Myria comes with me but Ekeerr stays behind to spend some time talking to Core. The palace is not hard to find, it is right at the base of the pillar. It is even within the barrier so I don't have to worry about anything attacking me.
As I walk up to the palace doors there is a click and they swing open on their own. It looks like the palace recognizes and reacts to the crown, which is reassuring. That should mean that any traps or defenses will also recognize the crown.
Thanks to the crown Myria and I are able to walk through the palace without any issues. However, we walk slowly anyway, because the halls are lined with paintings and sculptures. They are extremely beautiful and we keep slowing down to have more time to look at them.
Eventually we pass the last set of doors and enter the throne room. It is a beautiful room with many carved columns and the walls are covered with murals. From what I can see the murals are depicting the history of the elves and the city.
Since I already read the history book I can recognize most of the major events in the murals. Still, seeing a mural of something is quite different from reading about it. If I wasn't on a mission I would probably spend a few hours studying the murals.
However, since time is limited I turn and head towards the elven throne. The throne is truly a work of art, it is semi-transparent and looks like it was carved from a single diamond. Since I doubt there has ever been such a large diamond I am guessing it was made using magic.
As I approach the crown I am wearing starts glowing and shortly after a light glow comes from the throne. It isn't overly bright but the way the throne shines is enough to dazzle anyone looking at it. However, it does not look very comfortable to sit on, there isn't a single cushion.
As soon as I sit on the throne I feel an immense amount of mana flowing through it. It would seem that all the city's enchantments are centered in the throne. The only thing not connected is the barrier, which Core is the center of.
A whole bunch of control screens appear before me once I am seated on the throne. The middle one is a view from above of the entire city, which I can move around at will. I quickly realize that it is going to take a while to understand everything so I tell Myria to go join the kids.
Once she leaves I start playing with the screens and trying to understand the controls. There is a lot of information given by the screens, but because it is in elven it takes me time to understand it. As I learn more I realize that I can literally control everything from these screens.
Every enchantment in the city, even those on the houses, can be controlled from the throne. However, the biggest discovery I make is that the city has a large number of golems. Some are for repair, others are for collecting resources, and a few are for war.
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The lions at the gates are included in the last category, but they don't have to be used for defense. If I want to I can send them away from the city on missions, I can even send them to the surface. They are not the only war golems, it turns out all the knight statues in the palace are golems as well.
The fact that I walked right past them and never noticed bothers me a little bit. There are a total of fifty of them within the palace, some in the open, others hidden away. Like the lions I can send them out of the palace if I want to and they will go until they run out of mana.
While I am tempted to send them out spider hunting, once they leave the city I lose control of them. They will just follow the last order received until they run out of mana. While I can't be sure, it seems their mana would last for a month at most.
They would probably kill a lot of spiders during that time, but there is no way I can replace them. In the end I decide that it is better to keep them in the city as part of the defenses. Instead I turn my attention to the repair golems and check their capabilities.
Once I know what they can do I send all of them out to repair the destroyed section of the city. Not only can they repair the buildings and the city wall, but they can also repair the enchantments. That means once they are done the entire city will be usable by the beasts.
Once those orders are issued I turn my attention to the defensive enchantments. Currently they are set to target any non-elven life form that enters their range. That is the first thing I change, instead setting them to only target things with the spider's life force.
This is the best way to do it since I am not familiar with the beasts life forces. If anything besides the spiders attacks the city then the beasts will have to handle it themselves. Once that is done I start moving the defensive enchantments around.
Since I need them to cover the underside of the city I need to do a lot of work. The enchantments have to be weakened in some areas and stretched out in others. I take most of what I need from the defenses above the city against airborne threats.
This way once Zheka is done closing all the spider holes they won't be able to just dig more. Any spider that tries will end up fried like a moth flying into a bug zapper. Once I am done the city is safe for the beasts to start moving into it.
However, that does not mean I am done, there are still tons of things for me to play with. It turns out there are also a lot of enchantments that need maintenance done on them. Especially the few outside the city, like those that keep the orchard healthy.
The orchard is important to help the beast's food situation, especially as their numbers increase. So not only do I maintain the enchantments but I do what I can to improve them. I am tempted to add sacred power to strengthen all the enchantments but hold off since I don't know what would happen.
That kind of major change is something I should discuss with Core first. However, before I do that there is more that I want to play with in the enchantments. Some enchantments that are no longer useful I simply shut down, others I just maintain.
After a few hours playing with the control system I am fairly confident I understand it. Only as I shut down the control system and try to stand up do I realize how long I've been sitting. My butt and legs are numb causing me to almost fall on my face when I try to stand.