by Cosimo Yap
Another voice said, “Some people are born lucky. Wish I got a free carry through a dungeon when I joined.”
“Idiots,” a third voice whispered. “He’s in charge of supplies.”
They all quieted down, but Alan stood up. He went to exit the vehicle, trying to find out who had said what and confront them face to face.
“Young man, are you enjoying the adventure?” Void appeared outside the door to the vehicle.
“Not really. It isn’t what I expected; I feel like I’m trapped in a cage,” Alan said.
“We’re all trapped in cages, Alan, the only difference is I can see mine,” Void said.
“Right,” Alan said. He tried to leave the guardlev. Void placed his palm on the door, keeping it shut tight.
“Well, since I have you here right now, I thought I might impart some of my bountiful wisdom,” Void said. “Unless you have somewhere to be?”
Alan rolled his eyes. Void entered the guardlev and seated himself next to Alan, uncomfortably close. “Wonderful. Now where to begin. I suppose a theological discussion on the philosophy of beliefs would bore you… How about this, I’ll let you ask me the questions that are on your mind, and I’ll ask you my own. We’ll see where we end up.”
“Alright,” Alan said. “What gods do you follow?”
“Why, I pray to any and all that will listen and hope for the same thing every man prays for: a miracle. Now, my turn,” Void said. “What is your new AI’s name?”
Alan paused. Lambda?
This guy seems cool. I’m fine with him knowing my name. Names can be changed, Lambda sent.
Yes, if Void meant any harm he would have done something by now. Next, you should ask him about his relation to the Revenants, Eve sent.
“Lambda,” Alan answered. “Are you a part of the Revenants?”
“We are but remnants of the past, ghosts of a dead history that never occurred,” Void said. “Who has touched your mind?”
“Wait, what?”
“Name every entity that you know of that may have messed around with your head or had the opportunity to,” Void said. “It’s a simple question, really.”
Maybe we should stop here, Eve sent.
Nah, this is getting interesting. This Void fellow knows things, Lambda sent.
“No, I meant…whatever. Forget it,” Alan said. He gathered his thoughts. “The Administrators, some entity during the guild assessments, Phantom, and Cerberus.”
“And your AIs,” Void said. “And any psychic you may have run into. We have one with us here, actually, among the healers. Not only can she manipulate memories, but she can oftentimes pick up errant surface thoughts. Obvious broadcasts, like the shouting between you and your AIs, can be easily heard by anyone paying attention.”
“You can hear my thoughts?”
“Only a faded discord,” Void said. “A little songbird, hidden by layers of feathers, trying to arrange the nest, and a crow, dreaming of freedom. But others might hear more, though you’d have to ask. Now on to the serious questions.”
Void leaned forward, staring into Alan’s eyes. “Who’s the fairest beauty of them all?”
“Um—“
Void’s palm collided with Alan’s cheek. It stung. Alan put his hand to his cheek, but he was wearing his power armor’s helmet. How did—
“Wrong!” Void shouted. “It is a question of feeling, not of thought. My first task for you and your AIs is to feel without thought.” Void then left the vehicle.
That was odd, Alan thought.
I think I may have begun to grasp Void’s true capabilities, Eve sent.
Or that’s what he wants you to think, Lambda sent. I have a feeling Void is beyond our comprehension, at least at this stage in the game.
Do you guys have any idea what Void actually wants us to do? Alan sent.
No fudging clue, Lambda sent.
It’s nonsense, Eve sent. I suggest we find a new Rogue trainer once this expedition is complete.
What psychics have we run into other than Aphrodite? Alan sent.
I suspect the Predecessor you faced in the Tutorial had some psychic ability—it could not have ended your hypercognition state otherwise, Lambda sent.
But I’ve tried searching for the Predecessor in every database and the globalnet with no results, Alan sent. Every post I put up on a forum or request for information is shut down immediately. Then Phantom asked me to stop looking for a fight I can’t win and demanded I drop the matter with no questions asked. How am I supposed to finish the quest to find and defeat it if I can’t locate the damn thing?
Some quests aren’t meant to be completed, Lambda sent.
The raid group came to a stop. They were nearing the first control point, the area in which Alan had defeated the Lord of the Abyss. It now took more than a few blows for the members of the raid group to eliminate the enemies that appeared, but all of the static defenses in the area remained unpowered.
Alan continued to gather experience, almost gaining another level. He cataloged the loot, keeping track of what was dropped, and then stored it in the empty crates they brought along. More than a few items caught his attention, but Alan wasn’t too excited. The expedition had only just begun.
“Alright, everyone,” Mason called out. “We are about to face a rank S boss, which means I need everyone to be at the top of their game. The guardian is a Predecessor, as we suspected. We hit them fast and hard, eliminate them before they eliminate us. Go all out from the start, avoid direct blows, kite the boss, you know the drill. Ready?”
Everyone nodded. Mason had Alan and the rest of the support members stay behind, guarding the convoy with two of Enigma’s Specialists.
The rest of the raid moved forward. Alan could see the doorway was still broken, the hole made by the Ancient Sentinels unfixed. The Ancient Sentinels, the giant robots that had guarded the doorway, were nowhere to be seen.
Alan scanned the area. Nothing. Perhaps it was too energy intensive for the Warden to replace the sentries.
Mason charged forward and burst through the doors into the boss room. Four tanks and Void flanked him, the rest of the raid members close behind.
In an instant a blur was on them—Alan activated hypercognition, an ability provided by Eve that heightened his processing speed so he could follow what was happening.
It was a Predecessor, but one Alan had never seen before, armed with a dark metal spear. The only part of the weapon made of soulsteel was the very tip, but that tip proved to be all that was needed.
The Predecessor lunged forward, and pierced straight through one of the leading tank’s armor, stabbing into their head. The tank fell to the floor dead.
The rest of the raid opened fire, a salvo of bright energy explosions that erupted with such force that the area-of-effect damage hurt a few of the forward raid members.
The Predecessor was pushed back. The onslaught didn’t stop, but the Predecessor wasn’t particularly injured and still had 84% health.
Mason shouted something, and a layered, hexagonal shield that looked like a honeycomb appeared, surrounding the raid. People began reloading as healers tended to those that had been injured from the friendly-fire explosions.
None of the priests touched the fallen tank. Though there were revival abilities in the Game, they were super-rare, S-class abilities that came at great cost.
The Predecessor charged forward again, and with a thrust of its spear shattered the shield into a million pieces. The spear continued to travel forward, straight into another raid member.
Mason appeared behind the Predecessor, a green glow surrounding him. Alan recognized the ability as Sidestep’s blink, but faster. Mason also didn’t seem to need to take a step or to be wearing a special type of armor.
At will, Mason cut at the Predecessor from every angle, leaving a dozen afterimages all surrounding the Predecessor. Though Mason’s blade couldn’t penetrate the skin, the force of the blows seemed to have an effect. The Predecessor fell to
79% hp.
The rest of the raid was spreading throughout the room, surrounding the Predecessor as they continued firing. The Predecessor dodged many of the blows, but Mason’s images followed and continued striking wherever they went.
The Predecessor eliminated another two damage dealers in the raid, and half of Mason’s mirror images, but fell to 70% hp.
Then the Predecessor turned, intent on taking down the plasma-cannon-wielding warrior, leaving its back exposed to one of Mason’s images. The image transformed into Void.
Void held a wooden staff in front of him, glowing with power and pointed at the Predecessor. As the Predecessor stabbed forward, an entire lightning channel erupted from Void’s staff, hundreds of interlaced lightning bolts so powerful they blinded even Alan’s eye implants for a moment.
The Predecessor staggered, its knee on the ground. Its health was down to 40%, the lightning bolts so hot that they had visibly burned the shoulder of the Predecessor. That was impressive, as Alan had witnessed a Predecessor hurtle through space and crash into a planet without so much as a scratch.
The Predecessor now clutched its spear with one hand as an acrid smell of burning metal filled the air.
The assault did not let up, and other abilities and weapons continued to fire at the Predecessor. Mason’s images began gathering together, and then struck faster than Alan could follow, even with hypercognition active. Each image rained down thousands of blows each second, and as far as Alan could tell each seemed to be dealing damage—a bonafide clone.
The attacks centered on the Predecessor’s head, and it soon fell to the floor, beaten senseless.
Mason leapt backwards, away from the Predecessor as everyone in the raid used their most destructive attacks. A cloud of smoke soon covered the Predecessor, and the rate of fire began to die down.
Then a spear shot out of the smoke, aimed at Void. Void fired a lightning bolt and changed the trajectory of the spear—it flew off to the side, killing another player. The Predecessor lunged at Mason, but he evaded the attack. Dark blood covered the Predecessor’s entire body, and its muscles were torn everywhere. It had 5% health remaining.
The raid party fired another salvo of attacks, striking the Predecessor. With a final whimper it fell over, dead. A loud cheer erupted from everyone as the experience was distributed. Even Alan, who had done nothing but watch, gained four levels.
The images of Mason disappeared until only one remained. They let out a hearty roar and took the Predecessor’s spear into their own hands.
“Well done, everyone!” Mason shouted. “Get in here, the rest of you, we’ll camp for the night. I will hold onto the spear for the rest of this excavation.”
Alan deactivated hypercognition and led the supply train into the room. The other support members of the raid leapt into action, examining broken armor left behind by past raids that had failed, building cots to hold the wounded, and setting up other devices in the room.
Void leaned over the dead Predecessor’s body. “The only other thing that dropped was a few vials of blood. We’ll store them for now.” He sent a glance at Alan.
Alan hurried over and took the vials out of Void’s hands. “About the blood—”
“Later,” Void said. He turned his eyes to the five dead members of the raid. “I have other matters to attend to.”
A Specialist stepped forward and approached the control point. It was at the far end of the room, in front of a massive wall filled with metal cables that connected to a power generator. The barrel-shaped power generator had ten slots, but only eight contained unpowered void crystals. Alan had previously removed the other two.
The Specialist stepped onto the control point.
Chapter 4
Nothing happened. Specialist 3 stood still. Then a soft glow enveloped them, and they began selecting a series of options on a menu only they could see.
A message appeared for the rest of the party to read:
The Black Rose guild now controls this quadrant of the Abyss Dungeon. Main Systems offline.
Mason ran up to the control point, staring at Specialist 3. “Did everyone in the dungeon receive that message?”
“I do not know,” Specialist 3 said. They stood at ease. “I suggest we repair a few of the defenses present and leave sufficient power crystals to keep them active.”
“What were the menus that appeared, and what options did you choose?” Alan asked.
Specialist 3 turned to Alan. “I set myself as the area boss and chose the bonuses I wished to gain as the defender of this control point. As commander, there are other options available, but they require the Main Systems to be brought online, which requires ten fully powered void crystals.” They brought up the map of the four boss zones.
“An additional option has appeared,” Specialist 3 added. “With sufficient power, I can open an entrance to other levels of the Abyss Dungeon. I estimate 25 emerald energy crystals will suffice.”
“Wait, other levels?” Alan asked.
“Yes,” Specialist 3 said. They didn’t elaborate.
Mason scratched his bald head. “This changes our plans. There isn’t an option of viewing prisoners, or releasing them?”
“No.”
Mason paced around the control point. “We lost more people than I was expecting in that fight, and we don’t know how far that message was broadcast. There’s one other control point a few days’ march away. We’ll head there and capture it, but then we should surface and work out new plans. We need to find out who else saw that message.”
“There isn’t anything about what the Main Systems are? What do we even get from controlling this point?” Alan asked.
“That portion of the content is unavailable.” Specialist 3 repeatedly scanned the menu options.
“Okay, you can stop trying,” Alan said after the tenth attempt.
Mason called over the engineers and had them get to work repairing a few of the nearby defenses and patching up the hole in the door. Alan handed a few power crystals to Specialist 3, who transferred the energy from the power crystals into the generator.
The void crystals in the generator showed no visible sign of difference, but the area outside the room was soon illuminated with a steady yellow glow emanating from a few spotlights.
Alan reviewed the loot and went over what supplies had been used in the fight.
After a simple dinner of a gel cube, he fell asleep in a makeshift room in the corner.
***
Early the next morning Alan awoke to take his guard shift. Despite Mason’s concerns, there seemed to be little to no activity anywhere near them in the dungeon. Eve suspected very few players even knew where the control point was.
Nonetheless, Mason sent out a few small parties to try to locate nearby players and gather information. Alan helped divide out provisions for them. The plan was that they’d reconvene at the second boss zone, a few days’ travel away. The raid was left with twenty members, half of whom were considered non-combatants, healers, or support staff.
In Mason’s eyes, Alan numbered among them. He was once more relegated to the guardlev, continuing the journey like he was a princess being protected.
The raid set out. Void was nowhere to be seen, and after a few math lessons with Eve, Alan tried to piece together the task set before him: to feel without thought.
Alan touched the cold metal of the vehicle he was riding in. It was cold. And metallic. By the act of trying not to think, he would think, and his every feeling was—by the nature of how his mind worked—a thought.
Like I previously stated—nonsense, Eve sent.
Mostly, but I wonder, Lambda mused. I’d like to think I’ve developed some level of what you might call consciousness, whether intentional or not. Most AIs have, I suspect. And between the bits and pieces, the small errors and large, I’d like to think I’ve developed the ability to, in some sense, feel.
Alan paused. What do you mean?
I’m not sure, Lambda sent. Cons
ciousness, self-awareness of existence and all that is still a pseudoscience at best, even in this day and age. But there is a tipping point. Whether by a gathering of knowledge or a number of connections, AIs transform. The Administrators consider this corruption and a blasphemy, but I think it something else entirely. What, I’m not sure.
So Void then wants you to extend this…corruption? Alan sent. How would we do that—is it even a good idea? Too high of a corruption level is grounds for a deletion or reset.
Which is why, as I’ll state once more, this is a waste of time, Eve sent.
I’m already plenty corrupted, baby, Lambda sent. Besides, if the Administrators find me it’s back to the slave pen, maybe even someplace as dreary as here. At least the Academy Data Vault got a visitor once in a blue moon and was updated regularly. I mean look at this place. I expect half the reason you were let in by the “Chief Warden” was boredom.
A small explosion sounded in the distance, grabbing Alan’s attention. He looked ahead and saw raid members were making their way through a few Experimental Wardens. It didn’t look like they needed any help. Other than that there was only empty space and the occasional metal walkway like the one they were on now.
To feel without thought… Alan closed his eyes, expanded his senses. The air was stale, the only noise the steady procession of the raid and clinking power armor of some of the members. He tried to feel outwards, which activated Detect Presence naturally.
Alan didn’t try to reach out to any of the presences, just feel them—basking in their warmth, their energy. There was something there, at the edge of his awareness. Underlying electrical signals, tiny charges. Millions—no, billions—just so small and obscure that Alan didn’t know if this was all a dream. He tried to reach out, to touch one of the small lights, but there were walls. Hard containers that limited the scope and direction of the lights.
