Dungeon Robotics Book 6 PT 2 (Patreon)

1. If Amazon sends me a breach in contract message, I will be pulling them back down (Sorry!)

2. These Chapters are unedited. Edited version is on Amazon

3. I am putting these up for people to enjoy the Dungeon Robotic universe from the beginning.

Chapter 11

Izora

Walking around felt wonderful after being stuck in the bed for almost two weeks. It was a pity they were only letting me out of bed for a few minutes every few hours. Even if I was unconscious for half that, my body still remembered it. Thankfully, Regan’s beds were better than even the royal beds back in Jade Wind. Hatsu kept me company most of the time, but the others came and visited me too.

Each time one of them came, the worry that they resented me for leaving was always at the back of my mind. It helped me to resolve to be better. To work harder for my people. The coming times were going to be difficult. There was no way around that, but together we could get through it.

“I guess I can’t surprise you if she’s been keeping you company,” Lord Regan said from the entrance to the room.

“My lord,” I said, quickly getting into a kneeling pose and bowing to him. I ignored the fact I was dressed in a simple slip.

“At ease. I wanted to come check on you since I saw you were mostly back to factory condition,” Lord Regan said, waving me off.

“Lord?” I asked, not sure what he meant.

“Don’t worry about it. Maybe in a few years you’ll understand what I mean. As I’m sure you’ve been told, the remains of your city are currently sitting in the north near Alara’s dungeon. It will be a few months or even years before the unholy mana in the ambient mana is low enough for mortals to head there without being covered in a barrier. When that time comes, I will set up a portal so that your people can get their belongings.”

“Thank you, my lord!” I said, bowing again.

“Now then. I have a proposal for you. I like the gnome race. They take after my own heart when it comes to technology. So, I want to move your people to my space station. There is plenty of space for people to live there, and your people are already used to living in more compact places. Still, compared to Jade Wind, your people would have much more space than they ever did before.”

“Are . . . are you sure? I mean this is a dream come true to live among the stars that our history records say we used to travel among. But, and I hate to ask, but are we worthy? We haven’t had such a good track record lately.” I hung my head. Not only had a large number of our people turned to the necromancers, but even our king was lost to madness.

“I don’t feel too much worry about it. I don’t think any of your people want to experience dying in space. And while a good chunk of the gnome fleet is still with the necromancers at their capital, I’m not too concerned about it,” Lord Regan said with a small smile. He moved close and placed a hand on my head. “Well, just think about it. I do want your people to live among the goblins for a while. It will be good stimulation for both races.”

“Yes, I agree.”

“Now, I have some more matters that I have to deal with,” he said, then started to move away. Stopping again, he said, “Do your records say anything about the Ly’call race?”

“Ly’call? An ancient race. Extinct. Some of oldest records say they were around the same time the Arcarins were, but there are many fewer details in regard to them. Some of our scholars believed them to be a fairy tale,” I answered as best I could. They were indeed mentioned but almost as a passing note or an afterthought.

“Interesting. Thank you. Don’t stay in bed all day now,” Lord Regan said before his form dissipated.

“Always busy, isn’t he?” Hatsu said next to me.

“Sounds like he’s found something else that’s been buried for centuries,” I said, falling back into the bed.

~~~

“So . . . just over three hundred thousand survived, Councilor Oshita?” I asked.

I was in a meeting with the council of Jade Wind, at least those who survived. Of the council of eleven, only four remained. They were the first people my father had . . . changed, after all. These four survived that fate, as they were on alert from the necromancer coup, and Father hadn’t been able to get them alone long enough. Or so they say, at least.

“Yes, ma’am. And of the hundred thousand that we . . . lost, Lord Regan states that at least half of them were mindless ones. Still a great loss, but in light of the events . . .” Oshita replied.

“I know it is hard in this situation, but make sure the ones who are unable to support themselves are taken care of no matter the cost. Children, elderly, disabled are the top of the list. I will not allow us to discard these people at the cost of our survival,” I said.

Lord Regan was helping with food and shelter, but he wanted us to work in return. Some families couldn’t work due to age or injury. I was sure if Lord Regan was told this, they would be taken care of, but I felt it was more the council’s and my duty to provide for the impoverished of our race.

“Of course,” Oshita said with a nod.

“Our finances are, well, nonexistent. We are thinking of assembling several parties to dive the dungeon when Lord Regan reopens it. It will allow us to prove ourselves and generate some capital for the restructuring of our people’s lives,” said a gnome by the name of Yuuma. She was normally responsible for the revenue of the city.

“I agree with this course of action. A large number of our people are restless about being unable to see the sky. This will at least take their minds off it,” a male gnome named Takai said.

“Lord Regan hasn’t banned us from going to the surface. We could put quite a number of our people at the embassy,” I said after listening to them.

“We have suggested this, but . . . many of the population refuse to leave the dungeon. They don’t want to leave their savior,” Yuuma said carefully.

“Not that I blame them,” I muttered, then said, “Go ahead with your plan. Make sure the parties know full well that Lord Regan will not take it easy on them. No matter what race, there will always be those that want a free ride.”

“As you say,” Yuuma said, nodding.

“Interactions with the goblins are going smoothly. They are more interested in hearing about our technology than nearly anything else. Many of the gnome children are attending the goblin school in the city. It is a good way to keep them distracted and busy, but they appear to genuinely enjoy going. Many of our teachers have asked to sit in on the lessons to see if they can learn from the goblin teachers,” Oshita said after looking at another report.

“That’s good. We need to keep relations with the goblins as positive as possible. We are all under Lord Regan, after all,” I said, and the four councilors nodded. “What is next?”

“The last thing on the agenda is to talk about your coronation. Everyone already sees you as the legitimate queen, but we feel an event will help put a period in the nightmare of the”—Oshita paused, looking awkward—“the events of a few weeks ago.”

“This is a sound argument. Let us make sure to invite the Viscountess, and I hear there is a princess in the valley as well. For the sake of moving on, I want this event to be as grand as we can make it,” I said, folding my hands together.

“As you wish,” they said, then stood.

“Councilor Moto,” I called as they turned to leave. The last gnome councilor stopped and turned back to me. “How many . . . how many of our masters did we lose?”

Councilor Moto looked to the ground. “Too many. We lost twelve of the forty-two lines. Even their disciples were lost.”

“That is a sad thing to hear. Make sure the masters learn from this and are more willing to share their knowledge,” I said, narrowing my eyes. This was one of the things I feared about how we gnomes kept our knowledge close to our chests. Magic and technology that the gnome race was famous for, gone until we could rediscover it. That was looking like a bleak prospect with the state of the race.

“I will see what I can do.” Moto bowed, then left.

I leaned back in my chair. I was dealing with the issues as I became aware of them, but I couldn’t help but wonder if that was good enough. Slapping the table, I stood up and left the office we used for the conference. In the lobby, gnomes rushed to get various tasks done. I was happy to see everyone working hard for their fellow gnomes. It could have gone differently; they could have fallen into despair, given what had happened to them.

I nodded to everyone as I passed the desks. I needed a breath of fresh air. Walking outside, I was joined at the entrance by Hatsu and Alphonso. I smiled to Hatsu. I accepted her feelings, but I wasn’t sure how I should return them. Before, I always thought of her as a sort of sister or close friend.

“Your Highness,” Alphonso said with an elaborate bow.

“Thank you, Alphonso. What would you like to show me today?” I asked. He’d been an almost pleasure to have around. “Serious” was not a word you used to describe Alphonso. He had taken me to various places in the city that were interesting or amazing. The goblins really lived up to the legends. The city truly was a marvel.

“How about a mech fight? There is one happening in an hour if I remember correctly,” Alphonso said, glancing down the street at one of the massive clocks that dotted the city.

“That sounds interesting. Lead the way,” I said. I’d seen Lord Regan’s mech and the goblins’ mechs. It was hard to compare the two, but the thought of watching two mechs beat up on each seemed like a good pastime.

Once I was able to get around again, Alphonso had been showing me his city. Since they didn’t want me out for long, I could usually only see one place before we had to go back to the hospital. The mini tours were an interesting way to see different parts of the city for what they all could offer.

Alphonso led the way along the street. The goblins, whether out of their own kindness or because Lord Regan told them to, had allocated several streets for the gnomes to use. The building I was just at was what the goblins called an office building, one of several on a street. It rose almost a dozen stories into the air and had hundreds of rooms for uses. We had concentrated all our government in this building until the departments were back in working order.

I looked up to the ceiling as we walked. This city was truly a marvel and I enjoyed being here, but unlike some of Lord Regan’s other floors, this one didn’t simulate the sky. A perpetual cloud of steam blanketed the ceiling. In some places I’d even experienced it raining as the temperature dropped enough for it to form condensation.

Gnome families were moving about, taking care of tasks. Everyone bowed to me as I passed, so I made sure to wave to them. A line had formed at a building that was handing out food and other house goods. The mood in the air was . . . a mix, to say the least. Everyone was happy to be alive, but that was starting to fade as the oppression of the ceiling and the loss of loved ones was slowly wearing holes in everyone’s hearts.

I resolved to talk to Lord Regan as soon as I could. Even if we didn’t go to live in the space station, as he called it, I would work hard to earn us a place that had a sky. I owed it to my people.

We made it to the street exit. A squad of goblin guards stood at the ready. They wore mechanized armor that greatly increased their strength. It was a marvel in its own right, and I knew Moto, who was the councilor responsible for technology, was biting at the bit to work a deal out so his techs could examine the armor.

“Your Highness, you are looking a bit pale,” Hatsu said, reaching out to touch my forehead.

I closed my eyes and nodded. The stress more than the physical movement was getting to me a little. I was admittedly feeling a little light-headed. “I haven’t fully recovered. The good doctor said it would be a long time before I would be back to normal. I literally burned my mana pathways when I teleported the fleet here,” I said, moving to sit on a nearby bench.

“Maybe we should head back. I’m sure there will be mech fights in the future,” Hatsu said, throwing a look over to Alphonso.

“Oh yes, there are always mech fights. It’s how we decide issues between the families, after all.”

“I’ll head back, then,” I said and grabbed Hatsu’s hand when she offered it and pulled myself up. She placed her arm around me, and we started back. I noticed that Hatsu was blushing but kept it to myself. There were some changes that would take time to get used to.

Chapter 12

Regan

“Have medical attend to the passengers. I want to know everything about them, but make sure they are taken care of first,” I ordered as I stood.

“Yes, sir.”

I nodded to the officer, then left the control center and moved over to the docks. Once the constructs had been deactivated and the life signs were recognized as guests to the dungeon, I was able to take a closer look at the vessel. I was amazed the thing had made it back. Whole sections of the ship had been torn apart either via combat or from the constructs trying to get to the life signs. I wasn’t sure yet.

Forming my avatar at the entrance of the dock, I found the hundred-plus life-forms huddled together as my automata moved around them to make sure they were alright. There were several squads on guard, of course, but they looked to be at the level of tribal. I could sense nothing that emitted mana. The mana from their persons was high, but without further study I wouldn’t know why.

Klumabus came over to me without having to be called. I glanced at the space once occupied by his missing arm but didn’t comment. I would get a full report in a moment, after all. He kneeled down in front of me, bowing his head.

“Creator, I have to report my failure. I was not about to leave the vicinity of the planet,” he said with a solemn tone.

“Enough. Tell me what happened,” I said, pulling him up. I wanted to get to the details. It would be easier if he was looking me straight in the face.

“Yes. We went to the moon first as ordered. On the first moon, Lyrale, we found these people. They were dying from a lack of resources. A few more years and they would no longer exist. Their inherent control of mana is high, but they lack training. I decided that it was worth bringing them here. They are called the Ly’call,” Klumabus explained.

“So, Lyrale has breathable air,” I said, rubbing my chin as I thought. For it to have atmosphere, its mass would have to be large enough to have gravity of sufficient force. That was unless it had been artificially altered. I would need to go there and run some tests to see if there was any value with building something on the moon. “Go on.”

“Due to the people’s suffering, I violated my orders and reached out to them.” He paused and looked down for a moment, then looked back to me. “They have mistaken us as part of a prophecy given to them centuries ago. This is just a small fraction of the people living on the moon. Hundreds of thousands more are still there,” Klumabus said as he rubbed his head with his good hand.

“I didn’t create you without compassion, so I don’t blame you for reaching out to them. Though there will be a punishment for not following your orders, I promise to be lenient. Continue,” I said.

“Thank you. We spent two weeks studying the Ly’call to make sure they were able to leave and would survive if we brought them here. We have a tremendous amount of data that needs the Creator’s examination. Once we were sure they would be able to survive, we had them select some representatives to bring before you.”

“These are the best of the best?” I asked, looking over the Ly’call in the docks. They were all high-tier two at the minimum. The mana I could sense felt dense, compacted even, and ready to explode. Just being in my aura, they were releasing enough mana to match ten thousand tier ones or a thousand tier twos. Even if these weren’t the best of the best, it said great things about them as a race.

Klumabus nodded. “Yes, sir. Other than their Sentinel Guard, these are the best.”

“Sentinel Guard?” I asked.

“They protect the high priest and priestess. The two who are in charge of remembering their race’s history,” Klumabus explained.

“They remained on Lyrale, I assume.”

“Yes.”

“Alright. That explains two weeks, but there’s another three still missing. Not to mention your stowaways,” I said. This was a great deal of information and was only adding more mysteries to this already crazy world I had found myself on. I knew magic had taken this world to interstellar travel for one race. It was looking like it was more complex than I originally thought.

“While on our way back we decided to inspect the other moon, Krona, just as a quick flyby since it was in our path at the time. There were a number of ruins dotting the moon’s surface. We stayed for a single day to get scans on the structures. During one of our scans of what appeared to be the central structure, we either triggered the installation’s defenses or reactivated the systems in some way. Dozens of those constructs launched from the surface,” Klumabus said. He was obviously upset at his failure, evidenced by the way emotion leaked into his voice every now and then in the form of terse words.

I grabbed his shoulder. “We all make mistakes. In your case you were following my orders. When dealing with the unknown, coming back alive is already doing a good job,” I reassured him. I could tell this was going to be a problem down the road. I made the loyalty part of the creation magic so strong that my children didn’t deal with failure very well. I would need to find a way to temper this in the future. Frustration at failure is normal, healthy even, but I couldn’t have it causing my forces to grind to a halt.

“Thank you. We lost several of the crew in the initial confrontation but beat back most of the first wave. When the second wave was detected, we commenced long-range bombardment to eliminate them. They had powerful protection magic, as you experienced,” Klumabus continued to explain.

I nodded at the statement. Those barriers were top of the line. After examining what little data we managed to gain from it, we found it controlled all the way down to the atom. Physical rounds would have to possess enough kinetic energy to overload the section hit to get through the barrier. Very annoying to deal with.

“Once it showed we were clear, I ordered the mana reactor to be shut down to avoid them detecting us. Unfortunately, some of the constructs managed to make it aboard either during the first wave or in the remains of the second. After a hard-fought battle, we managed to seal off the upper deck with enough life support to last us until we drifted back to the station. That took most of the last two weeks,” Klumabus finished explaining and looked relieved to be done with the hard report. I don’t think anyone liked reporting failure, except maybe a certain insane necromancer.

“Good work. Next time we will travel in force. It sounds like we have some mysteries to solve on Krona,” I said. “Now, take me to the one they consider their leader.”

Klumabus nodded and led me to one of the individuals that had seen many years. While most of the creatures were mainly purple, this one was leaning toward gray. He walked with a cane and wore an elaborately decorated robe.

“Elder, I would like to present you the Creator. He has expressed his interest in meeting you,” Klumabus said once we were near the old one.

The elder turned toward me and slowly went to his knees, then sank even further and placed his head on the ground. Like a wave, the others soon followed suit. I momentarily questioned myself when I didn’t think anything odd about them bowing to me. Occupational hazard, I thought with a mental chuckle.

“Great one! Your followers have aided us when we thought all hope lost. Never before had we seen a ship or city of metal that sailed the stars. We thought the gods had come to deliver us from our peril, and we weren’t far from the point, as you are close to a god,” said the elder.

He spoke with a strange mixture of sounds and clicks. At least my translation magic worked with them. I could see some issues if they were to meet other mortals at some point, however. I would need to work on a translator for either them or the other mortals.

“I thank you for your words. Please, one such as yourself should not put too much stress on your bones,” I said, reaching down to pull him up. He appeared to want to protest for a second but gave in quickly due to my strength, or rather, his lack of any. “Tell me. Does my . . . city cause you any pain to be in?”

“Pain? Not that I can say. I do feel a bit squeezed,” the elder said, glancing around. “Like something is pressing on me harder than usual. But the air is probably the cleanest I have tasted in many years.”

“Creator, Lyrale did have a slightly lower gravity,” Klumabus contributed.

“I see. I’ll want to take a look at those readings,” I said, then turned back to the elder. “What should I call you?”

“Meposufeo,” the elder said with several clicks that I would have to add new parts to my mouth to make.

“How about I call you Meso?” I asked, giving him a small smile. I was only about twenty percent confident I could pronounce his name, and that was with magical help. Better just to save time than be rude to him.

“As you will. Several of the people on the ship tried to pronounce our names and usually failed. We did not take insult,” Meso said.

Looked like the elder saw through me. I laughed and rubbed the back of my head. “I’ll have my people take you to some rooms, and we’ll discuss the future between us at length,” I said, waving over a soldier. “After they have been cleared by medical, take them to Block B. Help them settle in.”

“Yes, sir!” The soldier gave a salute, then moved over to some of his fellows to begin organizing the rooms and people.

I turned to Klumabus. “You need to get patched up. It sounds like we might have a new threat to deal with.”

“My apologies,” Klumabus said, bowing his head.

“If not you, someone else,” I said, patting his shoulder. This wasn’t something anyone could have prepared for. Too little information. Every time I felt like we were one step closer to understanding just the area around us, another ten steps appeared in the distance, showing our inexperience.

I watched the new race for a while before I noticed Izora was up and about. Once she had returned to her room, I popped over to talk to her. The gnome race was about the only people with any sort of long-term history of more than a few hundred years.

She was happy that I managed to save so many of her people, and I could feel the amount of faith, or adherent mana, coming from her increasing as she interacted with more of her people. While it was discouraging that the events had taken place in the first place, I knew that people needed to look to the future to move on from their failures and mistakes.

I left Izora to continue her recovery. I didn’t want to push her too hard after she had just gotten back on her feet. She was lucky to even be alive. The amount of mana she’d channel would have killed a normal person several times over.

~~~

The events with the ship took a while, and I was sure Alara would be looking for me soon. Casting my mind out, I located her consciousness. She was in her own dungeon, working on a floor one above her core. She was having to work backward from her core to basically reclaim her own dungeon. If she tried to pull in all the taint at once, she might twist her mind even with the buffer collectors I’d installed.

I moved onto the floor where I found a forest that looked like it had just been planted. Trees that were barely taller than me were growing all around. I narrowed my eyes when I saw shards of green metal in the one closest to me. I looked around with my mind and sure enough, Anubis was walking through the grove. He appeared to be genuinely enjoying himself.

Before I even took a step, Alara formed her avatar in front of me. I took it in to see if it had changed any but wasn’t too surprised when it was the same. Her image was basically imprinted to her core now. It would take a long time or a great effort on her part to change it.

“Regan,” she said. A little over a meter shorter than me, depending on which form my avatar took, she had to look up at me when standing close.

“Alara.”

“Son. Helping,” she said, pointing toward where I knew Anubis was.

“I see that. Whose idea was it?” I asked, curious how they worked out something like this. Alara wasn’t exactly the most outgoing of people. Not that I blamed her, and I couldn’t see Anubis coming here without being instructed to do so.

“Dryad . . . talking to me . . . slowly. Learned from them,” Alara explained.

“Already?” I asked, surprised. They were just “born,” in a matter of speaking, a few weeks ago. They were constantly fighting the undead mana in the ambient mana so I estimated it would be several years before they got back to where they were originally.

“Son’s metal . . . absorbing . . . taint quickly.”

“I see. There is just so much going on, I can’t keep track of everything. I have a vague awareness of everything that is happening, but if I don’t focus on it, or it’s not threatening to the dungeon itself, I just seem to ignore it. Like background noise,” I said, rubbing my temples. I was regretting making my domain as large as it was. There just felt like never-ending noise, and I already had issues concentrating on one topic for long. If I didn’t have enough magical wards placed through my dungeons, I wasn’t sure I would be able to sleep at night. Not that I sleep at night.

“That’s normal,” said a tiny voice from behind me. I turned and saw Lena and Ignea flying toward me.

“Ignea, make a friend?” I asked, smiling at her. The two fairies were about the same height, but one had to take into account that Lena was technically over a century old. She’d been starved of mana for over a hundred years, and I was more amazed that she was still alive.

“Yup!” Ignea said, giving Lena a high-five. I shook my head as I wondered where she had learned such a thing. Likely Vetur and Anubis.

“Anyway, can you explain what you mean?” I asked to bring us back to the topic.

She nodded as she flew and landed on my shoulder. “Normally, when a dungeon reaches a hundred or two hundred floors, they cover so much area that there is no way for them to actively watch it all. So, a sort of background magic program runs that watches everything for you. Hence, why you are more aware of certain things than others,” Ignea explained.

“That’s good to know,” I said, rubbing my chin at the implications. If Creation designed it, I was more comfortable about it.

“Father! You’re here. You should add more forests back home,” Anubis shouted as he emerged from the nearby forest.

“Maybe. I do have a reason to now. Though, I would like to remind you that there are several on the floating-island floors,” I said with a snort.

“I don’t know. Those felt . . . fake,” Anubis said.

“Need to . . . learn from . . . Master,” Alara said, smacking her chest with a fist. It looked so cute, I burst out laughing.

Chapter 13

Louella

“My lady, a representative of the BronzeStone clan is here to see you.”

“Thank you. Show them in,” I said while finishing the document I was working on. The BronzeStone clan were almost as big a supporter of my control of the valley as the gnomes. I needed to show them the respect allies were due.

There was only a week until the Winter Welcome Festival, and I had a mountain of work to do before it started. Part of that involved getting the dwarves to help with some construction.

Nastok walked in, his clothes slightly damp from the snow that had started falling the last few days. I was surprised that I saw some gray hair mixed with his black. He must have been under quite a bit of stress from being the new patriarch of his clan.

“My lady,” Nastok said, crossing his arm over his chest in a dwarven salute.

“Please, you don’t have to do that. We’re friends!” I said, standing quickly.

“It’s only right. You are no longer the young lord that was in over her head when she called me here to run a blacksmith that would be making nails for farmers,” Nastok said with a chuckle as he took the seat across from me.

“Still. The more things change the more . . . well, what can I do for you?” I said, changing the subject. I barely got time to see my friends that I’d pulled here so long ago. I guess I was the last person who should whine about keeping things the same.

“The dwarven complex is almost complete. I wanted you to come for a tour.”

“I would love that. Dwarves rarely let outsiders into their complex,” I said with an instant brightening of my mood. The few outsiders who were allowed to see the complex bragged endlessly about the wonders of metalworking, stone-working, and gold they saw.

“We are proud of the work we’ve done here. We feel it is only fair for you to see it. Feel free to bring Ezal. We promise nothing will dare harm you in our home, but I know of the demands of your position.”

“I’ll do that. When is a good time for the tour?” I asked, grabbing the main tablet Regan had given me. There were several functions on it that I and many of my assistants were finding ever helpful. For me, the calendar and note function allowed me to mark down when and who I needed to meet with.

“Whenever you are available. I know you are very busy,” Nastok said.

“Alright. I will see you . . . two days from now, then,” I said, typing in the information.

“Very good! I promise that you will be impressed—or I would promise, but we have competition on a different level here,” Nastok said, throwing a glance in the direction of the dungeon entrance.

I laughed at his implication. It was true that Regan was hard to top with many of his creations. “That is true. Don’t worry, I’m sure I will be impressed,” I said with a chuckle.

“Thank you,” Nastok said, then stood up. “I should probably leave you be, then.”

“Wait. How is it going with Talinda? I know she is busy running the largest inn in town. I hope that hasn’t affected your lives too much,” I asked him. I wanted to hear how my friends were doing.

Nastok made a grimace before he sat back down. “I’ve . . . I’ve had to break it off with her.”

“What?! Why?” I asked. They were so deeply in love. I couldn’t see them falling out of it just because they were so busy. There had to be more to the story. Hopefully, it wasn’t due to the city growing so fast.

“It has nothing to do with Talinda. As the head of my clan, I am . . . expected to marry a dwarf. To produce an heir of pure dwarven blood,” Nastok explained, putting his head in his hands.

“Has there never been an exception? Surely, this can’t be the first time the head of the clan has been with a non-dwarven mate,” I asked. Several of the races had such customs, so I wasn’t too surprised about the reason. Still, there were plenty of times in the past where love triumphed over tradition.

“By dwarven law, non-dwarven or half-dwarven children are not recognized as potential heirs. Talinda herself would be shunned if she came to live with me, and besides, she is an elf. I couldn’t force her to live in the tunnels. When I was on my own, I didn’t care about living above ground if it meant I could live with her. But I can’t force my entire clan to do that.”

“Aren’t you giving your clan too much control over you?” I asked with a bit more snap than I meant to.

Nastok slammed his fist on the table. If it had been a normal table, he would have split it down the middle. “I don’t need you to lecture me! Humans have always been that way! If something doesn’t fit with THEIR ways, then it must be wrong!” he yelled, his face growing red.

I narrowed my eyes at him but didn’t back down. “I meant no disrespect. If this is how you feel, I shall refrain from offering you my advice on matters related to your relationships,” I said evenly, reverting to my state voice that I used with other nobles.

Nastok took a deep breath and released actual smoke from his nostrils. I hadn’t realized when he’d walked in, but he had raised his tier since the last time I’d seen him. The density of the mana in the air around the valley was only going up with the increase of people and the stronger Regan grew. I would have to get a census and see what the average tier and level around the valley was now.

“I apologize. This has been a . . . particularly sensitive subject for me. Please. Disregard my outburst,” Nastok said and bowed his head.

I smiled and reached over to grab his hand, a hand that had seen over three dozen years of hard work in the forge but was now stained with ink. I knew he was out of his element, but he was the only one that could take the position in his clan. “I understand that you are in a tough situation, but you are certainly not alone. I can think of a way to convince those old dwarves to change their minds,” I said.

Nastok tilted his head to the side. “The dwarven laws have been around for . . . for a millennium. I can’t remember the last time they were changed.”

“What’s the one thing dwarves love most in the world?” I asked, letting go of his hand and opening a draw of my desk. I quickly sent a mental message to Regan and got a distinct snort in reply, but I saw a small box materialize in the drawer. I picked it up and placed it on the desk as Nastok answered.

“Mithril, and metals we’ve never worked with before, I guess.”

“Exactly.” I pulled two chunks of ore from a sealed box, then handed him a dark green ore that felt like it was pulling the warmth from the air. Nastok took it and looked it over carefully. I knew he had managed to work with just about every metal on the continent, and those he hadn’t, like adamantine, he knew the properties for. We were friends, after all.

“I’ve . . . I’ve never seen this before,” he said with awe leaking into his voice.

“Here, this one too.” I handed a silver-gray ore to him.

“Where did you . . . no, I know where you got them. But how will this resolve my . . . issue?” Nastok said, placing them back in the box.

“Not only did you lead your clan here to allow them to work with more mithril than they might have ever seen before, but now new ores will start to appear in the dungeon. Think of how far the stories of the BronzeStone clan will spread if your clan makes weapons out of this material. I think that should be worth changing a single law,” I said, tracing my finger along the edges of the ores. Might makes right, or in this case, metal made right.

Nastok leaned back in his chair as he thought about it. “It would take a long time. It would be asking too much to force them to change the law just on promises. After that, I would have to get at least four other clans to agree with me about changing the law. It is a race law, you understand.”

“At least you have a plan of action. I would suggest you tell Talinda about this before she gets snatched up by another man,” I said with a smile and slid the box over to him.

He looked from the box to me, then back, but finally nodded. I could almost see the mountain of stress he’d been carrying when he came in crumble around him.

He smacked the desk again and said, “Yes! I plan to visit her right now!” He jumped from his seat with much more energy than he had before.

“Don’t cause too much of a scene,” I called after him.

He had just reached the door when the room shook for a moment. It was barely enough to cause the glasses on my side table to rattle but it was noticeable. It didn’t feel anything like when the terraquake happened. Rather the best way I could think to describe it was “more natural.”

I tapped my bracelet, the third one that Regan had made for me. “Was that you?”

“No. It was a natural earthquake, er, quake. Most likely there will be a few more aftershocks for a while. I’m not sure of the impact the wave had around the world,” Regan replied.

“Alright. I’ll send a message around so there isn’t any panic,” I said and cut the line. I turned to Nastok. “You should head back. It was barely noticeable here, but underground might be another story.”

Nastok nodded, then hurriedly left. I pulled the tablet over and looked at my agenda for the rest of the day. I had to go to a meeting with Ezal about increasing the size of my military. She wanted to send a force in Lecazar to assist with the refugees. Regan’s Steel Spire in the middle of the forest made for a good forward base, so she was confident we could help as much as half the country.

With a few of Regan’s airships, we could circumvent the low mountains that cut off the upper north part of the country. This plan required Regan to allow us to use a few of his airships, but he would be getting even more people in his aura. I felt it was a win-win situation. However, I wanted to make sure my forces were up for the task. I knew Regan’s army was powerful, but I didn’t want to rely on him for everything. Plus, he said he was weakened from his battles in the north.

After collecting my guard, we made our way to the barracks. Ezal had hired the Builders Guild to add a few buildings and expand the grounds. The barracks was located on the outskirts of town, so she had space to work with. When we entered through the gate to the complex, there were hundreds of people working through drills and training. I saw one building to the side of the complex that had people sitting in what looked like classrooms and being lectured to.

We headed to the conference room next to Ezal’s office. Several people who were selected for command position were already there, waiting for the meeting to start. They all jumped to their feet when they saw who walked in. I was confident she picked the best there was to offer. I glanced around to find my seat and paused when I found a throne-like chair at the back of the room.

“That’s not obvious at all,” I muttered as I stepped over to it. Ezal had a nasty sarcastic streak if you left her to her own devices.

I sat in the throne and observed the people, who were looking around nervously. It didn’t look like they were afraid of their jobs or what they were going into, but more like they were afraid of . . . me. Considering the rumors that were going around about me, I guess a little fear shouldn’t have been surprising.

The door slammed open and Ezal strode in. I swear I thought her demeanor was changing the more pregnant she became. She came up to the seat next to mine and turned to me. She saluted and the others quickly followed suit. I gestured for them to be seated, and we started the meeting.

Ezal got straight to it. “My lady, these are the officers that have performed to Bruce’s training regimen and are all over high-tier two. They also scored higher than seventy on the general knowledge test. While there were a few people who scored higher on the general knowledge and tactics testing, they have been placed in the support staff. If they can get their tier up, they will be added to the officer’s department,” Ezal said, gesturing at the group of people.

“Very good. I welcome and thank all of you for volunteering to fight for the valley and the people who live here,” I said, nodding my head to each.

“Such kind words. I would fight in a thousand battles just to hear you speak,” said a man who looked like a cross between a playboy and a grizzled warrior. His blond hair looked like it was flowing in the wind.

I smiled to him and nodded, though I wasn’t sure how to deal with him yet. “Thank you. I’m sure your battles will be glorious,” I said to the man.

Ezal stood and walked over to a wall. A map of the continent appeared, and she pointed to the west side of the valley. It was one of Regan’s, so it possessed a considerable amount of extra information, more than any maps produced by either Thonaca or Lecazar.

“Now. We have several objectives in the coming months. The first and foremost is to have the majority of our forces trained and ready in a week. Once the festival is over, we will depart for Steel Spire. There we will meet up with a group of people who have been scouting Lecazar for several months now. They will be our guides into the country. They know the back ways once we cross the Lowin Mountains outside the valley.”

“I understand we want to rescue as many people as possible, but is this possible in a practical manner?” a woman asked, looking over the map.

“Your lord,” Ezal said, gesturing to me, “is going to acquire some airships for us. The person we are getting them from is capable of creating teleport matrixes. We hope that he will be able to install one on the airships so that refugees can be funneled to Steel Spire and then to the valley once they have been vetted. This will allow us to proceed without the need to turn back. However, it also puts the force at risk of going too deep into enemy territory. It is safe to assume all of Lecazar as enemy territory.”

“What are we to do if we encounter Lecazar forces that are holding out? Surely, you don’t expect us to force them to leave,” a man asked. Of the group of fifteen, he looked to be the youngest.

“Of course not. We will send a messenger to ask if they would like to be evacuated, or offer supplies in the event they don’t. We are only going to fight one war and that’s with the undead. Let’s hold off on routing the entire country until we have that handled.” Ezal gave a viscous smile, and the man sank back in his chair. Ezal isn’t a warmonger, is she? I thought to myself.

The meeting went on for another three hours as various topics about the mission were discussed. Ezal handled most of the issues. I could tell she had been studying and planning for this. In Regan’s library no doubt. We were about done with the meeting when there came a rushed knock at the door. A guard entered and looked around nervously.

“Go on,” I said, slightly annoyed.

“Yes, my lady. A messenger from Thonaca is here to see you,” the guard answered instantly.

“Is there a military force with them?” I asked, standing up quickly.

“No, ma’am. Just the messenger and her guards.”

“Interesting,” I said, then looked around the room. “Let’s all go meet this messenger. Take them to the . . . to the assembly room.”

“Yes!” the guard said, then turned and ran off.

“Did Regan perchance provide your forces with any type of ceremonial clothing?” I asked Ezal as I sat back down.

“He did actually. They are equal to Lecazar’s . . . no, probably better than their Royal Guard,” she answered.

“Have everyone here put them on, and we’ll go meet this messenger,” I said with a grin.

I was getting tired of Thonaca thinking they could push me around. I still hadn’t received the payment for damages from the noble who’d attempted to attack us a while ago. I sent a message to Regan, asking if he wanted to take part, and he said he would be there. This time I would be someone’s headache.

Chapter 14

Regan

I received a message from Louella that said, “I have a messenger here from Thonaca. Do you want to take part?”

“Sure. Let’s see what they want to say this time,” I sent back without much hesitation. Sticking it to people was basically my hobby, and I rubbed my hands together just thinking of annoying someone.

The link dissipated. This event interested me because a few minutes ago something entered my aura that I had set a Tracking spell for. Quin, the woman who’d attacked Louella, was making her way into the valley with the king of Thonaca’s banner. Normally, I would have sent some automata to deal with her already, but since she was coming under a banner, I decided to follow the rules of war.

I moved over to the assembly room, as Louella called it. It was made to be a throne room when I’d designed the castle, I’d just left it without a worthy seat. Her people had taken care of that part, adding a throne that was made from gold and silver. The effect reminded me of lightning strikes on some plains.

Louella, Ezal, and their new officers made their way into the room. I waited until everyone was seated, then formed my avatar in an alcove out of sight. Louella must have heard or sensed something, as she waved me forward from my hiding spot. I grinned as I walked out, giving quite a few people in the room a shock.

“So where would you like me to sit, Your Highness?” I said with a chuckle.

“I’m sure you’re perfectly capable of making yourself comfortable,” Louella replied, not rising to the bait.

“You have matured,” I said while forming a seat. I toned it down a bit and only made it slightly bigger than hers, forming it out of thousands of gears. I felt it made quite the impression. Everyone else in the room had wide eyes once I took a seat. I’d placed myself slightly to the back, as I wanted to be seen as more of a guest or, at most, an advisor.

“I can’t wait to see our old friend again,” I said, leaning back.

“Friend? Do you know the messenger?” Louella asked, giving me a glance.

“Why yes, you two had quite the first meeting.”

“That doesn’t really narrow it down,” she complained while rubbing her temples. It is interesting that most people who met her for the first time wanted to kill her for some reason.

“A one Lady Quin, or is it Miss? Do you know if she had a noble title?” I asked, getting a kick out of the situation.

“The only thing I’ve been able to find out since then was that she’s been a friend of the king ever since she saved one of his ancestors a few hundred years ago. She bears a title, or at least according to Elder Skywood she does.”

“It will be interesting to hear what she has to say.” I wasn’t too worried since she was coming under the banner of the king as a messenger. To be on the safe side, I created my staff with a few scripted defenses that would protect Louella, Ezal, and myself in the case of an attack. I got a raised brow from Louella but just shrugged in reply. Better safe than sorry. Quin and I didn’t exactly part on friendly terms last time.

The messenger had apparently been made to wait at the gate, so it was taking a while for them to get here. The new officers were throwing glances over at me, but none of them were brave enough to say anything. I was enjoying their squirming.

“Ah, Regan. While we’re waiting, I was wondering if I could ask something,” Louella asked suddenly.

I noticed a small charge fill the air around us. It would stop most of the sound from leaving the area. I raised a metal eyebrow at the theatrics but nodded. “Go ahead,” I said with a mischievous smile.

“I would like to push into Lecazar and attempt to rescue as many people as possible. Even with the reports we’ve gotten from Thonaca, the number of refugees doesn’t match the number of people in Lecazar,” Louella said, gripping the arm of her throne. I guess I couldn’t blame her. She might have been basically exiled from the place, but it was her homeland. I knew that not everyone in most countries deserved to die.

“That is true,” I said with a nod.

Thinking of Lecazar, I’d told Puppet and company not to worry about sending me reports unless it was important, or they reached one of the major cities. I was growing worried about not hearing anything from them in almost a month, especially considering what had transpired. I would need to try to reach out to them when I got back.

“That being the case, my forces need a way to get the people back to Robia or your Steel Spire. Steel Spire would be safer for both of us until we can ascertain whether the people we’re sending are secure or not.”

“Why don’t you just ask me what you need rather than beat around the bush?” I asked, tapping my staff on the ground rhythmically. I liked Louella, that was a fact. Thus, I would likely help her. What I did not like was when people didn’t get to the point.

“Geez. I just wanted to explain why I was asking,” she pouted.

“Sure. Well?” I said, smiling and tapping my staff.

“Alright.” She waved a hand through the air in exasperation. “Can we borrow a few airships?”

“Is that all?” I asked with mock exaggeration.

“And can you put a portal in them that will allow us to send people back to your Steel Spire?”

I leaned forward, placing my elbow on the arm of my chair. It wasn’t a bad idea. I wouldn’t give her forces that advanced on airships. Wouldn’t want the power to go to their heads, after all. The number of people she could save and send back to the Spire could be a potential boon for me down the road.

“What would I get in return?” I asked. I’d help her but I wanted to see how committed she was to this plan.

“You know exactly what you get in return. Hell, you know exactly what I have to offer,” Louella growled at me.

“I do so want you to offer me something in return though,” I said, egging her on.

Louella tilted her head to the side as she thought for a moment. Ezal moved next to her and whispered something to her. I could have listened in but decided to wait. After a few back-and-forths between the two, Louella nodded.

“How about this. I’ll have a temple built for you in the town,” she said.

Her suggestion caused me to pause. A temple, not something I’d ever really thought about building before. “I could build one in a second with a snap of my fingers,” I replied, snapping my fingers as a demonstration.

“This is true, but it would be an empty shell. I propose to have the people build one. It has truer meaning if done that way,” she explained.

“Interesting.” I thought it over for barely a moment, then nodded. “Very well. I will let you know by the end of the day. For now, our guests have arrived,” I said, dismissing her electrical barrier with a wave of my hand.

I grinned when she gave me an annoyed pout, but she quickly took on a regal expression as she turned to face the entrance. She was getting good at it. At least, she had come far from the little noble girl I’d met months ago who came out here to get away from her father.

Two of the guards pushed open the doors, and five people made their way inside like they owned the place. The woman in the middle looked exactly the same as the last time she was here, only a few centimeters shorter. She must have a way to remove whole chunks from her body. A handy way to deal with poison if she also had a way to numb the pain caused by such an action.

“Presenting Lady Quin! King Ataulf’s trusted confidant. Royal messenger, holder of the title of Life, you will present yourself!” a man shouted once they had all entered the room.

I leaned over to Louella in a very exaggerated manner. “And that all means . . .”

She played along and leaned toward me. “She is VERY important and has a rank of about two steps higher than my own,” she explained with a chuckle.

“You will show Lady Quin the respect that is awarded her position!” the man shouted. I noticed that he was trying his best not to glance at Quin. I wondered how many guards there had originally been.

Louella sighed and stood up, then curtsied to the group. “Welcome to my humble abode. Viscount Louella Coates hears and sees the king’s messenger.”

“Not just you! Everyone!” the guard demanded angrily.

The officers and Ezal rose and gave a simple bow. I could sense the disdain from them all, but most of the officers were over their heads with the current happenings, the majority of them having been commoners and adventurers until a few weeks ago. Ezal’s attitude just seemed to be more along the lines of wanting to get this over with.

The guard turned toward me. “You too, mage!”

“You don’t have to worry your pretty little self about me,” I said, waving him off.

“Why you—!” the guard growled but was then sent flying into the wall.

“Enough!” Quin said, pulling back a blood-colored whip.

“Temper, temper.” I laughed and saw her eye twitch, but she stayed silent and turned to Louella. I must have struck a nerve. I’d have to add this to my personal record book.

“Viscount Louella, by order of the king of Thonaca, you are relieved of all lands that you possess in Thonaca. They are to revert to the original owner, Marquis Niel, son of Duke Niel. You have two weeks to surrender to the kingdom for your crimes against the king,” Quin said almost without pause.

Louella stayed silent, but the same could not be said for the others in the hall. Shouts of anger and outrage filled the room from floor to ceiling. Louella tapped her staff on the floor, and the sound resounded throughout the entire hall. I could detect a hint of mana behind the action.

“To what crimes would the esteemed messenger be referring?” Ezal asked.

“Harboring a criminal of the kingdom. The theft of slaves from the kingdom. Attacking an inquisitor of the kingdom. Murder of an inquisitor of the kingdom. Aiding and abating enemies of the state. Suspicion of treason. The list goes on. Would you like me to continue?”

“That is quite alright. One of the charges listed does not make sense. What and who’s murder are you implying I took part in?” Louella said, leaning back in her chair.

“Inquisitor Lines never made it back to the capital. Upon an investigation by none other than yours truly, I found him dead a short way from this valley,” Quin explained with a sick grin on her face. From the expression, I could easily tell that Lines had likely met Lady Quin in a dark alley and did not make it out. That was a bit disappointing. I’d liked the straight-faced man.

“Is that so? Pity, I rather liked him,” Louella said.

I looked over to her, thinking she was a bit too nonchalant about all this, but I found her face a stiff mask. I could almost see storm clouds raging behind her eyes. Given that she cultivated lightning, it wouldn’t be hard for that to become a reality.

She added, “I have, indeed, felt the magical contracts binding the lands to me break.”

“You are to order all forces to swear fealty to the new lord. Failure to do so may result in . . . less than pleasant endings for them,” Quin said.

The officers around the room frowned in anger at the blatancy. I could tell they wanted nothing more than to leap across the room and tear the woman apart. I looked back to Louella to see how she would handle this situation.

The frown on her face suddenly flipped, and she formed one of the brightest smiles on her face that I’d seen since coming to this world. She gripped her staff and stood up. I heard a low laugh that slowly built to a full-blown hysterical breakdown. If only I had some popcorn, I thought.

“Enough of this . . . this game!” She slammed her staff down on the floor, and one of the defense mechanisms I’d installed in the castle activated. A barrier of hexagram-shaped plates formed around the hall. No one would be able to get out without destroying the mana crystals embedded in over a hundred places around the room. That, or they could try to kill Louella and me.

“You dare threaten the king’s messenger?!” Quin demanded, glancing around the room. Her gaze did linger on me for a moment longer, but she looked away quickly. Was that some fear I was sensing?

“King? A fool! Thonaca and Lecazar are corrupt! Necromancers have their way with the people. Nobles treat the people like their livestock. Petty skirmishes happen daily due to the arrogance of the nobles. Monsters and beasts are allowed to have their way with the frontier villages and forced to rely on the adventurers who are mortal with their lives on the line with little in the way of compensation. So yes! Yes, I do dare to threaten the king’s messenger.”

“You will regret this!” Quin shouted. She wasn’t even hiding the fact that she was looking for a way out now as her eyes flew back and forth over the barrier.

“We made the mistake of letting you get away once. Not again. Besides . . . only one of you has to survive to inform your king about my decision,” Louella said with an evil grin as lightning started to arc off her.

I went ahead and teleported her officers and Ezal out of the room. I didn’t think she was in quite the right state of mind to be blasting people with her own followers in the room. After that I leaned back in my chair. Louella started to stalk forward toward the messenger group. I realized that she’d released part of the restraints from her armor.

The guards backed away without a moment’s hesitation. They obviously knew they were no match for Louella’s power. Quin glanced at me again and seemed to gain confidence from the fact that I was still sitting. Blood started to coalesce along her whip as she got into a weird stance.

Louella swiped her staff forward, and an arc of lightning left the head. It crossed the distance in the blink of an eye. Quin was thrown back against the barrier, blood splattering out around her. It flowed back into her as she dropped to the ground, and she didn’t look much worse off.

“Brute power isn’t going to help you,” Quin said.

Her whip morphed into a saber of some kind, then she burst into a mist of blood and shot toward Louella. I sensed Louella building a charge in the air around her. Just as Quin surrounded Louella with her blood mist, there was a blinding flash of light and the crack of thunder. Quin was thrown straight up and slammed into the barrier’s ceiling hard enough for it to change color. She fell and landed on her back, groaning as she struggled to move.

“You’re weak when it comes to frontal battle. I would surrender if I were you, Miss Assassin,” I called to the dazed Quin.

“Ne . . . ve . . . r,” she growled.

“Your funeral,” I said, shrugging.

“Helios. Please,” Louella said.

The spinning double helix on top of her staff floated over to where Quin lay. Another barrier formed around her and Helios. Suddenly, there was nonstop flashing as lightning strike after lightning strike was sent into Quin. I wasn’t sure of the principle behind her physical form, but whatever it was started to break down as blood splattered against the lightning barrier repeatedly.

After a solid two minutes, Louella finally called Helios back. When the barrier dropped from around her, blood poured out into a puddle. Not wanting to get hit by another trick, I formed another containment field and pulled all the blood into it. The globe of blood floated over to me, and I examined it with all my senses. Even after what Louella did to it, I still sensed some life in the cells.

“Is she dead?” Louella asked, walking over to me.

“For now,” I said, peering at the blood.

She was clearly annoyed. “For now? She’ll come back?”

“I’m actually not sure. I need to run more tests. I’ll keep her contained just in case,” I said, tapping the globe. If all the demon races were this resilient, I was actually impressed this world had so far survived their incursion.

“Whatever. As long as I never have to see her again,” she said, flipping her hair at me as she turned toward the soldiers who had come with Quin. They had remained huddled in balls in the corners of the room, their legs and pants stained from their overwhelming fear. “Return to Thonaca and tell the king my decision. Tell him that Queen Louella has declared this territory the Queendom of Vaihdetta!”

Chapter 15

Puppet

Another two days of fighting at the walls had depleted the human resources of the adventurers and the city guard by a large amount. If this kept up, Tearfalls wouldn’t last more than another week, and that was barring anything major from happening. Even as a non-flesh-and-blood being, I was starting to fatigue.

Glancing outside the house, I saw the streets lined with refugees from towns and villages who managed to make their way here from the countryside. The morning and early daytime sun gave people a chance to slip through the hordes when they were less active. Still, for every person who made it to the city, four or five were being killed.

The newcomers did help relieve the stress on some of the soldiers and adventurers defending the walls. Still, many of the people fled to escape fighting the undead. It was not easy to persuade them to join the guard after they made it to what they thought would be safety.

“We can’t keep this up,” I murmured.

“We need to wait one more day. If we still don’t hear anything then, you can try to make the journey. Father should have heard about the situation by now,” Z2 said from her perch on the couch.

“Call me mortal, but I don’t want these people to die,” I said and pounded a fist against the windowsill.

“Even Father takes care of the people he fights with. I’ve learned a lot about how dungeons are supposed to act. He is nothing like them. For starters, a normal dungeon wouldn’t have given us mana cores like these to move around outside,” Z2 said. She tapped a gem lodged in my chest. Mine was special in that it was actually a part of Father’s main core. The others had mana cores that were fused with their bodies.

She had a point. Father acted more in line with the mortals than was necessary. I tapped the shard of core that had fused with me when I upgraded a few months ago. It allowed me certain abilities that were similar to a dungeon core.

Next to it was my mana core. It acted like a heart of a mortal and could pull mana in from the ambient aura of the world. I’d added that soon after the battle with the horde. I didn’t like to be low on mana.

Looking back outside, I saw Natsuo and Natsuko were almost back to the house. They were bundled up in fur to blend in, as it had already started snowing for the season. I moved to the door and let them in. They shook the snow off, then removed their coats.

“I know it’s to blend in, but can’t I at least get a nicer-looking one?” Natsuko asked with a sneer as she tossed the dull brown coat next to the door.

“It would be a little hard to find a craftsman who isn’t working to repair armor,” Z2 said with a snort.

“How about our fearless leader? You should make me something nice,” Natsuko said after she sat down.

“For the hundredth time, I don’t want to attract attention to us for anything other than our prowess. You go around wearing a nice coat that couldn’t possibly have been made in the city and we’ll have people hounding us left and right,” I replied, rubbing the back of my head.

“Yeah, yeah,” she pouted.

“Speaking of drawing attention, where is our silver lizardkin?” Z2 asked.

I glanced at the clock on the wall. “Keeping Prince Handsy safe,” I said.

It was a few hours later when Azra made it back. She barely paused after she made it through the door before she pressed the button that made her armor fold back to a single piece. After that she made her way to the bar in the kitchen and poured herself a glass, took one look at it, then just chugged right from the bottle.

“Wow. I know we don’t get drunk like others, but if we drink enough . . .” I said, worried about her.

“With the day I had, I need every drop of it,” Azra said, dropping into a chair.

Z2 walked over and placed her hands on Azra’s shoulder. “Was it that bad?”

I sensed mana traveling from Z2 to Azra. Azra sighed in noticeable relief.

“So? What happened?” I asked.

“The bastard asked me to be his concubine!” she said, her tail smashing into the floor and leaving a dent.

“He skipped wife and went straight to concubine?” Natsuko asked and burst out laughing.

“I couldn’t just leave since I was on guard duty. For the last two hours, I’ve had to listen to nearly incessant begging. Honestly, he was like a child!”

“I’ll put someone else on it for a few days to give you a break,” I said, smiling at the thought of the prince trying to do something stupid.

“Hell, put me on the front lines in front of the walls! Anywhere but near him,” Azra said, getting on her knees like she was begging me.

“I’ll see what I can do,” I said.

The guard captain had put me in charge of organizing the adventurers. It was time-consuming and more than a little annoying when a party didn’t want to do the assignment. Some . . . tough persuasion compelled them, though, but the situation would continue turning from bad to worse if we didn’t receive help soon.

Two hours before dusk, everyone was moving to the wall. The undead usually started their assault at that time. Every direction from the city was watched twenty-four hours a day just to be safe. That put nearly forty people out of the fight during the night so they could rest for the day.

Everyone was taking their positions on the wall. A mixture of adventurers, guards, and soldiers made up the force of nearly twenty thousand, of which ten were on the wall while the other half were running support through the city. It was a sizable force and would be one to reckon with if the undead didn’t come with a bigger army every night. A few nights ago, it was only ten thousand. Last night it had already broken through twenty thousand.

Just as the sun set, moans, growls, roars, and all manner of other sounds emerged from the forest. Even though it was over two kilometers away, the wind managed to carry the sound to us. The first few nights people had taken off running in fear, but after a few nights of nearly unceasing battle, people being punished for deserting, and time spent fighting, most were hardened against the noise.

A whistling sound started up as I watched to see if anything was different from previous nights. Looking around for the source, I found several balls of, something, flying through the air at the wall. Manipulating my visor, I was able to see they were spheres composed of dozens of corpses.

“Take out those objects!” I shouted while creating a large fireball myself.

All along the wall other mages took up casting a spell. Fireballs, storms of ice, arcs of lightning, animals made of water, and more all flew into the sky. Explosions ripped out at the masses of undead and collided with the spells.

Body parts in every condition rained down on the field in front of the city wall. We managed to strike them all before they reached the city, but if there had been more, the situation might have been different. It was a dangerous move, and we could exhaust our mana before the battle even began if several people aiming at the same target didn’t stop wasting mana.

I pulled two messengers and the guard captain over to me. “We have to be more coordinated in our attacks. I want you to have each squad assign a spotter that will call targets for their team. Have each squad take a five-meter section of the wall. They will be responsible for defending only that section. They are to save their mana if nothing is in their section.”

“Yes, sir!” The two messengers rushed to deliver my orders.

I took care of organizing the forty-meter span of wall in my section. While I was in the middle of explaining, the first wave of undead broke through the tree line and began charging the wall. I was about to dismiss them, but I felt something was off. Focusing on the horde, I took nearly a minute to find the source of my discomfort.

Several of the undead in the midst of the horde had been reinforced by magic. The only way that was possible was if the undead had a magic user or a necromancer supporting them. I wasn’t sure which I would rather have. Everything about the reinforced undead appeared boosted to a new level. They were easily outpacing the other undead.

“You might get to fight under the wall tonight, after all,” I commented to Azra.

“I have a few tricks I haven’t played yet,” she said, grinning as she spun her mace. “Shut up.” She smacked her shield with her mace, then smiled awkwardly at me.

“Need to find a way so I can hear what he is saying. I have a feeling it would be quite humorous,” I said, tapping her shield with a finger. I heard some interesting things come out of the spirit locked in her shield.

“Annoying is more like it,” she replied.

“Where is Z2?” I asked, changing the subject. She’d been there a few minutes ago.

“She ran off a minute ago. Something important,” the captain replied.

“Alright. She’ll let us know what the cause was in a bit, then,” I said. The only thing that would make her run off like that was if she got a message from Father. She was most likely finding a more concealed place to talk to him. I turned back to the horde. “Ready! Fire!”

Spells and projectiles left the wall as a solid wave. They smashed into the horde and tore them apart, with bodies parts flying everywhere. Explosions tore through the front of the wave. I paced down the wall, making sure everyone was handling the battle. Mana exhaustion was already overtaking a few people. Days of combat were taking their toll.

Six hours later, the zombies were still pushing strongly against the wall. I was getting worried we would have to send people onto the field to defend the wall. The warriors were about the only ones that still had mana left to expand at this point. However, our casualties would triple if we had to take to the field.

“The line is only twenty meters from the wall. I don’t think we can keep this up for another four hours,” the captain said, observing the field.

“I agree. We need to change the field somehow.” I tapped the handle of my sword, thinking. “I hate to use our secret weapon already.”

“Those things you made a week ago? I don’t see how some tubes of metal could help us in this situation,” the captain said.

“Get the warriors to haul them up here,” I said, channeling another spell into the field.

We managed to hold the undead back for several more minutes while the warriors got the cannons into place. Most of the soldiers were confused about what the awkwardly shaped tube of metal was for but held their questions. I called for everyone near me to pay attention.

“This is a very powerful yet simple weapon to use,” I yelled to be heard over the massive amount of sound.

Getting nods, I moved to the nearest cannon and loaded it quickly. Demonstrating how to aim the cannon took a few seconds, but the archers got it easily enough. I put my target out into the denser part of the horde for greater effect. Grinning, I lit the fuse. With a boom, the iron ball went flying and pulverized through several undead.

“And that’s it! Get to work. We have plenty of ammo, so take your time practicing. We’re not desperate yet,” I called to everyone.

The mood that was on the edge of dread had lightened tremendously already. Everyone ran off to their squads. Teaching only paused when a spell of a higher level was sent into the horde. Soon, the sound of cannon fire replaced most of the spell casting. Now, the mages could use their mana on the larger targets like the brutes.

“It’s an hour until dawn,” the captain commented.

“As I’ve heard it said: it’s always darkest before the dawn,” I replied.

Chapter 16

Regan

“Vaihdetta. A good name,” I said once the guards from Thonaca were sent a way.

Retaking her seat on her throne, Louella replied, “I read it in one of your books, I think.”

The officers and Ezal made their way back into the assembly room. Most looked nervous, not that I could blame them. Their lives had just changed by a good deal.

“What is the plan?” Ezal asked.

“We will continue with our original plan. Right now, we need manpower. With the undead hordes ravaging Lecazar, our best bet is to incorporate them now. As for Thonaca,” Louella said then turned to me, “we’ll seal off the pass.”

“How should we go about that?” Ezal asked.

Louella tilted her head as she thought about it. I could have sealed it off for her, but I wanted to see what she would come up with. She tapped her staff on the ground as the others watched her, the gears almost visibly turning in her head. She glanced at me a few times, but I could tell she wanted to do it through her own power rather than turn to me for the answer.

“Regan, could you create a map, please?” Louella asked.

I nodded and created a map of the valley and the surrounding areas. She examined it for a long time before she dipped her chin to me and pointed at a spot nearly three hundred kilometers from the valley. It was where the pass narrowed before opening up to the forest that was on the way to the valley. The spot was also only twenty kilometers from Ebony Falls. “I want to create a garrison here. With the proper wards we can restrict flying magic. It is also narrow enough to force any attacking troops into a bottleneck.”

“Such an endeavor would be . . . difficult,” Ezal said, looking closely at the map. “We could do it with the proper people. I guess our biggest consideration is figuring out how long we have to make it happen.”

“Two weeks. That’s how long we can hold the messengers according to the laws of war. Once released, we have however long it takes for them to return to the capital. They would have to personally inform the king, so a magical sending wouldn’t be a worry. Given that information, we have just over a month,” Louella said, tapping the arm of her chair.

“Then they’d have to assemble the army. With the undead hordes in Lecazar and the undead presence still in the north, that limits them. If my math is right, the Thonacan army should be close to two or three hundred thousand, depending on how scared they are of us. Any less would just push the battle in our favor,” Ezal added.

“Good point. Do you think you can have it done?” Louella asked Ezal.

“If I can use one of the airships from Lord Regan, I can get the supplies and people necessary there,” Ezal said.

I was curious why she would start calling me “lord” but figured it might have something to do with them building me a temple.

“I have a better idea,” Louella said, then turned to me. “Remember that talk we had about you creating teleport matrixes for the valley, Lord Regan.”

Her inflection was respectful, but I could hear the sarcasm in her voice. I decided to play along. I grinned and leaned forward. “In fact, I do, Queen Louella. Like I said before I just need some markers and I can create the system.”

“Excellent. Teach me how to make these markers. I will place several of them for you.” Louella stood up. “A new age is coming. Let the people in town know. Do not lie!”

“Yes, my queen!” Everyone in the room saluted with a fist over their chest, then rushed out. Their lives had just done a one-eighty. If they survived the coming ordeal, they might be remembered in history for centuries to come. Though, I doubted any of them were thinking along those lines. They were probably more concerned about keeping their families safe.

“If you will excuse me, I have several plans to draw up,” Ezal said with a slight bow.

“Now when I call you ‘my general,’ it’s no longer a joke,” Louella said with a small chuckle.

Ezal smiled, small flames leaping from her. “Thank you for the promotion, then, Your Highness.” She bowed, then turned and left.

“She’s going to catch something on fire one of these days,” I commented, my eye trailing after her.

“She’s getting better at controlling them. Last time I touched one, it didn’t have any heat,” Louella said as she sat back down.

“If you are now a queen, then I shall be your country’s guardian deity. I recommend having people worship me so I might deliver miracles upon my sheep,” I said, making an exaggerated gesture to the sky.

“I’ll get right on it, Lord Regan,” Louella said with a chuckle. “For now, I need you to teach me how to make those markers.”

“It’s simple enough,” I said, then created a few mana stones. “At the location you want to set the portal, pour mana into this stone while capturing the essence of the area. You’ll know you’ve done it right when you focus on the stone and you can see a picture of the spot.” I handed over the mana stones. Of course, if she were to try that process with a regular stone, it wouldn’t work, but these had been scripted to capture that spot in space. They just needed to be powered.

“That seems too easy,” Louella said, putting the stones in her space bag.

“Well, to be fair it is. I gave you the pre-scripted ones,” I said.

“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to pay you back for all the things you’ve done for me,” she said with a sigh.

“Don’t worry about it. I still think I would rather deal with you than some other mortals who thought to control me. Now. This chat has been lovely but I’m a busy person,” I said, letting my avatar break apart.

I was just about to look for Alara when something slammed into my consciousness. I recognized it immediately as the dungeon communication. From the direction it was coming from, it should be Vlad. I had tried to communicate with him several times since the first time, but he had refused the connection. This calling almost seemed . . . desperate.

Letting the link form, the familiar futuristic design of my met a medieval castle as the image formed around me. Only this time the castle looked like it had been in a few wars. I couldn’t help but wonder what could have caused this to the proud man.

Vlad’s figure formed in front of me. He was slumped over in his chair. Clearly, he had seen better days. When the connection solidified, his head jerked up. Getting a better look at him, I saw wounds covering his body.

“Vlad! What’s wrong?! What happened?” I asked, walking closer. He might have been a rude prick last time we met, but anything that could do this to a dungeon avatar was a threat that I needed to take seriously.

“One of them walks the plane! They work with the necromancers!”

“One of who?!” I said.

“A general! The manaless! The dungeon core’s worst nightmare. It won’t be long before he reaches me! Warn the others! All of them! Do this, young one! Don’t let my last moments be in vain!” Vlad cried, grabbing my shoulders in a plea.

“Surely, there is some way to save you!” I said, trying to think through all the magic I knew.

“There is none . . .” His eyes went blank for a second, then he cried in pain, a soul-wrenching pain that echoed even to my own soul. A hand that was just a black image tore through his chest. The connection wavered around us. “Don’t . . . let . . . them . . . die . . .” Vlad said as the hole grew larger, encompassing the rest of his chest.

With his body turning to ash, the connection suddenly snapped closed. The world of my dungeon slammed into me. I found Alara looking at my core with a worried expression. The energy sphere blocked her vision, but she knew I was back when she smiled. I created my avatar next to her and pulled her into a tight hug.

“What . . . happened?” she asked once I let her go.

“Vlad connected to me. Something killed him. Come, I need answers,” I said, grabbing her hand. With a pop we appeared in a library. A gnome woman had her nose almost touching the book she was reading. “Researcher Vern.”

“Lord Regan!” Vern squeaked and snapped the book she was reading shut, managing to close her nose in it as well. “Ouch!”

“I need you to tell me what the hell the gnomes had sealed in their city.” I had a hunch, because that was the only thing I’d encountered lately that could possibly do this. The demon general.

Vern looked up at me while rubbing her nose. “I don’t know more than what I’ve read.”

“Any information will help. I already know a bit from Izora, but I need more,” I said, pulling a chair out for Alara, then taking one myself.

“A millennium ago, during the demon wars, we tried to learn as much about them as they did us. There are as many races for them as there are for us. It is said that the first batch of demons actually arrived many years before the portals opened. They were unaffected by anything we threw at them. Physical means still worked, but their bodies were like gods compared to ours, making that fact meaningless.”

“How did the mortals manage to defeat them?” I asked.

“A Celestial descended at the prayers of the people and sealed them with magic that is seldom seen. It was like time stopped around them, though whoever heard of time magic,” Vern said.

“Time magic. Or space magic. My guess, the Celestial sealed the entire area around the demon, affecting everything around him and not going directly for the demon itself,” I said, not meaning to contemplate out loud.

“I’m not sure the records never stated what magic was used, just that everything around the demon stopped.”

“This is going to be difficult,” I said with a groan. “Thank you, Vern.”

“My pleasure, Lord Regan,” Vern replied with a bow.

Vlad was near where Puppet said him and the others were going to try to make names for themselves as adventurers. I moved over to their rooms. I’d kept them the same since they left, feeling a bit nostalgic. In the center of the dorm sat the crystal that was linked to theirs. Placing a hand on it, I channeled mana to activate the tool. I’d poured in more mana than I should have had to in my rush and only got a few spotty images.

I did see that they were in a city, but it looked like it was under attack by something. Z2 launched a massive Ice spell, then jerked her head to look at the crystal ball on her belt. “Father.”

The image went black after that. Something was interfering with my link. I found that highly offensive.

“One more,” I said, grabbing Alara’s hand again. We teleported into the control center of the station.

“Dizzy . . .” Alara said, rubbing her head. She didn’t like when I teleported her in rapid succession. I hadn’t known dungeon avatars could throw up until I popped in and out of around ten places when she’d first starting staying with me.

“Sorry.” I turned to the bridge crew. “How long until the network extends over Lecazar?”

“Sir! If we divert all new satellites toward that side, then it will only take two days.”

“Too slow. I want you to take part of the established net and move it to Lecazar. Particularly, toward the city of Tearfalls,” I ordered. I needed to know what the hell was going on. If it wasn’t for the interference from the ambient mana I would have long had a net around at least the continent.

“Understood!”

A map of the network formed. I’d had to reduce the satellite production after the battle. Each satellite cost nearly a hundred million mana. Of course, if I’d made them just basic links in a chain, it would have cost less. But given the events of the north, I wanted every satellite to be a capable weapons platform.

“Pull up the mana readings for the north,” I said.

A map that reminded me of a thermal heat map from Earth came up on the screen in front of me. The unholy mana readings were dropping in the center and along the path I’d taken to get to Alara’s dungeon. However, the readings were holding steady on the west side above Thonaca, while they were increasing on the Lecazar side.

“My main concern is how the demon from Jade Wind managed to get to Lecazar so quickly. If my hunches are correct, I might have helped him there,” I said with a frown. Teleporting Jade Wind to the north was the only way I could see something being able to cross that much distance so quickly.

Alara grabbed my hand and squeezed. “Not . . . your . . . fault . . . Vlad . . . died,” she said with a determined face.

“Thank you. I appreciate your concern. It’s funny really. I’ve killed thousands of mortals, but when one of my own race dies, I actually feel upset,” I said, shaking my head.

Alara suddenly jumped and gave me a peck me on the cheek. “Cores . . . stick . . . together. Warn . . . others . . .”

“Yes. You’re right. I will make sure Vlad did not die in vain,” I said, pounding my fist into my palm. It might be time to borrow Queen Louella’s messenger hawks. I hoped she wouldn’t mind. The thought brought a smile to my face, momentarily replacing the frown.

Chapter 17

Louella

The wind rushed by as I made my way to the locations I wanted to use for portals. The thrill of flying was helping me cope with what I’d just done. I still couldn’t believe I’d just declared myself a queen. Chloe must have gotten to me more than I thought. Regan’s voice suddenly echoed throughout my mind.

“It’s dangerous for a new queen to travel alone, so I sent some guards. Don’t worry, they can keep up with you.”

There was a flash of light and two figures emerged in the air on either side of me. Regan’s children, Anubis and Vetur, joined me in the air. Anubis was using large black wings that blocked out the sky. Vetur was flying astride a large hawk made from solid ice. The air felt colder just being within a few dozen meters of it.

“Your Highness, we’re here to escort you,” Vetur said, managing to bow while standing on top of the hawk.

“Wrakras and Julie busy?” I asked. Those two were the ones Regan usually sent to guard me. I think it was both to annoy me a little and because they were quite deadly.

“They have been placed over at Steel Spire until Father can change them,” Anubis explained.

“Change them?” I asked with a little shock. Just the way he said it felt like it was wrong. They were necromancers, but surely it would be more merciful to just kill them if they had gotten on his bad side.

“Yeah. Lady Alara doesn’t take kindly to them being necromancers and partially undead.”

“I hope he doesn’t change them . . . doesn’t change Wrakras too much. I actually am used to him now,” I said. The gruff man had grown on me, I realized.

“I don’t know the exact process. We’ll just have to wait and see,” Anubis said. “I’ll go on ahead.” He flapped his wings and accelerated ahead of us.

The flight was rather quiet after that. Vetur didn’t talk much and only spoke if I asked a question. Giving up after the third try, I concentrated on the sky ahead of me. I figured it would take just about nine hours to reach the site. An amazing feat of speed, considering it was a trip that would take about a week for most people. Even with a tier two horse or beast, there would be monsters and other dangers that could waylay a traveler.

That wasn’t to say the sky was free of danger. We were about halfway into the flight when a swarm of monster birds decided to try their luck. They were massive things that used a combination of their enormous wings and air magic to stay aloft. They were surprisingly fast as well.

“Keriols,” I groaned, seeing them rise out of the forest.

There appeared to be at least fifty in the flock. I came to a stop in midair with Vetur and Anubis, who drew their weapons and readied themselves. This would be my first time at aerial combat. It would have been nice if Gulv were there. I could supercharge him and send him into the flock.

Focusing, I built a charge along my body. Arcs of lightning jumped from one spot to another on my skin. I nodded to the two, then we charged the flock. Moving Helios around, I made nimble movements once we intersected with the flock. Every time my staff’s blade sliced into one of the birds, lightning would crack between us. Following that, a charred body would fall from the sky, trailing smoke.

Anubis was death personified. Each swipe of his scythe would bring two or three of the beasts down. Blades of darkness flashed around him. Even when one of the birds managed to bring a claw down on him, his body would phase to shadow and it would pass harmlessly through him.

Vetur was just as deadly. His ice hawk would freeze anything it touched. Then the rider himself would launch spells that turned the birds into statues of ice. He didn’t even have to worry about harm, as everything that came near him died, turned into a falling block of ice.

One pass was all we needed to destroy the flock. Anubis got the most kills, with me next. Vetur came in last, but I sensed it was more due to him feeling as though they weren’t worthy enough opponents for him to try harder. It reminded me that Regan was dangerous, but so were the many things he created in those halls of his.

“Barely a workout,” Vetur said as we regrouped.

“Don’t worry, my brother! There are plenty more enemies out there. From what Father said, most will be coming to us!” Anubis said, laughing as he dismissed his scythe into shadow.

“What would you two do if the battles ever stopped?” I asked curiously.

“Don’t say something so frightful!” Anubis said with shock. I honestly couldn’t tell if it was fake or not.

“Indeed,” Vetur said, turning his hawk and continuing the flight.

A few hours later we reached the site that would serve as our new border—the first bottleneck into the pass to the valley. Spanning roughly a kilometer, it was the only spot that was even remotely defendable. Normally, the kingdom would have already established a fortress here, but Ebony Blade, the fortress defending the northern pass, was of more importance.

I found a clearing that would be about where the keep of the new fort would be located and did as Regan instructed. Once the portal was established, I wanted it to be in the most defended part of the fort. I was sure Regan would add all sorts of defense measures, but I wanted to help out myself. Nearly an hour later, I finally had a picture of the spot I was at. The process was more draining than I’d anticipated.

“If you are done, we should return,” Vetur said, walking over.

“Hold on. Ebony Falls is only a few hours from here. Maybe we should set up a spot near it for a preemptive strike. I don’t plan to always be on the defensive,” I said, looking into the distance. “The last thing Thonaca would expect is a force appearing out of thin air next to one of their cities.”

“That seems a little dangerous,” Vetur argued.

“Only if we’re not careful. Since the terra wave, everything has been in a chaos. We should be able to sneak in and out. Hell, we don’t even need to go all the way to the city,” I said.

It might be months from now, but I knew that we would come to blows with Thonaca. My woman’s intuition was telling me that. Whoever struck first would have the advantage in the coming war. We could potentially stop the war from happening if the king was able to truly see the level of our power. I tapped my bracelet.

“Regan, can I borrow these two for a few more hours?”

“Yeah. Though I need them back by tomorrow night,” Regan sent back immediately.

I was always amazed at his ability to make decisions on the spot. I wasn’t sure I’d ever really seen him hesitate on anything. “Done.” I turned to the them. “I have permission. Let’s go,” I said, taking off into the sky.

It was another three hours to Ebony Falls. Even at the dead of night, the city was lit up by magical and mundane lights. We floated several hundred meters above the city as we watched people moving about, an impressive number to still be awake at the late hour. Mostly, they lingered around the inns and taverns. The force watching the walls was also considerable.

Named for the black cliffs surrounding the city, it sat in a basin that formed natural walls around it, which had since been modified to serve as actual walls. The city spread out over three kilometers. It was one of the biggest on the continent and would have been the capital of the country had it not been for the undead hordes to the north.

“Where would you like to set the teleport?” Vetur asked.

“In the city if we can. Outside if we can’t.”

“Do you propose we go through the gate?” he asked, looking at the city.

“Let’s aim for a deserted section and land there. I have reports that many of the protections that used to protect the cities have stopped working since the terra wave. If we trigger an alarm, we’ll just flee,” I said.

Looking closely, we saw a district next to airship tower docks. It appeared to be mainly warehousing. I pointed at the spot, and we aimed down for the location. When we passed about a hundred meters above the city, I felt a thin layer of mana pass over me, but it shattered almost as soon as we touched it. I looked around quickly but didn’t see anything to indicate that we’d been detected.

“It appears Ezal’s information was correct,” I commented as we landed in an alley behind a warehouse.

“That is a very critical weakness in this city’s defense. Father could easily destroy this city in a matter of minutes without a strong barrier in place,” Anubis said, shaking his head.

I decided to just ignore that tidbit of information, mainly because I already knew it. “I feel like even with a barrier, your father could easily destroy this place,” I said.

“True,” Anubis said with a chuckle.

“Now. Where to set this?” I said, leaning against the wall.

“The sewers,” Vetur said without hesitation.

I frowned at the thought of going into such a place but nodded. “Good idea.”

We paced along the alley until we found a grate. Each of us was easily able to pry it off, but Anubis took care of it. After I jumped down, the smell nearly knocked me off my feet. With my enhanced senses, I was able to get a stronger dose of the sewer. Gripping my nose tightly enough that I almost broke it, we continued deeper into the sewer.

As we walked, Anubis would release blasts of shadow, and rats the size of a small child would usually collapse to the ground, twitching. We walked for about an hour, searching for a good place. Eventually, we actually left the sewer and ended up in what looked like catacombs. They were well over a century old, if I was judging them right.

“Here should be good,” I said, looking around the room we came to. It was more a cavern than a room. Large pillars held the ceiling, making it appear to be an old temple. A large set of doors was on the back wall, but the room was empty. Nothing had been here for at least a decade or so. Though it looked as though a battle had once taken place here.

Pulling another mana stone from my bag, I concentrated on the location. Knowing what I was doing, it only took me half an hour this time. Replacing it in my bag, I nodded to the others. When we made it back to the surface, the sun had already risen. We each removed the filth from our bodies with a well-phased mana burst.

“Vetur and I could probably make our way through the city without too much trouble, but you, Anubis, would stick out like a sore thumb,” I said, looking at the two.

“Not to worry, Lady Louella,” Anubis said, then shadows condensed around him. The next moment an amazing-looking man stood in front of me. He looked like he’d been carved by a god’s hand. Somehow, I both drooled and had my mouth go dry at the same time.

“Is . . . is that how you see yourself?” I asked, trying to breathe normally.

“Only the best form would be worthy for one such as myself,” Anubis said, pride leaking into his tone.

“It . . . it is . . . very nice to . . . to look at,” I said and had to turn away before I lost my composure. I would need to talk to Regan about teaching Anubis subtlety.

“Thank you for your compliment,” Anubis said with a bow.

We left the alley shortly after that. I made sure to keep Anubis in front of me. Not so I could stare at him, so I could keep him out of trouble. That was what I told myself the whole time. I wasn’t the only one affected. Women and even some men turned and stared at this gorgeous man who was walking down the street.

Ebony Falls was a beautiful city. The streets were the same black material that made up the crater. Buildings of all kinds lined the streets. A person could feel the age of the city by observing the architecture, which changed periodically as the times changed and the city grew. I hoped that Vaihdetta was this grand someday. Should I rename the town itself? I considered as we walked.

The city was beyond crowded. Refugees lined the streets, looking like they’d lost everything in the world, which I supposed was accurate. Shouting and yelling were commonplace as people tried to scratch out some sort of survival. Good thing Regan was helping us, or it wouldn’t have been long before my valley turned into something like this.

We made our way to the gate, where it appeared people were streaming out with little problems. It was the last hurdle for us to get out of the city without being noticed. It was also where I expected something to happen.

After ten minutes, it was our turn to pass the gate. The female guard took a hard look at Anubis. I thought she was going to force him in for questions with how hard she was staring at him, but we made it through when another guard coughed to break the moment.

It looked like they were happy to have people leaving rather than entering. I couldn’t imagine how stressed their resources were. Ebony Falls relied on trade to survive, and with the area being overrun by people from ruined villages and towns, without their goods and materials, everything must have been at a premium.

Once we made it back to the forest and found a secluded place off the main road, we took to the sky. Flying was uncommon but we wouldn’t draw more than a curious glance from most passersby that happened to see us. Now that we were out of the city, there was little anyone could do to stop us anyway.

Flying over the forest and roads heading out, I realized that quite a few of the people and caravans were heading to Vaihdetta. While it was good for my city and myself, I wondered how many of them would turn back willingly, and how many of them would want to turn back but would have no other choice to continue their move to the valley due to their circumstances. It was a bridge we would have to cross and soon.

I thought I would be tired after being awake for a day, but all the cloak-and-dagger made me excited. We had a twelve-hour trip ahead of us, and I was actually looking forward to it. I wanted to get back to the valley, to Vaihdetta.

Darr

General Gersa was welcoming—after about a week, that is. The undead had basically stopped attacking after two nights of us guarding the entrance to the dungeon. We got a message from the boss that they had defeated Alara and had taken the area. The necromancers in our area had likely fled. We found several maps in the ruins of the town that pointed to locations of interest for the necromancers and planned to check them out in the coming days.

We were currently in the cruiser over what was known as Dersien City, almost a hundred kilometers from the pass to Thonaca. We had observed it for over five hours. The results were that it was just a nest for undead. Something in the city was creating new undead at a pace that shouldn’t be possible by necromancers. There weren’t any readings of a dungeon core, though, so it wasn’t that.

“Put in that my recommendation is bombing or blasting it from space,” I ordered the officer as I walked away from the observation window.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Turn us about. Head for the next location,” I finished, taking a seat.

A few hours later we were following the northern coast, looking for our target. A map in one of the ruined buildings claimed there was another dungeon out here. However, there wasn’t any indication of the sort. If it was smart, it would have reacted to the necromancer presence and hidden itself.

“Ma’am! Detected high-level mana reading!”

“Where?” I asked.

“Forty kilometers north from current location,” the officer said, then paused for a second. “It . . . it is forty kilometers north and two hundred meters down.”

“Pull up the map,” I said, standing up. A red dot appeared at the coordinates that placed the location in the ocean. “Compare the old map with ours.” The two maps were overlaid, and we found the coastline had shifted by nearly thirty kilometers.

“Ma’am, with the current equipment on board, it would be difficult to penetrate an underwater dungeon,” an officer advised.

“I know that.” Boss Regan and Boss Tony had only given me the mission of meeting with General Gersa and lending aid. I still wanted to deliver results. I felt I needed to do so to make up for the pardon that Boss Regan gave me. Just the thought of being cast out of the dungeon scared me. “Send a report. The boss will want to know about this.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Chapter 18

Regan

It was close to sunrise before the satellites were in position. I was sitting on my throne in the command center. I wasn’t sure how it had happened, but Alara was on my lap and sleeping against my chest. The thought of how she could be comfortable against my metal body just made me shake my head.

“Sir, we have visual,” the officer said.

“Bring it up.”

A city that would have been beautiful had undead not been crowding the field in front of its walls appeared on the screen. It sat on a plateau overlooking the ocean. Waterfalls dotted the cliffs under the walls. Thousands of people were shown manning the defense in what looked like a desperate act to survive the night.

The activity woke Alara up, and she turned to see the picture of the city. “Beautiful.”

“It is. But it looks like it might be in trouble soon,” I said, patting her head.

As we watched, the sun crested the horizon and the undead started to fall back. I picked Alara up with one arm and moved over to the command table. I placed the communication orb that I used with Puppet and linked it into the station’s mana system. That allowed the link to follow the satellites and effectively go over the undead scar.

“Z2, Puppet? Is anyone there?” I said with my hand on the orb.

“Father!” I received back, though it was slightly hampered by static.

“Z2, it’s good to hear your voice. Is everyone well?” I asked. I mentally connected to the station and began to trace the signal so I could bring up an image of them via the satellites.

“Yes. We were in Tearfalls when the wave happened. Was that you?” Z2 asked.

“Yes. A bit of a miscalculation. I can see that the city is under siege. What is happening?”

“A scar of undeath has formed. Undead flood toward the city every day with increasing numbers. We wanted to place a sub-core but feared placing it without communication with you,” Z2 explained.

“That was a safe idea. I will try to send reinforcements as soon as I can. Continue to wait on the core until I say otherwise.”

“Yes, Father.”

Z2 spent the next few minutes filling me in on what happened to the party in the month since they’d left Steel Spire. They were already a B-rank party with the Adventurers Guild, which was impressive according to how the guild works. I was a little worried when I found Z2 had turned into an alcoholic, but since coming to this world, I’ve noticed that alcohol doesn’t affect the liver as much.

“Tell the others I’m proud of them. I will try to make it so I can see you in person as soon as possible,” I said.

“I can’t wait, Father,” Z2 said and I could hear the smile in her tone.

“Until next time, then,” I said, cutting the link.

“Who was . . . that?” Alara asked from next to me. I had set her down after a bit.

“Z2, my daughter. She and a few of my other children are in Lecazar right now,” I answered.

“Children . . . Miss mine,” Alara said with a forlorn look. The dryads had been her children, and I’d been forced to kill them all. Anubis was able to reincarnate their souls, but I still felt bad about the action. Especially since Alara had been linked to them and thus felt all their pain.

“I know. A few more years and you should be able to talk to all of them again. Sooner actually, since they’re growing so fast. One of them did tell you about Anubis,” I said, grabbing her hand and giving it a squeeze.

“Thank . . . you . ..” she said, pressing my hand against her cheek.

I smiled warmly at her. I don’t know what it was, but ever since rescuing Alara, I felt . . . calmer. There was still a lot of stuff to do. Hell, it felt like the growing conflict was getting bigger by the day. For one, I had not expected there to be some kind of drone factory on the moon. That would take a serious investigation, which I frankly didn’t have the time for.

I shook my head to focus. I needed to get some forces over to Puppet. If they placed my sub-core and it worked as intended, then that would be the easiest method, but I’d already lost one sub-core due to unplanned complications. I wanted to be a bit more careful, for the time being, especially if a being was in the area that was capable of killing cores.

I mentally listed what I had at my command. With the satellite over their position, it would be easy enough to teleport something to it. However, it would have to be able to survive reentry. Of all my current creations, I had nothing that met that criteria. I didn’t have any complete airships that weren’t already slated for missions.

Glancing at Alara, I remembered Starfall. Snapping my fingers, an idea came to me. On Earth there was a game that had an empire that was famous for its drop pods. They would be simple to make, and since I would be dropping automata, I didn’t have to worry about life support.

I moved over to my workshop, one of several dozen I had scattered throughout my dungeons. I never knew where or what I would want to work on from day to day. Plus, the view was excellent. Alara rushed over and stared outside the station, seemingly fascinated by the view of space.

Forming a sort of holograph image in front of me, I started working on the design for the pods. The ones in the game usually held ten soldiers. They would need more than that down on the battlefield I saw from the satellite images. Judging from the state of the undead, the tier was under three. However, if necromancers were involved, that might change.

The parts took shape in my hands at my thoughts, with the pod quickly following suit. Using this method, I was able to calculate the mana cost as I worked, turning it almost into a game. After an hour, the final version took form in front of me. It was fifteen meters tall and five meters in diameter. The inside could change based on what I intended to transport.

The pod was a marvel of magic and technology in my opinion. Once teleported, thrusters would ignite, sending the pod into the atmosphere. I thought it was a good idea to plan ahead, so it was heavily armored in the event I ever used them in a well-defended location. It would reach close to fifteen thousand kilometers per second, cutting through the atmosphere in a blink.

The bottom of the craft absorbed all the heat generated by the friction. That way, once it neared the surface of the planet, all the saved energy would be reversed and blasted out, slowing the vehicle to a stop. Mortals below high-tier two couldn’t even dream of using this thing. The g-forces alone would kill them.

“Cage?” Alara asked, causing me to blink. When I was creating something, I tended to go into a sort of trance. She was lying on her stomach, watching me work, her legs kicking in the air behind her.

“No. This allows me to send my forces down the throat of my enemy, or in this case, to help my children quickly,” I explained. With a gesture, the floating holograph pieces spun, then came together, forming the finished product. Various materials formed from my storage dimension and flowed into the design. What I didn’t have in storage formed from the mana as needed.

When the drop pod was finished, Alara walked into it and looked around. There was enough space for almost fifty automata, a mech, and some units, or any combination of units. I knew the pods would be useful in the future. “I want . . . to ride . . . it,” Alara said from inside.

“Maybe later. They require a decent amount of mana. I can’t afford to waste them right now,” I said, chuckling. “For now, you should head back to your dungeon. I need to work on mine.”

“No,” she said, dropping down to sit on the floor of the pod.

“It is not good for you to stay in your avatar all the time. You need to get used to your core,” I said, walking up to her.

“No.”

I kneeled in front of her. “Just for a few hours. It is for your own good.”

“No!”

I paused as I considered what to do. This was honestly a first for me in this world. The mortals did what I said because they were, quite frankly, unable to do anything about it. My children did as I said, as they were compelled to by the dungeon and usually knew why they were doing it. Everyone else usually died when they went against me.

“Come on. Lena will be missing you,” I said, trying another approach.

“No.”

My eye twitched. Without thinking about it, I leaned forward and kissed her. I knew I shocked her, and she froze for a few seconds before she returned the gesture. I found you didn’t live to be over a hundred without learning a thing or two. She knew how to kiss. On another note, a small part of me found it interesting that I could enjoy the sensation of kissing given my current structure.

“Hard . . . but gentle . ..” she said before she proceeded to faint, then fade into dust.

“That was fascinating,” I said to myself while rubbing a finger over my lips.

I wasn’t sure how long I stood there pondering various things, but I eventually shook myself out of it. Puppet and the gang would need these reinforcements as soon as possible. I had to wait until Anubis returned, as I planned to have him lead the forces I sent. His unique talent would be invaluable either way.

Mentally checking the link with Louella, I found they were on their way back from their trip. It would still be a few hours, which gave me time to work on my dungeon. I hated putting it off for the few days that I did, but having to balance so many mana requirements made it difficult to work on the floors themselves.

With the first ten floors being the crater outside and the next ten being the fields I created for the farms, there was a good amount of distance a person would need to traverse to get to the next section. However, they were all mostly noncombative. Even if the crater was technically set to force the incomers to fight, it was geared toward tier one levels. I needed a section to deal with tier two levels.

On the twentieth floor sat Goblin City. Roughly between eight and nine kilometers below the surface, the city sat in a cavern that was two kilometers in diameter and had a height of two kilometers. The goblin population had grown over the months. They had a ridiculous reproduction rate, even as the enlightened version. I’d also created a few more “generations” since then.

The goblins were quickly becoming quite useful and didn’t want to risk another attacker reaching them so soon. I wrapped everything from the city down inside my aura and shifted it down. Once it had descended enough for me to add thirty floors, I stopped, then started expanding my aura again. I hadn’t done so in a while with all the new cores. At my tier, I could have a hundred and five floors, and I wanted them all now.

Moving back to the twenty-first floor, I tried to think about what to create. I considered recreating my winter forest floors, only having it take a whole ten floors all combined into a single one. The dungeon magic would make it almost five hundred kilometers worth of space. I mentally nodded. I didn’t need to fix it if it wasn’t broken.

Working quickly, I started to re-create the forest, though it was heavily modified. The closer to the center you got, the colder it became. At the center, there weren’t even living trees anymore, but instead frozen pillars of what might have been trees. At the center I added a ruin-like structure that was two stone pillars with what looked like a pane of glass between them. I connected that to the lightning forest that was originally the sixteenth floor.

Next were the traps. The original winter forest floors had quite a few traps tied to the key swords that had to be turned to get to the next floor. This time I created hundreds of sites all around the floor that contained stones an adventurer would have to get to be able to go deeper in the floor. If you went to the next “layer” without one of these stones, your party would attract all the monsters in the area. The stone would also allow those that didn’t have access to an Ice mage or magic to withstand the cold of that layer.

I re-created my Gluttony trap. It had been a great success before, no reason to get rid of it. From there, I added a few more traps here and there. Mines, pitfalls, exploding trees, freeze traps, and a long list of other types were hidden all throughout the floor. The theme was: lethal if alone.

Once I was done with the traps, I went on to the inhabitants of the floor. Many of the wolves from the previous version managed to survive Morka slicing through the floors. I went ahead and placed the dens around the outer layer of the floor. Next, I created some golem automata that used ice mana. They were slow but would be hard as shit to kill completely. I couldn’t completely populate the floor, given my mana levels, but there were a few dozen.

I checked my mana levels and called it a day. A large amount would still be needed to teleport reinforcements and Anubis over to Puppet. I took another look at my new floor and nodded, pleased with how it came out. Once I added the mithril alloy plate to the dividing layer, then it would be structurally complete. I’d like to see something slam headfirst into that while they tried to get through my dungeon.

“Let the gears of the world turn,” I mumbled as I looked over the city and valley.

Chapter 19

Puppet

We made it through another night. Z2 had reached Father, and he promised to send us aid. The walls of the city had stayed clear for another night, but the undead had gotten closer by the hour. If the sun hadn’t risen, I honestly feared the worst. Not that we would have stayed to fight a losing battle. I knew our party could easily make it to safety, using several different paths.

The priests and priestesses rushed to heal the worst wounds. There was only so much mana to go around, and people were dying left and right. It was sad to see a soldier survive the battle just to die from his wounds afterward, but such was the fate of many here. I thanked the guard captain, then made my way back to the house.

The mood of the city was even worse than the actual damage it suffered. People were lying on the sides of streets with dead-looking eyes. The fight was slowly leaving the inhabitants of this “trapped” city. Food was running low, as were many other greatly needed items.

I reached the house shortly, wanting to get off the streets before I did something stupid. The last thing I needed was the people of the city flocking to me after I created a few bowls of food out of pity. I found the others already back and performing maintenance on their gear. Maybe I was spending too much time with the mortals.

“Puppet! Finally. We’ve been waiting for you,” Z2 said, getting up from her seat.

“Sorry, Z2. There were a lot of things to take care even after the battle was over. Any more news from Father?”

“He said he’s sending reinforcements tonight.”

“How does he plan to get them here? Even with teleportation, he needs a marker. I can’t get him one from here,” I said, taking a seat at the table.

“I don’t know. But hey! It’s Father we’re talking about. I’m sure it will be out of this world,” Z2 said with a grin.

“Fair point. Alright. Let’s all rest and recover our mana for the coming night. Even with Father’s reinforcements, I don’t want to take any chances.” She had a point. It was Father we were talking about. I couldn’t even picture how he might get his forces here.

The rest of the day passed quickly. With the continuous battles, I’d risen to just under tier three. I was nearing the bottleneck, and I knew mine was going to be different from a normal mortal bottleneck. I wasn’t sure how yet, since I hadn’t reached it. It was something I was dreading the closer I got to it.

Later that evening, we met up in the dining room to discuss the night’s plan. Everyone appeared ready for the fighting to start, which I took as a good sign. Father put me in charge of the party, but I never really knew if I was a good choice. I felt that as long as I kept them all alive, then I’d have succeeded.

“Alright! Pretty straightforward. Same assignments as last night. Natsuko and Natsuo are sniping from the east tower. Focus on the high-tiered undead. Azra, sorry but it’s on you to watch the prince tonight. I tried but no one else had the people to spare.” That wasn’t exactly true. All the other parties with women had flat-out refused, while the men didn’t want anything to do with the pretty boy. It was a headache only caused by the prince’s upbringing. Maybe it was a good thing that Lecazar had bitten the dust before he became king.

“Damn it, Puppet! Fine . . .” Azra said, slamming her fist on the table. I’d reinforced it the other night when she’d managed to place her fist through the wood. It still appeared to struggle from the impact.

“Z2, I want you to take Lean with you this time. I know we’ve been having him guard the house, but it is getting to the point where we need all hands on deck. Do you think he’s ready?” I asked. Lean listened to Z2, most of the time. Given how he was created, a spell construct gone horribly wrong, I took that as a win. Unfortunately, it made it hard for us to take him out into public without close supervision. She looked over to Lean, who was standing next to her. They’d had a sort of bond since the day they merged briefly during the fight over a month ago.

Lean might look like a well-built man with dark skin that you might find in any mortal town, but he usually followed Z2 around like a puppy. A very powerful puppy that could match all of us in this room if he put his mind to it.

“Well, Lean. Will you behave?” she asked him.

“I want to explore, so yes I will behave,” he replied. He had a childlike attitude that made it hard to get mad at him when things didn’t quite go as they should.

“Good.” I nodded to the two of them. They looked at each other in turn. “You know where to find me if you need me,” I said. “Hopefully, Father’s reinforcements arrive during the beginning of the battle, but we should assume that they might not arrive at all. Please take that with you.”

“We’ve got it.”

We left the house, breaking off to our separate assignments once we reached the wall. I greeted the guard captain when I saw him. I wondered if the man ever slept, since I nearly always saw him on the wall. It could be that he slept out here, but it wasn’t exactly warm. Snow was falling every now and then. Almost as if winter were mocking us.

“Do you think we’ll make it through the night?” the captain asked once I stood next to him.

“Of course we will. Why, I feel we have them on the ropes,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. I had gotten a lot better than the straight-laced person I was in Father’s dungeon, but I wasn’t very good with emotion still.

He gave a small laugh. “I certainly hope so. My wife and daughter are terrified to even step out of the house right now. Not that I blame them. I haven’t slept in days, focusing solely on recovering my mana.”

“I have a good feeling about tonight. I feel there will be a turning point in this senseless battle.”

The captain grabbed my shoulder in a tight grip. “Well said.”

“Captain, why did the city not send a request for aid via the sea?”

“Huh? Oh, you were just arriving so you wouldn’t know. Since the wave hit, the ocean hasn’t been the same. Beasts no one’s ever seen before have been spotted off the coast. We did try to send a few ships. They all sleep under the waves now,” he explained.

“I understand. That is quite unfortunate.”

“As you know, we can only assume the situation is the same for the other cities. If these attacks are being led by a controlling party, then it shouldn’t be long before they come forward to demand something for the sake of the city. And given the state of the capital, I’m willing to bet my salary for the next ten years it will be the prince.”

“That is a good point. Anyone wanting to take over Lecazar would have to do away with the royal line,” I said, nodding at his theory.

“Exactly . . . Looks like it’s starting,” said the captain, stepping to the wall.

Like every night before, the haunting symphony from the woods started as the undead began to pour out. There were even more than usual—surprising, given that the sun hadn’t completely set. In fact, smoke was rising off some of them as the final rays hit parts of their bodies.

“Something is off,” I said, sensing a tension in the air.

I tapped my goggles, and they zoomed toward the center of the emerging horde. A group of ten people, obviously not undead, stood there. One was a man who appeared to be wearing a full suit of armor and was surrounded by eight robed individuals. The last person really struck me, though, as she looked vaguely familiar. However, I couldn’t recall ever seeing anyone with horns like hers. The moment of déjà vu passed when she raised her hand, and a spell I’d seen used a few times thanks to a certain prince formed in front of her.

“Everyone off the wall!” I shouted, magnifying my voice with mana as I grabbed the captain and jumped with my full strength toward the nearest building.

“Sir Puppet! What’s the matter?” he asked, bewildered.

I didn’t have time to reply. There was a flash of black as the last ray of sunlight appeared to be sucked into something. The next moment there was a loud bang as the spell collided with the walls. Ancient runes and spells crackled to life for a spilt second before they died. An explosion ripped a hundred-meter section of the wall to pieces, then it was pulled into a crumpled knot at the center.

“Someone from the royal fucking family joined the necromancers,” I shouted as I pulled him onto another building. I turned to make sure another spell wasn’t incoming. Thankfully, just like it did with Charles, it took a lot out of the girl as well.

“What?! Great! That means they’ll just kill us all to get to Charles!” the captain shouted angrily as he got to his feet and took in the situation.

At least a hundred people failed to respond in time to my warning, and their bodies were currently part of the ball of stone that was the former section of the wall. Blood seeped out between the few cracks that showed in the jumble of debris. The rest of the roughly five hundred soldiers and adventurers were stunned, dazed, or in the midst of a mental breakdown from the sudden loss of their main defense from the undead.

“Form up! I want a wall made of people in under a minute or we’ll be overrun!” the captain shouted. His steady voice seemed to pull most of the people out of their own personal hells, and they started rushing forward to bridge the gap.

“I’ll join them. I’m at my best with frontline fighting. I guarantee that at least five meters of the line won’t let even a rat through,” I said, drawing my katanas.

“Please. I’ll organize a response as soon as possible. Just hold out for at least thirty minutes.”

“You don’t pull your punches. I’ll hold it,” I said with a grin before jumping down. Thirty minutes? I would hold it for an hour.

I went to the direct center of the line. I wanted to be at the center since I knew I was more durable than the rest of the soldiers. Plus, if the worst came to be, I had a few tricks still up my sleeves. The rest of the soldiers in the line had screwed up their faces as they worked hard to summon their courage. Most had families in the city behind them. If they fell, not only would they die but their loved ones would too.

When the sounds of the horde drew everyone’s attention, I tapped my foot on the ground, using terra mana to plant several dozen mines along the line. I saw a few people frown as they sensed the mana, but given that it wasn’t unholy, they ignored it. Spells from the other parts of the wall rained down on the oncoming horde, peeling hundreds off by the second.

It wasn’t something that they could keep up for the night. Our best bet was to use the bodies of the undead we defeated as a makeshift wall. It would burn away in the morning light but at least during the night we would have a small manner of protection.

A few Terra mages tried to create a wall of stone, but the surge of unholy mana was causing the wall to crumble to soil. The only reason the city walls held as long as they did was the ancient magic reinforcing them.

Finally, the undead were only a hundred meters away. I could see their rotted flesh without zooming in. Zombies, skeletons, ruined knights, ghouls, and all manner of other undead formed the horde. The nasty ones were the zombies still able to use a portion of their old mana. A normal zombie was bad enough, a flaming or rock-hard one was just over the top.

“Brace!” I shouted as the horde crossed the forty-meter mark. A second later at the thirty-five-meter mark, the mines I set detonated. The explosion vaporized everything directly above it and pulverized the ground, creating a moat. I hadn’t intended for that to happen, but it was a happy bonus.

The moat didn’t last long. The forerunners of the horde crashed down it until the five-meter hole was filled, and the undead from behind them literally stepped on them to get to the living.

“For glory!”

“For Susan!”

“For Fredrick!”

All along the line people shouted battle cries as they met the undead with steel. There was an almost physical boom as the horde collided with the defenders.

“For life!” I shouted, then vanished as I moved fast enough to fool a mortal’s eye. A second later, twenty zombies fell forward, having lost their heads. I flicked my blades, cleaning the rotted blood from them. It was going to be a long night.

~~~

Two hours and over a thousand casualties later, we were still holding the line. The death rate had slowed down only because there was a literal wall of undead corpses in front of the defenders. We would be worse off soon, as Kyla, the malicious royal, launched another Gravity spell at the wall.

Luckily, Charles countered her spell with his own. Now a spot in the field was acting strangely. Undead would run into the area only to start floating away or be crushed to a paste. Eventually, they learned to start going around, though a line of crushed bodies showed the limits of the spell.

“Sir Puppet!” someone from behind the line called.

I finished off the six undead with quick strikes from my blades and let a group of soldiers take my place. Once behind the defenders’ line, I ran up to the captain, who had a contingent of soldiers behind him.

“Captain, it is a welcoming sight to see you,” I said, gripping his hand in greeting.

“I’ve pulled who I could from the other sections, but I fear we might be lacking in numbers,” the captain said with a grimace. “Many . . . many are awaiting their deaths with their families. I could not persuade them to fight what they thought was a losing battle.”

“We’ll just have to do what we can. Tomorrow we’ll have to pull from the citizens—” I started to say when I saw several bright dots in the sky. “What are those?” I mumbled.

“Shooting stars?” the captain ventured.

“Whatever they are, they’re falling straight toward us,” I said.

In a matter of seconds, the tiny dots grew in size. Fireballs the size of houses streaked across the sky. Even the undead came to a stop as they watched the event. Flames bathed the battleground as the objects slowed to a stop in a near instant. The ground melted into glass from the heat they were emitting. Then they slammed into the horde, crushing dozens at a time. Earth and debris went flying. As the smoke cleared, I grinned—Father’s reinforcements had arrived.

Chapter 20

Regan

Louella returned from her trip of making the markers shortly after sundown. It was cutting it close, but since I was shortening a good part of the trip to aid Puppet out by teleporting, it was fine. Especially when she handed me the markers she’d made. They would be very useful in the future if I ever had to use them.

The satellite images showed the fighting had already begun around the city of Tearfalls. It appeared to be quite intense. A section of the wall was missing, and the mortals were doing their best to hold the line. I knew I needed to hurry.

I’d created a hundred of the pods, and they were standing by. Once Anubis was on board, I wasted no time teleporting them to the drop spot in the atmosphere over the city. I moved to the command center on the station to watch the proceedings through the hundreds of cameras equipped on and inside the pods. We would be able to get a feed once they landed amid the actual situation down there.

“Anubis, you ready?” I asked through the comms.

“Yes, Father. Release me on the enemy so that I may have glorious battle!”

“Just don’t kill any of the mortals down there,” I said, chuckling.

“Crush . . . them!” Alara said from next to me. I took her hand. She really didn’t like necromancers and undead.

“Don’t worry, Lady Alara. They will feel my blade,” Anubis said, and I could almost picture him bowing.

I smiled when she nodded even though he couldn’t see her. The screen changed to the image of a hundred pods floating above the atmosphere. With a few final course corrections, the pods were aligned with the target.

“Launch!”

Jets of flame blasted from the backs of the pods, propelling them toward the planet’s surface. They would resemble shooting stars to anyone watching. In less than a minute, they were within a kilometer of the target. I was pleased that the pods exceeded my expectations.

“Feed data coming in.”

Dozens of video streams appeared on the screens, giving us a good look at the battlefield. I counted over thirty thousand undead on the field in front of the city, as well as another twenty-plus thousand in the forest. It was a good thing every unit I sent was geared for fighting the undead.

“Begin as soon as the pods land. Leaving nothing standing,” I ordered.

“As you command,” the fifteen hundred soldiers I was sending echoed through the comms. Then right before the pods collided with the ground, “Hail the Machine Father!” could be heard.

Everything came to a standstill once the pods hit the ground. The mortals in the city, the undead, even the air seemed to take a breath. The door of every single pod dropped open with steam flooding out from the interior, only adding to the tension in the air. The undead were likely confused since the scent of the living wasn’t coming from the pods.

The moment broke as a hail of gunfire exited every pod at almost the same time, obliterating everything near them. That got the attention of the undead as everything turned and started rushing toward them. Anubis and his troops stepped from their pod and leisurely took in the surroundings.

“Hail the Machine Father!” he and his group shouted again before they drew their scythes and charged the undead.

I would have to find out who decided to start that. Not that I minded. In fact, I thought it had a nice ring to it. I turned back to the battle. After Anubis’s corps entered the fray, the regular soldiers exited the pods. They were all end tier two and well worth at least thirty mortal soldiers. Equipped with machine guns, they were cutting the undead down like crops.

Finally, the heavy units exited. From one out of every ten pods, a mech armed with laser weaponry emerged. They were literally slicing the battlefield apart. They would have to recharge during the day, but it only took five hours, and they were able to operate for twelve without issue.

Anubis and his units cut through the undead without a concern. They flew on black wings made from shadow and were killing everything near the walls. The undead appear to wither from their passing. The people on the walls cheered or started to pray after they passed.

Part of the forest was on fire from the mechs’ beams of energy. Undead were trying to get near the units to do any type of damage but were pulverized by bullets before they could cross the ten-meter mark. All and all, the battle was overwhelmingly in our favor. The necromancers had apparently fled, as the sensors couldn’t detect them within a ten-kilometer radius of the pods.

“Have a scout head for the city. I want to establish a line of communication with the command there,” I ordered. We needed to let them know we came in peace but were not free.

“Yes, sir!”

The order was quickly executed, and a light-armor unit that carried a sniper rifle activated a jetpack and flew toward the city. He landed right in front of the defense line. “Where is the leader of this defense? Our leader wants to speak to you!”

It only took a moment before a familiar face appeared from behind the crowd. Puppet rushed forward with another man. They were both covered in blood and wounds. Puppet’s injuries looked like a mortal’s would due to the illusion ring I’d given each of them when they left the dungeon. Everyone in the line had suffered at least one injury here and there.

“Presenting Guard Captain Derrik, current commander of the city of Tearfalls wall defense,” Puppet said without a hitch.

“Thank you, Puppet. I am Derrik. To whom do we owe our thanks?” Captain Derrik said with a bow.

The scout placed a device on the ground. A hologram of my image appeared. “I am Regan, the Machine Father.” I paused for a second. I needed a reason for being out here. If I learned anything from Earth, it was that people were more willing to trust you if you had some sort of motive. “With the Lecazar Empire in ruins, Queen Louella of Vaihdetta is claiming this area as part of her new kingdom in return for me sending aid. If you have issue with this, I shall pull back my forces.”

The captain looked into the distance where the undead were being slaughtered without pause. He seemed to come to a conclusion and gave the Lecazar salute. “Lord Regan, I am greatly thankful for your timely arrival. While I do not have the power to answer such a claim, may I request your aid for the duration of the night? I will be able to gather the people where this claim can be answered.”

Well, this captain sure knows how to work the situation, I thought. I almost wanted to recruit him. Maybe Louella would be able to use him in the future. I smiled and leaned back in my throne. “That will be quite appropriate. You have my guarantee that for the remainder of the night you will be safe.”

“Thank you, Lord Regan.” Captain Derrik bowed deeply, as did everyone in the defense line. I killed the feed and ordered the scout to give it to Puppet.

The scout picked up the device and handed it to Puppet. “The Machine Father wants you to hold on to this. We will be in touch at noon.”

“I understand. I will protect it with my life,” Puppet said with a salute.

The scout nodded, then flew back to the battlefield. He leveled his rifle and blasted into the horde, easily shooting several undead in the head in a span of a few seconds.

“Monitor the battle. Let me know if anything changes,” I said as I stood from my throne. It was still late at night, but Louella was sitting in her room going over some documents. With a snap, I appeared in the room. She barely even glanced up at me. I felt a bit disappointed.

She must have seen something in my expression. “You cause a small distortion in the air when you’re about to form your avatar, and the same happens when you teleport. I’ve started keeping a sense of the air since the Quin incident. Took some practice but I’m getting better at it,” she said, putting down the parchment she was reading.

“Pity. I enjoyed scaring you by popping in unannounced,” I said as I dropped into the seat across her desk.

“What can I do for you?” she asked, sitting up straight.

I stood again and moved over to the office’s bay windows. “I appreciate it, but I’m here to tell you that you might soon own a city to the east,” I said, forming a glass of wine in my hand. I felt it completed the effect I was going for.

Louella matched me perfectly as she grabbed a glass off her desk. Checking with my senses, I found it was whiskey. The ice clinked as she swirled it slowly. “Please explain. Is someone fighting a war while using my name?”

“Close but no cigar,” I said with a grin. “My children are rendering aid to the trapped city of Tearfalls. While I could use my own name along with what I aim to be, I do not want to add religious pressure on the people there until the fighting is over. So, I used your name to soften the blow. Right now, my forces are repelling the wicked necromancers and undead horde.”

“I’ll make sure the temple is really big. Thank you. I know you only keep me around because you don’t want to deal with another noble, and frankly, I don’t think you even need me for that much longer,” Louella said, then took a sip of her drink.

“While this is true, I actually find that I like you. It’s interesting to see how you react to the changes happening around you. Frankly, I’m impressed with how far you’ve come.”

“Yeah,” she said with a snort. “No small amount of thanks to you.”

“Look at it this way. At least you’re alive,” I said with a smirk.

“Very true. I will let Ezal and her people know about this. They might be able to use this fact to their advantage while dealing with the towns and cities that refuse to evacuate in Lecazar.”

“Good. I shall talk to you later.” Just as I was about to dismiss my avatar, the ground shook for a moment. Though it was only a few seconds, I marked it as odd, but I wasn’t sure why I felt that way. I expected aftershocks from the wave, but something felt . . . different.

“Another one. How long will these aftershocks last?” Louella asked as she cleaned up her spilled inkwell.

“How often are you experiencing them?” I asked her. It wasn’t at a level that I would notice unless I was paying attention. I did notice that I got a momentary spike in terra mana during it, but it was likewise at a level that I only noticed because I was paying attention at the moment it happened.

“Let’s see. Yesterday . . .” She rummaged around on her desk for a second, then pulled a sheet of parchment out of a stack. “There were ten, each roughly an hour or so apart.”

“Interesting. I may need to look into these aftershocks a bit more. Until next time,” I said, moving back to the station. Only a few minutes had passed, and the battle was mostly over for now. Smoldering and bullet-hole-ridden corpses made piles across the battlefield. Our sensors still picked up a few thousand moving back through the forest, but they were fleeing for the night. “Status?”

“Two units down, fourteen damaged. A perimeter has been erected. Barrier generators should be up in two hours.”

“Good work.” With the battle taken care of and having to wait for the mortals to get all their leaders together in one place and actually talking, I decided to change gears. I would be lucky to get an answer before sunset tomorrow if the mortals acted like they always did.

I mentally pulled all the data my mind stored from the dungeon and fed it into the system. With that, I was able to track the source of the aftershocks. They were dulled, but it was far to the west past where Jade Wind used to sit, coming from the maelstrom. “Do we have any satellites near the maelstrom yet?”

“Negative, sir. The first satellite reaching that section is scheduled for five weeks from now. With the size of the continent, it’s a slow process to cover it entirely.”

I calculated quickly before I said, “Once Lecazar is finished, start working in that direction. I’m going to pull three from the queue and modify them.”

“Understood, sir!” They got to work carrying out my orders as I moved down to assembly. One satellite was just coming off the assembly line and was moved by the crane to rest in a workstation. The satellites were designed to work like a web. The station connected to the nearest ones, then expanded outward. That was a safety precaution I’d taken so I didn’t lose control of them to an entity like Duilin. They were quite powerful, after all.

I pulled the access panel off, then connected to the jack. The magic script that was essentially a programming language at this point ran through my head. With Celestials being a bigger issue than I liked, I modified the core of the satellite to explode if anything tried to integrate with it. I couldn’t take any chances.

Next, I worked on its power generation and added a miniaturized Fuilum reactor. I didn’t have to worry about antigravity with it in space. It still added three square meters to the craft. With that done, I upgraded its plating to allow for more armor. I already knew there was something else near this planet that was space worthy.

Finally, I added some script that would eject any berserk mana spikes via bursts of plasma. It would make it flashy for anything that could see that far, but at most it would be like the satellites around earth with their flashing lights. Only, a thousand times brighter.

“Worker, move this to launch. It’s already programmed to where it needs to go,” I said. The automaton nodded and moved to access the crane. I left it to its work and saw that the sun was rising over the valley when I checked. A night well spent when I could work.

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