Frozen Soul, and other works: Chapter 167

(Instanced Dungeon, Southern Continent, Star’s Reach)

Major Khan was thankful for the noise dampening effects of his helmet. Rifles going off in enclosed spaces was a great way to do permanent damage to one’s hearing, especially if you didn’t have protection. Of course, being on the receiving end of rifles going off in enclosed spaces was even worse for one’s health, but it was something you tried to avoid as much as possible. Losing your sense of hearing made your battlefield awareness suck, and that could get you killed, fast.

His team of six had made steady progress through the facility. In battle, one must balance prudence and caution with the need for speed and not giving your enemy time to prepare his defenses. However, this time, with only hints at the dungeon’s power, he decided to play things slow, using stealth and brutal sneak attacks to take out patrols rather than frontal assaults. This mission was to recon and map the dungeon, and see what kind of threats there were, after all.

Actually, it was a good thing they had gone slow, because they would have missed some of the traps and other defenses if they’d been hurrying, and some of those traps were very lethal, to say the least. Compared to the soldiers they were fighting, the traps were sometimes more challenging than the ‘mobs’. After all, an unseen threat was more difficult to defeat than one that was simply patrolling around or standing guard.

Which wasn’t to say that they had been getting through these fights unscathed. Even with surprise attacks, the enemies managed to get some hits in, and when those hits were with pulse rifles, it didn’t take many to add up to a whole lot of hurt. If they hadn’t had medical supplies and healing psy, then they would have lost their effectiveness, and probably been sent for a respawn.

There had also been fights that they simply couldn’t handle as stealth attacks. Two ‘named mobs’, as the hardcore gamers in the corps would call them, had been found so far, and their defenses had made for two hard-fought, straight up battles. They were likely supposed to be this dungeon’s version of ‘boss fights’.

One had been a stealth-focused fighter that used active camouflage like the special forces armor that the Owner used when his harem let him off ship to have ‘fun’. (Oh, sure, most of them were his slaves, and they all seemed to be VERY happy with his lifestyle, but the boss’s laments on guild chat about how his women wouldn’t let him go out and play had become LEGENDARY.) That fight was a nasty piece of work, as they were trying to shoot a ghost. It would have been damn near impossible without some kind of psy designed for piercing stealth, or just using large-scale AoE attacks, but the Black Star Marines recognized that stealth threats might be an issue, and, while they didn’t carry many of them, they did have enough paint grenades that they were able to catch the assassin in the blast radius. With their stealth nullified, concentrated firepower had quickly taken its toll on that one.

The second boss was not that tough, himself. However, he hid behind protective shields while sending waves of drones and other enemies after his team. That made the fight a grind, as they had to break off from trying to wear down the boss’s shields to deal with incoming threats and keep from getting caught in rocket launches. The fight was an exercise in attrition, as the drone commander tried to wear down enemies. Fortunately, they had finally managed to crack the shield protecting the boss, and that had been that.

Now, they had finally made their way to what appeared to be the last section of this dungeon, in front of doors that were very impressively decorated with the symbol of Deus that the soldiers in the base all wore, the last guardians of this door laying on the ground with smoking wounds where their heads formerly were. After checking that their weapons were loaded, their HP and PP were full, and everything else was ready to go, Major Khan nodded, and Chavez hit the door controls, causing the massive doors to slide open. What they saw was shocking, to say the least.

Signa Steinbergursdottir

Human (Augmented) Female

Level 80

Titles: General of the 7^th Legion, Deus-Sworn

On a dais in the center of a large room was a holographic projection of none other than the Usurper and Kinslayer, the Traitor Emperor Travis! Looking down at them, the Emperor scoffed, and said, “General, I am very disappointed in your troops and their lack of performance. The Lord Deus shall make their resurrections particularly painful. Unless you wish to join them, finish these insects!” And with that, the image disappeared.

In front of the dais, a figure in the very impressive armor of a General in the Imperial Army, but now clad in Deus’s colors rather than those of the Empire, turned to face us. One could only tell that she was female by the name, and perhaps the hair covering her head. Women in the Imperial Army were incredibly rare, due to the extreme augmentations and physical requirements needed. For a woman to rise to the rank of General was all but unheard of, and yet General Steinbergursdottir was a well respected (or, rather, feared) exception. But she had been stationed on Earth, and had not escaped the AI’s tendrils.

Looking at us, she brandished her weapons, a pistol in one hand and a… chainsaw sword? Something like that, anyways. “FOR THE EMPEROR! FOR LORD DEUS!” With that cry, she charged forward, attacking us.

(Dungeon Base Camp, Southern Continent, Star’s Reach)

As Major Khan and his people stepped out of the dungeon, the Marines gathered around the entrance started applauding. His XO, Captain Meyers, stepped forward, and smiled at him. “Congratulations on the First Clear of the ‘normal’ dungeon, sir. We saw the notification that went around on the Guild Chat. You’re the only group that made it to the last boss. Most of the other groups either fell back or were taken out by one of the two minibosses. We’ve compared map data and the maps don’t change between instances in the ‘normal’ version, at least. Enemy composition appears the same, too.”

Major Khan nodded, and said in a loud voice, “Well done, everyone, and thank you! We’ve accomplished our mission here, and I believe that we’ve gotten a clue at who the Raid Boss of this dungeon will be. Just before the final boss fight of the normal dungeon, we witnessed the boss having a discussion with the Traitor Emperor. So, the ‘Raid’ difficulty will probably have Deus versions of Imperial Guards, with the Emperor as the final boss.”

Meyers whistled softly. “There will be a lot of people who would love to get their hands on that bastard, even if they know he’ll come back from the dead. His coup nearly destroyed the Terran Empire. We’ll have people from all over coming to get a shot at killing him once word gets out!”

Khan nodded. “So, we’re going to redouble our efforts on getting this ‘dungeon town’ started up, with proper defenses in place to keep anyone from getting stupid ideas. I want this place to be a fortified camp before anyone who isn’t Black Star so much as makes planetfall! We’ll have a small landing pad outside the defenses for shuttles, but otherwise all traffic will go through the Starborn spaceport. Anything that tries to break air traffic control rules becomes target practice. There are going to be plenty of idiots who think that they can try and slip a force inside the dungeon town and try to take it over, with the civvies as shields to keep us from nuking them. So anyone that doesn’t play by Black Star rules gets a missile up the tailpipe so they learn why that is a bad idea.”

(Outside Gap Science Enrichment Center, 2200 km East of Starborn, Star’s Reach)

“—and then he looks the AI dead in its face, and says, ‘Sorry, but we have a cultural taboo against being turned into cake. Do you have any other recipes? What about a nice pie, or maybe some cookies? Have you ever tried sushi? That’s good, too.’ All the while Raven is busy overriding the AI’s sensor inputs, and stopping the platform we were on to keep us from getting roasted! The AI was so confused with his mak’thed crap that it didn’t notice Raven locking it out until it was too late!”

Striding out of the Enrichment Center, I was laughing with the rest of Ravensclaw and Valkyrie teams. Shearah and Ashera were taking turns telling stories of our adventures inside the Enrichment Center, as we went through the various tests the alien AI had to give us. We had emerged victorious, but there had been more than a few wild rides and hairy moments in the process.

Ashera laughed, and said, “Well, fortunately we found that idiot ball, which helped us knock out the toxin sprayers for that chamber and sabotage the military droids they were using. The guy was pleasant enough, but an idiot. Unfortunately, he was being really annoying, and got very angry when we wouldn’t try and put him in charge of the facility instead of the other AI, so we deactivated him.”

I shook my head, and said, “Well, given how long they’d been isolated in that facility, I was surprised that the AIs were as sane as they seemed. We’ve managed to get the ‘Enrichment Center’ locked down, for now, but at some point we’re going to need to get that sucker back online if we’re going to learn how to make those portal guns. I really want them to add to our special weapons caches for teams going into strange situations.”

Jaynie sighed. “Yeah, too bad the thing got smashed when that last rocket hit us. Just as we were dropping the final bit of that AI’s power structure into the emergency incinerator, too! You think the lab coats will be able to figure it out?”

Raven shook her head. “Without bringing the Enrichment Center back online so we can access research notes and technical data, I estimate the chances of that are 0.00235081 percent within the next fifty years. With the help of the Enrichment Center, the chances that we will be able to reverse engineer something that we can make ourselves rises to 15 percent in the next five years. The Qaettel’s understanding of theoretical mathematics and tempro-spatial physics were far, far in advance of what we currently know. It will take time for people to get up to speed with the theories, so they even know what they are looking at.”

Just then, my communicator chirped, and I saw I had a message from Catspaw Lead.

M.Mollen: We’re out of the facility. What’s up, Xexzir?

Xex: There’s been some developments you need to hear about, Master. Group 3 has come through the Gateway, and there are reports that pirates are likely setting up shop in the Amazon system, looking to see if they can get any easy pickings off ships coming through the Gate. Since any ships coming through that Gate are likely to be ours, that’s something the Fleet thought you should know.

M.Mollen: Damn. Well, it was only a matter of time before people figured out that we used Desolace and Amazon to try and hide our fleet movements. Even pirates could do some serious damage to the fleet if they had enough ships targeting the gate so they can get them one at a time.

Xex: That’s not all. The Marines have reported from the dungeon site. Confirmed dungeon, with Imperial Army soldiers bearing Deus colors. They said to tell you that there was a ‘normal’ and ‘raid’ instance of the dungeon, and that Usurper Travis may be the boss of the Raid instance.

M.Mollen: *whistles* Pass word through the fleet. That bit doesn’t get out until I say so. I need to figure out how to deal with that bombshell.

Xex: Understood, Master. Though Major Khan and Slave-Captain Virstina already gave orders to that effect, until you had a chance to review the data.

M.Mollen: Good to have competent people on my side. All right, prep the ships, we’re heading back to orbit. The facility’s beacon is off now, and the doors sealed, so that should make it difficult for any unwanted visitors to find their way there. In the meantime, we’ll figure out what to do with those troublesome pirates.