Dark Matter Ascension-Chapter 28B3 - : Clearing out the Complexes

Jace woke up well-rested and after packing up camp mounted his Sliver Arc and began moving toward the closest Complex. It took a few hours to arrive, and once he did he encountered a frozen-over entrance as he had the rest of these facilities. Cutting through the ice, removing the chunk, and then carving into the door: he made entrance and broke in.

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

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

[Number of foes to clear out: ???.]

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[Quest: Disable the facility.]

[Time Limit: N/A.]

[Reward: Class Reset Crystal (equivalent).]

[Sender: The Cosmic System.]

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[SYSTEM ERROR: UNMERGED LOCATION IDENTIFIED]

[Emergency Message dispatched: You have come across a location on a world that The Cosmic System was not able to fully assimilate through Cosmogenic Merging. Because of this, you may lose access to your Cosmic Power and Class Skills. Now that the System has been notified, it may take up to a minute to integrate. Please stand by.]

[…]

[ERROR!]

[System cannot merge the location. Localized force is preventing Cosmogenic Merging.]

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Jace looked back at Ollie, “Well, looks like this is where you split off.”

“Don’t die!” he said.

Jace descended into the facility, feeling all his Skills and Equipment Augmentations shut off. He saw that the facility was quite similar to the prior one he had entered: a four-way intersection including the hall he was coming from. Ignoring the two side halls, he made a beeline for the main hallway and used his sword to cut through more of the magitech rune style traps on the ground.

He made out the small niches on the walls that the tank things had come from previously, and sprinting forward, carved out before they could get a chance to deploy: slicing through all of them with ease. Cutting through the main door, he saw a similar, circular environment and spotted the electricity turrets.

Going into his TPSB, he pulled out the bedroll, covered himself, and disabled all of the turrets before heading to the center of the chamber. Cutting through one last door, he was able to pull the blue, crystalline object off of the pedestal.

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[Quest Completed: Disable the facility.]

[Time Limit: N/A.]

[Reward: Class Reset Crystal (equivalent).]

[Sender: The Cosmic System.]

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Ollie appeared next to him with a pop as all of his Skills came back online. “Good job! That was fast.”

Jace heard skittering noises and looked back to the entrance as the robot-spider-things he had fought in the other facility emerged. But with Skills? It was trivial to deal with them. Void Shield (Rank 6), Void Blade (Rank 5) [Rending]. Slowly stalking forward, he carved them apart with ease. Their weapons did nothing against his barrier, and he was able to disable the lot in almost no time.

Clearing the rest of the facility was just as easy and efficient. It was a near duplicate of the prior one, minus the animals which were all amphibians in stasis. Ollie rescued those ones, and then after gathering the research data from several servers, Jace pulled up the map. “Next one is about three hours away,” he stated. “And these are all the same types of…vaults to keep survivors and animals in.”

“Yup! This is going to be easy for you now that you have the layout, defenses, and all of that figured out.”

Jace smiled as he got outside, pulled out the Sliver Arc, and began rocketing across the icy landscape.

Priam, Dee, and Greg emerged onto the surface of Poltor Six. Priam’s barriers crackled as they repelled the freezing environment, and everyone instinctively shuddered. Quinn’s voice came over the comms, “Right. Ollie has updated the maps through your various Wayfinders. The hover sled you have is a lot more heavy-duty than Jace’s vehicle: and a little slower. You can bring more stuff back as cargo so that we can get some Stardust out of the whole deal.”

Dee cackled with delight as she sat behind the pilot’s controls on the odd, open-bed-truck vehicle. As it thrummed to life, a canopy appeared above it providing shelter from the ice and cold. Dee pushed the engine and they went racing across the landscape.

Greg glanced down at Priam, who was taking in the whole scene with what looked like horror. “What’s wrong?”

“This is!” Priam replied with a level of grumpiness that Greg had not expected to see. “No place should be this cold. Deserts are far better! Sand, warmth, nice sunlight. This is….just wrong!”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“It’s just a world,” Dee said over the whine of the engines that pushed the vehicle along. “Plenty of them aren’t deserts.”

Priam turned to face her and crossed his arms, his little bunny ears wiggling a little bit, “I can still hate it. Places should be hot and relaxing.”

Greg chuckled as he looked out over the frozen wastes, pulling up the map, and seeing a light on the far side of the world blink off as a Complex was cleared. “Looks like Jace is already at work. Let’s go, Dee! Speed this thing up!”

Dee shook her head, “I’m giving it all she has.”

Jace finished out another one of the Complexes and claimed yet another Class Reset Crystal, “That makes three,” he said as he put it into the TPSB. “Two more to go.”

Ollie swam around him, “Yup! Are you thinking of using one? Giving them to the others? Selling them all?”

“I don’t know,” Jace replied. “Now that I know how Skill Ascension works, I could re-do Swordmage and then get a whole bunch of Skills that I know will transfer over to Void, since that seems to be a lot better in all aspects except for the Cloak and the Mending. But…on the other hand, I know my Skill set pretty well, and make it work for me.”

“Fair,” Ollie replied. “Well, onto the next one!”

A week passed as Jace and the other three Signers crisscrossed across the breadth of the world, clearing out Complex after Complex. The ones that Jace focused on, the Glitch locations, were all alike save for the different data stored within and the types of animals being kept safe in stasis. Ollie put them into Xera’s TPS to ensure they could be brought back to repopulate the world once it was habitable again.

Jace met the others in front of the portal to The Cosmic Corridor, and after giving Priam, Greg, and Dee a hug, Jace looked between the trio. “What all did you lot get?”

Greg smiled as he pulled up a screen that showed in front of all of them. “We got a bunch of Boons of varying types. Quinn was able to do some trades on her end, so in total we have seventeen Common, eight Uncommon, ten Rare, and ten Epic.”

Jace took stock of his Equipment and Skills. “I would like to get a bunch of my gear Tiered Up; which if I remember right, any rarity Boon will work. I’m at Tier 7 now, it would be nice to not have some lagging by three Tiers. I need…nine to do that.”

Priam raised his hand, “I need two that can do that!”

“Two here,” Greg added.

“I’m good!” Dee said.

“That takes care of thirteen of the Common. I’ll take the last four for my Equipment, which leaves us with the non-Common rarity. Time to decide who gets what,” Quinn replied.

Jace took stock of the numbers left, “Each of us can get two Rare and two Epic, and then the Uncommon…honestly unless someone needs one right now, I say we have Quinn hold onto them, since she can send them to us when we need them.”

Everyone seemed agreeable to that, and after distributing the Boons out, they made their way back into The Cosmic Corridor, and Xera warped their vehicle away, transported the group to the apartment building, and the accumulated looted items to the holding space for Quinn’s System-side sales.

As they walked over to the elevator the topic of the Class Reset Crystals came up. “I got five of them in total,” Jace said, “after the sale of the first one. That’s one per person also.”

“I’m going to sell mine,” Priam replied.

“Same here,” Dee added.

Quinn looked at the elevator panel and punched the button to call it down. “I will sell mine and any others people want sold.”

Greg shook his head, “I’m going to use mine. I didn’t really have a path of what I was doing, and I think I messed up with the Advanced Class I chose.”

Jace met his gaze and smiled, “Going to fit more into the protection role? Be the bodyguard for these two?”

Greg gave him a thumbs up, “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Some offense, sure, but less…Planet powers and more Class focus.”

Glancing over at Quinn, Jace softly spoke, “Sell mine too, would you?” Her slight nod was all he needed to see to confirm that she had him covered.

Two Rare and two Epic (Variable) Boons, Jace thought as he rode up the elevator, watching as other people got off on different floors. I have some Equipment without Augmentations, and Skills without Evolutions. I could also use Skill Ascension if I wanted to look into using that on a Skill that could be shifted. His thoughts were interrupted as the elevator arrived on his and Shhiv’s shared apartment floor.

Closing his eyes, he did not hear her, and so he went about what he had planned in that case: getting into the hygiene station to rid himself of the caked on sweat and layers of grime. Thankfully, the process was instantaneous. After getting out and putting on some lounging-around clothes, he sat down on the couch in front of the large cosmoscreen.

Just having the time to lay there and relax was calming, and he considered his options with what he could use the Boons for. The obvious one, he thought, is new Equipment. I have the same spine as before, the same ears: I could just keep replacing body parts. But the better move…I think…is to use it for Skill Evolutions. Pulling up his System screen that contained all of his Skills, he began scrolling through until he had all of the non-evolved ones on screen.

Universal Translation, Environmental Adaptation, Void Brand, Raging Cleave, Aura of Wrath, Edge of Possibility, Void Counter, Void Step, and Symbol Shift. All of those Skills have yet to get an Evolution applied. I don’t think Symbol Shift, Universal Translation, or Environmental Adaptation are good candidates, so that leaves me with six Skills, and only four Boons.

After a good thirty minutes of pondering, he made up his mind. Here we go.

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[Using Boon: Uncommon (Skill Evolution).]

[Applying to Skill.]

[Skill Name: Aura of Wrath.]

[Evolution Name: Voidflame Vestment.]

[Effect: Those who are within the area of effect are also burned and lit aflame with Voidflame from the raw threads of force that are emitted.]

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[Using Boon: Uncommon (Skill Evolution).]

[Applying to Skill.]

[Skill Name: Raging Cleave.]

[Evolution Name: Echoing Cleave.]

[Effect: After the strike is performed, a repeat attack in the exact same area is performed.]

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[Using Boon: Rare (Skill Evolution).]

[Applying to Skill.]

[Skill Name: Void Step.]

[Evolution Name: Burst.]

[Effect: Where the user teleports from and to are affected by a 5-foot radius shockwave of Void.]

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[Using Boon: Rare (Skill Evolution).]

[Applying to Skill.]

[Skill Name: Void Counter.]

[Evolution Name: Storing.]

[Effect: In the next ten seconds (until the Skill targeted is re-enabled), the user may activate the Skill that was countered.]

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Ollie appeared with a pop, “I saw you using a lot of Boons. Decided to go with the non-traditional route?”

“What do you mean?” Jace asked as he looked up at his hovering Wayfinder.

“A lot of Aspirants choose to use Boons on Equipment and Augmentations. Skill Evolutions are seen as more of a gamble, since you don’t really know what will happen.”

Jace shrugged, “I’d rather have better than basic Skills. Giving them that little extra edge.”

“Oh! Quinn was able to find a buyer for the Class Reset Crystals! Everyone but Greg is getting…get this…80,000 Stardust!” He clapped his paws, “It’s a lot to use for levels!”

Jace cracked a smile, and that smile grew even broader as he heard the elevator doors open. Standing up, he waved goodbye to Ollie, “We’ll worry about that later. Right now…I’ve been away from Shhiv for a good chunk of time.”

“Say no more!” The otter vanished with a pop.

Jace went to the hallway and Shhiv squealed with delight as she ran over to him and hugged him tightly. “You’re back!” she pulled away for a moment and gazed up and down at him. “You’re still hot as always,” she said with a wily grin that showed off her sharp teeth.

Jace smiled and picked her up, pinning her against the wall as she play-fought against him, the two losing each other in their increasing fervor.