The first step was building something that could act as his scouts.
Jason’s thoughts kept returning to the Hippie’s temple. He had solved the irritating god’s maze by creating a batch of hand-sized Drones that he had pre-programmed to map the shifting, square rooms. He hoped that he could replicate something similar here, but he wasn’t just searching a perfectly square grid this time. This creature would need to be able to enter buildings and scour debris – as well as explore difficult to reach locations that weren’t accessible by foot. With the Order’s training and physical prowess, no potential hidey-hole was off limits.
As a first step, Jason pulled up his design for the Drones and bones sprang from the nearby pile, piecing themselves together in midair. The creature’s body was a lump of bone with a single dark dot of mana affixed to its surface – the sphere acting as a lone, black eye. Spindly finger bones radiated out from the body, forming spider-like legs. This design was an okay start, but the creature was simply too slow. He remembered its ungainly, awkward walk. This might have been sufficient in the Hippie’s temple, but they didn’t have the luxury of time.
Jason pulled up a nearby human hand by tapping at the inventory menu on the control panel. A skeletal set of digits immediately ripped themselves from the pile and formed two skeletal hands beside the drone. Jason removed the thumb and two fingers from each hand and fused the remaining two sets of appendages to the drone’s back with dark mana. Then he adopted the same design he had used with the Vile Wings, forming a ball of dark mana, and pressing the energy flat – binding the edges of the small sheet to the finger bones.
The effect was to create a set of flap-like wings on the Drone’s back. With a thought and a wave of his hand, the Drone slowly came to life. Its new limbs jerked experimentally before Jason ordered it to fly. It beat its wings with increasing intensity, managing to hover just an inch above the ground before dropping back to the dusty earth.
“Damn it,” Jason muttered. Two wings weren’t enough. His guess was that the drone’s body and legs were too heavy. That wasn’t good. He expected he was going to need to add more weight before he was done.
A mental command sent the Drone back into the air in front of him, where it rotated slowly as he inspected his new design. He couldn’t remove the legs. The Drone needed to be able to enter tight spaces and buildings – so flight wasn’t always an option. However, he could possibly reduce the weight of the torso and add more lift.
Jason yanked the ivory ball out of position and opened a hole in the bottom, carving out the bone and hollowing the Drone out. Then he repurposed the remaining skeletal fingers he had left floating beside his new creation, creating another pair of wings and affixing them to the Drone’s back. This effectively created a tiered set of dark wings.
A few minutes later, he finished with his revisions, surveying the new result.
The Drone might have looked like a spider before, but now it more closely resembled a locust with its multiple sets of wings. With a wave of his hand, he activated the Drone, and it dropped to the ground.
Here was the moment of truth.
The creature’s four wings began to flap in an awkward, discordant pattern and Jason could feel frustration bubbling in his chest. A moment later, however, the pattern normalized as the Drone found its rhythm. Its miniature body lifted from the ground, hovering in the air in front of Jason, awaiting orders. A smile crept across Jason’s face as he surveyed his new creation.
“You’ll do nicely,” he murmured. “Except, how much mana do you cost?” he asked his new Drone, suddenly recalling the change to his summoning spells. Jason tapped at the creation panel, naming his updated design Drone 2.0 and completing the creation process.
The world abruptly lurched back into motion, a pounding headache already ricocheting through Jason’s skull. He cradled his aching head with one hand as he pulled up his Character Status. He needed to check the creature’s mana reserve cost now that Alfred had updated his summoning skills.
Character Status
Name:
Jason
Gender:
Male
Level:
165
Class:
Necromancer
Race:
Shade
Alignment:
Chaotic-Evil
Fame:
0
Infamy:
16,200
Health:
0
H-Regen/Sec:
1.60
Mana:
13625 (50)
M-Regen/Sec:
55.95
Stamina
1890
S-Regen/Sec:
10.70
Strength:
82
Dexterity:
83
Vitality:
36
Endurance:
107
Intelligence:
80
Willpower:
899
Affinities
Dark:
61%
Light:
9%
Fire:
6%
Water:
4%
Air:
4%
Earth:
6%
“Hmm, you only cost 50 mana,” Jason said to himself, glancing between his character screen and the new drone as his mind raced through a set of mental calculations. He could only assume that the default 100 mana reserve cost had been reduced since the new drone was small and lacked offensive capabilities. Right now, the creature couldn’t do anything more than annoy and distract Jason’s opponents.
His math soon revealed that he could summon the new Drones up to his current Control Limit of 111 and this would reserve 5,550 mana, leaving him with 8,075. So, he was going to lose a little less than half his health to pull this off. That seemed like a reasonable tradeoff.
“What the hell is that thing?” a voice spoke up from behind Jason.
He immediately whirled, his staff materializing in his hand and a Soul Blade arcing away from the leading edge. The blade stopped just an inch shy of Cecil’s neck, the small engineer standing there in wide-eyed shock.
“Um… never mind. New question,” Cecil said slowly, recovering from his shock and his gaze shifting to the blade of dark mana at his neck. “What is this beauty? A new ability?”
“A product of lots of training,” Jason replied, withdrawing his weapon and releasing the Soul Blade. “Perhaps you shouldn’t sneak up on a person,” he added grimly. He felt stupid for not keeping better track of his surroundings. He had been too focused on his new creation. If that had been Thorn, he would almost certainly be reliving his death right now.
“I’ll make a mental note for next time,” Cecil replied dryly, waving a hand behind him. Soldiers materialized out of the shadows of the nearby stables. The Kin dropped from Sneak and automatically established a defensive perimeter around the pen.
A pair of soldiers walked up to Jason and Cecil, lugging a heavy sack. They promptly dumped its contents on the ground, crystals and gems rolling free from the cloth sack in a rainbow of colors. Jason eyed the pile greedily, his thoughts racing as he considered the ways he could use the elemental crystals.
“Anyway, I brought you some presents,” Cecil declared, observing Jason’s reaction with some amusement. “This is what we could salvage from the crafting school’s storage rooms, although Eliza can likely purchase more from the auction house. The colorless crystals are the mana detection gems you wanted. Of course, you already know what the colored gems can do.”
“This is perfect,” Jason murmured. Without another word, Jason immediately snatched up one of the colorless gems and his hands wound through Custom Skeleton once again.
“What…” Cecil began, his mouth moving as though in slow motion as he attempted to pose a question, even as his eyes widened ever-so-slowly.
A few alterations later, Jason released the spell. He stumbled slightly and cr
adled his head as the painful feedback struck him for a second time. Despite the dull ache throbbing through his skull, his eyes were riveted on his new Drone, surveying the results of his changes.
“…the hell are you doing?” Cecil finished asking. Then his confused gaze focused on the Drone and he realized that Jason had already completed his spell. “I hate when you do that,” he muttered.
At a command from Jason, the new creature flitted closer to him. As it came within a few yards, its body began to glow with a malevolent, dark light.
“Ahh, I see,” Cecil murmured, approaching the drone and inspecting it from several angles. “You hollowed out its torso and placed the detection gem inside.” He glanced at Jason. “My guess is that you drilled holes in the torso to let the light through?”
“Exactly,” Jason said, his eyes still fixed on his new Drone.
“Interesting. I see what you’re trying to do,” Cecil murmured, his hand running through his beard as he considered the small creature. “How many of these can you make?”
“Over a hundred,” Jason said.
This earned him another shocked look from Cecil. “A hundred…,” he muttered. “Shit. This might just work after all.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Jason replied with dry amusement.
Then his attention turned back to the Drone. He still had more work to do. He needed to build this creature’s brothers and design the search algorithm. That second step would be complicated, but Jason had continued to study Robert’s lessons in his occasional free time. He was optimistic that he could pull it off.
It turned out that it took hours for Jason to complete the remainder of the drones and design the search algorithm. The programming for the new Drones was much more difficult than he could have imagined. When they were in direct line of sight, he could send specific mental commands. However, he needed his minions to be able to systematically search the city and the interior of each building even when he wasn’t nearby – which meant they needed to be able to dynamically navigate uneven and irregular buildings. Jason could begin to sympathize with what Robert had said during his testimony. Programming these instructions line by line was incredibly challenging.
The first few tries had the test Drone barreling into the side of a building, smashing its body apart and filling the air with a fine white powder – much to Cecil’s amusement. Another attempt had the Drone trying to burrow into the ground. While Jason suspected that Thorn might have tunneled underground, it didn’t seem too likely.
Despite numerous failed trials, he slowly managed to iron out the bugs in his search algorithm and the Drones improved until they could autonomously search a building. Or, at least, they managed to scour two or three buildings nearby without breaking anything or accidentally destroying themselves. That would have to be sufficient since Jason didn’t have time to conduct more extensive tests.
“Okay, this is going to have to be good enough,” Jason murmured, surveying the field beside the stable. His Drones littered the ground like a swarm of eerie, pale bugs.
“Finally,” Cecil muttered, hopping off the nearby fence and coming to join Jason. “Let’s get this thing underway then!”
Jason was more than happy to accommodate Cecil’s request. Saying a silent prayer to the Dark One, he started the search algorithm.
As one, more than a hundred Drones flickered to life, their bodies twitching and jerking as their wings began to beat at the air. They lifted from the ground slowly, spiraling into the air like a pale tornado. Their wings created a faint buzzing sound that caused the air to vibrate and set Jason’s teeth on edge. Meanwhile, the nearby Kin looked on with awe-struck expressions as they watched the undead locusts fill the sky.
Jason glanced at the map that floated in his peripheral vision, watching as the green dots that represented his Drones filtered through the nearby streets. His lips warped into a cruel, hungry smile as he watched his swarm, reveling in the sense of accomplishment while his dark mana pulsed through his veins in excitement.
Cecil eyed him with concern and took a cautious step back, muttering under his breath. Jason spared no attention to the engineer. His thoughts were only on the future. If this worked, there would be nowhere for Thorn to hide.
The hunt had just begun.
Chapter 53 - Scorching
“All three Divisions are in position, and we are ready to commence the operation,” an undead scout reported, his skeletal limbs standing at rigid attention. “We have completely encircled the target.”
“Good. Return to your Division and await my signal,” Jason ordered. The soldier nodded curtly and stepped out of the room, immediately dropping into Sneak as he made his way out of the building.
Jason’s attention turned back to the nearby window, surveying the street below him. He was standing on the third floor of a ruined structure in the southern portion of the Twilight Throne. This building provided a good vantage point of the nearby intersection, an old warehouse sitting caddy corner to his position. The warehouse’s windows were dark and boarded up, and he didn’t detect any movement.
“Are we certain they’re inside?” Riley asked quietly from beside Jason as she inspected the building. Her eyes glowed darkly, punctuated only by a thin circle of crimson where her pupils might have been.
Jason spared a glance at the display that hovered beside him. Dozens of green dots riddled the area, representing the new Drones that lingered on the nearby rooftops and inside the buildings around them. Two dots in particular flashed an ominous red, the creatures having infiltrated the warehouse across the street.
Over the last in-game day, his tiny creatures had scoured nearly every inch of the city. He almost couldn’t believe his luck when a couple of the creatures had flashed red – indicating that they had possibly identified the Order’s location.
This could be a mistake, of course. They could be surrounding an empty building or about to capture a pair of corpses. If they were wrong, then this might also alert Thorn and his accomplice to their new detection system – they probably wouldn’t get a second try at this. Then there was the possibility that this might be a trap. These doubts had been circling and rebounding through his skull for hours now.
However, the bottom line was that they needed to take the risk.
“There’s only one way to find out,” Jason finally answered, his expression grim. He forcefully renewed the dark mana that drifted through his body. The chill energy soon swept away any doubt or hesitation that lingered in his mind. He was done second-guessing himself.
Jason turned his attention to the others filling the room. He briefly met Jerry’s eyes and then his gaze lingering on Grunt’s hulking form before shifting his focus to the division leaders who stood nearby. They anxiously awaited his orders, bloodlust spilling off of them in waves. He also noticed the way the group checked and re-checked their equipment and how they eyed him skeptically – as though measuring Jason against an invisible opponent. They wanted revenge just as badly as he did, but they were also worried. This was an opponent that had taken out Jason and Frank without even trying.
He needed to offer them some reassurance.
“Okay, let’s go over this one more time,” Jason declared, tapping at his map and projecting it into the air. A model of the nearby intersection and warehouse soon hovered in front of him. “At my signal, our fire mages will strike the building from across the street – as well as the buildings on either side. We are going to burn the building down and then flush the Order out of hiding and into the street. Ice mages are located behind our perimeter to make sure the flames don’t spread too far.”
Jason rotated the map slightly to show the clusters of green dots around the building. “Our forces have entirely encircled the warehouse; four full divisions are stationed in the nearby buildings. There is nowhere for them to retreat.”
He met the gaze of his division leaders. “Remember, the goal here is to push them out into the open and attack from a distance.
Do not engage in close quarters or cramped spaces. We cannot afford to underestimate our opponents. They will be strong and incredibly fast, and they will have the ability to neutralize our spells. But they aren’t invincible, and that’s critical. They are human, and there is a limit to what a person can dodge.
“So, as soon as your soldiers have line of sight, blow them away.”
“What about the nearby structures and civilians?” one of the Kin asked.
Jason shook his head. He glanced at Riley and received a nod in return. “All civilians have already been evacuated from the area, and damage to the nearby structures is acceptable. Our priority is neutralizing the Order. Nothing else matters.”
He hesitated, meeting the gaze of each person in the room, his eyes filled with unholy energy and bands of mana crawling up his arms and neck. “Let me be perfectly clear. This mission is not about capturing these men. We kill on sight. These assholes killed and injured our people – innocent civilians. It is time to make them pay.
“Any last questions?” Jason asked. This was met with silence, the room filled with an almost palpable sense of anxious excitement.
Suddenly, clapping echoed through the room, and every eye turned to find Jerry slow-clapping in the corner. “What?” he asked as they all stared at him. “That was a fantastic presentation. I got goosebumps – just look at my arm!” In a flash of movement, the innkeeper was across the room, stabbing his forearm in Riley’s face.
“I don’t see anything,” Riley replied in a dry voice.
“Ahh, that’s because I lied,” Jerry said, twirling his mustache as he leaned forward toward the archer. “I don’t get goosebumps. I’ve got nerves of steal – hell, I once stole an entire bookshelf out of the Great Library in Vaerwald by myself.”
Awaken Online: Dominion Page 54