Dark Matter Ascension-Chapter 21B3 - : Lured into a trap

Jace sped across the landscape and considered his various piece of Equipment. I have an Epic (Augmentation), he thought, and I’ve got a bunch of gear I could upgrade. Maybe…oh, there’s a thought.

What? Ollie asked in his head.

I think it would be neat to be able to turn my skeleton from solid to bendy: you know, like how Shhiv technically doesn’t have any bones? Just that car…cartil-

Cartilaginous skeletons.

Right, Jace thought. What if my skeleton could do the same? It would keep me from getting breaks and increase my flexibility.

Neat idea! Ollie replied in his head. Let’s give it a go!

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[Using Boon: Epic (Augmentation).]

[Target Equipment: Adamantine Skeleton.]

[Augmenting.]

[Result: (Flexible) Adamantine Skeleton.]

[Description: The Flexible (Augmentation) causes the skeleton to become malleable and bendable as the user dictates, enabling for greater dexterity, flexibility, and reduced harm to the skeletal structure.]

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Jace felt…relaxed. Incredibly relaxed, as if a bunch of tension that he didn’t know he was holding onto just left his body. Holding up his arm, he tried rotating it and found to his slight shock but immense satisfaction that he could turn his wrist around three-hundred-sixty degrees. “Now that is neat.”

It will make you a deadlier fighter. You can do all types of maneuvers that species with fixed skeletons would not be able to pull off! And it will make you a better swimmer.

Jace smiled as he raced towards the Complex on the map, with a dot representing one of these Astral Demons that Xera had tracked right in front of it. Let’s see if they can find me. Dismounting and storing the Sliver Arc, he activated Dark Matter Cloak (Rank 3), reactivated his Void Blade (Rank 5) [Rending] and Void Shield (Rank 6), and began to approach on foot.

Rising over a small hill, Jace saw the armored figure standing in front of the Complex, cutting into the ice and snow just as he would. “We should watch him,” Jace muttered. “See what we can learn from watching.”

Jace could feel Ollie’s frown as the otter spoke in his thoughts again, the longer we wait, the more familiar they will get with your Equipment. And we don’t know what the Astral System lets them do, or how it will interact with some of your Skills. I would not advise it.

Jace sighed but nodded, “Yeah, you’re right. I like gathering information about a mark before striking…but killing them is more important.” He began sprinting down towards the figure, throwing his sword as he did so.

They turned and deflected his blade, and Jace warped it back to his grasp. The figure raised a hand, and a beam of arcing, crackling, purple lighting shot out towards Jace. He was able to dodge but saw the ice and snow behind him explode into a cloud of dust.

“I can sense your soul!” it shouted out over the icy battlefield. “No point in hiding!”

Well, that answers that. Jace dropped the Dark Matter Cloak and kept sprinting forward to close the distance. Throwing and recalling his sword over and over, he saw the figure respond and deflect each throw. They did not continue hurling the weird, otherworldly lightning at Jace. Instead, they raised their own blade, and it blazed with the same power.

Ollie spoke again, Xera’s programs are still working on calculating what exactly that is, but it seems like that is raw Astral power. It’s not refined, unlike how The Cosmic System refines down power sources into categories. It might be able to match Dark Matter or Void blow-for-blow, but your refined control should give you the edge.

The figure waited for Jace, and as he reached the figure, they struck out with a precise stab. Jace parried the blow and countered with his own stab, but the figure danced away. “Ah, this form is quite intriguing,” it stated.

Jace ignored its attempts at banter and approached with a bit more caution, slashing out with sweeping, horizontal strikes interspersed with small jabs. The strikes were parried, but the jabs got through easily enough and began to tear away at the creature’s form. Checking his energy, Jace knew he had enough excess capacity to use Void Beam to annihilate this thing. Void Beam (Rank 1) [Limited Range], he thought. The beam manifested over his shoulder, shot out at the thing: and it dodged.

The Astral Demon in a copy of his body threw itself flat, dodging the beam of annihilating force. But that also made it an easy target to strike, and Jace chopped the head off with ease. Chopping down over and over, he spread the miasmic, grey-white and crimson energy across the body, disintegrating it utterly. Only when the body was fully gone, and the slight blue-hue of Souls ascending to the skies, did Jace stop his frenzied slashes to take a few recovery breaths.

Odd, Ollie stated. No Essence from these ones. Maybe Essence only comes from those that are strong enough? Things like this do not have Essence, only Souls.

Jace nodded, “Well…you said that they can use Souls or Universal Matter as currency. Maybe…it’s like a scale?” Jace walked over towards the open Complex as he spoke, “The weakest ones can only use Souls, but once they hit a certain threshold in their Astral System, they can start using Universal Matter, but also generate this Essence.”

A reasonable hypothesis, Ollie replied. I’ll send it along to Xera for analysis. Regardless, she thinks that for her interpretation and backdoor into the Astral System that will enable you to access it via the Cosmic System: Essence will be the currency you end up using for advancement. But more testing must be done, and more data gathered. The best data will be beating Troxanir, using your power over Dark Energy to act as the door to the singularity, and then sending probes down into the Astral Verge to gather data.

Jace kicked in the metal door, but then turned around as he saw dots converging on his position. Three of them. Moving incredibly fast. “Ollie, when did these things arrive? After I got the Sliver Arc?”

Checking…crap! Yes! They have those!

“And they have the armor,” Jace muttered. “So, they have the HUD and map interface despite not being hooked up to The Cosmic System.” As he spoke, he saw more of the dots working towards his location. Glancing back at the Complex, an idea formed in his head. “I go in, clear this really fast, and use the entrance as a choke point to force them to come one at a time.”

Risky, but it’s either that or fight multiple opponents out in the open, which is just as risky given we do not know all their capabilities.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“I can always blast my way out with a [Horizon-Splitter],” Jace stated as he went into the Complex entrance.

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[Warning! You are about to enter a Complex!]

[This location has been marked by The Cosmic System as Tier 6.]

[Number of foes to clear out: N/A.]

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[Quest: Deactivate the Security Depot.]

[Time Limit: N/A.]

[Reward: Epic (Variable) Boon.]

[Sender: The Cosmic System.]

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A security depot? Jace thought as he kept an eye on the dots moving towards his location. That means automated defenses if they want me to deactivate this place. If I can find the control center, then I can possibly turn the defenses on these things.

“Ollie, give me a time on how long it will take them to reach me at current speed.”

Anywhere from a minute to three. More coming from further out.

Jace got into the first chamber and saw turrets covering the room: electricity ones like what he had encountered previously: and all of them turned to shoot at him. His Void Shield took the damage without issue, and Jace walked through the turret-laden Complex without issue. A few doors with windows were in the way, but he cut through those and pushed them open as he made his way deeper.

Having a defensive Skill that negates most stuff used against me is handy, he thought. This is unfair to anything I come across within The Cosmic System that can’t shut it down somehow. Glancing down at his Anathema Arm, he frowned, but I do know that something does exist that can turn off-

A horrific thought hit him just then and he couldn’t help but vocalize it as he asked, “Ollie? They have my Equipment…what about the Skills that come along with it? The once-per-day stuff? Those…those aren’t technically Skills, are they? Since they come from the Equipment.”

There was silence for a moment before Ollie replied, Damn. That would be accurate. If they have long enough, they may figure that out. They would only be able to use Anathema Arm once apiece, though, since yours is Augmented by The Cosmic System, and Augmentations would not carry over unless they were also System-Integrated.

Jace sprinted through the Complex, only slowing to slash through doors. Thankfully, the only rooms he passed were labeled as various armories which he could not stop to investigate. He had to reach the central control point. Going deep into the facility, he saw the first of the dots arrive just outside the Complex. The turrets will go for them, also, he thought. And they don’t have Void Shield, so hopefully it will take some effort on their part to get inside.

He got to a heavily armored door labeled “Facility Security Control Center,” and sliced through the center seam. Then, he dropped the sword, put his fingers into the crevice, and heaved with his amplified strength. The door moved just enough for him to squeeze inside thanks to his new bone-bending skeleton, and he was inside an illuminated command center with no defensive emplacements.

Monitors around the room showed various locations with tags of coordinates and entrances. He saw the familiar Complex where he had encountered the Class Reset Crystal inside of. He saw other cameras in the prison that he did not think were active when he first entered those locations, because they did not seem powered.

Ollie sounded incredibly excited, It looks like they had this as the central command center to monitor every facility. I can cross-reference this with the Complex map, and we can find the big Complex leading to the world’s center!

Jace could not focus on his Wayfinder’s enthusiasm, as he found his sight glued to the monitor showing the front entrance of the chamber. Three copies of himself walked in, were shot with the electric turrets, and appeared to suffer some damage as their bodies twisted in pain, arched backward, and little streams of sizzling smoke poured up from crevices in the armor as their flesh was fried. But they regained their composure quickly enough and brought weapons to bear on the turrets, cutting them down and disabling them.

Come on, Jace thought. You’ve got a lot further to go. And lots of those turrets to fight through. He watched with grim satisfaction as the trio stood, facing each other, and despite not being able to see any mouth movement thanks to the helmet, the gesticulating limbs led him to believe that they were arguing about who would go first into the hallway.

Eventually, one of them seemed to volunteer, and Jace felt dismay as they pulled out the Devilsram Wool Bedrolls from their own TPSB, covered the single person in all three, and sent them forward through the electricity turrets without injury. Damnit, Jace thought as he turned to scan the rest of the room. They can’t just have a single means of defense. Going from console to console, he tried to access them but could not as they were all locked down and required a password and biometric marker to get through.

Looking down at the Guatch Grappler, Jace shrugged, “Why not,” he muttered as he placed the prosthetic onto the biometric marker panel and laughed with satisfaction as he saw the screen illuminated to the login part. “Now, to guess the password,” he said softly.

“I got you,” Quinn stated. “Just put your other hand on the screen and let me interface.”

Jace did so, and he saw the screen his other hand was on begin to fill up with lines of code that he immediately understood thanks to Edge of Possibility. “Oh, you’re going past the login entirely and factory resetting the authorization credentials.”

“Yup,” she stated over the comms. “Password is that weird squiggly set of lines that looks like waves, four times.”

Jace tapped the key four times, and he was in. Again, thanks to Edge of Possibility, he was able to access all the computer’s functions, and found not only a diagram of the facility, but a map of the entire world that Ollie made a copy of, overlaying it on top of Jace’s map in the HUD.

We have the location, Ollie stated. Very good.

Jace kept looking for something that could help with the steadily approaching threat wrapped in bedrolls, and the now-five other duplicates of him in the doorway. But there was nothing. “No choice then,” Jace said as he turned to face the entrance and summoned his sword back to the sheath. Holding up his hand, he braced for the energy loss…and waited for more to enter the Complex or get just outside of it.

He glanced between the map on his HUD, the monitor showing the single individual still making their way down the turret-laden hallways that zapped the bedroll-covered figure to no effect, and back to the door with the small gap. Only when he saw all but ten of the most-distant dots converge on the front of the Complex and saw the bedroll-wielding one approaching the last turn, did he activate his Skill.

“Void Beam (Rank 1) [Horizon-Splitter].”

He felt all his energy drain: except that which was held in reserve in the Primal Hide covering his body in place of his human skin. The whole of existence ceased to be in front of him; taking out all eight targets within the cone he pointed at. Only when his eyelids were fluttering closed and the Skill ceased did he draw on the reserves in the Primal Hide to put himself at about half energy and keep from falling unconscious.

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[Quest Completed: Deactivate the Security Depot.]

[Time Limit: N/A.]

[Reward: Epic (Variable) Boon.]

[Sender: The Cosmic System.]

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All the dots indicating Astral Demons were wiped away in a single, fell swoop. They did not have time to react to the instant annihilating power of the Void, and Jace saw faint traces of blue specters flying up into the sky. “That leaves…ten,” Jace said as he sucked in breath. He glanced at the map in his HUD, seeing that they were far off from him: but were steadily making their way to him. “Why are they coming after me?” he asked.

Ollie replied in his head, they must have been ordered to do so. It is the only reason I could imagine. He laughed with delight, On the plus side, we now know exactly where the Complex is leading to the planet’s core, and we can see if the magitech that the Guatch supposedly made is able to be activated to save the world’s habitability. If not, then we can just work on shipping in one of Xera’s engines to attach to the world. It will take some millennia, but we can eventually get it to a habitable star system.

Jace nodded and pulled out his Sliver Arc as he was no longer in a facility, but rather out in the open air thanks to his Skill. “Can you tell me what Complexes have what in them?”

Yup and nope, Ollie replied. I do not know what you will get as a reward until you get close enough for the System to generate a Quest. As for what is in each facility? Yes, that is easy enough. It is primarily research, with a few of these vault-style places that you found a Class Reset Crystal equivalent inside of, and then a few dedicated to housing species native to the world.

“Any chance of more Class Reset Crystals?” Jace asked.

Probable, if they have more of these vaults. They would strip you of your Skills, as per usual Glitch location effects. But it could be highly lucrative! There are five such facilities across the surface of the world.

Xera’s voice came over the comms, “But you should focus on getting to the core, first. And fighting those Astral Demons inside of a place where you have no access to your Skills is far too risky for me to endorse. Just get to the facility leading to the core of the world, and we’ll figure out what happens next from there.”

Jace nodded and sped off on his Sliver Arc, pushing it to its maximum speed as saw the dots representing the ten remaining Astral Demons slowly follow his course.