Tony followed the quest arrow pointing him toward the Respawn Chamber, Maximus barely a pace behind him. Every few paces he would hear the blaring announcement from the ship's AI about the respawn failing. Tony pumped his legs, willing himself to reach maximum speed.
> Shortcut Available. Would you like to start Freerunning? Yes No
>
> With your current Athletics Skill Rank, Freerunning will decrease your travel time by 6.2%
Tony focused on the "Yes" option and the quest arrow melded to the floor, showing him a path to traverse. Tony reached down to his belt and drew the dagger he had taken from Tolik during their fight. 6.2%? he thought. Let's see if we can make that 10. A sharp right into a maintenance corridor was the first diversion from his previous path. Tony slid, the hard soles of his boots skittering over the rivets in the floor paneling. What he was about to try would either work out in his favor or tear his arm out of its socket.
Tony plunged the first inch and a half of the dagger into the floor and used the sharp change in momentum to sling himself into the maintenance corridor and maintain his speed. He almost lost his hold on the dagger in the "swing" but it came free at the last second. Low pipes, hanging conduits, and wires cluttered the hall. The navigation showed a winding path around the major obstructions; Tony had never been the best at following directions. Sliding the dagger back into his belt as he moved, he vaulted off of the wide pipe in front of him, grabbed a fistful of coated wires, and went horizontal "running" along the wall for a few paces, then used a rigid conduit as a makeshift trapeze to clear an elevated vent and reorient his feet with the floor.
Nav showed a sharp left coming as he neared the end of the maintenance hall. Tony retrieved the dagger and flipped it over to his left hand, stabbing it into the corner of the wall as he slid around the corner. A snap and a stumble through a bunch of crates later, Tony looked down at the blade of the dagger. He'd lost the point as well as the top third of the blade. Tony grimaced and discarded the broken weapon. He hopped through a few broken windows and vents and slid to a stop in front of the Respawn Chamber.
> Travel time reduced by 7.2%
Tony shook his head as he jogged into the room. It was a massive enclosure with pods filled with an azure glowing liquid, tables lined with circuitry, and myriad displays along the walls. Lines upon lines of data scrolled angrily across a majority of them, far too much info for Tony to process. Auren and Maximus arrived just a second later, snapping him out of a stupefied stare. His eyes caught a flash of light on the far side of the room and he jogged over.
A body was being constructed on the table. Well, trying to be constructed. The network of blood vessels, nerves, bones, and magical conduits were forming as expected, but at the generation of muscle tissue, the process would fail. Whoever this was, if they weren’t able to correct the respawn error, they’d be subjected to an infinite “loading screen” until the system completely failed and they died, for good.
Tony observed the process twice before he stepped in. When the process reset, all that remained was a locus of light over the center of where the body had been. The spawning table itself was more like the bed to a 3D printer and an orb above the table was the printing nozzle. The covered wires that connected to the "nozzle" were trashed; someone had tried to cut the cords housed within the tubes and had almost succeeded. There were six spawning tables in this room and eight pods. If he had to guess, the tables handled the direct respawning and the pods handled regeneration.
Tony stared up at the mangled wires and cords. Some of them were hovering just a few inches from each other, some still intact even.
“Hm, I think that if that wire can be bridged then the process will finish,” Tony thought aloud.
“And how do you suggest we do that?” Auren answered.
"I don't know, you're the god here." He hadn’t seen how any of the machinery in the flagship functioned or what actually powered it. Essence fueled almost everything in Godmaker; there was no reason to assume differently here. He decided to query the system.
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Command//: Roll Intelligence + Occult – Query: How to complete the Essence circuit.
To Tony’s delight, the system chirped back at him.
> Rolling Intelligence Attribute and Occult Skill. . . Success!
>
> An Essence Circuit can only be completed by living matter or material designed to transfer Essence at high rates.
Tony groaned, squatted to pat Maximus on the head, and said, “Don’t pull me off until the lights shut out, or you’ll get zapped too.”
“I wouldn’t really-” Auren started.
“I was talking to the dog,” Tony cut him off with a smirk. Auren crossed his arms and smirked back.
Tony jumped up and caught the higher end of the cable and a buff appeared under his status bars.
Charged – Your Lore generation is increased by 150%
He swung and reached down with his other hand and snatched the end of the dangling cable. As soon as his grip closed around it his hands locked and every muscle in his body flexed and went taut at once. A debuff accompanied the “Charged” buff.
Overcharged – 10% HP loss per second
He smelled his flesh burning, felt his nerves frying, and heard his heart pounding in his ears. He would only have to hold the wires together for a few more seconds. Leaning down, he saw skin forming over the muscles, followed swiftly by clothing. He let go of the top wire and was shot clear across the room by a violent discharge of essence.
“Respawn Complete,” the Flagship’s female AI voice stated. Tony groaned as he got to his feet, his HP at thirty percent. The body on the table belonged to an Ashtar woman clad in furs. Teeth and claws made up the fastenings of her armor and her head was half shaved, her hair was crystalline and translucent, smooth to the point where it was tied, and from there it was dreadlocked adorned with sigiled beads. Her grey eyes snapped open and locked with Tony’s, flashing blue. He felt like she could see out through the back of his skull.
“Good mor-” She flicked her wrist at him and at least a cup of water splashed over his face and into his mouth. He wiped his face.
“What are you-” She splashed him again. Tony spit out a mouthful of water, careful not to spit on her and opened his mouth to speak, but was met with more water for his efforts.
Tony put one hand on his hip and the other in front of his face. “Could you stop that? I’m trying to talk to you!”
“Why won’t that debuff go away?” Her voice sounded familiar, but Tony couldn’t place it. Tony looked at his status bars and was surprised to see his HP back to sixty percent.
> Marred Destiny – Your fate is in flux and uncertain [Source: Active Saga]
“It's from a Saga that I have active, I don’t think those can be cleansed,” he answered truthfully. Some people in full immersion MMOs, which Ascendant Online was specifically not, could be jerks, and plan counter builds around someone they planned to troll. It was entirely possible that they were the only two Ascendants left in the “program” and unless the flagship got some major repairs, no one else would be respawning any time soon.
“Oh, well, that’s irritating,” she said. Then she looked around. “What did you do?” she half yelled.
“I literally just got here, not even twenty minutes ago. I didn’t do this.”
“Then what the hell happened?”
“Auren, D, and I left to grind on Arach. We came back here and Tolik had pretty much killed everyone on board, so I killed him back.”
“Tolik? Really? What an ass.” She sat up and looked at Tony like a lynx sizing up a squirrel. “And you killed him? All on your own? What level are you?” She was asking a lot of questions.
“Yes, yes, and level twelve.” She arched an eyebrow at that.
“Level twelve, not bad. Tolik was level fifteen when I saw him before I left. You must either have some crazy equipment, which you don’t,” she said astutely, “or have been either really lucky or really smart with how you beat him.”
“Little bit of B and C,” Tony answered. He jumped at the feeling of a cold nose pressing into his hand. “Hey boy,” he said, reflexively scratching the pup behind the ears.
The woman glared at him, shot to her feet, and stormed out of the room. Tony glanced at Auren, then the door, and back. The God shrugged at Tony.
"I think I'm going to let her cool off a little. Are the teleporters still active?"
“That’s probably a good idea, Vasna tends to swing first and ask questions later. You were lucky,” Auren got the faraway look he did whenever he was reviewing notifications or otherwise looking into the system. "They should be. Where are you going?"
"I think I'm going to head back to Arach. See if there's some more grinding I can do there and meet the Spider Queen."
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Auren asked.
"What's the worst that could happen?" Tony retorted.