Blue Core Day 177 - Blue, Continued

Day 177 - Blue, Continued

I left Ansae to bathe and nap, though she promised shed be easier to wake the next ti, and went to catch up on my material production. Not only had I neglected my Anvils while I was paying attention to Ansae, but my refineries had actually borne fruit. That surprised for so reason, even though all of my dungeon stuff worked more or less as advertised.

What it gave wasnt regular old quartz but rather [Spellquartz], because obviously sothing as intensely magical as myself wouldnt make mundane materials. That was irritating because I wanted ordinary quartz, though I probably should have been glad that I got quartz at all. I could easily have gotten magical stone or obsidian instead though, if I were to bet, Id say obsidian had more volcanic Affinity than earth.

Just because it was magical didnt an it wasnt quartz, though. [Customization] still allowed to change the texture and color of my Stonesteel and Adamant stone, and that was at least as much a change in elental content as the various types of quartz had. My laser and the fusion origin of the [Contained Stars] showed that atomic theory still held, so I figured other forms of chemistry did too, they were just muddled by mana stuff.

I plopped down a bunch of it in crystal formations in the grasslands Climate, figuring that was fairly neutral, and started fiddling. Agate, athyst, citrine, carnelian, onyx, rose quartz, smokey quartz. It more or less worked, each quartz variant shifting the mana that was inside it just slightly. It seed the different varieties had different Affinity preferences, and Id need to put the outcrops where the Affinities were to get sothing other than mildly Affinity-prone gems. Agate to Kinetic, athyst to healing, citrine to fire, and the like. I could see how a Great Dungeon or mana spring would end up with outcrops of all kinds of out-of-place materials.

With that experience, I linked a bunch of Refineries to different mana Affinity crystals and set them processing. From what I understood, my purity of mana actually worked against in so ways, because while I could make this stuff pretty easily it didnt have any specific character. It only got specific Skills or the like when worked into a finished good. I had Taelah and Shayma and an entire Village though, so that probably wouldnt be an issue.

Blue, Id like to discuss having a summit next week, Iniri said, pulling my attention away from my fiddling.

A summit? I think I missed sothing. Oh wait, Ir is coming, isnt it? Er, arent they? Id caught that much, at least, with Wright discussing a trip to co see myself and Iniri both. He seed a fairly reasonable chap, which was encouraging considering all the unreasonableness wed already dealt with. Especially since, as a fifth-tier and the ruler of a good chunk of the continent, hed be a pain to deal with.

Ir, and Im sending out invitations to our neighbors as well. Nobody missed the end the battle, either your part or The Silver Woes, so theres a good excuse to get everyone together and clear the air. Not to ntion normalize relations now that Tarnil has co back to life.

Makes sense. Next week seems quick, though.

Normally Id want several months to prepare, yes, but better to take advantage of events as they happen. Besides, the sooner we can strong-arm everyone into acknowledging you as your own polity, the better.

Oh right! Yeah, that would be good. Id hate to start a war by ssing up so idiot who decided to go after you or my Village or my Scalemind or sothing.

No, we cant have that, Iniri said with a smile.

Right, so what do I need to do? Im assuming we need to wow them sohow.

Yes, the Palace will suffice for housing them, but maybe so sort of pavilion with your special touch would be good, and Shayma would join us of course. Taelah as well if shed like. Im not sure about The Silver Woe Im hardly in a position to invite her.

You can still call her Ansae, I think. Shes not really involved in the politics of this, so she probably wont care, but Ill ask her when she wakes up again.

Thank you, Iniri said fervently. She was taking Ansaes identity pretty hard, but maybe that was just because she didnt have the interactions with her that I did. Nor did she get to see Ansae snuggle Shayma like an oversized teddy, which was amazing. Besides that, a showing of what Tarnil has to trade so in a way, what you have to trade. There cant be a demand for sothing nobody knows exists.

Oh, thats fantastic, since I have a bunch of stuff I can make in bulk now, as well as the supermaterials. Ill get Shayma to bring so goods from the Village, and if you can rope in Piping Hot Pies, so pastries. How about showing them a [Contained Star] ignition? At a safe remove of course.

Hmm. Iniri tapped a finger thoughtfully against her desk. Its not like we can hide that youre making them, so showing it off directly is a fantastic idea if we couch it right.

Theres a wrong way to show off a star forge?

Yes, Iniri said firmly. It needs to be sothing you do, not sothing directly connected with my negotiations, so it doesnt look like were threatening them. At the sa ti, it should co right about when people start digging in their heels, to remind them of exactly what you are.

Ill let you be in charge of the timing. Easy enough for to do it on cue once I have the materials saved up. That was the sort of political stuff that I wanted to avoid, but it was really petty to complain about just making sure I showed up on ti and built a pretty showcase area. Sure, I didnt have to, but being a Power wasnt an excuse for being lazy. Give a minute and I can get you samples of everything but the supermaterials.

Thinking about it, I was pretty sure that nobody knew all the various types of stones and tals and glasses and whatnot I could make. Even I was having trouble keeping track of it, though at least once I made stuff it got tracked in my overlay. Which ant my resource window was getting really big. I started sorting and then realized that Iniris office was nowhere near large enough.

Since I needed to show off the stuff anyway, I figured I might as well organize things real quick, and made a new room to handle it. In a way it didnt matter where it was, since it was both temporary and sothing Id be teleporting people to anyhow, but for the mont I put it under Shaymas beach house. The final version would probably be sowhere they could watch the star forge.

It was a hell of a spread when I laid it all out. Various ranks of stone, iron, copper, gold, silver, bronze. Glass, the normal stuff and a mana-tempered version I didnt rember making, tayantan wood. There was one of the [Skystone] teorites with flecks of [Sky Iron] and [Startal], which I desperately needed to test, along with the [Prismatic Glass] from where it landed. Bunches of Sources, and I set aside a stellar Source for Ansae when she woke up, and little samples of the liquid mana from the Affinity pools in tiny glass vials. I left the fruits and spices and so on for The Village; that stuff would be represented in foods and maybe sothing of Taelahs if she wanted.

Besides, if I were to have a full accounting of every useful thing in my Climates itd take weeks to go through it all. As I understood it, none of that was actually unique, but rather was being pulled from whatever native area the Climate was aping. It was the tayan-stuff that was unique to , though I had no idea what that prefix was supposed to an.

Once Id scraped together a bit of everything, including the various magical gems Id only just figured out, I opened a portal for Iniri. So far, I thought I was doing pretty good in my attempt to break the habit of just teleporting people where I needed them. I might still end up doing that when necessary, but now that I could more or less talk to Iniri and Taelah it was rude not to give them the choice.

Gods above, thats a lot of things, Iniri said once she stepped through the portal. Everything was arranged on pedestals, by category, in a big square room. Being able to see it all at once definitely heightened the impact. I dont know what all of it is, but considering its you I imagine its all potent.

Yeah, so of it is probably fairly generic, but since I can supply the [Spellquartz] and its variants in ten-kilo chunks I imagine the quantity will help. I dont have any of the supermaterials here, Ill leave it to you what you think is best to show off and what to reserve.

Not Firmant, not yet. Its unfortunate that Tor Kot knows about it, but that is just too enticing. Id be afraid that Wright would just want it all to himself. Most of the rest is more curiosity, especially since you cant make it in bulk. Or nobody else could use it. Iniri frowned thoughtfully. Maybe the Anecrux. Thats sothing everyone could use, but doesnt have a completely absurd property.

Yeah that makes sense. Especially since Im not really interested in trading Firmant. Not until I had a goodly amount of [Contained Stars] and Siennes present finished anyway.

All this will definitely be a useful diplomatic hamr, Iniri said. Though Im guessing youll have sothing a little more grand for the actual event? I dont imagine youll want to present it in a big empty room.

Oh yeah. Ive got an idea. I had hundred-kiloter-high walls around the Caldera now, which ant one hell of a view. Admittedly, a view of mostly bare stone, but so Climates could solve that issue fairly quickly. I needed to fix that anyway, so it wasnt like it was any extra work. Iniri waited, an eyebrow raised, but I wanted to surprise her, so I didnt elaborate on it.

Oh, while were discussing things, I have a number of petitions that are aid at you. She said, and she didnt look particularly happy.

Uh oh.

Well, most of them just got burned. Theres no point in showing you anyone complaining about you saving their lives, but there are so that I need to put to you. So, not many, but so of the dungeon-wives from the forrly-occupied cities have been petitioning to have you take them up as dungeon-wives now that Tor Kot is gone.

Oh god no. I didnt even have to think about it. Even if I technically had dungeon wives, the little Id seen of Tor Kot and the red core dungeons made want absolutely nothing to do with them.

I understand that reaction, but Id be remiss if I didnt point out that more Companions would help you. Theres only the three of us right now, and these dungeon-wives would be perfect recruits for you.

I an. Yeah, I guess more Companions would be good in theory. But its not like just getting a new sword forged or sothing. These are people that I have to live with for the rest of their lives. Besides, they have to be aligned with pretty strongly to get any use from them if were doing this pragmatically.

I understand that, Iniri said. But you really should at least consider it. Maybe send Shayma around to talk to them?

I suppose so. I dont imagine Ill be interested though. Yes, having more Companions would make more powerful, in theory. But it was an inconsistent sort of power and I was expanding my capabilities handily enough. I already felt I was spread kind of thin with three Companions to pay attention to, even if Iniri was mostly independent, and introducing probably-unstable won into the mix didnt seem a promising proposal. Especially since theyd have imdiate access to Companion Concord, so it wasnt just my ear theyd be in all the ti.

The Hurricane had shown how unpleasant it could be to run into soone whose interests were, to say the least, not congruent with mine, and I doubted any of these dungeon-wives would be on my side the way my other Companions were. Even if I had Dreams-Ahead make sure they were sane, they were volunteering either on the basis of sexual kink or theoretical luxury. Neither of which seed appealing and I was well aware of how much Id lucked out with Shayma and Taelah and Iniri.

Iniri gave a full schedule, albeit with large blank spots for doing what I wanted to do, and went back to the Palace around the ti Shayma was getting up. Which was amusing because they were so very close in space but still completely missed each other. As soon as Iniri was gone I Relocated the entire collection to the treasury and filled in the space beneath Shaymas beach house. Though it did give the idea to do so nice sea caverns just to have sowhere neat for my Companions to hang out.

So, Iniri wants to screen so of the forr dungeon-wives who want to be my dungeon-wife instead as potential Companions. I dont really think thatll work but it might be worth it?

Mm. Shayma nodded. If your leveling is linked to Companions and Depletion removal now, you really should think about it. Purifying them, even if you dont make them a Companion.

Ill think about it but no promises.

I think youd actually benefit more from getting Iniri to be closer, Shayma grinned. Poor thing could probably benefit from having your attentions on a regular basis.

I think you just want a repeat of last ti.

Maaaybe.

I distracted myself with Shayma for an hour or so before I let her go, though it was actually to et with One-Eye-Green and not with one of Iniris candidates. Setting up etings with the various won would take a little bit of preparation, on both Shaymas part and mine.

Missus Shayma I had no idea when One-Eye-Green had started calling her that Big Brother and Big Sister want to know if Mister Blue did sothing. Our mories? I think? Are different today than they used to be. Theres more to them now.

Id forgotten about the Habitation benefit already, but the first thing the Scalemind asked when she saw Shayma made rember. In truth Id not really been treating the Scalemind as if they were as important as the Village, and I probably should have been. They were my link with actual monsters as well as the Underneath. The Underneath hadnt yet thrown anything horrible at , but it was probably just a matter of ti.

Umm. Habitation specialization, right. It said that the Scalemind get greater finesse with their mind magic. I hadnt thought about the fact that would impact their own minds.

You do too much stuff while Im busy or sleeping, Shayma said, shaking her head before focusing on One-Eye-Green. Blue has provided a boon to all his inhabitants. For the Scaleminds, its improved mind magic finesse.

Oh! Thats very nice! Thank you, Mister Blue!

Youre welco, I said through Shayma. One-Eye-Greens diction had co a long way since the Scalemind first appeared, and her hiss was barely noticeable. Any particular effects beyond clearer heads?

Big Brother and Big Sister felt clearer when Sharing, One-Eye-Green told Shayma. You do too. I can almost hear Mister Blue Sharing with you.

Hmm. I had an idea, but I didnt know if it was a good one. If theyve got better finesse and insight, see if Dreams-Ahead and Cuts-Like-Cold think if they could manage visiting the Village. If they want ideas on what its like to be a civilized race, I cant think of a better place to start.

You should ask Taelah about that first, Shayma pointed out.

Yes, yes I should. I was glad I had people who reminded of things like that. Taelah, would you be willing to entertain a couple Scalemind guests at the Village? Itll have to be a tentative thing, in case they cant manage it without hurting people, but Im thinking you all are the best model they could have for becoming not-monsters.

Taelah was in the middle of what looked to be a community canning session, though using clay and alchemical sealant rather than glass jars, which made realize that it really was getting on toward winter. I actually didnt know if Id get seasonal variations in my Climates, though I probably would. Even so, I could probably set it up so that the Village could harvest year-round, but so long as they had plenty of food, I didnt see the point.

Certainly, husband, though Ill have to et them first, Taelah said, scooping so sort of cooked root vegetable into the clay jars. One of the children ran past her toting a basket of berries, and Taelah grabbed a berry and popped it in her mouth. Can it wait until after were done here?

Of course. I have to pitch it to them too. Just wanted to clear it with you.

Maybe this evening after we get everything done, or even tomorrow, Taelah suggested.

Works for , I said, and filled in Shayma, who outlined it to One-Eye-Green in turn. The expressions Taelah was making during the process made think that Shayma was saying sothing over [Companion Link]. I was actually glad they had so way to talk that I couldnt hear, but I was pretty sure they were talking about .

While Shayma and Taelah were doing their thing, I went and checked on so of my longer-term projects. The floating fortress was still being combed over by Iniris crew, but everything I wanted to do with it needed a lot of expertise. The existing armant and control sches were entirely reliant on the mage-kings directing everything and I wanted to be able to do things on my own recognizance.

I couldnt just interface with the systems the way the mage-kings did. Shayma or Iniri or even Taelah probably could, given so practice, but I knew from experience that ordinary magical items didnt play well with my dungeon biology. Even sothing as simple as the Status sigil was pretty difficult to sustain without sothing terrible happening, so the finesse required for controlling those air engines was way beyond . Not to ntion everything else.

There was probably sothing I could do with [Mana Geotries], even if it was just emulating simple logic gates or dials. The [Linked Core Lattice Gems] would probably be helpful too, since I was pretty sure they helped exercise more direct control, but Id have to work around the communications problem. No matter what the solution was, it wasnt going to be one I could co up with or make by myself. It would also have to co after the summit.

Moving on, I had enough material to build a few more Anvils, slowly expanding my manufacturing capacity. Unfortunately, it was still manual, so I had to poke them once an hour or so to cycle through materials and that was getting more and more tedious the more Anvils I had. Not that I was really complaining about having more supermaterials, but I knew I was going to start bobbling the timing and forget about it for a day or sothing.

I set aside [Firmant] and [Stellar Fragnts] for the showpiece [Contained Star], though Id probably have enough for two stars by the ti they swung by. Considering I still owed people stars well, I didnt technically owe them, but I definitely wanted to give them to my Companions and I really needed more of Ansaes expertise Id probably be focusing on star production for the imdiate future.

From there I moved onto the Caldera. Since it was finally finished and stable, I had a couple million square kiloters to fill with Climates. The area around Ansaes tower had given a lot of practice with shing together different ones as well as changing the way single Climates presented themselves, so I had a lot to draw from when I went to make the much, much larger versions.

As a rough outline I raised a bunch of mountains in the north of the Caldera, linking up with the Caldera wall, and made a big lakebed between it and Ansaes central tower. I bent it around into a sort of crescent, one shore of which was within a hundred kiloters of the Village. A little bit of tweaking ant that the stream coming out from the Tree of Eschaton joined up with a river that fed it, so eventually thered be a direct water connection.

The Village itself was west of the center, so I kept the west of the Caldera generally flat, with nothing more extre than a few rolling hills. The south got more mountains, but I planned for them to be volcanoes, so I put in a few lone and separated ones rather than a looming range like Id put in the north. A couple of the southern mountains got massive craters around them, to be filled with jungle later on.

The east mostly got so rolling hills and plateaus, though overall I didnt have much definition. Since I was planning to put a desert there, I figured the sand, scrub, and dunes would make most of the landscape themselves. If not, I could always add in detail later.

Once I had the basic outlines done, I started drawing in my Climates. The north got the Glacier climate, the high mountains forming a massive snowpack that swept down into a tundra, with a few glacial lt rivers feeding the giant inland lake. Filling out the Shore climate on the lake and the various islands therein helped with adding water, both directly as the Climate pulled it out of storage, and with water-generating flowers. I thought about moving Shaymas beach house, but it was by salt water and the big lake was freshwater, so Id have to ask her what she wanted.

The south got steamy jungle, one enormous volcanic Climate against the south wall and the rest of it a hot, geothermally active rainforest. The heat went dry as I rged it into a Desert, which went from a hot to cold one as it reached toward the glaciers. On the Village side I made everything south of the stretch of Grassland a Temperate Rainforest until it got hot enough to be jungle, and to the north made things coniferous.

While it was a nice microcosm for whoever was going to go traipse around and take advantage of all the stuff that populated the various Climates, I did get an unexpected result. The mountains I had raised werent completely solid, being shot through with tunnels and chambers so I could use less stone putting together two or five kiloter-high peaks. I had expected the Climates to fill that in a bit, but not in the way they did.

It was the first ti that Id actually put a Climate into a serious volu. All my spatially-expanded dynamos were basically empty spheres that the Climates populated, and even the volcano defense in Tarnil had just been on top of the landscape. Now that Id put a climate over a giant chunk of rock with hollows and caves and tunnels, the Climates filled those in with resources.

They completely emptied of iron, copper, and the like, running veins of tals along the interiors of passages and setting up chunks of crystal growing from walls. I would have been upset but for the way various Affinities, mostly earth and tal, latched onto the veins and flowed through them, chrystheniums blooming atop them. By guess and by [Blues Sagacity], I could tell those veins would actually grow, and the chrystheniums would help replace all the resources theyd eaten. So of the more advanced stuff was mixed in, too, like [Mana Iron] and [Obdurate Copper].

There was a huge seam of coal under one of the desert plateaus, and diamonds were sprinkled in so of the passages in the volcanic jungle. All the gem outcrops were the variants of quartz that Id made, which showed that only things I knew about or more to the point, that my dungeon-self knew about qualified for seeding in the Climates. All the initial material ca from my stocks, too, so while it was possible that itd grow over ti, if I wanted to make it in bulk, I still needed to use my Refineries and the like.

One of the more amusing things was that there were pools of [Celestial tal] surrounded by stellar Chrystheniums nestled into the peaks of the high mountains. It seed the flowers were putting out enough stellar mana to keep the stuff stable, or maybe the temperature helped, or maybe it was just that the tallic hydrogen wasnt actually tallic hydrogen but the magical version of such.

The resources werent the only things it added to the volu. The Climates changed underlying bedrock, adding perability and populating aquifers, or in so places changing it all to listone. The volcanic areas got igneous and tamorphic rock, while the northern tundra was mostly sedintary. So of this pulled out more biomass and stone, especially in places where the soil was particularly deep, but that was less of an issue than the depletion of my tal stocks.

Ultimately I left it as it was, and just grumbled about my resources being tied up for the mont, since with the tallic chrystheniums Id be making it back at so point. I raised a ring of hills around Ansaes central tower and associated interlocking Climates to help offset them from the surrounding Grasslands, and then put in my final touch: waterfalls.

I had a thousand kiloters of wall for them, and while any water that started from the top would turn into mist long before it hit ground, I could still make so really damn impressive ones. I started out using my mostly-ignored [Fluid Handling] options to pipe and pump water out from the various lakes, but quickly gave up because the sheer scales I was working on.

Instead I had to make sky-lakes just to feed the waterfalls, big chambers of water with plenty of the appropriate chrystheniums. I tried to make them fairly subtle, but the Caldera walls werent exactly thick, at least not inside the Spatial Expansion. Ultimately I had to nick extra stone from a couple mountains since Id already used up all my stocks and reserves making the interior terrain. Mostly I took it off the mountain with my star forge, and since I didnt want people climbing that anyway, making the slopes ridiculously steep was fine.

I used so from my mountain too. I hadnt figured out what I wanted to do with the exterior yet but at so point Id want to landscape the slopes to look like sothing other than a generic part of a big mountain range. That said, I didnt want it to be garish, either. A mountain was a really big canvas upon which to make really big cris against good taste if I wasnt careful.

That got enough to build lakes jutting out from the walls of the Calders, stone half-bowls supported by buttresses, and set up waterfalls around three-quarters of the absolutely massive periter of the Caldera. Even spacing them a few kiloters apart I ended up with several hundred enormous falls, and that was just at the one- to two-kiloter height. A few of the waterfalls were sited higher up, around the fifty-kiloter point, and they dissolved into mist long before they even got to the cloud height of the Climates.

The fifty-kiloter mark was about where I wanted to put the summit, though even that might be a little high. The hundred-kiloter rim of the Caldera was definitely too high. The vertical aspect of the Spatial Expansion resulted in having a perspective that was just enormously high up, though the air was still breathable instead of being bare wisps due to the spatial shenanigans. Even my tallest glacier-covered mountains were no more than five kiloters tall and as they were against the Caldera walls it wasnt like they obstructed anything.

Looking at the sheer scale of it all I was glad I was able to let the Climates do the heavy lifting and detail work, managing the precipitation and the rivers, building on the skeleton of the landscape below. They smoothed away so of the unnatural straight lines and symtry that my quick work made, deepening crags and wearing at rock faces, or mounding dirt into hills and dales. The thought of trying to do all that manually over the massive size of the Caldera was pretty daunting.

Sohow all this work got done without waking up Ansae, though to be fair the closest I ca to the actual tower was the hill-ring to mark the outer edge of her territory. Plus, Id already seen how deeply she could sleep, so maybe I shouldnt have been surprised. Still, I was looking forward to seeing her reaction when she got up and there was suddenly actual terrain.