CHAPTER 25
“Master. Look at the interface, accept the role of Magister.”
Lucas turned his attention away from the enormous mass of twisted bio-machinery. Text was rolling across the panel and a popup appeared to translate it.
[https://i.imgur.com/iuELUcU.jpg]
Not sure exactly what that entailed, Lucas hesitated.
“My Lord. The Magister will have total control over this Relic and all subordinate Relics in the nearby regions. You will see the defences the Slavers have in place and your options for turning it against them.
“Right, ok.”
He selected ‘Accept’, and felt the patterns within the Relic shifting, granting him access to a variety of new options. His translation box displayed a ‘Loading’ icon for a moment, before replacing the text box with a new kind of interface. Half of the interface was a Map, parts of which he recognised from his time exploring the Relic tunnels but most of it was new. He identified the golem factory with the rogue AI. Alongside it were several attention seeking red ‘!’ symbols.
He ignored that for now and looked at the other half of the interface. Here were a series of tabs, each of which opened up a menu with many sub-options. He found himself getting more and more excited as he read through them;
“Power Management”
“Production”
“Network Communication”
“Logistics”
“Defences”
He stopped when he got to defences. He was definitely going to explore this in detail later, but it was already late and he had a long walk back to the camp to prepare for the battle tomorrow.
Selecting the ‘Defences’ menu presented him with several new options
“Debilitation Field”
“Static Artillery”
“Static Fortifications”
“Active Defence Drones”
The list continued, but all of the options were greyed out except for "Debilitation Field". That was also the option that resembled the description Korah had given him of the field that sapped her strength.
Selecting that option opened up even more options.
“Activate/Deactivate”
“Add/Remove exceptions by Mana Signature”
“Add/Remove exceptions by Category”
Opening the "Mana Signature" option and selecting "Add" presented him with;
“Please present a Mana sample of the entity to be excluded from the Debilitation Field.”
Curious, he sent in some of his own Mana.
“Signature detected as the acting Magister. Please note that the Magister is excluded from all weaponised defence lists automatically.”
“Cool cool,” he mumbled to himself.
The Add by Category selection presented him with a truly immense list of categories starting with “Aardvarks”. Luckily it had a search function, so he searched for Human. That resulted in a more narrow but still surprisingly comprehensive list; ‘All Humans’, ‘Human Males’, Human Females’, ‘Humans of indeterminate Sex’, Humans with (*) Strength Attribute, Humans with (*) Agility attribute, Humans…
The list went on, but Lucas selected Human Females. That should give Korah an exception without having to drag her down here to get a Mana signature. None of Caleb’s mercs were female from what he had seen.
“Exception; Human Females has been added to the exception list.”
Clearing the search field, he entered Arach, then added ‘All Arachs’ to the exceptions. Next he took a look at the remove exception option, which gave him a long list of Mana signatures that were differentiated from each other by being huge numbers.
“Mana Signature: 00812712280182737612”
“Mana Signature: 27363535271092837279”
The list went on for more than 30 individual signatures.
“I wonder how it classifies an individual's Mana by number? There has got to be some system to it,” Lucas continued mumbling to himself.
The list had to be Caleb and the Slavers. They must have been dragged down here one by one to be given an individual exception via samples of their Mana. He could revoke them all now, but that would give away the element of surprise.
Lucas closed the interface and took another look at Pog. How did he always end up with such weird shit happening to him? There was still a Broodmother with 76 brains in a cave a few days' travel from here. He couldn't even imagine what it had been getting up to since he left.
“Ok, I'm going to leave now. I’ll be back tomorrow and we will turn the Relic defences against the Slavers and take them on directly. Can you bar anyone from coming down here in the meantime?”
“Yes My Lord.” Said Pog.
“My Lord. May I accompany you?” There is much I would like to talk to you about," added Polimathras.
“Sure Polly, let's go.”
Polimathras started the moment they entered the dark tunnels.
“My Lord. In the interests of serving you better, can you please tell me what you are?”
Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
“I’m a human from another world Polly. I don't know much about how I ended up here, or if there was a reason behind it, but I suspect it was strong Dimension Magic. I inherited some Dimension powers from the exposure I think, which was probably due to how receptive my Aura was when I first arrived. I come from a very different world that has no Magic, or Auras, or Nexus’. The humans there were forced to rely on their wits alone to survive and because of it we developed some clever ways of doing things.”
“Excellent my Lord, thank you. That is truly fascinating. There must, therefore, be a great many things you do not know about this world. May I offer you some information?”
“Please do Polly.”
“Yes my Lord. First, know this. Our world has a Great Enemy. An enemy of all life who’s birth will bring about the destruction of everything.”
“Ah, I saw something like that in your memories when I was copying you over. And the Church that controls most of the world's Relics is working for him right? So, is it actually true? How can you be so sure? And how do these priests know what the bidding of a creature from the future is? Like how do they communicate?”
“The answer to both questions is the same, my Lord. Prescience. In the Holy City rests a great Relic that can trace the threads of action and reaction in this world with sufficient accuracy to logically predict the future. The enemy has perfect records of the past. From his seat in the future he knew exactly which priests first discovered him. He resurrected those exact priests, knowing that the predictive power of their machine would show this happening. The priests used their Relic to look at the outcomes of various timelines. If they chose to serve him the predictions showed paradise, if they opposed him, well, an infinity of dark torment and incomprehensible horrors.”
“That's disturbing… But, if it is inevitable, why bother?”
“There is reason to believe that the Enemy's coming is not as inevitable as the Relic would have us believe. In order to communicate with us in the past, the enemy must recreate entire physical realities in the future that are large enough for the Relic to predict. An immense expenditure of effort and energy, all to have a few priests in our time perform menial tasks? Highly unlikely My Lord. We believe that he does this because there are a set of conditions here in our time that lead to a future without him. He may be truly invincible and almighty in the future, but if he is inevitable, why should he work so hard to manipulate us?”
“Ok, fair enough, and how far in the future is this apocalypse?”
“A little over nine thousand years, at least that was the case a few months ago when I checked for myself. Do you have prescience in your world, my Lord?”
“No, I dont think so. I mean we can use logic like anyone to predict immediate things, but thousands of years into the future would require some powerful computing. In principle we should be able to do it, but I don't think we have yet.”
“Consider your world Lucky then my Lord. I suspect all worlds must have such time demons lurking in the depths of the future, but as long as you cannot see them, they cannot control you. Or perhaps it is happening in your world without your knowledge. We hide the truth from the common people, for they would only turn to fear and subjugate themselves.”
“Polly, you speak as if you are still part of the Order. Did you not say that your new purpose in life is to serve my will?”
“Yes my Lord, of course my Lord. Forgive my language, it has been long ingrained in me to think in such a fashion. I am yours, my Lord, by my heart and soul is but a tool in your hand, I wou..”
“Ok ok, I get it.”
They walked in silence for a few minutes before Polimathras spoke up again.
“The result of these predictive relics and monsters from the future, is that our world has become hopelessly snared in ancient plots, carefully laid plans that span continents and several millennia. Scarcely more than a leaf falling from a tree can happen here without it being accounted for, foreseen ahead of time, and woven into the patient plans of our unassailable manipulators.”
Polimathras stopped talking, seemingly mid thought, and started making a peculiar chittering sound. Lucas looked at him. Strange shapes under the skin of his cheeks were shifting around, producing a disturbing sound.
“But you My Lord,” He continued, having arrived at some conclusion in his thoughts.”Are something that came from nothing, an effect with no cause, at least not one from our world. I saw what that did to the Church’s Relic, it was hopelessly incapable of predicting the consequences of your arrival. You have no Fate Line, no chain of action-reaction to forecast from. The Enemy relies on such methods also, perhaps he is equally unprepared. You are a beacon of chaos in a world enslaved by order.”
The Aura of Polimathras began glowing with pensive joy. He was smiling from ear to ear now, almost literally, as his mouth widened to reveal rows of squirming mandibles within.
“Oh My Lord, if only you could know the terror they will feel when they realise what you truly are.”
That put Lucas in a thoughtful mood, and the remainder of the walk was spent in silence. They emerged from the tunnels to a camp drenched in the silver light of a full moon. A pile of paralysed wildlife was stacked in the centre of the camp, including a titanic Elk with hooves as big as Lucas’s head. Korah was leaning against a tree near the fire, snoring. Most of the Arach’s were not present, presumably doing some nocturnal hunting, but a few could be seen huddled up together to sleep. When one of his Combat Spiders noticed him, it got up and ran to greet them. The excitement in its Aura gradually roused the others, and soon a pack of them were running rings around him and Polimathras as they made his way towards the fireplace.
Polimathras smiled at them, and they seemed to accept his presence without issue.
“This is your invasion force My Lord?”
“Part of it, the rest are hunting more sacrifices to create last minute reinforcements.”
“And the Nyx woman?”
“She is my friend, please treat her with the utmost respect.”
“Yes, My Lord.” Polimathras said, bowing his head.
Lucas was exhausted. At his instruction the spiders had begun dragging the carcases of the animals he had sacrificed to create Pog and Polimathras's bodies back to camp. Several of them had been eaten along the way, leaving nothing but bloodied bones and pelt. His little army was beginning to require a significant amount of food per day, that wasn't a problem for now because he had them hunting so much, but there was a limit to what the local wildlife could sustain. Korah had cooked up something that tasted a bit like pork for herself and Lucas. Polimathras politely refused and instead asked if Lucas had a quill, ink and paper. He didn't, but it was one of a great many things he planned to fill his inventory with when he managed to reach a town of some sort.
He laid his bear skin out near the fire, and was quickly asleep. During the night he woke several times. Once he saw Polimathras near the edge of the dimming firelight making strange flowing movements that looked a bit like kung-fu exercises.