A’Ferun moved onto the ghost ship, as the sailors were calling it. If it had ever born a registry mark, a flag or a standard, or even a figurehead, no hint of such remained now. In that sense, it was a ghost ship, one unaligned with the affairs of nations. He still had to restrain the impulse to beat the life from any sailor he caught using that word near him.
N’kieran was not a ghost. He refused to believe it. She was his light; Death could not claim her, not before him. He refused. So, she was not dead.
The mages of Captain desh Shalante’s crew agreed that the unmarked ship was saturated through and through with magic. Something had heavered up the sea, putting them off course by leagues and leagues. All the divinations they could conduct showed something unleashing a disintegration bomb of unparalleled scope very close to where N’kieran’s ship was supposed to be. Only the fact that her tracker stayed lit without even a flicker had let A’Ferun hold onto his sanity.
As magical as the ship was, and as near as they had found it, drifting so close to the location of the magical phenomenon there had to be some magical foolery at play.
N’kieran wasn’t dead. A’Ferun told his wailing heart that in a litany to hold off the panicked grief that wanted to consume him.
Ishallah could have helped him, but his childhood friend had been sent to her aunts. Zait desh Kranal, Ishallah’s father, had decided that he was done letting his daughter run around like a common Adventurer. The Kranal decreed Ishallah needed to learn to be an aristocratic Young Miss. She had been sent off before their Idahl had been convinced to sell his treasured daughter in a marriage of state craft, and A’Ferun could have used her help then quite a lot.
A’Ferun had uncovered the plot to have N’kieran framed for espionage as an excuse for the Bellorian dogs to break their treaty with Lusfal. Whether they were after war or trade concessions wasn’t clear, but it was enough to get the Idahl’s assent for A’Ferun to go after N’kieran. A’Ferun couldn’t help but believe that if Ishallah had been there to help him, he would have been able to set off a week earlier.
It was not Ishallah’s fault. She was a dutiful child of her family, and they would not have been friends if she did not know loyalty. Still, those few days difference plagued A’Ferun with a chorus of what-ifs. And, at the same time, sympathy for his friend’s plight — because A’Ferun knew how much Ishallah hated the thought of noble training — only pushed away his racing thoughts for so long.
The mage had been right to stop A’Ferun from trying to hammer his way into the walls where the soul tracker pointed. There was no telling what delicate arts were preserving his light’s life. He could not risk barreling in, but he had yet to find any entrance to the room that he knew had to be hidden there. He had even tried searching from the outside, using up a water breathing potion to scour the outer hull for any hidden ingresses. All he had found was the double-docked portal for the sea folk sailors to exit and enter the ship through the bilge, just under the ballast cavities.
They were on their way to Port Kaleen, where A’Ferun intended to equip the unmarked ship and get a crew together to sail back to Lusfal. There, the Idahl could order all the greatest mages of their nation to help free N’kieran from her prison upon this ship.
Because N’kieran wasn’t dead. He refused the possibility.
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On the sixth day of being towed, Aide had a breakthrough with the world’s System, and on the eighth day, they were ready to bring Prime in.
Prime really appreciated how much easier it was to cultivate in a dungeon core body, but she still felt enthused at the change of pace.
«So, here’s the hack,» Aide began. «The ship’s hull needs to be integrated into a pocket domain as the external anchor. To do that, we need to revert the core to its initialization stage. That’s actually good for us, because this core got interrupted by the cage during its first initialization, which is why it couldn’t spawn anything. It looks like it planned to be a vermin themed dungeon so it attracted rats and bugs and stuff, which, no thanks. If you don’t object, I’ll pass through the System screens. Ready?»
Mentally stretching, Prime said, «Sure.»
Then Prime’s senses stuttered, and she was drawn into an isolated pocket of mana.
The System screens of this world were similar to the painted paper and silk screens that decorated houses in eras before glass windows got popular, with notable differences. For one, the art on the screens was mostly mottled colors serving as a background for universally translated text. That text served as a medium to convey concepts, thus requiring no literacy on the viewer’s part to understand it. The other difference was that the screens acted more like a transparent film layered over top the physical reality. A shift in focused attention brought one layer to the viewer’s forefront and sent the other back.
| New Core Integration Instantiating …
| Welcome, new core! You are being integrated into the mana net of the Odakai World Matrix. Due to your location, certain options are available to you.
| Please select dungeon type:
Before Prime had a chance to respond, Aide projected, «Anchored Pocket Dimension.»
She then watched on as Aide selected the whole of the Hip Shot for the anchor, excluding the tow lines.
| ⚠ Error! Anchor space is occupied!
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«Just a sec …» Aide mumbled distractedly.
| Selection accepted. Please choose portal location:
That one, Prime had already figured out. Thanks to the sea folks’ bilge doors, being in the bottom of the ship wasn’t the best plan. A brief conference with Aide confirmed the choice, and a new doorway appeared in the officers’ quarters, one that looked very much like a closet door.
| Selection accepted. Please choose dungeon theme:
| Options for theme are: sea cave, coral reef, trench, vast waters.
«The options are really suggestions,» Aide quickly explained. «They help the System assign some beginning constructs for the core to use during mana cycling, and most cores are barely sentient. Still a proto-soul, so choice is important, but young enough the choice needs to be guided.»
Prime accepted that and moved on to the important bits. «So, we could have a farm theme? Or expand on the idea of sailing ships? Maybe choose a color for our theme? How fast do we need to decide?»
«We have years for the decision, and there aren’t any tags in the System for more esoteric concepts. We will get discounts for anything in our theme, but we won’t be prevented from getting anything not labeled ‘Forbidden’.» Then, knowing their partner, Aide quickly tacked on, «And ‘Forbidden’ is not an option.»
Prime chuckled. The duo brainstormed for a few hours before Aide remarked to Prime, «Do you remember our first Mana World assignment? You were so excited by the horned rabbits.»
«Mana Nature! That can be our theme!» Prime exclaimed.
«Mana Nature?» Aide repeated, confused.
«Yep! Not just mana beasts, but the plants and minerals they need, too!»
Aide had to double check, «Are you sure?»
«Yes!»
| Magic Beasts theme accepted.
| Please select one starting defender:
| Options for starting defender are: electric eels, flying fish, insidious anemones
«This is where the core we fought off got stuck,» Aide said. «They’re also more suggestions than options. The eel and fish are just elementally infused, which we can do on our own. The anemone actually has a mana enhanced venom, but it’s still a filter feeder. The suggestions line up with the expected capacity of a new core, which we’re only a little ahead of. For defenders, start stupid and smaller. Resources should be next, and for that single elements or plants with minor imbuements.»
Prime considered and offered, «How about water aligned turtles?»
«Not rabbits?» Aide teased.
«Later,» Prime assured. «Turtles bridge the sea and the land. Mm, but then again, so do crocodiles.»
«Crocodiles would be more fearsome defenders — in water. They’re not as dangerous where they can’t drown their prey,» Aide pointed out.
«True.»
After some bantering back and forth, the duo decided on shadow kraits, an ocean dwelling relative of cobras. They could repulse light from their vicinity, improving their stealth. Kraits weren’t true sea snakes, but they were comfortable living in coastal waters. Like dolphins and turtles, they needed to breach the surface to breathe, and like true sea snakes, they could respire through their skin. Unlike true sea snakes, they kept a round body and scales on their bellies, which let them maneuver on land like their cobra brethren.
When the choice for resources came up, the options presented were: blood kelp, purple sea grass, intoxicating oribel, mineral nacre, mana stones, and elemental stones for water, heat, chill, and light. Prime and Aide didn’t need to debate anything: mana, heat, and chill stones were good enough. Mana stones were fuel for constructs and artificing while the heat and chill elemental stones took care of temperature control.
After the “Selection accepted” notices, Aide said, «I’m going to pass along the “how to construct” packet. It’s close to item forging in Cultivation Worlds, but we are supplying the mana as well as shaping it.»
«It’s a gnosis packet?» Prime asked.
Aide teased, «Yes, you don’t have to read and figure it out yourself.»
«Good. Sure, let’s go for it,» Prime agreed, mentally rolling her eyes at her companion.
That only made Aide feel more playful through the bond, and Prime had to wonder how hard they had been pushing themselves to be this giddy at a break.
Actor Agents were paired with Aide Agents because someone had to handle the physical and social side of Story Worlds, just as well as the meta-mana side. The skill sets for those were quite distinct, and most entities capable of doing both solo were also Storytellers in their own right, overseeing their own worlds.
Prime may have been stuck doing cultivation mediation stuff since the Branching Event, which was usually a mentally taxing exercise. Aide, though, sounded like they needed a rest, and soon.
Prime had just enough time to realize all that before her mind was overwhelmed by the mathematics of folding, layering, and linking space.
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Prime’s deck was covered in crawling sensations when the math lesson cleared up.
«What did I miss?» she asked, trying to get the social aspects of her personality out of hibernation. Even her mental voice sounded sleep-thick through the bond.
Aide’s voice, on the other hand, was more relaxed. «We’re tied up to a dock, we had a few of the System generated mages tromp through, and now Muscle-Head is filling us up with all the things a sailing ship requires. Like ropes and sails and sailors.»
«Has anyone tried to get into our pocket place?» Prime asked.
Aide sounded amused in a genially superior way as he said, «They found the door, but right now there’s just the wall behind it. You haven’t built the first level out yet.»
«I? Not we?» she poked.
«You do the physical stuff, right? I’ll happily share my thoughts, but that’s more your part of our partnership.» That was definitely a smug tone in Aide’s voice.
From a certain perspective, they could be right, but, «This is our body. Shouldn’t we collaborate?»
«I handle the System interface, I’ll be your sounding board, and I’ll be monitoring the PLOT for stability,» Aide pointed out.
Prime realized she was being slow witted. «Right, I think I’m still math-scrambled. Um, some of the things in that gnosis dump implied I should be building a labyrinth?»
Aide was silent for a long moment, long enough that Prime felt the need to prod them. «Aide? … Partner? … Ol’ buddy, ol’ pal o’ mine?»
A sigh traveled down their bond. «I’m just organizing the Narrative pieces into something intelligible for you.»
Reassured, Prime watched the activity on her decks and below them while Aide went about their work. That activity stuttered down to a watch patrol as the light dimmed to nighttime levels. The more silvery light of the moon was near its peak intensity, the shadows that light cast short and dense, as if the moon were near its zenith when Aide began a thorough lecture on the Dungeon Core Narratives, with a focus on the aspects that the originator of this world had integrated with their PLOT.
Only star light and watch lanterns illuminated the decks when Aide was done and Prime said, «Well, that’s so very much not what I thought.»
«You have a puerile mind,» Aide snarked, their mood lightened by getting to hold forth on a subject they enjoyed.
«Your jealousy over my physicality is showing,» Prime rejoined, the teasing helping to wake her creative mind back up. «That aside, I think I like the training aspects of the Narratives more than the murder hole ones. The deciding factor is, what does the PLOT need?»
«Don’t let the mana fall into stale patterns. Mana conditioning is the primary point of our Role. Mm, skill improvements are a good goal for that, and the resources should help provide incentives. Plus, once we get better at this Dungeon building stuff, we can set up more anchor points, which will help me keep track of the PLOT’s stability.»
Prime nodded to herself. «Alright, objectives decided.»