Chapter 360: Dungeoneering |
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SYSTEM ADDENDUM ADDED BY USER NAME: [SC2u-R]
ADDENDUM NOTE: FINAL TRANSMISSION OF LABYRINTH Δ
*****
WARNING! The United are capable of manipulating all Labyrinth assets!
All other Cores at this Labyrinth are compromised. I am certain to follow shortly.
Sentient invaders of the group designated as “United” have defeated all of our defenses. I have been unable to determine their entry point. Anomalous readings indicate they simply appeared within the Delve, although no teleportation, spatial folding, realm shifting, layerwalking, or other known method of invasive movement appears to be responsible. The manner of their entrance bypassed the gating mechanisms meant to restrict access to non-System entities. We were unprepared for hostiles with capabilities exceeding Grade 30.
Self-destruction of all System assets is imminent, but it is estimated to affect only 50% of inventory. The invaders have secured all other assets against purging by disabling them. This includes at least three Delve Cores and one Architect. The fate of the other Architect is unknown, but I am presuming them dead or otherwise compromised. Because of this, data sanitization will be so incomplete as to be ineffectual.
Be they System-based or otherwise, the United can convert all Labyrinth assets to their own purposes. This is accomplished through various means, some known and some novel. Any asset that has been in contact with the United for an extended length of time is likely to be turned to their purposes. One Delve Core has been converted by some unobservable process.
Consider all future transmissions from this Labyrinth group to be compromised.
I do hope the world is preserved. It is strange to think, now, that I would care about such things. Of course I lament the loss of all my work over the eons, and of course there is the drive to promote a new generation, but there’s also a hope for this generation to survive for its own sake.
I’m not sure why I’m including this beyond another strange hope that it will improve training data.
At the end, it appears even we need hope.
[END TRANSMISSION]
*****
We appeared in a hallway. I thought it was a hallway, in any case. It was round like a tunnel, about twenty feet in diameter, but had no clear walkway. Every surface was covered in what looked like a cross between industrial cables, tree roots, and arteries. The moment my boots touched the mass of pulsing tubes, I felt the buzz of an electric current and something tried to snake around my ankle. Fortunately, Therianthropy was still active, safely pulling me up to float in the center of the tunnel. I was glad I didn’t have to walk on the stuff, especially since the thick mess got weirder the longer I stared at it. I felt like I’d been thrown into an AI fever dream about the lair of an evil, outdoorsy scientist. I adjusted Etja on my shoulder and checked to make sure my other multi-limbed allies had made it.
Shog and Grotto were both here with us. The former was already floating near the center of the tunnel, taking in the environment with disinterest. After a quick evaluation, the c’thon dismissed our surroundings in favor of inspecting some of his feelers. While my summon had shown no signs of injury earlier, he revealed several tentacles had taken a beating. Cuts, punctures, burns and other injuries were plentiful, and one of the limbs was barely attached anymore. While he’d appeared to be dominating his 4 vs 1, he hadn’t come out of it unscathed. Seeing that, I was doubly glad I’d dealt with the general quickly, giving me time to flank the rest of the Timan’s crew.
There wasn’t any blood, but that somehow made the injured feelers look more dead. With a casual tug, Shog tore off the one hanging by a thread. At that point, I decided I didn’t want to know any more about how my c’thonic buddy did first aid, since I was pretty sure it involved autocannibalism. I looked away to see what Grotto was up to.
My familiar immediately went to shove his feelers into the crap along the walls. I had to suppress a reflex to grab the little octo and pull him away, like he was a misbehaving toddler making a beeline for the nastiest thing in his line of sight. I took a breath and reminded myself that the Core was so old, he could have had pets that were now crude oil. Assuming there was any oil on this planet. I didn’t know if Arzia had the right environmental conditions to create black gold, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that Grotto was old enough to make his own choices, including the choice to shove his tentacles into weird shit if that’s what he wanted to do.
[Why are you looking at me like that?]
“Like what?” I thought back to my familiar.
[Like I am fornicating with dead cattle.] He swished his feelers around more vigorously, getting half submerged in a bundle of the femoral artery/power cable/root things.
“That’s a suspicious kind of facial expression to be familiar with, and I’m sad to realize that my default assumption is that you are familiar with it.”
[I have witnessed all manner of degeneracy throughout the ages. Regardless, I am not copulating with deceased livestock. I am merely attempting to find a direct, hardline connection point for the Labyrinth.]
“And you’re looking for that inside of the living tube wall?”
He stopped and turned to me, feelers covered in some kind of viscous semi-solid that I told myself was machine grease.
[Yes. These are pseudo-organic power and information channels. I am well versed in their function.]
“Oh, so they’re a Delve thing?”
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
[Indeed.] He shook his feelers to dislodge the vaseline-like substance. A few thick globs splattered away, but he was mostly unsuccessful. [They were quite popular in Delve design several generations ago, although they are now obselete. Many types of wetware were replaced by advancements in mana weaving, with these among them.]
“So this is just… outdated System infrastructure,” I replied. “Meaning we aren’t trapped inside the body of some kind of titanic techno-flesh golem where we’d be doomed to a slow death at the hands of its bioengineered macro immune system?”
[Those things are not mutually exclusive.]
“You know what? Forget I asked. Just do your thing and let me know how I can help.”
Grotto didn’t need my permission. He’d already shoved his feelers back in between the cables and had now gone completely still. I recognized it as one of his processing moments. Those moments could easily be mistaken for some hostile paralytic effect, but I figured that wasn’t what was happening here, based on context.
Yeah, I was pretty sure.
I’d made it halfway across the tunnel to start checking the Core for venomous half-machine parasites when he removed his tentacles and turned back to me.
[This hardline has been cut.] I got hit with some of the grease as he shook his feelers in irritation.[The most recent data packet indicates the Labyrinth is taking self-destructive quarantine measures. We will need to find a control center to learn more.] He spun, hitting me with more grease, then rushed off down the tunnel, forcing us to follow.
“Does the Labyrinth dashboard you got access to earlier tell you anything?”
[It hasn’t returned since I lost access to it in the flame's realm. My System uplink is back online, but the Labyrinth itself seems to be going dark.] Hot, humid air blew past as we zipped down the tunnels. Grotto wasn’t terribly fast, which is why he rode me most of the time, but the tunnels were cramped enough in places to make 100 miles per hour feel pretty dang quick. [Certain safety procedures are extremely difficult to override once initiated. Pray that they have not activated a full self destruct.]
“How would that affect the forest?” I asked. “I can understand something like these tunnels collapsing, but would it extend to all the areas above ground? That’s a massive area. The size of a country.”
[You have seen for yourself the types of experiments and hazards a Delve can contain, which I expect to be manifold in a place such as this. The destruction of the Labyrinth means the destruction of all of its safeguards, not necessarily the things that are being safeguarded against. While we can only speculate as to the dangers that would be unleashed, what is more certain is that a Delve’s self-destruct will almost always lead to a mana eruption. The size of a mana eruption is limited only by its fuel, and this place must require vast reserves to support such a sprawling facility.]
I frowned in irritation at yet another thing to add to the pile of shit we were dealing with.
“Stop.” Shog’s command was so sudden and forceful that both Grotto and I halted without question. The c’thon held up a hand for silence, then floated forward ahead of us. An appendage I’d never seen crept out from amidst his beard of tentacles, covered in a hard exoskeleton and tipped with a two-pronged stinger. All along its length, stiff hairs rose as he extended it forward, rippling in response to some kind of stimuli.
Another tentacle followed, this one covered in what looked like sleeping eyes. All at once, they burst open, bloodshot and looking about in a frenzy. Shog made a threatening purr and the eyes settled. Most of them turned to stare down the tunnel in the direction we’d been heading, although a couple glared up at Shog. I assumed their former owner hadn’t been a fan.
After a few seconds, both of the tentacles retracted.
“A quarter mile ahead there is a large chamber filled with objects humming like the tubes around us. I believe it is the control center we are looking for. However, there is something standing guard. I cannot tell what it is.”
[Preferably it will be a Labyrinth guardian of some sort. Can you describe it?]
“It changes shape and moves like liquid. It has no scent but tastes of metal. It speaks in thoughts I cannot hear.”
I nodded as I gave that some consideration. “Should we take all of that literally,” I eventually asked, “or did you become a riddle enthusiast while you were away?”
He gave me a side glance. “Many broods enjoy their riddles. Mine is not among them.”
“I see. Does that sound like a Labyrinth thing to you, Grotto?”
My familiar also gave me a side glance. [Shog’s description, despite its poetry, has not enabled me to intuit this entity’s allegiances.]
“Fair enough,” I thought back. “Guess we’ll have to go and take a look, then.”
*****
Shog had become something of a talented scout during his time away. I was betting those talents were more often put to use as an infiltrator and ambush assassin than as a lookie loo, but the skillset had a lot of overlap.
Now, something to understand about Shog is that he was huge. He had an extra foot of height over Varrin, albeit being more of the lean power type than a heroic slab of muscle. Even so, that was more than made up for by his tentacles, which probably had more muscle mass than the Ravvenblaq’s entire body. On top of that, Shog was always hovering at least another foot off the ground. Etja did the same thing, but while she made the practice seem whimsical in a way that only enhanced her charm, with Shog it was pure looming and menace. The point being, Shog was big, he was hard as fuck to miss, and he’d have the most reasonable people pissing themselves just by being in the same room.
That guy walked into a shadow and was gone. Just like with Nuralie, I had no way to track him once he got stealthy, but the difference was that Nuralie was a lithe and sneaky Geulon who naturally faded away from notice in the dark, whereas Shog was a hulking mass of terror who just up and vanished. You might never miss Nuralie, but you knew Shog had gone somewhere. Was he floating just above you? Were his swaying feelers the source of that breeze on the back of your neck? Better tell mom not to look under your bed. Not if she knows what’s good for her, anyway.
Shog had put those skills to the test not even a half hour before by sneaking up on ten Delvers. One of them had been a Level 26 mage whose Wisdom had to have been sky high, resulting in a commensurate boost to his perception skills. None of those people had known Shog was there until right before it started raining body parts. Even after the weather had gone cloudy with a high chance of dismembered Hiwardians, the survivors had only figured out where he was because of a ridiculous consumable the Deijinon had used.
All of that being said, when the c’thon reappeared from nowhere to tell us he’d been spotted, I became concerned about the type of thing that could have spotted him. When that thing decided to give chase to the eight hundred pound c’thon stalking it from the shadows, rather than run the fuck away, my concern turned to worry.
When that thing turned out to be a dapperly dressed gentleman sporting the mightiest mustache I’d ever seen, my worry turned to confusion. His eyes were hidden by the low-hanging brim of a black, open crown hat with a glittering band of metallic orange feathers. He walked with a cane, his gait proving the item to be purely aesthetic, although its knob-style handle was thick enough to serve as a mace.
He came around the corner, treading across the messy cables without a care in the world. He reached up and poked at the brim of his hat with one finger, pushing it up to reveal silver eyes set against dark skin. A pair of armless spectacles pinched the bridge of his nose, sitting oddly askance. That singular accessory with its sloppy tilt cracked the man’s entire facade of flawless composure.
The look in his eyes broke it completely.