Pandora's Box III

So Teagan met this man long ago, probably with Gabriel when he was a child.

There seemed to be some pages torn out of the second journal, which caused her to look around as it was the end of the book. She finally found them under the skull, lifting it carefully so as not to disturb the dead. The necklace fell out of the hand and dropped off the side, though she caught it midair and brought it up to her face. The small latch door opened to show a pretty impressive small painting of space. It probably belonged to the girl. A little bit of fluorescent paint seemed to be on the stars, more than likely something that glowed in the dark.

"January 2nd: There's a blizzard outside, can't go out for more supplies right now. Bad news is I don't have enough power to start the chamber, and some of the reagents decay over time. I might need to start from scratch once I get a second generator made and a capacitor to cover the power spike. There's also another problem… I think, I think I had a heart attack this morning, might have worked myself too hard. I'm really afraid I'm not going to finish this. Well, enough writing, I'm going to see if I can take it easy for a little bit."

"January 9th: Blizzard isn't letting up, and three of the reagents are dried up, one of which was some of my blood used as a catalyst, a separate ingredient in hopes I can somehow bypass the randomization that I dread so much. Shouldn't be a problem to get some more drawn again, but I'm going to wait until I can rest a little more. I'm really tired the last few days. Sleeping more, eating less. Stuck down here without someone else to talk to makes my mind wander, to all the fun times I had with my granddaughter. The first time she fired that rifle and brought dinner home here, never forget it. She grew up a little that day to help take care of both of us here. I'm going to have a new one, that much is for certain, or maybe a daughter this time. I'm too old to have a daughter… no, don't think about stopping. Keep thinking about finishing this."

"January 10th: Another heart attack, this one… isn't stopping… feels like an elephant on my chest… I'm afraid… I'm afraid I won't see any of my family on the other side… if anyone reads this, I'm sorry I couldn't finish what I started, I'm sorry… I couldn't bring her back. Please don't destroy that stone, don't damage it, don't sell it around or use it for jewelry. She doesn't deserve that. And not one necromancer better touch it either. That little hopeful soul deserves better, a new life."

Selene put the papers down and just stared at the soulstone, then looked up at the giant machine in the middle of the dome. "Well, I'm sorry that this all happened to you, old man. I… can't say I can really do what you want, given this is steampunk tech I don't even have right now given the design. I'll… see about reading through the schematics, but I'm not going to promise anything." She was speaking to the skeleton right in front of her, with obviously no response expected. There was a somewhat calming silence that seemed to sweep across the place, as if his ghost was able to at least rest in peace at hearing that. "Damned impressive what you built here by yourself. Hopefully you can rest in peace, I can at least promise I won't damage the stone."

Four Hours Later

Hrist and Brynhildr finally came back to the palace, though it seemed a little empty of any organic beings at the moment. "Jeeves, where is the empress?" Hrist questioned.

"I believe she is in the furthest study, General." Both women got on a small cart with driver due to how large the palace really was, needing a vehicle inside to get to the rear of the massive estate. Once they reached the study, both could see walls were disconnected from railing on the ground and cabling was strewn around. As they both walked in, they could see an impressive pile of… stuff.

"What… is all of this?" Bryn asked as they looked around, seeing autos cleaning and spraying down pipes and metal panels, with Selene sitting on a chair and scrubbing a socket point down and trying to read through multiple open books. Plastic tarp was strapped to the ceiling to keep dust and debris from flying around along with stopping the carpet from getting dirty.

"It's what I got from saving the dwarves. Hey, when something says tab A, and you see slot A, you usually assume tab A goes into slot A right?"

"I… maybe? Yes?" Bryn said with a confused laugh. "Why?"

"Just trying to understand the reasoning behind these schematics. I swear, some of it feels like it was written in reverse. There are steps missing, I'm positive on that. I mean, this picture right here is a piece of this, and then it just jumps to half the finished product. What the hell." The empress picked up a glass of water and drank from it, sighing deeply after. "Some of this I can't make heads or tails of."

I swear this looks like the manual to build my old Ikea furniture in college! Just more technical!

"What is it that you brought?" the blonde shield maiden asked as she continued into the room, stepping over a large pipe. "Also, why did it have to be in the palace itself? Shouldn't this be in your labs?"

The dev stood up and turned around, watching some of her workers flush some of the equipment of any gunk sitting inside tubes out to a waiting vat. "The labs are going to be moved soon, didn't really want this to go with it. There's plenty of space in the back of the palace, easier for me to reach."

"Shouldn't your scientists be focusing on this endeavor Selene?" Hrist asked.

"Probably… I decided this was going to be kind of a personal project, at least partially for the time being to catalog everything and read through what was available. There's some magical items that seem to be incorporated and I don't want to send them off to Nikola and Robert just yet, mostly because I'm worried we'll strip any beneficial effects off while reverse engineering."

"Any other particular reason?" The empress looked over at her friend.

"Curiosity. The design is quite a bit more antiquated to what I use for my tech, though some parts are pretty ingenious. Still, can't figure out the power input, it doesn't make a lick of sense… might be why he was bottlenecked in some cases, could fix that with a stronger generator… not like he had much to work with for power… as there wasn't a reactor…" she seemed to be trailing off into her own thoughts as her blue eyes wandered over everything that was brought back. The bunker was still being deconstructed in the mountain, with any prying eyes not allowed to see where they were taking everything. What surprised the empress was the fact the dwarves didn't know about the bunker this whole time until hitting the wall while mining or the dragon showing up. There was no telling how long it had been hidden away. Core dating would have to be used soon.

"Selene?"

"Huh? Oh! Right, sorry, um… you're both back. You uh, went to the academy, to help your sister… fly?"

"We did, you didn't notice?"

"I did but you didn't leave a note, I heard you went to see Skuld. I dealt with a few things today, apologies if my mind is split in multiple directions."

"Your days are never dull it seems" Bryn joked.

"Sometimes I wish they were, at least once in a while so I can keep up with all the events happening now. It's why I have the administrative staff here." Bryn looked at the top of the machine as cleaners sifted through bolts and screws.

"So, what is this anyways? You found this in the… what was it… the hoard vault?" she asked, looking at her sister.

"This was below it actually."

"Did you know it was going to be there?"

"What? Hell no; I was expecting to find something behind the main walls, maybe figure out how the defenses were set up. I had no idea there was an underground facility, never crossed my mind. I kept thinking it was a really intricate wizard's storage room or something, with the bunker a sort of elevator down for the real hoard. I was very much wrong."

"Do you know what it does?" Hrist questioned her.

"I know what it's supposed to do, just not how to get it to really work yet. First thing is first, cleaning and organizing the parts, then setting the thing up in a place… not here… then prep, installation, yada yada. It won't be up and running for at least a week I'd guess. Could take longer than that to study the whole tech branch."

"That long?" Bryn chuckled out.

"What? What's wrong with a week?"

"Nothing, just I thought seeing how quickly your automatons constructed buildings that this would be simple." Selene sighed in annoyance and a little embarrassment.

"Fact is this is reverse engineering I'm going to need to do, I'm not using the same equipment. It's going to take some time to understand the concept behind it. I'm kind of shooting in the dark with my own tech and seeing what's similar."

I also need to know if it's the same thing as the theoretical design for a cloning chamber from the main tech tree… or has links to the Lazarus System… A real cloning chamber would just make a copy of someone, but with no memories to transfer and just a soulstone to read from, it would be a blank slate body sitting there drooling… something else has to be imprinted into it that this machine adds in, maybe basic education? Is there a steampunk hypno training computer attached? Did we bring it back already?

Another cable was coiled up on a large tarp, an ID tag attached. The empress had an idea of how the whole schematic was to function, though her steampunk designs didn't quite line up with the power requirements this thing could use. It was like AC to DC conversion; except she didn't yet understand the conversion rate. What she definitely knew was that if she plugged in one of her generators… the whole thing could blow from an overload.

"This is all of it?" Hrist queried.

"Still going to take another day for the rest of it to be dug out of the stone and brought here. Most of the tunnels and walls are of some interest after we got a chance to take a good look at them, makes me wonder if they were reinforced to protect against power dispersion like lightning; I guess keeping the ceiling from collapsing down on his head was a main thought process for all of this… I found the equipment that made the doors impervious to damage by the way."

The dev pointed to a burnt-out block of gears and wiring, overloaded by the bomb she had set off. To the empress, it was a crude structural integrity field generator, something from the likes of Star Trek, and there were twelve of them in total. That in itself was enough for serious study from a full science team, not so much to use as there was a similar schematic already available, but to understand the deviation in the tech branch. It also opened up the question of just how primitive steampunk could get before it was just considered running off magic instead of science.

"We'll uh, we'll leave you to your project, your majesty" Brynhildr told her as she patted Hrist on the shoulder and motioned with her head to leave.

"You don't have to, I mean it's not like… whoa whoa whoa, don't organize the gears by size, group them by section! I need to know what went where later" Selene responded, splitting who she was talking to midway towards her workers. Hrist looked back at the empress as her sister smirked and headed for the door, the dev waving her hands for her autos to reorganize as they had not truly been ordered to do anything specific beyond bring the pieces in, clean them then tag. Her pet project was going to take some time to complete, what with everything else coming to pass.

Midnight

"Ma'am? It's the middle of the night, you really should go to bed" Adesha informed Selene as she sat in the middle of a circle of books, a pillow behind her and a cup of coffee next to her left knee. The wolves were all lying nearby, each of them asleep, though probably annoyed that they weren't on her bed. The auburn-haired woman was flipping through pages of one tome while double checking another, recording her findings on a thin laptop. A half-eaten sandwich sat on a plate with some cheese and fruit as a side. A part of the machine loomed overhead, an internal sprayer for the supposed cloning chamber.

"Huh? Oh" she replied as she looked up, forgetting the time. "Sorry, was just…"

"Just reading through everything you've found?"

"Seriously, this is… this isn't my steampunk. I mean I know there are different paths one can take, Dieselpunk, Arcpunk, Silkpunk, continuing on to like 30 different types now; the problem is I have to understand his reagent crafting first. Some of this… here… right here, crystallized fire as a heating source, crystallized lightning for power. This goes back to primitive alchemical stages, using primal resources to get each section to work right; earth, fire, wind, and water with derivatives of each, ice and lightning etcetera. There's even mention of a heat ray using all of this. I think I stumbled onto Elementalpunk." The dev turned a page and pointed right at it. "Some of these designs look like ancient ideas of what sci fi space combat would be, with the ray guns and bubble helmets. Others look like-"

"Empress. I know you're very interested in this, but you won't figure everything out in a day. I understand if you want this to be a pet project and hold off from handing it to Nikola and Robert, however it might be a good idea to let them in on it so they can at least advise."

"I know that. I've already given them a heads up, they'll come by to at least look at it tomorrow. I'm more worried we might inadvertently damage the soulstone, which is why I'm being careful with it. The journals said something about breaking the stone into pieces doesn't let the soul out like I had seen in old games, it requires a ritual of some sort. Maybe that's just because of whatever material this is made out of" she said, picking up the object, seeming to be warm to the touch and softly glowing "and there might be other designs with different uses." Selene sighed and put the stone down. "I'm just worried we'll just lump this whole thing in with every other project we do. This is the reason I never really touched necromancy, can't bring myself to screw around with souls or life force."

"You are worried things won't go according to plan. Perhaps you should wait until tomorrow morning so that you have a fresh mind to understand what is in all of those books."

"That's the thing, I understand what he's using and the general concept, I just need to catalog just about everything. I'm more fascinated by how some of it works. The main source of power is shards of an elemental plane made physical in this world… it's either one of two things, pieces of a real elemental which seems reasonable… or elemental poop."

"So, you have experience with this type of steampunk?"

"Oh, not on this particular one, I never got the chance to work for that company. I just remember studying different fuels for each version and a few of the discussions my professors had. There are quite a few that just kept building up. Luckily, most of them used the standard periodic table of elements and not unobtainium or some special material." The empress stretched and yawned, looked at the soulstone and sealed the outer container. She then got up and placed the container in her inventory. It would have to wait until she could get the whole machine rebuilt. "Alright, I'll head to bed."

"Sleep well empress." The dev walked out of the room as a regular auto maid came in to pick up the dishes, the wolves waking up and following along. Once she was inside her bedroom, another battle maid helped her get undressed and into her pajamas, one with bright red hair braided and coiled up into two buns on her head and a pair of red rimmed glasses.

"You should go to bed earlier than this empress, it's not healthy" Briane told her softly.

"I woke early for the past few days, it's not like I can't attempt a noon nap while heading somewhere. Besides, wasn't there a study that said humans were originally sleeping in two shifts, bi-modal? I mean, it'd make dealing with my day to day easier in some cases."

"Possibly, though that could affect when you meet with any officials in the future by having your circadian rhythm thrown off. It could also cause strain on events you would have with your friends and citizens."

"True, though any audience these days, bar a foreign incident, is able to be handled by one of the ambassadors usually. Eh, I guess I'll do my best to keep an eight-hour sleep schedule." The empress climbed into bed with her wolf pack jumping on and settling in, Luna fighting for a bit more room as she shifted to get Blue to the corner. The dev hated seeing them get aggressive with each other just because they didn't have personal space to rest. She made sure that Briane would remind her to get a new bed made, larger than a king size. This wouldn't have happened if Luna was the same size and weight as the others, but she was still getting bigger. Her 'older siblings' were now less than half her mass. Blue was still the fastest though.

"Good night empress. Sleep well" the redhead maid said as she turned out the lights.

Morning, 6th, December

Gabriel cleared his throat and walked into the dining room to do his best to socialize with everyone, keep his mind off the loss of his surrogate father. As he entered, his eyes landed on Selene sitting at the head of the table reading intently from a journal, two more to the side. There was no telling how many she had already gone through. "Good morning your majesty" he spoke as he sat down and checked the menu. She looked up at him and gave him a quick smile before returning her attention to the book. "I take it what you've found is interesting?"

"Huh? Oh, yes, you could say that."

"Some new and magical way of improving all of this that you have?"

"Uh, I don't know about improving it, but this does give me an idea of other avenues I could have gone for with tech. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it." At the moment, she knew of quite a few sub genres of steampunk, with a good few of them incorporated into her tech tree already or having a branch off that she wasn't using. The other forms that weren't included were usually so ensconced in using exotic materials wholly connected to a specific universe, usually requiring resources taken from creatures, to make them normally unfeasible to produce anything with their features used in her designs. This might be one of them.

"Is there any way I can help? I… would like to provide some assistance to keep my mind focused." The empress looked up at him and smiled again and nodded.

"Well, um, I could use some magical documentation in a hands-on advisory position to help Melsia out. She's been my magical magistrate assisting with all sorts of things involving the nontechnological side of the empire. Most of it has been the judicial and administrative side, though you could add a new view for how dimensional magic works. Who knows? We could come up with a merger of both tier magic and dimensional, maybe add some wild magic in." Gabriel chuckled a little and looked at his cup, now being filled with orange juice.

"I appreciate that offer, but wouldn't I be stepping on her toes? She seems more than capable of dealing with it better than I can."

"She knows of the laws and regulations of magic, she doesn't have the direct experience that you have beyond borders; she also doesn't understand dimensional magic. I figure you could help with letting her know just what criminals and other lands tend to do with spells, how skillful outside magic wielders are, whether we should be harsher or easier going with new spell casters in schools and academies."

"You believe I have experience playing around on the other side of the law?" he asked, raising his eyebrow with a smirk playing on his lips.

"I never said that, I said you could provide information based on your experiences during your travels. Criminal events don't necessarily mean it was you causing the ruckus, just that you might have had run ins with wizards or magicians that weren't exactly law-abiding citizens for whatever kingdom you were in."

"True, I could provide some insight for how they perform their wizardry. Could help the empire." The dev nodded in acceptance, though behind the small smile acknowledging him as a new citizen within her borders, she was a little stressed that morning. She just got word that the dressage, at least the second day in Werelosil, did not go as well as planned. Apparently, a panther had somehow gotten spooked in some capacity and attacked a well to do breeder. The man is swearing to the heavens that the dark elves should never have been allowed into the empire, that the empress should remove the race from within her borders on account of one mishap. An investigation was already underway, though people in that town were still uneasy around the new additions.

"Gabriel, do you remember going to that bunker in the past with Teagan?" Selene questioned.

"I was very young, not really interested in the area your majesty. I'm… unsure what I'd really remember, though I don't recall ever entering that place before. Why do you ask?"

"It seems there was an acquaintance of your surrogate father's that built that."

"Hmm, intriguing, though I had already figured that the iron dragon had put no effort into the construction of such a place, or the dwarves for that matter." The dev shrugged and listened to his account of his travels with his master.

"Ma'am, we have an initial report from a dark team after just one day hidden away in the dwarven fortress. Just from a preliminary analysis, there is a cold civil war going on between houses and the king it seems, causing him to perform… unruly actions in order to keep everything in order or keep one of the houses under control" Director Grey informed her over coms. Will joined in as well, listening in.

"Ah, that would explain the fidgety eyes between all of them and the poor intel they keep feeding each other. No one wants to give the other a leg up in power, to the loss of their people. Sheesh."

"It gets better. We found a primitive research lab hidden away. The copper dragon eggs are apparently unaccounted for back at the eyrie for a reason, as they are actually being used in experimentation." Gabriel seemed to be explaining his experiences with other lands, not necessarily just with magic, but their culture as well. While it was very interesting to her, she had to switch back and forth between his conversation, Grey and now the others coming in to eat breakfast. Morlan was talking about his training with Elsei, who kept glancing back at the dev as if asking with her eyes when it would be her turn. He had barely even started.

"Wait, so, so they still have the whole copper clan of eggs there, and they are experimenting on them? Shit, that's not what the dragons are going to want to hear and that will cause a lot of issues…" she grumbled through coms.

"Are you going to tell them?"

"Are you kidding me? Fuck no! That's asking for more problems. I can see them flying in and just blasting through their already beleaguered fortress, which is still the main hub and trade connection to the outside world for the villages hidden underground, just to take those back… the shitstorm from that would immediately set us at war, could cause strain with my citizens too if they somehow found out their new neighbors go on a rampage every time something involves their broods, tension would go up quick." Selene was doing her best to hide her frustration in front of everyone else as she talked to the director. "What sort of experimentation are they doing on them?"

"Apparently, from the documents copied, attempting to perform mind control infusion and bulk up its form once it hatches for rapid growth. Also, runecraft armoring with golem steel as a harness."

"So, keep it loyal and somehow make it grow to an adult quickly? Both at the same time does not sound healthy for the creature, adolescence and hormones are going to play havoc on it as it shoots through cellular growth; there's also a high chance of cancer I would think with the cells rapidly building up. Even I'm careful with any sort of genetic enhancement usage and I have a volunteer for my project. The chances of making those things go insane without proper understanding of their minds are too high. Even I'm not willing to play with a dragon's brain without full knowledge of their anatomy here."

"Which is why I'm suggesting we keep a special forces team nearby in case they hatch, break containment and go on a rampage."

"Can they be a threat?" she asked.

"Not to us, though it could take out the fortress due to their shortsightedness in this endeavor, then head for the underground villages to wipe them out. Playing with fire without knowing how it works is a good way to burn their house down after all. A dragon, even a young one, that doesn't listen to anyone and just tries to destroy because it has gone insane won't do anyone any good. A group of them… that's asking for the final nail in their coffin."

"Let's see where loyalties lie for each noble and see what can be done to unfuck their politics. Maybe we can get some refugees out of this." Grey chuckled at hearing that.

"The best way to unfuck their politics would be just integrating into the empire ma'am, but somehow I believe that won't happen for a little bit without us invading; I could be wrong though. Best course of action would be to see who is connected to who, get some dirt on each one and see if we can't somehow sway their actions to move away from trying to manipulate something that up until we showed up was the top of the food chain. By the way, Nikola was able to have one of the science teams figure out how to implement multiple serums that could be injected into the water supply throughout our borders" Will added.

Selene involuntarily facepalmed in front of everyone as they wondered what was wrong. "Sorry, just trying to keep up with everyone's discussion around the table" she told them with a weak smile as she continued to listen to what Grey had to tell her. "Please tell me it isn't what I think it is."

"If you believe one is the basis for gene manipulation for the populace, then I guess you already got word about it."

"Oof, no I did not hear about it just yet. Oy… I'm not about to start playing with the DNA of my people, that's just… I'll tell him to scrap that project."

"It might not be a bad idea under strict circumstances. No need for vaccines, just incorporate the delivery into the water supply."

"Yeah, and then I can move onto loyalty serums and splicing in animal genes for wings and other stuff. That's a really slippery slope I just can't afford to be near right now. Last thing I need is to turn my empire into a dystopian society of brainless citizens in under six months. I don't want to earn that medal."

"They are just an option ma'am; that's only one capability. We could make sure that their bodies recover twice or three times as quickly from the flu and common cold, immunity to cancer, improve rehabilitation for coma patients. The list goes on."

"It's an option that I'm not going to use right now. Vaccines aren't even understood at all just yet for the average joe, they just know checkups at the clinics are good for their health and the government is trying to make sure they are happy and thriving. Their medical knowledge is trivial at best, given they have access to magic. I'm starting to see an issue that, bar a magic immune disease or ailment, casting a spell to cure anything doesn't give them any real information about what was harming them. Adding anything into the water beyond acceptable cleaning chemicals is a good way of building a dumb society that doesn't understand what's happening around it. I'll hold off until he can assure me with some sort of precognition that it won't screw the pooch for everyone in the future. I don't know if I'd even add it on a voting ballet, too afraid to see the results."

"That's your choice ma'am. As an aside, I know about the bunker you are having taken apart and brought here. You should really let the science teams take a look at the main equipment, doesn't have to be the soulstone. It could take quite a while for you to understand every facet of that tech, given it seems to be based in elemental power" Grey replied. The empress internally sighed and agreed.

"Yes, yes, I agree already. They're coming over to take a look in an hour or so. I'd just rather have Gabriel and Melsia deal with the soulstone with me."

"Nikola and Robert don't have to touch that, just the machinery and schematics, though I would suggest allowing them to at least scan for any abnormalities. Until there is a better understanding of the fuel sources, it might be advantageous to scrap the whole contraption once we have a full schematic into a much more efficient version using our steampunk."

"It's not exactly a more efficient version, just a different way of powering its designs. Having bullets from the beginning that are explosive or could be used as flares at a moment's notice is a pretty impressive feat given all I had were crossbow wielding washing machines." Will chuckled at that.

"Given that those washing machines are now fairly effective as mobile barricades with heavy assault mounts when used in urban environments, I'd still say your form of tech is much more adaptive, economical and easier to scale, along with much more capable of being powered indefinitely. I have to admit, that shielding system would be nice to divert force across an entire chassis."

"That would be up for debate, though it's not as if I have much experience with this. I never played the game, just had to study pieces of it in college. Well, whatever, we can send the armor paneling and electronics over to the eggheads, they can work their magic… sheesh, that line has more than one connotation now, doesn't it?"

"It does ma'am. It does indeed" Grey laughed a little.

"I'd like to hold onto the journals, get a timeline at least written up myself. They'll get the schematics, though some of it needs some restoration given the environment the paperwork was stuck in."

"Dry, low humidity, underground with a sealed off entrance. Shouldn't be much more than a little fading to touch up and clean off grime. I'll have a team clean out the spare study. Thankfully the palace has modular walls in the rear for adapting to different events held, so it shouldn't be difficult for the interior decoration to be replaced." Will replied. "If I might ask, I understand you didn't want to bring these parts into the labs due to deconstruction happening soon. We could have put all of this in storage."

"The main warehouse is underground and I didn't feel like bringing more parts to clutter the place up to restrict egress for all of the bigger military tech hidden below… which would probably be a moot point for them given the size of their feet and treads… that's also another reason, I didn't want them to break anything before we had a chance to analyze what was available."

"By chance, what is next in your training, Morlan?" Elsei asked as she looked between her partner and the dev sitting at the front of the table.