World Seed_Endgame

by Justin Miller

  Celeste apparently either heard my inner turmoil or saw it on my face, because she smiled slightly to me. “Just take the time to relax, John. By my calculations, it would have taken us three weeks normally to arrive at the next base we have mapped out. Assuming that they haven’t finished their own warp core project, then we don’t have to worry too much about them attacking us in this time.”

  I nodded my head at that, agreeing with her words. “Speaking of, what are the chances of them doing something like attaching the warp core to a weapon? Would they be able to send things through like that to directly attack?”

  As I asked that, Celeste knit her brows together. “I… don’t think so? It’s hard to say for sure. I mean, theoretically it is possible. But, they would have to have the exact spatial coordinates in relation to their current position. Even I would need a good five minutes or so to calculate the exact coordinates from here to a specific location on this world’s moon, let alone a world in a completely different star system.”

  “If they were going to use it like that, the more likely choice would be to create a large power source, and attach the warp core to a planetoid or a large asteroid. If there was sufficient energy, it might be able to move an entire celestial body.” As she spoke, her words became more uncertain. “If that was the case, then they could potentially move their headquarters to an area of remote space, beyond what we are capable of reaching with normal subspace methods. With the warp cores, they could easily bring their ships back from that remote region to launch repeated hit-and-run attacks.”

  I raised my eyebrows at Celeste as I listened to her ramble on, which drew an embarrassed smile from her when she looked up. “It’s what I would do, anyways. Whoever gave them this technology must know its full potential. If they are going to do something like that, we really do need to find their base before they are able to finish the warp cores. Thankfully, their progress in the base we found before suggested they were still a long ways away from fully creating one.”

  “There’s not the chance that they had multiple bases working on the same project?” I asked dubiously, afraid that they might be further along than we thought.

  However, Celeste shook her head. “Not logically. I mean, if you have ten research teams focusing on one subject, but they aren’t allowed to communicate with each other, then it is no different from just having one team working on it. From the information we recovered so far, it is likely that each research base has one or two specific objects that they are trying to engineer. For that one, it was the warp core and the AI implants.”

  “I see.” I said, sighing slightly. “Well, I’m going to go figure out how to relax. Maybe invite Tokemi and the others over for another board game or something.” I said with a slight smile. As much as it surprised me, Tokemi seemed to enjoy playing board games far more than she enjoyed watching shows that Celeste had downloaded before leaving earth, or playing the Qu’Lopti’s video games.

  Celeste giggled slightly at that, nodding. “Alright then. I’ll take care of managing the upgrades. You focus on taking care of the family.” She said, smiling gently at me as I left the room.

  Okay… Now to find the others. I thought to myself, bringing one hand up to my ear to call for Sharon. “Where are you guys at?” I asked simply, connecting to her comm.

  “Hmm?” A reply came back after a short while. “Ah, sorry. Yin wanted to take Yang and I out for a bit. The upgrade work was starting to bother Yang, so we’re down on Gerin right now.” I raised my eyebrows slightly at that, finding it rather sudden. “We’re visiting Talia right now. Why, is anything the matter?”

  Well, if they’re with Talia, everything should be okay. I thought to myself, before shaking my head. “No, it’s nothing. Celeste said that we’re stuck here for a month and a half, so I was just calling to see who was free.”

  “Ohh, really?” Sharon asked in surprise. “Huh, didn’t think it’d take that long. Don’t worry, we’ll be back up soon. Tokemi wanted us all to be back in the ship for dinner tonight, since this is her first time ‘growing up’.” She said in a light tone. “She’s treating this almost like a birthday.”

  That thought made me smile a bit, nodding my head subconsciously. “Not surprised. Well, I’ll see you guys when you get up here.” I said, moving to head towards my quarters. Six weeks...

  Chapter 45: The Dreaded Calm

  The next six weeks were… how to put it gently… They were hell. My own personal, living hell. In these six weeks, I learned things about myself that I never knew. Things about myself that I never wanted to know.

  For instance, I found that I am no longer capable of doing nothing. I mean, I am not physically capable of it. For years, I have either always had something to keep me busy, or I would quickly find something to do so. And I never questioned that! Keeping busy made me happy. But once I slowed down… To put it mildly, I was a wreck.

  That is putting it very mildly...

  Shut it, Malthan! Anyways, where was I? Oh yes… It wasn’t so bad the first couple of days. It actually felt rather nice to take a break and relax. But after that, I began to get twitchy, unable to stay alone in a room for very long. I found myself roaming the halls, talking with anyone that would listen just to have something to do. Repeatedly I tried to offer help with the upgrades, but due to a lack of training it that area I was turned down.

  A few times, I sparred with Kismet, until he stopped accepting the matches. I mean, he is the most skilled shadow manipulator we have, but sparring loses its purpose when I can just shut him down with brute force at any time. Playing games with Tokemi helped for a while, but I kept trying to distract myself with mental exercises during it, so the games quickly became less fun.

  Finally, I turned my desperation for activity towards the Gerin system. Over the course of six weeks, I managed to clear out eighteen dungeons, get rid of three world bosses on uninhabited planets or moons, and set up six anti-spawn barriers. Even that really only took five weeks, before Maeve reported that there was nothing left for me to help with.

  “Oh come on, there has to be something.” I pleaded to the hologram of the High Queen, who sighed dramatically.

  “Sorry, John. All of the dungeons that are left are the ones that we use to train our men. With your help, the last of the cities we had been working to protect now have the spawn barriers. Aside from that, there are no other boss monsters that we have detected in the system. There’s just nothing left for you to help with.” Maeve replied, shaking her head. This was not the first time that we had this conversation, but it was probably going to be the last. Before, she had to ask each of the other High Queens for jobs that they could give me, but now we had run out of people to call.

  “Maybe I can scout out potential worlds in other systems, or enchant some items for the queens.” I paced back and forth, trying to come up with something to keep myself busy. I could already feel my palms starting to shake, my nerves kicking in.

  “We’ve already got a couple of scouting ships patrolling nearby systems to look for suitable worlds. As for enchanted items… I appreciate the sentiment, John. I really do, but we have people working on that. The safety of the queens is naturally a high priority, so we have hundreds of elves devoted to exactly that task.”

  I shook my head, trying to offer up an argument. “But--”

  “John.” She spoke in a more stern tone. “You’ve done enough. Your ship should be ready in just a few days. After that, you can go back to the war. Our equipment is taken care of, but what about your crew? I’m sure some of them are lacking protective gear, and they’re going to need it on the front lines.” By the time she finished speaking, there was a knowing smile on her lips.

  And that’s how it came to this, with me spending my last week of vacation pumping out magical weapons and armor. I finally had something to do with all of the bows, staves, and leather armors that Yang had been producing in her free time.

  Of course, I still spent time with my wives, and Yo an
d Tokemi. But during those times I would be keeping my mind busy, planning out what enchantments I would make for each specific crewmember, and who I would give intelligent weapons to. Given my breakthrough in understanding sentience, I no longer required Celeste to risk one of her children in order to create an ego weapon, as I was able to create one on my own now.

  Sadly, there were still times when I was left just sitting around. Either I was waiting for more items to be brought to me to enchant, or as was the case now… I ran out of crew members to make gear for. I had thought about using my free time to cultivate my elements these last six weeks, but that felt a bit redundant. After all, with the ring and staff combo, my elements were able to cultivate themselves. Any increase that would be gained by my own efforts would be negligible.

  Are you sure you don’t have any quests I can do in the neighborhood? I asked my final hope, Malthan. As long as it didn’t take me out of the solar system, I was even willing to run errands for him for these last few hours until everything was completed.

  For the Nth time, John, no! There aren’t any quests related to my domain that you could do within the Gerin system for the next three hours.

  I couldn’t help but curse under my breath. When had I become so restless? Back on Earth, I spent entire days just lazing around, pretending the outside world didn’t exist. Now I could barely go a few hours without trying to find something to occupy my time.

  “Uhm, about that…” Celeste spoke up inside my mind, quickly attracting my attention. However, before I could even think anything, she hastily added. “No, I don’t have anything I need your help with.”

  “Okay… then what did you want to say?” I asked, lowering my head.

  “Well, I think I know what caused this little… Can I call this a malfunction? I really want to call this a malfunction.”

  Should I take offense to that? I feel like I should take offense to that!

  Shut it, Malthan. “Okay… go ahead.” I urged her, happy to at least have a conversation of some importance to occupy myself.

  “Well, you see…” She hesitated, as if trying to find some way to approach the topic. “I think it has to do with your little… accident a few years back on Hydra.”

  Ohhh… Yeah, okay, that makes sense.

  No it doesn’t! “What do you mean?”

  I heard a sigh within my mind, before she continued. “When you were trapped for a hundred years within the time bubble. I think it might have had a lasting effect on you that we never noticed. A bit of trauma that didn’t heal.”

  I knit my brows together as I thought back to that event. I had considered myself to be completely recovered from that. I mean, the only real change I felt for a while was how I would panic if the room was too still. But even that got better after a couple of years, thanks to Sharon and Yin and a bamboo fountain we put in the room. Though, thinking back to it now, it did make a sort of sense.

  As far as I know, that incident was the last time I had ever really done nothing for such a long period. I would spend weeks just thinking to myself and trying to get a feeling for time mana. And when Celeste had made herself shut down for a while to pass the time, I had truly been alone in my thoughts.

  “Okay… so, maybe that is the cause. Even if it is, it’s not like we can do anything about it, right?” I mean, apparently this has been going on for five whole years, and I had only really noticed it now.

  “Well, we could put you through some therapy, and it might help in the long run. But, for the short term… No, I can’t think of anything that would help.”

  I nodded slightly at Celeste’s words, taking a casual glance at the counter of my workstation to make sure that there wasn’t anything else I could enchant and hadn’t noticed. “And it’s not like it is exactly a bad thing, right? I mean, I am being productive. Nothing wrong with that.”

  “Well… That’s not entirely true.” She said, and I could feel that she was shaking her head. “Yes, you are being very productive, but after a certain point that makes you neglect your relationships.”

  Well, if that didn’t feel like a bucket of cold water being poured over me, I don’t know what would. And she did have a point, one I realized long ago. Because I kept so busy, I couldn’t spend as much time as I wanted with Sharon, or with Yin, or Tokemi, or anyone else. And now that I had all the time in the world to spend with them, I couldn’t take my mind off trying to find things to work on.

  “Oh…” I said simply, lowering my head again. The only solace I could find was that they were so understanding. Now that I took the time to think about it, they had every reason to just drop me for all but ignoring them these few years. Maybe they understood the cause of this all along, and just didn’t want to bring up the past trauma?

  “I don’t think they figured out what caused it, no.” Celeste said, shaking her head. “But they definitely noticed the change. And, while I can’t say that they enjoy it, this is one of the benefits of having two wives that also love each other.”

  I nodded my head slightly at that. Could I make it up to them? And if so, how? This wasn’t something that I could just fix on a whim. Even Celeste said that there wasn’t a short term solution. Mulling over that thought, I decided to check my grove, seeing how much time was left before it went to the universe stage.

  Time to completion: 00:09:02:38:12.21

  Aside from the timer, the first thing I noticed was that the black hole had already swallowed the entirety of my grove. Even the void itself had been eaten up. All that was left now of my grove was that single black hole, packed dense with all of the combined mana and matter that had existed in my grove, as well as all of the mana that I had absorbed over the last several months.

  Of course, this also meant that Sharon’s grove should be entirely gone now as well. And she probably doesn’t even have access to it anymore. For the next nine days, it would be a bit hard to consider her a druid, aside from her animal companions.

  Malthan, are you sure that--

  For the last, time, I’m sure! There is no quest that I can give you at this time! Stop asking! If it makes you feel any better, I can pull some strings and see if I can get you a bit of insider information, would that make you happy for the next few hours?!

  ...Maybe. After thinking that, I had to wait for a few minutes, tapping my foot against the floor rhythmically as I thought about what that meant. Perhaps it wasn’t really against the gods’ rules to share that information, but it was considered impolite to do so without consulting the god in charge of that domain?

  Okay, finally. It cost me an extra seat at poker night, but I got the approval. You better be thankful for this. While I love playing strip poker with those beautiful goddesses, that doesn’t mean I want to invite some wrinkly old man to the game.

  Yes, yes, I’m very sorry for your loss. I nodded my head repeatedly, trying to get him to spill the beans on what information he had for me.

  Tsk. Anyways, I am not able to tell you much. But, I can say this. When your grove evolves, have Sharon close by. It won’t do any harm to her, and that way it will give both you and her the greatest benefits. There, happy?

  I nodded my head again, actually very happy to hear this piece of news. The evolution of my grove had been a frequent thought for me over these last six weeks, as the deadline was constantly growing closer.

  “So… how much time until the upgrades are done?” I asked, noticing that I had again run out of topics to keep me distracted.

  “Haahh… Two more hours, John.” Celeste said with a small sigh.

  Chapter 46: Back to Business

  “Are they done yet?” I asked, tapping my foot impatiently. It had been at least two hours since she gave me that timeframe, right?

  “...Yes. Yes, John. They are done.” Celeste said, letting out a long sigh of relief. “Remind me never to suggest you taking a week off again.”

  “Great!” That single bit of good news made my mood instantly brighten. “So, how long till we can go?”


  I heard a dark and sinister chuckle from inside of my mind. Every word she spoke came out like an evil villain’s taunts. “Well, first we have to recall all the crew members that went planetside for their time off. Then, we need to do the calculations for our first warp jump, and make sure everyone is synchronized so that we don’t accidentally appear inside of each other. So… about a day, give or take? Depending on how long it takes the crew to say their goodbyes and pack their belongings to resume the voyage.”

  By the time that Celeste was done, I felt my face losing all color. “But… you said two hours!” I shouted out to the empty bedroom.

  “Yeah, I did, didn’t I?” She asked, a grin in her voice. “I guess it’s a good thing I went ahead and called for everyone to return to their ships yesterday. Once we do the spatial calculations, we’ll be able to move out.”

  “...That was unexpectedly mean of you.” I said, slapping my face with my hand. “I deserved it, didn’t I?”

  “Yup.” She replied simply. “Consider it payback for asking ‘Are they done yet?’ every two minutes… For the last three days.”

  “It couldn’t have been that bad, right?” I glanced side to side in guilt, not really wanting an answer to that question.

  “I have it all recorded. Would you like to see the highlight reel?” Celeste asked, a grin in her voice. Of course, I had been on the ship, so it was only natural for her to be able to have a recording of me.

  “No, that’s fine… Anyways, go ahead and let everyone know that we’ll be ready to launch once the fleet is assembled. I’m heading to the bridge now.” Eager to finally be able to do something aside from pacing back and forth in my room, I quickly got changed and made my way out of the room.