Malsour sighed, tapping his jaw in thought as he looked at the items in front of him. He had been spending the last week modifying the lab. Now, it was one large room two stories tall.

There were tables and different workstations around the room. In one corner, there was the humming sphere that Dave was calling his mini-sun. The damn thing gave off enough power to make Malsour pucker up and he’d been around Lady Fire for a large part of his life.

Then, there was another machine, that took in heavy metals and then pushed out diamond crystal mana wells. They were moved to another machine that took them and put them into control boxes that could safely drain power from them.

Then, there was a soul gem growing factory, magical coded pieces of various kinds, bags of holding, different bracelets, rings and necklaces over four tables, and then a suit of armor that had no visible way to get into it, right next to one that had been taken apart and cut open. Some items were together, others apart and strewn across desks.

To many, it was pure chaos.

To Dave and Malsour, it was paradise.

There was a flash of light and three people appeared at the front of the room.

Malsour instantly recognized Lady Fire and Bob.

The other tall man with a beard seemed to reach out for something.

“Don’t touch that!” Malsour barked across the room.

The man’s eye met Malsour’s with an annoyed expression.

“We’re not sure if that will destroy everything in a ten foot radius or plant a forest for ten miles!” Malsour yelled.

“Bob, what the hell is this place?” The man asked.

“Well, good of you to ask, Water,” Bob said with a smile as he walked over to Malsour.

Fire looked pale as she crossed her arms protectively over the very visible stomach bump.

“What the hell are all of these things doing in the same place and what is that over there?” She asked, pointing right at the ‘sun’ and mana wells.

“Damned bomb factory in here.” Malsour muttered.

“Malsour Dracul, you will explain what you are doing with such dangerous magic!” Fire demanded just as the door to the lab closed, Dave and Deia walking in.

“Bob! What the hell, dude? This is supposed to be a secret lab! Not a damned tourist attraction!”

“I wanted to show them the stuff we’ve been working on. They’re some of the oldest people after me and they do have a lot of knowledge about magic,” Bob said.

Dave’s face went slack.

“You were bored and you wanted to show off,” he deadpanned.

“Hi Deia, what are you doing in this place?” Fire said, disregarding what the other two were talking about as she side hugged Deia.

Malsour shook his head and went back to studying the information in front of him.

Bob tried to convince Dave that he wasn’t showing off, but Dave wasn’t having any of it, seeing through the Grey God’s bluff.

Water made his way over to Malsour, careful not to touch anything.

“So what is this place?” Water asked.

“Bob didn't brag about it?” Malsour snorted.

Water gave him a look that seemed to ask ‘what the hell do you think?’.

Malsour gave a half-smile, shaking his head and looking over the room.

“We’re working on projects for items that might let us face what’s coming out from Bob’s prison and the Jukal, if they attack us,” Malsour said.

“Okay, though I don’t see how one lab could do all of that,” Water said.

“Over there, we’ve got a reactor that can generate more power than an entire island of Per’Ush mages’ combined strength in about ten minutes. There, we’ve got a mana well that will give off residual mana for a few million years. Over in that area, we’re working on armor sets, Dave is trying to determined how to make an armor set to augment a person’s abilities. Then, we’ve got all manner of weapon augmentation and defense coding. We’ve got a few Aleph automatons in the back.” Malsour waved to a large storage room off to the side. "Right now I'm working on incorporating grand workings with dwarven artillery."

"What? What do you mean by incorporate?" asked Water.

“Well, we found that while you can activate grand workings anywhere, they don’t last forever, so using them close to the enemy is the most effective way. We had a fight where someone sent a person in with a grand working. The closer it is when it goes off, the more destruction it’ll bring down. So, what if we don’t need to be right next to an army to activate the working? How about if you launch it from Dwarven Artillery? Or, what if you changed the grand working so that it goes for maximum destruction over targeting? It could reduce the mana used for the transmission and control of the spell, and more used to give the spell power?” Malsour smiled.

Water looked pale as he looked from the artillery pieces, grand working parts to Malsour.

“You’re the Water Lord, right?” Malsour asked, holding out a hand.

“Yes, and sorry I didn’t catch your name, you’re?” Water asked, holding out his hand.

“Malsour Dracul.” Malsour said with a smile.

“Shadow eater.” Water said, shivering slightly as he shook Malsour’s hand.

“Oh, that is an old nickname,” Malsour said with a cold smile.

“You killed off everyone that attacked the Wood Elves that you were living with,” Water said.

“They killed my friends and a woman I had feelings for.” Malsour said, sounding tired. “That was almost four hundred years ago.”

“I have a good memory and I was still only about a century or so old at the time, Water said.

“Sure is enough to make me feel old,” Malsour replied. Silence stretched between them while Bob and Dave went off to inspect some defensive items. Deia and Fire were sitting down in chairs, rubbing their backs.

“You know that the items in here could change Emerilia as we know it,” Water asked.

“Good, we’re going to need to change it and fast if we hope to survive,” Malsour said.

Water studied Malsour for a few moments.

“Well then, that is something that we both agree on. Can you tell me what your different projects are? I might not know as much as Fire, but I can still be some help,” Water smiled.

“Well, I was looking at enchantments or clothing to encapsulate people so that they could go into any environment.” Malsour said, guiding Water away from his table.

***

“Okay, so, you got me to help you out in making the reactor, but now what do you want it for?” Bob asked as he and Dave made it closer to the power creating and storage area of the laboratory.

“The power generators and facilities that the Aleph use are really good, but we need something that can give off more power in a shorter amount of time and doesn’t burn as much material for a larger power output,” Dave said.

“Okay, yeah so the fusion reactor does make more power for less materials, but I don’t see why you would need that? You have a power station right outside that can give off nearly two times the power of this thing,” Bob said gesturing to the rune covered metal sphere.

“Right now, we’re stuck on this planet. Essentially, we are a big ole sitting duck for the Jukal’s countermeasures. When they come for us with their battle fleets, we’re going to need a way to deal with them,” Dave said.

“Okay, so what? Massive planet to space cannons?” Bob asked.

“I’ll put that on the list, but they’d be a pain in the ass to make material wise. No, I was thinking something else.” Dave shared his interface with Bob.

A hologram of what looked like a smaller version of the Aleph cities but was capped off at either end with rounded ends appeared.

“Seriously, can you just tell me what the hell you’re working on and not play mister mysterious peekaboo,” Bob complained.

“Well, you were the one that wanted to show off the lab to your friends,” Dave joked.

Bob looked over the image again, sighing as he looked at it closer, moving through the hologram.

“Thirty meters long and five across.” Bob opened his hands, the hologram coming apart into parts.

“You’ve got gravitational magical coding, then a fusion power plant. A system to move items from the center of the thing to the front. That sphere there looks like a part of Shard.”

Bob stopped talking, looking at the different parts.

“It's a ship.” Bob looked to Dave.

“Correct, it’s a fighter prototype. The power system will probably be a scaled down version of the reactor we have here, or a mana well if we can get a larger output from it. Weapons, we’re still working on, and coding the gravity drive are proving to be a pain in the ass.”

“So, more prototype than real?” Bob surmised from Dave’s words.

“At this point,” Dave admitted.

“Well, one thing I can tell you, you’re missing somewhere for the pilot or pilots to control the ship from,” Bob waved to the hologram.

“Kind of, it’s part of what we’re working on here. You know how bags of holding distort the weight or size of items?”

“Yes,” Bob nodded.

“Well, we've found a way to automatically pull from bags. So instead of having a large magazine for the weapon systems, we just have bags of holding that the ship’s loading system pulls from. Also, if we can figure out how to put a person in them and exert commands onto the ship, it would work perfectly. We could go damn fast and not have to worry about turning the crew to mush as they’re not in the same physical world as the ship!” Dave grinned.

“I’m still saying that we use the human bags of holding for the armor and then find a way to link the mirrors of communication to the ships,” Malsour said, Water beside him as they joined in on the conversation.

“That would be much easier to do,” Bob said.

Dave had a thoughtful look on his face before shrugging.

“I’ve been thinking about setting up a factory to make mirrors of communication. They’re pretty expensive to make material wise and they need people to watch over them. It’s worth a shot.” Dave shrugged.

“What is this armor you’re talking about, and bags of holding?" Water asked.

“The Stone Raiders have a number of members that are POEs. If they die, they don’t come back. Dave had the idea of trying to make something to protect them. At first, his idea was to make really strong armor,” Malsour started.

“Then, I found that the armor I wanted to make would just be really heavy and annoying to move around. I wished that there was a way to just code the inside of the armor instead of having a person in there,” Dave added.

“I heard him talking about having something smaller in a large space, kept on talking about Doctor Who, whatever that is.” Malsour shrugged, Dave looked like he wanted to say something, but held it in. “Anyway, I talked about the bag of holding and Dave had a lightbulb moment.”

“We’re still working on it, but we know that putting things into a bag of holding makes it heavier even if slightly. It shows that the contents of the bag of holding can have an effect on this physical world. So, if we were able to put a person into the armor, but they don’t take up all the room in the armor, I can fill it with all kinds of enchantments. Boost their defensive and offensive power. If their armor is about to fail or they’re dangerously close to using up their power reserves, they get ejected from the armor. Inside the bag of holding, an enchantment is activated and they’re returned to preset teleportation coordinates,” Dave said.

“The people using your armor wouldn’t have to fear death. They might be POEs, but they have the power of a Player,” Bob said.

“To get to that point, we have to figure out a way to do that bag of holding transfer of commands, then we’ve got to figure out teleportation spell or enchantment, then all of the magical coding that will work to increase their power," Dave said.

“Just having the ability to act like a Player would probably do enough. Boosting their power could come secondary,” Water said.

“One thing at a time, don’t need to go the full distance in one go,” Bob agreed.

Dave nodded.

“So what is your most important project. We should probably start with that and then move forwards," Water suggested.

“Someone’s excited to get to work,” Bob grinned.

“Well, it’s not everyday that you get the chance to build something that could change Emerilia’s reality,” Water said, trying to sound stoic even as he fought off a smile.

“Well the first would be over here.” Dave led the group over to a mana well encapsulated in a glowing soul gem. Embedded around the mana well and covered by the soul gem were magically coded cylinders that grew in size until they blew up into a circular pad. It bore many resemblances to a teleport pad.

“This is our ono prototype,” Dave said, gesturing to the unit.

“It's a single location teleport pad... It is powered by a combination of a mana well and a soul gem matrix. The well gives off power continuously while the gem matrix stores it when not in use. This also allowed us to add a shield, powered by the stored mana. They cost a considerable amount in both gold and resources and we don’t want them to be destroyed, so we’ve added in a secondary command circuit to the magical coding.”

“If this secondary command circuit is tripped by us, then the Onos will generate overlapping mana barriers to protect against physical and magical attacks,” Malsour said.

“So, one really powerful mana barrier. Your locations are going to be heavily defended,” Water said.

“Emerilia will be heavily defended,” Dave corrected, opening up his interface and sending out a map to Water and Bob.

They looked at the information, their eyes going wide.

“Damn, half measures really aren’t your thing!” Bob snorted.

“Well, we’re going to need a good defense first, then we can go on the offense,” Dave said.

Bob’s view was filled with a new screen.

Event: Of Myths and Legends

3 Creatures of Power have escaped their imprisonment and have arrived back on Emerilia.

The Event: Of Myths and Legends has begun!

Kill the Creatures of Power to gain rewards and experience. If you fail to kill the creatures then Emerilia could be forever changed.

Creatures of Power located on Emerilia: 3

Creatures killed: 0

The Jukal people have voted to release.

Khanundra

Melhoun

Akatol

Bob looked away from the screens as a silence filled the laboratory. Everyone finished reading the screens, looking to Bob.

“Looks like the event is upon us,” Bob said simply.

“I thought that we still had four more months!” Fire said.

“I thought so as well, but these are powerful monsters. I had to wake them up beforehand or else the Jukal Empire might think something was up. It looks like they voted for the creatures to be released. I wasn’t told of this,” Bob said.

“What’s done is done. Do we know which creatures were released?” Water asked.

“Khanundra, Melhoun and Akatol,” Bob said with a stony expression.

Malsour balled his fists up, his fingers becoming white as he looked to Fire.

“I need to tell Denur and the rest of the Dragons. She is not going to be happy that her genocidal husband is back,” Fire said in a biting tone, disappearing in a flash of fire.

“Dave, I am told that you can craft fine weapons. I would like to procure a number of them for my people. It seems that we cannot wait until the end of the Dwarven Tournament to arm ourselves with weapons of power. I must return to my Mer-people. If Melhoun once again moves through the seas of Emerilia, he will undoubtedly target the Mer-people once again or try to enslave them.” Water seemed to rise up from the floor, covering the Water Lord. The water fell away, the old man had disappeared.

“Who is Khanundra?” Dave asked.

“Khanundra, is the leader of the Lady of Light’s Angels. A level one thousand creature.” Bob shivered slightly. “There’s no telling what kind of monster she will become if the Lady of Light turns her into a Champion as well.”

“Well, then we best get to work on what we’ve got in here. It looks like we’re going to be needing these projects working sooner than we thought,” Deia said.