Chapter 45: Escape

Hecho GTAs who were waiting inside Adam’s spirit shell, received the message loud and clear. Hecho sighed in relief. With their control base created, it was time to send more troops. Echo commenced sending sufficient forces to survey the damage to Adam’s brain. Two hundred thousand further, GTAs were sent in this second batch. Echo was curious about his troop’s existence but had not time to spend reasoning how to teleport a GTA back, something for another time. If they got through this that is.

It wasn’t long before his 2nd wave reported back that the bone density around Adam’s brain was causing problems, in short his brain cavity had been reduced in size due to the extra bone mass. This had resulted in his brain getting smooched causing some bleeding. Not good but good that they had found a problem that with Bone’s superior know how, they could remedy.

The GTAs went to work physically removing excess bone and moving it to outside this region. They were also able to heal up the tissue damage that had been caused, by supplying energy, to speed up the natural regenerative processes. This required sacrificing many GTAs as they had no other energy sources available.

“Libby, I have located and halted Adam’s problems caused by acclimatise for the moment. He had minor bleeding to his brain caused by an excessive increase in bone density. But we have a problem now with energy levels as I am sure you are aware. We will need to get Adam to use the beast cores he has already obtained to boost our energy levels.” Said Hecho.

Libby was both relieved and surprised. Relieved of that the burden of responsibility and crippling feeling of guilt had been removed and surprised at Echo’s speed. Well she guessed he was an evil AI that Bones would be proud of. She would find out later what exactly had happened, though she had an idea of what had transpired.

“Adam, Echo has managed to remove the problem you were having…caused by acclimatise” said Libby avoiding saying Adam had almost died.

Adam had slowed down to let the kids catch up at this point even though the battle seemed to be many miles away now. The images however still hovered in his mind’s eye. Libby was a welcome distraction.

“Ok. How can we move forward from here? Is there any way we can get the PD back?” quested Adam.

Libby glad for the opening Adam had afforded her replied “Actually we need you to help with that. We will need you to start consuming the beast cores you have. One at a time. We will tell you when to ingest the next one. We will then hope to get you back to the physical realm as we are going to need to collect as many beast cores as we can.”

“Ok. Any particular core, first? I have only five here. The biggest one is from that flesh hulk.” Said Adam.

Adam looked down at the few beast cores he had. He would have to start with the smaller ones there was no way he could eat the biggest one.

Libby had also seen the problem. She would need to work out how to create what was called an alchemical pill, to allow Adam to absorb these beast cores.

Adam almost choked but managed to force down one of the smaller cores, with a copious amount of his remaining water.

“Were going to have to camp here for now.” he told the rest, fortunately none of them objected. After the run they were all glad to rest they’re aching muscles and drop their packs.

Adam realised he would have to get the kids to safety soon, and anywhere was better than here. He decided on a new course of action. Before he had wanted to just keep going and get stronger but now he had the kids to think about and also felt the AI wasn’t as reliable as he’d thought.

“Can you tell me when we get to a safe place in the physical realm?” asked Adam.

Hecho immediately reactivated Adam’s LCD ability allowing them to check the physical realm for dangers.

Adam exited the shadow realm by himself leaving the children in the relative safety of the shadow realm. Then he ran through the forest at top speed. He needed to find some people, any people before they had all fled. And before any danger befell the children. He had not been happy to leave them. He asked Libby if she could use audio filtering to listen out for signs of people, also.

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After about twenty minutes of running, dodging areas with beasts, he caught up with some faction members. They were not happy to be way laid but when they realised Adam could easily keep pace with them in his full bone armour, they allowed him to accompany them.

When they halted for a breather, Adam offered them four of the five beast’s cores he had. Hecho had told him that even with the five it would not be enough to re-establish the PD for the kids. After playing poker face with them for a few moments they agreed to let him and the children gate with them back.

The children had not been wasting time be instead had been following in a straight line as directed by Adam. This meant that after only running for five minutes, Adam was able to find them again in the shadow realm. He then brought them all back to the physical realm.

As they exited the shadow realm, the children all blinking in the comparatively dazzling light of the physical world. With the sun rising high in the still smoky sky. Adam urged them on to their destination and was very relieved to find the faction member had not reneged or their promise.

They all gated through to of all places, of course, Earth again. There were far fewer people remaining here now. It could almost have been a normal day in London if it weren’t for people strange garb. Maybe a medieval re-enactment fair. But Adam did not want to stop there. He would not stop until they had somewhere safe for the children. So he found some members of his sword sect. He wasn’t sure which they were more surprised about seeing him back safe or seeing his rag tag collection of kids. And he eventually managed to trade his remaining beast core for a good price and get someone to gate him. Maintaining that he needed to gate them elsewhere was enough to avoid him being labelled as a deserter.

He actually managed to trade some beast meat for normal-ish food stuffs, as it seemed to be prized by some. His bone armour seemed to increase his intimidation rating which made all trades that much smoother. It also could have been just the fact that he had returned alive either way it worked out in his favour. The children were also happy to get some cans of food that seemed like a delicacy to them.

He chose the planet furthest that had beasts on but not void beasts. Figuring that he could protect the kids from normal beasts. The plan being to kill more beasts raid more cores and move on to another planet until he could find one along, long way from the void war, frontlines. Ideally in a zone that was non-magic, unless factions were raiding there to get troops for the frontline. In which case he would have to reconsider.

Hecho knew that if the only way they could get power, for the time being, was from external sources they would need to build some form of energy transfer system. Luckily he was an expert where these were concerned. And with the immediate threat taken care of, Hecho, marshalled his forces and started to build.

Libby and the others were happy that this new threat had turned out to be amicable in fact had come to their rescue. It was a bit weird but if it had Echo memories then it essentially was Echo. Who were they to judge? Libby found it hard to talk to Adam about these matters though, she had a deep sense of shame about all the proceedings.

Adam next managed to gate to a planet that had been designated a hub by the factions, as it had been first port of call when claiming delta-954. It was a planet near alpha-centuri and this hub had a major gateway, meaning he could travel long distance.

This place was packed and had clearly been in operation for a lot longer as there had even been buildings constructed here to house the various factions along with the usual marquees and tents.

After queuing, for about an hour in a line stretching about half a mile of common folk and traders. He was turned away, despite trying to haggle. However the fee was too steep unless and the only way to bypass this was if you had faction business.

Thawain had been left to watch over the kids while Adam made enquires about ways or alternatives to the gateway. But he had had no luck until he came across a trader who was interested in his armour.

“What will you sell that for sonny?” said grey haired old man, with canny piecing blue-grey eyes, tapping him on the shoulder. Or trying to as Adam was still about seven feet tall.

Adam looking down at the old man said “You clearly have an eye for the unique, sir” Adam had by this time tried selling just about everything but the children to obtain passage. Worryingly there had been no takers, they all smelled a rat and where un-swayed by his inexperienced banter.

But this old fellow seemed to know a bargain or at least a fool when he saw one and continued to listen attentively to Adam.

“This is a one of kind bone armour set. Hand carved by a fine um…” Adam dried up, as the old man caught him with a gimlet stare.

“You don’t need to try and fool me and you couldn’t if you tried. Is it just decorative or is it built for purpose?” said sylus, the Arctarian trader.

“I will put it plainly, it saved my life many a time while fighting void beasts.” Adam made his best pitch. At this he noticed that they were starting to gather a crowd.

The old man went on. “Is that so? It would indeed be a boon to any tasked with facing such fierce beasts, as void beasts.” At this last comment, many heads far and wide turned, in unison.

The old man, raised his hands saying “Come with me to my shop. I must display this rare treasure for all to see.” Clearly he had struck a chord, as we were followed by jostling crowd all the way to his shop, which turned out to be quite a prestigious marquee, manned by a stout fellow in a richly embroidered tunic.