Months flew by in a flash after the birth of my first two children. I knew precisely where the portal anchors needed to be built to ensure that the enemy would be walking into a kill zone when they came through, and a great deal of work was needed to construct the fortress that would box in the enemy.
By day, I dug and hauled stone around. There used to be a mountain nearby. Used to. It's gone now, consumed for its resources to build a fortress. Some of you can black out and skip the math stuff, but for you nerds, the fortress sits on a cylinder that is 10,500 feet wide and 500 feet deep. The fortress is a ring 500 feet tall on the exterior of the ring (thus 500 feet thick), and it is about 30 percent empty space for living quarters and such. Consider that rock weighs about 175 pounds per cubic foot and that approximately 66 percent of it by weight is useful for obsidian, and the whole thing comes out to just under 25,000 million tons, or 1.25 cubic miles of obsidicrete. That is a rough estimate with no consideration of the curvature of the earth or the shaping of rooms and parapets, but it gets me a good idea of how much material I need. For perspective, the road I built here was just under 300 million tons, so this fortress and its exterior buildings was about 100 times more work than the road, but at least it was all in one spot.
My small army of workers had little to do, for a project of this scale was beyond their means if we wanted to complete this in a timely manner. They departed north, back the road we had built, so that they could start prep work on rest stops and roads that branched from this main highway to all the cities along the way. I would eventually go back and fill them in with proper structures and roads, but for now, I remained here. The north is far safer and closer to pockets of civilization, so they don’t need two dragons to hold their hands or certain members of their security team, namely Jericho, who stayed with me. Likewise, Torborg and half his staff of engineers did not return north because the rough work of setting the groundwork for roads through smooth terrain did not require such high levels of expertise.
By night, I worked on my [Enchanting]. I would need large underground pylons to serve as anchors for the portal, as well as various mana accumulators and relays to keep it powered. If the anchor broke, the enemy could move the portal a little bit, which on the scale of a planet, meant several miles, which would be rather bad for us as we would not be able to contain it. Ergo, security on the portal anchors was second to none, with most of my whelps tied in patrolling the area.
Few even knew it was down here under the fortress, and as dark as it sounds, a few of those were deemed best suited to keeping that secret if they were six feet under. I’m not proud of making such a call, but when the fate of the world is at stake, I can’t be squeamish about offing a few individuals who get loose lips when deep in their cups. The only people who met that criteria were those who somehow discovered the anchor, people who put their noses where it did not belong, for I knew by now who could be trusted and who could not. As one may imagine, that means not a single gnome was in the loop.
I also worked tirelessly on kitting out my entourage with the best enchanted items I could make. Weapons and armor that never dulled or tarnished, that self-repaired and kept one feeling clean and comfortable, were a hot item. Smaller trinkets, like ones for dimensional storage, hygiene, less need for sleep, healing, sneakiness, toughness, strength, speed, perception, reaction time, memory, and so forth also rounded them out. I would kill to study Gulfore’s pocket tavern, which is apparently an artifact that had been handed down for generations, but she is not here and probably wouldn’t trust me to poke around.
While the city generated a lot of money, it used it just as fast, so to supplement my coffers, I also had an auction held every week where a limited edition of my second best enchanted items sold for large sums. Naturally, I would slowly increase the quality of goods over time so that those who needed the latest and greatest would keep coming back, but even my relative failures in honing my craft were leagues above what was commercially available.
This isn’t to say that other [Enchanters] couldn’t make stuff as good as I did, they just didn’t. It was expensive with their primitive techniques and a good way to find themselves more or less slaves of the state, for letting them roam freely was a security risk of letting your country’s secret recipes become exposed to the world. Turns out, it is a challenging enterprise to keep a dragon under one’s thumb, even more so for an Emperor, so I felt confident on strutting my stuff, so to speak. It would not stop me from recruiting and poaching talent when I could, for more [Enchanters] were always welcome, and the more adventurous of them nearly salivated at the generous offers I had to entice them to move to World’s End. There is something about free housing and sharing my secret techniques that just motivates people, go figure.
Nabonidus was the single most important person in making me money. His ability to see the near future was crucial to rigging the auction house and gambling dens so that the house always won. Well, our confederates that seemingly walked in off the street won for us, helping raise the bids to the absolute limit or slowly siphoning the money out of those who wished to try their hand at games of chance. The whole system is convoluted, and while I will describe it at some point, the part I cared about was having more money to buy all the things my city and roads needed.
For instance, my proto-Crossing Guard, while kitted out at little expense thanks to my Skills, still wanted a salary, and for individuals of such prowess, such does not come cheaply. None of my roads have tolls, nor does the entrance to the city, and tariffs can only provide so much. Getting a farm of rare herbs up and running thanks to my boon of [Rare Plant Cultivation] would really rake in the money and death threats. The assassins sent after me by rival merchants would most likely have expensive stuff on their persons, and so that would provide even more income. Naturally, the shadow war of eliminating said merchants would most likely provide additional income, as they don’t need all that stuff lying around when they are dead. I don’t throw the first punch, but I end fights quickly with little collateral damage. I was rather looking forward to it, if I am being honest.
Armies started to show up already. I had built rudimentary forts and barracks around the outside of the main fortress. They were quick and easy constructs, utilitarian and temporal in nature, to hold the troops while I finished the fortress proper. I did have to go back and build even more bathhouses, for I could smell their unwashed stench from thousands of feet in the air when I soared back and forth to my resource deposits. Gong farmers also made a killing, for that many man and beast produce mountains of poop. There even became a saying around camp that “food goes south and shit goes north”, for such was the nature of cargo in wagons that merrily utilized my grand highway daily.
Crime was on the rise with so many bored soldiers. A lot more human trafficking than I had accounted for had made up a large chunk of it. While World’s End proper had ample brothels, these camps out here by the portal did not have nearly enough to meet demand. My gangs of riccen were worked to the bone to keep slavery and contraband to the appropriate minimums, which is essentially zero for the former, with exceptions made for [Slave Traders] and the like getting a taste of their own medicine. Moral implications aside, slaves don’t have free will to buy my wares or use my roads, so slavery goes against my ambitions.
All things considered, Tamadora was doing an excellent job running the entertainment district and my secret police. Well, maybe not secret police, as they don’t officially exist, but rival criminal enterprises had failed to get a solid foothold in my city. It did not stop new gangs from trying to muscle their way in, and I actually had to make a few incinerators to handle the sheer number of bodies for all the ne'er-do-wells that experienced “unfortunate accidents”. Despite the railings and safety features, so many of them seemed to fall out of windows and down stairs or shoot themselves in the back of the head with a crossbow. I have a whole collection of gang insignias and code books from various spies that have been caught. I could probably open a museum.
Speaking of museums, my physical hoard is in a museum. A dragon’s [Hoard] is empowered by its availability and how well known it is. What better way to maximize both aspects than with a museum that offers free tours? Most displays are just for observation only, but some can be touched. A small army of my finest kobolds secretly works security, but that opening day, I swear I could fight the gods themselves, so much power flowed through me from the amplification of my [Hoard]. It isn’t just coins and such any more, for I have started to collect trinkets, art, heirlooms, and pretty much anything that catches my fancy. It is a slow process based around whatever interests me at the time. The object in question just sorta has to “speak” to me in a metaphorical sense, I can’t just buy a wagon full of paintings and call it a day.
Every now and then, something is stolen, but dragons always know where everything is as it relates to their [Hoard], so the foolish thieves basically carry a giant beacon on them when they abscond with my stuff. Said thieves tend to have hideouts with equally cool stuff, so it gives me a chance to blow off steam by cutting loose with a spot of murder as I extract my vengeance on them. Plus, those hideouts have things that can be sold off or that catch my eye, and many a worthy addition to my collection has come from thieves who thought they got away clean. It really is one of my favorite hobbies to go after [Hoard]-thieves, less so for regular [Highwaymen].
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
[Highwaymen] have become the bane of my existence and a chore. No matter how many I kill, no matter how many bodies I put on pikes with foreboding signs around their necks, they just keep coming. They all seem to think that they are special and smart, that they will succeed where others have failed. What whelps I can spare are dispatched to hunt them down, but I have to manually control my whelps once they find the [Highwaymen], as whelps lack the cunning to take out a whole camp of them without survivors escaping. Now, having [Parallel Minds] helps with multitasking, but not so much with the predictable tediousness of eliminating yet another camp of bandits.
I have half a mind to make a school for Adventurers, and the “objective assessments” is just them accompanying my whelps to help corral the enemy when I go on raids. It gives them practical world experience and exposure to the lifestyle, with a very low probability of death compared to normal low-tier Adventure work. Actually, it is totally on my very long list of things I need to get up and running, but I can only delegate so many things to my flight and companions.
As for my laundry list of chores, I need to finish housing for the refugees from beyond the portal, build all the connecting roads up north to the various cities, duplicate that entire road structure down south (a much less pressing issue since they mostly sail up and down the coast), build my rare herb farm, make my own trade consortium, set up more-permanent solutions to feeding my city, deal with my holdings back in Berkerin, manage a never-ending stream of social and political obligations, grow my flight and its entourage of mortal attendants, make nice with the other flights, grow my [Hoard], and on and on it goes.
I also need to spend more time with my children. I give them a couple of hours a day, but Tamadora is especially clingy and disturbingly submissive to me. She begrudgingly acknowledges those in my inner circle as peers, but she is rather dominant when dealing with everyone else. She also has a bad attitude where she feels everyone else is low-born, but that is probably part and parcel to her current personality and a side-effect of making her born as an adult. I would fix that when I recycle her as a Princess, where she would be born again (as a child from here on out), slowly fixing all the problems she has.
Kaisadoro is almost worse. He is obsessed with schedules and is a workaholic. He does keep things running smoothly, and he does make time to collect Traits, especially with that [Princess] I obtained, but his personal relationships with others are almost entirely handled like business, even with me. I wouldn’t go so far to say that he is an idiot savant, but he can get caught up on the tiniest matters of procedure and ceremony while somehow also keeping my empire from collapsing. I’m not really sure if some of my kobolds have abandoned me in favor of him or if they are still loyal to me, but either way, most of his staff are kobolds.
Speaking of, there are probably 2 or 3 kobolds for every non-kobold in the city. Gambino’s recruitment efforts have been a little too effective, and while we don’t need all of them right yet, as my flight grows, I will be glad to have such a large number of kobolds. Fortunately, they are not very greedy or materialistic, so they aren’t causing problems beyond whatever characters they act out in fulfilling their roles. They read the mode of the city and act accordingly. Like, if there was an economic depression, they would put on tattered clothes and stand in line to get jobs while looking glum, not that they actually need jobs, but it helps them blend in with the city. Those same ones would dress up as the landed gentry and behave in a pompous manner if my city was overflowing with [Nobles]. Right now, they are busy exploring and nesting in the Undercity, and that should distract them for a few months.
We also have our first tribe of goblins that have migrated to the outskirts of civilization. As long as they stick to stealing and being a nuisance, they will be tolerated, but if they start murdering people, they will be culled. Most tribes know this, they know that we know this, and they are inclined to behave themselves while pushing the limits of what they can get away with. In return, they exert some kind of “pressure” that helps keep beasts and monsters out of civilization, so they are not entirely detrimental. In addition, they make great targets for young Adventurers to cut their teeth upon. Goblins who kill Adventurers move up the pecking order in the tribe, so this mutual relationship should work out well for the city, if one ignores the grim and dark aspects of it. Alterez tries to appear nonchalant, but I know he is especially keen to hear if there are any particular beauties amongst the goblins with a propensity to get along well in polite society.
It has been a full four years since I left my little village for the opportunity of Berkerin. I have achieved much, gained the trust of many friends and allies, and I was about to live in interesting times. The fortress, called World’s Hope, is finished. Well, the construction is done, the enchantments placed, everything is powered. I leave it to the rabble to move in supplies and furniture. In the spirit of fairness, and to keep people out of my way, no one was allowed to move in until the whole thing was complete. That also probably stopped riots and the appearance of favoritism, for no one wanted to be stuck in the “boonies” around the fort. Said outskirts have been torn down and remade now that I know more about what works and what doesn’t. They do not provide as much in the way of goods and services like World’s End does, but they will allow various units to rotate who is on duty at any given time.
Armies from all over the world have shown up, and not those made of levies and conscripts, but professional and veteran soldiers one and all. Banners can be seen everywhere as each unit proudly displays their heraldry. There is a whole game of sorts of not allowing certain units near other ones lest old grudges lead to open brawls, but overall, the number of hangings for egregious transgressions is well within limits. I just built the fortress; it is someone else’s job to administrate the circus of so many personalities crammed into too small a space. The sooner the enemy arrives, the sooner these violent men and women will gain some cohesion and stop nipping at one another.
The portal is primed and ready. Our gods talk to us, and they talk to the gods of the other world, who then talk to the mortals that live there. Through them, we have coordinated the details of how to establish a connection. The gods are still cryptic and mysterious about who exactly these refugees are, and indeed the details of the enemy are sparse, but at least we know where and how to house them until they can get on their feet. Fortunately, they speak the same language as us, as all the gods of various planets work together to make sure Common remains more or less the same everywhere, although linguistic drift still occurs over time.
The other flights are nowhere to be seen, not even mortal representatives, which seems like a bad showing of either force or hospitality. It is just me, Tamadora, Kaisadoro, Nanu, and a smattering of whelps, at least as far as I can tell. There could be other dragons around, but they would have much better Skills at remaining covert compared to mine to detect them. No doubt the other flights at least have spies around here so that they stay in the loop. I feel like they just didn’t want to be saddled with the responsibility of managing a bunch of refugees.
The hour cometh, I ignite the infinitum engines deep beneath the earth, and a large sphere of distorted space sorta wobbles into existence before stabilizing and growing. Black as night, it expands until only a semicircle is visible above the completely level obsidisteel interior floor of the fortress.
Great maws full of teeth punch through, followed by long necks and massive legs. Familiar creatures, yet simultaneously more primal and advanced than the local fauna, dinosaurs marched through, along with little lizardmen who ride them or walk among them. Hmm, probably not lizard-based beings, but dinosaur-based. Saurkin perhaps, although their exact species or names escape me, other than that there seem to be several different species among them. My own world had them long ago, but legends say they left for distant worlds via portals that opened of their own accord. Perhaps this is their progeny returning home at last. The dinosaurs and saurkin were each wearing their best, their clothes sparse and tribal in nature, yet ornate and colorful. The dinosaurs were painted in the colors of what I can only assume to be of clan and tribe.
Thousands filed through, and then a new race appeared, something entirely foreign. Perhaps 10 feet tall, they walked on four legs that came out radially from the center torso, each leg ending in a spike instead of feet. They had four arms, the lower pair being smaller and held close to their body. Ethereal and wispy tendrils trailed out of their backs, each one easily three or four times as long as their bodies, but they didn’t seem to physically touch anything. Their faces were vaguely humanoid, although their teeth were sharp and they had no visible ears. Their entire bodies seemed to be made of metal and crystal, not of flesh and blood. Imposing, with those among them clearly armed for war, but few in number compared to the civilians that they escorted.
The largest among them, as escorted by two bannermen, approached me where I sat in my draconic form, my flight arrayed behind me with my companions behind them. Sitting down on just my rear, my front legs still standing, I was easily 20 feet tall at the shoulder, with my neck being rather long, but currently lowered so that I could converse with the new arrivals.
Clearly a military commander of some sort, he handed his weapons over to his bannermen. One weapon was a sword, the other some kind of hook that I did not understand the purpose of, but both looked beautiful and well-used. With some manner of salute, each right hand overlapping the fist of the left, he bowed slightly in greeting before speaking.
“Polemarch Kirov reporting!” he announced as all else fell quiet. And so the first stages of the war for our survival had begun.