Chapter 20 World Building

Singe leaned back as he contemplated the capriciousness of genetics. He had been studying and experimenting for eighty years now and could honestly claim to be one of the world's foremost experts in almost every field related to biology. His employer was extremely generous, willing and able to allow him to pursue multiple degrees in any university he wished.

Not that there weren't drawbacks. The fact that his new leader was a dimensional traveler came as a shock. Losing all of his carefully cultivated contacts had been a setback, as was the fact that he lacked reputable credentials once again. Although that was almost meaningless in the fact of the sheer potential wealth in specimens he now had access too.

He had repaid that generosity by throwing himself into his work. First by studying diligently and then by conducting the experiments with the Corvinus virus. Altering it so that it no longer was linked together had been his most frustrating task and his ultimate triumph.

It wasn't without benefit for himself as well. The Therianthrope virus was his magnum opus. A heavily modified version of the original strain that seamlessly incorporated variant strains into itself. Even better each variant strain allowed for a new form.

There was still a limit of three new forms, but it was a small price to pay. And not quite as much of a limitation once he unlocked another mutation his employers labeled warform. It was something in addition to the three forms and allowed each to be pushed to extremes, becoming much larger and powerful.

Singe had unlocked over a dozen forms. All of them made using rabies. Figuring out how to grant a secondary form was trickier, but Lord Peverell's suggestions had been the key. More saliva and then pregnancy. A truly unusual combination.

He had even touched upon other viruses. Ebola created a strain that simply allowed for incredible regeneration while human. Unfortunately that seemed to be the best he could do. The others all yielded weaker versions of healing or failed horribly.

What he really wished for was the ability to create a new form based upon a magical creature. To date every attempt had ended in the infected going mad or simply dying. Witnessing Lord Peverell transform into a basilisk had been awe-inspiring.

Magic was truly wondrous. It was also infuriating, not allowing itself to be revealed even under the most powerful microscope. So he had concentrated on what he could do. Dozens of new forms flowed from his labs. Singe had been content with his work.

Only now to be confronted with the fact that a bumbling buffoon named Hagrid had long since surpassed him. It wasn't right! That he could just such horrible crude techniques and just have magic make up for his ignorance. And the things he achieved.

Magnificent. Try as he might, he couldn't deny that. And Singe was honest. He had to be as a scientist.

Still there was hope yet. Hagrid wasn't immortal. In fact it was his funeral that was causing these thoughts. There was plenty of time for Singe to catch up.

No. Not catch up. Surpass. After all Hagrid barely understood what he was doing. And one of the rules of magic indicated understanding what you were doing make it easier. How much further could someone like him go?

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Honestly, as much as she loved Harry, no Hadrian now, sometimes he was pretty careless. Using an entire square mile for a single encounter? This was supposed to be dungeon, not a nature hike.

Still, best not to change things too drastically. Harry. Argh! Even after all this time she still has trouble thinking of him as Hadrian! HADRIAN, is still a boy. Throwing away what he had already done might hurt his feelings. He's so sensitive sometimes.

It's hard thinking of what would present a challenge to a normal person. Even before Hadrian had made her immortal so they could stay together forever, the rituals had pushed her well beyond human limits. She still wasn't sure what to choose as her extra forms. Hadrian hasn't picked his yet and she wanted them to match.

Even if their animagus forms didn't match at all. A wolverine was completely different from a basilisk. At least it wasn't something wrong with her. Not even Merlin had a magical species as their animagus form. It was supposed to impossible! Which made it perfect.

And a basilisk really was perfect for him. She had played with a few of the ones he kept around. They were amazing! So strong and fast. Already over thirty feet long they were large enough to ride. While she couldn't talk to them, Harriet's boys could. James and Teddy loved to go for rides with her.

That didn't even factor into how giant Hadrian was. When he changed he was enormous! Measuring nearly sixty feet and with deep gray-green scales. He also weren't cold or slimy like her idiot brother had claimed. In fact his scales felt like warm polished stone, like a park bench on a sunny day.

Which... has nothing to do with what she was supposed to be working on.

Argh! Ok. Looking at it again. Clearly the lake needs to stay. That and the castle seem to be the important parts. Now to make it a challenge.

First Ginny added a ward to cause a low fog bank to rise from the waters. Slightly glowing fog. Add a chain of reflective buoys shaped like candles to guide adventurers. The turtle traps are fine. Maybe even too effective.

So a larger boat. Which provides a more stable platform for fighting, but can hit turtles even easier. A decent trade off in she adds a small manual pump. Very small. No point making it easy.

Swans for attackers and otters as harassment. Ginny decided to keep them the same, although had the swans only attack alone and the otters in pairs.

Fog along the pier and stairs mean the skeleton archers can't target anyone. Probably good for what are essentially fresh recruits. The rest of the castle seems fine. Only pairs of skeletons patrolling most of them ordered to guard specific positions. Which was completely boring so she added a few chameleon ghouls.

The castle's a bit too empty though. No real draw to get anyone to explore. So create a few special areas. Owlry is easy enough. A small swarm of owl skeletons. And as a reward a post owl egg. None of the settlements have magical animals yet, so it'd be a good one to start off with.

Although she should probably treat this like an actual castle instead of a school. So each dorm is really a barracks. Lots of skeletons there. Have them 'sleeping' and place a tripwire on the stair along with a false step that alerts them. Add in a chest in the fireplace and another noisy trap in front.

For rewards the dorms should be different. Sword and shield wielding skeletons in Gryffindor. Hufflepuff will have warhammers because of all the stairs, archers for ravenclaw and spearmen in Slytherin. In each one piece of a different type of armor would be found. Chain for Gryffindor, breastplate and splint mail for Hufflepuff and hardened leader for Ravenclaw. Finally scale mail for Slytherin because she couldn't resist.

Ginny had fun with the library, while also making a note to never let Hermione see it. She had large gaps in the wall and even floor above it to let in more light and had saplings grow throughout it. Deliberately aged parchment that exploded into clouds of dust were left on otherwise empty shelves. A very few will be real and detail information such as how to raise an owl or grow radishes. They'll cover everything harvestable from the floor. And oversized bowtuckles, three feet high, stalked the area.

Have the headmaster's Office be a miniboss, a large skeleton in full plate with a great axe. The reward being an actual map, although it'll be more general zones than anything. With the Unplottable enchantment on the entire floor it was the best that could be done. It'll also serve as a lure to get people exploring.

The greenhouses shouldn't be left empty so Ginny added a pumpkin patch. She know Hadrian wanted to keep it limited to British plants, but she couldn't resist the impulse. The skeleton gardeners, disguised scarecrow and flock of skeleton chickens should be enough of a challenge.

And as for the original areas, it's increasingly clear she's going to need to scrap most of those. The dungeon was much to dangerous. The rats were fine. But only singly in the basement. And only in pair at most in the sewers. As for the boss. Nope. Not happening. Ginny replaced it with a Devil's Snare.

Not all of Hadrian's ideas were bad. Small stone guard towers can serve as an obvious main boss area for a zone. Place a few skeleton archers on top, have the first floor and basement converted into dens and clearly marked target.

Adding a side area off to the side of the lake also makes sense. Small stone walls dividing the area along with a hedges breaks it up into a number of smaller areas. Most will have a porlock inside it that will drop a bundle of quills. The areas with actual vegetables adventurers can harvest will have a badger.

Further back will be wilderness, but not forest. Scrub, with thorny hedges forming a natural maze. Hares will ambush people, attempting to knock them into the thorn bushes. Rare berry bushes will be in areas with a lynx. The tower held a pair and granted a kneazle kitten.

The other side of the lake will be marshier. Reeds and a few other march plants will be there. Cabbage and lettuce as well. Adders were the enemy here, along with a few herons that wandered around.

Further back the area turned into a series of rolling hills. Foxes snuck around to ambush people. Between the thick underbrush and flitterbys, they should have an easy time doing so. She wonders how long it'll take anyone to realize they only get attacked at the top of a hill?

At least the nearby orchard wasn't hard to set up. Just past the fox hills it was guarded by a scattering of boar. The trees weren't neatly lined up, but placed in small groves. Every grove had a boar.

Past the orchard Ginny placed a stream. It meandered over to feed the marshy area and had a small pond along with a beaver dam. The pond had plenty of fish along with a four foot lobster.

Back over by the gardens Ginny set up a large rocky hill. The tower wasn't surrounded by encounters unless you counted attacks from single lemmings. Entering the tower would spawn a swarm though.

Just past the lemmings was the edges of the forest extended all the way to the back of the floor. The area was a massive densely wooded area that had adventurers harassed by squirrels and owls. The few clearings all had a wolf. The tower held a pair and defeating them granted a crup puppy.

Just behind the caste Ginny decided to convert into a massive hedge maze. Ten foot walls and spanning for over a mile across. The only real danger aside from getting lost were the wandering deer. Getting trapped in front of a charging buck was fairly dangerous.

The last corner Ginny set up as a very dense forest with a canopy that blocked out most light. Woodpeckers and crickets all infested the area, filling it with noise. Which made it hard to hear the small groups of crows that would ambush people in the tiny clearings where light shone down.

For traps she decided to leave the ones Hadrian had placed. Bear traps, snares and pitfalls were plenty dangerous for beginners. Her only real addition was to add several bee hives to serve as trap and reward.

The castle had most of it's traps removed. Extending spikes and dart shooters were way too lethal. Instead Ginny went with more tripwires and trick stair steps

Looking at the docks at the base of the stairs leading into the castle she created another zone. A rocky shoreline that extended until it met the marsh and vegetable areas. Giant crabs and eels will be enough danger to keep the area from being considered too safe.

Seeing just how much she had managed to squeeze into such a small stretch of land really drove home how large the project was. While she had doubled the number of zones, she could probably easily double it again. Which might even be necessary to get the true dungeon feel. And just sounded exhausting.

Thankfully she has long since mastered a task Hadrian still has trouble with. Delegation. It was simple enough to hire a bunch of game designers to help her with the project. There were hundreds of people who wanted to work here after the game company started up. Poaching a few of them was easy enough. And who knows? Maybe they will end up making an actual game out of it.

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Hagrid's first love had always been for all the poor misunderstood beasties that everyone didn't understand. They reminded him so much of himself. He had enjoyed helping out in the Care of Magical Creatures class and working as gamekeeper, but that didn't look like he was going to be able to keep doing so.

Everything had gone funny since Dumbledore and a bunch of others stuffed shirts had all died. The meeting was kept real hush, but no one can stop rumors. And they all said it was Dumbledore's fault. Which is nonsense. Blaming someone as great as Dumbledore for what was clearly the work of some dark wizard. Probably just too scared to blame to right bloke. Cowardly lot.

It seems everything who supported Dumbledore was laying low now. Except he was a mite too big to hide even if he wanted too. Which meant the job offer came as a surprise.

It was a tad queer to see little Ginny Weasley, who he had only a week ago escorted across the lake, all grown up. Her explanation of time magic and altering walls made little sense. It didn't really matter though. Ginny was a Weasley and Dumbledore had always believed in them so Hagrid would too.

Then he found out what his job was. Even if he wasn't going to be given the boot he'd be mighty tempted. They were going to be creating guard pets! Lovely, cute and very friendly. And naturally ones that can fend for themselves. It was a dream come true!

At first the projects were pretty odd. She wanted pets that looked like people. Ones smart enough to train and work in groups and use fancy toys. Lots of other details too. Enough to make his head spin.

Some of it bothered him. Blood magic is dark stuff. At least until Ginny swore that both Lily and Dumbledore used it. When she explained how people were scared of it because it was strong made perfect sense. It was just like him and his pets.

Hagrid was pretty excited to find out he was talented at blood magic. It seemed to work for him easier than most. Even Ginny's husband said so. And anyone who came from a family Dumbledore admired should know. It was brilliant being good at magic. They even got him a new wand. And since they weren't in Britain anymore he couldn't get in trouble.

Well, know one knows more about critters than old Hagrid. So he was more than happy to help Ginny out. After all that's supposed to be part of his job now.

Hagrid experimented some, but in the end he settled on redcaps. Wee little mushroom people, they were very useful. They just soaked up dark magic so you could plant them anywhere the stuff was and eventually they'd clean up the land. One of the reasons they were everywhere.

Well that and the fact they can also grow in an area where a lot of blood was spilled. Horrible muggles never seemed to stop fighting and redcaps just kept spreading.

Blood was one of the main reasons Hagrid went with the redcaps. The way they fed off it meant that blood magic could affect them easier that most. It was easy as can be to grow them up a bit so they could stand tall like regular folk.

Redcaps are tough little buggers, perfect for what Ginny wants. They're very close to plants so not much really counts as that important. They're mighty tough to get rid of without magic. I might have cheated a bit when I had to deal with them. Dumbledore always gave me a wink when I did so it was alright.

Part of that toughness was how fast they recovered. Knock a limb off or smoosh them flat and they'd just plant themselves back into the ground. Then they'd just heal back up. The trick was luring them away from ground they can plant themselves on.

The plant part also meant they could be crossbred with other plants. It did take a touch of blood magic and alchemy, but they successfully bred them with horklumps. Whole fields of them could be grown almost overnight.

Teaching them to use better tools than just clubs was far beyond him. Too complicated without help. Which turned out to be Luna Lovegood. It was nice to see that even after all they've been through Ginny and Luna were still friends. It was always nice to see things working out.

Luna didn't take long to fix the problem. She just took his new pets and brought them back the next day. And just like that they could do all sorts of neat things like walk in lines next to each other and use lots of new tools.

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Luna held back her laughter until she was sure she was alone. Then she lost control, cackling madly as she rolled across the floor. Ginny has absolutely no idea just how insane of a creation her work with Hagrid had yielded.

The myconids, as named by their geeky husband, were essentially only a step down from a full blown alien invasion. Zerg, tyranid, even xenomorphs. It wouldn't take much to push the myconids into the same level of danger. And Ginny wants to use them as disposable combatants!

It had taken her less than an hour to realize the potential of the myconids. They grew fast, bred faster and were very resilient. Even their food supply wasn't too difficult to secure. Blood and dark magic were incredibly easy things to obtain under the proper conditions. And thanks to the horklumps they can even eat meat.

Best of all they were incredibly susceptible to blood magic, easily accepting almost any change. Which included behavioral alterations. Sadly they couldn't be made as intelligent as a human. Which isn't much of a handicap with how many instincts that were able to be programmed in. if their reliance on external equipment was removed they would be terrifying.

Instead they're barely sideshow attractions. Not much physically better than a human except in resilience and without the mental flexibility to compensate. Since their ability to burrow with equipment was restricted to organic matter, metal weapons and armor weren't possible.

Good thing there were plenty of organic substitutes available. It only took a single comment to steer Hagrid in the right direction. Luna was curious what kind of armored horror would be the result.

The absolutely best part was catching Ginny consulting a TV show of all things for ideas. While Ancient Warriors was entertaining enough, it was hardly a substitute for true research. Luna supposes she shouldn't be surprised Ginny hadn't put much more thought into it beyond basic gladiator game level training.

Still that was one of the best things about being in charge of a country. There was no limit on manpower. It was simple to get a team to research not just the equipment, but the tactics and fighting styles of various historic armies. She was honestly surprised Ginny hadn't thought of it. After all she had already done so once already.

At least the arena idea Ginny had was a sound one. It was a pretty good idea to have a 'safer' method of gaining combat experience other than the dungeon. Basing it off the Colosseum was a nice touch too.

Hadrian had stipulated the settlements were not allowed to fight each other so a ranking system needed to be added. One that factored in challenges, scenario rules and even terrain maps. It's basically a real life video game! Ginny really did have a great idea this time.

That wasn't the only thing she had been drafting teams of people for. She had been hard at work updating the Glasswalker project. Even to the point of replacing the Biovores with her own design.

The Carnifex was a hulking eight foot unit that was bipedal and dual wielded spiked tower shields. The shields were part of the armor and were scaled, with the same regenerating ablative design as the rest of the armor. In the very center was a large reactive armor plate can also be used as a claymore mine. Only a pair of heavy mortars were mounted on it's back, but a the ability to defend itself was worth it. Besides now they can use the 120mm mortars instead of the 81mms.

Additionally Luna had decided to expand on the Irisviel. If they were truly to be considered an actual race then they needed to be more than just staff members. After all, as militant an empire as Hadrian is assembling it only made sense that they would have their own branch.

Drawing inspiration from a Swiss military journal, Luna created the Irisviel Macil. Or simply 'sword' in Quenyan since she thought it would be hilarious if everyone ended up thinking Tolkien had met the Irisviel at some point. Hadrian liked the idea enough to make their ears slightly pointy. The Macil was a four foot blade set on a three foot handle with a ball mace pommel and lacking any kind of guard.

The swords were made from hyperdiamond and goblin silver. Well goblin tungsten technically. And adamant and mithril if anyone asks. With a momomolecular edge it had amazing cutting power. Boosted by it's high vibrations, friction reducing charm, and cutting enchantments it completely ignored non-magical armor.

It was a shame she was going to have to kill the entire group after the project was over. But it just wasn't possible to hide how much magic was being used in their training. The weight reduction charms already made them highly acrobatic. Their gear also had no weight, only inertia. Plus paired with a modified arresto momentum charm and they could literally turn on a dime.

Additionally, since Luna wanted a combat style reminiscent of Ataru, she had the boots enchanted with limited flight charms. They wouldn't lift them more than a few feet high, but would still accelerate them to over a hundred miles per hour. Sadly any faster and the braking charms wouldn't be strong enough to preserve their incredible maneuverability.

Seeing just how complex the new fighting style was, Luna changed her mind. Rather than a few years it seemed far better to set this up as a long term project lasting a few generations. Which sadly did mean she wouldn't be able to set up the Irisviel settlement anytime soon.

At least the dungeon town project was going well. Why Hadrian keeps calling them settlements is a mystery. No doubt some game reference. Again.

And dungeon town really was the perfect name. After all each 'settlement' was going to end up with their own regional and culturally themed mini-dungeon. And after all the work she had put into it, Luna felt like the project really was hers. Not that she begrudged the effort.

It was exhilarating adjusting everyone juuust right so that all the new villagers accepted their new realities without breaking down. Cultural differences, food preferences, even habits all had to be altered. It was like assembling the most intricate three dimensional puzzle ever.

Luna loved the challenge. She also realized a bit more prep work was needed for the project. So the first dungeon was getting linked to the British settlement. Hence why she was changing their names to dungeon towns.

A second floor laid out in a more traditional underground dungeon layout as a nod to the classics. Then three more floors designed around other environments that can be found in Britain. They also had more fantasy like creatures and 'dire' versions of animals present. Something easy enough with engorgio charms.

At the end of the fifth floor was a boss room. Luna couldn't resist placing a dragon there. Not a real one obviously. That's would be way too much. But still a decently terrifying inferi. And that way it's 'fire breath' wouldn't melt magic items. Which made it improbably, not impossible.

Luna had so much fun setting it up that she even asked Hadrian to get up a few more groups. After all there were hundreds of groups out there. Even a fraction of them would provide her with so many more opportunities for entertainment. A new exciting dungeon for each one.

And when the world dungeons were finally opened up. The cultural clashes would be hilarious. Managing it all will be an endless source of fun.

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The time of peace allowed me to complete what likely is my most importat project ever. The rebuilding of Yggdrasil. When I had first commissioned it out of goblin silver I had felt secure in how safe my resource base now was. Since then I realized how wrong I was. A single stray bullet can take everything away.

I still intend to wear it on a necklace. I have it have it physically on me just in case. But instead of a string of charms I'm going to have a single brooch. A massive, heavily enchanted sphere of goblin tungsten it'll hold the trunk for the Bifrost.

It's still not as secure as I'd like, but two feet of enchanted armor is about the limit for protecting the trunk and still having it able to shrink down small enough to wear. Not that it's a solid block. Coping the idea from my Glasswalkers, the core was surrounded by multiple layers of various regenerating ablative armor.

I'm keeping most of the internal layouts the same, just changing a few details. Such as the fact that each of the nine worlds are going to branch off from the Bifrost trunk and properly organizing the nesting trunks instead of the haphazard way I've been expanding.

I also finally began working on the other worlds. Midgard was pretty much the only place I had worked on so far. But a national discovery article had inspired me. I was going to experiment with extreme environments.

The original set of worlds even fit. Or at least two of them. Muspelheim was a world of volcanic heat and Nifleheim was a world of ice and shadows. And Jotunheim was the land of giants.

Jotunheim was also what I decided to work on first. I based at least the initial areas on the giant redwood trees found in the United States. Hundreds of feet tall and dozens across, they seemed perfect for the atmosphere I was going for.

It's fortunate that we managed to recruit Hagrid. He knows an amazing amount about breeding, including how to infuse magic into normal animals to cause them to grow larger than normal. He usually does it to make it easier to raise enough food for the Hogwart's kitchens, but if done over generations it results in a new magical species.

The redwood forests doesn't really have any large species living in the area. If they did, they had long since been driven out of killed off by people. Still, I had ideas on what did exist.

The squirrels in particular I enlarged. With a larger size they would eat entire pinecones rather then nibble on them. Meaning they could spread the seeds since I really didn't like the idea of forest fires. It was also the only species I had to create for the world.

The first Hagrid, bless his delusional mad scientist heart, had crossbred and otherwise mutated more than enough terrifying creatures to provide me with everything I need. Massive lizards made from komodo dragons and actual dragons preyed on giant two headed rabbits and deer. They were also some of the most recognizable creatures. Many of them were so altered I had no idea what their parents had been.

At least Hagrid loved the idea of designing an ecosystem based around megafauna. I'm sure once he's done the world will be posiitively bursting with large, deadly creatures. Eventually I plan on creating a world or main dungeon for Jotungeim, similar to the one I'm making in Midgard. That can wait until Hagrid's done though. After all, it'd be a shame not to take inspiration from his brand of insanity.

And while they're much more tentative, I've already started plans for more worlds. Both Muspelheim and Niflheim are easy. After all volcanic and arctic environments already exist. I just need to massively expand them. But what about something new?

There was no way I was about to create a world for each race. At least not unless their population grows a lot. And I didn't have any elves either. So I was going to replace the two elf worlds with something very different.

At the bottom of the ocean, surrounding volcanic vents, is an entire ecosystem centered around chemosynthesis. Setting up a large water world with very faint cave lights on top, mostly lightless depths and artificial volcanic vents should create an appropriately exotic new world. Svartrheim as opposed to Svartalfheim you could say.

In fact why limit myself to only nine worlds? Sure I don't have nine worlds planned right now, but there really isn't a reason to limit myself. Yggdrasil could become a true world tree. Dozens of branches and hundreds of leaves. Each one a new world.

I have more ideas, but they can wait. I have all the time in the world right now to work on them. Even if my settlements reach the Midgard dungeon much earlier than planned, it'll be decades before they are ready to start exploring my new worlds.