The infinity dungeon 231

Chapter 231

The conversation lasted long into the night. When it finally ended, Michael realized that they were mostly in the dark, save for the light of the moon above them. 

“Rare few moments of peace, these last few days.” David said, looking at the sky. “The storm will be back soon, stronger than before. It’s pulled this trick twice already.”

“I can feel the turbulent magic coming from the dungeon,” Michael said. “I think you triggered some sort of safeguard when you erected the shield.”

Travis snorted. “There’s no shield anymore. When do you think the dungeon will get the memo?”

Michael shrugged. When a passing cloud hid the moon from sight, plunging the room into darkness, he snapped his fingers and summoned warm lights that floated gently in the air. They lit the ruined windows and ceiling, still dripping water from the earlier rain.

Silence descended on the room like a heavy blanket.

“Anyone hungry?” Michael asked, hoping to break the silent spell.

“I could eat,” David said. “This young body’s metabolism is nothing like what I was used to.”

“I’ll be right back, then.”

With that, Michael left. Behind him, the magic creating the lights and the shield still lingered, fading slowly.

“It’s a hell of a tale,” David said, getting up with a groan. Realizing that there was no pain in the action, he hummed to himself. “I’ve been young for a while now, why does it feel like I’m only noticing these changes now?”

As he went to stare out the window, through the faintly shimmering shield Michael had erected, he heard Travis get up from his seat to join him. The man had his hands clasped behind his back, which was almost comical given how much shorter he was than him.

“I’ve been feeling the same,” he said. “I really don’t like it.”

David turned to face him, snorting a strange laugh. “You know, Travis, we will have to deal with a lot of shit once we are out of here.”

“Don’t tell me,” the man said with a long, drawn out sigh. “Don’t tell me. Some part of me just wants to say fuck it all, raze everything to the ground, start again. Tabula rasa.”

“We rarely get the chance to do what we want,” David said. “And even when we do, it’s like we can’t help it but fuck up again, just in different ways this time.”

Travis nodded. “We will have to resolve our conflict.”

David also nodded. “Set aside our own egos.”

“It’s easier said than done.”

“What is?” Michael’s voice came from above. Looking up, the other two saw him glide through the air, phase through his own shield, and approach the table with two large takeaway bags.

“Mexican food, burgers and a few slices of pizza.”

Travis laughed, “is the situation that serious?”

“I just wanted some human junk food,” Michael said as he set everything on the table. “I can recreate it with magic, but it’s not the same feeling. Anyway, what is easier said than done?”

Both Travis and David opened their mouths to speak, but David was the quicker of the two.

“You know full well that Travis and I have been having beef since long before the Faith and taint muddied our minds and emotions. We were just coming to terms with the fact that we will have to resolve this conflict, and soon.”

Michael nodded. “How mature of you two.”

Travis snorted. “Funny. I don’t know if you understand how important the shit I've been doing is.”

“Well,” David said. “I was doing some rather important shit too, doofus. I was providing Unity Corporation with a tool. A powerful tool. The veterans of Vanguard, once properly rejuvenated, trained and powered-up with magic, can be our army. They have connections, political capital to spend. They–”

Travis interrupted him. “It’s a lot of effort, completely in the wrong direction.”

David glowered at him. “Well, it’s my effort. It’s not like I can let you build your own paramilitary branch, under your control, without doing anything myself. Can I?”

“Well, folks,” Michael clapped his hands. The sound was rather loud, enhanced by magic. “This is why we can’t have nice things. This also explains how the Technomancer and the don managed to infiltrate us so easily. You do things behind each other’s back all the time, don’t you? Now that I’m back, things are going to change.”

“Change how?” Travis asked. His eyes were narrowed, posture closed in clear anticipation of bad news.

“No more infighting. You either learn to cooperate, or I am going to separate you two. I’m not scrapping Vanguard, nor am I going to change how Candle Light operates. What I ask of you, is that you two learn to work together for a common goal. To this end, Vanguard will take over the security branch and become our security branch. Candle Light, on the other hand, will be the division specialized in dealing with the most dangerous magical anomalies and situations. This way you will work together, cover each other’s asses, and have a common goal rather than conflicting motives.”

“I see,” David said. “Candle Light is the surgical scalpel, while Vanguard is the big-ass warhammer that breaks everything. I like it.”

Travis blinked. “Not the image I was going for, but I can see this working well. We will need some transfer of people, and Vanguard will have to stop being all about veterans, but it can work.”

“I’m fine with it, we can work out the kinks later,” David said. He elbowed Travis, smirking. “Now, listen. Since we are newfound allies, you and I, don’t you think it’s time we team up and start grilling Michael? He’s had his fun, it’s our turn now.”

“Oh yes,” Travis said with a smirk of his own. “Fascinating story you told us earlier, Michael, but I have one or two questions of my own, if you don’t mind me asking.”

“Shoot,” Michael said as he took a fry from the bag. It tasted gross, but after the initial impact of flavor it soon became the good kind of gross.

David took a bite from his own burger, frowning at something inside of it. He picked out a pickle, tossing it in the bag with a look of disgust.

“Let’s see if I got this right from your narration,” he said. “You are currently sitting on an unfinished heap of mark-2 collectors that could, theoretically, give you how much aura?”

Michael tapped his chin. “One hundred collectors, current accretion disk conditions mean that each would be producing one-tenth of a silver, times the one hundred lenses on the Accelerator… a thousand silver, or ten gold.”

David breathed, setting down the burger. “And why the fuck aren’t you building them, like, right about now? It would literally solve all of our problems.”

“The inner space is in repair mode. And I'd need resources.”

“Well, with all due respect Michael. I appreciate you saving our asses from ourselves, and I understand why you had to leave the dungeon before you were fully ready. The Renegade was coming and all that. But now, just go back in and use the time dilation to fix your solar system or whatever, and upgrade it to shits.”

“Doesn’t work like that, David. The time dilation only works where the dungeon is stronger than my aura. Care to guess what also happens there?”

“Shit. Taint. You can remove it from others, can you not remove it from yourself?”

Michael shook his head. “I don’t think I can. At least, I don’t know how. If that changes, then I'm going to exploit the time dilation just like you said.”

“No, but wait.” David paused, picking up his soda. “This makes no sense. Didn’t you spend, like, a bajillion years in the Valley before you broke your system? Time dilation was clearly working on you, and it wasn't like the taint was making you go all roid rage on us all the time.”

“Stats, David,” Travis interjected. “He had enormous resilience. Everyone else was feeling the Gaze and its taint, if you recall.”

“Exactly,” Michael said.

“I see,” David said. “You can’t use the time dilation to speed up the process, but there has to be something we can do to help. How about raw resources? We have a global company, for fucks sake.”

Michael nodded. “That would be an enormous help.”

“How much stuff are we talking about?” David asked. “Would it be to increase the brightness of the accretion disk, or to build?”

“To build. The accretion disk is a question mark. To make it brighter, I literally need to throw raw mass at it.”

“How much mass? A mountain?” David asked.

“Well, it ate several thousand asteroids, by our estimates, and only went to ten percent. So no, more like a planet. I would use the stuff you get me to build more collectors, for now. How much can you get me?”

“What quality do you need?”

“As long as it’s not basic rock, anything goes. Scrap would have to be processed, but I got a machine for that. It’s due for an upgrade.”

“Then, Michael," Travis said. “Perhaps it has not occurred to you, but the world is full of shit it can’t wait to be rid of. For starters, you can become our new demolition crew. Take over Jennifer’s incineration business. Then, soon we’ll set up shipments for as much ore as we can purchase without fucking up the economy too badly, with some wiggle room because who fucking cares. We will fix the economy later, when you’re all powered up.”

Michael stared at the two. “You know, these are great ideas.”

“Glad to hear that,” David said. “Now that we are back to our old selves, and you gave us some wrist-slapping, it’s time we stop fucking up and make ourselves useful, ain’t that right Travis?”

Travis narrowed his eyes. “Are you sure this is not a jab at me?”

“A hundred percent sure. Now, Michael, what about space?”

“Space?”

“Yeah,” David said. “Up there. Space. You know, deep space. You mentioned asteroids. There happen to be a lot of them in space.”

Michael’s eyes widened as his breath sped up. His chest constricted, and heat began to spread through his body. “No. No space. No space. You hear me? I’m not going up there.”

“Woah, buddy.” David said, trying to placate Michael with a gesture that did the exact opposite. “May I ask why? I figured, with you having a space inside and all that, plus your magic is probably–”

“It probably is possible, yes,” Michael said quickly. “But no. No space. I’m not going up there. A flimsy protection of magic between me and the void? Empty space in all directions? Certain death? Look me in the eye. I am not going up there. Not today, not in a million years.”

“Shit. Something bad has happened to you about space, hasn’t it?”

“More than one something.”

“You didn’t include those somethings in your story,” Travis said. “We had no way to know.”

“I didn’t for a reason. Shall we move on?”

“Sure. The Renegade. Do we know where he is?” Travis asked.

Michael quickly checked with Icarus. “The satellites detected a burst of Qi, coinciding with the time of his escape, in Rome, Italy. But the current location seems to be Milan, although the trail is cold.”

“I guess we can say for sure that he was working with the don.” David said. “I wonder for how long.”

“At the very least, since the Kavanaugh incident,” Michael said. “Except before, it was only his manifestation. Now, although not at full power, he’s here in the flesh. My theory is that he was the one who taught the don’s priests how to use their Faith magic to amplify the effects of the taint on you two. Perhaps on other people as well, both inside Site 00 and outside.”

“We will have to do a thorough check,” Travis said. “Candle Light, no, Candle Light and Vanguard will deal with this.”

“I’ll have to come with you,” Michael said. “I’m the only one who can recognize the Faith magic and suck it away.”

“What about the taint?” David asked.

“Can’t see it, but I can suck it away. It requires flaring the big spiral, so we will only do it to personnel who start randomly acting out of line or are descending into strange behavioral spirals. Icarus will keep track of all that.”

“Good. That’s a good start,” Travis said.

David shook his head, a wry smile on his face. “To think… that we thought we were the ones playing the don. We were planning to use the Technomancer to feed him bad intel.”

“This whole thing begs the question,” Travis said. “Why was the Renegade working with the don?”

“Perhaps he promised to free him?” David proposed.

“And how did they meet? The Renegade was confined to the dungeon, until Michael freed him.”

“Through the robes? His manifestation did appear on other floors.” David said.

Travis snorted. “Maybe. None of us has seen this manifestation save for Michael. We aren’t even sure his manifestation could leave the confines of the dungeon. It was trapped in its depths, we don’t know if it could leave the dungeon entirely. Even if it did, why did it enter into contact with the don specifically? What does a mafia boss have to offer an ancient mage trapped in the dungeon?”

“Faith magic, that’s what.” David said.

Michael nodded. “Faith magic does not obey the normal rules, as far as we have seen. Even if it followed some loose rules, Christianity alone has more than a billion followers. Even at an average of a copper-equivalent each…”

“That’s a lot of power,” David said.

“What about now though?” Travis asked. “The Renegade is free. Why is he back in Italy? We have spy satellites equipped with magic, can we see what they are doing?”

“We can see everything,” Johanne said, appearing as if summoned.

“Good,” Travis began.

“As long as it’s mundane,” she finished. “With magical phenomena, a lot of variables enter the equation and render it rather complex. In this specific case, I suspect that the Renegade could easily jam our satellites by himself, no need to use the disembodied consciousness of the Technomancer that’s even now stubbornly hiding somewhere in the internet like a fucking cancer.”

“The Renegade can do that?” David asked, surprised.

“Remember,” Michael said, “even without the Tier 4 energy, he’s still got access to peak-Gold amounts of Qi and Intent. We don't know how much that is in numbers, but if he follows anything close to normal progression, it’s the equivalent of 100 gold coins. That he can use. At any time.”

“He can’t regenerate, though. Not without a dungeon, can he?”

Michael nodded. “That, and my spiral, are probably the reasons he’s taking it easy. He knows he can’t afford a direct fight with me because of the spiral black hole, and he knows he can’t throw around magic willy-nilly because he can’t regenerate it. Unless, and this would explain why he’s still working with the don, there’s something in Italy.”

Travis’s eyes widened. “That’s what I was missing.”

“Whatever it is,” Michael said. “It can’t be a full dungeon or we’d be cooked. I’m telling you, we’d be toast by now. All this,” he pointed outside, at the hills under the faint light of the moon. “It comes down crumbling the moment another organized player gets access to a dungeon.”