Lost in Transit

30

^^ The Core ^^

I was known for my tendency to overdo things, that was a fact.

Whether it was making a statue too big, too detailed, too ambitious, or a blueprint too geometrically perfect, (though I disagreed on principle with the premise of anything being too perfect,) I had a well-known streak of End Results easily qualifying as 'Extra'.

'I think I've outdone myself.' I sighed, looking at the construct before me.

The bottom portion of the space had been turned into a massive ball of slime, essentially; slime that was made of Hard Light, and therefore while it could have the same effects as the Crystal Heart, if couldn't be taken over by any crystals thrown into it. A 'Core' in the center of this ball was the artificial center of gravity for the Demiplane, but the massive ball of slime and all its accompanying pieces were encased in a cube made of (fake)Adamantite. Atop this cube was the various interactive aspects of the construct, such as where all the materials that were purified by the slime were deposited, then collected by the golems, and where all the garbage or metal was dumped in.

The slime created by the Core, however, was real, and therefore different from the (fake)slime; it was a commodity we needed to collect. How to do so, considering it was highly acidic and instantly lethal to anything that touched it? Simple, really; it didn't actually have the ability to touch or harm living creatures. As it was made of Hard Light, it was easy to manipulate, even for me, and so the fake slime itself was in charge of collecting the real slime, and pouring it into a gargantuan pool atop the cube that was siphoned and filtered just like the tower. The fact that the interior of the Cube was -50 degrees Fahrenheit and the slime was therefore as thick as syrup made it much easier for the fake slime, (unaffected by the cold,) to collect and remove the crystals from the real Silicon slime.

The crystals went into one collection bin, and the slime into the pool, effectively separating them and giving them no chances to create monsters, even if the Core wasn't working properly.

The Core... that was definitely something I'd gone overboard on. Using some of the last of our reserves of Adamantite, I'd made a thin ring-shaped tuning fork, about twenty feet in diameter, then I'd made hard light additions in a gyroscope fashion until I had a half-sphere with an open top and bottom, when it was still. In the center was placed the Crystal Heart of the new Dungeon, (as I hadn't dismantled the tower just yet,) and the rings were set to spinning, ringing at a frequency I was happy I couldn't hear. This would be the first line of defense, shattering any crystals that grew too big autonomously. Around that was a series of interwoven bars also made of (fake)Adamantite, which, when coupled with the (fake)Adamantite walls and floor and ceiling, all vibrating and sending out that sound, made the entire ball of slime, as literally massive as it was, (about 330 feet across,) incapable of forming shapes. This was the third line of defense, in case anything went wrong.

The golems I'd made from the Hard Light responded to my orders just like the others, and they patrolled all six sides of the cube, (the center of gravity was inside the center of the cube, so you could walk on all of the sides,) ready to hunt down any slimes that escaped.

The other side of this was another cube, but this one was full of dirt, and it was where I was farming rice, wheat, and Cotton. I hadn't been able to make cellulose with the Hearts, which made sense, so Cassidy had surprised us all by synthesizing a cotton plant from a shirt she'd dissolved in some type of acid; apparently, Cassidy was a Molecular Biology and Modern Agricultural Methodology Dual Major, (Hydroponics, Aquaponics, Superfoods,) and she just didn't tell any of us because she thought it made her seem like a nerd. (Which it did, and we teased her about it, though none of us could actually say anything, except maybe Johann and Sam, the only people who weren't nerds.)