“We’re going to have this power station up in two days with dedicated work. Our Dark mages are down there, making the larger changes. Might even be tomorrow at the rate they’re going. They love making things.”
“Okay, but how long until we don’t need the vault soul gems to keep going?” Josh asked.
“Well, that depends on what you want,” Dave said. The Dwarves looked on in interest.
“Explain,” Josh asked.
“So, my plan is to make a proper refinery and then another power station. If we have this power station up and running, it will be able to power our housing complexes, build that refinery, keep up miner and Aleph automatons in about a month. If we instead used the vault-classed soul gems, then we could get that done in about a week,” Dave said.
“Those soul gems are a limited resource. I really don’t want to lose them.” Josh looked to Dave.
“Not really. We can recharge them off our guild’s amulets. We just up the amount that we draw from people who are off duty, train them in having their reserves reduced. We could fill up a vault-classed soul gem in a day or two. Josh, we can buy more of them from the Aleph and use them as backups for our power stations, added redundancies.” Dave gestured to Frenik, who nodded. “Right now, we’re filling up our chests of holding with materials that I know Cliff-Hill smithies and the Dwarves would love to buy. Once we have that refinery up, we will triple the amount of resources we can process—more for the power station, for trade. With it, we can increase the amount of miners we make and the speed in which we increase the city’s size, as well as gain the resources we need to make our own separate power station.”
“Separate power station, like the Aleph?” Josh looked from Dave to Frenik.
“The lad doesn’t think small,” Frenik said. Kol grunted in agreement.
“Okay, so, talk me through everything that’s happened so far and I’ll decide.” Josh sighed.
“I’ll leave you boys to it. I have some things I need to deal with. Keep up the good work.” Cassie smiled. She glanced at the growing city, shaking her head before she kissed Josh on the cheek and walked back toward the housing complexes.
“Ah, about time you figured out what the two of you were doing.” Dave grinned.
“Feels good to finally know where we stand,” Josh agreed. “So, now, explain.”
“Okay, so, we had that one miner at work and we were having to try to buy more from the Aleph. They don’t have any and they’re busy working on their own cities and homes. I used my abilities to create a small factory that makes an upgraded miner.”
“Wait.” Josh held up a hand and stopped Dave. “So, you’re powering that entire factory?”
“Okay, well, I had a sort of breakthrough when we were fighting at Devil’s Crater. I was conjuring things and imbuing them with my power. At Devil’s Crater, I realized that I could make the rough designs of the conjured item. Then I create a power tap from the conjured item to my soul gem. The conjured item was powered by the soul gem, rather than me. It meant I could use a tenth of my power on conjuring—then the costs of keeping it active and using it went to the soul gem instead of through me. I made the factory down there, attached it to the power grid and it draws from that, instead of me. As long as it gets power, then it can keep the other miners going. If that was to be broken or its reserve power source goes out, then the miners would have their own internal conjured soul gems to use. Enough time without power resupply and they’ll fall apart,” Dave said.
“I was wondering how you were able to do all of those powerful attacks and then you weren’t even tired after,” Josh admitted, looking at the twenty or so miners that were cutting out the city with their powerful lasers. Carts filled up behind them and added themselves to a backlog of carts headed for the large refinery by a direct tunnel.
“How much are we refining down into usable ingots?” Josh asked.
“We’re producing about a hundred ingots every hour or so. We moved from iron to steel because it’s worth more and we don’t use iron for really anything anymore. We also have a decent amount of ebony, a tiny bit of Mithril; silver and gold are also low. Maybe ten ingots every two hours for all of those ingots.” Dave shrugged.
“That doesn’t sound like all that much,” Josh said.
“With the new refinery, we could put out a thousand ingots an hour. That’s possibly an ingot worth of Mithril every four hours, if we can find some good veins of it,” Dave said.
“Okay, I just finished talking to Florence.” Suzy sighed, entering the conversation. “Hey Josh, have fun on your vacation?”
“Yeah, I did. Dave was just getting me up to date on everything that’s going on,” Josh said.
“Oh, good.” Suzy smiled to Dave.
“What did Florence say?” Dave asked.
“She’s going to have a look at it. We’ve got a ton of the materials we need for Cliff-Hill smithies and with your projections for materials the city will need, she believes we’ll be fine for resources,” Suzy said.
Dave nodded in thought.
“Okay, so, the not many ingots thing. We’re getting a ton of ingots. We don’t have a forge here, because we scrapped it for more refineries to get really working on the city. All of the Stone Raiders come to Cliff-Hill or a Dwarven mountain to get their weapons worked on. Sure, we can start people working on their craft here, but Kol is a Dwarven Master Smith. Better to have them learn from a master than try to figure it out themselves. We already have a large group of Stone Raiders working for the Cliff-Hill smithies to learn. We can use the ingots to build different things and for that purpose, I think keeping all of the ebony, silver, and five percent of the steel would be a good idea. We can use those for the greater number of facilities. Now, I am biased, but the rest we can trade away. I am the only person in the Stone Raiders who can form Mithril. The Aleph can turn it into big sheets after a lot of work. For all it’s worth, trading with the Dwarves is the best,” Dave said.
“However, you should make sure that they understand that any and all materials that you trade to them are to be prioritized for repairing their gear. The council turns ingots of value into a commune object, delegated and passed out on a project-by-project basis. With Cliff-Hill, we are outside of that commune, so any resources we get we can use immediately for our own projects instead of Dwarven projects. Meaning if a Stone Raider comes in with a chunk of Mithril, we can use it to fix their Mithril weapon,” Kol said.
Josh nodded. It made sense: Cliff-Hill was a business while the Dwarven smiths were a council made to lead their people.
“Okay, moving away from resources. If you had your way, what is your plan with the city going forward?” Josh asked.
“Once we have the power station up and the refinery, we don’t make any more miners but create another two power stations as well as vault soul gem reserves. Then we get to make growing areas and fast.” At Josh’s confused look, Dave continued. “We have to have our teleport pads open nearly constantly to not only add air down here, but cycle the air. The plants love all the carbon dioxide but we need a ton more to keep the air clean. Once we have the farms up, we have the miners cut out the cylinder and start spinning the city. We have the automatons finish cutting out places as we need them. Add in teleport pads and start building a true ley-line power station. Once we have that in place, then we can start looking to any more expansions and opening up things, like a summoner’s hall.”
Josh looked out over the rough shapes that covered the rounded-out cylinder. Miners worked in the distance, their lasers illuminating their bodies as they worked. Josh snorted as he looked out over it all. “So, we’re really building a city?” Josh said, his voice a little shocked.
“It’s pretty awesome,” Dave agreed.
“Fastest damned thing I’ve seen. I know my people are interested in borrowing some of those miners. We’re having something of a population boom and we’re looking to expand,” Frenik said.
“Well, I think we can wo
rk something out,” Suzy said.
“Is this anything like the space stations you made back on Earth?” Josh looked to Dave.
“How did you figure out who I was?” Dave asked.
“Well, Suzy Markel—not a regular name and she does have the same face.” Josh smiled.
“Was bound to happen sometime,” Suzy said.
Dave snorted. “Well, I added in air locks to the entire place. We’re deep down here. If there’s a fire or someone attacks, I want a way to shut down areas. I’m also working on a type of canister to hold air in an emergency. Can’t be too safe.”
“It sounds like you have everything in hand. Okay, I’ll ask for people to up the amount that they are bleeding off from their Mana, so that we can keep the soul gems charged. Could you update me every week or so, and let me know if you need anything else? In the meantime, I think I’ll have a talk with Florence and see how everything is going with her.” Josh clapped Dave on the back.
He made to turn around, pausing as he did so. “If you don’t mind me asking, how are you able to play so much? I heard you two are doing a ton back on Earth at the same time?”
“That is a question for another time.” Dave’s smile turned into a dark frown. “Hopefully, a day much further in the future.”
Chapter 31: Train Like You Fight
“Good! Good!” Denur barked as Deia drew in more ambient power from the surrounding area.
Fire felt something clench in her heart, in her very gut.
Deia started to rise from the center of the volcano, pulling in more and more ambient power from the surrounding stones and lava. Her hair whipped around like living flame. Her eyes closed in concentration, a whirlwind of Fire circled her.
Fire stepped through the angry air that howled in complaint at the Mana and heat that spread through the volcano.
She’s going to be dangerous, Fire thought with pride, looking at her daughter.
Fire hadn’t realized just how strong Deia was. She had been limited by her spells, using her knowledge of Earth and Dave’s lesson on spell formations to create more powerful spells.
Her raw power was nearly unmatched, other than by Dragons and the gods themselves. With her Fire spells, she was nearly as powerful as Jelanos, Alamo, and Mal. The three of them had instincts of battle mages and the spells and smarts of century-old men who had been fighting the things that went bump in the night.
Dragons from the Densaou Ring poked their heads through the different holes in the volcano, all of them looking at the Lady of Fire’s daughter and the queen of Dragons’ sister.
Fire felt her body tingle. The Mana ignited within her, wanting to be released. She calmed herself, a smile on her face as her own hair whipped in the air and her eyes glowed with inner power. In another time, I would have given in to that desire. She shook her head, reminiscing about her older self.
Deia called upon the molten core of the planet. Heat rose, slamming through the base of the volcano; the cooled base of the volcano turned to magma shooting up fifty feet. Fire barely noticed the few thousand degrees Celsius that came with being inside an active volcano.
She looked to her Dragons. They looked mildly impressed by Deia’s work.
“Hah! We’ll have you popping these volcanoes like nothing soon enough, sis!” Denur whooped as she flew around inside the volcano.
“I only got it fifty feet. How is that at all impressive?” Deia looked at the Dragon.
“Most would be panting or passed out at this point. The fact you aren’t shows that you know your limits and don’t want to use all your Mana in one go. Sure, you’ve got another four hundred feet to go, but with some refinement and a bit more juice, you’ll get it easy,” Denur said.
Deia started to come down to rest on a ledge.
“We don’t have time for that. Come on. You said that armor allows you to save some of your Mana—put it back in you. In a fight, you’re going to be using everything you have. So, let’s give it everything you have. Back in the center!”
Deia moved over to the center of the volcano again.
“Ulka, could you fix the bottom, just how it was before?” Denur asked.
The black Dragon seemed to glow slightly. The temperature in the room dropped as the top of the magma pool below turned to a stone plug.
“I’m going to get some books, Denur. Let me know when you’re done,” Fire said.
Deia either didn’t hear or was too focused on what she was doing.
Denur nodded to Fire and then looked back to Deia.
Fire disappeared in a flash of heat, smiling at her two girls working together.
***
Malsour looked at the fields in front of him. Gelimah and Fornau had been interested enough to come and join him in turning Devil’s Crater into a true city.
It had taken Gelimah a few weeks to get his butt into gear and over to Devil’s Crater, but the recluse only liked one thing more than his treasure and that was building.
He happily whistled, wandering through Devil’s Crater. Roads formed behind him. Magnificent houses were created with a gesture of his hands. Each he made was different from the last, incorporating what Malsour taught him.
The information on the different housing needs, including sewers, water systems, heating and the rest, were the bribe to get his brother out of his mountain home.
Now all of them stood in what was going to be the location of a new keep.
“Let’s begin, shall we?” Malsour looked to his brother.
“I was only waiting on you,” Gelimah said, somehow forgetting the three hours that he had debated Malsour’s techniques with him.
Malsour chose to say nothing. He extended his reach down to the bedrock that lay deep below the cliffs that rose around Devil’s Crater. From that bedrock, he pulled metal from beneath; weaving it into the rock, he fused them together into a solid base. Rock was compacted and used, metal extruding through it to add strength to it.
Gelimah banished and cleared out an area through the cliffs to create a path through the sheer cliffs, working through where the keep would lay. He cleared out the peaks in the area as Malsour’s foundation formed. A shining block of granite with metal moved out of the stone like live snakes. The foundations met with the path through the cliffs. Walls grew upward along the foundations; granite created a polished surface, bowing out to make mages’ balconies. Stairs ran up the walls and doorways formed. Twin gatehouses with overlooking arrow slits and holes for a destruction staff looked down upon the entry to the large stone doors.
Malsour weighted the doors so that a man could easily open them, but when locked they would drop down into holes, creating a five-ton stone wall.
Two stories of walls, overlooking the surrounding peaks, finished off in simple crenellations of a castle, continued to grow.
The keep was two hundred meters wide and a hundred deep. Away from the gates and the road that meandered through, a barracks and the keep’s castle grew. It was a rounded rectangle with a large area out front for the forces in the keep to train and keep busy. Walls of granite with metal reinforcement created a mess hall, armory, large defensive doors, and a waiting area for units going on duty or ready to reinforce their friends. The floor above held the main barracks, with a large sleeping area and bathrooms. The top floor was an upright cylinder instead of a rounded square. Metal weaved into the second floor’s roof. Here, artillery could be mounted with spotters on top of the tall, round third and fourth floors. Stairs wound up the floors on the outside, with doors and windows for the defenders to look out in any direction. Offices for the leaders of the keep were on these two floors.
The whole thing took up two-thirds of the keep, ready to house two companies of DCA soldiers.
Malsour added in overhangs for the walls and a sewage system running through the granite and metal foundation to run down inside the mountain before coming out away from the road that led to the keep.
Cisterns were added to the castle as runes flowed across th
e inside of the massive walls. Another series ran through the foundations: a place for a soul gem with connecting runic lines in the top of the castle’s tower and another hidden in the deep foundations.
Malsour ran walls out of the keep, high over the peaks, creating solid foundations once again as they extended to the walls on either side. They were perfectly level, allowing for soldiers to run and move easily across the wall. Malsour grew overhangs over the walls. Soldiers weren’t the most attentive if they were getting rained on.
Malsour and Gelimah panted as they finished their work.
Malsour looked over the barracks. “Damn. Well, I bet anyone who is stationed here is going to be pretty happy.”
“I do take pride in my work,” Gelimah said, happy with what he’d done. There were not only runes to keep the place defended but more to regulate temperature. Another to have a breeze coming through, so that it wouldn’t stink in the castle. He’d also added a small plot to the side of the castle, right near the rear of the keep. With an Earth mage, they could get some dirt in the plot and grow some fresh food for the soldiers to eat. A small pen was located next to it, for animals. Coming back from patrols, soldiers would look forward to a fresh meal prepared in the keep.
“Okay, the walls are decent but they were rushed, most of them are just simply remolded peaks. We need to fasten them to the bedrock so there’s little chance of movement. Seems everyone was doing their own thing, so we need to go around, straighten everything out into just one style of wall” Gelimah smiled, it was a daunting task, but it had been so long since he had a project that allowed him to flex his magical muscles. “Well let’s get started!”
“Okay,” Malsour said. “I’ll root the foundations into the bedrock if you banish the peaks around the wall and standardize the layout of the walls. I see you’ve been looking at the other’s runes with your heating, cooling, and Air runes.”
“Well, when you sent me that book by Dave, I did get rather interested by the concept and his magical coding skill. Brilliant! I was finally able to make that thing I was telling you about!”
This is Our Land (Emerilia Book 5) Page 30
