We land at the agreed upon location, hidden at the base of the bulging walls of the ice canyon.

Neither the pilot or cook are willing to call me captain.

They call me a bunch of other, less illustrious names instead.

Entitled citizens, they demand to be released immediately. Even going so far as to offer me amnesty for kidnapping them in the first place. They would forget the entire thing ever happened. It would be a kind offer, if I believed it.

I lock them in their tiny rooms instead, separate.

Zeteo, please keep an eye on our guests.

They are boring to watch. I did see the cook picking his nose though. That was weird. You’ve never done that. The pilot just stares at the bulkheads, and sleeps.

Just make sure they can’t leave the room.

I go to the kitchen and remove my armor piece by piece, setting each in a pile under a table coming out of a bulkhead. I carefully fold the second skin and place it on top of the pile. I wear a shirt and shorts I found in the captain's room. It fits remarkably well.

I hope the cook doesn’t pick his nose while in the kitchen.

He just ate something from inside his nose! Do you keep snacks in your nose? It does seem convenient.

Ew.

Not anymore. I did as a child, but it's considered gross. My nose is too small now anyways. Wouldn’t be worth it.

The cook is gross.

I place the two cores I harvested from the Thermos on the table, removed from the containers in my leg armor. 2 of 145 cores I now own. A small fortune. Plenty of food for a friendly dungeon.

I feed Zeteo his core and I expect it to be a much more tedious process than what happens. It’s over in seconds. I hold the harvested Geo core to my head, and Zeteo just devours it greedily. It just disappears, shrinking into my head like it’s being sucked through a straw.

Now I want food for myself.

I eye the kitchen I’m standing in and can’t shake the thought of boogers in all the food.

Nope, he’s a chef on a private spaceship, he gets the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it’s a nervous habit.

Yea that’s it.

I’ve always enjoyed the food I was given while growing up, and was always given fresh hot meals, unless the current training didn’t allow for it.

The food on this ship is something else entirely. A variety of Strong cheeses, small baskets of different fruits and vegetables. Thick sweet cream sits out beside two different loaves of bread, one sweet and one similar to sourdough. They are still warm, cooling on a wire rack.

I eat mostly cheese and bread. The bread has a thick crispy crust, with a pillowy soft, and chewy interior. Along With the sweet cream stuff, which reminds me of earth honey, it satisfies my body and mind. I have to lick the thick sweet cream from my fingers when finished.

I wish I had washed my hands first.

The media is already covering the “murder” of Zeteo, one of the oldest dungeons on the planet. Retribution is promised against the vile enemies of progress responsible for the assassination, and subsequent theft.

Images of the assault, and our ship fleeing into the sky are shown. Zeteo and Dungey did a fantastic job on the images captured of Val-Tey soldiers. Intense hate speech for the Val-Tey is regurgitated over and over again by every news source.

The holy war has never ceased, but has slowed down considerably once our many enemies formed their Union. The Val-Tey have never been this successful until now, and this act of war has rekindled a smoldering fire within the Vangian people.

The Valt-Tey are a conglomerate of alien races United for one purpose, to oppose Vangian domination. The name Val-Tey, means resist together.

Now, different variations of “Resist together, fall together” are the headlines everywhere.

The media calls for war, and the people answer.

It happens so fast. The next two days, while I rest, plan, and absorb two cores, all that is shown are the massive numbers of volunteers joining the military.

Everyone aged 15 and up have a place whether they fight, cook, wash, or weld.

It’s madness, and I hope I havnt caused too many problems for the Val-Tey, but maybe the mass mobilization will make my next operation easier.

I still don’t know how a single man, even backed by two dungeon cores, can hope to break into a fortified facility, steal what the facility was made to protect, and then leave again.

Zeteo isn’t very helpful.

Walk in, kill everyone that’s a threat, grab Dungey, and walk out. I’ll open the doors, and lock them too if needed. Easy.

At least 5 full synergists are living on the base. I don’t think I can simply kill them all. Maybe someone with a more specific skill set could do something, but these aren’t beasts. Harvesters hunt creatures in squads, not synergists, and not alone.

You have a squad Quall!

I know Zeteo, you know what I mean. I’m one body.

My two captives aren’t any help either. They just eat my food, and water, then shit and piss it out.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

I’ve tried talking to them a few times in the last couple days, but they are still upset, and refuse to even listen to me.

They see my implant now that I’ve removed my helmet, and know I’m a servant. They give me orders, and are surprised each time I refuse.

I leave the ship many times to get some fresh icy air, and to test my two new cores out. My core set is common amongsynergists, but strong. With a mix of Geo, Thermal, and Bio, I can deal lots of damage, and take just as much.

With enough Bio Geia I can regrow limbs, or poison my enemies.

Thermal Geia is more interesting to play with. After absorbing the Thermal core into my Nouse Angos, I can create a thin stream of my new Giea and reach nearly ten meters away with it. The Giea itself looks like the shimmer above a hot street, or a mirage in the desert.

It responds to my will just as easily as Geo does. The Giea flows just like when it’s in my body. If the flow stops, I lose control and it diffuses into the air. The faster I force it to flow, the hotter it gets. I can form it anyway I choose, as long as a strand of it is connected to me, and it continues to flow.

I can make it hot enough to melt metal, and then manipulate the molten material easily.

More importantly, I can keep the heat completely contained within. Even an inch away from the ice, my molten metal blade doesn’t melt any of it. I can force the molten, swiftly flowing metal into a thin, strong blade.

The technique is widely known, and used, but it doesn’t take away from the delight I have slicing into the ice wall. It flash boils the ice on contact in explosions of steam with every swing, and the billows of steam refreeze in the frigid air.

Limp metal melts much easier, and is easier to manipulate, but doesn’t retain its shape when I swing it around. The limp molten metal acts more like a whip. The whip I form is extremely satisfying. If I swing it hard enough the furthest from me I can stay connected, the molten metal sprays another few yards, steaming and gushing its heat when it leaves my field of influence.

The sounds of the metal being manipulated are much duller when heated. It’s a constant, reverberating sound like one of those doorstops I remember playing with as a child on earth, but with much tighter vibrations. The sound changes pitch, higher to lower as it gets hotter.

In addition to containing every bit of heat, I can release the stored heat in bursts, in any direction I want.

It’s a Giea hungry technique, but creates tremendous shockwaves with every burst. I only release tiny bits of Giea here, afraid I’ll bring chunks of ice down on top of me and my newly acquired ship.

I have to keep moving as I keep creating little craters of water in the ice.

It refreezes quickly, leaving, weird half bowl of liquid looking indentations behind me.

My new Bio core is harder to test. No plants are around for me to absorb their energy, and I don’t feel like hurting myself just to see how fast I heal.

We shouldn’t sit around anymore. You have your cores. Let's get in there and save Dungey! He is waiting for us.

I feel like I can take an army of synergists after absorbing two cores in two days. After witnessing the sheer power I can wield, and how easily it is to manipulate.

Instead of charging in as Zeteo suggests repeatedly, on the third day I try to absorb another core in my foundation Angos.

I fail completely, and would be dead or crippled if Zeteo wasn't here, watching. My Giea network rejects the Geia violently, but keeps trying to absorb the core even when I try to sever the connection.

Zeteo has to quickly eat the core before I damage my Angos, rerouting the stream of Giea into itself. The ordeal leaves me shaken, memories of that boy convulsing on the ground invade my thoughts.

That was close. I don’t think you did it right.

What should I do differently? I had no problem absorbing the thermal core into my Nouse, even though you’re already there.

I’m not sure, I’ve never absorbed a core like you do, what I do is more consumption than absorption. I actually use the Giea to sustain myself. When you absorb a core your body keeps it alive, and it continues to produce Giea. Your body does use some of the energy it produces, but I break the core down completely within myself, effectively killing it.

As far your Nouse goes, I am already in a deeper layer of the Angos. You just absorbed the Thermal core into the area it would normally go.

I decide to not try that again until I have a better idea of what I am doing wrong.

Good idea!

I focus my meditation sessions on trying to find the layers Zeteo says exist within my Angos’.

It’s frustrating because I can see two distinct layers when I enter Iroi, and examine my Nouse. No amount of examination reveals any layering of my other two Angos’.

My food and drink is running out by the third day, even rationing, the ships stores aren’t meant to last this long.

I can’t wait anymore.

I armor up and prepare for battle.

Yes! Finally! I’m ready!

I gather every spare piece of metal from the ship, which ends up being a lot. The tables, chairs, bed frames, and metal crates are all useful. Even chunks of bulkheads and entire doors that aren’t being used to contain my prisoners.

I condense it all down and create a large, ultra dense blade that weighs an obscene amount. I can only use it effectively if I use Geia to help move it.

The blade is as tall as me, and almost as wide, so it can function as a shield as well as a sword. It’s my very own buster sword, and I can’t help but strike a few poses, admiring my reflection in the ice. I take a moment to look up at the clouds, and I smile.

I look damn good.

You do look damn good! All sharp and scary, with your big hunk of heavy metal!

I have enough metal left over to also carry a couple spheres the size of racquetballs in a pack I took from the ship.

I am also wearing a simple handgun I found in my new room. I have to modify the belt the holster is on to fit around my armored waist.

It fires molded gemstone bullets. They look like diamonds in the shape of a small Phillips head drill bit. I found a couple hundred rounds in the captain's cabin.

The gemstones used to create the ammunition keep the Geia stored within as potent as the day they were filled. Unlike most forms of Geo that absorb ambient Geia and slowly transform it into Geo energy, these specific gemstones hold and preserve a vast amount of any Geia, except Pneuma. The bullets are designed to shatter upon impact, releasing their payload of stored energy.

When filled with Geo Giea however, the gemstones become incredibly resilient, piercing rounds that will only shatter if they impact something equally tough. Few materials exist that can manage it.

The gun itself is bulkier than anything I have seen on earth, able to hold up to three different types of ammunition, ten of each can be loaded at a time.

The little gemstone bullets are stored in strips of ten, allowing for relatively easy reloading. They pop into little slots on each side and top of the gun. The strip of rubber-like material holding the ammunition is then discarded. The rounds that the gun fires is changed with a simple lever similar to a safety latch but on the back of the gun, where the hammer would be on an earth handgun.

I load the gun with Geo, Thermal, and Bio rounds, keeping the rest in separate pouches. It’s difficult to retrieve the ammunition, and even more so to load the gun with my bulky armored gloves, but it can be done.

I have no choice but to leave my prisoners here, with enough food for a day or two if they are careful.

I don’t tell them that if I don’t come back in a day they will probably die here.

The plan we come up with is terrible, and overly reliant on luck, and my enemies being stupid. Vangians are anything but stupid, but being able to control their information will at least make them ignorant. I have to hope it is enough.