Skull Island
Ernst stepped out of the spatial distortion and into the vast, cavernous expanse of Warehouse Zero.
The air was thick with the smell of ozone and the hum of heavy machinery. Dozens of technicians and logistics personnel were actively engaged, using heavy-duty loaders to transport massive, golden, egg-like constructs.
It was evident that the retrofitting of the Golden Legion was already well underway.
However, Ernst's sudden, unannounced materialization immediately drew the attention of the perimeter security detail.
They hurried over, assault rifles raised.
"Don't move! Raise your hands and drop to your knees, or we will open fire!" the squad leader shouted, his voice echoing off the high ceiling.
The sudden shouting startled the civilian workers. The orderly scene instantly descended into chaos.
The sounds of running boots and panicked shouts filled the air, catching the attention of more guards and prompting a facility-wide alarm to begin blaring.
Realizing his hasty arrival had caused a panic, Ernst calmly raised his left hand and snapped his fingers.
Crack.
A localized wave of psychic stasis washed over the warehouse. The chaotic scene promptly quieted. Every single person in the vicinity stood perfectly motionless, frozen mid-step or mid-shout, held perfectly in place by an invisible, telekinetic grip.
At that moment, the heavy blast doors opened, and Ernst's most trusted butler, Kerry, hurried in. Equipped with a bespoke protective amulet crafted by Ernst, Kerry was immune to the stasis field. He remained mobile and approached his employer, taking in the frozen tableau.
"Master Ernst?" Kerry asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Why are you here? What happened?"
"Ah. My apologies, Kerry," Ernst sighed, lowering his hand.
"I arrived in haste and bypassed the designated portal office. My sudden appearance spooked the workers. It's a minor error. I will erase their short-term memory of the last three minutes. Please comfort them when they wake; I'll wait for you in your office."
With another snap of his fingers, Ernst vanished.
As he disappeared, the stasis field collapsed.
Everyone regained their mobility instantly, stumbling as if awakening from a sudden daydream, completely oblivious to the panic that had just occurred.
"Alright, everyone," Kerry called out smoothly, clapping his hands.
"Excellent drill response just now. There will be bonuses in your next cycle. Now, back to work, and let's keep the chatter to a minimum."
Kerry casually managed the confusion, leaving the workers slightly bewildered but eager to return to their tasks. He then swiftly walked to his private office.
Upon seeing Ernst sitting comfortably in his leather chair, Kerry promptly bowed.
"Master Ernst. Have you come to inspect the Legion's transformation? You need not come personally; a simple comms request, and I would have delivered a full report."
"No, Kerry," Ernst said, shaking his head.
"This time, I came for raw materials. I recently acquired a superb, conceptual magical item, and I need to build a physical framework for it. Considering the sheer quantity of conductive magical metal required, I thought of utilizing the leftover scrap from the Golden Legion's transformation."
Ernst leaned forward. "After the redesign, the new Mark I Legionnaire has an anti-gravity flight system, rendering its original mechanical legs completely useless. I need to know how many you have removed so far."
"Mechanical legs?" Kerry pondered for a moment.
"Ah. Due to the careful nature of dismantling the runic structure, only five hundred pairs of mechanical legs have been removed from the chassis. Is that sufficient? If not, I can instruct the engineering staff to expedite the process. Dismantling the rest would only take three days."
"Five hundred is more than enough," Ernst nodded.
"Provide me with all five hundred pairs. Keep the rest disassembled and stored in the auxiliary vault. We might need the alloy in the future."
"Understood. Please follow me."
Kerry led the way out of the office. After navigating two winding corridors, they arrived at a sealed, secondary warehouse.
Kerry unlocked the heavy door, revealing a dense, disorganized mountain of massive, golden mechanical legs.
Ernst removed a small, seemingly ordinary canvas backpack from his shoulder.
He opened it, aimed the opening toward the mountain of scrap, and channeled his magic.
The heavy mechanical legs began to vibrate before floating up and flying in a rapid stream directly into the small backpack.
Astonishingly, the canvas bag swallowed all five hundred pairs of massive legs without even bulging.
Though Kerry had witnessed this kind of spatial manipulation before, he remained quietly astounded.
A simple bag, enchanted with an advanced Traceless Expansion Spell, was a logistical marvel.
After slinging the heavy-laden backpack over his shoulder, Ernst bid farewell to Kerry and warped directly back to his laboratory.
Upon returning, Ernst wasted no time. He extracted the mountain of mechanical legs and began the grueling process of alchemical forging: disassembling the parts, melting down the magical gold, burning new spatial and structural runes into the metal, and reassembling it.
After three solid hours of intense magical labor, he had successfully crafted a standalone structure.
It resembled a small, ornate pavilion, roughly the size of an ordinary telephone booth.
Originally, the metal had been the brilliant gold of the Legion, but Ernst found that far too ostentatious.
With a wave of his hand, he transmuted the exterior to a matte, obsidian black, adhering to his preference for a more low-key, intimidating aesthetic.
Subsequently, Ernst invested hundreds of rare spatial-energy crystals, crushing them and weaving their dust into the pavilion's interior architecture.
He drastically expanded the interior dimensions using an advanced Traceless Expansion Spell, transforming the inside of the tiny booth into a vast, sprawling area spanning tens of thousands of square meters.
Carved into the lintel above the entrance of the small pavilion was a stark inscription in AllSpeak:
THE DEVIL'S CABIN
Below it, etched in smaller, elegant script, was a warning:
"Do not interfere with the Devil's rest unless you bring satisfactory sacrifices. The consequences will be dire."
Moving past the exterior design, Ernst turned his attention to the interior decoration.
Within the massively expanded space, he constructed a cutting-edge architectural layout.
He deployed hundreds of small, spherical service robots, controlled locally by a sub-routine of the Red Queen, for maintenance and customer service.
Originally, Ernst had planned a stereotypical "dark and gloomy" aesthetic to match the devilish theme.
However, he reconsidered. If he wanted people to feel comfortable making deals, they needed to feel relaxed, not terrified. Thus, he embraced a unique, contrasting style.
He installed numerous, hidden lighting fixtures that perfectly replicated warm, natural sunlight.
He added lush grass screens, classical marble statues, and even a specially designed, cascading water fountain to evoke a serene, welcoming atmosphere.
At the very pinnacle of the central trading platform, Ernst enshrined his masterpiece: the Golden Balance.
Its unique conceptual rules now governed the entire interior space of the Cabin.
Any contract signed within its confines would be absolutely bound by its terms, witnessed by the Earth itself.
The next and final step was to establish a network of channels connecting the Devil's Cabin with the outside world, facilitating access for potential clients.
Initially, Ernst had designed the Cabin as a physical pavilion to be moved around, intending to just teleport it to different cities.
However, deeming that too inefficient, he decided to employ a network of permanent spatial doors.
Standing at the interior entrance, Ernst looked back at the door. From the outside, the door was just over two meters high, set into a small booth.
From the inside, however, that same two-meter door was embedded in a massive, blank wall over a hundred meters long. It was a dull facade.
But not for long.
Floating beside Ernst were one hundred uninstalled iron doors, identical in size to the main entrance.
They were forged from the remaining material of the Golden Legion's legs, featuring intricate spatial runes.
The smaller, delicate runes on the doorframes served as the anchor, designed to carry and stabilize the volatile power of a permanent wormhole.
If the runes failed and the spatial tether snapped, the doorway would become a lethal guillotine.
Once prepared, Ernst wheeled over a heavy, specialized generator topped with a large, glowing blue space-energy crystal.
He activated the device.
A concentrated beam of blue light shot out and struck the blank interior wall, tearing open a three-meter-diameter, swirling spatial wormhole.
Ernst swiftly used his telekinesis to embed one of the iron doors directly into the rift as the wormhole shrank.
The raw spatial energy merged with the doorframe.
The runes flared with a blinding light, resisting the crushing pressure of the collapsing wormhole, forcing it to stabilize into a permanent, two-way spatial door.
As Ernst stared at the lit runes, relief washed over him. The wormhole stabilized perfectly without collapsing.
The other end of this specific space door had just quietly opened onto a brick wall in a dark, forgotten alleyway in Queens, New York, offering direct access to the Devil's Cabin.
Whether it could bring Ernst the unique trades he desired now hinged entirely on luck and human curiosity.
Boosted by the success of the first gate, Ernst confidently repeated the grueling process.
He fired the generator, embedded the frames, and anchored the runes until all one hundred doors were successfully in place along the massive interior wall.
Simultaneously, supernatural phenomena occurred worldwide.
Inexplicable, obsidian doors quietly materialized in various, disconnected locations: the back wall of a London pub, the roof of a Tokyo high-rise, a secluded mountain trail in the Alps.
With everything completed, Ernst exhaled a long breath. He felt a profound sense of accomplishment.
The sheer allure of a mysterious, unopenable door was bound to attract human curiosity.
Eventually, people would figure out how to open them and discover the Devil's Cabin. Once they left, rumors of the site would spread in the underground world, drawing those genuinely desperate enough to make a transaction.
For Ernst, it was finally time to harvest.
Throughout the next day, Ernst stayed in the Devil's Cabin, eagerly awaiting his first customer.
However, he grew increasingly bored and slightly despondent as hours ticked by and no one arrived.
It was understandable. The sudden appearance of an obsidian door was peculiar, and the ominous inscription "Devil's Cabin" deterred casual exploration.
The uncertainty of what lay inside, and the primal fear of releasing something evil, kept potential visitors at bay.
Even those who found the doors hesitated, unsure whether to turn the handle.
Bored and seeking to pass the time, Ernst found a full-length mirror near the fountain.
Standing before it, he began to craft a suitable "devilish" persona for himself.
The purpose of the Devil's Cabin was to exchange his surplus inventory for unique resources, but Ernst intended to maintain absolute anonymity. Hence, he needed a flawless disguise.
Embracing the cabin's theme, he commanded the nanobots in his suit to flow upward and coat his face and body, constantly altering his physical appearance.
He experimented with various classic demonic tropes. He tried a pointed head, reptilian scales, leathery bat wings, and fierce, elongated claws.
Looking in the mirror, Ernst frowned. He remained entirely dissatisfied, deeming the traditional demon appearance too ugly and cliché.
No one wanted to negotiate with a monster.
Ultimately, he settled for a much more subtle, elegant look. He retained a pair of small, curved obsidian horns protruding from his hairline, but otherwise incorporated the striking, flawless features of classic Hollywood stars.
He created a fresh, handsome, almost ethereal youthful look, complete with tailored dark clothing.
It was a face that inspired trust, laced with just enough danger to command respect.
Just as Ernst perfected the angle of his new horns in the mirror, a heavy, metallic clunk echoed through the vast chamber.
One of the hundred doors along the wall slowly swung open.
His first client had arrived.
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