Dark Matter Ascension-Chapter 25B3 - : Coreward Bound

Shhiv glanced at her Cosmopanel and rapidly took in the message from Jace, feeling an increasing sense of anxiety ball up in her chest as she kept taking in the words.

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[Hey cutie.]

[I’m going to be in an unmerged location for a bit. I don’t know how long (a few days, at least), so you won’t be getting any messages from me.]

[If…Damn, I hate even thinking about this and putting it in writing. If I don’t come back, stay close to Greg. He’ll keep you safe.]

[I’ll try to come back to you: you’re the best thing in my life right now. But…my mentor always taught me to be a realist and pragmatic person.]

[It’s not zero odds that I won’t make it back. And…I’ve been thinking on this for a while, but I do want to say it.]

[I love you.]

[Gah, that just sounds weird to see in text like this.]

[Okay, I’ll survive. I’ll get back to you. My “survive for her” mantra isn’t just about Chroma anymore: it’s about you as well.]

[See you soon.]

[Jace.]

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Shhiv glanced at the flat panel that was akin to a window, showing the vast ocean paradise of Churkun Delta. As she looked out upon the vast, green and cerulean waters…she felt that anxiety build up and up. Please, she thought, please be okay.

Jace kept riding the Sliver Arc through the small lip wall surrounding the enormous circle that he pulled up alongside. It was a deep pit. He could not see the bottom, and grabbing a chunk of ice, dropping it, he could track it only for a few thousand feet before it vanished into the blackness. Elevators were suspended on ancient tracks, frozen over, on the edges of the enormous hole.

But it was not just some dirt hole in the ground. The sides of the whole structure were metal. Smooth metal, with a bunch of electricity-conducting cords that were compressed into the metal. But they looked inert. Jace also spied what looked like a series of maintenance ladders that descended into the darkness.

Putting the Sliver Arc into the TPSB, Jace weighed his options. On one hand, he thought, I could use the Guatch Grappler to get in bursts. I would travel faster, but maybe not be able to dodge something if I needed to. The ladder will take a long, long time to descend, but then I can save the grapple to dodge or get away from something.

Pulling his head away from the hole, he looked at the exterior structures that were around the lip: a variety of buildings that were low, squat, and totally frozen over. Probably nothing in there, he thought as he went to one of the elevators and began to examine it. There was a metal platform that looked tethered or bolted down to the ground underneath, stretching out with a sealed compartment that hand an enormous cord hanging from the top.

I could use the cord, Jace thought. If this thing was meant to go down to a destination, then that cord should have enough length to reach the destination. I can treat is as a rope to rappel down. He smiled as he recalled learning how to climb buildings with Verve under the guidance of his mentor, who had learned how to do it during his time in the military pre-corpo wars.

Jace looked for the spool, and eventually was able to find it buried under snow and ice. Chopping around it, and hefting with his massive strength augmented by the NICIF and prosthetics, he was able to get the cable loose. Going to the elevator, he was able to slice off the top of the cable housing, pull the cable up and out of the channel it ran in, and then drag that end to the edge of the hole.

Kicking it over, he watched with satisfaction as the length uncoiled, shaking off ice and rime as it vanished into the darkness. Keeping his hand on the length, he waited for five minutes, felt nothing, and thought, it must have reached the bottom, or the vibration from the cord extending all the way faded before it got up to me.

Grabbing onto it with both hands, he took a deep breath and with a slow exhale began to slide down the metal cable. His prosthetic hands were easily able to handle the heat from friction, and he slid down effortlessly. Thanks to the All-Seeing Dragon’s Eyes, he was able to see in the darkness well enough…to a point. After descending two-thousand feet, he pulled to a stop, squeezing down on the cable and digging his feet into the wall, the metal making a ripping, tearing noise as he dug his Steelstalker Sabatons into the structure.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

There was an oppressive, unnatural darkness that blocked his vision. The cable continued downward, through the sea of black. “Okay…NICIF? You’re inside me still, right?”

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[Here, boss! We can talk to you through the armor’s HUD.]

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“Are you able to…change my vision? The spectrum I can see? Something to help with…this?”

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[No can-do boss. Your All-Seeing Dragon’s Eyes are already as good as what the Reaper Armor’s visor can do.]

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Jace nodded and sucked in a breath, holding it, and slid into the darkness. It clung to his legs like a film, and he felt a cold sensation. A deep, penetrating cold that sent his teeth chattering as he shook and trembled from the drastic temperature difference.

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[That’s cold! We’re going to burn up extra calories to push your metabolism into overdrive, and heat you up!”

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Jace felt the cold recede, and kept holding his breath as his head dipped beneath the surface of black. He still felt the cable in his hands, and kept descending, but the blackness persisted. If not for the lifeline to the surface, and the wall under his bladed feet, he would be in absolute nothingness.

Descending down another two minutes, he passed through the black veil of cold and could see once more. No clue what that was, he thought. Maybe a layer of the world? I think I remember something about Earth having layers. Note to self: get some means of uploading knowledge. I had been meaning to do that.

The descent continued; for hours, possibly days, he could not tell: and he eventually arrived at a dull, orange film that he could not see past. Holding his breath again, he kept going down: and this time he felt extremely warm.

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[Yikes! Really hot, boss. Going to make you sweat and dilate your blood vessels to help get rid of the heat.]

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Jace felt the heat begin to fade as he continued his descent, passing through the layer after another two minutes. Then…the world began to feel weird. He felt lighter, and the cord that had rolled out to the depths was floating a few thousand feet below him. “I must be near the core,” he muttered. Looking around for anything that the elevator may have seen as a destination, he saw nothing.

Using Nethaldrim, he cut slats into the wall to shove the cord into, keeping it somewhat straight so it wouldn’t curl up and away. Repeating the process, he descended much slower: but was keeping his escape rope within reach the whole time. Finally, he saw the bottom. A huge, silvery disc covered with the yellow-embedded electricity conductors like what went to the various turrets in Complexes he visited.

There were some type of magitech runes and symbols intertwined with the cords and they all led to a massive, tower-sized crystal that was in the center of the space. At this point, Jace was floating, and pushing off the wall, he grappled onto the floor and pulled himself down. Several ladders were on the surface here as well, and he began pulling himself along them towards the crystal.

No clue what that thing is, he thought, or how to activate it. Maybe I just get close enough and…touch it? Or something on the other side activates it, maybe? Jace kept moving forward with determination. Time had ceased to be trackable, and for all he knew it had been days since he had begun his descent. His stomach was rumbling, and stopping for a few minutes, he got some of the survival meals, but then paused. Can’t take off the helmet without losing my breathing kit. Maybe I can hold my breath and shovel food down? Squeeze it like a tube of nutrisludge?

Jace took several breaths before sucking one in, ripping the top off of the survival meal, retracting the helmet, placing the end in his mouth, and squeezing as he chugged down the nourishing substance. Repeating this a few times, as he felt his air fading, he reactivated the helmet and sucked in a deep breath.

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[Thanks, boss! We’re all fueled up now!]

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Jace chuckled and shook his head, pulling himself further along the several-mile stretch to the crystal.

When he got closer to the crystal he saw that there was a command console at the base of it. And the crystal was…gorgeous. A soft, glowing pink that thrummed with faint energy. He could see traces of crackling, yellow lightning slowly arcing through the inside: as if a bolt from the heavens had been captured in amber and slowly played back for him to see.

Looking down at the huge control console that was easily hundreds of feet long, wrapping around the crystal, he began looking for anything that looked like it could be some type of button that would turn the whole place on. But he had no luck finding anything that looked like it would start things up.

And, he got to a section where partial construction was prominent. They didn’t finish it, he thought. Which means that Xera can’t fix it, so we can just install her engine thing to push the planet to a habitable place.

Jace looked up at the crystal and couldn’t resist reaching out to touch something so beautiful and expensive. It had a rough surface: not coarse, but just jagged as if it was a massive piece of unworked stone. The lightning continued to travel in slow motion, but it slowly began to move towards his hand. Pulling away, he saw the lightning keep traveling to where he had touched until they hit a singular point: crackling away under the surface of the pink crystal.

What does this thing even do? He asked in his head. I know it’s causing the whole area to not be subjected to Cosmogenic Merging. So how do I stop that? I could try to cut into it, but I have no clue what that would do. And destroying the whole thing will take me months given the size of it.

Pulling out Nethaldrim, he looked at the point where all of the electricity was still coalescing. Placing the tip against the crystal, he planted his legs, and punched the pommel so that he was not contacting the weapon when it met the crystal properly. The blade sank into it all the way to the hilt, and the electricity moved down instantly onto the metal. 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

“Shit!” Jace shouted out as he saw his weapon begin to melt away. Reaching out to pull it free instinctively, he realized his mistake too late as the electricity stopped melting the blade, raced up the metal, into his armor, and into him. The pain was intense, and he felt his entire body lock up as he screamed.