Everlast Online

Fortunately, and sadly, there was a lot of grave soil in Liz's territory and gathering it took little to no time at all.

As testament to how awful the previous lord was, there were so many unmarked graves in the area that it made up 90% of the town's space. The graveyard was so large that it only took around an hour to dig up enough dirt for the first grave digger - and from there the reduced conditions were uncovered and no more dirt was needed.

Liz smiled as she looked at the grave diggers she had created, especially the first, who she had given the name: Ralt.

Ralt and the other grave diggers were large undead with grey skin hidden beneath black cloaks. Their bodies were hard and rough like stone; holding strength that could easily shatter brick - not that they would have to thanks to their earth magic.

The grave diggers could create both large and intricate holes to dig through, while their earth-magic attacks were limited, Liz saw their use in tunnelling. Seeming them work allowed Liz to formulate a number of siege breaking strategies where they dug below a city in order to create tunnels other undead could charge through.

Other than that they could also make use of tools like a shovel and pickaxe in melee where they were exceptionally strong. 

Liz looked at the large collection of undead, the muscular, but cloaked grave diggers taking up the front - Ralt taking the frontmost position as a commander of sorts - flanked by a large number of skeleton miners who made up the majority of the force. Liz had designated them the Excavation Squad as she felt it had a nice ring to it and separated them from the majority of her undead that were entirely used for combat.

Liz stored away her undead, absorbing them into the [Book of Damned Souls] with [Final Will and Testament] so that she could move more easily. From there she headed over to where the dungeons were located.

She, her 2 soul bound undead, and Luthor stood on the frigid flats, barren of anything beyond the 7 dungeons she had just conquered; Liz enjoyed the somewhat strange sensation of having her own mind in each of the dungeons thanks to [Soul String] as well as the connection she felt to each of her undead hidden within.

"Time to get to work then." Liz said, summoning the excavation squad out; starting with just the grave diggers as skeleton miners would not be of much use at the moment.

"Ya just wan' us diggin' then?" Ralt asked, lugging his pickaxe over his shoulder; it was slightly larger than the other grave diggers, a change that only occurred after the naming.

"Some of you, yes." Liz responded, finding the way he spoke refreshing after having to listen to Luthor's excessively respectful tone, "I want a couple of your grave diggers to flatten the land around the dungeons like this."

Liz handed Ralt a map that allowed him to see the general area Liz wanted to build her city on. Liz was most excited about the grave diggers terraforming abilities; their main earth-type ability was what Ralt called [Earth Shaping] which allowed them to control the dirt and stone within a certain range. With the ability they could not only dig, but also flatten or elevate areas, making them perfect for terraforming - an unintended side-effect that even Luthor hadn't anticipated.

"Got it." With that, Ralt let out a piercing whistle and the grave diggers began to move without Liz's instruction.

Around three quarters of the diggers went with Ralt while the rest began moving to flatten the ground beneath them. They moved in a specific pattern, allowing Liz to see they were heading towards the border of where Liz wanted to build while flattening as much land as possible. Ralt's group on the other hand headed towards the midpoint of all the dungeons, the section Luthor had designated to be equidistant from all 7 dungeons.

From there the earth began to move at incredible speeds and it wasn't long before the entire troop had disappeared, leaving Liz with nothing to do. There were the occasional monsters wandering the wasteland, but nothing that couldn't simply be swatted away.

This left Liz with nothing to do but consider how she might employ workers; she asked Luthor about undead labourers, but apparently there were no such undead.

"Apologies, My Lady, but there had really never been a need for labourers." Luthor had explained, "There are many undead for specific tasks, but when simple labour is needed, skeletons are what are chosen."

Luthor had even listed off some of the undead she could possibly summon, like farmers, blacksmiths or even alchemists - as Liz had suspected - but there were limits to what they could do. A skeleton blacksmith had predetermined limits that could never be surpassed, while a living blacksmith would possess the creative ability to surpass their limits and become better.

The only way to improve a lifestyle undead would be to evolve it into a higher species, just as Luthor had said would be possible for himself.

However, there were alternatives; unfortunately, Luthor didn't know of any - just that they existed.

Left with that thought, Liz simply sat waiting for something - the 2 groups of diggers working to complete their tasks. Garnet was also present but she was over with Gloria and Eren, nodding her head excitedly at whatever it was Eren was talking about at the time; Gloria remained stoic and silent.

Around an hour later one of the gravediggers came up from the tunnel and headed over to Liz.

"Boss found somethin'." It said, capable of speech, but not having the same intelligence as a named undead.

Liz nodded and moved towards the hole that led into the ground, surprised to see it was transformed into an easy to traverse staircase - likely on Ralt's orders. So, following behind the grave digger, Liz descended deeper into the ground - the complete lack of light doing nothing to hinder her.

It wasn't long before she could hear the subtle rumbling of earth that came from [Earth Shaping]. Ralt and his workers soon came into sight in a rather shocking way; enlarging and smoothing down a large empty cavern.

"Heya, boss!" Ralt called out with a wave of his arm. Liz walked over, careful not to trip on the rocks as she looked around at the place she had found herself in, "Pretty cool cavern, eh?"

Liz nodded, but her gaze continued to skim over the cavern. It was not exceptionally large, but still more than enough for her and her undead to move around freely - especially with the gravediggers forming a number of walkways with their [Earth Shaping] ability - and more excitingly there were a number of tunnels leading deeper into what seemed to be a cave system. The holes were near-perfectly round with varying sizes, but still being much too small for the gravediggers to move through, so it was clear they had not formed them especially when considering the sheer number that covered the walls.

"Seems unnatural, prolly got some monsters down here making tunnels or summin." Ralt explained as he seemed to give an order to one of the diggers who was making a platform to store things, "No special metals yet or anythin', but with the amount a mana comin' from the ground it's only a matta o time."

"I concur, My Lady." Luthor said, giving Ralt an irritated look, "I believe it is most likely that there is a large supply of ore that can be claimed. However, these tunnels are worrying as they definitely seem to be made artificially."

"Speak o tha devil." Ralt interjected, pointing out one of his diggers who was now making his way over to Liz's group. From his pickaxe was a large worm-like creature with stone-like , leaking black blood all over the cavern floor. Running her hands along the worm's flesh Liz thought it was similar to the texture of the walls of the cavern.

Now dead, Liz couldn't inspect the monster to see what it was, but nonetheless Liz recognised the possible threat and summoned undead.

"Ralt, how long will it take to make this a defensible location?" Liz asked, looking around and realising the size of the cavern they found was surely not a coincidence.

"Hmmm. Maybe an hour? Why?" He responded, but before Liz had a chance to explain, the stone beneath them began to rumble with the tunnels as their source.

It didn't take long for the culprit to reveal themselves as similar, but larger, worms emerged from the holes with horrible screeching that echoed from their gaping mouths. Their only feature was a mouth full of razor sharp teeth that would crush anything that entered it into a fine powder, and with their long bodies swinging around it wasn't long before both rocks and grave diggers were being ground into a blood mess. More frighteningly though were the magical spells that were being launched from within their mouths, arrows of rock that rained down in the cavern; piercing through many grave diggers.

Luckily, Ralt was quick enough to raise a wall of stone to protect himself, Liz and Luthor. Garnet on the other hand enveloped both Eren and Gloria with her own body to protect them. Liz watched as more grave diggers took after their commander and began to erect walls of stone to protect themselves; however the intensity of the attacks soon caused the walls to begin crumbling - even Ralt's wall did not seem as though it would last long.

"Whada we do, boss?" Ralt called out as he swung his pickaxe at an approaching worm, crashing against it like it was meeting stone. Liz took the opportunity to inspect one of the monster to see what it was she was dealing with:

[Stone Eater (83) (Monster)]

Liz figured that the monster would eat stones that then allowed them to create something of an exoskeleton out of it. This limited what she could do. 

With their wide range and powerful teeth, further supplemented by an environmental advantage, most melee based undead would be unable to do anything to stop them so liz removed them to stop them from being destroyed. This left her with only her archers and mages who were having trouble dealing damage.

The arrows of the archers were not strong enough to penetrate the stone exoskeleton while the mage's spells simply were not fast enough.

It was then that an idea came to mind.

Why limit myself to only ranged? Liz thought. Why not simply overpower them?

So, Liz brought out an undead she had only used to fight once: Her undead giants. So far, Liz had only used them to defeat the boss monster in the blizzard field as its size made it a struggle to deal damage to.

Now, however, Liz had them grasp at the worms that whipped their bodies around wildly and tear them apart. Within the confined space Liz could only summon 3, but it was more than enough to turn the tides of the battle.

Black blood rained down upon the grave diggers as Liz's giants grabbed one worm after another and literally pulled them apart. Because there were so many worms, even the slow giants did not struggle to get ahold of enemies and any attacks were ignored due to their massively enhanced endurance. With Liz taking the advantage, her other undead could begin assisting, Garnet undoing her protective body-barrier and allowing Eren to begin healing the giants as they took damage.

Gloria and Garnet also assisted in taking down enemies as Gloria cut through them and Garnet combined both the giant's tactics and Gloria's by transforming her body into blades. As she absorbed their blood into her own body, Liz watched Garnet become darker and darker until she was entirely black.

It didn't take long for the worms to realise they could not win, and so they disappeared back into the caverns in defeat.

It's troubling that they seem smart. Liz thought, not having the ability to follow behind them yet.

Looking around there were many corpses on the cavern floor, the worms shrinking when they were defeated to become a similar size to the first corpse Liz had seen. Skeletons and zombies were sent to use Liz's [Dismantle] skill on the bodies, gaining multiple rocks as well as flesh in return.

There were no levels gained for Liz and Gloria, but Eren rose to 87 and Ralt and Garnet - as level ones - increased massively.

"Ralt, focus entirely on making this place defensible. We're going to use it as the centre of operations for the mining." Liz commanded, realising it was in her best interest to establish herself in the caves first, "I want those holes sealed up as deeply as possible while I have my puppets focus on making more grave diggers."

"Got it." Ralt responded, before beginning to issue orders to his digger.

Liz focused her mind into the puppet she had left in the [Goblin Vault] dungeon, she looked around and quickly found the bone slayer she had left in charge.

Uh... T-Tella? Liz sent through her psychic connection to her undead, when the bone slayer turned to look at her - offering a small bow - Liz realised she had remembered the bone slayer's name and continued. Up the number of goblins killed, I need to make some grave diggers.

"Understood, Master." Tella responded, calling out to the undead stationed around her.

Goblins were a type of monster with very high virility, more so than even the berks or orcs, but in return, using them as ingredients for undead made the subsequent undead a little less powerful. Unfortunately, Liz needed more grave diggers and quickly, just in case any more stone eaters came to attack.

Liz next sent her mind to both the orc and berk dungeon to give similar orders. Their spawn rates were slower, but nonetheless they still reproduced exceptionally quick.

"Make a room over here." Liz commanded, bringing out a grave digger that had already been created thanks to goblins, that then dug out a room that she could use to command from. She gave certain instructions for furniture to be made before sending it to help the others.

Liz activated [World Map] to show the image she was able to gather from the cavern, showing only the room they had found themselves in and the tunnels that spread in all directions.

"First order of business is to conquer the underground." Liz smirked, ready to take whatever laid hidden beneath the wasteland of her territory.