The infinity dungeon 230

Chapter 230

The cold spread through Travis, then liquid fire replaced it, setting all his body ablaze before retreating, until all that remained was a sensation of emptiness.

The man gasped. “What…” he rasped out.

While he was still recovering from the sudden assault, Michael moved to David with the same impossible speed as before. His stash of coins was all gone, used up against the Renegade, and his batteries were close to empty. It was now or never.

He plunged a hand into the man’s stomach, mirroring what he had done to Travis. David tried to stand, pulling on Michael's arm, staggering to his feet, muttering curses under his breath. Then the process was over.

In the Inner Space, a stream of golden particles rained down toward the event horizon. A second rain of particles, these ones invisible, also disappeared down the black hole’s gullet.

“You should feel all better now,” Michael said. 

The two groaned in response. While they recovered, Michael switched his attention to Johanne. He swept her with his magic, using what little of it had regenerated, plus what he could seize from the air. The woman let him, spreading her arms wide as if to welcome him if he wished to subject her to the same treatment as the others.

But as his magic washed over her, he sighed in relief. “You’re clean,” he said.

She nodded. “I suspected as much. However, one can never trust their own judgement in these situations, can they?” 

She shot a look at the others. Travis was wheezing, while David was groaning half-sitting, half-standing.

“You look like an old man again,” Michael joked. “Need a hand?”

David shook his head vigorously. “One moment please. And fuck you.”

“Sure thing.”

The moment was actually several minutes. Michael passed the time by looking out through the broken windows, gaze lost among the hills and the mountains below. The storm was raging all around, gloomy dark clouds swirling in the sky. Everything was wet. The spiral, when it manifested, had gouged a good chunk of the skyscraper, exposing the top, leaving it looking like a giant had taken a bite of it from the side.

The room had only a third of a roof remaining, and little rivulets of water were running toward where the bottom row of windows had been smashed and obliterated by the powerful forces that had swept the room not too much earlier.

Michael let the rain pelt his face for a few moments longer. Then, when the others were finally out of their daze, he snapped his fingers and summoned a shield above the room. A bit more magic and the table and chairs were dry, and he waited for them there.

They sat in silence. The wind howled outside the shield. There was no wall nor window behind where Michael sat, only the faint shimmer of magic and rain, and then the haze of the storm. Thunder echoed and rumbled, and the occasional flash of lightning lit the room up from the dark grey gloom.

“How do you two feel?” Michael asked.

“Different?” David said tentatively. 

“Strange,” Travis muttered.

“What the hell was that all about?” David asked. “Who was the guy who attacked you? Was that the Renegade? What was that spiral you summoned?”

Michael got up and started pacing around the table. “You said you feel different. Different how? More grounded, perhaps?”

David nodded. “Maybe?”

“You were chock full of Faith magic and dungeon taint. Filled to the brim,” Michael said, spelling the last words slowly. “Tell me, after I lost my power, did you suddenly get the urge to delve into the dungeon?”

“I did. We both did,” David said. “We needed power to deal with all this shit after we couldn’t count on you anymore. At least, that is how we saw it back then.”

Michael hummed, giving Travis a look and seeing that the man was in a strange contemplative mood.

“The dungeon taint,” the man said. “Is it the Gaze’s effect?”

Michael nodded.

“What does it do?” he asked.

“It’s subtle. It changes you, for the worse. How, precisely, varies from person to person. But it does change you over time. How deep did you all go?”

“Down to the fifth. Neither of us got a challenge floor, so it was relatively easy going.” Travis said.

“Would you go again, right now?” Michael asked.

“Hell no,” David said quickly. “That place still gives me the creeps.”

“But you did go.” Michael said.

“We had no other choice, isn’t that right Travis?”

The man in question shook his head. “Did we?”

“I–” David began before stopping mid-sentence. “No, I guess there was no rush to delve that much. I must have gone in, what, dozens of times a day?”

“Same here,” Travis said. “And the more I went, the more I wanted to return there. Michael, you said that we were full of Faith energy as well? If the taint from the Gaze changed us and made us want to return, what did the Faith do?”

Michael shrugged. “It helped, that’s what I think it did. Gave you a little initial push, then kept whispering into your ears.”

“Speaking of whispering,” said Travis. “I think we should invite someone to this meeting. A rather important player in recent events.”

Several minutes later, the elevator doors whooshed open. The Technomancer walked out, stopped, looked at the room, sneered, and then zeroed in on David and Travis. A moment later he seemed to become aware of Johanne’s presence, and then of that of Michael.

He opened his mouth to speak, but Michael quickly punched him and sent him flying against the wall. He bounced off, flopping like a fish and fell to his knees. Whatever he had been about to say was replaced by a low, pathetic whine.

Michael watched him. David, on the other hand, got up from his seat and approached the man. He grabbed him by his shirt, pulling hard.

“It’s just some pain, get up.” he uttered through clenched teeth. He pulled harder. “Get. Up.”

He yanked, and the Technomancer’s body rose from the ground. Not on his own feet, but held up by David’s hand.

“Was it you?” he asked. “I remember you saying a bunch of bullshit to us.”

“Wasn’t him,” Michael said. “Couldn’t have been him, could it? He’s no priest.”

“You can’t kill me!” the man said with panic in his voice. His face was twisted in pain and agony, but slowly the pain was being replaced by a strange manic grin. “You can’t–”

Michael snorted, and punched him in the guts. His fist went in one side, out the other.

“Huh, they upgraded you to Silver?” Michael said, surprised. “It won't save you.”

“Damn,” David said, surprised. “A Travis special.”

“I’m true Silver now,” the Technomancer said, spitting blood. “This isn’t enough to kill me.”

Michael shrugged and punched him again. This time, he aimed for the heart, which exploded under the immense force of his fist.

“Michael,” Icarus spoke in his ear. 

“What is it?” he said, turning around as if startled. The others watched him, but did not comment, and the Technomancer’s body fell to the ground. He was dead.

“I detected an anomalous flow of data entering the internet a few moments ago. Was that you?”

“Shit,” Michael cursed.

“What did you do?” Travis asked, stepping over the dead body and looking at it with contempt. “He’s dead, isn’t it?”

“I should have aimed for the head,” Michael said under his breath.

“Don’t tell me,” Travis began.

“He’s used his power to escape, hasn't he?” David finished.

Michael nodded.

“Well,” David said, sitting on the sofa by literally letting his body fall down on it. Given his height, the impact deformed the sofa beyond its limits. “We can add it to the list of shit to deal with. How about we take it one step at a time?”

Michael summoned a chair made of pure mana and sat on it. “Good idea. Let’s start with the current situation. I lost my power because I was an idiot.”

David nodded.

“And then you two let yourselves be manipulated into being bigger idiots than I ever could be.”

David stopped nodding. “Didn’t you say we were compromised?”

“By Faith magic. How did Faith get into Site 00 undetected in the first place? You had magic-detecting satellites, and Icarus. There was only one way a rogue priest could have entered unseen.”

“Shit,” Travis muttered. “The Technomancer hid their signature. Now it all makes sense. We were suspicious of him, at first, weren’t we? But then, slowly we shifted to being suspicious of Icarus.”

David cursed. “Of course. We focused on our individual plans, scheming against each other. And we pushed Johanne away, because she was the other big threat here. With Michael incapacitated, Icarus replaced by the Technomancer, and Johanne pushed away, they could do whatever they wanted to us. We must assess the damage.”

“The damage is limited,” Michael said finally. “Icarus is currently checking. They didn’t have time to do much. They were setting the stage for something big, but they never expected me to go into the dungeon and return with power restored. Certainly not with more power than before. Unfortunately, the Technomancer is now loose on the internet. He’s erasing his tracks as we speak. His magic seems to be antithetical to Icarus’s. Our AI will adapt, but we are losing the asshole’s tracks.”

“Well, he played us like a fiddle,” David said. “Not too much damage was done, but it could have been dangerous. What about the Renegade?”

“About him. He followed me out of the dungeon, as you clearly saw.”

“We did,” Travis said, eyes sweeping across the ruined room.

“You also saw that I have a method for fighting back against him.”

“A method that almost killed you,” David said.

“True, but did you not see how scared he was when he ran for it? And he has all the reason to be. I sucked what had to be thousands of years worth of Renegade Energy out of him in an instant.”

“And you almost died,” Travis said.

“Yes. I did. I also gained something from it, although I'm still in damage repair mode and it will be a while before I can truly gauge what’s changed.”

For instance, Icarus was reporting strange sightings in the inner space, things that had not been there before. Things like asteroids, which by all means should have all fallen into the black hole long ago. Indeed they had, Michael and Icarus had checked thoroughly, which meant that these ones were a new addition.

“I guess we can assume that he won’t make the mistake of confronting you in the open again any time soon, then.” David said. “What now?”

“Now? Now I will tell you the full story of what happened to me, and then we plan our next moves.”

“You trust us, just like that?” Travis asked.

“You were tainted. And faithed. You’re clean now.”

David’s eyes narrowed. “But we have been real dicks to you, man. Even before that, with the whole Vanguard versus Candle Light business. I realize now that we were tearing Unity Corporation apart.”

“You have. And it’s good that you see your past mistakes. And, most importantly, I'm too tired to care right now. Let me tell you what happened to me in the dungeon, and you’ll understand why.”