《Kinda Real Online》50. The Seal
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"Missiles? Bwyd, why do you care about missiles?" Marcus was looking a little upset.
"Well, um, you see, I left my dimension for a moment and there were fighter jets and they fired missiles at me."
His eyes went wide, "You realize what that means, don't you? That was Earth. You went to Earth." He started muttering to himself.
I sighed and was about to try talking to him but Brogan approached me first, "Bwyd, you said your curse was broken?"
"Yeah, it's awesome. I could probably carry someone if anyone wants to fly."
"You would actually let anyone ride you?" He looked surprised.
"Well, not anyone, but friends, yeah. Though, I'm not a horse, so I decide were we go."
He still looked a bit surprised, "I just always thought that dragons only bonded with one rider, and no one else could ride them."
"Let me guess, the rider gets to live longer and gains special magical powers."
"No, they just get to ride the dragon, but usually the one picked by the dragon is powerful on their own."
"Oh, well, that's stupid. If I only take one friend flying, then the others would be upset. Just think, if I only took Marcus flying Lily would kill me... I could probably take them both at the same time. Lily's small enough."
He seemed to remember something, "Before we get too distracted, the thing you fought, what happened to it?"
"The administrator sealed it, somewhere here. Hey when Marcus comes back do you want to go look for it?"
He looked confused again, "Marcus is right there... Oh, mentally. Will it be very dangerous? We could just ask some of the security forces to search for it."
"It's supposed to be sealed, so there shouldn't be a problem, though I think it came from your world."
"Really? What is it?"
"The H something, Hala? I really should have paid better attention. Marcus might know." Brogan suddenly looked very pale, like someone sucked all the blood out of him. "Uh, Brogan? You ok?"
"Was it The Haka?" He spoke quietly, almost like he didn't want anyone to hear him, but some of the people around did hear, and they started to look as pale as Brogan.
I looked around and quietly whispered, "Yeah, that sounds right."
"There is no time to wait, we must find it now." He grabbed my shoulders, "The Haka destroyed my world, we cannot let them destroy yours."
With that he started to get some of the soldier guys together. I tapped Marcus on the shoulder, but he was completely in his own world. So I pushed him. It was supposed to be a gentle push, but either he was off balance, or I put a little more force into it than I expected, so he fell on his butt. He blinked a couple times and looked at me like I just stole his puppy.
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"Marcus, we have to find the place the Haka was sealed. Apparently it's the cause of the end of Brogan's world."
He blinked a couple more times, then he jumped up, "What are we waiting for then? We can't let Earth turn into a world of walking dead."
"Whoa, where'd that come from? Also, this is my dimension, not Earth."
He nodded, "But Earth is out there. If it takes over here, it won't take much to take over Earth. What can jet fighters do to a spiritual entity that can control metal, and dead bodies."
He started making little illusionary birds and sending them out. Then he made something that looked like a bunch of TV screens, without the rest of the TV.
I looked at all the people around me rushing to search for the seal, "I don't think it's as bad as everyone's acting it is... The Administrator sealed it."
Marcus glanced at me, "Yeah, the same administrator who couldn't let me have all my magic unless I stayed here for a year, and isolated a powerful being here because it couldn't stop it. You noticed that it severed all connections with your dimension, right?"
"Yeah, but it said it was punishment, and the seal would be made using system pow... Oh, the system is gone."
Marcus nodded, "You can fly now, so I'll send my birds to the South and East, you take the North and West. Go as far as you can then work your way inward. We'll let the soldiers take the areas closer to the fortress." I stood there a little surprised at Marcus giving orders, "Bwyd, don't just stand there. We can't let anyone else die because of us."
I wanted to talk to him more, to figure out what he meant. I was pretty sure we hadn't killed anyone, or caused anyone to die, but I was starting to get a little worried too. If the system was containing the Haka, and the system was gone, what was containing the Haka now? I shifted to dragon form and took off. I was kind of aware of which way North was, so I flew that way. On the way I pulled up my dimensional system menu. It was fairly simple. I could see the name of my dimension (Bwyd's Dimension), and how many people were living in it. I could also look at the upgrades for the fortress, and I could do all the stuff I could before with the original menu. The main difference was instead of being an instance, it was a dimension, and there was nothing about invasions or events.
There was one new part to the menu. It was an admin pannel. When I looked at my admin options I saw things like, provide a limited system to visitors, and residents; messaging; activate personnal assistant; change day/night cycle; set immigration requirements; and taxes. I immediately provided a system to everyone, because who doesn't want a nice little system to track your life. I then took a look at immigration. Basically any creature who wanted to enter needed to be able to use mana. Or be with a creature that could use mana. It was almost like a tax, that went to opening the door. I could set additional requirements, like you had to be human, or you had to pay money to enter. I could also keep certain types of creatures out, and I could set a list of banned individuals. There was a warning that some creatures could find other ways into my dimension, but usually I would be notified.
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I also had time to take a look at the tax system. It was pretty simple, and I could catagorize people to give different rates. I could also tax different things. Like I could tax the life of people, or mana, as well as money. No matter what was taxed it got converted into dimensional resources that could be used for a bunch of different things. Like upgrading my fortress, or adding guardians, paying the upkeep cost of my dimension, or maintaining the seal.
Maintaining the seal...
I stopped flying, and landed on a tree branch. Now that everyone had my dimensional system I figured I could send messages. So I pulled up the messaging menu and picked Marcus.
Message!
I gave you a system, and I think there is an easier way to find the seal
-Bwyd
When I sent it I got a preview of what it would look like, and realized that I was basically an administrator. I could probably even send world messages.
Alert!
Marcus would like to start a conversation with you
Would you like to accept?
Y/N
"Yes, that's probably easier."
I heard Marcus' voice telepathically, "Bwyd, what do you mean, and how did you send that message? Why is the system back? Where is the seal?"
"Slow down, I still have a system with the dimension so I activated it for everybody."
"Oh, so it tells you where the seal is?"
"I don't know, but there is a seal maintainance cost, so I would assume that it does? Let me take a look."
I focussed on the seal option, but it didn't do anything. So, I looked for a map or something, and found a nice map. It was perfectly round, and had my fortress marked clearly in the middle. I could zoom in so far that I could even see leaves on trees, and it had layers, so I could look beneath the trees at the ground. It kind of made me think of satalite stuff. So I zoomed in on where I was, and I saw a purplish black dragon sitting in a tree. I moved a wing and saw my wing move on my map. No lag or anything. Then I remembered I was looking for a seal. I zoomed back out, and saw it not too far from the fortress.
"Marcus?"
"Yes?"
"I found it, uh, let me try to ping it." I focused on sending the location to Marcus, but nothing happened. "Oh well, it's right outside the fortress. Just go East. Past where we fought it."
"Thanks, I'm heading there now. See you there."
I felt the messaging system disconnect, so I flew to the seal. It was a bit hidden under the trees, but there was a small dirt road that led to it. I got there at the same time as everyone else, so we all looked over the seal together. It was basically a little stone shrine with intricate looking designs that glowed with power. While looking at it I got a little notification.
Alert!
Seal currently at 90%
Rate of degredation 5%
Time remaining 1 week
The commander of the soldiers seemed to notice the same thing I did, "Is that 5% per week or we have one week before the seal breaks? How are we supposed to keep it sealed?"
"I can spend resources on maintaining the seal. I just might have to raise taxes, or start taxing."
Brogan raised an eyebrow, "You can maintain a seal with money?"
"Apparently. I can also tax mana, or life. I don't think I want to tax life though."
Brogan gestured to everyone around, "I believe I speak for everyone when I say that we will gladly give either mana or life to keep the Haka sealed."
All of them nodded in agreement, even Marcus. So after some discussions about how much we needed, I set the tax rate to mana, marked all current occupants (except the Haka) as citizens, and chose 5%. So everyone lost 5% of their max mana (except me), and my dimension had enough income to maintain itself, the seal, and give me a little extra to play with. I then set the tax rate for all non-citizens to the max rate of 40%, just in case anyone decided to invade, or I got illegal immigrants. I was more than willing to give out citizenships, but I didn't want unexpected things to happen. Plus, I figured that if the Haka somehow got out, it would have a lot less mana to use. I planned to go through all the citizens at some point, but there were a lot, so I was hoping to delagate that to Marcus, or Brogan.
The soldiers planned to set up a guard post near the seal, to keep an eye on it, and the rest of us went back to the fortress. We had a lot of work to do, and Marcus really wanted to know what was happening on Earth.
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