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190: Is That An Everyday Hostile Rhombus—Or A Gateway to New Powers and the Secrets of Ancient Humanity?
🕑 Added 2026-01-06 19:08:05 +0000 UTCAshtoreth thrust her weapon forward in the air, and light flickered across the edges of the foe in front of her—a three-dimensional rhombus.
{Adversarial Geometry — Level 855}
With a cascade of purple flashes, Ashtoreth’s javelins rushed forward. The rhombus blurred, splitting into four ghostly rhombi, each of which her javelins passed harmlessly through.
The space around her began to sparkle, and she leapt back before the hundreds of sparkling points intensified, then flared to life, each of them deleting a small section of air from reality.
The ghostly rhombi before her shuddered, then all collapsed onto the one that was furthest away—and Ashtoreth howled with bestial glee at what she knew was her best opportunity. She launched her gun-sword at her enemy, dismissing it as soon as she saw her rhomboid adversary conjure a barrier to block its massive weight.
Fire washed over the rhombus, reducing the duration of its already-temporary barrier. Ashtoreth beat her wings and charged forward just as the barrier fell, trailing hellfire as she landed on the surface of the rhombus and unleashed a frenzied flurry of blows with her claws that she supplemented with gouts of conjured hellfire.
Her claws tore through the metallic, spongy structure that made up the rhomboid adversary’s body, shredding it with a horrible screeching sound.
Whatever sort of structural integrity field the shape used its [Health] for failed a moment later—it simply burst into a massive plume of hellfire.
{You gain and absorb [Adversarial Geometry] Core; Tier 4}
{Ding! You level up! You are now level 650.}
{You gain 15 DEX, 15 STR, 19 VIT, 15 MAG, 8 PSY, 10 DEF}
{Reaching level 650 has granted advancement. Choose one of your progression paths other than [Drain].}
“Hah!” she cried. “650! Tier 4! Thanks for coming out, you…” she frowned and gestured vaguely. “Shape?”
The farming had continued to get weirder as the levels had increased. It was as if the ancient humans had begun running out of ideas and just gone for slanty cubes that shot beams at people.
Though with a multitude of protective mechanisms and a sound array of damaging abilities, the slanty cubes were quite a bit more dangerous than the mana, warp, and entropy elementals of the previous zone.
“Oh,” she said, pausing as she noticed that slightly after the first message she’d got from the system, she’d received another. “Hello…”
Several, in fact. The adversarial geometries didn’t fly, so Ashtoreth launched herself high in to the sky so she could read the new messages.
{Your [Pinnacle Curator] ability now grants you new privileges commensurate with your tier}
{WARNING: outsider presence detected in the Diadem realm}
{Alert: the Diadem realm has been quarantined due to extreme outsider presence}
{Alert: the Diadem reality spool has been damaged and is currently inoperable}
{WARNING: the Cradle realm is currently under the rule of a system-appointed monarch}
{Alert: the Cradle realm has been partially disconnected from the Pinnacle System}
“O-kay!” Ashtoreth said. “A lot to take in there. Uh… do I get a menu for this, or something? How do I learn what the new privileges are?”
{Queries will be answered via the Pinnacle System as long as you have the appropriate privileges}
“That wasn’t like that before,” she said, frowning. “You’re not a thinking being, then?”
{The Pinnacle System is not sapient. It is an administrative aide. Consult the archive for details.}
“And you’re for sure not the archival spirit?”
She got a repetition of the exact same message.
“But you’d have to tell me if you were the archival spirit… correct?”
{...}
She blew out her cheeks. “All right, that’s getting nowhere. I don’t think Hell has anything like its own sub-system. Tell me my current privileges.”
{As a tier 4 Pinnacle Curator, you gain the following privileges:}
{Access to the higher realms of Diadem and Pinnacle}
{Limited ability to grant access to the higher realms of Diadem and Pinnacle}
{Decision weight in setting conditions on mass access to the lower realms}
{Decision weight in controlling the Warp Network within the lower realms}
{Special access privileges in the Archive}
{Consult the Archive for more details}
“Yeah, we’re sort of afraid of doing that last one,” Ashtoreth said. “Next question: why was there a warning that Cradle has a monarch? Is that bad for some reason?”
{Re-integration with the Cradle realm will cause system consolidation, granting the current Monarch of Cradle full control of the Pinnacle System and the Five Realms}
“Nice,” she said. “How do I do that?”
{A request for re-integration can be made in the Pinnacle realm. If all curators assent to your request, Cradle will be re-integrated}
“Great,” she said. “Pretty sure right now all my votes are unanimous. So how do I get to Pinnacle?”
{the Pinnacle realm can be accessed through the Diadem realm}
“Okay. I’ll give you three guesses as to my next question—and the first two don’t count.”
{...}
“Okay—does that mean that you’re loading, that you’re unable to answer, or that you’re deeply concerned for the whereabouts of Princess Zelda? You gotta give me a little more to go on, here.”
{...}
“Hmm. So can I slide past your restrictions by distracting you with a sidequest, maybe? Sneak into Pinnacle while you gather up a bunch of chickens?”
{...}
Ashtoreth rolled her eyes. “Okay, fine. Cuckoos.”
When there was no answer, she sighed and looked down at the stickers on her satchel. She still had Dazel there, grinning like an idiot while he gave a thumbs up.
“I gotta say, I miss having a familiar who always laughed at my jokes,” she said. Then she scowled and shook her head, clearing it. “How do I get to Diadem?”
{Access to Diadem can be requested from any qualified Pinnacle Curator. If granted, a single-use rune sequence will be dispensed that will convey the requesting subject to Diadem}
{Note: for safety reasons, a higher tier of privileges is required to grant any individual with a [Defense] score lower than 2666 access to Diadem}
{Warning: the Diadem realm is currently under quarantine due to extreme Near One presence. Access can be granted only to those of level 650 or higher}
She read the three entries of system text, then read them a second time, her heart sinking as her eyes scanned the words. She’d read the first warning about Diadem, of course, and it was no surprise that it had come up… but everything she was learning suggested that Diadem’s current state was about as relevant to her goals as it could be.
And Ashtoreth wasn’t too keen on finding out what the people who had built a second system for their five realms would deem ‘extreme,’ when it came to monster infestations.
“But I do meet the bare minimum…” she mused. “All right, you mentioned a reality spool. I don’t know what that is, but it sounds overpowered and I want one. Can it be fixed?”
{Alert: the Diadem reality spool has 91 pending service requests}
“So: yes, but probably not in the middle of combat. And possibly not be me. What does the reality spool do, exactly?”
{...}
“Do I need the spool to be operational to get to Pinnacle?”
{...}
“Say: would you like to marry Malon?”
{...}
She sighed. “And the Pinnacle reality spool—how’s that one doing?”
{Status: the Pinnacle reality spool is fully operable and at full capacity}
She broke out into a grin. “Knew it! I’m gonna unspool so much reality once I hit the top. Can the Pinnacle reality spool be used to repair the Diadem reality spool?”
{...}
“How, specifically, do I access Pinnacle from Diadem?”
{The Pinnacle Conduit can be found at the exact center of the Diadem realm. Transport can be requested from the Warp Servitor.}
“Is the Warp Servitor functional?”
{...}
“Oh, you’re killing me here. You only diagnose the really cool stuff? Because ‘Warp Servitor’ sounds cool enough that it should be plugged into the fake system. You know?”
{...}
Figured. The archive doubtless had all the information that she was lacking—but she imagined that building a strange pseudo-system like this one, one that could bar people from teleporting between realms, was probably difficult enough that they hadn’t stuffed it full of every feature they could. Still…
“How long has Diadem been infested with Near Ones?”
{2574.528 years}
“Cradle’s years?”
{The calendar of the Pinnacle System is based on the calendar of the Cradle realm}
“So: yes, but your assigned essay needs to be four pages long.” She frowned, thinking. Did it mean anything that the outsiders didn’t get in until long after the ancient humans had apparently locked the place up?
More importantly, what was she going to do about all this? If she could warp to Diadem, then use the so-called Warp Servitor to get to Pinnacle, then integrate Earth back into the system, she’d gain control of everything. It would be as good a position they could hope for to consult the archive, let the humans farm on Orchard, and in general plan their next moves.
But if she warped to Diadem and was immediately assaulted by an enemy that was too strong for her… she shuddered to think of it. She hadn’t forgotten how Massemeliact, with his wings freshly torn from his back, had almost killed her with a single ability from more than a mile away… and that was after he’d had his wings ripped from his back.
If she warped into Diadem, she might just… die.
“And that would really be super embarrassing," she thought.
Tier 5 wasn’t until level 1900. If something was going to push them out of the dead-end they were in before Dazel or her father made their move, this was it.
“Does someone need to be human in order to become a [Pinnacle Curator]?” she asked.
{The [Pinnacle Curator] title can only be offered to human natives of the Five Realms}
“And I counted as a native once I became the monarch,” she said. “Are you responsible for my racial upgrade making me a human?”
{...}
“Yeah, I figured,” she said. The whole setup was actually quite impressive if one assumed that a successful invasion of Earth would still not result in the invaders having access to the other worlds.
“All right you guys, I’m tier 4!” she said, broadcasting the words with her telepathy. “And I’ve got some good news. Great news, really.”
Grats, said Hunter.
You got more stuff on your [Pinnacle Curator]? Kylie asked.
“Exactly that,” said Ashtoreth. “There’s a snag, though. I’ll come meet you back in the Orchard Nexus. I want your help thinking of more questions to ask the system. Also, we’re going to have to make a choice. A few choices, I think.”
Well, don’t leave us hanging, said Kylie. What are they?
“We’ve got an eldritch abomination infestation to deal with.”
Comments
Rose
My Evangelion senses are tingling.
