Ray watched the clearing force exit through the portal. It had taken them four days to clear the entire HEX. Four days to do what the rest of the group had been entirely incapable of doing. Ray’s group had only cleared a few buildings during their explorations, and that had taken a full day. Not even Rivea, with all of her power, would have been capable of going up against the hordes of undead, monstrous creatures, and the HEX boss that had been located deep in the sewer system by herself.
In fact, they would have all died had they fought that thing. The giant lightning-breathing crocodile gave him shivers just thinking about it.
The other two factions, however, had been a separate matter entirely.
One of the factions had been made up of sentient pale white creatures that reminded Ray of the spine-throwing wall-crawling monstrosities from the warehouse prior to the Integration. The clearing team obliterated them.
The second faction was a bit more complex, however. It was made up of Orkin and humans. The half dozen Orkin had been eager to fight the clearing team, but the human part of the group had asked for a parlay. After sending Rivea in to negotiate, Ray had learned the group had no desire to join them. While he wanted to save every human he could, he wasn’t about to bring in more problems than he could take on. He certainly wasn’t about to endanger his mission for a few stubborn souls. They were given the choice to either fight to the death or to leave the hex entirely.
They chose to leave. An easy solution to a possibly complex issue. He hoped.
The problems had solved themselves for the most part, and they hadn’t gotten any levels or skills out of the deal all of the loot was theirs as part of the agreement with the Trion CEO. Their treasury was flush with loot, boxes, and goods that they were still working through and categorizing. The Goblins had been great for this task, even if they were a bit slow. Talla had offered early on to go through everything for them, for a small price of course, but Ray had politely declined. If they were going to learn about this insane world they now lived in this would be a good first step.
Ray looked out the window from his third-floor office. His new third-floor office that is. His group had hardly been idle for the four days that the Trion clear squad had been working. Derrick had massively altered the block that their original building had been located on. There were no longer three office complexes there. Instead, Derrick had ended up using a considerable amount of the funds that had been given to them, along with most of the Power between them, in exchange for the Power Cube he had created. The result was the beginning of a city block-sized fortress, although Derrick fondly referred to it as a fortified arcology.
Granted, the lower levels were heavily fortified with fighting positions, and space for future defensive emplacements, and had walls that were dozens of feet thick made of reinforced plascrete. The shop had been moved to the third floor, where Ray’s new office was, and where the commercial hub would be in the future.
The third floor was empty. Derrick had said something about setting up crafting or manufacturing there or something. Ray wasn’t entirely sure. He left the layout to his insane, building focused friend. He had no aptitude for that stuff.
The fourth and fifth floors were the residential floors, with the sixth being an open-air aviary for Rivea. Derrick said he had future plans to expand the complex even further up, but that the space they had now would house fifteen to twenty times their current number before that became even remotely necessary.
That left the basement level where the fuel tanks were.
Derrick had thought about it until he nearly ripped his hair out but ended up deciding to install a basic hand pump leading to the third floor. Then he sealed the basement off entirely until they had the resources to do something else with it. The engineer swore an underground level was nothing but a liability, particularly with something as intentionally built as an arcology. Ray just left him to it to design everything and implement it. He was confident that given enough time, materials, and NEX Derrick would build something that couldn’t be broken into. Their home now already put their previous fortress on Governors Island to shame.
Ray frowned, turning to a map on the wall. As it turned out they weren’t on Governors Island anymore. He had initially thought the island had been converted into buildings to mirror the city, those changes would have been understandable and in line with what the note from the Administrator had told him. No, they had been moved entirely to what had been Manhattan Island. At least Ray thought so. The island itself now more accurately resembled some super metropolis like Tokyo, however.
The clearing team had mapped out the edges of the hex during their operations and had yet to even see water of any kind. This told Ray the island, if they even were on one to begin with, was so large it probably contained multiple hexes. Ray’s hex was roughly forty city blocks in each direction from where they were. With each block being a rectangle, this meant the hex was about two miles wide and two miles long… and had an interior of round four and a half square miles. Ray wasn’t sure how accurate that was, but that was the number that the clearing team had given him.
At roughly fifteen buildings, offices, and apartment buildings per block, with the occasional park and open space, the clearing team had rolled through almost sixteen hundred buildings in four days. That was, by any stretch, an insane number for an even more insane time frame. But that brought them to where they were now, and the System message that was currently hovering in front of Ray.
{CLAIM HEX ACTIVATED}
POWER REQUIRED – 50
POWER REQUIREMENTS MET
HEX IS NOT CONTESTED
HOSTILE CREATURES REMAINING – 0
HOSTILE FACTIONS REMAINING – 0
INITIATE CLAIM – Y / N
“Do you think I should claim it now?” Ray asked aloud, turning to the others in the room. Derrick, Nyx, and Rivea were arrayed on the chairs and couch around his office, watching as he worked through his thoughts. “I have no idea what will happen. No clue. We could get swarmed. Could become a target. Or something else we can’t even begin to predict could happen.”
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Derrick snorted, “It's going to be that last one. I say we plan for the worst, claim the hex, and have Rivea burn the hell out of anything that comes our way. We need to locate the others if they are even still alive.”
“They are. I know it,” Ray said confidently. Something told him Josephine, Grok, and the others were alive and well. They had to be. The alternative was… simply unacceptable.
Rivea snorted almost in tandem with Nyx. The two eyed each other for a moment before the Drake spoke. “Claim the damn territory Boss. Seriously. We can’t clear all that shit again on our own, and your fucking demonic benefactor won’t extend his graces a second time. Not free of charge. Just do it and we can handle everything else as it comes our way.”
Swallowing, Ray realized that Rivea had a point. Taking a deep breath, he slammed his finger into the accept button with purpose… only to stumble as his finger went through the System screen menu. Clearing his throat, his brain froze as his eyes locked onto the red screen that appeared in front of him.
{HEX TERRITORY CLAIMED}
CLAIM NUMBER – 1
HEX NUMBER – 1341
{WARNING}
WORLD NODE ACTIVATED AND ASSIGNED
{WARNING}
SYSTEM-WIDE MESSAGE INITIATED
“Oh shit… no wait!” Ray said, but it was far too late for that.
{ALERT TO ALL PLANETARY INHABITANTS}
THE FIRST CLAIM ON YOUR RECENTLY INTEGRATED WORLD HAS BEEN MADE.
CONGRATULATIONS TO THE FIRST TERRITORY OWNER RAYMOND FINNEGAN!
THE WORLD NODE HAS BEEN ASSIGNED TO HEX 1341.
THE WORLD NODE HAS BEEN ACTIVATED.
PRIMARY RACE ASSIGNED TO EARTH 4 – HUMAN
{WARNING}
{ALERT TO ALL PLANETARY INHABITANTS}
THE PLANETARY NODE HAS BEEN UPGRADED TO NEXUS NODE
{WARNING}
SHARD OF CREATION HAS BEEN DETECTED
SHARD OF CREATION HAS BEEN ASSIGNED TO THE NEXUS NODE
{WARNING}
NEXUS NODE HAS BEEN UPGRADED TO DIMENSIONAL NODE
{ALERT TO ALL PLANETARY INHABITANTS}
CONGRATULATIONS ON THE ASSIGNMENT OF A DIMENSIONAL NODE TO YOUR WORLD!
PROTECT YOUR DIMENSIONAL NODE AT ALL COSTS.
FAILURE TO PROTECT YOUR DIMENSIONAL NODE WILL RESULT IN THE REASSIGNMENT OF THE NODE.
“Huh. Well… yeah don’t listen to me about making choices going forward,” Rivea admitted shamelessly. “We are totally fucked.”
Ray blinked and turned towards the Drake mechanically. “What in all hell is a Dimensional Node?” he asked, totally lost at what had just happened. But Rivea only shrugged. Turning to ask Talla, he noticed that the Shop was vacant. The normal lights and open signs were off.
His shopkeeper had vanished.
“I have a distinctly funny feeling that we are completely, irremovably, and entirely screwed Ray,” Derrick said calmly. “How or why, I don’t know. But those messages? The ones that apparently went out to everyone on the planet? Yeah… those are never good.”
The engineer looked around before continuing, “On the other hand, I don’t see any changes to the building or the territory. We didn’t get an incursion alert either. And my ability…” he trailed off, a frown on his face. “That’s weird… I can’t see the basement.”
One of Derrick's abilities was to sense any portion of a building that was fully controlled by them. His architectural sense allowed him to alter the buildings at will, or to find issues with construction that would have been missed normally. In essence, he was a walking drafting board.
“You two,” Ray said quickly, pointing at two Goblins, “And Nyx, and Derrick. You’re with me. We need to check the basement. If it’s even still there. Rivea, keep an eye out here and let me know if anything happens. I don’t think things are going to stay calm for long. Fucking world announcement,” he muttered as he stalked off.
The Goblins saluted smartly as they fell in line and followed the group to the door that led downwards into the depths of the building. However, the door wasn’t there. Instead, in its place, was a wall of silver with a shimmering haze of energy coming off of it as though it were insanely hot. Not actually feeling any heat, however, Ray walked forward and reached a hand out to touch the door.
The moment his fingers crossed into the haze that was hovering above the door a System message popped up. This one was, thankfully, entirely blue.
{DIMENSIONAL NODE}
TERRITORY OWNER REGISTERED
DIMENSIONAL NODE IS NOW ACCESSIBLE
With that, the wall in front of him melted into the ground, revealing a hallway that extended into the depths of the earth. Eyeing the possible death trap, Ray noticed the walls were made of that same shimmering material. Probably something that they could, possibly, eventually, make. But it was unlike anything he had ever seen before.
Ray eyed the tunnel and turned to the Goblins, “Scout out the tunnel. If you see anything that looks dangerous come back immediately. Dump your weapons if they slow you down.” The pair nodded and tried walking into the tunnel, only to bounce off the shimmering field that covered the area. Nyx and Derrick tried moving in as well, but it was like trying to walk through a solid wall.
“You know, it's weird. I figured that with Nyx being a literal part of you and all that she would be able to enter just fine. There must be all kinds of crazy stipulations and restrictions on who can even enter this space,” speculated Derrick. “On the other hand, that means it's probably the safest space in the entire territory for you to be in. I would just go on in, there shouldn’t be any kind of threat there.”
Ray gave him the evil eye. “Right. Nothing dangerous. Nothing that could upend life as we know it… even more than it has been. Sure.” Derrick laughed at that but didn’t stop Ray as he walked up to the shimmering field… and passed right through it with no issue.
“See? No issues at all,” the engineer reinforced. “Experiment successful. I bet that you, as the territory owner, are the only one that has access at all. You may not even be able to change the settings.”
Ray turned and started further in, waving over his shoulder in lieu of a response.. They wouldn’t be able to follow him in apparently, so they would settle in at the top of the tunnel to wait for him.
Ray moved deeper into the tunnel, watching the walls, floor, and ceiling for any traps or ambushes. But the tunnel remained non-descript, the walls glowing just enough with that haze lingering off of them for the path forward to be visible. It was silent, cool, and more than a little eerie. Ray continued down the tunnel for several minutes, the width and height never differentiating at any point in time. There wasn’t anything to tell him how far he had even gone, the tunnel was completely non-descript.
Then he walked into a wall.
Bouncing off the side of the tunnel he realized that it had made a sharp left turn. However, the material was so similar he hadn’t even seen the bend before he had walked into the wall.
“Whoever designed this place needs to be shot,” he grumbled, getting back to his feet. He turned to where the tunnel now went and noticed that there was another one of those odd-looking doors. Walking up to it, he didn’t even need to touch it as it melted into the floor. Beyond that, in the center of a spherical room, was a large silver orb. It reminded him immensely of the Node that he had planted prior to the Integration. There was one big difference, however… right above that sphere, and touching the very top of it was a large perfectly cut diamond.
He walked up to the sphere and was met with a System message as he observed the odd sight.
{DIMENSIONAL NODE}
He looked at the message for a moment before dismissing it with a sigh. “Yeah, but what the hell does that mean?” he wondered aloud. Unfortunately, no one responded. Either this Dimensional Node was inert and wasn’t capable of answering his questions, and the function was something he had discovered himself, or there was something he had to do to somehow activate it. Either way, the process was frustrating and annoying.
“Activate node?” he said aloud, but nothing happened. He tried several more tactics verbally with no results before he got frustrated. Annoyed, he focused on the sphere and diamond with his ability. If he couldn’t interact with it through his verbal commands, maybe it needed an ability or something to latch onto.
He focused on the orb and diamond. The glistening, foggy effect rolled off of the oddly paired duo as if they were meant to be paired... The effect absorbed the entirety of his concentration… he was fully enraptured in the perfect shapes that were in front of him. The more he watched, the more perfect they became. His vision began to tunnel.
Right up until the darkness consumed him.