New System, Who Dis?

Friday, April 26th, 2069

“A week! It felt like hours—What the hell did this Skill do?” Smegma asked. In response, I just paused at the bottom of a sharding-swing and looked at him pointedly. He blinked his black eyes and then nodded calmly, as if to say, ‘Oh! Right! I’m the one that should know.’

A moment later, he was frowning. “You’ve got to come in here and take a look. I can’t interact with the new Skill-planet in your Mental Universe at all.”

Thankfully, sharding took no concentration at this point. Still, trying to picture my Mental Universe while my eyes were open to track the Pick’s next target wasn’t easy. With difficulty, I did manage it, after about three swings.

The ‘planet’ was easily half the size of the ‘sun’ that was the Demonic Vault Skill. It was a white that was almost blinding with the backdrop of the void black behind it. Around the planet was a large ring, like Saturn, but on closer inspection wasn’t an asteroid belt. To be honest I couldn’t tell what substance it was, but if I had to compare—it seemed closest to ice.

Mentally, I prodded the planet and found that nothing happened. I tried all the tricks I knew; all two of them, like ‘flicking’ my Mana Pool with mental fingers and trying to pass my hand through it. In both cases, I was rebuffed like the planet was a solid object.

[Mana Conduit?]

“Give it a try,” Smegma replied.

I scanned over to my Mana Pool, or maybe it was my Dragon Heart Skill? Either way, the small galaxy had fifty stars orbiting around it. I hadn’t been able to drain the Mana into Demonic Vault while Smegma was away or this Classes sub-Skill was forming. So, fifty was a full Mana Pool. The stars seemed to vibrate as they orbited around a black center, and even mentally approaching the space gave me the sense of an impending static shock.

[What’s going on with my Mana Pool?] I asked, when I realized the Mana itself, also felt electrically charged—alive—or perhaps just poised for something?

“I can’t touch your Mana Pool,” Smegma reminded me. “What does it feel like? How much are you up to?”

I conveyed the indescribable feeling as best I could and heard the sound of talon tapping a tooth even as I kept sharding Crystals. I didn’t look to the imp, too focused on maintaining my dual-focus as it was.

“Fifty is the verge of Evolving to the next level—so maybe it’s ready to upgrade or something?”

[But my Dragon Heart is already B-grade, right?]

“True. Still, the Mana Pool looks more like a sub-Skill than the actual function of Dragon Heart. So, it won’t upgrade the entire Skill, but something involving it will probably create a breakthrough.”

[Helpful as always,] I responded dryly, as I made the conduit to the new Classes’ sub-Skill planet.

When I took my finger off the ‘straw’s’ end, like I had with Demonic Vault—the planet rejected the Mana, and the uncapped straw began to dump Mana into my Mental Universe. I flushed with heat as a feeling of exhilaration hit—followed nearly instantaneously by nausea. I plugged the straw.

It was my turn to breathe heavily. [What the hell? It didn’t take the Mana.]

“Okay, don’t sound so aghast. It just means we must activate it in some other way. Still,” Smegma said, leaving the word hanging as he tapped talon to fang. “It has to need Mana, Martial Power, or Control or something…” The tapping intensified, seeming to try to match the noise of me sharding crystals. “Try creating a conduit from Demonic Vault to it.”

Still feeling nauseous, I first tried to figure out what to do with my current conduit that had a mental thumb plugging it. I floundered, and even stopped sharding, closing my eyes to try to focus on a solution. My gorge felt like it was slowly rising and forcing up my quick lunch, from after the trial, in the process.

Unfortunately, my stop was noticed by the leader of the minder’s. “Everything okay?”

“Just taking a quick break,” I said, even as I heaved in and out lungfuls of air. Thankfully, Smegma also noticed at that point that something was wrong.

“Create a sort of positive ‘pressure’ and force the Mana back into the Pool,” he coached. “Think about it as low- and high-pressure systems. The Mana will take the path of least resistance…” he kept speaking using idioms that had no meaning in this context but helped all the same.

Eventually, with his help, I succeeded and noticed a side effect of creating a draw, or gravity around my Mana pool. The spillage was also sucked back into the pool faster. The effect happened in reverse as my nausea turned to exhilaration and heat before dissipating entirely. Once I knew the ‘straw’ was empty, I moved it, placing the unplugged end in Demonic Vault and the other side into Classes. When I unplugged it, nothing happened, and I opened my eyes.

[Well it’s there,] I said lamely. [Now what?]

“No husking clue, maybe try sending Mana to Demonic Vault?” That of course worked, but converted it to Mana Coins. Smegma noticed first. “Well, isn’t this interesting? Your dad's returning. I’ll keep thinking on this.”

“Didn’t finish this chamber yet?” My dad asked in passing. I realized I only had one or two deposits left, but also realized that behind my father were all the minders and the others from our new company. Even Dave had finished before me…

I started to feel embarrassed but told myself he had the smallest chamber. Still, I turned this into an opportunity and asked, “So, am I sharding these or…?”

“No more sharding. We got an extra two-percent if we keep them whole.” My dad nodded with a paternal smile and I quickly tapped the stem of the two before joining the group. I could tell the plan was to move deeper since everyone was here.

“Who’s coming to pick up the shards and crystals?” I asked as I fell in behind my dad. I also studied Dave and Jarred’s pickaxes—they were both looking much better. Nowhere near as nice as Willa, mine and my father’s but, far better.

“Someone will be down soon with a Bag of Holding,” the leader that had been watching me said. He looked slightly disappointed and I wasn’t sure if it was because of the negotiations or my break. Either way I nodded and the group went down to the final ‘worked’ chamber which my dad started. He had maybe a quarter left to do, and Dave with his minder was left to finish up.

“Do your best to not shard, but don’t worry if you mess up a bit,” my father said. “We told him that you were new to the crew. It factored in the negotiations.” He said the last rather proudly, clearly happy with how things had gone.

The group continued on from that room and passed through two more, leaving Willa and then Jarred behind with their gun-toting Hunters. As the leader, my father, my original minder, Jack, and I continued deeper.

Something noticeably changed as we moved into the next hallway between caverns. I looked around trying to figure out what my brain had clued into, but not immediately seeing it. Smegma had though.

“The moss is growing brighter.”

I stopped and looked around, trying to figure out what could be causing it. My dad, and the other two stopped and took note of the wall too. The leader asked the obvious question first, “Why is it brighter?”

There was one patch of moss that shone at about three times the lumens of the rest. I found it thanks in part to Smegma floating near it, and my own eyes slowly clueing in to the odd phenomenon. Smegma made a motion with his hand to brush it aside. It didn’t work, but I dutifully dug my fingers in and pulled.

The moss tore away with a bit of effort and soon I was staring at a shining surface. It almost looked like frozen water. However, it wasn’t blue, but a metallic yellow. I pulled away more of the moss and the others came over to study what I was revealing. The leader again asked the obvious, “What is it?”

As I pulled off more moss it became clear that it wasn’t a natural deposit. Or I guess it became clear that it was more than just a mineral deposit. There were carvings on it that depicted stick-like humanoids surrounding a massive, coiled creature. The oddity was that, where I would put two legs for a stick figure human, these images instead had one thick line that curled to a point under them.

The creature in the center resembled a snake, the more of it I revealed. Mostly because it was a large coiling figure with the telltale segments I’d come to expect from a snake’s underbelly. However, if these humanoids were human-sized, then this creature was hundreds of feet long.

The more of the mural I revealed, the more the story grew. The single-legged humanoids had weapons and were fighting the creature. It was coiled either in defense or between strikes.

“What planet are we on?” Smegma asked, cutting into my thoughts.

“No idea,” I responded, meaning it for both the leader and Smegma. I continued mentally to the latter. [Outside, there are petrified trees and about a foot to two feet of water filled with this same algae-plant thing.]

“Oh, a lost world, then.” Smegma said, looking up at the ceiling of the hallway. At my look he continued, “Likely a world that took it’s Trials before Crendalar.”

[Do you know what the stuff this drawing is made of is?]

“No, but it can store Mana. It probably hasn’t had any until the Portal led here, and is only now reabsorbing some, ever since the System created the dome.”

I knocked on it with a knuckle and it gave off a tinkling thud that made me think it was crystalline. Offhandedly to my father, I said, “We think it’s storing Mana.”

“We?” Jack said. Even as the leader narrowed his eyes over his face mask.

“Sorry, I think it’s storing Mana,” I corrected, and didn’t have to fake my embarrassment.

“If it’s storing Mana, it’s value would be astronomical,” my dad said.

“The problem is whether it has been modified to store Mana, or if it's a natural property of the materials,” Smegma warned. I didn’t understand why that distinction would be important so asked for some more information with a mental poke. “Well, if it’s natural you can take it out of here in pieces, dumb-dumb. If it’s modified, it’s likely that it will only store mana in its current configuration as essentially, an art piece and you probably need the whole fixture. Husking moron.”

Ahhh, he was back. I guess being absent for a week and recovering from popping back into existence could only last so long.

It had been enjoyable while it lasted though…

I conveyed what Smegma said in my own words, adding, “The problem is that it’s clearly been modified. So, whether it's the mineral that absorbs the Mana or what these people did with it—”

“People?” All three Hunters in the room said in unison. “This should just be a piece of decoration created by the Portal, surely,” the leader stated derisively.

I looked to my father trying to convey that what I was about to say wasn’t true. “Right, sure. What the Portal did to it. I was just getting caught up in the story the Portal created here. All I’m saying is that we either have to take it out of here as one full piece or, if the mineral is absorbing Mana, it will still be fine in pieces.”

“Ahh, right. If it’s been modified then the Enchantment is what’s valuable, and if not, it’s the material itself,” Jack said, knowingly. “Smart,” he complimented. Smegma scoffed at the man directing his praise at me, but thankfully had begun studying the mural again.

“Clear the edges,” he directed, his voice clearly expressing that his words were not a suggestion. They were orders. I conveyed his words and as a group we managed to uncover the entire piece of metallic yellow crystal.

“Oh,” Smegma said, once he saw the edges. I studied them too. It was jagged, familiar almost like—“It’s a Fused Mana Crystal! High-grade at that.”

[How high?] I asked.

“No way of knowing. I think it’s an old iteration of Crystals, from before Crendalar. Still, the sheen of it leads me to think it’s above B.”

“I think it’s a Mana Crystal…” I said, making sure not to use the collective ‘we’ again. I then tried to touch the Metallic Yellow Crystal and sell the Mana inside. I figured that if it dimmed suddenly on my touch, I could claim I didn’t know what happened. Still, I needn’t have worried because nothing happened, which could be because it was still inside the wall.

“Bullshit, kid,” the leader exclaimed. “It’s too big, and it’s the wrong color.”

“No, I think he’s right,” my dad said and pointed to the edges. “I don’t know how it’s so big, or why it’s yellow—but the lattice edges are definitely Mana Crystalline in design. So, it’s either a Crystal or they wanted to make it look like one.”

“Either husking way, it's valuable, right?” Jack exclaimed looking excitedly at the leader.

“Yeah, if our esteemed Miners can get it out of the wall in a single piece…” the leader answered while narrowing his eyes at us. I couldn’t see his mouth but I felt the scowl.

Smegma shook his head. “It wasn’t designed to be removed. You can get it out of here in pieces, and I might even be able to find the fuse points, so you get some full Crystals, but as a whole piece. Husk no! I doubt any Miner could…”

My father was looking at me, seeming to be hoping for an affirmative answer to the question. I shook my head sadly. “I think the Portal fused a bunch of crystals together. There isn’t a stem and it likely wasn’t made to come out in a full piece. We can break it up—maybe even get a few full-sized Crystals but it would be a ton of work. We’d likely want everyone.”

The last part wasn’t exactly true, but if we were going to shard a high-ranked Crystal, I wanted Dave and Jarred’s pickaxes involved for the repair and possible Upgrade from the likely vast quantities of residual Mana released from a High Ranked Crystal..

“Figures. That should teach Echo to hire the riff-raff,” the leader said scornfully. My dad gave the man a pointed tight-lipped smile. He didn’t seem to care. “You stay here with these two, Jack, I’ll go get the others.” As he walked away I could hear him muttering, “Husking waste of good luck, cocking-bullshit.”

“Don’t mind him,” Jack said as his leader walked away. “He’s in a bad mood.” He then waited for the leader to no longer be visible before whispering, “Plus he’s in a ton of debt, so this would have been a huge help.”

“It already will be. Whatever grade this thing is, it’s up there.” I shrugged. “Harvested some D-ranked Crystals a few days back and they didn’t make my hair stand on end anywhere close to how this thing’s doing right now. We walked into a D-ranked Dungeon and will be coming out with Crystals at least a rank above that, so forgive me if I’m a bit unsympathetic that we can’t perform another miracle.” I turned back toward the massive Crystal with a frown. “Still, it does suck to ruin it, I’ll admit.”

My dad shook his head sadly, and I assumed he was thinking along the same lines I was. Was everyone other than high-ranked Hunters and celebrities in debt or just scraping by?

“It’s the same on any world that has a hierarchical society,” Smegma answered my thought, despite me not needing him to. “The good news is that it falls apart in time, thanks to the System. You just can’t maintain something like that when power is so readily available.”

[Yeah, I don’t think our Systems are acting the same. Plus, I don’t know what hierarchies you’re thinking of, but societies are built on them. The pre-System ones might fall apart but new ones just get built in their stead. Even with the System those power structures won’t be based purely on personal power or Ranking’s. No matter how powerful one person is, capable people can gather together many strong people together for a common cause. Being one against the world is all well and good in the movies, but I don’t see it ever working out in real life.]

“I think you’d be surprised at how powerful single individuals can get under the System, but you’re not entirely wrong, either. It’s rare for one to defeat the many. However the System doesn’t care if it's one or many that are strong enough to pass the Trials. It cares about results. If your civilization is one that births a god… well congratulations. It’s the entire goal of the System as far as us Demons could find. It wants you to become powerful. It wants you to Ascend. The System is made to advance civilizations, or...”

[Deem them failures and let them slowly die out,] I finished for him when he cut off. He nodded, while pointedly studying the mural.