Cain exits the dungeon, keeping all his summons active and inspects the desert around the portal to ensure nobody has co across the location while he was busy. Nothing but unmarked pale sand dunes as far at the eye can see, as if the whole world was sun bleached.
This honestly seems like the best castle location they could have hoped for. There are dungeon entrances, an underground city entrance, nobody to bother them, and an abundance of building materials, also known as sand and stone that the Elentals can turn into a castle.
The more he looks around, the more of the dark colored stone he finds, the ruins of the old civilization brought either from deep underground or sowhere far away. Cain and his summons haven't found anything like it in the area.
"Granite Elentals, call for as many Earth Elentals as you can." Cain directs his summons. These were only Greater Golems to begin with, much less formidable sorts and certainly not as strong as the boss Granite Elental was, but upgraded by his skills they're Epic Quality.
Looking through his logs he finds that these Greater Golem versions of the Granite Elental were the ones that accompanied the Diamond Elental. Those ones were elite versions, but still recorded as Greater Golems.
They each Summon four lesser Earth Elentals, which is a good start to a construction force, so Cain starts drawing out a castle layout, based on the surroundings and what he knows of Castle warfare from strategy gas and human history.
A Star fort, Eight Points with four larger arms at the cardinal directions seems like the best bet. Placed properly, the entrance to Muzz, the underground city, will be in the East Arm, while the portals will be in the South Arm, leaving a large area for a central keep, plus plenty of room for additional buildings and fields. Cain's idea for that is to have the Elentals and his Oath Breakers reconstruct the old buildings of the ancient settlent as much as possible, filling in only where necessary with closely matched Granite, keeping the weathered details and ancient layout, but contained within a secure fortress wall.
Being in the desert it needs to be self sufficient, which ans large, which also ans it's going to take so ti. Ti he already spent in the dungeon. He's definitely not making it back today.
"Alright Elentals, here's the plan. I want solid basalt walls in this pattern on this scale. See where the portals are?" They make a grinding noise Cain assus it's an affirmative, so he continues.
"Make the walls five ters thick at the top, twenty ters tall, and expanded out at a fifteen degree angle on the inside wall with stairs at these locations. I want battlents that look like this, see the way they're angled? We will work on the interior of the castle afterwards." Cain gives the directions and the Granite Elentals start casting so sort of spell, creating an outline of the eight pointed Castle walls with the larger triangles at the ends, giving room for a defense force at the first point of impact by a charging army.
The ground is rumbling and the shining lights are solidifying into a low wall of nearly black basalt, slowly rising out of the sand. The Lesser Earth Elentals have added their magical might to the effort now, and the walls are rising a few centiters a second.
Cain gives a short thanks that he drew the very best diagram he could, complete with staircases, because the Elentals are raising an entire castle wall in one piece.
If this is how higher level cities build and repair defenses, no wonder they're not worried about being overrun. A thousand seconds is Cain's estimate to have the walls raised with 16 Epic Granite Elentals and their assistants. A re 17 minutes.
At this rate, he had better start drawing the inner fortress and any other additions, including the basic design of the underground labyrinth and the water cistern to keep everything fed.
"Oath Breaker, how deep can we go before there is interference with the underground city?" Cain asks.
"About a Kiloter before you get close to weakening the highest points of the roof. More on the south side, which is almost past the edge of the city cavern." The Demon answers helpfully.
That's a relief. Putting a seventy ter deep cistern thirty ters underground should be plenty far enough to keep surface events from damaging it. Then Cain draws an elaborate series of rooms comprising four different levels to link the surface to the cistern, all starting from the basent of the new central keep.
The walls are long since completed by the ti he has his plan drawn and is ready to give building instructions. Ten ter ceilings, ten ters between floors, starting ten ters underground. Done this way, it should all be very solid, at least from what Cain knows of mining. Maybe he should call an actual miner first?
Cain dismisses one of the Kone Clones and calls for one of the Old Dwarves, the Earth Mages who have spent centuries in the mines.
"Is this safe and stable?" He asks, handing them the paper. The Dwarf makes a number of changes to it with a pencil in his pocket, then alters the design plans for the central keep before nodding in satisfaction at the wall design.
"Four out of ten. Not quite passable. But the walls look good. The rest should be safe to build now." The Dwarf says gruffly. Unlike the chatterbox of a Dark Elven Priestess, the rest of his Supporters rarely speak unless directly asked a question, despite being capable. They don't have all the personal mories of the one they're cloned from, mostly just skill related mories and so important details remain intact. The clones of Kone do share so of her personality though, they love cuddly things, often leaning against Nemu when they're not busy, or petting the clones of Su.
Cain passes the paper to the Elentals, who proceed to have so sort of conversation with the Earth Mage before getting started.
Cain can feel the ground shifting, and piles of rock are being pulled out of the ground as they go, creating a small mountain in the middle of the castle. It's far too much for the keep and buildings Cain had planned, so he will have to discard it sowhere. Randomly scattered through the sand doesn't sound bad. It might help guide the dunes formation, keeping them from piling up too high within arrow range of the castle walls.
That is again a job for the Earth Mage, who understands exactly what is needed, designing a series of obelisks and retaining walls at a four hundred ter distance from the castle that will partially block the wind and create a sheltered spot around the castle, with the worst of the sand storms passing over top of them once the dunes build up.
It would be nice to have so sort of castle sized barrier, but that's a bit beyond their ans right now. At least, Cain doesn't know anyone who can do it.
The sun had gone down and co up again by the ti the interior castle structures and basent city as the Old Dwarf called it, are done. The underground levels stretch almost the entire two hundred ters of the central castle yard, enough that they truly could be a city. They're sowhat set up like one. Cain designed clusters of small rooms around central areas that could work as apartnts, as well as a system of water and sewage pipes, the latter leading over a Kiloter from the castle to a deep ravine. In ti, the sand should filter everything and create an oasis out there.
For once, the details of so of the city building strategy gas Cain had enjoyed in his past life actually ca in useful.
Mostly the underground is for future developnt, Cain just wanted it to exist for now, a deserted maze leading to the treasure vaults he designed into the fourth and deepest underground floor.
In contrast to the black basalt walls and dark gray of the ancient buildings, Cain built the central keep out of solid white marble with a gray slate roof. A square building, with round towers at the corners and many narrow windows to allow ventilation but keep the building secure. The interior floors are mostly white and gold checkered pattern marble tiles, but assorted bedrooms got different colors, a lesson he learned from the design team in Graska.
The Guild Bank has a lot of leftover furniture items from renovations to their other properties, so Cain sets up a dining room and two bedrooms in the keep, before setting up a Throne they found during the Guild's most recent property acquisition in one of the main floor great halls. Because what is a castle without a throne room?
The sun has long since fallen and is nearly ready to co up again by the ti Cain is done, so he sends an update to the Guild, letting them know he'll be here in the desert for an extra day, and asking how everyone else is doing.
Most of the answers are as expected, but Cixelcid, Mythryll, Elmira and Lickity have all gone off looking for new arrivals. Lickity and Cixelcid returned together to transfer village, where so many of them arrived. While Mythryll and Elmira went to the starting points in the Elven Forest.
Their grand plan is to bypass the usual guild logic of waiting to see who snaps from the stress or dies in their first few dungeons and poach promising potential Guild mbers as soon as they can.
It's an open secret that nearly half of new arrivals either ntally crack or die in the starter dungeon soon after arrival, so even the newest of low level groups usually wait and see for at least ten or fifteen levels until the reality of the transfers situation sets in. The numbers are even worse for arrivals showing up at random in the middle of the Elven Forest.
The Guild has enough levels and property now that they can have a hundred mbers, and once Cain has registered this castle he built that should increase even more. So the more new mbers they can gather, the better.
Which leads to another thought, the cities have training dummies at their academies that give experience. But where does one find such a thing?
[Does anyone know where to get training dummies? You know, the ones to have rookies gain experience on while they learn basic skills?] Cain asks in Guild Chat.
[They're imported from the west side of the continent. Do you want so? The ones that are available co in 3 different level groups, 1 to 10, 10 to 30 and 30 to 60.] Carlos sends back.
[Get us a bunch of each. It will give the new mbers sowhere to practice that isn't risking their lives.]
[I'm on it. I'll have a bunch in the Guild Bank this afternoon if you don't mind using Guild Funds.]
[Use what you need. That's what they're for. We can't have the recruitnt officers saying we're not doing anything to help them out here..] Cain laughs to himself as he sends the final response.
Reviews
All reviews (0)