The infinity dungeon 201

Chapter 201

Michael did not wait for the giant worm to converge on his location. If the vision was to be believed, it was so big it could swallow not just him, but the whole cave in a single bite. The tremors intensified, making it hard to even stand, and large boulders crashed down from the unstable ceiling.

He looked outside. The sun was shining in all its terrible power, baking the surface of the planet for miles and miles. There were no trees in sight, only strangely sharp rock formations that rose into hills half a mile away. To the left, the ground sank into the basin of a dried lake. Layers of superheated air created illusions and mirages, but he knew that going there was a death sentence.

He dodged a rock coming straight down from above. While his senses were nowhere near what they had been before losing his powers, his new magic system had a cheat built into it: Icarus. The AI could draw excess magic that would have gone to waste and use it to do all sorts of things.

Michael looked out into the distance again. Staying here was as good a death sentence as going out. Perhaps worse.

Without wasting any more time, he started running for the hills. 

He used his raw magic to shield himself from the sun, while at the same time diverting some of it to empower his body. The harsh radiation still made it through the layer of protection, scorching his skin, superheating his clothes. His hair was smoking, close to catching fire, and the sweat dried from his skin before it could offer him any solace.

“FUCK!” he suddenly screamed, remembering about the Force Lance he had left near the cave. He cursed himself for listening to Icarus when the AI suggested he grab the gun during the night, even though obviously neither of the two could have predicted what was going to happen.

He looked behind once. The white glimmer of the weapon beckoned him to stop and turn around. It took all his willpower not to do it.

He ran. He was fast, but the foothills did not seem to get any closer. He had to pay attention to where he placed his feet, because the ground was made of chunks of dry clay separated by deep cracks large enough to make him trip.

“4 seconds, Michael,” Icarus said.

He cursed. He wanted to curse the AI, his stupid suggestions. What would he be without his weapon? 

He dismissed those thoughts, hard as it was not to despair, and pushed himself faster. Behind him, the cave where he had been moments ago exploded, a gigantic worm made of yellow plates harder than stone erupting from below and shattering the small hill like it was made of sand. 

The weapon ended up in its maw and gullet like the rest of the cave.  The debris were launched up hundreds of feet in the air, and soon they began to fall down like a meteor shower.

Michael’s eyes darted between the sharp formations until he finally found one he could use. His magic failed him, leaving him without protection from the sun, and he screamed but did not stop. He directed what little magic regeneration he had to his legs, muscles pumping until he finally reached a small patch of shade under a sharp finger of red stone.

He squeezed into it, feeling the heat slowly fade from his reddened skin. Passing a hand through his hair, he found that it was coming off in great chunks of singed and half-burned keratin. His clothes weren’t much better.

He did not care. His skin burned, his eyes were dry and his whole face felt as if on fire.

Behind him, the worm had disappeared again. Vibrations were spreading through the rock, their rhythm slowly increasing in a dreadful crescendo.

Michael debated what to do. He could run again, of course. Indeed, he used the little magic he had regenerated to hop from one patch of shade to the next, wandering deeper and deeper into the field of sharp rocks until he reached the hills. Behind him, the worm closed in on him.

A vertical face of rock finally barred his way. Luckily, the sun was oriented so that the rock face also provided a lot of solid shadow, and the temperature was only uncomfortably hot there rather than scorching.

He started climbing it, coating his hands in magic so as not to cut them open against rock that had never seen the effects of rain smoothing its sharpness. Halfway up, there was another cave, a hole of darkness he had seen while approaching.

Not too far away, one rock formation crumbled to dust. Then another. The worm was circling him, trying to pinpoint Michael’s location as he sat stock-still at the edge of the cave. He waited, the 175 seconds it took for his magic to regenerate feeling like ages, using the time to formulate a plan.

Well, he thought when he was almost back to full mana, if this doesn’t work and the worm is attracted by magic, I’m a dead man.

The cave ended a few feet behind him and there was nowhere else to go. Steeling himself, he felt the last of the magic fill up his batteries. He took control of it, all of the 800 units of copper mana he had, and directed them to a point far away in the distance.

The ground in the middle of the basin half a mile to Michael’s right exploded. Like a buried bomb suddenly going off, the explosion kicked up dust and debris in a cone around it. Despite taking all of Michael’s mana to manifest, the result was underwhelming, barely even worth noticing compared to the destruction the worm had caused.

He hoped it would be enough.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then the rock formations began to crumble one after the other in a straight line as the worm made a beeline for the explosion site. Michael felt the vibrations in the ground grow weaker and silently celebrated. His gamble had been a success. The worm was attracted by vibrations, or movement, and if it had been able to detect a puny human it was bound to be attracted by an explosion.

The problem was, the worm reached the explosion site in a matter of seconds and judging by the shifting ground was now circling it in search of nonexistent prey. Michael would have to cause a new explosion before the worm lost interest and came back to look for him. He would have to do it enough times and hope the worm would forget all about him, or that night would come and he would be able to leave while causing explosions far away from where he was going.

Hours passed excruciatingly slowly. Michael barely had time to recover his mana before he had to spend it all to cause another explosion, and any excess magic went towards healing himself or conjuring up some bland food or water. As blast after blast reduced the landscape into a battlefield, however, the shadows slowly grew longer. The air cooled.

Eventually, the sun disappeared behind far away mountains. Michael caused yet another explosion, watching the worm converge towards it like a moth to a flame, and used the distraction to climb out of the cave and up the rock face. He used his mana sparingly, but without the need to shield himself from the sun, he made good time.

When he reached the top, he distracted the worm again and then studied the landscape.

The plateau was almost flat rock for miles. There was no trace of water, life or anything save for the dark silhouette of huge mountains in the distance where they obscured the millions of stars that lit the night sky. The sight was magnificent, something Michael knew did not exist on Earth.

For a moment, he wondered where this planet was in the great expanse of the cosmos, but then Icarus reminded him it was time to distract the worm, and his contemplative mood was gone after conjuring yet another explosion.

He walked and then ran, devouring the ground in great leaps. The distant horizon let him conjure explosions very far away, and he learned that he didn’t need to put the weight of his whole mana pool behind them to attract the worm. A smaller explosion would keep the monster interested for less time, but it could also be made to appear farther away.

As Michael walked, things started to change. The night deepened, and the worm started to lose interest in him. By the time it was almost too dark to see, Michael had reached the mountains and the worm was nowhere to be seen.

Using magic to point the way, he found another cave and sat in it to rest his body for a minute. His eyes felt heavy, and he realized that he hadn’t slept in days. When he opened his eyes again, the sun was high in the sky and hot, dry gusts of air were reaching his skin from the cave’s entrance. He retreated a bit further back, and watched the blinding brightness of daylight. Everything had a reddish-brown hue save for the yellow sand of a field of dunes in the distance.

“You think we are safe here?”

Icarus pulled on some magic, lightly draining the batteries in Michael’s Inner Space. “I think so, at least for the moment.”

“Good,” he said as he slumped against the uneven rock. The batteries filled up again.

Even though he had just slept, the weight of the last few days seemed to hit him all at once. He did not want to waste time, however. He was not putting the mana he was generating to good use. 

Closing his eyes, he found himself floating in space. It was easier to cope with emotions and tiredness here. He drew upon some of his mana and sent a jolt through his consciousness, fully waking himself up.

“Does this mean it’s time to finish up the mining drone?”

Michael smiled at his AI’s antics. He examined the work they had done so far, and made some tiny changes. He expanded the cockpit so that he could sit in it if he ever wanted to take control of the drone, made the cargo area larger and even improved the fusion flame drive behind it. The battery was soon joined by a second one, doubling the drone’s storage and output.

He added the receiver, and finally allowed all the materials to sink into the schematic projection. When the last of the ores vanished, the drone became fully real with a pop of magic.

“Not bad.”

Icarus hummed. “Can you charge the battery manually? I want to take this for a test drive.”

“Sure.”

With a slight effort of will, Michael emptied two of his batteries and transferred the mana into the drone. The process wasn’t quick nor efficient, but soon the bulky machine whirred to life. The engine roared and ignited and a fusion flame, several times the length of the ship, trailed behind it.

“Feels good to finally do something!” Icarus exclaimed as the drone sped away towards the asteroid field. “Hahaha, this feels exactly as clunky as it does in Space Engineers!”

There were some curses and strange noises as the drone changed course, flipped, wobbled a bit and then resumed its straight path towards the asteroids. It took a while to reach there, allowing Michael to start construction of the unloading and charging dock close to the Scrap Foundry, but when it did Icarus immediately activated the drill and started eating into the soft rock of the asteroid.

Michael could see it despite the distance, as well as the area immediately around it. It was a sort of fog of war effect that allowed him to see in real time anything in the immediate vicinity of his machines and devices. Outside of this, he could also see the parts of the Inner Space he had explored, but they were, for a lack of a better word, greyed out and frozen in time. He had a feeling that if anything changed, he wouldn’t see it unless he either went there or sent his drone there. Then there was the rest of the space, dark save for barely visible silhouettes of things he couldn’t make out.

He would have to explore the whole space eventually. It made no sense not to know what he had inside his own inner space.

“Well, many things to do overall,” he thought as he looked at the Nuclear Manifestation first, then at the Elven Temple, and then at his collectors and batteries.

The mining drone zipped past him while he was deep in thought.

“Neat, you made a docking platform!”

It flipped and slowed down, cutting the power to its fusion flame before it got close to the dock. There, mechanical arms grabbed the drone and stabilized it, and a flow of magic went to recharge the batteries. The side of its cargo bay opened up, and another mechanical arm literally hurled the material towards the Foundry, which grabbed it with its own clawed appendages and started to process it.

Michael could swear that he heard the Foundry hum in pleasure as it did so.

“Feels clunky, but it works,” Icarus said, his voice coming from somewhere very close by. Michael turned around to see the mining drone hovering in space next to where his consciousness was, acting like the AI’s body.

“You wanted me to make the drone so you could do this, didn’t you?”

“Among other things,” he said. “You know, the cargo area of the drone is rather small. The Foundry is almost done processing everything already.”

“I know,” Michael said with a nod, “and I have an idea how to expand it.”

“Not now, though.” Icarus said pensively, “It should be night outside by now, and I think the worm is coming back.”

“Shit,” Michael cursed as he left the peace of his inner space, “how did it find me?”