Bender of Worlds

by Isaac Hooke

  Tane swiveled to glance at the structures encircling the clearing, looking for ambushers, but so far nothing seemed out of the ordinary about any of them. While he waited for the others to get down here, he ran an ID on the ring, not really expecting it to work, but he got a full description. Likely the artifact had installed more into his mind than simply the memories needed to create level one Dark and White Essenceworks. Or maybe his newly updated chip was just that good—it was possible it contained IDs on all the different items that had been created throughout history. But that would have meant that Tiberius had publicly cataloged all of his gear at one point, which Tane didn’t think was likely.

  Item: Finger of Malevolence

  Item type: Legendary Ring (part of the Shroud of Darkness Set).

  Additional Effects: 55% chance to launch Fingers of Ruin every two minutes, at the same level as your current Fingers of Ruin, as long as you continually redirect a small amount of the Dark into it. These works don’t count toward your experience level in Fingers of Ruin—you won’t level simply by wearing the ring and Siphoning through it.

  Darcanium bonus: +1 Intelligence while equipped.

  He stowed the apple-sized artifact in his storage pouch, and slipped the ring over one of his gloved fingers. He wasn’t sure it would work, but the dark item shrunk to fit his bulky finger, and a notification appeared on his HUD:

  Intelligence is now 27 with Beam Hilt I, Chrysalium Star rings, Feral Necklace, Finger of Malevolence, and Nova Bracelet I equipped.

  Dark Siphon into Finger of Malevolence for 55% chance to launch Fingers of Ruin every two minutes,

  Nice.

  Still cloaked in his blurring field, G’allanthamas arrived at his side and settled on the lakebed. Sinive, also surrounded by a dark sphere, joined him a moment later. According to the overhead map Jed was there, too, but remained invisible.

  “Time to get the hell out of here, as you humans say,” G’allanthamas commented.

  A distortion tunnel appeared three meters in front of Tane. He could see the shuttle sitting on the rocky surface beyond, outlined in the dim light emitted by the lake.

  Tane felt the pull from that tunnel immediately as the liquid hydrocarbons were drawn into the distortion—it was like a plug had been lifted from a drain. That made sense, given that the atmospheres were different on both sides of the tunnel. The same thing had happened when Lyra had opened a tunnel into a voided hangar aboard one of the alien ships, and the oxygen in their current compartment had been sucked through.

  A distortion tunnel would be a good way to drain a lake if it could be kept open long enough.

  The four of them were all sucked toward the rip in spacetime.

  But then Tane froze in place just before touching the opening. Beside him, Sinive had also frozen. According to the map, G’allanthamas was stuck behind him as well. Jed was no longer present on the map at all: he must have gone through.

  Tane tried to bend his arms, but he couldn’t do it. He could move his face and that was about it. He tried venting oxygen via the control interface of his HUD, but that didn’t help either.

  “Uh,” Sinive said.

  Liquid continued to gush past: he could feel the pressure on the fabric of his suit at the back of his arms and legs. A spider robot slid along the lakebed between Tane and Sinive and passed through the tunnel.

  “I can’t maintain it,” G’allanthamas said. “I’m sorry, Doomwielder. I’ve failed you.”

  The distortion tunnel winked out. The pressure from the gushing liquid let up. Tane and the others remained frozen in place in the clearing.

  Tane saw them then. Previously blocked from view by the distortion tunnel, six dwellers floated in a half circle before one of the crystal structures that bordered the clearing. The aliens had obviously emerged from the tunnel at the base of the crystal. They were all naked, with not a one among them wearing an environmental suit, nor were they surrounded by the protective spheres he had witnessed on Remus. Their bare carapaces seemed iridescent under the dim light from the glowing crystals.

  Tane had no doubt they were Amaranth. Who else could freeze him and his companions where they stood, and prevent them from passing through a distortion tunnel?

  The dark globes that blurred Tane, Sinive and G’allanthamas lifted.

  Tane glanced at the overhead map. Jed’s indicator had returned. He’d obviously leaped back through the opening when he realized what had happened, and vented oxygen against the pull long enough to latch onto the lakebed. He was still invisible. And moving, according to the overhead map. Very slowly making his way toward the dweller half circle. The Volur was obviously dragging himself along the lakebed; he wouldn’t dare vent oxygen, not when the bubbles might reveal his position.

  Good man!

  One of the Amaranth wore a metal box attached to the base of its head, just above the tentacles. It was smaller than the others, with half of its tentacles missing. Tane thought it might be the same dweller he had met on Remus, the one whose knobby limbs had started to fill out with muscle when it began to steal the artifact’s Dark Essence from him.

  The speakers in his helmet picked up garbled words emanating from that box, and Tane quickly applied some frequency modulations to the sound with his HUD, hoping to compensate for the effects of the liquid. The helmet AI quickly found a pattern and took over so that the words became intelligible.

  “Do you see, M’Jaelinthenus?” the dweller said, its sideways-oriented head tilting slightly to address the alien beside it. “I told you he would come to this planet first, rather than the other.” The alien angled its head back toward Tane. “So we meet again, Doomwielder. We keep encountering one another under strangely similar circumstances. I suppose it helps that we’ve been camped out here since your little stunt on Remus. And oh look, this time you’ve taken along a friend for us to play with.”

  G’allanthamas was furiously launching dark smears at the other dwellers, but the works of Fingers of Ruin invariably swerved aside before touching any of the six aliens.

  “Why have you betrayed your people to help him?” the lead dweller continued. “To follow him. He should be the one following you. As all of the Hated Enemy should.”

  “My people?” G’allanthamas said. “I consider him more a member of my people than you are!”

  Tane ran a quick ID on the speaking alien.

  Name: Unknown

  Race: Dweller

  Level: 35

  Class: Amaranth

  Weaponry:

  None

  Shielding: None

  Base Armor rating: 0

  Total armor rating (including shielding): 0

  The dweller’s level was the highest Tane had ever seen, which made him wonder if it was fake. Then again, it would explain why the dweller had seemed so impossible to defeat in their previous encounter.

  “This time we won’t try to convince you to join us,” the lead dweller said. “This time we’ll get straight to business. You are familiar with the control chip technology used by the Hated Enemy? We have developed our own variant. It is fully compatible with your brain tissue. We tested it on many Volur kidnapped from your universe. It is a much better long term solution than the control a microcrillia infection gives us, considering that microcrillia inevitably kills your kind. We want you alive and serving us for a very, very long time.”

  The circular ranks parted, and a spider robot jetted forward, its long legs dragging behind it like the tentacles of a squid.

  Tane started up the Repel Nanotech work. Two minutes. All he needed was two minutes.

  I should have started as soon as the dwellers showed up.

  From the description of Repel Nanotech, it sounded like if it was used shortly before the nanotech was injected, it would prevent the chip from forming in the first place. Assuming it worked against this particular branch of the tech.

  One of the aliens broke ranks to accompany the robot as it approached Tane. G’allanthamas frantically lau
nched the dark smears of Fingers of Ruin at the machine, but the enemy dweller with it was apparently strong enough to raise a work of Deflect around the two of them, and those incoming smears were diverted harmlessly. After three throws of Fingers of Ruin, G’allanthamas had apparently exhausted his final reserves.

  The robot halted in front of Tane and rotated its legs downward to settle on the lakebed. The dweller hovered by its side as the robot stood to its full height, so that its metallic head was at the same level as Tane’s. Those pincers opened wide, and for a moment Tane thought it was going to latch onto his helmet and try to break through the faceplate or something, but instead a bright light flashed from within and momentarily blinded him.

  It was taking a brain scan, no doubt in preparation for chipping.

  Through the afterimage of that brightness, Tane watched a panel open underneath the carapace. Two telescoping limbs emerged, one carrying a vial. He realized it was going to swap out his suit accelerant with nanotech, and force the internal sonic injector to activate—just like the TSN robot had done to chip him.

  He didn’t have the two minutes he needed.

  Tane abandoned the Repel Nanotech work and stepped into the Essence through all the Chrysalium accessories he was wearing, except the hilt, which he hadn’t equipped. He dismissed the notification that appeared on his HUD:

  Siphoning bonus. All Branchworks are enhanced 30% due to Siphoning through Chrysalium accessories.

  The extra stellar wind shrieked into his core, and he attempted to slam an Essence Missile into the robot, but it was also deflected. He launched another. And another. He knew that the enemy’s Deflect Essencework would remain active only for a short time. Tane hoped to strike in the downtime interval before the escorting dweller could raise another.

  “You can launch your Essence Missiles into these robots all day if you wish,” the lead dweller said from the far side of the clearing. “M’Jaelinthenus has loaded up his reserves with Deflect. You do know Essence fields can overlap? M’Jaelinthenus will simply create a new one before the previous expires. But feel free to exhaust yourself if you wish.”

  Tane remembered the dweller starships he had faced after Remus, when he had destroyed a fleet. Back then, his Essence Missiles had easily passed through the works of Deflect the enemy ships had created, but that was because he was Siphoning so very much of the stellar wind into his Missiles, drawn through the Chrysalium core of a starship. Here, his Missiles weren’t backed by such an Essence source, and were simply too weak, even with the Feral Necklace, at least compared to the relatively high level of the Deflect work he faced.

  In a final act of desperation, Tane tried to unleash two more Missiles in rapid succession, but both of them failed to form. He realized the dweller accompanying the robot had probably laid a Disrupt work upon him, which would prevent him from creating any Essenceworks for a short period of time. It was similar to the works starships used to disrupt the distortion tunnels of fleeing enemies, but on a smaller scale.

  Tane stepped out of the Essence. He felt extremely drained. That was probably because of the Feral Necklace—while it boosted his Essenceworks to the next level, making them more powerful, it also meant each work would drain him a commensurate amount.

  Yes, he felt almost sick. Then again, the sickness may have been due more to his failure than anything else. He had come all this way for nothing. Led his friends right into a trap. And now he was going to get chipped again.

  Those telescoping limbs closed with his glove. Tane still had access to his HUD: he could raise his energy shield, but it would stop the enemy only for a few moments before it was drained.

  His hand lifted of its own accord to meet the spider robot’s limbs. Tane still had Melt Metal in reserve. He wondered if the enemy dweller had to lower the Deflect work to allow the machine to make contact with him. No, from what Tane knew of Deflect, it could be kept active even during contact. And what about Disrupt? Wouldn’t it prevent the reserve Dark work from setting in this universe in the first place?

  Well, either way, Tane had to try.

  But before he could release the work, Jed flashed into existence, his glowing Chrysalium sword cutting the robot in half. Tane could see the jet of oxygen emerging from the nozzles on his torso, the added propulsion boosting his swing.

  His sword continued on toward the dweller, but Jed was abruptly slammed into the lakebed by an invisible hand, and he remained there, pinned.

  The two pieces of the robot floated gently to the lakebed beside him.

  “We have more,” the lead dweller said.

  Another robot came forward from between the aliens.

  Wonderful.

  Yes, there was nothing Tane could do. He was going to have two control chips in his head. One human, and one alien. Maybe they’d cancel each other out.

  He doubted it.

  He wondered if Disrupt had lifted yet. He tried to start the necessary Dark timeline and White Branchwork.

  It worked.

  Still, he didn’t have the two minutes he needed to complete it.

  Maybe he could find a way to stall them.

  As he watched that new robot approach, inspiration struck.

  He suddenly realized why Tiberius had left Infuse Oxygen inside this particular artifact. And it wasn’t just because it was a level one work and thus appropriate for Tane to learn at his current Dark and White Mixing level.

  For any sort of explosion, you needed fuel, a spark, and an oxidizer. The liquid hydrocarbons all around him were the fuel. Persistent Flame would serve as his spark. And Infuse Oxygen was his oxidizer.

  And it only had a thirty second creation time.

  He canceled his previous work and started up a fresh Dark and White Mixing combination for Infuse Oxygen.

  As he toiled, he remembered how the Amaranth had avoided all the Essenceworks Lyra and the rest of the team had thrown at them on Remus. An explosion likely wouldn’t even move these powerful creatures. But it wasn’t the dwellers Tane was trying to move…

  “Guys, you might want to raise your shields,” Tane said over the comm.

  He accessed the remote interface on his shield, and activated it. Then he focused on that timeline, doing his best to ignore the approaching robot. He kept expecting the nearby dweller to clamp another work of Disrupt over him and ruin the work, but it never came. Either the alien didn’t think Tane was a threat, or the dweller didn’t have the necessary work in reserve.

  The machine joined the waiting dweller, and once more flashed a light into Tane’s eyes to take a scan. The afterimage didn’t affect Tane’s creation—he could still see the White Branchwork, and the Dark flames around it.

  The robot’s bottom panel opened up and two telescoping limbs emerged. They moved toward his waiting glove.

  His shield flashed as those two limbs encountered the outer extremities of the energy field and were halted.

  Shield Strength 90%.

  Tane finished the work. He positioned the Infuse Oxygen volume in front of him at the maximum one-meter distance. It enveloped the enemy dweller that stood in front of him, as well as the robot.

  Shield Strength 70%.

  Tane unleashed a stream of Persistent Flame.

  27

  The level boost from the Feral Necklace caused the fire stream to rocket out two meters in front of Tane. Bright red light filled his vision as the flames ignited the oxygen-infused hydrocarbons, and a huge fireball enveloped the space in front of him.

  He had successfully created an explosion between himself and the aliens.

  Tane was sent hurtling away through the thin liquid.

  Shield Strength 0%.

  The fireball faded away as he was swept backward by the shock wave and he saw the crystalline structures passing by below. He was able to move his arms—he’d broken free of the invisible vise that held him.

  Tane jetted downward, taking cover within the crystalline buildings, which were well beyond the clearing.

&n
bsp; He glanced at his map. His team members had similarly been thrown from the clearing. Jed thrust to his side, and he was joined a moment later by Sinive and G’allanthamas.

  “Nicely done, Engineer,” Jed said.

  “Keep moving!” Tane said. He jetted forward, intending to put as much distance between himself and the clearing as possible. He stayed low, darting between the crystalline structures. “Gall! How about that distortion tunnel?”

  “I only kept the one in reserve, I’m afraid,” the dweller said. “I’m creating a new timeline as we speak…”

  “How long?” Tane said.

  “Seven minutes to go,” the dweller said.

  Damn it.

  “Don’t suppose you have some blurring fields in reserve?” Tane asked.

  “No,” the dweller said.

  A school of eight dwellers appeared ahead. Like G’allanthamas, they methodically moved their legs back and forth, paddling toward the group. They held energy launchers in their tentacles.

  Jed thrust ahead, becoming invisible.

  Tane withdrew his beam hilt and stepped into the frigid cold of the White Essence through it, as well as through all his accessories. He fed some of the Essence back into the hilt, causing the dual-bladed energy ax to erupt.

  Siphoning bonus. All White Branchworks are enhanced 48% due to Siphoning through Chrysalium accessories.

  He reached for the flames of the Dark through the Finger of Malevolence ring, and fed some back into the ring just as he did with the beam hilt.

  Siphoning bonus. All Dark Essenceworks are enhanced 1% due to Siphoning through Darcanium accessories.

  Finger of Malevolence effect engaged: 55% chance to launch Fingers of Ruin every two minutes.

  A user interface appeared on his HUD. He almost dismissed it, because he had more important things to focus on at the moment, but he realized the interface was asking him to select targets to exclude from the auto-created Fingers of Ruin. He chose the option to ignore all friendlies identified by his local contact list.