Once the door was opened the voice once again started talking to Amondo.
“Yes, that seems about right there were plans to build twenty or so of the facilities that you refer to as dungeons in the territory assigned to the humans, one in the mermaid territory, two in the elven territory and five in that of the dwarfs. I am however unaware of how many of them became even partially operational before we ran out of time or how many of them have become non-operational in the time since. Unless things change I, myself will certainly become non-operational in a few human generations. Those facilities that were fully operational should barring outside interference last for a very long time, if not forever.”
“You don’t say, so how many of them were supposed to have been at least what you refer to as partially operational before the end?”
“Well if everything went as planned which it obviously didn’t and bearing in mind I only have access to information about those in the human territory then five should have been fully operational, three nearly fully operational and nine in various stages of partial operation.”
“That’s interesting from what I know of the history of this planet humanity and I imagine the other three races would be far more advanced these days if whatever incident caused us to flee from our homeworld hadn’t occurred earlier than expected. And more to the point what’s this you said about facilities you call dungeons if that’s not what they are then what the hell are they?”
“Bear with me a moment please as I compute the best way to answer that question in words that you might more easily understand. You are of course aware that the four races currently living in Cundus and indeed the other race that went with humanity to the planet Ertium came from elsewhere.”
“Wait Ertium, I thought that was just another continent on the other side of the planet?”, Amondo interrupted.
“No, it’s another planet on the other side of the Milky Way.”
“Sorry for the interruption please continue and I will try not to do so again.”
“They were fleeing a disaster that was going to destroy your original home planet. They had been aware of the impending disaster for over a decade before the time it was originally thought it would occur. The seven sentient races that lived on the homeworld and to prevent you from interrupting me again one of them decided to stay behind and accept what fate had in store and the seventh made other plans.
Anyway, they decided that if possible they must send as many of their people as they could manage to another world. Thanks to newly developed advanced portal technology they spent five years searching for a planet to colonise. In the end, after a false start just as they were about to give up, they found two viable candidates on the same day. After much soul searching they decided to colonise both of them in the hope that this would increase their chance of survival.
They spent what they thought would be the next five years to first prepare the planets for habitation and then to transport as many individuals and supplies as possible to them. The facility you are currently located in and the others like it are not dungeons as you suppose but rather repositories whose sole purpose was to provide a home for both the more dangerous creatures native to the homeworld and the more primitive races that also called it home or to be more precise those that had once called it home.
Such facilities had already been created on the homeworld for either those that were extinct or in danger of becoming so. Their design was simply adopted for the new circumstances and at the same time improved upon. When the original timetable suddenly fell apart over half of them were still in various stages of completion. Not even a third of those scheduled to travel to Cundus had done so and those that were already here weren’t always the cream of the crop. Even less of the equipment had been sent and anyway those who best knew how to use it had been left behind. Most of the survivors didn’t even know where to locate the equipment that had made it never mind how to operate it.
The knowledge that had been lost was huge and civilisation had been sent back but thankfully not lost. Some plans had of course been in place for such an eventuality, but they were never properly implemented. Plans had been in place to introduce magic into the world but it will still be a long time before it exists at the same level it did on our original homeworld.
In the meantime we were to use magic-infused crystal batteries such as the one you said was sold to a merchant to power these facilities and many other things besides but the supply of them available on Cundus by the time the portals closed was limited. Unless they had already been installed or were on hand the facilities such as the extinction arks or zoological gardens as we were officially called never become even partially operational. Those like me who were even semi operational fell I believe into one of two categories, those with both the primary and secondary power crystals installed and those with only one or the other.
My primary power crystal should have provided enough power to keep be operating at a much higher level than I currently am until the local artificial leylines were stabilised enough to provide me with an external power supply four to five hundred years ago. However, out of the two connections to the leyline, I was supposed to have only one had been completed and it was unfortunately severed nearly a thousand years ago. Thus, I have had to limit my power usage in the hope that somehow things might someday change. Sadly if I am to survive for much longer I badly need your help and even then it will require a hell of a lot more luck than I am accustomed to.”
231 total views, 2 views today