by Matthew Peed
“And you are?” Regan asked.
“A tier three mage . . .” I said with a blush.
“That woman will be back. I have no doubt about that, and you need to talk to Lines to find out if what she stated was true,” Regan said as his body started to fade a bit.
“Yes, Dad,” I said sarcastically.
“Good girl,” Regan said, more mana than solid at that point.
I laughed at my own stupid joke, then looked at my office. Quin’s thrashing had knocked over many things, and there were splatters of blood on the ground. I looked up to Wrakras, who was still standing there after the other guards went chasing after the blood mist.
“Wrakras, my friend, I need you to do your thing and see if you can find that woman before she becomes a problem,” I said with a sweet voice.
“As you command, my lady,” Wrakras said with a bow, though his face showed his displeasure.
Once he left the room, I sent a burst of lightning that arced around the room, burning all the blood away. With someone who could control blood like her, I wasn’t going to take any chances. With that done, I sat in my chair and began working on maintaining a low-level field around me as Regan said. With my thoughts faster than before, I was able to get the basics down quickly, but maintaining it without focusing was another matter. It would require some work.
~~~
In a field on the other side of the valley wall toward the Thonaca Kingdom, a bloodred mist condensed into human form. The form was thrashing around, obviously in intense pain. The figure reached around with one of her arms and tore out a chunk of flesh from her chest, easily revealing the organs and still-beating heart inside. She did this several more times, creating a large cavity in her chest that would allow one to see clean through.
She threw the bloody chunks to the side, then leaned against a tree as her wounds healed slowly, her overall size shrinking as they did. Her face was still a mask of pain, but it wasn’t the soul-twisting pain from before. Finally, the wound healed after nearly an hour, and the woman breathed a sigh of relief.
“Regan . . . what kind of monster are you?” Quin said, fear shadowing her expression. She hadn’t felt such pain in nearly a thousand years. The desire for revenge burned in her heart, but she couldn’t see a way to make it happen. At least she had as long as she wanted to figure something out.
Chapter 21
Regan
I made sure the Quin woman was gone from town by checking the data I automatically collected against every person to have entered it during the last few days. My ability to process all the data nearly instantly as something like a subprocess that ran in the background made me glad to be a dungeon core. A strange energy signal came from the other side of the valley wall, so I dispatched a few of my scout automata to hunt her down, though I assumed she would likely disguise herself as an animal or monster easily enough.
Afterward, I returned to Alpha, and we lifted anchor to continue heading west toward the other dungeon core in the north. I hoped it would still be independent of the necromancers, but I could only brace myself for the answer. I planned on meeting it physically while we helped the dryads back to the soil and dealt with the traitor fleet.
The presence that was resisting my passage through the forest was greatly reduced but not entirely gone. I guessed it was likely Alara herself, but I wasn’t completely sure. I hadn’t been able to get an end goal from any of the necromancers I’d questioned so far. Most just wanted more power and cared little for the bigger picture. My main clue was that a Celestial who was struggling against Lelune in their civil war in Celestia was behind them.
While I understand turning more people to your word—as Izora and the few she had managed to persuade to follow me was giving me a nice dose of mana—I was sure the number of followers this Celestial commanded should be much higher. Just the gnome crews alone were several thousand souls. I needed to work on some more anti-Celestial spells, knowing they wouldn’t be bodiless like Duilin had been when I’d captured him.
The fleet started moving again, able to pick up more speed this time with the presence weakening. We crossed the last half of the forest in a fifth of the time it had taken to cross the first, the lack of treants being the main cause for our speed increase. Large swathes of the landscape appeared ripped to pieces by the treants that had left for the other sections of the massive forest surrounding Alara.
I issued orders to the bridge crew. “Set course for the next dryad. If you encounter resistance, deal with it. Continue sending units into the surrounding areas to rescue the mutated beastkin.”
We had already saved three hundred forty-five beastkin from the forest. They were able to hold their own surprisingly well when they got into large groups. The biggest factor for their survival was the fact that they were immune to the corpse poison. They would still become undead if they died with the poison in them, but the poison itself would not kill them.
I let my avatar dissipate, then felt for the various dungeon beings I could communicate with. While I was flowing along the link to Alara, the familiar scene formed in front of me. Normally, Alara showed only the basic amount of facial expressions: a small smile, a little frown. Today, though, her face was devastated and tears ran down her cheeks.
“Alara!” I shouted, then made record time getting through the chains that bound her. She opened her eyes and stared at me.
“It was the dryad wasn’t it?!” I asked, worried about the effect this was going to have on her. She was already tortured enough. I worried that the dryads were her source of mental strength.
She nodded carefully, just enough to let me know. I frowned at the thought that each time we “helped” one of the dryads, we would be hurting her like this. Even if I used a barrier surrounding the area of the dryad, not to mention the mana requirements, once the barrier fell, the link would still be severed from the dryad’s death.
“Do you want me to stop?” I asked, not sure which answer I expected.
Slowly, so as not to shift the chains, she shook her head within a space of a few millimeters. She must have known what was becoming of her children and wanted to free them of this nightmare. I gave her a knowing smile, as my death was supposed to kill my creations back on Earth even if it pained me to do so.
Alara cried for a long time with me carefully holding her. Eventually, she calmed down, then looked at me expectantly. I answered the unspoken question. “Soon. I am heading toward the other dungeon right now while helping your dryads and a fleet of mortals. I don’t want to get struck in the back while I’m next to you.”She looked at me with a smile in her eyes as if she understood. I was glad that she wasn’t upset; she could get childish, which in hindsight was probably a good thing, considering the conditions she was experiencing. I stroked her hair to help her calm down some more.
“I promise to show you the world after I rescue you,” I whispered.
She nodded with her eyes, then her face crumbled as if she’d heard something unpleasant. Sure enough, the scene around us started to break apart, and soon I was back, mentally, on Alpha. She must have been called on by her masters. I wanted to spit at the thought of someone forcing her to do anything against her will.
I checked the position of the fleet and decided to go ahead and contact the other dungeon since my visit with Alara was cut short. I just hoped the individual didn’t reject the communication, as they hadn’t tried to communicate with me either. I moved my senses through all my territory to make sure everything was alright. I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, but I made sure my systems were set to handle anything I had encountered so far. It appeared that I’d fallen into one of the biggest problems with robotics in that I had trouble adapting to new things right as they are happening.
I sent the desire to communicate to the other dungeon, then waited. It took a while before I got a message back. Maybe the individual was unused to having someone to talk to, given Alara’s uncommunicative state. The mindscape formed around me
, mine the same with its futuristic designs. The other side’s was a jumbled mess, if you were to ask me.
It looked like someone had shoved a half-built castle into a swamp. The ground turned to a semiliquid state, and vines grew over stone walls that would make up the keep in a fort. Groups of fireflies created the light, which gave it a muggy feeling. As I took all this in, I could only hope the individual was able to speak and wasn’t still on the base level of the dungeon. A throne made out of moss-covered wood completed the picture.
A swirl of green and yellow mana formed over the throne as a figure appeared. It was a goblin. Clothed in only a loincloth, he looked at me as he picked his nose. At least he wasn’t covered in warts and boils like the ones I had dispatched so long ago when I’d first created my dungeon.
“You serve dark ones?!” the goblin yelled once his form was complete.
“Huh, no,” I said, caught off guard.
“General Gersa no believe you!” the goblin yelled back at me.
“Are you Gersa?” I asked.
“GENERAL Gersa! I kill many necromancers! So many they leave me alone!” Gersa shouted in anger.
“I understand, General Gersa,” I said, making calming gestures. “My name is Regan. I’m a new dungeon to the south. I’m on my way to confront Alara so that the north can be free again.”
“Bah! Free again?! The north chooses this path themselves!” Gersa said with a frown, which didn’t do much to help his appearance.
“Chooses? How so?” I asked.
“King of north wants to live forever, I hears. Found a path that requires a lot of death,” Gersa explained, standing from his throne to grab a frog. He threw the whole thing straight into his mouth before biting down with a loud crunch.
“Just because the king chooses the path, doesn’t mean all his people want to take it with him,” I said, shaking my head.
“General Gersa believes this too. Before the blackening, Gersa was a popular dungeon with people from all over the north coming to me. Gersa was never hungry in those days. Now Gersa is forced to live on a small town inside his body. Gersa was smart and does not eat of the tainted mana outside his walls, or Gersa will lose Gersa,” General Gersa explained, his speech flipping between structured and not. He also confirmed what had happened to me a while ago when I was absorbing the unholy taint straight into my core.
“I am heading toward you if you need any help,” I offered the creature.
“NO! General Gersa is fine on his own!” the goblin refused, crossing his arms. Gersa paced a few times before turning to me. “You says you not an ally of the dark ones?”
“No. Strictly their enemies,” I answered with a smile that may or may not have been soothing with my robotic face.
“General Gersa would like to warn yous, then. If you reallys plan to attack Alara, you must defeat her dryads first. The dark ones have done terrible magics on them, giving the higher one access to the north. That’s why they be so powerful,” he explained with a serious face.
“General Gersa, I appreciate the information you have given me,” I said with a small bow, then thought for a moment. I created a hologram of the goblins in my dungeon. “You may not want help from me, but how about some help from the goblins living in my dungeon?” I asked. I created an image of a few of the goblins.
General Gersa looked over the hologram for a long minute before he said, “These no goblins! These humans!”
“I assure you, they are goblins. They just have no access to the ambient mana.”
“What use be they if they can’t use mana?” General Gersa said, annoyed.
“They have other tools and weapons that can be of use.”
The general threw himself back onto his throne and frowned at me for another minute. He cleared his throat, then spit onto the floor next to him. “Very well. I will accept these goblins for now.”
“Very good. Anything you would like to tell a new dungeon?” I asked just to see if the old general might have a tip or two that might be useful.
“Don’t use your avatar near the dark ones,” General Gersa said, nodding his head sagely.
“Thank you,” I said with a bow.
“When this is over, let us fight to the death in our avatars to see who the better warrior is,” he said with a wicked grin.
“Indeed, is there no harm with destroying our avatars?”
“It hurts!” He grimaced, then with a wave of his hand, added, “But that it.”
I nodded in reply. This was good news for when I encountered Alara. I had a feeling I wasn’t going to be able to just take off the collar that bound her. The necromancers were most likely going to do everything in their power to stop me, including turning her on me, just basing that on my own combat strength.
“I thank you again, General Gersa. We will speak again, hopefully face-to-face,” I said with a grin.
General Gersa nodded, then his mindscape broke apart around him, mine following shortly afterward as I released the connection. Taking in everything around me, I moved to the main dungeon and looked for Tony. I found him in a nice-looking office that reminded me of the classic gangster movies on Earth. He was counting a stack of coins while smoking a cigar.
“Tony,” I said as I formed my avatar in his office.
“Ah! Oh, boss, it’s you!” Tony said as he grabbed his chest.
“Business is booming I see.” To my shame I really hadn’t been paying attention to the goblin city as much as I should have been. As long as it didn’t explode, I left them alone for the most part. I would have to make an effort to work on that when my current objective was finished.
“Yes! Goblins are lovers of coin, especially coin as nice as the boss’s,” Tony said, rubbing a coin between his fingers. He looked back up to me a moment later. “What can I do for ya?”
“I’m going to build a small ship, and I want you to choose the best of leaders. They will be going to a goblin-run dungeon to see if they can provide aid.”
“Interesting. Whichever family I choose will receive the benefits that come with the achievement,” Tony muttered.
“How are the families getting along?” I asked, curious.
“It is a balancing act,” Tony said, then pulled the sleeve of his suit back. Where there should have been green goblin skin was now a gear etched with silver metal that transitioned between circuity on the surface. Tony ran his hand over it, then said, “Boss’s mana is changing us into something new. Many will not want to leave here if it means delaying the change.”
“May I?” I asked, gesturing to his arm.
“Of course.”
I placed my hand on the arm. He was still flesh and blood underneath, but his skin was some type of living metal. I could see the nerve receptors that allowed him to feel still firing at my touch. I was sure his sense of pain would be dulled, but for a wearing world like this, that was almost a blessing. I could also see that his muscles were starting to change as well. I realized it might take a few months or even years, but given time he really would change into something completely new.
“Fascinating!” I said honestly as I examined him. It appeared that only taking in my mana was causing the change. That made me wonder if the ambient mana contained some type of balancing mechanic to keep regular mortals from changing based on their environments. However, from my understanding, it seemed mortals were more likely to exhibit fire mana when near a source of fire during their youth. That was why there were more Terra mages than any other branch; they were literally always near a source of terra to influence them.
“Many more are like me, and each occupies a position of influence within their family. So as I said, it will be a hard choice for anyone to leave the dungeon,” Tony said, rolling his sleeve back down. “However, if they do well, they will look good in your eyes, which is a new level of honor for most here.”
“Make it happen. The ship will be ready in a few hours. I won’t say it will be a safe trip, but they’ll be making it mostly in the upper
atmosphere, so there will be little danger during the journey. It’s dealing with the dungeon and survivors once you get there that will be the hard part.”
“I understand. It sounds like it’s time for another tournament,” Tony said with a wicked grin.
“Have fun,” I said, then dissipated my avatar.
I moved over to the forest tower to check in on them. The amount of mana I was gaining went up daily there, and I wanted to get an exact count of the number of people currently staying there. Moving my consciousness through the town, I saw hundreds of people moving about on the street. I was impressed with their operation; they had only been working on saving slaves for a few weeks now and were already at this level.
Sweeping through the forest tower town, I quickly counted all the mortals I found. Once I finished, I moved over to the census bureau, something I’d created when I’d designed the tower. Every person who came to live there was required to come to the census office and register so that I could keep track later down the road. I planned to offer some benefits to those who actively brought people to the tower or helped the newer groups settle in. A carrot to motivate them. The final count came to just over seven hundred people.
I added all the security measures that I’d implemented in the valley town. I wanted it to be safe from a certain redheaded woman who had a tendency to blend in with the crowd. The obelisks would check for people with a high level of water mana, then cross-check that with the database the town kept along with the one my own dungeon senses kept. It allowed me to learn a lot of interesting things about the people living there. For instance, one man was sleeping with seven women and another man. It almost made me want to make one of those scandal magazines that Earth had loved during the early two thousands.
Zuthon was much fatter than the last time I’d visited. I was still providing him two meals a day of roughly half a ton of bacon. I didn’t even bother to wonder if he was weaker, as I could tell that his mana level was steadily increasing, and he was close to breaking into tier three. It appeared the bacon made in the dungeon was good for monsters and mortals by giving them a boost to their mana absorption.
