“We sort everything out. Then when it’s complete, we feed it power and resources, then it uses them to just expand the systems that already make it up. Think of those sponges in the pill caps—you add water and they expand a hundred times their original size!” Dave snapped his fingers, a look of relief on his face as well as excitement.
Ela-Dorn didn’t know what the sponge-like things were but she understood what Dave was talking about. It was her turn to look thoughtful. After a few moments, she started to nod, becoming more and more confident. “I don’t see any problems with it,” she agreed.
“It’ll be a bit slower than building it in one go, and take a lot more energy but with all the fusion reactors and Mana wells we’ve got around, power is not a problem. What it will also do is take some strain off the automatons that are running around. We could have one of these for every two battleships we make normally—we’d actually be able to increase production. Well, I’m getting a bit ahead of myself and I would need Jeeves to look over that—”
“I will begin simulations for viability,” Jeeves said from overhead, interrupting Dave.
“Thanks, dude,” Dave said
“In the meantime, portal?” Ela-Dorn stood up from her seat. A look of excitement filled her eyes.
“Onward!” Dave waved for her to take the lead. They talked about different things. Ela-Dorn was more than willing to pick his brain for all it was worth, so that she might advance her own research.
Dave’s shock at how much had changed in the short time he had been gone was written all over his face.
Under Water and his colleagues’ work, they had been able to increase the rate at which Ice City could expand. They had also increased the rate at which they could mine from the ice planet and refine it. They now had an abundance of different elements that were being used throughout the Initiative. All of the various vessels that were held and controlled by the Pandora’s Box Initiative weren’t fully fueled but it was believed that in no more than one month they would all have full fuel tanks and be completely charged. At this state, they would be able to move at a moment’s notice.
However, weapons and their armaments that had been lagging behind had now increased in production speed.
Dave had a somber look on his face as he heard of Jekoni’s breakthroughs and what he had passed on to the rest of the Ice City researchers that had greatly accelerated their production times. New factories were being stepped up all the time and the first asteroid refinery was being worked on.
“Jesal is running the project but a number of the dwarven master smiths are throwing their weight behind it. They’ve picked out an asteroid heavy in various metals that we need. The mining is already underway the automated drills are opening up an entrance for the newly built excavator. Once it’s inside, it will start clearing out the interior of the asteroid. An ono will be placed inside the asteroid and connected to the asteroid base to allow quick transition. The refinery will be built first. We’ve got a large number of resources building up and nowhere to push them through. It’s one of the biggest reasons why we’re behind on the ship production,” Ela-Dorn said.
“How many ships do we have?” Dave asked.
“At this time, we have twenty-four arks, sixty-four missile boats, three complete destroyers, two more under construction and two battleships under construction. The rest are shuttles and smaller craft to move resources, automatons, and other items for short distances,” Ela-Dorn reported.
“We really need to speed up production on those ships,” Dave said, clearly not happy with the production speed.
“We’ll be able to do it,” Ela-Dorn said with confidence.
“Why are you so sure?” Dave asked, a bit stunned by how confident she was.
“The players.” Ela-Dorn looked to the large apartment buildings and storage facilities that were governed by Bob and Air, with their staffs looking after the creation of the players’ bodies as well as their awakening and integration into reality.
It was one hell of a job but Dave had continued to hear good things about it.
“I know that they’ve been seen as good to have around and having a few laborers around is good, but I don’t know how useful they’re going to be overall,” Dave said, revealing his own thoughts toward the players’ abilities and the effect of them being awake.
Ela-Dorn’s footsteps paused. “As much as I want to see this portal—active or not—I think you need to see something first.”
“Okay,” Dave said, curious.
She turned and guided him toward a MOC— Mirror of Communication—store. These were hubs that had popped up all over Emerilia as well as throughout the Pandora’s Box Initiative. With the riskiest of experiments and even trying to gain more knowledge, the best place to start was with the Mirror of Communication school that had been set up by Dave. They could test out ideas there, then take it to the real world and make sure that their experiments wouldn’t blow up in their faces. This ability of trial and error without having to worry too much about the loss of resources or one’s life was invaluable.
The information that was available and passing through the school was also impressive, possibly only second to the mage’s college in certain areas.
Dave and Ela-Dorn sat in a seat and connected to the Mirror of Communication, passing through lobbies, meeting up and heading into the private school that they had set up. This allowed them to be part of the Mirror of Communication school but no one could see what they looked like and they could pass through different classes without anyone seeing them if they wanted to.
They were in a class that was talking about advanced magical theories. The teacher seemed to be in a thrall as they discussed the ways to change spells to maximize their power.
Ela-Dorn added a filter to the class. Nearly a hundred different people were highlighted, either in anonymous mode or blurred out and attending class.
“All of these people are players who have been woken up. Their higher stats allow them to pass quickly through different knowledge-based classes. They all have the ability to pick classes and have been holding out on it. A number of them are running simulations on the best builds, using data collected on your own player forums for the generation of players on Emerilia.
“They’re taking all of the information that is on Emerilia, using the basics that they learn here, combining it together and they’re quickly becoming more than just practitioners of the different skills they’re trying out. Here in Ice City and for the Initiative, we’ve got the best people in all different areas—the players have been making use of them to gain more knowledge. A number of them are actually providing ideas to us that we didn’t even think of.” Ela-Dorn made some adjustments with her interface that was linked to the Mirror of Communication.
The scene in front of them changed to one of a training area where people were sparring with one another. Again, a filter fell over everyone; there were a few hundred players in this area.
“All of them have gained a basic understanding of the various magics and of how to fight. A good amount of them have expressed interest in working with us to defeat the Jukal. They want to be on the front lines and fighting.” Ela-Dorn shook her head as she, too, couldn’t understand the mindset that these people had.
“I don’t think that normal gamers would be like this, but after their lives that have forced them to become gamers—the AIs used more ruthless means than necessary—this has oppressed them. Now they’re given a way to fight and they’re instilled with the confidence of their gaming talents and knowledge. I never thought that this would happen.” Dave looked at his fellow players, at a loss for words. But deep down he felt a sense of pride.
A smile touched his face. These are my people—these are gamers! he cried out in his heart.
“Air’s people had decided at first to only wake a few people at a time, to take care of them and to personally guide them through their new lives. They were not expecting for this to happen. Instead of having a fe
w people being woken a week, it’s happening by the hour. The players network with one another and they have started to work together and form groups aiming toward different sectors,” Ela-Dorn said. Dave frowned at this but Ela-Dorn didn’t notice as she continued. “With them asking the people of the Initiative questions, it has decreased the speed at which we are to advance our plans but in the future, I think that it will greatly increase the speed at which we can accomplish our plans.”
“They’re making guilds,” Dave said.
“From the look on your face, it doesn’t seem as if you’re too happy with that,” Ela-Dorn said.
“It’s not that I am or not; it’s just that as guilds are made, each of them want to be at the top. If we have that, then it’s going to create conflict and issues. What to do, what to do?”
Ela-Dorn watched Dave. It was some time before he started talking again.
“Okay, well, the first thing, we need to start making quests. All gamers are going to get bored if they don’t have quests. With this, the quests should be to assist the different researchers or various areas. Say, for completing a quest, they are able to gain tokens. These can be used to gain tutoring from the people within the Initiative, if they’re willing to give the lessons. Also, it can allow them to exchange it into gold to get different things that they can buy through the trading hubs and the branch from the Exdar’s that we’ve roped in to supply us with various materials.”
The Pandora’s Box Initiative needed a number of different resources and Emerilia was still the richest place for the majority of these items. A special group from the Exdar’s Traders had been checked over by Lucy, Air, Suzy, Josh, as well as Dave. Their job was to acquire the materials and items that the Initiative needed. They didn’t know what it was for and thought that they were just supplying the Aleph College.
Through them, the players in Ice City would be able to get all manner of different items. If anything was a great lure to players, well, nothing spoke of excitement quite like loot!
“I think it might also be beneficial to bring over the different leaders of the Stone Raiders at one time or another, so that they can meet these players, rope them into the Stone Raiders Guild or at least get them thinking that we’re pretty good to work with. With the rewards, visits from other players and the purpose to fight against the Jukal—oh, and throw in the feeds to Emerilia—they need to know what’s going on and get up to date,” Dave said, his face grim.
Even though they were now clearing out the different portal locations, there was a vast sea of creatures and people that had arrived with the event. A number of them had been invited to join the ranks of the different members in the Affinities Pantheon, which made Dave unsure of the future that lay ahead.
Ela-Dorn also knew that one of the biggest reasons Dave was pushing everything ahead as fast as possible was because there was a very real possibility that with the Affinities Pantheon coming to blows, there would be no option but for the Pandora’s Box Initiative to activate in order to save the people of Emerilia and drive back these overpowered individuals who had been molded into gods by the Jukal Empire.
Ela-Dorn and Dave lapsed into silence for a bit, each of them within their own thoughts.
“How is Bob?” Dave asked, his voice quiet.
“When he heard the news, he disappeared. Someone who went to the Datskun said that there were signs of someone being there. The carrier was too large for them to find Bob in it all.”
Dave had a complicated look on his face as he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. His eyes shook with emotions hidden within.
Ela-Dorn looked away, feeling as if she was seeing something she shouldn’t.
After a few minutes, Dave turned to Ela-Dorn. “Okay, let’s go and see this portal.”
“Let’s,” Ela-Dorn said, excitedly, happy to be able to do something to distract him from his internal pain.
They left the Mirror of Communication and headed through the portal to the asteroid base.
“Every time I come here, it’s changed a bit,” Dave said in wonder as they used party chat to talk. Both of them used Mana barriers in order to capture air around them before they left Ice City.
“Well, it’s the look of progress,” Ela-Dorn said as they walked through the laboratories. Soul gem walls and flooring met their eyes; runic lines lit their way while others carried commands, information, and power throughout the base. Carts with heavy loads of resources passed through the portal to the ice planet as refined resources and machined items from the factories and the refinery were sent back.
“Have we been able to step up the factories within the asteroid base?” Dave asked.
“We’re working on it right now. We’ve got two factories that are partially online, one for building the structural members of the ships and another working on the armor. We hope to have weapons and ammunition factories up and working within the month,” Ela-Dorn said. “If we didn’t have those soul gem constructs, it would take years to get all of this done.”
Dave paused at one of the workshops. The interior was filled with different kinds of automatons and there were different passageways for them to enter and exit the workshop. A number of people moved around, checking out the automatons, fixing them up in different places and replacing broken or busted parts.
“One second—I think I see a familiar face.” Dave moved into the workshop. Ela-Dorn stood at the entrance to the workshop, passing through the Mana barrier that lay at the door, keeping the atmosphere inside the workshop so the people could work without having to worry about having their Mana barrier up all the time.
Sparks came off from different places and the sounds of wrenches being used and the banging of heavy machinery at work filled the air.
Dave moved past the different workstations, reaching one where a dwarf was using a terminal to move a crane holding a new limb for the large automaton in front of him.
The arm moved into place; two others on either side of the arm moved in with their tools, securing it in place.
“So, whose time did you steal to get out here this time?” Dave asked the dwarf with the console.
“You ever tried walking quietly through my workshop?” Kol turned around, a mock annoyed look on his face.
Dave barked out a laugh as Kol broke into a smile.
“It’s good to see you back and in one piece, boy.” Kol widened his arms.
Dave and Kol hugged, patting each other on the back. A look of genuine affection passed between the two of them as they smiled at each other.
“So, I see that the automaton program is going ahead well.” Dave looked at the different automatons moving through the area. A number of them were just being checked over by the different techs before being allowed to leave and take on jobs.
“Yeah, we’re hoping to get a factory to do all of this. However, right now we’re in a bit of a pinch. Should have it ready within about a week or so. Then we can really start increasing the production time of these ships and large projects you have on the go,” Kol said.
Dave nodded and clapped Kol on the shoulder. “Well, I just came to say hi. If I keep making detours then Ela-Dorn is going to start to get annoyed.” Dave grinned. “Want to do dinner with me and Koi tonight? I can probably rope in Mal as well.”
“I’d love that,” Kol said, practically beaming. Ela-Dorn knew that Kol saw Koi as much as he would see his own great-granddaughter. While he’d been in Ice City, he’d taken time to go to the Dracul day care to meet up with Oson’Mal, his son Desmond, as well as Deia and Dave’s daughter Koi. If he wasn’t in the automaton workshop, then he was there.
Dave turned back to Ela-Dorn. “No more side trips, I swear!”
“I’ll believe it when I see it.” Ela-Dorn snorted as they left the workshop and continued on their way.
They passed areas that were under construction as well as those that were packed with storage crates of resources ready to be shipped to the refinery in Ice City.
Ar
eas that had been carved out had mages and engineers working together to make superstructures for new construction as soul gem constructs grew, forming factories, power plants and any other necessary areas for the asteroid base.
“These are new,” Dave said as they reached a massive armored blast door. It closed behind them. As soon as it was closed, the next one started to open, their speed and timing fast enough so that Ela-Dorn and Dave didn’t even need to pause their steps.
“We’ve been fitting air locks throughout the asteroid base. In case we come under attack, we want to be able to secure different sections of the base off. We’ve been adding the same features to Ice City,” Ela-Dorn said.
The main thoroughfare within the asteroid base had increased in size drastically. Along the walls, there were multiple racks and more doorways.
Soul gem tethers reached out from the walls and the slips where the ships were being built, feeding them power and relaying information to the different people working on their design from those in the asteroid base to those in Ice City.
The destroyers that had been simple superstructures with armor here and there and soul gem constructs growing inside had undergone a radical change. Many of them had most of their armor in place; some of them even had their guns and missile tubes mounted in their hulls. Runic lining made of soul gem ran through the armor plates, creating spells to increase the strength of the armor as well as creating Mana barriers and shields around the vessels.
There were raised areas on the ships that glowed with magical formations. These were the Mana barrier modules, the drop coding that could pick up and drop people and items off on the ground below the destroyers.
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