During the next two months the team spent their time exploring the three other Quadrants of the Stage, following the progression plan that Eric and Luna had mapped out, alongside inputs from the rest of the team. Essentially, the prepared plan boiled down to clearing each Quadrant in succession, moving clockwise from the subdued First until only the Fourth Quadrant remained, since it contained both the entrance to the Obsidian Moon’s Red Level, as well as the lair of the creature most likely to have the Red Level Access Key: The Gharun Spawn.

They had adopted this more cautious, roundabout approach instead of an immediate attack on the Spawn because, according to Luna’s projections and calculations, the team would need to grow much stronger and become more experienced with their individual abilities if they wanted to have a chance against a Beast that even the mighty Sun Wyrm had feared to challenge. Although the slower, more cautious plan of assault was necessarily a painstaking, dangerous, drawn-out process, Eric flatly refused to cut any corners and commit to any major assault without proper reconnaissance and preparation.

“Our goal is to gain control of the Stage and its resources,” Eric explained during one of their almost daily planning sessions. “Not kill ourselves by overreaching or getting blind-sided by our foes. I would rather we fail this blighted Quest than lose any one of us to avoidable dangers!”

Everyone had agreed on that, and Eric had filled them in on his plans.

The Stage was an immense megastructure, planned and built to be a trading station as well as a city capable of housing a population of well over a million people and the various services and businesses needed to keep the Stage safe and comfortable. In the centuries when the Stage was in full operation under the long-lived Aetherian Commanders, most of the extant buildings were erected, many of them with specialized environments and functions, all managed and built under the watchful eyes of the Fortress Belzond’s Castellan.

After the Great Upheaval and the extinction of the Aetherians the Obsidian Moon, and by extension the Stage, managed to continue near-normal operations for nearly a decade, until the mutiny and the flight of the last Commander with the Obsidian Key. After that, the Stage’s population experienced an extreme decline, with most with the means to do so fleeing the dying city. When even the mutineers abandoned the Moon, the mega-vessel was cast adrift upon the solar winds, a target for colonization by various Clans and other more nefarious groups that came across it as it drifted aimlessly across the southern regions of the newly-established Empire. Then the Dark Sun Cataclysm occurred, and the Obsidian Moon was abandoned completely by all of its humanoid inhabitants, its Atmospheric Envelope decaying until almost nothing was left of it, coming to a stop only when it became ensnared by the wide asteroid belt where it was currently located.

By the time Eric and his companions had arrived on the scene the Obsidian Moon had been adrift among the asteroids of the belt for more than a thousand years, and in that time, it had become part of the ecology of the region. Void creatures of all sizes and dispositions had taken residence among the Stage’s empty buildings and wide avenues, fighting local wars against abandoned automatons, freed elementals, rogue guardian beasts, and numerous other creatures that had once called the Stage home, living out their lives and deaths in the silence and darkness of space. Now that the dome had been restored many of these creatures were trapped inside.

Consequently, it was these void-accustomed creatures that made up almost the entirety of the foes that Eric and his companions would encounter and fight against to claim the Stage. Although Osar claimed Beasts were less of a challenge than even a low-Tier adept, it did not take long for Eric and his companions to learn that the various Beast Bosses as well as the ecological niches they had carved out upon the Stage provided a more-than-adequate challenge for them all:

In the middle of the Second Quarter, where a stretch of perfectly rectangular water designated on their Stage Map as the Reflection Deep could be found, Eric and the team fought and killed a many-tentacled horror with poisonous shooting spines and hordes of water elemental guardians shaped like leeches. While Cid and Serra held off the water elementals with spells, abilities, and experimental weapons, Osar kept the horrors attention while Eric flitted around it, placing burden upon burden upon the Beast’s body until it couldn’t move, making it an easy target for another of Cid’s plasma blasts to end its life.

By contrast, the Clearing of the Skeverand Spire took almost four long days, as the trio fought up and down a central column of wind and water that supported the eighty-seven floors of vegetation that had once been one of the Stand’s most productive Pillar Farms. Under the blaze of crop-nourishing solar lamps they team fought carnivorous plants and sentient fungi, purged whole levels of rogue wood elementals and several fruit-bearing, mutated Vine Tenders, aided by strange herbicides and defoliants Cid cooked up from plant sap and wood elemental secretions.

Then, while exploring the extensive but almost leveled ruins of what was once the Spherantine Embassy the team encountered a slithering mass of Jekneun Hive-vipers that regenerated their dead within seconds as long as one individual was still alive. Serra almost burned her Core out casting a wide enough aetheric net of Fire and Light to burn all the vipers in a cataclysm that melted what remained of the Embassy to the Stage’s bedrock.

And so it went, a parade of beasts and challenges that the team met and overcame with a combination of brute force, tenacity, planning and ingenuity as they concentrated on growing their powers and capabilities before entering the Fourth Quadrant and the showdown with the Beast that ruled it.

Surprisingly, one of their most difficult fights happened when they encountered a flock of Mollan skirrounds nesting in a large circular stadium previously used for Grand-wing tournaments and other sporting events that needed a self-contained atmosphere to play. For some unfathomable reason the stadium’s atmospheric projector was still active… sometimes. By some quirk of the stadium’s designer the projector had been powered by an ambient aetheric condenser and a once powerful conversion engine that produced both Air and Gravity aether. The centuries had degraded its efficiency, but the engine was still powerful enough to do what it was created for most of the time. The skirrounds, being able to survive in both atmosphere and the void, had taken advantage of the variable atmosphere to breed and keep themselves safe from the larger predators that called the Stage home.

Luna’s drones had scouted the place, noted the small size of the inhabitants and their general numbers, then moved on. On their way to a different section of the Stage, Eric had decided, on the basis of the drone’s observations, to move through the stadium in order to avoid a dangerous tangle of ruins and collapsed buildings that were the hunting grounds of a particularly nasty variant of viper-jellies.

Their three-man team, minus Cid who had remained at the Command Center working on another of his projects, were walking single-file down the middle of the stadium when the skirrounds decided they wanted to defend their territory.

“Movement detected, Sir!”

“Incoming!” Eric shouted immediately to the others even as he reflexively crouched upon hearing Pig’s warning. As the rest of the team in front of him reacted, Eric looked up, in time to see a shield of water expand over the entire party.

< Serra! > Osar calmly spoke through the Squad-Net, eschewing speaking aloud despite the presence of the atmosphere since the team had collectively decided that leveling up Eric’s team-centric abilities would be one of their top priorities.

< Roger! >

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Raising her hands above her head, Serra sent out a billowing pillar of fire against the underside of the water shield just as the first dog-like bodies struck the upper layer. There was a loud hiss as Serra’s flames turned the entire shield into steam, flash-boiling the poor creatures that were in contact with it and scalding the rest that came in a howling, yipping wave behind them.

< Scatter! > Eric commanded, whipping out his sword while his left hand, claws extended, slashed downward to disembowel a mewling, blinded skirround that had dropped right beside him. The whole stadium floor became a whirling melee of agile, biting dog-like skirrounds and the three members of Eric’s team. Protected by their battlesuits, there was little danger of the creature’s teeth punching through to seriously injure them, but the sheer number and weight of the creatures were pinning them down and preventing them from helping each other. Everyone on the ‘Net was snarling and grunting with the effort to stay upright and fighting, but none of them had a moment to catch their breath and actually communicate.

A few moments later Eric impaled a struggling, snapping skirround with his sword, only to have it be torn away as the weight of the dying creature dragged on his arm. More skirrounds were piling onto him, grasping at him with their weirdly prehensile clawed hands and long tails and beating at him with their powerful, leathery wings. Eric extended his battlesuit’s claws and just began laying about with them, using the Kali-Maga techniques that the Union Army favored and had drilled into its soldier’s to great effect.

Then, with a stomach-twisting jerk, the gravity suddenly reversed, flinging everyone up towards the ceiling.

“HELLFIRE!” Eric bellowed as he felt the gravity flip, his faceplate obscured by the jaws of a skirround that had been doing its best to chew off his face. Struggling, Eric crossed his arms over his chest, palms outward, his knees tucked into his chest as much as the bulk of his suit would let him so that he could present as small of a surface area to any possible injury. Then, with as much force as he could muster, he slashed his arms outward, ripping the skirround attached to him into two pieces and flinging it away from his body.

Then, just as they were midway between the ceiling and the floor, the gravity just cut off, leaving them all free-floating in a region of weightlessness. The skirrounds folded their wings along their bodies and became streamlined snake-like creatures, undulating through the air, moving with sinuous grace as they continued their frenzied attacks at Eric and his companions.

Now, the beasts became more effective, as their familiarity with the gravitic effects of the stadium and the way they could gather speed and attack at the same time began to get through Eric’s defenses. Suspended in air as he was Eric could not get any leverage to add force to his defensive claw attacks, while he began to feel the compounding injuries as the constant battering from all directions sent kinetic force through all his armor layers to pound his flesh and insides.

< ENOUGH! > Osar roared, just as an arcing network of electricity slammed through everything in the area. A coruscating tendril struck Eric, his battlesuit’s systems insulating him from most of the damage, but the skirrounds around him were not as lucky. One of them floated past Eric, the whites of its eyes showing as steam boiled out of its mouth and nose, looking very, very dead. With most of his attackers either paralyzed, stunned, or dead, Eric managed to hold his own, tearing away at the few surviving beasts with his claws, their dark, foul-smelling blood spraying everything in the area.

Then the gravity cut out, and everything fell. With great effort, and with assistance by Pig, Eric managed to twist around enough to get his feet under him and his jump-jets engaged before he hit the floor, landing heavily on his knees while dead and dying skirrounds crashed all around him.

“All’s clear, Sir.” Pig announced after a moment.

Eric nodded, still out of breath. With a thought he made his helmet disappear into the battlesuit cowling and staggered to his feet, his nose wrinkling at the liberal splashing of skirround blood that his suit had taken. He spotted his sword, still skewering a dead beast, and retrieved it, just as Serra and Osar gathered around him, the Urgan peevishly kicking skirround carcasses out of his way.

“That was a nasty ambush, sir.” Serra observed as she laid a hand on Eric’s exposed neck. Eric felt a very warm pulse go through his body, soothing some of his aches and pains. “Looks like they didn’t do too much damage, but your body’s going to feel the effects of those blunt attacks later.”

“The scout drones should have alerted us about these s’rekas!” Osar complained, a thin stream of blood coming from where he had bit his lip.

“True, and I’ll speak to Luna about it,” Eric replied, working his arm in a tight circle to make sure it was working properly. “Question is, are you all still green to go do our original mission?”

“I can fight.” Osar said gruffly as he wiped away the blood with his armored hand.

“I’m good, Captain.” Serra also answered. Eric noticed that the skirround blood that had splashed on her armor was being slowly absorbed. Was that normal? Shaking his head, Eric pushed the thought away as he willed his helm to enclose his face. He started to jog towards the other end of the stadium, Pig’s overlay map showing the green circles of Luna’s scavenging drones coming in behind them to take care of the mess.

“Alright, let’s hoof it then!”

As the days passed the almost constant battles and skirmishes made their experience and teamwork grow in leaps and bounds, until the entire team fought together like a well-oiled machine: Osar was a natural tank, his prodigious strength, resilience, and ample experience hunting various beasts making him a powerful anchor for their team. Serra was their hammer, literally and figuratively, her offensive capabilities coupled with her healing skills making her the perfect trump card to fell stubborn bosses or mow down hordes of lesser foes. Eric worked well as the team coordinator, scout, and sniper, his spells and abilities giving him opportunities to level the field by taking out key opponents with unseen powerful strikes. Cid was their wonder-worker, their crafter of solutions, the one they would turn to time and again when they had encountered a foe or a challenge they could not easily overcome and he came through for them every single time. Sometimes he would even take to the field, clad in his heavily modified Bastion battlesuit, spewing out super-charged plasma beams and aether-laced shrapnel grenades, helping the team lay traps and create the terrain of victory against the larger beasts that prowled the Stage.

Finally, a little over two months after they had restored the Stage’s atmosphere, the team stood outside a large factory building, ready to face the last Boss they needed to defeat before they planned to enter the Stage’s Fourth Quarter.

The inside of the factory was almost entirely filled by huge tanks of a coppery metal, their sides still gleaming despite centuries of neglect. Eric and his companions walked down a wide staircase, between the rows of tanks and down into a smaller hall where a spherical mass of flesh and gaping, gasping mouths lay crushed under the weight of its own massive body.

In a swirl of pixels and light, the tall form of Luna appeared beside them.

[That is a Mundus Orb at the cusp of its Stage Evolution, Commander,] Luna said, pointing to the laboring mass as Eric and the rest of the team stopped beside her. [In the past, it would have been a formidable opponent, possibly beyond your current abilities to defeat, but now it is weakened by weeks cut off from the infinite void…]

“WHO APPROACHES DECABAOS, THE MASTER OF DEATH?”

The Beast’s voice resounded through the heads of everyone present, muted as it passed through the mental defenses of each of their battlesuits, but audible still.

[You are dying, Master of Death.] Luna said with a laugh and a mocking bow. [And here are those who will help you pass through the Gate of Bone.]

“I STILL LIVE, CONSTRUCT.” The Beast roared, though everyone could hear the uncertainty in the creature’s voice.

“Not for long.” Eric said softly.

As Luna had promised, the fight was brief but vicious; the Orb was too far gone, its powers severely weakened, and those that opposed it too determined for there to be any other outcome. Despite its decrepit state, Decabaos still fought with a frightening tenacity, using walls and bolts of force, mental oppression, and beams of concentrated aether in a desperate attempt to kill its attackers. Protected from mind attacks by his daily breathing exercise, Eric was able to maneuver close enough to deal the Orb a mortal blow, sufficient to distract the creature long enough for the other members of Eric’s team to strike at it with their strongest attacks.

In the end, Eric rose from the smoking ruin of the Orb’s body, holding a coal black core that burned with cold, violet fire.

You have obtained an ancient Mundus Orb core (Mythic Beast Core).

Aspects: Mind, Force, and Void

Do you wish to make this your Root Core? Yes/No

A pulse of energy surged through Eric’s body from the core, his entire being seemingly resonating with the aether being emitted by it.

“It seems a perfect match for you, sir.” Pig said, examining the orb minutely through Eric’s eyes.

Still hesitant, Eric retracted his helm and looked around at his companions, seeking their permission. His friends mirrored his action, exposing their faces. Osar and Cid gave him solemn nods, while Serra gave him an encouraging wink.

Nodding once, Eric turned his attention back to the mythic core he held.

Yes.