Maze World
Everyone froze as the tunnel they were walking through shook, loose stones raining down around them until Greg sent out his smoke to create a dome of rock to cover them. “Well that's not good.” Greg muttered. “Earthquakes and cave systems aren't exactly a good mix.”
“Earthquake?” Chris frowned, glancing over at him. “You know what this is?”
Greg blinked. “Do you not?”
Chris shook his head. “I've never encountered anything that shook the Maze like this before.”
“That makes sense…” Tori commented. “If earthquakes were a regular thing, I can't imagine the Maze would last very long.”
“Okay, but what are they?” Chris asked insistently.
“They're exactly what they sound like. The earth quaking. Like this.” Andrew explained.
“Okay… but why?” Chris prodded, still confused, wondering whether he should be worried or not. The shaking wasn't exactly violent, but it wasn't stopping either and more and more debris was falling.
“Tectonics?” Andrew offered tentatively. “It has something to do with plates rubbing against each other.”
Chris stared at him. “That explains basically nothing.”
Tori sighed. “It's a planetary thing, so there's not much we can do about it besides wait it out.”
“Aren't they supposed to be pretty short though?” Greg pointed out tentatively as the earthquake continued and… was it getting worse? “I think-” He cut off with a yelp as the ground split on one side of the dome, erasing it as a wall of scales slithered past them, violently shoving them to the other side of the dome as something massive passed by them, loose earth filling in behind it, leaving them sitting there wide eyed in a small pocket, the rest of the tunnel around them just gone. “What-”
“-the fuck!?!” Tori finished, scrambling to her feet. “What was that thing!?!”
“I have no idea!” Chris exclaimed, mentally checking on his minions. All the intelligent ones were fine, thankfully, but large swaths of the small minions he'd left around the Maze were now dead and the ones that had survived were trapped in isolated pockets like the one they were currently in. The foxkin seemed to have at least felt what happened, Chris getting a general sense of panic from them as he briefly checked on them, but no one in the City or the inspection points seemed to have even felt anything. “Alright, it seems like it didn't hit the City, which is good, but it’s hit every other area I've left minions…”
“You mean it hasn't hit the City yet.” Greg corrected. “That thing was alive, who knows where it's going to hit next?”
Chris grimaced. “That's true… but we're already doing our best to evacuate the City. Not much else we can do.”
“Does anyone have any idea what that thing was?” Tori asked again.
“Well, it had scales… and it moved fast enough that I only saw its aura like a second before it got here.” Andrew offered. “Otherwise… no, I got nothing. If I wasn't immortal, I'd be shitting myself right now.”
“That does take the edge off of things, doesn't it?” Greg chuckled. “But seriously, we should probably work on figuring out how widespread this shit is, huh?”
Chris nodded. “We should.”
*
“Okay, this is starting to get suspicious.” Andrew muttered, frowning as he found yet another pocket around a tribe, with only a few thin pathways remaining, one of which he'd followed to find this pocket from a different tribe, just like he'd done four other times today. Even stranger, all the pathways seemed to be new, completely barren with no creatures or plants. Andrew wandered around the tribe for a bit, invisible in his aura form, before finding an isolated corner and opening a portal back to Chris's space, finding a spot to rematerialize and put some clothes on before joining everyone else.
“Anything?” Tori asked as he arrived.
“All I found was a handful of tribes, no hunting spots.” Andrew replied, shaking his head.
Beth groaned, burying her face in her hands as Chris put a hand on her back. “What the hell are we supposed to do now?!? I just- I don't- why is this happening!?! Why can't anything go right for us!?! It's like every time we turn around, there's another thing there to screw us over! We can't even hunt anymore!”
Greg coughed. “Well… that's not entirely true.”
Beth frowned. “What do you mean?”
Greg hesitated. “I- well, there aren't any animals for us to hunt, sure, but there are still creatures around. You know, in the tribes. I'm not saying we should do it, obviously, but it is an option. Kind of the only one we have left, it seems…”
Andrew grimaced. “I don't like the idea of killing people unless they're actively trying to kill me. I- wouldn't stop you guys if you felt it necessary, but I wouldn't want to be a part of it myself.”
“If it's between our survival and theirs, then I'm choosing ours, but I don't think we're at that point yet.” Chris retorted. “I don't need to kill people to make my space stronger, I just need to drain their energy. If we can convince the tribes to agree to be drained, then we don't need to kill anyone.”
“And how the hell are we going to do that?!?” Nadia asked. “We can't even convince them to become your minions! Now you want to leave them powerless while the Maze has been turned upside-down and there are surface races invading?!?”
Chris paused. “It's better than being dead?”
Greg clapped his hands. “I've got it! Let's use the territory!”
Nadia frowned at him. “How?”
Greg leaned forward. “Okay, so, you know how the territory grows when people convert to a new reality, right? And it's pretty damn clear that the Maze just got a lot more inhospitable, yeah? So all we have to do is convince the tribes to migrate to a new reality, and we're good! We'd need a place to actually put them, obviously, but once we have that figured out, it's a win win situation! We get stronger and they get a new home! We can even bargain for a few people from each tribe to stick around as Chris's minions!”
“That could actually work.” Andrew agreed, nodding slowly. The Maze was desolate at the moment, with the only exceptions being the tribes. Without something radical they were all facing a slow death by starvation. “The only issue is where to put them, like you said.”
Greg sighed. “Yeah, I got nothing on that. In my reality we're going to have a hard enough time supporting ourselves, no one wants a bunch of random tribes running around on any Earth, the Outside is too dangerous, the Cultivators aren't going to accept them, and I can't imagine the system people are going to want them around either.”
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Andrew hesitated. “That isn't necessarily true… system world has a bunch of different races, so if anyone would be interested in an influx of immigrants it'd be them. They even have a whole system in place for taking in uplifts, which is essentially the same thing, it's just… well, things will get tricky if the tribes aren't classified as ‘noble’ when they convert.”
Chris shook his head. “Our other selves can work on figuring out where the tribes can go. What we need to focus on is our next step. Should we start approaching tribes? Or should we start looking for some other way to get stronger?”
“I don't think it's a good idea to approach the tribes until we have something to actually offer them.” Beth sighed. “Empty promises will only turn them against us if we can't deliver.”
“But what other options do we have for growth?” Nadia asked. “Literally the only option we had was taking advantage of Chris's space and Alex's ability, both of which require us to hunt!”
“Well, we have the system now.” Chris pointed out. “And I can mutate, though that takes time… hopefully whatever happened to the Maze will at least slow the surface races down.”
“The problem with the system is that the only reliable option for gaining points we have at the moment is exercise tasks, and they aren't exactly rewarding.” Tori commented. “Points are really better used as a supplement…” She paused, glancing at Chris. “Tell me more about this mutation process.”
Chris raised an eyebrow. “It's a process slimes go through to strengthen both their physique and ability. It basically involves the body getting broken down into soup and completely reformed, absorbing ambient energy in the process.”
Tori frowned. “Ambient energy?”
“The… I suppose you could call it waste energy? It's created whenever an ability is used.” Chris explained. “Energy carries an ability's effect, but it doesn't just go away once the effect is over. It's still there, just… depleted.”
“And this mutation process lets you absorb it to strengthen your ability?” Tori muttered. “Sounds kind of like cultivation. I wonder…” She pulled up the system, creating a new page for Maze world and adding entries for physique and ability energy. Her physique was sitting at a little over one hundred points while her ability was at zero. She paused to think as she considered her next move. There was energy around and at least one method existed to absorb it, so why couldn't there be another? It was the same in her reality, wasn't it? Cultivators could absorb energy by meditating on Runes, but Rune Beasts could absorb it automatically, and the trial could just force it into people. So multiple ways to absorb energy could exist, clearly. The question was whether or not she could create a method to absorb energy herself… and how. She considered the system page for a moment, before shrugging and adding a simple entry called ‘method of energy absorption’ which automatically set itself to none. Then she created an automatic option, a physical exertion option, and a meditation option, which the system seemed to accept just fine, before sending the page to the rest of them. “Okay, here's my idea. I know multiple methods of energy absorption can exist, so what I want to do is see if I can… create methods. You've all gotten an update, which should let you use the system to change your energy absorption methods to either automatic, physical exertion, or meditation. It only takes a point to do, so we just need to complete a task and try it out.”
“You- what?” Zack asked incredulously. “You can just- create methods to absorb energy?!?”
Tori shrugged. “I don't know. That's what we're going to test.”
Carmen shook her head. “And I thought Chris was ridiculous.”
“Hey!” Greg protested with a slight grin. “We're all ridiculous!”
Derek snorted. “You keep telling yourself that, smoke boy.”
Greg chuckled. “Oh I will. My girlfriend insists on it.”
“If we're going to be working on absorbing energy, we should find someplace with plenty of energy to absorb.” Chris commented, getting the conversion back on track. “Jello, can you help with that?”
“Yeah!” Jello confirmed eagerly, before pausing. “Should we get our progenitor to help too?”
“If he wants to, sure.” Chris agreed.
“I can help as well.” Joseph offered. “Whatever my body is made of is incredibly sensitive to energy.”
Chris nodded. “Alright. I'll borrow Jam's ability to sense energy as well, so that should give us four or five people to search for a decent concentration of energy while the rest of you focus on getting points.”
“Who's the fifth?” Nadia asked.
“Tori.” Chris replied as if it was obvious, glancing over at her. “You're down to help too, right?”
“Of course.” Tori agreed, hesitating as a thought occurred to her. “Though… would you mind if I left my body in your space?”
Chris blinked. “I- no?”
Tori smiled slightly. “Good. That should make things much easier.”
*
Salvador did agree to help search for a pocket of energy, though it got complicated once they realized he needed someone to go with him so he could still have access to Chris's space. Both Andrew and Greg offered to go with him, only for Chris to realize there was a better option. Instead of giving himself Jam's energy sense he gave it to Andrew and he gave Jello's to Greg, letting the two of them and Tori search through the collapsed sections of the Maze while he accompanied Salvador and Joseph went off on his own. Jello was a bit disappointed she didn't get to go out and explore, but Chris kept a portal open so she could hang out with him and Salvador, which more than made up for it. Particularly since the tunnels they were exploring weren't exactly the most interesting after the restructuring, just bare stone and dirt. It was somewhat tricky getting around the tribes as they searched, since Chris needed to personally control the portals to move around them, but they figured out a system where Joseph would switch with them and continue exploring their tunnel while they moved around the tribe and began exploring the next. Despite this, they didn't exactly have much luck finding a significant pocket of energy in the tunnels, but thankfully Andrew, Greg, and Tori did, whoever found it switching with Greg so he could dig out the pocket and drop off a minion in it before moving on. It took about two hours to find four decent sized pockets while the others built up a good amount of points.
“Well, if nothing else we've found a few good mutation locations.” Chris commented after they all returned to his space. “Is everyone ready to give this a shot?”
“You guys made sure we'll actually be able to breathe in these pockets, right?” Zack asked nervously. Getting trapped in tunnel collapse and slowly suffocating to death was one of his worst nightmares, and the nervous shifting from a few of the others proved he wasn't the only one.
“Yeah, I made sure we'd have air.” Greg confirmed. “Though make sure you warn me if you start feeling light headed or anything.”
“I'll keep some portals open as well, to hopefully help with airflow.” Chris added. “Not sure if it actually will though, so still stay vigilant.”
Zack groaned. “This is going to make me so freaking paranoid.”
Nadia rolled her eyes. “Would you please stop complaining? You're going to make me paranoid!”
Beth sighed. “Let's just get started.”
“Wait, hold on.” Derek interjected. “I get the automatic and physical exertion options, but how is the meditation one supposed to work?”
“That- is a good question.” Tori frowned. She'd added it because that's what she did in Rune world, but in Rune world she had Runes to focus on, which she didn't here. “Maybe try to visualize pulling in energy?”
“Maybe we should try a few different methods.” Chris suggested. “Tori, you try pulling in energy, I'll try clearing my mind, then someone else can try meditating on their ability, and the other can try meditating on something irrelevant, like a rock.”
“I'll take the ability one.” Zack offered.
“I'll try the rock.” Nadia sighed after a moment of no one else speaking up.
Beth nodded. “That'll work. Let's get started then.”
They all nodded back, splitting between the four pockets and getting set up. They had twelve people, so they split into groups of three. The first was Chris, Beth, and Jello, the second was Andrew, Greg, and Tori, the third was Alex, Derek, and Zack, and the last was Carmen, Joseph, and Nadia. In each group, one person took the automatic option, another took the physical exertion option, and the last took the meditation option. Then, after an hour of testing, they all returned to the space to share their results.
“It worked!” Tori cheered excitedly. She could create methods for gathering energy! “I got about a hundred points worth with my meditation.”
“I only got about ten with automatic.” Andrew replied.
“And I got about fifty with physical exertion.” Greg added.
The rest began to share their results as well, the automatic results consistently ending up at about a fifth of the physical exertion results. However, the meditation results had a bit more… variety to them. Chris and Nadia did the worst, ending up getting about the same amount of energy out of it as physical exertion, but Zack got four times more energy than Derek had with physical exertion! The other factor seemed to be the energy density of the area, with Chris's area getting about twice the energy as Nadia's and the rest somewhere in between the two. And the final bit of weirdness was with Joseph, who instead of gaining ability energy improved his physique by a comparable amount.
“So, it looks like what we need to do is find dense pockets of energy and meditate on our abilities in them.” Chris summed up the results. “The question now is whether we should focus on growing our personal power or gather the energy so we can dump it into the space.”
Beth considered the question for a moment. “I think- for now, we should focus on ourselves. If your plan to relocate the tribes works, then that will handle all your space concerns, at which point our personal power is what's going to make a difference. But if it doesn't, then you can still drain our energy when you need it, right? We don't need to strengthen your space now, we just need it to be as strong as possible for the evacuation.”
Chris nodded. “True. Well then, I guess we have some meditation to do.”