31 - A Distant Rumble

“You should be resting,” Tender said.

“Eh, it’s just second degree burns,” Maya scoffed as she limped out of the Hangy. She used her crowbar as a cane. “I’ve had worse falling out of a sex swing.”

Two days had passed since the battle in the corridor. Maya had spent those days laid up in the medical room. She wasn’t entirely displeased by that; it gave her some good VR time, but now the side effects were noticeable. She had more headaches and migraines that lasted for hours. Nanaseto had intervened and banned her from using it more than an hour.

Her sporadic education on mana and channeling had been expanded as Bell had taken time to lecture her on mana usage and channeling inside the VR world. It took all of five minutes before he had to log out of the system in shock.

Bell had been horrified when she told him about the two times she had used mana. Against the original Hangy rogue AI and the ramming AI. She explained how she had channeled the mana and what it had done for her. He only stared at her in disbelief. Then he called her mad and the dumbest fucking fool in the multiverse. Maya regretted teaching him English curse words.

“That’s rude,” Maya stated.

“Raw, uncontrolled channeling like that kills you!” Bell cried. “That’s a flare up! It’s mana burning you from the inside out.”

“But it felt like the right way to do it,” Maya said. “Plus no one ever told me how mana channeling was supposed to ‘feel’ just that it was supposed to happen.”

Bell slapped his hands together in exasperation. He stalked around the medical room and seemed stunned by what she had done.

“You’re not even supposed to be able to connect to mana in that manner,” Nanaseto stated as Bell continued pacing. “Your mana channels are weak, but they are still there. It is only when you lack mana channels that it is possible to ’unseal’ yourself.”

“What’s that mean? Unseal?” Maya asked.

“It means destroying everything you are. All your levels, all your abilities, all your knowledge, everything that the System has given you. You break that seal and you become Fractured,” Bell said.

“It only happened twice. Hasn’t happened in weeks,” Maya said.

“Once is enough to kill you,” Bell said.

“It was just a little ‘oomph’ in my swing. A little ‘pow’ in my stabbing,” Maya said. “It wasn’t like I was lifting cars over my head and shooting laser beams from my eyes.”

“Those who have had their mana channels seared away try to regain it back through unnatural methods. This is unsealing. This is breaking your very connection to the System. The System by its very nature controls not only essence mana, but mana throughout the multiverse. It’s entire purpose is to ensure that mana does not destroy everything it touches, but transforming essence mana into the mana we use. When you unseal yourself, you take away the System’s controls. You tap into the uncontrolled raw mana that is everywhere, Most of those who do this flare up and destroy themselves, the rest die.”

“Wouldn’t destroying themselves be the same as dying?” Maya asked.

“No,” Bell said flatly.

Maya gulped.

“I’ve been here five fucking weeks,” Maya cried out. “I still don’t know a damn thing!”

“Your progress on learning System Tech is advancing,” Tender stated as he poked his head into the medical room.

“This is madness,” Bell muttered.

“Then teach me!” Maya screamed.

It was a learning experience, Maya decided later. They had both learned much more about each other in that one discussion than they had in the three weeks they had been together. The main take away was that Bell had finally truly, completely, wholeheartedly understood that Maya had no idea how mana worked. He knew, intellectually, that she had come from a recently Integrated world, but his entire worldview had been shaped and formed by having seen mana being used everyday. For Bell, mana was a constant. His species entire history spoke about mana from its conception.

Maya decided it was also her own fault. She had the resource of Bell’s knowledge for weeks now, but she had been focused on other things. The salvaging and repairing of the Hanganathorie, the rebuilding of mana batteries, the whole VR system, and before that surviving. Tender, Annabelle, and Richfield were all AIs and their knowledge of mana channeling was zilch.

They went back to the old conversation that Maya had with Nanaseto when she first stumbled upon the Hanganathorie. She had been told she could have gotten Foundation Skill Books from the System. Bell elaborated on it, saying newly Integrated worlds were showered with knowledge cubes, skill books, and introductionary material to guide them in using the System. Even the loot drops, if they had the Skill, were better.

“Then why didn’t I get any?”

Bell only shrugged.

“This is like those damn things I didn’t get,” Maya said. “The Dimensions 101 and the Defender Token.”

“Defender Token?” Bell asked. “You got a defender token?”

“Uh, well… I was supposed to, but it never appeared or was given to me. What is it?”

“It is a System Summon,” Tender answered as Bell walked around shaking his head again. “The highest level enemy you have defeated in the last universal standard year will be summoned to defend whatever you want. It can be traded or sold, but it will always be the current owners highest level victory in the last year.”

“How does that even work?” Maya demanded.

“It is a mana construct. The System creates a copy of the enemy you have defeated and resurrects it using essence mana. They do not have a time limit upon their existence, but will remain until their health points are depleted. They cannot be healed or repaired.”

“That’s a thing?” Maya asked. There were times when the whole System was game-like in its function and others when it was a nightmare mess of arcane rules.

“There are no limits to what a defense token can summon,” Bell said, he slumped against a bed and looked lost for words. “Civilizations have spent vast amounts of wealth to buy a defense token from some lucky SIL. They have been the linchpin in entire wars.”

“Seems very over powered,” Maya said.

“It can only be used by a Tier 2 or lower SIL,” Nanaseto added. “That, of course, covers about eighty percent of the multiverse SIL populations.”

“It is how my people managed to overthrow the Outsiders,” Bell said. “Our highest leveled [Adventurer] used the defense token to defend the Holy City and the Outsiders broke their army against the summon.”

The main take away Maya learned was to ask questions. She knew it wasn’t due entirely to her own stupidity, but mostly a complete lack of time or anyone to ask. Tender was limited in knowledge and she and Bell’s relationship was still in the ‘let’s not kill one another’ stage for the first week. Now things had thawed somewhat, his entering the medical room and teaching her was his olive branch.

Maya didn’t remember much after the battle with the Roach King, but what she did remember was the look of terror and horror on Bell’s face when he had come across her. She had been nearly deep fried from the beam weapon and that damn roach’s flamethrower. Tender and Bell had only been slightly singed.

She wondered what Bell would have done if she had died. Probably eaten her, like he had originally claimed he would have done.

“Alright, here’s how you’re supposed to use mana,” Bell sat down beside her.

***

Maya sat down heavily on an overturned container and basked in the gloomy light of the rainbow sky. Standing hurt and sitting down hurt, but Nan claimed the burn gel she had produced would heal her within the next day. Although Maya was in pain and healing; things were lookin up for the group.

In addition to food, Nanaseto had begun doing what she originally had been programed for; creating awesome science fiction drugs. She, in her remote body, and Bell had been going out into the trash piles and collecting resources. They had come across useful elements and chemicals. Enough so that Nanaseto could expand her healing options.

This caused Bell and her to suddenly become very close to one another. They were working cheek and jowl in trying to create some of the potions Bell knew. Apparently, it had to do with mana traces and finding the right materials with the right traces. It was something that interested Maya until she was informed it involved intensive mana channeling by an Alchemist or similarly trained SIL.

The basics of Alchemy was that plants, animals, minerals, and even SIL contained mana traces within them, patterns that a trained person could identify. They then harvested those materials and using their mana they shaped it into bases or solutions. Then they refined those into potions. A whole lot of different potions.

An interesting aspect of alchemy was that two different materials from two different planets could make the same potion. A space weed from Bell’s homeworld could have the same mana trace as a palm leaf from Earth. Although there was some variations in that, grade levels, and Tiers of the material, but overall it boiled down to an alchemist knowledge and abilities.

Though different universe and solar systems had different materials, which allowed for specialty items to be grown on various worlds. Over time, mana traces tended to drift, so that a plant could have different properties a thousand years later. Whole trade empires had collapsed when their specialty items succumbed to trace drift.

It was the main reason Bell was hoping to force some mana mutation on the Junior clones. He and Nan were talking about harvesting bacteria and fungi to see if they could be grown. Maya did not like the sound of that, after all some of that harvesting would be from her.

She was happy to see Bell excited these days. His morose and vexed demeanor had softened since the rogue AI fight. He had stopped bemoaning the existence of the AIs and now talked with Nan and Tender, if not as equals, but not as abominations.

“Another beautiful day,” Maya said, looking at the sky. “One thing you can count on about the rainbow sky hellscape is that the weather is always nice.”

“I suppose,” Tender replied from where he worked.

The rogue AI corpse had been pulled from the collapsed corridor and dragged outside of the ship. Maya had said it was to be a warning to all rogue AIs, but Tender claimed he could salvage components from the intact specimen easier out there.

All the other projects she had come up with had to be put on hold as she wasn’t able to work and the roaches had a wealth of rogue AI parts.

To Maya it looked as if Tender were quartering game. She had seen plenty of documentaries about hunting and Tender was elbow deep inside the over turned Roach King. Entire leg assemblies, mana cabling, and various internal machinery were neatly stacked to the side. Maya could see they were labeled and a small floating window hovered above each piece identifying them.

The main prize was the beam weapon. It had been undamaged int the fight and Tender had immediately harvested it. The second prize was an actual mana core within the king roach. The Roach King’s little buddies had simple mana batteries that they recharged from the bossman. The core wasn’t large or very powerful, but it was well maintained. If they killed more rogue AIs, they could solve their power issues.

Tender had stripped the main weapon off the roach and it now was stored in the mess hall. They were still trying to hack some of its security protections, but Tender was a fine hand at making rogue AI code cry.

Maya was a bit miffed that she wasn’t allowed to take part in dismantling the creature. She could have gained some levels, but Nan’s strict orders, Tender’s over protective nature, and Bell’s simple pulling his crossbow on her had stopped her from joining in the harvesting.

It was only two days, but Maya felt as if it were two weeks. The information dumps she had received by Nan, Bell, and Tender had left her head reeling and her thoughts churning.

It seemed as if every time she thought she had a handle on the world, it would slip from her grasp and then kick her ass. Not to mention how quickly all her plans could be scrapped due to circumstances out of her hand. She had gained some knowledge, but it also meant that she had wasted two days without doing much.

She had worked on the builder box as much as she could, but Nan put a stop to that. No VR until her headaches went away, also the disconnection of her brain from her body slowed her own regenerative healing. Another new bit of information.

With Tender outside of the ship, she didn’t have access to his computer to play around with. That left the tablet, but what had been an awesome find weeks ago was now just a play thing. She couldn’t’ do much with it, except watch through the spy rats eyes or communicate with Tender.

The hours had been spent identifying and memorizing system component part numbers and what they did. She learned a lot, including what to use to better handle mana energy flow in a mana battery. The Mana Charger Module she had got from looting GNB125B had finally been used by Tender in the VR system. It had reduced the power usage by five percent. An example of ‘ask questions about things’ she was trying to adhere to.

The loot from the Roach King was decent.

Rogue AI Target Jammer - mid grade, Tier 1

Magi-tronic counter measure. Prevents auto target locks.

There was a mess of other loose components that Tender said would come in handy. Tender had already sent her many possible avenues in which they could use the creature. Maya was thinking assembly line robots. They didn’t have to be fancy AIs or anything, but if she could start making more things, they could maybe move from surviving to thriving.

“At least we got a good stash of mana batteries now,” Maya mused.

They needed the batteries. Especially the conductive gel as Tender had mentioned that the gel could be combined to make a larger gel sack. That meant they could break down all the roach batteries and create a gel sack that was large enough to be used by the heavier mana batteries they had.

Tender’s recent scans showed that he was estimating they would get eleven batteries fully up and running. With the half a dozen gel sacks from the roaches, they’d make another two whole batteries.

The talk of harvesting the batteries and lead Tender to inform her that the rogue AI that had tried to light her on fire was still ‘alive’. She had shoved her crowbar through the roach and pinned it to the deck, but she had missed its mana battery. So it remained alive, albeit badly damaged.

Maya had insisted that it not be killed. She had plans for the little pyromaniac. A grin creased her face and Maya rubbed her hands together, wincing at the pain. She would-

“What are you doing out here!” Bell snapped.

Maya looked up at where two figures were marching in their direction

“Oh, shit,” Maya muttered.

“You were not to leave the medical room,” Nanaseto added.

“Help me, Tender. I’m being double teamed.”

“I agree with them, boss.”

“Traitor!”

“Get back inside,” Bell said.

“Dude, I’m just getting some air.”

“What did you do?” Nan asked, her little robotic body stopped. “I didn’t notice you leaving the medical room.”

All eyes turned to her.

“Huh? I… Uh… used our bro GNB’s little cloaking device to mess with your sensory systems,” Maya replied.

“Ah, you took my advice,” Tender said.

“Yeah, totally worked. Power draw was a bit intense, but well within range. We could use it-“

“Inside. Now.” Bell snapped.

“I’m not a child,” Maya snapped back.

“Now.”

“I’m not doing it because you’re telling me too, but because I’m kinda hungry and need a nap,” Maya said, groaning as she got to her feet.

“Yes, tell yourself that,” Bell replied.

“Oh, look at you being sassy.”

“I-“

Everyone froze as a noise began to fill the air. It was a survival instinct that Maya hadn’t even known she’d learned. Her head swiveled, trying to track the sound.

Bell pointed an arm southwest, Tender followed suit, sending her a private message on the computer window. As a group, they all turned as a distant rumble grew louder.

Maya could feel the ground vibrate and the air hummed with something she couldn’t put her finger on.

From behind a distant trash pile, they saw it. A dark silhouette rose over the towering pile, lights flashing and the rumble grew louder. It wasn’t a walking machine, it was flying.

“A ship,” Bell breathed.

It took Maya a moment to realize what she was seeing. It was a flying vessel. A science fiction space ship, like the Hangy, but this one was functional. Tender automatically cleaned up the image from his camera and Maya marveled at the vessel.

It roared across the sky, moving far to the south of them, but heading east.

“Holy shit,” Maya said.

“That’s not a rogue AI,” Tender said.

“It’s a SIL vessel,” Bell cried out. “Someone else is alive out here.”