The OP Lich is a Returnee, Chapter 201

Chapter 201 – Foundation

To the southwest of Hawai’i, between the Johnston Atoll and Tabuaeran Atoll, there was a line of seamounts that roughly followed one of the primary ley lines coursing across the planet. This ley line was the reason I picked this undersea range for the site of New Athelas. Not only would it provide access to resources that would be harder to come by near the surface, but the abundant mana from the ley line would make maintaining the shields that would cover the city more effective, and sturdier, even when I wasn’t there to reinforce them.

I didn’t say it in public, but this undersea colony was a proof of concept. Even in the other world, it was rare to see any buildings go up under the waves, unless you were dealing with aquatic races. However, they rarely bothered themselves with land-dwellers, and it was rarer still for anyone on land to visit their homes underwater. You would have the odd shipwreck survivor talking about a merfolk city, sometimes, but they were exceptions, rather than the rule.

Since it was a proof of concept, I needed more room for error than I normally would accept. The shield would have to account for not just the normal threats of massive water pressure and seismic activity, but also maritime predators and the possibility of hostile forces attacking. That was, frankly, too much for one shield to handle. Multiple shields would be needed, with redundant arrays.

For once, I was in my full dracolich form. With all the potential problems that might happen if I missed something, I could not afford the minor restriction to my power from taking on my normal lich form, much less my human form. I had not survived as an undead this long by foolishly believing that I could take on any challenge and emerge victorious, after all. This was not the time for vanity or false humility.

Bone claws pressed into the sediment. The cold darkness of the sea floor did not bother me in the slightest, nor did the crushing mass of water about me. It was one of the advantages of being undead. Or, at least, my type of undead. A basic skeleton would be at risk, perhaps, since at these depths the carbon dioxide in the water was concentrated enough to be more acidic, which would eat away at the bones, but even that would take time to damage the skeleton enough that the magic animating it fell apart. But such weak acid could not touch my reinforced bones, or my gear.

There was, perhaps, some worry about local wildlife coming to interfere with my work, but I had my aura fully uncloaked, so it was unlikely anything would come this way. Animal instincts would warn most creatures that Death was this way, and convince them to flee. Some smarter creatures might be able to push aside those instincts to investigate, but even then, only the strongest would actually come close. The only true danger was if some apex predator considered this their territory, and was not intelligent enough to accept that my being here meant they were being evicted.

I stretched out with Witch magic to shift the ocean floor below me, working with the ‘natural’ flow of magic to push the stone up, above the sediment. It did not matter that I was affecting an area fifty-four kilometers in diameter. With my own power, and drawing from the ley line, while in contact with the Earth, even if I was underwater? Such a thing was child’s play, if you knew how, and I did.

Now, with a flat, solid surface to serve as the foundation, I began the real work. As a Sorcerer, I used Light magic to carve runes along the entire circumference, which measured roughly one hundred and seventy kilometers. When the final rune was finished, I used an Arcanist’s magic to activate the first shield.

Power flowed through me, as I drew from the ley line. If I had not been who I was, if I had been a lesser mage, then the force of magic running through me would have burnt out my body like running a heavy industrial power line carrying 4000 amps directly into a home residence’s electrical box, with wires rated for maybe 30 amps. There was a reason why most people who tapped into ley lines directly did so with ritual magic.

Starting from the center, water swirled as Air magic took form, and began swirling as a vortex, using the motion to lessen the cost of moving so much water. It took ten minutes, but soon the water had been pushed back in a dome covering the entire platform. And then the Air magic became a solid shield, a meter thick, and strengthened by the ley line itself. There was a moment as the water pressed against the shield, now that the vortex’s motion was gone, but the shield held, solid as stone.

I reinforced the magic by adding a short wall of stone hardened by my magic and the ley line, burying the shield spell’s runes underneath a wall a meter wide and two tall, before fusing the wall’s stone to that of the platform itself. While I would not say that nothing could break the air shield, I was confident that only the most cataclysmic of monsters and mages would be able to get to the runes and break them. Which meant that the likelihood of the waters crashing in on New Athelas was miniscule. The average mage would have better luck rerouting the ley line itself, and even in the other world such a thing was the act of Gods and Primordials.

But the air shield only kept the water out. It did not prevent attacks from coming in. That would be handled by the next series of shields. Again, I called on Witch magic to raise small spires, each a meter tall, from the wall, and worked them into a shape that would naturally channel the energies of the ley line, to create a shield that would block the passage of objects and most spells across the barrier. This way, if an enemy ever managed to overcome the barrier, it would not affect the air shield. Of course, overcoming the barrier from the outside would require either overwhelming power or specialized magics. However, the other world’s history of warfare had created more than a few barrier-breaking techniques, so it was only prudent to keep the barrier and the air shield separate.

I had already been about my task for several hours, now, and only the basics of the city’s foundation were done. There might be a void in the water here, but the air was far from breathable, and one still needed a way to get in and out of the city without piercing the shield. The breathable air bit would be a bit more complicated, but I knew what I wanted to do with the transit issue.

First, I would create four gates, at each of the cardinal directions. Each gate would be large enough for a truck to pass by in both directions. A tunnel would pierce the stone foundation of the city, and go down, under the shield, so that the passage would not mar my work. Smaller barriers, anchored at regular points, would act as watertight doors in an emergency, and a ward would be placed on the exit point, preventing anyone who had hostile intentions towards me, the city, or its inhabitants from passing through.

At each exit point, there was a series of watertight barriers, which acted as an airlock, allowing submarines to enter through the outer barrier, where water levels and pressure were equalized with those inside. Once done, a visiting submarine could dock at one of the available stations, just like they would do at any other port. This would make the transport of industrial goods easier, while also giving submarines belonging to the EAA another friendly port in the middle of the Pacific.

Yes, those exit points would also be weak points for someone to attack the city, but the risk was manageable. The docks weren’t large enough for a full invasion group to make it in, even if all four were taken, and it wouldn’t take much to rig a self-destruct on each of the docks, along with having guards to ensure no one tried to slip people in. The tunnels were also effective choke points, even if someone managed to make one of the exit points into a beachhead.

That would be the way most industrial goods and other such things would enter or leave the city. However, I did not need to leave that as the only way in or out. But that should be done after I further secured the city from threats and made things more comfortable for mortals.

Moving to the center of the platform, I used a Witch’s Earth magic to create a third shield, buffering the city against seismic events. An earthquake rating 7.5 on the Richter scale a kilometer away from the shield would shake the city like a 3.0 earthquake located a hundred kilometers away would shake a normal city. A 9.5 nearby would shake the city like a 6.0 at the same distance without the shield. Damaging, certainly, but not the cataclysmic event that it would normally be.

An Arcanist’s Light magic set up an orb of light at the zenith of the dome, shining down upon the city-to-be. A Sorcerer’s Air magic filled the dome with breathable air, and then set a ward about the platform, creating a simple filtration system. While active, it would adjust the air to be normal and breathable for humans. Of course, while the Light spell was tied into the ley line, and would thus last indefinitely, the ward was a temporary thing. It would run out of power four months from now, if not renewed, but I hoped that my people would have alternative systems online by then.

Light, air, plenty of room to build. The last thing was to make it easier for people to get here normally. In the exact center of the city-to-be, I engraved a teleportation circle, like the ones in the Athelian Embassy in New York, and all the major cities of my realm. While cargo would need to move via submarine, for now, people would be able to access New Athelas from anywhere in my domain.

I sent a magical signal to the workers who were waiting in Honolulu, and a moment later there was the crack of displaced air from a teleportation. As soon as the group cleared the circle, another one came through, and another, and another. In the end, over two thousand people were here, already divided into teams to start handling different projects. There were engineering students from the University of Hawai’i, tradesmen from the various trade schools, mage trainees from the Athelian Spire, and techno-mage inventers from the Athelian Magitech Research Center.

Still in my dracolich form, I used Dragonspeech to speak with everyone directly. “Hello, people of Risen Athelia. You have been chosen to undertake a task that is rarely offered, in this world or the other. As you can see, I have laid the foundations of New Athelas. This dome is roughly the same area as Tokyo, in Japan. Unlike Tokyo, however, you do not have a village to grow into a city. Instead, you are tasked with designing and building the city from scratch. Each of your teams have already been briefed, but I know better than most that sometimes seeing is believing.

“From this barren foundation of stone beneath the sunless depths, you will have the chance to shape the city from the first building to the last. This accomplishment, the first undersea colony on Earth, will be made by mortal hands! I have set the stage for you, but it is up to you to take that stage, and show what you can do.

“You are the future of Risen Athelia. What you accomplish here will be seen around the world, and will be studied for generations. So, dream big. You have everything that science and magic can do at your disposal. Tomorrow, mages will teleport construction equipment and supplies down here. Today, I beseech you all to work together, and plan.

“Each of you is here for a reason. The Engineers are here because I want a city that will actually stand on its own. The Tradesmen are here because they are the ones that have the kind of first-hand experience that is invaluable for seeing problems before they get out of hand. The mages and scientists are here to push the limits of what is possible, and create a city unlike anything the world has ever seen before. This project cannot succeed without all of you.”

I looked at the crowd and saw that they were all suitably excited. After all, I’d just given them a blank check to design and build whatever they wanted, and a promise that they’d be in the history books. And not only was I paying them, but this would also be counted towards their coursework. They were going to be legends in their fields, and they knew it.

“Now, team leads, I expect good news from you shortly.”

With that, I transformed into my human self, and teleported back to my throne room. My apprentices were still in training, after all, and it wouldn’t do to leave them alone overlong. Bad enough that I was away for the entire night building the foundations, and wasn’t able to get with my craftsmen at Athelian Arms, as I normally did. Unfortunately, the moment I saw my Seneschal, Galeren standing next to my throne, waiting for me to arrive, I knew there was trouble.

“What is it, Galeren?”

“My Queen, a delegation from the Japanese military arrived less than an hour ago. They wish to discuss matters about the recent tensions between Bangladesh and India, though they said that, while there was no immediate emergency, the situation would likely deteriorate if steps were not taken soon. I took the liberty of offering them rooms where they could freshen up and rest before you returned.”

“Well, that’s lovely. See that the delegation is served breakfast, and then we will see them after. First, we need to check in on our apprentices, and set them to their day’s training. Then, we will see what the military wants.”

“Of course, your Majesty.”