3 - Creation
Morning. Oathday, Sarenith 26th, 4714 AR. (Day 174)
The one Torch councillor free to take up her duties, Dolga Freddert, stared at me with a mix of disapproval and pity. She was a short, dwarven woman. Old, but only in a way that softened her frame and whitened her hair. She was still capable enough of working at her own smithy, as well as wielding her adamantine warhammer. That weapon was propped against her desk, hilt up.
There were supposed to be five of those councillors, but I assume that the combined problems of dealing with the village's waste disposal and massed headaches would be enough to pull them from their offices.
"We sent out a call for proper adventuring teams," she reiterated. "Not odd-job layabouts with particularly public... Interests."
Dolga must be referring to my devotion to the Marrymaid bordello. I couldn't think of any other obvious eccentricities she'd be referring to.
I returned her statement with a shrug, shifting on the well-patched leather chair. This small office saw less use than the other councillor's rooms, as the woman in front of me believed in 'action before words.' I mostly shared that philosophy, though I also believed that words in themselves could also qualify.
I put on a slight grin, flashing her whitened teeth. "I hope to add to my repertoire of 'odd jobs' rather extensively with this exploration, councillor."
She drummed her forge-toughened fingers on the aged wooden desk while she stared at me.
What followed were a series of probing questions whose intent was, I imagined, to prove whether or not I'd just trip, fall and die as soon as I left her sight. As the inquiries eventually stopped, I assume my answers qualified.
"Alright, you'll do," the councillor continued, leaning back into her own over-sized chair. Over-sized for her dwarven frame, that is. The slightest traces of tension disappeared from her expression as she relaxed. "...Anybody has to be better than that group of thugs that went in the second time. Bloody idiots."
I drew her attention back to me with a polite cough.
"Yes, Ozy?"
"I've got some questions..."
She sighed. "Of course you do. What are they? Is it about the gold reward?"
I blinked in non-comprehension. "No," I admitted. "But since you brought it up...?"
"Four thousand gold pieces for the return of councillor Baine's body, or that much plus a scroll of resurrection if he is returned alive." She harrumphed. "Another same amount for the restoration of the town's torch."
I took in the small, simple gold jewellery Dolga wore, as well as the finely dyed blue dress clothes. While not nearly in reach of a pauper, they were far from being the most luxurious apparel available in this village. Those observations prompted my own unusual reply.
"I wouldn't want to pull any gold from the village coffers before your tribute to the Technic League is due," I began, "however -"
She cut me off. "Noble sentiment is all fine and good, but I'd be more impressed if you said the same afterwards."
"However," I continued with a slight smile, "I have no qualms about meeting up with the League collectors and acquiring much more from them."
Dolga mutely stared at me in shock, then broke out of her daze with a head shake. "Again, Ozy, I'd be far more interested in actions and words. Talk to me afterwards - if you survive - and... Some scheduling information may fall into your hands. Understand?"
We both exchanged thin-lipped smiles and dropped the topic.
As the aged councillor seemed to finally accept my intent and enthusiasm, if not my actual ability, the remaining informational questions went by rather quickly. From her, more of the specific details Khonnir gave the council were provided, such as the exact details of the entrance - an underwater passage in the Weeping Pond; the inhabitants, like enormous vermin, other scavengers, gremlins, and some strange humanoids with the ability to blend into the cave wall shadows; the 'metal wall,' composed of an skymetal alloy called 'glaucite,' just like the metal mined from local hills; and how the broken automation Khonnir found was near a door made of that metal.
In regards to official assistance, I'd be provided a writ of discount for the village. There was also mention of official sanction of using the Foundry Tavern as a base of operations, as well as a casting of water breathing by the cleric of Brigh, Joram Kyte, but I didn't need either of those. The only sad point about the discount was that it did not apply to 'companion services,' such as those from the Marrymaid.
'Pity.'
Neither of us discussed the repercussions of what would happen if high tech details were leaked to the public. The threat of the Technic League arriving in force was very real, so any 'discoveries' would be safest kept confidential.
By the time I was ready to leave, a sense of happy relief was present in the dwarven councillor. We finished things with a bone-grinding handshake - her efforts, not my own - and I left the room.
Afternoon. Oathday, Sarenith 26th, 4714 AR.
Once I spent the minutes required to travel through the underwater passage that led to the Black Hill Caves interior, I took stock of my personal supplies and abilities. With access to the storage furniture of my rope trick inspired Sub-realm, I actually wore even less than what I came into Torch with. That inventory consisted only of a full body set of studded leather armour, brown and hooded, that left my arms free, and a purse, dagger and everburning torch on a thick belt of the same material.
The relatively spacious entry cavern that surrounded me smelled faintly of mold and vinegar. I imagined that the dim scent would be unpleasantly strong if I hadn't taken precautions.
One of those precautions I had installed into my Pearl was based on the life bubble spell. That particular choice eclipsed a number of similar alternatives, such as those based on water breathing. What the bubble granted was a fixed, one-inch shell that surrounded creatures with a buffer of tolerable living conditions. It allowed free breathing in vaccum and underwater, rendered those affected immune to harmful gases and vapours, and protected from extremes of temperature and pressure.
For lighting, there were a trio of overly amorous fire beetles nipping at my ankles. They provided a stable, overlapping glow that extended out to about ten feet or so. In a pinch, they'd also work as trap bait and distractions.
"Isn't that right, you little vermin you?" I said in a sugar-coated voice to the chitinous forms. They didn't deign to give me a reply.
The damp moisture that suffused the interior of the cave was shown through the dark marks of absorbed condensation that covered all the walls in sight. The dark waters I had emerged from winded around to the north along this sandless, stony beach, while in front of me, a soot-scarred landing continued for a few paces. It was stopped by a ledge, somewhat shorter than my own height, supported a number of stalagmites. Beyond those stony spikes lay a low-ceilinged cave. Some faint marks of tracks followed that very path.
I scuffed a leather boot against some of the sooty patches. The blackened substance came off with ease. 'Something was burnt here rather recently,' I thought.
My Pearl-summoned 'protector,' a rather generic unseen servant, wafted around the open area. I'd need it to trigger the two enchanted objects I had made in the past months. Both were unlimited use, contact triggered items in the forms of rings. Oned used a combination of shrink item and apport object to quickly and cleanly store any items of note I discovered, while the other was a simple magical unlocking device, courtesy of the knock spell.
While I currently didn't have any form of active monitoring of the beings within my Realm or Sub-realms, their passing through the border surface allowed for an informational snapshot to be directly and unobtrusively inserted into my past memory. Said info came from a combination of true sight, analyze aura, find fault, and technomancy, and provided me with details around alignment, emotions, health, magical intensity, weaknesses, abilities, true forms and high technology specifics.
I faced the direction each snapshot came from as I went over them. The northeast held a trio of small oozes which were suffused with all manner of fungi, mildew, toadstools and more; the far east hosted a single short, stocky, frog-featured humanoid with webbed feet, claws and glowing white eyes; and the south-southeast had a single female creature that resembled a bald human with a highly adaptive skin-based camouflage ability. Very interestingly, she compensated with the weaknesses of her ability by wearing nearly nothing except belts and weaponry scabbards.
'I wonder if they're friendly,' I mused to myself. 'After all,' I figured, 'going from 'friendly' to 'very friendly' often comes with interesting perks.'
"Alright, you three!" I addressed the fire beetles with an accompanying clap of my hands. "We're going on a little walk of exploring, looting, killing, and extra-friendly ambassadorial encounters! Who wants to come with?"
As before, they didn't dignify me with a response, but only continued to nibble at my booted calves.
Oathday, Sarenith 26th, 4714 AR. Journal entry.
I made a through sweep of the north-most cavern spaces before attempting to follow the camouflaging humanoid.
Doing so allowed me to recover all three bodies of the halfling adventurer team, and another three from the others. All of them were transformed into small and sanitary cloth patches, courtesy of that very convenient feature of shrink object magic.
Nearly all of those corpses were completely looted already, but a through inspection of them - and the places I found them - revealed a single gem, over a hundred gold pieces, and some potions, jewellery, silverdisks and empty vials. More substantial items included a chain shirt, a set of tools, and a hand crossbow with less than a half-dozen bolts.
Noteworthy is that one of the corpses was infected with some sort of mold that would eventually spawn a living, plant-based, small humanoid creature. It would need to be cleansed of such if a traditional burial was planned.
As far as the fascinating idea of spawning a plant creature goes... I resisted the impulse to infect myself. After all, the process would likely take too long.
None of the creatures I had already identified provided any sort of challenge.
Early evening. Oathday, Sarenith 26th, 4714 AR.
There were four of those lightly grey-skinned figures. Though 'grey skinned' may be an a small falsehood, as the skin of the four thin-bodied women kept on constantly changing to match the materials around them. They seemed surprised that my entire 'adventuring party' consisted solely of myself. The three fire beetles didn't last, but at least I hadn't truely relied on them for illumination. Just like the everburning torch I kept with me, they were an unnecessary red herring for others expectations. Among other personal enhancements, the perceptions of true seeing prevented ackward dependencies.
I kept on an extra wide grin, pointed thumbnails hooked behind my belt, while they whispered among themselves.
This particular chamber was rather large. In defiance of what I had walked through so far, the ceiling rose to a distant thirty-odd feet overhead, while a pit that descended into pitch darkness lay against the south wall. A soft, cold breeze emerged from it.
Four ramshackle huts made out of some patchwork mix of metal, hides and plant matter were visible and obviously the homes of these individuals. There might be more of those huts, however, as one of the beings came from a northern cave passage. Far to the east lay an opening on a large, dark grey metal wall - perhaps the very wall that Khonnir's group went through and retrieved that robot from. The surface looked pitted and scorched, but otherwise remained without rents, tears or rust. A rather robust example of high technology construction.
One of the four, perhaps marginally taller than the others, stepped closer to me when they went silent. She was dressed - and I used that word loosely - in a series of belts, straps, scabbards and small pouches.
"You've survived the caves to reach this far, by your self?" she asked me, bald head cocked and her hands tracing the hilts of a pair of large knives.
I passed on mentioning the fire beetles and the unseen servant. "Yes," I replied from within the depths of my hood. "It wasn't much of a problem at all." The traces of my blood on the leather armour I wore may have suggested otherwise, but as I believed it to be the truth - it was so. I had to be careful to tell the truth, as unless my choice of magical specialities was Dominion - focused on my Realm itself, controlled through the Pearl - all the effects I had running in and on it were applied equally to everyone inside, including those that I'd call 'enemies' or 'hostile.' Unless the beings I faced were a true, actual threat - in the sense of soul destroying, landscape absorbing and so on - that level of non-favouritism would continue. The currently shared effects resided in the Interfacing category were based on the spells of discern lies, speak with animals, life bubble, and cultural adaption. While the subtle benefits of cultural adaption may have made my inroads into the social good graces of the people of Torch easier, I have yet to truely assess how it worked on others - how they would, perhaps invisibly, adapt to my own microscopic 'culture.'
"I'm Sef," she said, gesturing towards herself. "I lead them." Another brief flick of her hands indicated the three others, which returned to her knife hilts as soon as possible. Sef's darkened eyes blinked. "Are you open to a brief alliance? I have a problem that needs solving, and you appear to be competent."
'Ah yes, the smell of fresh boons in the... What time is it, anyways?'
"Of course, Sef," I replied enthusiastically, as I pulled my hood back to expose my pale skin and silvery-grey colouring, inwardly cautious. While she hasn't lied so far, these beings were flagged as 'chaotic evil' via the analyze aura aspect of the Pearl's - and my own Realm - border-located scanning features. I hoped that there was enough common sense present that I wouldn't have to slaughter the bunch of them. Thankfully, any intelligence gained by passage through my Realm borders was only available to myself, as compared to the equal opportunity applications of effects within the area itself.
She began to walk in the direction of the center north-most cave. I followed, as did the other three, who formed a half-circle around me.
Sef indicated the opening with another brief flick. "In there lies a lair of gremlins. They are annoying little pests about this high," she indicated a spot on her lean thighs, "who have the ability to teleport and curse objects. Kill them all. Do that and leave us skulks alone -" 'Ah, that is what they are called.' "- and I'll allow you free passage through our caves and a strange device I've recovered from the ruins here." Her hands traced her knife handles while she looked past me to the other three.
Interestingly enough, even though her body language whispered 'planned ambush betrayal,' I wasn't getting a sense of deception in the slightest. 'Nice.'
"Add answering some questions and being able to merely inspect the rest of your treasure and you've got a deal, Sef," I replied.
"Fine," she near-immediately answered me, then assumed a more relaxed, waiting pose.
The four of them were apparently going to remain at guard right outside the cave opening.
'Whatever,' I thought, and slipped my hood back up. 'Time to go kill some annoying little buggers.'
Late night. Oathday, Sarenith 26th, 4714 AR.
'These were seriously annoying little fuckers.'
Even though I had dimensional anchor active via the Pearl category of Defences, it didn't prevent other gremlins from using their very own dimension door spell-like abilities to pop into the caves where my Realm didn't cover and then wander my way. I've been killing these evil little fey for hours and had nothing to show for it other than a coating of blood and gore on my hands and mouth.
While ripping apart the little bat-eared horrors with my hands and teeth was both easy and satisfying courtesy of my own permanent greater magic fang-like effects, it also kept me just a little bit too close to the action. I've begun to see the appeal of reach weapons and ranged combat quite clearly.
The light fingers of my unseen servant did its best, constantly removing the larger chunks off of me.
'There! A flash of purple skin!' I hoped that this would be the last one.
The creature lead me into a dead-end room. The little freak's needle-like teeth shone inside a grimace that was slightly wider than normal. I caught the furtive glancing of its yellow eyes towards the ground in front of me and sighed.
'Another trap. Fantastic.'
My leading leg hit the tripwire and a spike of jagged metal launched itself into my torso. As I breathed around the bloody, gaping hole in my lungs, the sight of the cavorting gremlin clapping in glee was very clear.
In response, I held up four extended fingers and pointed them towards the capering critter.
'See this, little freak?' I thought as I stared hard at the gremlin. 'This is going to go right up your a-'
Fireday, Sarenith 27th, 4714 AR. Journal entry.
I'm going to have a long bath in my little Sub-realm. And then, I'll be cleaning everything I touched - twice over.
...
Sef was true to her word. The 'strange treasures' were a pouch of nearly fifty silverdisks and what looked like electronic access cards, each of which had a brown stripe. I'm devoutly hoping that there isn't some sequence or spectrum of colours used to unlock some complicated geometric alien maze or something.
...They're usually incredibly annoying.
Wait... Did I actually do that, or was it a dramatic reenactment way back?
...Having a shattered psyche is also incredibly annoying. On the upside, I could probably reread all my old books and they'd be surprises again. Of course, that necessitates actually finding them somehow.
The reason Sef thought the brown-striped cards were valuable was because of the preceding asker: a purple-haired lady, who was accompanied by a number of orcs, humans and ratfolk, arranged a deal with the skulks to kill anybody that entered the caves. For this, they paid a large number of silverdisks, the remainder of which I now had. That same lady was also asking for any cards similar to what was found. That large group left through the gremlin caves and had not returned - there was yet one more 'metal wall' there, but the inset door was completely jammed. No easy passage via the magic of knock, either.
In regards to the low number of skulks present, they only had one real victory - the group of thugs, whom they massacred. They were in turn nearly completely butchered by Khonnir's group, who took the majority of the silverdisks for themselves.
The group of which the four skulks were members of were originally from deep underground, and had ascended by the use of magic. Apparently the pit in the main chamber descended all the way to an entirely different geographic region - the upper layer of three of the Darklands, Nar-Voth. It'll probably be a good idea to plug that hole once this whole Torch situation gets resolved.
Speaking of 'plugging holes,' I arranged a little trade with the skulks: my yummy delicious blood and flesh for... Services rendered.
The orgy that resulted was rather messy. Kind of like the last one at the Marrymaid, to be honest... Or was it the one before that? No blood involved there, though. Other liquids took precedence.
No worries. I'm sure I'll go through a suitable reminder soon enough.
Early morning. Fireday, Sarenith 27th, 4714 AR.
My first encounter with a 'live' robot was in a hallway barely longer than a single flight of stairs. The artificial being was the same model as the one Khonnir had brought back on his first expedition, but completely functional. The grey and white form's vaguely humanoid torso rested on three spider-like legs, while the four fingers of its two hands twitched to the smallest degrees. Standing tall, it came to about the same height of my self. The single 'eye' in the front center of its head didn't display any obvious signs of life.
I'm assuming that it, like the earlier dismembered robot, was slowly gathering energy from the projecting reactor. However, I had no idea what triggers could formally awake it besides a full energy tank. 'Movement? 'Hostile' activity? Littering?'
'Lets see what rebuke technology does,' I thought to myself, then willed the execution of that technomantic magic towards the triple-legged bot. It slowly slumped forward, but did nothing else.
I walked over the smooth, dark grey metal of the floor with my brown leather boots and cautiously poked the closest leg. I grew bolder with the lack of a reaction, and continued to poke it vigorously for a minute or so, giggling all the while.
I wonder if... Nah, that'd be impossible... Surely?
I took out my shrink-items-into-cloth-pieces-and-teleport-them ring and gently tapped it against the grey and white form. 'No reaction.' I let out a breath I didn't even know I was holding - I wasn't sure whether to be disappointed or relieved, because...
My unseen servant brushed some specks of dust off the shoulders of my brown leather studded armour.
'Oh. Right.'
"Please touch that creature with this ring," I said, directing my words to the invisible being and gesturing towards the slumped robot. The nigh-intangible form plucked the ring from my hand, floated over to the inert bot, touched it and... It disappeared!
My jaw fell to the floor. Well... Metaphorically speaking. I was still standing there dumbfounded when the the ring was returned to my outstretched hand. I pocketed it absent-mindedly, in awe of the possibilities. Truly, there was now only one true goal for me in Numeria: collect the robots. ALL the robots. From EVERYWHERE.
Fireday, Sarenith 27th, 4714 AR. Journal entry.
The identifying abilities of technomancy present in the Scanning features of the Pearl served me in good stead. These first few chambers beyond the 'metal wall' acted like either storage or buffer rooms for the vast space beyond.
Unlike the Black Hill Caves I had just came from, the central metal-walled area was truly deserving of that description. Dome-shaped in design, the massive open space was over three hundred feet in diameter and a hundred in height at its highest point. I could imagine that this, right here, was the reason for the hill's height. The flooring - no, ground - was composed of a stretch of sands under a starless 'night sky.' More grey metal, I imagine.
The passage between the buffer rooms and the central dome hosted a tentacled creature that housed itself inside a stony shell. Despite the effort I took to break it out of said shell, it didn't taste good either raw or cooked. A larger version of the same being was inside a 'cave' surrounded by shells of lesser versions and masses of bones. From there, I picked up an amber necklace which granted various combat advantages against swarm based opponents. As it was both fashionable and useful, I wore it immediately.
My meandering search across the sands had me encounter a total of seven skeletal creatures, each four-armed and with rather elongated, spade-shaped skulls. They broke easily under my blows.
The same sort of setup that granted entrance to the main dome area from the caves was mirrored nearly opposite across the sands. Liberal applications of my single anti-technology spell granted passage through an electrically sparking buffer room, while the doors past it opened with the press of the brown-striped card Sef had given me earlier.
A rather attention grabbing flashing button all but called out to me in the room beyond. I passed on it - and the fascinating computer consoles that lined the walls - until I had more applicable resources and abilities.
Beyond and around the computer room was an observation deck of sorts. The high-ceilinged room had a window that overlooked the open interior of the dome, and also featured the mad carvings of an undead, four-armed zombie, armed with a pair of short swords and javelins.
Yes. Quite.
After splattering likely more than a normal humans' worth of my blood on the walls, I finally managed to put the creature out of its unlife. The zombie, much like the other seven skeletons, had some sort of eternal undeath rejuvenation cycle operating. The find fault scanning feature identified their weaknesses being the placing of their remains where the rays of the rising sun could strike them. With the assistance of my ever-handy unseen servant, I loaded up those aged bodily fragments and planned on doing such once I left this underground ruin.
The same room that held the zombie upgraded my brown card to - wait for it! - a BLACK access card! Yay. Yippy. Hip hip hooray.
Fireday, Sarenith 27th, 4714 AR. Journal entry, continued.
I replaced my shredded studded leather armour with some cheap clothing I had kept in storage. I have a decent amount of clothes stashed for just that purpose.
Somewhat refreshed, my exploration of an entirely new section of the high technology ruins continued. Through a few doors, the passageway from the four-armed zombie led into what looked like a reception area - a metal desk with malfunctioning computer panels on it, a pair of couches, and a large amount of ambient lighting provided by glowing panels on the ceiling.
Signs of recent violence are visible in dried blood stains on the floor and walls near the doors to the north, while some rust-red mold and fungus clings to the southern wall. More of that 'kill-corpses-and-hatch-plant-people-from-it' fungus, or so my Pearl scans assure me.
Fantastic.
Time to loot, pillage, and otherwise desecrate ancient ruins. Hopefully I'll find enough pieces of Khonnir that they can be used to resurrect him with.
...
This level could be reasonably summed up as 'sciencey.' There were multiple labs in extremely poor repair that appeared devoted to chemical, material and living sciences, as well as some overgrown greenhouse-like spaces. More time was taken to examine the varied contents than to actually explore the place - that 'science level' had a floorspace that barely exceeded that of Khonnir's three single-story buildings.
Even though the majority of the encountered creatures were hostile, a starving, curious and naive sentient fungus proved a notable exception. I fed it some of my blood but still couldn't manage to coax it out of the lab it was housed it. Maybe later.
The center-most room was a malfunctioning elevator. There I obtained a rather impressive shock to my comprehension once I read the names of the four decks displayed on the central monitor: Engineering, Science, Crew and Docking. The implication was that these weren't so much ruins of an ancient high technology structure, but that of some sort of traveling craft! At this point, I'm assuming it was a conventional space craft rather than a planar vehicle, as no mentions to planes or magic has appeared anywhere. I'll reserve final judgement in case other evidence shows up.
This revelation also brings an interesting light onto the other mysterious ruins of Numeria: are they also space ships or fragments of such? Do they all come from the same source of high technology, or are there different ones? Is this encountered technology truly only limited to this country, or are there other examples? On this planet - or in this solar system? How physically large is this greater universe - do the night sky stars actually represent distant suns?
Lots of interesting questions, including how magical enchantments could possibly work with high technology, if at all.
Now then... That reasonably large elevator had what appeared to be a simple electrical fault: a connecting piece of metal had been torn free. I took the damaged portion out, and made some rough sketches as to what the intact piece should look like. It'll require some metalwork in-town.
I considered the encountered robots more as 'loot' than threats. There were a total of four mangled remains of medical drones, as well as two intact ones. Unlike the earlier triple-legged repair robots, these had a set of four legs. The other major difference were that their two hands had fully articulated sets of five fingers, with one set being tipped with four fluid-injecting needles.
Easy nightmare torture fuel for the masses right there, I shit you not.
Another robotic find was a flying type, held aloft by a series of four spinning rotors. It came equipped with a pair of grappling arms and an integrated stun gun. Unlike the grey-white colouring seen so far, the painted portions of its chassis were a light, earthy brown.
I continually bemoan the inability of molecular level scanning fidelity to process these examples of high technology. As is, I'll be collecting a stack of shrunken, cloth-patch converted robots for some future undetermined time when I can interact with them on less disadvantaged standing.
On a happier note, I found Khonnir! He... Was in really rough shape. Half-mad in fright from his experiences, as well as having both his legs crippled with scores of surgical incisions. Some sort of nanotechnology was present inside him as well, and I don't know what particular healing magics cope cope with it. Perhaps some of the rare odd medical tech for sale in Torch could be used for such.
I'll be heading back to town now. Apart from the living councillor to restore to good health, I also have a number of corpses to deliver to their respective grieving parties, some undead remains to place where sun can hit them, and that broken piece of metal to get fixed.
The journey will also give me another chance to enthusiastically and vigorously greet Sef and the other three skulks with her: Luepel, Brath, and Yadriss.
...I'll skip doing so on the way out.
Maybe.
