The walls and ceiling are just as roughly hewn as the floor and over ten feet high and wide. All the surfaces are a mix of rough volcanic rock and strange flowing, metallic veins that pulse with a blue light that’s similar to my Portals in color. The faint sound of my movement echoes down the only way forward, a rough corridor that descends down further into the ground. I’m kind of surprised at the transition to a very different environment… there’s no doubt this is new and not part of the original tunnels. Usually Dungeons and things created by Mana pick up traits from their surroundings but in this case the shift is profound, like someone has stuck two completely unrelated things together.
Taller’ovst Runic Mana Sink Dungeon Located!
Warning! This Dungeon is currently unclassified.
Estimate based on known parameters is Level 300+ and rising.
Levels and classifications are expected to fluctuate until Mana levels stabilize.
A Level 300+ Dungeon that’s this size? Usually high Mana levels warp and grow Monsters that are increasingly large as they grow in power, so unless there’s a truly massive underground cavern here I guess this Dungeon bucks the trend in another way. Iv’e never seen or heard of a Mana Sink before. I can’t help but check the AMLs.
Current Ambient Mana Level (AML): 35
It’s not as high as the peak of 70 AMLs I experienced with Logan in the last Influx. Halfway there and must be one of the highest currently on Earth even with everything still in a bit of flux and pockets of high AMLs everywhere. Mana Sink suggests some kind of Mana absorption, draining, or consumption but that doesn’t make much sense if the AMLs here are higher than usual, not lower.
I move swiftly down the tunnel, my Danger Sense at last starting to give me the faintest warnings and my minimap shows what looks like a much more geometrical set of turns that continue to descend. Every now and then a distant rumble vibrates through the walls, as if the Dungeon itself stirs restlessly.
After the first turn to my left, I see carved out flat sections in the walls with runic inscriptions engraved amongst the rough surroundings. I examine them with my Perception, but can’t get any clue as to their purpose or why they’re positioned in what looks like a haphazard manner to me. It’s a very strange feeling, but Mana seems to flow through me directionally toward a point much lower where the tunnels look to end.
The silence here, despite my high Perception, is weird. I’m expecting anything - Monsters rushing me, traps blowing up in my face, a ceiling collapsing. But… only the faintest of whispers from up ahead is what my senses collectively detect. I’m not sure whether the best move is to Portal out of here, or keep going slowly, or get a move on and find out whatever’s at the end of the rainbow.
Around another left turn I stop short in confusion. Before me is a space-age silver metal door with a bright surface that doesn’t seem to fit with the surroundings, maybe ten feet across and ten feet high. The frame of the door is thick, at least a foot wide, and looks very strong. In the doorframe above the door a sign is inscribed in some kind of alien language, but my SMI handles it without an issue.
Taller’ovst Mana Research Facility
Definitely not what I was expecting. I can see with my minimap that beyond the door there are swarms of Monsters, some spread out in a pattern my SMI has interpreted into my minimap, and some clumped up and moving rapidly in front of me beyond the door. If I assume they are at the door then it’s a thick one at over ten feet, or perhaps it’s a ten feet cubed equivalent of an air lock? Ten feet is pretty thick for a door.
There are a few panels inset on both sides of the door frame that I can only guess were used for access to the Facility that look inactive. I approach the ones on the left, just in case they are activated by proximity, and examine them. Who am I kidding? I’m not a technologist and there’s no way I can make any of this work. It’s a dead end of sorts, so I consider my options while surrounded by an eerie feeling. I know for a fact nearby is a significant threat and it seems at odds with the quiet and calm where I am.
I’m reasonably confident I could slice through the door with my Swords and try to pull it out or push it through. I could also try to open a Portal directly to the location of the threat and dive into it; that’s certainly something I have done before, but when I used Omnipresent to get here, my Skill identified the whole Dungeon as a problem rather than the specific threat. Worth a further try, at least to scout out what’s happening up ahead.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
I trigger Omnipresent and zoom in on this location with my mind’s eye. The entire thing is lit up with danger and I can see, even though I’m not currently in danger, that my Skill doesn’t agree and I’m in the middle of something very, very bad. It’s the first time I’ve encountered a situation like this and I don’t know what to make of it. The closest I can manifest a Portal is outside the Dungeon again. Nothing deeper or further on and the creatures just beyond the door don’t seem to count to my Skill as a legitimate place to Portal to.
A bit frustrated, I release my Skill and resort to brute force. I take a few steps back and dismiss one of my Swords with a thought and then extend the other one to well beyond ten feet long. Focused, I stride forward with all my Strength at play and push the tip of my Sword into the space-age silver material. There’s definitely some resistance to my Sword slicing through it, more than I had expected. Part way through my strike I feel a surge of Mana hit me through the door that sends my body racing a bit and my Sword wavers for a second as I’m unable to hold its integrity together, the first time that’s ever happened.
Current Ambient Mana Level (AML): 75
What on Earth? Seventy-five? That’s a ridiculous spike to even beyond Mana Influx levels; no wonder my system went nuts. I consider opening a Portal to Jeff, but that feels like paranoia more than anything else at this point. With my Sword now fully through the door, I set myself and use my Strength to push it clockwise around in a circle with my blade angled until I’ve fully cut out a segment taller and wider than I am.
My Sword dismissed, I set myself and slam my feet down into the rocks to give myself better purchase, then push with all my Strength. Despite the cut from my Sword being perfectly smooth the door is heavy, close to the limit of what I can do despite my enhanced Attributes. I curse mentally a few times and wonder if I should start putting more free Attributes in Strength as I strain. Slowly, with a loud screeching noise, the door moves forward and I push as hard as I possibly can. Momentum builds and I pull a jetpack out of my Inventory and activate it at full power to give me a slight boost as my feet leave the footholds in the rock and I step up into the tunnel that’s being created as the door segment is pushed out.
A few more seconds of pushing leaves me stumped as to why it’s now stuck, but I think about what’s happening in my head and the weight of the stopper I’m pushing out and then focus on the bottom of it to release the pressure on the ceiling from the weight imbalance. Heaving with everything I have and the jetpack on full, I manage to nudge it out. With a dull thud it lands maybe a couple of inches from the other side of the door, leaving a small gap around the outsides and a slightly bigger one at the top. Twisted, white and gray hands with sharp claws at the end of long fingers reach through the small gap. Dozens of them grasp ineffectually at me as tortured growling and shrieking begin echoing through the metal cylinder I’m standing in.
I can physically feel increased Mana levels pouring in through the gap and hitting me as they pass by like water being released through a hose.
Current Ambient Mana Level (AML): 95
The Mana coursing through me is starting to feel uncomfortable, like my blood is rushing too fast or my body is vibrating with energy. I release my link to the Mana in Milford Sound through Gift of Gaia, reducing the AMLs rushing through my body by 30 and down to the ambient levels here. It feels a bit more manageable and I hope this is as high as it gets.
My Danger Sense isn’t really alarmed by the creatures trying to get to me, but they are getting in the way of me properly seeing what’s on either side of the door and I have a ridiculous amount of Mana to burn so I trigger Fury of the Clan. It feels like the Skill itself is wavering with the high Mana levels, like trying to spray someone with a firehose while you’re underwater. I trigger it over and over, marveling at how quickly my Stamina gets topped back up, until the growling and shrieking stop and all the fingers have either imploded or exploded from the damage.
I peer through the small openings and see there is an even wider corridor through the door. Even below all the gore and body parts I can tell this one looks like it has a flat, normal black floor. It doesn’t look like there’s enough room on either side of the metal I’ve just pushed out to get it totally out of the way, but it should be enough for me to squeeze through if I can roll it to the side. I plant my right foot on the curved wall and wrap my fingers through the gap and then heave using all my Strength. A bit easier than I expected the metal cylinder rolls to my left leaving enough room for me to slip into the hallway.
Carpeting the hallway are maybe a hundred bodies of twisted, mutilated body parts that make it hard for me to even know what these creatures were before I blasted them. As always my SMI is not able to pull anything from them now that they’re dead so possibly I’ll never know. The suits some of them wore give some hints that they may have been short beings, maybe less than 5 feet tall, with 4 or 6 appendages. Inspection of a couple of what almost look like space age hazmat helmets reveal they definitely had a lot of eyeball-like organs in their heads. A lot of the suits are torn open and some of them have some kind of rune or inscription on them. I use my boot to nudge a few of them around to find one that’s intact, and my SMI does the rest.
I pull up the notification and blink twice as the notification wavers and breaks up for a few seconds like it’s having trouble staying open, which I’ve never seen before.
Taller’ovst Mana Research Assistant
Something fucked up is definitely going on.