Chapter 2
Elsewhere on Artin
Enania sat in a meditative pose on a bed of pine needles and mossy stone. She was surrounded by the towering pine trees of the Black forest. The sky was overcast, and likely to rain soon. She could feel the air pressure dropping.
Her immediate environment was just a distraction. She was trying to focus on her mana sense. Something had happened in the south, a strong disturbance that had rippled through the mana sphere. Her first guess was a volcanic event, but there was no earthquake to follow up the mana disturbance. The next possibility was some kind of underground battle, and that would be very worrying. None of the underground races on this continent would use such powerful magic. The Kobolds used a mix of magic and mundane tech, but the magic was never in large amounts. The Deep Gnomes would never want to draw attention to themselves by using any detectable amount of magic. It could have been the goblins returning, but their love of explosions meant there should have been an earthquake as well.
Her musing was interrupted by another wave of magical disturbance. This one was much larger, and unlike last time she was ready to sense it.
‘That was definitely a magical explosion’. She spoke aloud “Faelar, did you sense those magical disturbances.”
From half a mile away Faelar responded, “Yes mother, the first one was almost too faint for me, but the second was as clear as the noon sun.”
“Good, your senses are improving. Could you or one of your siblings investigate, I fear it might herald the return of the goblins.”
“Of course, anything for you, mother.”
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Myelrek and Nyeruc checked the gear of their children as they passed by them in the tunnel. A dungeon had appeared only a few miles away, and was rapidly digging towards the surface. The initial reveal of the dungeon had even shattered some of their more sensitive mana spike locators. The dungeon must be powerful enough to fend off the worms, but such a young dungeon couldn’t be too powerful. It would be a perfect testing ground for this clutch of children. None of them had been blooded in a real battle before, and without the blood of a real battle none of them would awaken any of their ancestral bloodlines.
They each wore a set of hardened scale armor, and carried bone and claw weapons crafted from the remains of their older siblings that had fallen before them. They each had various animal furs and hides draped on top of the armor to keep them warm, backpacks with snow gear and food, and some portable dungeon locator devices.
After sending off their children Myelrek and Nyeruc returned to a room filled with devices. They wanted to see the moment the dungeon broke through to the surface, to try and get some sense of what fate awaited their children.
They almost thought they’d missed it when the dungeon broke through and nothing happened. They checked over the devices in confusion for 20 minutes until all the devices simultaneously shattered.
There was a glance of sorrow between the two parents as they realized none of their children might return alive. But then they were moving, quickly sealing up their home, and packing some travel essentials. They carefully moved twenty of their latest clutch of eggs to a carrier. They slipped out a hole and were gone, their home was silent.
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Thirteen other nearby Kobold nests had very similar scenes play out. Twelve nests only had eggs and they left with as many as they could safely carely after the mana explosion. Five nests had children too young to leave the nest, and they decided to hunker down.
The Kobold nests that were further away from the explosion sent their young in both directions. Some were sent scouting towards the direction of the explosion to figure out the problem, and others were sent outward from the explosion to call in favors from outlying nests.
In total about 700 kobolds were converging on the site of the explosion.
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Thralic was staring at the cave wall with a writing utensil in hand. It was his way of thinking to himself. There were some checked off items:
Destroy mana battery
Disable mana intensive items
Disguise entrance
Inventory equipment
Collapse tunnel no bad idea, would take too long to redig without mana battery
Greet surface world guests no bad idea, could be too powerful, should negotiate from position of strength
He had made the mistake of making the other items on the list far too large:
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
Negotiate surface worlder alliance
Make base of operations
Setup defenses
Setup portal linkage
Making a base of operations was a necessary first step, so he decided to break that down further.
Setup mana “quiet” zone
Inner area planning
Inner area initial construction. Clear out rooms and space. Use a small 3D layout, to handle threats from any direction. Open outer defensive areas, funnel attackers to choke points for a second line of defense. Leave the inner area defenseless, if they make it that far I’m screwed, and I’d rather not have to deal with defenses where I’ll be working.
Missing resource assessment (find out what I need to complete the base)
Resource expedition
The mana quiet zone was the first priority, so that his base wouldn’t be easily discovered. To set it up he had to alter the output of the ether stone stabilizer. By default the ether stone stabilizer would convert a liquid slurry of ether stone into a hardened ‘solid’ ether stone. Without this conversion the ether stone would just bleed off into the environment. Now he needed to convert the ether stone back into a liquid like state, but surround it with a hardened shell of ether stone so it wouldn’t bleed off into the environment. Back at the academy they had compared it to keeping a fish alive in a fishbowl. You need a fishbowl, and water for the fish to live. If you have water but no bowl, the water drains away and the fish dies. A solid sphere of glass and there is no room for the fish to swim around and it dies. A bowl with no water and the fish dies.
Of course, the metaphor broke down when considering the mana battery. He supposed that it was like having a lightbulb in a fishbowl that you were trying to hide.
The changes to the ether stone converter didn’t take very long, since it was an anticipated change and most of the runes to handle it were already present. He just had to change the energy pathways to stop using the hardening runes, and switch to the fishbowl builder runes.
With that out of the way, and the converter running on a steady supply of energy from the particle generator, he was able to get to planning the inner area.
Name
Purpose
Relative Size
Adjacent needs
Mapping
Mapping, espionage, counter espionage, internal security tracking
1
none
Runic Scriptorium
Specialized runic scribing, diagnosis of broken runes, repair of complex runes.
1
none
Small Smelter
Handling raw ore, upgrading metals.
4
Entrance/exit to base
Small Forge
Shaping and stamping of metals
2
Smelter
Personal Armory
Personal armor and weapon repair. Personal weapon ammo manufacture
2
Forge, Runic Scriptorium
Defense Manufacturing
Base-wide defense manufacturing. Turret assembly, hardened defensive plates.
5
Forge, Smelter, Runic Scriptorium.
Personal Quarters
Sleep, eating, healing, physical upgrades.
1
Mapping
Ancestor Drone Hangar
Ancestor drone storage, activation of ancestor cores, repair, and manufacture of drones.
2
Forge, Runic Scriptorium
He drew a few different iterations of a base before settling on one that he liked and satisfied the requirements. It was roughly cube shaped, with an entrance at the bottom leading into the smelter, and two entrances at the top of the east and west points of the cube that ultimately just spiraled downward around the cube until meeting up with the smelter entrance. Above the smelter was the defense manufacturing room, forge, and personal armory. The defense manufacturing room extended vertically to the top of the inner cub. Above the forge was the runic scriptorium, and ancestor drone hangar. Above them was the mapping room and living quarter. They ended up having more space than he needed, but he’d rather have the extra space in his living quarters.
[https://i.imgur.com/ER3ZPAO.png]