The infinity dungeon 236

Chapter 236

Michael walked up to the general, putting a hand around his shoulders like they were best of buddies. He was a head taller than the man, so he had to bend to reach him, making the whole movement awkward.

“This is going to feel a bit weird,” he said. “Or so I’ve been told.”

He burned mana coins. All of them, their Gold-tier power fueling a teleportation that only Michael’s immense control over mana and aura could make possible. They appeared at Site 00, in front of the dungeon entrance.

What the general saw made him gasp and tense up. Two Fae, an orc and a goblin, manned the reinforced steel and concrete gate alongside three Operators.

The goblin towered over him, a bit taller than even Michael, draped in thin cloth that showed his bulging muscles. Of the two, however, it was the orc that really made for a terrifying sight. He was as short as the general, but he was also as wide as he was tall, with a huge belly and a war axe slung over his shoulder.

“Don’t look at them like that,” Michael said. “They are very polite and friendly. The deal is, you are going to be living with them in the Misty Valley, the second floor of the dungeon.”

The general was about to open his mouth to speak when Travis’s voice came from behind them. “Well, well, well. Look who we have here. Hello, general.”

“Travis Tyrell,” the man muttered.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Travis said.

The general looked down. “I know. I apologize for how I treated you. You must understand, it was nothing personal.”

Travis scoffed. “Sure it wasn’t. Michael, where are you taking him?”

“To the Valley,” Michael said.

“A hostage, then?”

“If you want to call him that. Or, we could say he’s on a… indeterminate-length vacation. Digital detox.” Michael turned to the general. “You will find that the Valley is quite the nice place to live, if you behave.”

With that, he took the general down into the Valley and instructed Drullkrin to help him settle in, and to keep an eye on him at all times. The goblin commander saluted the general, mocking the military salute and grinning wickedly.

“Here you go, Travis,” Michael said. “The general. Killing him would have left a bad taste in my mouth, and achieved nothing, so I offered him to stay in the Valley.”

“He’s not going to enjoy it,” he said with a chuckle.

“Not at first, but I’m sure he will grow to like the change of scenery. The Valley is a very pleasant place, you know?”

“What about his family? They will think he’s dead.”

“By all means,” Michael said. “He should be. He dared cross us. The fact that he claims to have had no choice saved his life, but only his life.”

“You have changed,” Travis said. “We will see if he adapts.”

Michael paused. Did he change? Did it even matter? He still remembered his promise to himself, back in Sitea. It felt so long into the past. It felt like it did not apply to him anymore.

“It’s like the beginning of a novel, isn’t it?” he said. “A man gets captured by people immensely more powerful than he is, thrown into an alien fantasyland surrounded by creatures who low-key bully him. Wait…” he tapped his chin. “That’s literally how my own introduction to the Valley went. See? It all turned out fine for me, I'm sure he’s going to love it.”

“Mm.” Travis was not convinced. If he had noticed Michael’s clumsy attempt at redirection, he didn’t show it. “Is it safe, though?”

Michael nodded, once again serious. “Drullkrin is there, and all contact with the outside world is monitored. You can send Operators to check on him, or station them in the Valley.”

“I already planned to,” Travis said.

“Good!” Michael clapped his hands. “Because I have plans for the Valley, and they will involve you. Anyway, the general doesn’t have a lot of information, but feel free to double check yourself. Just, be civil if he collaborates.”

“Of course. In fact, let me have a chat with him right now.”

As Travis turned back to enter the Fae forest, Michael made for the exit. Crossing the threshold meant going from a sunny, idyllic plateau to a gloomy, cold and wet forest. Huge, fat raindrops were falling from the sky, and the temperature was nothing like the 22nd of September should feel like.

Looking up, Michael could see the huge swirling clouds of the gathering storm. It was when he switched to magic sight, however, that he could truly see what was making his skin crawl with the electric anticipation of diffuse danger.

He was going to have to deal with it, and soon, and he knew he was going to have to use the spiral to do it. The storm was simply beyond what he could do with normal magic, even if given a supply of platinum coins.

He checked his inner space and sighed. Using the big spiral at full power was out of the question for now. Almost as if in response to his thoughts, the black hole seemed to deepen, its gravity increasing. A low-pitched hum reached Michael's ears, a song from the void that made his heart rate quicken and his chest tighten. 

It was definitely the first time he was hearing the alien sound, he knew. But for some reason, it made the memory of deep space resurface, bringing the fear of being trapped there along with it. For a moment, Michael was back on the failing Seedship, surrounded by elves who had lost their way and were doomed to die.

His head snapped to the side, eyes tracking the silhouette of the Elven Temple orbiting the black hole on its lonesome. After Michael had built the Aura Accelerator, he had dismantled his old base and attached most of its components to the ring. Some, like the Scrap Foundry and the Artillery Station, had been placed close to Icarus’s control room.

The Elven Temple had been the sole exception. After detaching it, Michael noticed that its orbit had remained stable, and decided to leave it to its own devices for the moment. Even when he had used the spiral and produced gravity waves that wrecked his machines and the inner space’s boundary, the Temple had shown no reaction. It orbited, peaceful and placid.

Now it was humming. Of course it was, Michael thought as he struggled to tear his eyes away from it. It just so happened that his orbit had brought it in front of the black hole, a speck of green masonry and giant trees against a backdrop of huge infinity. The black hole loomed, like the maw of a leviathan. The temple was the lure.

Michael looked away, feeling the hum fade into background static. He left the inner space, feeling unsettled and shaken. Next time he would just ask Icarus, who would be more than happy to tell him about the state of the boundary, instead of going in himself.

Sooner or later I will have to deal with it, though. He thought, not without great effort. It’s my inner space that we are talking about. If I leave problems to fester, they will eat me alive.

Just like it happened once already with the System. And with the spiral, which Michael had underestimated to the point he had been forced to make it become an integral part of himself. An alien thing, probably made by the dungeon builders, was now an essential part of him.

No wonder it scared him to death.

***

When Travis was done, he asked the creepy AI Icarus about Michael’s whereabouts, and found the young man in the Valley standing in the middle of piles upon piles of stuff. Metal, precious stones, heaps of dirt and plant matter surrounded and towered over him.

A moment later, they had all vanished.

He waited for a moment, seeing the cringe on Michael’s face. Almost like he was in pain. Only when did his face clear did he approach, although he had no doubts Michael had sensed him a while ago.

“I talked with the general,” he said as he approached. “It was a nice chat. Did you really just waltz in there and take him?”

Michael shrugged. “I also threatened him and when he called the cavalry, I killed the cavalry. Then I took him.”

“Of course you did,” Travis said.

“It’s the same lesson you taught me back when we killed Carmela, isn’t it? When you use all the tools at your disposal, and the tools you have are superior to what the other party has, victory is easy. There’s always the risk of a catastrophic fuck-up, but I am trying my best not to fuck up anymore.”

“I understand.”

“This was just a mini-mini-boss.”

Travis sighed. “Yes, I am aware. And I suspect that we are not being subjected to the same treatment solely because of your presence here. Once again, everything hinges on your presence, your power. The detente.”

Michael nodded.

“The OA is like a kicked anthill right about now,” Travis continued. “They still have Faith users, and the only way to counter them is you. How about we go there together and make a mess?”

Michael shook his head. “No. I have to deal with the big storm outside. It’s hours away from escaping our control. I checked, and Johanne’s preliminary findings are correct. At those scales, magic does create more magic. The storm is this close to becoming self-sustaining. The moment it does, not even I will be able to stop it.”

He paused. 

“For now,” he said. “I will have to find a way to contain it, siphon off some of its power. My inner space is in bad shape, but I can use the spiral if I do it sparely. It will at least keep the storm contained. As for the other thing… I don’t like it that it all hinges on me. It gives me anxiety, man. Always has. You and David have grown a lot while I was away, but it isn’t enough. To your eyes it must look like I just went in, powerless, and came out this… force of nature once or something, back to how I was before if not better. But you know it’s not what happened.”

“I know,” Travis said. “I know it’s not as easy as it sounds. You told us of your struggles.”

“You know it rationally. But emotionally, it doesn’t feel good, does it? It’s frustrating for you, and it’s not good for me either. You shouldn’t stop delving into the dungeon. I can come with, if you want. As long as you don’t die or don’t get cursed by something more powerful than me, I can always stitch you back together.”

“It would mean no time dilation and, as you know, I can't afford to disappear for days.”

“You should go alone, then, to the deeper floors where the time dilation still works on someone with your level of aura. Around floor four or deeper. You’ll get affected by the taint, but I can remove it, and later on I'm sure the dungeon will provide some other means to deal with it. If not, we will task Johanne with finding a way.”

“What if I don't make it out?” Travis asked through gritted teeth. “Perhaps I am a coward, Michael. David is overtaking me, because even when I was affected by the same Faith and taint as he was, I couldn't find it in me to take the risks he did. Perhaps that was the point, to get the two of us killed, I don’t know.”

“Everyone finds their balance. Dungeon delving doesn’t have to be solitary, and you know it. The teams go in together, after all.”

“They are barely scratching the surface of true power. Only a few of them even reached Silver.”

Michael shook his head. “That’s because you are keeping them on a very strict diet. I’m not telling you how you should run things, Travis, I have decided to trust you. More powerful Operators means more risks, and you did your calculations, but calculations can be adjusted to meet new needs and priorities.”

This surprised Travis. “You trust me, even with all that’s happened?”

“Even with that. I could micromanage everything, but I do not want to.”

“What about Icarus?” he asked. He knew that the AI saw everything. In a way, there was no need for Michael to get involved, not when that freak of technology and magic existed.

“You’ll have to negotiate with him, I guess. He’s a part of me, but also his own person.”

“I understand,” he said. He wasn’t entirely happy with the situation, but he knew that it was just him not liking Icarus’s overbearing presence.

“Good. Let’s plan a good, nice dungeon delve, the three of us. No, four. You, me, David and Johanne. I don’t want to exclude her, she doesn’t deserve that. Team building, power leveling, and I get to see the power you’ve managed to grind out for yourselves while I was away. I can help you grow, and if you don’t want just power handed out to you, I can still offer guidance.”

Travis nodded slowly. This meant letting the OA escape and scatter, and would delay his plans to influence world politics but… he knew he needed to grow in power. And, perhaps, he could get over his dislike for Icarus and ask the AI for help. God knew what the AI could not do. It probably would be even more effective than he could ever be.

However. Speaking of being power-leveled. “David will not accept handouts, we both know it. I… might. Loathe as I am to admit that. I, Travis Tyrell the self-made man, might be too cowardly to take the risks needed to grow as much as I need to grow. If you offer to help, of course.”

Michael smirked. “You and your awkward way of making it seem like it came from me. There’s no need for that. I was offering, after all. See you here tomorrow morning. Do tell David and Johanne. Hopefully, by that time I will be done with stabilizing the storm.”