Chapter 18 Finale
New Fronts of the War
His two Combat Spiders came into the clearing, each dragging a lump of orange fur with a dull paralysed Aura, then left again to continue the hunt. Korah had moved over to investigate one of the creatures.
“Hey Korah, do you think it would be possible to sneak a few tiny spiders into the Slaver’s camp somehow?”
Korah considered the question, tapping her chin thoughtfully.
“I do not know how the Relic affects animals. But, you can protect them by hiding within the Aura of one of the Slavers.”
“Thanks! Could you help me put these Clan out of their misery? I have to stand at the top of the pit.” Korah’s mirth drained away, but she nodded and hopped into the pit with her axe.
Lucas returned his attention to the Nexus, and soon the Mana was flooding in. The pressure built so quickly that he was forced to summon a Fractal to handle the flow. One after another eggs dropped from his hand, rolling to the side or falling into the pit as the Combat Spiders within squirmed and hatched. He had hatched 6 of them in quick succession, using 42 Mana. Pop-ups started crowding his perspective.
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Lucas’s Mana suddenly permeated through vast swathes of detail within the Nexus that had been cut off from him a moment earlier. Despite feeling overwhelmed by the sudden change, he had no choice but to receive total comprehension of everything, immediately, as his Mana-awareness soaked into the ultra fine patterns.
The majority of the new detail involved a suite of functions for modifying behaviour and motivations. Lucas navigated to the Ancestral Behaviour Template he had used for his Scouts and Ambushers, called Spot and Ambush. The selection now had a dropdown list that split the behaviour into categories and subcategories.
Selecting one of the categories split the behaviour into specific triggers and effects, each of which broke down into greater detail upon selection. This branching seemed to go on forever as the interface delved deeper into the neuronic structure of the Arach’s brain. The deeper he went, the more fundamental any changes became, and thus more Mana expensive. Excavating his attention from the depths of detail, he considered how he might turn this into another advantage.
He had come up with the idea earlier to create a Spy, but needed to do some experimenting to see if the idea was feasible. Firstly he summoned up the design for his Scouts, complete with the Map and Stealth abilities. Using this as a base line he began diving into the behaviour systems to see if there was going to be an easy way to get the spider to latch onto its target instead of shadowing it from a distance.
He did find the behaviour tree for the shadowing, and it had a sliding bar to control the distance from which the spider should attempt to follow its mark. By default it was set to be as far away as possible while still guaranteeing the prey could be tracked. Lucas dragged it all the way in. This should, in theory, have the spider attempt to ‘follow’ its target from on top of it. He then shrunk the creature down even further, creating a spider that was only an inch or so large. At that size it would probably be ignored by anyone or anything without a particular reason to be watching for tiny Arachs.
Doubting that it was going to work like he intended, Lucas began watching the Dream Training. Soon he was witnessing a hunting scene in a familiar dark and eerily quiet pine forest. This was the training sequence that the Scout and Ambusher combo used to hone their skills. Lucas was seeing the scene from about a centimetre off the ground, through the Spy’s eyes. Despite its size, the little spider moved at a respectable speed. It was also light enough to walk on top of the snow, giving it a nice advantage in this terrain.
Very soon a bear was spotted, digging for roots between the pines. The Spy’s modified behaviour kicked in and it skittered up to leap onto the bear’s flank unnoticed. At this point, the rest of the Arach’s hunting behaviour became a hindrance. Several times the little spider hopped on and off its target, becoming conflicted between the desire to inform its Ambush squad about the prey and its modified behaviour telling it to stay stuck to the bear. The poor little thing was quickly becoming anxious and confused. Lucas dived back into its behavioural network and deactivated the majority of its natural instincts. Leaving intact only basic things like self preservation, and feeding itself when it got hungry.
Needing to feed itself would become a problem during long missions, so Luca modified its physiology to give it a generous fat reserve. When attached to a target it would barely move, so should burn that reserve very slowly. That would allow it to stay stuck to the target for an extended period before needing to worry about hunting.
To Lucas’s surprise, the next dream sequence went smoothly. The Spy latched onto its target and nuzzled its way into the fur for some cover. Then it and then simply zoned out, feeling satisfied now that it’s only purpose in life was complete. It tried its best to avoid being sat on or being noticed, even activating stealth when the bear moved in a way that could have made it possible to see. Happy with the basic design, Lucas extricated himself from the interface.
He was about to enter the design interface again when he noticed Korah staring at him, looking astonished.
“Lucas, did you just pass a Gate of Spirit? It looked like that, from watching your Aura.”
“I did, yea.”
“Your Spirit was already powerful, what Gate?”
“The 7th.”
“By the waters! What have my sisters thrown me into…” she said to herself, shaking her head.
Lucas shrugged and pulled out his two other Nexus’, one of Anger and one of Hatred.
The Anger one was the smallest of his Nexus’, followed by Hatred, the largest being the Brood. The sizes may be explained, Lucas supposed, by the fact that his Analyse ability had described the Anger one as ‘weak’, while the Hatred was ‘strong’ and the Brood was ‘powerful’. With all three of them laid out before him, one red-orange, one the colour of dried blood, and the last a vibrant green.
Lucas considered his next steps. It was going to take a commitment of two Mana to even test his idea. He got up and moved to the closest lump of fur with a dull paralysed Aura. It turned out to be an ape with disproportionately long arms and a ruddy orange coat of fur. There was apparently a lot of them nearby, as his Combat Spiders had brought two more in while he was working with the Nexus and already left to hunt again. He started dragging one over to the pit. Korah noticed and gestured to see if he wanted her to bring another. He nodded and she dragged one by its foot, dropping it on top of Lucas’s once he had kicked it into the pit. They had all four of the creatures piled on top of each other when Lucas said;
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“Thanks, this might take me a little while.”
With his sacrifices ready and his three Nexus’ handy, Lucas summoned two Fractal Minds. They echoed into being, consuming a Mana point each. Lucas then gave them the Anger and Hatred Nexus’ and picked up the Brood for himself. The Anger and Hatred Nexus’ were orbiting in his Aura now. Lucas did not feel any of the psychologically damaging effects he had when testing out the Anger Nexus, but he noticed the difference in his Fractals immediately. Their Mana patterns began to twist in ugly ways the moment they came into contact with the Mana patterns within.
Lucas could see now, in a way he could not when he first experimented with the Anger Nexus, what was happening. The Mana that exited the Nexus, tainted with its pattern, had no place to go, no outlet. It began to build up, to concentrate into something truly foul. Not wasting any time, Lucas entered the Brood Nexus and set to work imprinting the Hatred and Anger patterns into the little spider he was working on. As soon as the patterns were established he dropped his Nexus trance and dismissed the Fractals.
The next few seconds had him gasping for breath as their experiences transferred over to him, full of aimless rage and seething hatred. Lucas’s psyche was overwhelmed by the sensations. His rational mind cowed before the power of those emotions. His attempts to rationalise them away as unnatural was futile as his mind was a compromised weapon, it turned on him when he tried to defend himself with it.
Thankfully the influence of the Nexus’ waned quickly, allowing him to gradually reassert control and purge their patterns by exposing the emotions as baseless and alien, then picking them apart with cool reasoning. The process took a long time, and by the end he still felt worse for having done it. With a grimace he noticed the effect on his Aura, another ugly tangle in the tapestry of his soul. It would probably be with him forever.
He hated that the cost was so severe and hoped that the results would be worth it. He was about to console himself that at least his Brood Nexus did not mess with him like that, but realised that he wasn't entirely sure that was true. Unlike the Hatred and Anger Nexus’ the Mana imprinted with information from the Brood Nexus had an outlet (in the egg) and so did not stockpile in his Aura like the Anger and Hatred did. Lucas did, however, have contact with that tainted Mana when he moved it from the Nexus to the egg, so it was possible it was gradually changing him from repeated exposure.
He wasn't sure what such a change would be, since the Brood Nexus did not use patterns containing the imprint of powerful emotions, but instead handled subtle behavioural and physiological changes. It was a disturbing thought, but there was no way he could avoid using the Brood Nexus even if it was altering him. His life very much depended on it. He decided to ask Korah about it later.
Focusing on his work again, Lucas watched the ‘Spy’ he had imprinted with Hatred and Anger undergo dream sequences. Even from the spider’s own perspective, its Aura was a chaotic maelstrom of rage and hate. Unlike a human mind, no justification was necessary for its emotional state. It simply hated everything without exception and wanted nothing more than to inflict its own suffering onto others in whatever way it could manage.
It did find a way. Following the behaviour patterns Lucas had set for it earlier, it attached itself to the first prey it encountered. Once safely secured, it entered Stealth and began infecting the victim's Aura with its poisonous energy. Lucas watched as the bear’s Aura began to absorb influence from the spider, slowly corrupting it.
‘Ok, that might work,’ Lucas thought to himself.
It wasn't just a spy anymore, but a kind of psychological warfare agent. ‘Infiltrator’ was a good name, Lucas decided. The complexity of the Stealth and Map powers, the altered behaviour, and the Hate and Anger patterns brought the cost of a single Infiltrator to 8 Mana.
Leaving the Nexus for a moment, Lucas got out his dagger and made small, fast incisions in the necks of the four apes lying paralysed at his feet. That would cause them to bleed out in less than a minute. He then re-entered the Nexus watched as the Mana flowed in. The apes gave him 6, 8, 7 and another 7 Mana respectively. He added in 4 of his own Mana to give him enough to hatch four of them. The eggs grew to the size of a coin, and rolled out of Lucas’s hands to hatch on the ground. Their combat force now consisted of; One Brawler, eight Combat Spiders, one Digger, two Infiltrators, and of course Korah and himself.
What crawled out of the egg was extraordinarily uncomfortable to look at. He instinctively stepped back to get some distance. The imprints from the Hate and Anger Nexus’ seemed to have influenced its colouring. Instead of the usual mottled brown of the Cave Arachs, the Infiltrator was pitch black with highlights like dark dried blood. However, the way it looked was not the problem. Its Aura was like a thick black smoke of hate, shot through with occasional flashes of rage like red lightning. It was radiating malice like beacon, even from a distance Lucas could feel the influence of its twisted psyche tainting his Aura and emotional state.
Korah noticed it immediately, a mixture of fear and horror on her face and Aura as she crossed the clearing to investigate.
“What have you done? What is that?” She said, giving the little nuggets of spite a wide berth as she approached Lucas.
“It’s a weapon,” Lucas replied. “We are going to use it on the slavers.”
“A weapon? Can we not just kill them? Must we twist them into something even more evil first? Why not make more of these? He’s great at killing!” She said, gesturing to Brawler.
“He is, yes, but we have a lot of direct combat power. Brawler’s main purpose was to open up defences for the Combat Spiders to do the killing. You and he together are already a powerful shock force. If the slavers have a way to handle the both of you, there is a good chance that another Brawler is not what we need.” Lucas began, then hesitated as he tried to think up the right words.
“Consider this; None of those slavers are a match for you in an honest fight I bet, not even Caleb.” Lucas began.
“I am not sure about Caleb. For the rest, yes.” Korah said.
“Ok, but I bet they never give you a fair fight. And if there were another ten of you they wouldn’t fight you at all, because it wouldn't make sense and they have other options. They could hide in their camp that you can't enter and start organising other ways to deal with you. Maybe they sell some slaves and buy however many mercenaries are needed to beat in a fight, hire an assassin that will kill you in your sleep, or maybe they manipulate your oath by presenting you with another ‘evil’ you can't ignore.”
Korah said nothing in response, so Lucas continued.
“How they chose to deal with you isn't really the point. The point is; if they know what you are capable of, they can avoid engaging with you in a way that your strength can be put to good use. Yes, we need raw combat power, but if that is all we have we become easy to predict and outmanoeuvre. This,” Lucas said, pointing to the little bundles of hate and fury. “is opening up new fronts of the war that he may not be prepared to defend against.”
Korah was nodding at this point.
“Ok, I get it. I will leave that sort of thing up to you. When you need some of this..” she said, patting her bicep. “I'm always ready.” Lucas smiled. She looked back at the Infiltrators, her distaste clear.
Before she spoke again, Lucas chimed in.
“I must be willing to pay the price for power. Then make my power a force for good, make it worth whatever the cost was. That’s what you said right?”
Korah looked at him, resignation settling into her Aura.
“Yes. That is what I said.”
She then turned to walk back to see what Brawler was doing.