Book 8 – Chapter 5 – The Fortress within the Abyss

An occult lash launched out, silently struck the glass crystal slab far up ahead, and yanked me forward. Close to the arrival point, I twisted myself around, launched an occult mirror the other direction, and fired off another lash, connecting with an occult half-dome shield off my mirror image, helping me slow down.

I had a lot of practice with this move now since the days of trying to frantically survive crashing through a forest. I’m happy to announce I only messed up this kind of maneuver three times thus far in the hour of steady travel through the biome.

With Wrath and Superior to cover my mistakes, it was flawless otherwise. But this biome was the absolute strangest thing to go through. Within a few minutes into the floating maze of crystal and metal slabs floating around, I instantly lost any idea of where I was. Every slab had its own gravity, meaning even trying to orient what was up or down was near impossible.

How did the mites expect anyone to travel through this? I sent over text, through my HUD.

Complaining the whole way probably. An image of a rock with googly eyes showed up next to that reply text.

I have noticed a pattern. Wrath typed back, her avatar image looking quite stately. The landmasses are all moving in orbits, around the centerpoint of the biome.

I stopped, landing on another landmass, then started looking up to see if I could spot the pattern. It was just pure chaos from here, but thinking of it as orbits… Oh, it did vaguely look to be. Some of them looked to be curving around instead of floating off in straight lines.

To’Orda landed next to me, dragging his hammer behind him. So long as all the sound came from the glass or involved the glass, it was all fine. Hence, when he slammed his hammer down with an occult pulse to kick himself up and off into the next slab, it somehow didn’t break the landmass behind him at all.

But if I so much as coughed in my helmet too close to the ground – boom. Everything breaks apart. This far into the biome, sound was now a premium currency.

Despite such fragile rules, the glass crystal ground was oddly resistant to any other damage. Even landing hard against it saw no real cracks or anything at all on the glass. There’d be a loud ringing noise when my boots connected against it, but since the sound was coming from the crystal itself, it didn’t cause any of the world-breaking shatter. Similarly, tapping it or trying to punch it equally did no damage, even from a relic armor hit. One point we ran into a fused mass of crystal slabs that had collided against one another, and had to go through. Only occult blades could slice through the glass. To’Orda’s hammer blows, or Wrath’s kicks, did nothing. But get close and whisper sweet nothings and the glass all breaks apart into a thousand shards.

Navigation here was a little easier for myself and the Feathers, since we had internal sensors that could accurately tell where we were direction wise. So if we needed to go to the centerpoint of this biome, there was always a nav point blinking on my HUD, pointing in the right direction. And armor/Feather skin made us all impervious to sharp glass.

The Odin on the other hand were less enthusiastic about flying into the maze, from experience. Many in their past expeditions would make the attempt and get completely lost. After that they either ran out of water, or ran into machines. Both of which would be fatal. Even knowing about the orbit patterns wouldn’t help them navigate any better, it just helped them find the centerpoint or the outer points of the biome.

Since the danger here was to get into the center fortress, the Odin weren’t needed to help guide the way, so they would take paths they were far more comfortable within. Closer to the outside wall of this biome, where they could follow prior guideposts. They’d meet us on the other end, the path that led to the next biome, the darklands. Which was both easier and harder to deal with than this current mess.

It was for the best, Kres and the others couldn’t talk over texts, and they couldn’t understand human body language either. So communicating with them in a biome that prevented basic speech was going to be like pulling teeth. Better that they meet us on the exit.

It also gave us a time limit. We had half a day to get to the fortress, plunder it, and get to the other side of the biome as well to keep going with the plan.

With Wrath flying, To’Orda leapfrogging from mass to mass, and my occult lashes, we actually made really good time into the deeper reaches of this biome. As for the machines… they weren’t exactly difficult to spot from a mile away.

Glass made for interesting reflections. As soon as we started seeing images of swarms out in the distance, all we did was hide among a crack or cranny and we’d vanish completely. The fish swarm would fly on by, moving from place to place randomly. Thus far we hadn’t even run into a single serpent either. Knock on metal that it wasn’t going to get worse.

The orbits looked more and more circular the closer we got to the centerpoint, until I found what looked to be a giant seed: A hollow sphere of landmasses that had collided against one another, forming a loose ball. As I sailed into it, our group of three landed on the surface.

The center fortress is under this protective barrier. Wrath sent over text. Keep alert. It is likely the machines in this strata have followed prior orders to keep this fortress replica protected.

We slipped through the dome, now close enough to just jump from slab to slab. The feeling of gravity shifting under me would have probably made me hurl at some point, but the soul trance kept me well insulated from all that nonsense.

This mite treasure box better be worth it. I sent privately to Superior.

They say it’s always worth it. They’re very proud of their treasures. Superior sent back.

Any hint on what it would be or look like?

Not a bit. Superior laughed, They’re upset I even asked.

One minute into the inner maze, we reached the other side of the ball. That’s when I got the first sight of the fortress.

A spherical looking thing following the theme of this entire biome, except the fortress was filled with jagged metal edges, and what looked to be gun turrets. Dozens upon dozens of them all over the place. The entire structure looked completely dead, floating in the void with a clear space between all the floating landmasses and itself. With a good jump upwards, I’d float through this mini-abyss for about two minutes before I hit the fortress itself.

Journey’s HUD zoomed in on my request. A few areas of the fortress actually were powered up, light shining from airlock doorways. Large numbers in yellow were painted down by each airlock, scratched up but readable enough.

It was all frozen over too, with a thin sheet of ice forming around where water had condensed over time. Not enough to completely encase it, but enough to obscure some parts. A lot of the gun turrets were outright entombed inside some of those ice blocks.

Journey ran a material composition scan of the fortress: Nothing special. Metal that was reinforced and several inches deep or at least deeper than its sensors could punch through. But nothing that would resist damages or anything like that.

And machines haven’t tried to get inside this at all? I asked over text.

Nnnn… no. To’Orda texted back, actually typing out his initial grunt.

Why? It’s just high density layered tungsten and steel. Enough time and anyone can blow a hole in this.

Nnnn… mites.

And quit asking questions too, you’re pissing us both off. The rock added. Just get in there already and get the goods. Faster you wrap this up, faster we get out of this dump.

What the scrap would the mites do that was so terrifying even the machines here didn’t even try to crack this open?

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That said, if they couldn’t get inside themselves, they could make sure nobody else did. Because they’d made their entire base of operations on top of the fortress.

A massive coiled up machine snake wrapped around the entire thing, as if hugging a body pillow. It looked either dead or fast asleep given it wasn’t moving at all. Everything else about it was not however: Thousands of angry looking fish-machines were flying around it in large schools. I zoomed in the vision now that I had one in actual sight, and they really did look like giant mouths with tiny fins.

Relinquished and her odd machine designs never failed to amaze in how impractical and yet deadly they looked. I could see why the Odin feared this biome, any of these enemies would chomp them whole in one bite, regardless of the occult blade teeth additions.

For me, the numbers would be the difficult part. I could slice a few easily. A few hundred, a little harder but doable without enough solid attempts. A few thousand was too large to bite down on.

I turned back and jumped my way from slab to slab back outside the protective shell around the center fortress, until I was once more looking out into the general maze of glass outside.

All right, I sent to the group in general. Guess it’s time for the distraction plan. We might have to add more to it than expected given the crowd here.

Just start blowing things up already, Boss and I got our part handled.

I unhooked an explosive, took out my knightbreaker launcher and loaded the shell in. I went very slowly, trying to keep the noise as silent as possible. I could still feel a few cracks start to spread out from the ground just on the metallic clicks of the launcher.

Temperamental glass. It’s going to absolutely love what comes next then. A quick aim downscope, and I angled the explosive to launch far off. Past the sphere of slabs acting like a barrier. Journey’s HUD showed me the expected path, arcs and angles changing constantly as the round would fly in between different gravity wells. Once I found the firing solution that would get the payload out the furthest, I aimed and clicked the trigger.