----------------------------------------
[Welcome to the Mystery Labyrinth - grow your foundations, hone your skills, find your limits]
Max followed Charlie and Xavier into the entrance to the greatest challenge dungeon on Earth, the exalted Mystery Labyrinth. Leah, ever cautious, trailed just behind him. Max thought they should have talked more before entering, but he could tell that they had been waiting for him to wake for a long time. His friends looked different, ready for the long and challenging course ahead.
They all wore the same type of rugged outdoor camping clothes with lots of pockets for their gear and backpacks as well. Charlie had his polymorphic weapon; Ohm’s Razor, as he called it, wrapped about him like a thick rope. Leah had an additional javelin type of weapon strapped to her pack and Xavier had a utility belt with lots of gadgets sheathed on it.
Max considered his own clothes. He didn’t need a backpack; his Tesseract could provide much more storage space and already contained his extra gear. He still had his smart suit set to a casual workout configuration. Worse, it was still damaged and dirty from his fight with Tyler. It didn’t take much energy and a mental command to fix it, but Max hadn’t had that chance.
“[Mal? Can you update my smart suit to match the configuration of my team? Make sure to fix the damage and keep my Grappler rig on top to make sure that I can still use it.]” Max sent to his AI companion.
“[Of course, Max. I have started the remodel with a slight change. The Tesseract device currently in your pocket is being shifted to your new jacket. It has reinforced forearm guards and the Tesseract will be contained on your left inner arm pocket. This should enable you to easily access all the gear you have stored in the dimensional space with minimal hand off time from the manipulator arms inside it.]” Max replied. Max’s suit morphed as he walked, shedding the blood and dirt; repairing the rents as it reshaped itself into a similar configuration as the rest of his team.
Max thanked her and refocused his attention. Distraction in the labyrinth would be unwise. It was the preeminent puzzle palace on the planet. It catered primarily to the newly immortal and augmented human teens; a tool to help the kids develop their artificial physical and mental powers. Their systems would release small increments of additional capability with aggressive training.
This helped the kids both avoid hurting themselves and others but also recalibrated their expectations. Modern kids grew up with too much virtual adventuring, which could be very…unrealistic. Augmentations were fantastic, but unlike the VR worlds, they were constrained both by physics and the body design used. Each of his friends had a different body design but ran the same training system.
Max had a custom body designed and built by his father, giving him a humanoid appearance with superficial signs of his canine origin. It had heavy computational support to enable his uplifted consciousness in addition to supporting the expected mind to machine augmentations.
Charlie had access to a special UNCL Peacekeeper model; an option available to him from his time in the Reformed USA’s Mech Infantry. Leah had a consumer model called the Prodigy by BodyWerks and Xavier had a higher-end model called the Scion by the same company.
Xavier had already tweaked his body design significantly from his early unlocking of the [Transform] skill. He had reconfigured his body to look like a four-armed reptilian Thark from the fictional world of Eric Carter from Mars, which had been a blockbuster open world FDVR game on the Thousand Worlds network.
The four arms could be a huge boon, but Xavier was still learning to use them. Max had seen his father, Bill, transform in a similar way to cook. Xavier had a long way to go to match Bill’s skill and coordination. Max had the same skill now.
“[Mal, how does the [Transform] skill work? Are there designs available online or something?]” Max sent.
“[No, it doesn’t allow external designs to be bought from the net. Although we wouldn’t have that option even if you could. The Labyrinth is cut off from Earth’s many networks and indexes. The skill allows you to make gross modification to your current body design.”] Mal said. She created a phantom image of Max’s body on his personal OverLayer. It floated along in front of him as he walked.
“[You can adjust your overall shape and the system will fill in the gaps to achieve it. However, you’ll get better results by defining the internal structure as well. It’s not very noticeable, but while you were unconscious, I’ve been scanning Xavier’s design. He has been improving the Thark form’s joints to increase both flexibility and strength. You can advance your physical stats if you improve the base body design. However, if you mess up you might also lose those points in your stats. Your current design is already at its maximum rating for strength.]”
“[Wow. That’s a powerful skill, Mal! Let’s give me an extra set of arms like Xavier.]” Max sent with excitement.
“[Okay…but it’s a bit of a process that will take time. I can initiate the change, but growing extra arms will require mass. Unless you want to pull materials from throughout your body, compromising your body design; you will need to provide that extra material. That means food for organic structures and special supplements for your non-organic augmentations. I do have some very good scans of Xavier’s arms so I can lay down the groundwork for them to start to grow.]” Mal finished.
“[Thanks, Mal! I’ll be sure to have double helpings when we break for food.]”
----------------------------------------
The team had come here quickly after Max’s devastating injuries from his fatal confrontation with his nemesis Tyler. Rather than face potential incarceration and delay, the team had run. Completing the Labyrinth was said to be a guarantee for Master level skills, and they couldn’t risk the wait.
The tunnel beyond the grand entrance was dark in the extreme. The team had advanced with their [ExaVision] skill to have thermal, ultraviolet, and terahertz wavelengths, making the tunnel navigable. Max’s [WorldMap] continued to fill out additional details from his traveling cloud of nano-motes.
Something extra caught his attention, and he triggered his [Multitask] skill to look deeper while still walking. The tunnel, like the entryway to the dungeon, was chock full of dense foglets. The versatile and ubiquitous motes were open to access by all and could connect and simulate different types of matter, gas usually, liquids, and even weak forms of matter. They gave off a very identifiable but weak EM field signature…but there was something more. Max homed in on a slightly different signal.
[Analysis +1, Analysis reaches level 8]
[Theronics Nano Mote: Scout type, Accessed: Charles Hawkins]
Hah, I guess I’m not the first to deploy my motes from the academy. Max thought. Looking deeper, he soon found some of each type controlled by both Xavier and Leah as well. More surprisingly, he found a Power-Bank-type Mote from each of his friends that were latched onto his smart matter suit’s exterior.
Interesting. I guess I really am behind the curve. It’s elementary to station one on a person or object. Since I can always feel and find my motes, it will be the perfect tracking device. And being a power-bank type; it’ll last much longer.
Wasting no time, Max directed three of his Power-Bank motes to latch onto each of his teammates. Using his [Access] skill, he was able to rename them as specific to each of his friends.
[New Domain Skill unlocked - Nano-tracker: 3, assign motes to track and monitor for you. Use this skill to expand and track “all the things”]
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
Max smiled, making progress even with just walking. If this really was a maze challenge, the trackers would be very valuable. The tunnel transitioned into long winding stairs. After five minutes of continuous descent, Xavier was complaining, and Charlie was teasing him. Leah came abreast of Max, and he felt a shock as one of his newer skills activated.
[Precog +1, Precog reaches level 3]
Max had a quick visual of what would happen, and he reached out and grabbed Leah’s hand as she tripped on a step. His Empath skill told him the stumble was premeditated. He tried to catch her eye as another skill triggered.
[Bastion +1, Bastion reaches level 9, attempted physical connect augmentation access breach by Leah Choi.]
Max dropped his skill and let Leah past as she forced herself beyond his augmentations security systems. Leah’s mental speech hit him rapid fire. He scrambled to ramp his [FastCog] skill and replayed the beginning using his [Memory] skill.
“[Thank you, Max. Well played. I need a private word before we go much further. I’ve already chatted with the other boys. The Labyrinth is teeming with AI, and they are all observing us constantly. Mira had mentioned its illicit practice of trading challenger's crafted items, but we should be extra careful what we reveal and when. I think if we have any special advantages, we need to be discreet about them. It may use any information we speak about against us. I know your father's work was something he wanted to stay private. Yes?]” Leah finished.
“[Crap! Thanks for the warning, Leah. When I first woke up, I detected some of them. They tweaked my privacy and decoding skills when I tried to help Xavier in the Adept Puzzle Maze stage.]” Max said.
“[Typical brute force as usual, Max. It took me 2 days of careful inspection to deduce this, and in the half-hour since you woke up, you crashed right into them. I can’t tell whether you are supremely lucky or unlucky.]” Leah replied.
“[Just my winning personality, thanks.]” Max said.
“[I’m glad you’re feeling better, Max. I was really worried. The boys are pushing Xavier’s skills up to try and cover his gaps to distract themselves, but they were upset too.]” Leah said. “[Here…takes these one-time pad packets. That’s a set of 1,000 pads, each with a 1.28 TB quantum encryption. We can use them for wireless comms if we need to discuss sensitive information. You have a cyber daemon to help, or do we need to go over it?]”
“[Good thinking, Leah. I’m all set. Both Mal and Captain Cypher Can use these. Hell, Sherlock might be able to in a pinch…Shit! Hold on! My PreCog skill just hit me again! We’re going for a ride!]” Max yelled in his head.
Max reached out and grabbed Leah’s hand as the stairs snapped shut and everyone fell and started to slide down the now smooth ramp. The slick descent was treacherous, as the team’s sliding fall began to increase in speed. Max's instincts were spot on; the labyrinth was playing its first deadly hand.
Fuck, my motes can’t keep up! Max thought. He hurriedly accessed the ever-present utility foglets to form a type of parachute. It didn’t do much to slow the group down, but he hoped to drag a large population of the team’s motes with them.
With agile precision refined in battle, he distributed his weight to steer his fall, aiming to protect Leah. The other members of the team were also using their augmentations to adapt to the rapid change, their bodies contorting and twisting for the best chance at mitigation.
Each used tricks and skills learned during their earlier training to slow themselves, but the slide got steeper and steeper. Xavier had tried a similar trick with the foglets in front of the group, but the dungeon kept disrupting his access. Charlie briefly used his [Stiction] skill, but the chute’s surface material came off in his hands.
Max couldn’t hold back a yip as Charlie and Xavier dropped. He was next! The bottom dropped out and Max was falling, memories of his tortuous descent over the waterfall brought his terror to a peak. He lost his grip on Leah!
Max thought the fall must be fatal as time stretched on and on, then realized still had his [FastCog] skill ramped. His senses couldn’t “see” anything and now his sense of timing was off. At least his activated [Multitask] alter ego copy could help by keeping a calm rationality with its utter fearlessness.
Everyone was screaming as they slammed into the water below. They plunged into a colossal subterranean lake, its icy waters immediately swallowing up the shock of their fall.
Max was spinning and couldn’t tell up from down. His [Multitask] copy was pinging with his [Echolocation] skill but no images came back. He “felt” a similar ping from nearby. He felt, more than heard, a series of booms transmitted through the water.
Whatever this liquid is, it's absorbing all our senses. Nothing is working. Wait. My trackers. I’m still getting a sense of them. Max calmed down and stopped his crazy spinning using his well-earned swimming training that had earned him his first [SkillZ] trade. Max resisted the urge to take a deep breath and focused on his friends.
[Recycling +1, Recycling reaches level 3: Continue to train this skill to become fully independent and immune to material dependencies.]
He swam up towards the location of his nano-trackers. His head broke the surface and his senses bloomed again, painting his still active [WorldMap]. This lake water’s ability to disrupt his senses had ceased when his head cleared the surface. Max felt better as the massive water filled cavern became clear in his head.
All his friends had surfaced and were treading water. His and his friends motes had been dragged into the space above the water as well, thanks to Max’s use of the foglets. He used them to see much further, getting a clear picture of the surrounding area. An artificial peninsula stabbed out of the darkness, its tip not too far away. It was bright with lights and a jumble of ruined stone structures populated its surface. It looked familiar to Max, like Greek ruins, with broken pillars and slanted roofs.
“Are you guys good?” Charlie called out.
“I’m here!” Leah called as she checked to ensure her weapons, the pair of spetsdods and new spear were all still attached and lashed down firmly.
“Me too.” Max said.
“Fuck, my suit gave me a wicked wedgie on the slide down! So uncool.” Xavier complained.
“Alright. It looks obvious that those ruins are where we need to go. Let’s get to it.” Charlie said, waving the others toward the visible ruins. Needing no further discussion, everyone started swimming toward their goal.
“Dammit. I can’t swim, man.” Xavier whined, paddling with slow progress. Despite being closer to the ruins, Max would overtake and pass him in another few seconds. Both Leah and Charlie were already leading by quite a bit.
Max was about to respond when something brushed past him. Before he could yell, it grabbed his leg and pulled him under. Back in the darkness, Max held his breath as the signals from his friends seemed to retreat.
In the depths, silence reigned. Max's mind raced. The adrenaline surged through his veins while his [PreCog] skill flickered with vague warnings, urging him to act fast. His sparring training kicked in. Fighting against the unseen force, he slashed with both claws activating its [Vorpal] skill while he did it.
His claws slashed deeply into the muscular appendage. It spasmed and he was able to slip free. Freed, Max shot upward trying to build distance. Gasping for air, Max resurfaced. His heart pounded against his chest; a palpable drum beat echoed in his ears. His splashing disturbed the eerie stillness of the subterranean lake. He saw his stunned friends, still gasping with surprise, had stopped swimming.
“Fly! You fools!” Max said with fear, swimming for the ruins with his full augmented strength. Charlie made it to shore, closely followed by Leah. Max was now the furthest from the shore but was catching up quickly to Xavier again, whose paddling was anything but efficient. Max saw a ripple in the water between him and Xavier. He knew he couldn’t beat it to the boy. He needed another tactic.
“Charlie…Catch!” Max yelled and shot his grapple over Xavier’s head. The shot was long and arcing but just within the grappler’s range. Charlie’s senses and reaction time were perfect as he snatched the grapple blade by its haft. Intuiting what was coming, he dropped down and employed his [Stiction] to anchor himself as the line snapped taunt.
Max engaged his Grappler’s power winch and sped past the rippling disturbance. He collided with Xavier and grabbed hold of him. The winch strained but continued to drag them both more slowly. Escape was in sight and so close as the shore loomed, and the ripples fell behind. Suddenly Xavier was almost ripped from Max’s grip as his leg was wrapped in a tentacle.
“Max! Don’t let go! It’s got me!” Xavier screamed, two hands grabbing Max’s while his two extra arms splashed the water ineffectively. Max’s sped up thoughts raced through his options.
I hope Xavier’s been working on his resistance skills, or this is going to suck. Max thought as he triggered a full-body Shocking attack.
The discharge hit both Xavier and the surrounding water. Xavier's body jerked from the sudden shock, but so did the tentacle, loosening its grasp. The pair were yanked with a huge force, both now hurtling towards Charlie, almost skimming the surface of the water.
He had wrapped the grapple cable in both hands and used his capped augmented strength to pull them. They burst from the water onto the land, gasping, dripping, and alive. Except for Max and Xavier’s labored breathing, the artificial peninsula was quiet. The ruins cast long shadows in the artificial lighting that hovered overhead.
Breathing heavily, they regrouped. "Thanks, Charlie, that was close. We need to be careful," Max panted, "This seems much more dangerous than the Academy’s obstacle courses.” The team banter was interrupted with a notice hitting their training systems.
[You have successfully reached the Three Fates Gate, the entry-level to the Labyrinth. +100 XP]
----------------------------------------