Book 8 – Chapter 4 – Heart of the Biome

Hexis had left me probably one of the most valuable consolidations of knowledge in the world. A little over four hundred different fractals. Although the quality varied between absolutely amazing to about as valuable as snow.

About two hundred and fifty some were absolutely useless for everything, like that color changing fractal. Why there were so many useless spells out there to learn was pretty easy to guess: Relinquished had no need to hide useless fractals, so she put her attention on tampering down the more dangerous ones out there.

Another one hundred and fifty some were useful, but not for any military sense I could tell. And some of them I would very loosely claim usefulness. A fractal that ended up emitting a scent of some kind a very specific strand of insects tended to flock towards was considered a useless fractal, but surface clans could probably find some cooking technique with these bugs, and I could see the agrifarmers using these fractals to make their job harvesting insects slightly easier. Maybe. It had potential use so it got tossed into the pile of industrial fractals.

Another seventy five or so had uses, but more for philosophy and spiritual tourism. Such as a fractal that made you hallucinate your own imagination out into the world. Zero effect on anything, but with a good enough imagination, one could have a lot of pretty colors and strange sights. Another would change some food tastes, or warp someone’s mind to feel more attracted to trees. But not by that much, only giving ‘mild feelings of attachment’ to very specific looking vegetation.

Yeah that one was an odd one.

And of course, to no surprise, I found every single fractal Talen’s book had contained. Neatly organized among the rest of the learned spells. Goes to show I wasn’t the only one who was led to one of these books. I didn’t even think the trove was the last book he’d ever made either. Humans really did have plenty of ways to pass information down the line under machine eyes.

In total there were still a good fifty or so fractals that could be used for combat, in loose ways. Anywhere from giving everyone around a feeling of anxiety and doom including the caster, to the humble fractal of heat. Quite a lot of fractals discovered by Deathless were accounted for, including everything Drakonis had on hand and detailed explanations on how to make them work. Mostly. Some of it really could have used a little more writing, however this was all coming from Master Hexis’s memory. The book outright included a section on how to maximize the human ability to memorize items, and that hadn’t been part of the hidden sections but rather a full chapter in the public facing part.

I had Cathida take charge of moving the armor and jogging along with the crew while I meditated and plotted out what fractals I’ll learn first, and debated which were the most efficient ones.

Some combat fractals were made of multiple different fractals put together. Other fractals required specific sound waves to be done, or specific ‘soul resonance frequencies’ to match. To which Hexis added his own notes on how some of these were only conjecture and hypothesis on how things worked. Sometimes visualizing and moving the soul while casting the occult helped human minds conceptualize or connect to the occult better. Airspeeder was still out on expedition when it came to all that, nobody knew why things worked the way they worked.

On the other hand, I was reasonably certain I could cast lighting out of my hands if I wove a few different fractals together at once. With enough cheating around using Journey’s speakers, Keith Superior as additional support, and my own abilities.

There was one large cricket on the dinner plate left here: The Icon had cracked this book. Which meant she had a full copy of it in her memories. I wasn’t sure what her ultimate goals were, I did feel she could be trusted – but I wouldn’t be surprised if I came back to the Odin after a few years to find them all using occult powers as day to day additions.

She did read through the entire history documents listed within this book, so she’s aware the occult isn’t to be tampered too much without drawing machine attention.

… But she was technically ‘hired’ on their side now with To’Orda.

Thus far, Wrath told me she’d hashed out a good set of deals with To’Orda and he’d be somewhat on our side of things.

I’m still sleeping with two eyes open around him. Given Relinquished runs on narrative logic, waking up to his inevitable betrayal was very likely to happen at some point.

—–

“Lovely place.” I said, looking up at the next biome and where we planned on vanishing off the maps. “Nobody thought to make a lodge here or some kind of vacation retreat?”

Kres pecked my helmet in answer.

The Expanse, also known under the names of ‘The silent fields’ and ‘The realm of glass’ – nice names that didn’t inspire any omens whatsoever – that was the next biome we had to pass through.

After that, the Icon would deploy her mess-with-everything plan and send video footage for a few thousand different machines to report from random locations all over the local area. That’ll make enough noise that we can continue to make our way to Drakonis without being sniped.

And ironically speaking, noise was something we should not be doing while traveling through this biome. It’s not called the silent fields for nothing.

The Odin settled around finding perches on To’Orda, and my own armor for Kres. “Besides the difficulty with gravity, the other danger is endurance.” The bird said, eyes looking over what lay beyond. “Nothing grows in the Expanse and the domain is large.”

“You don’t say.”

Because there wasn’t any dirt for anything to grow on. Or a ground floor in the general sense.

It looked more like a maze of floating metal and glass slabs, all moving in different directions from one another. Massive landmasses, with crystalline spikes and rough terrain. Pieces would slowly collide into one another, crush apart, then merge and solidify again. Like ice refreezing.

“How do we even get onto the first landmass?” I asked, taking a step out of the cavern entrance. Beyond me was simply a solid metal drop. No handholds, nothing. And under was simply more floating landmasses. A few had smashed into the walls of the mountain exit here, merging with it, and finally remaining still.

“Landbound cannot traverse the Expanse at any good speed.” Kres said, ruffling his feathers. “None of the Greyroamers, Ringtails or others have ever made an attempt here. However, there is a path to starting.” He flapped a wing, then hopped off my shoulder, flying down to the edge, landing with two hops before looking down the cliff. “Beyond, each landmass has its own field of gravity. And this cliff is a landmass of its own.”

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The bird hopped one more time, directly off the edge. Then fell straight down. I took a few hesitant steps forward, but I already saw what happened in the soul sight. He’d simply fallen down the cliff and instantly fell back onto the cliffside. As if gravity had swapped its polarity.

When I actually looked over the edge, Kres was there a few feet down, perpendicular to me. Bobbing his head. “Be warned human, once you step foot on the actual land masses here, the other rules of the Expanse will come into play. And we will need to remain vigilant for the machines that fly through this part of the world.”

The other rule of the Expanse was sound. All noises that involved the landmasses themselves were safe. Anything foreign would cause issues.

I looked up, zooming Journey’s vision on one of the floating masses. The underside of something, massive spikes jutting out in a few different directions, crystal shards raining downwards from the collision of another landmass much lower, shards raining upwards.

Any strange sound would shatter the glass part of these crystals. The metal was safe from anything and would form the center seed. But the glass crystals that grew and eventually expanded out into the full terrain here would start to crack from the origin of the sound outwards. More sound, more cracks.

And while the metal remains impervious to any sounds, it also wasn’t where the artificial gravity was being generated from. That was all in the crystals.