Dark Matter Ascension-Chapter 60B2 - : The Big Dry

Deckard had retreated to his chambers, surrounded by Nebula Alliance Ascendants who were all Tier 6 and 7. A servant ran in, bowed, and gave a report. “Mr. Stonewall, all of your mercenaries were slain with some type of damage reflecting Skill. The mercenary who had taken on the contract, Fletcher, chased this Flicker to the roof. Cosmic System reports show that Fletcher has died. Flicker is in the wind.”

Why was he here? Deckard thought as he waved the servant away. Looking at the Ascendants surrounding him, he began giving orders. “Pack up. We are retreating to Teresii. Now.” The room became a buzz of activity as Deckard rattled through every possible scenario he could think of.

The most likely objective was that he was tracking me. Trying to kill me for attempting to take control of Earth. Perhaps to force me to remove the bounty. Or maybe he has another play, such as giving the Star Council a chance to nab our worlds!

Millions of possible scenarios played out in Deckard’s impressive mind, and every scenario ended with the same outcome. Flicker is out to kill me. I’m going home, and I’m going to run my operations from abroad for the time being. He nodded as he finished packing and began to head to The Cosmic Corridor with his escort. I’ll keep the bounty up for my own revenge, but he would be a fool to try and invade Teresii.

Deckard’s home world. An ecumenopolis, or planet encased in a metal ‘shell’ that a city had been ‘printed’ on. A megastructure in and of itself, it was the Nebula Alliance’s fortress, its faction headquarters, and the most secure location that Deckard knew of. He had eliminated all but one Cosmic Corridor portal, and he began firing off messages to reinforce that portal to the greatest degree he could possibly envision.

Turrets with gravitic sensors: those will be pricy but well worth the cost. Constant ground-level fog from smoke machines, that is easy enough to keep running persistently. Adhesive traps, encasing the entire portal inside of a structure…yes, and more.

Much, much more. Deckard was blowing a quarterly earning’s worth of his Stardust on the task of fortifying the portal. I am not going to die like my predecessor.

Jace barged into the Gold Paw’s headquarters and staggered over to the booth where a very confused looking Silverpaw was sitting. He flopped into the booth and emptied his pockets of all the jewels, gemstones, precious rings, and other pickpocketed items. “You…your guys make it?” he asked in between exhausted exhales.

“Yes,” she replied as she waved over a few of what Jace assumed were thieves’ guild members. “What happened? We saw enormous explosions of light, and what looked to be some enormous orb of fire.”

Jace just groaned and pushed himself into an upright sitting position. Ollie was slapping him in the face. “Stay awake, damnit! You don’t want to fall asleep near these strangers.”

Jace mumbled out an unintelligible response before passing out.

Priam ‘mushed’ the sand sharks on as the group descended into the depths of the sandstorm that was ripping across the Big Dry. Greg had activated his defensive Skills Protector’s Vow (Rank 3) [Guardian’s Vow], Planetary Defenses (Rank 3), and had manifested his Sphere of Protection (Rank 5) around the entire sled.

The result was that they were able to enter the raging sandstorm without being abraded to bits, like the skeletons that Dee had obliterated. Priam also had his new and improved Exarch’s Ward (Rank 1) [Multi-target] on everyone present, including the sand sharks.

Dee was manipulating a map that floated in the air in front of Priam, her Wayfinder sitting next to Bloopa on the side of the sled. “A week? You two need to sleep, don’t you?”

Priam nodded, “We’ll need to sleep, yeah: but that’s not a problem.” He hiked his thumb back at Greg, who was sitting at the center of the sled, so his sphere covered the whole vehicle. “He can make walls for shelter.”

Dee nodded and wrapped an arm around Priam’s shoulder, which made the bunny boy jump slightly. “You okay?”

Priam shook his head, “Wricen being one of my clan is…disconcerting,” he replied. “I just can’t wrap my head around the idea that someone would kill their family for power.”

Dee let out the equivalent of a sigh and nodded, “Yes. I understand a bit. Betraying one’s family is a tough decision to make.” She glanced at him, and her small ‘eye orbs’ floated behind the chitinous face plate. “My sister and I did that. Abandoned family. But we did not kill them. That level of depravity is just mind-numbing.”

Priam nodded, “He could have consumed Godhearts even if the rest of my clan was alive. But he sent agents into Khrox to hunt down my dad and kill him. As far as I know…I’m the last Westerfold.”

Dee rubbed his back reassuringly, “It’ll be fine. We’ll blow up Wricen, free the world from his control. Then…” she frowned, “Hmm. Who would take over? Can’t be you, you’re not an Ascendant.”

Xera’s voice came over the comms, and all three Aspirants sat up straighter. “I have been inquiring with various factions. The best one to come to mind is going to be the Pulsar Coalition to maintain the status quo. Star Council will seek to technologically uplift, which doesn’t really match up with Fernaid’s culture or environment. They are really the only option.”

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“Pulsar Coalition,” Priam whispered to himself before nodding. “Yeah, that sounds fine. I guess you’ll make the arrangements?”

“Already in talks with Zzorth of the Hive, their faction leader. We are on good terms,” Xera replied.

“What are they all about?” Greg asked.

“They are anti-Black Hole Conclave. They believe in having independent worlds: much like the Planetary Independence Pact: but they see the threat that the Black Hole Conclave poses. So, every world must contribute to the offensive effort to push back the Conclave at every turn. They are relatively neutral to every other faction, save for the Conclave. Everyone recognizes that the Conclave is bad news if their plans advance, but sometimes the Nebula Alliance will tolerate them if Stardust or rare objects are involved.”

Priam nodded, “Pulsar Coalition takeover it is. So we kill Wricen, then get the world to do a vote?”

Xera replied, “World Faction Assignment vote. And yes. That would be the next step. Having you make a proclamation of some type as the last surviving Westerfold would probably help convince them.”

“I…I’ll have to stay here, won’t I?” Priam asked. “Since I’m the only one who can put dead gods to rest.”

Xera clicked her tongue, “Tsk. No. I need you out in the field. You’ll get visits whenever needed; I’ll make sure to dedicated a Wayfinder to tracking changes in divinity on Fernaid, so you can respond when needed.”

That brought some relief to Priam’s mind and he nodded, glancing over at Dee. “A few days travel, and then we stop Wricen from killing gods.”

Greg cleared his throat, “The storm is getting worse.”

Priam looked around, pulled out of the conversation, and he saw that the swirling sands were darker and filled with shadows. “Oh crap! That is not good! I’ve read about this! We need to stop and make shelter, now!” He handed the reins to Dee, “Pull them to a stop!” He ran back along the sled, past a bewildered Greg, and to the fins on the back. Adjusting them slightly as if it was second nature, he called back to Dee, “Full stop!”

“I’m trying!” she shouted. “They aren’t stopping!”

What’s going on? Priam thought. What’s keeping them going?

The entire sled flipped forward as if the ropes in front of them were yanked. Priam went sailing through the air, but Greg teleported to him using Call to Guard, grabbed him, and then teleported with him to Dee using Call to Guard once more on her. She was flung the shortest distance from the now-overturned sled.

The ropes were shredded by something, and Dee was shaking. “B-b-big W-w-worm.”

Priam grabbed her, “Greg, come on! We have to get on the sled!” The trio ran over to the overturned sled and got on top of it.

Greg winced, “What is it?”

It can’t be. Dad’s books said they went extinct hundreds of years ago! “A Drygorger Wurm,” Priam whispered as he saw the sand begin to bulge next to the sled. The creature out of myth and legend was enormous, easily a thousand feet from tip to tail, and half as wide and tall. An enormous creature that should not exist anymore, that died out from lack of nutrition, as their main food source: sand sharks: were rounded up and bred on the rocky plateaus that they could not penetrate.

Quinn’s voice came over the comms, “You are stuck in the Big Dry, miles and miles away from the nearest high spot.”

Dee made a weird, high-pitched, whimpering noise, and Greg cursed.

We are in trouble, Priam thought.

Jace woke up in a bed. His head was pounding, and a quick Dark Matter Mending (Rank 1) cured that ailment. Ollie popped into existence next to him and had a panicked expression. “You’re safe! Oh, thank the System. Xera and I were so worried!”

Jace smiled at Ollie, “I’m good.” He pushed himself to his elbows. “Where am I?”

Ollie pulled up a map of the city, “Under the hookah bar,” he stated. “Probably in the Gold Paw’s dormitories.”

Jace felt around his body and found, to his dismay, his gear was missing. All of it. “Those fuckers,” he muttered. “Took all my gear!”

“Check your lockbox,” a voice said from the bunk above his bed. Copperpaw’s face popped over the side of the bed, and she grinned. “We wouldn’t take gear from such a valuable asset.”

Jace kicked his legs over and found to his confusion that someone had undressed him and put him into some simple shorts and a shirt. Stripping off, he fished around under the bed and felt the lockbox and his sword alongside it. Re-equipping his gear, he glanced up at Copperpaw who gave him a slight wink. “Thanks for not ripping me off,” Jace stated as he finished putting on his gear.

“Your Yittka disguise is pretty good. I could barely tell until I got the armor off.”

Jace flashed her a small smile, “Well, hope you looked and didn’t touch. I’m a taken man.”

“Yes, I saw the amulet. Plus, your anatomy is all wrong.”

Jace chuckled and stood stretched, feeling his neck crack in a satisfying way. “Where’s Goldpaw? I want to talk reward.”

“Probably upstairs at the bar. It’s the middle of the dormancy period.” She rolled back onto her bunk. “See you around, Flicker.”

Jace made his way out of the hidden basement and up to the main floor of the bar. He took a seat at the counter, and Goldpaw came over. “Good job, our people got out without issue. And you brought back quite the haul. I almost feel bad, just making introductions to an information broker and not giving you a split.” He chuckled, “Almost. So, when do you want to meet them?”

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Jace leaned forward on the counter, “As soon as I can.”

“Well then, I hope you’re ready to take a little trip to the poorest district: Flaptown.”

Wricen was monitoring the world control interface when he saw a concerning alert cross his vision.

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[Storm capacity array is at maximum power.]

[Drawing on reserve energy.]

[WARNING: Energy reserves are extremely low.]

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Gah! I’m not putting my own energy into some sandstorm. Wricen reached up to the interface and altered some controls on the world, shutting off the enormous weather phenomena over the Big Dry. I wish I had some form of divination; he thought. Then I could track this lost Westerfold clansman and direct my ire.

He waved his hand as the phantom interface vanished. Getting off his throne, he walked to his chambers and sat down on the nice, leather chair in front of his bookshelf. The same type of chair that his brother and him used to sit at the foot of as their father read them books; something that Wricen would have passed down to his children if he had any.

That his brother did pass down to his children. One of whom was going to try and dethrone him, according to The Negotiator’s report.

Such as shame, nephew, that you are seeking your own death.