The crimson church stood silent beneath the afternoon sun, its jagged crimson-metal towers gleaming faintly. From the outside, the building merely looked strange—eccentric, almost—but inside, something far more dangerous was taking shape.
On the uppermost floor, Luthar stood at its heart, surrounded by a skeletal frame of reinforced alloy scaffolding. The walls glinted with polished, circuit-etched panels, and the ceiling above had been retrofitted with a segmented, retractable plate.
Steel clinked softly as a servo-skull hovered low, clamping another stabilizer into place with surgical precision. Luthar watched the readouts flicker on his floating dataslate:
Shock Lattice: Stable
It was not yet a reactor. Not truly. But the bones were there.
The compact reactor core he'd acquired the schematic for would eventually rest here—suspended in a cradle of magnetic fields. When complete, it would power the church, the Mechanica shop, the lab below, and perhaps even more one day.
"Vertical launch ejection enabled," he muttered, brushing gloved fingers across the embedded control runeplate. A cylindrical column embedded in the floor responded with a low mechanical chime.
In the event of a meltdown, the system would jettison the core straight through the retractable ceiling and into the sky—violent salvation.
Luthar turned his gaze downward, inspecting the wiring conduits stretching through the floor—snaking their way into the heart of the church. Each was labeled and logged with meticulous precision: power distribution, shielding, and diagnostic relays. A web of purpose. Slowly, the church itself was becoming a circuit.
After a final glance at the vacant containment ring, Luthar turned and descended.
The central hall shimmered with filtered sunlight cast through gold-edged panes. Dust drifted lazily in the beams, catching like memories in the still air. Below, the hammering of construction gave way to quiet—cool and serene.
Hestia stood near the threshold, straightening the hem of her tunic with ritual care. She wore her usual white-and-blue garb, but her hair had been tied more neatly than usual, the iconic ribbon clasped with a silver pin.
She was preparing to leave.
Her eyes met his. "The Denatus is today," she said without preamble. "Formalities. The Guild requires every god to attend."
Luthar gave a curt nod, arms folded. "Divine politics wrapped in ritual. What could be more sacred?"
She smirked faintly, though it didn't reach her eyes. "Better than a divine tantrum. I'll be gone a few days. Depends on how loud the egos get."
She adjusted her ribbon's clasp again, then hesitated. Something lingered behind her silence—an unsaid worry or thought—but she let it pass. With a final glance back, she stepped toward the entrance, her sandals echoing softly across the polished crimson floor.
Luthar watched until the doors closed behind her.
Later, back in the reactor chamber, he stood before the half-assembled frame, now reinforced with a higher grade of metal he'd salvaged from his private reserve. The tempered alloy gleamed beneath the artificial light.
But the calculations had made one thing clear—he'd already used most of the high-end materials in his possession. What remained were common ions and base metals easily acquired from the market—if one had the coin.
True alloys—mithril, adamantite, or divine-forged composites—were another matter entirely.
Even if he had the funds, acquiring more than a few kilograms of such materials was nearly impossible. There was no such thing as buying a ton of adamantite.
Looking at the formulas for Plasteel and Adamantium, only one thought echoed through his mind: replication. Plasteel—still feasible. The composition could be altered slightly, impurities tolerated, and the structure reinforced by more advanced methods. It wouldn't be perfect, but it could match the quality. But Adamantium... Adamantium was another matter entirely.
It wasn't just a medal. It was a relic of dead stars and forgotten forges, alloyed in conditions that bordered on the mythical. Even the Mechanicus treated its production as sacred—ritualized, barely understood.
Was there truly no way to synthesize Adamantium? He can use variants of plasteel, but without adamantium, everything he built would fall short.
Just thinking about how many materials and technologies he had to research was giving him a headache.
He lifted his hand, fingers twitching slightly as he reached to call up the schematics.
Then everything went black.
No alarms. No dramatic collapse. Just silence.
As the world returned slowly. Fuzzy lights The weight of exhaustion pressing down like gravity.
The ceiling was familiar. It was his lab ceiling, softly illuminated by maintenance strips and diagnostic runes. He tried to move and felt something tug at his arm—cables, disconnected IV lines, and a sensor harness peeled aside and left hanging.
He turned his head slightly. Liliruca stood nearby, arms crossed, her small form backlit by the soft blue glow of a terminal screen. Her cloak was off, and her hands were still gloved, dusty from bags of supplies piled by the door.
Luthar exhaled slowly and asked. "How long?"
Her voice was clipped. Tired.
She moved closer, boots making the faintest scuff against the metal floor. A folded blanket was tucked beneath one arm, but her hands paused as she looked at him properly—really looked.
There was a tremble in her brows, a tightness at the corners of her eyes. Frustration, yes—but something raw behind it.
"I got everything you asked for," she said, placing the supplies on the edge of the bench with practiced care. "Everything on the list."
Her tone dipped. Cracked slightly at the end.
Then she turned, finally meeting his gaze. Her mouth pressed into a thin line, jaw clenched tight. "Next time you feel like dying," she muttered, "maybe you can tell me in advance."
For a heartbeat, she said nothing more.
Then her brows drew together, and she glared at him—really glared. "Don't you always claim you're the smart one, the calculating one?" What was the plan, huh? Just drop dead next to your fancy ejection system?"
She bit her tongue, eyes glassy now. Angry. Relieved. Furious with herself for feeling either.
"Idiot," she whispered, barely audible. "You absolute idiot."
Luthar's breath rasped as he gave a silent mental pulse through the neural link. The nearby servo-skull beeped in acknowledgment, drifting off with a low whir of its grav-thrusters.
Moments later, it returned with a small injector. The capsule clicked into the armature, and without ceremony, it pressed against his neck.
A hiss. A sharp sting. Then fire.
The stimulant surged through his veins like molten wire. Painful clarity followed. His muscles twitched—then he moved.
He sat up slowly, joints aching, breath catching in his throat. Muscles screamed in protest, but they obeyed under the effect of electroos and his will.
Only then did he glance toward Liliruca. She was still watching him, arms crossed tightly across her chest, the mix of fury and worry still carved.
Liliruca didn't speak right away. She just stared, arms still crossed, eyes scanning his face like she was waiting for him to crack in half again.
Finally, her voice came—low but steady.
Luthar inhaled, mechanically and slow. "Overexertion. Neural overclock, metabolic suppression—I pushed past the safe threshold."
She blinked, processing. "That's... not an answer. You passed out cold."
"I use a drug to keep myself awake for 7 days," he said, glancing at the disconnected sensors hanging from his arm. "After 7 days I was too busy, so I suppressed the alerts and continued to work, which started neural degradation and irregular synapse cycling."
Her eyes widened. "Can't you just simply sleep?"
"I do not have time for that."
Liliruca looked somewhere between horrified and furious. "So you kept working. For a week and a half. While your body—what, decayed?"
"My external system kept me mobile. Some augmentations can bypass a lot of normal physical fatigue, but the brain... the brain is different It reached its limit."
She rubbed at her temple, paced a few steps, and then turned sharply. "Luthar... why? Why push that hard? You could've died alone on that floor. Is this really worth it?"
He glanced toward schematics still floating faintly in his vision, then back to her. "Yes."
That single word landed heavy.
She stared at him, silent.
She sighed, long and exhausted, and began unpacking the supplies with slightly more care this time. "You're getting real sleep."
Luthar leaned back, eyes half-lidded. "Don't worry, I am not that stupid."
She gave him a sharp look.
He lifted a hand in mild surrender.
"Fine, just remember to check out the shop. As for the dungeon, I don't think you need to go for a while; we already have data for the first 15 floors."
She sighed again, quieter this time. Her posture shifted—shoulders slumping, the tension leaking out of her frame like steam from a cracked pipe.
"Fine," she muttered. "I'll go check on the shop."
She paused at the door, looking back just once.
"And You I don't want to see you working when I come back."
Luthar raised an eyebrow but said nothing. The servo-skull gave a soft chirp, perhaps in solidarity.
Liliruca didn't smile. But she nodded—just once—and slipped out, the door hissing shut behind her.
Silence returned. Just the hum of reactors and the faint glow of dormant schematics lingering like ghosts above his vision.