by Peter John
“You have destroyed a Reaper Officer. The experience gained from this encounter pales compared to the information you have obtained. What will you do now?”
It was a poignant question and required me to look at my health status.
You have died!
The explosion ripped apart the entire Scalar scientific complex and thousands of tons of rock and concrete have collapsed into the void you now inhabit.
Because of your ability to stare into the abyss and laugh at adversity, your body could regenerate 400 hp after the dust had settled upon your dead and twitching corpse.
Your timely application of the Mana shield consuming your epic item of Mana storage; The Staff of Illuminous, and with amazing amounts of luck that no-one should leave home without, has left you within a hollowed out area.
The heat you generated melted the surrounding crushing rock to form an obsidian cocoon around you
The application of ice and cooling while residing in your personal force shield, despite being untrained were impressive feats of magic that even the Aevish races would marvel at.
Subconsciously you could thwart not only the scalding fires of hell created by your own inauspicious use of a flame shield, your subsequent use of the ice shield created plumes of scalding steam which were equally deadly and somehow, while barely conscious, you buffered them and directed them away from your person.
Sadly, the Aevish races will never know about these glorious feats, and you may never escape from this place. Unless… you do something about it!
Since when had my internal battle log become so acerbic? It seemed to be mocking me. It did tell me that I had somehow managed to create a haven of relative safety though. If it wasn’t for all that stored Mana within the Katana I would be as flat as a pancake now. Epic item it was. Unfortunately, I had destroyed it in the process and consumed 25000 Mana points as it flowed through me and looking at my health bar. I was on less than 10%. It hadn’t moved up since I awoke and meant I had very serious injuries. Besides a massive concussion, I most likely had broken bones, internal injuries, and probably a few burns judging by the pain. That my spine was intact was apparent because I could feel my right foot and leg up to the hip joint screaming in agony whenever I tried to move. My ribs hurt when I breathed, but besides the sharp pain, there was no wetness or sucking feeling coming from my lungs. First, I needed light.
I spelled Illuminate and found I was cocooned within a dark obsidian structure, roughly egg-shaped, there were a few cracks in places that accounted for the air and dust. If I could get out of this, it would definitely be like a kind of rebirth or more appropriately hatching. The entire floor of the egg-shape was filled with a mixture of water and blood and a few other bodily fluids and it stank in here. I was naked and had scratches and bruises throughout. My skin was wrinkled and almost seemed to be sloughing off in places where my feet were submerged. The dark purple and greenish hue of the bruises along my legs and torso gave me an indication that I had been down here a few days already.
My belly responded to that thought with a typical growl and I remembered my ring of holding. With a thought I brought forth some rations, a healing potion, and I looked at what remained of my Katana. It was only the blade, as the handle was completely gone. As if it never existed and try as I might I could not get it to change to staff or knife as I had in the past. It was well and truly broken. The metal of the blade had a peculiar sheen to it I had not noticed before and the layers of pressed metal that had given the Katana its strength, suppleness and unique beauty were not apparent. It was as if the magical flow that must have permeated the entire artifact had melded them all together making the metal folds blend into one solid structure. From what I knew about the making of the Katana, this meant it could no longer withstand the rigors of battle and would snap at the first opportunity. I kept it, however, a small nagging voice telling me that perhaps all was not lost, and it could be restored in some fashion at some later date.
The healing potion rippled through my body and mended everything. The pain was a small thing as the pain was my friend and meant I was alive. I would have to thank Charlie profusely when I saw him again. His healing potion was definitely a pick me up and did I detect a taste of bourbon in there? I still had one more healing potion and would keep that for the next time I was stupid.
Damn heroic gestures were definitely not good for my health and all would be for naught if I didn’t get back into the world and make some very surprised people pay for their betrayal. I had proved these bastard Reapers could be dealt with. The fact that they were human though, made me pause in my pondering. A human techno-necro was definitely a scary proposition. His psychic assault had nearly made me succumb to his will, and I wasn’t sure what his murky armor would have done to my sword, but most likely it wasn’t good. The longer I had faced him, had resisted his psychic battery, the more resistant I had become to his wiles. I suspected I had my recent upgrades to thank for that, and many years of butting my head against walls in the military.
So much had happened so quickly and yet I was no closer to achieving anything. Least of all getting out of this predicament. Would anyone come for me? The US Armed forces never left a man behind, but the mess I had caused would leave anyone interested in retrieving me doubtful of anything to retrieve. Besides, ASS was anything but the US Armed forces. How long could I survive stuck in an egg below the Earth?
Foremost I needed to get out.
CHAPTER 39
Winding Down
It took me three solid days. Each day I burrowed using my strength, my bare hands, and my pitiful magic to displace rock, sand, and concrete. The first part had been easy, the obsidian egg that I emerged from, I chipped away with short bursts of Mana powered effort to give me access to what had become of the original corridor.
Some parts of it were still standing, but most other parts were completely caved in. I was able to move rocks, and debris around me into gaps I either created or found until I met large solid sections of the strata that I had no way of moving physically or magically. I tried to go around those. Part of my newly acquired skill levels had come from putting points into mining and refining ore, both skills I had no idea about, nor practical experience with until they showed up on my inventory of skills list.
Just by adding points to them gave me an inner understanding of rocks, construction and the harvesting of ore, at a level I had never understood. I found myself pondering geological formations, crystalline structures, and the composition of rocks as never before.
Where the information came from I could only guess, but it seemed that the quantum computer that was developing in my head, or wherever it was located had an endless library of information that could be fed to me, provided I showed the inclination to search for it and attribute myself the skills for it. The more I partook in that particular skill, the more information was released to my conscious mind and the more easily I could deduce ways to manipulate and mine the earth around me.
The additional skill points I acquired over the course of the three days, I attributed to Earth and Metal magic that gave me access to short term earth moving spells. My constant use of them left me drained and exhausted, but after each instance, I could displace more and more rock, shore up the tunnel and support unstable structures.
After which I would crawl back to my cracked egg cocoon and using a gourd, collected some filthy water within. Then my Cleanse spell would clean the water of impurities and I drank until my belly bulged.
Food rations were in short supply, but with careful rationing, I made them last the full three days. I was extremely grumpy at first, the confined space I found myself in making me feel claustrophobic at times.
The constant threat of crushing rock from above was also nagging at me somewhere deep inside and I had to wrestle with my fears as if they were alive and smothering me in the dark.
I became lethargically quiescent at the latter stages of my ordeal as food ran out and the hopelessness of my si
tuation compounded down around me. When I came across the air duct pipe, it was a veritable lifeline, and I was able to dig with a lot more fervor until I found the manhole entrance whereupon using the last of my waning strength I climbed up it and out to freedom.
Along the way, I had missed the access point at ground level and continued until I reached the extraction fan at the top of the surrounding cliff. It continued to turn, still powered and attached to some form of solar panel array that must have powered the entire complex. I finally clambered out to lie upon a grating far up the side of the cliff with a birds-eye-view of the destruction the explosives had wrought.
Below in the cul-de-sac, where before, an elegant if somewhat stark scientific building had been, now, lay a fractured ruin.
Almost the entire building had collapsed, and not just collapsed, but had fallen into the cavern system below. The only parts standing were at the very edge of the original L shaped building. I say standing liberally because the stark struts of concrete pillars were bent ominously like drunken men trying to hold each other up and the connected walls were barely hanging by threads.
Along the side of the cliffs at places, there had been large rockfalls, which had all done their fair share of filling in the crater where the building had once stood.
I marveled at the destruction sown by the Scalar explosives. That I had made my way out of that mess was a miracle and I felt providence smiling down on me. I didn’t know which God or God’s to thank in this world, but I figured, any or all, it didn’t matter. I owed them one indeed.
Upon the cliff face leading higher, I found a ladder that went right to the top. I used it to get clear of the place and without looking back made my way around along the cliff edge and then South towards the access road which I surmised should lead to some type of civilization. I knew that I had missed the waypoint deadline to teleport back to the Absinthe ship many days ago, and I wasn’t even sure I wanted to go back there. I had decided in those dark caverns below that I needed to get to Illuminous. That is where I would find answers and that is where I could lay some smack down for my situation. First, I had to find Shavestri and recruit him to my cause.
I set off at a brisk walk down the mountainside. I was a man of action and I had a new mission.
END OF BOOK 1
CHAPTER 1
Desolation
I stood looking out over a vast expanse of an Alien landscape. The city below was under attack. There were drop ships coming in, dropping off the zombie-like Reaper troops. They swarmed out and towards the city in massive groups of undead flesh. The drop ship would then elevate and hover above the battlefield. The necromancer controller had to be in the ship, guiding the platoons of Reapers to stream forth like the bursting of a festering boil into the beleaguered city. I could see there was still resistance from the living.
Explosive bolts of fire, black swirls of shadow and sizzling streams of lightning issued forth from various places along the surrounding walls into the attacking undead, but they sadly made hardly a dent and already in several places, the Reapers swarmed over the walls, compromising the barrier with hardly a stall in their progress.
As I watched, the defending magical blasts lessened, and the fight began to move to within the city. Flashes of light from between the buildings and explosions slowed the zombie advance. As the Reapers consumed their enemy, the dead and dying became part of the Reaper army. It was a terrible tragedy. Most of those people being killed and consumed were everyday Scalar. A race who had been fighting these Reapers for over a hundred years. The four armed, three-eyed people were strong physically and yet could not fight this kind of onslaught. The Reapers had been holding back before. They made the city burn within half a day and literally doubled their fighting force in the process. It was little wonder that the Absinthe who had recruited me were afraid of this foe.
The twelve drop-ships hovering above the city were under no threat as they guided their minions wreaking havoc below. It was truly an unfair fight, and it left me feeling bereft.
It had taken me five days to get here from my grave back in a science facility. A place I had killed a Reaper Officer with a great deal of luck, and in the process had destroyed the research facility. Buried underground, protected only by an epic item I had been gifted. The pure force of activating my protection shield had opened my magical ways to enable me to use up to Tier 8 magic. The explosion had killed me outright, but because of an upgrade feature that allowed nanobots within my body to restore my life even after death had rendered my internal organs useless, I could revive. The restoration was within certain limits, so, fortunately, my death had not been the kind where my body was vaporized, although the shock wave produced by the explosives had made a lot of my body useless. These nanobots, powered from tachyon space could restore me to a living condition once the carnage of the explosion and subsequent collapse of the complex had settled. Somehow they had prevented my spirit from leaving and I had awakened to pain, confusion, and abilities I could never have dreamed of, just two months previous. How things had changed.
It all started when I had been abducted from Earth and conscripted into the Absinths secret military force. A new recruit of Earth Special Forces operatives, I had been introduced to nanotech and magic. Thanks to the exceptional abilities I had built up over a career of 30 years in various armed forces. They had discovered I was one of a select few who had Prodigy abilities. I had used the upgrades in ways that others could not. And now, before me lay the ruins of the nearest city on an alien planet. A place I was heading to, to find refuge from the Reaper scourge. There would be no refuge here.
This attack was most likely a response from the Reapers as punishment for killing one of their Necromancers. It was a grim thought and the Grim Reaper was having his fill. I was responsible for this, and as these thoughts settled on me; I felt a complete sense of helplessness. I had so many plans, so many thoughts on how to confront the Elf King for his betrayal, how to narrow down on the traitor within the Absinthe ship, and they all lay like pearls before swine as the undead army streamed into this soon to be ruin of a city.
The thoughts lay in the dust where the dead became undead and the drop-ships swooped in and collected their now augmented ranks. I turned away, Despair filling my heart as I wondered what I could do, when I felt it. It was the barest tremble.
The ground was shaking. A slight unbalancing, then the shuddering as during an earthquake. That woozy feeling as the ground beneath your feet betrayed you. I turned back to look at the city from my vantage point overlooking the entire scene and from within the center of the city, a large column began to rise. It appeared to be an obelisk and it parted the earth as it rose, throwing buildings aside. Plumes of dust and debris the only witness while it inexorably stretched out of the earth towards the sky in what appeared to be a last ditch effort of pleading to the God’s for salvation. On its pinnacle was a radiant pulsating light. The light was growing in intensity and the drop-ships above the city began to retreat. The ones on the ground, open and receiving the streams of zombie passengers lit their respective thrusters and tried to take off. But by then it was far, far too late. The radiant light, ever brighter and almost painful to look at, sent out a spherical blast of energy. The pulse a veritable wave of searing destruction.
It was unlike anything I had ever seen, and it sped out in a massive ever-expanding sphere. I saw the ships closest, poised like vultures in the sky lose all power. Like falling rotting fruit. They simply fell from the sky, crashing and exploding as they met the unforgiving earth. The impacts the result of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. The long lines of Reaper troops streaming out of the city all fell where they stood. Their undead animation ended. The strings of the puppet masters cut so suddenly and so soundly that the world seemed to be holding its breath.
I stood in amazement, watching this all play out. Of the twelve Reaper drop-ships, only one had escaped the blast radius and it accelerated away and up as fast as it could go
. Was it an EMP blast? I didn’t know, but I could see the blast force crashing like a ripple across the landscape. Heading out in every direction as it ate up the kilometers in an ever-expanding ripple. It was heading towards me. What should I do? I had no idea what it was. Did it affect only the undead?
The ground rippled as it drew ever closer. Buckling the ground before it, and spreading ever closer. Trees, shrubs, dust and stone all swallowed and pushed down and away. The kilometers of distance being swallowed up in a consistent and outward-bound force, as the shock wave spread ever outward, ever closer to my position. There was no way I could evade it. No way I could escape.
Settling the thought in my mind, I created a force field around me and braced myself against a rock, hoping beyond hope that it would have some ability to protect me. I didn’t have huge reserves to tap into. I only had what was within me. It would have to do. I steeled my will and braced for impact. After all that I had been through, this would be a shitty way to die.
