Awaken Online: Inferno (Tarot #3)

by Travis Bagwell

  “I see,” Brock answered. “Then, perhaps the benefits outweigh the risks.”

  Finn nodded. “How exactly do we bring the fire pylon back online?”

  “I’ll show you…” the earth elemental answered.

  Finn saw another pulse of emerald energy course through the earth elemental and into the console. However, the energy didn’t stay contained within the stone counter. Instead, it continued to pulse outward along the conduits in the floor and walls. The mana flowed toward the far end of the room where the Supervisor had been positioned. The energy streamed into the far wall, and Finn’s mouth opened in surprise as he saw the surface shake and then begin to shift to the side.

  It’s another blast door, Finn realized. It had been designed to look like another part of the room, possibly concealed for security purposes. The staff who made it inside the pylon chamber must have managed to close it before they died.

  Although, it was what rested on the other side of that door that left Finn and his group staring in shock, their mouths drifting open in surprise.

  It was a truly enormous column of crystal – likely composed almost entirely of the neurogem material. The surface of the crystal was so wide that Finn couldn’t reach his arms around it. The crystal stretched upward until it touched the ceiling, but it didn’t stop there. With his sight, Finn could see that it continued upward, stretching up and out of the facility and burrowing through the rock of the adjoining mountain.

  “What is this thing?” Finn murmured.

  “The fire pylon,” Brock answered simply. “When the facility was built, six of these pylons were installed, one for each section.” As he spoke, a map of the Forge appeared beside the elemental. Their location was highlighted by a cluster of green dots along one tip of the six-sided star that made up the facility.

  “But what does it do exactly?” Finn asked, not taking his eyes off the pylon. “I mean, it must provide power – or mana – but how?”

  Brock cocked his head. “The technical details are difficult to explain. However, I would analogize each pylon to a wind or water-based mill. When properly primed and activated, they capture ambient mana and funnel it into the facility where it can be converted to other uses – much like water or wind does for a mill. The staff then harnesses that power to conduct their research.”

  Finn’s eyes widened, and he glanced back at the crystal, noticing again how far it stretched up into the air. If this thing was a sort of magical windmill for mana, then what energy was it capturing?

  It came to him only a moment later. It must be the mana that Finn had seen coursing across the sky – the same mana the gods drained from their human cattle. It made sense, didn’t it? They had built this facility into the side of a mountain, which allowed them to run this conduit through the rock, extending thousands of feet into the air, perhaps even close enough to that magical river to skim some energy for themselves.

  And it also potentially explained why the Seer had seemed so wary of this place.

  “This facility was designed to steal mana from the gods,” Finn murmured, his eyes wide as he stared at the pylon. His teammates both eyed him questioningly. “I’ve described the river of mana in the sky, right? The combination of the energy that the gods leech from this world’s residents,” he explained. “I think these pylons are designed to skim some of that energy and funnel it back down into the facility.”

  “That is one interpretation, although the Director preferred to think of that energy as freely available to everyone,” Brock answered. “The gods have no specific claim over it. We have merely copied what they have been doing for millennia.”

  “Holy shit,” Kyyle murmured, staring at the crystal.

  “So, uh, I hate to be that person, but should we really turn this thing back on?” Julia asked, glancing at Finn.

  “I still don’t see that we have a choice,” he answered hesitantly.

  The Seer’s question came back to him then. Had this been what she meant?

  Their goal in coming to this facility had been to find technology to aid them in their fight with Bilel. Would bringing this pylon back online be prioritizing knowledge over love? That didn’t feel quite right…

  Despite his brief moment of compassion back in her tent, his impression of the Seer was that she was first-and-foremost focused on her own self-interest. He wasn’t entirely convinced that these so-called covenants were really tying her hands – the goddess was likely using this as a way to obfuscate her own goals in all of this. Regardless of her motive, however, she needed Finn to get out of this damn Forge.

  Which meant bringing the pylon back online.

  Finn looked at Brock over his shoulder. “So how do we turn this thing back on?”

  “You will need to channel fire mana into the base of the crystal to prime it and produce a Supervisor token. The logs also say that the mage must have a fire mana affinity of 50% or greater.”

  Finn nodded. That answered one question – specifically, why the Supervisor hadn’t been able to turn the pylon back online. The creature must not have had a sufficient fire affinity to accomplish the feat.

  The question now was whether Finn’s fire affinity was high enough…

  With a grimace and a swipe of his wrist, Finn brought up his character status screen. He was immediately met with a barrage of notifications from their battle with the Supervisor.

  x2 Level Up!

  You have (90) undistributed stat points.

  x2 Spell Rank Up: Mana Absorption

  Skill Level: Intermediate Level 5

  Cost: 67% of mana drained as health damage.

  Effect 1: The caster can absorb ambient fire mana, adding the energy to their total mana pool.

  Effect 2: Increased absorption range, sensitivity, and area of effect.

  x3 Spell Rank Up: Molten Beam

  Skill Level: Beginner Level 4

  Cost: 115 Mana/second. Must be channeled.

  Effect 1: Fires a beam of molten energy dealing damage equal to 130 + (INT x 28%).

  x1 Skill Rank Up: Mana Sight

  Skill Level: Intermediate Level 5

  Cost: Permanently reduces your mana regeneration by 20 mana/second. You are now blind to regular spectrums of light.

  Effect 1: Ability to view ambient mana. Current vision is [good].

  Effect 2: Ability to isolate mana types. Currently limited to [fire/earth/air/light].

  Character Status

  Name:

  Finn

  Gender:

  Male

  Level:

  110

  Class:

  Fire Mage

  Race:

  Human

  Alignment:

  Lawful-Neutral

  Fame:

  1800

  Infamy:

  0

  Health:

  1865

  H-Regen/Sec:

  6.40

  Mana:

  2059

  M-Regen/Sec:

  37.28

  Stamina

  1345

  S-Regen/Sec:

  8.00

  Str:

  38

  Dex:

  80

  Vit:

  132

  End:

  80

  Int:

  347

  Will:

  24

  Affinities

  Dark:

  2%

  Light:

  10%

  Fire:

  52%

  Water:

  5%

  Air:

  3%

  Earth:

  11%

  “So… are we getting out of here or not?” Julia asked.

  Finn swiped aside his notifications. He could worry about allocating his stat points once they made it the hell out of here. As he looked up, he finally noticed the worried look lingering across both Julia’s and Kyyle’s faces.

  “My fire affinity is at 52%,” Finn said with a grin, earning him a sigh o
f relief from his companions. “So, it looks like I can light this sucker up,” he continued as he approached the crystalline column until he was within arm’s reach. His eyes trailed up the column of crystal to where it speared through the roof of the facility.

  Julia placed a hand on his shoulder. “You know, once we bring this thing online, I have a feeling it’s going to get a little crazy down here.”

  “Agreed… But we’ve run out of options. This is what we came here to do, after all.” He spared a glance and another grin at his daughter. “Besides, it’s just like igniting a pilot light on a furnace.”

  “Except the furnace seems to be roughly the size of a mountain, the gas line is a flowing river of mana that drifts across the sky, and the house we’re heating is full of mech-human hybrids who are feeling just a bit chilly,” Kyyle offered.

  Finn barked out a laugh. “Fair enough. But like Julia said before we breached this chamber… we don’t really have anything to lose at this stage.”

  “He says – right before he unleashes a corrupted plague of mech-human hybrids that dominates the entire game world and assimilates residents and travelers alike like the gods-damned Borg,” Kyyle muttered.

  With that statement, a heavy silence lingered in the room. Finn channeled his mana, using the fiery energy to push back at the nagging worry that coiled in his stomach. Despite Kyyle’s joking tone, there was some truth to his words. This pylon might be their only way out of here, but they risked unleashing a new enemy that might even rival Bilel.

  In short, Finn was about to do something reckless. Again.

  He took a deep breath and then approached the pylon. Reaching out gingerly, he rested his palm against the crystalline surface. It felt hard and rough to the touch, and small tendrils of orange energy curled away from his hand from even that connection. This material wasn’t ordinary crystal – as though that point hadn’t been driven home already. It seemed to suck the mana from his body, like a tangible, magical black hole.

  He squeezed his eyes shut, willing himself to remain calm.

  Finn began to gather his mana.

  It was just a tingle at first, a small burning spark in his chest. Yet that small ember soon grew to a blazing flame that seared through his veins and arteries. But he didn’t stop. He gathered even more mana, channeling it through his body until it felt like even his fingertips were on fire. Until his bones felt like they were beginning to melt. Until his skin began to smoke, and the metal in his eyes caused his eyelids to glow an ominous red. Until he couldn’t hold it back any longer, spikes of fire leaching from his hands into that crystal.

  Then he let it loose.

  A torrent of energy burned down his arms and into that crystalline pillar. He poured that fiery mana into that column, giving the crystal every drop he had.

  And the pylon took it.

  A maelstrom raged through the translucent surface of the pylon, and the fire swirled and cascaded through the crystal before rocketing upward into the air. It glowed along that crystalline conduit, stretching up into the sky as Finn followed that burning column with his Mana Sight. Long seconds ticked past as Finn kept pumping mana into the pylon, watching the glowing orange river stream up into the sky.

  And then something responded.

  Power surged back down the crystal conduit in a river so dense that Finn let out a gasping breath and was forced to avert his gaze, backing away from the pylon quickly. The energy that flowed through the pylon made Finn’s own mana pale in comparison. It was like they were channeling the power of the sun through this now flimsy-feeling column. An inferno that blazed so brightly that it threatened to break loose from its crystalline cage – to smash, and burn, and sear its way through the facility and anything that lingered inside.

  Yet that energy stayed contained. The power coursed down through the pylon before stretching outward through the floor and walls of the facility. The pylon chamber was soon awash in an orange glow as the mana instantly lit the chamber and kept going, flowing through the walls as it brought the entire section back online.

  “Holy shit,” Kyyle muttered, his hands frozen in mid-air, his notes forgotten as he took in the wonder of that flaming energy.

  Looking on in awestruck wonder, Finn was thinking the same thing. It wasn’t just the raw power on display. It was the technology to harness it, to control it, to use it to power the facility – a power that rivaled even the gods. And the realization that this was only a fragment, a few tiny droplets of what flowed above them. Only a portion of the power available to the celestial deities that reigned over this world – or rather, what had once been available to them before their exile.

  And with that energy came a howl from the other side of the blast door. The corrupted had woken – they had seen the mana coursing through the walls and floor of the facility as it came back online. Which meant the clock was ticking once again.

  “So… uh, what now?” Julia asked, coming up beside Finn and watching the glowing pylon.

  Finn shook his head, shaking off his wonder. He met his daughter’s eyes. “Now, we need to figure out how to get into that center chamber. We still have a mission to complete.”

  Chapter 26 - Harried

  As they brought the power back online in the fire section, the tortured howls of the corrupted echoed through the blast door. However, their metallic limbs no longer beat at the surface of the door. Even without being able to see clearly through the mixture of crystal and stone, Finn could guess the reason for that. With glowing orange energy flowing freely through this section of the facility, there were now far better and easier sources of mana for the mech-human hybrids to scavenge.

  Although, the corrupted weren’t gone for good – only distracted for the moment.

  Finn’s attention shifted to Brock, where he still floated beside the terminal. “Okay, now that we have power again, can you give us a map of this section?”

  “Certainly,” the elemental replied, earth mana pulsing down an arm and into the top of the counter where his hand still embedded in the stone.

  A map was soon projected above the terminal, showing the star-shaped structure of the Forge before centering on a single triangular section outlined in a faint orange aura. The various rooms and hallways were denoted with thin blue lines. Clustering around the image, Finn and his companions eyed it intently.

  “I’ve also taken the liberty of repairing this section’s sensors,” Brock added. “Connections to the other sections have not yet been repaired, but it appears that a small stockpile of backup crystals survived the corrupted. Now that power has been brought back online, we can use that energy to begin restoring former systems.”

  “What exactly does that—” Julia began.

  Before she could finish speaking, a massive pulse of light mana rippled outward from the control room in a concentric ring. The ivory energy flowed through the floor and walls before expanding out of the chamber and rippling across the section – much the same way that the Supervisor had scanned the facility, Finn realized abruptly. The more highly evolved creature must have been tapping into this section’s systems and powering them individually from its own reserves.

  The map updated. Many, many more red dots now roamed the halls and rooms of the fire mana section, although they seemed to be clustering in several areas.

  “Why are they forming up there?” Kyyle asked.

  “Those are the positions of this section’s mana storage gems. Surplus fire mana is stored in several nodes located throughout the section, and those gems are beginning to collect energy now that the fire pylon has been reactivated,” Brock explained. “The density of the mana likely stands out above the ambient energy flowing through the walls.”

  “How about a better question?” Julia jumped in. “Like, I dunno, how do we access the inner Forge room?” She pointed at the hexagonal room, resting in the center of the facility.

  “Separate blast doors provide access to the central chamber from each section,” Brock answered.
A room at the base of their current triangular section was highlighted in yellow, a sliver along the wall illuminated in green – likely indicating another blast door.

  Finn frowned at the map. Unfortunately, their group was sitting on the far end of the section near the tip. The room leading into the central chamber was on the other end of the facility, which placed the better part of a hundred of the corrupted between them and the central chamber. They could try to sneak past the creatures and hope they were too distracted with the mana storage gems to notice, although that seemed unlikely.

  “What other systems were you able to restore?” Finn asked, turning his gaze toward the elemental.

  Brock hesitated for a moment before responding. “As I mentioned, the two main conduits between this section and the remainder of the facility have been severed. Repairs may take several hours, despite the fire mana flowing through this section.” Two primary connection points popped up on the map, glowing a soft red.

  “Our reserves of the other magical affinities are also limited, which means that many systems cannot be properly powered and brought online. Currently, many of the automated sentry turrets have been damaged or taken offline, but there is sufficient mana to power them. Most security mechs have been disabled or corrupted. Our reserve of light mana is also severely depleted, and we likely only have enough energy for one more pulse. Many door locking mechanisms appear to be damaged—”

  “Okay, I get the idea,” Finn interjected before the elemental could go through the entire list of the facility’s systems. “Most systems are FUBAR. Let’s focus on the doors. You mentioned that many are damaged. Damaged how?”

  “In many cases, obstructing material has been fused into the locking mechanism, or the doorway itself has been damaged.”