The infinity dungeon 251

Chapter 251

The platinum coins materialized in the inner space, spinning and clinking, almost showing off. Their shiny surface was bright silver, much more polished and refined than that of the silver coins, and even though they were compressed balls of energy, they released an enticing sort of smell, an aroma of magic.

The largest predator nearby was the black hole spiral, a hungry shark that had not missed the scent of the coins. It wanted them, yearned for them, desired them. Michael could feel its gravity on him and on the coins, a physical force trying to drag everything down to be eaten.

Rather than being worried, he spared a smug smile for the gargantuan giant. 

“These are not your lunch, buddy, get over it.”

His aura wrapped around the coins, and the giant could do nothing but watch. He knew, however, that the moment he turned his attention away from them, the giant would immediately begin to plan and scheme. It coveted them, and while its schemes were not subtle, its immense power allowed it to always win in the end.

Taking a small amount of materials from his stash, Michael built a shield projector ring around the coins, wrapping them in a bubble of force surrounded by an equatorial band of deep blue, like candy inside a vending machine orb.

Icarus popped into existence near him, studying the thing.

“Interesting. The shield is drawing energy directly from the coins.”

“Yes, and watch this.”

Now, he drew deeply from his stash of materials. Stone, mostly, but also metals and wood flew toward him. He began building, sketching the outline of a massive structure that slowly filled in. At its center, the coins. All around, a maze of rooms and corridors that sat empty, awaiting new functions.

Once the skeleton was complete, he chose a location that would become his new main base and built a foundation of concrete and steel. 

“Behold, a vault for my magical coins,” he said after he finished filling in the walls of the structure.

Built on a platform close to Icarus’s control room, attached to it via reinforced metal beams and surrounded by four Artillery Stations with space for many more defensive implements, the vault stood several stories tall. 

“Good choice of locations,” Icarus commented. He manoeuvred his room, and attached it to the vault. “Easily defensible, far enough from the black hole not to have problems and far enough from the chaos void so that if something comes out of it, we will have time to react and defend.”

Michael nodded. That had been his intention. “We haven’t had real attacks on the inner space so far, just random encounters here and there, but if someone ever managed to affect me here, I imagine that the Coin Vault will be the first thing they will go after.”

Still not fully satisfied with how the Vault came out, Michael pulled energy from the coins inside it. There was some resistance, but soon the magic of a platinum coin began flowing toward him. He stopped the process, not knowing what to do with it, and reassembled the coin out of its energy.

For the next tests, he manipulated the coins directly, making gold and silver and even copper coins from the platinum ones, fusing them back together and trying to pull multiples and fractions of each tier of coin.

The results were interesting, but not as good as he had hoped.

“They won’t be a replacement for the batteries, I fear. Directly pulling from the Vault requires concentration similar to active meditation.”

“But the throughput is potentially limitless,” Icarus countered.

“That it is. Ah,” Michael said distractedly as he tapped his chin. “That’s what I was missing.”

He began to work in a frenzy, remodeling the outside of the vault, changing things here and there. The changes were mostly aesthetic, and the final product looked very much like a cathedral compared to the brutalist, no-nonsense look it had before.

“You wasted time just to make the vault pretty?” Icarus asked.

“Check the energy readings.”

“What could have possibly… huh. Fifty percent more efficient, just from this?”

Michael nodded. “First hunch proven to be correct. How about that?”

“What about the other hunch? You were rather cryptic about it.”

“Don’t want to spoil the fun!” Michael laughed. “Let’s use up all the materials I have left to upgrade the inner space a bit more, then I’ll show you.”

***

Build log:

• Second mark-2 Solar Collector finished.

• Upgraded a mark-1 Battery Pack to a mark-2 array.

New totals:

• Solar Collector I: 98

• Solar Collector II: 1 -> 2

• Battery Pack I: 99 -> 98

• Battery Pack II: 1 -> 2

• Total mana gain before expenses: 0.298 silver/second

• Total mana capacity: 298 silver

***

Michael flexed his aura, winding it up to max and watching the void retreat by a few inches and then a few feet. He was about to wind it back down when suddenly, Icarus cried out in surprise. He kept it up as a defense.

“Incoming transmission!” the AI yelled excitedly. “Identification code says it’s from the Flagship!”

“How is this possible?” Michael asked, joining Icarus in the control room. “It got destroyed.”

“It definitely is its code,” the AI said. “Should we respond?”

At Michael's yes, one of the many screens in the room turned black. After a few seconds, a pale face neither of the two had ever seen before greeted them. Its features were unmistakably elven, and the pointed ears and platinum hair completed the picture.

“Greetings, Michael and Icarus. I am Elù-ar. I request permission to re-enter aura space with the Flagship."

“Elù-ar?” Michael parroted.

“Please, call me Elu.”

Behind the elf, many others entered and left the viewscreen frame. Like him, they were all dressed in simple white clothes, their feet and legs bare. This detail made Michael look at the ground, where he saw no longer the sterile metal of the ship, but a carpet of green moss. All the surfaces had been colonized by some manner of greenery, he realized.

“Who are you?”

“I am the temporary captain of this ship, but as I return the artifact to you, I will step down from this role. If you, however, meant to ask who we are as people, I will gladly tell you my story should you allow us entry.”

“Only if you power down the weapons, and the shield as soon as you are in the aura. Is this acceptable?”

“It is,” the elf said.

Several minutes later, Michael and Icarus were greeted by Elù-ar and several other elves in a strange meeting room that looked more like a forest than a room on a spaceship. Especially because Michael remembered the barren metal interior of the ship he and Icarus had built, and what he was seeing was so different it almost wasn’t the same ship anymore.

The elves had taken the huge open space in the middle, and had transformed it into a rainforest, with trees reaching the ceiling and above, their wood fusing with the metal and allowing passage through the hollow inside of their trunks.

Before coming aboard the ship, Michael had done his due diligence and discovered that the elven temple was gone. Neither he nor Icarus had paid any attention to what had been–until now–nothing more than an afterthought in the grand scheme of the inner space’s happenings. 

“The expansion wave that burst your shield knocked the temple free of its orbit,” Elu explained as he sipped his tea. 

Michael took a sip of his own. It was delicious. It was just the two of them, Icarus and the other elves having gone somewhere else, where they claimed the severed instance of Icarus’s consciousness that had been lost with the ship wished to converse with its bigger, whole, self.

“I’m sorry for that,” Michael said. “I should have been more careful. It’s true that I ignored the temple for a long time, until it eventually came to this.”

“Do not be sorry,” Elu said, voice like silk. “Even though it was not intentional, you have given us a new life.”

“And here comes you, asking for stuff.”

Elu blinked. It was the biggest expression of emotion Michael had seen in the elf until now, and he realized that perhaps he had let his temper run unchecked again. He was not going to tell Icarus, but he was feeling the taint.

“Yes,” the elf said. “We have built a home from this ship.”

Michael interrupted him with a frown. “How? You have had it for how long? A couple of weeks, maybe?”

“The currents of chaos influence time and chance and gave us opportunities. Icarus will be able to explain in greater detail, when he returns. There are all manners of wonders out there, in the chaos. We will gladly offer them to you.”

“In exchange for the ship,” Michael said.

“Yes. We wish to be a part of what will no doubt become your fleet, in the future, but also to retain some measure of independence. We will work for you, respond to summons, and defend your home which is also our home. We have awoken from sleep in the chaos, but it is not our home. Your inner space is, should you welcome us in it.”

Michael nodded slowly, deep in thought.

“We have also awoken from the deep slumber of our race, discovering the wonders of explorations and adventure. To that end, we wish to take this ship, our garden, to unexplored reaches of the wonderful places we have discovered outside the reaches of your inner space. Perhaps this shall not be the flagship anymore. Our instance of Icarus, who has named herself Gaia, suggested calling this the MIF Garden.”

“MIF?”

“Michael’s Inner space Fleet,” he said, cocking his head as if it was supposed to be obvious.

Michael breathed. “Alright I will… think about it.”

“Perhaps a token of what our partnership might bring you could help you decide.”

The moment they opened the hangar doors, and Michael saw what was there, he stopped in his tracks.

“This?”

Elu nodded.

Michael smiled. “Very well Elù-ar, captain of the MIF Garden. Welcome to the fleet.”

***

“You accepted, just like that?” Icarus asked.

Michael tapped the glass walls of the control room, looking at the black hole. “Oh, you’ll see.”

“I’m very curious. Gaia wouldn’t tell me what it was.”

“Speaking of. What’s the deal with Gaia?”

Icarus stretched, almost falling out of his chair. “It’s… she’s me, but also not me.”

“That makes a lot of sense, Icarus,” Michael said. He watched the MIF Garden slowly fire its engines, aimed at the chaotic soup. In exchange for the payload, Michael had given Elu half his stash of platinum coins and had promised to work on an upgrade to the ship the next time they returned, using the materials they gathered. “I was sarcastic. Makes no sense, explain.”

He did. After being disconnected from the main consciousness, Gaia had gone into deep sleep. Alone, adrift, slowly waiting for death to come. The elves came instead. From their temple, they boarded the ship and used the temple’s energy to save it from destruction. Leaving their former home behind, they settled in. It was perhaps thanks to their presence that Gaia developed into her own, new self.

The conversation was, unfortunately, cut short.

“The Renegade is back,” Icarus said.

Michael cursed, winding down his aura. He watched the live feed from the outside slow down to a crawl, Qi particles slowly coalescing together to form the Renegade’s teleportation technique.

“It’s a technique, not a spell, given that it uses Qi. Right?” argued Michael, looking at the screen.

The energies were moving at a glacial pace, the changes in their makeup barely noticeable.

“I reckon you have ten minutes, Michael."

The man in question turned to Icarus, making a strange face. “That’s good to know. Now, thing is, we are on the fifth floor of the dungeon and not in the Valley. How are you accessing live outside data from here?”

Icarus smiled. “I guess I reached a small breakthrough myself.”