I spend most of the remaining day just contemplating how the hell my life could have ended up like this. It had only been, what, less then a week, and already I was beholden to a god, working with adventurers, and apparently expected to pay tribute to a dragon. This is not how I expected all this to go and I definitely need to get this under control. At least I still had all of my monsters who didn’t seem to want to extort me……...scratch that I had managed to forget my angry suit of armor.

  Speaking of him I glide my view over to his little clearing and take a look around the small location I planned to set him up in. it definitely was big enough and I got the vibe It would work wonders once I got all of the materials I needed for it. But that’s the kicker really, I don’t have any materials to make the kind of war camp I am envisioning. So right now it would just be sectioned off with him standing in the middle of it, or wander around, I don’t really need to put much of a leash on him for now. Though I mentally take note of his current condition, seeing as he was something wholly unique to my dungeon. Unlike the spirits I summoned, who seemed to be manifestations of spirit mana, this person is a genuine soul bound to my will. It feels…..odd? Not wrong, which I think is deeply worrying.

  I give a small sigh as I do begin a start on earthworks around the clearing, I want to get a general idea of the outline for when I get the materials I need. But that aside I just zip away from the area, I don’t want to be there longer then I have to until my armored spirit has some time to cool down. No I am not actively avoiding the existential crises, I am passively doing that. I turn my attention back to the castle building, I mostly focus on getting some walls put up and prepare for a second floor to be put in. The best way I see of getting a particularly ruined floor going on is to actually build it properly and then selectively destroy parts of it. I also start getting a distinct sense that as I focus on the construction that time begins slipping away oddly. By the time I noticed it is mid day, which is odd considering the dragon visit earlier was closer to sundown then high noon.

  So time is slipper while I work, nothing new there except there are no biological functions to remind me time still exists. I shake my view and take a look around at everything, and it takes me a minute or two to find where the elemental went. I am surprised when I find him slowly digging out tiny tunnels underground, deep in the crypt. I try not to startle him as I bring my attention to him, and it isn’t a total failure as he freezes up instead of jumping. I just give a small questioning feeling towards him and I get the return of images. Seems he was seeking out metals, and I just smile at that, and tell him it’s a good idea. I don’t want to discourage him of anything but I feel extra happy he is doing this to help me stick around longer. With that figured out I return my attention to my little laboratory. I have so much that I want to get figured out and honestly I have been trying and failing at the core thing for so long I don’t have much confidence in making headway there without a push.

  So I turn my attention to using my creation affinity to try and do something with my ghosts, primarily I want to work on what will eventually be the challenge for facing one of the four heirs. I want to make a ghost bound to an object, functionally a cursed object. My hope was to fashion a ghost into a mirror and they would be able to jump between reflections, but honestly I would be happy with an amulet that made people not want to take it off and made the ghost appear in reflections. I genuinely don’t know which would be harder and I also need to figure out a way that people won’t just take the item and sell it off, taking my ghost with it.

  So let’s start small, I know how to bind a ghost to an object, but now I want to see if I can make the ghost binding have some conditions. So the first thing I do is just bind a soul to one of the swords I have, hoping to add in the condition that the ghost appears only when the blade is drawn. I can feel the ghost enter into the blade, but well….it shatters almost instantly and I get a splitting headache.

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  [Alert]

  Attempts to create monster

  above current capabilities of the dungeons

  creature has been destroyed.

  Well that didn’t bode well, it seemed like a very hard blocker has been placed upon my progress which seems kind of ridiculous. Why on all that is holy and unholy in this world, would this creature be what I am locked down on. Not the living armor, not the crawlers, a simple possessed sword with a condition on the ghost appearing. What is with this system, it just doesn’t make sense to me right now, but I guess I have to deal with that for now. Turning back to my experiments I try again but this time with a simple shield, trying a possession with conditions. The condition Is simple, the ghost won’t appear until someone moves the shield.

  The processes repeats at nauseam until I have blown through my supply of actually whole weapons and shields. This takes the better part of the rest of the day as I slowly learn what the definition of insanity is. I shake off everything as I turn back to my elemental who has been hard at work probing for materials. Seems he has amassed a small pile near him, and I shoot a small question about it. Seems they are samplings from larger veins but he wants me to look at them before he helps me unearth them. That is remarkably smart for someone born a few days ago but I can’t say it’s a bad thing as I figuratively pat him on the head for a job well done.

  Scanning over the materials the ones that are most interesting to me are the iron, gold, and especially the copper. Along with that are various gems, which I can infinitely get my hands on now that I have a sample, but the others. I am more interested in the copper then the other two cause of all the metals it will be the easiest to work into my experiments. Iron is good for weapons and armor but I would need a proper smelter to even thing about it. On the other hand gold will be good for rewording people but as it stands it is just a soft metal with not much about it. I will probably have to create a few golems to harvest and move the ore around and a place to stockpile it. But this is certainly a start.

  The gold and gems would probably also be good to stave off my little dragon….i don’t think friend is the right word here. Anyway, having some shinnies and jewels to sate their appetite will certainly go a long way in keeping me alive. Between that and being able to reward the adventurers with some solid cash is certainly going to be good for my long term survival. Hopefully either the guild master or one of Ava’s group come by so I can get an idea if giving out gold coins would be problematic. The answer is probably yes but I would like some conformation before committing to anything either way. With that in mind and a general understanding of tropes in fantasy I ask my elemental to look for some silver aswell. Might as well have every possible denomination of coin I can get my hands on, though I doubt platinum would either hold the same value it would hold in fantasy, or if I can get it.

  As my musings continued into the night I began shifting thing around in the crypt, forming a hidden little vault for my ores and putting a pair of crawlers and skeletons to guard it. After that I look into designing a new pair of golems, one fit for mining and the other fit for hauling, since I doubt I will be able to get away with nicking gear off of people for long if ever. Besides I want to build my own style, not keep kitbashing whatever I can find together and it would be best to start as soon as possible. Meanwhile the want to build these cores is still niggling at the back of my mind, the closest I have come was my spirit possessing an orb holding together a body, it felt both on the right track and horribly wrong. A copy of a copy if you wanted to describe it, but maybe it might lead further to the right idea if I pursue it?