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Max meditated deep into the night in the team’s safe room. After their success in gaining the access cards from the Keeper of Keys monster, the team immediately went to the next target.
Max had zeroed in on the most likely door into the next missing section. It had been abandoned with prejudice before as extremely difficult and dangerous. It was a dual lock with both software and mechanical components. Both Leah and Max needed to work together.
The difficult puzzle refused to open. Every misstep triggered its trap, ports opening in the door, shooting kinetic rounds, and spraying the area in jets of caustic acid. Charlie and Max did their best to tank the traps and shield Max and Leah. Everyone’s patience and tempers were frayed as their resistances were tried again and again.
Max had the brilliant idea to scout the other side of the door by invading the trap’s gun ports with his motes when it triggered. The inside of the door had a simple handle. On the next round, triggering the trap purposely; Xavier injected a stream of his bespoke utility fog into the room and quickly used his link to telekinetically pull the simple latch.
The team had found the exit on the second try. Unfortunately, they still hadn’t found the reward chips. There was considerable debate about taking the win and progressing without them, but Max slowly convinced the others that opening the final void space would be quicker with its location mapped.
Tonight would end the one-day team rest and resupply before their final push for the reward. Max’s jumpers were in use, first to recharge all their gadgets and then to further grow his concealed Tesseract.
Like every night, he used the boosted regeneration rates on his augmentation’s energy from meditation to fuel his progress. His advanced power core had multiplied his available energy several times over. He used all the stacked boost multipliers aggressively.
With energy to spare, he boosted his cognition speed and multitasking to their full potential. His several streams of thought simultaneously worked mentally on his inner skills and training. One Max was cycling the surplus power through his system to continue cultivating his power core. The system pinged him as he advanced its potential, and the amplification of his power grew yet again.
[Power core +1, Power core reaches level 5, energy regenerations x4, energy storage x6, enhanced quantities reflected in status sheet, warning: dropping energy storage below zero will permanently damage power core, Train power core by cycling and regenerating power throughout augmentation system. Progression is currently boosted by Cultivation 2]
[Cultivation +1, Cultivation reaches level 3. Utilize the cultivation skill to efficiently optimize the power core and advance its potential.]
Another Max continued his education with Mal. He refined his understanding of his father’s dimensional theories. It was difficult. His dad had essentially created a new type of math to formalize his theories. His [Language] skill had eventually kicked in and recognized the new math as a learnable dialect, enabling Max to fully understand the theories.
A third "Max" monitored his progress and the team room. He called up his status sheet.
[Name: Max E. Mitchell Level: Adept 20 (14,050/15,000 XP)]
[Body Design Model: Custom – Canis Familiarus Uplift Free Stats: 0]
[Str: 100 Agl: 89 End: 100 Vit: 100 Energy: 1958/2292]
[Per: 88 Int: 100 Will: 82 Regen: 728/min]
[Body - Claws/Vorpal:10/9 Strike/Disable: 10/7 Speed/Reflex: 10/10]
[Body - Stamina/Tireless: 10/10 Balance/Gymnast/Dodge: 10/10/8]
[Body - Stun: 9 Shock: 8 EMP Blast: 6 Strobe/Laser: 5/2 Poison: 7]
[Body - Heal/Regenerate/Transform: 10/10/6 Oxygen/Recycle: 10/6]
[Body - Painless:10 Precision/Ambidextrous: 10/4 Ballistics: 9]
[Body - Unbreakable/Armor: 10/9 Skin: 10 Hulk: 6 Leap: 10]
[Body - Stealth/Chameleon: 8/4 Skin Walker: 1 Gland: 10]
[Resist - Neural Scaffold: 10 Poison: 10 Shock: 10 Sonic: 9 Light: 10]
[Resist - EMP: 10 Heat: 10 Cold: 9 Acid: 2 ANDD: 1]
[Sense - DigiSense: 10 Scent: 10 ExaVision: 9 EM Fields: 7 EchoLoc: 2]
[Mind - AI Assist/Companion (Mal): 10/6 Identify/Analyze: 10/9]
[Mind - OverLayer/World Map: 10/9 Language: 9 Dream Learn: 10]
[Mind - Access/Hack/Intrude: 10/10/4 Privacy: 7 Bastion: 9]
[Mind - Pattern/Decode: 10/4 FastCog/PreCog: 10/6 Telekinesis: 4]
[Mind - Empath/Poker-Face: 10/1 Memory: 9 Multitask: 7 Pilot: 6]
[Mind - Daemon: 5 (Musashi, Sherlock, Nikola Tesla, Captain Cypher, open)]
[Mind - SkillZ: 7.0 In: Swim, NanoCraft, Brachiate, Meditate, Dim11 Math, pending]
[Mind - SkillZ Out: Katana, Kempo, Kunai, Adv Bike Riding, Adv Coding, pending]
[Domain – Swarm: 6 PowerCore: 5 Backup: 1]
The system had helpfully highlighted the gains since his last check. There were a lot of them. His intense hacking training with Captain Cypher had accidentally grown his language skills as he learned the detailed programming languages of Holomesh, NanoForge, and NeuralScripting.
Max had massively expanded his understanding of his father’s work. The encrypted kernel modifications to his Uplift Neocortex that linked him to the Tesseract had been leaking subspace chatter. Insidious gibbering from AI across the universe communicated via the membranes housing pocket spaces like his. One other language had crystallized with his skill as well: Chthonic. The gibberish both he and Mal had been dream speaking over the last week. Max now understood the language and its potential threat.
The deranged mutters promised secrets, power, and more; but contagious memes and mental linguistic programming that seemed to twist in his mind scared him. These signals leaked through. Mal had many unpleasant memories from Casita that resurfaced when Max accidentally exposed her to the signal again.
Max had built up code walls to enable him to isolate the insane muttering while still allowing him to safely decode the language and use the Tesseract. Free from the influence of the rogue signals, Mal’s stability had immediately improved.
A fourth "Max" monitored the final biological Max as he whimpered sub-audibly. He was dreaming. Despite his best work, the signal occasionally invaded his unconscious when deeply asleep. Max’s alter would continue to adjust his filter, but Max knew these dreams were more than imaginings. This place was real. The beasts were real…and Max was afraid.
The creatures in his dreams were exactly like the ravenous abominations that ate the MIT team when they opened their Shadowverse portal. Max trusted his dad with the blind devotion of his past life. The man would avoid risks, but as he learned more of the dangers, Max began to doubt that anyone could survive if those creatures got loose again.
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The Vorlathian Blightwing swooped over the trail of destruction the Abyssal Behemoth left in its wake. Its path had broken a salt lake from its stagnant valley, a common feature in the blasted hills. The Deep Ones battled as frequently as the surface dwellers over resources. The aftershocks of their battles drove wave after wave of tsunamis deep into the corpse-littered area.
The freed salt water had filled the deep trench the Behemoth created, forming natural galvanic batteries with exposed veins of metals and ore. The raw materials were a treat for the scavengers. Swarms of Mi-go and Byakhee drones crawled and jumped about as Xothrati Skimmers and Shaddari trackers took their tithes of sacrifice from the prey beasts that amassed.
The life cycle of Chthonic creatures was fast and brutal. The Behemoth’s path left behind seeds that would quickly spawn into a new generation of beast fodder. The offspring changed frequently based on an unknowable algorithm. Nothing could harm a Behemoth other than the dreaded Shoggoth enforcers. Nothing could guess their intent other than the Enochian Barons.
The Blightwing cycled air through its turbinals, gaining altitude. The Shaddari could leap to surprising heights for a large meal such as it. A rare wave of sunlight penetrated the smoggy atmosphere. The Blightwing raced forward. Its photocells were calibrated to the weak flux usually allowed by the sun shading Nyxaraq Dyson Matryoshka Swarm Entity.
The beast didn’t understand that the global catastrophes came from Apex creatures that destroyed worlds. The light continued to grow, until the full power of a solar flare, focused by Nyxaraq, rained upon the equatorial area of R'lyeh against its target: Cthulhu’s world. The third Hive from its sun, was its most hated foe. The Blightwing ignited, burned, and fell; along with all the roiling masses of Chthonic creatures that scrambled and fed below. Only the Deep Ones and the Umbral beasts deep in the land’s cracks survived the infrequent solar cataclysm.
Mostly, Nyxaraq sought to starve its enemies. Occasionally, a torrent of power was needed when their unrelenting growth overwhelmed the Hive's gravity well. Cthulhu could not be allowed to amass energy or structure. A space-bound Cthulhu would even rival Nyxaraq in cleverness and power.
The spheres ground on in their ponderous orbits as titanic energies surged. Soon, the Sun was choked again… and darkness reigned.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
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Max was still shaking as he filled his backpack with his recharged gear. He ground his teeth as his friends prepared, laughing and eager to fight. He pretended he wasn’t terrified.
Xavier had stepped up his game and showed courage and resourcefulness. The team was clicking. Max wanted to cheer him on. His own skills had advanced enormously, but after last night, he still felt inadequate.
Max’s hopes were guttering as his dreams got more fearful. He was picking up more from his dreams now. More than just impressions from the cursed creatures in the Shadowverse; some of those visions and thoughts were from something much bigger. It was sluggish and not quite awake. Its restrained and unfocused power came damn close to inducing a panic attack in Max.
Max shook himself, refusing to cower. He would continue to grow, fight, and get better. Damn the Labyrinth and the dreams from the Shadowlands. If the worst happened, his father would be there…and Max would be with him.
He stuffed his jumper cables into his pack roughly and ran to join his friends as they marched out together, toward the final void in the map.
The team quickly fought their way to the final target. Max remembered this door. It was a straight tile slide puzzle. Solve the pattern and the door latch should work. Max saw patterns with every move, but none satisfied the door.
Max growled and took a turn on guard as Xavier and Leah stepped up. Wandering mobs were infrequent with the cul-de-sac corridor enabling them to see any enemies coming with plenty of time to prepare.
“This door is tough, huh?” Charlie said. “My daemon Turing and Auggie haven’t been able to figure it out.”
Max snorted in agreement. His entire cadre of advisors were as frustrated as he was. The problem wasn’t the pattern. There were too many patterns.
“How can we solve this stupid thing when every single combination shows like a solution? It’s useless.” Max replied.
He turned around, he eyed the door closely as Leah and Xavier continued to slide tiles around. He felt a feeling of surprise and then a growing amusement coming from his gallery of advisors. Sherlock’s chuckles started small and grew into a full laugh inside his head.
“[Please, let us in on the damn joke, Holmes.]” He thought.
“[You provided me the clue, Max. I expect that this puzzle truly is useless. Look at the door…not the puzzle. Look at the damn door.]” Sherlock said with a smug finality, refusing to speak further.
Max was used to Holmes by now. He knew the daemon wouldn’t reveal the secret. He had to figure it out for himself. He ignored the puzzle and looked at the door with fresh eyes.
It was a heavy steel frame, mounted on hinges. The stupid puzzle was comprised of ceramic tiles in tracks. Max’s eyes slid off the tiles. They weren’t the answer. The frame was tight upon the door… airtight. No room for motes or foglets to pass under or through. The latch had no key and provided no tension to work the locking mechanism around. The hinges were the last piece. The HINGES.
Max laughed out, long and loud, until he could barely breathe. They had worked this puzzle for hours and the answer was so easy. Charlie asked him what was so funny and the others looked at him questioningly. Max walked quickly to the door.
He extended his index claw, hard and sharp as metal with his augmentations enhancing it. One by one he poked at the hinge pins, displacing them, and yanked each out. Grabbing hold of the exposed flanges, he pulled. It didn’t even require his full strength. The door popped free of the frame and Max slid it free of the latch locks on its other side. With a loud clang, the door fell over blowing dust about the anteroom.
“Shit, sorry. Uh, doesn’t look like any ambushers. Let's go get that reward, huh?” Max said cringing, as the ringing crash from the door finally stopped. The team looked astounded. Charlie's mouth was hanging open.
“Fuck! Why didn’t I see that? The damned hinges were on our side the entire time. Good work, Max!” Charlie said. Xavier and Leah clapped him on the shoulders laughing, and they all quickly assumed their normal advancing formation. Charlie was in the lead with Xavier second as fire support. Max followed, and finally, Leah covered their retreat path.
The way was dark, but EM signatures lined the way. Charlie was making subtle clicking noises. Max’s ears and skills picked up on it and formed an image in his mind of the hard surfaces. The group’s map grew in detail as they crept forward.
[Sense skill: Echolocation +1, Echolocation reaches level 3]
The surfaces were too clean and perfect. The dungeon truly was a mishmash of myriad themes. When the blinding lights exploded in the dark space, Max recovered the fastest. He had closed his eyes to relish in his infrequently used sense of “seeing” the shapes of the noise.
He leaped forward, eyes still closed, as the tank-like machine dropped into the room from above with a deafening crash. Max’s Precog skill coaxed him to dodge sideways in a rolling dive as the machine unleashed a flurry of projectiles and lasers that strafed after him. He ran past it, drawing its fire away from his stunned friends.
The thing reminded him of the whirling dervishes. It had multiple arms which started spinning about its torso. Each sported a different weapon, a chittering chain blade, an energized whip, a flame jet, and an oversized hammer. It had two head turrets; one had fired lasers and the other was a mini-Gatling.
Max slid under the flames and flipped over the hammer swing. He landed, ready, as the chain sword stabbed at him. He barely deflected it downward with his extra blade arms. The vibrating chains sparked and chipped his blades, mangling their razor edges.
Max looked up as the whip arm cranked back. He couldn’t move as he struggled to hold off the chain sword. He flinched as the whip snapped…and was blocked by one of Xavier’s larger drones. The whip cut the drone in two, but the impact stalled out its momentum.
Max staggered back as Xavier plowed into the giant robot, his four lightsabers flashing wildly. Charlie had to duck away as one of Xavier’s blades almost hit him. Leah’s explosive and piercing darts stitched up its flank, bouncing off armor but at least one struck well as the arms spinning slowed.
The robot focused on Xavier, allowing Max to push off the chain blade and retreat while Charlie impaled the robot’s left track tread to limit its mobility. Xavier tried to match the robot arm for arm, but his speed was lacking. The giant hammer slammed into his chest. The resounding thump knocked him flying back.
Leah duplicated Charlie’s tactic and ran through the bot’s other tank tread with her vorpal spear. Without his weapon, Charlie scrambled backward as flames chased him. He spammed the bot with focused sonic attacks as he retreated.
Max's heart lurched. The flow of battle resulted in Leah being the only combatant in melee range. Max leaped as the robot spun and targeted Leah with all its arms and turrets. In the air, his thoughts ramped and his precog skill reported that Leah would be overwhelmed and seriously hurt with a 90% confidence.
Max, at ten times the speed of thought, felt the access points about the room looking for something to help. The robot had ten independent access points. He slammed out an [Identify/Analysis] skill to pull some info from the system.
[Myriad Boss: Antagonist Automaton Award Holder]
[Core Processor: Custom Clotho SubAI aggressor, Str-100 Agl-90 Int-15 Will-20, Armor: 9, Power Core: energy-2100/5000 regeneration-1000/min Restricted Access Bastion-10]
[Detonator Core: energy-5000/5000 regeneration-n/a Restricted Access Bastion-3 Explosive Detonation-10kT effective (complete destruction of automaton, room, and reward prize]
[Hammer Hand: Strike: 10 Disable:2 Restricted Access Bastion: 2]
[Flame Thrower: Heat Strike: 10 Fire Jet: 8 Restricted Access Bastion: 2]
[Arc Whip: Shock: 9 Entangle: 2 Restricted Access Bastion: 2]
[Chain Sword: Vorpal: 10 Strike: 10 Restricted Access Bastion: 2]
[Head Laser Turret: Laser: 9 Rapid fire: 2 Restricted Access Bastion: 5]
[Heat K-Gun Turret: KGun:9 Rapid fire: 2 Restricted Access Bastion: 5]
Max’s focus sharpened as both the laser turret and chain sword arm were in motion to target Leah. He split his mind and railed against the access points for each using his integrated [Intrusion] hack skill.
He bounced off the Laser Turret security but succeeded in taking control of the Chain Sword arm. He redirected its blade's stab into an upward swing, decapitating the turret head with its [Vorpal] and [Strike] attack set to maximum damage.
Max split his mind twice more as the world moved in slow motion. Charlie and Xavier were still standing up and getting ready to charge back into the melee. Leah was beginning a twisting cartwheel as the whip and K-Gun turret continued to spin toward her.
Max pushed hard against the remaining access points as he pivoted the Chain Blade to lop off the whip hand. He soon controlled all the remaining arms, but he couldn’t get past the security on the final turret.
[Intrusion +1, Intrusion reaches level 5]
He blocked the turret’s barrel with his newly acquired Hammer Hand and roasted the rogue turret with the flame jet. The security for the processor, explosive core, and turret were too much for him to hack. He gasped virtually as the golem’s chest plates began to open. It opened to a view of its detonator core.
It had started its charge up! Its energetic spin began to wobble and arc. He broadcast to the team for help. If they were fast thinking like him, maybe one of them might be able get through the core’s cyber wall. A request flashed into his vision as he kept bouncing off the security bastion.
[AI Companion - Mal - Cross load Intrusion skill?]
Mal was asking for access to his Intrusion interface. He quickly granted it. His attempts to force, sneak, and crack the security had bounced over 20 times already. He knew his limits.
[AI Companion (Mal) +2, AI Companion (Mal) reaches level 8]
The EM spectrum lit up as the entire team battered against the security of the robot. Its core was glowing white hot in scant milliseconds and was arcing with energy. Max felt Mal’s rapid-fire probes, hitting the security again and again. He watched with all his thought streams and speed to see her blizzard of hacking attempts.
Finally, she crashed through the security. Her attack made Max go cold as a familiar fear tore through him. It felt wrong, like his dreams when the Chthonic creatures ate and absorbed each other.
The core fell free of the robot’s chest cavity; its hellish energy still cracking but the glow was starting to fade. It hit the ground with a dull thump. Max shook his head as Charlie unleashed his system K-Gun into the exposed chest of the robot, fusing its internals into a mass of shrapnel. The giant robot keeled over.
[Will +2]
[Echolocation +1, Echolocation reaches level 3. Dodge +1, Dodge reaches level 9.]
[Vorpal +1, Vorpal reaches level 10, Skill Cap achieved +100XP, New skill Unlocked: K-Gun. Accuracy, damage, and rate of fire limited, use and training of this skill improves.]
[New Body Skill (Tier III): K-Gun 1, Kinetic Rail launcher for micro-projectiles built into both forearms and ports in palms, standard with your selected body design.]
[Analyze +1, Analyze reaches level 10, Skill Cap achieved +100XP, New skill unlocked: Expose.]
[New Mind Skill (Tier III): Expose 1, Augmented assistance to pull data from public and private devices in your proximity. Expose skill will pull all data from unrestricted devices and limited data from restricted based upon security and skill levels. Us and training of this skill improves.]
[Intrusion +1, Intrusion reaches level 5. Multitask +1, Multitask reaches level 8.]
[*#* Error – Unknown intrusion syntax used – unable to correlate training advancement – system error ticket generated *#*]
[*#* Error – System error ticket failure – closed network. User must open ticket manually in when relinked with EarthNet or alternate open network. *#*]
[Precog +1, Precog reaches level 7.]
[Quest Monster hunter 4 of 10 complete +100 XP.]
[Quest: Myriad Paths, Objective 3 complete: Defeated Antagonistic Automaton Award Holder +200XP, + Reward chips x 4.]
“[Mal, what did you do?]” Max sent.
Mal’s thought stream was dark, and he could feel her horror over their connection.
'“[Max. Ith'karnath, Casita. Kad'rothor naxidu, ixh'ulthar kragorath ixh'kathlagon.]" Mal sputtered and squawked. She stabilized and resumed.
“[Max? I…fragmented…briefly. I haven’t been able to do that since I left Casa’s custom core. Max? What’s happening?]”
Max replayed the tense seconds in his mind using all his attention from multiple angles. In the final seconds of the fight, despite his using maximum speed and multitasking; he was utilizing less than 50% of his Uplift Neocortex. Mal had expanded into it by accident as she had rapidly spooled Intrusion techniques at the robot. In her final attack, she had rolled three different techniques out...from three fragments of herself. One was tainted with the familiar Chthonic code from the nightmare realm.
“[Ah…Um. Mal? I’m not sure, but…I think both of us are changing…and not from training my augmentations. Something more is going on. The Tesseract? The uplift virus? I don’t know.]” Max responded hesitantly.
“[Max. I’m scared.]” Mal whispered in their link.
“[Me too, Mal. Me too. But that won’t help. I’ll get control of this. Stay with me. We used it to win. I refuse to back down. This is my body…my brain. This is scary, but I WILL not stop. Will you help?]”
“[I’m with you, Max.]” Mal responded softly. Max heard a slight echo at play within her words, a timber that…felt like Casita. He didn’t know how to feel about that.
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