Chapter 16 Constructs

The frost giants are persistent, I'll give them that much. Even as the year draws to a close they attack twice more. Each time I drive them back the same way then repair the forest. I have plenty of time. With the onset of winter everything slows down.

Well everything but their attacks. I suppose it makes sense. After all they worship the goddess of winter.

Truthfully it's not much of a distraction. A few hours of work every couple of weeks leaves me way too much free time. Even backing up all of my creature templates across all of my bases doesn't take long.

I was bored and anxious, nervously waiting for the Godswar. Anticipating being rendered helpless due to the lack of magic was nerve-wracking. I couldn't even warn my family as that would likely draw very unwelcome divine attention.

So I went of vacation. It was actually inspired by a comment made by Malchor when he came by to see me. He congratulated me for getting rid of Klauth, stating how that had built me up some good will. Good will that I had almost immediately lost when my same defenses killed a bronze dragon.

It wasn't even my fault! The stupid thing actually tried to tear off the roof of my base. Of course my artisans treated him like an enemy! I still ended up getting visited by several people who felt I had acted too aggressively.

Fed up I decided to just wander around until people stopped stopping by just to lecture me. And so I ended up taking the girls and Usk and flying around and touring the realms. We wiped out a few bandit camps, but mostly played tourist. I also visited landmarks.

It was the last that gave me a new base. The Wailing Dwarf is an almost mile high statue carved into the side of a mountain. Within I found an entire ancient dwarven city. Even better I found that it had been largely taken over by guardian nagas.

After the stress of the last few months it was pretty relaxing to just cut loose and rampage through an entire city killing everything in the way. To secure the areas we had cleared I left a trail of bone nagas and flameskulls behind us. I saved the most powerful of them, but gladly used the rest.

In the end it was the flameskulls that won the day. Faced with endlessly regenerating undead that wielded fire the trolls retreated. Without them to hide behind the nagas were easy prey. Leaving only ghosts and unintelligent life to deal with. And ghosts are easy when you know as much necromancy as I do.

The fact that this was a former dwarven city influenced my choice of soldiers. Gathering several of the less promising derro I had them bound as watchghosts throughout the city. Then I installed my anvils of darkness. It was good timing since I had just about finished harvesting the giant iron golem I had made. Altogether I have almost 300 anvils.

I install 280 of them in the city. Enough that, staggered properly, every day two doomguards will be completed. And following the dopplegangers example I have them built like dwarves. It just seemed fitting.

The last couple I stash in Longsaddle. Those will be producing more human shaped doomguards to supplement the longriders in an emergency. Even if it isn't much, more backup is never a bad thing.

I don't stop there though. A few bound dwarven mummies provides me the craftsmen I need for the next part. That and the bronze dragon corpse. Equipment.

While they sadly can't normally wear armor, given the identical form of each doomguard it was worth having a craftsman precisely tailor a suit of armor just for them. It cost much more than even a masterwork suit of armor, but it was worth it.

The final suit of armor was a breastplate fashioned from the same unique hide the helmed horrors are fashioned from. Additionally they carry a large shield made from the same material and a mantle made from red dragonhide. All of which is dyed the same reddish brown as the stone the city is carved from. That stone is also why I named the base Geonosis.

The Wailing Guard as I'm calling them, all wield large shields made from more of that hide. They also each carry a dragonbone heavy crossbow and both a dragonfang dwarven waraxe and a dragonfang dagger made from the same organic hizakur the helmed horrors use.

The commanders, called Beastlords, commanded animated sword spiders augmented with fang dragon blood. The spiders were used more like weapon platforms than mounts, with two doomguards riding them, a driver and gunner. The gunner operated a dragonbow crank crossbow. It had a greek name but I couldn't remember it. Besides the name I gave it was perfectly accurate.

I also wanted to provide a bit more firepower so altered the binding on the flameskulls. Now the Beastlords could call on up to four to guard them when they leave the city. I also had a dendritic crystal helmet designed just for the flameskulls. I specifically included beards. After all they were representing dwarves.

I also can't wait to see peoples faces the first time it comes under attack and a horde of spiders and flying dwarf heads pours from the Wailing Dwarf's mouth.

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Sadly sitting quietly was not something I was able to do. My forces in Mandalore had been steadily shifting the High Road eastward even after I stopped my tests. And I only found out about it when they reported coming under attack and discovered the remains of a band of adventurers.

Except they weren't adventurers or should I say not just adventurers. They were also Harpers. And my base didn't report the attack until after they had killed all of them.

I'm really regretting building the battle horrors right now. If nothing else I should have waited until later. Now I might end up exposed just as the Godswar breaks out.

No help for it. I pull out all of the battle horrors and helmed horrors. No point leaving anything leading back to the base. Then I start shifting what I'm constructing. I also rename the base Kuat. I'm not sure if the new name will be enough to break any sympathetic magic, but it can't hurt.

I also move the hydra to the Wailing Dwarf. Geonosis has a greater need for it anyway. About the only thing I can't move is the Forge of Spells.

Kuat now is focused on manufacturing skyships. A massive shipyard is steadily being constructed east of the base, further up the mountain. I had actually considered something like this before so it didn't take long to arrange.

A massive cavern was carved deep into the mountain and heavily warded. Then using the same process I created the Ravenswood with I grew an underground stand of Zalantar trees.

At least the undead troops hadn't been exposed. They can still work for my eventual toll bridge plans.

I have fun with the ships. Made from darkwood, they would be lighter than normal. They would also be very different from the Halruaan designs, instead going with a catamaran set up. The twin hulls would be narrow and allow additional entrances to be placed. After all its not like it needs to be waterproof.

The hold is a true work of art. My work with the rope trick was scaled up. A set of mordenkainen's magnificent mansions gave me all the room I could want. Combined with the ramps and entrances and I can rapidly deploy large numbers of troops.

Animating it allowed me to place a flight spell on it. Additionally I added sail to take full advantage of the Wind at Back spell I added. And finally a censer of commanding air elementals paired with a modified eversmoking bottle meant there was always a huge air elemental guarding the ship.

Hopefully I'll have at least one of them done by the time the Time of Troubles starts. Actually I can to this to a normal ship. Maybe I should get a port? The Gray Forest has some coastline.

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In the meantime I have to deal with my battle horrors. They're a little too independent to try and store for a year or so. So I need to keep them busy.

In the end I settled for Ascore and Hlaungadath. Ascore was an ancient dwarven city, long abandoned due to the spreading Anauroch desert. Hlaungadath was a former Netherese city that was actually located inside the desert.

Both cities had a terrible reputation, but none of the stories mentioned anything incredibly powerful such as dragons. So I set my battle horrors loose on them.

Their orders were simple. Go to Hlaungadath since it was the more isolated of the two and clear it out. Then repeat it at Ascore.

I sent them my newest unit, something I had rushed to get finished on time. I call them warstriders. The concept is simple enough. An animated suit of dendritic crystal armor. Then layered with permanent hardening and augment object spells. Turning it into a regenerating, nearly invulnerable war machine with it's hardness rating of forty.

Its weapon is also a perfectly suited to it. The massive morningstar was based off and made from the tail of the ankylosaurus' I modified for Dathomir. Then it was enlarged even further turn it into a properly sized two handed weapon. Finally it was enchanted to absorb any dispelling attempts to protect it's relatively fragile layers of enchantments.

I had just enough to assign one to each battle horror. Combined with the thirty helmed horrors it should be plenty.

I even know what I'm going to rename the cities once they're secured. It was an easy choice considering they were in a desert. Tatooine.

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Despite how much I enjoyed designing and creating bases, too much of something gets boring. So I visited Aglarond. The Simbul herself came out to meet me. I was really glad she wasn't hostile like so many of the other chosen of Mystra were. She always was my favorite character in the series.

Seeing as how she lived up to my hopes and expectations and was friendly I gave her a gift. The right wing of Klauth, complete with his unique magical bracer that allowed him to wield three wands simultaneously. I couldn't hold back a laugh when she actually squealed in delight.

Definitely my favorite character.

My parting gift was because she was likely to end up fighting in Baator, against hordes of devils. While it had been one of my favorite books I can't deny she came close to dying several times.

It was a pair of bracers. To ensure they were appropriately considered jewelry, they had a change self enchantment that let her change their appearance. Functionally they had a number of enchantments the first of which was bracers of armor +8. Since she liked shapeshifting so much they also had imbued her natural attacks with keen.

It was extravagant, over the top and immediately made her a bit suspicious. But I didn't mind. Of all the characters she was one of the ones I actually made a note to help. Besides at least she didn't try to lecture me.

I answered her suspicions with vague replies and hints of a prophecy. After all my unique knowledge could be considered a prophecy if looked at the right way. It probably helped that I swore on Mystra's name that I had only good intentions towards her and her country.

And I'm not sure if it was Mystra rewarding me or now, but it was after that I had my epiphany. I don't need to train soldiers hoping they become powerful enough. There are plenty of powerful warriors I can harvest. No one pays attention to them because they're retired.

I need to start visiting taverns.

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At first I was tempted to try and obtain blood samples from everyone, but it didn't take long to realize the uselessness of that. No I needed specialists. People who excelled at a specific tactic or style of combat and I could deploy in large numbers.

Unfortunately my very first pick didn't work. The Simbul's griffonriders have an impressive reputation. It turns out that it isn't solely due to the rider. The griffons also undergo a ritual to bond and enhance them. Not something I can replicate with just deepspawn and undead.

Thankfully my next idea panned out. There were a lot of knightly orders. Finding ones that seemed serious about combat and focusing on the lance took time. Eventually it paid off and I tracked down a cavalier who seemed perfect..

He was old, partially crippled and drinking alone. He also had a formidable reputation and had reached fifteenth level. Impressive for a human who wasn't an adventurer.

He was also more than willing to swear service to me in return for an extended life. Even if he did have to be reincarnated as an elf. I left him back at Coruscant with orders to train until he had reached twentieth or mastered Unstoppable Charge.

I had been playing around with the Mount spell and although it raised the level I could now summon trained warbeast versions of various animals. A quick tattoo and he could summon his own mount up to three time a day. He was also given a tattoo to enhance any weapon held with the Valorous property, increasing damage on a charge and was mounted on a horse. After all I did want the best lancer possible.

I was surprised when the first two months passed and I received the mission complete message from my battle horrors. Tracking down my future lancer hdtaken more time then I realized. Teleporting over and checking the situation out was interesting.

My warstriders had more than proved themselves. Nine of them remained, out of the ten I sent. In contrast only one helmed horror was still intact and half the battle horrors had perished.

Overall impressed I listened to their report. Hlaungadath was easily secured. There were only lamias and gargoyles present, neither of which posed any danger. In fact they didn't take any losses and finished clearing the city in the first week.

It was Ascore that was the issue. There were several covens of hags in the ruins. Together they had commanded an entire army of various undead. The fighting was endless and they actually ran out of crossbow bolts more than once. Which is crazy since I had sent an entire crate, which held 4000 bolts, for each of them.

The fighting had slowed down, but the dragon had been the issue. Turns out a brown dragon laired in the middle of Ascore. Once the fighting reached him he started attacking everything. Killing him had been difficult, but they had done it.

Then two blue dragons appeared. Much younger, but they had caught them while recovering. Hearing the details I was very satisfied. They had done better than I suspected they would. I hadn't expected them to succeed with so few losses.

I opened a gate and sent through the reinforcements. An additional thirty warstriders. Also two of the dragonlords from the Forest of Wyrms. I was steadily replacing the originals with ones that had flying dragons. And since just discarding them was a waste they were perfect as reinforcements.

I would have sent all three, but only two had their armor altered so far. Green dragons don't really make much sense in a desert. So I had been altering them to brown. Definitely the right choice given what they encountered. It works even better since brown dragons can't fly.

Seeing how well the warstriders are doing I order several additional staves made with the spells used to create them. I wanted a steady stream of them being made. I also install deepspawn to start generating another dread army. I used the dwarven king Bruenor as my template. After all he killed a dragon and created aegis fang. Definitely what I want here to restore and defend the city.

I have the clone adjusted of course. Grafted brown dragon scales, shave off all the hair, and add burrowing claws and antennae. The cities are quickly set up to provide rockworm hide armor, shields and warhammers.

A magically sustained digester provides an endless stream of acid. Very precisely shaped dendritic crystals allow the growth of large throwing bottles balanced like a throwing hammer.

Combined with necrocraft armored wagons should be plenty to defend the city.

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I course that left me the problem of what to do with the remaining battle horrors. It didn't feel right to throw them away after they had succeeded so well. And then I had the perfect place for them.

One of the main benefits and also problems with my artisans were that although they were alive, they had virtually no initiative. And I just so happened to have constructs with an abundance of it. Now I wish more of them had survived.

Still I can probably skip a few places. Taris was small and very secure. It was also fairly static besides my visiting kin until the school I'm planning opens. Which won't be until after the Godswar.

Coruscant, Kuat and Konoha are in similar positions. They are also close enough I can afford to drop by and check on them. Maybe. I should probably have more troops placed near Longsaddle for escorts if nothing else.

Necropolis and Geonosis are isolated. No one really travels to either and the defenses are already decent.

So that really just leaves Endor which has dragons, Korriban with its legions, and Dathoir with its castles. That's reasonable. I send a Battle Horror to the last three bases. I place them in charge of defending them, especially if I'm not available.

I also send one to Tatooine. I'm not sure if I'm going to separate Ascore into another base, but for now I'm counting the two cities as a single unit.

The last battle horror I decide to repeat their last mission. After all they did very well in clearing out the cities. Securing me a place in Thesk shouldn't be too hard.

It takes less than a day for it to message me. Apparently it started by asking. And right away was told of two places considered inhospitable. After looking them both over I was very satisfied. Looks like I'm going to have a Mandalore after all.

There is a small mountain range in the very center of Thesk. It's also empty. As far as I could find nothing lives there. Well nothing intelligent. The exception is a few mining villages and even then they're tiny and clustered around the western end of the range.

I wasted no time. After all I can feel the clock ticking. All twelve delver simulacrums and a few beholders are summoned to start constructing my newest base. A necessity given the easily crumbled stone. Even as artisans start layering the privacy spells I'm designing the new army. They also place plenty of magical reinforcements along with walls of force along a few ceilings.

I think I'm going to use helmed horrors again. This time actually making them look like mandalorians. And for dread, maybe don't use them this time. The warstriders did really well before and gating them would be a pain. Why not have another group of them here?

Except if I was going to make mandalorians I should make something appropriate. Massive tanks seems just about right. Twenty feet wide, a raised prow like a ship and four sets of spiked treads. Perfect for just running over masses of normal troops.

On top I just mount a half dozen crank crossbows. And to run them I install a full set of anvils of darkness. Of course these doomguards will be made in the same style as the mandalorian armor, even if dwarf shaped.

I'm very glad I had gone ahead and didn't cancel any of my projects. Instead I have an artisan cast few minor spells every day when I finish meditating. The same three, all cast while I wash up. Until they stop working I'm going to keep expanding.

Which is why I now have the hundreds of anvils needed for Mandalore's army. I even managed to double the ones in the Wailing Dwarf.

Of course they'll need to do something to make sure Thesk doesn't mind their presence. Otherwise adventurers will end up becoming a problem.

So I leave some of the strongest magic items I had created with them. An incredibly powerful magical quiver based of the Quiver of Anariel. It generates arrows with a tribladed head, each edge made from alchemical silver, cold iron or adamantine. They were also enchanted to have +3 wounding properties.

However, that was only the first quiver. The others produced different arrows. The other four were similar though, all being +2 dragonfang splitting arrows. The difference was that each one was a different energy type. I had one for cold, fire, acid and lightning.

The quivers were all bound so that they would fail to work unless a staggering number of conditions were met. They couldn't be removed from the room I assigned. The person using it had to have my permission and wear my arcane mark. They had to be a helmed horror. And several more.

Combined with the dread warrior commanders who could create walls of iron and their economic contribution was secure. Troop wise I actually settled for one of the few gnolls I had in storage. They don't need discipline if they're being sent out in large mobs.

The tricky part was coming up with armor that made it obvious they were with the helmed horrors. Thank god of Ms Alont.

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Not to say my time in Thesk was all work. The first time I saw a fell troll I fell in love. A sixteen foot regenerating figure with two heads. What wasn't there to like? I must have him.

Soon enough I had secured it and turned it over to Bidderdoo. I can't wait to see what he comes up with. And if nothing else I can now freely create huge sized blood hulks.

Which inspired me to create another base, this one at the east end of the mountain range. It was a bit of an odd mental leap but it reminded me of warhammer 40k. So I recreated the engineers. I don't remember their name, but I remember grafting and extra limbs. That and they are the ones who do the crafting.

Since I wasn't able to create war machines I settled for potions and alchemy. A few myconid colonies produced potions and a few bound grippli mummies serving a Regweld mummy created alchemical products.

The commanders were entertaining to design. I had them set up to create two pairs of dread limbs and then bind them as bodyguards and then attach them to the back of their armor. Not only will it give them four massive skeletal arms that will fight independently, it allows them to fly around.

I still wanted the equivalent of undead war machines so decide to use the wyvern drakes. So far despite how impressive creating flying skeletons had been, I hadn't incorporated them anywhere. Thesk would be perfect for them. With it's wide open terrain and a few feats uploaded they could easily swoop down and use their claws to shred everything they pass over. They'd be an aerial version of the tanks.

The best part is thanks to the weather there is an entire portion of the country rich in wildlife that no one lives in. Perfect for letting the wyvern drakes hunt in while they finish growing. After all a deepspawn can't swallow a hundred foot wyvern. It can barely manage a thirty foot one.

Still, they also needed foot soldiers so I was decided to fake Groundlings. Formerly dwarves who had been crossbred with badgers, Thay uses them as assassins. I just used Pwent. The almost feral dwarf was perfect for my needs. Burrowing claws, antennae and a few other grafts had him resembling a groundling. Given his favored armor I also had a small silence spell tattooed onto him.

Between giant wyverns and groundlings I have now doubt Thay would pay close attention to my base. But it doesn't matter. Once Mars and Mandalore are complete it'll take a full on invasion to do anything about them.

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Gulril snuck down the tunnel, gently floating over the gravel floor. It as obvious from the color it had been deliberately placed there. A decent tactic, but worthless against a drow.

He had been stationed at this stupid outpost for months now. All just so they could take advantage of any opportunities that occur. As unlikely as that may be.

He was glad to be out. The bloody priestess assigned this time had a particularly shrill voice and her lectures left him with a headache. And with only three of them stationed there it wasn't like there was much to distract her.

She wasn't even attractive! At least the last one was decent to look at when she demanded his services. Now it was just more work.

So when he found activity and lots of it he was more than happy to check it out. He was glad he was on guard duty. If he hadn't been looking at just the right moment he likely would have missed it. Whoever it was, it dug fast.

It was only when the tunnel changed that he started to get worried. Before it was just a hole torn through the rock. Now it was evening out. Distinct walls and a floor forming from seamless stone. From the sounds at least a foot thick.

That implied something intelligent and powerful.

It was the shifting air and the very faint crackle of electricity that saved his life. He immediately ducked as a blade, the edges hissing with fire and crackling with electricity, swept through where his head had been.

Gulril dropped the floor and rolled back. As he rose to his feet four arcane bolts slammed into him, knocking him down. He rolled as the towering armored figure stabbed almost too fast to see with a short sword in each hand.

When he was stopped by another pair of armored feet he realized he had been herded. They were as strong as an ogre, easily disarming him and then carrying him deeper. The beholder, calming excavating more rooms, had him giving up any hope of escape.

He was not relieved to see the clearly human mage that awaited. When the mage reached out towards him with a glowing hand he only had one thought. I probably should have taken Thay more seriously.

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Drow.

And not a raiding party, but an official outpost from a city. That's going to be a problem. Especially with that city. Phaundakulzan, one of ten drow cities all linked together by portals and essentially one giant city.

Not an enemy I can just scry and die against. But maybe I can use them. After all they're only three of them in the outpost right now. And the time of troubles is right about to happen.

No. That wouldn't work out well. Replacing Thay with a drow nation would not be beneficial. No, better to just wipe his memory and send him back. Maybe open up a very cautious trade agreement later on.

It'd be risky, but it wasn't like I was going to be able to avoid them. They're already in the mountain. Something to consider way later when it's not as dangerous.

Although their set up does give me ideas for creating something similar. Maybe with Rethild. I could call the resulting super-city Dagobah!Although I wasn't going to have any portals made until I knew it was safe and there wasn't a chance they would explode catastrophically.

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Pharaxes Harpell – Loremaster 8 / Blood Magus 10 / Mindbender 2

Bella von Delroy Harpell – Force Missile Mage 5 / Argent Savant 5 / Incantatrix 6 (PGtF)

Kethra Ivy – Assassin 7 / Fighter 2 / Whisperknife 5 / Master Thrower 5

Geth Ivy – Pale Master 6 / True Necromancer 10

Mara Ivy – Wizard 1 / Rogue 3 / Spellwarped Sniper 5 / Unseen Seer 6

Usk Harpell – Duskblade 7 / Bladesinger 8

Commander Cody - Wizard 2 / Fighter 1 / Arcane Archer 10 / Arcane Duelist 5