Whispers of a Dead Empire

Chapter 9

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"In your domain tool, you should see a creation function. It can be used to create items, buildings, or materials, but never any mob. To use it, you can either imagine what you want to create or design it yourself." Welp, I guess it's better to imagine cause I couldn't draw for the life of me. I sighed and selected the function to get a feel for it.

A radial mini sub-menu came up with items that I could pre-select, along with the number of the required materials. I scrolled through the menu and settled on a simple concrete block. I glanced at the wall and imagined it encasing the entire room in one solid block. A hazy blue outline appeared, encasing the shape of the room in its width. I adjusted it a few more times, a bit more to my liking.

Once I was happy with the current setup, I confirmed my choice, and the screen blinked, telling me that it would cost me three thousand essence points to create. I balked at the price but confirmed it anyway. I refuse to be surrounded by such ugly colors.

I wish I could afford to be a bit more luxurious with my spending, but I was on a tight budget at the moment, so from now on, it was just simple items. I added in a chair and a plain wooden desk to finish up my office. I will have more stuff added in once I get some more essence points stocked up. I touched the office up a bit more and then sat down in my newly created chair. "There we go. It's not much, but welcome to my office. Anyways, is there a way for me to collect material, so I don't have to spend straight essence creating it?" I asked as I pulled out notebooks and pens, placing them in a neatly stacked pile on the desk.

"It should be labeled under the storage function mistress. However, you get a better yield for storage if the material has already been harvested, other than just trying to straight store a mining quarry." I looked through the menus once more and found it. Good, good. Having those mobs mine was a godsend for me. It probably would have saved me a bit of essence if I were to have used storage first, but I would have felt wrong to use it for personal gain. "Thank you, Kharon. Can you teleport in and out of here as well?"

The tall skeleton nodded his head. "I can. I have the ability as your companion."

"Good. You are free to go. See if you can recruit some more of the zombies and skeletons to hit the mine. I'll see if I can do some remote summoning so we can increase the efficiency a bit." I told him as I settled into my chair. It wasn't as comfortable as I wanted it to be, but it was good enough for now.

"As you wish, mistress." Kharon gave me a bow and vanished in a muted display of grey light, leaving me alone with my ghostly friend. I grabbed a pen and started to twirl it around as I tried to think about what I wanted to do next. I opened up my menu, activated the map, and went to a three-dimensional view of my domain. I scrolled over to the outpost and watched in real-time as the mobs collected resources and dropped them into a pile. I selected the storage tool and highlighted the pile of stone, and selected the store function.

I wasn't sure how much a unit of stone was, but it looked like a metric fuck ton. But it wasn't surprising; they were working nonstop since I assigned them to the job. But a part of me felt like somewhere, and somehow, I was violating a whole suite of labor laws in the process.

I found the summon function, selected a clear area, summoned fifteen more skeletons and fifteen more zombies, and watched as my essence bar slowly dwindled. This circle was massive from my viewpoint and bathed the surrounding area in a morose display of light as the undead slowly rose from the ground in a grotesque display. Shortly after they spawned, Kharon walked over to them and began directing them around silently. As an afterthought, I summoned a bunch of tools next to the formation of the waiting undead.I should create some carts or something for them so they can lug more around. That way, I can't feel as bad as I do now for making them work with just their hands. I scrolled over to the pile of wood and selected it for storage.

I confirmed the choice, and the pile of wood turned to ash and vanished into the air. Alright, now let's get some basic carts created. It would do wonders for the efficiency of these guys. Furthermore, I could start having them stack the stone closer to the mines with this. The woodpile was fine with where it was currently located since there were a lot of trees nearby. I scrolled through the menu and selected the create function, and went through the premade section. A lot of what was already here was elementary.

I saw a design for a simple cart, which on a preview was just a plank of wood, with wheels attached to it. It was better than nothing, I suppose. But I also don't know why that this blueprint wasn't on my main list. I would have to get my own designed to fit my empire's theme once I figure that out. This means a lot of drawing practice was at hand, unfortunately. I selected a quantity of ten carts and summoned them into the courtyard next to my small shambling horde of underlings. Thankfully the price was lower since it consumed a couple of hundred wood units in the process, plus a few essence. It was far cheaper than what I would have expected.

Ah, that would explain it. I guess they weren't actual blueprints until I utilized them. I turned to look at my ghostly companion, told it to stay there, and teleported back to the courtyard. Small groups of undead were milling about, and the area was alive with the sounds of feet shuffling through the gravel. Kharon finished directing some of the undead before he noticed me and walked over.

"Actually, yes, I just wanted to ask you to inform the mining crews to start stockpiling stone just outside of the mine for pick up."

"You know you could have just sent me a message instead of teleporting here." That made me want to slap myself. I felt stupid. Why didn't I think of that?

"Of course." I put my head down in shame, and for the first time, I heard something akin to a laugh from the skeleton. It sounded like bones being tapped lightly together in a rhythmic pattern.

"It's alright. You are still new. It's to be expected. Though I will applaud you on the fact that you stepped up to the job so quickly."

"Eh, I tend to try hard with everything I do. I hate being incompetent, and I hate losing, so I will always do my best to stay on top." I told him as I went through the area and moved some of the tool bundles onto the patchwork carts. "Alright, this should help them move things around easier. Position the stone somewhere outside of the quarry, and I'll pull it away once the stack gets large enough. I'll probably give you seven more of each mob to mine with, and I'll put the rest towards getting wood together along with some plant material." He nodded and silently started to give out orders to the mobs that surrounded the area.

The ghosts here just silently floated around the area, cleaning away vast swaths of planet life. Everywhere they raised their hands, the grass withered away and turned to dust.

I looked towards them and called them over, and told them to line up. They broke away from their current tasks and formed a small line in front of me. I looked them over and realized that I was a bit more partial to them than the zombies or the skeletons. They were quiet for the most part and just felt right. They also lacked the egregious smell the zombies had. I also appreciated the fact they none of the mobs looked the same. Some wore tattered clothing that I could hardly see due to how transparent they could be at times, while others looked like the remnants of noble clothing.

As all the ghosts lined up, I decided on the course of action I wanted them to take. The party at the quarry already had ghost support. But I would send two moreover to them. There was no telling what lurked in the forest. I knew nothing had happened so far, but it doesn't hurt to be safe. The remainder I sent into the outpost to start cleaning it up. But while I was up here, I might as well gather all the reading material I could find along with the footlockers. Those would be for personal effects. The rest they can do whatever they want with it as far as I care. Time to collect those things and send them down to my office!

I teleported back into my new office, quickly organized the footlockers and the cot, and pressed them into the wall. After meticulously going through it, I set a bookshelf next to it. I left behind all the ruined books and a few of the unsalvagable bookshelves. Those would be for decal. After all, they were free and didn't cost me anything to make.

I reached down and grabbed a handful of the books that were legible and placed them on a pile on my desk. My ghostly companion sat where I left it, floating quietly. It was like having a pet. That didn't talk or need anything from me and did exactly what I wanted it to. I sat down in my chair, pulled out my pen and notebook, and planned out the story for my domain. I would go with a once beautiful empire that was torn asunder by a betrayal and invasion. I would be at the helm of the empire as its empress, of course. I mean, I could be a little conceited, couldn't I? This was my domain, after all. But what role did this outpost play in it?

I brought the map up and looked at it from a birds-eye view for a moment. It felt a tad too small to have played any role. So I will expand it and give it some walls and defensive areas. Once that is done, I can carefully craft the appearance of having been in a battle age past. But then I would need to create some bosses for that and lore for the bosses. I scribbled the ideas down and looked at the map again, and a realization hit me.

I didn't check out the locked room or that one strange room upstairs. I zoomed in on the outpost, and selected the ghosts, and saw a message function appear. I quickly typed an order to ignore the one room upstairs along with the locked door downstairs. Once that was done, I shifted back and stared at the outpost. What did I want to name it? I stared at it for a moment before I shifted back to my notebook. It would come to me eventually. In the meantime, I could work on the overall domain appearance and then hit bosses next.

I set my pen back down on the notebook and went directly into the domain menu, and found the customization tool. Here I could change the sky sphere and the size of the domain along with the name, weather, and entrance. First, let's do the sky sphere. This cloudy purple haze doesn't fit the environment I wanted to build. I opened the menu and saw an extremely comprehensive list of various sky spheres. I scrolled through them, but none seem to fit what I had in mind. I sorted through them for a while and then decided to click on the custom tool. If I couldn't find one that I wanted, then I would make one myself. A backdrop appeared, and a very long list of options appeared in a side panel. I had complete creative freedom from the looks of this menu. Let's start from the top, then shall we?

The first option involved the light source and there were dozens of options. They ranged from a single sun all the way to massive glowing rocks, including an option to choose multiple. However, I will settle on a star due to this place's nature, and then I'll take two moons, to give it that fantasy vibe. I selected them and placed the star on the curved backdrop's bottom corner, and the two moons just slightly passed the middle. Immediately the backdrop lit up with an overwhelming amount of light. So much so that I almost blinded myself. I scrolled down to the option to alter the light sources and clicked on it. In here, I could change everything from the light color to the intensity and particle spread. Holy shit, I really could do anything I wanted here. I dimmed the overall intensity of the star down and switched the light to something slightly darker. I wanted the adventures who came here to feel like something was off. I wanted it to itch at the back of their minds but never honestly know what it was. Once I switched the light to something that I enjoyed, I saved the customization.

I kept the moons the same since they didn't bother me all that much; besides, they were pretty enough as is. As for a backdrop, I could go with a blue atmosphere, much like what Earth has. That way, I would feel a little less homesick. I saved the current setup and looked through the rest of the tools that could be used. I could either synchronize the time to the outside world or set up my own. I strummed my fingers along the top of the desk as I toyed with a few ideas. I think I will stick with a twenty-four-hour system. Mostly cause it made more sense and cause I was not too fond of the twelve-hour clock that was in heavy use in the United States. Once I entered the function, It prompted me to enter numbers into the system to function as a clock, to synchronize with adventures as they enter the domain. I quickly typed the numbers in and saved the changes that I made, and made the starting date, January 1st 2021, just to make things easier for me.

The next part would be the weather. I mindlessly went through my choices and decided to settle on a standard weather cycle that I control free of cost. I could have been fancy and meticulously went over everything, but I had other stuff that I wanted to get done. I opened up my notebooks and quickly wrote down what I do so far. I changed the sky sphere and time, and I was happy with the results. The best part is that it didn't cost me a thing, since it was my first time. But before I confirmed the choice, I would mess with it a bit more. But I want to mess with the bosses and then sleep on my choices for a while.

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