Chapter 24

Earth
Algonquin Park Dungeon, Ontario
August 15, 2019
10:30 EDT

“It’s a lot mustier than the other dungeon.”

“I noticed that,” I replied, looking up at Anja when I had finished securing my second shield. “Must be less airflow so the air can’t circulate as well.”

“No, I mean it’s musty, like there is a lot of mold in the air, not that the air is stale.”

“Anything to worry about, Ben?”

“Nah. It takes a much higher level dungeon to pose any sort of respiratory threat. At this level it might be a sign of some sort of infected wildlife ... it’s too early to tell, though.”

“Alright then. Before we start, I just need to bring something up. It didn’t matter earlier, but now that we’re fighting things at or above our level, we need to watch who gets the killing blow. Mason, Sonja and I both have Siphoning Strike, so we should be the ones finishing enemies off. Now if something is about to attack us from behind or anything like that and you can finish it off before it does, then go ahead.”

“I don’t think we’ll have to worry about that for long,” Ben replied. “With hindsight and all that, Siphoning Strike, Siphoning Shot and Insight probably weren’t the best skills to pair together.”

“Meh, might as well take advantage while we can,” Mason said. “If we can increase the strength of the ability just a little, it’ll be worth it.”

“True, and you can always turn Insight off later on if you guys want to just spend a day or two leveling the abilities.”

“Wait, we can turn it off?” I asked. “I didn’t know that.”

“Yup,” Ben said, taking his phone out. “Insight is one of the only abilities that you can disable, probably so people can group up with their friends rather than have to leave them behind. I only found out when I was looking at my skills yesterday.”

When he was done talking, he turned his phone around so we could see it. Beside Insight, there was a slider that was currently in the ‘On’ position.

“Huh. Is there any limit to how often you can turn it on and off?”

“Yeah, that’s the only downside. If you want to disable it, you’ll need to wait a full seven days to be able to turn it on again.”

“I see. Maybe we’ll be able to work something out when our training starts up where we have it disabled every other week to level up our abilities a bit, rather than just rushing through everyone. Are we all ready?”

“Hell yeah!,” Mason exclaimed. “I’ve got a bet to win!”

Somewhere in the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy
The Indomitables Flagship - Nira’s Revenge
02:35 SET (10:35 EDT)
August 16, 12610 (August 15, 2019)

“ ... final count is twenty-one ships with captains or command crews who report to Dhir,” Esriro said. “Total breakdown is nine destroyers, five cruisers, five battlecruisers, one battleship, and one dreadnought.”

“Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse. Which dreadnought?’

“The Harbinger.”

“Damn it!,” he shouted, throwing his empty mug, smashing it against the wall.

“It’s not all bad news. In fact, it’s better than expected, actually. Twelve of the ships, including The Harbinger, were all commissioned in the last fifteen years or so. The captains and bridge crew in those twelve ships were moved up when the new ships were finished, and I know something they don’t.”

“What’s that?” he asked, pacing back and forth behind his desk.

“We invested a lot of money into all of those ships, and while I was in Pygmaean space, I met with Oya Warvyn. She designed all the ships, with my input. I wanted some additional security in place, so I had her people add some things. You know that we keep DNA records and other information for all employees. With a quick transmission to those twelve ships, we can lockdown the ships, shutting them out of all systems and have all the traitors teleported to the brigs on each ship. In a matter of minutes we can take back control of those ships.”

“What about the other nine?”

“That’s the bad news. Five destroyers, three cruisers and the battleship that make up those nine are older ships that don’t have those added security measures. As soon as we make a move, they’ll know and try to jump away. There are two ways we can deal with them; a simultaneous attack on all nine ships by the entire fleet, or use nine destroyers to take out the bridges before they can react and put up their shields. The problem with the latter is having to tow the ships or transport all the crew members to other ships when it’s over with.”

“You’re confident you can get nine destroyers in position to take out the bridges?”

“Yes,” Esriro replied with a nod. “Abi has finished vetting everyone, and I’ve picked out nine of our newer destroyers, the ones with upgraded shrouds. They’ll be able to move in close without detection and get their shots off. You need to decide if we tow the ships to Pygmaean space or scuttle them after transferring crews over to other ships.”

“The latter isn’t an option. It will take too long to transfer everyone and their belongings, and I want to be gone within six hours. Coordinate with nine of our battleships to take them under tractor beam as soon as the bridge on each ship has been destroyed.”

“You got it. What do you want done with the prisoners on the other twelve ships?”

“Cuff them with inhibitors and transfer them over here. You’ll head up the interrogations.”

“Alright, I’ll go get started on this. I think we’ll be ready to execute everything in approximately three hours.”

Xigios nodded and Esriro left his ready room. After a moment, he got up and grabbed a bottle of Scyftan ale from the fridge, opened it, and then sat back down.

‘It’s going to be a very long day,’ he thought to himself.

The Moon
Spectre Moon Base
August 15, 2019
10:50 EDT

[ ... three thousand, seven hundred thirty-three traitors were discovered. Only twenty-one ships were compromised, though only nine of those need to be dealt with, since the other twelve are newer and have better security measures. In approximately three hours, there will be a coordinated strike by shrouded destroyers on those nine ships. They will be taking out the bridge on each ship, and then tow them the rest of the way to Pygmaean space and the Warvyn shipyards, ] Abi said.

[What security measures are you talking about on those twelve ships?] Tich asked.

[Esriro Dryth is a very paranoid individual, and as such had security measures included while the ships were being built by Warvyn Industries. Chief among them is the ability to lock in on a person and teleport them around the ship. As soon as she gives the go ahead, the traitors aboard those twelve ships will be teleported to the brig, outfitted with inhibitor cuffs and then transported over to The Indomitables flagship, Nira’s Revenge. Esriro will interrogate the prisoners and then execute them.]

[Very good, ] Gabriel said. [What do you think their chances are of succeeding without any complications?]

[Esriro is very meticulous, so I would say very high. Their ships can’t maintain shrouds and shields at the same time, and they’re currently operating under shroud, which makes it very easy to destroy the bridges on the nine ships; five destroyers, three cruisers and one battleship. A single low-yield missile will be fired from only kilometers away with just enough power to destroy the bridge on each ship but nothing else. Blast doors leading to the bridge on each ship will also be sealed to help contain the damage and prevent any escape by the bridge crew.]

[She seems quite capable. What about the traitors on the remaining ships?] Tich asked.

[Xigios has ordered them to be arrested as soon as the destroyers are given the signal to attack. They will be interrogated and then placed in stasis, unless we would like something different to be done.]

[Executing them would probably be better, but if Xigios and Esriro are confident that none of them will be able to get a signal off then stasis is fine. Once they get to Pygmaean space, I want them all transferred to the government. They’ll get everything out of them and then either execute them or release them, depending on their guilt, ] Thomas said.

[I will forward that to them right away, ] Abi said. [Will there be anything else?]

[Not right now, Abi. Thanks for keeping us apprised.]

[No problem. I’ll let you know when everything is taken care of in a little over three hours, ] she replied before ending the connection.

“Well, that is better news than expected,” Tich said. “Without those security measures, they probably would have had to disable or destroy some of their best ships.”

“Over thirty-seven hundred is more than we were expecting, but they seem to be spread out throughout the fleet. It could have been quite a bit worse if they were concentrated over a few ships,” Gabriel replied.

“It’s understandable, though. It’s a lot easier to turn one person here and there than it is to do the same on a large scale while in a small place like a ship. Try to turn the wrong person, and everything backfires. It definitely makes it easier to round them all up, though,” Thomas said.

“True,” Gabriel agreed, his attention being drawn over to one of the monitors where Jonathan and his friends were dealing with a variety of very large and infected rodents. As Jonathan charged in, he saw a large porcupine with foam around its mouth and fungus growing on its head. When Jonathan got close, it turned around and then launched its quills like hundreds of small arrows. Before the quills could impact with him, they were deflected by the telltale glow of a Mana Shield.

“How are they doing?” Thomas asked when he looked over to see what Gabriel was looking at.

“I believe they’ve already leveled twice and they’ve only been going for twenty minutes or so. This is only the fourth chamber.”

Thomas laughed. “Legendary Insight sure would have been nice when I was his age. I wasn’t rich, and nor were my parents. It took a lot of grinding for me to reach my current level before going into business. I haven’t leveled up in thousands of years.”

“Well perhaps when everything is dealt with you can give it another shot,” Gabriel replied, looking over at him. “What level did you reach, anyways?”

“Two hundred seventy-seven. I wasn’t good at making friends when I was younger, so I had to do everything on my own. Eventually I got bored of it, but I always thought that if I was a part of a team I would have still been clearing dungeons to this day. There was a massive dungeon discovered recently in Confederation space, you know. If what I’ve been hearing is accurate, the level range is seventeen hundred sixty-one to seventeen hundred seventy, with an unknown level of floors. The Confederation doesn’t send in teams like we do to rank dungeons, but apparently no one has passed the hundredth floor so far, and the bosses are incredibly tough. It’s not uncommon that a team comes out with less people than it went in with.”

“Over seventeen hundred?” Gabriel asked in shock. “I think the highest Spectre is level eleven hundred. I can’t imagine how powerful someone must be if they’re that high level.”

“You and the rest of the Spectres would probably be at that level or higher by now, Gabriel,” Tich said. “The Spectres have been stagnant for far too long. When we left Scyftan space, the Spectres were the ‘cream of the crop’ to use a human expression. By now, you and the others have been left in the dust.”

“I agree, but there isn’t much we can do about it right now,” Gabriel replied. “The highest level dungeon on Earth is the one in the Amazon, and it is too low level for any of us. Occasionally someone will go in to try to gain some power through skills and perks they don’t yet have, but it’s rare that someone gets something they need.”

“There are a lot of high level dungeons in Pygmaean space. I suggest allowing a couple hundred of the newer Spectres to go along with the dragons when they’re taken to Mezotis 3 and 4. Abi will be making a detour anyways, so after the dragons are dropped off, the Spectres can be dropped off there. If they’re smart about it, they can probably level up a few hundred times by the time we’re ready to move.”

“That’s a good idea. They’re not needed here right now, anyways. I’ll think about it.”

“Well, if you give it the go ahead, I’m sure I can get Ercan to loan us some small five man shuttles that they can use for the duration. They’ll essentially be mobile homes and make it easier to go from planet to planet. They won’t be able to level up on one planet alone, after all,” Thomas said.

Earth
Algonquin Park Dungeon, Ontario
August 15, 2019
11:15 EDT

We had cleared five chambers up to this point, and were now on our way to the sixth. So far, each of them contained mutated and infected rodents native to the area. Other than the surprise from the porcupines that could fire off their quills, which Mason learned about first hand, and them being many times their normal size, none of them were really a threat.

“Damn this is fast,” Mason said while putting his phone away. “We’re leveling every two chambers or so, and got almost six hundred experience from this one alone.”

“It’s going to start slowing down pretty quickly, though. Not only is the required experience starting to increase quite a bit, but we’re also getting less and less experience. I don’t think we’ll be getting much, if any experience by the time we get to the fourth or fifth floor,” Ben explained. “I think we should move on to another dungeon as soon as we kill the boss on the fifth floor”

I paused to think for a moment before responding, “Get our loot and get out, I agree. It will also let us continue to power up Siphoning Strike and Siphoning Shot.”

Before we could continue our conversation, we arrived at the next chamber. Like the others, it was pitch black, so we each charged up our light globes and tossed them around the room. As they flew through the air, we were able to see what we were up against. There were three raccoons, two porcupines, and a big long, animal that reminded me of a weasel or a marten.