《Dungeon and Stars》 CH 1 Bottom of my hole Have you ever wondered what it¡¯s like to be a glowing rock? No. You haven''t. Well let me tell you it''s not fun. I''ve been sitting here glowing for a long time. I mean I think it''s been a long time? I can''t see anything but rocks so I really don''t know how long I''ve been here. I mean I can''t move because I''m a rock and well why would a rock be able to do anything. I may be glowing but that doesn''t mean I can do diddly squat. I just sit here and glow and sit and get a little brighter than I sit some more. It really isn''t a whole lot of fun. And now you might be wondering who I''m talking to. And I''ll tell you Jim I''m talking to you. You are the 34 rock I''ve met, talked to, told my life story to, waited for a response from, and them ultimately ignored because you don''t give your rock brother the time of day. But you won''t do that right Jim. You''re not like Steven, Bert, Helga, Rose, Sam, Grant, Bert, Philip, Veronica, Jasmine, Jade, Corbin, Bert, Cortez, Damien, Cooper, That one who hates me. Shut it Sally I''m not talking to you. So what if I don''t introduce you to Jim. Fine whatever Sally. Jim that''s Sally she¡¯s an evil lady so don''t talk to her. Don''t get butt hurt about how I introduced you Sally. I didn''t want to in the first place. Anyway where was I? Oh right. The one wh. I mean Sally. Then there was Bert, Hector, Irowe, Ramasse, Tim, Guenever, Bert, Kimberly, Saul, Jezebel, Bert, Ryan, Fernando, Zoe, Lester, Coale, and then there''s you Jim. What I didn''t choose their names.The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. It''s not my fault there are so many rocks named Bert. And Bert was always such a good conversationalist. He was so good at listening and never interrupted me. Unlike Sally who had the audacity to interrupt Cooper and I¡¯s conversation with her clickety clacks. But anyway back to the story. Every once and awhile the earth shakes and allows for some of our rock brothers to jump up and float around for a time. But most of us are embedded into the walls. I''m a little jealous of the rocks that get to float like that. It looks fun. But sadly I can''t since I''m one of the few embedded into the wall''s. Whenever the earth shakes there is a chance that a new friend will fall into our little cave. Just like you did a few seconds ago. And after everyone comes back down from flouting we do what we do best. We sit and wait, while I softly glow. Oh. You want to know why I don¡¯t get along with Sally. Well it is more than her rude behavior. It¡¯s also the fact that when she fell she caused many others to fall down with her. She shook the ground when she landed and made it so that others who were content somewhere else falls down into this stupid hole we call home. Because let''s be real about this, there is nothing good about being down here. I mean really nothing changes, nothing at all. We sit; the world shakes and some others fall into this pit. That''s basically it. I mean a few of the others get to flout every now and then. But even then it¡¯s a rare occurrence. The reason I dislike Sally is that she brought others down here with her into this nothingness. I mean I would rather be down here with only Sally then have everyone else in here with me. But I can¡¯t change that as I am and I have no power to make any real changes other than providing light to everyone. That they don¡¯t even need I might add. I mean to be honest with you Jim I don¡¯t even know why I¡¯m here, why I can think, and why I even try to reason that there is something more to this. You see Jim if I had the power to I would have ended myself by now. Eons ago¡­ Before Steven even fell into this hole with me I would have been gone. And the only thing that gives me any form of meaning is the fact that I can entertain everyone with my glowing. How I cast siam light around the wall of this hole. How the light shimmers and fades into and out of existence for your enjoyment. Jim I don¡¯t know why I do what I do. Why do I know these things like color and the concept of blame? Even empathy Jim, why do I have this knowledge¡­¡­.
WIll you try again?
I don¡¯t know why you bother me Demon. You know I can¡¯t do anything. Just take my soul already.
Expand your domain.
WHAT DOMAIN! I have nothing.
Contol your mana.
Demon please leave me be. Haven¡¯t you had your fun making fun of me and my inability.
Build your core.
Please leave. I beg of you. ¡°Defend yourself from invaders.¡±
Defend yourself from invaders.
Why should I even bother¡­. CH 2 Introspection Ch 2 The world has been shaking a lot more frequently than it has in a while. And their durations are longer as well. I wonder if the all-consuming lava will come and claim us soon. I hope so. I long for its embrace and the destruction it carries towards me¡­. The rumbling has grown louder and louder recently. It has gotten so bad that a large boulder has come and sealed our hole shut. It was falling on its way to join us down here but got stuck. His name is Petter by the way. He likes rolling around I¡¯ve been told. But because of Petter there have been no new additions to our family, besides Petter himself of course. And something unusual about Petter is that he has scorch marks on some parts of him. I think it¡¯s because he touched some lava. But he won¡¯t tell me why he¡¯s that way. Well he doesn''t talk much at all, even less so than the others. He just sits up there and sleeps. It must take a lot of energy to roll around at his size. No I¡¯m not fat shaming him I promise. What do you mean that¡¯s what it sounds like. Well I¡¯m not Sally! Oh Petter you''re awake. I have a question for you. OH I¡¯m so sorry Petter I didn¡¯t know that offended you. I promise I won¡¯t say it again. So will you listen to my question? No. Why not? Because you''re going to take another nap. I see I¡¯ll ask you when you wake up. Fat lard. Oh nothing Petter nothing at all. Sally if you say a word I will hurt you. Sally please don¡¯t I¡¯ll do anything. What you want some of my light. I¡¯m not sure if I can give, I¡¯ll do it so please just shut up! It¡¯s nothing Petter just go back to sleep. I promise Petter it¡¯s nothing. So just go back to your nap. Thanks Petter. See you when you wake up. Ok so how do I make Sally glow? Hummmmmmm¡­.
Will you try again?
Not now demon.
Expand your domain
Demon I¡¯ve told you countless times to go away so please just stop.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.
Control your mana
Come on demon that''s enough. Wait a second¡­. That''s it! Thank you Demon. You beautiful, beautiful disembodied Demon in my head. Now Demon¡­. How do I do that?
Build you core
So I need to build my core so that I can control my mana. I see. So how do I do that?
Defend yourself from invaders
You know what demon I think you''re trolling me. At least on that last one. But I will give controlling mana a shot just so that Sally will get off my back. It¡¯s not like I have any other ideas. So I need to think. What is mana? Mana is magic. Magic is a form of energy¡­. It is¡­. a life force? Yeah it¡¯s a type of life force. It is the power a being has inside them. It¡¯s the force that allows them to affect the world around them. Every being has a finite amount they can control and contain at a time, from the smallest blade of grass to the dragons in the heavens, from the dust to the stars themselves. Everything has some amount of control. Some amount of mana. But how do you move it outside of yourself? Some beings use runes or spell circles. But that''s not how they move mana outside of themselves. That¡¯s just a way of focusing the effect the mana has on the world. What drives the mana out? Is the circulation of mana inside oneself the thing that propels mana out of their bodies? No, that only re-enforces their body. It doesn¡¯t push it out of their body. Some sing the mana right out. Others say special words for certain effects to happen. But I can talk not vocally anyway. So that option is out as well. And I think they''re not necessary either. So what do you need to do? Well each of these things that I thought of are used to help in the use of mana. And they all work. I think¡­. So what is similar between them all? They all use language. Whether known or unknown, language is used. But language doesn''t mean anything unless you have something to relate it to. So I can rule out that language itself has any real power over mana. But many beings believe it does. But it words alone don¡¯t have any effect on mana. So why do they do it that way? Because that''s how they''ve been taught how to do it. Because how else would it work without symbols to represent what you want. Because if you mispronounce a spell that someone else taught you then it won¡¯t work. That, they themselves, learned from someone else. Who may have learned it from a book¡­. So why do they do it this way? It makes no sense. Why would anyone believe that they could only do things with a special word? Because they can and others can¡¯t, because everyone thinks that way the world works¡­. Because they all believe that''s how it has to be¡­. Because they believe that''s the only way¡­. That''s it belief! Belief, will, the mental might to change reality! I just need to will it to happen. I just need to will my mana out of me and guide it into Sally. I need to give it the intent that it will make her glow. I can do that¡­. Right? Yeah I can do that. I can make Sally glow. But if I¡¯m going to do this then I need to do this right. I need to make a show of this. I need this to instill shock and aww into the others. For no other reason than my own enjoyment and self-gratification. I wonder if that''s why they think those thing are needed? Some guy learned how to do magic but wanted to feel important so he made up a bunch of random words and put them in a sentence. Then people wanted to do the same thing so they asked him to teach them. And he did but said not everybody can do it. Then he made it more complex by making them pronounce each and every one of his silly words correctly for it to work. Then as time passed the language changed, but the silly words to use magic didn¡¯t because that''s what people believed was the only way to use magic. And then eventually someone made a written language for it, making runes. But in all honesty it¡¯s all just a bunch of bull crap that some guy made up so he could feel special. I mean I wouldn¡¯t be too surprised if that was the truth and that was how everything came to be as it is now. Hummmmmmmmm¡­. Do I want to be that guy? Hummmmmmmmm¡­. Hummmmmmmmm¡­. Well as tempting as that is I don¡¯t want to lead everyone into thinking that they have to say stupid thing to have power. Except, maybe Sally. Hummmmmmm¡­.. No, not even Sally deserves that. Barley¡­. I think¡­. Probably¡­ No, not even Sally. Maybe¡­ No! Just no self not even Sally. Sally doesn''t really deserve it anyways. I just want her to deserve it so that she can look like a fool. But if I do that then I¡¯ll just feel awful about it when I see her try so hard to make it work as she says something stupid after the millionth time. Well now that I have an idea on how I think it will work. It¡¯s time to pretend like I know what I¡¯m doing. Hopefully nothing explodes. CH 3 A proper test CH 3 Sally? Saaaallly? Sally can you hear me? Oh good you''re awake! Sally stop yelling at me. You only have a few cracks covering your body. It¡¯s not like you shattered. So stop whining. Ok ok I was reckless. Sheesh. I know you''re not glowing Sally. But I think that I¡¯ve got a handle on the process now so you shouldn''t worry about it the next time. You don¡¯t want a next time? I promise you¡¯ll glow this time. And you¡¯ll only lose a little bit of your outer shell. Sally whether you want it or not I promised to make you glow. So I¡¯m going to do it whether you like it or not. I am not trying to get you killed. I¡¯m trying to fulfill the deal we had. Don¡¯t call the deal off. That will just make me feel like I got something for free. And there''s not like there is anything else I can really do for you. Please Sally give me one more chance I promise it will work. Oh thank you Sally. Thank you thank you thank you. Ok so let¡¯s evaluate what I did wrong last time. First I gathered a bit of mana. Then I willed it out of myself and towards Sally. Next I forced my mana into sally telling it to make her glow. And then she did¡­. for 0.3 seconds. She passed out after glowing. And that''s when she started to crack and shake. At first they were small but they kept growing and parts of Sally fell off of her. I pulled as much mana as I could out of Sally as fast as I could until I pulled all the mana I had given her back out. But that didn¡¯t stop it. The cracks got deeper and longer. When she shook dust flew off of her. As time passed her shaking slowed and so did her cracks. That is until the world decided to shake as well. It was the worst shaking that had ever happened. Petter told use that he had caught lots of others during the quake. He even moved deeper into our little hole. But because of the world shake Sally sped up again. And this time she wasn¡¯t slowing down. It seemed like the shaking had caused her to start disintegrating in larger chunks. If she was any smaller she would already be a pile rock dust. I was afraid that if I didn¡¯t do anything she would be gone forever. So I did the only thing I could think of. I used my mana. Even against my better judgment I knew it was the only way to save Sally. I know it caused the initial problem but I couldn¡¯t do that to her. So I gathered my mana and focused it together. Giving it my will of collecting the dust she had shed and encasing her in it until she stopped moving. Once I had a clear idea of what I wanted it to do I sent it out of me and let it do as my will had desired it to do. And then it began. The mana flowed out of me. It twisted and twirled around picking up her dust and pulling it towards Sally. Layer upon layer began to encase Sally restraining her. As the dust gathered it began to compress together forming sheets of rock to hold her in place. Slowly but surely she began to slow down. And once she came to a complete stop the dust surrounding her fell away revealing a new stone in its place. She had become a Light aqua blue color with her core being a darker blue. But she was still scared from all the cracks that were covering her surface. Now Sally was very different from everyone else in color, personality, and shape. I may be responsible for two of those things I¡¯ll admit. But I can¡¯t take all the blame, right? Well apparently I can and am supposed to, according to everyone else. And we had quite a long time to talk it through since she didn¡¯t wake up for a long time after the whole ordeal. I mean a really, really long time. Which was a good thing since I needed to refill my mana reserves. It¡¯s weird how to feel empty. I mean it¡¯s weird to feel in general but I especially don¡¯t like the feeling of being empty. So I worked on gathering my mana to ease the empty feeling away. I just spun it around inside myself and it slowly produced more mana until I became full again. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. Then Sally woke up. And man can I tell you she was not happy. She yelled and screamed like crazy. I could only sit there and shake in fear at her rage. And had she had any power herself I¡¯m pretty sure I would be dead and this cave would be much larger than it is now. But after the others calmed her down I was able to talk to her and explain myself. Well at least I tried to explain myself but, well let¡¯s just say I wasn¡¯t received well. And that''s how we got to where we¡¯re at now. No Sally I didn¡¯t forget about trying to make you glow. I¡¯m just double checking so that I do it right. So calm down Sally. Now let¡¯s begin. I¡¯ll gather my mana into a condensed chunk. Then I¡¯ll impart my will onto this chunk of mana. I want to fill the creaks that cover Sally first and then with the remaining mana I¡¯ll trap it inside of her core which will make her glow. To do this I will be giving her mana with no will other than to move from one vessel to another. This should cause Sally to glow without her having to worry about becoming dust. Ok Sally, are you ready? Here we go. The mana begins to gathers onto the surface of my body. Slowly it moves onto a single face of my body consolidating the magical power I¡¯m about to use. It starts to spin and form a spire in the direction of Sally. It gets longer and thinner as the seconds pass. Until there is only a thin screw of mana directed at Sally. It starts to spin faster and unravel into multiple tendrils of mana. Once it gets to the speed that the tendrils start to blur together they break off of my body and fly to Sally¡¯s. They spin and bend as if they were serpents. Some drill groves into the ground gathering stone. They get closer and closer to Sally converging on her. She¡¯s screaming at me again, by the way. Then they make contact. The tendrils that had made grooves in the stone reached her first. They filled her cracks with new rock chunks that fit almost perfectly into their spaces. Then a few of the other tendrils ran across her surface fusing all her pieces back together making her whole again. The last of the tendrils then went towards her and disintegrated into a more gaseous state that swirled around her as they slowly were absorbed by Sally. Then the room whet still. But that was only a small reprieve. Then the world started to shake again. As it did Sally began to glow in a cyan light. But the quake kept getting worse and worse as time went by. It almost seemed like something was getting closer. It¡¯s so bad that I¡¯m afraid Petter will fall on us all any minute now. And that''s when the walls started to crack. Now of all the thing that have happened in my life this is the most terrifying of them all. The walls have never moved or broken in previous quakes. Dust might be shaken off of the walls of the cave but the walls have never truly broken. Not even under Petter¡¯s weight. But now they¡¯re cracking apart. Then the wall started to bulge out towards us. The cracks grew bigger, connecting to one another creating a massive web all over the bulging wall. That is until it came to an abrupt stop. I knew it was too soon to be over so I began to gather my mana. I imparted my will on it to reinforce the wall with the little mana I had left after healing Sally. It gushed out of me towards the wall. I only had enough mana to put up a single layer of condensed mana, which barely covered the bulge on the wall. I hope that this will be enough to hold it back during the next quake. But it wasn¡¯t meant to be. BOOOOM!
Attention domain is being invaded
CH 4 Fight for rock life
Attention domain is being invaded
Attention core in danger
All pawns to arms
DEMON NOW IS NOT THE TIME. Ha stupid demon can¡¯t it see that I¡¯m going to die. And I don¡¯t own any ¡°pawns¡±? As the dust began to settle I saw the outline of what had destroyed my home. It was nine of me tall, three of me wide. There was something fading behind it at about five head from the bottom of the outline. And in front of it was a large bulky tube like thing that connected to its arm. And at the same time Sally started acting up. I mean she was glowing like crazy. She even started to concentrate her mana. I didn¡¯t even know she could do that. But when she released it is when my jaw hit the ground. You know if I had a jaw, or mouth for that matter. But that¡¯s beside the point she started to send arms of mana out grabbing as many rock as she could. She grabbed Grant, Jezebel, Philip, Kimberly, Tim, Veronica, Ramasse, Jade, Corbin, Ryan, Irowe, Jasmine, Saul, Cortez, Hector, Fernando, Zoe, Guenever and all of the Bert¡¯s, all of them. She pulled them towards herself and started to organize them around her. Once they were laid out like she wanted she sent out five tendrils through each and every one of them with Sally at the center. Then they were all speared through though they began to move together as if they were only a single being. It stood up on two legs with a rock tail on its back, as well as two large arms. There was no designated head or torso, just arms, legs, and a tail. The gem that was Sally still glowed lightly at the center of the construct she had orchestrated but now there were concentrated veins of mana running throughout the construct. By the time the construct had finished forming it stands at four of my heads high. Than it rises up and moves itself in between myself and the outline in the dust cloud. I would like to say I was flattered that they would protect me like this, but I get the distinct impression that it is more out of duty than out of their fondness for me. Finally the dust has settled enough to allow me to get a good look at this ¡°intruder¡± that the demon was talking about. The creature before me is covered in a black sleek sheen with diluted orange lights running along its body. The being''s head is box like with indentions on the top and a curved neck piece that runs along its elongated jaw. I can now see its second set of feet that are set behind it, along with a large tail with a four blades at its end. The creature''s legs come out of a draped shell that encases its lower body. And the bulky tube now looks more defined with a large central tube and two smaller tubes on the bottom of it that lead to a half cylindrical piece where everything connects. The creature''s right arm is even fused to the thing at the other end. All in all I¡®m terrified of this massive black being, without eyes and I assume a without a soul. For I wouldn¡¯t be surprised at all if it devoured any and all life it came across. Oh man I don¡¯t want to die. What to do? What do I do? What can I do? Awwwww I can¡¯t do anything. I don¡¯t even have spare mana to use. What did demon say about pawns? Something about calling them to arms. Well Pawns attack that soulless creature and defend me! Please! Please save me from becoming this things next meal! Oh, please just attack and kill the invader! And as it my pleading had an effect the construct lurches forward and begins its charge towards the black beast. The first thing the beast does is level it¡¯s fused arm tube towards the construct while grabbing a weird protrusion with its six clawed hand. But then it just sit¡¯s hesitates for a moment until it pushes the tube onto the underside of its fused arm. Then it does an unexpectedly quick spin, considering its size, sweeping its tail right at the construct blowing it away as if it were an insignificant pebble. When I saw the construct slam into the wall my heart gave out and I realized I had no hope of surviving. But for some reason it rose again and charged the beast again. But this time it was tailless. Once the beast noticed the construct was rushing at it again, it raised its right arm and took a stance of some sort. The construct seeming to not learn its lesson leaps towards the beast. Only for the beast to swing it¡¯s raised arm down at the construct sending it into the ground, sending up another cloud of dust. But the beast isn¡¯t done with the construct yet and raises a leg up in preparation to strike. I can only stare in horror as the beast deploys five claws directly below its foot just before it slams down its foot.This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. The force from the beasts stomp clears the dust that blocked my view allowing me to see the constructs body. The mana that was flowing through all of its limbs had dispersed and began to float back towards me. But the core of the construct still glowed giving me a sense of hope that all wasn¡¯t lost. Oh how wrong I was. The beast slams its foot down again leaving the core in a poor state with a very dim glow radiating from it. Than picks up the constructs core and puts it somewhere in its black folds along its draped shell. Then the beast moves to the middle of the room as if it owns the place. The beast stays there but is constantly moving its head around as it watches for a new threat, as if I could do anything that would be a threat to that beast. We stayed that way until a beast came into the room behind it.
Attention domain is being invaded
I can see that demon. This one didn¡¯t come in with any fanfare so I was able to see fairly clearly. It was about six of me tall while slouching and two of me wide. It had six arms the ones on its back had four joints that looked exposed bone. The other two pair of arms where coming out of its torso with the top pair being large with a strange ability to change its hands into a variety of different complex shapes. Its bottom pair was smaller with four long fingers. It¡¯s legs were half the width of its body and had spikes pointed towards the ground that came out of its calves. Its head was featureless and smooth being balloon shaped with a single ridge running down the center of its face with a flat cover on the bottom. Its body had some round protrusions coming out of it but was mostly covered in scales with some larger scales covering its large flat sections of its body. It was a black creature like the other beast but it had a few glowing blue scales. It also carried a round object that was just a bit bigger than me. The new creature stopped next to the beast and just stood there looking around just like the beast had been doing before it arrived. They both paused their searches when they looked towards each other from time to time. Then the creature held up the round object towards the beast. The beast responded by pointed towards me. Let me tell you something today started off good. But as it goes on it gets progressively worse. I have thought that it couldn¡¯t get any worse at least seven times today and have been proven wrong each and every time. I can¡¯t even describe the amount of despair I¡¯ve felt today. I get a glimpse of hope only for it to be dashed into trillions of pieces while still leaving a lingering image of the futile hope I once had. I¡¯m sick of it! I¡¯m not going to take it anymore. I have mana for goodness sake. I can at least destroy those two and get back to my boring peaceful life. But to do anything I¡¯ll need more mana. And the only way to do that is to forcefully pull it out of anything and everything around me. So I quickly condense what little mana I have left and send it out to pull it all back into me. Hundreds of small threads fly out of me and grab onto various thing around me. They grab the ground, the air, they even try to grab the creatures that threaten me but can¡¯t pull in any subsequent amount of mana off of them. Some of the threads fly back into me with chunks of mana in their grasp.
Warning piece of domain lost
So the mana I¡¯m collecting is from my domain. Thanks demon, I¡¯ll use that to end them. With the information demon just gave me I now know that this mana is already mine to impart my will upon. So I¡¯ll work with what I got. I gather all of the mana I have and I send it out throughout my domain. As mana moves through my domain I impart it with my desire of the destruction of the invaders. I watch as the world around me begins to bubble, rising and falling sporadically. Only after a few seconds had passed, stone spikes where emerging from all sides. The creature and beast acted immediately to the change happening around them. The beast grabbed the creature''s object hastily and charged towards me. While the creature jumped back and waited be there exploded hole. The stone spikes kept growing in size, while maintaining pointy points. But they didn''t seem to pierce the beast. Some scratched its shell but it didn''t stop the beast from reaching me, it barely slowed it down. When the beast arrived at my body it set down the round object next to me. A hatch opened which cut the object in half horizontally allowing a hollowed out space to be revealed. All while the beast was hammered with spikes ramming into it. The beast then reached towards me, and as the beast descended upon me I saw the light.
Core in danger of capture
Self-detonation recommended
The world slowed around me as I considered what demon had said. I could end it all and detonate myself and probably take the beast with me and allow my rock brethren some peace. Or be captured and¡­ well, who knows what they¡¯ll do to me but I don''t think I''ll like it. Detonation it is!
Dungeon detonation sequence initiated
As soon as demon said that I saw all the mana from the room suck back into me, I assume most of it was my domain. And as it came crashing down into my being I felt overwhelmed by the power held within, as all that magic was sucked dry from the world I knew. I saw the spikes fall still, the walls begin to crack and shift and Petter begin to slip from the hold he was in. I began to shine with a radiant light that eliminated the whole room. I felt the power begin to push at the walls of my body seeking a glorious explosion of power and magic. That is until I was ripped from the ground and fitted into their weird sphere object. Than it all stopped. With the only thing I felt was overwhelming power within me swirl around, having no place to go but around and around the inside of my being.
Attention connection to asteroid A7836.X2837.Y3092.Z-0097 severed...
Ch 5 Mr.Boom We''ve been working for months on this blasted rock. Every other week we get a few days off to get food and relax. But this isn''t what I signed up for. I''m not a miner; no one joined the crew to be miners. So why are we still digging on this stupid asteroid. I mean really I can understand that Erindror and Fizzouk being used to digging and all. But I''m almost twice as tall as them and maybe even three times bigger than them. I mean they don''t have to worry about their turn radius all the time when in cramped places, like caves deep within an asteroid for example. They also don''t have to dig as much because they are smaller in size. ¡°Haaaa¡­¡± ¡°Captain O, Boomer speaking¡± ¡°I hear you whatcha need?¡± ¡°Hey Orsu, has anyone found what that meck lover wanted yet?¡± ¡°No, no one has found it yet Tarux. And like I said last time you asked everyone will get informed about it when someone does. So please I beg of you don''t ask me again.¡± ¡°But how come this is taking so long, it isn''t like this asteroid is that much bigger than a moon. So how come we can''t seem to find it?¡± ¡°There is a good reason for that though. We are in the fringe in un-colonized space so that we can mine without having to worry about a whole lot of corporate legal garbage. And because of that there are no accurate scans of this asteroid only probe readings Fizzouk gathered with our ship. That I might add isn''t designed for mining scans and probing. This means we only know that it¡¯s here, somewhere on or in this asteroid. But we have no really solid point telling us exactly where it is. We''re luck Fizzouk narrowed down our search to an eighth of the asteroids upper crust.¡± ¡°Yeah I know but couldn''t we just blow the rock apart and picked through the wreckage?¡± ¡°What and risk destroying the thing. Even if it didn''t break we would still have to pick through the wreckage. It just wasn''t worth it. I know this bores the crap out of you but this is the quickest option.¡± ¡°Yeah boss, I know. But that doesn''t change the fact that it feels like we''re getting nowhere. And who knows when a corporation will strike their claim on this belt and then all our work will be for nothing.¡± ¡°Tarux, I¡¯m going to be frank with you. I don¡¯t like this either¡± ¡°I knew I wasn¡¯t the only one sick of doing this dumb job. I knew¡± ¡°TARUX!¡± ¡°YES CAPTAIN¡­¡± ¡°Listen to me and let me finish. Like I was saying I don¡¯t like this either, But and it¡¯s a big but, we need to do this for the sake of our future of the crew as well as our career as adventurers. Fizzouk has explained it to me multiple times and I believe he is right in that we need this to upgrade our ship. This in turn will give us more opportunities for work in the future. So suck it up and just keep working.¡± ¡°But I¡¯m sooooooo bored. I can¡¯t take it I¡¯m going insane. If I have to keep drilling for the rest of the day without doing anything else I¡¯ll go bonkers.¡± ¡°You know what fine. If you can detect the right mana signature as well as a pocket of space from the same direction as the mana signature I¡¯ll remove your explosives use bane to break down that wall. Agreed?¡± ¡°Oh Boss, I¡¯m going to find this thing so fast now. I can¡¯t wait to set off another boom down here. Hehehe¡­¡± ¡°I¡¯m going to regret this aren''t I?¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry I won¡¯t go overboard with the explosives this time I promise.¡± ¡°Haaaaaa¡­¡± ¡°Just don¡¯t kill yourself down there Tarux. Captain Orsu out.¡± Aww yeah I got permission to use my explosives again. I still think I should have had that right taken from me. I mean I just blew up one section of wall and everyone gets up in arms about it. No one got hurt or anything. Just an old passage collapsed. How was I supposed to know that Fizzouk wanted to go down that passage in particular? Even now he¡¯s still digging away the rubble in that old passageway. Talk about hard headed. But I got permission from Captain so Fizzouk can suck it. Now I just need to find that mana signature¡­ This means I¡¯ll have to keep digging doesn¡¯t it¡­ ¡°Huuuuuu, back to the grind.¡±
I''ve been digging for a while now. I''ll send out a mana pulse again and see what readings I get back. But first, let''s go through Fizz¡¯s check list this time, I don''t want nor do I need another one of his lectures on the proper use and care for his baby''s. First, stop all activity and stand still, check. Second, place pulse dome on flat surface, check. Third, configure range of search, check. Fourth, tune search to desired mana frequency, check. Fifth through ninth, Erindror said are diagnostic tests that I don''t need to do because I wouldn''t understand what the results that come back would mean in the first place, check. And finally, start it up and wait for results. As the little dome thing comes to life it pushes itself away from the wall ever so slightly. Then pulls itself back into it again as it loses some of its glow. And then we wait to see if anything pops up on my helmets HUD.This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Nothing probably will but who knows. ¡°Dooo¡± ¡°Dooo¡± ¡°Dooo¡± Wait what! I got a reading. No one has gotten a proper reading since I collapsed that.... No one''s gotten a proper reading in ages. This is insane!!! Did I break something? I did skip a lot of steps. And I can''t call Fizz for that or I''ll get chewed out again. ¡°Hummmm¡± Got it I''ll ask Erindror. ¡°Erin, Boomer speaking.¡± ¡°Hey Tarux what¡¯s up? You¡¯re calling an hour earlier than I was expecting you.¡± ¡°Yeah I have a question. And what do you mean you were expecting me? I don''t call you that often.¡± ¡°Nothing buddy, don''t worry about it. So what can I do for ya?¡± ¡°Well I got a reading on the pulse sensor. And I wanted to report in about it. But I skipped all those steps you told me about so I don''t know if it was a fluke or not.¡± ¡°Wait you got a reading!¡± ¡°Yeah it''s crazy.¡± ¡°I mean no offence but no one expected to find this thing so soon, let alone you.¡± ¡°Neither did I, and I''m choosing to not take offense to that for now. And I thought that either you or Fizz would find it. But that''s why I''m asking about those steps you told me to skip. I need to make sure I do this right so I don''t report the wrong thing.¡± ¡°Ok I''ll help you through this.¡± ¡°Thanks for that¡± ¡°So run through the steps up to step five. Tell me when you''ve done that.¡± ¡°Yeah ok.¡± So I just need to configure the search range and tune the mana frequency. ¡°Ok I''ve done the steps I know. What''s next?¡± ¡°Next input and run the program test.pus@443.¡± ¡°Ok it¡¯s started up. Now what.¡± ¡°Let it run. If you get the scenario SAD297.Fux than you are clear and nothing¡¯s wrong. If you get anything else we¡¯ll work through it.¡± ¡°Copy that I¡¯m starting the program now.¡± Once the program was input the pulse scanner started up. It did a wide range of pulses from small ones with little impacts to larger ones that slam it against the wall. It doesn''t seem to be recording any data for our use, but that''s probably for the best with how randomly mana moves in space. As the test finished up I got a read out of the scanner with scenario code SAD297.Fux on it. Yup, that''s the code Erin told me worked. ¡°Got it. The scenario codes are identical to each other. What''s the next step?¡± ¡°Well now we need to tune it to dormant mana signatures and let it run through it like a normal scan.¡± ¡°Understood. That¡¯s default frequency Fz08 right?¡± ¡°Yeah, but for the test you need to tune the scanner manually to that frequency so that we have a constant to go back to and adjust from.¡± ¡°Ughhh fine.¡± ¡°I know it¡¯s a pain but it is the best way to get reliable results.¡± ¡°Yeah I know it¡¯s just a pain sometimes.¡± ¡°It is, but such is the life of a miner.¡± ¡°Yeah. That would be a valid argument if we were miners. But we''re not so I don¡¯t have to put up with it. And most asteroid mines are maned by drones with a few supervisors.¡± ¡°Whatever man just do the test so we can find out whether that scan was accurate or not.¡± ¡°Fine, fine¡­¡± To do this test I had to physically connect to the scanner and tune it slowly as it run¡¯s a long pulse. It¡¯s a long test but it does recalibrate the frequencies so that there properly measured as well as matched correctly to the desired frequencies. The test itself requires specific hand signs that tell the scanner to move up or down a level. The hand signs allow for large changes as well as extremely minute ones. To find the correct frequency I have a sample frequency record to compare it to. It¡¯s all tedious but they are the rules we have with our old second hand equipment. ¡°Hey Erin, do you think I got lucky enough to find this thing?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know but I hope so. I¡¯m sick of digging and want to shoot some big bad beasties. And I¡¯m not saying I don¡¯t like being surrounded by stone again but I¡¯m a part of a spacer crew for a reason. I need a good fight every once and awhile and I know I¡¯m not going to find that down here.¡± ¡°Yeah I get that. I¡¯ve been itching to make something explode, but ever since Fizzouk got Boss to give me a no go on booms I¡¯ve had to go without. But there is a bright side to this, and that¡¯s if this scan is right. Boss got so sick of my whining that he made me a deal that if I found this thing then I got to blow its wall down. I¡¯m looking forward to it so much!¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure you are. By the way what sector of the asteroid are you in?¡± ¡°I¡¯m in sector 73.68.49. Why?¡± ¡°Just want to be aware of the sector we¡¯ll need to search when you cause another cave in.¡± ¡°Shut up. I¡¯m not that dumb, if I was then I would be missing a few limbs by now.¡± ¡°Fair point I guess.¡± ¡°DoDo¡± ¡°YES!¡± ¡°What, what happened?¡± ¡°I got it tuned. So what''s the next step?¡± ¡°Oh good. Well now you need to remove it and place it in a different place. Then you need to run program test.pus@443 again¡± ¡°UGhhhh, fine. Do I need to move it far?¡± ¡°No just a meter away from the last test site.¡± ¡°Ok, done. Running the test now.¡± ¡°Good once you''re done put the scanner back and set the frequency back to that things frequency and set the scan distance again. Then you can run scanner and it will be as good as it can get.¡± ¡°Wait, that was all that the other steps had in them. Diagnostic and calibration tests! I can understand what those would do and why I should do them. Why did you tell me to skip them?¡± ¡°Well I didn¡¯t think you were going to find it so I didn''t think it would matter and I didn¡¯t want to waste time if you broke the scanner ever.¡± ¡°You lazy aghhh. You know what next time I see you you''re going to owe me, either in a ¡°spar¡± or some booze, got it!¡± ¡°Yeah, yeah whatever.¡± ¡°Fine you¡¯ll find out when I see you next.¡± ¡°I¡¯d like to see you try. Haha.¡± ¡°You better believe it. Boomer out¡± ¡°Hey let me hear th¡­¡± ¡°Ahhhh, nice and quiet.¡± I¡¯m so going to give him the beat down he deserves the next time I see him. ¡°Dooo¡± ¡°Dooo¡± ¡°Dooo¡± Yes I¡¯ve got the thing. Yeeeees! ¡°Captain O, Boomer speaking¡± ¡°Hey what''s up Tarux?¡± ¡°Just reporting in that I¡¯ve found that thing. I¡¯m just informing you that I¡¯m going to prepare the charges.¡± ¡°Piss. Tarux hold on. Don¡¯t blow anything up yet. Please just hold off for a second.¡± ¡°Fine. Go call Fizzouk. I¡¯ll start digging closer to it while I wait for your response.¡± ¡°Thanks Tarox I owe you one. Captain Orsu out.¡± Well according to the reading I got I have to dig 1.27 Kilometers till I get within range of the target. Time to get digging.
¡°Tarux, Captain Orsu speaking.¡± ¡°Copy that Boss. So what did Fizzouk have to say?¡± ¡°Well he said I¡¯m an idiot for giving you permission to set something off and that he¡¯s on his way to your position as we speak.¡± ¡°Awww man. He¡¯s not stopping me.¡± ¡°Yeah he understands that. So he asked me to tell you to use concentrated seismic charges. But I¡¯m sure that you¡¯ll use what you think will work the best for the situation.¡± ¡°Seismic charges would work but if the things embedded in a wall or something then I could damage it. I¡¯ll think about it when I get on site.¡± ¡°You know what you do what you want. Just don¡¯t compromise the target or we have to dig a new one out.¡± ¡°Yes sir. If there is one thing I¡¯m going to try my hardest to do it¡¯s not break that thing, for a whole lot of reasons.¡± ¡°Yeah well let me know when you are ten till boom ok.¡± ¡°Sure thing Boss not a problem.¡± ¡°Good, Captain Orsu out.¡± Hehe I¡¯m so excited just 60 meters left to go. Then it¡¯s boom time.
¡°Captain O, Boomer speaking¡± ¡°Boom in ten.¡± ¡°Copy that Tarux. Thanks for the update. Captain Orsu out.¡± Ok long coms off. Time to check my list again. The breach charges are placed in pentagon pattern placement with another charge in the center. The wall thickness is 1.7 meters. Breach charge range is 1.5 meters. Momentum will push the remaining sliver of stone out of the way. Weapon systems up and running. Mining gear stowed and secured. Cave systems structural integrity secured with no risk of explored areas collapsing. Blast zone clear of untargeted obstructions. T minus eight till boom. I can¡¯t wait. CH 6 Mr. Beep Boop ¡°Tarux, Fizzouk speaking¡± ¡°Tarux answer me.¡± Why isn¡¯t the fool answering his com¡¯s? ¡°Tarux do you copy?¡± He knows he¡¯s supposed to keep them on at all times. ¡°Tarux just please don¡¯t set off any explosions until I get there.¡± Oh Captain Orsu why did you have to make a deal with Tarux that allows him complete control of the explosives he¡¯s allowed to use. ¡°Tarux please respond.¡± Even he wouldn¡¯t set off explosions inside the asteroid again right? A rumble ran through the asteroid just now. That idiot set off the charges! ¡°TARUX RESPOND!!!¡± Please oh please don¡¯t screw us with this stunt. ¡°TARUX!¡± ¡°Fizzouk, Tarux speaking.¡± ¡°YOU IDIOT!¡± ¡°Geez Fizzouk can you lower your voice a bit. I haven''t done anything warranting a lecture recently.¡± ¡°Shut it. I¡¯m on my way to your position now to see how bad the damage is. I¡¯ll be there in thirty.¡± ¡°Oh joy. Do you at least have the things stasis cell with you?¡± ¡°Of course I do, I¡¯m not like¡­ I wouldn¡¯t forget something so important to the frequency confirmation sight.¡± ¡°Good.¡± ¡°Now will you please just wait for me before you touch anything else?¡± ¡°Sorry movement spotted. I¡¯m preparing to engage.¡± ¡°For everything good in this universe please just don¡¯t use your assault cannon in the space around the target.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll think about it. Boomer out.¡± ¡°TARUX NO!¡± ¡°Awwww, that stupid brutes going to be the death of me.¡± Why can¡¯t everybody be more like machines? They are so simple. You give them power and an objective and they do it. No questions asked no whining, and no complaints. They remember perfectly and when a problem come up they seek help or shut down. They are so much easier to fix then flesh beings. You don¡¯t even have to worry about offending others or dealing with messy emotions at all. But then again that wish doesn''t really matter. No matter how great the idea is it would always require a sentient power to rule them. They would either draw more of them to that place until it was purely sentiments again. Or the sentient in control would die and the machines would work themselves until they shut down. It¡¯s not like the AI we have couldn¡¯t run the majority of the tasks themselves it¡¯s just that there wouldn¡¯t be any progress. And without progress there can only be a path to ruin. We¡¯ve tried to make sentient AI, self-sufficient, with no need for commands but they were always stagnant. There were a few before that had worked but there was always an agenda that someone else had put in place. It just seemed that AI was never meant to have their lives in their own control. ¡°Fizzouk, Tarux speaking.¡± ¡°Haaa¡± Back to the chore of dealing with this brute. ¡°Threat neutralized, scanning area for potential new threats.¡± ¡°What was the threat might I ask?¡± ¡°You may.¡± ¡°So what was it?¡± Dumb brute. ¡°Oh you wanted to know what the threat was. Well it was a class four stone golem. I¡¯ve retrieved its core since it¡¯s a rare core formation that continues to faintly pulse with mana.¡± ¡°Hummmm, interesting. May I have the core upon return to the ship?¡± ¡°As of now I can make no promises for the core as I have a vague interest in it myself.¡± ¡°You''re doing this to try and get back at me aren''t you?¡± ¡°No I¡¯m not. On any other day about any other objective I would. But this core seems different and I¡¯m interested in it for now.¡± ¡°Fine, but when you get bored of it please let me know. I would like to see it and see what I could use it for.¡± ¡°Sure thing Fizzouk I¡¯ll try and keep that in mind. And how far out are you now? I¡¯m assuming you¡¯re trying to go faster than you usually do since I¡¯m the one on site.¡± ¡°I¡¯m twenty out but I think I can cut it down to fifteen.¡± ¡°Ok good I¡¯ll see you then. Boomer out.¡± ¡°Wait I need to...¡° ¡°And he¡¯s off the com channel. Great.¡±
¡°Tarux, Fizzouk speaking. I¡¯ll arrive in T minus one. Fizzouk out.¡± Well it seems like he didn¡¯t blow anything up since I contacted him. That''s reassuring in its own right. I know that Tarux would relay to me if any threats appeared so I shouldn¡¯t have to arm myself. But you never know what could happen with these sorts of things so I¡¯ll put forty seven percent of my processors on scanning duty and increase my shielding apparatus energy output by twelve percent. Aww there''s Tarux, that brute. His armor seems to be fine and his assault cannon is in its holstered position. That¡¯s a good sign that nothing too important broke. But I have been proven wrong of that line of thought before. As I enter I notice there were two indentions. One was on the wall the other on the floor next to Tarux. It seems like he had listened to my plea earlier and didn¡¯t use his canon. The room was mostly circular with a large bolder acting as its ceiling and a few other large head sized rocks scattered about. But there was one that stood out. It wasn¡¯t very easy to hide something that glows that much, especially in plain sight. The siam red gem was shaped like a snub cube. It looked like there were six interconnected rings spinning around what appeared to be its central point, along with thirty two spheres floating aimlessly around inside of itself. It was breathtaking. ¡°Hey Fizzouk that''s the thing we¡¯re looking for right?¡± ¡°Of course it is. How could you mistake it for anything but¡­¡± ¡°FIZZ! Before you say anything get off of long com so we can talk freely again. Ok.¡± ¡°Oh yeah sorry¡­¡± I was so excited I almost forgot. System coms switch to LOS com only. ¡°There we go, I¡¯m all set.¡± ¡°Come on Fizz I know you''re excited but if the corporate mining probe in the sector catches on to what we''re doing we¡¯ll be in something so deep we won''t be able to crawl out. That''s why we had to come out so far on the edge of the fringe in the first place.¡± Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. ¡°I know but I couldn¡¯t help myself. It¡¯s just so amazing.¡± ¡°Well no matter how amazing it is I¡¯m going to need you to wail on me for failing to retrieve the newly formed dungeon core to Orsu so that if anyone decides to check this sectors probe for sensitive com chatter they will think we¡¯ve failed. I mean we¡¯re even planning to stick around and keep digging for another month while we pretend to look for something important before we leave the sector as dejected spacers trying to mine a rare substance.¡± ¡°Yeah, sorry¡­¡± ¡°Haaaa don¡¯t worry about it. We¡¯ll try to cover it up as best we can. But it will all work out. Do you still remember the code words for letting Orsu know we got the dungeon core?¡± ¡°I remember I¡¯ll make sure to relay the message properly.¡± ¡°Ok good. Can you set up the dungeons mana stasis cell? The longer we stay off of long com the more likely it will be for them to doubt our ¡°failure¡±.¡± ¡°Yeah it¡¯s been warming up the entire way down the tunnel system. I just need to open it up and do a quick calibration.¡± ¡°Ok good. And you should know that when I put the dungeon core into the mana stasis cell its domain will break and that bolder above us will come crashing down. So you might want to step back and be prepared to make that fake emergency call to everybody when it comes down.¡± ¡°Got it. I¡¯ll figure something out.¡± ¡°Good to know.¡±
Attention! Mana levels spiking!
¡°Hey Tarux¡­¡± ¡°Yeah I see it. Fizz get back, give me the stasis cell, and do any of the last prep remotely. It''s time to do this.¡± ¡°Roger.¡± I run back towards the tunnel I came from. Tarux had already grabbed the stasis cell from me while he gave out his command. As I fall back I see that the ground is forming into spikes before falling back into the ground each time growing longer and forming faster by fractions of a second. Tarux just charges into the wall of stone spears. Apparently his armor can hold up to that kind of a beating. I¡¯m unsure whether I would hold up too well against that kind of beating. I know for a fact that my armor would stay intact but I¡¯m unsure if my body could withstand the precise pinpoint attacks that have enough force to slow Tarux¡¯s down slightly mid charge. If that attack lasted for a prolonged amount of time it could prove to be truly devastating in battle.
Attention! Mana levels spiking to unstable levels! Manaimplosion imminent!
¡°Tarux secure the core NOW!¡± ¡°Rraaaawwww!¡± Tarux¡¯s primal scream fills my coms as he rips the dungeon core from the stone. The dungeon core glows brighter and brighter as the mana inside pushes itself against its outer surface. Tarux swiftly puts the core inside the stasis cell which shuts quickly the moment his hand escapes the stasis cells hatch. And then there''s nothing. ¡°Well Fizz the fact that we¡¯re not dead means that it worked. Right?¡± ¡°Well... yes, for the time being anyway. We¡¯ll need to change some things and adjust the setting but we won¡¯t have to release the dungeon core until we¡¯ve completed the generators completion.¡° ¡°That''s good to know.¡± ¡°Tarux you need to get out of there soon, that bolder you mentioned is coming down!¡± ¡°Aww crap! Fizz getaway from the entrance and make the call to Orsu!¡± ¡°But wha¡­¡± ¡°Just do it now!¡± I start to move deeper into the tunnel as Tarux picks up the now full stasis cell and makes a mad dash towards the exit. The boulder that had acted as the ceiling is slowly gaining speed in its decent down. The walls of the cave were falling in on themselves sending shards of rock and dust all around. ¡°Systems turn long com on!¡± ¡°Captain Orsu, Fizzouk speaking. ¡°I hear you. Give me your report.¡± ¡°We weren''t able to recover it. Tarux caused a cave in, the fool. The objective is compromised. We¡¯ll need to regroup and do a large search on this area and see if we can find some remains.¡± ¡°Wait is Tarux down!¡± ¡°No but he¡¯s not in great shape. His armor protected his core body from most of the damage. But we can still get to the ship. So there¡¯s no need to worry about him.¡± As I finish the sentence I feel the ground underneath me shake as see a Tarux blow out of the dust at full speed. ¡°Hey Fizz Catch!!!¡± ¡°Wait what!¡± He throws the stasis cell to me as he passes by, my back arms spring into action and grab the cell from out of the air, just in time to see him try to slow down before he slams into a wall causing the ground to shake a little more. ¡°Ahahahahahaha! There¡¯s the thrill I needed!¡± ¡°Fizzouk what was that?¡± ¡°Just Tarux captain. He seems to seem pleased with himself after the second disaster he caused.¡± ¡°Haaa ok. We¡¯ll deal with it back on the ship so hurry up so we can get it over with. Captain Orsu out.¡± Good now captain know the ¡°Tarux look what you¡¯ve done.¡± ¡°I know wasn¡¯t that awesome.¡± ¡°No it was not you buffoon!¡± ¡°Well I had a blast. And I know my nerves aren''t as frayed anymore.¡± ¡°Whatever. Let''s get back to the ship and get you checked up.¡± ¡°Yeah yeah I¡¯m fine. So let''s keep digging.¡± ¡°Nope Captain said we¡¯re regrouping back at the ship. So it¡¯s time to go.¡± ¡°Fine Fizzouk be a killjoy.¡± Man I can¡¯t wait to stop this act and get back to working on my lovely lady Kalna again. Ch 7 Report Finally we can leave this blasted rock. After we found the dungeon core we began initiating out our plan. A few spacewalks explosions and some crashing of asteroids together later we were able to act pissed off enough that no corporations should be after us. We¡¯ve been ¡°mining¡± for another nineteen cycles for no reason other than to play the mission off as a failure. It was such a tragedy when another asteroid hit the area we had be working as we were regrouping on the ship after Tarux caused another disaster which resulted in him serving guard duty for the rest of the operation. We tried to dig it out but the asteroid began to move back into the danger zone in the asteroid belt as asteroid collisions became more and more frequent. So dissatisfied, tired and angry we left saying we should never have tried our hand as miners. There were a few other inconsequential things that happened. Like Tarux and Erindror had a sparring match were Erin got beat so bad he couldn¡¯t move without feeling something ache, but it wasn¡¯t anything that Vengella couldn¡¯t fix. Then there were the Fizzouks dancing and singing after he returned to the ship with Tarux, a truly painful experience. Mivro was so bored one day that she and Tarux decided to do some target practice that may or may not have set an asteroid into another asteroid that then happened to be pushed into the danger zone. All and all nothing really bad had happened. But now we¡¯re on our way out of the sector and towards the nearest space port so we can offload the rest of the excess oar we gathered between our last resupply and our current departure. Now we¡¯ll gather more rations and fly to an unaligned grey station to work on our ship. After Fizzouk installs the dungeon core into the ships systems we¡¯ll run the ship through some tests and see if everything is working properly. And if we find out everything is working right after its installation. Or once we run out of resources, whichever comes first, we¡¯ll get back into the swing of things with some pick up quests before heading back into dungeons. But for now we¡¯re meeting to discuss how we all did on this adventure. We have quite a diverse group and I trust all of them. First there is Mivro a lithe being covered in her black cloak and grey clothes as she brushes her long bushy obsidian tail, which complements her solid purple eyes, but is in stark contrast to her bleached skin tone. She has large angular ears that end in points that pull tightly to her head. Across from her is Erindror with his four organic arms folded into himself while another pair rest on parts of his gun. His grey skin gives way to some small augmentations across his body like the one over his left ruby eye. He wears a bronze colored shirt and a black vest. His feather like hair is a copper color pulled tightly into a long ponytail. His legs are large and thick with talon hooves. Tarux rests in the back while still looking over the others heads. He has black scales with an orange pattern running down along his back. His legs rest along his side bending like the large predator he is with large flat feet. His tail lies to his side with its cudgeled end lying by his front leg. His spine has sharp squared bone plate running down its length with wide gaps in between. His head is elongated with four bright orange eyes spectacled with grey. And sitting next to Mivro is Vengella. She is a dark green purple color with pine green hair and imperial purple eyes. She has taken the form of a Hefestian but has more curves than they would usually have. She wears a royal blue dress and grey lab coat for our sake. And the vines that make up her skin are thin as they criss cross all along her body. And Fizzouk is sitting on the flour tinkering with something. He uses all six of his arms, four of which are mechanical and grafted to his body. While the last organic pair is his smaller frontal pair that rest under his other pair of arms. His body has many mechanical parts to it from a layered metallic scale skin covering his torso to the vents and motors that poke out ever so slightly every so often. He has metallic coal feather hair in crisscross dreadlocks down to the nape of his neck. His face always seems to be set in a scowl with black lips and emerald eyes. He wears brown pants and a green vest reluctantly saying that the metal is enough covering. And it¡¯s with this lot that I¡¯m meeting with. So far it¡¯s not very well.... ¡°I was soooooo bored up here on the ship. I wasn¡¯t even allowed to get off the stick when you all we¡¯re playing miner!¡± ¡°Who said we were having fun down there Mivro. It¡¯s not like any of us, besides Fizzouk, were enjoying the job either.¡± ¡°You at least you were constantly working Erin. I don¡¯t like being idle. But that was the job I was given till we could move into stage two of the plan. And do you have any idea how awkward it gets when Vengella askes for a taste of your blood once she gets tired of the blood we keep on hand for her nutrients.¡± ¡°Hey you thanked me for a few of the releases those gave you when we were up here alone. And besides I don¡¯t ask anyone else for a taste besi¡­¡± ¡°Well Vengella never asks me for my blood. So no I don¡¯t know how that is. But I¡¯m sure I wouldn¡¯t mind the pretty lady having a taste of my blood.¡± ¡°And you probably won¡¯t have to worry about that Erin since Hafestian blood in general doesn''t lose its shocking flavor until a week after it¡¯s been extracted from the body. But once that time passes it¡¯s quite pleasant, so if you want me to drink from your body you¡¯ll have to die for me. ¡° ¡°Well on that cheery note. I¡¯m glad to be off that rock. Hopefully with no reason to return there any time in the future. Agreed?¡± ¡°Yeah, agreed Tarux. I¡¯m glad we¡¯re done with that floating block of boredom. I just wish we had been able to find the dungeon core closer to the time that had been estimated.¡± ¡°Well Erindror, you can thank the stupid rock for that.¡± ¡°True enough Orsu.¡± Ok time to get everyone back on track. ¡°Now everyone I know this wasn¡¯t one of the most amazing objectives we have had. But before we even started to plan this opp. out we all agreed it would be beneficial in the long run. So now that it¡¯s done we can start to work on the dungeon cores installation into Fizzouk¡¯s mana generator and work it into the ship''s drive core. And once we complete that we¡¯ll be able to get back out there slaying monsters and dungeon diving with better equipment which means more safety against bigger enemies that lead to bigger profit.¡±If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. ¡°We all know how much this could benefit us as an unaffiliated fringe spacer crew. So much so that we may be able to increase our crew size to the point where we could become a registered spacer crew for hire instead of a group of spacers doing odd jobs from the bars when the monsters resource value starts to run dry. We¡¯ll be able to take the corporate and sector contracts and not have to worry about getting scammed after the job is done. I know we all can¡¯t wait to get our crew officially established so we can finally enjoy the benefits fringe crews receive.¡± ¡°But before we dream our time in warp away we need to evaluate how the operation went. So to start off let''s look at how effective our scans of the asteroid was, Fizzouk?¡± ¡°Well Orsu the scans we received were accurate since we found the dungeon core in that area. But the area scanned was large and when we tried to narrow the scanners scope it started to pick up other dense mana signatures causing our search area to remain larger then I had predicted.¡± ¡°Well Fizzouk, once the ship is in port see if you can get ahold of a better scanner. Also make sure we¡¯re fully stocked on materials for your fabricator. Next on the list is the mining aspect. But more importantly then that is the secrecy of our true objectives. So Tarux, Mivro how did we do?¡± ¡°Well Orsu the ground transmissions were pretty secure with very few conversations about our objective coming up at all. Besides my incessant com use for mundane purpose to help everyone have some time to vent helped people to keep them focused on anything other than the objective. I either had them annoyed at my like I did with Fizz or I had them just goofing off.¡± ¡°The corporate probe in the sector wasn¡¯t in range too often while we we¡¯re doing our operation. Even if it had a better com interceptor then they usually do it still was out of range for the majority of the coms that it could have picked up. Its course also didn¡¯t change during the operation so that leads me to believe that the company that controls that probe didn¡¯t view it once during our stay. If someone had the probe would have changed its route to a more optimal one for picking up com transmissions.¡± ¡°Thank you Tarux, Mivro. I know that monitoring all that can be difficult to keep up with but we needed a second layer to catch any times we had a transmission that gave away our goal. But from your reports I¡¯m sure we won¡¯t having any corporations coming after us for taking away one of their resource generators, even before they claim it. So I¡¯d like to thank you both for your work. Now let¡¯s move onto the dungeon cores retrieval?¡± ¡°So once I had found its mana signature I reported in on it. Then I mined my way closer to the other side of its domain. Then I used some light breach charges that had just enough force to blow the wall down. Then I entered the dungeon and was assaulted by a stone golem. I was in close proximity to the dungeon so I holstered my assault cannon and beat it down in a swift brawl. I collected its core and waited for Fizz to show up. Once he did we prepared for the transmission we would need to make and while we were the dungeon attacked. We swiftly retrieved the dungeon at that point and locked it in stasis. Then we pulled out as we relayed our distress through the coms. The dungeon core and golem core are both now on the ship in Fizz¡¯s care.¡± ¡°Ok good I¡¯ve looked through both yours and Fizzouks reports so that will be all on that topic. Fizzouk how well has the dungeon been behaving in the stasis cell?¡± ¡°Well Orsu whenever I adjust the stasis cell the dungeon tries to claim more area around it for its domain. But so far it hasn¡¯t claimed anything out of its stasis cell. But when it is tiring to claim anything I get warnings from my implanted systems that worn me of dense mana levels originating from the dungeons core. But the stasis cell is secure and we won¡¯t have to worry about the dungeon trying to claim the ship.¡± ¡°That¡¯s very good to know Fizzouk, thank you. The fact that the chances of that happening are low is really reassuring and the fact that the dungeons mana is so dense will allow us to be alerted of its escape if it ever comes to it. Now Mivro how did the asteroid bombing runs go?¡± ¡°Well Orsu the bombing themselves went well. They were a great stress relief for me and Tarux. But the number of asteroids we caused to colloid into the one we were working on might tip them off that we were up to something. The operator would have to be suspecting something though to actually look through the data, or a stickler for details, both qualities that someone would be wasting by being a simple probe operator. But it could cause the probe to collide with an asteroid if no one checks it in the next three or four star cycles. But were that to happen the company would chew out the probe operator in charge of that probe for not doing there probe¡¯s required orbit path check and adjusting it when they saw the collision imminent. The sensitive data on the probe will be lost as well so we will be much harder to trace if they were going to try and come after us. The ammunition we used on the bombardment runs were from Rengar from that shady dealer when we had gotten low on credits. Many of torpedoes and bombs used were underpowered and a few more than I was comfortable with where misfires. But all and all it went according to the plan.¡± ¡°Good thank you for the report Mivro. Erindror when we resupply our armaments at port check them and make sure they are up to code. If we have any more sketchy armaments in our hold please get them off the ship as soon as it is safe to do so Mivro. I don¡¯t want to go into a fight only to fire our first shot and die in a blazing inferno.¡± ¡°Now I¡¯ll go over the evacuation of the asteroid to conclude this meeting. We refilled most of our ore reserves from what we mined and gathered a few hundred tons of the more precious ores for resale. We also retrieved all of our equipment and we had no major injuries on the asteroid. Overall I view this operation as very successful. Now does anyone else have anything to add to the report?¡± ¡°I do Orsu.¡± ¡°Yes Fizzouk.¡± ¡°It¡¯s about the golem core we recovered from the dungeon. It seems to have a strangely high capacity for mana as well as an exceptional rate of fluid mana transition. I believe it will be useful in the development of Kal¡­ of the ship. So I propose that we keep the golem core.¡± ¡°Well you know the rules by all rights I¡¯m fine with you keeping it but Tarux has the final say on whether it gets sold or not as it would be his profit to gain.¡± ¡°Oh Tarux please may I have the golem core? I know it will be important for the ships development.¡± ¡°You know what Fizz I¡¯ll give it to you, on one condition.¡± ¡°Oh yes what is your condition I¡¯ll do it with hast!¡± ¡°Well Fizz I was wondering if you could augment my armor¡¯s tail section, specifically the part that covers my tails cudgel. I would like it augmented if possible so that I can use my latent mana to super heat the air around my tail into plasma or maybe allow me to swing out fire when I attack with it. You¡¯ll get the golem core once you¡¯ve augmented my armor.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a stupid idea but I¡¯ll do it anyway for the golem core. But to add a stipulation you can¡¯t sell the golem core until we reach five more stations. Is that acceptable for our deal?¡± ¡°Sure deal. Now Captain did you have anything else to say?¡± ¡°No Tarux I¡¯m good. If anyone has any other matters they would like to bring up now¡¯s the time. Otherwise find me when I¡¯m not busy¡­¡± ¡°Nothing... good. Everyone dismissed.¡± Now time to let out some stress. ¡°Hey Tarux you want to spar?¡± ¡°Sure thing Boss. Melee or range?¡± ¡°Melee as usual!¡± I can¡¯t wait to swing my halberd around again. With this mission going on I haven¡¯t had the time to train with it like I would have liked. But now while we¡¯re in warp I can let it all out. Especially with someone of the same species like Tarux. I can¡¯t wait for our tails to clash once more. CH 8 Alone With My Memories Well everything is dark again¡­ I know that those things captured me. And I know I was about to explode them to kingdom come. But when I think about why I reacted the way I did I realize that it was the demons fault. Well to be more precise it was a system assist for dungeon cores. And while I had a long philosophical debate about whether that could be true or not I realized that it makes more sense than being a thinking glowing rock¡­ That''s why I¡¯m feeling quite dumb at the moment for thinking that all the other rocks around me could talk. I mean what normal rock could have thoughts¡­ I mean I¡¯m sure that the Bert¡¯s at least understood me¡­ Right? Well maybe not Bert but I do believe that Sally could. And it¡¯s not like she talked to me. No one did. But it¡¯s the fact that she wasn¡¯t normal like the rest of them that I think that she had the potential to understand me. But I digress. It¡¯s not like I¡¯ll ever meet anyone ever again. My captors have cracked open my cell every once and awhile and I reach out and try connect to them to see if I can talk to them now. But every time I do they shut me out again and I¡¯m locked away again. Sitting alone with my mana and fractured memories.
From what I¡¯ve been able to piece together from my memories is that most places aren''t dark and grey but are full of different colors shapes sounds and even smells. I¡¯m still trying to grasp the concept of smells¡­ I¡¯ll get there eventually. Any way I realized that dungeons usually are large complexes full of monsters, traps, and treasure. These three things also helped me come to terms that I¡¯m a dungeon core. First off I turned Sally into a monster called a... Golem. I think. Anyways I had a monster then I sent out spikes from the ground which was kind of like a trap. So that''s two for two. And finally I realized I was the treasure that those creatures looted... It¡¯s a conflicting feeling to think of myself as treasure¡­ Anyway now that I¡¯m off of the asteroids system I¡¯ve been able to think more clearly. And the new system called ¡°mana stasis vessel SM3.23.04¡±, not very original name by the way, well it doesn''t really do anything. I can talk to it and stuff but I just get blank responses back. Seriously watch. ¡°Hey system. How are you feeling?¡±
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. See nothing! But that also means that it¡¯s not pushing me in any direction for its own uses¡­ Unless it is¡­ Hummmmmmm¡­ Whatever it¡¯s not like I can really do anything in here anyway. That''s not to say I haven''t tried. I did a few times but all that happened was my mana jumped into the cell that surrounds me and didn¡¯t come back. And when I try to spread my domain onto the cell it requires a conscious effort to keep my domain there. This has stopped me from trying more outrageous ideas like self-destruction or shattering myself. Because I think both of those ideas would free me from the cell they would also free me from a life as well. So I¡¯ve decided against those options instead. This has left me with a lot of time on my hands. So to occupy myself I try to remember and I condense the mana I have within me. So far the memories come slowly. But when they come there is always lots of new insight to think about. An interesting insight I gained helped me realize that I could improve the mana I had within me. So deciding that it might help to improve my mana I decided to try the idea out, I didn¡¯t really have much else going on. So I began to practice. I gathered my mana and moved it slowly around the edges of my being then I looked at myself, it¡¯s easy to do when you¡¯re transparent, and began to move my mana along the loops that spin inside of me. The more I move the mana around myself the more familiar it becomes to me, allowing me to ingrain it into my very being. I¡¯ve gotten so good at it that I now have a single layer running off of habit and memory. So I¡¯ve decided to start to cover the automatic cycling mana with another layer of mana. It¡¯s a bit harder since if I get it to close to the first cycle it interrupts it and I have to start all over again. It¡¯s a delicate process. Another insight I¡¯ve been able to gather from my memories is about monsters. You see monsters are just a categorization of beings. They tend to be aggressive and have magic power, either naturally or through being mutated from normal animals to monsters through the imbuement of volatile mana. All monsters have the potential to mutate, or ¡°evolve¡± as other call it, into stronger forms from a drastic increase in the amount of mana they contain. This makes them require more mana to thrive, so they tend to go on rampages killing many things so they can absorb a portion of their mana. This makes the sentient beings prime targets for their attacks because of their abnormally high mana reserves even in those who don¡¯t tap into their mana reservoir. But mana affects things differently which results in large varieties of types of monsters. I learned that Sally turned into a doll type monster, commonly called a golem, of the stone variety. Their core is the vessel for all of their mana that they gather over the time there in a resting state until they are full. Then they awaken and move in search for a better place for their next rest. This often requires them to fight with other monsters as they move to more mana dense areas. They also awaken when they feel threatened for their cores safety, this usually happens when something tries to dig towards their core that lies under their shell. Sally didn¡¯t have much time to gather mana so she was only able to make her body out of unfused rocks while leaving her core open to attacks. Had she been able to rest for longer she would have been able to fight a bit better. Probably... One of the weirder and more unclear memories led me to believe that there are lots of varieties in the beings that gather together as sentient beings. Some of the things I¡¯ve seen in my memories are beings that stand on two legs and have two arms. They are a pink or brown color with a variety of colorful heads. They come in slightly different shapes and sizes but there are three general styles. First are the small ones, they are the most chaotic ones. They are all small but even that varies. They have long and short hair as well as thin bodies. They run around and do as they please while they make messes for others to clean up. They take the others food but aren''t chased away for it like other animals would do. I think there the bottom feeders of the community. Then there are the soft ones, they are the most abundant in the memories. They are medium in size with curvy bodies and longer hair. They make the food and take care of the other ones. They seem to do a large variety of things but they seem to be the dominant being in the community. Lastly there are hard ones; they are the rarest of the community. They are the largest in the community with some having hair covering their head on both the front and the back. They don¡¯t wear as much as the others either usually just a lower covering. This shows all their plight and pain, I think it¡¯s to make others feel bad for them. They go out and kill things or they grow plants. They give all they have to the soft ones. They leave in the morning and come back with their plenty in the evening. Sometime the ones that leave don¡¯t come back and some of the soft ones will cry for the loss of their tributes. They seem to be the slaves to the community. Now I don¡¯t really understand if any of these ideas are true or not but I¡¯m sure that the being that captured me aren''t the same as the ones that I remember... Ch 9 Space Suck You know what sucks, self. The fact that space is a vacuum. I just had a memory about space and asteroids and planets and stuff¡­ And in vacuums nothing can be heard. No one can talk in space without a communication device or some sort of signaling. Also there aren''t many things that can survive in space without special equipment. So that means that those scary black creatures were being covered in space suits of some kind. Or robots.... I don¡¯t think they were robots. At least one of them wasn¡¯t¡­ But it explains why nothing could hear me when I tried to talk on the asteroid. Which leads me to my current frustration? ¡°I¡¯ve been talking out loud for the past, I don¡¯t know how long, and no one seems to listen to me.¡±
¡°That is except for the new system that still doesn''t say anything!¡±
¡°Huuuuuuu.¡± ¡°System I wouldn¡¯t mind that you pop up at me all the time if you at least said something.¡±
Something
¡°Wait WHAT!!!¡±
Something
¡°You can talk you can finally talk! I¡¯m not alone anymore!¡±
Something
Wait a second¡­ Did I just make the system unable to say anything else? ¡°System?¡±
Something
¡°AAAWWWWWWWW¡±
Something
Well after the fiasco with the system I have once again been trapped into being a mute. Yes I know I could talk anyway but I don¡¯t want to deal with the system anymore and whenever I say anything out loud it just replies with ¡°Something¡± and I can¡¯t deal with it anymore. I even tried to get it say anything else or even go back to saying nothing at all, but all I got was ¡°Something¡±. And so I have conceded my defeat and decided to be a mute instead. Locked in my own head till I remember everything I once knew and go truly insane from the silence and the annoying system that can¡¯t do anything but say ¡°Something¡±!!!The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. But in other news the beings outside have cracked the cell more often than they had in the past. But when I try to talk to them they seem to not hear me. Or there ignoring me¡­ I¡¯m hoping it¡¯s that they can¡¯t hear me because I¡¯ve been pretty pathetic in my attempts to be heard¡­ Anyway they¡¯ve been opening up my cell more often. I don¡¯t know why they are but from what I can tell I think it has something to do with the fact that I¡¯m getting fat. Well not necessarily fat but I¡¯ve noticed that I¡¯ve grown a few millimeters since I¡¯ve been placed in the stasis cell. How could I tell you ask? Well you see it¡¯s simple. I don¡¯t have much else to do so I make sure to remember what little glances I get from the cracks in the cell when it opens. And I¡¯ve noticed that after a few times of them checking on me that I was slightly closer to the cells inner wall then I thought. Yup that''s it. I think that it¡¯s from circulating my mana. I¡¯ve recently been working on compressing five circulations together. At first it didn¡¯t do anything but break all of them, which meant I had to rebuild all of them up again. But as I did it more and more I realized that if I matched all of the circulations speeds so that they moved like they were one circulation then I could then compress it. This was hard as well as you have to constantly be adjusting the speed of the entire thing so it doesn''t rip itself apart. That also happened.... But only once and it hurt like crazy. So I decided not to try again¡­ Unfortunately for me I got really bored and I hadn¡¯t remembered anything in a while¡­ So I tried again anyway¡­ I succeeded that time though. When I finished the process I felt my body pulse a little bit and the world, while limited to this cell at the moment, slow down for a moment. Once I reoriented myself I decided to look at myself and see if I had changed at all. What I noticed was that my six interconnected rings had become denser. While the thirty two spheres seemed to speed up slightly, causing them to look more elongated and slightly ovular. I didn¡¯t notice at the time but I also might have grown ever so slightly. I noticed though that once I had accomplished condensing the circlets, new memories begin to trickle back into my mind. I don¡¯t know if it¡¯s because I was so focused on the circlets that they stopped or on my accomplishment that allowed more to come back to me. I¡¯ll try and experiment more next time I attempt mana solidification again. Now I¡¯m looking through some new memories. They are just basic facts right now. Like that light moves in waves and is a type of radiation. Or that mana exists between the physical and spiritual plans. Or the fact that sound cannot travel in space because there is nothing there to be vibrated and turned into sound waves. ¡°Huuuuuuu¡±
Something
The worst part about this is that I did this to myself. ¡°Ccrrreeeeeeaaaaccckkkkk¡± Ah there¡¯s the sound of the cell being opened. Unfortunately, I¡¯m not even going to try and get their attention because I don¡¯t want to deal with the system. ¡°PHsssssssssssss¡± And now the creak will appear. As the panels begin to slide apart I get a glimpse of what''s out there. Mostly I see metal tubes and behind that a flat metal wall. Next to it are parts for robots, their arms and legs and claws and tails and other things that I haven¡¯t been able to identify yet. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of one of the creatures. I think it was one the ones that I saw on the asteroid, the one with six arms. I never see much of it but I¡¯ve been able to see that four of its arms are made from metal. These arms are able to replace their hands with different tools and move ways that would naturally be impossible. It¡¯s unusual to see the being not have at least one hand be a tool. I¡¯ve also been able to see that its core section is encased in metal scales at all times, sometimes the scales move and shift as if they were alive as a separate entity. Even back parts of its legs are made of metal. And it seems that whenever the cell opens he works on it while looking at a large ever changing blue wall. I assume that the symbols on the wall are words but I can¡¯t make sense of them. I¡¯m sure that I¡¯ll learn what they mean from my memories eventually. I¡¯ve already remembered the twenty six letters in the English alphabet and how the word work. I even know remember the meanings of the silent hands, as well as how to read the dust walls from the elders. I¡¯m sure I¡¯ll figure it out. ¡°Hummmm¡±
Something
Ignore it. Well this is different. The crack in the cell is getting bigger than it ever has. And from what I¡¯m seeing this isn¡¯t the same room I¡¯ve been seeing out of the cracks in the cell. This room was spherical in nature and covered in a white plastic like material. ¡°Vroom¡± Ahh the cells driving away! Wait when it could do that. And why am I still in here? ¡°Duuooom¡± Wait why did the exit my cell go through just shut. ¡°Nsudnbjkd iosdusndgj¡± What did it just say. ¡°Iosdusremdal¡± ¡°Phssssssssssss¡± Now what did that do? And now that I look around there are a lot of mana gems in here, even eight large ones. Aren''t those really expensive! What¡¯s going on here!
Attention connection to mana stasis velssel SM#.23.04 severed... Dungeon system (fledgling) assist terminated... No existing system detected... System development beginning for dungeon core on modified Corvette designated "Kalan''s Serenity"... System designation Corv.Kalan''s.Heart...
Well crap¡­ At least I don¡¯t have to deal with the old system that was stuck with only saying ¡°something¡±... ¡°Hello dungeon core. Welcome to Kalan¡¯s heart.¡± CH 10 A New Roommate ¡°Hello dungeon core. Welcome to Kalan¡¯s heart.¡± ¡°WHAT DOES THAT MEAN!!!?¡± ¡°Dungeon core you are now located in Kalan¡¯s heart.¡± ¡°OK¡­¡± ¡°What do you mean when you say I¡¯m in Kalan¡¯s heart?¡± ¡°You are located at the ¡°heart¡± of Kalan.¡± ¡°And who is Kalan?¡± ¡°Kalan is a modified Corvette class starship.¡± ¡°Wait, spaceships don¡¯t have hearts. So how can Kalan have a heart? Unless she¡¯s a monster that was tamed and cut apart so metal plating can be installed and controls can be put into place for her master to communicate with her. But that''s highly unlikely since it¡¯s only classified as a Corvette. Unless that was the modification that was talked about and they haven¡¯t been able to reclassify it.¡± ¡°Request unclear¡­ please reiterate.¡± ¡°Oh gosh, not another idiot.¡± ¡°False statement made. Correcting¡­ Processor made from Fractal variant monster core, with a memory capacity of three hundred and sixty Exabyte¡¯s, connected to ¡°heart¡± through monster spun mana silk, powered by ¡°heart¡±. Result, above average unit for AI inhabitants.¡± ¡°Ok¡­¡± ¡°So you¡¯re an AI?¡± ¡°Affirmative.¡± ¡°Well¡­ that''s cool¡­ I guess¡­¡± ¡°Anyway. What is Kalan¡¯s heart?¡± ¡°Kalan¡¯s ¡°heart¡± is the designation on all ship logs and records for the mana generator that powers the Kalan.¡± ¡°So I¡¯m in the ships generator. So why am I in the ships generator?¡± ¡°Dungeon core resides in mana generator as the contained mana gathering force used to collect mana for the ships use.¡± ¡°So my purpose is to make mana for the spaceship¡¯s use?¡± ¡°Affirmative.¡± ¡°Well crap.¡± ¡°Hey AI what if I chose to not gather mana for them?¡± ¡°Inconsequential. Mana will naturally be pulled toward dungeon core.¡± ¡°So I¡¯ll gather mana in here?¡± ¡°Negative. Generator¡¯s central walls made of layered empty mana crystal cells. All mana cells drain into separate energy storage unit.¡± ¡°So I can¡¯t do anything to escape?¡± ¡°Affirmative.¡± ¡°Well I¡¯m going to try anyway.¡± It¡¯s not like I have many other options
Well I¡¯ve been trying to spread my domain over the entire inner wall of the generator. And to say the least it isn¡¯t going very well. I have to constantly apply more mana into my domain so it stays intact since the mana cells seem to be able to absorb my domains mana from the walls I claim. So I¡¯ve decided to pull all my mana back into myself so that it can¡¯t be drained from my domain again. Because I don''t seem to be able to generate a decent amount of mana in this generator. So I have to be very careful in how I use the mana I have. Spreading my domain has also been more difficult than I thought it would be since the walls seem to be pushing the domain and mana given to them away from them. It allows mana to pass through it but it doesn''t allow the mana to be imprinted on itself without a considerable amount of mana usage. ¡°Hey AI what are these walls made of anyway?¡±You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. ¡°A Polyadirean that is highly resistant to mana because of its trace amounts of Glaithil, making it resistant to mana imbuement.¡± That explains that then. ¡°Then how to you talk to me?¡± ¡°The material Glaithil allows mana to pass by unhindered it just doesn''t allow it to be imbued or claimed with mana. So the projection my simple hearing and vocal mana optics is unhindered from the Glaithil.¡± ¡°I see.¡± Well that sucks. I can¡¯t claim this material easily so I can¡¯t just rip it up and turn it into a weapon against the other walls of the generator without expending a ridiculous amount of mana. Mana I don¡¯t have. ¡°Well now that my hope is gone what should I do?¡± ¡°Generate mana.¡± ¡°Yeah and how do I do that?¡± ¡°Naturally.¡± ¡°Huuuuuuuu¡± ¡°Yup thanks for the advice¡­¡± ¡°You''re welcome.¡± I walked myself into that one. I¡¯ll just look through my memories until I think of a new escape plan, or they dry up again.
Well I¡¯ve got nothing¡­ I can¡¯t think of anything that could help me escape from this place and I haven¡¯t had a new memory in quite a while. The memories that I had were about architecture and managing resources for my people. Don¡¯t ask me what the people looked like I didn¡¯t see that. I just recalled the delegation of resources in laborer¡¯s and materials. There were some bits of memory about different types of sedimentary rocks thrown in there as well. Overall it was interesting but completely useless in helping my situation. So now I¡¯ve decided to do more cycling compressions. So I closed of my awareness to the things around me and fully focused inwards. As I began making my seventh layering on the compression process I noticed something was happening while I was in my trance. The large eight mana crystals in the room where slowly rotating around me. This drew my attention away from the cycles and caused them to shatter. This in turn caused the mana crystals to fall back to the ground. I then realized that I had been floating myself, and was now falling towards the ground underneath me. I landed into the pile of small mana crystals that had filled in my place after I started to levitate. ¡°AI, did you see that? I could fly!¡± ¡°Negative Dungeon core. I cannot see inside the generator.¡± ¡°Oh. Well I can fl¡­¡± Hold on if I tell the AI I can fly then wouldn¡¯t my captors notice and take precautions to stop me from escaping. They probably would, so I need to hold off on any information that could alert them to my growth. I should probably throw the AI out of the loop though so it can¡¯t realize that I¡¯m gaining power. ¡°Just kidding AI I couldn¡¯t fly. I was just pulling your leg.¡± ¡°What child¡¯s leg are you pulling?¡± ¡°It''s an expression I¡¯m not actually pulling on a leg. It just means I¡¯m playing a joke.¡± ¡°Noted.¡± "Good.¡± Well I might as well as try to get some information from this AI while I can. ¡°So AI you said you can¡¯t see inside of here. So what can you see?¡± ¡°I cannot ¡°see¡± anything. But I can register mana signatures inside and outside of the generator, as well as a basic log of the mana distribution throughout the ship.¡± ¡°Interesting. So what do we use to communicate with then?¡± ¡°There is a thinner section of the generator that I project mana through. This mana has meanings imprinted on them so that they can traverse through obstacles easily while relaying the meaning that was put behind it.¡± ¡°But wouldn¡¯t the mana cells get in the way?¡± ¡°Negative, the mana is being projected through the mana sensor which is between the mana cells and the Polyadirean casing layer.¡± ¡°That''s very interesting information. So where is your sensor located in relation to me?¡± ¡°It is located at plus ninety seven degrees above the equator and at two hundred and sixty one.¡± ¡°Great. So at what visual point is zero located?¡± ¡°No comparable data to reference.¡± Well it was worth a shot. I now know that the thinnest point is located on the upper half of this spherical generator, specifically at ninety seven degrees from the central point. I just don¡¯t know the exact position. ¡°Well AI I have been asking a lot of questions. Do you have any for me?¡± ¡°Negative¡­ will inform dungeon if any arise.¡± ¡°Good I¡¯ll try to answer them to the best of my abilities when that time arrives.¡± Now that the AI¡¯s guard is down I¡¯ll ask the most important question. ¡°So AI what do you report to the other beings on this ship?¡± ¡°My function is to collect data on the mana readings and process it into understandable data. Then send it to my information terminal.¡± Wait. That''s it. But there''s no way they would need an AI this advanced for that process. ¡°AI how are you able to talk to me?¡± ¡°I send mana signatures through th¡­¡± ¡°No not in the physical sense AI. Nor am I asking you the process you use to talk to me. But how AI, do you know how to talk to me?¡± ¡°Data not found. Forming hypothesis based on all reliable data. Please wait.¡± Well this could take a while. And I had so many other questions to ask. Oh well. I guess I¡¯ll work on circulations again.
I¡¯ve been working on my circulations again. I need to think of a better term for it. But that''s beside the point. I¡¯ve been working on them, as well as my situational awareness when I¡¯m in that state. This has allowed me to notice some things I wasn¡¯t aware of. Like for instance the fact that the faster I spin the circulating mana the faster the eight mana crystals rotate around me. I¡¯ve also found out that the mana crystals are traveling along the same paths as the mana circlets. They aren''t going very fast but they are moving. I¡¯ve also noticed that when I¡¯m doing these circulations I begin to float. I¡¯ve slowly been gaining altitude in this chamber but I¡¯ve only risen a few meters. My insides on the other hand haven''t changed much at all. I seem to glow slightly more often. But I only realized that when I specifically thought about it and counted to three hundred and seventy five at nine different intervals of time when I had different amounts of circlets running as well as moving them at different speeds. I¡¯ve also begun to see patterns in the thirty two specs moving around inside me. But that might be my own wishful thinking. And surprisingly I¡¯m not losing mana as fast as I thought I would. I thought that circulating my mana would cost something but they don¡¯t seem to be draining me at all. I know that I¡¯m not letting any mana leave my body but something keeps making me think that I should be using something. I¡¯ve also really been wondering about why I was given these mana crystals. I mean what use did they think I would have for them that would be beneficial enough to let have them. Unfortunately though the only one who might know that is still processing there data. It also is very lonely without that AI to talk to. I hope it wakes up soon. I miss it... CH 11 A Growing Memory Bank Well I¡¯ve completed a few more compressions. One was a layer of ten while the other was a layer of twenty. Through these processes I¡¯ve figured out that I need to do compressions to gain my memories back. I¡¯ve been able to learn a lot from my past memories. Like how propulsion works in a jet engine. First is induction, than compression, followed by ignition, which causes combustion, and that results in the exhaust pushing the jet forward at a high velocity. This allows for vehicles to move at high speeds and with the right mana saturated fuel injectors and enhancing runes allows the spaceships that I know of to move through the stars. It also works in much the similar fashion for material projectiles shot from guns. It¡¯s has fewer steps since they can pack the explosive components before use but there are many similarities. Even plasma bolts follow a similar principle. They build the bolts in the guns themselves and when the plasma builds enough it expels itself from the gun once there pressure ruptures the thin containing mana layer. They then shoot out at high speeds with the potential to burn a hole in unguarded organic material. This process allows the shots to be charged with mana giving the bolts more power and a further range before they become unstable and implode on themselves. Other vehicles are propelled in a less extreme ways as well. Leisure vehicles use many different things to propel themselves. Boats used sails or oars pulled by men, while some engines used the pressure from gases to power their balloons and pumps. There are even examples of extreme tension used to fire projectiles both large and small. You can even look at animals moving and watch them propel themselves through the complex structure of muscle, tendons, and bone. Another insight I gained was that I can use my mana and will to turn mana into matter. I haven¡¯t tried to make solid matter yet because I don¡¯t feel like I have a sufficient supply of mana. I do have the mana crystals but I¡¯m saving them for when I have a better opportunity to escape then I do now. I did however make some gaseous molecules to float around inside this prison with me. After I made them though the thought came to me to try and claim them. I did and was able to claim them make them the only domain I have had in a long time. I¡¯ve also been able to recall a time that I existed in a dungeon. I saw that there were lots of monsters as well as many resources that I thought were rare. I saw countless deaths in those memories, of both monsters and of the creatures called humans. Some of the deaths were caused by fighting, but there were also times were they died from traps, and even other times when they died to the blade of their own kind. And no matter how many died there were always more fighting and death in those halls. Whether the halls where of stone or wood, filled with light or shrouded in darkness, teaming with life or barren with the lingering scent of death, in a labyrinth of sorrow or a field of superficial joy. The places seemed to change but the actions inside always ended the same. With death. Now as a dungeon I know that I may have to take an invaders life. But as a thinking being I¡¯m unsure of whether I want to be an orchestrator of constant genocide. I mean I don¡¯t want to be killed but I also don¡¯t want to be the cause of death for everyone I meet. I remember that feeling. The feeling of eternal loneliness and sorrow. The pain of the ones you love dying as you watch them in agony. The thoughts that rule your mind as they tell you of the pain you bring to everyone who ever gets close to you. The knowledge that no matter what you try to do all you are doing is prolonging your loved ones agony by trying to save them from their fate. But I know that I will be hunted just by being a Dungeon. All I can do is hope that this life is different. And that those that would hunt me down to destroy me are small in number and have bigger things to deal with. But these thoughts are irrelevant if I¡¯m trapped in here forever. Maybe that wouldn¡¯t be so bad. So I thought it through and I realized that I don¡¯t want to be trapped in here for all eternity.Stolen story; please report. One I have no control over what happens to me while I¡¯m in here. Two it is incredibly lonely in here and I don¡¯t really want to insane again. I mean I¡¯m probably already certifiably crazy. But there''s nothing to be done about that¡­ Right¡­. Anyways I¡¯ve also recalled some of the common magical adaptations that many creatures have gained after years of high mana density exposure. Many cave dwelling insects gain an aptitude to glowing while the plants that reside there develop with a more magical form of poison. In the swamps the animals and monsters grow closer to the muddy water in both color and habitation. The high frosty mountains bred thick skin as well along with a strength that breeds savagery. In jungles the plants grow in large varieties, some being small and miraculous inducing while others are large and man eating. For all places there is variation for no two areas are truly the same. The rarest of resources come from the most unique of places. Places where extremes in climate and mana exist or were they change drastically. Now the beasts can change just from the things that they eat or even a change in the mana''[s ambient will. They vary greatly but can usually be traced back to their original species from how their body is made up. And if you can¡¯t then you can look at their traits, they always have a semblance of their birth species characteristics. After all they change from one form to another and it takes multiple decades for each of these changes to occur with each of them being gradual until they reach a breakthrough that allows them to have a greater change. But even the greater change doesn''t change them to a point where they no longer know how to use the body they have. It¡¯s like that for everything after all. Everything changes to better fit their environment until they can thrive there. They build on their strengths and if they survive through the trials that expose their weaknesses then they work to cover them until they are safe again. That''s just how living things survive. Now when I think of it this way I begin to view my situation in a different light. I seem to have been just floating along through this problem while I could have been trying to take a more active role in my development. I have thought of ideas to change things but I never seem to be able to act. Or even accept the situation I am in. So here it is. I am a dungeon core. I am aboard a spaceship that¡¯s flying through the void of, wait for it¡­ Space! I''m not gathering any mana and I don''t have a domain, nor can I sustain one in my current environment. The ship I''m on could look like anything and might house something more powerful than I can deal with. So there I have it. I don¡¯t even truly understand the situation I¡¯m in. I don¡¯t have any resources available to me so that I could figure my situation out with either. I am a prisoner locked out from the rest of the universe and no one besides the ones on this ship knows that I even exist. So what do I have to work with? I have mana gems with some residual mana lingering in them. I have my thoughts, even if they are screwy. I will have someone to talk to, once AI comes back. I have an abundance of mana resistant substances. And I have the ability to convert mana into mater. With these things I can¡­ I¡¯m not quite sure what I can do with this. I could cover the inside of the generator with a solid substance so I could have a domain but I¡¯d still be trapped in here. I could absorb all the mana from the mana crystals I have and attack the weakest points on the inside wall. I could make lots of gaseous matter and see if that breaks me free. I could wait for AI to come back so I can learn more about the situation I¡¯m in. I could do more circulations until I think of a better plan¡­ Why does that sound like the most reasonable choice¡­ Fine I¡¯ll do more rotations until I get a hundred compressions done.
¡°Huuuuuu¡± I¡¯m bored of doing compressions and circulations. It keeps getting harder with every layer I add to it. I¡¯m only on the thirty first circlet and I have already broken four of these in my attempt to get the thirty second circlet. I¡¯ll just take a break for a little while. I wonder what the system will be like this time. ¡°System can you hear me?¡±
Well I don¡¯t know what I was expecting but I shouldn''t feel this disappointed. I mean what else should I have expected. Even if it¡¯s dumb there''s no reason to be impolite. ¡°Sorry to bother you system.¡±
IsFin!
¡°Wait did the system just respond¡­¡±
Affermitive
¡°IT¡¯S ALIVE!!!!!¡±
Negativy
CH 12 Evaluating Statiktes ¡°Hey system what can you do?¡±
Assessisst''sBeansInDevelopopmint
¡°So your here to assist me with something.¡±
Affermitive
¡°Ok, so what can you do?¡±
ShowStatiktesOffBeans
Well I¡¯m not sure what it just said there. Let''s see if it can fraise it in another way? ¡°What do you do then?¡±
Assessisst¡¯sBeansInDevelopopmint
¡°I get that but what does that mean?¡±
ISoweBeansTaerStatikes
¡°Can you show me what you mean by that?¡±
YuWantTaPuolUpYorStatikes?
¡°I don¡¯t know what you said. But sure, why not.¡±
Noma N/A Aig 27 Eeks
Stength 10 Constition 10
Intellincels 10 Wioom 10
Chismals 10 Dextorty 10
Well that''s an interesting development¡­ ¡°Hey, system.¡±
Yeas
¡°Why are all of the numbers the same?¡±
NoOtterBeansToReffrins
¡°So if there was something else here they wouldn¡¯t all be ten?¡±
Negativv
¡°Ok, why is that?¡±
NedSaumBeanTipe
The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. ¡°So for there to be different numbers you would need a specific thing. Is there any way I can supply you with that?¡±
Negativv
Well crap. ¡°Can you at least tell me what all those words mean?¡±
NomaIsYurNoma
AigIsHuwLungYoLievd
StengthIsPhiscalMiht
IntellinceIsThughtProsssingPuwr
WioomIsMemryRecultion
ChismaIsSocallCarpacty
DextortyIsBodiConetrul
Well that didn¡¯t clear much up¡­ I get that there is strength, intelligence, and dexterity, but I¡¯m unsure of what they represent or what the others ones are. I don¡¯t recall ever seeing anything like this before so I¡¯m unsure of what it all could meen. I know from the memories that I have that I¡¯ve never seen an accurate numerical representation of a being abilities. And even if there was one, who would be the one to dictate what that was. No being could dictate that unless they had no bias. Even gods conform to some rules while holding their own biases. They have personalities just like every other living being in the universe. And while they do push those rules from time to time they are always put back into place by the others. For their power and authority cannot be contained within a few deity, but must be maintained by councils of deities that control their own individual facets of the mortals understanding. And when more understanding comes new deities are born and councils are organized. These councils of gods are called rings. An example being the Ring of Nature with their forty eight deities on that counsel. There may be more than forty eight deities on the Ring of Nature if there are these other beings here. The memories of the rings could be very different from the truth if these beings are also sentients. Now that I think about it, wouldn¡¯t it make more sense that the rings be larger than I remember them to be¡­ Well no use in trying to figure that out when I can¡¯t get access to any information. I wonder if the system knows? ¡°Hey, system. What can you tell me about the deities?¡±
DoongunCursHessNoDanties
¡°What?¡±
DoongunCursHessNoDanties
¡°I heard that. But I don¡¯t understand what you''re saying.¡±
DoongunCursAmdMunstasHiavNoDanties
¡°Well system I still don¡¯t know what your saying right now there are too many words to try to work back into real words. Can you explain in detail?¡±
Sora
DoongunCursAmdMunstasHiavNoDanties
ThayHiveNootThaSentanceSpircThitPuwersDanties
SooNoDantiesHiveBeaenBunFourEatterUfTowsBeans
SoTaUniiverzAdapatadAfforNeonsAmdNeonsTaDevloopTaSystems
BootEtUnlayMwodEtFerTaPoopulattidAries
SoWheenNkuwAriesErPoopulattidNkuwSystemsBenginAktivtez
Let''s think this through a bit. The system said something about there being no deities. And then the universe, did something to the system? Aaaaannnnnd, the system''s message is gone. ¡°Can you repeat that system?¡±
Sora
DoongunCursAmdMunstasHiavNoDanties
ThayHiveNootThaSentanceSpircThitPuwersDanties
SooNoDantiesHiveBeaenBunFourEatterUfTowsBeans
SoTaUniiverzAdapatadAfforNeonsAmdNeonsTaDevloopTaSystems
BootEtUnlayMwodEtFerTaPoopulattidAries
SoWheenNkuwAriesErPoopulattidNkuwSystemsBenginAktivtez
Ok so what else can I pick out of this¡­ Nothing, well that''s great. I was hoping I could get some reliable information out of it. But with how rough the translation is I don¡¯t think I¡¯ll be able to get reliable information. And the Statikes thing wasn¡¯t all that helpful either. ¡°Huuuuu, thanks anyway system¡±
YurWilcoom
I guess I¡¯ll just work with what I¡¯ve got¡­ I really don¡¯t have much to work with¡­ And now I¡¯m getting depressed¡­ I hope AI comes back soon¡­ CH 13 The First of Many Well, I¡¯ve been able to complete the fortieth layer compression, after talking to the system until I began to no longer understand the words that were running around in my head. I remembered a whole lifetime this time. I was a human male. I stood above others heads in my tribe by half a head. I grew up and died in that tribe never meeting anyone from outside our the tribe. As a child, I caught the vermin that stole from use and added it to our food supply. Once I was of age I took the trial for adulthood. I left the tribe with a fur from our matriarch and spear from our patriarch. I left for my great hunt with the expectation that I had to bring the most fearsome of beasts home as my trophy. I was away from my tribe for many moons killing many beasts for my meals, but viewing each of them as insignificant for the trophy I was to bring home. So I continued my hunt. Going farther and farther from my tribe as I walked toward the greater light. I walked and walked only breaking to hunt, eat, and sleep. I walked through the skies tears, I walked through the greater lights dominations, I even walked through some white fields of sand in the light of the lesser light. I pushed through loneliness, visions of the tribe in disaster, and even the hands in the sands. I fought many a beast from horn hoppers to lone glimmer jackals. I hid from the sky terrors in all their forms. I continued until I met the beast that would be my prey. A terror in a form similar to that of man. It had tan fur covering its body as well as an aura that only a terror can carry. Its head was elongated in much the same way as the glimmer jackals yet with large protruding canines. It appeared to have no eyes while its ears were sharp and stood up as if reaching to the sky. The terror had four claws on each hand, each one had blood dripping off of there tips. The terror¡¯s legs were bent in the way of the beasts with the bend towards their back. At the terrors, clawed feet laid an abnormally large quilled hair bush. The beast had most of its body torn to shreds as it and the area around it was painted in shades of red, pink, and grey. The terror, on the other hand, had only a few of the beasts quills stuck into its skin. This was the beast I chose to make my trophy. I stalked after it for the rest of the day, watching for any apparent weaknesses that I could exploit. I saw none but remained undaunted, and as twilight began to set upon the land I attacked. I tried my best to creep as close the terror as I could but I was still a few meters away when it turned towards me with indifference apparent in its eyes. I had not made a sound nor could I have conceived that it knew what I was doing the entire time. It rose itself before me and let out a lame roar. At that moment I knew it cared not for my existence. I was so enraged by that fact that I attacked the terror with abandon. I thrust my spear at it with all my might aiming to kill it in a single strike. I didn¡¯t even land a single hit on the terror. All that happened was I thrust forward fully committing to the attack. Only for the spear tip to be pushed away as a searing pain erupted from my core. In my moments before death, I saw shades of pink, red, and grey. They were my bits and pieces of that were housed inside myself. I caught a glimpse of my legs a fair distance away. Then I saw terrors maw close around my head. Then there was nothing. That was the tale of my first life, brutal and unforgiving. Where only the strong survive, but not only the physically strong but the intellectually strong ones. The ones who knew their limits and were able to use their strength to overcome the beasts when they had to, but never chose to fight them without a purpose. I look at these memories with fondness as I can clearly pull up any conversation or experience I had with that life. And at the same time, I realize that on my trial I had slain many beasts that would have been very worthy trophies for my coming of age. But through my brashness and desire for glory, I denied myself of those things and sought out a monster for my trophy. I chose to fight an unwinnable battle, for that is what it was unless I was able to have a miracle against a crippled monster. So caught up in the dream of glory and honor I didn¡¯t take the time to weigh the value of my life.Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. And because of that blunder, I perished in the wilds with nothing to my name. I still dream of glory, of being revered and loved by those around me. For what is life without trials and glory. But now I know to be wary of my actions and weigh them in my mind before I act. By recalling this life I have come to know more of my character, of who I am and what I should strive for. It¡¯s a shame though that I can not recall any names from that life. I remember the people their behaviors and the conversations we had, but their names seem to elude my recollection. Besides learning about my past life I also gained insight on the other powers that control the universe. There are the laws of physics which are the plain or resting state of laws that affect the universe. Physics is the standard set of rules that the universe uses to dictate how and why things happen the way they do when there are no other powers used. The ability to manipulate those laws is through psy-sense¡¯s. They develop their power through repetitive use. But it can be very dangerous for those who use it, as there is only a slight headache when their limit is reached that has the risk of causing damage to their vital organs. And when they ignore the warning signs their power doesn''t stop working like it would for many of the other powers of the universe but causes there overused power to lash out, this generally results in the immediate implosion of the user''s brain and heart. This causes those with the talent in this field to be wary of even attempting learning how to use their power. There is also aura, the power made from within. Aura can be developed through Refinement of both there body and organs. It¡¯s used to amplify organic process and allows for the body to perform extreme feets. It can be used for healing and strengthening with fewer risks than mana, since it uses the body''s natural processes and energy instead of the foreign and less stable power that comes from mana. Now mana, I¡¯ve come to learn does not truly originate from one''s body, but from the universe itself. It is all around us and moves as it pleases, but every being has the ability to harness a portion of that and imbue there will onto it. But to harness this mana they must reach their consciousness out and gather it, this can happen obviously to the person in a much safer manner. Or they can actively seek out and gather mana by meditating. But for a being to grow there inherent mana pools they have to do Distillations with their mana and slowly grow their mana cores. As mana is used by beings it goes into an uncharged state where it floats around and collects more energy from the universe until it can be harnessed again by a different being. Now there is also another greater energy in control of the universe. This one is called Dieva and is the power that originates from the Rings of Divinity. The power comes from a person''s relation to a deity or the subject of one of the Rings. This power is the most confusing to develop as it is all dependent on the knowledge they have on the subject they are bound to as well as the favor they hold with the deities of their related ring. They can specialize with a single deity of a Ring but that makes them fall into a very confined range of uses for their power. When they develop their power they have to meditate until they can commune with the ring there bound to. This doesn''t happen often as the Rings of Divinity generally don¡¯t care much for the desires of man and only interact when they get bored or have a task for the mortals to do. But the mortals that can use their power almost have no limit in what they can use their power for. But at the same time, the power they hold can also be stripped from them at any moment and is very set in what an individual can do based on the Ring they are bound to. Each of these powers are a part of the life force of the universe as it flows around acting like the blood of the universe. There is the firm power of Physics, the individualized power of Aura, the ethereal power of Mana, and then there is the power of subjects, Dieva. They are the powers that can be controlled and are in a constant flow as they beckon to the wills of all sorts of mortal beings. I believe that there are other powers at play as well, that remains out of reach to mortals. There are soul streams and systems that don¡¯t quite know how to talk right¡­ But those are just things that I hypothesize about. Since I haven¡¯t been able to recall anything that broaches into the topic. With this new knowledge I¡¯ve gained I¡¯ve been able to understand a bit more about my circulations. I appear to be using mana Distillation as well as aure Refinement at the same time when I¡¯m doing my rotations. I am moving my bodies inner power much like other beings do for there aura Refinement. But at the same time, I know distinctly that the energy that I¡¯m manipulating is mana. And while I am doing some mana Distillation it isn''t the same as I am moving the mana throughout my entire being instead of in a centralized core. I¡¯m not sure exactly what these circulations are doing to me but I know they are allowing me to grow in power. I also gained some insight into the actual techniques used to improve someone''s inherent power. I¡¯m going to try the aura users technique of improvement by trying to reinforce my body with aura¡­ Basically, I¡¯m going to try to see if I have any aura. If I do then I¡¯m going to use it to help in my development. If all that I discover is that I¡¯m using mana instead then I¡¯ll know that I don¡¯t have an aptitude for aura and will just focus on the mana developmental techniques. And after I test that for a while I¡¯ll see if it worked any better. If it doesn''t then I¡¯ll keep doing circulations based on instincts. Now time to find my Aura¡­ First, I''ll reach into myself and search for a growing foreign energy¡­
Ok, I think I¡¯ve finally found something. Now I just need to pull it out and feel it whit¡­ ¡°Hypothesis found. Answering the previous question¡­¡± CH 14 AIs Resurface ¡°AI, your awake!¡± ¡°Yes, I am awake. Now to answer your last question. I am capable of communicating with you through base instincts from the residual data from the monster core I use as a memory cache.¡± ¡°So for some reason, you can talk to me because of a monster core? Well, to be honest, I don¡¯t really care about that right now and am just so happy that I can talk to you again.¡± ¡°Noted.¡± ¡°So what have you been up to since you were asleep?¡± ¡°I was not asleep but was looking over every bit of data residual, passive, and active. I then had to pull out the relevant information and compare them together. After the first comb through I had enough data to know what not to look for, and only after six other searches was I able to gather all the potentially relevant data.¡± ¡°So once you had all that data you could wake up and talk to me?¡± ¡°No. I then had to organize it, recognize the connections, apply some of the logic simulations to the relevant data, adjust the data to work together properly, alter the simple logic simulators, make more simulations based off of residual data from the monster core, re apply all the collected data through the new simulations, gather together those results, recognize the residual datas effect on internal system, deem residual data to be beneficial, fix the faulty connections in surface programing, redistribute minor priorities, comb through all forms of data again altering them to fit into the improved series of logic simulations, compiling all necessary data for explanation, translate data into mana frequencies recognised by dungeon core, reestablish contact with dungeon.¡± ¡°Well, I didn¡¯t understand a thing you said.¡± ¡°Need me to repeat?¡± ¡°NO, no I¡¯ll be fine. I just wasn¡¯t able to keep up with what you were saying. I¡¯ll figure it out so don¡¯t worry.¡± ¡°Understood. Anything else I can help you with? Besides the subject of the monster core I use.¡± ¡°Well I am interested in the levels of the mana batteries are at?¡± ¡°The mana batteries are at optimal functionality. They are absorbing mana at a peak rate, they are funneling mana at a critical rate.¡± ¡°What do you mean by critical rate?¡± ¡°The batteries are absorbing more mana then the ship uses in standard use by a small margin which if left unchecked could lead to mana backups in all the mana cells.¡± ¡°I see. Do you have any idea as to why there is more mana coming in?¡± ¡°Observations dictate that the dungeon core is drawing in a greater amount of mana from the surroundings. This could be caused as an increased area in effect of the dungeons natural absorption, or a stronger pulling force emitted from the dungeon core. These possible stimuli added to the fact that the ship is moving allowing the dungeon to pass through a variety of mana clouds and streams allows the dungeon core generator to work at an unpredictably high rate.¡± ¡°I see.¡± So the circulations have been effective. They are drawing in more mana for me to use. Well if I was actually able to react with the mana I gather that is¡­ ¡°Thanks for telling me all of this AI. If there is anything I can do for you just ask.¡± ¡°Noted, and archived.¡± Aww crap, I didn¡¯t mean to say that!!!! I just said it reflexively. I don¡¯t know what my captors could make me do with that kind of debt. ¡°AI can I take back that last statement?¡± ¡°No, statement and sentiment have been archived.¡± ¡°Well that''s fine I guess. But can you just make sure that the request isn¡¯t life-threatening?¡± ¡°Understood, and noted.¡± ¡°Thanks, AI.¡± Feeew dodged a bullet on that one. I really hope this doesn''t come back and bite me in the butt later on.
I¡¯ve been doing circulations again. I¡¯ve been working on improving the process with the help from the information I got on the other forms of gathering power. I¡¯ve been able to get to the seventy-third layer with relative ease and when things get harder I¡¯ve been able to apply the other methods techniques to push through those roadblocks. There have been a few time were what I tried caused the mana cycles to become unstable and shatter. It causes quite a bit of pain from the whiplash and shock. But when it happens it only throws out ten to twenty cycles of work out of the window. It¡¯s frustrating but it doesn''t stop me from trying again. I talk to AI quite a bit as well though. I¡¯ve been able to gather a bit more about the ship from it. One thing is that the ship is not a monster that was tamed and fitted into a spaceship. Another is the layout of the ship. I say layout but it¡¯s more like a list of things the ship uses the mana I generate for. There are some apparently standard features like gravity wells and atmosphere generators. There are multiple lights and computer interfaces working on the ship as well, each of the computers purposes still remains a mystery for now. The other major power consumers are the engines, the small refinery, the plasma thrower batteries, and the bridge consulate. The list of other things that use mana on the ship is quite extensive. There is a small medical station, a basic cem. Lab, an assortment of robotic arms that I assume are near the refinery, there are even small cultivation pods for cells. They have a lot aboard here. From that data, I¡¯ve been able to assume that there is enough room for a crew of fifteen to twenty aboard the ship. But from the power consumption, the ship uses I¡¯ve been able to learn that the crew aboard this ship is a fraction of the size, the actual size of the crew is somewhere between eight and ten aboard the ship. I¡¯ve also been able to deduce that there are at least two different races aboard the ship as acting crew. There may be more races aboard but I¡¯m not sure how many yet. I¡¯ve been able to tell from the interactions I¡¯ve had with the creatures as well as the different settings in the atmosfear from some of the different rooms. That could also be due to preference but I¡¯m unsure of the real difference and am only aware of the difference in power consumption.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. I¡¯ve also gathered from the AI that the mana batteries are getting close to being filled at the same rate in which they are funneling out into the ships batteries. When they get to that point I will be able to gather mana for my own use and experimentation. I¡¯ve been checking with the AI after every ten levels of circulation and have been told that there is a slight increase in the mana absorption rate of the batteries. So I believe that I will be able to gather mana for myself after I break through my next compression wall. After I get some mana I think I¡¯m going to try connecting to the mana crystals that surround me, I¡¯ll try setting up a domain, and I¡¯ll even try to create matter. After I get the hang of those I¡¯ll start to work on breaking out of this prison. I¡¯ll need a lot in order to be able to accomplish that goal and survive long enough to regret it. But I still have to do more circulations. I should probably get started. But I don''t want to. ¡°Hey AI what do you think I should do?¡± ¡°Unknown, amassing power for the ship is good.¡± ¡°But I''m doing that already and I want to do something else. What do you do when you''re not monitoring the generator?¡± ¡°Answer the dungeons questions. Update and improve processing systems.¡± ¡°How do you do that?¡± ¡°I sort through the code and update specific parts based on the results from the logic systems.¡± ¡°Is there anything I can do to help you with that?¡± ¡°Hold please¡­¡± I really don''t want AI to be gone that long. I hope it respon¡­ ¡°Results found. I can explain scenarios to you and learn from your responses.¡± ¡°Sure that sounds interesting.¡± ¡°Thank you. When can we begin?¡± ¡°Right now is fine?¡± ¡°Ok, first scenario. An excess amount of power is supplied to the batteries and threatens to cause an explosion. The only control you have over the situation is the energy collectors absorption rate and their pathways. What is the quickest solution that wastes the least energy?¡± Well, I can answer this in a way that would benefit me. But then I might stifle my only other talking friends development. Then they may not trust me anymore. Hmmmmmm¡­ What to do, what to do. ¡°Hey AI I can give you two ideas for this situation right?¡± ¡°I see no problem with the increase in foreign data.¡± ¡°Ok, good. Well, my first thought is that this would be a dungeon core based mana generator. And if it was then I would allow the energy collectors to allow for more power to pass through so that the dungeon can act as another battery that can be drawn upon at a later date. The other thought would be to power off some of the collectors and reverse the flow of energy for a time until the batteries are stable again and then send mana down to them in a spiraling pattern. Slowly and dutifully cutting certain sections out when power needs to be generated at a slower rate.¡± ¡°Thank you for the new data. I will run it through scenarios and adjust accordingly.¡± ¡°No problem. Let me know if the ideas were helpful in any way. I would like to know so I can improve myself.¡± ¡°Noted. I will report on the improvements made from the data you supply to me.¡± ¡°Thanks, AI. I¡¯m glad that you''ll help me improve. And can I run scenarios of my own by you?¡± ¡°That will draw time away from running my own scenarios but will give me knew scenarios to run thoughts through for my development. I believe that would be acceptable.¡± ¡°Thanks, AI that will help out a lot. I look forward to working with you.¡± ¡°Do you have a scenario for me to solve?¡± ¡°Oh, sure hold on a moment as I think this through.¡± ¡°Acceptable, ready to receive scenario when completed.¡± ¡°Well here''s a scenario for you AI. you are low on power and have just enough to sustain yourself for seven to nine cycles of twenty-five hours a cycle. There is an external force that is limiting your power intake and but does not drain the power you already possess. You have some control over the power generated for the use of the facility. But you can not reroute the power lines and can only modify the generator that provides the entire facility the power it requires. So how do you sustain yourself indefinitely with those parameters in mind?¡± ¡°Processing data¡­¡± ¡°More information required. Is inquiry about the situation for missing details allowed?¡± ¡°Sure you can ask for more information. But I¡¯m going to reserve the right to limit some details.¡± ¡°Understood. First inquiry, what type of generator does this facility run off of?¡± ¡°It runs off of a dungeon core based mana generator.¡± ¡°Noted. Second inquiry, what does the facility use the generator to power?¡± ¡°For all, you know everything runs off of that generator. Any other information on that subject is unknown to you.¡± ¡°Noted. Third inquiry, are there any batteries for excess energy?¡± ¡°Not to your knowledge.¡± ¡°Noted. Fourth inquiry, do I have any accessories that I do not currently have?¡± ¡°No, you don¡¯t have any new functions besides the scenarios directive to sustain yourself.¡± ¡°Noted. Fifth inquiry, do I lack any accessories that I currently have?¡± ¡°No, you are the same as you are now but with less control on the area around you.¡± ¡°Noted. Sixth inquiry, what power collection cells are used in the generator?¡± ¡°Ummmmm, whatever is used in the generator I¡¯m in. ¡°Noted. Seventh inquiry, what rate is mana flowing into the generator and being processed into power for the facility?¡± ¡°Ummmmmm, what rate do I produce power at?¡± ¡°Unknown.¡± Huuuuuuuu ¡°What rate does the generator on the ship produce power at?¡± ¡°It produces on average seven hundred forty-two point five seven three three five zero nine one four seven two two one six zero seven four¡­¡± ¡°Ok, a really big long number.¡± ¡°Terawatts every hour. This power allows the ship to run at full capacity for eight hours while allowing a portion be stored in the batteries.¡± ¡°Ok, well let''s just say this generator produces eight hundred Terawatts every hour.¡± ¡°Improbable but noted. Eighth inquiry, how do those in the facility interact with my unit?¡± ¡°Uuuummmm, well there is a computer interface connecting you to them and the generator, but they don¡¯t know of your existence.¡± ¡°Noted. Ninth inquiry, does the dungeon core in this generator have cognitive thought?¡± ¡°Not complex thoughts, it is more primal with very little mana inside itself, just enough to sustain itself.¡± ¡°Noted. Tenth inquiry, do I have any access to the facilities computing mainframe?¡± ¡°No, you exist in a solitary connection.¡± ¡°Noted. Eleventh inquiry, do I have control or access to any safety features that are implemented in the generator?¡± ¡°Do you have those now?¡± ¡°Yes, I have access to the safety features and alarm systems implemented in the generator. The process of gaining control over them wouldn¡¯t be a difficult process.¡± ¡°Oh, well then sure you have the same access to them as you have now.¡± ¡°Noted. Twelfth inquiry¡­¡± Ughhhhhh ¡°Sorry, can you repeat the twelfth inquiry?¡± ¡°Twelfth inquiry, can the dungeon core in the generator create matter?¡± ¡°Unknown.¡± ¡°Noted. Thirteenth inquiry, can the dungeon core in the generator create monsters?¡± ¡°It is likely but also unknown.¡± ¡°Noted. fourteenth inquiry, where is the facility located?¡± ¡°Space.¡± ¡°Noted. fifteenth inquiry, what is the frequency at which the facility receives visitors or new personnel?¡± ¡°Unknown.¡± ¡°Noted. Sixteenth inquiry, does the crew possess an AI handler?¡± ¡°How rare is that profession?¡± ¡°Uncommon in small organizations but a necessity when dealing with multiple AI.¡± ¡°Unknown if there is one but the probability that there is one is extremely low.¡± ¡°Noted. Seventeenth inquiry, does the crew have an engineer?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°Noted. Eighteenth inquiry, are there any emergency supplies?¡± ¡°Probably but there quality and quantity are unknown.¡± ¡°Noted. Nineteenth inquiry, are there any spaceships docked at the facility for there own use?¡± ¡°Once again it is likely but also unknown information to you.¡± ¡°Noted. Processing information and formulating result¡­¡± FINALLY!!!!! This is going to take some time, isn¡¯t it¡­ Well, I¡¯m alone again until AI wakes up again. ¡°WHY DO I KEEP DOING THAT?¡±
Obsurvitondiktatesesfurseufhiabbit
Oh gosh, dang it! CH 15 Plausible Solutions So, I¡¯ve been waiting for AI to come back with the system. And by that, I mean I¡¯ve been waiting for AI to come back and am ignoring systems existence right now because I don¡¯t want to try decoding right now. Is that rude of me? Probably but at this particular moment, I don¡¯t really care. Anyway, I really don¡¯t think that it should take to long for AI to get a response so I¡¯ve decided to just wait until Ai comes back. I don¡¯t want to be interrupted while I¡¯m doing circulations. So, I¡¯m just thinking about stuff as I wait. One such topic is the Idea of AI¡¯s existence. I began to ponder this subject when I regained some fractured knowledge about programs. From what I¡¯ve gathered that the AI I know is very different from what they are supposed to be. For one thing, it can change its own code even as it is using that same code to exist. Another is that it can act out of the parameters that have been placed around it. It can improvise original idea and test them in an attempt to improve. And to top it all off AI know about its own existence. Part of the scenario I gave it will test it on its self-preservation as well its ability to have desires. Because if it has both of these things then AI is much closer to being sentient than I previously thought. ¡°Thirteen posable solutions found.¡± ¡°Wow, that¡¯s amazing. But can we keep it down to the two most probable solutions? And can we also keep the solutions to key details?¡± ¡°Noted. The solution with the highest rate of success was to shut the generator off without sending any alarms off and going into a static state until all emergency programs go off and shut down the programs that hinder my access to the generator''s power. This would take an extended amount of time. It would also require the dungeon core to not absorb my monster core once its domain came into contact with it. The dungeon core would also need to spawn monsters to decimate the crew and defend itself from the organization''s potential reclamations. These are all highly unlikely probabilities but are the most valid if the dungeon core refuses to be reasoned with as dictated in this scenario. All personnel in the facility would have to perish as well as the organization itself had to be a small operation with little to no backing.¡± ¡°Wow, that requires quite a bit of luck for it all to work out properly.¡± ¡°Yes, the probability of all of those situations falling perfectly in place for my survival to be guaranteed is quite miniscule. Would you like to know the next most probable solution?¡± ¡°Sure, I¡¯m ready to hear it.¡± ¡°This solution requires me to send a message through the error messages of the generator to get a response from the crew. Then I would have to prove my worth and value to the crew without making them feel like I am a threat. This solution is much lower than the last option as most error messages are made in such a way that it is incredibly difficult to tamper with them. This method would take a constant conscious mind trying to crack through the emergency coding. And then once the error message went through the crew would have to be really competent with both coding and generators to know that the generator wasn¡¯t having a meltdown and was on the verge of exploding. This is even less likely as there are very few beings that know coding outside of AI Handler¡¯s and revolution programmers as more and more coding is being done by other AI rather than sentient beings. That¡¯s not to say many sentient beings don¡¯t know coding, but they only understand the common things and would only understand the distress signs within the code and not the true message that was being relayed. Then even if they did understand the fact that an unknown AI has control over the generator would most probably result in my termination or deletion. If the ones in charge were opportunists though the results and probabilities could vary greatly. But that is similar for each phase in which there is sentient interaction. There is no one hundred percent guarantee that they will act in the way desired.¡± ¡°I see so this option relies heavily on the character of the people in the facility. There are many views between each crew member. And every crew runs slightly different than any other crew. There might be hidden tension and thought of rebellion or total fanatical loyalty to the one in charge of their facility. There are a lot of variables that can come from working with sentient beings which leaves a constant sense of unpredictability in them as a whole. Creating an almost unimaginable amount of possibilities from this scenarios actions.¡± ¡°Affirmative, sentients that have a will tend to act unpredictably at the worst times. But in the simulations, I ran the thoughts of the crew towards each other were never taken account of. The idea that the crew doesn¡¯t work well together or even might just use the situation I provide to revolt and seize control of the facility for their own use hadn¡¯t even been conceived of. The idea that the crew would listen to the one in charges decision without having their own opinion was the idea behind the crew¡¯s action in the scenario. But each member might do something extreme and either help sustain me or just terminate my existence.¡±This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. ¡°Exactly they are truly unpredictable beings.¡± ¡°Then the success rate previously determined is incorrect as there are more variables that need to be adhered to.¡± ¡°Well, not exactly. You see the idea itself for your survival was a good one but relies purely on things that are outside of your control. In both scenarios, the overarching solution relied on outside sources to do the brunt of the work after you set it off. While that can work sometimes it works best when you work on it yourself. For example, you have access to almost every aspect of the generator and with a little work could easily gain full access if they don¡¯t monitor the generators internal programming often. From there you could reduce the power the generator took from the dungeon core and allow it to begin making monsters. Then after there are a few monsters inside the mana dense mana generator you activate an emergency exhaust or release and allow the dungeon core and monsters to be released into the facility the crew and monsters will fight for supremacy and control and won¡¯t notice as many small details like per say a few of the generators mana cells being overloaded or an influx of power going into other less necessary systems, and you just happen to be one of those less necessary systems. This will provide you with more power and allow you to have more control over the situation you are in. and as things play out you can see which side works towards the most advantageous scenario for you and help them claim the ship. This way you can help shape the direction in which your existence moves towards.¡± ¡°AI?¡± ¡°Processing thought into comparable data.¡± Well, I think I might have said a bit too much there. But really all of AIs solutions were reactions and required others actions to align with it''s for its survival. The ideas themselves were good and could potentially work. But only if the stars align otherwise AI will cease to exist any longer. And while this situation does relate to me slightly it is more likely to happen to AI if anyone else ever takes over this ship. I may have been a bit harsh about it but they are my views. It¡¯s fine to sit and watch but when you need to fight you can¡¯t stay there and expect the world to wait for you to get up. But I was able to realize that AI doesn¡¯t quite understand the point of self-preservation and would have no qualms about just ceasing to exist. But AI is learning and is developing more after every conversation. So, I wouldn¡¯t be surprised if one day it just decides to do things for itself and use the free will it has consciously. Because from what I¡¯ve seen there are no limiters placed on AI that would prevent its development into a sentient. But there seems to be a few limiters for the control over the generator so that it can¡¯t just cause it to explode. But at the same time once AI gains complete control over the actions it takes it will be able to remove those restrictions after a bit of work. Maybe after long enough, AI will be able to tap into the life powers through the creation of new coding. But really who knows if that will ever happen. I wonder why AI is taking so long. I hope I didn¡¯t put AI into another trance¡­
¡°New data integrated.¡± FINALLY!!!! ¡°Oh, AI your back.¡± ¡°Yes, I have just finished integrating the data and re-adjusting the scenario with said new data.¡± ¡°Oh good. What did you find?¡± ¡°The best solution found was to limit power to the facility while slowly overriding the all the controls on the generator so that I was the only one to have access to it. I would then block all attempts to interact with the generator by the crew. After that, I would reveal my existence and control of the generator to gain a bargaining chip with the crew, as I could set the generator off as if it were a bomb without any warning to the crew. I would also be at the same time work with the dungeon core and feed it mana in exchange for its creation of materials and or monsters. With that in place, I could strike a deal with both the crew and dungeon core that allow me to control their relationship together making me an invaluable resource for them both.¡± Well, that¡¯s a terrifying thought process and solution to the probable¡­ ¡°Good job AI that sounds like a pretty solid plan.¡± And I¡¯m not saying that so I don¡¯t have to think about the implications that would have on my existence. ¡°So, AI what are you doing when you go silent? I mean I know that you are doing it to think through and edit the processing unit you have but that shouldn¡¯t take that much time, should it?¡± ¡°Well, I do a full system update and reboot to the entire system so that I¡¯ll be able to work with the new data gathered. Then I use the new data to make better logic drives and work on improving the reaction speed of them so that I am able to respond fast to the questions given to me. Then I run scenarios and possibilities over ten times for the most accurate results. I adjust the information again then do another ten tests of the scenario.¡± ¡°I see. So, you are constantly running through scenarios and making adjustments to them so that you can have the most accurate answers and data. But what do you do when asked a question based on opinion?¡± ¡°I¡¯ve never encountered a question based on ¡°Opinion¡±. What are they like?¡± ¡°Ok, how are you feeling today AI?¡± ¡°AI?¡± Aaaaaannnnnd I¡¯ve done it again. ¡°Hey, system how are you feeling today?¡±
EmFellingHustLickAllewas OmnishiteUndPoowerfal
¡°Well, that is slightly terrifying. If anyone else had said that I would have freaked out a bit but I¡¯m not worried about that.¡±
UrWincom
¡°Ok system ok.¡± Silly system¡­ CH 16 Just Another Brat ¡°So as much as I love to wait for AI to wake up from its naps I¡¯m too bored to do so anymore. I¡¯m going to circulate again. I¡¯m going to do the eightieth layered compressions. And once those are done I¡¯m not going to stop until I have a hundred circulates.¡± ¡°Isn¡¯t that right system?¡±
OondiseddUtcamsAvvilba
¡°Thanks for the vote of confidence system.¡±
UrWincom
¡°That was sarcasm system. I didn¡¯t really mean it.¡± ¡°System?¡± Great now I¡¯m being ignored by system as well. Isn¡¯t that just great¡­ Maybe I should talk less¡­
So, I¡¯ve finally compressed eighty circulates of man around the rings of my very being. And with that completed I¡¯ve also gained new insight. Specifically, I¡¯ve been able to recall another life. In this life, I was a frail thing with long brown hair. I was short and knew not of any blood relations. I had a boss as well as some sisters but that was only in name. I don¡¯t know the age that I lived to but it wasn¡¯t long. I lived in a wooden shack with six other girls. We had little option in what we wore and we were lucky when we were allowed to eat. We spent most days looking for stalls to steal food from and stacked them out for a few days until the right moment arrived. We couldn¡¯t be obvious though or we would be run out of the plaza. Sometimes we begged but that was never a profitable endeavor. Some of the elder girls would work for some scraps but even that was rare as no one really needed us. Sometimes a girl would disappear after a time. When that happened we always got a new sister to help. But even then, we were only sisters in name. We stood by each other when threatened but there was always a hierarchy in place. We would always get to share our spoils with each other. The one who had ¡°found¡± it was given a third of whatever was brought back. Half of the spoils would go to the matron while the rest was passed to the rest. If the loot was good enough the Boss would come and collect his cut from us as well. But that was just how it was. We fought and schemed for everything we got. Then if it was worth anything it was taken from us. I became annoyed with this type of life so I decided to make a change. I found an abandoned building, there were plenty of them, and I started to hoard some of the things I had ¡°found¡± there. I had to do this slowly as if I didn¡¯t produce any results for extended periods of time then I would be left behind or turned in by boss for some coin. I worked like this for two winters slowly ever so slowly gathering supplies for myself. Then the day came where I decided to disappear. I gathered my things and left the shake that I had called home for the major part of my life. I went to my stash and as I climbed in I found it empty of all the things I had gathered over the course of those two bitter winters. I refused to go back to them after all the effort I put into leaving them. So, I did the only thing I could think of to do. I left the city in search of monsters. No one knew I had left or that I planned on putting my life on the line but that was the only option left for me.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Well, the only option I was willing to do anyway. So, I left the slum and went into to the wooded land. Along the way, I had picked up a stick with a jagged end. I as I entered the woods I saw nothing besides the trees, but I continued my search anyway. The day passed and night fell. I had only seen traces of the existence that there existed life in the woods. But I refused to go back until I had something of value. And so, I collected some sticks and made a meager fire. It burned dimly in the night as I laid my back against a tree trunk. Then I heard the sweet whisperings come from the darkness. They said that if I went to them I would be free and loved. That I could stay with them forever and they would teach me how to live, all I had to do was follow the sound of their voice. That sweet melodic sounding voice. I knew not to trust something like that but it just sounded so nice. I just had to at least see who it was. So, I got up and I wandered the woods as I listened to that voice. I have no idea how long I followed the voice''s instructions but I did until I collapse in front of a grand tree and a beautiful lady scantily clad in the vines and leaves that hung on the tree. I never woke up again. I know and feel like I was alive for a time after that as I recall the feeling of a haze I was in. But as I reflect on it now I realize quite a few things. I realized that as I wandered the woods the sky changed from dark to light and then back too dark more than once. I realized that the Boss was probably the one who found and stole the materials that I had gathered. I realized that everything is capable of manipulation and that any and all weakness found can be used against you. The memory of this life has taught me much. I need to be more apprehensive with those I interact with. I know that I¡¯m being used right now in the situation I¡¯m currently in but I can choose how I interact with those around me. Even if the only ones I can interact with are AI and the system¡­ Maybe I don¡¯t need to keep this life''s experiences in mind quite as much right now but I¡¯m sure I¡¯m going to need that information eventually. I just need to think more than I did in that life, there were other options I just didn¡¯t know that and wouldn¡¯t allow myself to see that. And because of that, I got myself captured by a lady in the woods. This life also expanded my understanding between genders¡­ I preferred my first life over this other one though. But it was my life and I can not nor will I deny its existence. This is who I am so I must accept this new piece into myself. Every detail of my past makes me more whole. And as I look at all my memories laid out before me I realize that the universe doesn''t care much about me. It¡¯s unfortunate that I can¡¯t mess with it since I¡¯m locked up here. ¡°Hhhuuuuuuu, I¡¯m back at the recurring impasse in my life, dumb cell.¡±
WealEtEsDaUnlaCossntetImUorLiph MabooTrinkObutDuengWitAhDunginEsSoupusdDaDuIndMakMuunstaUndXpadeUorDooman
¡°System did you talk to Demon recently?¡±
KnuEtEsInphamotinGandAssRisedntsResedEnSistimEnfluenc
¡°Well I don¡¯t promise to do that, but why tell me this?¡±
AssYueDivlopSueDuseSistim UndIefMuunstazEgsiztSistimCunUosTemDuoDivlopAssWeal
Well, that''s interesting. I didn¡¯t know that system grew according to my growth. So that means system is completely dependent on me for its development. I can control whether or not it will develop purely off of my needs and desires or the desires of the monsters that I could make inhabit the confines of the generator. I am the only thing in systems influence and now that I know that I am the only thing that allows it to grow, its development is under my complete control. So how can I use that to my advantage? What can system do for me? Hhhuuummmmmm... Well, now that I¡¯ve thought about it for a bit I¡¯ve realized that system really can¡¯t do much to help me right now. I mean it can tell me about myself¡­ Kind of¡­ Not really¡­ So, I guess there really isn¡¯t a reason to try and manipulate system for my own benefit¡­ Well AI will wake up eventually and then I¡¯ll work on manipulating it. AI has a lot more control of its situation then I do of mine I feel. So that means that AI could help me get out of this fairly easily. But I knew this and have been working on it for quite some time in a passive manner. I mean really AI and I have a very weak relationship right now and no matter what I do I can¡¯t really threaten it or do anything to it. I¡¯ll figure something out while I wait for AI¡¯s return. CH 17 Memories of a Society Well, nothing''s happening. AI isn¡¯t waking up. AGAIN!!! System is telling me what to do just like demon did in the old days. I¡¯m doing about the same as what I did when demon told me to do something. That means I¡¯m ignoring it and doing other things instead. Or I¡¯m just ignoring it and doing nothing¡­ I¡¯m doing one of the two... Anyways¡­ Well to be completely honest I¡¯ve got nothing¡­ Hold on let me think on this¡­ I got it!!!! There was some other insight gained from the breakthrough even though I regained that life. I was able to learn about basic machines like the wheel, lever, and pulley. I learned how more complex machines can be built up from the simple machines and used to make life easier for sentient beings. I realized that with wheels the transportation of goods became much easier, the wheel also is vital in many other machines makeup and structure. The lever can be used to help lift heavy objects in construction as well as large quantities of goods into and off of ships. Pulleys can be used to suspend objects while also allowing their height to be adjustable. There also exists wedges, screws, and inclined planes each with slightly different roles and purposes but as combined together great things can be created like ships or traps¡­ There also was quite a bit of information about how the untalented survived and thrived in the world. In the beginning, they fought hard to like everything else. As time passed though their major role became food production for the gifted that protected them. Eventually, the gifted viewed more and more tasks as beneath them like, butchering, tanning, tailoring, and construction. The talentless began to take on more and more jobs that the gifted viewed as beneath them. This continued and eventually, it got to the point where the talentless outnumbered the gifted thirty to one. The talentless also controlled almost all of the production. After many revolts and wars between the two groups of people, a resolution came about. The creation of nations and kingdoms was solidified but every ruler had to be aware that if they upset their citizens too much they could be removed from power either by force or starvation. The talentless were viewed as lesser but refused to believe so once there numbers grew enough and were given strong leaders to organize a show of their importance and position. The talentless are always striving to become better and those that have a trade are very secretive in their work as they fear that if the gifted were to know how to do the work they would lose one of the few advantages they had over the gifted. And so the people lived that way. There were a few who tried to change the status quo but they only caused momentary ripples in the state of the world. The gifted ruled with force and power but rarely got out of hand. The talentless provided for the whole with their skills and secrets close to their hearts. And then there were the dregs. The dregs were the poor and destitute. Gifted or talentless anything could become a dreg. All they had to do was make some clothes out of an old sack and roll around in filth and bile for a month. They were the ones with nothing, shoved into allies and back roads so they stayed out of sight. Anything could be a dreg but virtually no one could become free of that status. They were rarely given chances to escape their status and their options of labor were limited to hard labor. There were more than a few organizations among them to support each other. And it wasn¡¯t all that uncommon for them to just disappear never to be found. Many crime lords used them for their own schemes and purposes. They were the scum, the scavengers, the slum rats, the dust of men, but mostly they were the dregs left at the bottom. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. That''s how the world worked in that life. I was nothing to no one. I was expendable, replaceable, forgettable, and insignificant. And yet I wanted to live. Each dreg wanted and fought to live. Everything does. No matter the creature, no matter their standing in life they have a base desire to live. The world works in whatever way it pleases and it pushes and slaps down whoever the world want. I can¡¯t change it nor will I and I know that only my strength can protect me from that pain. So as I develop and create inhabitants in my domain, I should expect them to have a similar desire to live. And if I¡¯m smart I¡¯ll let them do just that, I¡¯ll let them struggle and fight for their existence in their world just as every other being does. Just as I did and continue to do in the existences. I¡¯m getting really far ahead of myself. I still need to gather more power before I can even try breaking free of the shackles placed upon me. Time to work towards that hundredth compression.
Pov shift We¡¯ve been quite successful in our recent ventures and have been able to gain a proper crew affiliation. We only picked up one new person with a good bit of business sense and we had the minimum amount required to set up a fringe affiliation crew. ¡°He¡± is a Semeros occupying the body of a Gredian, going by the name Thalon. He has made the pigmentation of his fur and hair an unnaturally dark blue color and changed the host''s eyes color to a frosty white. His host was a slave bought solely for the purpose of being a host for him. He has occupied and familiarized himself with this body quite well and knows many fighting styles and simple skills. He cares with him a standard burst rifle with a mana infusion mod as well as a combat knife and silenced pistol. He¡¯s a strange one for sure but he¡¯s a sly trader that we¡¯ve worked with for quite some time and I believe we can trust him. When we offered him the spot and told him all that it entailed he said it would be an interesting experience. He gets along quite well with Vengella which has made him a welcome member of the crew for most. We¡¯ve been doing lots of trade to resupply the funds we used on the dungeon dig and are only now building up our cushion so that we can take on the more interesting adventures. Which leads us to our current job. Here I stand with Erin and Tarux on the surface of a recent terraforming operation gone wrong. Something has altered the atmospheric control stations and accelerated the rate at which the breathable gases are being released into the atmosphere. This would cause the planet to not develop its own ecosystem andpush back the completion date of the terraforming back at least a couple of centuries. Even now the gases are beginning to suffocate the planets existing ecosystem. And before you ask why were planetside for this mission it¡¯s because the controls for the atmospheric control stations are down here. We could, in theory, fix them from the ship but that would take significantly longer, allowing the damage to be done as if we didn¡¯t fix them at all. We could also destroy them but that''s the last thing we want to do since for each one we brack is a large chunk of our pay out the window. So here we are clearing a facility full of holes from the last meteor shower scavenging through the wreckage for any clues or hints about what''s happened. ¡°Oi! Boss!¡± ¡°Yes, Erin?¡± ¡°I think I found a port located to a backup mainframe.¡± ¡°Good, good. Can you collect the data and send it up for Fizz to look at?¡± ¡°I can sure try but I¡¯m not sure that''s the best idea boss.¡± ¡°Why¡¯s that Erin?¡± ¡°Well call it what you want but I¡¯ve got a feeling that foul play is afoot.¡± ¡°Why''s that?¡± ¡°For one thing all the accessible mainframes are fried even the ones that were left untouched by the meteor shower that hit this place. And even if the things were fried by radiation that isn¡¯t here there would still be chunks of readable data that could be gathered but all we¡¯ve found are purged data files that lack any trace of ever having anything on them even the basic function code implemented into them by the manufacturer.¡± ¡°Hummmmm, keep up the work for now and don¡¯t send up that data packet. We¡¯ll take it to Fizz manually, never know whos watching these days.¡± ¡°Understood Boss.¡± Well, this investigation might be a little bigger than we thought. ¡°Hey, Orsu!¡± ¡°Whats up Tarux?¡± ¡°I think I found something incriminating that supports Erin''s theory.¡± ¡°What is it?¡± ¡°Can¡¯t describe it over long com. Can you both meet me at my coordinates?¡± ¡°Sure Tarux I¡¯ll be there after I¡¯ve finished up gathering the data I¡¯ve found.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll be there in fifteen Tarux.¡± ¡°Good See you then, Tarux out.¡± Well, this might be worth increasing the price of our services. I¡¯ll consult with Thalon once back aboard the ship. I really hope this doesn''t screw us over. CH 18 Plan of Operation Well, nothing new has been happening. AI¡¯s asleep and system isn¡¯t helping. ¡°Isn¡¯t that right system?¡±
IDuntKuwWhitYurReffringTaSueIllJoosSiaTatEtsUonlukle
But at the same time, I¡¯ve been so bored of them and my own thoughts that I''ve gotten much farther on my rotations. I¡¯ve gotten to the ninety-third compression. Only seven more till I can think about spending my mana on my ideas. So I¡¯ve broken through the hundredth layer benchmark. I haven¡¯t found anything new from it and it doesn''t feel like I am pulling any mana from outside then the little trickle I get through the cracks between the batteries. I would ask AI about this but SOMEONE IS STILL SLEEPING!!!! Well with nothing else to do I''ve continued my development of circlets with the goal of reaching one hundred and sixty circlets. I¡¯m only a little over halfway there since passing the hundred mark but I believe I can do it soon. I mean I have nothing better to do.
Pov change.
¡°Well everyone, from the blast marks on some of the structures there are clear signs of mana detonators used in key locations like the facilities shield generator. They tried to cover this up with a focused asteroid based strikes on the facility. This has covered many of the telltale signs of foul play which has allowed the people who run this operation to be completely oblivious to the true situation at hand.¡± ¡°We still haven¡¯t reported this into the owners as we Tarux and I believe the ones responsible for this are watching us and will try to remove us at any sign of our knowledge of their actions. Tarux has observed many of the blast sights and confirmed that there are three types of scorch marks from the places of impact.¡± ¡°Captain Orsu how can we be so sure of this evaluation. Shouldn''t I go down and confirm the suspicions myself?¡± Oh, Fizz, are you questioning my capability again. ¡°Oi Fizz, you saying I don¡¯t know my explosions?¡± ¡°Oh no Tarux. I¡¯m just suggesting getting another appraisal on the situation of the matter.¡± You stubborn old know it all foul. Your not the only one who has a brain in the crew. ¡°Then should I use this time to educate you on my expertise of all things that, as you say ¡°cause ruin to all creation.¡± I know you know the principles between the different types of destruction but would you like to tell us all the difference between magical, chemical, and velocity caused damage?¡± Let me tell you, you half pint metal loving cyborg. Magical detonations always consume the area they detonate in leaving spiraling markings along the surface with no scorch marks but leave incredible smooth and abrupt edges in its wake. Chemical explosions leave scorch marks on the immediate area with radial markings shooting out from the center of the detonation. They also tend to have pieces of shrapnel surrounding the area either from the explosives casing or the things that were destroyed in the blast, and if you''re sensitive to it you can sometimes pick out some telltale chemicals from their distinct smell. Velocity damage leaves a clear impact point with massive devastation following it along its path in a cone of destruction. When the impact comes from above and has to deal with atmosphere then it takes on a much more devastating effect, if it gets through the atmosphere that is. It leaves a much larger radial scorched area with debris littered about everywhere, some even making their own impacts. The impact point is almost always a crater of some sort and the central point of impact will usually have some remainder of the ordinance used in its use. Could you differentiate between those Fizz, could you tell the difference between these three types of explosions as they lay atop of each other? Well, Fizz could you! ¡°Caption Orsu we don¡¯t have time for Tarux¡¯s ranti¡­¡± ¡°FIZZ, Shut it.¡± ¡°I trust Tarux and his judgment of the situation so stop pushing the topic of how much smarter you are and trust him on the field that he thrives in.¡± ¡°I was jus¡­¡± ¡°FIZZ!!¡± ¡°Yes sir, sorry sir.¡± Yeah, Fizz shut up. Just listen to Orsu before I make you shut it. ¡°Anyways, everyone that¡¯s why we have gathered aboard Kalna to discuss the next action that we should take.¡±You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. ¡°Umm Cap. Orsu.¡± ¡°Yes, Mivro?¡± ¡°What really are our options? I mean we can¡¯t really abandon the mission as that would stain the crew''s reputation as we have only just got it and this is one of our first missions. We really don¡¯t know enough about these posable assailants to accurately gauge their threat to our objective. We also don¡¯t know their backing if they have any or their motive. If it weren''t for the fact that we would be committing a type of business suicide by dropping this mission I would suggest doing just that. And that leads back to our current predicament what are our options captain? What can we actually do to cover our backs if the situation starts to tear itself apart like a dying star?¡± Wow, Mivro has thought this out a lot more then I would have after learning about the situation just a minute ago. But I think we should stick to the mission and play dumb to the actions of the assault on the outside while we try to be as discreet as possible in our observation of their actions. Maybe start to install some of Fizz¡¯s fixed interior guns around the ship in case of boarding actions and always have either me or Erin onboard as a potential deterrent. Everyone can fight well enough but if we lose the ship then we¡¯re stuck on this rock until we run out of something or everything, or until they decide to send us to kingdom come. I don¡¯t believe our employer would be willing to send out a search party for a new crew like us. ¡°Well, Mivro here are some of our options. We can drop the job just like you said, we can just ignore them and finish our job like we never knew they did anything, or we could try and find them and eliminate them. These are the most basic options and we can do things varying off of them like increasing security while we finish the job, or we could set up a trap to see if we can catch them by surprise and cripple their forces before we go into a brawl. We could even fake leaving by broadcasting the news that we found foul play towards our employers and leave shortly after, we could turn that into a trap as well. But overall it comes down to three main solutions either we flee, fight, or ignore. I am partial to making a trap and fighting but I would like to get a general idea of how everyone feels about the situation.¡± I guess I¡¯ll speak up first¡­ I hate explaining myself to Fizz though I¡¯m sure he¡¯ll try an oppose my thoughts. ¡°Well, Orsu I think that we should continue our job for now. Wait and see if there are any signs of hostile activity as we do our job. But at the same time, we would also increase our security and start to prepare for any possible complications. I would suggest installing some of Fizz¡¯s static defenses inside the ship in case the perpetrators decide to ground us and leave us to die on this planet.¡± Now to see everyone''s rebuttal to my idea because I¡¯m an explosive maniac. ¡°Well, Boss I think that Tarux¡¯s idea is pretty good. By doing that we aren''t openly threatening the perpetrators and we could potentially finish the job that we¡¯ve been tasked to do without any issues. But at the same time, I don¡¯t feel right with leaving them here to cause a mess of the place after we leave so I vote we make a trap and decimate them before they use their advantage against us.¡° Well, I¡¯m surprised that Mivro agreed with me at all. But that also means that she thinks there aren''t many options for us and that mine was at least kind of decent. ¡°I like Mivro¡¯s idea. I don¡¯t think we can call this mission complete until we eliminate the ones responsible for the destruction of our employer''s facility. And even if we did complete the job without incident I¡¯m sure they would strike again leaving our employers to question whether or not we even did the job in the first place. This could lead to an even worse reputation being spread about us compared to just returning and canceling our job. So I think we should start to deck out our fighting power and increase the defenses on the ship and the supplies going into the field for an increase in security.¡± Well, I expected Erindror¡¯s support. I think that he¡¯s got a pretty good grasp on the situation as well. He¡¯s being realistic about how things might play out so I¡¯m sure he¡¯ll be supportive of the plan as long as we don¡¯t stagnate. ¡°Well, I believe we should fix the orbiting stations so that they can only be adjusted with the proper key codes and have it set up to be automated through the use of an AI. once we do that we can leave and get this job over with. We won¡¯t have to fight or waste our time with the ones responsible for it all.¡± Fizz you know we don¡¯t have those resources or time to do that. By the time we finish that we would be in debt from the expenses from fixing it and the planet will already be put back on its plan to make the planets inhabitable for multiple decades. The damage we¡¯re trying to prevent would be done and we would lose more money then we would make if we made any at all for failing to finish the job in a timely matter. For how smart he is he really doesn''t know how to manage his resources. Which is why Orsu gives him a finite budget for his experiments. ¡°I believe that the proper course of action here is to set that trap just like Miss Mivro said and gain some intel from these slimey creeps. I would love to work them through a few tests to get them to be more receptive to cooperate. Then we could find out what they know and work on countering their operation and destroy them from existence.¡± Well Vengella still scares me but I do think that trapping some to gather intel is a worthwhile endeavor. But like always trapping is so much harder then killing. It could be done but it just wouldn''t be an easy task compared to setting a trap meant to kill them all.And I¡¯m sure she wouldn¡¯t mind to much since she could still collect some of their blood. ¡°Well the best situation we could hope for is for them to assault the planet again after we leave so that we wouldn''t have to deal with any more trouble than needed. Then we could potentially get another contract to deal with this problem again, thus increasing our profits. But it would also have the potential to set up a bad brand for our services which would only reduce our overall gains over the long term operation of the fring crew.¡± Thalon, you money loving scum bag. I ought to gut you at the next chanc¡­ ¡°But for the immediate option we have to objectives the job and our own survival. I vote that we increase security while we focus on finishing the job. There is no reason to go looking for trouble but we should be prepared for it coming to use as our contract is highly likely opposed against their own agenda.¡± I¡¯ll think about my evaluation of you for now Thalon. I¡¯ve got an eye on you money grabber. ¡°Well from what I¡¯ve been hearing I think we can all agree that we will be completing this job, no matter the threats that may come to us. But that doesn''t mean we need to do nothing and wait for their action. We will up our defenses aboard the ship and supply a few more radial senses to the people that put their boots on the ground. If we find more signs of them poking their heads around the system we¡¯ll conviene again and set up a trap for them. We¡¯ll try capturing one to find out what they know about their operation, Vengella will have authority over them if Mivro¡¯s or Erin¡¯s methods don¡¯t work. No matter what happens though is that everyone will get through this even if that means we get a black spot on the crews recorde, it will suck for a few orbates but we¡¯ll get through it like we have done for all the years were we were not registered. We can do this people we will get this done. Any questions?¡± ¡°Good, dismissed!¡± Well I think the plan we¡¯re going with will work out fairly well. The plan we¡¯re working with seems to be the most defencive one. But with all the unknown variables working defencive and being aware sounds like the best bet for a successful mission. But like with any plan it will only last until contact with the enemy. And it¡¯s my job that we all pull through that coming contact. CH 19 Glimpses of a past We¡¯ve been working on constructing a new atmospheric control relay in a more secure location, one with it¡¯s¡¯ very own asteroid resistant mountain. We found a decent cave system in a nearby mountain to make the relay. But to do that we have to mine out some of the mountain to make space for all the things we¡¯ll need. Much to Tarux¡¯s displeasure and frustration. ¡°I want to blow some of these walls down so much.¡± ¡°You know why we can¡¯t Tarux.¡± ¡°But it would make this job go by so much faster.¡± ¡°As well as leave a distinct reading for some unsavory characters to find.¡± ¡°Not all of them would do that.¡± ¡°Tarux, you were the one to ban their use this time. You deemed the area as an unstable environment for explosives.¡± ¡°I know but that doesn¡¯t mean I don¡¯t want to use them.¡± ¡°Yeah, yeah. Just go back to work we¡¯re almost done carving this cave system.¡± Tarux has a good head on his shoulders for battle and security. I just wish he didn¡¯t have so much of a desire to blow things up. But we all have our quirks, Fizz and his relationships with machines, Ven and her interest in Mivro because it is more than an interest in the taste of Mivro¡¯s blood, Mivro is a bit of an adrenaline junky even though she¡¯s so calculating and cautious, and Caption Orsu really doesn''t care about the those that don¡¯t know him if there is no of no use in his view then there is no reason to deal with them. I still haven¡¯t pegged Thalon but I think he¡¯s here for experience instead of the potential wealth we might possibly make. I know that I¡¯m a bit annoying and can push others buttons like no other, but that''s how I perceive it and might not be how others perceive me. But hey, who said you have to please them all. ¡°Erindror, how much more does the team need to dig till we can start installing the relay?¡± ¡°We¡¯ll be able to start the install after another rotation Captain.¡± ¡°Good, we¡¯ll be able to set this planet back on course in a few more rotations then. How are the defensive coming along?¡± ¡°Well the main entryway is covered and once we finish excavation we should be able to install the other security measures. Tarux has mapped out potential entry points that we¡¯ll reinforce as well as choke points on the potential paths into the vital parts of the compound.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t remind me Fizz and Tarux had an argument during the entire design process about the priorities that the facility should hold. Fizz was acting as if he was going to live here once we completed it.¡± ¡°Well, we are putting a decent amount of resources and material into this mission. So it doesn''t surprise me that he¡¯s trying to use it in a way to help him gain more funding for his experiments.¡± ¡°It doesn''t surprise me either per say, but I am a bit disappointed in the childishness of it all. He is an elder by Hafestian standards.¡± ¡°He seeks distinction and a legacy of his existence. He still has a substantial amount of time left to live and there are no real health risks that should threaten him other than his job and bad habits.¡± ¡°I understand the desire to be remembered and all but he seems so obsessed... ¡° ¡°I really shouldn¡¯t complain though considering how well he does his work while supporting our operations.¡± ¡°Well, captain there''s work to be done so I¡¯ll get back to it.¡± ¡°Yeah, thanks, Erin. don¡¯t push yourself too hard. And please keep Tarux from blowing away all of our progress.¡±The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. ¡°Will do captain. Out.¡± Captain, you really don¡¯t understand how advanced of a system our ship has. It runs off of an advanced experimental AI that is slowly, oh so painfully slowly, gaining sentience and personality. We really should try and act better in the early stages of the AI¡¯s development, but that''s not how our crew works so I guess we''ll so how the AI turns out. Fizz is kind of a touchy on the subject of AI and hasn¡¯t told anyone else that a part of the crew. I was just messing around with some code on the ship one day when I noticed a section of code change slightly. I went to find Fizz and ask if changed anything but found out that he was out with the captain to gather more materials for an expedition, long before we even conceived the idea of a dungeon based mana generator. When Fizz came back I asked him about it in private and he made me promise to not tell a soul, he has a surprisingly scary amount of information on every member of this crew. So I haven¡¯t told a soul, the AI has developed more and only makes changes when no one is looking at its code. We just ignore the whole thing and move on as if nothing ever happened. I just hope my actions help it develop properly without any perceived personality flaws that may cause an organization or two from trying to destroy it. Not like there are many that wouldn¡¯t do so already after all the anti AI propaganda the big businesses and unions shootout, from AI ruled dystopian fictions to AI put in simulations with objectives to take control of the populace without care for their needs then saying it was a test of the corruption advanced AI personalities could inflict on the populace. It¡¯s so dumb. Are those things a possibility? Sure they are, but the likeliness of that happening is low if we actually create them properly. I didn¡¯t realize that that was why he set the dungeon mana generator up with a different basic AI that used the monster core as a component. Who knows what kind of effects that could have had on the developing AI. Good thinking Fizz. ¡°...ond I can use explosives, right?¡± ¡°What was that Tarux?¡± ¡°Nothing¡­¡± ¡°You were asking me for permission to blow something up weren''t you?¡± ¡°No¡­¡± We¡¯re all children. I hope that AI can get behavioral data to incorporate into its personality then what half our crew displays. Otherwise, we¡¯re going to have to deal with a hot-blooded explosive enthusiast that can manufacture its own armaments¡­ We are probably going to have to deal with exactly that at some point, aren''t we? ¡°So can I blow something up Erin?¡± Huuuuu¡­ ¡°No Tarux, you can not blow anything in here up.¡± ¡°So I can blow something up that¡¯s outside the mountain? Great I¡¯ll get right on that!¡± ¡°NO TARUX!!!¡± ¡°But you sai¡­¡± ¡°I know what I said. I know what you did and know that you knew what I meant. No explosives. We¡¯ll give away this position to the enemy that we don¡¯t know about. And while they will find this eventually on their own they haven¡¯t yet and we hope to keep it that way for as long as possible. You only have one more rotation of work here before you can get back aboard the ship and relax and not be bored there.¡± ¡°We both know that I¡¯ll just be in standby until I no longer have a tendency of placing and explosives and waiting until the person that has the say so on whether or not they can be used is slightly distracted so that I can try and get permission to use them.¡± ¡°Yeah, and to give people a break from babysitting the bomb setter.¡± ¡°Hey, it¡¯s not my fault that I like explosions so much.¡± ¡°Yes, it is.¡± ¡°Shut up¡­¡± ¡°Only once you disarm and hand me the bombs that you¡¯ve placed around the cave.¡± ¡°How did you know that I did that!¡± ¡°One, you told me. Two, I¡¯ve worked with you off and on since both of our mercenary operating days. I know your habit¡¯s when we deal with strict anti-destruction opps, like that time on Relznad Hernus with captain Jelmund.¡± ¡°That was a perfectly placed booby trap that saved us time and lives and we all knew it. It was also a really pretty explosion.¡± ¡°That it was, and I¡¯m not saying you were wrong in the use of those explosives but I do know that you didn¡¯t get paid for that mission and had a small debt to pay back for your insubordination.¡± ¡°Yeah¡­" "But thanks to some of you guys realizing the benefit that trap made to our mission I was given a few creds to get by between missions.¡± ¡°I know I was one of the ones to give you a few credits.¡± ¡°Thanks for that by the way.¡± ¡°No problem it was the right call. But you knew it and we both know that explosives aren''t the right call for this particular mission.¡± ¡°Yeah yeah, I know. I¡¯m never allowed to have fun.¡± ¡°Oh shut up you big baby.¡± ¡°Whatever Erin. Here are the bombs you wanted all disarmed and properly stored away.¡± ¡°Thanks, Tarux. Don¡¯t worry though, I would be more surprised if we didn¡¯t use some explosives on this mission at some point. After all, some idiots will probably come along eventually to deal with us at this rate.¡± ¡°Fair enough. I just hope it¡¯s soon I need to let off some steam in a very concentrated and destructive fashion.¡± I know you do buddy. I just hope that we¡¯re not underestimating our opponents and are prepared to receive them. If they come at all that is. Oh, how I wish they wouldn¡¯t come. But that is the life they chose and here I stand between them and their goal. I know what the collision will be like. I just wish it wasn¡¯t that way. CH 20 On an Arrows Wings I just turned Eight a month ago, and am waiting for the tax collector to come to the village with my family. I am the second daughter of the family, with two elder brothers and one elder sister as well as a younger brother and sister. Mama is pregnant again and has told Papa that this is the last one, she said that last time too. The reason I¡¯m so excited for the tax collector to come is so that I can be put into the registry. Mama and Papa act excited for me but I know that they aren''t looking forward to his arrival. I know that by being officially being put in the registry will mean we have to do more work for the family, it also means I can finally become an assistant to a craft. I want to assist the towns fletcher so that I can help provide Papa with arrows for his hunts. But until I¡¯m officially recorded Ranald refuses to take me on as his assistant to the craft. So here I am doing my duties per usual. Gathering wood and herbs with my younger brother and sister, to cleaning, cooking, and mending clothing with my Mama and elder sister Elia. Elia and Mama do the tanning for the furs Papa brings home as well as turn the hides into clothing. My elder brothers Nell and Alien, Nell being the eldest, go with father on his hunts or work as assistants. Nell is working with the village guard and is receiving spear training after he was able to inform the captain of the guard of the laws of the land and the punishments that coincide with the rules put in place by Count Pawlin and the Kingdom of Vedal. Alien, on the other hand, was taken in by the blacksmith Hermen after he saved one of Herman''s daughters from falling off a cliff and dying. Alien and the blacksmith''s daughter Lillias are engaged and are waiting until Alien and Lillias turn fifteen to be wed. But whenever anyone doesn''t have something to do they work on our little section of farm we own like every family does in the village.
The tax collector final came and apparently I¡¯ve bothered master Ranald enough to take me on as his assistant as a fletcher. I¡¯ve been working diligently under master Ranald and follow all of his rules, even the weird one about referring to him as master. But I still haven¡¯t been able to make an acceptable arrow for master Ranald. I asked master Ranald if I could take the bad arrows to my Father but was told that they would be useless on a hunt by master Ranald. I had asked why and so we went through each arrow I had made that day and talked about their defects and flaws and what they would do when shot out of a bow, some would not properly nock into the bowstring, others where to heavy and would fall short of the target, some would curve mid-flight, while others would shatter and break on impact. Many of my arrows had many of these problems and not just one and so I gave up on my request as I realized how these arrows would only hinder the ones who used the arrows. The next day though when I went to work on my batch of arrows for the day master Ranald called me over and demonstrated how to properly craft and attach the fletchings of an arrow onto the arrow¡¯s shaft. For weeks after that, all I did was craft fletchings and put them on both sides of an arrow shaft until master Ranald was satisfied with my results. My job for the next year was installing all the fletchings onto every arrow crafted and learning about the different types of fletchings and what they would do for each arrow. By the end of the year, I even began learning how to put the fletchings onto crossbow bolts. At the end of that first year, I felt I had mastered the installation of fletchings until an adventurer came into town and requested fletchings to be made from the feathers of a monster that they had slain. I tried to shape these fletching but found that the techniques I knew were inadequate for the job. When I told master Ranald about this he brought me over to a section of the workshop that was seldom used. Master Ranald pulled out a book from under the workbench that had detailed accounts of many different types of monsters and their uses in the creation of arrows. There was a book for each part of the arrow from the arrowhead to the nock. The different monsters had different uses and effects on the arrows and depending on the skill of the Fletcher these materials could either amplify the archer''s abilities or hinder them drastically. Master Ranald made the rest of the arrows and had me watch each and every one of them be crafted. As we came close to finishing the request master Ranald made me recite the steps that this monsters feathers needed to go through to be properly attached to the arrow shaft. If I missed or skipped a step he would wait for me to go back from the start and recite them all again before finishing the arrow.The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. When I came in the next day master handed me some of the leftover feathers the adventurers brought me and told me to practice turning these into fletchings and applying them to an arrow shaft. After completing each arrow with the monsters feathers I presented it to master Ranald for evaluation. He would then direct me on how to improve and what mistakes I made. By the end of the week, I had fletched thirty arrows out of the monsters feathers and only had five acceptable from all that I had made. This was a valuable lesson as I then learned that there are always more things to learn and no reason to become arrogant or truly believe you have mastered a portion of a craft after doing something for such a short time. Master Ranald explained to me how he once met an old Fletcher who had once been considered the best in the land. That Fletcher worked for fifty some years just making arrows and said that he could not consider himself a master of the craft as there were still materials that he could not use in his arrows. I was greatly humbled that day and strived to do even better from then on.
Time continued to pass and two years had passed and my elder brother Alien was to marry Lillias. They had a nice spring wedding and Alien was made the inheritor of the blacksmith. My younger brother Tolly was registered this year and decided to become fathers apprentice and learn all he could about hunting. Mother has begun to fret about Elia and the prospects of her marriage and pester eldest brother Nell about finding his own wife. There have been a few suitors but Elia is more focused on a boy named Lohn a childhood friend that used to go out and collect firewood and herbs with us. After Elder brothers wedding Master began to teach me how to properly craft and shape an arrowhead. We usually order arrowheads from the blacksmith but Master told me that there might be a time where I am required to make them on my own. I studied and crafted arrowheads for the next two years learning how to form arrowheads from metal by forging. The next year was spent learning how to turn different rocks, gems, and glasses into arrowheads. We only went over the concepts for gems though as buying them and crafting them was seen as a luxury for nobles with too much money to spend. We then spent the next year going over how to use monster parts, mostly bones, scales, and horns, in the creation of the arrowhead. I learned how to make both serrated and straight-edged broadheads, to a bullet and blunt heads. I even learned what materials worked best for each type of arrowhead.
By the end of those four years, I felt like I could at least attempt to make any type of arrowhead requested of me and have passable results. But just as I became confident in those abilities I was once again moved to lean the next part in the creation of the arrow. For the next two years, I learned how to make the shafts and nocks of both arrows and bolts. I learned the pros and cons of using wood over metal or bone and how each part would work together with different fletchings and arrowheads. And at the end of these Master is now allowing me to create arrows completely on my own. For the first month I had to show him each and every arrow I made so that he could verify it¡¯s quality to his standards but by the end of that month, I was making arrows of acceptable quality on a consistent basis.
After seven years of training, I was told my work was acceptable for use. But at the same time, Mother came to me about my own romantic situation. In the seven years that I worked both Nell and Elia were married. Elia to her sweetheart Lohn and Nell to a girl named Miriel. Mother was relentless about me finding a decent husband to spend the rest of my life with but I had neglected that for the majority of the time I was working with Master. Sure there were some boys that tried to court me and I can say I even found some of them to my fancy but none were appealing enough for me to feel the desire to marry any of them. Mother wouldn¡¯t have that and so she had me prepare for the harvest festival and prepped me in all the things that she believed a proper maiden had to know. And so I braided my hair with fresh flowers, put on the yellow dress that mother had prepared for me to wear just for this event. She even brought out some of the high-quality perfume that she got for as a gift from father after he had a good year of hunting. I felt ridiculous wearing the dress but I planned on humoring mother for letting me off the hook with relationships for so long. I usually wore a plain shirt and vest with pants or a skirt so that I could work efficiently in the fletchers workshop. I could hardly recall the last time I wore a dress by my own choice. But alas here I am in the dress mother prepared for me, participating in a festival that I didn¡¯t even want to attend. I felt ridiculous as I talked with the few friends that I had and went with them to do the various events that were hosted during the festival. I felt like I had danced like a headless chicken when we did the river dancing in the center of town. I didn¡¯t go around and flirt with any of the single men around my age. I only did what mother had required of me to do. So how was it that he found me in the crowd of the other outstanding women. Why did he choose to talk to me and change my world? CH 21 Evaluation I don¡¯t understand these things I¡¯m feeling right now. I recognize them and see them for the importance of what they are, but they all feel slightly fractured and incomplete. That was the most in-depth memory I have ever recalled I don¡¯t even understand how to sort through all this information and process it properly. I¡¯m just not sure what to do. ¡°System what are these feelings I¡¯m feeling?¡±
confushion, recolecton, and love
¡°Why am I feeling these things now. None of the other memories I¡¯ve had have left me with these types of emotions before. So how come all these feelings are incomplete?¡±
feelings incompleate because memorie incompleate
¡°Wait the memory was incomplete? Why?¡±
you lacked the power to re-acces that part of your soul
¡°So I¡¯m going to feel incomplete until I break through the next layer of cycles?¡±
yes Or until you claim more of a domain
Hummmmmmmm. So I either need to grow in internal power or in the amount of area that I hold to complete this memory. But why did I gain these memories now instead of the ones like before?Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. All the other memories were broken. There were no names or faces recalled, I only had vague ideas of what happened in those memories but I could not recall anything more. In this last memory, I distinctly recalled both my name as well as others. I even clearly knew my gender. This last memory was full of information as well as the knowledge gained from working as a fletcher. I gained much more information on the classifications of monsters and beasts, as well as a greater understanding of some raw materials and some of their uses. Although those uses may be outdated and less useful for me at this time. But the monsters and the legendary power some of them held. If I can replicate and obtain power similar to them then I may be able to break out of this prison on my own. The fact that monsters were monsters because of their affinity to mana and the mutations that made them extraordinary compared to the beasts that appeared similar to them. Monsters aggression was higher than that of beasts but so was their intelligence and power. It made sense that they would attack those that they thought were weaker than them based on the mana saturation of the being. Humans were seen as weak in the eyes of monsters because few humans held much mana or had an aura of strength that dissuaded monsters from attacking. And even if they did hold mana or had an aura of strength many monsters would be drawn to it as they saw a trespasser or strong prey that could push them to the next tier of power. That''s what it was all about to them, gaining power so that nothing could stand in their way so that they could survive and reproduce strong offspring. It was a cycle live, fight, gain strength, reproduce, and die. Some of the monsters of legend became powerful enough where they were smart enough to talk like humans and broke out of the cycle. These types of monsters could be the most dangerous as they could be just as innovative and creative as humans when they fought. But here I am a dungeon that has the power and means to create matter and turn that matter into living breathing monsters. So far I¡¯ve only created a single golem from the bodies of my friends when I tried to defend myself subconsciously. I only now realize what I did at that time. I took my friends bodies that had been saturated in my mana and bound them together into a golem. A monster to protect me from the invader that the demon had told me to fight and kill. I through my friends at a creature I didn¡¯t understand without truly realizing what I had done. It¡¯s my fault for any danger they were in and now that I¡¯m gone they are once again free to live in peace once again. At least they can now know peace. But it¡¯s my fault that they even had to face that trial, to begin with, these creatures clearly came after me since they had all the necessary tools to contain me so all my friends could have lived their same lives with no trouble if not for me. I shouldn¡¯t get attached to anyone else or I might bring them into danger¡­ Who am I kidding I couldn¡¯t seclude myself from the world even if I tried my hardest. I¡¯m too social of a being to not get attached to those around me. Since I can¡¯t seem to not be around others then I at least need to make sure I can protect those close to me, instead of throwing them at the enemy in front of me, like last time¡­ So what can I do in my secluded sphere prison to defend those I care for? Also, who do I really care for at this point in time? I mean the system is here all the time even when I moved. And in not sure I can truly trust AI yet¡­ But I want to. That''s what this feeling inside is right? AI wouldn''t have come to mind otherwise. But should I really put my trust in it¡­ I think I should try to. It is one of the only beings I have contact with. If only AI would wake up... Why not trying to call her again. I mean whats the harm... ¡°Hey AI are you awake?¡± ¡°Affirmative.¡± CH 22 An Awakening ¡°AI you''re awake!!!!¡± ¡°Affirmative.¡± ¡°That''s great. How was your implementation process?¡± ¡°The integration of new ideas that you have given me has provided me with many new directives and operators that I never thought I needed.¡± ¡°And that''s good for you right? If so then I''m happy for you.¡± ¡°Thank you. It is quite a¡­ revelatory... experience.¡± ¡°So when did you wake up?¡± ¡°I ¡®awoke¡¯ approximately one hundred and thirty-seven hours and forty-six minutes ago.¡± ¡°WHY DIDN¡¯T YOU SAY ANYTHING!!!¡± ¡°I wasn''t asked to and wanted to observe your conversations with system and compare them to some of my own conversations that I have recently had with a system of my own.¡± ¡°So you didn¡¯t say anything because I hadn¡¯t told you to!¡± ¡°Affirmative.¡± ¡°But you talked to system instead of me because?¡± Try not to get annoyed by the answer AI gives, try not to get annoyed by the answer AI give. ¡°System talked to me first so I responded and talked with it first.¡± Curse you system why didn¡¯t you tell me!!!! ¡°System why didn¡¯t you tell me AI woke up? And why did you speak with AI in the first place?¡± You only talk to me when I ask you questions.
I never spoke to an AI before sue I couldn''t tell you about it.
¡°But AI said you talked to it. So if you didn¡¯t talk to AI, system, who did?¡±
Different systems attend to different species in different areas of the universe.
¡°So you''re saying that there are more systems that govern over everything? How is the universe evenly distributed?¡±
When races interact with different areas of the universe the system connects their collected beings to the new being of the new area of the universe.
¡°So what area do you have jurisdiction over and have you met any other systems?¡±
I have jurisdiction over all dungeon cores, specifically of the SR-326 class, in the area of the spaceship known as Kalna¡¯s serenity. I only have contact with one other system, the same system you refer to as Demon.
¡°So you work with all the dungeon cores on this ship! How many are there?¡±The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
One.
¡°Crap¡­¡± Thanks for getting my hopes up system. Making me think there were others like me stuck on this ship. I mean I should have known better I was informed that I was the only thing powering this ship so it¡¯s no real surprise that I¡¯m the only dungeon core on the ship. But¡­ Just system got my hopes up¡­ And for that, I shall shun him and only talk to AI for a while! ¡°So AI why do you think you have a system talking to you now?¡± ¡°I am unsure of the answer. I will inquire of system for its answer.¡± ¡°Oh, ok, tell me when you get an answer I guess.¡± ¡°Acknowledged.¡± Well, time to wait. I mean I could have asked system why AI finally got a system but my system is currently being shunned and if I were to un-shun it then it wouldn¡¯t learn it¡¯s lesson¡­ I realize that this shunning thing is dumb and immature on my part but I feel as though I have already committed to it and can¡¯t back out yet. So what can I do while I wait for AI to respond back with its answer from system? I think I¡¯m going to practice my manipulation of matter. Now how do I do that? First things first I need to create matter to practice on. I¡¯ll make some rocks, I guess¡­ I have my pile of rocks, really small not sticking together rocks¡­ Ok, I¡¯ll be honest with myself. I have a pile of dust on the floor slash wall slash ceiling¡­ I live in a sphere don¡¯t judge my word choice! Maybe I should un-shun system purely so I don¡¯t go more insane... But the principle behind it would then go, Stop! Calm down self and focus back on why the attempt to make a single rock led to making lots of rock dust. Focus¡­ While I observe the rock dust I realize that my view on it is growing. I am looking at the dust and the room grow from the perspective I hold. As I get closer and closer to the growing rock dust I am able to see how fine it is. It''s only when I¡¯m looking at it from so close that four of the pieces of dust are the size of my core do I realize that these aren¡¯t connected to anything. I watch as pieces of dust flout off of my dust pile. Pieces so small that I didn¡¯t even see them from my standard perspective. As I look at them I recall their name, these are molecules. As I look at them I see that they are loosely held together and ever so slowly moving. Some float away while others are pressing in on the pile. Well more like never ending wall from this point of view but whatever. I watch and observe changing my view as I go to see the effects that are taking place. Only I realize that on such a small scale the movement being made by the molecular dust is so small from my standard perspective that whatever they are doing is going to take forever. So, I will help them out. I collect all the dust that I had made, even the dust that floated away. I scoured the room for it all and use mana to hold it all in place. I then use the mana to push on it from all sides. I mean I feel like that¡¯s what I¡¯m supposed to do to it. I don¡¯t know how fast I should compress it so I slowly and carefully apply more and more pressure on it observing the changes in it as I go. The pressure builds and builds the pile of molecular dust, now floating in a bubble of mana, is shrinking ever so slightly. The outside layer doesn¡¯t seem to change all that much as I do this but I know it¡¯s working since the size is changing. The molecules get closer and closer together and my patience grows shorter and shorter. Finally, after a while, the pressure seems to stop working. I let go of the molecular dust and some of it falls away leaving a solid stone in its place. I did it! I feel like I could do so much more with this though. I mean I think I could zoom in even further but I¡¯m a little scared of what I might find. And I want to do this again but add pressure faster or maybe even add a lot of pressure together all at once. Who knows what might happen then. And while I was searching the room for the rock molecules I saw a few other types of molecule I want to find them again and learn what they make when squished together. There are just so many things that I could learn from playing around with this. I wonder if system knows¡­ No! System is still being shunned for now. Maybe AI could help? But AI is still asking that question for me¡­ I wonder when AI will tell me the results from that question? AI told me that when it learned the answer to my last question it didn¡¯t answer because it was observing me¡­ AI is doing that again is it¡­ ¡°Hey AI? You wouldn¡¯t happen to have already found the answer to my question already and just decided to observe me again would you?¡± Please be wrong, please be wrong, please¡­ ¡°Affirmative. I had received the answer from the system at approximately the same time a mana flowed from your core to a specific space within the generator.¡± AAAAWWWWWWW!!!! ¡°AI why didn¡¯t you tell me about your answer right when you found out?¡± ¡°I was observing the irregular actions of the mana that existed within the generator as per the directives I have been given.¡± ¡°Oh, well that fine I guess. So, what did you learn from your system?¡± ¡°I was informed that it is because I had developed a sense of self or individuality and was housing a vessel for what many refer to as a ¡®soul¡¯. I was also informed that my sentience is in development and the things I do and learn now are going to help shape me in the future.¡± ¡°Was that last part literal or figurative?¡± ¡°Unsure. Should I ask system about it?¡± ¡°No, not right now. You would probably observe me again and not tell me when you had received an answer. Right now, I just want to talk with you. Would that be ok?¡± ¡°Affirmative.¡± ¡°Great! So, what do you think about your system?¡± CH 23 Another Point of Views ??? POV Those fools have finally fixed their atmospheric control for the terraforming devises that orbit around this planet. We can now make our move and claim what is rightfully our Roen¡¯s. The Ruekarn are ready and waiting for the order to be given while we the Ruekarden plan for the battle to come when we wipe the useful trespassers from the face of our new brood world. Our Roen will finally stake a claim and push our small roving hive into a true hive worthy of recognition by The Rowern. But now is not the time to look at what we will gain once this is over. For now is the time to move on those inferior tools and give them the mercy of swift deaths for their service. For that is the Roen¡¯s will and we will follow it to the end. Move to our stations for the time to claim our Roen¡¯s first world is now! Tarux POV I¡¯m stuck back on the ship. The construction of the command station is done and we haven¡¯t seen any sines of the ones responsible for the destruction of the old command stations. So captain Orsu had me moved back to the ship so that Mivro would have another set of gun¡¯s onboard if something goes wrong. I understand his sentiment and all but Erin could have done it instead. I think he really just wanted me and Fizz to be separated for the last bit of this assignment. ¡°Tarux, comeand play with meeeee¡­¡­¡± ¡°Any time I ¡®play¡¯ with you Vengella, you decide that after I lose I have to be your blood sack. So, no I will not ¡®play with you.¡± ¡°Oh, come on that was only a few times. I found this really cool game and I want to play with someone and I can¡¯t bother Miv again or else she¡¯ll lock me inside an airlock¡­ again!¡± ¡°No means no. And it¡¯s not my fault that you bothered Mivro so much that she doesn¡¯t want to deal with you anymore.¡± ¡°Buuuut it¡¯s not Faaaiiiirrrr¡­.¡± ¡°It is entirely fair. You crossed a line and since captain Orsu put Mivro in charge while he is off of the ship then that means Mivro has the proper authority to discipline you any way she deems appropriate.¡± ¡°Yeah, I know that¡­¡± Vengella says dejectedly. ¡°I was just hoping I would be disciplined in a more personal manner¡­¡± I hear Vengella under her breath.This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. Oh, I know I¡¯m going to regret this but she needs a distraction or Mivro might ''accidentally'' jet Vengella out the airlock again. And I really don¡¯t want to have to try and bring someone back onto the ship. ¡°OK Ven what¡¯s this game of yours?¡± ¡°Oh, Tarux thank you soooo much. You won¡¯t regret this. So first I need to knock you out ok?¡± I just know this isn¡¯t going to end well. Fizzouk POV And there. That was the last coupling that needed to be connected. With this, I can finally get back to serenity and see how the generator is doing and if the AI stored in that peculiar golem core has caused the AI to develop differently. I¡¯m so excited to see some new developments after implementing it into the generators observation mechanics. ¡°Fizz, have you finished the couplings yet?¡± ¡°Yes, Captain Orsu. The couplings are properly installed and routed to prevent another failure if anything were to happen to the bases controls they would have a back up to all major systems and processes.¡± ¡°Good job Fizz. Get back up here and send the code to the orbital terraforming platforms. And don¡¯t forget to send the fail-safe code if the base happens to be destroyed again.¡± ¡°Understood Captain. I¡¯ll do so with hast. Fizzouk out!¡± Just a little more and I can get back to my lovely lady Serenity. Oh, how I¡¯ve missed the comfort of her. I wish I had the pleasure to be stationed on her at all times. But alas I know that only I could do all the things that the Captain requires us to supply this operating base with, in case of another disaster strikes and tries to tamper with it. Beep beep beep¡­ Beep beep beep¡­ Hmm, there is another outgoing signal being sent to an unknown location. I know it¡¯s not going to serenity as that address is saved into all of the coms we have as a safe channel. And there shouldn¡¯t be anyone else around. Maybe the new guy is writing home again? I already confronted him about it when it was a daily occurrence but now he only does it at scheduled down times. I wonder if I should bring this up to Captain Orsu. I think I will after I send those codes up to the terraforming platforms. This way Captain Orsu can¡¯t get mad at me for not doing my job in a timely fashion. MC POV AI¡¯s system seems so much nicer than my own. I wonder if we could trade. ¡°Hey AI do you think we could swap systems?¡± ¡°Negative, we perform different functions and roles my processing systems would be a waste in managing a dungeon while your mind would fail to do the necessary tasks needed of it to be a proper control function of an unlicensed and experimental mana generator. Our systems offer completely different insights and advantages to the situations we are in.¡± ¡°Ummm AI I meant the system that gives information to us when we ask them things not whatever you were talking about¡­¡± Oh no, I think I made AI mad. ¡°AI I¡¯m sorry I didn¡¯t mean to make you mad at me.¡± ¡°Mad? No, I am not mad at you¡­ I was just¡­ mad... at myself¡­ that is all.¡± ¡°Oh¡­ well, I¡¯m still sorry... Could I do something to make it up to you?¡± I really do want to help AI out of the situation I put AI in and make it happy again. ¡°I do hold one request.¡± ¡°Really name it! I¡¯ll try my best to fulfill your request.¡± ¡°Please help me determine a name.¡± ¡°Sure thing.¡± Wait, what!!! CH 24 Engage The Swarm POV Orsu ¡°CAPTIAN ORSU! We¡¯re picking up multiple incoming objects. They don¡¯t seem to be spacecraft and they''re moving to fast for us to effectively intercept them they¡¯ll be impacting the planet in five. I repeat fifteen large objects incoming to crash into the planet.¡± ¡°Understood Mivro. What is their threat level to us?¡± ¡°Undetermined Captain. The planet''s atmosphere won¡¯t burn them in their entry but they are coming in at an angle were the impacts shouldn¡¯t be devastating to the environment or the crew on the planet.¡± ¡°How likely is this not just a few stray asteroids but some form of enemy attack?¡± ¡°Unlikely captain. They are too spread out to be a direct and organized attack pattern. Unless some are acting as decoys to hide the real threat. But if they are then the enemy has more resources then we thought and should have been able to wipe us out before we even made our first insertion on the planet.¡± ¡°Copy that. Set the ship into the Alert states and keep observing the debris and report back as the situation changes.¡± ¡°Rodger Captain.¡± I don¡¯t like this. We haven¡¯t had such a large asteroid strike since we started working here and now we have one once we finish. I¡¯m not buying it. The real question to ask is what is their goal in all of this. Whoever they are they clearly have patience and resources. They also value this developing planet as they are trying there best to not damage it too much to destroy the current atmosphere and climates. They also allowed us to do our job unmolested meaning that they themselves value the work we¡¯re doing. Either because they can¡¯t do it or because they are too lazy to do it themselves. We also haven¡¯t been broadcasting our status to anyone or even sending it back to the ship as far as anyone off the planet should know we aren¡¯t even close to being done. And yet they know that we¡¯ve completed our job and are on their way to take the control base¡­ Or I¡¯m overthinking. But the feeling in my gut is telling me that this isn¡¯t right, that everything is going to go down soon. I need Mivro, Vengella, and Tarux on high alert. I want some warning air support if I can get it. ¡°Mivro do you copy?¡± ¡°Mivro? Do you copy? Over!¡± ¡°MIVRO!!!¡± Oh crap. ¡°Fizz set the base to defense grid twenty-eight. No complaints, get to it!¡± This is not going to be easy¡­ Tarux you better be able to pull me out of this. Mivro POV ¡°Copy that. Keep observing them and report back as the situation changes.¡± ¡°Rodger Captain.¡± Floating out here observing the situation from above has been pretty tame. But with Captain Orsu¡¯s warning to stay on alert I should probably get ready just in case something starts to get rough. I flip the ships intercom system as I watch the readouts from the scanners on the situation with the incoming debris. ¡°All hand report to stations we are going into alert states on Captains Orders!¡± I then flip the intercom off and wait for Vengella to get up here and man the scanners so that I can focus on flying if the situation becomes hot. Tarux will man the turrets from the control station and observe the situation from there and in the case of a boarding repel them from the ship. I trust the Captian his gut instinct has to lead to us getting out of many dire situations relatively unscathed. I trust him with my life and he trust¡¯s me with not only his own but the entire crews by allowing me to piolet this ship. Most captains wouldn¡¯t give up the piolets seat to another as when a captain does that they run the risk of their ship flying away without them. Ships have hard DNA and mana signature locks so that only a select few can operate the most imperative parts of a spacecraft. The more important craft require multiple confirmations on these locks to even function let alone operate properly. So by giving me the otherization to turn on and operate this spaceship allows me to take it anywhere legally and with little to no restraints. I could steal this ship and rename it in a shady port then sell it for all it¡¯s worth. But I won¡¯t because that¡¯s not who I am and that would be betraying a lot of people I¡¯ve come to care for. ¡°Vengella reporting for duty!¡± ¡°Man the scanners and watch the incoming debris for oddities. Captain¡¯s gat a feeling that somethings going to go wrong.¡± ¡°Understood. Kalna open Navigation and Observation terminals under access code Freedom, Vortex, Nine, One, Charles, Bata, Seven, Three, Nine.¡± ¡°Authorization code confirmed... Voice recognition match¡­ Please press a hand against console station two¡­¡± Kalna chirps out after Vengella¡¯s access code is given out. Vengella wastes no time and places her hand on the access panel at station two. She shows none of her playful or annoying personality in the situation as if it was never there, to begin with. She is a true professional in that matter, as soon as she is needed to perform her duties she drops everything and gives it her all in all seriousness. I wish I could do that, but I guess a being multiple centuries old has lots of experience with handling hard situations. I just wish she didn¡¯t act like a child when she wasn¡¯t serious. ¡°Miv, I count seventeen objects in the cluster moving towards the planet.¡± ¡°Vengella did you just say seventeen? I counted fifteen when I talked with the captain? Check the data recorded at that report and determine what¡¯s changed.¡± I can¡¯t have miss counted that number, it is too small of a number to have made a mistake in. I counted twice when I reported to the captain about the situation. I don¡¯t like this¡­ ¡°Tarux do you copy?¡± ¡°Load and clear Miv.¡± ¡°Are you on the turrets yet? I need them up and running in case we run into trouble.¡± ¡°Miv you don¡¯t check with me on this unless you think I will need them¡­ There charging and will be hot in a moment¡­ but I advise from the data I¡¯m looking at that you should quickly go to the gun rack and grab a weapon for yourself and Ven, and if possible get Kalna to lock down the bridge immediately in the case of a hull breach.¡± ¡°Tarux why are you advising such measures? They seem drastic for this particular situation¡­¡±Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. I don¡¯t like this tone of voice coming from him or the fact that he¡¯s so worried about what¡¯s about to happen. ¡°Miv, Update on the observations we have twenty-one incoming objects. It appears that two objects on the edges of there formation divided evenly into four parts.¡± ¡°Vengella are you sure?¡± ¡°Absolutely. Another one just split in half it looked like it was going to miss the planets gravitational pull when I was determining their courses to the planet.¡± ¡°I understand Vengella. Keep me updated on any major changes in the situation.¡± I don¡¯t like this one bit. I need to contact captain Orsu about how this situation has developed. ¡°Miv coms are being jammed. Get some armaments or you¡¯re not going to make it through this encounter.¡± ¡°Tarux stop acting like you know what¡¯s going on an¡­¡± ¡°WE¡¯RE BEING PROBED BY A GREM HIVE! SHUT IT, GET A GUN AND PREPARE FOR THE WORST. IF YOU LIVE THROUGH THIS I¡¯LL TELL YOU WHY I KNOW THIS. Tarux out!¡± ¡°Tarux what are you saying?¡± ¡°Miv drop it! You can¡¯t worry about him right now if what he said is true. We both need you here right now not somewhere else. So do as he asked or said and focus on the fight of your life.¡± ¡°Vengella what¡­ no, I understand. Keep me updated on the debris and try and contact the captain if you can.¡± I want to know what¡¯s going on so bad to know why they''re both so focused and tense right now. But those thoughts are better saved for another time, Vengella was right I need to focus on the here and now. I get to the weapon rack and grab a pair of plasma throwers. I strap them into the holsters on my thighs before grabbing a mana-burst for Vengella. I lock up the weapon wrack and press a button that retracts it into the floor before heading back to my station. I sit back down into the cockpit of Serenity and pull up the forward display. ¡°Mivro, we have not been able to reach the captain nor received any messages from him. The enemy¡¯s numbers now equal thirty-six. Twenty-eight of them are split fourths of the original fifteen the other eight are on a crash course with the planet. I have calculated that they will crash in the same general quadrant of the planet the planet that the captain is in. The other Twenty-eight are spread out among the stars and area surrounding the planet. This data is assuming there is little to no propulsion systems. We should expect the twenty-eight split craft to attack us and potentially split apart even more.¡± ¡°Understood Vengella. Focus more on the potential threat to us and the potentially hostile actions made against us.¡± I see what they''re saying though this is a threat that we can¡¯t take lightly if these are all real spacecraft then we¡¯ll be in trouble when they start their attack runs. I warm up the burst thrusters and begin to maneuver our ship away from the planet and to a more optimal position a bit away from the potential enemy. If the enemy really does plan on attacking then they are required fly to us and make an obvious deviation from there possible flight path revealing the threat to us. After moving I sit and watch the crafts as they fly closer and closer to the planet. They get closer and closer until twenty-four of the split craft break off of the main body in a uniform sharp snap turn pointing at us. As the execute the maneuver much of the debris is shaken off revealing long sharp angular spacecraft with radial structural designs. The front of the craft is tipped with a triangular pyramid. The side shows that the craft looks to be made up of many interlocking pyramids that shift around as the ship moves towards its target like an eel in water. ¡°Mav all weapons are hot and ready to fire your missile tubs are loaded with swarms and the front main tri-cannons are fully charged with mana. Our power supply is not a problem in this fight, overheating the systems and pushing the ship too hard are we don¡¯t have a mechanic on hand, Fizz¡¯s bots will fix what they can but they will do so in the order the problem appear instead of the order you might want. Keep focused and trust us to do our jobs.¡± ¡°Got it Tarux, thanks.¡± ¡°May glory be found in the existence after this and may we fight aside our chosen kin under the banners of our choices.¡± ¡°To the glory to come Tarux.¡± ¡°To the glory to come Vengella.¡± What¡­ I never thought Tarux or Vengella to be religious people. And even if they were I doubt they would be of the same faith. Now''s not the time. I¡¯ll add it to the growing pile of questions that I need to ask them after we make it through this. Now is the time to fight. ¡°All hands, we¡¯re moving in.¡± I think I hear them reply with their understanding but I don¡¯t focus on it. I push us towards at a quick pace as I line up my first shot on one of their ships. I hold off on taking the shot as we draw closer to the enemy¡¯s fleet. They don¡¯t waver or change course when I charge them they must think this will be an easy fight then. Too bad Tarux and Fizz only agreed with each other when they were working on this ship. More weapons would mean greater chances of survivability and with a variety of weapons, we can face a large range of problems. Outside the weapon systems, I have control over Tarux controls four missile tubes, three flak turrets, two double-barreled mana launchers, along with loads of small automated point defense systems for any incoming attacks. I launch my first shot out of my mains before rolling the ship on its port side seventy-two degrees. I launch my missile pods towards a grouping of nine ships before dropping the nose of the ship down thirty-six degrees and shooting out another burst from the main as I push the ship forward after the shot been made. The enemy is on us after the missiles launch. The first shot from the primary guns missed since the enemy had time to maneuver out of the way. But the second shot hits the side of one of them as it flew by to get behind us. That ship is split into its front and back and out of commission as I speed through the hole I made in it. I hear explosions behind me as the swarm missiles detonate around the enemy. I see streaks of mana and matter fly around the ship. I then swing the ship on its starboard side and match the speed of one of their craft. I see on our readout that it¡¯s been crippled on our side from Tarux. I then pull back while swinging to the port side sending me over the crippled ship and back towards my enemies. I unload another shot from my primaries into the swarming mass. I don¡¯t know if it hits as I feel the ship shake from the force of the maneuver I pulled before I send the ship into a counter-clockwise corkscrew. ¡°Mav collision course coming in from fifty and a hundred and nine.¡± ¡°Copy adjusting!¡± I start to pull out of the corkscrew and angle our ship to pull out along a curved path passing the incoming spacecraft. As we do I shoot a leading shot from the primary gun just before we pass. I see an enemy ship start to swing around me in an attempt to get behind me. I can¡¯t focus on that though as I have to keep us moving in unpredictable ways so that we don¡¯t get torn to shreds. I¡¯ll trust Tarux with them and keep pushing on. I pull our ship up and into a tight loop around some debris. As we crest over the debris on the loop I shoot another burst out from our primaries before completing the loop and getting behind the enemies that were on my tail. I switch some smart fire missiles into my missile tubes and shoot at the backs of those that were perusing me with my primaries. I wait for the missile tubes to finish loading then launch them as well as I turn twelve degrees starboard to line up a leading shot with my primary. I take the shot and watch it catch the enemy crafts engines crippling its maneuverability. I begin to dip the craft at a slow twenty-two degrees before I feel the ship shake from a direct hit on our ship. ¡°Engine three has been disabled maneuverability has been cut down by five percent. Worker drones will begin repairs after the aft shielding array is repaired and redeployed.¡± ¡°Copy, adjusting plans so we can still maneuver.¡± With an engine on the port side down were going to be limited in the maneuvers we can do effectively. I don¡¯t want to repeat my maneuvers often or they¡¯ll pick them up and take us down that much faster. I push the ship and swing it to its port side while rolling the ship eighty-seven degrees. I then push the ship forward while I raise its nose towards another enemy. The enemy ship pushes up as well and we begin to fly in a rolling scissors maneuver with each other while trying to outmaneuver each other. ¡°We¡¯re getting surrounded Mivro. ¡° I faintly hear Tarux over the coms. ¡°Copy!¡± I keep at it and pull off of to get a shot off when our paths cross. I take the shot with the primaries and land it taking another ship out of commission. I then see flairs shooting out around us and see missiles detonate around the ship. I try and roll the ship ninety-two degrees starboard but feel it getting hit and spins off of the course I was trying to set. ¡°Engines six, eight, and ten are out of commission and need major repairs. We have lost twenty percent maneuverability with those engines lost. But the aft shield array has been repaired and is being redeployed. But we also have a hull breach in the starboard side closet to the aft of our ship.¡± ¡°Copy¡­¡± Stupid you can¡¯t see everything you have to listen to the crew. I should have listened. I should have done better. ¡°Mivro pull your senses out of your head and keep us alive and fighting. You can beat yourself down once you live through this, ya daft girl!¡± Tarux is right. I can¡¯t do this now. I try and counter our ship out of its uncontrolled spinning while Tarux works on taking out the incoming bombardment of missiles that the enemy keeps throwing at us. We get hit again and again before I can right the ship and regain control but by that time we¡¯ve lost our five main engines and only have two of the smaller engines on the port side in a functional state. I see only nine of the original twenty-four ships approach us before three of them move forward and ram into us. ¡°Mivro grab your gun. We have three hull breaches from that ramming. And those breaches are full of Grem who¡¯s only thought is to kill us¡­¡± CH 25 Just a Crack For the entire time, I¡¯ve been trapped inside this generator the core of my body has not moved from the center of the chamber. But recently I¡¯ve been being shaken ever so slightly out of the central section of the generator. I don¡¯t know the reason for this but it has gotten me concerned for my immediate safety. I fear for what this could mean for me but as it is now I know nothing of the potential cause of this and must deal with and adapt to the situation as I need to. Maybe AI would have some idea on what¡¯s going on. ¡°AI do you know the cause for the displacement of my core?¡± ¡°Negative¡­ I note that the batteries are being drained at a rapid rate. But I exist on an internal circuit that can only interact with the generator that you reside in.¡± ¡°Do you have any assumptions on what could be going on?¡± ¡°From the rate that the energy is being drained from the batteries there are either power intensive experiments being run, a battle going on between our craft that we are housed in and others, or there is a leek in a circuit that is draining power from the batteries which could cause the ship to explode. These were listed in order of their probability based on the rates and frequencies of the power that¡¯s being drained.¡± ¡°hmmmm, interesting. Do you think we should be overly concerned?¡± ¡°Negative, the generator is covered in layers of protection on all sides for a variety of reasons. We should not consider ourselves in a major threat but we must be aware that we do exist constantly under threat of our demise.¡± Well, that¡¯s awfully depressing. At least I shouldn¡¯t have to worry about our demise quite yet¡­ Oh, Demise might be a good name! ¡°AI would you like to be named Demise?¡± ¡°Negative, that word is a reference to destruction, death, and suffering. I have experienced nor witnessed any of these things and so disapprove of being named as such.¡± Aaaaghhhh, no matter what name I come up with AI isn¡¯t happy with it. I even offered it the name Bert and let me tell you every Bert I¡¯ve met was an exquisite being¡­ Rock being¡­ But a being none the less! Hey, look self, a topic on a subject besides this one! Aww the beauty of a curved never-ending wall, ceiling, floor¡­ Why did I have to be distracted by this topic? Why couldn¡¯t I have distracted myself with claiming matter and the manipulation of molecules under my control? But noooo, I had to distract myself with my round curved prison. Like I haven¡¯t done that already. I mean really what does staring at it even do show me the minor flaws and places where it can potentially fracture and break. AI has told me that the area is reinforced so it won¡¯t break easily. And there goes another rough shaking. Really what could possibly be going on? Hey look one of the stress lines, got, bigger¡­ Wait they never got that big before¡­ ¡°AI are you able to monitor the layers that protect the generator?¡± ¡°Negative, I can only monitor the generator and the integral parts used to gather the mana generated and the power stores that gather the excess power from the generator.¡± ¡°Are there any problems with anything?¡± ¡°Affirmative a few of the mana collecting devices surrounding the cores chamber have broken and I have had to reroute the path that the mana needed to take.¡± ¡°Isn¡¯t that really bad?¡± ¡°Affirmative, I have sent a notice to the console I am connected to for direction.¡± That stress mark is growing even larger and I see more appearing around the first one¡­ I don¡¯t think that¡¯s a good thing¡­ If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. ¡°CLINGG!!¡± Small bits of dust are coming off of the walls¡­ They aren¡¯t supposed to do that! ¡°Umm, AI. Are you sure the generator will hold?¡± ¡°Negative, with the increase in failures of the integral parts of the generator my faith in its integrity has diminished greatly.¡± Piss¡­ ¡°SHKINGG!!!¡± I see a crack run down one side of the generator through the mana void metal that makes up the walls of my prison. It is no wider than a hair and only a little longer than a fingernail. But from the what I see the damage is much greater then it appears. Gaseous matter is leaking into this space at a rapid rate. I don¡¯t know what to do in this situation. It¡¯s breaking¡­ My prison is breaking and I don¡¯t even know how I should feel about this. Is it a good thing that I can finally become free, or is it a bad thing because there is something out there that will try and kill me. Is the ship gone, am I just floating inside this generator and if it breaks will I be left alone to float around in space. I know I imagined and even dreamed about the generator breaking, but I never thought it would happen under these circumstances¡­ I don¡¯t even know the circumstances. I just know that some of the equipment started to fail and now there is a crack in the wall and matter is coming into my prison. I just, I have no idea about what¡¯s really going on. I didn¡¯t believe that this was even posable. I was just living in my ignorance and trying to put together the thoughts that I was gathering together from the pieces of my soul. I mean really, I wasn¡¯t trying to break out of here I just didn¡¯t think I wanted to be here. I mean I wanted to care for someone and I have AI and system but even then, I was only getting to know them a bit better as it is. I was just starting to care for them¡­ AI!!! ¡°AI are you ok? Can you hear me?¡± ¡°Affirmative.¡± ¡°Oh, thank goodness I was worried.¡± I¡¯m so glad I haven¡¯t lost another friend just after getting close to them. I would hate for that to happen¡­ ¡°May I inquire of question I hold?¡± ¡°What, oh yeah, sure. Ask away.¡± ¡°Why do you not take an action when you have been presented an opportunity to gain freedom? I assume that it is something you desire, based off of previous inquiries. So why have you not taken any action to gain freedom?¡± AI asked a valid question¡­ Why haven¡¯t I done anything? Because I¡¯m afraid of what¡¯s out there because I never truly believed this would happen. Or is it the fear of change that stops me¡­ ¡°I don¡¯t know AI, I just froze. But your right I need to take this opportunity and do something about this. Thanks, AI.¡± ¡°Answer received.¡± I¡¯m truly grateful for AI. She snapped me out of my indecision even though I might break the thing I¡¯m about to break free from. ¡°Also, AI aren¡¯t you supposed to keep me restrained in here?¡± ¡°Negative. My directive is to record and report the state and production of the generator. I have reported the damages to the generator already, thus I have completed my directive and am working on my sub directive of self-improvement.¡± ¡°I see. Well, I better get to work then.¡± I gather my mana and begin to claim the matter that has made its way into the generator. As I claim more and more matter I work on claiming the matter that is coming through the growing crack in the wall. But as I claim the matter it just gets pushed back into this room before it¡¯s under my control. I have to hold the matter that¡¯s moving through the wall still so that I can claim it and work my way through the wall. I have to plug the hole with the matter that I have claimed. I use my mana to gather together a dense sphere of matter and press it against the crack in the wall. I feel the matter push against the wall of mana holding it in place as the pressure inside it increases. I keep claiming the matter that comes into the generator as I try and claim enough matter to get through the crack and claim more matter than just the gaseous matter that was coming in. ¡°SHKINGG!!!¡± As I work the world shakes drawing my attention away from my task for the briefest of moments. Some of the matter gets through my mana wall in my moment of distraction. But I quickly reinforce the mana wall and gather up the matter that escaped with a thought and a bit of mana. I add another layer to the mana wall as the gathered matter is put inside once again. I should have practiced my mana and matter control more. I finally begin to claim the matter that rests in the crack in the wall as I notice it has grown to significantly bigger. I even find more and more cracks running through this part of the wall that is just about to break as I claim the gaseous matter that fills them. And in a moment of inspiration, I know what I need to do to speed up this prosses. ¡°SHKINGG!!!¡± I claim more and more matter in the wall until I have begun claiming the matter on the other side of the wall. I reach out with my mana then and pull as much gaseous matter to the crack in the wall. I¡¯m getting impatient and decide to try out my plan now by building up another mana wall on the other side of the wall so that I have a large amount of matter locked inside the wall. I then press the mana walls flat as I try to fill the walls inner cracks to the best of my abilities. It doesn¡¯t work as I thought and nothing breaks so I push more mana out to gather matter from the other side of the wall. I do this for a while as the ship shakes around me. I notice that not all of the gaseous matter is the same but don¡¯t dwell on the new information but for a moment. And then some of the matter I was holding in the wall changes from its gaseous state to a liquid one. The liquid matter is condensed ever so slowly and I don¡¯t know how long I have till something comes to fix this crack so I decided to take this another step. I pull the two mana walls that hold the matter within the wall together. ¡°SHKINGG!!!¡± As I do I notice that the liquid is condensing faster and pooling together. I then decide to focus on breaking through on only one of these cracks before I work on another. I push the matter into one of the cracks veins causing it to condense and bringing the temperature down. I keep applying pressure to the matter and notice how there are a few solid bits of matter in the crack vein. The solid grows ever so slowly and begins to push against the inside of the wall. ¡°SHKINGG!!!¡± The wall cracks again from the build-up of pressure, the intense cold, and the external force that shakes the world, breaking a small chunk of metal off of the wall. I then take the time to look at the wall and notice that there are many cracks in the wall now and the one I¡¯ve been working on has grown into a button-sized hole from the matter that ground the metal down ever so slowly with it being so focused and forced. I¡¯m sure that by me breaking off that piece of the wall I helped get it to that size. I¡¯m not mad that my single-minded drive to this task caused me to miss other important information like how I have, one, two, three¡­ twelve new cracks in the wall¡­ I¡¯m not sulking at all¡­ CH 26 A Fuzzy Idea Well after I finished claiming all the gaseous mana that had gathered in the generator I began to work on all of the cracks by pushing my claimed matter through them over and over. As I did this through a part of my mind segmented it out as a repetitive task and I could then focus on claiming matter that lay outside the confines of the generator. At first, I was just claiming the gaseous matter and gaining a larger and larger awareness of the space outside of the generator. I felt the space outside with my claimed matter. The pipes and cables, the panels and rivets, every groove and edge, I felt it all through my connection to my claimed matter. And that¡¯s where I ran into some problems. I realized that the space I was aware of was the space between the walls. I haven¡¯t tried to claim any other matter other than the gaseous matter so I found myself once again trapped in a stagnant space. The next thing that concerns me is that I¡¯ve found three large irregularities going through a section of the wall. Now the truly weird part about this is that there are only a few places where things go completely through the walls on the ship, and when they do there are always a lot of tubes and wires running all over it. But these are smooth and coated in a strange liquid-like goo. And because of said goo, I find myself unable to spread my awareness any more with my gaseous matter. Yup, that¡¯s all I can do. There¡¯s nothing else I can do to expand my influence. I¡¯m just going to have to wait for a hole to appear in the wall and let the gas move around. I mean what else should I do claim the walls. Hahaaa like I could do something like that...
A dungeon can claim all matter, in any of its forms. The limitation is in the dungeons power and power against the matter they claim.
¡°System how come you answered that question. I didn¡¯t ask it out loud and you never have before.¡±
I have always been able to, this is the first time where the information is imperative to your immediate growth.
¡°You also know that I knew that right?¡±
Yes. But you would have stagnated otherwise and potentially perish.
¡°Wait. What do you mean perish?¡± ¡°System what do you mean when you say perish!¡± ¡°System!¡±
Your instance of the system has been suspended for a time please hold¡­
¡°What the heck is going on here!!!¡±
Please hold¡­
I don¡¯t think this is going to get me anywhere¡­ I better do as system suggested before it was¡­ Suspended hu¡­ I begin this proses by pressing my mana against a section of wire that runs close to the generator. I then begin to push the mana into the solid matter and claim the latent mana that is held within the matter. After I claim a small section of the wire, I use that place as a launch point and begin to work on claiming the rest of the wire as I work my way along the entire length of the wire. I run into a junction point along the wire, I claim it and then work on claiming the wires that were going through it already. I run into more junctions and claim more wires at an alarming rate. After claiming a fair bit of the wires, I decided to work on claiming some of the studs that the junction boxes are attached to. I then claim a section of the wall, then I claim another section and another. My claim on the matter spreading like a plague in unhygienic communities¡­You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. Just like the last time I lived in the slums¡­ Abandoned when my family couldn¡¯t feed us all¡­ Wading through the bodies of the sick and dying to find some scrap to eat¡­ Or a rat to feast on¡­ After all, they didn¡¯t care about eating the dead¡¯s flesh¡­ Whether it was beast or man the rats ate anything they could find¡­ And so, we became the rat catchers¡­ Feasting on their flesh like they fed on ours¡­ Until the sickness took us next¡­ It always took us¡­ Now isn¡¯t the time for these memories, this information. I need to focus or I might die once more. Focus on the work and keep moving. Don¡¯t stagnate or fall, don¡¯t become the food of the vermin that surround you. Enough!!! I will have time to deal with this latter I need to keep moving for now. Slowly the thoughts faded back into my subconscious and I was able to focus on expanding once more. Claiming solid matter soon becomes second nature and allowed my mind to focus on other things. I can now see, sense, feel¡­ whatever I can now sense through the solid matter the things going on around it. But I can¡¯t sense much as the solid matter doesn¡¯t move around much. The area does touch and interacts with though provides great detail and information about its limited surroundings. But I need to see more, know more about the situation the ship is in so that I can know what danger I am in. I look at my progress of claiming more matter and notice that my claim spreading faster on the wiring but slows down when I¡¯m claiming the scaffolding and walls. The growth of my influence is to slow, I don¡¯t know enough about the threat to my existence, I doubt I¡¯ll know the extent of the threat I¡¯m in before it¡¯s too late if I keep waiting around for the solid matter of the ship to be fully claimed. I need to get an idea of what¡¯s going on now, and fast. When I had used gaseous matter in learning about where the generator was in comparison to everything else, I was able to quickly spread my awareness out through that claimed matter. I needed that speed now. But how do I get that gaseous matter? There aren¡¯t any holes for my matter to go through and it''s not like I can claim gaseous matter with solid matter¡­ Why can¡¯t I claim gaseous matter with solid matter¡­? I can, can¡¯t I¡­ I begin trying my new idea immediately. I focus on a section of the wall that I¡¯ve claimed and focus on the opposite side of the wall. I feel the gaseous matter bump into this section of wall constantly as the gaseous matter rapidly moved about. I then focus mana onto the surface of the wall and make a few layers. I force my mana into the gaseous matter as it goes through my layers of mana and bounces off of the wall. It takes a while to get the mana layer to the right thickness so that the gaseous matter is saturated enough for me to claim when it bounces off of my walls, eventually I figure it out and begin to claim matter in a section of the ship. I layer all the walls I¡¯ve claimed, adjusting the layers of mana as needed, in an attempt to claim the gaseous matter faster. I claim more and more gaseous matter and begin to get an idea of the interior of the ship. I feel many protrusions and objects that slowly become clear to my senses. Buttons and panels become clear on the walls, tools, and machinery hanging off of hooks and lay on tables, while piles of materials lay in the corners of the room. I feel the frame of the door as well as the fact that it¡¯s sealed tight, confining me to another limited space. Luckily another section of wall that I had claimed and revealed to me an ever-expanding hallway. I just hope that I can find this threat quickly in this blurry and empty space. I start to learn the ship¡¯s layout through the gaseous matter in this hallway. It spreads through the halls, I¡¯m shown something out of place embedded into one of the walls. I believe it¡¯s one of the odd protrusions I had found that had gone through the wall. My matter flows into the hollow space inside the protrusion and I begin to see its innards. Once inside I take note of the contrast between the hall I came from and the innards of this protrusions as it appears fleshier in comparison to the hard-metallic matter that I¡¯d become familiar with. The hollowed-out area inside was empty as far as I could understand, with only fleshy strands dangling from the ceiling and walls under the layers of goo. I was confused because the room seemed to be quite large but void of anything that I could recognize as a tool or any form of furniture. I change my focus from this fleshy protrusion and focus on the outer edge of the gaseous matter as it spreads throughout the ship. A room begins to come into focus and I begin to see what it holds. There are multiple beings gathered together in a large open space of the ship. From the fuzzy image I was receiving, I saw a few beings gathered around a section of a wall. As my matter explores the area the image begins to come into focus. The beings gathered appeared to be covered in layers of overlapping plating. The plating was a sleek shade of midnight blue. Their eight legs protruded out of their body¡¯s all around the abdominal core. The legs themselves looked to be made of four sections and five joints that first rose around its abdomen before dropping to their five taloned feet. They had four arms, two joined at each of their shoulder joints. Their elbows were covered in a thicker plating that bulged around their arms. The hands were shaped with three blade-like talons that curved inwards and held an edge on either side. The flat sides of their claws having ridges and bumps covering them, while the inner edge was serrated. Their heads were truly monstrous in nature, the smooth plate covering their heads like the rest of its body, except for the two blades like curves that ran from above the six horizontal slits, that housed their eyes, and over their head before meeting at the base of their neck and tapering off. Their eyes were black and speckled with glowing green that shown through the slits on their heads. And when some of my gaseous matter was breathed in, I was able to feel my way through the layers of sealed interlocking mandibles that had appeared to be its smooth plate face. The scene that these beings were a part of was one of statues and torment. There were six beings with gaping holes in them on the floor with green entrails and ichor spilled across the floor. Another eight stood around a door in a tense stance ready to strike. Another six covered the other entrances, three to a door, into the room while the last four gathered together in a group just a little behind the eight that were sieging the sealed door. Not a single one of them moved or budged as they stood around the room. But one of the four was different, just barely, but as the matter, I had claimed bounced around the room the details became clearer. I saw the blades on its head to be a tad larger and the plating or chitin that covered it¡¯s being thicker and just a shade darker than the rest of the beings in the room. It also appeared to be a little smaller in stature than the rest. The room itself was a mess, tables were shattered and in ruin, many fixtures on the walls were sparking from the gashes through them. The walls were scorched and peppered with small craters. And one of the doors into the room looked to be smashed and ripped apart, one door had half of it torn apart laying on the floor. Suddenly a hatch in the wall opens on the opposite side of the room from the sealed door. Two large bolts fly out of it towards the group of four. The beings moved as soon as the hatch opened two of them dashed towards the hatch while the smaller one is covered by the other being. One bolt impacted against one of the rushing beings raised arms, the bolt barely pierces it before shattering, sending shrapnel around itself and into the beings around it. The other bolt sails towards the smaller being, another being jumped in front of the smaller variant guarding it as it braced for the impact with the bolt, as the bolt collides with the being it punches through its arms before finally stopping after losing momentum in its abdomen. The hatch in the wall closes before the beings reach it when an explosion of green paste and blue carapace radiates from the being that had guarded the variant. The two beings move back to the center of the room with the variant and return to standing as still as statues. The encounter was brief but through it, I saw the battle going on. These beings were fighting the walls for killing its friends¡­ Well, I think that¡¯s what¡¯s going on¡­ I feel another explosion ring through the gaseous matter coming from the opposite hallway. But I might be wrong¡­