursting into stony shards that popped outwards and showered down like pebbles. Then more demons followed, and soon it was as if a hailstorm had started, as if the rock-sky above had opened up, and ice was raining down on the attacking army.
Grakk’n knew at once why his soldiers were disintegrating and turning into shards of ice-cold stone, but not how. The dwarves were obviously using ice-powered projectiles against them, but where from and with what devices? And how were these hidden dwarves suddenly hitting so many of his warriors at once with these ice-enhanced weapons?
There was no time to worry about this, though, or to dwell too long on it. There was only time to react.
“Smash the gates down!” roared Grakk’n. “We’ll make the scum pay for this! Smash them down!”
The slave driver demons cracked their whips across the massive cave trolls’ backs, and yanked on the heavy chain leashes around the trolls’ necks, forcing them to haul the enormous battering ram right up to the city gates.
The demons on the walls were now blowing up by the dozen, and, indeed, the walls had almost entirely been cleared of invaders. On the ground outside the city gates, Grakk’n was growing increasingly furious. Victory had seemed like such a certainty, like such a walk in the park up until a few minutes ago … but now, somehow, against all odds the dwarves had managed to turn things around.
Still, it didn’t matter what weapons those weaklings were using inside their city; Grakk’n knew that their numbers were small, and numbers were one thing his army was not lacking. For centuries they had been preparing for not only an invasion of the dwarves’ Below World, but indeed an invasion of all worlds. For hundreds of years the Dark One had been preparing his armies, and creating hundreds of thousands of demon warriors, as well as commander demons like Grakk’n, and other evil servants like wraiths, and more, to assist them … and now the Great Invasion had finally begun. One city of dwarves, no matter how resourceful or innovative, would not prevent this plan from becoming a reality.
“Use the battering ram!” bellowed Grakk’n. “Batter the door down! We’ll be feasting on dwarven women and children tonight, boys! Break it down!”
As the cave trolls grabbed the handles of the battering ram, which was suspended from its frame by means of a number of massively thick chains, Grakk’n saw something coming over the top of the walls.
Under the walls, the cave trolls grunted as they pulled the battering ram back, preparing to swing it and smash it into the door. The demon slave drivers lashed their fiery whips across the trolls’ backs with even more fury, cursing at them and screaming at the big, stupid brutes to put all of their strength into the swing.
Then, one of the slave driver demons went pop.
Grakk’n roared with fury, and the cave trolls themselves paused in surprise, keeping the battering ram pulled back, but not swinging it just yet. All of them were staring up at the walls now … for the mysterious dwarven weapons had just appeared, and they were not like anything the demons could possibly have imagined.
CHAPTER 16
The Factory Core, once it had brought in sufficient quantities of snow and ice from the peaks of the Smoky Mountains, had immediately started to repurpose its mechanical geckoes. The Core’s mighty mind was linked to every object it made in its forges and workshops, and each of the mechanical geckoes had been given a pair of mechanical eyes, through which the Core could see. This had made them useful as scouts, but it would also make them useful as weapons, which they had now been repurposed as.
The Factory Core had realized right away that it would need both melee and long-range weapons in its fight against the demons … and since it had already built a good few dozen mechanical geckoes, the Core’s mind soon figured that these highly mobile, incredibly agile beings could be tremendously useful as attacking tools.
After studying the real, organic gecko, the Factory Core had found that its mechanical counterparts could be armed with a number of accessories that would make them valuable in a melee situation. The mechanical gecko could, firstly, be given large, silver-coated claws on each of the toes of its four feet. It could also be given razor-sharp, silver coated teeth in its mouth. The jaw of the gecko was enhanced with steam-powered pistons, and seeing as each unit was bigger than a pony, this meant that the mechanical gecko’s powerful jaws and sharp teeth could chomp off a de
mon warrior’s head with one bite.
Then there was the tail; the mechanical geckos possessed articulated tails, which were also powered by steam pistons and covered with silver-coated spikes. They could be lashed like a whip, and smash demon warriors like a flail.
However, that was not the only weaponry the mechanical geckoes could make use of … for the Factory Core had provided them with powerful missiles too. While it could not yet produce ice-enhanced musket balls (it had not yet figured out how to get such balls to survive the heat of the gunpowder explosion in the musket barrel), it had been able to create arrowheads and crossbow bolt-heads that were made of steel, imbued with ice magic. If these arrowheads hit a demon, the ice magic would instantly cause a tremendous amount of cold damage. Enough to freeze the demon in a snap, almost as if it had been dipped into a bath of frost essence.
Thus, every mechanical gecko had had the insulated chest removed from its back, and in its place the Factory Core had installed a repeating crossbow, which could be reloaded in just a matter of seconds. Because of the large size of the mechanical geckoes, and the small size of crossbow bolts, each gecko could carry a great number of bolts with ice-magic tips, in automatic magazines, which fed a new bolt into the crossbow as soon as one was fired.
It was with these mechanical geckoes, armed with ice-crossbows, that the Factory Core began its first wave of defense against the Demon Horde. The Core waited until enough of the demons were on the walls before unleashing the geckoes … and then, when the time had been right, the geckoes had been sent out.
Each of them was controlled by the great hive mind of the Factory Core, like the tentacles of an octopus. Each one was completely independent, moving about on its own and choosing its own targets—but the Factory Core was in charge of all of them, seeing through all of their eyes at once, directing all of their movements simultaneously, and choosing and aiming at each target, and pulling the trigger on the crossbow. All at once.
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