Chapter 295: Interlude’s First II

The remainder of their stay within the orckalite ant hive was relatively uneventful as the three Founders stuffed ore into whatever inventories they had available, though not too much. While Rose Orckalite was a rare-grade metal - sub-grade rare - the fact that its physical attributes weren’t much different from those of an uncommon-grade metal made it far less interesting in the obvious places, such as forging new stuff.

Could Rory still cook up an impressive set of armor with the Rose Orckalite? Yeah, probably. Did he want to bother? Not particularly.

First and foremost, Rory still had his scalemail armor made from the scales of the Tyrant of Earth and Scales, which had maintained such longevity in its usability thanks to the evolution of one of the scales into an aberrant grade material due to a shit load of things going right for him, so a new set of armor made of Rose Orckalite would probably be a downgrade for him.

The Rogue, meanwhile, didn’t use heavy armor; there was no point in making him a new set if he couldn’t even use it. The same could be said for the Monk.

Leaving only the sisters Zoey and Allison. Zoey was an instant no, as promethium was an extremely strong metal; all things considered, Rose Orckalite would be a downgrade for her, much as it would be for Rory.

Allison, the Spear, was where things were a little more up for debate. Her bone-white armor was the product of many extremely valuable items being used in conjunction, all to create armor that was moderately above average compared to Rory’s regular standards, better than his ‘off-the-shelf’ creations, but honestly still beneath his armor or even Zoey’s.

Which totally didn’t hurt him to think about what he could have made with those same treasures.

So, could Rory probably make her better armor with the abundance of Rose Orckalite? In truth, Rory was leaning toward yes , though it would probably involve other materials as well. But it also wasn’t really worth it. In technical terms, armor that was 10% better than her current gear, while still an upgrade, was marginal. As long as it served continuous functionality and usability, Rory didn’t see the point.

But that was specifically regarding the Rose Orckalite. The Spectro Orckalite was a different story altogether. So much so that Rory almost had to force it from his mind, lest he end up utterly stun-locked by the possibilities of the rather vague material.

Grabbing only a few pieces from the deceased orckalite ant king and avenger, as a matter of heterodoxy, just because a monster was a territory alpha didn’t mean it was guaranteed to have valuable parts to salvage, the trio finally left the hive.

“Well, that was fun,” Eric said, stretching his arms overhead. “So, now what? Move on to the next monster hive area?”

Rory looked overhead, the twin suns still hanging high in the sky.

“Yeah, I don’t see why not.” Glancing at his interface, Rory sighed. “Ten Kaiser domains, each domain split between countless sub-regions. And of this single sub-region, over the span of a few days with several Founders all working together, we’ve cleared roughly… 1.5% of it.”

“Math time?” Eric asked.

“A hundred and fifty or so years,” Tom instantly answered off the cuff. “Give or take, dependent on a billion other variables. So basically, right along the time frame he estimated before.”

“Oh… Shit,” Eric sighed. “So, no summer vacation on the yacht; instead, we’re forced to slave away. Down with the man!”

“Who exactly is the ‘man’ in this context?” Rory couldn’t help but ask.

“Ehh, Allison, you, Aelia, take your pick,” Eric shrugged.

“Not exactly sure why I bothered to ask,” Rory muttered. “But, at the very least, you aren’t wrong about one thing.”

“Oh?”

“We’re definitely going to be ‘slaving away’ for the foreseeable future.”

One year and three months later, Rory stood outside the former ‘camp’ Null, arms crossed as he examined the product of over a year of work.

The ‘camp’ had grown tremendously, now a literal fortress, which had proven necessary as the attacks ramped up over time. As they’d claimed more and more territory from the former Apophis Serpent triplets, monsters had begun to band together, with entire warbands led by alpha-variant ‘lieutenants’ and, in some cases, even territory alphas who left their own hidden dwellings.

But try as they might, they’d crash upon them, only to disperse like a wave upon an immovable cliff face.

The fortress was primarily, which was to say entirely, manned by golem constructs that Rory had been responsible for. The combination of Inert Keystones, Rose Orckalite, and Construct Slate Boards, and a spattering of other materials, had made setting up the small golem army a breeze, attending to the many different aspects of their fortress, from manning defenses to expansion of their underground strip mines, and even being used as stand ins for rituals that would have normally required constant group effort, a rather fun ‘exploit’ that Rory had abused the ever living hell out of.

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At the center of the fortress stood the most heavily defended position, an Anomalous Spire they had managed to afford by pooling their anomalous beads; it generated a whopping one bead a day. Which didn’t seem like much, given the Spire had cost one thousand , but that was only three years to pay for itself, and given they had well over a hundred years of life on The First to look forward to, it was an amazing future investment.

Deeper within the fortress was their storage, ‘Spatial Vault Null,’ the depository for any and every interesting material or item they managed to get their hands on. Constructed using Rory’s advanced knowledge of spatial concepts, several Inert Keystones, and practical experience gained from things such as the Rong family’s former Bloodwood Grove that Rory had also spatially expanded, it had the storage capacity of an entire football field, condensed into a single unassuming room only thirty feet by thirty feet.

“Feeling good about yourself?” Zoey asked as she made her way to where he was standing; the other Founders were not expected to return from their miniature expedition until either later today or potentially the next afternoon.

“Well, not like any of you were useful with the building,” Rory snorted. “So, maybe a little.”

“I don’t see ‘Architect’ in any of our vocations,” Zoey said, rolling her eyes. “Plus, we helped with anything that was just hard labor.”

“Uh-huh, you are all lucky the restrictions on Earth Soul eased over time.”

That had been a nice little discovery; the more of a subregion they claimed, the more Earth Soul returned to its former glory. Hell, Rory was confident that, given the nature of Earth Soul as an ultra-efficient version of a regular earth manipulation skill, manipulating the terrain with magic should have been damn near impossible without group ritual magic to begin with, all landscaping left to mundane, backbreaking effort.

“Going to miss it?” Zoey suddenly asked.

“You act as if we’re never going to come back here,” Rory snorted.

“Sure, but those Anchors are pricy as fuck . Moving between sub-regions without them will take time, even for us.”

That was another discovery Rory made during the last year and change. Spatial transportation, such as had been possible for some time on planet Aelia, was impossible. Or nearly . Much like Earth Soul was restricted by how much of a subregion they controlled, so too was the ability to pierce the veil through space-time. Even after conquering 99% of the subregion in which Base Null existed, spatial transport that wasn’t personally managed was extremely expensive to pull off. They’d need a Territory Anchor at the heart of the territory to bring any other inter-region nodes online, much less multi-region teleportation.

Waiting until the return of the other Founders, there was only one last ‘boss’ to face within the subregion, after which, as a group, they’d decided to split in two, conquering the next two sub-regions at the same time rather than as a full group. With no further threats in the initial touchdown subregion where they’d appeared, there would be no need to stay around. Base Null was functionally autonomous, with all the golems moving about, further underscoring that it would be some time before they next returned.

“I think what I’m going to really miss is the peace,” Rory sighed. Over the last year, they’d worked in various group combinations, but there was one combination that was only rarely seen: Rory and Allison together.

That was about to change. It had been decided that Zoey, Tom, and Eric would be part of group one: a teleporter, support, and tank.

Leaving Allison and Rory as a group of two. Rory was valuable enough as a jack-of-all-trades that it had been decided he had to be part of the two-person team, and Allison was the strongest pure fighter amongst them.

In essence, she was his bodyguard.

Several golems had been prepared in advance to help the non-Architect-sponsored team set up their own camp in the subregion they went to next, and enough beads were transferred to Zoey to afford a second Anomalous Spire, giving them a jump-start that they wouldn’t need Rory’s direct assistance.

But then Rory wasn’t particularly worried about their group; it was an extremely well-rounded group, and while it was often forgotten, Rory had once tutored Zoey in the art of forging as they cleared the climb while hunting down the King of the Molten Peaks. She wasn’t good , but that was compared to Rory. She was, at worst, functionally average.

No, Rory was worried about his own peace.

“Look, it will be fine. You guys have been around each other off and on over the last year. I’m sure you won’t tear each other's throats out. Maybe clothes, but that’s a different story.”

“Oh, wonderful, you’ve finally broken down and joined in on the joke, too,” Rory sighed.

“Hey, if you can’t beat them, join them,” Zoey shrugged. Given that Allison was her little sister, Zoey had never been a fan of the crass sex jokes, but that was out of familial bonds rather than any puritanical rationale. But it was impossible not to be broken down over time, especially when you had the likes of Eric the Primordial Rogue around, who found every opportunity to say the absolute most vile thing; the man had never heard a vulgarity he couldn’t get behind.

Except for nuns. For some reason, the man hated using nuns as the butt of a joke. Rory had no idea why , but he also didn’t care enough to ask, on the chance it was Eric playing the long con, the setup for an extremely patient punchline. He also had a weird hang-up on killing monsters that looked like rabbits, another weird point that Rory made no effort to inquire about.

Rory, meanwhile, would forever enjoy killing a bunny-shaped monster; memories of being nearly mauled to death by the fluffy white bringers of doom would forever haunt him from those earliest days.

But I digress.

The point was, even Zoey had broken down, cracking jokes at his expense.

I mean… not that I disagree THAT much.

Spending over a year in general proximity to The Spear had made Rory even more certain of it.

She was exactly his type. It was just a shame that he’d gone and killed her best friend some years prior.

“Chin up,” Zoey suddenly said, smacking Rory in the back. Well, trying to smack him in the back, given her short stature, it turned into more of an awkward lower-back slap. “Just don’t get my sister pregnant.”

“Dear god, I think I preferred when we were all gunning for each other’s heads,” Rory sighed.

“Oh, hey, speak of the devils, they’re back,” Zoey said as the two of them simultaneously detected the other Founders appearing, popping out of a puddle of blackened shadows within the Fortress.

“Well then, let’s check in,” Rory said, happy to change the subject. “No one seems to be dying, so I’m assuming everything went well with them.”

“Meaning we can finally tackle the last one of this sub-region?” Zoey asked.

Rory grunted, already imagining the predicted monster and how much fun they were going to have with it, likely the second strongest class of monster on the planet aside from the Kaisers themselves.

“Unfortunately.”