As the shadows said, this underground city was more like a huge factory for the production of various types of golems, which worked tirelessly for days on end.
All the golems located here could be conditionally divided into two large groups, workers and warriors.
Workers, as the name implies, were sharpened for different production tasks. Some made warriors, the second carefully stored them in the caves under the factory, and the third served as maintenance personnel, monitoring the condition of the first two groups, the safety of production and the general condition of buildings and caves as a whole.
As for the warriors, all of them, regardless of their species, were in a state of hibernation, in which they were safely piled deep underground, sorted by size.
Actually, they differed in size.
There were three groups: small, medium and large.
Small - warrior golems up to five meters in size, medium - up to ten meters and large - up to thirty meters.
It is worth noting that there were very few thirty-meter golems, only about a hundred. And apparently, they were all made several thousand years ago, after which their production was curtailed.
As for the small ones, their number reached three hundred thousand, and the medium ones up to one hundred thousand.
All this was guarded by only one single, albeit the most perfect and powerful, whirlwind golem, which was considered a miracle of magical and alchemical thought. All the other golems that somehow functioned were workers. Therefore, anyone who passed through the first and last guard could freely wander around the city.
***
With the help of the shadows, the Sovereign soon found the central vault, which, due to the presence of an excessive amount of sun stone, the shadow spirits could not enter.
Approaching the huge door made of enchanted mithril, the Sovereign paused for a moment. At the same moment, the giant round door bent inward with a terrible creak, and then burst into metal petals, like a flower blossoming from the center to its edge.
Passing through the torn, as if from an explosion, door, Inmir saw before him an impressive room, the walls of which were lined with shelves of books that reached the very ceiling.
The center of the room was illuminated by a rounded sphere with a radius of five meters, created apparently from the sun stone and is a magic core, the so-called controller that controls the rest of the sun stones, setting the program of actions for all the golems.
A little further from the sphere, closer to the back wall, ten stone chairs were visible, arranged in a row, each of which was a skeleton dressed in alchemical paraphernalia.
"I believe these are the owners of this place ... It's a pity, but we won't be able to talk with you anymore. Unless through your many labors, - the Lord's gaze fell on the shelves of books, - Leozard, work with the sphere, reassign it to yourself and set a new setting, and I will deal with the books.
- I'm listening.
***
- What! Is the lord gone? – probably for the first time in their lives, someone saw the king of the fallen in such an emotional state.
"Yes, the great Lord waited until Sen teleported the memory eater, and then left for the kingdom of the stone giants.
- But why? Why alone? Why would the Sovereign himself go there?
"Mr. Kaisar, I don't know this, but the overlord said that he needed to check something personally and he didn't need escorts.
Hearing Tiara's clearly upset voice, Kaisar came to his senses.
"Sorry Tiara, I just didn't expect to hear that."
- It's okay, - the girl obviously did not care what tone and what she was asked, she grieved for her beloved master that he had left and did not take her with him.
The king of the fallen, in turn, was familiar enough with female nature to understand this, and decided not to bother this girl anymore, therefore, having bowed, he went about his business.
***
— What now brother? We're leaving?
- No, we still need to talk to the remaining members of the council, they are just now running after us.
After these words, the two elves turned around, and, as Sen said, Asia and her grandfather were indeed running after them.
- Something is wrong?
"Ancestors, what should we do, are you leaving already?" Waj stammered.
"We told you that we wanted to, there is no reason to delay.
"But, but what do we do now.
"You can do whatever you want," Leiko said softly and with a smile on her face, as always, "the main thing is not to cross the borders of the desert.
To be honest, the girl's smile scared the old man more than the boy's monotonous voice.
Then Asia entered the conversation:
"We want to serve the Great United Empire," she said with confidence, surprising even her own grandfather, who, by the way, immediately realized what was happening and supported her granddaughter's decision with an indistinct nod of her head.
"You want to become our vassals, a wise decision," Sen said monotonously, not at all surprised by what he heard.
"We will pass this on to our lord, and he will make a decision," Leiko added, also obviously expecting something similar from these cute insects.
"By the way," she suddenly continued, "how did you get such accurate representations of true elves?"
Are you talking about statues?
- Exactly.
"We only transferred their appearance from the ancient tablet that our ancestors inherited along the elven line a hundred thousand years ago," Veyzh answered, trying to behave as politely as possible. "According to legend, one of the true elves gave it to them.
Brother and sister looked at each other.
— Where is the tablet? they asked at the same time.
"She is in our temple ten kilometers from here, built before the founding of the Secret Garden by the first elves who came here.
- Lead us.
"Of course, please come here.