Titan of Steel (Dungeoncore)
- Thread starter We Just Write
- Start date
- Original Novel Fantasy
Hmmm, I have to wonder, could the titan send a bomb through and go all SG1 on them? Seems like a good way to hit them where it hurts.
28
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
As it turned out, chasing down even the slightest hints of Daemonic activity over an entire planet was yet another mentally exhausting job, nearly on par with the time I tried being an entire government all on my own. On top of that, the high number of Daemonic cults I wound up sending Clockworks to kick over was rather disheartening in its own right. Seriously, it should NOT be this common to get some friends together, drag an innocent person off, and sacrifice them to bring a creature of pure evil into the material plane.
Unfortunately, by my estimates roughly one person in 500 considered that exact course of action acceptable. Considering the total population (not counting Dungeon Minions) was around 300,000,000 people for the entire planetary surface, that meant there were around 750,000 daemonic cultists active when I started. The subterranean nations, which already had effective non-dragon governance, had long-since already nearly eradicated Daemonic activity from their territory. After all, they'd developed the Mana Thematograph nearly 60 years before I came on the scene, and had put it to extremely good use identifying and eliminating Daemons. My recent gift of Dimensional Jamming Fields to them was simply icing on the cake.
Regardless of unfortunate statistics, the methodology was fairly straightforwards. I'd launched roughly 4,000 thematograph-equipped spy satellites into polar orbits, granting me near-total awareness of all magic use on the planet's surface. I didn't care about most of it, so I set the network to only send an alert when it detected Daemon, Evil, and Corruptor mana in the same location. I could have just gone looking for Daemon mana, but Tieflings existed, and with proper upbringing were quite capable of being decent upstanding people.
When the detection network located Daemonic activity, either I or one of my battleship minions teleported into the nearby airspace, before deploying a small army of Clockworks to locate and kill all the nearby Daemons, rescue any would-be sacrifices, and generally secure the area. Dimensional Jammer pylons were subsequently dropped, locking down the immediate area from further Daemonic influence.
With the tenuous approval of both the Amali public and the Supervisory Court, daemonic cultists were being summarily executed as enemy agents. The typical method of death for captured cultists was to render them unconscious with anesthetic gas, followed by an intense pulse of gamma rays to instantly fry their central nervous system. The negative sides of their souls were blocked from going to hell by dimensional jammers, and were funneled into a holy nuclear incinerator for disposal. There would be no future Wraith outbreaks if I had my way.
This had been going on for nearly a month now, and the task of policing an entire planet was really wearing on me, especially the fact that I had overseen the executions of almost 200,000 people personally. Inflicting so much death in such a cold, calculated manner made me feel deeply wrong. The only reason I was still going was because the Daemons wouldn't stop just because I'd thrown in the towel out of sheer disgust. No, I had to keep going until hell had lost any capability to exert influence on the world whatsoever. Regardless of how much I wanted to just turn in and go back to building up the country I'd founded.
And then, in one of the few places on the planet where I hadn't yet slammed down a dimensional jammer, the detection network practically screamed at me about a massive concentration of Daemon, Evil, and Corruptor mana. Setting my view to the peninsula in question sent a shiver of fear through me, as I got a good look at just how much mana there was. That wasn't a Titan-scale mana output, even accounting for super-spec reactors. No, that was a total mana output that dwarfed every asset I had by an order of magnitude. And it was being pushed entirely into enlarging a massive portal. A portal leading straight to hell.
Jartham Gorebringer grinned savagely from within the center of the ritual circle. From here, he had access to every asset still left over from the Daemon Titan program. To be more specific, that included the hell-side links of the portals linking the still-gestating Dungeon Cores, the massive array of Hellfire Reactors that had been assembled to power the Daemon Titans, and the blood of 300 unfortunate Daemons who had been ritually sacrificed.
As the evil-aligned bodily fluids flowed through the complicated channels carved into the floor, Jartham began the chant.
"Power is my right to grasp in my talons."
A stream of mana from the reactor array flowed into the ritual circle, causing the daemonic blood in the channels to glow.
"I have claimed this power from the hearts of my lessers."
The red malignant glow flowed outwards from Jartham's position in the center of the ritual circle. In mere seconds it reached the thousands of developing dungeon cores, and coiled tightly around each one.
"All they could have been has been washed away, added to my own future glory."
In an instant thousands of Dungeon Cores were snuffed out, the mana making up their proto-souls being equivalent to thousands of mere mortals each.
"My enemies lie ahead of me, ready to be conquered."
This mana flowed into the ritual circle, the daemon blood growing more agitated as it was saturated with mana, and filtered it into Daemonic power.
"To conquer them is my right, as I have the will to see it through."
Only now was the reactor array tapped, gently feeding mana into the systems beneath the ritual circle. Not enough to do anything just yet, only enough to warm up the equipment for what was to follow.
"With power, glory, and the right of conquest, I make my will into truth."
There was a moment of tension, as it seemed reality itself was waiting to see what would happen next.
"Today, two worlds shall MERGE!"
Now the reactor array was fired to full blast, weakening the barrier between Hell and the material plane. However, the rift did not open just yet.
"I, Jartham Gorebringer the Fourth shall be the executor of this merger!"
The hell-side ends of the rifts previously leading to the developing Daemon Titans slammed together over the circle as the pent-up power was loosed, all of it contributing to make the biggest interdimensional rift ever created..
"RIFT BETWEEN WORLDS! I COMMAND YOU TO OPEN!"
And thus, the Inquisitor Daemon felt the power of Hell in its entirety flow through him as the boundary between dimensions was irrevocably rent asunder.
Unfortunately, by my estimates roughly one person in 500 considered that exact course of action acceptable. Considering the total population (not counting Dungeon Minions) was around 300,000,000 people for the entire planetary surface, that meant there were around 750,000 daemonic cultists active when I started. The subterranean nations, which already had effective non-dragon governance, had long-since already nearly eradicated Daemonic activity from their territory. After all, they'd developed the Mana Thematograph nearly 60 years before I came on the scene, and had put it to extremely good use identifying and eliminating Daemons. My recent gift of Dimensional Jamming Fields to them was simply icing on the cake.
Regardless of unfortunate statistics, the methodology was fairly straightforwards. I'd launched roughly 4,000 thematograph-equipped spy satellites into polar orbits, granting me near-total awareness of all magic use on the planet's surface. I didn't care about most of it, so I set the network to only send an alert when it detected Daemon, Evil, and Corruptor mana in the same location. I could have just gone looking for Daemon mana, but Tieflings existed, and with proper upbringing were quite capable of being decent upstanding people.
When the detection network located Daemonic activity, either I or one of my battleship minions teleported into the nearby airspace, before deploying a small army of Clockworks to locate and kill all the nearby Daemons, rescue any would-be sacrifices, and generally secure the area. Dimensional Jammer pylons were subsequently dropped, locking down the immediate area from further Daemonic influence.
With the tenuous approval of both the Amali public and the Supervisory Court, daemonic cultists were being summarily executed as enemy agents. The typical method of death for captured cultists was to render them unconscious with anesthetic gas, followed by an intense pulse of gamma rays to instantly fry their central nervous system. The negative sides of their souls were blocked from going to hell by dimensional jammers, and were funneled into a holy nuclear incinerator for disposal. There would be no future Wraith outbreaks if I had my way.
This had been going on for nearly a month now, and the task of policing an entire planet was really wearing on me, especially the fact that I had overseen the executions of almost 200,000 people personally. Inflicting so much death in such a cold, calculated manner made me feel deeply wrong. The only reason I was still going was because the Daemons wouldn't stop just because I'd thrown in the towel out of sheer disgust. No, I had to keep going until hell had lost any capability to exert influence on the world whatsoever. Regardless of how much I wanted to just turn in and go back to building up the country I'd founded.
And then, in one of the few places on the planet where I hadn't yet slammed down a dimensional jammer, the detection network practically screamed at me about a massive concentration of Daemon, Evil, and Corruptor mana. Setting my view to the peninsula in question sent a shiver of fear through me, as I got a good look at just how much mana there was. That wasn't a Titan-scale mana output, even accounting for super-spec reactors. No, that was a total mana output that dwarfed every asset I had by an order of magnitude. And it was being pushed entirely into enlarging a massive portal. A portal leading straight to hell.
Jartham Gorebringer grinned savagely from within the center of the ritual circle. From here, he had access to every asset still left over from the Daemon Titan program. To be more specific, that included the hell-side links of the portals linking the still-gestating Dungeon Cores, the massive array of Hellfire Reactors that had been assembled to power the Daemon Titans, and the blood of 300 unfortunate Daemons who had been ritually sacrificed.
As the evil-aligned bodily fluids flowed through the complicated channels carved into the floor, Jartham began the chant.
"Power is my right to grasp in my talons."
A stream of mana from the reactor array flowed into the ritual circle, causing the daemonic blood in the channels to glow.
"I have claimed this power from the hearts of my lessers."
The red malignant glow flowed outwards from Jartham's position in the center of the ritual circle. In mere seconds it reached the thousands of developing dungeon cores, and coiled tightly around each one.
"All they could have been has been washed away, added to my own future glory."
In an instant thousands of Dungeon Cores were snuffed out, the mana making up their proto-souls being equivalent to thousands of mere mortals each.
"My enemies lie ahead of me, ready to be conquered."
This mana flowed into the ritual circle, the daemon blood growing more agitated as it was saturated with mana, and filtered it into Daemonic power.
"To conquer them is my right, as I have the will to see it through."
Only now was the reactor array tapped, gently feeding mana into the systems beneath the ritual circle. Not enough to do anything just yet, only enough to warm up the equipment for what was to follow.
"With power, glory, and the right of conquest, I make my will into truth."
There was a moment of tension, as it seemed reality itself was waiting to see what would happen next.
"Today, two worlds shall MERGE!"
Now the reactor array was fired to full blast, weakening the barrier between Hell and the material plane. However, the rift did not open just yet.
"I, Jartham Gorebringer the Fourth shall be the executor of this merger!"
The hell-side ends of the rifts previously leading to the developing Daemon Titans slammed together over the circle as the pent-up power was loosed, all of it contributing to make the biggest interdimensional rift ever created..
"RIFT BETWEEN WORLDS! I COMMAND YOU TO OPEN!"
And thus, the Inquisitor Daemon felt the power of Hell in its entirety flow through him as the boundary between dimensions was irrevocably rent asunder.
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
Desperation.
Basically, Jartham ran out of actually effective ideas, so he's doing something stupid, insane, and desperate in the hope that it will somehow salvage the situation.
Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
If the hellverse is connected to Doom then the Titan doesn't need to do anything, because the Doomslayer is going to murder every single demon all by himself.
Doom is actually one of the better fictional 'universes with real demons' to be a normal human in; because the Doomslayer is more like an unstoppable force of nature that happens to look like a man in power armor than an actual person.
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We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
Curiously, on a scale of 1 (world's fucked, don't bother, lie down and accept your fate) to 10 (don't worry, they're friendly), where would you rate the Titan of Steel setting on the 'demons are a thing' scale?
Also, I'd like to point out that the Doom Slayer can only exist in one place at a time. There's no guarantee he'd get to your neck of the woods in a reasonable timeframe.
Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
Actually kind of difficult to tell at this point, prior to the Titan of Steel it was definitely a solid 2 - 3, but the Titan has introduced an element of escalation that could potentially push the score up as high as a 7, except that the degree of escalation implies that there are yet unrevealed bigger fish, which could punt the score back down again.
True, but the fact that he exists at all puts the Doomverse above many grimdark-verses, like 40K. The Doomverse has hope, it might take the form of a screaming berserker dual wielding rocket launchers while running at speeds of fifty miles per hour, but it is hope none the less.
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- Location
- Kansas
Oh, man, that's not going to attract the attention of heaven... no siry.
My biggest question is how he avoided getting shanked while all of this was going on. Especially since from the perspective of the higher-ups, it looks like he's getting ambitious.
I'm also left wondering what all the resources he's been commandeering were being used for before all this started.
And finally if exponential growth via Hellfire Reactor powering the creation of more Hellfire Reactors is possible
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- Location
- Philippines
so are they are making themselve into a dungeon soul?
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- Location
- Philippines, Manila, Tarlac City
*Doom Eternal Soundtrack begins to play in background*
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
Anyway, only two more chapters to go, then the epilogue.
- Location
- Pale Blue Dot
"Thou shalt not try to eat an energy field bigger than thy head."
Mind you, this could be a Diablo scenario where the angels are a bit... sceptical... about humans in general (demon summoners galore probably didn't help), but there are paladins, and even if the angels are a bit on the fence about the mortal races, things have been improving sharply lately, and it's hard not to see what just happened as "Hell just started rolling out its armies to aggressively expand." "Cold war just went hot" etc.
Being the battlefield in that kind of confrontation is NOT a good thing.
Mind you, even if the side of the angels just use that expansion as an opportunity to push on other fronts (other planets that are partway to becoming soul-shard farms etc), they really wouldn't want the planet to just fall, for a lot of reasons. So indirect assistance would probably be the absolute minimum, even if they are busy other places.
I don't think we actually have any information about the Heavens, strategies between the two or similar in this setting. So... well. We'll see how it goes?
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- Location
- Russia
Huh. It would be weird if the reason for Heaven's total inactivity is that Hell won and there simply isn't anyone there anymore, just an empty plane of light.
Why leave the plane. Eat it as well.
- Location
- Russia
Because the Plane of Light is probably made of stuff that is all anti-demon, and so eating it would give them planar diarrhea. Possibly lethal, mutually-annihilating kind of diarrhea.
LostArchivist
Sane, unfortunately.
- Location
- The State of Confusion
That "irrevocably" bit about opening the portal sounds like a problem. I'm going to assume the power requirements are something of a one-off, though, so hopefully it leads to the OTHER side than intended getting invaded.
Plans Ready
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
I have fully plotted out the flow of the final battle. I know how all the major events in it are going to go, and who will be the POV character for each part. I start writing tomorrow.
Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
The problem with doors is that they work both ways.
And that nobody cares if hell is turned into a radioactive wasteland.The problem with doors is that they work both ways.
Flutters Is Shy
Light the fire, it's time to write!
- Location
- Land of Ze Governator; In Perpetuity
Sooooooo, I see this ending horribly for anyone not on Clockwerks side of the portal. A flood of clockwork soldiers to stymie the horde of demonic dumbasses, then they construct an engine that is precisely the exact size of the portal. Simply slot the fire spewing end into the offending orifice, then hook it up to a crapton of power generators.
Simply leave and forget it for a while, until you figure out a way to close the portal completely.
Edit: heck, thinking about it, would they even have to worry about the propulsion issue? All the force being generated is being channeled into another dimension entirely, in such a hypothetical situation.
Simply leave and forget it for a while, until you figure out a way to close the portal completely.
Edit: heck, thinking about it, would they even have to worry about the propulsion issue? All the force being generated is being channeled into another dimension entirely, in such a hypothetical situation.
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