A month passed by in a whirl of work, deals, and construction. There were only a few big events that happened during this time. One of which was the hatching of the Lizard-Kin Queen, a gargantuan serpent-like creature that looked nothing like the diminutive Lizard-Kin he had created. It wanted little to do with him and slithered into the hatchery where it curled up and began laying a staggering number of eggs. Matthias tallied somewhere around a hundred and twenty per day on average after the first week.
A long discussion was had between Mab and the Dryad sisters who had become the de-facto ambassadors to Mob Inc. Ora and Very had even gone so far as to move their personal trees much closer to the border to enable them to be present far more often. In fact, there were many days he woke up to find them in the cavern talking with Mab or wandering around the grounds watching what was going on in fascination.
Along with the Dryad sisters Ora and Vera, the Lizard-Kin population exploded. He went from having two hundred or so of the smaller reptile folk to more than five hundred. A veritable small town if he ever had seen one. What was more, the Lizard-Kin began building their own buildings outside and away from the cavern. Small enclaves of buildings with underground areas surrounded by fields of crops sprouted up all around the headquarters complex and quickly replaced the devastation of the plains fire with farms. Coupled with the aspect that allowed him to ‘lend out’ his ability, of which there was apparently no real limit, each community had several Lizard-Kin mages capable of solving any immediate problem themselves instead of pulling him away from his planning and projects.
Dozens of family units formed and began procreating, but unlike the eggs that the Queen created or had come from the Assembler, these were tiny and hatched into what Matthias was calling youngling Lizard-Kin. And they were adorable. Even if their teeth were sharp.
While they didn’t grow as fast or hatch fully born as the first generation or those from the Queen and Assembler, they were still fully mobile and just as mischievous as any other child. The only exception to this were the two progenitors Lizard-Kin that he had taken to calling Red and Blue. He knew they were capable of speaking to one another, but their language eluded him, so he did the best he could.
Matthias quickly became fond of having the little guys running around the territory, although he had to quickly draw the line of allowing them anywhere near the moat area. It was far too dangerous for any species of child and the cavern itself was for Mob Inc, not a daycare.
Besides, he would feel really bad if one of them fell into the moat or got hurt. But he would pretend that was beside the point.
A few weeks of work had the farming communities built and stabilized, that meant that he could begin work on his own home. Using the rock that the Lizard-Kin excavated, he built ten new Golems of a type that he had seen in the Assembler database but hadn’t created yet. Titled ‘Processor Golems’, these constructs were large, as large as the Assembler was itself, and built entirely for harvest, processing, and constructing. He could only create one at a time, however, the first one off the assembly line built out his underground apartment home in less than an hour. Something that would have taken his Basic Golems a week or more.
Having ten of them sped up the construction of the labyrinthine underground complex exponentially, not to mention all the work to be done above ground. The Processor Golems completely redid the layout of the Headquarters Complex. The entrance tunnel and hallway now had stairs and a much more gradual tunnel leading down to the main cavern floor. The main cavern itself was expanded upon and converted into a large staging area, supply drop-off, and logistics floor. A second, much wider tunnel was excavated deeper into the island and split off into a half dozen different rooms. A very large room dedicated to the Assembler and more of its kind was built out, along with a generator room with the Tri-Phase generator. They were still well within their power requirements, having barely scratched the surface really, but when more Assemblers were made the need for more energy would skyrocket quickly.
Also branching off this tunnel was a barracks for the eventual troops he would need as well as a large civilian quarter where the Fairy Biome and his apartment were located. While the barracks were left unfit for now, the apartments and quarters along with a large communal kitchen were fully outfitted, taking nearly the entirety of what remained of Matthias' original funding. It was a good thing that he had sold a startling number of Lizard-Kin eggs since then to prop up their massive spending spree.
Going past the living quarters the tunnel terminated at a pit, one that was still being dug.
Matthias realized that while he had yet to gain control of the island he was on as a whole, he needed to develop facilities that were not easily breached and a fabrication yard for what the assembler called ‘Sky Ships’. While this was a ways down the road, it paid to be prepared so he held many deep discussions with Mab about the locations of a dedicated lab for the Waters Styx and where to put it. The feedback he got was direct and simple:
The deeper, the better.
He spent another two weeks building out a descending honeycomb of empty floors, rooms, labs, and manufactories that had yet to be built out. Nine floors total with plans to carve the Sky Ship fabrication yard from the bottom of the island itself. This would give it easy access as well as a defensible place that ships could return to. He even discussed the idea of eventually expanding it upward into the side of the island with Mab, although that would be a significant endeavor and he didn’t want to destabilize the flying island.
More research was needed.
The Dark Fairies and Mab had turned out to be lifesavers. Not only did the industries, yet mischievous, Fairies take over all sales and client interactions freeing him up for more important tasks they also served as his runners and messengers with their ability to teleport short ranges. He even put a few under Alyssa, making it clear that they were to obey her in all things exploratory, as he assigned her the title of Director of Exploratory Operations. She nearly exploded in happiness when that had happened, hugging his face until he nearly suffocated. Thankfully Mab was nearby to pry the excited Fairy off his face.
The last, and possibly most important development, was the coming of sentience to the Masterwork Golem. It was standing by one day at attention while Matthias was working when it suddenly asked a question.
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“Master. What is it?” it rumbled out.
Startled, Matthias looked up at the construct. “I… the question lacks clarity Masterwork. Can you provide more information,” he asked cautiously, watching the construct carefully. Sentient constructs had been known to go mad in the past and attack their creators. He didn’t think that was going to happen here, but anything was possible.
Masterwork was silent for a moment as it puzzled out its question. Eventually, it rephrased and said, “What am I?”
And there it was.
Masterwork had just achieved a sense of self, and Matthias had witnessed the birth of a new sentient being right in front of him. At least, Masterwork was now one in his opinion. Sages could argue the point either way, but once something realized that ‘it’ was an ‘I’, that was as good a benchmark as any for sentience in his opinion.
“Well, you were an advanced construct that I created to help me,” Matthias said slowly, the Masterwork Golem watching him intently, “But now I would say that you are you. What that means is what you make of it. Life is neither clear nor defined, and we find our own purpose through the discovery of what we enjoy doing and the pursuit of that. Whether that is to survive and thrive, to pursue an interest or hobby, or to pursue out of a greater goal or cause that we invest ourselves in.” Wincing internally, as it was a bit more of a complex answer than he had intended, he waited for a response.
The Masterwork didn’t disappoint.
“I see. I would like to think more about this,” it said in a stuttering and somewhat verbally broken-up response. Nodding, it returned to attention and waited for instructions.
Convinced that, at least for now, the newly sentient Golem wasn’t going to rip his skull off his spine in a fit of rage at just being created, Matthias returned to his paperwork and projections. Even if he kind of wished at this point someone would perform such an action. Paperwork could be worse than torture, or perhaps it was more accurate to say that paperwork was the most efficient kind of torture there was.
He flicked open his {BALANCE SHEET} to review his finances and was pleased to see that Mob Inc. had recovered back to over a hundred thousand NEX with his remaining nest egg of five hundred NEX bullion coins. In conjunction with that, he hadn’t had any real reason to use his Power for any reason. Between the crafter Lizard-Kin, the Dark Fairies, and the {BAZAAR}, he was more than able to find anything he needed to purchase outright without utilizing their still very limited resources. That would, of course, change significantly once they had sources of raw materials and additional Assemblers.
{BALANCE SHEET}
REMAINING POWER – 100
NEX BALANCE – 144,900
DENOMINATIONS
10K GOLD NEX BAR– 0
1K GOLD NEX COINS – 30
500 SILVER NEX COINS – 327
Egg sales had been going well. The next thing to be done was to create the Greater Lizard-Kin and work on those raptor mounts. Having those available would be a game changer, as reliable troops of any kind were immensely expensive and always highly sought after. Being able to mass produce them for various roles would be, simply put, the key to Mob Inc.’s success.
With most of the paperwork completed, his finances reviewed, and most of the pertinent and immediate issues handled, Matthias was about to head to the newly excavated Assembler room when he was interrupted by Alyssa. The Fairy came blasting into the room yelling about an emergency response to several attacks on the farming villages. It had been so quiet for so long, that he had nearly forgotten about the immediate danger from the various predators in the area.
It was this conversation that rapidly found Matthias standing in the new, much expanded and fortified, courtyard on the ground level of Mob Inc’s Headquarters. In front of him were a dozen wounded Lizard-Kin, and he was furious about it. The raptors had returned and were as spiteful as ever. There had not been any deaths so far, but the attacks were ramping up and more and more farms were being hit by the Lizard-Kin’s vicious cousins causing immense damage to crops. True, they were usually fought off with few if any injuries, but it was the principle of the attacks that mattered. These carnivorous assholes were smart. Smart enough to know that these attacks were both annoying and disrupted his operations.
“I want to get a Golem force together with Fairy air support,” he said to Mab with seething anger bleeding through in raw undertones. “Ten Golems with three Fairies in three groups. I want Alyssa in overall command. Patrol the area, hunt down these bastards, and bring their bodies back to me. It's high time we had some muscle to begin conquering and claiming this island.”
Mab nodded at that, “Go. Figure out your creatures… your mobs. I will organize this. May I bring through the next wave of Dark Fairies? They are more mischievous than combat capable, but with Alyssa and the ability aspects of your powers, we can give them far more versatility as scouts and assassins than they ever had before.”
“Please do. The residential complex has a dozen unfurnished Fairy apartments right now. Buy any furnishings needed…” he trailed off as a thought struck him. “And see if you can’t find some kind of tinker or inventor. I have some other ideas that may bear fruit, but it is very much secondary.”
With that, he turned to the wounded Lizard-Kin. Focusing the entirety of {POWER OVERWHELMING} on them and their injuries, he simply willed the wounds into non-existence. A gasp went up from the Fairies observing, and even Mab looked impressed. And all it cost him was fifty Power.
Worth. Every. Point.
“I’m going to the Assembler room. I have work to do, things to make, and an army to build,” he said slowly, turning around to make slow eye contact with every sentient being in the courtyard. “I need organic matter. A lot of organic matter. Bodies, crops we are sending to storage, plants, anything we can find or spare. I also need minerals.”
He turned to Alyssa, “I want you to take one of those scout groups and survey that closest mineral node. If it is literally any kind of metal, get a team of Golems over there under Masterwork and mine everything you can carry. Damn, we need some kind of transportation… put that on the list Mab,” he said, frustrated that yet another thing had been added that he needed to tackle.
With the orders disseminated, Matthias headed down to the Assembly room. The large machine looked small within the new cavernous room, but he knew that would change when he had more of them made. Something that he was going to do right now.
Supply chains on developed worlds were often built around supply, demand, and the ability to transport those supplies to where they were in demand. Here, there was no demand but their own, and their supply was limited to what they could buy, fabricate, or create. He was about to address a large part of their ability to create.
Currently, the only Assembler they had was dedicated to making Golems, and before that the original Lizard-Kin Blue and Red, and the Lizard-Kin Queen. It also contained the master database for nearly every known creature and material known to Trion Incorporated. A terrifying amount of information, but little was within the massive store of information and templates that they could actually use with the resources they had.
Hobbling over, his own wounds still bothering him, he powered on the large screen on the front of the Assembler. He queued in an order for a dedicated Assembler. A smaller one, capable of holding a single blueprint. The new Assembler would be tasked to make more Assemblers. Once that was going he would queue up another Assembler dedicated to making the Greater Lizard-Kin. That would kickstart their manufacturing capabilities.
Matthias only hoped that he hadn’t put this off so long that it would bite them in the ass. Those raptors were dangerous and smart, and a mental snag in the back of his mind told him there was something else going on here. Something that he wasn’t seeing. Something big.
And that worried him more than anything else.