[Avardum: Day 029 | Location: Howling Plains | Marcus, Janel | Hours Survived: 3 / 72]
The night had gone well after Ah-Nu left. At least, that's what Marcus told himself as he nursed a bruised and battered mind.
"I mean, sure, I got a nice gift, but fuck me, I hope I don't have to do that again." Marcus thought as he pondered the problem before him.
Sitting in front of him was a stone sandwich. Manastone and Dungeon Stone layers pressed together to create something that would resist the heat of the lava but still purify enough Mana to project a Mana shield upwards.
"I would like to try one more with the following attributes," Aurora said, sending a list of layers and their thicknesses. Marcus quickly fabricated it. A moment later, Aurora spoke once more. "And that will do it. Go ahead and create the wall with that layer structure.
Marcus looked at the area outside his dungeon entrance. It had grown a little bit, but not nearly as quickly as his influence seemed to spread underground. For the next hour, Marcus lay layer after layer of Manastone and Dungeon stone right at the edge of his influence. When he lay the last of the sixty-one layers, Marcus felt a sudden massive influx of Mana. The Mana that was being projected seemed to extend upwards for a few feet before sizzling away.
"I knew it." He said in mock exasperation, as he and Aurora had prepared for this, expecting it. "We are going to need to build the receiving end as well."
"Interesting," Aurora said, "as near as I can tell, there are actually no laws that bind Mana into behaving like this. I think that you have a far more literal impact on the Mana you purify than you think."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, your original idea for the Mana Barrier, when all you had was a hole in the ground, it was inspired by the Atmo-Shields onboard the Legion ships, right?"
"Yes," Marcus said, still confused.
"Well, what if the Mana can interpret what your subconscious is projecting as 'rules' for how it must behave in this particular role?"
"I..." Marcus thought for a moment, "Yeah, I don't think I am qualified to psycho-analyze myself and change how I think about advanced technology."
"That might be a fair assumption," Aurora said. "I will design the receiving end. Please begin constructing a tower on top of the bunker, no less than fifteen feet in height."
"Yes, Ma'am," Marcus said and began summoning and shaping Manastone into a hollow tower roughly a foot across and fifteen feet tall. When he completed it, he received instructions to craft a similar ring to the one on the ground but with the layers in reverse order.
As soon as he lay the last layer this time, Marcus once again felt a massive influx of Mana, and suddenly, an incredibly dense layer of Mana formed a cone of sorts up from the bottom ring to the smaller ring at the top of the tower.
Marcus also noticed that after his initial burst of Mana, the total received overtime was actually lower than it had been. By raising the density of the mana shield, it seemed he had caused the system to need more Mana than it was producing. However, thanks to the ring of mana stone on the ground, his influence had expanded by roughly twenty feet on the surface. So Marcus made a simple, straightforward solution. He crafted a ring of Dungeon Stone Polls. On the sides of the polls were stips of Manastone. In total, there were twenty-five polls spaced equally around the mana-dome. From one poll to the next, a normal mana shield extended. In the ground underneath, veins of the Manastone were laid into the ceiling down a wall and across the floor, connecting the polls, the tower, and both rings to the Manastone pedestal upon which Marcus's core rested.
Marcus made a surprised noise.
"What is it?" Aurora asked.
"I should have done this a long time ago. It is just the amount of Mana I am able to purify from the Nullmana, which is so much more significant than it has ever been, and it is mostly because of the Manastone linking." Marcus said.
Aurora went silent for a while before revealing what she had been thinking. "It seems that linking the Manastone to direct contact with your core should do exactly what you said, but it should also give you more ability to perceive the outside world, especially with that tower on top of the bunker.
Marcus thought for a moment and agreed. He could see more than he had before. A thought struck him, "Auraro, how do you know that?"
"I... I think it's part of being what I am now." Aurora sounded conflicted, "I am an AI. Specifically, I am a class seven combat assistant. But I am also not that anymore. I am something more but also something less. If you would like, I can perform an analysis of this and return it to you. It may take quite a while, though."
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"How long at most?"
"Three years."
"Ha!" Marcus exclaimed, "Do not perform the analysis. Sorry for causing you distress."
"Not problem," Auroar said, her tone returning to normal, "I do have the sysmic analysis you asked for complete."
"Alright, go ahead."
"According to spectrographic analysis, or at least the closest I can get to spectrographic, the vibrations are emanating from a geological entity roughly fifty-five miles east." Auroar began, "Further analysis of the vibrations and all available atmospheric data has presented me with several scenarios. Scenario one has a fifty-three percent chance of being correct. It consists of a Stellar Techtonics Class four Shield Volcano with abnormal pressures and larger-than-ever-seen magma, lava, and particulate eruptions. Scenario two has a thirty-nine percent chance of being correct. It consists of a Stellar Techtonics Class Seven Cinder Cone Volcano with a somewhat targeted discharge onto our area. And before you ask, I do not know why it would be targeted at us."
"Okay, and what about Scenario Three?" Marcus asked.
Aurora hesitated, "It is worth noting that there is a two percent chance that what is happening falls under a new data classification I have created."
"What is the classification?"
"It is a group of events, items, and activities that I have titled 'magical bullshit that has no logic.'"
Marcus laughed heartily. "Very well, I acknowledge that the situation we are in does not fall within the normal guidelines you would use to analyze things. I also acknowledge that you are working off limited data and less than optimal data acquisition methods."
"Thank you," Aurora said, diving into Scenario Three. " Scenario three has a six percent chance of being correct. It consists of a Stellar Techtonics Class four one Super Volcano. If this happens to be correct, we really are only fifty-five miles from the epicenter..."
"Then we are fucked."
"Well said," Auroar said, letting Marcus think.
Marcus had to remind himself that because it was class one, it did not mean that it was weak. The Stellar Techtonics Classifications for Super Volcanons only had one class. The logic on that was that if it was big enough to be class two, you don't want to know. Class one was bad enough. Humanity had learned this the hard way after settling on a planet they did not know was mere months away from a Super Volcano Eruption Event. After the event, The Solarium created the Stellar Techtonics Division of the Exo-Sol settlement council. After surveying thousands of worlds, the Stellar Techtonics Division then came up with the Stellar Techtonics Classifications. Marcus shook his proverbial head. He was getting distracted.
"Well, let's hope it's Scenario one or two, then, shall we?" Marcus finally said, moving his attention into the dungeon, beginning to work on a room he layered steel, Manastone, and Dungeon Stone around.
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[Avardum: Day 029 | Location: Howling Plains | Marcus, Janel | Hours Survived: 8 / 72]
Janel woke to a new doorway and a feeling that the available Mana in the air around her had suddenly increased severalfold. She rose from the bed, softer than anything she had slept on before, and walked to the two metal boxes set into the wall. First, she retrieved a plate of food, then a glass of water, and sat on the edge of her bed, eating and drinking her fill. The next step in the day was to go to the new doorway. What she saw was breathtaking: walls composed of what looked like pure steel, a king's ransom in steel. Looking at the thickness of the wall in the door frame, she was even more surprised to see that instead of solid steel, the eight-inch thick walls were composed of parchment-thin layers of Manastone, Dungeon Stone, and Steel layered over and over until the desired effect had been achieved. She looked at the door. Its hinges and strange locking mechanism were composed of steel, but the door itself was also composed of the layered materials. She suspected that when the door shut, not only would it be a physical barrier of immense magnitude but a magical one as well.
After noting the veins of Manastone that permeated the walls and ceilings, connecting Marcus's core in the stronghold to the dungeon, Janel assumed that much had changed while she slept as she watched her bed dissolved and reformed in the stronghold. She walked to the spiral staircase and walked out of the little Dungeon Stone building to find herself inside a Mana Barrier, unlike anything she had ever seen before. The conic barrier went from one ring of alloyed stones to another and seemed to pulse Mana back and forth along a sheet of Mana, which resisted even physical touch.
"Goddess, what could the Holy Dungeon do with some metals and other materials actually intended to conduct Mana," Janel said, marveling at the fence barriers outside the cone barrier. "I am glad he is on my side."
She was about to return underground when the ground beneath her jolted and threw her several feet into the air. After claiming to her feet, she glances around and sees a wall of molten stone rolling across the plains, and in the middle of the magma was something that Janel could have gone her entire life without seeing. Her eyes widened, and she found herself calling out to her protector. "Marcus!"
[Avardum: Day 029 | Location: Howling Plains | Marcus, Janel | Hours Survived: 9 / 72]
The ground had just jolted harder than Marcus had thought possible. "Aurora, what the hell was that."
"I don't..." She stopped, "Oh fuck, well, at least it's not the super volcano!"
"What the fuck is it then?"
"it..." Auroar trailed off as they both heard Janel call out.
"Marcus!" She cried, a note of panic in her voice.
Marcus begins to shift his attention to her when a wave of energy, unlike anything he had ever felt before, washed over his mana fence. Marcus stopped having to take a moment; the energy that was now present was not Mana, and it surely was not Nullmana. It was being absorbed, albeit at a rate that made his Nullmana purging look like a child's trick. And every time he gained a point of this energy, his system merely called 'unknown energy.' He felt like he was growing stronger by the second. Marcus resumed his proverbial travel to where Janel stood frozen. After looking around, Marcus also froze, his eyes taking in what was standing at his fence.
Just outside the Mana fence, an entity unlike anything Marcus had ever seen. It looked like a man, a giant man, standing at nearly nine feet tall. The primary difference was composition. Where a man had blood, this thing had mud. Where a man had organs and muscle, this thing had magma, and where a man had strength and discipline, this thing had a raw, innate power, unlike anything Marcus knew of short of a Solarium Shock trooper.
The being stepped forward, one more step, and spoke, his voice like gravel on a bass drum.
"I am Ged, Father of the earth, and I will tolerate your evil no more!:" He moved to strike.