“So I just… experiment and try to make stuff?”
She nodded.
“Huh. That’s… pretty cool, actually.”
While there were a lot of times that apprenticeship had been a drag — mainly because of the man he’d apprenticed under — he’d enjoyed making new things. He’d always wanted to dream something up and bring it to life with his own two hands, but he’d never had the courage. Or the means.
Now, all these materials were at his disposal, just waiting for him to do something with them.
“Let’s make a bed, then,” he said with a grin, gaze flicking to the dragonkin.
She beamed at him, his excitement seeming to catch with her, too. “It’s very easy, I promise. It may get harder as you use more advanced materials, but for now it should take very little out of you.” She stepped up on the platform beside him, looking at the crystal as if she could see it.
“Are you able to interface with the crystal too?” he asked.
“No, only the dungeon lord can do that,” she told him, “but I can… feel the energy it emits. It’s… it’s soothing to be near it when you’re working. If it bothers you, I can—”
“It doesn’t bother me,” he said, making sure his tone left no question as to his feelings.
She nodded, offering him a smile before she continued. “As far as crafting is concerned, you can make blueprints here just like you can for rooms. If you imagine the materials and how you want to manipulate them, it will create a step-by-step guide that can be followed to create it.”
Keaton nodded, then focused on the materials of wood. He imagined himself cutting evenly sized planks to build the base of the bed, nailing and then lashing those together with some rope. Then he “built” four legs for it to stand off the ground and nailed those to the base.
As he worked, the item showed in his mind, easy for him to manipulate so he could view all sides of it. Right now, it just looked like a long, squat table, so Keaton thought about the fur and imagined himself cleaning it, drying it, then stitching pieces together to form a crude covering for the bed, as well as a blanket.
When he was happy with it, Keaton finished up the process as he had with the rooms, and the blueprint was made.
The item “Basic Bed” is ready for production.
Current supplies can produce 2 “Basic Bed”s.
Minions Assigned: 0/0
Time to Produce: Not Available.
“Hold on, it says I have no minions available to produce the beds. Is that because the drones are sleeping?”
He removed his hand from the crystal, giving the dragonkin his full attention.
“Oh, drones are not counted as minions. You need more intelligent beings to build anything that involves combining materials.”
Keaton frowned at that. “So I have to go find monsters out in the world and… what? Convince them to join me by telling them all about my amazing benefits package?”
“I suppose you could,” she mused, “but that is not how most dungeon lords go about things. Just as you can absorb the essence of Anima from crystals, you can extract it from any living creature you have enough will to overpower. You just take a small amount from the strongest creature and use that to bring it into your dungeon and under your command.”
Keaton again felt his stomach twist and roil. The idea of siphoning the essence from a creature really didn’t set well with him. It seemed almost like he was keeping a part of the being’s soul, and he wasn’t exactly comfortable with that.
But if doing so was the only way to build up his dungeon…
“I don’t suppose you know where any… uh, what would I even recruit for this kind of work?”
If there was an award for the dungeon lord who’d started with the least amount of knowledge possible, Keaton was sure he would have won it. Uncontested.
“Lord Havron used goblins, under the command of a hobgoblin. A few burrowers, too, though he’d just acquired those. The goblins would be easier for you to acquire. They live in a cave near here, and Lord Havron would not have taken all of them. He was not strong enough to do so.”
Goblins. He’d met his fair share in the woods. They were pests, for the most part, overturning caravans and sinking their rotten teeth into still-breathing horses while their hobgoblin cousins raided the supplies. They didn’t usually harm humans — at least not in Keaton’s experience — but bounties for their scalps were very common in Valfast. They’d lost merchants hundreds of thousands of gold over the year in lost goods and horses.
Having them as part of a workforce felt counterintuitive. Wouldn’t they rob him blind and eat him out of house and home?
Not that I have anything for them to rob…
Maybe there was something he was missing. Maybe goblin society functioned differently under the rule of a dungeon lord. He supposed he’d have to find out if he ever wanted to get anything more than stone walls built.
“That’s a good lead, thank you. I guess I’ll need to recruit some minions before we can rest for the night, so… would you mind leading the way?”
She immediately paled, her eyes wide, lips trembling. Whatever he’d done, whatever he’d said, it’d apparently been the wrong thing.
12
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” he quickly clarified, “it wasn’t an order or anything. I just thought you might know where the cave is.”
“I do.” That tremble worked its way through her voice, the words shaking. “But I… I am sorry, my lord. I am not used to combat, and I am useless in a fight besides.”
“We don’t need to get into a fight. Right? I just need to be able to draw the essence from one of the hobgoblins.”
“Goblins are a fierce people, Lord Keaton. How do you plan to subdue them if not by force?”
He flashed her an easy, confident grin. “Humans are a pretty fierce people, too. But if you sneak up on them, catch them with their pants down, turns out they don’t pose much of a threat.”
The dragonkin made a face, her adorable nose scrunching once more. He realized what was wrong immediately.
“Not literally with their pants down. I mean, not usually.” He thought about his own transgressions — specifically those that got him into this situation. “Uh, anyway. It’s just a turn of phrase. It means to catch them off guard, and it’s my specialty.”
“So… no fighting?”
“No fighting,” he said with a reassuring smile. “I’m not equipped for it anyway.”
Goblins weren’t much of a threat to him in full leather armor, but as he was now? He was pretty sure even their stone weapons could gut him with ease. That or castrate him in one fell swoop. He wasn’t sure which was worse.
“Then I would be happy to act as your guide, Lord Keaton.”
Her smile returned, really bringing the life to her eyes. So much so that he was even beginning to feel comfortable with her calling him “Lord Keaton.” He tried not to think about the why of it all, and instead gestured for her to lead the way before realizing something crucial.
“Hold on. I can’t…” He grit his teeth, then whispered to her, “I can’t make a statement without pants on. Nobody’s going to take my seriously.”
Her gaze strayed downward, and Keaton instantly regretted saying anything. Just the attention of a beautiful woman staring in the general vicinity of his crotch made his cock twitch.
For fuck’s sake, I’m not fifteen anymore! Stop that!
His cock didn’t listen, if the dragonkin’s deep crimson flush was anything to go off of. “I assumed you were wearing something under that. Um… oh, sometimes when a dungeon lord is killed and his dungeon is disassembled, a few items remain that can’t be broken down by Anima. They should be in a chamber close to the crystal. The drones usually gather them into a pile.”