(Well... that took fucking forever...) I sighed, completely exhausted but still with a smile on my face, at least the xenomorph equivalent anyway.
"Still, it really all came out great."
Floating high above were dozens of islands suspended in the air by clouds of gold; each world varied in size, some being massive landmasses while others were far smaller. Each one represented a different biome and had large numbers of wildlife wandering their landscapes. In fact, I had actually sped up time around some of the islands to allow the creatures to multiply rapidly; I then transplanted some of them to the various lands below to begin populating them.
There were also two islands that were far more unique, to say the least. One had a surface covered in a blanket of red shades, filled with strange alien creatures that were all too familiar to me. The top of the island was surrounded by a large, somewhat misshapen dome of sorts.
This dome was made to stop the flying creatures from escaping, and just like the time I tried to use the system to create houses, the dome was probably the hardest thing to make. Thankfully, the creatures and plants did use oxygen, so all I had to do was get everything set up and create small openings in the dome to allow air in and out. It probably wasn't the most professional or polished version of an isolated ecosystem, but it was the best I could do with the tools I had at the time.
Anyway, in addition to all of that there was, of course, the first island that I had created: a jagged, rocky landscape of interconnected floating platforms. An island that was now inhabited by a few thousand worm-like creatures that were currently burrowing through the rock and dirt to eat the various minerals and metals beneath.
"I really did outdo myself this time around, huh?" I hummed to myself while sitting in a field looking up at the sky.
(I've done a lot of horrible things in the short time I've been an alternate, but... I can count this as one of those moments that I'm actually proud of.) I thought with a slight chuckle.
"I probably could have been a little less lazy and spent some time indoctrinating the creatures that I got from the trial, though." I sighed before shrugging it off; I really was becoming a workaholic.
(Well, whatever. It's not like I plan on using them in battle or anything... at least not as they are now.)
Honestly, the reason i hadn't bothered indoctrinating most of the creatures from the trial was because I was already fed up after spending who knows how long adding all of the individual Lekgolos to the hive mind. Still, I'd have to get it done at some point, but for now I really couldn't be bothered, especially considering the group I had to indoctrinate next.
(Huh?) My thoughts were suddenly interrupted when I felt a familiar sensation. (Oh, it's her...)
"It's been a while since anyone's contacted me through the hive mind." I mused as I opened the link.
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(Yeah, I probably should have seen that coming. Jonas has been focused entirely on the pathogen since we got back.) I thought, feeling a little frustrated. (I could just order him to do it; however, I'd rather not push the issue if I don't have to.)
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Instead of answering, she asked her own question. <
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It wasn't hard to understand the unspoken question she was asking there. <
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She didn't argue with that; she just continued with what she had to say next. <
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Yep, the just-over-one-hundred or so Yautja that I had bought were the next thing on my list I needed to get sorted out. I had honestly been putting it off because it had taken me several days to indoctrinate the Yautja I already had, so the idea of doing the same to over a hundred of them filled me with genuine dread.
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(I think she's actually starting to warm up to me.) I laughed inwardly to myself the space around me warped; a second later I was somewhere new.
(So then, let's see what they have don-) I suddenly cut that sort off when I saw what was in front of me.
When I had left for our little trip I had increased the speed of the time flow inside the sanctuary slightly. About a month had passed in that time, and if you add on the few days I had been working on the floating islands as well as the overall sanctuary expansion, then it's been about thirty-four days, give or take, since they began their construction project. Thirty-four days isn't a small amount of time, mind you, but still, I didn't expect them to have time to build this!
In front of me was a bloody ziggurat of all things, and not a small one either. It definitely wasn't complete, mind you; there were parts of the structure that had yet to be fully finished, and there were several places on the outside that seemed to be for statues that had not yet been constructed. Despite this, large sections of it were already finished from what I could tell.
I wasn't an expert on geology or ancient history, but the structure looked like a mixture of different ancient architectures, a fact that kind of made sense to me, I suppose. From what I can remember, it was the Yautja that taught people how to make these types of things in the movies, after all.
Anyway, the overall structure itself was stunning, to say the least, even in its incomplete state. It had this feel about it, so to speak; it felt as if it was both incredibly ancient but also shockingly advanced and futuristic at the same time. The two large, half-finished Yautja statues that were standing tall at the base of the structure on either side of the stairway leading up, only added to this rather imposing feel.
"Well damn..."
(They've really been putting in the work, huh?) Of course, synthetics had helped a lot as well, but this was still impressive.
"Clan chief?" a sudden familiar voice echoed from behind me.
Honestly, that little surprise nearly caused me to jump out of my exoskeleton, considering I wasn't really paying attention in that moment. Whirling around, I glared at the two Yautja that had suddenly appeared behind me.
"Don't sneak up on me like that!" I hissed.
"Our apologies," Ootora said, although he sounded somewhat pleased with himself.
"A-anyway, I see you have been hard at work." I huffed, deciding to just let it go.
"Indeed we have, though thanks to our lack of equipment progress has been relatively slow," Anow'ka mused, sounding frustrated.
(She calls this slow...?) I thought with a somewhat deadpan expression.
"If we had access to more of our people's technology, we could have finished it much quicker," Anow'ka mused, with what I believed to be the Yautja version of a sigh.
Her words were then followed by Ootora's as he nodded in agreement. "Unfortunately, acquiring such equipment would take longer than we would like."
"I see..." I breathed, deciding not to ask what type of equipment they were referring to. "Ahem, moving on, I came here to see how your progress is coming along."
"Would you like a tour?" Anow'ka immediately offered, and once again Ootora followed up.
"We would be honored to guide you throughout, if you so wished."
"Sure, why not..."