Chapter 10
With the whirring noise of air being displaced, her chosen Steeloak Warrior swung the weapon around, first horizontally then around and over its head, smashing the large steel head into the ground.
She had gone with a heavy and wide head, about a half-foot across. It was a wide surface area and would impart a significant impact force to whatever it hit. She created a skeleton plated in full armour and armed with sword and shield, telling the Steeloak to attack it while she observed. Getting in close, the Steeloak ducked under a horizontal swing then jabbed the hammer forwards, knocking the skeleton off-balance for an opening before spinning a full 360 and slamming the hammer into the side of the skeleton's torso, breaking the armour and continuing through to smash the spine of the skeleton to dust, sending the remaining armour and bones flying to the side.
The hammer was definitely effective against armoured opponents, but the instant she ordered a level 20 skeleton who wasn't wearing heavy armour to try to avoid the Steeloaks attacks, the agility of the skeleton left the Steeloak unable to land a decisive blow with the comparatively unwieldy hammer. But that was of course what the sword was for. But then, was that the most effective weapon for them to use? A sword was nice, but maybe some other weapon would be better.
Her Steeloaks had durability and strength on their side, but if they lost most of their armour they could move just as well as any other, so perhaps having other Steeloak wearing light armour and with other weaponry would be a good choice to deal with faster enemy units. She had her counter to armour, she could have just left that there, but she was liking making new and interesting weaponry, so she saw no real reason to stop.
The large hammer that she had made had a long handle, which gave more momentum to the hammerhead when it hit a target, but what if both ends had...well, hammers would make the weapon too heavy, but what about blades. If she shortened the shaft, added blades about the length of a shortsword to each end, and had a Steeloak wield it from the middle, they could easily switch to fighting in a second direction.
If they ran across a heavily-armoured opponent, they could grasp the pole with both hands and accurately guide the blade, just as her skeleton warriors had done with their own swords, using the polearm as a pseudo-spear. She started working on this second weapon in her mind while she created a steady pile of the steel hammers that she wanted some of her warriors equipped with. She hadn't made much of a dent in replacing her skeletons with Steeloaks, but she was slowly working away at them.
Every time she replaced some of the skeletons, she ordered them down to the chasm, where all her skeletons would eventually end up. They were all training, since she saw no need to waste her highest-level units. If she ever needed them, she could order them to march up and assist her Steeloaks, but until then, they would be eternally training, levelling up and improving, effectively an army-sized trump-card.
The Prime Skeletons would be her small squad of elites, though aside from Prime itself she would probably replace them with Steeloak troops. Prime was her first and highest-level creation, getting rid of it just because she was trying to swap them out felt wrong in a weird way. It wouldn't be used commonly, but as a permanent guard for her Crystal sounded reasonable. Maybe she could find a way to turn Prime into a Steeloak somehow...no, the only way she saw to do that would be to build a Steeloak body around Prime, and that just sounded like a bad idea to her.
No, Prime would remain as a skeleton warrior, guarding her crystal for as long as she needed protection. She didn't doubt that there would come a point where Prime simply couldn't keep up with her advancements and would regrettably need to be replaced, but she wouldn't every get rid of Prime until that day, and even then she would probably keep the skeleton around just as a reminder of how she started off, huddled in a room animating her first skeleton to protect her from the outside world beyond her room.
Turning her attention away from those thoughts of the future, she finished working out most of what she wanted from the weapon, creating a prototype which the warrior picked up and began wielding. Using each swing and thrust and motion, she made minor adjustments to the weapon, finding the optimal balance and size for usage. She had to actually increase the length a little, it was a bit too short, but she couldn't go too far for risk of the weapon striking the ground when being swung or spun.
She created a test skeleton, the level 1 being taken apart easily by the level 7 Steeloak Warrior. She then made two, ordering the Steeloak to try to avoid taking damage for as long as it could and eliminate the skeletons if at all possible. The Warrior fought well, using both blades to deflect and counter-attack, but eventually after stabbing one skeleton in the skull got struck on the back-plate of the armour it was wearing by the other, unable to bring the other side of the polearm across in time to deflect the blow, which called the match.
But, the fact that one Steeloak was able to fend off and even kill one of two opponents whilst also lasting longer than a full five minutes in combat was impressive to say the least. It sacrificed the general utility of a shield which could be used effectively as a wall, but in return became even more dangerous offensively, still retaining some level of defensive ability. She would likely have her specialists equipped with these weapons as well as their bows, then have regular warriors who would have a mix of swords and hammers, possibly even both. As long as the weapons could be carried in a position not too encumbering during combat, then they could easily switch between sword and hammer.
The best part about them though was that they would likely be effective against cavalry. By planting the end in the ground they could be angled into a wall of spikes, perhaps even an effective defence against being overwhelmed by infantry. With physical weapons done, she created a Skeleton Mage for testing, her little stunt of blowing up Soul Crystals had inspired her.
Creating a Common Soul Crystal, she had the Mage grasp it, ordering the Mage to put just a fraction too much mana into it, then throw it at the wall. She wasn't surprised when the skeleton immediately blew up, the crystals were very fragile to being overfilled. While it was a strong explosion owing to the crystal inside of the ribcage of the Mage, it wasn't quite what she was looking for.
It took a long time and several hundred mages being blown to bone fragments before she figured out how to create a crystal which could hold its form for a few moments after being overfilled. The way she did that was to create a Common Soul Crystal, then encased it inside of a larger Uncommon. When the Common was overfilled it tried to expand and explode, but the comparatively stronger Soul Crystal withheld it for just a few short seconds before the sheer explosive pressure became too much and they both exploded, the pressure from the shockwave blasting dust from the ceiling.
As the dust fell down past her vision, she felt a weird feeling, another she hadn't felt before. Her mismatched past memories didn't help her identify what it was, so she put it out of her mind for later thought, refocusing and spawning another encased crystal and having the still-active Skeleton mage activate the crystal within then throw it as far as it could. The crystal detonated just as it was about to hit the floor, another shockwave...another wave of unidentified feeling.
She drifted out of the room, her mind on the odd feeling, the thoughts of her new weapon drifting into the background.
Spotting a convoy of carriages through the eyes of a raven, she made a note to adjust the threat identification system again.
Her ravens couldn't distinguish between what counted as one unit or potentially multiple, so the ten carriages only registered as ten incoming units. She presumed that the carriages were the King's response to her offer, probably someone who was coming to negotiate with her and probably try to gauge exactly how much she could produce, weighing the ingots she made and whatnot.
For prudence, she created a stack of a hundred gold ingots in the tower she had met the General in, draining her mana a little but recovering it quickly. Thanks to her linear progression, if it remained as it was she would always have full mana after 100 seconds of no casting. With how high said quantity was, that meant she was able to cast a lot of spells in quick succession, or make ten ingots of gold per second.
The carriages were still a few hills away, her ravens having simply gotten a bit unlucky with their pathing and thus not spotting the carriages until they were so close. If it was an army or a longer convoy her ravens would have seen it, but they seemed to have missed the valley the convoy were in several times over. The rough terrain was obviously a bit of a challenge for the horses drawing the carriages, but the drivers obviously had experience as they wove around the hills neatly, avoiding several deep ravines in their pathing.
Obviously the route had been plotted out beforehand to allow for maximum expediency. Doing her own role, she created a staircase up her wall again, not particularly worried about what only ten carriages could be bringing. Even if each was packed to capacity, all it would take is a few large stones and even the most skilled warrior would be flattened to nothingness.
She set the two highest-level Steeloak Warriors to stand inside of the room in the tower, the next two highest stood outside. The walls were now manned by one quarter Steeloak units, the rest still the old skeletons, though they were steadily being phased out. The fact remained that honestly, the Steeloaks were a better choice for troops since their steel layer meant they could brush off conventional damage.
They still wore armour, but even if a blow managed to hit then, it'd cause a lot less damage than it would to a skeleton. As the convoy arrived outside and came to a halt, she slipped into her avatar body and left the tower room where it had been left, looking over the walls and watching as a unit of soldiers dismounted followed by someone dressed in opulent clothing.
They had no crown on so she doubted it was the king, as well as the fact she highly doubted a king would drop everything to come and learn about her personally. No, she remained on her assumption that it would be a negotiator of some sort, and as he opened his mouth to speak, having ascended the steps and then followed her at her gesture to the tower where she intended to meet with him, she cemented that fact in her mind. "Good day to you. I am Anborn, an advisor to the King Eárnil the Second, long may he reign."
The silence was what greeted him as she opened the door then walked to the other side of the table and sat down. She knew he wanted her name or some kind of identifier, but she wanted to be in the room first. Maybe it was...was it childish? She felt like the 'Room' in the tower was a room where she could talk properly, however bizarre that was. She had spoken outside of it, so maybe it was just her mind warping itself to justify her actions. "Sel." She spoke, realizing that she had forgotten to actually come up with a name for the base.
Rather than hastily come up with a poor name she didn't say anything at all. After all, the onus was on Anborn to speak really, not her. "Well met Sel. Now, the good General returned to Minas Anor but a scant week ago with tale of a being able to fabricate gold and other matter from nothingness. Normally this would have seen the Captain-General dismiss him from his station, but then it was told that a similar report had been made by the disgraced former-General who had gotten his force sent here in the first place, of a being made of wood able to produce skeletons and metal from nothingness. I'd hate to impose, but a live demonstration would do much to dissuade my own scepticism, in the name of expedient negotiations."
"Sure." She waved a hand, a bar of gold clanking down onto the simple oak table between their chairs. "You can pick it up, throw it, hit it with a sword, do whatever if you want to make sure it's actually gold and not just some brick I disguised with an illusion." Anborn looked up at her, having been staring at the bar of gold for a few moments, his lips moving a slight bit as he silently spoke to himself.
Then he shook his head. "Nothing of the sort my fair maiden, I was doing rough calculations as to the estimated value those gold bars would possess. It is completely pure I assume? Well, I suppose if you created it from nothingness there would exist no imperfections from the forging of such a bar." She shrugged, having no real idea. "I see." He hummed, moving a hand towards the bar then lifting it when she just watched. He tapped on the bar with a knuckle a few times, then pressed a nail against the edge. "No deformation, that's a good sign. If it was a facsimile of other, softer metals, the bar would be more prone to deforming."
He tapped the bar against a ring on his finger a few times, checking the bar for damage. He tried a few other things, before eventually placing the bar back on the table. "Remarkable. I witnessed you produce this bar from the air itself and I still cannot believe it. So, you told the good General that you would be willing to produce a total of 100 bars of this quality and quantity a month to be delivered to Amon Lhaw, is that correct?" She nodded. "I see. And if I were to ask what your rate for producing other materials would be?"
"I don't know, because it depends on quantity." She created a bar of steel, letting it fall a little onto the table with a thump, ignoring the slightly surprised look on Anborn's face at the casualness with which she could produce materials now. "For every ingot of gold, I can produce about ten steel ingots. So I could deliver a thousand ingots a month if that would be preferred, or I could directly make them into blades, two thousand swords of wood handles, leather grips and steel blades each month. But I'd recommend against becoming too specific with what is requested. I'm happy to do a bulk dump of things, or split 50-50 for gold and steel blades, but I'm not about to do ten gold ingots, 50 steel, so and such of other materials, keep it simple."
"Understandable, that would also increase the burden on our end, the logistics of getting varying materials and items where wanted or needed would be an unnecessary strain on management. Having a single shipment of a specific type would be far easier to handle." Anborn palmed his chin for a moment, rubbing it with his fingers. "And what about other materials? Your ability is obviously not limited by mass if you can produce ten times as many ingots, each of which are considerably larger than the gold ingots."
She shrugged. "I haven't yet found something I couldn't replicate. Gold I'd assume is way rarer than steel, so even if it might be hard to make, the innate rarity means gold is just harder to make, I don't know. Why? Is there some kind of material that the King would much rather I produce?" Anborn watched her blank face for a moment, then turned a hand inwards and into his clothing, retrieving a small lockbox.
He placed it on the table and slid it towards her, waiting until she opened it to speak. "This is a sliver of possibly the rarest metal on Middle-Earth. When forged correctly, it can be as light as linen, yet as hard as the scale of a dragon. The elves use it for jewelry and decoration, but the king, or more accurately the Captain-General, is far more interested in protecting the men of Gondor by using it. The only problem is that there exists only a single mine where it is known to be found anymore, and that mine is owned by Dwarves, who charge extortionate rates for the precious material." She lifted the sliver of metal, rolling it between her fingers, and adding it to Synthesis. "Mithril."
Opening her Synthesis, she chose the material, balking at the price. Mithril had to be just as rare as Anborn said, considering how it cost 500,000 mana for a single bar. "I can make it...but not very much." Her words seemed to spark something in the man across from her, nonverbally asking if she would make some. Using Synthesis, she created a single bar of Mithril ten times smaller than the gold ones she had already made, catching it with Telekinesis before it hit the table. She hovered it closer to her and inspected it before then letting Anborn look at it. "I can make ten bars a month, each bar being about ten times the size."
Anborn considered the bar now in his hands, a smile crawling across his lips. "Ten bars of Mithril a month will be certainly more than enough for the King to overlook your actions. As he understands it, you were defending yourself both times, you did not seek out conflict, and with this boon you are willing to impart upon the Kingdom in recompense for the lives lost, I believe this will be a very beneficial relationship."
Standing up, Anborn looked about to turn around, but then stopped. "I must ask a few questions however. Firstly, why have you appeared now? These hills have been scouted by rangers for decades and this place was never found, so you must have made this yourself. Secondly, the King wished to ask whether you would consider visiting Minas Anor so he may speak to you in person. Of course he is fair and knows that after recent incidents you would perhaps be weary of visiting somewhere so far from your home, but he wishes to leave the offer open. I am but a humble mouthpiece for his Majesty after all. And finally, is there something you mayhaps would like in return?"
"Honestly, I've only been aware of my surroundings for weeks or months now. As to how I came to be here I don't really know, it just...happened. But you may tell the king that perhaps in future I will come there to meet with him personally, but for now I mostly just want to be left alone to sort myself out. the past few months have been rather hectic, as I'm sure you are well aware. As for what I'd want...probably just books, mainly on the history of this place, since I'm flying blind here."
"Yes, I can certainly see that. Well, I know that you told the good General that you would handle transportation, but the King would rather not ship so much important material from Amon Lhaw, he'd rather keep this material income more under-the-table, as I hope you understand." She didn't really, but if he didn't want it to be on-the-books then that was fine by her, left less people knowing about her existence.
"Sure, though where would it need to go?"
After hashing out some of the details, Anborn departed, leaving the fortress with a smile on his face and several assorted books lighter.
As it turned out, they would rather she send her Colossi south between the Dead Marshes and the Nindalf, another marsh, then south-east to follow the Harad Road along Ephel Dúath, finally reaching Osgiliath itself. They wouldn't go to the city itself, men loyal to the King would be waiting in the forest to the north of the city to retrieve the delivery each month, which would be made easier if she was only delivering ten ingots instead of a hundred, and from there they would handle getting the metal back to the capital.
Anborn informed her that there were only a few ways out of Mordor, the Black Gate being the only large one available to orcs, since Minas Ithil would stop any force attempting to sneak through the Morgul Vale, and the other large openings were literal months of marching away. As such, all her Colossi had to look out for were scattered orcs who had slipped through the mountains themselves, or any forces which had exited the Black Gate. The path of her Colossi would lead them to within a few dozen kilometres of the gate, but since they were so large, if necessary they could easily outrun any attacker thanks to their size, most notably their long legs.
Even if they got in combat, just by kicking and stomping they could just wade their way through any force of orcs, all they really had to be worried about was fire. Orcs rarely carried torches with them, so for them to actually be able to make a fire would be the work of some effort, meaning her Colossi would have plenty of time to escape. This route was still going to only be a stop-gap measure though, they would much rather have her Colossi travel across the Anduin and thus away from Mordor. After a few trips doubtlessly her Colossi would be noticed and the orcs would wonder what they were transporting, thus attracting aggression.
As such, having them travel a different direction would make the risk far smaller. The issue then was that to get to Minas Anor by heading south-west would mean crossing the Anduin between the Entwash and Cair Andros, a region that had no bridges. To head further north up the Anduin would require crossing either using a boat from Amon Lhaw thus missing the point, or heading even further north to the nearest bridge which would bring her Colossi into East Emnet, where they would then cross the Entwash and Mering Stream, finally heading across Anorien and towards Minas Anor.
Anborn said that if this relationship turned out beneficial enough to warrant it, the King was likely to commission a bridge to be built across the aforementioned bridgeless stretch of river, one that could accommodate her Colossi traversing it to easier bring her monthly 'tribute'. That word, for some bizarre reason, managed to get under her skin. it was like it made her feel submissive or inferior or something. That wasn't the intention really, it was one of the most apt ways to put what she was giving them, but it was still just one of those oddities.
If she could smile, Sel's lips would probably be as wide as possible. Sure, an ingot of Mithril, one of the same size as the gold ingot, cost almost 5% of her mana, but she regenerated it incredibly quickly. Every five seconds she could make another Mithril ingot. Now, she could have offered more gold, more Mithril, more anything, but she wanted to maintain a balance. If she gave too much she would empower Gondor and make them believe they could take her down and force her to produce nothing but ingots. If she gave too little she wouldn't be offsetting the lost men she had caused for the Kingdom's armies. She was essentially paying five times the total mana cost than she would have just producing gold, but in return the King would likely not want to upset his new source of Mithril.
She had to be careful about flaunting her own mithril though. Her words made it clear she wasn't operating at maximum production, and that was hopefully something that was understandable. That meant she would have extra 'power' to work with to make her own Mithril, thus a beneficial relationship which Gondor's King would likely assume was him getting the majority of the Mithril she produced when in fact, she was the one in the green by far.
Eventually she would reach a point where she could equip all her Steeloak with Mithril weapons and armour, and be confident in the arrays of orders she had given that they could defend on their own, leaving her free to pursue other ventures. of particular note to her was learning more about the species of the world. Books had told her already about the dwarves, the humans and the elves, but previous little existed about the other species, the orcs, the ents, the giant spiders and subterranean worms, they were all fascinating but she lacked any means to learn more until she could devote pure weeks and months of time to examining every book in her library.
She had set a bunch of Skeleton Warriors to go through the entire place, piling up books that were duplicates. As she entered the library and saw her skeletons whittling away at the books in this way made her realize how incorrectly she was going about things. So far, practically everything had been on her own head...why? With a noise of frustration which she stopped by shutting off speechcraft, she flew back up to the surface, creating a Steeloak just outside the walls and then creating an utterly horrible single-headed pickaxe, letting it fall into the creations hands.
She ordered the Steeloak to walk up to the nearest boulder and mine it into pieces then haul them back to the base. It wasn't for the reason of wanting the stone, but it cemented in her mind of utterly stupid she was. Why did she need to go out into the world? Her Steeloak wouldn't spook people nearly as much as skeletons, and could scout for the knowledge she was looking for, top of the list being Epic-tier Soul Crystals. Sure, she was now pretty damn powerful, but if she wanted to be making Mithril armour and weapons with any sort of actual frequency, she needed more.
Then she stopped herself, thinking back on her last thought. That...was weird. As she thought more about it, some of her actions really didn't make sense, even for as mentally unstable as she was. Maybe she had some kind of expansionist holdover from when she was trapped, since she wanted more of everything. More creations, more mana, more, more and, just in case she forgot, more. Perhaps it was understandable considering the hostile environment she quickly found herself in, but it seemed rather strange to have her mind immediately focus on increasing her own power.
Sel made sure to keep an eye on her own mentality, still going ahead with her plans but just with more caution.
With a crunch, the Steeloak slammed the blunt club into the head of another skeleton, whirling around to plant a steel-plated boot into the pelvis of another, retaliating as a blade skittered off its back.
She was testing three things at once here by having a group of skeletons attacking a single Steeloak. Firstly, she was testing to see just how strong the armour was for them, including their skin-lining armour. Secondly, she was seeing how effective a Mithril club would be against armoured and unarmoured opponents, which so far turned out to be rather good. Thirdly, she was seeing how a level 10 Steeloak would handle being surrounded by level 5-7 skeleton warriors.
Sel was honestly interested in updating her Steeloak, turning them into what she would dub as Mithral. Names were hard to come up with, but it was basically the same as a Steeloak, except the steel would be replaced with mithril, and the oak would be replaced with something else, though she wasn't sure what yet. Maybe somewhere there existed some kind of wood which was stronger than the oak she currently was using, Ironwood perhaps, since she could then name them Mithron.
Another loud bang sounded out as the club was slammed into the chestplate of another skeleton, heavily denting it and sending the creation flying back. A club was a crude weapon though, so she started piecing together a new and better one. The books Anborn had left behind were mostly useless, except for one, which was a generalized history of the Kingdom of Gondor.
The very early pages spoke of how Sauron had followed their people from Numenor and attempted to crush their existence, as well as the fight to save themselves by allying with the elves and battling on Mount Doom to defeat him. This was all interesting, sure, but what really had captured her attention was the appearance of Sauron, a sketching of him fully equipped with armour was plainly visible.
That included his weapon, a vicious-looking mace. When she laid eyes upon it, she knew it would be a weapon able to crush armour like it was a sheet of paper. Of course, copying it directly was asking for trouble, but as long as she made adjustments, there wasn't going to be an issue. She centered the weapon around a core of Mithril, the better to give it strength, and then began to work her newest discovery into the shape of a large mace.
When she had been imprisoned, she had used Synthesis to create two swords for the orcs even with her hands bound. Since they were in direct contact with the 'Numenor-forged Irons', she had unlocked Numenorean Steel, and simply hadn't noticed, as it was one of a plentiful amount of options. She only noticed because she had been scrolling through for materials to use in place of the oak she used for the Steeloaks.
Sel wasn't too sure how strong it would be, hopefully stronger than normal steel, but that was the point of making it down here. The Steeloak, who was now crushing the final few skeletons with much more ease, would use it to practice, and that would show her whether it was an investment worthy of her time. Three times as expensive as normal steel, that already told her it was much rarer, but so was gold, yet when she had tried to make a club out of gold, it had dented and broken in quick order.
She already knew gold was malleable compared to other metals, but it was best to test things. If it had turned out that gold somehow imbued each strike with more power, maybe equipping a few specialists with multiple gold weapons would have been best, but it was not to be. The mace steadily formed together in her mind, though she made adjustments like a longer handle to account for the larger Steeloaks who would be wielding it, widened the head, trimmed back the spikes a little and added some longer horizontal ones for armour-piercing power.
Sure, a mace was a blunt weapon, but the strength behind it was the weight. Enough weight being punched through a small area meant it'd go through armour like it wasn't even there. This mace was going to weigh a hefty amount, and when that weight was given...was it centrifugal force? Inertial force? Whatever. When the mace got force from being swung, if all that force and all that weight was behind a single spike?
She doubted even Mithril would stop that amount of force.