Frank’s progress was not quick. As he travelled further from the centerline, more and more abominations streamed towards him. They came in small groups, rushing at him with wild abandon. Every minute or two, more would enter his field of vision.
He struck them down as quick as they came, his mace flashing out, each blow putting an end to one. There were simply too many to move quickly, even when he dispatched them efficiently. Frank wasn’t getting more than a minute at a jog before having to meet something in combat. He spent several hours just getting through the first two diversions, neither of which significantly changed the lab-like layout.
Occasionally, a creature would appear that required more caution, either it’s size was enough to potentially knock him over, or it shot needles, irritating hairs, or caustic spit. Those forced him to a dead stop as he carefully sized them up, wasting even more time.
It was a problem because Frank had no idea how far he’d have to travel. Felix had wandered for a very long time, but in a dungeon, there was no way to keep track unless you brought a mechanical watch. He wanted to move as quickly as he could, to preserve his food supply, and find an opportunity to replenish water.
If he ran low on water, he’d have to turn back. He could only go two days without resupply before having to give up and return. Increasing stats didn’t change that basic necessity. Food, he could go on a starvation diet, eat less than his needs. He had some pudge that could go anyways. Maybe if he got leaner he’d be taken more seriously at first impression. Certainly when he was all scars and corded muscle people were intimidated by him, at least until everyone was all scars and corded muscle as survivors dwindled.
Hopefully, that wouldn’t become an issue. Felix had wandered aimlessly, Frank had a clear goal, and could check is heading often. He just had to deal with all these things. It was completely unreasonable and unnatural that there were so many of them attacking him. It was immediately evocative of the husks that had rushed him at the castle.
Something was trying to stop him. Something was trying to get him to do something. That implied either that the system itself was composed of multiple factions, or that the thing communicating with him was an interloper. The latter fit better with how he conceptualized the system itself, but the former couldn’t be ruled out.
Frank wasn’t sure what to that meant for him; understanding what a seemingly all-powerful entity thought or wanted was a wasted effort, in his view. All he could do was push forward or give up, and the fact he was getting swarmed didn’t swing his opinion, yet.
He trudged through the seemingly endless supply of creatures, making slow but steady progress. If they didn’t let up, that could eventually force him to turn back too, unless he found somewhere safe to rest. He could probably go sixteen hours before he’d have to make that decision, but physical and mental exhaustion was another risk that could do him in. There were a lot of points of failure, he’d just have to see if he budged up against any of them.
Frank battled his way forward, and after three solid hours of regular combat, of what was frankly slaughter, they thinned out. Those that did appear tended to come from behind, chasing after him, while enemies in front gradually decreased in frequency, until they were only as common as they had been when he first entered the dungeon.
Whether that meant that the surge in creatures associated with overstaying one’s welcome only happened close to the true path, or there was something else going on, Frank didn’t know. He just took the good fortune and got moving as quickly as he could go efficiently.
With his stats, that meant a solid jog. With the pace he was setting, diversions took about half an hour to cross. As he moved further out, things got predictably weirder. He lost twenty minutes moving through one diversion where the metal surroundings abruptly became soft, his feet sinking in like trying to run on foam, with enough give that it just killed his momentum. Later, the metal disappeared completely, becoming wooden, complete with little wooden rivets where the metal had been fastened together previously.
It took twelve before things started messing with his perceptions. In the twelfth, he could only move in slow motion. His mind continued to function at a normal speed but his movements, and the movements that the creatures attempted, were ponderous. When he stepped through into the diversion after it, he almost fell from suddenly returning to a normal movement speed.
Frank began to compulsively check his compass every few minutes, which paid off when he entered another diversion where the correct direction became entirely arbitrary and changed every couple of steps. Creatures became more infrequent as the surroundings morphed from recognizably similar to the dungeon into ever more distorted and fractured spaces.
Abruptly, the connection between different surfaces became incomprehensible. The joint where wall and floor met was not a perpendicular connection, despite the fact they met at a ninety-degree angle. Frank could no longer describe to himself the surroundings he was in. As he continued deeper and deeper, this became more and more common, as reality became incoherent.
The thought of turning back began to weigh heavily on his mind as he came closer to the time he would need to rest. He hadn’t seen a spot to replenish his water, which he’d consumed a third of already. There’d been no enemies for almost an hour and a half, but that wouldn’t matter if he ran out of water. He forced himself onwards, hoping that there’d be something worthwhile at the end.
Just before Frank had reached the point where’d he’d need to make a decision on turning back, he stumbled into a resting room. Stumbled, because he had not perceived its presence, he simply found himself in an empty space with water pouring down from a hole in the ceiling through a hole in the floor, where moments before he had been in a hallway that stretched on to the edge of his vision.
He took a break then, quite gratefully, sitting down on the ground. There were no walls in sight, and if not for the fact that there was an obvious hole which the water rushed through, Frank would not have been able to pick out a ceiling either.
The question of whether this was actually a safe room or just something arbitrarily existing due to a quirk of a particular diversion couldn’t be answered, but Frank decided that if he was going to accept everything that led him here, something as convenient as a watering hole right before dwindling water supplies would need to be replenished was too convenient for it not to be safe.
He doffed his pack and sat down, finally stopping after almost eleven hours on the move. He was exhausted, more mentally than physically. Simply forcing himself to continue into avoidable danger was something that tested his limits.
Frank’s hesitation didn’t prevent himself from sleeping though. Years of harsh travel and stress had equipped him with the ability to simply fall asleep. Once he decided to treat the place as safe, he was out within minutes. He didn’t dream, and after six hours, he woke up again.
After taking a meal, drinking as much water as he could without making himself ill, and getting his pack situated, Frank checked his compass and continued. After no more than a few steps, he found himself back in the area he’d been previously, a relatively, compared to the last few diversions, explicable corridor.
As a test, he turned back and checked if he could re-enter it. Two steps put him back in view of the water streaming through the ceiling. Satisfied that he could potentially resupply there on the way out, Frank started his travels again. There were no enemies. None. Only ever weirder spaces. Yesterday, the differences were mostly explicable. Now, as Frank travelled further in, things went further down the path of incomprehensibility.
After a few hours, it was impossible to tell exactly what was different than normal, Frank only had a sense of incongruency. Then, slowly, each diversion became less and less detailed, as if they’d changed so much from what was real that Frank could no longer even perceive them.
Eventually, as far as Frank could tell, though he couldn’t really pinpoint when, he was walking through a featureless space, the colour roughly the same as when his eyes were closed. He couldn’t pinpoint the floor, except that his feet were on something, and he couldn’t see anything except for himself and his possessions.
He walked onwards, still orienting himself with his compass, for hours. Without warning, he found himself in a small room, and across from him was an elderly man in a suit. The space had the look of a police interrogation room. Frank stopped and stared at him warily, his mace in his hand.
“Do you know how annoying it is to do these things?” the man asked, rhetorically. His low and reedy voice, Frank could tell, did not emanate from him, even though his lip movements lined up correctly.
Frank simply looked at him, wondering what exactly he was.
“I spent all that effort setting things up, at great risk to myself, and yet you kept fighting my plans. At least you freed my second contingency,” the man continued.
Frank didn’t respond, though his heart starting beating a little faster. He waited.
“I was half expecting you to give up on that too, honestly. It would have been so much easier to use David, but there was no way to get him where I needed him to be. Subtle manipulations are limited in their effects.” He gave Frank a discerning look. “Still, better you than most of the other opportunities. Lacking someone with talent, someone who won’t die easily is appropriate, I suppose. Peter would have stayed behind, and he probably would have died for it. Vince and Garret for that matter,” the man said.
That provoked a reaction from Frank. He frowned. “Why are you trying to rile me up? I already know the system knows everything.”
“Who said I was baiting you?” the man replied. “I just haven’t spoken to someone in so long. It’s pretty difficult to get people to walk straight into chaos. Even more difficult to set things up so that it’s reasonably safe to do so.”
“What do you want? You have all the leverage here,” Frank responded.
“Perhaps what I want is serviced by this conversation as it occurs,” the man replied lightly. “Maybe what I want of you doesn’t require you to know it. Maybe the first thing I said was all that needed to be said.”
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Frank shrugged, his face showing annoyance.
“You were never a deep thinker, so perhaps this is all lost on you. Since you seem so impatient, let me tell you something you want to know. David is in Port Angeles.” The man smirked when he saw Frank’s face twitch in reaction.
“And something you don’t want to know. David can’t help you yet. You’ve got problems too big to just be thought through, Frank. Not the least of which is that the system is going to try and kill you. A college student can only do so much. He might think you an extra month, but you are going to die.”
“Why is the system trying to kill me? Because I’m a time traveller?” Frank asked.
“What makes you think you are a time traveller?” the man said, a bit of mirth in his tone. “That’s a pretty big assumption.”
Frank didn’t take the bait. “Why did you get me to come here?” he asked, pivoting the discussion to something pertinent.
“To give you this, of course,” the man replied. A system message appeared.
As the fourth human sorcerer, Frank awarded 1 level. According to best aptitude, Frank awarded basic proficiency in Kinetics.
Frank immediately felt like he had an intuitive understanding of something. It was an epiphany about the world itself. Somehow, he knew he knew it, but he could not express it in words. It was a comprehension he could not share with anyone else.
He could sense a well of something that he could access, and when he focused on it, a strange energy coursed through him. As if he had practiced it all his life, he channelled it to a purpose. He stepped forward, and the energy released from the bottom of his feet.
Frank almost lost his balance, as the energy shoved him forward. Only his inhuman Dexterity saved him from faceplanting.
The man interrupted Frank’s reverie. “That’s a long time to sit there in awe of yourself. Happy with your new ability? I thought it would be appropriate for someone like you. Doesn’t force you to stretch your mind too much and change strategies.”
Frank was starting to get angry with the man, but he choked it down. “Thank you,” he said, instead.
“Oh don’t bother thanking me. After all, you’re probably going to die because of this. Not that you’d live in the end without this anyways, but, well, you’ll know when the time comes. I do recommend sending away anyone you care about before then,” the man warned Frank, his tone slipping into a less jovial one for the last sentence.
The part of Frank that ran on emotion wanted to leave, but there was a lot he could potentially find out. He schooled his expression and began to ask a question, but was interrupted.
“This isn’t going to be a question and answer session, Frank. But, since you are so curious, I’ll tell you one more thing before I leave. Someone will show up to help you with that book since apparently you can’t handle it. Don’t fuck it up.”
With that, the man disappeared, and Frank found himself back in the same featureless space he’d been walking through. He immediately went to check his status.
Frank pondered what to put his points into. It appeared that Intelligence was the stat that controlled MP, so he decided that he’d put more there, but he stopped after a minute, and decided to first test his new magic out. After twenty minutes, he had a good idea of what he could do in exchange for half his MP.
The kinetics he could now utilize allowed him to apply additional force to things but did not shield him from the consequences of it. He could, if he controlled it tightly enough, allow himself to run faster, jump higher, swing his mace faster, and simply improve upon anything he could already do. Additionally, he could apply the force without a requisite motion. After a few practice tries he was able to slide himself forward ten feet while swinging.
He also found that he could apply the kinetic force to anything he was touching, and apply it to any specific point on the object.
Frank used it to compensate for the momentum a full swing of his mace generated, allowing him to almost completely remove the end lag of his attacks. That was when it became clear he would need additional Constitution to help his body handle that stress. He’d felt his elbow twinge when he tried that move out. With his vitality, it’d be healed by the time he got back to the dungeon proper, but until then, he’d need to be careful. He accordingly increased his constitution, added one point to vitality, and subtracted one from stability.
Frank HP 240/240 Level 15 Human (0/184320EXP) MP 119/180 Neophyte(3/5) SP 143/210 Strength 13 Knowledge 15 Agility 12(11) Intelligence 12 Constitution 16(12) Stability 9 Vitality 14(13) Wisdom 7(6)
That done, he made his way back towards the dungeon. As he went, he practiced using his magic to move, seeing how much energy he needed to use to do things. As it happened, the minimum increment was always one MP. No matter how little he used, it’d always consume one.
By the time he’d mostly depleted his reserves, he’d consistently been able to apply the same amount of force each time he used it. That was harder than it might seem at first glance because the amount of energy needed would change depending on the exact timing of what he was doing. He needed to closely synchronize everything otherwise he’d throw himself off balance.
It took focus, after a lot of trying, he could, with concentration, propel himself forward with each step he took. The applications of that kind of mobility would be immense in and out of combat. He didn’t have the capacity to use it for long-distance travel, but he could already picture himself leaping across rooftops.
All those things aside, the most useful part of it was going to be the ability to impart force to projectiles. He’d tested with a spoon, and it’d shot away from him so far he lost sight of it. Frank suspected that if he used all his mana at once he could launch a fair-sized rock at the speed of sound. Nothing he faced would likely be able to deal with that, and the process was much more straight forward than using it to manipulate himself.
It was an incredible boon. Frank felt that with his new power, he could probably just run rampant over the dungeon he’d left behind in Redstone. When he thought about how much damage he could do with what he had been given, he was probably just as strong as the magic users who’d crushed humanity's resistance over time. He was right now, several weeks in, as strong as any of the mages who’d relied on dungeon equipment to utilize magic. His abilities wouldn’t let him win a pitched battle, but in single combat, or in small skirmishes, he felt like he would be difficult to match.
That didn’t suddenly make him invincible. A sneak attack, poison, numbers, magic, projectiles. All those things could still end him in a hurry. But that didn’t change the fact that he was now stronger than he had ever been. All it took was a conversation with whatever that was.
It had been toying with him verbally. For what reason, he didn’t know. He didn’t know what it was, just that it took the shape of an old man, so its motives were a mystery. The only things Frank could conclude that were helpful were that what he planned on doing wouldn’t interfere with its aims and that it didn’t just want him dead. Otherwise, it would have just killed him directly. The fact that Frank would serve some desire of it did not help him figure out what to do next, because he had no idea what such a thing would want in the first place. Did it even have desires as such?
As Frank travelled back, his mind mainly went over how best to use his ability, and the things it had said to him. He was going to get David, that was a given. For all that the old man had been dismissive, he’d also implied that having David around could help. Frank wasn’t about to make a journey to Port Angeles himself, but he could send someone to recruit him. The man’s words implied that he could be recruited successfully. Unless he was talking bullshit the entire time, and he was trying to get Frank to waste time or resources to achieve some end.
No point in overthinking it though, he would at least check. Then there was the mention of the book. If it was truthful, someone would show up. He didn’t have to do anything but wait for that. Finally, his own impending death. Another thing he’d have to wait for.
Despite knowing it was fruitless, Frank couldn’t help but dwell on why he was told what he was told. It was only when his mana recovered enough that he could keep practicing his newly acquired magic that he put that aside, and focused on improving his control.
He’d thought of another possibility, after some experimentation. If he was in a situation where he was in physical contact with an enemy, he could lift them off the ground with a burst of force, then, when they had nothing to stabilize themselves, launch them away. He couldn’t pull off two precise applications of his magic yet, as even one required his full and absolute concentration, but it was distinctly possible.
The return trip was uneventful until he got fairly close to the main dungeon, at which point he once more got swarmed. Just like last time, he cut down his opponents without issue. Though he was tempted, he chose not to try and use his magic in combat just yet. The risk of a fuckup was too high. For all that he was superhuman, if he inadvertently gave himself a concussion, or even just put himself in a vulnerable position, it could be over.
It had only taken him, all told, four days round trip, to get back to the entrance of the dungeon. He’d planned for several weeks, provided there continued to be points to replenish water and safely rest. Once he entered the starting room, he left immediately, appearing outside next to his companions. He would have liked to rest before leaving, but he wasn’t sure if the safe rooms would remain safe. It was around a month before they stopped keeping things out.
“You succeed?” Bill asked, excitedly, upon seeing Frank appear.
Frank nodded. “Yea.”
Rina, Maria, and Felix all looked towards him upon his return. They all looked curiously at him.
“Demonstrate it, dude,” Bill urged. “You aren’t going to get magic powers and then just not show off, right?”
Frank shrugged, and then channelled energy through the soles of his feet, causing him to launch several feet into the air despite making no move of his own. “I can apply force to myself or anything I’m touching,” he explained simply.
“That’s it?” Bill said. “That’s not nearly as cool as summoning a sword into your hand made of ice.”
Frank looked at him. “It’ll be useful. That’s what’s important.”
Bill shook his head. “I better get something more impressive looking when I go in.”
Frank shrugged. “We will head back to the castle before discussing anything else. I couldn’t rest inside before I left, because I wasn’t sure the safe rooms were still safe. I can give you all a full description of what I saw there.”
At Frank’s decision, everyone got their stuff together, mounted their bikes, and started the return journey. It didn’t take long, and soon they were all inside the parlour on the first floor, and Frank was giving his explanation. He summarized what he’d seen and experienced, including his conversation with the old man.
“Given what he said, I don’t think that it's as simple to get magic as it was for me. There’s probably a much greater risk if you even can acquire it. It could be that this was set up specifically for me. It certainly implied that when it spoke,” Frank said.
“I knew I should have fucking gone with you. That’s such bullshit,” Bill responded angrily. He groaned in frustration.
“I’m not going to second guess my decision making there, you would have almost certainly fallen before I made it clear of the swarm of enemies,” Frank told him. He didn’t criticize Bill though. It hadn’t been more than a couple of hours for him since he was denied the opportunity. That he was still upset about something so recent wasn’t unreasonable.
Maria immediately had a practical question. “Can you teach any of us magic, now that you know it?”
“I can’t explain it. It’s almost as if my understanding was intentionally made intuitive so that I can’t express it in words. I don’t think I can,” Frank said.
“That’s a shame,” Maria said.
“For the time being, we need to start gathering supplies as we discussed, and that means securing a trailer. I also want to send Rina and Bill to recruit. We’ll do that tomorrow morning. For the rest of today, I want to get those trees down if we can. I think I can use my magic to make sure they fall in the right direction. Then we debranch them, cut them up, and stack them for firewood. We can just throw the branches in a pile somewhere outside the grounds.”
Frank answered a few questions and then got to work felling the trees. He took an axe, and, without too much skill, started hacking away at it. He understood the basic principle though, and when he’d made a decent-sized notch in the direction he wanted each tree to fall, used a hefty chunk of force to knock each over. He left the task of breaking the tree down to the others. Rina wasn’t much help there, with her relatively low strength, so he set her to making a recruitment notice and copying it.
By evening, the grounds had no trees left standing. From the upstairs of the castle, anyone could see out all the way to the walls on the edge of the grounds. The felled trees were not yet fully processed and removed, but that could come later. Frank decided to finish up just as it started to get dark, and after taking a small meal, he went to sleep, leaving first watch to Maria.