The infinity dungeon 263

Chapter 263

Buried deep in the data streams of the inner space, lurked the Origin system. It was almost unremarkable, data lost among data. It was just a prototype, a fledgling structure of logic and magic both, a spark that needed to be nurtured into a roaring fire.

Michael’s understanding of data and programs had grown by leaps and bounds after the merger between him and Icarus. He had gained the ability to manipulate the data, to build things out of it, to treat it the same way he did his own magic. His was not the work of a programmer, or a manipulator of code, but that of a sculptor, a builder, an architect.

It suited him just fine.

“What’s the plan?” Icarus, who was with him, asked.

“I want to make the Origin system officially a part of us. Let’s build the infrastructure first.”

Thus, they got to work. They built a massive structure of white data lines, exotic metals and materials, and raw magic around the black hole. It tapped into the data streams, was fed magic from the batteries by thick lasers, and surrounded Icarus’s planetoid like a web of connections. Days passed, and the true Origin system slowly came to life in the inner space.

While Michael and Icarus worked, the world moved at a breakneck pace around them. Michael kept an eye on the updates, trying to follow the million projects that were being undertaken, wishing he could still use the time dilation to cheat things.

A glance at the black tar still infecting the lowest reaches of the data lines close to the black hole disabused him of the notion. There was a hefty price to pay to use the time dilation, and it was one he was no longer willing to pay.

The last thing he did before he had to return to matters of the real world was attaching the newly built structure to the Aura Accelerator ring. Now the inner space felt like a complex web of many things, a carefully crafted chaos of circles, straight lines thick and thin, river-like data streams, futuristic structures and celestial bodies. All around it, the purple mists of the void watched, frothing and churning but never daring to invade.

They could not, for the magic of the aura and the magic of the domain both worked to keep the inner space safe and secure. If those ever happened to not be enough, the projector ring was there, fully stocked with platinum coins to create an impenetrable shield on command. Above it were weapons of all kinds, each of them hooked up to data lines and magic lasers providing energy and instantaneous access.

“This will have to suffice,” Michael finally said.

When he opened his eyes to the real world, he was hit by so much power he almost stumbled to the ground. He felt the many hundreds of skill stones connected to the system begin to transmit their power to him. If he wished, he could follow the source of their power back to where they were being held, in secure rooms deep underground, surrounded by magical script and the computronium cubes that were the source of his domain.

He could also feel the few Operators currently hooked up to the Origin system. The few alpha testers, wielding borrowed power that he could take away with but a thought. They were confined to the Site 00 domain, for now, because the system simply did not exist outside of it.

Other than feel them, he could see their presence represented in the inner space, lines leading out not through the chaos mists, but through some other way not even he fully understood. 

“This feels like we are building the same system that almost killed me, and left me powerless when I dared to fight back against it.”

Icarus placed a hand on his shoulder, and they gazed at the black hole’s accretion disk. Lines and lines of white painted a strange picture around it, data everywhere. “It’s different, and you know it.”

“Yeah…”

The silence that followed was interrupted by Travis, the man insisting that Michael come out of isolation because the world needed him.

“What’s up?” he asked the man.

They talked about Michael’s work on the Origin system for a while, mostly to get the head of Candle Light up to speed. Michael had wanted to do more, for the work he had done so far was only foundational, but Travis shook his head. 

“I need you and your spiral out here, man. Can’t Icarus work on the Origin system while you help me out with real world matters?”

“Icarus is cleaning up some data lines and polishing things up, but we are out of materials and he can’t work with thin air,” Michael said. 

Technically, Icarus could, but converting magic to matter was awfully inefficient even in the inner space, and could mostly be used to do polish work–exactly what he was doing.

“So,” Michael said. “What got you all worked up that you need me to deal with it? Faith and mafia problems?”

Travis replied by pulling up a holographic projection of the world. As it panned and zoomed, Arizona came into view.

“Ah, that one,” Michael said. “I remember seeing something in passing while I was building the Origin system. Let’s go help them out.”

Before he could do anything, however, an alarm sounded. Site 00 was under attack. He teleported right at the edge of the shield, where he saw several priests chanting and preparing to breach their defenses. Icarus showed him that similar scenes were unfolding all around the perimeter of the domain.

“Didn’t they learn the lesson already?” Michael wondered out loud. “Icarus, let them through. See if they are willing to fight us on our own turf.”

Surprisingly, the priest advanced. Unsurprisingly, Michael activated his spiral and smote them all from above.

***

A few hours earlier.

The device was more similar to a dangerous contraption of wires, mesh, corrugated metal and bolts than a complex piece of magical engineering. It was a wide arch, fed by wires that glowed blue and disappeared inside three SCUs, which at first glance looked like metal suitcases.

The moment electricity and magic reached the device, it began to spin and cough up sparks and white smoke. The superheating metal glowed red, and a little flame where something flammable caught fire spread acrid smoke to the ceiling of the room. Then an explosion of air pressure equalizing rocked the place, making the nearby people take a step back, and Site 00 came into view through the arch.

On the other side, David was crouching down and looking at them with the same squint one wears when looking inside a periscope. The portal frame was way too small for him, and he had to bend down considerably.

“I’d say it worked like a charm,” he said.

“It did,” Johanne replied, now coming into view.

“Alright, make way,” David told the Operators and Vanguard personnel waiting on the Arizona side of the gateway. “Coming through.”

He materialized, swaying for a moment. Johanne followed behind him, seemingly unfazed by the spatial turbulence.

“Well, not as smooth as Michael’s portals, but you said this was done entirely using runescript?”

“Data lines,” she corrected him. “Datascript. The evolution of all magical languages, and the language of the Origin system.”

“I see,” he said. Opening the Secure Containment Units, he counted the coins inside.

“There should be enough for a return trip,” Johanne said, turning to study the portal frame. “If not, let Icarus know and I’ll open it from my side.”

David nodded. The woman would remain here to check on the piece of junk they had built, more as a proof of concept than anything else. He, on the other hand, had important stuff to do.

Not that what she does is not important, he thought. It was just hard to tell sometimes, both with her and with Michael, if what they were doing was a flight of fancy or something revolutionary.

Take the Origin system, for example. David had thought it was going to be just a random project, but now already there were talks of unifying all the magic used inside of Unity under its banner. No more skill stones, cards, tomes and the like. Just the system. Johanne had already gone and switched to using Datascript for her magic, forgoing mandalas and free-casting.

Or something like that, David thought. He wasn’t fully sure he understood what she meant when she said she was writing spells in Datascript on the fly, to be honest, nor how it was any different to having a normal magic system or even the Origin system.

He shook his head, feeling the reassuring presence of his skills. He wasn’t going to let go of them, and he was sure Michael knew that. 

He listened to what the Vanguard men had to say about the state of operations. Here, deep below the dusty heat of Arizona, they were building something truly grand. They were using elemental stones together with the best technology could offer, runescript–no, Datascript–and electrical circuitry. Of course there had to be problems.

He sighed as he walked the tunnels. Thanks to magic, they had dug them wide and tall, and he did not have to crouch to walk. In a matter of days, they had excavated enormous rooms, created reservoirs that were already full of water, and had prepared pipes and pumps.

Everything was going smoothly.

Well, almost everything. 

That’s why he was here. His routine check brought him to a new section of tunnels. The piping had not yet been laid, and the lights were dim. The walls were rough, bedrock showing layers that told the story of the planet. It spoke to him, warning him of hidden danger.

He clenched his fists. Two teams had gone missing, and he was out for blood. He knew full well that there was danger, and he was ready.

From the darkness came screeches and growls. 

“Hey!” David yelled into the tunnel, fixing an elemental stone of light to his forehead. The monster growled when its darkness was banished by the light. “Are you the fucker who killed Miler? I just had him rejuvenated, for fuck’s sake.”

The monster leapt at him, not interested in making conversation. David’s face turned ugly, stone coating his fists in plates of black. He hit the monster with the power of a jackhammer, throwing it against the wall. A crack reverberated from where it hit its head, and it fell to the ground, limp.

David spat as he walked over the strange furred body. “This fucker smells like dungeon magic,” he muttered.

He felt Icarus take notes, like a watching presence all around him. Like a miniature version of the Gaze, and had he not gotten used to both the Gaze in the dungeon and Icarus’s presence at Site 00, he would probably feel rather unsettled by it. Instead, he brushed it off, ignoring it with ease. People with less developed magic senses wouldn’t even be able to feel the AI. In fact, perhaps the only reason he could feel the AI’s presence at all was because Icarus wanted to let him know he was watching. Which meant that Michael was only a step through a portal away.

He ventured deeper. The tunnels were now uncharted, not dug by Unity but by monsters. As he walked, he brought Icarus with him, piercing through a strange veil of magic that was preventing the AI from knowing what was going on here. The spaces were cramped, and he had to crawl to fit through sometimes. Despite that, the awkward position did not hinder him, for he could ask the stone to let him through, and the stone gladly helped.

He came upon a nest of the fuckers. He fought, tooth and nail, feeling his blood sing with the red mists of battle. Even then, the monsters were awfully weak.

It all changed when he felt a pulse of power. It washed over him, for a moment feeling like the Gaze of the dungeon had managed to escape the confines of the cave it was trapped in, and had spilled over in the real world. Now that was the stuff of nightmares, but after a few moments it was gone.

What was not gone was the fresh magic that came with it. The monsters were all suddenly invigorated, and they fought with renewed strength and viciousness.

“Fuckers.”

David threw himself at them with zeal. Blood flew, rivers of it. He punched and kicked, snapping bone and ripping entire bodies in half. His muscles were like steel, their fibers tough and strong. He lifted up bodies bigger than his own, throwing them like sacks of flour.

When there were no more monsters, he finally saw the silver thing on the ground. Between rocks, it was a broken shard of glass and metal film, reflecting David’s own bloodied face back at him.

Before he could approach it, the shard activated again. Three people materialized in the room with him, and he heard chants in latin and saw golden crosses worn over red silk robes. He had already started moving, though, aiming a punch at the closest priest.

He felt the weight of Faith slow his hand down. Like wading through mud, it sapped the power of his fist. It wasn’t enough. With a grin, he pushed more power in his punch, surprising the priest with his immense strength and breaking his jaw. Then he turned to the others, leaping like the monsters he had just slaughtered. 

“That is quite enough,” a fourth presence he had not seen coming said. 

David’s momentum was arrested suddenly. He snarled, spitting insults at the man, who wore the richest clothes of all the priests.

“Your friend is busy,” the bishop said. “Nobody is coming to save you.”

David smiled. “You might be wrong about that.”

Behind him, a new portal opened up. The bishop scoffed, and Faith pressed down on it and snuffed it out like a candle, freezing David’s face into a twisted shadow of shock.

“You were saying?” asked the bishop. “You cannot be allowed to continue spreading sin and devilish influence all over the world. The inquisition will rise again, and smite you all.”

At the other end of the tunnel system, the strange archway-shaped contraption Johanne had built came to life, sparks and flames and smoke once again bathing the room. Out of it stepped Michael, rage on his face.