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BIII: Chapter Seven
🕑 Added 2023-07-17 03:14:49 +0000 UTCTwo portals stretched in a bridge from this dimension to the empty field on the outskirts of Farbrook. He used a pocket dimension to ground the two dimensions as a hub.
Eli shifted from foot to foot at the tickling sensation of keeping his portals open. It felt like the lingering moments before sneezing.
Everyone huddled together as they split back into their respective groups. They had talked for nearly the entire hour it took Eli to set up and synchronize his portals. It was becoming easier to hop between dimensions and to navigate dimensional space.
Eli found it strange how long people dragged out the process of saying goodbye. Although he supposed he had gotten used to teleporting away the instant he was done.
Only Cyrus and Eli stood away from everyone. Eli wanted to mingle a bit more, but he was trapped close to his portals. Cyrus had been pouting ever since Roman had suggested he stay behind here until home was a bit more stable.
Herbert, Les, and Roman all stood together while they passed around various radios they had all developed overnight. It was a masterful symphony of their various powers. Eli’s spatial enchantments turned range into a joke and would hopefully let it pass the dimensional veil. Herbert’s plasma made it incredibly energy efficient and robust. Les had modeled it after a gun so his arsenal specializations would kick in, any signal or messages it sent would fire through space. Roman’s Dream tied it all together and made it work.
At least here.
Mom and Dad stood beside their counterparts while they made plans to get back together again sometime. Eli didn’t listen to their conversation more than he had to. He was still a bit irritated with both Dad and Richard.
Maeve pulled Lana and Lyra into a tight hug before she ushered them over to Eli and Cyrus. He wondered if they were becoming the younger sisters Maeve never had.
“Take care of yourself, yeah?” Maeve said, as she grabbed him by his shoulders. “I’m nervous that you’re going to do something dumb and push yourself just so you can reach that deadline next week.”
“Probably,” Eli smirked. “Thinking about the year difference between dimensions makes me think that I might be able to control when I come back. Maybe gain a year or two back?”
“Why am I not surprised? Let me know if you figure it out, I’ve been looking for ways to branch out from planar space. Who knows? Maybe I’ll be able to teach you how to use planar space by then.”
“Deal.” Eli hugged her, then sighed once she walked away. Both Lana and Lyra stood glumly beside him and Cyrus. “You know you can all walk through if you want, right?”
“Thank god.” Lana started to step through before he turned it solid. She bounced off it in a wild tumble, only a squeeze of her own body of gravity caught her.
“Don’t you still need to stay close to Mom and Dad?”
“Fuck you Eli.” She walked away to the sidelines.
“Sorry? What was that? I have a hard time understanding bullies!” Eli called out with a careful twist of space so none of the older adults heard.
“A bit petty, but I’m here for it.” Lyra nodded.
“You always are,” Eli sighed. He looked down at Cyrus. “How are you doing, Cy?”
“What?” Cyrus startled as if he had been in a trance. Was he using one of his powers?
“How are you doing?”
“I’m obviously annoyed that Roman tried to leave me here. I want to go find Scott too!”
“Trust me, I do too.” Lyra narrowed her eyes at Eli.
“We’ll see. As far as I know, it’ll be just Roman and I going.”
“Why? It isn’t like you aren’t going to be teleporting the whole way,” Cyrus protested.
“Farbrook is likely safer. With the greants taken care of it should be pretty clear. Who knows what the east coast will be like back home? It could be an absolute mess.” Eli personally hoped it was just disastrous enough to be exciting. Even if his parents acted like they hoped he would settle, he did not want to be trapped in Farbrook.
“You do know that makes it even weirder that you’re trying to go?” Lyra asked.
Eli said nothing until they got the hint and started chatting with each other. He bit his lip while he pointedly watched his parents still talk to their counterparts.
Roman kept glancing at them every couple of seconds while continuing his own conversation with Herbert and Les.
Eli understood there was no real rush or anything, but he still found it mildly rude to set a time to leave and not stick to it. He wasn't an inter-dimensional taxi… but he also wondered how much he’d be able to charge for something like that.
This dimension would be too risky, but there must be a stable place somewhere that he could use as a base to hop people around? Ideally, it’d be a place where spatial powers were a bit more common, yet still rare enough that his services would be a hit.
Maybe he could create his own dungeons with some pocket dimension shenanigans too. This dimension had strict regulations regarding dungeons on every level, but he could be one of the first back home.
Hell, Eli could probably spin it as some hybrid of training, theme park, and resort. Charge people in power perks, power gems, and unique materials and he’d make a killing for his and his family’s growth.
Power trading would be easy with most of the resource gathering cut out. Especially if he figured out how to use his own essence to make, refine, or mutate different powers like Alcius said.
Eli bet that he’d be able to automate the whole process with enchanted objects that could act as shuttles to ferry people back and forth. He’d be free to do what he wanted but still reap all the benefits.
Profound Erudition poked him with a judgemental feeling.
<”What? It’s not that evil or underhanded. I think it makes sense. If I set it up as a sort of hub network with different systems it would be secure. Allow for convenient travel and more.”> Eli projected the thought to Profound Erudition.
He frowned at Profound Erudition’s smug realization that he had to mentally justify creating and cornering a massive potential market to himself. But as far as he knew, it was something that only he was capable of. Why wouldn’t he do more with it than fight?
Through his spatial field, he sensed everyone finally moving toward them.
“Have a safe trip and make sure to come back, okay?” Adelaide smiled as she reached out to pull Eli into a tight embrace first.
“Of course.” He smiled. “Thank you for taking us into your home and—“
“I don’t want to hear it,” she laughed with her hands held out. “You’re all family.”
Eli nodded while she moved over to hug and say goodbye to Cyrus, Lyra, and then Lana, who rejoined the group by his portals.
“Drive safe,” Richard said with a smirk at Eli’s confusion. Dad beamed behind him while Mom shook her head with evident disappointment. He pulled Eli into a hug. “But seriously, be safe, okay?”
“Yeah. You too.” He pushed down his irritation from the car ride and everything else with Profound Erudition.
“May mentioned that you wanted to attend the Tri-Delve Cup?” Richard whispered under his breath under the cover of a gentle buzzing wind.
“I’d like to. I feel like I could do really well.” Eli whispered back.
“If you can’t come back in time for the independent deadline, but if you’re still early enough in June, I bet you could place into an organization’s team. You won’t get as many prizes, but you’d still be able to participate.”
“Thank you for the head’s up.” Eli grinned. His parents gathered on either side of him.
“Make sure to synchronize it every night at midnight,” Les lectured Roman as he pointed at the sheathed dagger in Roman’s hand. It was an exact replica of the one on Les’s belt. Roman also held a spatial-plasma-Dream radio gun in his right hand.
Herbert walked up to Eli with his hands in his pockets. “Let’s hang out sometime, yeah?”
“Let’s do it,” Eli grinned. “What would you want to do? Swim in an ocean, dimensional hop, dungeon crawl?
“Whichever.” Herbert shrugged. “School doesn’t start again until September, so after the Tri-Delve Cup I’ll have two months free. Do something then?”
“Sure, I’d like that.” Eli’s grin turned almost feral at the idea of them hopefully competing against each other in the Tri-Delve Cup. “See you.”
“Bye.” Herbert walked off to say goodbye to Lana.
“Sounds good. I’ll see you later, Rome.” Les shook Roman’s hand before he turned to face Eli with surprising fervor. “And you! I hope when you come back you’ll be better at enchanting so we can really make something incredible”
“The teleportation suit and radios weren’t enough?”
“That’s barely scratching the surface. It’s a secret, but… well, you’ll see.” Les nodded to Eli before he walked over to hug Cyrus goodbye. He also summoned and shoved a multitude of enchanted weapons and compressed armor into Cyrus’s arms. Each of them vanished in a hiss of static.
People shuffled around as the farewell dragged on just a bit longer before silence took over.
“Bye!” Eli called out over his shoulder while he stepped through the portal. Lush grasslands in his pocket dimension squished under his every step. He walked toward the last portal with his hands in his pockets.
Ripples distorted through the starspace boundaries of his pocket dimension over and over as each person walked through. The nearly silent murmurs of dimensional space stirred just a bit louder once Eli stopped by the portal back home.
Once the last person stepped through — Roman — Eli closed the second dimension portal behind him.
If only he could spend time exploring all the different dimensions that waited just at his fingertips. But he wanted to check on his grandparents and Scott first. After that, he wanted to compete in the Tri-Delve Cup. Maybe he could travel for a bit after all that.
“Are we good to step through?” Dad asked nervously.
“Yeah, it’s fine. I just have to go last.”
They all stepped through one after another until only Eli and Roman stayed behind.
“I wish we could go now.” Eli used Stellar Body to warp the space around them so nobody overheard.
“I know what you mean. I feel bad about Cyrus, though. I’m worried about leaving him here or taking him with us.”
“We need more of a plan, regardless.” Eli sighed. “Might as well get it over with.”
“Agreed.”
Eli followed right behind Roman back onto the familiar soil of their home dimension. Dull blue skies yawned overhead while gray clouds rolled across them. Lyra was right that the colors were a little less vibrant.
He wondered why that was. Did the other dimension have that much more Dream? Was it because of a person or spawn’s power or because powers had been around longer?
Terrain buzzed into his perception as his spatial field spread out for miles. Gaps opened up wherever it was empty land until he felt the entirety of the local area.
Farbrook already looked a bit better with some of the damage cleared up in what seemed to be a massive restoration effort. They had already patched up the walls surrounding the town. He thought it looked better other than the shoddy enchantments slapped onto them.
Patrols of Farbrook citizens wandered on foot, in flight, on strange horses, or normal or enchanted vehicles. Very few spawn blipped on his radar at all.
Eli’s focus drifted to the beach which was still covered in rotting piles of washed up spawn corpses. He wondered how hard it would be for him to survive at the bottom of the ocean. Or even in space.
What must lurk in the hostile frontiers of their planet and solar system? Hopefully, it wouldn’t matter for a while, if ever. But he definitely wanted to find out if he could survive out there.
The edges of New Faram opened to his senses.
Eli turned his head to the southwest in shock as he extended his spatial field purely toward the city.
Devastation on an unimaginable scale greeted him.
Once proud skyscrapers were now gutted. Chopped down at the foundation. Or they tilted into each other in a bizarre net of leaning bridges. Cranes and drones buzzed around the fallen offices.
Normal city blocks of buildings were reduced to shards of glass, wooden scrap, and cement rubble littered the streets and interior of any standing buildings. Numerous streets laid cracked open exposing the sewers and maintenance tunnels.
Cars were either burnt out, slagged waste, or propped up with whatever else was available in large barricades. Walls closed in a decently sized encampment full of malnourished people.
All of them openly, and constantly, displayed their powers or weapons. Tiny marbles of fire, ice, rock, a summoned weapon, or whatever someone’s power was always at the ready. Or they held kitchen knives, shivs fashioned out of scrap metal and rags, or weapons built from spawn corpses. Hammers, clubs, or flattened cars or traffic signs were also brandished in fear.
Then there were the guns holstered or hidden on nearly every person.
Eli wondered if it was a status symbol or deterrent. Until his blood ran cold when he focused his spatial senses and saw the children playing basketball with knives or pistols stuffed into their shoes, holsters, or the waistband of their shorts.
He ignored the sounds of distress from his family and Roman at his catatonic state.
Small groups of people, no larger than five, took shelter anywhere they could throughout the city. He sensed them inside of abandoned homes, shops, on roofs, anywhere they could reach or take refuge.
Except for the sewers, skyscrapers, or overgrown parks. Those belonged to the spawn of the city.
Packs of rats the size of large dogs overran sewers and any foul dark corners. Their claws and incisors carved through stone as easily as it did flesh. He shuddered at their squeaky, humanlike voices as they cheered when one as big of a minivan threw a man’s corpse down to the eager horde.
Starspace rippled as he tied off the exits surrounding the rats. He enchanted the interior space to flood with copied stars until it was filled to capacity. Eli ignored their screams in favor of searching the rest of the city.
More groups of rats fell one after the other wherever he found them. His rampage slowed once his spatial field penetrated deep into the underground warrens where one nursed her litter with the same care a human mother would.
He watched a small family of people pounce on some rats in an alleyway. They bludgeoned them with pipes before they teared into them with the same raw hunger the rats showed moments before.
Memories of the sapient orai and the troll he had practiced his powers on until it snapped out of the System’s programming flashed in his mind. Eli let his attention drift to the other spawn residents of the city.
Every park and green space in the city was an urban jungle full of wandering greants. They lived in sod huts or slept out in the open on hammocks hung on power reinforced trees. Several tended to an orchard with a foreign fruit similar to apples. They were fleshy pods that quivered on their sagging branches. A tangle of vines flowed from one to the next like the trellis for tomatoes.
Without an invasion against Farbrook, they acted almost like people. Their sharp jagged branches were now smoothed over like polished wood. Flowery pelts, moss, and mushrooms adorned them like clothes.
They wandered in the sanctuary of their parks tending to the plants and animals under their care.
On the outskirts of their borders, patrols of the more familiar warrior greants roved with rough bark armor.
Eli returned his attention to the skyscrapers and abandoned warehouses. Robots or sapient machines went into high alert the second his spatial field pierced the walls of what was clearly their fortress.
They fanned out immediately in an attempt to find him.
Two groups of twelve robots peeled off from the main encampment in the skyscrapers toward the human settlements. One headed straight to the people behind the towering walls while the other went straight to the familiar Springridge Mall.
Far more people lived inside of there than the car settlement. Eli noticed that while they had nicer clothes and food they had little in the way of weapons. Guards on the perimeter had a handful of guns and that was all he sensed.
Dr. Simmons sat at one of the salvaged food court tables where he ate from a bowl of stew. Six people sat around his table with gaunt faces and hollow eyes, but they smiled while they ate and chatted with the psychologist.
“Eli, are you okay?” Mom poked him gently. Dad put his hand on Eli’s shoulder while they stared at him with wide-eyed concern.
“Do you guys know that New Faram is a shithole?” Eli was surprised by the rage in his voice.
“What?” Dad frowned. “What do you mean?”
Profound Erudition picked up on suspicious movement directly behind him. Eli teleported out of the reach of his parents, so he stood in front of Cyrus.
“What do you know, Cy?”
Cyrus winced.
Everyone shouted at him to calm down and to explain what was going on. Roman shoved himself in-between Eli and Cyrus.
“It’s an apocalyptic warzone out there. Do you know anything about that? Cyrus?” Eli explained as he flexed space so nobody could touch him. He pulled his attention away from the rest of the city so he could monitor the robots’ movements.
“Eli! How would he know anything? And of course New Faram is bad! They had riots after they announced martial law, then the city mostly went dark. Every month or two, we send a team halfway there to trade with a few people and that’s it. They’ve made it pretty clear it’s dangerous to outsiders, but mostly fine.” Mom said.
“What the hell, man? You can’t—“ Roman snarled before Eli silenced him with a twist of starspace.
“Guys, this is serious. I’m not focusing on Cyrus for nothing. He flinched when I brought it up and wiped the palms of his hands on his pants. I think he’s hiding something relevant to New Faram’s horrific situation.” Eli dove further into Profound Erudition until it interfaced tighter with his own mind.
Cyrus looked away, but he noticed someone in New Faram with Starspace Nexus and Profound Erudition. A familiar man lurked in the shadows with a blazing red sword where he hunted down the giant rats.
Eli recognized Cyrus’s projection immediately from Maeve’s assessment of the kids yesterday. Details clicked together, one after the other.
Cyrus had been sleeping in town hall despite the greant forces running loose in Farbrook. The same man he saw now had fought in the sewers during it.
A day later, Cyrus had been ‘asleep’ before wounds appeared on his knuckles and he had gone unresponsive. Once he recovered and they were ready to move back to the second dimension, Cyrus had spontaneously maxed out his Initialization power mere days after getting it?
Not to mention, Cyrus had been disassociating next to Eli’s portals the entire time everyone had said goodbye to each other.
“I get it now. This is you.” Eli nodded as he used starspace to pluck the man with his sword to teleport him beside Cyrus. Both of them fell to their knees in a bout of simultaneous nausea. “Why didn’t you say anything about what was going on in New Faram?”
Everyone gawked at them as the projection shattered into motes of Dream. Cyrus wobbled to his feet with a determined glare in his eyes.
“I was fucking looking for someone to see if she’s alright!” Cyrus jabbed his hand toward Eli. Compressed 2D triangles popped out of his sleeves with a snap. They elongated into 3D blades—
Starspace twisted, easily deflecting the flurry into the ground. He idly noticed how the power blurred the lines of spatial geometry with Dream.
Cyrus stumbled back as his face blanched. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to, I… I got angry and the next thing I knew, my power reacted.”
“It’s fine, but this is important.” Eli suppressed his Stellar Body and body enhancement from Aurora Stardust to try to seem less threatening. He didn’t want to burst into the city without knowing anything. He was tired of fucking things up without any information. “A lot of people are about to be hurt, and I’d really appreciate it if you can tell me anything about the situation in New Faram.”
“I… I don’t know. After the greants were dealt with, I had to send my avatar further to grind with my character. Enemies popped up on my mini-map closer to New Faram, so I checked it out. I fought a lot of Automabots before a girl named Sarah showed up with a bigger, scarier one chasing her. We killed it. But I wanted to check if she was okay or not. Do you think she is?”
“Hopefully.” Eli created one-way portals behind him to show the different scenes of New Faram to everyone.
Mom gasped at the images. Dad rubbed her back while he frowned.
Lyra winced and looked away. Lana’s eyes glowed silver as she leaned forward.
Cyrus winced, but he studied each portal unflinchingly for any sign of this Sarah. Roman’s eyes hardened.
“Currently, there are two main settlements of people I’ve seen.” Viewportals opened on either side of him showing the groups in the Springridge Mall and camp. “A few groups of people are scattered, but I haven’t found many yet, because the spawn outnumber them at least 100 to 1.”
More and more viewportals opened around them until he blotted out the surrounding space. Grim, depressing live views of the various spawn species' prosperity stared at them.
Rats in the dark scurried with spears in their hands. Others banged rocks together into primitive tools. Despite their limitations, they were the most numerous.
Greants lived their peaceful naturalistic lives in the scattered parks of the city. Eli showed them in their gardens, weird orchards, and their huts. He switched the view to them on their patrols with their familiar arms and armor.
Robots, or as Cyrus called them, Automabots droned endlessly in their secured warehouses and skyscrapers converted to factories. Every one of them was a state-of-the-art machine with enough tech and weapons to make Les and Roman jealous.
Or scared, according to Roman’s narrowed eyes and heavy breathing.
“What can we even do?” Lyra asked despondently.
“We can help.” Eli pointed at the two viewportals tracking twelve Automabots per group. “For some reason, my attempt to see inside their buildings set them off and they’re heading directly toward both human settlements. At the very least, we can step in.”
“We literally just fought our own battle a couple of days ago,” Lyra protested.
“So what, fuck them? Better luck next time?” Roman turned to glare at her as his skin transformed into sheets of polished chrome. Spatial and Dream systems whirred to life inside his suit.
“Guys, that’s not fair.” Dad stepped forward. “This is a serious situation that we will obviously help with. We need to head back to Farbrook and update them on what’s going on. After that, we can send some teams over.”
“Good. You guys do that. We’ll handle this now.” Eli dismissed all his viewportals portals except for the two above the Automabot groups. They broadened as they shifted from windows to doors in space. “Left or right, Rome?”
“Left.” Roman stepped through. Eli let the other portal collapse while he watched the space around Roman and the other group of robots.
“Wait! What are you doing?” Dad asked frantically. Streamers of storm clouds spun around him.
“Stop, Rick. He’s right. Let’s go let everyone else know,” Mom said.
Eli created two one-use anchors with starspace. He dropped one on the ground while he teleported the other into Mom’s hand. “Break it to create a portal back here.”
“Let me go with you!” Lana called out behind him.
He ignored her. Starspace consumed him as he teleported above twelve Automabots that were about to be scrapped. Stardust and starlightning crackled as he clenched his fists.
Hopefully, Scott would be able to hang on a bit longer. Eli was done running away from problems when he could do more.
A single automabot stopped. Beady cameras pointed upright at him. Its guns swiveled while the other eleven bots lagged behind.
Starspace and gravity compressed his starlightning inside his waiting aurora bolt. Vibrant bands of emerald and gold darkened to scarlet.
He teleported his aurora bolt in front of the first automabot’s chassis. It crunched through its chest with an explosion of metal and sparks. Space twisted behind it as he guided it into the next two bots. His bolt broke on the third one.
Two notifications scrolled in front of his eyes.
Enchanted gunfire broke his warped space, pierced his armor, and ripped out of him. Blinding pain seared his nerves, but it was easy to ignore with Profound Erudition. He smiled as he used their weapons against them.
Bullets zipped out of his wounds and into starspace directly into the bots below.
Eli teleported into the thick of it.
Comments
weas97
Well things got agitated right away this time , good to see Eli act right away but also think before you do it thanks for the chapter I'll wait and see how everything goes and don't worry about uploading it a little late if you are too stressed with other things
Corbin
With the soft side of the powers with essence or whenever we get to the next dimension?
Brandon Terry
The next system looks like
![DoBert [ ドベルト] from fanbox](https://patrefans.com/kistorage/93596.jpg)
