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BII: Epilogue 3 (Savior)
🕑 Added 2023-06-09 18:40:12 +0000 UTCWisps of his power threaded together in a grand, all consuming tapestry stitched across the entire world. Woven through territories where they called for him and used his title as idol, oath, and swear. Threads of his influence winnowed in and out of dungeons, looped through hostile territories.
All so he could spread his Dream of peace.
A honeycomb of civilized zones and territories shimmered across his magnificent tapestry. Relative stability and prosperity shone within the borders of the sovereign nations that he had access to through his organization, the Dungeon Regulation Committee.
He treasured every one of those bright patches representing not hundreds or thousands, but millions of people protected from the scourge of any who threatened the sanctity of that peace.
It made every loss and sacrifice both forgotten and fresh in his mind worth it.
Outside of those shimmering strands of proud peace in his tapestry were the tarnished burrs. Few marks blemished the perfection of his borders, but those didn’t concern him as much. Not when the systems in place were prepared to either dispose of anyone who threatened it or guide them to the greater good.
From the lowliest spawn to the most cognizant of people. Everyone had a purpose. Whether it was to be broken to serve the bigger picture, or to convert them into believers. Regardless, their powers would serve a greater cause than whatever guided them before.
When it’d be a waste to dispose of someone, or they were too stubborn to convert, they were sent to his Sanctuary. Enclosed in a dungeon of his own making, constantly under his supervision and domain of dreams, they slept. But their strengths were his and the DRC’s to wield when necessary.
Lucidity dissipated as he let himself sink back into the dreamstate of his Class Power, Ruler’s Poise. Knowledge flooded into his thoughts as his sleeping body, mind, and sheer will changed to fit the needs of his people.
The shining patches of the tapestry deepened into scenes of people begging for his or anyone’s help.
Spawn ran wild in the Zones where they chipped away at the bedrock of civilization. Several people chose to live in secession from any legitimate rule or were exiled to live there if their crimes weren’t severe enough to be sent to Sanctuary. A few worthy candidates caught his eye. He watched them push back against the imminent threat they faced. New fascinating powers that thrived bloomed in those who survived at the edge of the frontier.
He watched.
An eleven year old girl fought in a sundered field of dead. Day bled to night as cutting waves of darkness unfurled from her. As he watched, he understood. Andra Nox, resident of Zone 63. No living relatives remain. Everyone she ever knew lies dead in that field from a Salamander attack.
In an unnumbered wasteland a twenty year old man thrashed bloodied and broken. Ogres and sandwraiths dug at him with blunt nails and glass claws. Pools of blood glistened beneath him. An ogre jerked a cleaver through his stomach to rip out his entrails. He slumped over, dead. Seconds later, a sleeping copy of his body appeared unblemished. Modran Eys, only record on file is from his birth twenty years ago. Clear signs of a Necromancy and Reincarnator powerset. Too weak to do anything about his unfortunate situation at the moment.
In the middle of a park surrounded by a class of average college students stood a young woman. She lifted both of her hands as she leveraged a vast block of dirt out of the earth. Swathes of dirt flaked away leaving precise grooves. Panels compressed or floated away until a model of a city was left behind. Hazel Lucas, resident of Anchora. First-year student at Anchora University. On temporal power watchlist. While he watched, he realized that the model was an exact replica of Anchora city at the moment she had crafted it. As if she had injected her temporal power into the model until it was exact.
“Sanctuary! Send a message to DRC as follows ‘Investigate two cases under DRC jurisdiction and one in a no man’s land wasteland. Subjects are a young Initialized girl in Zone 63 with conceptual dark powers, name is Andra Nox. Another is Hazel Lucas in Anchora city. Observe her and assign DRC Alias: Saturn. Finally, send a team of elites to the southeast to find a Necromancer and Reincarnator, his name is Modran Eys and he’s in his twenties.’ End message transmission.”
It was always worth looking out for those with a powerful grasp on their powers. Constant use of one’s powers in a variety of situations always forged the DRC’s greatest champions… or most vile opponents. Only issue was that he could only see people with their information in proper legal or DRC records.
Each vision proceeded as the reveries danced through his mind, full of knowledge and understanding, before they fired out of the Sanctuary to the DRC’s systems.
He let the visions slide past him as he marshaled the powers he’d held for centuries. They pulsed deeper than bone marrow. Aura of Grace boosted each of his powers on top of those in his domain. Circle of Rejuvenation linked to the visions as he bolstered his subjects as much as he could through the interference of the Sanctuary.
Field of Punishment buzzed through his Dream into the spawn his charges fought. It wasn’t nearly as devastating as it would have been if he were physically there, but he watched as they weakened. Spawn minds and senses dulled as they diminished into monstrous simpletons for his people to cull.
It was all for their growth.
Sleep fuzzed around him as he resumed his rest—
Turbulence shuddered through the weaving of his Dream and rattled through the dimensional firmament of his dungeon. Someone was traveling into their dimension.
He opened his eyes as he woke for the first time in fifty-six years.
Mind of Extrapolation flooded his consciousness with understanding seeded with the passive knowledge from everyone within the threads of his Dream. Nerves misfired as he seized in the cocoon of his blankets and enchanted restraints.
Deep in the Midwest region, a portal tore open on a property on the outskirts of Rockford. Faces flickered through his mind’s eye as Akashic Extrapolation fed into Mind of Extrapolation.
Rick Newton, resident of Rockford. Resident Meteromancer of the Eastern Midwest. Married to Adelaide Newton, maiden name Denton. Issued two children.
Adelaide Newton, resident of Rockford. I/O Psychologist and consultant working on behalf of the United States and DRC. Owner of Ethereal Boutique. Issued two children.
Information continued to trickle in as he watched the group of dimensional travelers step through the portal.
Maeve Newton, residency struck from the record. DRC Alias: Starbreaker, near spotless record, and primary agent of Brightpeak. Connected to Zach Griers (Inkmaster) and Kyle Gregory (Bane). No children.
Herbert Newton, resident of Rockford. First-year college student at Anchora University. Promising candidate in upcoming Tri-Delve Cup. No children.
Romulus Anders, resident of Fall Hills. First-year college student of Anchora University. Promising candidate in upcoming Tri-Delve Cup. On enchanter watchlist. No children.
Five other people stepped through the portal, but four of them had no records. However, even through the occlusion of his vision, they all had a clear resemblance to each other.
Name Unkown, DRC Alias: Pulsar. Had a commendable showing at Delver’s Dive recently for a green band. ‘Anonymous’ report filed by a Lacey Blake about an incident with APD.
Mind of Extrapolation lunged for the new line of inquiry as he continued his observation. A surprising number of Lacey Blake’s showing in education, minor infractions, and details about her parents strobed into his mind.
One of her parents were incarcerated in Sanctuary.
He shifted as he willed his padded restraints over his wrists and ankles undone. For the first time in fifty-six years, he glanced at the pristine sterility of his quarters. Beside his bed was a scrap of paper with his first name written in.
For good luck, he rubbed his thumb across the smudged paper where his last name had once been. Without this, he’d lose track of his identity from his constant usage of Ruler’s Poise. Mind of Extrapolation wouldn’t be able to fill in those blanks either.
Nobody alive remembered Matheo’s name, only his idolized pseudonym.
Despite his necessary slumber to keep his Dream alive, his body responded to him as easily as it had a little more than two centuries ago when he had first Initialized.
Overdrawing on Ruler’s Poise, or any Class Power, had its perks even if nearly every trace of his humanity had been washed away. Sheer power always had its cost. He and the Dungeon Regulation Committee found it preferable that he pay that due so others would be saved from it.
He… no, Matheo, stepped closer to the door so he could push it open. Matheo had to remember his name while awake. It was important lest he truly lose himself.
Shrill alarms blared on all frequencies as the door to his quarters unpressurized. Air hissed across his nudity.
Matheo let Mind of Extrapolation guide him through the labyrinthine layout of Sanctuary. Enchantments buzzed through the walls to reinforce the cell doors he walked past. As he woke, so did the prisoners and guests of Sanctuary.
None of those charges mattered.
Connections clicked one after another as he focused on Lacey Blake and her mother, Allison Blake.
Allison Blake, resident of Sanctuary. Rehabilitated after a foray into her Class Power: Quantum Dream. Post-ascension Allison Blake broke into a hospital ward to conduct a series of experiments on ten women in labor. Nine children died stillborn, the last was born Initialized.
Voices crackled over the outdated radio system as people on the outside requested a status update. Thank God, no one had tried to enter yet.
Matheo stopped outside of the locked door of her cell. He used his Manifold Will through the ironclad restrictions of its enchantments. All his powers sang to him as he created a projection of himself into the confines of her cell.
Other people’s powers echoed around him in a discordant song only he, and the System, could hear.
Allison Blake glared at him underneath her coffin of restraints. Mind of Extrapolation allowed him to understand each riveted plate of metal, the minuscule mesh of her net hooked over her self-cleaning and regulating bodysuit.
“What in damnation is going on? Who are you?” Allison thrashed ineffectively against the coffin of her own making. “Why are you naked?”
He opened his mouth as the knowledge of his name vanished from his ascended mind. She didn’t know, so he didn’t either. He thought for a second. While the Savior was his title and job, it wasn’t his identity or his name.
“It doesn’t matter.” He smiled in an attempt to comfort her as he willed his avatar closer to her. “Ah, I understand your crimes and penance more now, Allison Layne Blake.”
<”Allison Layne Blake’s powers are as follows NAME REDACTED: Body of Physics, Theoretical Mind, and Will of Numeracy. Her stat powers culminate to Quantum Dream. Within her currently equipped, and suppressed powers, she has: Surgical Biomancy Third-Evolution, Stage Eighteen, Rank Adept; Oneiromechanics Third-Evolution, Stage Twelve, Rank Adept; and Chronological Reset Third-Evolution, Stage Fifteen, Rank Master. Summative Powers total up to one-hundred-fifty-two.>”
“What do you mean?” She scrunched her eyes up to keep him in her sight.
“It appears one of your other less infamous projects bore some fruit.” Still image reels slid across the canvas of his mind’s eye as he let his power pump more knowledge into him about Lacey and Allison. “Your daughter, Lacey, seems to have rushed slotting her stat powers to receive her class, Mathematician’s Prototype, at eighteen years old. All reports indicate that she is a bright, ruthless young lady.”
“Huh, maybe her father wasn’t so useless after all. Has she invented or discovered anything of note yet? Used her powers for anything special?” Allison’s glum scowl twitched into a smug grin.
“No. While she has all the marks of brilliance, she’s socially inept. Multiple notes are recorded in her files noting strict parenting on her father’s behalf. At the age of nine her father lost custody to live with your brother and his wife. A therapist has noted an unhealthy fixation on a fellow student in the past couple of days that I think leads to a particular individual.”
“What does my daughter’s failures have to do with me?” Allison’s grin dropped to a stern frown.
“I do not know yet.” Ma… He had almost grasped something important, but he had forgotten it again. Ruler’s Poise filled him with the warmth that if it was a truly valuable tidbit that he would know it. “What were you attempting to do with your experiments that landed you in Sanctuary?”
“What is reality, nude interloper?”
“Factually collaborated understanding of the world and universe around us?” He blinked as he said the first answer that popped into his mind.
“Sure, in a sense. It all depends on how we perceive the world around us, right? And what differentiates dream from Dream?”
“One occurs during sleep while the other is some manifestation of someone’s power to change something in the world.” He furrowed his brow as he tried to understand. Mind of Extrapolation only helped him either purely factual or generally known pieces of information. With Ruler’s Poise ascended, it was nearly impossible for him to think.
“That works. So why is a manifested Dream not considered reality? This was the primary question that drove me to multiple avenues of research. I hunted down census data about Initialized powers from civilized and uncivilized zones. In civilization, people often gained perks or starter powers open to grow. But within the uncivilized zones, people Initialize more complete powers suited to fit their needs.”
He nodded.
“I began experimenting with spawn first. I took a bunch of pre-Initialization elf children and introduced them to excessively stressful, normal, or prosperous conditions. My results further affirmed my suspicions. A child who wanted nothing more than to drink water, eat food, or to stop agonizing torment got a strong power immediately suited to overcoming that obstacle.”
“The children in luxurious conditions Initialized early with either a weak power with a lot of room for growth. More suited to long-term hobbies rather than any pressing concerns. While a child in normal conditions rarely Initialized at all until they reached maturity.”
“You could’ve saved the time and effort, this is well known.” It was half the reason the uncivilized zones were mostly left as they were. Not to mention it allowed for an improved circulation in powers and spawn.
“Of course. But did you know that the obstacles the System try to address with powers heavily depend on what the subject think is a fix rather than a real solution? In negligent situations, they didn’t receive any powers to allow them to fight me or escape, instead of anything actually useful to solve their dilemma. Whatever they got was dictated by what they felt was needed.”
“Interesting. Continue.” He continued to stare down at her while she spoke. Mind of Extrapolation whispered that she was disturbed not only by his nudity, but his lack of body language. He hadn’t moved or fidgeted at all unless it was a gesture.
“I realized that the reason why children are so fragile when it comes to powers is because their perception of reality is the most pure. Regular physics, not the metaphysics of Dream, are rigid. They plod along with a significant fraction of their surroundings cut off from them until they Initialize. Powers don’t bend or blend with their reality, but rather shatter or harm it instead.”
“Oh.” He nodded. “The Summative Diffusion phenomena.”
“Exactly. This is essentially the other axis of how powers interact with each other. On one hand, you have the tendency for higher evolved or more rare powers to trump weaker or more common powers. However, on the other, each power obtained, merged, or evolved stacks on top of each other for greater results.” Spittle seeped from the corners of her mouth as she spoke. Her voice had become nearly manic.
“Reality and Dream Reality are almost the same. It isn’t that our powers are breaking reality so much, as they are intercepting it. Or that’s what I wanted to prove. Since children have the purest understanding and perception of reality I wanted to prove why and how they Initialized with both the most powerful and the most limited powers.”
“Hence the experiment that landed you in Sanctuary.”
“I tried forcing whatever spawn babies I could produce in the lab to Initialize, but it resulted in abject failure in every trial. Non-dungeon spawn were out of the question. For the first time in my studies, I hit a roadblock… until I had Lacey. I noticed that during my pregnancy the potency of my powers waxed and waned. As if I was more tapped into Reality and Dream Reality both. If babies are incapable of Initializing, then what about a fetus during childbirth?”
“You only succeeded with one child.”
“None of the mothers were receptive to the experiment,” Allison sighed. “Every child resulted in a terminal Initialization.”
“Except for one.”
“Yes. My daughter Lacey was the only one born Initialized. The first person born with powers.”
“Pardon?” He blinked as Mind of Extrapolation stuttered. No trace of this information existed in any of the records he had access to within the DRC’s network. Gaps of understanding cluttered around him as his power tried and failed to fill the gap.
“What don’t you understand? I thought you got it. I was successful. You called her one of my infamous projects. Regardless, my endeavors evolved. I planned to kidnap more subjects to monitor them throughout their entire pregnancy, but I was subdued before I could complete my experiments.”
He cut his projection and feedback loop through Manifold Will and Ruler’s Poise. A sterile white hallway loomed around him full with the echoes of ringing alarms.
Protocols filled his mind as he thought about how to get a message out.
“Sanctuary! Send a High Priority Message to the Dungeon Regulation Committee Board. Message is as follows: Dimensional travel detected. Requesting these orders to be carried out ASAP. Immediate retrieval of myself and charge Allison Blake. Observe citizen Lacey Blake for any anomalies, and when the time is right, interrogate for any information on DRC designation: Pulsar. Interview asset Starbreaker about the same. In the meantime, place the Newton family of Rockford under observation.’ End message transmission.”
All alarms silenced as a partition sprang up around him and Allison Blake’s cell. He wobbled as an earthquake heaved against the Sanctuary as they were yanked into a new instance of the Sanctuary.
Solitude and emptiness cut him off as his Dream to the outside world ceased.
Stability ruptured as the fabric of the instance unraveled. Sections of hallway, flooring, and ceiling blurred in a haphazard smudge before vanishing. He blinked as the complex collapsed around him.
The instance of the Sanctuary popped like bubble. A torrent of chaotic Dream dashed him out into the real world in a rush. Spots flashed in his vision as static ripped down his nervous system.
He twitched and seized as exponentially increasing amounts of knowledge surged into him. It felt like his brain swelled. Thunder cracked in his ears as someone laughed.
Allison Blake crashed beside him in her coffin of restraints. Blood gushed out of her orifices as the howling laughter continued.
It stopped.
All traces of blood and injury vanished from Allison as his combined powers restored her. Prevented any further harm unless he wielded it.
He stood in a single motion as he Dreamed himself upright. A crowd of people wearing pristine uniforms watched them behind a magnificent barricade. Enchantments reinforced and bolstered it to the point that he wasn’t sure if even he would be able to break them.
If he used raw force, at least.
Manifold Will and Ruler’s Poise ensured he’d be anywhere he or his constituents needed him to be.
Static crackled as a tinny voice spoke, “We received your orders. Are you alright, Savior? We’re a bit concerned about how you were laughing…”
“Don’t worry, Jonathan. All is well.” A wide smile spread across Savior’s face as he let his awareness spread. He suppressed most of his power, however, it would not do to tip his hand by purging all illness, violence, and injury to his subjects.
It was far more important to spread his Dream to not only the rest of the world, but the wider multiverse.
Comments
weas97
Unless he is very forceful against Eli it is really difficult to catch him given his abscess to the space area of ''non-existence'' one would have to see his behavior even more importantly that of his organization on dealing with Eli.
A tyrant seeks to mould his subjects and empire into his plan. The savior seeks to mould himself and his plan to fit his subjects. So in a way he's an anti-tyrant, but then he made himself into an unfeeling mechanical system that only seeks to protect itself and by extension the entire planet that are part of itself and give it power. The overwhelming need to protects oneself at all costs is tyrant behaviour. This is interesting, he's both a tyrant and not one. It's kind of terrifying that in itself as the juxtaposition just shows how inhuman he actually is; not conforming to common rulers behaviour. He is the product of a human that has become controlled by their powers. Although this will land eli in a bit of danger as the saviors build has had 2 centuries to make him as powerful and optimised as possible at wielding his powers. Whereas eli has had a few months and some mostly random experimentation. As much as the tyrant wants to control the multiverse he will probably reach the unfortunate conclusion that in most of the multiverse intelligent species never existed and there will therefore be nowhere to spread his power. I'm guessing he might try and sneak back with them through the portal to eli's earth or directly try and control eli himself. Also it does confuse me how he never detected eli's original entrance, but it does make sense about his exit being private, this means that eli could just hide all dimensional travel by doing it through personal pocket dimensions.
weas97
Well that was really what I would expect from a god and an immortal with so many years to improve his powers, it was really an explanatory chapter about the world as well as great in its context now we just have to wait and see how it is dealt with and how Eli reacts to it what is to come.
