>Structures>Crafting

—Siege Factory (Castle, Armoury, Forge, & Anvil)—

Unlocks the ability to evolve a creative minion to Siege Engine Builder and enables the creation of engines of war

Required Materials: Quarried Stone, Timber, Wrought Iron, & Bronze

“How do I get bronze?” I wondered, then I saw how Imu was pointing at my Forges and Anvils in my southern quadrant. I quickly got the hint.

With a single ethereal gesture, my essence washed over the entire area of my settlement, evolving every building not already evolved. Unlike the incident from when I evolved my Quarry, no minions died as a result of the sudden changes that every building underwent.

Name: Upgraded Forge

Occupation: Forge

Species: Forge (Crafting (Building))

Level: 2/2

Alignment: Ready-and-able-to-smelt-the-metal-of-Gods-if-necessary

Faction: Toad Town

You, Smithies! Make me Bronze! Quick!

Immediately, all three upgraded Forges began pumping out copious amounts of dark life-smothering smog, which blanketed the entire area in ominous mist, though, thanks to the foresight of our settlement planning, it only really enveloped other buildings that similarly created smog or other by-products that seemed to negatively affect my minions’ motivation and productivity.

Congratulations! For refining bronze by making an alloy of copper mixed with tin and other worthless metals, you unlocked the ability to craft Bronze versions of all tools and weapons!

“What’s an alloy,” I asked Imu.

“It’s something that has the benefits of several metals, in this case making something stronger than copper by mixing it with other metals like tin.”

“But isn’t tin garbage?”

“Yes.”

“But we use it to make something strong? That makes no sense to me.”

“Of course it doesn’t, you’re a toad after all.”

“I am no longer simply a toad. I am a Toadkin!”

“Technically you’re more related to a ghost than a humanoid… anyway, if we get our hands on some zinc, we can make an alloy between that and copper called brass, which has a lot of benefits too.”

“Metallurgy is complicated.”

“Thank Deathheim you don’t need to understand it to make it,” he remarked.

Towering over the Armoury and even the four-storey Fletchery, the Siege Factory was a behemoth of a building, though it wasn’t much to look at, as it was basically just a tall square building with a lot of internal space for crafting large things. Its internal space was also crisscrossed by many gantries and walkways that would allow the Builders within to easily work on structures that rose more than six metres off the ground.

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Next to it stood the Beast Inventor Workshop, which was as bizarre as the Factory was plain. First off, it was round, like half an eggshell, though its roof/walls were covered in hexagonal shapes all along and the building let off a steady hum of energy, as though charged by magical powers. Given its purpose and abilities, perhaps it was not too farfetched an idea to believe it was in fact imbued with magic.

A crazy minion came running with a copper shield and a frog cattle, which he parked outside the building before entering for his evolution. Strangely, the frog cattle just sat there with the shield on top of its head, looking pretty indifferent about whatever fate awaited it.

I blasted the building with my essence and there followed a cold blue lightshow that seemed to shoot out of every hexagonal plate that covered the large dome building. Instead of walking out of the enormous doorway that he had entered through, the evolved minion burst through the roof, a pair of goose wings adorning his back and his body a mix of several animals: he had the densely-scaled grey head of a horned lizard; the dark-brown torso of fuzzy bat; the arms of squirrel; and the legs of a pigeon.

I inspected him as he landed before the frog he had abandoned:

Name: Mad Scientist

Occupation: Mad Scientist

Species: Chimera Minion

Level: 30/50

Alignment: Endlessly-creative-and-full-of-terrifying-ideas-that-would-offend-even-the-most-lenient-Gods

Faction: Toad Town & Chimera Appreciators Anonymous

Before I could even task him with anything, he dragged the frog cattle into the strange building with one hand, while holding the copper shield in the other.

There followed a continuous trembling that made every building nearby creak and protest as the fundament below them shifted ever-so-slightly. Then a horrifying stretched-out screech tore through the air, like the heralding horn of the end time sounding before the appearance of one of its harbingers.

Ominous cold-blue light shone through the large gate of the building as it slowly opened, then the first intentionally-crafted Beast of War emerged. The ground was left with large footprints as it slowly moved across the district, taking in the sensations of the world around it.

Imu, who had been anxiously watching from nearby, suddenly piped up: “Is that a turtle?”

“It’s a tortoise,” I corrected him.

Name: Arnold

Occupation: War Beast

Species: Copper-Shield Tortoise (Chimera)

Level: 60/60

Alignment: Feels-undefeatable

Faction: Toad Town

It was a two-and-a-half-metre-tall five-metre-wide tortoise with pale red scaly skin, a narrow triangular head with glowing white eyes, devastatingly-crushing blocky teeth, dangerously-sharp rending claws on its six legs, and a shell made purely of matte copper.

As Imu observed it, he seemed to notice something nestled between the Beast Inventor Workshop and Siege Factory. “Oi… Toady… don’t tell me that’s…”

“The Fleshcrafter’s Laboratorium! Surprise!”

“Delete it from existence.”

“No!”

“Do you even know what it can do!? It’s really dangerous!!”

“But he’s already fixed up several of our minions who should have died!” I argued back.

“…Wait. Is this why I keep seeing minions with more than two arms and blades that can pop out of their legs and torsos!?”

“Isn’t it neat?”

“Seriously. Get rid of it…”

“No!”

Imu sighed, then made a weird hiccupping sound as he beheld the Fleshcrafter who momentarily came out of the unassuming laboratorium. “Oi… why doesn’t he have any skin?”

“Who knows.”

The Fleshcrafter minion was a red, permanently-bleeding, skinned whomanoid that lacked any of the traits of my beautiful Toadkin. He wore a stone mask with a flat mouth and round eyeholes, and two sets of triple-jointed arms grew from his shoulder-blades like the legs of a spider.

Name: Goddard

Occupation: Fleshcrafter

Species: Ascendant

Level: ????

Alignment: ( : | )

Faction: The Flayed Lady

“What do you think we can craft if we combine the Siege Factory, Laboratorium, and Beast Workshop?”

“I think I need a sick-leave. My stomach feels like it suddenly manifested thirteen ulcers.”

For reasons I couldn’t fully explain, I used my Mind-reader on the Fleshcrafter and the result surprised me:

I know you can hear this, Toad. I know everything about you. I have seen in the stars the path you will take and the chaos that is sure to dog your heels at every turn. But I support your ascendancy, for it is sure to bring a change to the world that will benefit me and my kindred spirits. Praise be to the chaos and the roaring depravities you will unveil by bringing your terrible might to bear upon all those witless beings that exist in this mortal plane.

“Yeah… I need a break,” Imu concluded and left.