ocean-life [353] 4.74 Final Flight V
[353] 4.74 Final Flight V
As I continue to read through the implementation procedures, Chloe’s earlier statements prove more and more prescient. Just as she suggested, the researchers here were researching healing magic and had learned how to use glyphs to develop the impossibly complex arrays necessary to actually map out the full complexity of intelligent life.It’s even more complex than I’d imagined— millions of glyphs, most of which I’ve never seen before.
In order to modify and amplify life, every facet of a creature’s genetic makeup has to be recorded in immaculate detail. Every one of the tens of thousands of individual biological processes must be mapped out and transcribed, from protein synthesis to the maintenance of homeostasis to digestion and nutrition, respiration and circulation, all while monitoring the energy flows to ensure that nothing has gone out of balance. Even one glyph, one rune out of place is the equivalent of a genetic disorder which might be fatal if it damages the functioning of its associated process.
“That glyph right there,” Chloe says, pointing to one extraordinarily complicated structure that appears on screen. “I recognize this one. It’s the glyph of [Healing].”
“Wait, I thought there wasn’t a glyph of [Healing].”
“I don’t know all the details because I’m not a [Glyphcaster] like you are. But I see that structure appear in my mind every time I cast a healing spell. I don’t know if it’s exactly [Healing], but it’s definitely something intricately tied to all branches of healing magic. I’m guessing there was an extremely powerful [Life Mage] or maybe some sort of [Biomancer] working on this project.”
“It makes sense.”
“But what doesn’t make sense is what all this has to do with the robots that are currently going around.”
“No, that makes sense too. It was in that line right there: Collect and amplify the energy.”
“What about it?”
“Consider a robot designed with a singular purpose: to collect all the life energy of the planet. To you or me, that would mean to gather the energy and submit it for processing. But if you were an automaton, designed for the sole purpose of gathering that energy, you would naturally be prepared to do anything to carry out that primary directive in line with your programming. Including, if it came to it, cold-blooded murder.”
“So you think this was a robotic uprising?”
“Yes. And I suspect after the researchers got far enough in their work to design these robots, the robots killed them to stop them from carrying out the next phase of their project.”
I move toward the console to continue gathering information on this project, but am stopped cold as footsteps build outside the room. More of those irritating little beeps follow.
It was only a matter of time before we were found out once we started accessing the central computer. Chloe draws her weapons. Her ferocity has returned, spurred on by my hypothesis of what had occurred and continues to transpire at this facility. The time for subtlety is over.
“Buy me some time,” I message her. “I want to get some information about this facility. Most importantly, a map of where we need to go. Any other data would be a boon.”
“Yeah, I can do that. Buy me thirty seconds to cast [Saintess’s Sanctuary] and I can buy you five minutes.”
The first five seconds are free. I float up in front of Chloe and take a defensive posture as I wait for the door to open. Time enough for one deep breath.
The door opens, followed by dozens of lasers assailing me from multiple angles. By utilizing [Reflect], I’m able to shunt the first wave of attacks back toward the army of over a hundred sentries, some of which I can see with my eyes and many more reinforcements waiting for when the first wave falls. The second wave meets the same fate as the first.
The third has learned that the first two instances weren’t just a fluke. They begin attacking with whips and flails and improvised weapons as well as swords and staves stored in their bodies. The room isn’t so large that they can come in and make full use of their numerical advantage, but there is enough space in the room the size of a small office that I’m fighting three and four of them at a time.
Each second feels like a lifetime in the throes of battle. It’s not enough just to fight defensively as dozens of these creatures try to take me down. It’s that I also have to defend a Chloe who can barely step out of the way of attacks as she casts, let alone raise a blade in her defense. More than twice I’m forced to use my own body to knock attacks out of the way or intercept them, and each time I do, I take a little damage.
Blood trickles down the side of my right arm, each beat of my heart letting the flaming liquid seep out a little more. After stabbing one of these overgrown clankers in the core and flinging it back towards its equally useless brethren, I let my anarchic aura flare alongside a raging battle cry. And it actually manages to work, stunning these creatures for an important half second, just long enough to reposition and decapitate the creature who thought literally stabbing Chloe in the back was a good idea.
Not today, you overgrown bucket of bolts!
Chloe’s body glows brighter and brighter as her spell weaves together. The creatures, sensing the impending surge radiating outward, increase their focus toward my girlfriend, forcing me into ever more acrobatic maneuvers to keep up. I backflip over Chloe’s head, avoiding her hair and the ceiling both by the skin of my teeth, and deliver a crushing headshot right through another such robot with crab-like pincers.
Of course, not being organic, these creatures often lack vital points, and even that crushing wound proves insufficient to stop the pincer from flailing toward me one last time before sparking and then shutting down. I use its now-inert shell as a second piece of armor to defend myself from two more vicious stabs and then, with all the strength I can muster, I chuck the whole mass back toward the door.
I’m hit in the leg and stumble for an instant and nearly get knocked to the ground by a whiplike tendril snaking its way across the dim floor. A last-second recovery saves me, as I use my metallic hand to absorb the force of the fall and spin back toward a still-disadvantageous but not immediately fatal position.
Hoping to slow down the next wave of reinforcements, I launch a small [Gravity Sphere]. I fail in that goal; these creatures are more than strong enough to not be noticeably slowed by the sudden shift in spacetime curvature trying to pull my foes to their doom. However, it does have a secondary benefit of causing their windups to lag a small bit and the aim of their beam attacks to get pulled a bit off course. Not enough to do much, but coupled with the slightly increased force of my own attacks, it buys me the time I need.
Chloe’s [Sanctuary] takes effect. An auroral curtain of light emanates out from her, pushing all the robots against the wall. Those already damaged by my attacks are completely crumpled, while those still in pristine condition manage either to escape the room in time or fight to maintain their constitution in the face of the repelling force.
I latch Filia onto my back and rush over to the console. It’s suffered some damage and it appears like it may be operating on backup power. More of my blood drips onto the keys, but I don’t bother asking Chloe for assistance; even close to forty levels higher than she was when she first learned the spell, I know this technique drains her [Ether] and stamina like a motherfucker.
I start reading through the data about the project. My hand is greased lightning, pulling out my sketchbook and tracing glyph patterns with utmost urgency. I have only enough time to write down cursory information about each glyph before I’m scrolling down to the next one. Some of these glyphs, like the [Multiplicity] glyph I’ve had not nearly enough time to practice as of late, exist in more than three dimensions. But the diagrams presented on the screen detail the movement through the fourth dimension in such a way that I can at least get the gist, if I might have to rely on my Skills to make minor corrections later.
Once I’ve gathered these glyphs, I start barreling my way through the data contained in logs of the World Tree Project. It was imminently successful, at least at first. Those small scale operations worked exceedingly well, leading to a scale up in production. Pretty much everything I’d hypothesized earlier is borne out by the data, although it seems that some of the researchers were able to escape with their lives rather than every one of them being murdered by the robot uprising. That was twenty years ago, and these creatures of steel and oil have continued to run the extraction process ever since.
And then the potential of this project hits me. If we are able to make sense of the information stored in these glyphs, we can actually create some sort of magical healing devices. They’ll never fully supplant a high-level healer like Chloe, but the ability to supplement her and those like her, treating magical diseases and poisons and maybe even curses one day? That would be a complete gamechanger. With that in mind, I double my speed, pushing my heightened mind right up to its limit until I get every piece of information about how this operation went, and how they managed to perform all that vital force amplification. Maybe Chloe will make more sense of it.
Lastly, a map or some sort of technical readout of the station. I don’t know how intact it’ll be, or how much retrofitting the new machine overlords would have done over the past two decades. Likely not that much, considering what I’ve seen to this point. But I do my due diligence, sparing only enough thought to cast a gaze over to Chloe to see how she’s doing. Not well, but her barrier is still holding fast and keeping the steel scum at bay, so I return to my work.
I’ve got a map; the core chamber is where we’ll need to go to shut down in order to shut down the main intelligence and… didn’t we already do this with EMMI a month or so ago? Feels like a repeat of that. Ah well.
Chloe’s breath is growing weak and strained; she’ll not be able to hold the [Sanctuary] up against attacks of this magnitude for more than another minute or two. However, I’d like to access the final slate of data before we make a retreat, and so I try to access the last file.
And there’s a password requirement. Damn. Just my luck. I’m willing to give it one shot though. Recognizing that the System has often used the names and identities of places, people, objects, and deities tied to Earth’s mythology and culture, I type in the name ‘Yggdrasil’ in the display. To my surprise and great glee, said password actually works, giving me access to some sort of video file. I play it at maximum speedup and watch in horror as a hologram of a disheveled researcher whispers at the screen.
“To the human who finds this…” His eyes dart behind him; I can hear more explosions in the background of the video. “Our project went horribly, horribly wrong when…” The video flashes out. “I don’t have much time.” Another explosion. “Damnit. Okay, the password to deactivate the entire world tree is XRG4-887B-4262-3E47-74B1. Please… I beg of you. Set right what we–”
Another explosion as I write the code down. The video flickers, then cuts out into static. The rest of the file is in an inoperable state. In either case, I have what we need, and now it’s time for me to grab Chloe and make a break for it.