Chapter 364: Tavans Savant (And some art!) |
While the tunnels looked like the inside of some kind of fleshy plant machine’s spinal column, the control center was much more in line with what I’d come to expect from Delve magitech. The cables disappeared beneath grated flooring, reemerging here and there in neat bundles snaked through carefully positioned cutouts. A 200 foot tall obelisk dominated the center of the room, with eight work stations arrayed around it, each with its own 3 foot tall miniature obelisk sprouting from its center.
There were also slates like the ones Grotto had installed in his own control center, the genuine article as opposed to the knockoffs made by Hiward and Litta. The difference between these and the ones Grotto used was one of scale, however. An entire wall of the warehouse-sized room had blocks of text running down its surface, along with diagrams, schematics, and a few things that looked like security footage animated in pencil.
Right in the center of it all was one big-ass countdown, letting us know the Labyrinth–including the room we were in–would self-destruct in less than forty minutes.
“At least we’ve confirmed that things are fucked,” I said. “All right Grotto, where do we start the process of un-fucking things?”
I looked over at the Core, finding my familiar turning slowly to take in the room. One might be forgiven for thinking a Delve Core trained in subterfuge would be capable of keeping their emotions from filtering out onto the c’thonic disguise they wore constantly, especially since such a Delve Core didn’t even have facial features otherwise. One would be wrong, however. I knew exactly what Grotto was feeling as he kept spinning to look at all the obelisks, slates, panels, work stations, gadgets, gizmos, cables, and blinking lights.
Panic.
The expression was panic.
“Grotto? You’re looking a little peaky there, bud.”
[I believe this is a parallel management array. That is quite different from a sequential management array, which is what I’d expected.]
Grotto finished his spin, having seen everything the room had to offer. He stopped with his eyes on me. [Imagine that we need to read a manual to understand how to fix the problem before us.]
“Right.”
[Now imagine that manual has eight authors.]
“Less convenient, but sure. I imagine that happens a lot, actually.”
[Now imagine all eight authors took turns writing each section, one page at a time, and then randomized the order in which those pages appear.]
“Ah.”
[Then they each assigned rotating lockout codes to their own work, in which case any third party who wants access has to have each individual author approve access to their particular documents.]
“This manual is becoming less useful.”
[Further, imagine that the author you need approval from is missing or dead. In that case, you would need to petition a supermajority of the remaining authors to de-encrypt it all.]
“I think your metaphor is breaking down.”
[And all of the other authors are also missing or dead.]
I blew out a breath. “If that happened, I guess I’d try contacting whoever they worked for.”
[Which is what I will need to do, assuming the sub-System for this Delve block is cooperative.] He floated over to the wall-sized slate and touched it with a feeler. The text rippled and changed. Symbols flew past in a blur while Grotto studied it for a few seconds.[Based on what I can see of the most recent logs, I find sub-System cooperation unlikely. Regardless, I do not know how else we can proceed in the time available. I will do what I can, but you may need to evacuate us back to Closetland.]
“Which will unleash Cerulean on the Labyrinth.”
[It would be a disastrous retreat, but in that scenario the dragon would pose no greater threat to our allies than the Labyrinth itself. We would at least ensure our own survival.]
I frowned, but didn’t respond to that. Instead, I walked around the room to do my own inspection, however useless it might be. I approached the wall to look at the strange line animations, recognizing a few of the Littans I’d come into the labyrinth with. They were fighting something, but its form was blurry and indistinct.
Text and numbers accompanied each person, although I couldn’t read the machine language. I was sure I could if I sat down and worked at it for a few hours, but it hadn’t been necessary in the past since the System translated everything for me. I didn’t have time for it right then, so I moved on.
The little obelisks at each station were familiar. They were almost exactly like the one Grotto used. I could grab his little pillar to get a deeper view of everything happening inside our Delves, including access to all of the behind-the-scenes System stuff going on. I grabbed the shaft in front of me–gently–but it didn’t react. I willed my perception into it like Grotto had trained me to do and only got a notification in response.
Unauthorized User
I grunted and let go of the girthy rod. The station it emerged from had a few slates embedded into its surface, each one with its own readouts. I ran my finger along the surface of one, finding it responsive to my touch, but without being able to read what it said, it was useless.
I walked to another station, going around to each of them while Grotto worked, trying to think of something new. I could try making my own System Call, but wasn’t sure that would do anything that Grotto couldn’t. As I eliminated possibilities one by one, a trickle of doubt started creeping in. I wondered whether we’d finally bitten off more System bullshit than we could chew, but before doubt could turn to despair, I was distracted by a pile of snacks.
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My eyes halted on the treats like they’d reached out and wrapped their tasty fingers around my peepers. It wasn’t that the pastries had awakened my appetite, nor had I become hopelessly tempted by the open canteen and the alluring fruity scent wafting from it. The thing that had arrested my attention was a bowl of snack mix.
It reminded me of a mix you could buy at any supermarket back on Earth. It was a combination of little crackers, something like pretzels, some dried berries, and even what I could have sworn was drops of dark chocolate. Notably, the whole thing was dusted in a delicious-smelling powder that was both savory and sweet to my senses. Again, this wasn’t notable because of how hungry I suddenly realized I was, but because the dust from that snack mix was all over the work station I stood beside.
Somebody’s cheeto-dust-covered digits had fondled the shit out of this station. I had to push down a wave of affront as I had flashbacks to my college roommate’s keyboard, trying not to gag as I pushed down the memory of the gunk-encrusted object. I wasn’t sure the man had ever washed his hands. Or his feet. Or ass.
Anyway, what this told me was that somebody had been posted up at this station. Not a Core, but a flesh-and-blood person. Further, they’d been here for long enough that they’d gotten the munchies while they worked.
I leaned in and plucked one of the dried berries from the bowl. I sniffed it, then popped it into my mouth.
It was a cubba berry. From Eschendur. The exact type of berry our new United friend had made a point to mention after drinking Nuralie’s tincture. Thankfully it didn’t have any seeds left in it. I picked up the canteen for a closer inspection, noting that it was a blend of fruits, many of which were also native to Nuralie’s homeland.
I sat the drink down and went back to our injured Geulon. She was still mumbling in her sleep as I did a quick evaluation of her. The cloth over her stump was no longer absorbing fresh blood, both her pulse and breathing were steady, and her soul showed signs of distress but nothing catastrophic. The tincture had done work, although she was far from healed. She was stabilized, and that’s what I’d needed to know. Otherwise, I’d feel like a real ass for waking her up. She’d barely gotten a power nap in.
I touched her on the shoulder, the one attached to an entire arm, and gave her a gentle shake while softly saying, “Hey.”
Her eyes snapped open immediately.
“It’s really kind of weird that I can still remember everything happening around me while I’m sleeping but Brae’ach told me that was a function of my persistent True Sense and if I don’t want to remember that stuff I won’t, but then when something happens like a stranger waking me up I can’t help but play back everything that went on while I was unconscious and it seems like you’re still helping me but you’re also the one who injured me so I’m wondering if this is when the torture happens.”
“Uh,” I began awkwardly. I had to talk over her to get a word in, which was something I’d spent a lot of time and effort training myself not to do when others were speaking. “No, no torture. I mean, would I even need to torture you to get information? You’re already saying everything that goes through your head as far as I can tell. Like, what if I just asked you to tell me about the United?”
“What about us? That question is too broad. For example, there are three primary modes of creating United that Brae’ach has either told me about or that I’ve seen performed in front of me. The first are the original Davahns, who are in the class Brae’ach told me about but I didn’t see so the information is unverifiable, but they apparently underwent a religious unification where half of them volunteered to be eaten by the other half and then they’ve eaten one another some more since then based on different factors that were never explained to me.”
“Question answered, I guess.”
“Not really, but I see you mean the torture question and not the United question in which case, yes, it has been answered and torture wouldn’t matter meaning the answer can be intuited as a ‘no,’ not a ‘yes,’ and I’m realizing it was confusing how I just said all that.
“Anyway, since most Davahns aligned with Brae’ach were monster hunters their unification made them extraordinarily gifted, physically, although their free consumption of mana-rich monster meat prior to their unification also resulted in some monstrous qualities becoming apparent. As they continually unify with one another, it compounds the presence of those traits and alters their behavior and psychology. I can tell this is happening because I’ve seen lots of these kinds of United and it’s obvious to me.
“Of course, Brae’ach says the change in mindset comes from the unification process but that isn’t entirely true. He didn’t say it was only because of unification but he implied it, meaning that he left out enough information to be deceptive and that wasn’t an accident it was on purpose. I didn’t ask why he lied about it because that’s personal and people lie all the time so whatever.”
This wasn’t really why I’d awoken this woman, but I was too fascinated by the unexpected info dump. I let her ramble for a bit. She talked at about a mile a minute so it wasn’t like it took long for her to get anything out.
“Then there’s the second kind, which are United like me who were unwell for some reason and Brae’ach united us to cure us and that’s worked out for me but our quality of life can vary after being united like that. I think I’m better off than a lot of other people like Salibar was united with quicksilver and he wasn’t dying anymore but he was even crazier than he had been before and became so psychically powerful he kept overwriting the minds of everyone nearby which is why they paired him with me since my perception of reality can’t be distorted meaning I was immune to his crazy and he also liked me since I kept him level.” She placed her remaining hand over my gauntleted one and looked up at me. “Whatever you did didn’t kill him where I could see it but I can’t know what happened to him after you sent him away. Is he dead?”
“According to the System, no. He was ‘defeated’, which it usually says when an enemy is rendered a non-threat but hasn’t been definitively killed.”
“That’s good.” She let go of my hand. “Salibar was kind of a walking disaster but he was also really nice to me. He always liked to make me tea and now I’m sad thinking about how he’s gone. The third type of United are the ones who were united involuntarily. I don’t know much about them other than they exist. I think Brae’ach hides them from us.
“That’s the start of telling you about the United but your expression makes me think you want to know more but not right now since there’s something more important going on which I guess is the Labyrinth trying to self-destruct and yeah I can see that taking priority. Is that why you woke me up?”
“More or less,” I said.
“You know, I’m asking these followup questions mainly to make you feel more comfortable. I already know why you woke me up but it’s rude to assume even though I’m not assuming so that’s why I asked. No, I’m not psychic, I can just see everything, and that includes your brain waves! Not that they’re helpful, but it’s cool.”
That was pretty cool, but not terribly relevant. “I also never got your name,” I added over her stream-of-conscious tangent.
“You can call me Savant. I had two names but that’s the one all the United call me by which is both an attempt to describe my condition while also being an anagram of one of my first names which used to be Tavans. I’m confused about whether I’m still afraid of you and although I’m feeling better my arm hurts like the hells so I think that yes I’m still scared of you. It’s strange to know for a fact that you’re confused about something when you always know the truth of everything else which means that confusion isn’t derived solely from falsehood. I think that’s fascinating.”
“It is,” I agreed. “I noticed some snacks over by one of the work stations. I assume they’re yours?”
“Yeah they are and I know I’m messy but when you can see everything you kind of have to decide whether you want to struggle to keep everything clean or just resign yourself to being gross and while I’m very hygienic with my body when it comes to my environment I just don’t care that much.”
“Were you able to make use of that station? We’re having trouble figuring out what to do.”
“Oh yeah it was a really fun puzzle and I was sad when I figured it out which only took fifteen minutes but that’s fifteen minutes longer than it usually takes for me to learn how to use something. Do you want me to undo the changes I made? I made a bunch. Some of them were just because I could but others were suggested to me. Not by Brae’ach, though, I mostly report to Miran since I help her with logistics. I can’t stop the self-destruct process, that’s no longer possible from here, but I can help with other things. Just let me know.”
“Well,” I began, still trying to overcome the weirdness of talking over her, “why don’t we begin by eliminating the psychic interference? Then we can work on letting people–who aren’t me–teleport without exploding.”