My head is ringing. I can see nothing. Every movement hurts. My ribs hurt at every laboured breath. And I need to breathe hard. The air is stale. I am resting on a cold stone floor. My aura feels unencumbered within the confines of the room. There is simply nothing I am able to sense at my addled state. The walls are impenetrable. My antennae sweep around. Nothing except for the floor, which turns out to be level and uniformly cold. I need to risk it. I am using the echo sense of my species. I sense shelves with various shapes on them. I am in a mid sized hall with a vaulted ceiling. I need to rest. Something tells me that using potions would be a bad idea.
I bring forth my car, letting it rest on the floor. It takes me two minutes to cover the three meters to the door. And another two minutes to get in. A warning light is blinking. It turns out that touching the controlling orb with an antenna is enough to control the vehicle. Apparently the air is deficient in oxygen. I am advised that closing the door, adding a few spirit coins and some wind quintessence can solve the issue. Telekinesis is incredibly useful a tool if you do not want to move.
Fresh air bathes my face. I turn the floor soft. The vehicle informs me that adding fire quintessence will allow for heated air and heating the cushioning I am resting on even without me providing mana to the vehicle. This is good, because I am not in a state that would enable me to power anything. I fall asleep. Sound sleep, not the blackness of unconciousness.
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The vehicle informs me that a bit over 30 hours have passed since it has been conjured. I can actually rise and move at the speed of a nonagenerian. The vehicle is low on wind quintessence. This means that I have a few days to get out of here. It also meas that any attempt to revive my companions is out of the question, leaving aside the question of my current inability to effectivly render first aid. We’d suffocate together. In fact I have no idea whether this vehicle can even make enough air for multiple people. And, let’s be frank, some of them are normal rank. We would have the issue of - let’s call it disposal of waste.
My phone shows the equivalent of no signal. I’ve had the car upgraded at the shop we got our stuff from. I now have a conventional and a DAB2 radio. Nothing. I didn’t expect it, but you should check all avenues. Well, then it is time to risk something.
I get into the driver’s seat, put on the seatbelt and then I make the upper half of the car transparent and hit the virtual light switches. I am in a storage room. Who stores books, bladed weapons and metal storage chests together? However, the more pressing need to get out of here guides my attention towards a complicated magical apparatus with a lot runes and an arch. Unfortunately some of the crystals set into the arch have either cracked or turned to dust. Going by my initial position I arrived through that thing and thereby destroyed it. It doesn’t matter much to me. I likely would not have been able to operate it anyway. Hence two nautical style doors, one a each end of the room, with big wheels and a window mounted in them are far more interesting.
Believe it or not, I am not physically ready to walk there at a reasonable speed. I prepare two spy eyes. I suppose briefly opening the door to let them leave the car will improve the air quality outside.
One door turns out to be damaged. The car’s main lights illuminating it shows me loose rock behing the slightly cracked glass. I cannot open a door by swinging it through rocks. Telekinetically floating a flashlight to the other door may be the height of laziness, but I resort to it. A room with metal rungs and hand rails on the wall.
I need more sleep and I better meditate to consolidate my gains. If worst comes to worst I may have to use [Wrath of the Magister] as a digging tool.
Gun: [Tools of the Magister] Special Ability Iron 2 (44%) [Joy of Sustained Fire] Blood Special Attack Iron 2 (1%) [This is my Gun] Myriad Special Attack/Conjuration
Iron 2 (40%)
[Chemical Warfare] Defiance Special Attack/Conjuration
Iron 1 (5%)
[Hyperkinetic Cannon] Gun Special Attack/Conjuration Iron 1 (11%) Vast: [Giant Form of the Ancestors] Special Ability Iron 1 (47%) [Immortality] Tree Special Ability Iron 2 (36%) [Nebelwerfer 42] Focus Special Attack/Conjuration Iron 1 (4%) [Arsenal of the Mad Scientist] Magotech Special Ability Iron 2 (10%) [Eldritch Eyes] Water Special Ability & Attack Iron 0 (87%) Dimension: [Teleport] Special Ability Bronze 0 (0%) [Dance by my Will] Dance Aura Ability Iron 3 (7%) [Eternal Moment] Reach Special Ability Iron 1 (61%) [Path in Time] Hunt Perception Ability Iron 2 (51%) [Wrath of the Magister] Corruption Special Attack/Spell Iron 1 (70%) Battlefield: [Equip the Army] Special Ability Iron 3 (14%) [Robotic Servant of War] Magotech Special Attack/Conjuration
Iron 2 (8%)
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
[Pipes of War] Unity Special Ability Iron 1 (35%) [Cornucopia] Feast Special Ability Iron 0 (33%) [Feast of Decontamination] Light Special Ability Iron 0 (47%)
This is a nice surprise.
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Fourteen hours later I stand in the room spry as kid. Serendipity has solved the issue. Simply going to hulk form and returning has removed my medical issues. The second door turns out to be a bit rusty, but for somebody with my racial strength that is not an issue. It leads to a shaft with a ladder set into a wall, which I use to climb up. I end up in a chamber ending in another nautical door with the remains of equipment on shelves and a small metal chest on the floor in it. The equipment looks like hoods made out of rubber with the glass goggles in front, attached to a stone with runes carved into it about where your mouth would be, while wearing the mask. Their rubber parts crumble apart at the slightest touch. Though the stone heads they are draped over are of multiple species, mine is not among them. That has very, very serious implications. Which are also very unclear. The chest solves the issue. It is full of wind quintessence. I am looking at the magical equivalent of gas masks or diving equipment.
The room beyond the door is empty save for a hatch of the same construction as the doors in the ceiling. Its view port is obstructed by mud. That cannot stop a man who is capable of telekinesis. I am staring into dark water. I am under the ocean floor or maybe another large and deep body of water. The water is dark. That may mean that it is night outside. I will have to return in a few hours to check, but we may also be too deep for light to reach.
That lever on the door looks like it will open a valve to flood this chamber. I am inside an air lock.
I am not going to test that without a plan. This chamber is old. I have no guarantee that the valve would close again. I am not ready to force my hand without immediate need.
I take the quintessence. It gives my a few weeks of, literally, breathing space. I have no idea how long my companions will last in the semi-alive poisoned state they are in in my storage space, but getting myself killed will certainly doom them.
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I am munching a piece of strawberry cake with whipped cream. Why not? It is ready in my storage space. This vehicle can produce a very small cooking area with a hot plate, but I am not going to use anything that could stress the air filters, though I have a restaurant’s wealth of ingredients available. I strongly dislike needless risks.
What can I do? My initial plan to dig through the collapsed tunnel is moot. My observations have shown that the darkness is indeed due to the depth of the water. What can I do?
1. Repair an escape device by replacing the hood
2. Build an escape vehicle with [Equip the Army] or [Robotic Servant of War]
3. Teleport into the water
The problem is that I have no idea what happens if I teleport into a liquid. If I don’t do that, I’ll have to equalize the pressure to open the hatch. But then I’ll be forced to ascend in such a way that the bends don’t kill me. And I have no idea how to do that, least of all with my magically altered physiology. As for building a vehicle, I have no idea whether I can build something that will withstand the pressure.
Can I send something out that is bright enough to illuminate the water so much that I can see the sky and teleport? With my upgrade in the [Teleport] ability I can now teleport to places I merely remember or see through my spy eyes. But potions will dissolve in water. They are hydrophil. I tested that long ago.
I scratch my head and decide to repair one of the breathing devices. I will prebreathe pure oxygen they provide for a night in any case. Then I head out to put all the stored stuff into my storage space. Waste not, want not. Can I send a servant with a spy eye inside to send me a picture? I could make one out of metal or plastic. I could probably make a protective sheath out of the candles I took from the restaurant. What is triggering my thoughts? I am an idiot.
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I have spent the night prebreathing oxygen, making and activating a new servant - a floating airtight barrel with arms - and charging a bottle of cooking oil with magic with a ritual. Now I am looking into the air lock as my servant floods it to equalize the pressure while three eyes made from cooking oil are waiting for deployment, one floating freely, two in protective cases.
Two eyes are looking at a cloudless blue sky at a distance from each other meant to assure that they cannot be taken out simultaneously, while the third is heading to the direction I suspect the shore to be at.
I spot a strip of green land separating the shore from what looks like an arid wasteland. Any form of land will do. I teleport.