The Dwarven Council of Anvil and Fire had learned about the Jukal a long time ago from Bob; however, they were powerless to do anything. They kept their meetings in the Mirrors of Communication to make sure that they didn’t hear of their plans and did their best to stay under the radar.
The dwarven master smiths paled at all of this.
“What we’ve been working on—well, it would be better to show you.” Dave looked upward. “Jeeves, carts please.”
Carts came out of one portal, creating a line in front of the dwarves.
The dwarves climbed onto the carts; as soon as they were all on, the carts started to move. They passed through a portal and entered a hallway where there were carts moving up and down in two lines, splitting off through doorways on the right and left side of the corridor.
“This base is mostly a shipyard called the ark,” Dave said. As they moved, the doorways on either side were so close together and their speed so great that they could see into the massive areas on either side.
“Here we assemble missiles that are shipped off to different bases. These missiles fit into two categories: one a surface-to-space and the other a space-based missile. The first is made so that we can take out the different systems that are around Emerilia so they can’t destroy us right away. The second are for our own ships.”
They passed the factory and Kol smiled as he saw the expressions on the dwarven master smiths’ faces as they reached the real beasts that lay hidden within the ark shipyard.
When Kol had come here previously, there were just four ships being built and they were being formed from metals and other precious resources. Now there were eighteen different berths, nine on each side of the corridor.
“Originally we wanted to make battleships, to fight the Jukal in space and secure our skies so they couldn’t wipe us out. Building these ships, we ran into a number of difficulties. At first, we were spending a lot of resources on creating the armored hulls. With the advances with soul gem constructs, we can cut down on these materials usage. But then we were still left with these heavier hulls. So now they’re all going to be turned into arks, ships that can hold the people of Emerilia and protect them from nearly anything,” Kol said. “As well as supply our frontline forces and act as a support base for operations.”
They passed what looked like massive cylinders. There was little grace to them as they had engines on both ends of the cylinders. Massive corridors extended from the main corridor with entrances all along the ark.
“When the time comes, we’ll we'll evacuate people on these arks to other bases that we have secured,” Dave said as the carts changed directions and moved toward one of the completed arks that floated in midair.
“These gravity runes—I’ve I've seen nothing like them before,” Helick said.
“When making the ships in gravity, we had to use a lot more materials. We didn’t have all that much, so we created these runes in the soul gem construct that makes up all of the shipyard in order to make these slips have zero gravity. The ark’s engines and inertia runes work so that it won’t move an inch unless it’s commanded to do so,” Dave said as the carts turned and they advanced through the slip.
“How are the carts flying?” another asked.
“Well, we needed to test out the flight drives someway and it makes it much faster to move materials around with.” Dave shrugged as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
A massive door was open, as large as a dwarven mountain’s main gate.
Inside, the ark looked more like a warehouse than a ship.
“These arks were made for one purpose: to move people from Emerilia to the safety of other areas. However, they’re they're going to be turned into haulers.” Kol looked to Dave.
“What we need is to test them somehow,” Dave said as they flew to the ark’s command center, a boxy-looking structure that extended through the open and bare decks of the ark.
The carts stopped outside the command center. Dave and Kol guided everyone through it. They displayed the various flight drives and the magical coding that ran them, as well as the structure of the ark and different technologies they’d incorporated and even the missile systems that had been added on just in case of emergencies as well as the Mana barrier and shield.
The dwarves were filled with questions that Dave and Kol worked to answer.
Dave let out a sigh of relief as he kissed the side of Koi’s head; she was getting sleepy now. Dave had been nervous about bringing more people in on his projects; that possibility of something leaking was high. Though, right now, he couldn’t with a clear consciousness hold all of this to himself; he needed other people to help him. The Council of Anvil and Fire and the Aleph College—two down and one to go. I hope Bob can convince the two of them.
***
As Dave and Kol showed the dwarves around, Bob was looking at the Lady of Fire and Lord of Water, as well as Oson’Mal.
“So this is what my son-in-law has been up to,” Mal said with a note of approval. They were within the ice planet base.
“And what we need people’s help with.” Bob led them through the ice planet city. “Air, you can come out now.”
“Ugh, how did you know?” The Lady of Air appeared off to the side; her minder Venfik also appeared beside her.
“You breathe too loud,” Bob said before his tone turned serious. “Also, do you think I would let you enter a place like this without me knowing about it?”
“No, but I wanted to see. Fire and Icebergs over there didn’t notice anything,” Air said with a note of satisfaction.
“Why did Steve have to be so similar to you?” Bob questioned the heavens, holding his face with his hand before getting back on track. “All right, children, listen up! As I was saying, we’ve we've got this and other bases all across Emerilia and this system. What we need is people to help us run all of this and more. Right now there’s Malsour, Dave, sometimes Steve, Jeeves, and me working on everything. We’ve been able to do a lot, but now we have the resources and power so that we can expand!”
“So you want people who are good at coding, with weapons and thinking outside the box? I think I know a few people like that,” Fire said.
“I know that my people have been harassed near constantly—there will be a number of them from the mer people’s college who’d be interested in joining,” Water added.
“Eh, gimme a list—we’ll find them.” Air waved her hand as if this were no big deal.
“No kidnapping,” Bob said with a look toward Air.
“Hey, they don’t know what they want to do until they’re in our care,” Air said innocently.
Venfik moved a bit away from Air as they walked.
“Where you more or less forced the choice on them or dropped them from the sky repeatedly so that their brains were so addled that they would imitate a chicken for the rest of their lives!” Bob’s voice rose as he talked.
“That was one time and it wasn’t a big deal.” Air shrugged.
“It was the emperor of an Ashal empire!” Bob said.
“Well, he wasn’t playing nice with others. He did afterward, when his son took over everything.” Air put her hands on her hips.
“You’re five hundred years old and you still have a child’s argument,” Bob complained.
“Maybe a child’s argument is better!” Air harrumphed, stomping her foot and pushing out her bottom lip.
“Oh, how I love family reunions,” Fire said.
“Shut it, zippy,” Bob snapped.
Fire and Water looked to each other, grinning.
“I’ll show you this and then you can get out of my hair,” Bob complained.
“But you don’t have hair,” Water said.
“Why in the hell did they tell me to make gods and goddesses? Would would have been perfectly fine with just AI, but nooo—had to have real human gods and goddesses,” Bob muttered to himself, doing a good impression of a mad scientist as he opened a door. The facility from th
e outside looked like nothing more than a warehouse; inside, it was a warehouse but just not what others were thinking.
Even Air went silent as they looked at the rows upon rows of people who rested within the warehouse. There were empty pods that were being transported to the growing labs that were continuously creating bodies for the players locked within the Earth simulation, there was so much to take in.
As they walked through the warehouse, they passed storage containers of organic materials being fed into the bodies or used to create them. There were also refined materials from the expanding refinery district that ran continuously.
“These are the bodies of players within the next two rotas of players.” Bob waved to them.
“This ice planet’s two main objectives are to refine materials that come from the asteroid base and what it mined out of the planet, as well as grow the players who are still trapped within the Earth simulation. In time, we will be waking them up and seeing how they react to being in reality. It will not be easy but it is a step that I believe we must take. We need people who can grow the organic material needed to build their bodies. We need people to enhance our own plans and technology. We need miners and refiners to make sure that this doesn’t all fall apart. We need people to help us make automatons that can do these jobs—we’re still reliant on the Aleph repair bots! We need people who are good with factories to speed up our production and people who can learn our power systems and soul gem constructs to manage and improve them. We’ve got the basic groundwork here but we need people to take what we’ve got and push the boundaries. We can do a lot, but we’re just three people and sometimes two AI constructs.”
“What you’re building here is the resistance—a resistance to the Jukal,” Fire said, her tone solemn.
Desmond, who she was cradling, chose this moment to start crying.
“Exactly,” Bob agreed.
The group looked to one another. They might play around and joke a lot but this was something that affected them all.
“I will field it to the mage’s college and guild as well as the dragons. I know a number of them might be interested in coming here if they know that not only they, but their family, will be safe from the threats on Emerilia,” Fire said.
“The seas have become a lot rougher, we have a number of portals that we are dealing with, as well as creatures not seen in centuries. A good portion of my people would be willing to move here just to be safe,” Water said.
“I can find the hidden experts and people who might be good for this. I can also work on making sure that the Jukal and the rest of the Pantheon or people of Emerilia don’t figure out any of this,” Air said.
“Thank you.” A weight fell from Bob’s shoulders. “Ela-Dorn is already working to invite many of her peers to help while Dave is talking to the Council of Anvil and Fire. I hope that we can get some more support from there.”
“Well, it looks like we’ve got a lot to do,” Oson’Mal said with a look of excitement in his eyes.
“You’re not thinking of coming here as well?” Fire bounced up and down slightly so as to try to calm Desmond down.
“Well, I’ve been looking after Desmond all this time and been going through the Per’ush libraries.I wanted to go on a trip around Emerilia, but now with happening on Emerilia and now learning about all this. Well this ice planet and the other bases give me an opportunity to push my boundaries,” Mal said, visibly excited.
.
***
Dave had left Kol and the dwarven master smiths to talk. After seeing everything, they had become interested—eager, even— in learning more about what they were doing. A number of them pointed to different magical coding that they had created and the Pandora’s Box people had hacked together to create the different magical systems.
Kol knew what was going on with Pandora’s Box and all of the bases; however, with managing the smithies of the Grahslagg Corporation, he didn’t have the time to help out with many of the major items.
Dave looked around what was the moonbase. Originally it was to be the base of operations for the Pandora’s Box group. However, with going to the Nal system and establishing a base in the ice planet as well as the asteroid belt, they had picked the ice planet to hold all of the laboratories that would grow the bodies of the players as well as storage facilities. The growing areas had been left here, as well as the fusion reactor, factories, and the miners that were still working to hollow out the moon. Now, the moonbase had gone under some radical changes. The portal exited onto a catwalk on either side, which crossed over between five-hundred- meter long and three-hundred-meter wide sections that lay below all of them were occupied by missile boat frames in various stages of completion.
They were boxy-looking ships with missile tubes covering most of their surface area, with only minimal small weapons otherwise.
They lay underneath the catwalk with the moonbase’s soul gem constructs creating tube-like extensions from the floor and the catwalks to the missile boats. Runic lines guided power from the now five fusion reactors of the base into the ever growing missile boats.
Carts loaded with missiles in storage crates moved to the missile boats, loading them with missiles.
The overhead catwalks made a box that was five bays across and nine deep, each holding a missile boat that was held in a cradle of soul gem constructs. Most of them were still under production; a few of them had powered up their own fusion reactors and secondary Mana wells that increased the speed at which their soul gem constructs interior complete its build-out.
Automated carts and repair bots could be seen floating around the missile boats, as well as moving in and out to add in the various other materials needed to create the armor and superstructure of the missile boats. The soul gem constructs were great for internal components but relied on beefy structural members, beams and braces for strength and protection. Heavy armor panels as well as Mana barrier projectors were their defenses against enemy attacks.
If those shields and barriers went down, then he didn’t want his ships to get smashed apart in just a few volleys.
Dave quickly stepped into the air. His body moved over the catwalks at a high speed. He moved past all of the growing warships and moved to where the fusion reactors that were powering the entire base as well as the different offices that looked over the moonbase were located.
Plans and screens rotated around him he moved from one to another, adjusting Koi on his shoulder as he opened up these various screens. He looked at the different launchers that had been buried throughout the moon's surface.
They were covered in stealth runes so that Dave couldn't even find them with his touch of the land spell, even if he was within fifteen feet of them.
He checked the stocks of weaponry and looked over the growing towers that were supplying the warships with the breathable atmosphere that was stored in their tanks.
Dave had wanted to go to the stars to be a discover, but now he was creating weapons of war that he would use to conquer it. Many people might be thrown off by this change but Dave understood it. He only had to look down to Koi to see why he was doing this.
“Looks like you need your bed,” Dave said in a whisper, looking at Koi, who was oblivious of the world around her.
He disappeared from the offices and appeared in front of the portal building he passed through the security automatons returning to Emerilia.
***
Josh looked at the people around the table. They were all within a Mirror of Communication conference room. As the event and the portals opening had gone on, they had all taken more measures so that if there was ever an attack on the Terra Alliance heads couldn’t be eliminated in a single attack.
As time had gone on, the Alliance had actually grown. The benefits of being in the Alliance outweighed not being in it by far.
The fact that the elves of Markolm weren’t there wasn’t missed by anyone. They had returned to their island and shut up their borders to all but the believe
rs of the Lady of Light.
It was a problem but there was nothing that the Alliance could do. And they weren’t in the business of telling people what they could and couldn’t believe in.
“We have alt player accounts that are running around outside of cities and towns, allowing us to get a better idea of what is going on. Right now, it looks like the creatures and people from the Event are attacking not only the cities and the towns, they are also attacking one another.
This means that their numbers have been greatly reduced. But it also means that the ones that survive are going to be much more powerful than they were originally,” Lucy said.
“This is why we need to send forces to destroy these people and creatures and then we can go back to pushing back the people at the portals,” an Amazonian-looking woman from Strabon Kingdom said.
“If we start splitting our forces now, then we’re just going to invite defeat,” a noble-looking man from Egas Nation said.
“Well, it’s better than holing up and doing nothing!” the woman shot back.
“This is not the time for us to be fighting among one another,” Josh said, his voice bringing the room back under control. “We’re in a stalemate right now. We’re holding off the forces of the portals, but they’re still coming through and reinforcing the castles that they do hold. Even the locations where we hold all of the castles, we can’t relax our guard lest they break through and then get in behind us and start wreaking havoc. Or they can lead massive assaults that take all of our castles to react to. With the loss of Markolm’s support, we have lost a large number of fighting-able people. We have made new friends and we have also regained the forces that we had based in Markolm. Right now is not the time to throw away our people. We need to grow in strength and ready ourselves for the next part of our offense.”
The room quietened down in the face of Josh’s words.
“We have Band-Aids, we have summoning halls, and we have the schools within the Mirrors of Communication. Our people were off-balance with this first attack. We need to focus our efforts to get them ready for what is to come. This war has only just started. For us to win, we need to get stronger. This is an anvil that we can forge ourselves through or be broken by,” the dwarven master smith Quino, who was on the Terra Alliance council, said.
Of Myths and Legends (Emerilia Book 9) Page 19