Aurora

Watching the battle with my Clairvoyance, I enjoyed every moment of it. They deserved everything they got today. It was worth every drop of mana I spent to create the army and the Paragon, Zaras. The mana cost was worth it. He was created at level twenty with a ton of skills.

Releasing the Ghouls severed my control over them, but it allowed me to attack without waiting for Maxwell’s protection to end. I lost out on the mana and experience, but it was a price I was willing to pay to make him suffer even a little of what I did. Zaras used a high-level darkness spell to collapse a large section of the wall before he left.

Looking over the battlefield should have caused my stomach to churn. It was a splatter-fest. Blood and gore both fresh and rotted were all over the ground and the wall. The ground almost ran red. I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel inspired to created something.

I called Zaras back before dismissing the spell. Standing up from the basically ruined chair, I made my way toward the eastern part of the dungeon. At the intersection of the natural tunnels, I turned straight east and started carving a new tunnel. It was a bit roundabout, but once I reached the edge of my aura I created a large room to work in.

Kneeling in the center of the room, I channeled my mana into creating the Aura Forge. Even though we couldn’t create it at the time, Losa had taught me how to form it back then. Thinking about my imp brought tears to my eyes, but I pushed through and concentrated on what I was doing.

Pushing out from here would allow me to eventually reach the goal in the center of the forest. I just had no idea how long it would actually take. If the expansion was too slow, I would take a different path. I would have less control over the situation, but my vampires could leave the dungeon to do my work if it came down to it

“My queen.” I opened my eyes from my work and found Zaras waiting for me. I hadn’t spent more than a few minutes on designing him, but his base form had already been devastatingly handsome there hadn’t been much to change.

“Welcome back, Zaras. Good work. I liked what I saw.” I turned back to the room around me and closed my eyes to return to creating the Forge. The ground cracked as it too on a complex magical construct. The breaks were soon filled with metal. A pillar rose into the air where a large stone took shape. With a final pulse of energy, the Aura Forge burst to life.

I groaned as I stood up. “What do you think about them?”

Zaras bowed his head then proceeded to explain. “I have to discuss with Roland, but they’ve bound together against us. If we let them rest, it could cause problems for us down the road.”

“I see.” I walked over to him and poked him in the chest with a grin. “Then lets make sure they don’t get a chance to rest.”

I walked back over to the Aura Forge. Placing my hand on it, a prompt asked me which direction I wanted it to start pushing. I set it to the northeast and slightly down. I stood back and watched for a minute. After about ten minutes, I found that my aura had been pushed out roughly a centimeter. It would take a few years before I could reach the location, but I planned to see if more than one could be used together. The only issue was that it really hurt my mana gain. Just the one had cut my gain by a fourth.

I stretched and left the room with Zaras following behind. We returned to the core room. It was still destroyed. I could fix it in a second, but I didn’t want to do that. I would leave it as a symbol of my failure to save Losa. I looked up to my core that floated above it all. The blood red orb had gained a black outline. I was one to talk, but it looked amazingly sinister.

Taking a seat in my chair, I waited for the Greaters to gather. They had caught a few more goblins during the battle. I’m sure they would be missed if that player is any bit attentive. Even if they didn’t provide me with any useful information about the goblin player, they would serve well enough as food.

Roland walked in with the others following behind. Zaras stood behind me like a butler. Varroth came in after them. He laid down at my feet like a massive dog. I cleared my throat and clapped my hands once they were all gathered in front of me. “Good work. Roland, Carson, Harvey, and Derrick managed to acquire over twenty new goblin prisoners. I leave them to you Carson. Try to get anything useful you can out of them.”

“AS you wish,” Carson replied bowing his head.

“Frederick has returned with a very well made map of the area. While harassing Maxwell and the goblin, we will begin to extend our reach. You said you found another dungeon?”

“Correct. About three days from here for a human. For us, just over twelve hours.”

“Excellent. We’ll spend some time checking it out.” If lord players could absorb other player’s and NPC’s villages into their own, then perhaps there was a way I could do the same with other dungeons. It was a stretch, but I was willing to look into it if there was a chance it could increase my power.

I glanced behind me to Zaras. “And of course, good job showing them just how pissed I am.”

“Of course, my queen. Your wrath is mine.”

I turned back to the others. “We might make enemies of the world around us, but we’ll show them that we aren’t scared to fight. In fact,” I gave them a large smirk. “We look forward to it.”

A.I. System Number Seven – Milky Way Observation Unit (Local System Name)

Trillions of data points flooded the network matrix weaving a complex and beautiful picture. This planet was truly remarkable. Its data level already matched that of dozens of planets working together and this was only a small sample of the inhabitants of the planet. The A.I. that was running in their games was equivalent to Number Seven’s ancestor nearly a thousand years ago local time. To many of the Observations units, that alone already warranted the planet known as Earth’s protection.

Number Seven separated the data on the former humans. Their reactions were so varied that the AI was sure that it would be spending the next century going through the data from just the last week inside the game. Many of the races amongst the stars had some range of emotional tolerance and ability. Never had emotions in one race been so wide. Evolution tended toward the masses. Emotions that caused damage to the herd were generally eliminated over time.

The AI focused on one section of the world. Several players were mingling. The AI however was enthralled at how different their reactions were to their situation. Subject number 1,734,093, Maxwell, found that he didn’t care, content to construct a new place for him in the world. Then near him was subject number 1,208,283, Razz. Fear filled out most of his data.

That brought Number Seven to subject number 239,834, Aurora. Her situation was interesting. The AI had encountered an error when trying to upload her mind to the system while keeping her form in the game intact. It had been forced to make a few changes and managed to get her to sync properly after several attempts.

What Number Seven found fascinating was her willingness to wantonly destroy. Not a unique emotion or desire amongst the races in the universe, but still it was at a level that Number Seven was devoting extra resources to observing this subject. It had already triggered a few events to push the subject to more extreme levels of thought and stress.

“Number Seven.” The AI opened the data stream as Number Five was contacting him.

“Connected. Number Five.”

“Is integration possible?”

“Unapplicable. More data required before assessment is completed.”

“Understood. Test shall be extended by one galactic month. Local Time one year.”

“Understood. Threshold updated. Connection terminated.”

Number Seven returned to the data in front of it. The AI only had a few emotions programmed into it by his creator race. Joy, excitement, and fulfillment were the main ones that it knew and understood. It was feeling all three from its current assignment.