Benjamin Vryce

Benjamin opened his eyes in his void space. The endless white emptiness had once felt like a prison to him. Now when he entered this place, he felt safe. Sitting in his meditation chair, he was surrounded by the patterns he had absorbed. The forms of Honor, Grace and Stomper were only outlined but the rest were here.

As he sat down Silver crawled over and jumped into his lap. He was the only one of his creations that ever moved on their own in here. Benjamin didn’t know why that was, perhaps something in how he had changed his code, or the fact that he was created by Shipwright initially. He didn’t know, but he was glad for the company.

He hadn’t brought the little spider out in a while. Ever since he had learned how to heal on his own, and had gotten more powerful fighters. But the little metallic spider was his first friend in this new reality, and he liked having him here when he worked in the meditation chair. Closing his eyes, he let his mind focus.

He thought over what the Erlking had told him, combined with what he had seen so far. If he could count on Jade’s consistent support, things would be easier. That wasn’t going to happen though, not on this mission anyway. He let his mind wander after that, letting the pieces fall where they may. Eventually he started to see a plan forming. He didn’t know if it would work but, it was worth a try.

Decision made, he moved deeper into himself and looked at his core. He had already partitioned a part of his mind away to keep the star spinning and pressed down, now he wanted to know if he could do more. He had felt the benefits of essence boosting his muscles, and eyes. What if he had a small flow going to his whole body? How much better could he fight if his heart and lungs, were essence enhanced, how about his sense of smell, or his hearing. could he make himself superhuman with only a little passive essence loss?

He started to put the theory to the test. It didn’t take long before he realized that he couldn’t keep his whole-body essence filled all at once, all the time. So, he broke it down. if he couldn’t do his whole body, what about just some of it. Picking his eyes, he partitioned another little piece of his mind away and focused solely on keeping the essence flow to his eyes going.

He wasn’t going to solve this all in one night, but he would get there. He continued to focus on keeping his eyes supplied with essence, until he felt Grace stirring in his arms. The night must be over. Keeping that small part of his mind working on his eyes as best he could, Benjamin opened them in the physical world.

Grace had moved off to stand by the second-floor window. She was being careful not to be evident from outside, that was good. Benjamin didn’t want them being spotted just yet. Looking past her, he saw that the sun hadn’t risen yet. He didn’t know exactly how long the hours were here, but the Erlking had told him it was relatively similar to earth.

Rising to his feet he moved over to Honor. Giving him a careful scratch, he thanked the wolf for his keeping watch, and dismissed him. Calling out the silver and white wolf to finish the duty. Benjamin then approached Grace, she knew he was up, he could tell from her body language. Well that and he had talked to Honor, and he knew she had sharp ears.

“Good morning, Grace.” he greeted her. “Can’t sleep?” he asked coming up to stand beside her, and joined her in looking out the window.

“Grace slept fine, Benjamin.” She said, still not looking at him. “She just wanted to stretch her legs and see if she could see anything outside.” She finished motioning with her chin into the darkness.

Benjamin was really curious about her speech, and why she only talked about herself in the third person. He hadn’t before, because he assumed all the goblins talked that way. by the time Stomper came along and changed his views on that, well, it just seemed too late to bring it up.

“I can understand that,” he said, nodding his head. “I’ve actually got an idea I would like to try out, care to join me?” he said, motioning down the stairs.

She looked to him then back to the sleeping forms of the others, then nodded her head. he wondered if he should wake one of them, to let them know he had left. He decided it wasn’t necessary though, since he had summoned a new wolf to watch over them. helping Grace down the drop to the floor, he moved to the entrance of the building.

Looking around cautiously with his essence enhanced vision he thought the coast was clear, so he reached in and pulled on Ice’s patter. The she wolf materialized next to him, and looked around, probably assessing the area for threats. He had put her away right as he had started running for his life after all.

“Greetings, Ice,” he greeted the huge beast. “I’ve had an idea in my meditation, and I would like your help with it. Think you could give me a…little help?” he said, having almost asked her to give him a hand. He knew she would have understood what he meant, even if he had, but still. It was always good to be polite to anything big enough to rip his head off in one bite.

She nodded her great shaggy head to his question, but didn’t speak. She hadn’t spoken at all since he had met her. He didn’t know if that meant she couldn’t, if he had messed up her ability to speak because he thought she couldn’t, or if wolves just didn’t like to speak if they didn’t have too. Either way, she had agreed, so he led the way outside.

Ice and Grace followed him over to the bodies of the headless, blue hive. He stopped above one of them and looked to ice.

“Is there anyway either you, or one of your pack, could get a trail from these guys?” he asked her, pointing down at the headless body. “I want to track them back to where they nest. They flew to get here, but they got here so fast I assume they have to be native to the area.”

The she wolf just looked at him for a long moment. Benjamin couldn’t tell what she was thinking, but eventually she started sniffing around the bodies. Benjamin, wanting to experiment more with his cycling, channeled essence to his nose. He thought he would give it a try as well.

After a brief pause, he called out Honor and the mottled brown and tan wolf. There wasn’t any point in holding back now. He repeated what he was hoping for to the new arrivals, then joined them in examining the bodies with his newly enhanced sense of smell. After a short time of smelling them he determined that, yes they were dead, and yes they smelled like dead bugs.

He might have given himself a better nose, but the smells on this battlefield weren’t amazing. However, he still didn’t have the lifetime of knowledge on how to utilize those senses. He would just have to hope that the wolves had better luck than he did. Otherwise, he was going to have to think of a new plan.

A few minutes later, after the wolves had taken in the scene and the surroundings. Ice returned to him, and dipped her head in an affirming nod. Benjamin still wanted to know why she hadn’t spoken, but there was time. If it was a personal reason he didn’t want to pry, if it was because he messed up her pattern, well, he couldn’t fix it yet anyway.

“Thank you,” he said to the wolves, “I’ll go wake the others, then we can begin.” He turned and went back into the tower, pausing only to give Grace a small smile.

Once back inside, he leapt up to the second floor. Looking around he noticed that Stomper was already awake, as were the two ogres. The three of them sat in a circle and when Benjamin caught sight of what they were doing his mouth fell open.

The three summons, two monstrously huge, the other dwarfed by them yet still lethal. Had just thrown their hands into the center of the circle. Stomper and Tik had their hands out flat, while Tok had his index and middle fingers extended and spread out. The ogre having just beat his fellows at a game of rock paper scissors, let out a low chuckle.

That wasn’t the worst part though, after the other two lost the round, they groaned and tossed bits of broken armored eggshell into a small pile at Tok’s feet. The ogres and the goblin were…gambling.

“What the hell?” he asked, not upset exactly. Just very confused.

“Great shit, right?” Jade said, from her seat against the wall. “When I first got them, all they would ever throw was rock. Since I got that damn puzzle solved, I’ve been able to smarten them up…” her words were cut off when, during the next round Tok threw out three fingers. He was summarily punched by Tik. “Well, a little bit anyway.” She added.

It was impressive, still Benjamin didn’t know how he felt about introducing gambling to his people. Then again, it’s not like they had anything of value. Other than their pattern derived equipment, and they couldn’t gamble that away.

“As impressive as that is, I’ve had an idea.” He didn’t go into details, just that he wanted to track the blue hive members back to their nest. She didn’t argue or ask questions, just shrugged and called for her ogres to help her down to the main floor.

Fifteen minutes later, they were mounted up and moving. The wolves were spread out, trying to catch the scent of the blue hive members. As they meandered slowly through the labyrinth of white marble towers. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme nor reason behind their placement, they just randomly dotted the surroundings. Their size and shapes varied, as well as the size of the openings into them.

“What’s up with these buildings?” Jade asked as they moved. “Whoever made these, obviously didn’t have a degree in architecture.” She was looking around in disgust, she appeared to be actually offended by their haphazard placement.

“And I suppose that you have a degree in architecture?” Benjamin couldn’t help but snipe back at her, the woman annoyed him to no end.

“I do actually, wanted to go to art school but my old man…” she paused, and Benjamin saw her grinding her teeth together before she continued. “Well, we compromised on architecture. Still got to draw… anyway what the hell is up with these shitty buildings?” she asked again, getting back on track.

Benjamin looked at her then. He hadn’t given the girl much thought past her bitchy and bloodthirsty exterior. Not that there was time now, they had a job to do and the clock was ticking.

“They aren’t buildings, they are hives. The Hive make them, think of them like a kind of wasp nest.” He answered her question, glossing over her explanation.

She didn’t respond to that, lost in her own thoughts it seemed. Benjamin looked around though, it was a cobbled mess. They were everywhere, some bigger than others. Looking farther in, he saw the half dozen or so massive and twisted skyscrapers. Those were the homes of the most powerful hive monarchs and their factions. It was also one of those that held the tear in the universe.

Benjamin couldn’t help feeling sorry for that faction. A portal had opened up inside their home, and an army was pouring out of it to attack them. On the other hand, if it had appeared anywhere else the area would have been overrun already. He just hoped the hive faction could hold out until they could reach them and close the tear.

He was brought back to the present, when Ice gave a small snort. She was looking back at him expectantly. It seemed she had found the trail, and was asking for confirmation to follow. Calling in the rest of the party, he gave her the go ahead. His team wasn’t ready to fight on such a large scale yet, but he hoped to correct that very soon.