1,628
Willpower:
1,199
Strength:
552
Agility:
1,038
With a nod of approval, he dismissed the character sheets and focused on the Mirror of Communication in front of him. He used the menu to find the right conference room; he entered a password and placed his hand on the Mirror of Communication.
He was sucked into the conference room.
“How are they doing?” Dave asked Malsour, who was watching the people in the simulation.
“They’re getting better every time. They’ve only been at it for a few hours but they’re already better than I thought,” Malsour said. “Watch.”
“Power levels are looking good. Okay, let’s power up the flight drive. How are we looking there, weapons?” the captain sitting at the back of the room asked.
“Weapons seem to be good,” a person in front of the captain, sitting at one of the consoles, said.
“Very good. Flight, situation?” the captain asked.
“Captain, all checks are good on the magical coding. The flight systems are good and ready to go,” the flight officer said.
“Barrier?” The captain looked to the barrier officer.
“Barriers are online above ground; as soon as we’re in the air, ready to transition to full coverage. I’ve tweaked them a little from last time so we should have greater defense,” the barrier officer said.
“That’s what I like to hear. Keep it up.” The captain bestowed the barrier officer with a smile. “Okay, well, seeing as we’re all ready to go, Flight, shall we get going?”
“Yes sir. Powering up flight drive.”
A deep humming filled the room as it shook slightly. Power seemed to thrum around the citadel and deep within Emerilia.
For a few seconds, nothing happened; then, slowly, they started to move.
Dave looked to a feed, watching the simulated citadel. This simulated citadel was complete, unlike the ones that were around Goblin Mountain. The ground around the citadel shook as it started to rise into the air.
As it rose, the mana barrier that had been covering just the Citadel now extended downwards, light shining out from under the rising construct.
“Power, how are we looking?” the captain asked.
“We’re good for power. Once we’re in the air, then I’m going to work on the heat and cold exchangers to see if we can’t get more power while we’re in the sky.” The power officer glanced to the captain.
“Good.” The captain nodded. They were still learning about how to use the citadel.
The citadel continued to rise, exposing what looked to be a massive soul gem underneath it. The roots that had spread throughout the rock underneath the citadel had worked with the soul gem construct to change the rock underneath into a massive soul gem. Right now, magical formations circled this massive soul gem construct; these formations were the flight drive that moved the citadel.
Rocks and debris that weren’t part of the citadel fell off the soul gem construct.
The soul gem underneath the citadel was massive, taking a few minutes just for the citadel to get high enough so that it was fully out of the ground.
“Moving to cruising altitude,” the flight officer said as the citadel moved away from the crater where it had been and pushed upward three kilometers into the sky.
Dave’s eyes shone as he looked over the flying citadel.
The massive soul gem supported the Level 3 citadel on top. The sight made one’s heart clench in awe.
The floating citadel dominated the sky, resting there.
“Okay, make any adjustments you want and test out your theories. You have ten minutes, then we’ll continue with the live fire exercise and see how we do up against an enemy,” the captain said to his officers.
Dave and Malsour shared a look, excited expressions on their faces.
“Not bad,” Dave said on a private channel. As they were in observer mode, no one in the command center could see them.
“With these, we can bring an entire citadel with us wherever we need to go. We could just stop above an occupied castle and jump down into it, take it and move onward,” Malsour said.
“Definitely increases our striking power.” Dave nodded. “What about weapons?”
“We’ve been testing them out. I’ve had Jeeves watching over all of these simulations and improving the coding to make the floating citadels easier to manage. Right now, we’ve only got weapons that are based on the soul gem construct. However, I want to get in some dwarven master smiths and engineers to retrofit some artillery cannons to the walls of this beast. Having the ability to launch grand workings with this thing—this is how we’re going to win this event and portal opening,” Malsour said.
Dave nodded.
“Can we use the new cannons?” Malsour asked.
“I’ve been debating that. I think it would be best if we had some of them ready and fitted to the citadels but keep it hidden—I don’t want anyone to know that we have them. Only if we have to will we use them. Also, we’re going to have to secretly retrofit the secondary systems we’ve been working on.”
Malsour took a deep breath before he let it out. He looked at the command center, where the command crew were talking to one another, getting a good feel for their stations and working through issues they’d had and working to improve their abilities.
“I really wish that we could use those measures now,” Malsour said.
“I do, too. However, we can’t—we don’t have the strength yet,” Dave said. “Oh, and Bob wants to see us both. I can go by myself but do you want to come?”
“What, don’t want to go across star systems by yourself?” Malsour grinned.
“Fine, if you don’t want to come, don’t.” Dave rolled his eyes.
“Screw that—I’m coming. If Bob says that he’s figured something out, then I want to see what that crazy gnome’s done. Also, I want to see just what has happened to the different bases in the Nal system,” Malsour said.
“Someone wants to get mining,” Dave teased.
“Hey, so what if I like rocks and asteroids?” Malsour shrugged.
“Uh huh.” Dave exited the Mirror of Communication and once again appeared in Pandora’s Box. Next to him, Malsour also opened his eyes.
“To the ice planet!” Dave stood and headed out of the room for the portal that connected Pandora’s Box to the ice planet within the Nal system.
There were even more carts moving through the various portals that connected the ever-growing network of bases that they had created.
Dave and Malsour expanded their shields, capturing the air around them in a large area, and stepped through the portal. They exited, coming out to find the industrial complex and apartments made from the ice planet.
The industrial complex was taking in carts filled with ice blocks that were stuffed into the refinery, which then spat out purified resources that were stored in specialized storage chests. Off to the side, there was a heavily armored building where the fusion reactor powering all of this hummed away.
Past it, there were massive greenhouses that took up most of the room within the ice city.
Then there was a small-looking laboratory; off to the side of it, there were storage areas. The rest of the ice city was filled with apartments that didn’t look too different from those within Terra.
The ice was being quickly replaced by a soul gem construct. The progress was visible as they walked down from the portal and through the defensive structure covered in trap runes.
“We’re going to need to make our own automatons to man these places,” Dave said as they walked through the city. With the power output from the fusion reactors as well as the new heat exchangers that had been prototyped with the flying citadels, the soul gem constructs were growing at a speed visible to the human eye. Plants were being harvested every few days, quickly converting the different gases that had been released into the greenhou
ses into a combination that could be inhaled by people from Emerilia.
Factories pumped out miners that continued to widen the city or move through another portal at the other side of the city. This portal led to the asteroid belt.
The area was lit by strip lighting that came from the soul construct buildings.
“Well, you’re the factory man—that would probably be best for you to look into,” Malsour said.
“I’ll tinker with it, but I’ve been thinking on that whole hiring thing. We need more people to manage all of this—there are just a few of us to manage everything here. Do you think Ela-Dorn would be interested?” Dave asked.
“I think so, as long as she can bring her pup and husband.” Malsour nodded. “I think it might be good to get quite a few of the Aleph. They’re more open to new ideas and they know how to keep a secret. Plus, here with the new technology, they love that stuff, so adapting over won’t be too hard. However, I still suggest creating contracts with them.”
“Trust but verify.” Dave nodded. “Some people aren’t going to like that, but feelings don’t matter as much as trying to keep this secret does.”
“Exactly.” Malsour nodded.
They stepped onto a runed circle that pushed them upward.
“These repulsor lifts are pretty awesome, though the version that goes down isn’t as much fun,” Dave said.
“That’s just because you’re afraid of heights,” Malsour said.
“I was. Now that I can fly, it isn’t too bad.” Dave stepped off the runed circle that was pushing upward, into a hallway.
“While they’re interesting, I still think that having elevators on the different ships and in the bases make sense,” Malsour said.
“I agree. Steve must have put that one in.” Dave opened a door into the one laboratory on the floor.
Malsour walked in and came to a stop.
Dave nudged past him, and then also halted. His eyes went wide as he looked at the contents of the room.
It was three stories tall. The floor they were on merely overlooked the first floor, with panes of see-through soul gem cutting them off from the area inside.
On the first floor, several stations faced one another along either side of the wall. They looked like medical wards from some futuristic video.
There were pods in each of these bays. Most were lit up by internal light while others seemed to have gas converging inside them.
Bob stood at a console on the second floor, overlooking the first. When he noticed that the two had entered, he turned to face them.
“Welcome to the first growth laboratory, gentlemen!” Bob waved his hands.
Dave’s eyes fell on a pod that was raised up from the first floor by metallic arms. Inside there was a woman. She looked as if she were asleep.
“You did it?” Dave looked to Bob.
“I did it.” Bob smiled. Malsour and Dave moved up toward the glass; Bob turned around to look on his creation as well.
“It was harder than I thought it was going to be. Not being able to pull apart an Altar of Rebirth makes things a little harder. However, I helped to make all of the original races that made up the population of Emerilia. I had to get some information from my old notes back then and make a lot of the machinery from the beginning. It took me trial and error like crazy and while I’ve made bodies, I’m not yet sure if they’ll be ready for a consciousness transfer. And if it does work, then we’ve got to think of just what the hell we’re going to do,” Bob said.
Dave and Malsour looked at the fourteen pods—some lit up, others not. In each of them, a person was being born. Their true body.
“So, you’ve been able to make your own version of the Altar of Rebirth?” Malsour asked.
“Kind of. This can create people in a dormant state. It takes uploading their consciousness afterward to make them actually people. However, I do not have the capture and processing systems that the Altar of Rebirths have and can use in order to make people re-spawn. Also, with most people re-spawning after dying, their minds are broken and they can’t do it. With the players of Emerilia, it is different as they don’t linger on the fact that they’ve actually died as they don’t know that they have. Basically, their psychological stress is so reduced it doesn’t have a detrimental effect. But, someone knowing that they’re going to actually die and can only rely on the Altar of Rebirth to save them—they can be forever changed by the psychological stress, turning catatonic and even dying.”
“Lovely. So, what are the chances of this working?” Dave asked.
“I’d put it at seventy to eighty percent. I still need to do a whole bunch of tests and I can get that rate up to ninety percent. At the same time, I am working on creating an AI program to take over the person’s life within the Earth simulation, much like how the AI took over as you became a bleeder,” Bob said.
“Sounds rather complicated,” Malsour said.
“Well, the AI just run off information data, which is easy enough to fake. The problem is going to be the other players within the simulation starting to notice people acting weird. We can only pull out a small population of people from the Earth simulation. Hacking through the simulation isn’t too hard as I have admin rights. Though I’m having to hide my tracks as I find the more isolated people who are only surrounded by non-player characters,” Bob said.
“How stable are they going to be, finding out that they’ve only been surrounded by characters made up to try to get them to game?” Malsour turned to Dave.
“Well, that is the question, isn’t it?” Bob shrugged.
Dave was wrapped up in his own thoughts as he looked over those players.
They all looked into the lab for a few minutes before Dave broke the silence.
“It’s weird. In a way, we’re all brothers and sisters—us players, that is.”
“Most of your genes are really similar to one another. The argument could easily be made that you’re brothers and sisters. Every player pool is very similar in genealogy. It is only really the people of Emerilia who have a more diverse genetic background. I went a bit mad with making sure that they had multiple parent couplings, to make sure that there wasn’t regressive genes to come out. Some of the elves are closer in genes to the dwarves and orcs than they would ever think to guess,” Bob said.
Dave made a thoughtful noise as he looked over those pods. Before, they had just been brains in vats, people that he felt sorry for as their entire being and existence had been made and fabricated together by the Jukal Empire.
Now, however, seeing their bodies, he wasn’t all that different from them. They had all the same genes; they had gone through the simulation of Earth at the exact same time period but just in different simulations and the majority of them were gamers.
They could have just as easily been Josh, Suzy, Cassie, Esa, Dwayne, or any one of the millions of gamers on Emerilia right now.
Dave let out a shaky breath and cleared his head. “When will you start trying to see when you can shift their consciousness to their real bodies?”
“About a month. Then, if it goes well, I can pull out all the outlying people, have Jeeves cover it over—then I have to pull people in groups from across the Earth simulation. These groups are going to be thousands to tens of thousands big, ripping out entire networks of players before reviving them here, inserting in Jeeves immediately. For that, we’re going to need facilities much bigger than this, but then hopefully some people will be willing to help us and can learn through the Mirror of Communication school to improve their stats and skills,” Bob said.
“Damn, that’s a lot faster than I thought.” Malsour shook his head.
“Our plans are slowly but surely coming together,” Dave said. Suddenly he clapped his hands together. “Okay, so we’re going to be trying to hire people on to help us out with all of this and are from Emerilia. Let me know any names you have for people to help us or be hired on. Suzy will do her best to get them to join us. In the meantime, Malsour and
I need to go check on the asteroid facility.”
“I haven’t been able to look into the asteroid facility much. I re-positioned the portal within the asteroid, as you know, so that no one might see the light coming off the portal. There are also drones moving through the thing and eating through everything. As you’ve requested, half of the soul gem base constructs created by the industrial sector here have been sent to the asteroid facility, with the rest going to Emerilia and through Pandora’s Box.”
“Awesome. What about those portal materials?” Dave asked.
“I’ve also placed them out there. Be careful, though—need to test it all first,” Bob warned.
“We’ll do our best,” Malsour said.
“All right, well, stop keeping this old gnome waiting—go and get that asteroid base sorted out!” Bob shooed them out of his laboratory with his hands.
“Very well.” Dave sighed. He snapped his fingers; a spell formation appeared around Malsour and Dave in an instant, orbs floating around them.
One moment, they were in Bob’s laboratory; the next, they were in front of a portal that seemed to look into the abyss, with occasional beams of light.
“Was that teleporting?” Malsour said in shock. It had to be understood that only the gods and goddesses could teleport on Emerilia; they used the AI and their massive divine well power in order to do it.
However, Dave didn’t have an AI and nowhere near the power that they did.
“Well, I told you that I’ve been working on my teleportation.” Dave laughed.
“Yes, but I thought that was in relation to the portals, the teleport pads, and the onos. I never thought that you were going to do it to yourself! And to me! Have you even tested it out before?” Malsour’s voice went higher and higher with every moment.
“Well, I’ve done some tests with small objects, mostly when I’ve been off Emerilia. I’m not sure how sensitive those sensors really are and if they might pick up a foreign signal and link it to teleportation,” Dave said.
“So not really is your answer. Do you know what could have gone wrong?”
“Oh, don’t worry so much. I pulled it from what I have seen of Fire, Water, and Bob’s teleportation spells. Then I mixed it together with the knowledge that I have from working with the teleportation array, onos, portals, teleportation pads and all the rest that you just mentioned. If I am not qualified to do it, then I don’t think that there is anyone else on Emerilia who is,” Dave said with a confident smile. “Now let’s go and see this asteroid, shall we? I want to practice it some more.”
Emerilia Series Box Set 4 Page 55