The infinity dungeon 239

Chapter 239

Johanne’s breathing was still shallow when Icarus’s voice reached Michael’s ears.

“You are almost out of mana and raw resources, Michael,” the AI said. “And I need a lot of both to finish the inner space repairs.”

The rain was easing. Only a few drops slid down the glassy surface of the dome of energy Michael had erected to isolate Johanne from the elements. 

Michael vanished, only to reappear moments later with his pockets full of magic coins. His frequent raids were depleting Candle Light division’s coffer faster than the Operators delving the dungeon could replenish them, but it was future Michael's problem, he decided.

He checked on Johanne, worried that her condition might have suddenly worsened during his absence, even though he had only been gone for a few seconds. Then, relieved that it hadn’t, he vanished again.

His eyebrows went up when he appeared in the Valley. He had not thought the spell would execute, and certainly not with the tight mana budget he had allocated for it, but apparently the micro-burst portals brought the Valley in sync with the outside world enough that it had actually worked.

He quickly stocked up on materials, gathering what the Fae had managed to procure for him. There were also some coins, which he gladly took. The tithe they gave him was less than what Candle Light got from trading with the fair folk, but it was free. Then he was back in the forest, under the slowly dissipating dome of energy keeping the rain out.

He kept working on Johanne’s magic, meticulously restoring order to the chaos the storm’s attack had caused. When he was done, she was still not waking up, but he decided to let her rest. He carried her, not daring to teleport her, to the residential unit she called her home and gently put her down in her bed.

The house was empty, completely devoid of furniture save for the simple bed and a table with only one chair in the living room. As he sat on it, beneath the naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling above, he looked out into the distance. The grey gloom seemed to invade the room, casting its monochrome light on the featureless white walls.

Turning the light on helped dissipate the gloom a little. It was a warm light, tinted yellow, but it was also a LED light and Michael could see its almost imperceptible flicker. It was supposed to be flickering at a frequency faster than the human eye could see, but Michael's eyes were no longer human. 

He was no longer human.

With a sigh, he walked back to the bedroom and checked on Johanne. Things had not changed in the last three minutes, of course. She was still sleeping, peacefully save for the slight hint of a grimace marring her otherwise perfect face.

Even then, she was beautiful. 

Normally there was an almost permanent frown on her face. Her eyes were always ice-cold, disinterested in any and all other human beings. But when she was asleep, she looked… pretty.

Michael shook his head. He dragged the chair from the other room and sat beside her bed, waiting. As he stared at the featureless wall, he wondered if she even ever came back to her little house at the bottom of a hill. By the sight of the bed, he doubted she had ever slept in it.

He doubted she ever slept at all, or if perhaps she used a magical spell to take care of her body’s needs.

The paint on the wall morphed. It became monsters and people, fantastical sights and meaningless shapes. It became a spiral, and a black hole. Its gravity pulled the other shapes in toward it, eating them, consuming them. It unraveled the lesser shapes, using them as fuel to grow and grow, bigger and blacker and meaner. Michael’s eyes were glued to the wall, unable to escape the pull of the spiral etched on it, drawn to its deep mystery, his chest tight, constricting his lungs, closing in from all sides, the gravity increasing, the blackness colonizing his vision from its edges, drawing in, closer and closer and closer.

“My lord?”

Johanne’s voice banished the darkness, but Michael kept staring at the wall for a few seconds longer.

“Michael?” she called again.

She struggled to get up, coughing, and this finally shook Michael from his trance state.

“No, no, no, don’t get up,” he said. “You should rest.”

“The storm,” she said. She had ceased her struggles, but as she turned to face the window, a groan of pain escaped her lips. “Has it passed?”

“For now,” Michael said. “You know it will be back.”

She tore her gaze away from the window. “Magic creates more magic. That’s how the dungeon does it, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know how, or what, or even why the dungeon does anything.”

“Yes,” she said. She pulled herself up, and Michael adjusted the pillows so that she could sit upright. “Your tale was as confusing as it was fascinating.”

“I feel like…” Michael began, stopping mid-sentence to gaze out the window and sigh. He tried again, his words gaining some strength even though he struggled to make full sentences while thinking about things Johanne struggled to fathom. “Feels like we are trying to make sense of something that makes no sense, Johanne.”

The rain picked up again. It was a soft, yet determined rain, and the pitter patter of water droplets against the glass of the window was almost a lullaby. The fir trees swayed in the wind, their tips hidden by low-hanging clouds. According to Icarus, the temperature had dropped again, approaching winter levels.

“How are you feeling?” Michael asked.

“I feel strange, my lord. But not in a bad way, I think.”

“I had to put your magic back together after you were hit by the storm. Ravaging Renegade Energy, plus Intent, Qi, mana and a touch of elements tend to do that to people.”

She nodded. “I can feel your touch within me. Things will not be the same anymore, but I am excited.”

Michael scoffed. It was directed at himself. “You are? Why? I damaged you, Johanne.”

“No,” she said softly. “The storm did. You put me back together in a way I could not have done by myself. Had it not been for you, I might have not woken up ever again and if I did, it would have been to a life without magic.”

The trees swayed in the wind. Michael’s eyes never drifted away from the window, and he felt the cold seep in through the glass. Johanne had not even bothered to enchant her house with elemental stones, it seemed. He hadn’t either.

“You were out there because I could not deal with the storm myself.”

“I don’t understand, my lord. Why do you think it was your responsibility to do so? You did not even cause it.”

Michael sat back on the chair beside the bed. “I don’t know. These last few days had me feeling rather strange. Sometimes I am drunk on my own power. Others I drown under the weight of the responsibility that comes with it.”

Johanne shifted in the bed. Michael helped her up, checking her body condition. She was perfectly healthy, as far as he could see, and soon she was moving up and about without much effort. He did not bother telling her to rest, knowing that she would not listen to him. Nor did he ask her to wait before trying out her magic.

Indeed, she immediately started trying to cast spells which failed and unraveled spectacularly. The raw power she commanded was the same as before, somewhere between low and mid Silver, but the way it expressed itself had changed and she would have to figure out its new demands.

She experimented over and over again, changing little things, taking many notes. Darkness fell on Site 00 as the two worked deep into the night without being aware of the passage of time, testing theories and approaches.

It all clicked when Michael finally convinced Johanne to let go of the scientific method for just one moment and follow her gut.

A spark of flame appeared and vanished in an instant, releasing a minuscule flash of light and heat. It was just a minor trick, nothing to brag about, but it was the proof they were looking for.

Michael grinned as Johanne's eyes grew misty. Her smile was wide and radiant, perhaps the first of its kind Michael had ever seen. She blinked, twin tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Thank you,” she muttered between breaths that were full of emotion.

As they sat and settled down, Michael smiled at her. “Now comes the hardest part, you know?”

She nodded. “I know. My world has been shifted upside down.”

Another spark of flame appeared, lasting a little bit longer than before.

“But if magic is incompatible with science…” she began. “I will adapt.”

“It is not, though. Science is knowledge of the universe and its workings, is it not?”

She nodded.

“And if magic is a part of it, then it is also a part of science. Just let go of the old paradigm, maybe?”

“A Copernican revolution,” she said, a sense of wonder back in her voice. “An old chapter ends, a new one begins.”

Michael nodded, then checked the time. “Indeed,” he said. “Now come. The others are waiting.”

“I don’t know if I am ready, my lord.”

“I know it won’t be easy,” he said. “It will be worth it, though. The harder the struggle, the greater the reward.”

As she nodded, he thought about Travis. How the man preferred to be handed power rather than suffering for it like the others did. He wondered, for a moment, if his own philosophy was wrong. If it reflected the descent into madness of a fool. If perhaps, the danger of the dungeon’s Gaze was exactly that.

The taint whispered in your ear, promising great power at the end of a perilous journey. It promised you riches, the shiny jewel at the top of the mountain.

It made you lose sight of all the dead that littered the path.