Adam woke from his bed, looked around the cavern, and noted that his mother was nowhere to be seen. She must still be in that meeting with the other elder dragons down here. He had the nanites break down his bed while he checked on Aeris. She wasn’t on Gemma anywhere. Adam checked the time, two hours until the two-week mark so either she must think he’d meant exactly two weeks, or she was off wherever she went when she disappeared. With a portal power, she could go anywhere.
As far as Adam could tell, Aeris hadn’t begun to plan for getting the existence of dragons out to the rest of the population. That was fine, Adam would do that right now. He sat down near where his bed had been, dropped into his Mindspace, and began putting together an announcement, as well as the history of what had been going on for the last 100 years. He pulled files from the computers that existed within the nine dragon sanctuaries as well as footage from the cameras that they had in the cities that showcased the arrival and release of the prisoners into the hunting areas.
As he went through the data, Adam noted that just like the Syndicate, but on a much smaller scale, the hunts were televised and there was even a small amount of gambling going on. People making a profit off of other people's misery and death seemed to be a theme that kept repeating no matter what universe, cosmos, or dimension Adam ended up in. Adam made sure to add footage of those bets and the individuals that had been making them as well as documentation for anyone that participated in the gambling.
As he dug deeper into the gambling enterprise Adam discovered that some of the prominent leaders from a lot of the various races knew that dragons existed and even visited the sanctuaries where they watched the festivities. Adam expected that kind of behavior from some of the more inherently evil types but even the high elves, dwarves, and gnomes had individuals that flew out to the sanctuaries where the hunts took place.
In addition to their participation, Adam also found evidence that some of the people, not dragons, but people in positions of power had utilized the system to get their competition arrested and sent off to the sanctuary to participate in the hunts. This allowed them to profit off of their run, and inevitable death, in the hunting grounds as well as profit off their removal as competition.
The information he was accessing and reviewing at machine speed was of course encrypted and hidden on drives that were not networked. Some were hidden and not even plugged in. Since he had nanites throughout the world in every inorganic molecule on Gemma and he could speak almost every known language and program in just about every other language that existed it wasn’t even a second before the encoded patterns were deciphered and rendered into the information he cross correlated and put together for his report.
When he met with Aeris, he’d show her the report he’d put together as well as all the documentation he had. He wanted Aeris to know what was going to be released in his report if she didn’t offer to come clean with the rest of the world. He was hoping this would force her to come to the negotiation table. If not, she’d attack, he’d end her, and then he’d go talk to Fenris who he had been able to keep track of the entire time he’d been underground. Fenris kept to himself, didn’t participate in the hunts, or do anything else Adam would categorize as deplorable while his nanites had been keeping an eye on the world.
Adam exited his Mindspace and stood. The dragons in this cavern had not bothered him once. None had even flown to check on him. Though he was sure he was being watched. There were plenty of caves and ledges around this giant cave with plenty of dragons with lines of sight on him. He could use his nanites to find out who was watching but ultimately he didn’t care so left that question alone. He pulled up his memory of the location he’d landed to speak with Aeris and used Molded Chaos to create a Gate between his current location and the top of the hill Aeris and he had talked on.
The Gate portal opened onto the hills with the clouds that went off into the distance. Adam stepped through the gate and allowed it to close behind him as he looked around for Aeris. As before there was no sun but the light was bright and diffuse throughout the cloudy environment. Also, Aeris was nowhere in sight.
Adam jumped into the air and transformed into his dragon form as he took flight to look around. As he rose he realized that he had been on a very small island that floated in an endless sky. There were other islands scattered around him as well. If he had to guess he had to be in a dimension or plane of air with islands scattered throughout it. Once he was about a mile above the island he’d arrived on, Adam locked himself in place spatially and looked around. With his dragon eyes and insanely high perception, he easily made out all the nearby islands and hidden features that surrounded him.
Scattered around the island were 14 pillars that when viewed in his mind’s eye three-dimensionally formed an icosahedron. A shape he was familiar with because it was the shape used for the 20-sided die that most of his role-playing games used. It was also laid out in a huge area with the island he’d arrived on at its center which meant he was near the middle as it looked like each side of this icosahedron was at least five miles which meant that the minimum distance between two outer panels was 7.55762 miles while the maximum distance from the two furthest points would be 9.51056 miles. Which radius was used to determine where the center was. It looked like Aeris had used the circumradius, or the longest radius, to set up the pillars that now enclosed the island as the center point.
If this was all set up as a trap to capture him then Aeris was nearby waiting for him. Undoubtedly as soon as they made eye contact she’d set off her trap. Adam guessed giving someone two weeks to come up with a plan to capture or kill him had probably been a bad idea. Regardless, there was only one way for this to go down so Adam continued to look for Aeris until he found her hovering near an island and an open portal. So, a Death trap then.
As Adam’s eyes contacted Aeris’s eyes, Adam moved exactly 10 miles backward, which would place him outside of the icosahedron. There was a crack of thunder as Adam traveled at Mach 50 to move 10 miles in a single second. He was able to stop instead of slowing down normally by utilizing his racial ability to spatially lock himself in place, though his body did take damage as if he’d hit a wall, except to his whole body. Of course, his regeneration rate healed the damage instantly. Of course, since he was in his dragon form, no bones had broken, nor had his skin or scales ruptured. His adamantium dragon body had held up fine under the stress.
Adam was at least three miles outside of the icosahedron when purple lines erupted from a point just inside each pillar that connected all of the pillars and created the 20-sided shape around the floating islands inside it. As the lines formed each panel of the icosahedron solidified into a purple pane of energy and Adam lost sight of Aeris. Adam moved close to one of the flat areas and brought his hand up to touch it.
WARNING! You have touched an energy matrix constructed of Primal Anti ERROR
WARNING! Any physical matter that makes contact with Primal Anti ERROR is instantly obliterated.
Adam pulled his hand back and noted that the first quarter inch of his scales from his palm and fingers were gone. Erased as if they hadn’t even existed. His hand started to heal and regenerate as soon as he pulled it back though. There hadn’t even been a damage notification. The energy had acted like it was an eraser as it just removed the part of his hand that had pressed against and into the panel of energy just a little bit.
Adam thought about it for a moment then swapped to his human form. He thought for a moment then willed himself to allow his body to convert so all of his cells took on the properties of Chaos, which turned him into a pearlescent blob of white energy. Then he shifted and altered his chaotic form so that all the chaos in his body now became an aspect of “Nothing. He’d hidden inside a piece of chaos that had taken on the properties of “Nothing” once upon a time. He’d been within that artificial environment he’d created but he’d never tried to have his body take on those properties. It was the weirdest thing.
To begin with, his field of view changed from eye level to 360 degrees by 360 degrees, he could see in all directions. Additionally, he couldn’t close his eyes because he didn’t have any. Also, the field that was considered his body fluctuated. He could concentrate and hold his size, but it seemed like the sphere of “Nothing” he’d become was fluctuating in size. As he willed himself to stabilize he realized that the area that he considered himself now included all the pillars that had created icosahedron. The area of Primal Anti ERROR Energy was completely within himself. Just as the thought entered his mind to think, Uh Oh, Warning Prompts started appearing in his vision, which admittedly was a much larger area now.
WARNING! Primal Anti ERROR has entered your body and is destr….. ERROR!!!
WARNING! Division by Zero ERROR.
WARNING! NOTHING can not be eradicated by Primal Anti ERROR!!!
WARNING! Anti Region destabilizing
WARNING! Destabilization imminent
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Adam watched each of the pillars of icosahedron dissolve as the purple Primal Anti-ERROR energy flashed into each and then tried to explode outward.
WARNING! Primal Anti ERROR is not compatible with matter of any kind.
WARNING! Primal Chaos can take on the aspect of Anti ERROR energy. Would you like to absorb and restrict Primal Anti ERROR energy.
SYSTEM NOTICE: This system would like to reiterate how much it hates issues. If this energy is released without closing the portal that was created at the center of the icosahedron that was just destroyed a rupture will be created that will expand through this dimension and additional adjacent dimensions which include the dimension Gemma resides on.
Adam heard a cough, an actual cough before the message continued.
SYSTEM NOTICE Continued: If you would be so kind as to restrict the dispersal of Primal Anti ERROR and close the portal. I, this SYSTEM instance, will owe you a favor. I have no idea how I can repay such a favor as your ability to handle this occurrence surpasses my abilities, but I will owe you a genuine favor.
Adam paused for only a moment before he thought, Twelve favors!
SYSTEM NOTE: Agreed.
Once the decision was made Adam began squeezing the energy back toward the point where it was entering this dimension. He felt the pressure equalize and then the sphere it had expanded into began to shrink. While he continued to squeeze the Primal Anti ERROR energy back through the portal Aeris had created he thought about what the System had said and about the energy that he was manipulating. The System would have a hard time creating “Nothing” to deal with this problem so the SYSTEM probably hadn’t lied when it said this could be a problem. Additionally, Adam knew that this problem was one Aeris could recreate which meant that he was going to need to handle her in a permanent fashion, which sucked. To release power like that into an area that could kill billions, that act was unconscionable.
As Adam continued to squeeze the energy through the portal he allowed his field of vision to look at where he’d last seen Aeris. As he’d expected she was nowhere to be found and the portal was closed. He thought about opening a portal to Gemma so he could establish contact with his nanites there and see if she’d fled back to Athens. Doing so would be too dangerous so he just continued to squeeze.
After a half hour, Adam had squeezed all the excess energy back into the portal and was currently holding part of himself over the portal as a wall to prevent any Primal Anti ERROR energy from flooding into the dimension he was currently in. Adam made sure to surround the portal with his body and then pushed himself through the portal so that only a small portion remained behind as he brought his Point of View into a realm that was utterly dark except for a few transient flashes of purple here and there. He inspected the portal. As he thought, this side of the portal was being fueled by the energy that made up this place. He could feel the draw from his surroundings as the portal tried to pull energy that was more compatible with it from him.
Adam committed the feeling of the place to his memory. Once he was sure he could open a portal to this place if he desired he moved his field of view and most of his body back through the portal and began surrounding the portal inside the dimension of Primal Anti-ERROR energy. Once he surrounded the portal inside that Primal dimension about 1% of Adam was left behind as the portal snapped closed. Without a portion of his mind to control that portion of himself it might revert to a normal physical form and be destroyed or it might remain as “Nothing” and float around inside that dimension forever. There was no way of knowing.
What Adam did know was that the portal was closed and that there was nothing within five miles of him. Nothing at all. No air, no islands, nothing. That changed suddenly as the gases of this dimension slapped into him from all sides, and the pressure stabilized. It didn’t hurt but the sudden pressure change did cause his ears to pop.
Adam floated there in his amorphous form and opened a very small portal to a spot one mile above Athens. As he flowed through the portal he tried to initiate contact with his nanites, but the quantum link would not connect. If he’d been in his humanoid form he would have slapped himself on the head. Of course, it wouldn’t connect, his body currently had no physical parts for the quantum links to attach to. The “Division by Zero ERROR” had confirmed what he was thinking. Primal Anti ERROR, whatever type of energy it was, couldn’t reduce nothing to nothing. That would be the equivalent of dividing zero by zero. Something that was not possible. He should have a workaround though.
Adam activated Technomancy and connected with the nanites floating in the air around him. With a little mental tweaking, he soon had a direct link to the computer he'd set up in the underground lair he’d had the nanites create near the magma chamber. It even had twenty portal devices and room enough for his family and friends once he brought them back, which he was planning to do just as soon as he took care of Aeris and took Adjra to talk to Fenris. Adam maintained his formlessness above Athens as he used his nanites to confirm Aeris's location which was halfway around the planet on a tropical island. As places to die went, that was a pretty good choice, even if she didn’t know she’d be dead in a few moments.
Adam wondered if he’d make a popping sound if he teleported, then decided what the hell, if he did, it wouldn’t matter. Using Molded Chaos, Adam teleported his current amorphous body of “Nothing” right next to Aeris. She didn’t even react. She was sitting at a desk in her high-elf form as she wrote something into a ledger. Adam, shifted his perception a bit and read what she was writing down. It looked like she was scribbling formulas and notes concerning how she’d set up the icosahedron and how she’d killed him. Interesting, she still thought she’d been successful. Before he ruined her day he made sure that the nanites had records of everything in the room and then surrounded her in a very thin bubble of himself.
Adam expanded himself outside of the bubble of nothing to make sure there was no chance of a leak springing and then used Molded Chaos to create a very small gate portal to the Primal Anti ERROR dimension directly behind her head. Adam considered it to be poetic justice when the interior of the sphere he’d created, which contained Aeris, filled with the Primal energy, and he felt his nanites that were in the air adjacent to her skin record the simultaneous evaporation of Aeris while they also evaporated. Aeris had even tried to change into her Dragon form which had only killed her more quickly as she tried to grow to her full side inside a 10-foot diameter sphere. Adam was sure a portion of her body went into the Primal Anti ERROR Dimension like a huge zit being popped before the energy, the word he was going to use to describe it, broke down the remains of her body. It took a few more moments for the Primal energy to completely dissolve the rest of Aeris before Adam squished the energy back out of this dimension and closed the portal gate.
Once he was sure the gate was closed and the dimensional barriers were stable again, Adam allowed himself to shift back to his humanoid form as his nanites recreated everything in the room that had been destroyed by the Primal Anti ERROR Energy. It had been unsportsmanlike behavior to do that to her, but she started it. Seriously though, anyone using that dimension without understanding that the pillars were going to fail would have tried to use it again and next time Adam probably wouldn’t be around. If he was being honest, it was just simple luck that he was here and able to deal with the situation at all. He could understand that such a dimension was destined to exist, but it was truly formidable if it could destroy him and percentage points of his body with a touch. Even his Chaotic Nature couldn’t stand up to it unless it took on a specific trait which only Chaos would be able to. What were the odds?
Adam sat down heavily. He hated just systematically killing people that didn’t have a chance against him. It wasn’t fair by any stretch of that word's definition. Still, it had to be done. He looked around the room he was in and realized that he was sitting in a rather nice room that would be a perfect place for Fenris and Adjra to meet. With a thought, he opened a portal above Fenris and sent a telepathic link.
Adam: Fenris, Adam here. Aeris is no more. I am sitting in her study currently. I would like you to step through a portal I’ll open near you in a moment to sit down with Adjra.
Fenris: Adam, Aeris is dead? Why have we not heard about it? Also, please open your portal and I’ll step through. I have been to her study before, so I’ll know if you’re being truthful.
Adam: Very well, a portal will open now, please step through.
Adam broke the telepathic link and opened a portal to Fenris, allowing him to step through and take a seat off to his left. Adam planned to open a portal on the opposite side of the table so both Adjra and he could sit across from each other. Fenris, in his old man form, stepped through the portal and took a seat at the table.
“Refreshments?” Adam asked.
“An Ale would be lovely?” Fenris said.
“Very well,” Adam said as he had the nanites create an ale of the type he most often drank over the last two weeks.
Fenris picked up the tankard of ale, sniffed it, and then asked, “Wait, how do you know what I drink.”
“Time for questions later, let me get my mother here so I can show something to both of you,” Adam said.
“Very well,” Fenris said as he took a swig of his ale.
Adam opened another portal directly to his mother in the caverns below. As she looked through the portal Adam called out, “Mother I’m here with Fenris. I was not able to sway Aeris unfortunately. Would you come through so I can show something to the two of you before you talk,” Adam said.
Adjra came through in her human-looking form with her wings folded up behind her back and took a seat across from Fenris.
“Long time, Adjra,” I’m glad to see you survived the purge,” Fenris said.
“It’s good to see you as well. I can even believe that you’re glad to see me. You were one of the few honorable colored dragons left,” Adjra said.
Fenris nodded as he said, “Thank You.”
“Well at least you two can speak to each other, that’s a start,” Adam said.
“What happened to Aeris? If I am allowed to ask,” Fenris questioned.
“Aeris opened a portal to a very bad place to try to destroy me. It destroyed her instead. I’m pretty sure she’s not coming back from that though I was reincarnated so who knows, I guess she could come back someday.”
“So, she’s truly gone?”
“She was sitting right where I am sitting just 10 minutes ago. She is gone forever as far as I know,” Adam said.
“Very well, what did you want to show us?” Fenris asked.
Adam had the nanites create a monitor as he allowed the information to play concerning the history of Aeris, what she’d done, how she’d used people to hunt the metallic dragons, and how to this day dragons still existed. The Report also provided full lists of everyone who had participated in the atrocities. Additionally, the report named those who had been killed to keep the secret of the humanoid dragon hunts and gambling houses. The report was quick and concise and still took 15 minutes to view.
When the video was done Adam asked, “Any questions?”
Fenris was the first to speak up as he said, “It doesn’t paint the colored dragons in a good light.”
“Is the information accurate?” Adam asked. “You know that it is.”
“It is accurate,” Fenris said.
“Good, I’m going to leave you two here to talk things over. If you need anything just ask for it and it’ll materialize before you. I need to go do something else while I have a little time,” Adam said as a portal opened to his command center underground and he stepped through. Adam kept an eye on both Adjra and Fenris through his nanites as he took a seat at his command console and looked up at the ceiling as he said, “Okay SYSTEM” let’s work on those 12 favors.”