Lillene
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Chapter 473 - Report for Inprocessing
🕑 Added 2022-08-25 23:14:09 +0000 UTCI just realized I forgot to post Serenity’s Status in chapter 466. Oops!
It’ll be coming in 475 instead. I added a note this time to make sure I don’t forget again.
The primary changes at this point are the Death Magebolt, Crystal Seed Remote Link, and the addition of a ‘Planetary Enabled Features’ section.
Enjoy!
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Tek watched as a fervent believer tried to convince a shopkeeper that “technology” was “the way of the future”. It didn’t work very well until he pulled out his sample items. A tiny camp stove, a lighter, lightweight rope, and a waterproof plastic tarp all got the shopkeeper’s attention, but he wasn’t interested in anything that ran on “electricity” or even the fancy knife; it wasn’t enchanted, and he didn’t see any need for a “mundane” item since it would immediately go dull without a Sharpness enchantment.
Even the handheld radios failed to catch the man’s interest once he found out that they used something other than monster cores for power. It was going to be a long process to bring new people into the fold, but Tek was certain her believers would manage.
They always had. It could take time and probably a better marketer than the one she’d noticed first, but it would happen. She didn’t need to do anything.
There were already people working on mana-to-electricity and monster core-to-electricity converters. Tek was certain there would be some working on the other direction as well soon; magic opened up an entire range of effects that might be cheaper or less polluting, as well as some new effects. There was that one guy working on a walker that also locally reduced gravity for its user; he wasn’t anywhere near a working prototype, but once he was, she’d make sure he got the support he needed to turn it into a real product.
Now the Tek-evangelist and the shopkeeper were negotiating prices. Boring!
Tek turned back to her current far more interesting project: Bioengineering with runes!
Well, it wasn’t really bioengineering yet. All she’d managed so far was a set of manasight glasses, which were nifty because they were new but didn’t really stretch the state of the art any. She already knew that manasight contacts would be her next mass-produced item; they wouldn’t be hard to develop now that she’d finally gotten the glasses working. Once she finalized the design, she could hand over the manufacturing work to one of her high priests. Not that he used that term; “Chief Technologist” was a much better term for a high priest of Tek. It was an even better term than “Lead Researcher”!
Did she need to work on them immediately?
Nah, she had plenty of time to work on something more interesting. She really wanted to get the thank-you gift right, and she wasn’t happy with it yet. Especially not since he kept sending her all these wonderful runes! He was letting her skip decades of experimentation and get right to the implementation!
Giving Serenity an Aide was the best decision she’d made in decades!
Even if she did sometimes blow things up. Tek glanced slightly guiltily over to the door leading to the former location of her workroom. The rest of the space station was intact, but really, how was she to know that runes could be so unstable if you swapped their configuration while they were powered?
She’d carefully directed the destroyed junk she could find to fall towards Earth and burn up during reentry. There was no need to add to Earth’s debris cloud, after all.
The fact that that particular idea hadn’t worked at all left her a bit lost for what gift to make, though. It needed to be something that wouldn’t randomly explode so easily; preferably something that integrated well with Aide. But what did he need?
It was time to brainstorm again. Integral powerarmor was out, as was the kinetic-assist system. However much she wanted to integrate that, a gun did its job better and Serenity didn’t seem that fond of guns anyway. That would go back on the table for nonintegrated powered armor, but it wouldn’t make a good gift for Serenity; it was too far from ready. Perhaps the opposite would be better, a kinetic deflection system?
No, kinetic absorption! She could base that on the “training center” diagram set, extract the relevant portion and …
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“It’s a stone corridor, looks like it was carved out of the ground instead of built; there are lights every twenty feet or so, which means there are lots of shadows in between the lights. The lights are brighter than outside, and the entire place feels newer or maybe just better maintained. Everything is clean. Behind us …” Andarit stopped and took a careful look behind them. “Behind us is just the door we came in through; it looks clean and polished, like the corridor.”
Andarit turned back around and stared forward, peering into the distance. Serenity simply watched; he didn’t think she was done describing the area; she certainly hadn’t covered everything ahead of them yet. His assumption was proven correct as she started to talk. “There are two … no, three doors in the corridor ahead of us. Two to the right and one to the left. I think they’re like the one behind us. No way to tell if they’re locked or not from here, but they’re closed. The corridor continues after the last door, but I think I see an end to it. I can’t tell if it turns or not, but I think there’s a door there, too. No sign of any enemies.”
Serenity nodded. “That’s more like it. It’s a lesson I learned the hard way.” He paused as his memory flitted over the many, many times he’d missed something important by not paying attention. “More than once. It’s an easy thing to forget when you think you’re safe, but that’s when it hurts the most to be surprised. Yet at the same time, no one can always be alert. So at least try to pay attention when you know it’s dangerous.”
It was probably not the best advice he could have given, but it was true.
Serenity was glad that Andarit seemed to have accepted him as an “older, more experienced guide”. Anything else would have been annoying; even after months of it, Serenity still wasn’t used to some of the reactions he got to his newly youthful appearance.
The two of them set off down the corridor. Andarit was in the lead, since her role was detection, both straightforward Perception and traps. Serenity was sturdier and they planned to have him handle most of the actual combat; Andarit would help, but in a support role rather than direct combat.
When they reached the first door, on the right, Serenity waited while Andarit checked it for anything unexpected. Careful was important in an unknown dungeon.
When she stepped back and shook her head, waving him forward, Serenity knew she hadn’t found anything. It was good she knew to be quiet, though they’d have to talk quite a bit during the run since they didn’t know each other that well and had never fought together before.
Serenity opened the door and found a single room with no other exits. At the far end, there was a pallet laid out with two blankets but no pillow. In the middle of the room, a table was pushed up against one of the walls, with two chairs against its side. The floor and walls were the same stone as the corridor, and there was nothing on the walls. All together, it looked like a very plain, boring set of living quarters.
There was no sign of a monster, so Serenity waved at Andarit to follow him in and searched the room.
There were two mugs and two plates on the table, pushed away from the two chairs; the only other thing of note in the room was a scrap of paper that said “Report to Station Node 37 for Inprocessing.” The words were in Aeon, but they still took Serenity a moment to recognize because he wasn’t expecting something written in Aeon to use the writing system developed for Bridge; Aeon’s system was similar but the letters were different.
“Report to Station Node 37 for Inprocessing,” Andarit read over Serenity’s shoulder. “Do you have any idea what that means?”
Serenity shook his head as he turned to look at Andarit instead of the note. “I hadn’t gotten past wondering why it’s written using the letter from Bridge. Do you think it was written by a foreigner?”
“Probably. Why would that matter? This is just a dungeon.” Andarit wrinkled her forehead and lifted her shoulders a little as she questioned Serenity.
Serenity couldn’t keep a slight grin off his face as he gave a small headshake. “This is a repeatable Field Dungeon. That means it’s based on something real. Anything in here should have existed in the real world once upon a time, and an otherwise empty room with only one clue is exactly the sort of thing dungeons like to do to tell you about them. Sometimes following the clues opens up new paths or ways past problems that seem ridiculous. For example, something like this might help us get past a guard, by telling them we’re on our way to report for inprocessing.”
Andarit seemed stunned. “I thought dungeons were always about fighting unless they were specifically a puzzle or crafting dungeon.”
Serenity shrugged. “There’s almost always a way to fight your way through, if you’re powerful enough. That doesn’t mean it’s something that’s even remotely possible at a Tier appropriate to challenge the dungeon, and once in a while you’ll run into a dungeon that really doesn’t have fighting as an option. That’s especially common in puzzle and crafting dungeons.”
“Huh.” Andarit didn’t seem to have a real response, so Serenity shooed her out of the room. If there was anything else of interest in there, neither of them saw it, but Serenity did pocket the note. He didn’t know what “Station Node 37” was, but he had a feeling they’d see it again later and he wanted to have the note in case it was important.
As they stepped out of the room, Andarit finally found her question. “Why do you think the dungeon’s repeatable?”
Wasn’t it obvious? “It’s old and it’s still here. If it were way away from anything, that would be one thing, but it’s clearly well used. That means someone must have tried to explore it fully, which means that if it were a one-time dungeon, it’d be gone. A lot of Field Dungeons are repeatable. I’m pretty sure they all have a dissipation condition, but they’re usually pretty hard to do on accident unless the Field Dungeon is set up around one particular monster. That is pretty common, but you won’t see that many of them because once the monster is defeated, the dungeon’s gone.”
The next room was on the left; it was similar, but set up for one person instead of two. The room itself was smaller, as were the table and pallet. There was only one chair, plate, and mug. They seemed identical to the ones in the other room. There was still a note on the table, but it called out Station Node 19 instead of Station Node 37.
Serenity compared the two notes and decided that they were handwritten. While the letters were very similar, they weren’t identical as they would be on a computer printout or even a stamp. Or perhaps it was a stamp that had the entire phrase? That would make some sense, and it would explain why the words weren’t identical.
The last door on the corridor they were on opened into another room for two. It was identical to the first room except that the table was on the opposite wall. The note called out Station Node 37 again.
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Author's Note: I thought some of you might like to know what Tek’s been up to (and how she’s benefiting from Serenity’s shenanigans even though he turned her offer of Championship down).
I couldn’t resist the tek-evangelist pun. I’d apologize, but I’m really not that sorry about it.
As for the dungeon, they’re currently in the ‘safe zone’ … which also holds a clue for what is going on in the dungeon. Of course, they are having to find that out for themselves.
