In a way, the Darkworld was the perfect place for my industry. The corruptive energies had strange effects on magic, particularly on scrying and teleportation, and this region was a bit above the average in density.
That, however, only played into my situation nicely. Here, in the dark city, the renovation work had long since been completed and the undead Gray-Dwarves had experienced an extensive education in the Shade Palace. Not to unlearn or abandon their habit of building grossly utilitarian constructs, but to teach them that their creations were but templates. Canvases to be drawn on by another.
They never understood. But still, they had no choice but to accept my teachings and move on to learn about technology.
Circuit boards, transistors. Electronics in general was right up their alley. Hardware had no need to look pretty, and being made from the earth only strengthened their love for it.
Though their hands were ill-suited for the tasks requiring precision, they were deeply engrossed in the work. A seemingly good thing, and it was until it got so bad that they started fighting amongst themselves to see who would create electronics rather than work in the forges or the mines. Naturally, I left it up for their king, Raul, to decide. And he decided to make them fight for it. Inadvertently giving a new means of recreation to the citizens.
As for them, nearly all of them were in the process of learning to read, write, and count from their clones and I was doing the same in their languages. There were a few stragglers of course, but the ones that would graduate first would move on to learn how to type shortly after.
While the printing press existed, typewriters were a rare commodity. Thus some people knew how to type, although the keys were much, much different.
Still, computers were a foreign idea up until now. And that allowed for a much simpler range of inputs to be fashioned into the design, especially when the keys were written in the more-than-primitive language of the goblins. Now, here, in the Darkworld, the first computers came into existence and the citizens who witnessed their birth were faced with the task of learning how to write in the computer language.
The best of them would go on to learn how to code and would be put to work with me, the Doppelganger, creating programs to aid the new technologies being created by the day while the others continued their education in specialized fields. Though that wouldn't be months, if not years to come. Even I couldn't teach them that fast. And the original wasn't here to temporally dilate the cavern.
That left all the work to me while Amun took his time in the healing course. Naturally, the first of those technologies lay in the agricultural field, which in itself required extensive research and tailoring to fit the biomes found within both the Darkworld and the realms above. Research that was continuing to this day, a tenday later, alongside several other technologies.
Along with agriculture and industry, transportation and communication were the most important aspects of any military or fighting group. If soldiers couldn't communicate, they'd find themselves not knowing where to go or who to fight. If they had no arms or equipment, they couldn't fight to the best of their ability. If their objective was too far, they'd be too tired to fight upon arrival. And if they weren't fed, they wouldn't fight at all.
That went for any organization. Any nation. And with goals that necessitated Legions numbering millions and perhaps millions more civilians, that certainly went for mine. I had some of those facets in excess, and only some, but what I didn't have were redundancies. Contingencies. Backups for the backups.
In other words, I needed more land. More mines. More farms. More ranches. More towers and cities and most of all, people. More citizens to learn the arts of coding and machinery and precision engineering and fabrication alongside their brethren so that their protectors, the Legions, may have the toys and food and tools and intel they need to remain free while they explore the realms.
It was a long road, and I couldn't wait to see its end.
The milestones, however, didn't require a wait. Internal combustion engines and more, including both superchargers and turbochargers, were being prototyped, tested, and remodeled by the undead dwarves and a veritable mob of orcs ceaselessly. And I brought on the advent of the greatest vehicle in the world, the tractor.
What a glorious milestone it was. And more would soon follow. They, however, would be the last for miles to come. As millions of people needed to be educated to a level unseen in these realms.
As of now, there were hardly two thousand between Hill Base and here, with the majority being in the subterranean city. And down here, humans were the minority. They came in all types, flocking to the schools to begin the arduous task of learning those trades and more. Materials Science. Electrical Engineering. Computer Hardware. Medicine. Even the beginnings of nuclear science were being studied by the smartest of them.
But even then, hundreds more turned their back on the academy after learning the basics. Instead, much to my glee, they turned to the arts. Drawing, painting, weaving, and carving. They carved so much, transforming the barren caverns into grand depictions of what they perceived through that impenetrable darkness.
And even then, hundreds upon hundreds more turned inward to reflect on that impenetrable darkness they saw. Those countless perspectives, borne from the minds of many, all came to one conclusion. They all came to one word. One title that could explain the inexplicable they so witnessed.
God.
***
Els
***
"Now don't think yer going to be makin' a habit of pullin' me from my work!"
"Certainly not." The drow-devil snickered. "But I can safely say you'll be amazed by what I'm to show you."
"We've seen your oils and the like already." Forgruna quickly added before we stepped into the great room of loud machinery and foul odors.
"But you haven't seen this." Amun grinned, his voice cut through the endless noise like an axe through a goblins neck while his arm swept wide over a large, flat-bottomed cauldron made of glass.
"During our tenure at the Assembly," he said, emphasizing the bright blue liquid pooled inside the bucket. "My Doppelganger managed to find a formula that works with adamantine."
"Uh…" Matthew and even Ed stammered. And I may have as well, muted though it was under Forgruna frustrated bellow.
"That tells us nothin'! Out with it, dark elf!" She spat.
But Amun just smiled harder and turned away, calling to the shadows, "Zaraxus!"
His appearance from the dark was more ominous than any other I felt. From his battles against the hated Duergar, the Draugr saw immense growth, I was told.
Now, I saw only a skeleton with blue-green blazes pouring from his eyes. I felt a deep chill coming from his body and the immense strength rattling through the stone with each mighty step towards his master. And as always, he stopped with his head hung low, fists clasped resolutely before his missing belly to greet his monarch.
"Tell me how this feels," Amun then said, holding the Death Jarl's bony fingers in one hand while a tiny paintbrush in the other hand dipped into a floating vial.
What came out was a thick silvery paint that was carefully applied to the undead's finger. And I just couldn't help myself after seeing it.
"Bwahahaha!" I roared. "What are you paint 'n the Draugr King's nails?"
"I feel nothing," Zaraxus flatly replied.
"Quickly, do the other!" Forgruna bellowed, joining in, and soon, Matthew followed along in our light-hearted jeers. But I couldn't help but notice Ed watching Amun curiously. And though I surely kept up my jesting, I kept a careful eye on Amun telling Zaraxus to standby while he painted some unfortunate creature's thigh bone in silver.
With a careless toss, the bone was chucked inside the vat and swirled around with his magic for a few moments before he flicked his finger upwards, sending the bone on an arc right towards my feet to land with a metallic clank.
I felt not only my smile bleed from my face but the mirth drain from the room itself as I held the heavy bone to the light. And by the green sheen, it was adamantine surely.
Suddenly, a horrendously high-pitched whine spun me back to Amun, pushing a furiously rotating saw across the top of Zaraxus' head, shearing it off completely. With one slow draw of the hand-sized device, a rib came next, fell, and drifted about him. Then came another. And then more and more until a total of twelve floated about all around him.
It was then that he spread one of his time-warped zones and fashioned the pieces back together with adamantine hinges before painting the entire frame in silver within just a few seconds. Then, with a wire set in the Draugr King's hand, Amun pointed to the cauldron and ordered. "March."
It couldn't be helped, but the four of us marched towards the tank behind Zaraxus. It was only then that I noticed Amun holding the same wire his undead held, and in his remaining hand was another wire, connected to an adamantine rod suspended in the fluid.
While his undead walked, sparks danced across the drow-devils body wildly. Simultaneously, the light footfalls of the skeletal Death Jarl grew ever louder and ever clunkier as he snaked his way across the cauldron until, like the bone still grasped tightly in my hand, Zaraxus emerged covered in Adamantine from head to toe.
"Holy hells!"
It was Matthew who made the exclamation, though we all visibly shuddered at the sight, at the thought, at the horror of whoever inevitably found themselves warring with us Legions of the Noctis.
I exchanged a glance with Forgruna, and if faces could speak, I was sure hers would have repeated what I said on the day I sold my soul.
Better him than anyone else.
Yet, the devilish dark elf wasn't done. He buzzed around the Death Jarl like a fly, leaving gold inlays in the wake of wherever he floated.
When he was done, Zaraxus was draped in a posh silken robe of black and gold. On its back was the same leafless tree inlaid on the undead's sternum. His teeth were lined with gold to resemble gums, and even more was set atop his eye sockets, making them appear as brows made of divine clouds.
Along his ribs, hands, feet- his entire body, gold sat everywhere. But again, the devilish dark elf was not yet done with his creation.
With a wave and a mass of wispy darkness, a pile of flesh and meat in all stages of decomposition splattered against the floor. The vile stench wafted over us at once, forcing the humans to shield their noses and look away while Amun simply motioned Zaraxus to the pile.
"Eat." He commanded. And watching the Death Jarl do so was gruesome.
With two mighty stomps of his metal-plated feet, the undead was in the center of the pile, giving us a proper a disgusting sight. Like a barbaric orc gorging itself on goblin brains, hand fulls of meat were nearly crushed to paste on its way to his maw, increasing the stench tenfold. Yet, it was nigh impossible for me to turn away, for each bite brought a new change to the undead's body.
The answer to where the flesh was going was granted by the sudden filling of the gaps between the bones in his forearm. Bright red and pink, they were, and they grew thicker with each passing bite. Eventually shrouding his bones in thick coils of muscle before a wrapping of skin covered them entirely.
When the pile was no more than a pool of blood and bone dust, Zaraxus stood to slap his feet against the stone towards Amun, sending soft echoes through both the chemical plant and my mind with each deliberate step.
He was suddenly much more solid than he was just moments ago when his metallic bones breathed the air of this chamber. His robe, once loose and flowing against his bones like a specter's aura, was fittingly filled by the girth of his arms and the absurdity of his broad chest. His face, once a hollow shell of bone, now retained the chiseled features and dauntless grimace of a foul king of legendary proportions.
Eyes burning with the fires of undead, Zaraxus the Death Jarl bored through each of our souls. His skin, ripening into a frosted blue color with each passing second, peeled back to reveal his blackened teeth and gilded gums in a wicked smile of anticipation. And, sensing our awed despair, his chest began rising and falling in rhythmic laughter, pouring an air as cold as a white dragon's breath into the room.
This next phase of training was going to be difficult.