Kalen looked up from the workstation, still in the process of disassembling it. He shook his head at his sister, Catherine, who was seated in the command chair with her legs casually draped over one arm, looking utterly unprofessional. She was engrossed in one of those picture-based novels she had imported with their regular supplies. Turning his attention back to his work, he noticed only a few remaining structural connections on the monitor.
"Only a few more hours, and we'll be home," he thought to himself as he removed the last connector. The large monitor almost slipped from his hands, but his enhanced reflexes and strength barely registered the weight as he turned to pack it away in the nearby box.
He winced at his sister's loud, uncultured laugh. It still frustrated him that she was in charge of this station. Glancing at the main monitor displaying the planet below, warning symbols and alerts covered the 3-dimensional map. A wire model of the world spun, and nearby on the display was the wormhole back to the tower. A countdown indicated they had a little more than a week before it would no longer be stable enough for a crossing.
"So, that was the last system beyond your command center and the main monitor. Are you done yet?" Kalen grumbled, barely looking in her direction, knowing she would be giving him an irritated look already.
"Nope, not ready yet. There's one last questline I thought I could slip in as we were leaving," Catherine replied happily.
Her response surprised him. The last set of instructions he knew about were all basically worthless, standard quest lines they were supposed to load as they left a lower world.
"What could be so important?" Kalen asked, finishing packing and closing the box, labeling it for shipping. He watched the native slaves struggle to lift it as they headed to the transport. Sighing, he hoped it wouldn’t be another one of her lame plans.
Her grin as she spun around and pulled her command console in front of her was infectious. It was the reason he had even agreed to come when she first let him know she had been chosen as the World Administrator for this lower world. Promises of fame and glory in farming hero-ranked candidates were what she had promised, and even he was surprised they had gotten away with all the violations of council policy she slipped by the tracking software. While he might be a mechanical genius, his sister’s ability to bypass the security policies in the computers still left him baffled.
"Here," she smiled, throwing the paper book at him as she looked more carefully at her console and started working, "I know you hate them, but read that. Last page there."
He shook his head as he easily caught the book. The pictures inside looked basic, almost hand-drawn, and boring to him. Reading through the novel, he started to understand what she was trying to point out.
"The unwanted hero? Who would give a summoned candidate the freedom to be unwanted?" he sounded confused. There wasn’t a chance of another hero summoning on this world; they had tapped out almost all the resources. Even if they were able to get the local natives to perform the ceremony again, they wouldn’t have enough time to recover the asset for transport.
"Yep, I think I found another loophole, and I wanted to test it before we left. I’m not too sure we will have much time after I get this started, so get that last set of equipment loaded. I know it’s going to cut into our profits a little, but you are going to need to report that this console was damaged during recovery and the cost to transport it back to the tower was outside our budget." Her continued work was now, once again, going to cost him some points from the mission.
"Really, what would you do if I pulled the power to it right now?" His voice was frustrated enough that she looked up from her work. He was hoping he could get her to change her mind. Whatever her newest plan was, it wasn’t going to be worth it; he just knew it.
He dreaded the smile that grew as he watched her finger press down on the screen she was working on. The familiar sounds of a series of commands being processed, and he could feel the energy being pulled from the air around them, concentrated at the console. The world barely had any mana left to give, so it wasn’t hard to miss the amount that was flowing into the quest she had built.
He grimaced as he went to the main monitor and pressed a few keys to bring up whatever change she had done.
"You really did it; you gave them a quest to do another summoning, with the rewards of ‘bringing the end to the darkness.’ You are cold, couldn’t you just leave them alone? They would have been dead in a week, but you just made every major religion think they need to sacrifice the remaining worshippers to avoid their destruction. Of course, knowing it would cause it. Are you just mean?" He was slightly disgusted now. He had planned on a nasty report to their father once they returned, in the hope his sister was never again given a World Administrator position.
"You missed the best part; I found the origination and destination coordinates this time, and how to trick the ritual so they will send it somewhere else." She carefully picked up her manga from where it had fallen and put it in her small bag with the remainder of her personal items. She slung the bag over her shoulder and started walking out of the command center they had been sharing for the past two centuries.
"What’s the point?"
"The point, brother dear, is our younger sister needed something to liven up her newest post. It’s a protected world, so she can’t farm champions like we did here. By using the last of these pathetic natives' lives, she can get a candidate that should be even stronger than those we have in storage." She walked into the bay of their transport, laying down in her coffin-like seat. She looked at all the slaves now lined up outside and nodded. None of them were good enough candidates to survive the transition, so they could all wait here for the end.
"So, all of the power that should pull a hero here will pay the costs to pull one from somewhere out there, and with the replacement of the origin being her new world, it should route whatever it pulls from there." She was looking a bit more crazed as the plan was being explained. Kalen knew there was more, and just waited as he helped her hook up all the attachments that would buffer her back through ascension to the tower. Without it, the power needed would probably reject them returning.
As she was reaching up to close the pod around her, she smiled one last time. "And even better, I’ve given them a summoning that has no source, so only the tower knows what world a candidate might be pulled from. All of that randomness should really mess up the results of the summoning and really give our sister some headaches. It might even upset the stabilization of her world, and she would fail to even meet her quota. Wouldn’t that be a shame? As would you putting anything you know into the report you’ve built for our father. He would not be pleased at the combination of you leaving the master console and uploading the final destruction quest incorrectly. It really would be bad if anyone had to review our logs because of someone reporting issues with our run. One of us would lose their head."
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
He felt the panic start, but he couldn’t even respond as her pod fully closed, and the automated systems put her into a coma almost instantly. His laughter as he finished his own connections and closed his pod echoed in the transport, ringing past the rows of cold storage units. In each unit was one of the natives from the world below, but each was a peak version, although naked beyond a collar around each neck.
After the pod closed, automated systems turned on. The station on the moon cracked open like an egg, the transport hanging in space. A quick burn from the engines started them on a journey toward the failing wormhole, and the ship completely stopped using any power as it hit the edge of the entrance. Their forward momentum pulled them into the hole and the entire ship stretched and shot through.
----------------------------------------
On the planet left behind, the High Priestess of Ral-muth, bringer of light and growth, gasped as she saw her holy book once again light up. The god had sent her another sign, which would hopefully help her answer all the questions the faithful had. The world changed recently after years of peace. The last Hero had defeated the Demon Lord that had arisen in the empire, and they were looking forward to a few more decades without conflict. Then the sky had turned red and the stars had disappeared along with the Hero and his party. The only thing left in the sky was the moon, and as she looked up, the promised sign of a comet could be seen flying away from it.
She hurried down to the main altar, laying her book on the altar, calling out to the other priestess to join her. The spell she was casting would require all the faith she could gather, so they circled around the altar and started the holy prayer. She had never seen this specific method to produce the power needed for a spell before, but she could feel it working as the links latched onto the priestess around her. She could feel all the people with faith joining in, their need and desires to be saved bonding them together.
She finished the spell and started the final chant. The ritual was like the Hero summoning she had been a part of in her youth, but she could tell something was different. Her heart felt warm, knowing that she finally had a way to save her world. The holy quests her god granted had never sent her down the wrong path before.
In fact, her heart was growing so warm with all the power she had flowing through her, she wondered if something was wrong. Her last thoughts as she watched the priestesses around the circle start to burn from inside was the fear that somehow she had messed up the spell and whatever was wrong was obviously her fault. A pillar of power raised up from the temple, obliterating it as the power shot up into the atmosphere.
Several other energy pillars, all over the world joined it, and the power pooled together until all of them stopped forming. Once complete, the collective power shot into the wormhole, the effect of it hitting the passage causing it to crack and break, disconnecting the lower world from its link to the tower. The edges of the universe around the world started to shrink rapidly, the mana needed to stabilize it was gone. No one was left on the planet itself to watch the end.
----------------------------------------
[Alert - High - Wormhole X7-3452-B has closed] [Alert - Critical - Abnormal mana levels detected inbound on wormhole X7-3452-B]
System analysis: Closure outside expected tolerance levels. System analysis: Unexpected energy levels detected. System analysis: Abnormal Hero Summoning attempted on system X7-3452-B. System analysis: Notify Tower Council of violation of contract.
[Alert - Critical - New wormhole generated connecting to unknown pocket world] [Alert - High - New Hero Candidate undergoing transition through the tower from unknown pocket world to system X2-0129-P] [Alert - Critical - Unstable energy matrix detected, candidate transition flawed]
System analysis: downgrade alerts requested by technician Kalen Hong ID ERRor System update: Changes approved by council override Councilor Talen Vale ID ERRor System update: Logs purged. System update: New log added.
[Alert - Informational - Wormhole X7-3452-B has closed within normal parameters]
----------------------------------------
The gods and demi-gods left behind cried in frustration as they watched the universe and the world they were tasked with maintaining crumbling. The reality pocket they were in shrinking, the mana they required to live now was nothing but vapors. Their guardian angels wandered around stunned, unable to comprehend how to defend their charges against the void eating away at their reality. As the lower world finally separated from the tower completely and broke off, it started tumbling through the void, questing for sustenance.
----------------------------------------
Tanya Hong woke up from her transition into the lower world and groaned. It was her first transition, and the loss of her full champion abilities was new. It was like she had a whole new body. Given she was born in an upper world and never had to feel the true lack of power that came with being reduced to a candidate, she felt like someone that had woken from a coma after years of inactivity.
As she left the pod, the transport doors opened into what would be her home for at least the next 100 years. The station was smaller than most, as this was a protected world. It was unfortunate for her first post, but understandable; her sister Catherine had recommended her, and it would have been quite some time for her to get one otherwise.
As she moved into the two-room suite that would be her home, she smiled as she watched the systems boot up. She might not be as computer-savvy as her sister, but she knew she could maintain this equipment well enough unless there was a major issue.
Sitting down in the command chair made her feel giddy. She continued watching the systems around her going through their activation, the automatic programming linking into the god’s network on this world.
After watching the standard operating procedures go by for a while, she picked up her personal items and moved into her bedroom. The primary control systems would take a few days to override the god’s normal systems giving her the back door access needed to make changes.
As she put away all her stuff, she reviewed the methods she had learned to modify the local questing system to produce and direct new candidates. Given she was managing a protected world, she couldn’t be aggressive, but she could offer incentives for the local natives to join their family. Hopefully, there would be a few candidates that were approaching champion ascension, and she could route them quickly. Images of her being promoted and recognized for exemplary service floated through her head.
She imagined that she could find a hot candidate she would reach out to through the questing system. It wouldn’t take long for her to find the most powerful and start trying to coax them to join her family faction in climbing the tower. She already hoped she would find a pretty native that might join her quickly and tie to her specifically. She could imagine her candidate being the most powerful and finally ascending the tower.
The warning klaxon made her head snap in the direction of the main cabin. Running into the room, she threw herself into the command chair, pulling up the console and typing furiously. The entire system was in alert status as she watched the wormhole experiencing a massive mana surge. She attempted to activate the purging systems and was frustrated seeing that almost all systems were locked out, still upgrading and connecting to the local world systems.
Unable to respond, she watched as the mana surge finished coming through the wormhole, systems around her sparking as they started to overload without their backups available.
Recognizing that she was going to be unable to respond to the event, she ran for the transport. She could feel the life support systems in the station failing as the air stopped moving. Throwing herself into the pod, she quickly attached all the connectors. She saw the lights in the station fade out as the pod closed and she returned to stasis.