“Ready?” Valia asked as she held the other end of the rope out to Tailyn. The latter nodded, tied it around his waist, and flew up into the air. As the lizard had no problem with sheer cliffs, clinging to them with the suction cups on its legs, their trip through the swamp was far easier that time around. It wasn’t fast, but that was fine—the important part was getting through the swamp without being noticed.
Tailyn wasn’t able to pull that off, however.
Experiment 118 was following its assigned route through the mines. Once intelligent, the previous three thousand years had seen it lose its connection to the old world, daily fights with the other experiments demanding all the resources it had to offer. Something as superfluous as its personality had been deleted about a thousand years before. Only its animal instincts, the drive to kill, and its mission to patrol the area remained. The machine had turned into a monster.
The creature’s path took it over to one of the mountains, around a sharp turn, and deep into the mines. It couldn’t have cared less about what was going on above it. With nothing in its memory banks about a threat having presented itself from the air, the monster simply felt no need to devote attention to the space above it. It made a turn, charged the lervans around it with lightning, and kept going.
Only an opponent crashing down on it from above arrested its progress.
Tailyn had to do some convincing before Valia would go along with the risk he wanted to take. The girl resisted to the end, only succumbing to the iron-clad arguments of the potential reward, the mission they had, the plan Tailyn was proposing, and the immunity they both had to electricity. Still, she wasn’t about to participate. Taking Cloud up as high as it would go, she found its upper limit to be fifty meters.
As he hovered above the path free of Griala’s sprouts, Tailyn could only hope the wind wouldn’t blow him off to the side. But everything looked good—by the time the rhinoceros got to the turn, the boy was just barely more than a meter off course. He dropped down quickly, eyes fixed on the beast’s body. Once again, he was lucky, as the monster took a couple steps to stand right under him. Tailyn landed and made full use of the confusion that fell over the rhinoceros and its lervans to breathe his code word:
Boo.
You used Sticky-I against Experiment 118, a non-level creature.
Sticky duration: 1 hour.
“It worked!” Valia exclaimed happily when she saw the cocoon that formed. One of the weak points in the plan was that sticky might not have kicked in, but in that case it swallowed all the lervans around their leader as well as Tailyn and the rhinoceros. Electric arcs immediately began curving through the green mass as the rhinoceros fought back. The charges were so powerful that the space around the creature was quickly reduced to a bare charred spot, while the acrid smoke rising out of the swamp was accompanied by Griala’s distant scream—the rhinoceros was taking its rage out on Griala’s sprouts. But nothing worked, sticky’s creator having made sure it could stand up to anything, include confining an experiment.
Device detected.
Status change. Current status: combat.
Your Hacking level: 48.
Probability of successful hack: 16%.
Time between attempts: 5 seconds.
Attempt 1… Unsuccessful.
Vargot switched off after the first charge, dropping the space into darkness. And while Raptor held out a little longer, lasting four impulses, it only kept its bonus going for the first few attempts. But they weren’t enough. Even with a 16% chance, Tailyn wasn’t able to break through the machine’s defenses in the first ten seconds. His accessory flashed and went silent. Unlike the destroyer, Experiment 118 knew what it was doing, and the boy’s named equipment turned off. The good news was they weren’t reduced to black dust like his level three amulet and underwear.
Probability of successful hack: 6%.
But Tailyn wasn’t about to give up. His consciousness split, one half heading for the virtual mountains where Valia was already waiting.
“It didn’t work—get me some cold,” Tailyn said, and the space around them grew dark. Over recent times, the girl had done a great job learning how to master the elements, summoning them almost all the way over to the smithy. Wind, fire, or, as in that case, cold—it didn’t matter. The blue, snowman-like monster stopped a couple steps away from the smithy, its eyes fixed on the charmer’s intricate dance. Even when Tailyn reached out to touch its body, it didn’t twitch—every ounce of attention it had to offer was fixed on Valia. Losing a couple drops of energy wasn’t enough to distract it.
Tailyn, on the other hand, had a hard time dealing with those drops. The power he was borrowing was so overwhelming that he was practically shredded on the spot, his body already beginning to shatter when the Tailyn in the mountains finally managed to set up the communication channel.
The boy in the real world let out a noisy breath of air. With Vargot out of commission, he wasn’t able to drink a yeti potion, and the suit wasn’t there to handle the sudden wave of cold that filled it. Most of the damage was taken out on the rhinoceros, though everything else there got some, too—the boy’s arm froze up to the shoulder. While his regeneration demanded a break and three hours to recover, his resilience was doing its best to protect its master from the cold. Still, his attributes weren’t enough. Each passing second saw the situation get worse and worse for Tailyn.
Meanwhile, Experiment 118 didn’t seem to be having much of a problem in its ice bath. The powerful charges of electricity kept pumping away relentlessly in an attempt to free it of the sticky and the human, and it was only a message that kept Tailyn from putting an end to the pointless attack:
Probability of successful hack: 18%.
Hacking worked perfectly on its own, every five seconds trying once again to beat through to the creature’s brain center. And every five seconds, the probability of a successful hack increased by two percent. Gritting his teeth, Tailyn vowed to stop at thirty percent. He wasn’t going to make it any further than that.
Attempt 9… Success.
You connected to Experiment 118.
The darkness surrounding Tailyn was lit up by enormous tables packed with data. His virtual half pulled his hand out of the element and collapsed, exhausted, onto the ground, the role of transmitter having been an incredibly difficult one. And while the Tailyn in reality would have loved to give in to the same urge, he couldn’t permit himself the luxury. He worked to concentrate on the flashing red tables and find the one he needed. One column showed a list of opponents. It was impressive—there were *humans, *lixes, *animals, and even *companions, and Tailyn knew what the asterisks were for thanks to an ancient book on programming he’d been forced to read. They referred to all creatures of that type rather than a specific one. One column over, there were Neutral creatures, a list that was populated by the thirty-six elementals in the mines. That came with the realization that they were exceptions to the first rule, which explained why Experiment 118 never attacked Griala’s sprouts first. The latter also avoided just going ahead and eating the rhinoceros. Finally, there was a third column: Friendly creatures. The only line there was *lervans, the companions running around and enjoying the free electricity. Once again came a realization, that time being that the rhinoceros used that system to protect the other experiments from its attacks. The System loved stasis.
You added Tailyn Vlashich, Valia Levor, and all their companions to the Friendly creatures list.
Status change: combat complete.
***
You were able to hack Experiment 118 and gain access to its functionality.
Level +3 (25).
Enhancement +3 (21).
***
Mission detected: Tartila Mine.
Would you like to destroy Experiment 118?
But Tailyn was in no shape to reply, as the cold had done its work—the boy’s consciousness faded out. It was only four hours later, when sticky had disappeared and regeneration had shown its value once
again, that he woke up. Both Vargot and Raptor were working again, having begun repairing themselves as soon as the electric impulses stopped.
The hundreds of tables were still right there. Sweeping them to the side, Tailyn noticed the rhinoceros standing not far away. There were no lervans to be seen, none of the lightning-hungry creatures having survived sticky. It had proven hard for them to go without breathing, accustomed as they were to the practice. Experiment 118 was looking skittish. Having tried to head further along its route a couple times, it had been stopped, and the fact that it couldn’t figure out why had it howling in frustration before trying again at regular intervals. But an invisible leash kept it tethered to the two-legged creatures. Meanwhile, making sure it didn’t kill them meant dropping its defenses, and that was going to attract the interest of Griala. There was going to be a battle, and it couldn’t do anything about that—it wasn’t supposed to hurt the humans.
“Can you control it?” Valia asked. She was still sitting astride Cloud, unwilling to take the risk of heading down.
“I’m not sure,” Tailyn replied as he paged through table after table. He was able to modify data and the creature’s route, though he couldn’t give the experiment even simple commands, not to mention something like having it prance on its back legs. And not only that, but he could only change the route within the Tortila Mine location. The boy tried entering the coordinates for the Forest of Desire, though the invalid entry message he got put paid to that idea. The experiments turned out to be tied directly to the swamp, which begged the question of how one had gotten all the way to Mean Truk.
“My device control level probably isn’t high enough,” the boy said in an admission of defeat. “I can only destroy it—there’s no control ability.”
“So, what’s the issue?” the girl asked. “What are you waiting for?”
“It’s just a shame. What if I get my level up high enough to take it home? Compared to our guards...actually, there’s no comparing them. The rhinoceros could take them out with a sneeze, the legendary one included. And how about an army of lixes? Halas could come at us with everything he has, and this guy would wipe them all out.”
“You still have to do it,” Valia said insistently. “Do you really think the god would mind you going rogue instead of completing the mission? You’re freeing up resources, after all. And again, there’s everything we’ll get when we strip it for parts.”
The girl knew which buttons to press. The previous time, Tailyn had gotten two cores that had really laid the foundation for his development as an alchemist. He would have been dead a hundred times over if it hadn’t been for Raptor. No matter how much he liked the idea of taking the rhinoceros home with them, Tailyn knew deep down that getting stronger was more important. After glancing one more time at the snorting beast, he sighed and hit the button in the device control window:
Destroy!
All the rhinoceros could do was whimper and take a couple steps toward the two-legged traitors before collapsing into the swamp goo.
Clear the pool destroyed Experiment 118, an ancient monster created by crazed engineers. You earned a substantial reward by freeing up significant System resources.
Level +3 (28).
***
You destroyed a non-level creature.
All your attributes and skills were increased by 5.
Level +1 (29).
You used free attribute points.
Enhancement +4 (30).
Named item level +1 (10).
***
Mission update: Tartila Mine. Description: you destroyed 1 of 37 experiments. Remaining: 36.
Tailyn felt miserable, almost as though he’d betrayed a close friend and sent him off to the other side. Still, the four levels and +5 to all his parameters certainly helped him work through that momentary crisis, especially since he and Valia weren’t the only ones to get the reward. The entire ruling class of Mean Truk, including Forian, Valanil, Ka-Do-Gir, Bar-Truk, Motar, and even Mu-Ro-Din, were in it. While they might not have gotten the boost for hacking the monster, they definitely got that last one.
As he cheered himself up with that idea, Tailyn activated Raptor. It was time to collect his loot.
Your Marauder level: 90.
Device Control skill detected. Stripping Experiment 188 down into parts.
Loot received:
Core.
Named star (no owner).
Impulse generator (2).
Energy field generator (2).
Isolators (200)…
The experiment had plenty of parts, the list made up of more than ninety items. Of course, the god immediately stepped in and snatched up nearly all of it—only emperors and the provost were allowed to have machines in the post-exodus world. Possibly, the Crobar patriarch was also on that list. Everyone else was required to immediately hand in all remnants of the ancients, and that left Tailyn with just the single core and the named star. The latter went straight to Valia.
Compensation received for modified items with consideration for your level and position.
Ultimatum. Description: legendary armor for dragon companions. Adapts to the companion’s size, providing protection from all types of damage through level companion level / 2. Once the companion reaches level 20, it can be ridden by companion level / 20 riders. Increases experience gained by the companion by 50%, decreases the time between attacks by 50%, increases movement speed by 50%.
***
Named items detected (Matilda, Vargot, Raptor, Valkyrie). Would you like to use Cores to upgrade them?
Tailyn knew exactly which piece of equipment to upgrade: his crossbow. Without his weapon, he felt like he was fighting with his arms tied behind his back.
Analyzing Tailyn Vlashich’s activity to determine the most suitable upgrade...
Upgrade applied: removed attribute requirements.
***
You successfully updated a named item.
Level +1 (30).
You used a free attribute point.
Enhancement +1 (31).
“Finally!” Tailyn shouted happily as he strapped the giant bracelet onto his wrist. It still wasn’t enough for him to take on Halas, of course, but the black lix would be doomed as soon as the boy could take out another two or three experiments.
But Tailyn wasn’t about to start overestimating himself. He’d gotten lucky—if the rhinoceros had had a weapon besides electricity, the trick the boy had pulled wouldn’t have worked. Before getting back to the god’s mission he was supposed to clear Tartila Mine for, he was going to have to get up to level one hundred or even one hundred and twenty. He figured he’d be good to go at that point.
After tying the rope around himself, Tailyn took off into the air and gave Valia the signal to keep going. They’d done everything they could do right there.
The border between Tartila Mine and the Forest of Desire slipped by without a problem, only they were going to have to hurry. Cloud didn’t have protection, dropping to the grass just a few dozen meters into the trees. Li-Ho-Dun, on the other hand, wasn’t feeling nearly as sleepy. Not only was it a legendary companion, it also had new armor that came with a complete hermetic seal. The golden bolt of lightning flashed between the tree trunks in search of opponents—Tailyn had decided to get it up to level ten, which meant it needed enemies to eat. Unfortunately, there was no prey to be found in the Forest of Desire. The poisonous air made sure of that.
“Three guards? What are they doing here?” the boy asked in surprise as soon as the pair got to the dig. While there were no lixes to be seen, the guards were still dashing around the enormous ditch looking for enemies to take out. The oak and terminal were gone, having collapsed into the ground along with the lift leading to the dungeon.
“They went wild when you killed Olsen,” Valia said. “He was controlling them. I think.”
“So, you’re pretty sure they don’t have an owner?” Tailyn’s eyes flashed.
“Don’t even think about it!�
�� Valia recognized that tone all too well. “Your sticky is on cooldown, and those things will eat you without thinking twice. You read the description—your named armor will be a piece of cake. They’ll shred you!”
“If they can catch me,” Tailyn replied. He’d made his decision and wasn’t backing down the way he had with the rhinoceros—another loss wasn’t something he wanted to deal with. Three guards was a lot for one city, though he was going to have to play his cards right.
Isr Kale's Journal (The Alchemist Book #4): LitRPG Series Page 17