Rebuilding an Empire - Edited

Edited by Exaxxion

Three weeks have passed since I took over the Crystal Empire, Sombra is a skull and a pile of ashes, Glittering Quill is a chatty crystal pony that has taken a liking to her position as my scribe, and as for my commander of the watch, Bastion has proved to me that even though he is old he can still kick ass. There is proof to him kicking ass when he completely mopped the floor against six fresh recruits, he had a short wooden sword while the others had wooden spears and longswords.

The end result was amusing at best.

"A little to the left!"

"No my left!"

"Okay a little lower..."

"Alright you're good! Release the harness!"

As the last block of crystalline stone comes to a complete stop I watch as one of the crystal unicorns makes its horn light up like a flashlight, making the block solidify together to form a solid mass, completing the gatehouse at the southern road.

Apparently as a Fallen I had a knack for technology and with the house of inventors that live beside the castle, they are the ones responsible for creating the enchanting gems that line the streets which provide light when it is night time, a few different type of enchanted gems exist but the downside is that they are still discovering what their purposes are and how to recreate them.

Another thing I found out is that the Glimmer I am holding, I can use it to construct objects that I will need to survive here and the first thing I built with my Glimmer is a drill to extract more Glimmer from the land. For some reason this land is just filled to the brim with the stuff, that crystal heart seemed to have altered the atomic structure of everything within the doom to make it just like this wonderful material at the atomic and subatomic level. In essence I am surrounded by a bountiful harvest of Glimmer, the downside is that this 'bountiful harvest' is currently being used as buildings and homes, roads, trees, relaxing grass, chairs, windows, stools, bathrooms, the castle, Sombra's jar of ashes, the ponies and lastly the heart itself.

Only good side is that every day the dome is slightly growing, expanding my quite literally sphere of influence *bu-dum tist* but anyways here comes the bad news.

The first thing on the bad news list, we are running low of good ol' lumber which is bad because my plan to build a rudimentary skiff to glide across the snow to get to the crystal mines requires a hefty amount of wood to make the main body and the legs to move across the snow, second problem is that we only have two months of food left, without any new source of edible food they will start to starve in two months or so, thirdly the walls are still not complete.

Even though we have started building the wall with the gatehouses at the end of each main road leading to the castle it will still take us months to make sure that the walls are thick enough to not be broken down so easily and tall enough that they can't climb over it in a few seconds.

"Alright everybody, take a break and come back in a few hours to let the crystals harden, we must check it for structural integrity!" I am doing an archon's job, seeing how they are both the high priest and chief engineer for the Kell, how I know all of these things I don't know but I am glad that I do, it would be a catastrophe if all I knew was how to fight and kill and be a brutal dictator hellbent on making all of the Fallen Houses bow to my will and stealing the Great Machine for myself.

Putting down the various hammers that I was holding in my many arms I went back to my castle to check in on Quill and Bastion, Quill was taking notes on what the citizens need done, Bastion busy training the new batch of crystal guards, and on his suggestion we hired the head master of the blacksmithing training school to be our forge master and from what I am seeing at what these guards are using, spears and swords made out of crystal and metal fused together to be light yet highly durable.

I don't know how one can fuse metal and crystal together but this guy did it, don't know how but I will ask him later to divulge unto me this secret, if I can get an archon to upgrade our shock rifles and wire rifles with this combination it will make it lighter and possibly hit harder.

"Ah my Kell, welcome back, I have nothing new to report other than the obvious of needs of a few nobles that have requested us to find foreign entities to trade with for much needed supplies, food, building material and gold, the forge master wishes to see you and also the commander of the watch needs to see you, I guess he has taken your advice to heart...or just forgot and needs a reminder. At least with the steady growth of the dome that our grain farms have been restored so our food trouble has been partially quelled." Quill said before giggling to herself, and she does have that right to laugh, Bastion is old for a pony, he is pushing it at eighty-six years old and yet he is still taking his job seriously.

I was hoping that he would retire and give his second-in-command his rank and office but it seems that Bastion wants to see this through till the end, maybe being an old pony means you have to finish what you started till the day you die, I hope he hasn't missed any of his younger family's birthday parties because of his job.

'Bastion would have made an excellent Baron within the Wolves...it is a shame that we do not have a servitor here to collect his soul to be reformed into a new body...only time can tell me if we all have enough time to construct the servitors and everything else I will need to rebuild my Ketch and Kell Guard.'

"And my Kell, the noble houses are still waiting for your answer on which of their daughters you will marry?" Quill said as she laughed again at me, I learned that she is married to a stallion named Rock Weaver, a stonemason of sorts and he has proven his worth to me by creating the plans on how to build the city walls and gatehouses.

And that came the other problem to deal with from these noble houses, them trying to marry off their daughter to me. Seems like back then before Sombra that was how things were done, the head of the noble house would send their daughter to a different house or even to the royalty and have them wed to create a strong bond between the two families but there seems to be a problem with what they are trying to do.

Besides the obvious height difference, species difference and the fact I still can't tell what gender I am, it would be a great shocker to find out that I am a chick and I am then named Queen of the Crystal Empire...I wonder what my friends would say if they find out that Skolas was actually a chick and I went as her instead of him.

They would probably be laughing their asses off.

Another problem about them trying to marry them to me is that I am not a pony fucker, I have standards and one of them is that the girl must be human and since I am in another world, human-like at the very least, they must have breasts, a great ass, and an amazing personality. If I can't even find something that is close to human in appearance then I will lower my standards just a bit and if I still can't find a suitable partner then it looks like I will be stuck with good old Rosie Palms.

"Quill tell them to stop trying to wed their children off to me, have they not realized that I am bigger then them and their children? I might split them in half or worse injure them greatly that could render them sterile, I am not taking any chances."

'And I am not going to be sticking my dick in crazy, that is a life lesson I will never forget.'

"Will do, although it is funny when they try to flirt with you when you are busy, especially when you had your armor off and was hauling one of the giant crystal blocks."

"Quill I thought we agreed that never happened, how was I supposed to know that the daughter belonging to the house of knowledge was right beside me when all four of my arms was holding up the crystal block and she decided to make a move on me. She should be glade that I didn't crush her with the block." I growled out, my hands subconsciously going to the shock blades at my waist,  I swear those nobles only care about what power they can hope to acquire by getting their daughter to marry me.

"I know, I know, but for now you are safe from her for she has been scolded and punished by her father." Quill said before going to the throne room, hopefully there is no one else trying to make demands already when we are struggling to get everything together.

Mentally closing my eyes I saw that my break is almost up and I must head back to the gatehouses and check on the ponies that are responsible for the structural integrity check but first I must check in with my new forge master and Bastion.

'Keep it together Ian, this will all be worth it in the end, the walls will be done, our farms will be working at maximum capacity, our mines delivering a steady stream of materials for construction and crafting uses and lastly fully trained guards that are capable of protecting the citizens instead of needing me to stay up all night.'

Walking to the armory within the castle which strangely is underneath the castle although the five supporting struts that are keeping castle up is somehow also a portal of sorts that leads from above the ground to below it. Ignoring the possible break in the laws of physics I manage to find my way to the forge master and saw that it wasn't a stallion as I had guessed, it was a mare, and by god was she big.

At first I thought it was a stallion because it had muscles that can be clearly seen in the red glow from the forge but it was a mare because of her body structure and that I saw what lies hidden behind those tails they have. Letting out a large cough to signify they I am here I see the mare look up with a hammer in her hoof and a horseshoe in the other before stopping her work and come trotting over to me. It take me long to see that this giantess of a mare also had a horn, I couldn't see at first until after she activated it to levitate a washcloth over to her forehead to wipe the sweat away.

"So you are the new king...well you are better then that old bastard ever was so far, well will see in the coming months and years won't we."

"Seems like we have made the right choice in picking you as our forge master, someone who isn't afraid of speaking their mind or is afraid of my visage. You and I will become the best of friends...with what I have in mind it will change the empire's military. A new age of warfare is coming with what the Eliksni has to offer and with it a means to secure ourselves against the world that might try to snuff out our light."

Snorting at me I see that her eyes are looking me over, mostly my armor and my swords, wondering how to recreate them if possible but when some time has passed I watched the forge-mistress as she circled me, looking me over, poking and prodding me as she felt the leather and metal before going to a desk with a glowing crystal hanging over it to give it enough like for me to see that it is her drawing table for plans and ideas.

"And what exactly do you have to offer hmm? Long before Sombra took power crystal weapons and armor was once seen as superior to all metal arms and armor as they didn't bend and break so easily when put under stress and they can be easily enchanted to be made more durable and not crack when struck. What can the 'Eliksni' offer us what we already don't have?" the forge-mistress said as she went back to work, apparently making what looks like a horseshoe like the one she was making when I first entered.

"I can offer you new siege weapons, trebuchets, ballistas, crossbows, and if we can gain access to gunpowder and steel then cannons and rifles, it will take gods know how long to produce what the Eliksni had at the time but I do believe it can be done." I said as I walked over to her table, looking at what her ideas were and I can say that they are exactly what the current guards are using.

'Spears and swords are nice but spears are thrusting only, they are primarily used to halt the advances of calvary but after that what then? It looks like I will be asking Quill to send writing supplies to my room, tonight I will be doing a lot of drawing the new weapons, schematics on how to build them and how to use.

"Hmph, we'll see, but for now I have work to do, when you have your sketches have someone bring them down and I'll see if it is doable." and with that said she returned to her task and started to smack her hammer against the metal shoe.

Giving her one last look I start to walk out the door but I stopped myself when I realized that I haven't even gotten her name.

"My name is Forge." was all she said with a grunt as she hammered the shoe into shape.

Before I could ask her about her name she stopped me.

"I know you are going to ask me why my name is after my job, don't bother asking, you haven't earned my respect to ask that question."

And just like that my curiosity was solved, if she wasn't willing to tell me why she is called Forge then there is nothing else to do but meet Bastion and see what he needs from me.

"Put your backs into it recruits! Swing harder! Watch your footing! Keep an eye on your opponent at all times or you just might lose your head! When the time comes for battle I do not want to see any heroics out of any of you! Trying to prove your worth can not only get you killed but those around you!" I heard Bastion shout out as I walk through the courtyard, my eyes scanning the new recruits and those that are training basic self-defense for personal reasons.

Walking up behind Bastion without alerting him I let my two large arms go behind my back as my lower ones stay by my side, wondering exactly when will Bastion realize that I am right behind him as he makes his rounds on the training field.

"You! That is not how you use a sword!" Bastion roared out as the recruit that was the focus of his ire drops his sword and gets whacked across the face by his sparring partner.

"Bucking idiot, YOU! Recruit! Take him to the medical ward in the castle to get him checked out then come back and find a different sparring partner, and you two! What are you both staring at? Get back to practice!"

"You have such a way with your recruits Bastion." I said as soon as we finally stop walking, it took Bastion a while to realize who spoke and when he did he just stood there looking at the recruits on the yard.

"When you get to my age and have to deal with these foolish colts then you can agree or disagree with the way I am teaching them." Bastion said as we watched a different group of recruits fight it out with a pair of wooden spears.

"Bastion, I am well over three hundred years old, I think I am already past your age unless you ponies are older than you actually look." turning our attention to a group of unicorn guards practicing their magic on a group of training dummies. One of them took a group out by placing a dome on top of them and applied pressure, snapping the stands on the dummies forcing them to drop to the ground before being lightly crushed under the pressure. That would be useful in capturing runaway hostiles. The other guards are either using their magic to levitate a number of weapons and using them as a barrage of blows or using some other means of attack.

One guard in particular caught in my eye, this guard was creating a fireball at the tip of his horn and when he let it go and arced it towards the end of the range, when it hit the lead dummy it broke apart and kept on going, splashing the dummies behind it and watched as they caught fire and burned.

I am not sure if it is me but for a moment I thought I heard him laughing insanely and that was when I saw his mark, it was a Molotov Cocktail that was on fire. This guy just might be my future demolition expert.

"You wanted to see me about something Watch Commander?"

"Yes, we need to bolster our ranks with new recruits, with what we got we can't patrol beyond our borders safely let alone hold the crystal mines in the south. With what we currently have available we can only protect this city from almost any incursions with the exception of a dragon attack or an opposing army."

Stroking my rebreather mask I started to ponder on how to get more guards and then it hit me, put up recruiting posters around the city, even if it doesn't get us the amount we need, it can still tell the population that if you are unemployed you can find a place with the guards.

With that done I left the training to Bastion and before I have even left the yard I can hear him yelling at another group of recruits screwing up.

Posting recruiting posters throughout the city will take time and energy but I know that once it is done we will have more guards that can be placed outside of the barrier to patrol the snow lands and see if there is anything amiss, it is best to know what we are dealing with then find out at the last minute.

Starting tonight I will be on guard duty alongside with two new guards to ease them into their daily patrols and if they do good enough with their training they just might be promoted to be a part of my Kell Guard. Waiting by the crystal heart which is still glowing brightly and rotating slowly I stood there looking at it almost in a trance-like state, its soft pink light bathing me in its light and before long my eyes saw the heart start to react strangely to my presence.

At first I thought it was a trick of the light cause after all it is just a pink rotating heart glowing brightly, what else can it do? With my eyes on the heart I watched it start to spin faster, almost reacting to my form but I don't know why it is, I mean if it reacts to ponies by making them all happy and joyful I don't know what it can do to me.

Small thin wisps of light start to seep and twist out and away from the heart, forming a long trail of energy. I watched this trail start to snake its way toward me and before I could react by phase-shifting backwards the tendril of energy lashed out and made contact with my forehead, connecting a bridge between myself and the heart as my mind goes blank.

'What the hell is going on? Why can't I move my body? Why can't I see anything? And why am I naked?'

I was by myself and I was in my human body, I was me again with the exception I was butt-ass naked with not a shred of dignity to my name as I floated aimlessly in a plain white abyss.

'What the hell is that?'

Without even knowing what is going on I started to float towards what looks like the crystal heart but it is a magnitude larger than what I have seen back in the waking world.

Floating closer to the giant crystal heart I felt waves of energy assault my body, each wave at first doing nothing but making me feel rejuvenated but as I got closer I started to see my body having outlines and I realized that it was of the Fallen I was dressed up as for the convention. Once I am right up in front of the heart I am nothing more than an ever shifting blur between human and eliksni but before I could touch the smooth flawless surface I was stopped when the waves of energy stop assaulting me and instead opt to become one solid beam and blasted me dead center in the head.

'Whoa...its looking at my memories...and...Skolas's memories? These aren't mine?'

'OF COURSE THOSE AREN'T YOURS! THOSE ARE MINE!'

'What are you doing here inside my head!'

'FOOL THIS IS MY BODY YOU USURPER!'

'Like you even need it anymore! You lost the right to speak up when you got your ass kicked by a bunch of Guardians and their floating mechanical eyeball. Your little plan to unite the Fallen houses have failed, your plan to use Vex technology to rule the other houses as failed, face it you are a failure.'

'YOU THINK YOU COULD HAVE DONE BETTER!'

'I know I could have done better, you declared your failure as soon as you broke away from the Reef by killing everything within your path with those under your command and ruined all chances of success. You should have quietly broke away from the Awoken, discreetly try to recruit the other Fallen to your cause and not created such a scene at the Vault of Glass or at the Terminus, because of that you signed up your own downfall.'

'THAT IS NOT HONORABLE!'

'So says the disgraced Kell that got two of his rivals killed off with trickery, and even your first attempt to rule the House of Wolves you still lost due to Variks betraying you. You reached for a prize that is far out of your grasp, stay back in the shadows and watch someone else succeed where you have failed.'

'A WEAKLING LIKE YOU WILL NEVER BE KELL OF ANYTHING! NOT OF THE ELIKSNI NOR OF THESE PATHETIC FOUR-LEGGED CREATURES!'

'This weakling has proved you wrong, with your body as my own I have killed a tyrant slaver, freed his slaves from his control and started to restore the pony empire back to its proper state as a power with your banner. I have done more right than you ever have, your ambition is commendable but it is misplaced.'

'I'LL KILL YOU HUMAN!'

Before Skolas could do anything even though we are pretty much melded together the beam that was connecting us to the heart retreated back into itself.

The pink waves of energy that once exuded out from the heart stopped for a moment before returning back to its usual wave-motion pattern but it also started to exude out a pale blue wave as well and that was when I noticed it had the same strange energy that the Fallen would release when they were ritualistically offered scavenged matter to a servitor to produce ether but this one is doing so without breaking down anything offered to it.

Another thing I noticed about the two differing waves of energy is that the pink one is joy and love which is making everything all sparkly and crystalline but this blue wave also had something else to it beside ether...it felt like...ambition...loyalty? Can that really be given out to the masses without their being any negative repercussions?

For a moment I thought it was over and it was just me and Skolas in here but when I waited for him to shout at me for stealing his body nothing came, I looked around and expected to see a ghostly form of him waiting for me to see him but instead there was nothing but myself, my body was gone and all that was left was the body of a Fallen Kell.

We have been merged completely, body and it seems mind and I am the dominating trait.

Before I could ponder any longer on this strange issue I was forced out of this state of mind and thrust back into the waking world.

Falling on my back I was staring up at the bottom of the caste and blinked away the whiteness and when it was gone I looked down to see that the crystal heart was still there, spinning on its pedestal but it was now shifting between pink and pale blue. At first I thought it was just a trick of the light but there it was, glowing between the two colors, radiating love and joy one moment then releasing ambition and loyalty in the same amount as the other two emotions but it felt more raw, not refined as love nor joy but it was there.

"My Kell are you alright!" I heard one of the new guards that have been assigned to me shout as I hear multiple pairs of hooves come rushing my way as I struggled to get up.

Pushing myself off the floor I shook my head to clear away the disorientation and stars from my vision as I looked around to see what was wrong and I saw clearly what it was, the hallucination of the crystal heart pulsing pink and blue was real, what happened when the crystal heart made contact with me and Skolas happened and now every single crystal pony was now absorbing the new gift that the heart was giving out.

"Yes...I am alright...it is nothing." I said as I waved them off, I was too busy staring at the crystal heart as I watched a thin wisp of ether rose from the heart and drifted over to me before being absorbed by my body, refreshing it with whatever nutrients it provided to me.

Whatever I did in there it has changed the way the crystal heart operates in a small way while still making it the sole thing that is keeping these crystal ponies happy.

"Everything is fine..." I said as a small grin starts to form underneath this breathing mask, already the gears are turning inside my head as I realize what the new wave of emotions will do to the ponies within the kingdom.

With a fresh wave of ambition these ponies will start to come up with new ways to get things done, new ways to create inventions or re-invent industry to be easier and flawless. Where one would have to create an overly large complex machine to get a task done these ponies will now do it with something smaller, more efficient. Ambition will go a long way to improve this nation but it is nothing without intelligence and success.

"Everything...is fine...return to your posts, tomorrow...we have work to do." and with that said the two guards that were assigned to me saluted before returning back to their posts on opposite ends of the heart, staring at the open areas beyond the castle, looking for any possible threats out there.

'Tomorrow will be a good day.'

A year, I have been here for a year now and a lot has changed since then. First things that have changed was that the dome has expanded out from one mile around the city, the dome is now a hundred-fifty miles in diameter and that it has revealed to everyone that we now have not one but six grain fields, several vegetable and fruit acres, a large forest and also a lake that seems to be teeming with fish.

When the barrier started to advanced far away from the city I thought it was the crystal heart's way of marking its boundaries but with each passing week it kept on expanding, changing the landscape into what it was prior to its banishment and I can say this, it is an amazing change. With this sudden change in the environment it comes with an influx of new materials such as stone, lumber, grains, metal and crystals and with these new materials new inventions.

With Forge creating the new weapons and armor that I have drawn up for her I have seen an increase in injuries on the guards because they had to train with the new glaives, crossbows, ballista, primitive grenades and with the trebuchets. It was funny when they were using the trebuchets, one of the guards got caught in the rope and got launched out of the city and into the snow. We forever dubbed that poor bastard Unlucky Nob and he does not like that name. Of course with the new weapons came new armor, chainmail, and with it came the protection of arrows, slashing weapons and stabbing weapons. I had asked Forge to make the chainmail rings at a 4:1 pattern of riveted rings of 16 gauge thickness and was made of wrought iron.

Another thing that caught Forge's eye was my shock grenades, she managed to recreate them but they are poor replicas as they don't shock for a few seconds but instead explode with the power of a thunderclap, very explosive, electrical and it sticks to any surface.

Then came the ballista and crossbows, these ponies couldn't use these very effectively unless they were unicorns, the crossbows the unicorns can use while the ballista can by everyone else, I made it easier to reload both weapons by using a crank on top, they just have to use their forearm to drag it back and use their hoof to put a bolt in the slot. Aiming it the ballista took them weeks to master but the few that mastered them are on the wall stationed by them.

And speaking of the wall, it is done, apparently having unicorns that are also construction workers have helped speed up the process by a hundred percent. With the fresh supply of crystalline stone to build the walls we have made them the perfect thickness to prevent an easy breach and also made them the perfect height which was thirty feet high. I also had implanted the idea that at each gate house and between each one is a small fortress filled with a supply of arrows, explosive canisters for trebuchets and ballista bolts.

Then came the inventions, Human technology being implemented into the empire society, some of the new inventions was the refrigerator, the airship (which is pretty much a zeppelin but the balloon is inside and is protected from hostile fire), a hot water heater (how these ponies never bothered to create one is beyond me but then again they are currently in the medieval era so giving them a leg up is nice), telescopes and binoculars (took plenty of trial and error), and actual streets lights that are enchanted crystals that collects sunlight and uses it to be activated at night.

When these things were invented it took us five months for us to get it right and several failures but with them completed the ponies here are more happy. With these happy ponies it has helped them feed the crystal heart which then helped it increase the rate of land reclamation.

Our military is looking strong, the steady rate of our technology is going up, our stockpile of grains, vegetables and fruits are slowly rising and now my dream of creating a Skiff is coming close, the combination of technology and magic will make this dream a reality.

Now if only if I can figure out why Forge is getting jealous whenever the noble houses talk about marriage when they discuss it with me.