“New dungeon fairy assignment. Report to Gate Hall for transition.”
Jack, quickly gathered up the remains of his meal and ran for the dish drop. Just because he was in a hurry was no reason to be a dick. He sped down the hall towards the main stair that wrapped around the tree that made up Dungeon Operations Headquarters.
The tree was laid out with offices at the top, so the bigwigs could have that sweet view. Under the office levels were the dorms and cafeterias for both active fairies and trainees. Operations believed that having the trainees live and work with the fairies they were training to become was good for morale and the passing of knowledge. Under the living quarters level was a level of classrooms and gymnasiums for learning and keeping up with training requirements. The Gate Hall itself actually wrapped around the base of the tree and was partly set into the earth among the giant roots. Something about "access to ley lines" made building the hall up in the trees like a normal building impractical. The large stretch of empty tree trunk between the bottom of the academy and the Gate Hall also made taking the stairs impractical. Jack reached the grand stairway and ran right past it to the drop tubes.
"New dungeon! Coming though," Jack yelled to the attendant at the drop tube entrance. The attendant quickly waved the line of people waiting to use the drop tube to one side and hit the emergency drop button at his console with the other.
"Thanks," Jack grinned to the attendant as he ran past and then dove headfirst down the left side of the tube. Normally, when you entered a drop tube, you stepped onto a specially enchanted platform. The platform would fall down the tube, while the enchantments on it stripped the potential energy of the falling object and converted it into mana. This caused the platform to slow to a stop just before the bottom of the tube as all the momentum of the fall was converted into mana and stored in giant mana crystals built into the shaft. This mana would then be used in the lift tubes on the other side of the platform to raise people up.
In an emergency drop, all the platforms already in the drop tube shunted to the right and stopped. This left the left hand side of the tube open for falling dungeon fairies. Jack waved to the people on the platforms as he fell down headfirst, his green hair fluttering in the wind. Looking up, or down really, he saw the approaching end of the tube.
"This part never gets old," Jack smiled as he mentally triggered his wings. Jacks brain implant sent a signal to his spinal implants even as it complained to him about "sub-optimal deployment configuration." Anchored to his spine and shoulder blades, Jacks wing implants deployed, causing him to flip end over end and then slow with a "wumph" of air.
Jack laughed out loud as he floated down the last few feet of the drop tube. His wings, lattices of carbon fiber struts and shimmersilk, were shaped like a dragonflies wings. They glowed subtly orange as the anti-gravity enchantments woven into the shimmersilk panels reduced his weight and allowed him to drift to the floor. Jack's feet touched down as gentle as a falling leaf.
With another smile, he sent the retraction command and then ran down the hall as his wings folded up and retracted into the dimensional pocket built into his spine. His tunic was left unmarred, as the wings were designed to deploy from the dimensional space just outside his clothing. Jack sent a command to his implant to start diagnostics on his wings and all of his other implants even as he sped down the hall.
"Might as well get started," he thought to himself as he rounded the corner on his way to Deployment. Jack raced past the arrivals hall and down the corridor. He slowed to a jog as her approached the security checkpoint and then sped back up with a wave to the guards as his implants finished the security handshake and the indicator lights flashed green.
"Good luck, Fairy Greencap," one of the guards said, returning the wave. "They are waiting for you in Deployment 6." Jack continued down the hall until he reached the door with a large glyph for six on it and then went inside.
"Please stand on the platform," said the dry voice of Technician First Class Reckherd Dew. "If you have not done so already, please begin implant diagnostics."
"Nice to see you too Reckherd," Jacks said wryly as he mounted the deployment platform. As he stood on the crystal circle in the center of the platform it lit up with blue mana light. Around the room, screens lit up and began showing the diagnostic progress that had been scrolling down the side of Jack's HUD. Panels in the platform slid open and racks of equipment rose up.
"Please begin equipping your deployment loadout," Reckherd in the same level voice.
"I have done this before you know," Jack said with an eye roll. Jack figured Reckherd must have been standing in the wrong place during a past deployment and took a whole equipment rack up the ass. A stick alone wouldn't be enough to account for Reckerds love of regs.
Jack quickly put on his equipment belt. The belt was a marvel of enchanting and provided both a shield, and a myriad of pockets of holding for anything Jack would need while on deployment. One by one Jack went through the specialized tools gadgets that made up a dungeon fairies loadout and then place them in the belt.
"Ready for deployment," Jack said tersely once he was satisfied and the racks around him sank back into the floor. Around him a tube of clear crystal rose up around him. While most travelers used the gates down the hall, where Jack was going had no receiving gate. Rather than the safe and stable gate network, Jack had to travel by old school teleportation spell.
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The spell may have been old but the ritual itself had been optimized and modernized. Channels and runes carved into the crystal tube began to light up as mana flooded from the ley line taps into the deployment chamber. Jack felt a ripple go through him as the mana level in the chamber rose until everything was blue light. He felt himself etherealize, then with a "pop" he felt nothing at all.
From outside the tube, Reckherd had watched as the mana built and began to imbue the imprinted spell lines. He watched as Jack Greencap reached the tipping point and began to etherealize. The mana level had become so high in the tube that Jack could no longer exist in a physical form. Just as Jack was starting to dissolve into a cloud of mana, the spell forms on the tube blazed with light. The cloud of mana that was Jack Greencap was quickly condensed to a point, and then with a "pop" a blue marble of condensed mana crystal hovered where Jack once was.
Reckerd waited for the tube to retract back down into the floor and then reached out and took the blue marble from where it hovered in the center of the platform.
"Fairy Greencaps capsule insertion successful," he said into his comms set. "Transferring to teleport control." Reckherd Dew walked out of deployment six and down the hall, carrying Jacks insertion capsule nestled in his cupped hands. Some of the other technicians simply stuck their charges in their pocket to bring them to the teleport platform, but that had always struck Reckerd as too irreverent. He was literally carrying a life in his hands. The capsules themselves were marvels of modern magic, and nigh indestructible, but that did not dissuade Reckherd from treating them with delicate care.
He walked through the larger doors at the end of the hall and then down a short flight of steps to the teleport platform. Each step was deliberate and controlled, a procession of one. The work they were doing was important and Reckerd would treat it with the respect it deserved. The platform itself was a slab of the same crystal used in the deployment tubes, carved with spell forms that were filled with mana conductive materials. The scale of the teleport ritual put the loading enchantments to shame and it took Reckherd a full minute to cross the intricate patterns of inset spell forms to the center of the platform. With the same reverence he had shown for the entire trip, Reckherd carefully set the mana crystal containing Jack Greencap into the central node of the enormous spell form.
"Good luck Fairy Greencap," Reckherd whispered as he rose back up and then walked back the way he came. As he finally neared the door to leave he spoke into his comms.
"Fairy Greencap's capsule has be loaded for transport," he said and walked out the door.
Gate Control
"Ugh, that slow ass prick has finally got Jack loaded," Penny muttered to herself. She checked the monitors to see how far along the new dungeon was.
"Still not bringing in any mana," Penny muttered. Penny had always had a habit of talking to herself. Long years working alone with no one check that habit had seen it grow into Penny having full discussions with herself. Penny checked her monitors again, while she could not actually see the cores condition or surrounding, she did have some status indicators for mana production and aura size and intensity. Based on the size of the aura and relative intensity she could tell when the dungeon had created enough space for Jack to teleport in. Penny stared off into space for a bit as she waited and then impatiently checked her monitor programs again.
"Still no mana, what the hell is taking so long," she asked the empty room.
Gate Control - some time later
"I'm so sorry Jack, you've been paired with a moron!" Penny was draped over her console, her head pressed to the glass surface of the desk. She was so bored she could not even sit up. She rolled her head to one side just enough to see the monitors that stubbornly continued to show zero mana production.
"Oh Jack, this is going to suck so hard," she moaned face still pressed into her desktop. Then Penny sat up suddenly as the aura and mana production numbers flickered upwards.
"Finally! Wait, what," Penny was at first elated and then puzzled. The new dungeons had finally figured out how to expand it's aura, and then just as suddenly the numbers dropped to zero again.
"What the hell," Penny wondered out loud. "How do you fuck up something so simple so badly?" Penny's horrified confusion only grew as the aura and mana numbers once again began to rise and then fell to zero again a short time later. She could not imagine what the hell this dumbass dungeon was doing to screw up it's start so badly.
"What in the actual.." Penny stared blankly at the screen that continued to show nothing. As nothing continued to happen for long minutes Penny began to seriously consider aborting the insertion. She had never seen a new dungeon take this long to figure out something as basic as aura expansion. Even the naturally formed dungeons that did not possess a reincarnators memories would have figured this shit out by now. She was just reaching for her comms to call that prick Reckerd back in when something finally happened.
On her monitors Penny watched as the aura size jumped up sharply and mana production spiked. Then production dropped back down to a trickle more in line with the aura size numbers. Then a few seconds later, to Penny's dismay, mana production nosedived while aura size stayed the same.
"What the hell is this idiot doing," Penny asked the empty room. She wracked her brains trying to come up with a plausible explanation for what the hell the numbers were doing and was coming up blank. When nothing happened for a few minutes Penny again considered aborting, but then, wonder of wonders, aura and mana production began to increase again and then rise in fall in a pattern consistent with a dungeon carving out it's first room. Still lower than it should be but the patterns matched. Penny continued to monitor activity and breathed a sigh of relief when mana production suddenly rose back up to match expected parameters for the current aura size.
For a moment, Penny hesitated. With such an anomalous start a case could be made for skipping this dungeon. Penny however, was well aware of what the pricks in managements reaction would be to losing a brand new dungeon and the excess mana that it would generate for the perpetually mana hungry city.
"Sorry Jack," Penny muttered as her more pragmatic side won out. "Dungeon of Idiocy or not, I do not want to put up with managements shit." With a firm press of a button, Penny activated the teleportation insertion.
There was a faint clunk as mana lines engaged and began to feed mana from the ley line taps into the teleport platforms spell form. Waves and swirls of light sped from the edge of the platform, converging on the center. There was final deep thrum and pulse of light before the light winked out of existence, taking Jack's insertion capsule with it.
"Good Luck, Jack," Penny whispered into the empty room. " I think you are going to need it."