004 Inside the Realmcore

Looking around the inside of the that was created from a cargo module of the Sunhawk, Chief Petty Officer M’raan Feshur shakes her head while musing “Stephen, the outside of the cargo bay module looked to be around 2 by 2 by 2 meters, but now that we stepped inside it looks more than triple that in all directions. How is that possible?”

“I don’t know M’raan, but this isn’t a cargo hold anymore any way. It only shows holograms of what is stored, and when we touch them we can materialize the stored items outside the core but not use them here. That said, if we can find a way to use them, then we have a lot of tools and resources available – half of the 400 cubic yards available was filled with tools, devices and reserves from the Sunhawk.”

“But it still is only a tiny part of the food and disaster relief supplies that we carried around for emergencies. And when we finally got one to handle, we get abducted to who knows where…”

“We can’t change that. Let’s complete the list for the captain and get back to the mess hall.”

<->

Quietly Lieutenant Commander Dylan Shelton, captain of the former scout corvette Sunhawk, read through the messages explaining the different classifications of cores in this new world.

He wasn’t finished, but he really didn’t like what he read so far. The classifications were much more than just labels, choosing one would create restrictions and obligations for them. But if they wanted to make a difference in their new world they would have to choose one.

“Shit”

Dylan looks up to the control chair to his left, where his chief engineer was studying a different set of screens. “What is it, Cheyenne? Another problem for us?”

“Yes, captain. We have a capacity problem to be exact. I’ll have to calculate our options and I can see a few possible solutions, but we’ll lose something - no way around that. I’ll get back to you after I crunched the numbers a bit more.”

“It’s a bit more than an hour until the scheduled meeting, is that enough time or should we reschedule?”

“No, that should be enough. And it will only take that much time because the System doesn’t use metric numbers.”

Hearing that Dylan turns back to the messages, reading through the last of the classifications given.

<->

The six survivors of the Sunhawk sit around two mess tables placed together. The captain speaks first, addressing his crew.

“Hello everyone, we will go through all reports one after another so that everyone knows our current situation. But before Cheyenne begins – Omnuun, how do you feel? Can you tell us what exactly happened?”

“I’m starting to feel better, captain. You know that this is not my original form and that we Psychons metamorph into a more human-like form to make working on a human ship easier. Staying in a different form requires some effort however.

Normally that is no problem, but somehow when the System was shadowing it drew on that same energy we Psychons use for our transformations. And both drains together were too much for me to handle, that is what caused the depletion and my unconsciousness. Who do I have to thank for carrying me to my cabin?”

“No one, you simply turned transparent and vanished. And the System explained that you were forcibly withdrawn to your spirit anchor due to complete mana drain. You didn’t miss much, we stopped asking questions a short while later when the System enabled upgrades to prevent a repeat of the surprise drains. We will probably continue after those upgrades are active.”

“Strange, I can’t give any explanation to that. It probably has to do with why that System said we are now spirits.”

“As long as you feel better now – I don’t want to lose anyone else. It’s bad enough with half the crew gone. And it looks as if our problems aren’t over yet. Cheyenne?” Dylan turns toward the engineer.

“We have a capacity problem, but luckily we dodged the bullet – barely.

When they abducted us and stole the Sunhawk’s machinery to turn it into the structures here, the process didn’t care about the regular ways of core development and simply squeezed in what they could. That is why there is only crawling space between the structures.

To increase the available space we need to increase the core level, and that costs 300 Mana for the next level. In a regular core that is handled by six mana storage structures and would be no problem. We have zero Mana Storages and only three free spaces remaining to build something – not enough space for the regular way to upgrade.

What we had – past tense – was one of the fusion reactors from the Sunhawk. This reactor is what is now called a <> on the controls, and it would burn Helium to create Mana. Unfortunately we can’t refuel it, so this is one-time use Mana. And that energy is what the System had drawn from when shadowing us, and now we have only enough fuel left inside it for 133 Mana.

If we build three Mana Storages and use up all remaining fuel and have five of us handle that complete Mana depletion like Om had, then we would barely have enough energy to trigger the Level-Up. This will cost us the entire remaining fuel of the reactor, and delay later development quite a bit.

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Alternatives two and three both require us to demolish this mess hall for a fourth Mana Storage. This will save some of the fuel for later and force us to remain in our cabins for several days before we can replace the mess hall with a smaller room.”

At this George Davis interjects a question: “Why would we replace it with a smaller room? We can simply demolish the mana storage installed here for the same space?”

“Doesn’t work this way, George. If I heard M’raan correctly she and Stephen already encountered the effect in the cargo bay module: The inside of the structures are larger than the outsides. That must be part of this strange distortion field everywhere in the core.

All structures we got from the Sunhawk are either labelled as or as . If we demolish an structure there is no way to get it back. In the case of structures however the System offers their simpler variants for us to create, they just have lesser values.

For everything but the mess hall – which is called an in the System – that loss of value would be even worse, because it would affect more than just our comforts. The advanced spirit room offers a fixed size of 400 squares. We would have to replace it with a regular room at 54 squares for now, and would have to invest a lot of time and Mana to improve it to a maximum that is a bit higher than 300 squares. That will be a loss of time, energy and capacity compared to the 400 squares we have now.

Anyway, alternative two would be to build a fourth regular Mana Storage. That way there would be no need for five of us to deplete themselves, and we would still retain enough fuel for 49 more Mana from the reactor, but it would be six days of very tight living until we have the energy collected for the levelup.”

The captain thinks about this for a minute. “Not being exhausted and driven to the last energy would be an advantage, but I don’t know if that reserve of 49 Mana would warrants the destruction of the mess hall – from all that I could read 49 Mana is nothing in the long run.”

“I agree – and that brings me to alternative three” Cheyenne continues. “However I need to expand a bit on what I found out in the last minutes.

You all see the remains of our fold drive there, it’s big enough after all. And you know that that drive originally worked by folding the structure of space around the Sunhawk, allowing us to travel at a speed that seemed to be faster than light for anyone outside the ship.

We won’t be travelling that way ever again, but the machinery is still folding space – it just was converted into a fold storage upon getting here.

Its controls says that it contains sixty structures, probably about half of the Sunhawk’s machinery. I don’t have full access to what it contains, but I could use 250 Mana to withdraw and place an that can hold 400 Mana – much more than the 54 Mana a regular storage would currently hold.

That structure was created from a bank of the Sunhawk’s electrical batteries, and it would leave us with 45 Mana worth of fuel remaining as well as delaying the level-up by another four or five days to collect enough energy again, but we would have a compensation for the missing Mana Storages early.”

“And the fourth way would probably be to go the first route without destroying the mess hall and then place the Advanced Mana Storage only after the level-up, is that correct?”

“Yes, although that would take extra long because we would need to build additional regular Mana Storages first, the three times 54 mana is not enough to take the batteries from the fold storage.”

“All alternatives seem to have the same first steps, so I don’t have to decide immediately. Build the first three Mana Storages that we need in all cases, the rest of us can move the furniture and equipment from the mess hall to our cabins. Only after the batteries are as far finished as they can I’ll decide which way we will go.

And that brings us to the next point – what we’ll do here to continue.”

Dylan sorts through a few notes he placed on the table and then continues

“In the discussion two hours ago the System mentioned different types of cores and that we would have to choose which type we want to become. What no one of us understood at that time is that the differences are profound.

There are three different ways and types of Mana that a core can collect from the outside, and the classifications define what will be used as primary, secondary and tertiary Mana source. Those three types are World Mana, Living Mana and Death Mana.

World Mana is the smallest amount to be collected, but it is all around everywhere and every time.

Living Mana syphons off the excess Mana regeneration of living beings. It can only be syphoned if the being is at full Mana and within the control range of the core – if the person had used Mana and is not at the maximum then the Mana Regeneration goes to fill up the body and cannot be syphoned away. The amount is greater than the World Mana if available but it is not always accessible.

Death Mana is collected when someone or something dies inside a control zone. In this case all remaining Mana and part of the Lifeforce that is transformed into Mana go to the core as a large one-time bonus. This is the largest but also most irregular source of Mana.

Now the different classifications determine what a core uses as primary and secondary energy source, and we will have to select a classification at core level 5 at latest or it would cause some unspecified problems.

Dungeon Cores use primarily death and the world mana as second source. They basically create deathtraps and bait people with treasure to go in. Sadly this is not only accepted by the people of this world, they even want such Dungeons as long as the treasure the survivors get out is worth enough. Some governments even feed their slaves and excess peasants into those deathtraps to get stronger survivors in addition to those treasures.

Castle Cores are almost as bad, they just take sides instead of being neutral. They also gain most by death, but have Living Mana as the secondary source. And that Living Mana comes from the soldiers and armies they allow to live inside while waiting for the next enemy to attack and try to claim them. Those cores are often positioned to control a large tract of land and provide assistance to the government currently in control.

City Cores are basically public servants. They gain Living Mana from those who live in their city as well as Death Mana from natural death in that time. They often take a long view and provide services like a perfect sewer system and golem scribes or other robot-equivalents to the people living inside them.

Country cores also focus on Living Mana, but add World Mana second and have options that strive to increase and balance nature, forests, oceans and so on. Their control zones often become paradises, but are usually rather primitive.

Tower Cores are similar to dungeon cores, but they focus on World Mana first and Death Mana second. They build up instead of down because that improves World Mana, and instead of treasures they offer Power as bait to those who enter: Part of the Death Mana released will not go to the core but be infused in the people fighting in the tower.

The last classification is supposed to be the rarest one, but I’m not so sure about that. Astral Cores use World Mana first and Living Mana second, and they are supposed to grow on the inside instead of the outside. Basically they increase the space distortions we have already seen to increase the space available around them on an usually much smaller controlled area.

I think they are just less often found because of this, especially since they have no need to replace their inhabitants regularly and can therefore get away with less contact. Those cores seem to focus on knowledge, but there are not as many references in the System about them to be sure.

As the captain of the Sunhawk I will decide on which classification to follow, but I want to hear each of your ideas about that before I do. And I want to promote the values of the Galactic Council even if we are cut off from them.”