(Y7, March 19-23th)

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Vantegaard had not noticed, but the sun had set while the raid broke down. Night Sense made that difficult to realize sometimes.

“We didn’t get any losses?” Fontana asked.

“No, thankfully,” Vormacinus replied. “We have a few people who got severe wounds, but no one bit it. So, nothing that will require more than a couple of days to let everything regenerate. You… you were right to call it then.”

“Yes. Insane regenerations aside, there seemed a point where raw power was not enough. That last wave was basically three raids simultaneously, not one.”

Fontana turned to the watcher teams.

“How close were we?”

“It’s hard to say. It was still in the orders of magnitude, not an exact Aether level. But I’d say 20%, maybe a bit less.. Each spawn drained it a little bit more despite the respawn time seeming the same. Volksung and Illkirch are gone to check the Pyramid now that it is reset and safe to approach.”

“Let’s wait, then,” Vormacinus said.

While the three raid leaders waited, Vantegaard and Birkathane were joined by his boss, Vastragal. Her leather armor looked very scuffed, and she had a scar across her cheek, already fading. Superficial wounds faded relatively quickly once you were topped in health.

“Now what?” she whispered to him.

“No idea. They’re waiting for feedback.”

Two silhouettes were coming back, becoming abruptly more detailed once they entered the Night Sense range. He recognized the red-haired Volksung and his Aetherist colleague.

“Everything is up,” he immediately announced. “It’s just like when we arrived, except… well, the enemies are around rank 200 rather than 100.”

“The Aether storages are refilling, though,” the other man said. “Not fast, but they’re definitively slightly higher than when we ran.”

Fontana made a face, then scratched his chin in thought.

“So much for doing it piecemeal, then. Can’t be helped, though. Do you think it will be refilled tomorrow?”

“Probably not, but close to.”

“Check regularly, then. I want to know when they’re full so we can test if plan C is possible.”

“Plan C?” Vormacinus asked, clearly not in the known.

“Plan C is ‘we leave and level like mad for 2 or 3 years, then come back with 3000 levels’. Which will be way more effective with your Build Map offer,” Fontana said, looking pointedly at Vastragal.

“The Cartographer Guild is not going to open up their bases to everyone,” she immediately countered, adding, “I know your friend has obtained full access, but we are a business, in the end. If you start spreading our data outside of your guild…”

“I think everyone will be interested, no matter what. Truly optimizing one’s build is something that we all will take the opportunity to do, I guess. The next generation of high-end raiders is going to be… leaner.”

It’s not yet complete, Vantegaard thought, but he refrained from downplaying the Cartographer’s offer.

“I hate plan C,” Vormacinus stated.

“We all do. Although, with, say, three years, we can ensure enough forces to succeed… if the Pyramid fully resets.”

“What do you mean, Fontana?”

“We need to check the reset. To see if the ramping up of the constructs is simply an arbitrary ratchet or is based on those Aether storage things. The less one can spawn, the higher it builds them.”

Vantegaard startled.

“You sometimes forget that Northworld is not a video game. It is a physical reality. Take this construct creation system with its batteries. In arbitrary realities, you don’t need that thing.”

Palacio nodded.

“I’ve spent the last six years thinking about Northworld,” Fontana shrugged.

“Okay, so plan A failed, and plan C is in three years. What about plan B?”

Fontana turned toward Vantegaard and smiled.

At least the new respawn is in the hundred range, Vantegaard thought as the small team followed him toward the Pyramid. Fontana’s speculation about the spawning mechanic was apparently correct. They had waited a whole day for the raid to rest and recover, then done a single pull from the Pyramid the next day. They were slightly more lucky, there had been two greater elites 190 and 200, but both coming alone and with enough interval between each.

And once the first pair of lesser elite 195 had gone down, a pair of rank 90 had replaced them.

The fourth day of the raid was where he was the linchpin. He contemplated again, for the Nth time, his descriptor.

Mind over Matter

Tier 1 Reasoning

Active, Channeled

There is no wall.

Temporarily refutes the existence of rock or stone walls. Inoperable on a large scale.

Maximum volume: 7.6 m3

Cost: 23 psy/m3/sec

Skill level 76 (base 13)

Advancement: 71%

His psy base was now at 1199, so he was not pressed by urgency as he had been when they had escaped the Pyramid. Still, it was going to be hard.

The group stopped at the base of the Pyramid, ignoring the pair of skeletal constructs standing guard on top.

“How high do we need to go.”

“I actually do not have an idea. We exited as soon as we could cross over… let’s open this.”

Vantegaard climbed two levels of the Pyramid, then focused on a section as large as he could. A simple 2-by-2 meter opening manifested as rock seemingly vanished without a trace, leaving utter darkness. He checked the drain and started counting down.

“24… 23… 22…”

One of the raiders immediately peered inside, bringing a flame floating above his hand to illuminate the interior. At this low level, Vantegaard couldn’t see the outer structures that encased the “rooms” inside the Pyramid, but he could see a ledge just one level below his opening and one at the same level but starting half a dozen meters to the right.

“How deep is it?” Fontana asked.

“15… We never saw the bottom… 14…” Vantegaard replied.

At 3, the flaming-hand man moved out and chopped with his hand. Van let the hole in the wall vanish, the stone reforming instantaneously, leaving absolutely no trace of his Skill.

“Did you get something, Luciano?” Fontana asked.

“Not much, but still. The way the wall slopes is effing weird, though; messes with my internal map, but I do get it. And a bunch of pillars. Paper!”

The Delver Anonymous started to sketch. Vantegaard wasted no time and Meditated, refilling his psy store for the next round. The raiders moved to where he’d spotted the ledge, and as soon as Luciano Arias was finished, he’d nodded in confirmation, and Vantegaard opened up the Pyramid again.

Almost the entire day was spent that way, going around the entire Pyramid, layer by layer, opening up a window to the inside, and letting the Delver with the Three-dimension Mapping Skill probe the interior volume of a dungeon – or a pyramid – even in the utter darkness. He completed sketches while Vantegaard waited between meditation sessions. None of the druids in the raid had Infuse Psy, but Fontana was happy with the rhythm, as it let his group try to match the volume to the location.

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It was close to the evening when they finished the final round. They did not want to go any higher on the slope and risk attracting the guardian constructs’ attention.

Vantegaard even gained a level in the Mind over Matter skill, with a 14 base now and one additional stat point in Reasoning for a double dip.

“So, we have seven Aether storages located here, here…” Fontana pointed once on the table.

“Tomorrow, we slip a team in. Aetherist, a small combat team ‘in case’… and one wall breaker.”

“Aye, aye,” Vantegaard said.

“There are enough of those ledges all over the interior walls to get close to all of them, although that last one will be tricky. The idea is to open up one of those Aether stores and see what makes it tick. Then Illkirch figures out how to drain it, somehow, and keep it drained.”

“Hopefully,” the Aetherist said.

“And keep it drained. If we need seven Aetherists, that’s not going to work. We have four high-Aether casters with draining capacities, no more. If that doesn’t work, plan B is no-go. I’d rather not.”

“I’m not called Scotty, you know. It can or it cannot be done, and I can’t change that.”

“Scotty, what? No matter, you figure it out. Then you either come out for reinforcements or do the six others, then come out. If you succeed, we pull and verify they no longer respawn. And we toast to victory.”

Vormacinus snorted.

“What’s Plan D?” he asked sarcastically.

“We mobilize all of Earth. With the growth curves, in three years, anyone who wants to come to Northworld will be able to. We challenge the entire world, make a town next to that Pyramid, put the best minds to work, and solve this.”

“Have the Devas found a Pyramid, by the way?” Vormacinus asked.

“Not as of the last call on the Com Globes. Right now, they’re working out the diplomacy for the next step, but neither they nor the Lemuria ambassador know a Pyramid. Given how out of the way this one is, in the middle of that sole continent, it might be the main or the only one.”

Fontana shrugged.

“I call this plan Z, though, not D.”

The morning found Vantegaard bleary-eyed as they reviewed the plan for the last time. They’d spent a long time on the previous evening and night mapping everything. Unlike their escape from the Pyramid, light sticks would not be needed, as one of the team had Light Globe, a wizard Skill that let one have the namesake hovering over their head. Vantegaard had even taken a note as the raider spoke about a dungeon that had similar lights. But for now, the distraction of potential Build Maps addition was shelved, and he was memorizing diagrams.

Almost all the raid followed the “penetration team” up to the Pyramid. They climbed two-thirds of the way, then walked the level until they stepped around the left corner of that Pyramid’s layer. At the right point, Vantegaard checked on the team, then exerted Mind Over Matter, and a rectangular opened into the Pyramid, just over a large ledge, as planned. They all immediately stepped in and spread, and Van followed, letting the psionic opening vanish.

One team geomancer held his hand with a flame dancing above while the wizard had his light up. The two sources gave off light, revealing the interior volume. The sloping up of the Pyramid’s walls with all sorts of ledges and some of the interior.

The Pyramid was full of pillars, flaring slightly up at their end where the “inside” rooms were located. It looked like a mold of the actual Pyramid interior. He looked around, but the spot he’d recognized on the map, the one through which they had escaped, was on the other side of where the penetration team had entered.

“There,” the primary Aetherist pointed. All of the penetration teams had one or more Aether Skills to potentially manipulate the Aether stores located in the Pyramid, but Illkirch was a full archmage with thousands of Aether base from all sorts of Skills.

The team climbed two ledges until they reached the point where they’d mapped the crossover to the ceiling of a room. They moved and started the ledges down. The crossing from the room exterior to the “pillar” that supported it and was recessed by about a meter was slightly tricky, but they had time.

“No reactions,” Volksung, the main spotter, confirmed.

“The Aether store is… right there,” the Aetherist pointed again.

“On it,” Vantegaard confirmed and exerted his psy ability.

The stone evaporated, and a glow poured out.

“WHAT?”

The Aether storage was not a container. It was a hollow space that held a fluid that glowed orange-ish. That fluid suddenly ballooned out, flowing down like some sticky glowing honey. It glowed even more through the lens of Vantegaard’s Aether Sense.

“That’s… strange,” Illkirch said. “Never seen the like.”

Vantegaard looked down and followed the sticky aetheric fluid as it flowed down the pillar toward the depths of the Pyramid.

“Reminds me of a lava lamp,” he said.

“You have those? You’re way too young,” Illkirch laughed.

“My father had one.”

The team waited as the fluid kept on flowing out of its hollow. Some of the interior was already visible as the sticky flowed down, leaving rough stone that looked as if it had been hollowed out without additional work.

Vantegaard turned to Volsung, and the man nodded.

“Still no reaction. The elite 95 just above us isn’t even twitching.”

The hole abruptly closed.

“Out of psy,” Vantegaard lamely announced, having forgotten to keep track. “Meditating…”

A minute later, he was back to full, and the hole reopened, with more of the fluid starting to flow again.

“It looks like two-fifths still. So, this one should be enough?” Illkirch asked.

“It should. I need about seven minutes for the next Meditation,” Vantegaard explained.

This time, he reached out, raising eyebrows from the other team members. Dripping his index in the flow was curious. The finger did not even impede the flow, and the fluid kept moving as if his index was not there. As for himself, it felt like… nothing. The Aetheric flow was not there, at least until he checked the interface and noticed that his Aether balance was slightly growing out. Apparently, even if the fluid was not entirely physical despite its appearance, it affected his Aether. He removed the finger and waited until the drip of the aetheric fluid flowed out of the hollow, revealing a metal plate.

“I bet it’s the refill. Or the spawner mechanic,” Illkirch speculated out loud as the hole closed.

“Let’s see,” Vantegaard said as he waited for his cooldown.

While he was waiting, he felt some Aether behind the rock. A dozen at first, but ticking up.

“It is refilling,” he said, but all the others could probably detect the same thing.

“I’m going to try draining…” Illkirch said.

A second later, the aether change reversed, and the total dropped quickly until Vantegaard could feel nothing. For a few minutes, this yo-yo kept on, as any time Aether kicked up, the Aetherist archmage immediately emptied.

“Drain Spirit Aether,” he said. “Anyone else?”

Only one of the Aetherists had the Skill, so the two alternated every minute while the Meditation cooldown ticked down.

After eight minutes, the hole reopened, and the hollow was uncovered. True to speculation, nothing was in the cubic structure, save the plate, which did not even register on Aetheric Sense.

“Blast it?” one team member asked.

“Need to test,” Illkirch confirmed.

The man placed himself in front of the hole with a large hammer and bashed. The plate fragmented as if it were a ceramic rather than metal.

“Blast Armor works.”

The hole closed down.

“Eight minutes to the next,” Vantegaard announced.

They all paid attention, but this time, nothing registered. There was a minuscule pool with 4 aether in it behind the rock, but it didn’t grow.

“That’s confirmed; we got the refilling system.”

Illkirch pulled up the map notes, then scratched his head before pointing to a ledge up.

“Let’s climb on this one. Next closest is that way.”

The five-person team crawled all across the ledges, going slowly down. Some transitions were a bit trickier, but at least one had the same Surface Climb as Birkathane, and he could easily crawl across to get to the destination and help the rest move over.

The next aether storage was identical to the first one, with a fluid that Vantegaard let escape and a bottom plate that got destroyed to prevent the refilling. Volksung kept monitoring the Pyramid’s guardians, but none even twitched.

After the fourth, they took a break, pulling out sandwiches. While they were munching, Vantegaard speculated.

“Do you think they know we’re good?”

“I don’t think anyone outside has enough Aether range. Well, maybe on the first one, if they risk it while there are no guardians outside.”

“There is one in my guild with good person tracking, though,” Volksung countered. “She can probably tell we’re moving from one planned location to the next.”

The seventh store presented a tricky problem, though. Despite the map, they’d hoped they would be able to get in range, but the pillar supporting the map room was heavily recessed from the outline of the room itself, and there were no further ledges down.

“Can’t access it from there, guys,” Vantegaard announced. “It lets me erase ‘walls’, and anything below my feet’s position doesn’t count as a wall.”

“What if we drop you below the ledge? We have ropes.”

Vantegaard shuddered.

“Well, there is also a range from me… I don’t think I can quite reach the center of the room under which it is located.”

“No kidding?”

“The map is not the territory. I think we will have one intact storage to contend with.”

Illkirch sighed.

“Trying to get through the rock itself is not easy. If there was a Skill for that… which I don’t know of… or if we had power tools… which don’t work here… I see nothing breaking through. This is massive enough you’d need an earthquake or something to damage those structures.”

He looked up.

“Well, time to crawl back to the exit.”

When the Pyramid side opened up to slanted light from the near-evening’s sun rays, and the team rushed out, a deafening roar sounded.

It looked like the entire raid was there. Either they camped on the spot, or Volksung’s guildmate had warned they were coming close. Vantegaard waved, and the others pumped up fists.

Fontana was five meters away and immediately ran.

“You got it?”

“Six out of seven. The last one is unreachable. We’ll have to rotate people with Drain Spirit Aether to keep it empty once it stops spitting guardians. But the rest are disabled,” Illkirch announced before describing the operations.

“There are only four with that Skill,” Fontana noted once he’d finished. “The other two don’t have much of capacity either… well, we’ll see. Now…”

He turned back toward the raid.

“NOW WE FINISH THIS!”

“That soon?” Vantegaard asked.

“I’m not waiting to see if your refill mechanic self-repair. We strike while it is hot.”

Vormacinus was already climbing to the top platform of the Pyramid.

The clanking sound had never started, which made Vantegaard wonder as the low-rank guardians were dispatched one by one.

“That’s all,” Volksung said. “Nothing inside anymore.”

“You know, nothing spawned in the map room when we were there.”

“I think I didn’t spot any that deep. One level up, yes, but not there. Maybe that storage is different.”

“It feeds the map itself?” Birkathane speculated.

Vantegaard turned, but Fontana cut him.

“Let’s hope you’re right. Now… we can finally go in.”

The room at the end of the stairs was pretty much like Vantegaard remembered. The massive stone sphere that depicted Northworld stood in the middle, resting on small spherical ball bearings that also looked like they were made of stone. The whole thing, he knew, was so well balanced you could rotate it any way you wanted, although…

“I don’t think we left it that way,” he noticed.

“You’re sure?” Palacio asked.

“It’s back to its original orientation, with the north pole straight up. We’d shifted it to see better the territories,” Birkathane confirmed.

“You also mentioned lights highlighting the five areas of expansion.”

“That’s right. And the holograms around it are off as well,” she replied.

Vantegaard was checking the Aetheric console. He was not surprised to find it with negative Aether, exactly as they’d found it back then.

“Everything’s reset.”

“Well, you know how to turn it on.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t turn on a different protection system,” he sighed.

He started a meditation to fill up his stores of Aether. The vital would, of course, start to drain back to its baseline, but he remembered the slight damage it did when draining him last time. The control device’s drain was about as fast as it had been, and his stores were much higher now, so the process was less painful. A tickle compared to fingernails raking his hand. The raid cadre was watching, and another pair of raiders had just come down to see when the last of the Aether filled up the console, and the drain stopped.

“It’s on.”

He turned to see the five holograms in five colors floating around the sphere. Fontana reached and made the sphere rotate, and the only blob of color that was visible from the console’s side was the southern pole’s Geigene territory.

The western half of the single continent slid into view, revealing the large bar of green marking Fursona’s extent and the polka-dot red of the Lemuria.

Vantegaard blinked as the coast arrived in view.

“I thought the Deva were close…” Fontana started.

“They’re gone,” he interrupted him.

“Who? The Deva?”

“The Deva territory. And ours. They’re not on the map anymore.”