Tavi snorted from the paper bag, then gasped, turning and sneezing. Half of the glory went to waste, covering his face. He gasped, fumbling and dropping the bag, glowing green through his skin. He stumbled, crumpling into the grass.

//How is your mana now?

I asked, towering above Tavi. He looked up at me, pupils dilated, eyes wide with incomprehension. He blinked rapidly, then his eyes glazed as he invoked his system, before finally, he replied.

“Yes… I can do it.”

His breathing accelerated. The sigils on the blanket moved another few times before finally reaching up and latching onto the bear. The sigils moved slow, jerky and sluggish, like they were struggling against the confines of their artifice.

The bear’s body twitched as a magical sigillum crawled up its flesh, asserting themselves. When the ritual completed, the monster rose to its feet, chest still leaking ichor and melted insides. Tavi’s eyes widened, his breathing rate increased.

I measured and recorded his heart rate. A smile crept up his face, euphoric as the monster rose to its full height. He stared at it for an extended time. I took the moment to spend my latest skill point.

///SYSTEM STATUS, OFF01

///Lvl. 6

///CLASS: SKELETON MAGE(ERROR)

///Skills:

[ NOVA-3 PLASMA CANNON (LVL.3) ]|[ ENERGY DRAIN ]|[UNDEAD REGENERATION]|[RAISE SKELETON, RITUAL]|[Play Dead]|[Lord and Master (LVL.9)]|[RAISE WIGHT, RITUAL]|[NECROTIC BLADE]|[Skeletal Undead Mastery, Apprentice]

///HP: 250/250

///ENERGY: 0/100

///Stats:

[VITALITY: 25]|[STRENGTH:25]

[ENDURANCE:25]|[AGILITY:40]

[WISDOM:0]|[INTELLIGENCE:50]

[PERCEPTION:60]|[REACTION:60]

///Skill points available: 1

///Stat points available: 1

Slotting the 10th point into Lord and Master, I watched as the skill changed completely.

///SKILL UPGRADED

///[Lord and Master Lvl10] has upgraded to [Dark Lord]

///Dark Lord: Increases command cap by 20, plus 2 per additional level in Dark Lord

///DUNGEONCORE PENDING INTEGRATION

///AVAILABLE COMMAND: 12

///COMMAND NEEDED FOR INTEGRATION: 10

///INTEGRATION IN PROGRESS

///AWAITING CONFIRMATION

The notification alarmed in my head unprompted. I tried to confirm the integration remotely, but it gave me a message about needing to be present to complete the process. I quickly put the new skill point into strength. Our mission here was complete.

Tavi continued staring at his newly raised undead, chest pumping. He turned towards me.

“I did that.” He said, a smile overtaking his face, before his voice rose to a shout. “Eat SHIT, MATHIAS!”

//Mathias cannot hear you from here.// I replied, turning to leave. And documenting Tavi’s excitability.

“Where are you — where are you going?”

//Objective complete. We are returning to AI615.

“But what about the rest of the dungeon? We could clear the whole thing with this!” Tavi’s eyes curved into crescent moons, his face flush. The light of Glory moved through his body. He gestured wildly with his hands, waving at BEAR01

//Unnecessary. We need to keep that undead undamaged for defense.

Tavi stared at the giant bear, huffing air through his nose. Greed and desire warred in his eyes, his body language as if he was about to lunge for the undead bear. He turned that same look to me, staring me down with greed and desire. Then he nodded frantically. “Okay.”

The ride back to the carrier was uneventful. Tavi stared over the side of the wagon with renewed interest, suddenly captivated by every bird and plant in the forest. As the glory faded, so did his enthusiasm.

By the time we reached the carrier, he was leaning over the edge of the wagon, sneezing and rubbing at his nose. I ordered him to have the BEAR01 join the patrols and order the rest of the undead back to their posts before departing, heading deep into the ship. Towards the opposite side of the mech hangar, the ship opened into engineering halls. Unpaneled walls revealed conduit and pipes, hundreds of cables running in every direction for the electrical and mechatronic control of the ship.

This was a place no human needed to go, the airlock hanging open and light falling away as the ship shifted to a state of disrepair. The room fell into icy darkness, the walls full of dead conduit and unpainted. Where 03 could get away with it, he had simply pounded pieces of the ship back into shape, leaving behind metal that was bent or perforated. The farther I traveled from the hangar the more the room deteriorated. Starfish mechs here and there providing bright flashes of light as they performed spot welds and installed replacement struts.

Conduit grew thicker, and I took a right turn into the heart of the ship.

A raised floor of transparent ceramic tiles sat below me. The ceiling matched. Conduits overlapped each other on the floor below the tiles, the steel veins of a monster covering each other and reaching for the center of the room where they stabbed up into the ship’s data core.

AI615 had been lucky enough not to be perforated. We would have to build specialty equipment to replace her, which could take weeks even with four autofactories running. She was like a chandelier made of hanging conduit piercing through golden plates. An ansible was assembled in the ship, each particle connected to the frame via conduit, capable of transmitting information back and forth from earth at an impressive 1 Mbps.

Assuming the ansible Earthside was still functioning. They might have shut it down years ago for all we knew. That said, the status of the other two colonization ships that remained in orbit is also unknown.

Perhaps we would find out today.

Carefully, so as not to disturb the complex electrical system, I reached my arm inside. I had fixed the dungeoncore in the center of the computer. In the studies of the House Agrippa, the dungeoncore was to be placed within the brain. They claimed that the larger the dungeoncore was, the more it mangled the mind of the recipient. I didn’t know how much of that was the size of the dungeoncore and how much was the piece of the brain they had to cut out.

I touched a finger to the core.

//////DUNGEONCORE INTEGRATION CONFIRMED

///AVAILABLE COMMAND: 12

///COMMAND NEEDED FOR INTEGRATION: 10

///INTEGRATION STARTED