Chapter 97: Plate

Subject: Caim Location: Riventread - Body As Caim slid down the roiling wave of sand and shale, a cascade of surface boulders tumbled down with him. Violently disturbed by the breachworm's flailing, they burst above him like low-yield mortars. This sent a painful shower of debris raining down on his head, geological shrapnel threatening to shred and exposed flesh. All he could do was hastily pull up the hood of his cloak and brace for impact. The soft patter of smaller stones sounded like a heavy rain from the safety of the marginally protective hood. The impacts alone were enough to trigger Flourish Catalyst's regenerative powers, prematurely mending would-be bruises. I'll suffocate! came a panicked thought. It was hard not to panic in such a situation. Following that thought, his feet hit the hard ground, and weakened knees buckled. Tumbling and tossing about, buried by the sand- and rockslides arriving with him, Caim fought to right his body, squirming out of a waist-deep tomb to safety. Luckily, the surface hadn't collapsed entirely. He was now in a subterranean network of tunnels. It was all part of the festerfont. Caim had heard Riventread extended deep below, but access to the underground portion was supposed to be accessible only from the festerfont's core, though portions travelled all the way back into the body layer, and maybe all the way to his relatively familiar outskirts. Caim felt Scion's signal cut out. You did your best, I'm sure. Above, the worm had fallen still. He was sure Gire was still alive, but for how long? Allowing Scion's queue to continue issuing commands without his input, Caim took stock of his surroundings. Only a narrow shaft of light pierced down from above. He'd be lucky if Scion could maneuver through it. Caim remembered one of the Guild Clerks telling him that the Guild affixed magic lanterns to the tunnels of well-trodden festerfonts, but the only light to be found shone down from that narrow hole in the coral-red ceiling rock. Perhaps there was no use to travel out to the border of the outskirts, once you'd already journeyed inward as far as the core layer tunnel system entry point? That was the seeker way. If someone was crazy enough to push deeper still drawing breath, they would opt to fight the stronger beasts over weaker ones because they could, even if it meant exploring new territory. That was the impression the seekers gave, all too willing to give themselves over to the tunnel vision of "progress". The rock above looked stable, but nothing could compare to the beast above that. If it wanted to, it would bring the world crashing down and there was nothing Caim or the Tracer could do about it. He could do little but hope that Gire was faring better that him. Above were stalactite-like formations, though they were more rounded, and did not appear to have been formed by moisture. Aside from the landslide from above-ground debris, the ground was a smooth, almost pinkish rock. Though, color was a little difficult to discern in this darkness. A silvery-white shining stone caught Caim's attention. He knelt down to pick it up, thinking that it might have come from the caved-in rock above, It looked like a valuable gemstone, if rough and uncut. Maybe Gwen would like to take a look at it if he survived this encounter. Caim pocketed the find. Scion was ready again, so it went on its way. The queue was functioning as intended. Resume the assault, buddy, he thought, accidentally making the order out of habit. "Unavailable," came the reply. "Ouch. Why does it feel like I just got rejected?" he chuckled. The metal butterfly ascended rapidly, folded in its wings to fit through the small hole in the subterranean ceiling, and vanished from sight. It was good that he could now use a prior order as a reference point, even when that order's target was nearby, but entirely out of sight. He'd have to test more, but the queue might also remove some of the other restrictions. Let's try our hand at using this "Terra" sourcetech routine, now. He lifted his hands and concentrated. He was searching for a point somewhere ahead of him, on one of the walls in the tunnel that split into branching paths off in the darkness, which his eyes were now beginning to get adjusted to. Plate A Conjured An ethereal grey plate suddenly appeared where he had focused, slightly surprising Caim. "It's really as simple as that?" he wondered. The Plate routine created... a square plate. There were no tricks to it. None that he could see, at the very least. He walked over to the object and touched it. It felt... odd, a hard sensation that was difficult to place. The edges were smooth, but not slippery. His knuckles gently rapped against it, and the material produced a melodic chime. The high-pitched sound quickly faded. While the height and width of the conjured material were each about four times as tall and wide as the width of his outstretched arm, the Plate was only about as deep as a finger. This gave him questions about it's resilience. Up above, the breachworm resumed it's agitated flailing. Gire and Scion were trying the beast's patience. Caim tried to move the object he'd made, but found it was completely stuck in place. Leaning forward, he could see a gap between the plate and the rock wall behind it. It wasn't affixed to anything in physical space. This was just a quality of the sourcetech. He sensed that the routine was still available, so he repeated the process and conjured a second Plate beside the first. Plate B Conjured Scion Destroyed "Oh... yeah. How can I use this new power in this situation?," he wondered aloud, suddenly forced to remember what was happening above. The breachworm has been down here before, and it could easily burrow again if it wanted to. That's a little concerning. A wave of his hand made the Plates vanish as he'd hoped. Caim still felt the presence of the power, with no delay between uses. Plate A Dispersed Plate B Dispersed Maybe it could block attacks? Terra's Plate routine was refreshingly fast to conjure and disperse, if a little difficult to target. Caim spent Scion's queue duration practicing in the darkened underground of the festerfont. I can't get out of here. And even if I could, that would just make me a target of that monstrous beast. His contribution to this forced engagement didn't require his attendance up above. Really, Caim should have been on his way to the Guild to get help, even if it was difficult to make it out alive. There was no way to know if anyone actually knew what was going on right now. But the damage was done. Despairing thoughts in hindsight weren't helpful now. Queue Terminated [ Command Sequence Completed Successfully ] Scion Conjured Caim felt Scion's queue end, and he summoned the construct with a practiced series of hand gestures. Scion. As always, I appreciate you fighting in my place. Resume your previous orders. My pleasure... as always, Scion replied, before returning to the surface through the hole. That was a new response. The construct was getting more functionally complex, including the ways it would communicate. However, there was nothing to suggest it had anything resembling a sapient intelligence. He summoned three new Plates, assigning them to hover in the empty air before him. Plate A Conjured Plate B Conjured Plate C Conjured Scion was more communicative than these plates, but it still gave off the same kind of impression as a 'state-based chatbot'. It wouldn't recognize nuance in his orders, though it was gradually learning new patterns, so perhaps there was a dash of sourcetech machine learning thrown in? He punched one of the Plates, and his knuckles cracked inside the fabric his gloves. As expected from the result of the previous test, the Plate didn't budge. New test. This time, he took a running leap into the Plate, shoulder-checking it to see if anything new would happen. He was simply repelled backwards, and somewhat painfully so. His shoulder wasn't hurt, but he'd have a bruise the next day. Up above, chips of ceiling rock broke free and pattered down like hail. The breachworm was thrashing again. Would these Plates do anything against the might of the gigantic creature? That wasn't a gamble Caim wanted to have to take, but it was there if he needed it. Scion Destroyed I'll keep practicing down here a little more and then I'll try to find a way out.