by Matthew Peed
“Well damn, I was hoping for a slight shudder or something,” I said, a bit disappointed. I moved Valamar’s body out of the way, and the woman walked onto the stage.
The spell began the same way, as I didn’t plan on holding back with these two. I would basically be able to control them if something were to happen. As I’d mentioned before to Louella, pawns were useful. I was more prepared this time as I grabbed the tremendous rush of mana that surged toward her. I let it flow a bit slower, but too slow would affect the transformation, as well as be painful longer.
Soon another cyborg stood in front of me. There wasn’t as much change as with Valamar, as I believe she had been a rogue and was keeping true to her roots. I could see that quite a few of her systems were set for infiltration. I collared her when she collapsed from the intense power that was rushing through her veins. Looking each of them over, I felt sorry for whoever got in their way.
As I teleported them to an out-of-the-way section of the west forest, I made sure to copy their designs. With a few alterations, I could make fully functional automata to fill my ranks. I left them a map marking where they were, then let my body dissipate. They would be more than able to handle anything that came their way, and the area was empty due to the recent horde battle. The ecosystem was still repairing itself.
~~~
Now that the distraction was over, I moved back to my space station. Just thinking that phrase made me a bit giddy. I wanted to be able to see the entire north, so I needed to build a network of satellites. I went to an assembly area that I’d designed so that the station could build anything from spare parts to ships. As long as this area was undamaged, it would be able to repair the entire station, provided they were able to get power and materials to it.
I designed an advanced satellite that only used one magic script, which was to draw in mana from sunlight and convert it to electricity. The rest was created using good old technology, or magi-tech, technically. While it didn’t operate on pure mana, it still used magic to function. It was all hardware based, hence only one script was needed. I felt that this way it would last longer.
The satellite was a cube, each side roughly two meters. An array of cameras and sensors lined the surface of each side. Compressed ion thrusters were able to keep it moving without any troubles for the task I had in mind. I launched it out into the upper atmosphere.
This one was set to watch the area right below the station. I could have put the camera on the station, but I felt a good network should be uniform. It moved below, then activated its communications array. I used a quantum link so the network should never have any lag, while not requiring as much hardware to function. An easy feat with magic.
With the uplink established, I set it to start mapping the area directly below the station. The first images came up on the center console, while a large holographic image appeared over a sizable table located in the command center. It’s nice being a dungeon core, as I can spread my consciousness over a large area.
Down on the surface, a hellscape appeared. The still-compiling image seemed to make it worse. A very dead-looking forest surrounded a castle made of pitch-black stone and what looked like milk-white bones. I felt it was a little cliché, but they wouldn’t know that. A fog covered an area of roughly a hundred kilometers, which was most of the initial coverage my satellite managed.
The satellite finished another scan, and the image cleared up considerably. Undead as far as the eye could see. It looked like every mortal who had been in the north was changed. I couldn’t read their mana levels from the satellite, but there were several hundred that must have been over tier three. I tapped my chin as I looked over the image, coming up with a few ideas that would remove most of the surface issues, but the ninety-four floors were going to be the real issue.
Unlike me, Alara had most likely built her dungeon to keep everyone out at the command of her masters. Every step down would have been a battle. At least I had Anubis. I could replicate his design into a troop of soldiers who would be able to fight their way down as a nearly perfect enemy against the necromancers. For now, I just needed to get my forces there. A space drop was ideal, but just to the outskirts of the north since some type of presence was already interfering. Until I found the source of that, I would hold off on a space insertion.
I plotted out the network that I wanted the station to set up so that it would automatically produce the satellites. Even if I was moving my forces over ground, I needed to have a decent map. There were at least a thousand kilometers between Alara and me, not to mention the fact that the rest of the continent also needed to be mapped accurately.
With that in mind, I created a larger probe and sent it out to start sweeping the planet. When it reached fifty kilometers, there was suddenly a discharge of energy. The mana that was being absorbed by the cube surged and the satellite exploded. I tried again but only got the same result. I mentally rubbed my chin as I examined the problem, while pausing the assembly line.
I created a third probe and set it with a feedback link to the core. Launching the probe, I waited to see what would happen. When it reached the fifty-kilometer mark, its mana surged again, but it flowed back to my core, giving me nearly ten thousand mana all at once. It quickly reached the seventy-kilometer mark.
The mana surged again, this time too much for my link. This reinforced my theory that a race had done something to protect the planet. For now, I created a new version of the satellite that possessed a mana stone the size of a small car. It increased the cost and size of the satellite by a considerable amount but was required.
From there, I set the network to transfer the energy among the satellites. That would keep the surges under control until I learned more about the cause. For now, the networks showed that the cause was a certain distance from my aura, and the surges happened every hour or so. I welcomed the mana but knew it would put stress on the devices. However, there was little I could do about it at that point.
I moved over to another section of the assembly and set it to create some worker automata for the station. They were multipurpose robots that could operate a workstation or sweep the floor, basically drones for all intents. The station was feeling empty, though. I did a few more “chores” on the station before I decided to take a break.
It grew quiet as I reduced all the information I was getting from all various sources around the dungeon. Ignea, Jarvis, Saga, and my all my children had been told to let me know if something happened, and even if something did, not much could get to my core that fast without me being violently aware of it.
Sensing through the multiple links I could form, I connected with the one I’d begun visiting at least once a week recently. The world faded, then the two-sided room formed as it had the first time. I looked forward to the day I could see her in person. As the black throne with the hundreds of black chains bearing bloodred runes formed in front of me, I couldn’t help but smile sadly as the figure being restrained by them came into view.
I’d done a lot of self-analysis since the second time I’d seen her. Not understanding why, I was drawn to her, wanted to rescue her. While she was beautiful, as a man from Earth with access to the internet, I’d seen plenty of women in my time. The only guess I had was due to how similar her situation was to my own on Earth. She was being forced to serve the necromancers against her will. Whether I felt love, as a scientist, I wasn’t quite sure. As a man, I had to say probably. As a dungeon core, who the hell knows?
Ignea had informed me that dungeon cores could create offspring between two cores, but it came at the cost of half of each parent’s current cultivation. A steep price to pay for most any being on this planet. I wondered to myself how that would affect me, considering I had multiple cores, but that was for the future. The very far future, hopefully.
Alara slowly opened her eyes, then looked at me. She could barely move any part of her body, but her eyes were able to speak volumes. Having these one-sided conversations with her, I was getting
better at the subtle cues that she gave. At least, I hoped I was.
“Afternoon, Alara. It’s that time of the week,” I said with a smile.
Her mouth twitched as her eyes danced.
“Haha. It’s good to see you, too.”
She squinted at me, then looked at the ground.
“No, a few more weeks I’m afraid. I can’t afford to take the necromancers lightly. They would take it out on you,” I said as I shook my head.
Her eyes got visibly sad, then they hardened.
“I know you’ll wait for me. As I said before, I promise to let you see the sun on your own terms again.”
The link lasted for about thirty minutes to an hour if I forced it, so I spent that entire time with Alara. A one-sided conversation doesn’t last very long, so I started telling her stories from Earth, like “Little Red Riding Hood,” all the various Disn . . . princess tales, especially the alien princess one. That one had been one of Disn . . . ’s best sellers. Basically, I just kept her company.
Chapter 4
Izora
“Captain Mesu, for the last time, no you cannot execute the traitors!” I shouted at the captain of the Gwendyoner. When his ship had entered the dock, the tall obelisk at the top, put there by Regan, had added activated and several members of his crew had fallen unconscious. They panicked at first—until they were told what that meant.
“They are traitors! They don’t even have any valuable information, except our own, that could be of use! They are basically dead weight!” Captain Mesu argued. “Worse! Dead weight that is willing to bring us down with them!”
“I understand that,” I said weakly. I knew they should be hanged for their crimes. To gnomes, treason was quite high on the list of capital offenses, but I was saddened by the fact that twelve of the crew were corrupted by the necromancers. They were thoroughly checked, and no trace of slave marks or collars were found. The healers even checked their internals over to be sure that they hadn’t been placed inside but found nothing.
“Princess, I know they are gnomes and thus your people, but any one of them is a potential leak of information. With the current state of the world, I would say that national security is more important.”
“I . . . I agree. Just . . . just let me think on it one more day, please,” I said, defeated.
“Fine, but I will be reporting this to the king,” Captain Mesu said with anger clear in his tone.
I couldn’t even find it in me to get annoyed at him. I slinked back to my cabin to have some privacy. “This is so messed up,” I murmured to myself. These were our people we were talking about! Wasn’t it my duty as the princess to protect our people? Now I was to sentence them to death. I knew it was the laws of our people . . . it just felt wrong. It felt to me like my family had failed to rule the people competently. If some were willing to turn traitor like this, that basically said we did fail.
Looking out over the town from the window, I sighed as I considered what to do. The gnomes were a dying race. With our superior technology, it was harder for some of the gnome elders to allow other races to intermingle. Our city saw fewer births every year, and having to put some of ours to death was like a slap in the face. I moved over to my desk and pulled the papers for the orders toward me as I sat down.
There was no way around it. The people would just have to bear this bad news. We had already overcome hardships many times in the past. We could get over this as well. I went to pull my stamp out of the drawer when I sensed a vibration from the communication crystal. I quickly channeled mana into the seal, then pulled it out.
My father’s face appeared on the ball. He looked quite irritated. In fact, there was a rage in his expression I was sure I’d never seen before. What could have so angered my father? I felt the connection solidify, then said, “Yes, Father, what’s the problem?”
“I have bad news, very bad news.”
“What is it?!” I said as worry started to grow.
“There was a coup, half the fleet was stolen. It appears the necromancers only left us alone because they had more to gain by drawing our people from us. I have failed as a king . . .” my father said, tiredness evident from his tone. Then pure anger overshadowed everything. “They . . . they held your mother hostage, so we released the ships without a fight.” He came to a stop, as if at a loss for words, but my worry grew into full-blown panic. “She was killed when the son of a bitch blew his mana pool.” A tear ran down his cheek, then his rage returned tenfold. “I have officially declared war on the necromancers and anyone that allies with them.”
Space started to wrap around him through the ball as all manner of natural phenomena started to occur behind him. While I was a multimage, Father was an omnimage, able to use all elements. The wall and pillars that could be seen through the ball cracked from the pressure he was emitting.
“No . . . not . . . not mother!” I pleaded. I hadn’t seen her in months. I couldn’t even remember the last thing we talked about. I collapsed back into my chair as I tried and failed to process this information. I felt like my world was ending.
“I know . . . I know this is hard for you to accept right now, but this is going to make us a lot of enemies in the short run. We have . . . I have alienated too many of the other races from the gnomes. We have little trust with others. That valley of yours has now become one of the most important places to the gnome people.”
I just stared at the crystal ball. I heard what he was saying, but it didn’t seem to stick. I happened to notice the execution orders under the crystal ball and a rage overtook me. I looked back to the sphere. “I understand, Father! We’ll make these bastards pay for what they took from us!” I shouted.
Father’s face hardened but he only nodded, then said, “I trust you, my daughter. Tell that dungeon of yours the truth if he asks.”
I nodded, then the line went dead. I immediately stood up from my seat. Then I walked over to the wall where an old sword from some war or another hung for decoration. I ripped it from the wall, then left my chambers, making my way to the deck.
Late afternoon painted the deck with the setting sun. I looked around and found Captain Mesu talking to Captain Shido. I stormed over to them, which quickly drew their attention. They saluted when I got to them, probably noticing how angry I was.
“Yes, Princess?” Captain Shido asked carefully.
“Bring all the traitors onto the deck! Now!” I growled.
Captain Mesu nodded and rushed off to collect them from his ship. I only waited for half an hour before a dozen men and women were dragged onto the deck. I knew some of them well, while others I had only conversed with once or twice.
“All the prisoners, Princess,” Captain Mesu said with a salute.
“Good!” I looked at the gathered crew, then said with a raised voice, “Jade Wind was attacked today.” Everyone, even the prisoners, gasped and started to whisper. I slammed the end of the blade into the deck, causing a loud thunk. Everyone immediately quieted down, then I continued, “Not by outsiders, or monsters, but by its own people! My father and our family before us have tried to govern in a way so that the dying gnome race would survive. Apparently, that wasn’t good enough for some!” I said, sending a glare toward one of the prisoners.
“The queen is dead! Thanks to the necromancers—no! Thanks to our own people! A few hours ago, I was beating myself up about how to spare your lives. Not anymore! If the people can’t be happy with a kind ruler, then they’ll have to deal with a tyrant!” I shouted, then brought the blade down. I reinforced the entire blade with mana, so when it met the prisoner’s head, it sliced through without stopping. I struck with enough force to cause a meter-long crack to form in the deck boards under the prisoner. His body slowly fell, split in half.
“If love isn’t good enough! Then fear!”
Blood sprayed everywhere, coating me with quite a bit of it. I moved to the next one, who started to beg for forgiveness, but I wasn’t having it. If the world wasn’t going to
respect kindness, then it would get only force in answer.
“If fear isn’t good enough! Then death!”
My arm started to hurt by the fifth one. Using mana to reinforce the blade was one thing, but I was using my own strength to kill the traitors. The sixth traitor was a woman who’d already soiled herself in her terror, with tears and snot covering her face. Still, I felt no pity in my heart, as if it had turned to stone. The rage I felt only grew as I looked at her.
With another crack in the deck and another coating of blood, I moved on to the next one. A few minutes later, all the traitors lay split in half on the deck. Breathing heavily from the exertion, I felt a hunger for more. I wanted to spill more blood on this blade. I glanced at the weapon. Was it my imagination? Or was this lust for violence coming from the blade?
I looked around the deck as I observed the crew. Of course, terror was the number one emotion on display, and I basked in it. I walked up to the forecastle of the ship, the crew never taking their eyes off me, and looked down at the dozen cracks in the deck and the dead traitors.
“My father has declared war on the necromancers! Anyone found assisting them in any way, or even conversing with them, will be executed,” I shouted as I thrust the blade into the air. I looked at the deck and added, “Captain Mesu, clean up this mess!”
As I brought the blade back down, I saw my reflection. Blood covered me completely, but my face was nearly spotless, except two trails of blood that ran from the corner of each eye.
~~~
After I made it back to my cabin, I slumped to the ground only a few steps from the door. Even though the execution was relatively quick, I was exhausted. The blood that was on me had started to drip while I walked back to the cabin, and now a small stain was forming on the floor under me.
My kimono, which started out bright white earlier today, was now mostly red. I looked at my shaking hands; the blood was still sticky on them. I’ve killed in the past. One cannot be a traveling princess of one of the most powerful nations on this continent without encountering a few people who wanted to kidnap or use me for their gain. This, however, this blood . . . felt much heavier than any blood I’d spilled in the past.