Descend- Bursting Out: A litrpg adventure

by David Burke

  Jay shook his head. “Nah, as nice as it might be to think that we could make contact with some of the others it is also not very likely.”

  “Why?” Jessie asked.

  “First off, the life signs feel human or humanish. They aren’t quite consistent with you all’s life signs for example. But the more important reason is that there are thousands of them, far more than all the people we believe are left in the experiment.”

  Jay could feel how that news made the skin on the back of each of their necks prickle. He smiled and said, “Something else, they aren’t moving as far as I can tell. They all seem to be staying in exactly the same place as when I first detected them.”

  “Nothing for it but to go take a look. Not like we could leave now?” Jessie said and started moving back down the tunnel without waiting for a response.

  Jay shrugged and said to her disappearing form, “I suppose not.” Then to the other girls, said, “We better keep up, she seems excited now.”

  Another few hundred feet had them walking out of the tunnel and into a massive chamber which spiraled both up and down for a least a couple hundred feet in each direction. The chamber had no floor as it just went up and down but there was a ledge at the end of the tunnel and a four-foot-wide ledge with no railing around the room at the same height as the tunnel’s end.

  The chamber itself had to be at least a thousand feet across in diameter. The walls were honeycombed with pods of some sort. It looked like forty rows of the pods going up in and forty going down. Each of the pods was about three feet wide and six feet tall.

  On the center row where they stood a quick calculation told him that there had to be nearly a thousand of the pods. That number decreased as the chamber’s diameter shrunk the further away from the center you got. By the top and bottom rows there were approximately two hundred of the pods. If his math was correct that meant there were nearly fifty thousand of the pods.

  Which wouldn’t have been anything special if they were ornaments upon the wall, but staring back at Jay from the pods on this floor were human faces. They seemed to be in some sort of suspended animation like these were cryopods but they were definitely human. Tens of thousands of them and all asleep. Jay’s senses definitely said they were alive.

  “Oh my god, we have to get these people out of these,” Jessie exclaimed.

  “No we aren’t doing anything until we figure out why they are in there and have our tech people look at this. Ava will probably be able to figure out how these pods work and hopefully we can learn a great deal more about A’snkarnt technology from this,” Jay said.

  “You are talking about them like they are just there to help us out, Jay. These are human beings,” Rosa protested.

  “I’m not abandoning them but did you notice anything about the people?”

  Bella said, “Yeah, they seem pretty small.”

  “Anything else?” Jay asked.

  Suddenly a realization blossomed in Jessie’s mind and Jay could feel it. “Wow, they are wearing all kinds of different clothing.”

  “So what,” Hanna said.

  “Look closer, they are wearing clothing from different periods of time from all over the Earth. They look smaller partially because we have all evolved and are anywhere from a few inches to more than a foot taller than we were when we got here. And then there is the fact that people in the past were generally shorter than people from the 21st century. I can already see clothing from Ancient China, Egypt, and Greece just from the few that I can get a good look at from here,” Jay replied.

  “Oh so that is why they feel different to you. They aren’t evolved humans like we are,” Zuri said.

  “Probably. And, yes we will help them, but we have to assume that some of them have been in here for a very long time. We may or may not be able to communicate with all of them. Then there is the fact of supplies. Would we be able to provide for them? Heck, the stuff in our water might kill them outright. So we will help but we will be smart about it,” Jay said. This was one of those times that he had the commanding tone in his voice and none of them contested his words.

  A moment later Jay added, “We are going to head back, double time now. You can talk about this with your pod. I won’t ask you to keep it from them, but please don’t share this with anyone else until the advisors get told and then we figure out what to do. Also, if D’varn doesn’t already know, we aren’t going to tell him that we found this. If this is some other A’snkarnt experiment, I want to know what we are dealing with first.”

  They all nodded in agreement before heading out. The trip back was much faster. Jay didn’t waste any time with letting the girls show what they could do but instead went all out on any of the monsters that got in the way. For her part, Jessie said she had figured out how to use her Bestial Control to keep the ROUS at bay.

  When they exited the fifth floor, Jay gave Jessie a kiss and then one to each of the other girls who wanted one. With Rosa he just said to tell Sara that he loved her and would get there as soon as he could. Then he was off, not to his advisors, but to the ones he truly trusted, first.

  Chapter 7- Need to Move Slow

  Jay discussed the implications about the sleepers with his wives at great length. It was kinda earthshaking and he wasn’t sure what to say about it. Meikiyo nudged his arm and he realized that he had drifted off lost in his own thoughts.

  “I’m sorry. What did I miss?”

  Amelia smiled at him. “You know we should probably be annoyed when we are talking to you and you just sorta zone out, but dammit if you aren’t just so cute.” Then she adopted a more serious look on her face. “Look, I know you have the weight of the world on your shoulders and this maybe changes everything in some ways. But this isn’t the only issue that we need to discuss. For now, I propose that we leave the sleepers where they are and address a couple of other issues.”

  Jay could feel the eyes of each of his wives on him. More than that, the fusion with three of them made them pretty much an open book to him. They were all getting better at blocking themselves off just like he had during the raid on the Bel’gi but this close there was always some bleed-through of feelings, even thoughts. Not that most of the time they maintained any separation.

  In fact the longer Jay was fused with them the more he missed it if he or any of the others reduced the level of connection. It became like losing a part of himself. It just felt natural. Even the bond that he had with the non-fused wives was enough to make him feel connected with them in a way that he had never been with another person.

  “Jay, don’t fade away again. We have been patient, but it is time to talk about this now,” Huong said.

  He looked over at the petite Vietnamese beauty. She was right, but all he could do was take in the sight that she was. Huong had managed to get the shop to duplicate the dress she had been wearing when she was taken. It was a light pastel blue and clung to her in such a sexy way. It showed enough of her legs to make his eyes trace their way up and enough curve to prove that despite her petite form, she still had a rocking body.

  “You are right. It seems like my entire life has been about stalling. I guess I have trouble admitting certain things. It just feels easier to push and work through the things that I can understand and control. That is why I have been focusing on refining. And I guess why I have avoided leveling myself any faster. Well and the other thing too,” Jay rambled on.

  Meikiyo sighed and Jessie growled. “Oh, so now that is what we are, lover? We are just that other thing.”

  As happened more and more often, Meikiyo’s beautiful jet-black hair burst into flame. Her fiery power came out as she was feeling strong emotion either positive or negative. Despite that, she had perfect control of it. No one sitting next to her felt more than a slight wave of heat. No clothing or skin was singed and the others didn’t even pay attention to her.

  “You know that isn’t what I meant,” Jay protested.

  “I want to believe that isn’t what you mean. But
if you had been this slow to save me that second night, I wouldn’t be here at all, because a monster would have eaten me,” Meikiyo replied.

  Her lack of use of the word lover rang loudly in his ears. Meikiyo might be jealous of his time on occasion but she never got mad at him. At least not like Amelia, Mia, and Jessie did. Ava was her own case with separate rules that didn’t apply to the others.

  Before he could answer back though, Meikiyo continued, “We waited. We understood your fears. This is a new thing, not just for you but for all those who fuse with you. Even now, Mia, Ava, and Amelia have a connection that the rest of us can’t share in. Maybe you haven’t noticed but you have created a division within your own house. There are now two different classes of wives.”

  “That certainly wasn’t my intention…” Jay began.

  “We know that. Trust us, like we have trusted you. We know your intentions. It is one of the most adorable things about you,” Mia said.

  “But there is a reason for the expression that the road to hell is paved with good intentions,” Jessie chimed in.

  “You aren’t beholden to any law but you have become a law unto yourself. You need to realize that comes with requirements. You need to be equitable and you need to judge yourself by the same standards that you judge others by. Intentions are important but it is actions which define us, at least in so much as we relate to other people,” Amelia lectured.

  When even Ava sided with them, Jay knew he was in trouble. “A good master doesn’t deny himself anything but he also looks out for those in his care. You want to be a good master don’t you, Master?”

  Jay looked over at Huong. She was the only one who hadn’t said anything in this last round. “It isn’t like you to be quiet. Don’t you have anything to add?”

  She sucked in her breath and was clearly delaying her answer. “My sisters have said what needs to be said. Besides, I am next in line and I don’t want my own personal bias to affect how I express myself.”

  He knew what they wanted from him. It scared him though, for multiple reasons. First off the fusing again would almost certainly make him cross the next threshold and that was in and of itself going to cause problems. The shop would no longer have an effective birth control and yet they weren’t really ready for a population explosion. Especially not after the discovery of the sleepers.

  Amelia reached out her hand and put it on his arm. She was always a rock to him. The one who helped him stay grounded. “Jay, they have been patient. We all have been patient. After the Bel’gi we all assumed you would need a few days. But those days have turned into weeks and then the weeks into months. Now it’s been more than four months. Enough is enough. Do it for us. We are all asking you. Please fuse with Huong.”

  Nothing in life was certain. His mom and sister had gone on a simple run to the store and had been killed by a drunk driver. Jay had blamed himself for that for far too long. It was the love of these women that had shown him that wasn’t the truth. It was just a lie he had shackled himself with out of guilt.

  Guilt had initially held him back here too, but he had overcome that, at least for the most part. He knew that these were equal relationships. His love for them was genuine. As for their love, he could bask in it even now while they were angry with him.

  Yet the fear was still there. He recognized it and still had trouble overcoming it. Fear about the risk of death with too many fusions. Fear about the loss of individuality. Jay shook his head and shrugged. These were real fears and it was proper to think about them. It was just that he and this core who held his heart so well had discussed those fears ad nauseam.

  Now it was either move forward and defeat fear or let it be the defining aspect of his life. No, not of his life, but of all their lives. He kicked himself into action and stood. These words couldn’t be spoken sitting down. “Huong, will you fuse with me? I would say tonight if it were possible but it is Jessie’s night. Maybe instead we can rendezvous in the morning?”

  She stood up and pressed into the crook of his arm. “Of course, silly. I am always here for you. All you had to do was ask. Thank you for not making me beg.”

  Amelia asked, “And what about Meikiyo and Jessie?”

  “Yes, Master. You must make them all part of us. We will be so much more together,” Ava declared.

  Jay fought back the instinct to say, “One at a time.” and instead replied, “As soon as we have made sure that there are no complications from fusing with Huong.”

  Jay almost choked as he couldn’t help but hear what went through Mia’s mind as she thought, “First these three and then the rest.” Since she hadn’t said it out loud, he opted not to respond even though he knew it was likely that Ava and Amelia had heard the thought just as easily as he had.

  The truth was that experience up to this point demonstrated that even though the fusion was initially between Jay and the individual girl that for some reason the girls were able to share their thoughts with one another more easily. It was just another thing that Jay had not yet had time to look into. Most of his time was spent on making them stronger.

  Then as he thought that, he couldn’t help but laugh out loud. “Thank you for understanding. Since the attack that nearly killed Kayla I have been really struggling. It was hard enough with it being her, but I couldn’t get the image of any of you being chewed up by some monstrous shark beast. The truth is though that safety is a myth. It was that way on Earth and it is one hundred times that way here. So, all my work to make us stronger has been foolishness because I ignored the most important tools that I had available for that.”

  “We get it, love can be a handicap as much as it is a strength, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worthwhile, lover,” Meikiyo said.

  “True, so we will resume the fusions until the seven of us are one big and very close family,” Jay said.

  “Okay, while we are on awkward subjects, when are you going to start using the tempus fugit fields again? If D’varn is correct and the Forlorn are on their way then shouldn’t we make sure we have as much time as possible?” Amelia asked.

  “Think about it. D’varn is against the fusions, but he also made it possible for us to get the Bel’gi crown. The more I think about that, the more I think it is a tool meant to imitate fusion,” Jay said.

  “I don’t follow, what is your point?” the blonde asked.

  “Just that he is also against any form of temporal manipulation. He says the fusions are dangerous but says temporal manipulation threatens the entire universe. So, I guess my point is that if the two are both dangerous maybe we should first try out the one that the egghead mega-genius doesn’t think is going to blow everything up.”

  Six sets of eyes all stared back at him. Ava finally said, “It is of course up to you, Master, but I believe that this is all beyond the A’snkarnt. We already know more about how to push our evolution than they do.”

  Jay looked at her. Most of the time the words just spilled out of her mouth so fast that you had to struggle just to keep up. Now, she was speaking slowly and deliberately. That more than likely meant that this was a very serious matter to her.

  More than that, Jay could feel through the fusion how she was struggling with this. She didn’t want to step on his toes. She took her submission very seriously, it helped define her role in life, in their relationship, every bit as much as her creativity and genius did. He knew what he needed to do to make it easier for her, but it still felt awkward after four months.

  “Ava, I’m ordering you to tell me what you think. I need your insights. Don’t hold those back from me,” Jay said with a stern tone that didn’t represent how he felt but was there for effect.

  Ava sighed softly in response. “Yes, Master.”

  Jay realized he would never understand Ava completely, even with the fusion, but he loved her and knew that she loved him. If this made things easier for her then there was no reason not to speak to her in the manner that worked for her.

  “You developed the refin
ing method, Master. Together with Mia you discovered bonding and then fusion. Those two methods are responsible for the greatest leaps in our evolution, far more than the A’snkarnt,” she said in a rush.

  Mia said, “What about the implants and the stimulant, surely they are what make these evolutions possible.”

  “Certainly, sister. But, it is the Master who has found a way to maximize those gains. He is the reason that we have been able to expand so far beyond what was expected,” Ava replied.

  “Speaking of that, I have an idea, well actually two about how to improve our gains,” Jay said and then paused.

  After a moment of silence Amelia said, “Well, don’t keep us waiting.”

  Jay felt silly then. “I guess I was waiting to find out if you wanted to know my idea. I should have known better. I will do better.”

  “Of course you should have, husband. As long as you don’t expect us to all start calling you Master, like Ava, we will all follow your lead. You are our husband and our leader, and contrary to what you may have heard, women like a strong man who takes charge,” Mia said.