As the pipes finally stop falling all over the place and we are sure that no one got their head crushed under the weight Edrassa hesitantly speaks up "...Does this count as catastrophic?"
I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose "Yep."
"Of course." She too joins in my lantation.
"Didn't we already get what we ca for?" Eldor pipes in with a bit of forced optimism.
"We did." I nod, looking at the new opening in the forge machine still gushing with steam hot enough to lt even my bones "But that is like celebrating finding a good sword at the cost of a legendary blacksmith's life if you catch my aning."
"I get that but..." Eldor hesitates "Do we even know how or where to get more aetherium in the first place?"
Finally I turn back to him "You aren't wrong, still could have learned a lot from a forge capable of lting sothing like that."
"Why not simply disassemble it in its entirety then?" He asks without the briefest pause. It wasn't the worst suggestion... My eyebrow rose "Are you asking that because you find it more efficient or because you want to loot the tal after we are done?"
"Yes." He nods.
I snort "Fuck it, might as well." I turn to Edrassa and find that she is already halfway through her customary defeated grumble "I want every single component recorded by the ti you all are done with the disassembly, the place is important enough to warrant a portal so there is no need to cry about your lack of plush beds."
Her eyes almost narrow threateningly but she has enough good sense to force a polite expression "You have my thanks, my lord." She hesitates "...if I may ask, what actually happened with Katria?" She seems almost sad that the imnsely irritating Nord died.
Then again a small part of was as well "The tentacular fuck probably got wind of what we were doing and decided now was the ti to get his hands on so lost Dwer knowledge, all it would have taken was one cultist finding her and forcing her to swear herself into his service and the rest was history." I shrug as I go on "I had the choice between letting the Daedra get the information he wanted or forcing a confrontation, so I did what was right."
"And we all almost died for it." Edrassa mutters without heat, the couple of the nearby soldiers looking at her like she was retarded from behind their masks.
I give her a blank look, staring at her just long enough to make her uncomfortable "What would you have do then? Give a creature like that access, partial or not, to sothing which can theoretically create gods?"
She wants to tell otherwise but deep down even soone as selfish as her knows I am well and truly in the right here, so she just shrugs weakly "Guess I am the only coward here then."
I roll my eyes "Oh please, there is no need to be dramatic about this. Most of us ca out of it alive and that is an achievent quite literally worthy of song, so why don't you accept the fact that you charged back into a chamber holding an opening into Oblivion and give yourself your well deserved pat on the back instead of moping like a spoiled brat?"
Suitably chastised she does straighten her posture slightly but all she can force out is "Right..."
"Speaking of charging Daedra infested chambers" I speak a bit louder just as the rest of the group enters "All those who have rushed to my rescue shall be suitably rewarded, the rest of you are not under scrutiny as running away was the right option but don't be idiots and think I am about to reward you for it."
Eldor and the five warriors preen with pride while the rest are satisfied with this, only one or two looking like they wanted to protest but only briefly.
'Bunch of fucking dumbasses.' Scorch scoffs telepathically as he lands on my shoulder 'If you lost none of them would have survived to begin with.'
'Let them enjoy their delusions while they can boy.' I give them the orders to start setting up camp and finally deed it safe enough to approach the now cooled forge. And there, within the slot which once held the aetherium crest, floated an orb, a fair bit smaller than the crest itself but that was made up by the nurous moving parts within. It glowed a light blue and humd pleasantly to my presence, imdiately recognizing as its master.
Without any ceremony I grabbed the aetherium core with my gauntleted hand and plopped the massive humanoid construct from my inventory next to . A small opening, barely noticeable, was carved in its chest, just waiting for its destined 'heart', a heart I could now provide. The core slotted in perfectly, the slightest tap of my finger enough to encase it seamlessly into the armored chassis.
There was silence for a brief mont, almost as if the core wasn't quite sure where it found itself, but after an eyeblink things seed to finally click and the entire figure was covered in barely noticeable purple Dunri runes. Slowly, almost gently, the energy moved from the core and spread throughout the automaton's entirety.
It was a large, if not massive, thing, standing at four ters tall if one counted its helt, the automaton made for an imposing figure. Looking like a gigantic warrior armored in heavy ebony plate to others, and a mber of a certain group of imperial bodyguards to myself, if with my own little Dunri spin on it.
Finally the energy reaches the last bits of its figure and the two red slits representing its eyes light up with life and power. The automaton seemingly blinks in confusion as it realizes it is now alive and its eyes imdiately snap to my own, it bows and from within its faceplate cos an obviously artificial voice "Akulakhan The Younger ready to serve, my Master." As Edrassa attempts to hide her horror behind a facepalm I cannot help but burst into a fit of only slightly manic laughter, the notifications appearing in that sa mont not helping with my image whatsoever.
[Dwertech Expert => Master]
[Str: 46 => 50]
[Dex: 50 => 52]
[Vit: 70 => 76]
[Mind: 71 => 80]
The mastery was a bit of a surprise but I guessed coming up with a thing dangerously close to being actually alive was sothing which would qualify. As for the stats themselves, I was not at all surprised with the explosive growth of my mind, surviving a mindblast from what was essentially discount Cthulu was an achievent and anything less would have made
quite pissy.
But none of that compared to what I read next.
[New minion gained: Akulakhan The Younger: Unlike that of his Dwer brethren, this construct is not made to crush armies or play at being a god but is instead relegated to a singular task, the protection of Lord Reyvin Dagoth and his future family.
Powered by a core of aetherium, he is much more powerful than any other automaton save for Numidium itself, being capable of imnse explosive strength and durability while also being able to create wards of imnse potence at will. Will regenerate automatically by using
ambient Magicka.]
Know your fucking place Kagrenac, my personal monstrosity may be weaker but at least it didn't snap and the entirety of my people out of existence!
My laughter slowly dies down and I return to the present.
"Have you finished celebrating my majesty, Master?" Junior asks patiently, his voice made to sound obviously artificial so as to not make confuse him for an actual person after a while. 'Uh huh, I bet your ass will get attached within days.' Scorch deadpans.
"Yup, that should do for now." I clap my hands, completely ignoring the pillow material "I have to say I have truly outdone myself this ti."
"This is factual." The automaton nods slightly "None may compare to my legendary
artifice."
"As it should be" I chuckle and turn to the rest, only to find all of them engaged in very loud conversation between themselves, mostly to do with a gods damned animonculus speaking, but also its presud power.
"Ah! Before I forget." I speak up again and summon Hag's Bane, resized to fit AK Junior perfectly "Your weapon."
He takes it with one hand, his movents almost reverent, before testing out a swing and making the very air around the weapon blur with how strongly he swung it "A fine weapon indeed, as befitting my creator."
"I am glad you like it." I smirk and turn to my other vassals, but most of them were too busy freaking out right now to listen to what I had to say so I simply gave AK a look. "Silence atbags!" Junior slams the bottom of Hag's Bane into the tal floor, shattering it in a good ter of radius and probably blowing out at least a couple of eardrums of those present if the exclamations of pain were anything to go by.
Casting a wide range heal, to many thankful looks, I pretended as if I didn't just get ignored and cleared my throat "Thank you." A couple of them looked down in embarrassnt at that "We have survived sothing most would think impossible and discovered a work as ancient as our very people! There is still much work to be done but for today I want all of us to celebrate the fact that we aren't dead and in so tentacle monster's personal collection!" A couple of the warriors chuckle but most of them instinctually clench their backsides.
"So drink and make rry, my dear subjects, for tomorrow we get back to work!" I finish my little speech, unwilling to drag it out because my head was still pulsating as if it was going to burst at any mont.
Still, I forced myself to spend a bit of ti with the others, naming each and every elf who died today and leading a small toast in their na before sharing so stories with the rest so that I would earn their deeper loyalty.
Too bad they would all have to be placed under secret surveillance because I couldn't be sure just how deeply Hermaeus' ntal fuckery went. They would not ever notice it of course but it
still felt a bit dirty doing it.
Even with my bullheaded stubbornness, an hour and a bit was as much as I could manage before the headache beca too much and I stumbled my way into my tent, brought down here by a group of spider automatons and erected by them as well, and imdiately knocked
myself out.
Fuck I hope I don't wake up to an even worse one.
(General POV, so two days later)
Davos passed through the wayshrine hidden within the depths of the Rift and appeared within
Tel Dagoth, relief imdiately flooding his body as he could finally relax after his days long
chase.
The noble agent may have slaughtered all of the orcs in the small fort but then their brethren found out through so ridiculous ans, probably Malakath but he did not wish to entertain the idea, and started hunting him like a pack of hungry wolves.
He finally managed to lose them after another big confrontation where he was forced to ambush his hunters in a thick forest by making dozens of traps and abusing his maneuverability to the highest degree possible, and even then he was forced to grow back an eye after he fled from even more reinforcents arriving.
Unwilling to waste any more ti he asked one of the apprentices where the lord was and quickly ran to the training chambers, though he soon rembered why he was taking his ti with the search in the first place as he felt a pair of eyes trying to burn a hole in his back. He wanted to shiver in fright but he had a job to do so he focused on the mission and made his
way to his destination, the guards letting him in without any questions as he ca onto a very glorious, or disturbing depending on your viewpoint, scene.
A massive ebony figure was currently completely and utterly manhandling his boss as he attempted to dodge and weave out of the way only to be caught almost instantly and slamd away, pointedly in a way which would do no damage but still cause pain. "How is that fair?" Reyvin hisses as he gets up "I fucking made you, how are you better than ?" He sounded both irritated and proud at the sa ti.
"While you are the greatest among their number that has or ever will live, my Master" The
giant rumbles in a voice that told everyone it was anything but alive "You are still very much so, a atbag." The automaton seems almost sad at the fact, if it could even feel the emotion.
Reyvin rolls his eyes "I know I shouldn't have installed the 'cheek' module." But his attention is drawn from his creation and onto his right hand r "Finally done running, Davos?" He
asks with a smirk that could only ever be described as evil. Davos just sighs "Yeah, I got your little knife shards."
"That is a Daedric artifact by the way." Reyvin's smirk grows as Davos practically flings the
little bag holding the shards at the floor.
"Fuck! Why do you do this every ti?" The older Dunr half glowers half hisses. "Because it is funny." His boss deadpans "Now how about you tell what you've been up
to?"
Davos feels like getting away but knows he has no choice, deciding to be circumspect for once he looks to the large automaton questioningly but Reyvin just shakes his head and smiles "I will tell you all about mine once you tell about yours."
And so Davos found himself recounting many a detail of his search, leading him from Falkreath to the Rift, the little chase he experienced serving as so peak entertainnt for Reyvin as he could feel the utter misery radiating from his right hand man.
Once Davos was done and was about to start asking his questions, the sound of a very familiar
voice clearing her throat, it did not take a genius to realize who had arrived. Understanding just how fucked he was, he gave his boss a look that practically scread 'Traitor!' and turned around to accept his fate.
Reyvin just smirked and teleported away, AK Junior disappearing with him.
Days pass as you continue your endless toil, you slowly forget about anything else but the
sacred task of mining the stones of power. You do not sleep, and you barely eat, the magical
might of the House ensuring that you are capable of doing the maximum amount of work with the least investnt.
A small part of you hopes that one day you will be able to see the sun again.
A much larger part though rely accepts its fate, as the words carved upon every beam and
every minecart remind you of your fate:
Get back to work ;)
If you want to support directly and get access to 35ish chapters (So 70k-ish words) in
advance visit my patreon page patreon/Rastislav156
If you want to discuss the story or just about join my discord server:
sdiscord.gg/NSDHGQpvsF
Reviews
All reviews (0)