Regardless of the general enthusiasm among the people, digging didn’t start right away. It could take months before any serious work begins. For now, a team of paladin builders, with mapping skills, started marking out the site of the first excavation. It needs to be placed with maximum accuracy because after the start of digging horizontal tunnels, there is no way to correct any errors. Naomi suggested digging a few wells along the walls. They will be used for marking a direction and for ventilation. The place for the first was chosen in the middle of the distance between the southern and southeastern towers. It was selected because of its proximity to the Grand Forge Master workshop and will not block the entrance to one of the towers. According to Naomi, solid bedrock could be there around sixty meters deep. Next to the north tower was the shallowest place, around forty meters.

  “Dungeon Mistress, how do you know this?” Eriser asked in one of the meetings.

  “Because so deep is the foundation beneath my towers and wall.”

  “You build a foundation for your dungeon, too?” His eyes went wide.

  “Every building needs a foundation, and that way it saves me a lot of mana costs for maintenance of this floor.”

  “Yes. But why so deep?”

  “Because architecture isn’t my speciality. I don’t know how deep or how big the foundation for my towers should be. That's why I went for the safest option and built stone pillars thick as walls above ground, and reaching solid bedrock.”

  “Hard to argue with a safety for this. Anything built on solid rock could stand for thousands of years. But I can’t imagine someone building such a thing in real life.”

  “Actually, in the far future, when the outskirts of the town will be more or less plotted, we could build outer walls in the same way. We will have access to bedrock then and could try to build such pillars too.”

  “Dungeon Mistress, please stop. I understand that it’s in your nature to try one crazy thing after another, but please slow down. Building a city that encompasses your dungeon will take decades alone. Walls, while useful and probably should be considered, aren’t necessary. It's a dungeon city, and only cultists consider it a target. To attack us, they must cross the desert, and the sun elves will have much to say about that. Also, without the town, we couldn't even think to have enough soldiers to man the walls.”

  “I, just saying it. I know it will be hard to build regardless. It will require a lot of stone, which we don’t have.” Naomi answered, amused by the dwarven priest's reaction.

  While planning was progressing, adventurers slowly started bringing items from the forge from the eleventh floor. Until now, no one thought there was anything valuable there. After all, any scrap metal from the dungeon was worthless. The Grand Forge Master only placed orders for metal when he needed it. Even then, it was worth only one silver for a full basket that one person could carry. Outside the special orders, no one was buying even a single piece of scrap metal. Now they are paid two copper coins for each plate or beam. It wasn’t much, but adventurers were paid for what they managed to take out of the dungeon. Adventurers who fight specialize in small but valuable things, like mana stones. Supporting adventurers and porters takes everything that they could sell. All of them needed to remember that they can’t grab too much because it will hinder their travel to the nearest safe floor. It wasn’t uncommon for they to throw away their spoils. Also, reliable porters were always in demand. In On Taram, it was a bit different. Adventurers have the return amulets. Now they don’t need to throw away anything. The porters distributed orders for specific goods among themselves, and after completing them, they returned using ameluts. Adventurers on the other side, when they found something extra but bulky after the fight with the golem, paid a coper or two to a helper who was about to return. They also found a way to cheat a little. Turns out they don’t need to carry things on their backs. They need to firmly grasp a bag, sack of flour, or a metal plate to take it out of the dungeon. Outside, carts were waiting for the goods they carried. Naomi asked if she knew about it, and she confirmed.

  “I know about that, and don’t care. Everything works fine.” She said. But it does not because of some dungeon magic. It works because of mathematics. Grand merchants were gathering information for her about adventurers' income and the cost of living in her oasis. Naomi tried to adjust the odds of finding money and treasure so that no one would go bankrupt, but it also didn't cause inflation.

  The only thing that they wouldn’t get from the dungeon were rivets. And they will need dozens daily when construction works start for real.

  “We will need a few furnaces and dozens of blacksmiths to hammer bolts.” The Grand Forge Master said during one of the first planning sessions.

  “Actually, we will only need one master smelter, and maybe one blacksmith as supervisor of all workers in the workshop,” Naomi answered, and unfolded a piece of paper on which she sketched what she planned. “The usual method of making a rivet is creating a round rod from a piece of metal. And that means a lot of work, which we need to multiply by the dozen. We don’t have people, resources, or time for that. Instead, I propose doing it differently. First steel will be smelted in a crucible. It will be a small size that can hold two steel ingots. The one-foot, or thirty-centimeter-long bar, that weighs around ten kilograms. But instead of making ingots, we will be making one-meter-long rods. They can be square and don’t need to be perfect. One rod weighs a kilogram, so one ingot will yield ten rods. After a moment or two, the liquid metal should solidify enough for the rods to be taken out. While still red hot, it needs to be put into a rolling press.” She presented a diagram of it and how it works.

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  “Gods! A whole day of hammering in a few minutes.” The dwarven priest exclaimed.

  “But isn’t this machine encroaching on your prophecy from the fifth floor, Dungeon Mistress?” Serator asked.

  “That depends. For someone who aspires to become a blacksmith, even an apprentice blacksmith, this machine will indeed hinder his growth. But for someone like our Grand Forge Master, it’s a useful tool. He can’t learn anything new from making those rods. For him, it’s a waste of time, or at best helps him collect his thoughts before he starts real work.”

  “I wholly agree with Dungeon Mistress,” Eriser confirms her words.

  “Also, it will be in the foundry and used by workers working there. It will not affect their skills at all.” The Grand Forge Master approved that.

  “Good. The next step will likely be reheating finished rods, because they need to be soft before we cut them into smaller pieces. To not reheat it dozens of times, I built this cutting device.” She presented another machine. Rod goes through the hole, and the second person pushes the long lever down to cut the rod. Indeed, if workers were fast enough, they could cut a whole one-meter-long rod in one go. “And the final step will be making a rivet. For that, I recreted an anvil from my world.” She showed them something that barely looked like an anvil. It was just a block of iron on long legs with three holes. “You put the previously cut piece of rod into one of the holes. Each one has a different length depending on how long the rivet is needed. Then you cover the sticking out end of the rod with this tool with a dent and start hammering until you get a round head. Then you step on the lever and it pushes the rivet out.”

  “With all of this, we can build this underground city. All these tools and machines are indeed nothing new. Besides the rolling press, however, it is possible to make it. The gears came from the golems' Dungeon Mistress?”

  “Yes. And the first set of tools I will build for you myself.”

  “Dungeon Mistress, are you allowed to do that? Building toys for the nobility is one thing, but delivering something like that to us is another matter entirely. Isn’t that the dungeon masters are sent only to teach and inspire us?” Serator asked.

  “True. That's why I’m allowed to make only one copy of each. Then any repairs or new construction will be on your shoulders. And Grand Forge Master?”

  “Yes, Dungeon Mistress?”

  “I expect improvements to my designs and new uses in the future.” Naomi smiled.

  “I’m already thinking about changing the shape of the roles in your press. If I do that, I will be able to get any shape I want.”

  “That is exactly what I wanted to hear.” Naomi smiled. “I will also make a large bucket of rivets.”

  “Thank you, Dungeon Mistress. However, rivets we could make ourselves when the foundry is built,” Serator politely declined her offer.

  “Those rivets will be exactly for building the foundry. You can’t place the furnace and all those machines just on the sand. You need a proper floor for that. So why not use this opportunity to learn a few skills that will be needed later?”

  “Hard to argue with that.” The Grand Forge Master laughed, and Serator politely nodded.

  Two days later, she indeed appeared on the surface with a large bucket full of rivets.

  “Have fun.” She smiled.

  “We definitely will have a lot of fun.” The Grand Forge Master smiled, too. “Any tips?”

  “Everything is on the twelfth floor. And a little bit on the fifth and eleventh.”

  “How much time do we have before machines will be ready?”

  “As much as you need.” Naomi shrugged. “I have around three weeks to get enough mana for the new floor. It’s enough time for me to build them. If you managed to build a platform for them, you can install them immediately. If not, they will wait. Haste made waste.”

  “True.”

  While Naomi was busy, Eriser found seven people eager to learn this new building method. And they had a lot to learn and a lot of new tools to prepare. One was a small mobile furnace to heat the rivets. And they can’t be just red hot. Instead, they discovered that they need to be heated until they become bright yellow. Thankfully, the Grand Master Unroh, who came here to study golems, agreed to build it. They need his expertise because it needs to be powered by a fire mana stone. Another issue was with the fittings connecting the plates. It turns out they can’t be just flat, because the floor starts to buckle despite its weight. After studying the floors on the twelfth floor, they learn they needed to add perpendicular beams to stiffen the whole floor. They made them from a ten-centimeter-wide metal plate acquired from the eleventh floor. Just when they thought they had it all under control, someone pointed out that the rivet heads shouldn't stick out if there's no floor covering. And there won’t be, because wood will burn from the drops of liquid metal, and they don’t know how to fasten stone to the metal. This necessitated widening the openings on one side of the slabs. Despite all the inconveniences, work progressed, and the level of craftsmanship improved, even resulting in the development of several new skills. There wasn’t any doubt anymore. The Smith approved their work.