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Scorching Ascension - 2.02: Pylon
🕑 Added 2025-04-19 00:34:54 +0000 UTCA/N: Tomorrow I finish the prologue/epilogue. It kinda looks at other places in the universe, so I have to be careful (that's why it's taking time). I hope you enjoy this one! It was fun to work on.
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After the encounter with the direhounds, nothing major blocked their path.
Of course, that didn't mean they weren’t attacked. At some point, a couple of swooping, woodpecker-like birds had taken umbrage to the humans invading their territory, and had insistently and pretty aggressively tried to chase them away, which they quickly regretted when Ethan singed a few of their feathers, and after a few more minutes of dealing with the overgrown park’s vegetation, the group set foot on cement one more.
Unfortunately, it seemed that this neighborhood hadn’t been spared the ravages of mana and–potentially–time.
Just like the park out of which they’d come out of, the lawn had grown wild, with weeds reaching up to the sky, while the metal fences—at least the one right in front of them, was torn in places, and flattened in others. As for the mansion itself, a good half of it had collapsed, while the second was completely obscured by kudzu-like vines.
“So much for a roof over our heads,” Amelie said, taking in the scenery as she took a seat on a fallen fence post before she looked up. “Still, the area’s a bit better than downtown to settle down. What do you think?”
Glancing around, Ethan thought it would be fine to activate the pylon here. He wasn’t too affected by the ruined buildings, as he hadn’t been expecting them to be in that great of a state, but the clear spaces and the river nearby made this spot pretty attractive. As for the others, he could see that most—if not all—were pretty impartial. After all, they’d all been surviving underground for a week, dealing with monitors and lizardlings so if anything, this was an improvement. At least now they could see the sun and by now, the fact that the old world and its luxuries were gone had been mostly sunk in.
“I’ll take one last look, then we activate it and see what happens.”
That got him a few glances, then he flew up and studied the surroundings. Their anticipation made sense, as he wasn’t the only one looking forward to the activation of the pylon.
Ethan had relayed what the message had said about the potential capabilities of the pylon and of course, many of the survivors had relatives they wanted to reunite with and friends to look for. So it went without saying that many of them were antsy to see what the pylon would allow them, and if it would somehow empower them to get in touch and find others.
Taking a look around, Ethan was pleasantly surprised. While the mansions were in a state of severe disrepair, the space in itself looked pretty good. It was a wide stretch of mostly flat grounds, with the wide river nearby. If they built some sort of tower over here, they’d be able to see at least a few miles in every direction. There was the river as well, for access to some water, and from this angle, he could so that the transformation that had affected the park hadn’t just stopped there and instead, a new forest was now stretching as far as the eye could see to the west, engulfing parts of the city that had been there.
That should make for a decent hunting ground. Now we just need to set up a safe settlement. The pylon’s message had mentioned rebuilding assistance… as well as protection.
Ethan hoped it would allow them some quick and easy options to get a few buildings up. Even some tools would be nice, though he doubted they had enough people for such, nor the expertise to handle construction.
Well… that’ll be someone else’s job to figure out. I just need to find a few trustworthy people to leave in charge, then I can be on my way.
Plus, in case there were other pylon-leaders the likes of Edwin and Lance, he couldn’t let himself fall behind. Glancing down, Ethan thought it was time to stop stalling and get a move on. So, without further ado, he dropped back down, then reached into the side pocket of his newly looted backpack and pulled the black cube.
Do you wish to activate the pylon?
Ethan agreed.
The cube flew out of his hand and, for a moment, it hovered in front of him, slowly rotating without anything happening. Then it was as if some turned a switch on, and the cube turned into a black hole of mana, siphoning a prodigious amount from all around them.
Ethan took a step back, feeling the suction nearly ripping the mana out of his own chest while the rest of the group did the same, a tinge of panic entering their worried whispers. Thankfully, once they were a few yards away, the effect wasn’t as bad. But the sight was still impressive.
Mana swirled around the cube, visible to the naked eyes like a cloud of glowing blue dust swirling around the eye of a tornado. As for the cube. It was growing larger. It wasn’t a cube anymore. Instead, it was slowly becoming some sort of long shard of dark purple, and with every second, it was growing clearer and larger, like some sort of pointy, amethyst-looking pillar.
At this point, the panic of the small crowd subsided, though the mana continued to pour into the crystalline formation and after the first minute, glowing, white symbols started flashing across its multi-faceted surface before they’d fade within. Finally, nearly ten minutes later, the rush of mana died down, though the glow of the ten-foot tall structure lingered. Then a prompt showed up.
Civilization Pylon E-G12
Name: <Unnamed>
Identifier: E-G12
Tier: 1
Owner: Ethan Voss
Administrator: Ethan Voss
Vice administrators: <NA>
Collective fragments: 0
Modules:
Taxation module (I)
Reconnaissance module (I)
Construction module (I)
Upgrades:
Tier-2 - 10.000 fragments: Unlock the tier-2 tier, which would unlock the communication and defensive modules, as well as tier-2 upgrades for tier-1 modules.
“Anything?”
Ethan glanced behind, and the interface disappeared as soon as he looked away from the crystalline obelisk. All around, everyone was looking at him, breaths held. Unfortunately, from what he had just seen, it seemed like communication was out of the question yet. But it wasn’t that far out of reach.
Ethan quickly relayed what he was seeing, especially the modules they had available, but quickly enough, someone asked.
“Excuse me… where do you see that?” a young man asked. It wasn’t a person he knew, but the question still gave him pause. Ethan blinked at the man, brow raised before he turned to the others. “You guys can’t see it?”
They shook her head.
Ethan looked back at the obelisk, and just like his own interface, he willed the menu to show back up again and when it did, he gave it a cursory glance before he quickly focused on the part where it said sub-administrators.
“Right. I think I need to set people up as vice administrators before they can see it.”
Looking behind for someone to test his theory on, his eyes fell on Amanda, who gave him a confident smile as she brushed off some leaves still stuck to her hair, but Ethan looked past her at one of his earliest acquaintances. The scout who used to be a mechanic. “Liz? Let’s start with you, then we’ll organize better and figure out who should have access.”
She gave him a thumbs up, and then Ethan went back to the interface, but he couldn’t figure out how to add her. While he kept mentally pressing the button and trying, Ember snuck past him, slowly walking around the pylon as she studied it, then, sitting next to it, she put a tentative paw on its surface.
[Ember - Feline Fire Elemental (I) - Level 61] wishes to join Pylon E-G12
Ethan looked down. The cat was looking up at him, eyes as surprised as his own. Then a grin stretched across his lips.
“[Wait! Don’t—]”
Before she could find a way to retract her application, Ethan accepted it.
[Ember - Feline Fire Elemental (I) - Level 61] has joined Pylon E-G12 and is now bound by its benefits and duties.
The cat looked up at him, mouth agape for a moment before her ears flattened back in annoyance, and Ethan asked, thoroughly enjoying the moment. “Ember? What do you know about taxes?”
***
Once everyone joined, Ethan set Liz as a Vice-administrator, at which point she could see the interface. He was happy to find that when he did give her the role, he could set permission to what she could access and restrict what she should not, so for now, he gave her access to the reconnaissance and construction module and together, they began looking through the menus.
This was going to take a minute. Between figuring out how the construction module worked, the rate of taxation to apply, and what was available in the reconnaissance module, their work was cut out for them. Though one thing instantly jumped up to him, and neither him nor Liz could ignore it once they saw it.
The pylon covered an area of approximately a mile and a half in every direction and through the interface, they could see it, like a mini-map, with a white square at the center representing the obelisk, and many green dots representing them. All over the map, there were red dots, but most of them were near the edges. Specifically around two, ominous looking red triangles, and when he clicked on one, his guess was confirmed.
Within walking distance, two tier-1 rifts were spewing out their monsters, and they were going to have to do something about it.
Comments
guillaume nguyen
E-G12 is not a very catchy name, I hope they'll change it soon "Then a grin stretched across his lips." > a wide grin XDXDXD Lol taxes ^^ Reminds me a lot of the movie Prince of Persia ^^ : "I've heard all these terrible stories of this place." [laughing] "The bloodthirsty slaves, murdering their masters? It's a good story; it's well told, ever-evolving, yeah but alas untrue." "But the skeletons that we saw at the..." "...I bought those from a gypsy in Bacara. Ah, I crafted our lurid reputation in order to fend off the most insidious evil that's been lurking this forsaken country of ours. Y'know what I'm talking about?" [shakes his head] "Taxes!" [spits]
Chad Williams
Great chapter and im loving the setup for what they are gonna he doing in the next book
