The Fusionist Book 4 -- Chapter 45

Chapter 45

The only problem with what he was feeling was that it felt more like an extremely powerful Scission rather than an Aperture, because he’d never felt one like this before. Not only that, but if he had to guess at how far away it was, he would hazard to say that it was much farther away than any that he’d ever felt before. Normally, he could potentially detect them within a couple of miles at most, but this one felt as if it was somewhere between a dozen and a hundred miles away – which just felt like an impossibility to him.

Almost as if it was waiting for him to acknowledge the sense of an Aperture nearby, Larek received an unexpected notification.

Beware, Guardian!

The local population underneath the far-ranging desert of Lowenthal have fallen victim to an ancient enemy! When the Corrupted spread throughout the world and was subsequently unleashed upon this land, the Umbral Demons who inhabited the darkest corners of the Drekkin’s underground civilization latched upon the physical manifestations of Corruption without hesitation. Having absolutely no defense against the soul replacement capabilities of the Umbral Demons, the physical manifestations succumbed to the onslaught almost as soon as they established their Apertures into this world.

On a positive note, with the physical manifestations compromised in this manner, the spread of individual Apertures has been halted because they were permanently closed. Unfortunately, the reason for this is due to a consolidation of all the Apertures within Lowenthal, feeding every single opening into the world of Corruption into a central location where the Umbral Demons have been organizing their army of soul-replaced minions to carry out their conquest of every single land. Previously restricted to the deepest and darkest places that could be found in this world, with their army of converted slaves, they can venture by proxy into the light, using the replacement capabilities of the Apertures to have an unending force that will be extremely difficult to defeat once it breaks free. By the time any of the nearby lands can react, they will have already seized the initiative and begun their subjugation and conversion of the world’s population. At that point, the spread of Corruption will be a secondary threat to every form of life that currently exists in the world, as the outcome will be the same.

Everyone will, effectively, be dead – or will wish that they were.

The only obstacle to the advancement to their plans have been the Drekkin, who have been fighting a losing battle over the last few months against the onslaught of soul-replaced physical manifestations – along with those of their own kind that have been unfortunate to have fallen victim to the Umbral Demons’ manipulation.

So, Guardian, you have a decision to make. Will you flee and warn the world of this threat, ensuring that they are ready to battle the forces that will inevitably be brought to bear against them? Or will you stay and add your great and powerful strength to the defenders already present and fighting for their very lives, with the intent of ending this threat once and for all, even if it is more than likely that you will die a painfully horrible death as your soul is converted to evil?

The choice is yours. Make the correct one, or all may be lost.

“Uh, no thanks. I have no desire to get involved in any of this,” Larek mumbled out loud as he read the notification in shock and exasperation. “Of course, if I had to choose, I’d rather leave and tell people about the threat, letting others worry about it… but I have no idea how to get out of here. But that doesn’t mean I want to fight against all these ‘Umbral Demons’ and the monsters coming out of the Apertures at the same time. I mean, how would I even do that? Am I just supposed to find the gigantic conglomeration of Apertures and close it? Sure, sure, like that would—”

You have made a choice. Fight well!

“Huh? No!  No, I didn’t! I’m not going anywhere near that thing knowing what I now know about it—wait, did you just respond to me?” The shock of the previous notification had somewhat worn off at that point, but an even greater surprise rocked him back on his heels as it seemed to him that whatever had been giving him the notifications had directly responded to something he said out loud to himself. It, of course, didn’t understand that he was being sarcastic at the thought of fighting against these “Demon” things it mentioned. Unfortunately, no matter what he said in opposite of that supposed decision, nothing else seemed to happen.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t flee anyways and tell people about the threat… did it? While he wasn’t sure what was going on with this notification and how it had responded to him, he had the unwelcome feeling that if he tried to run and tell people, they would be disinclined to believe him even more than usual. Whereas if he had fully picked that decision from the start, he would’ve had some additional aid in convincing people that the threat was real.

Larek tried to evaluate where exactly these feelings were coming from, but just like many things in the world he didn’t understand, no comprehension flooded into him as he considered them. Still, it really didn’t matter, because he wasn’t planning on staying around and getting killed by something worse than a giant scorpion; as soon as he found a way out, he’d be taking it.

As Larek looked around the tunnel, figuring out where to do, he noticed a familiar crate sticking out of the sand pile he had landed on, and he spent the next hour excavating the entire pile, finding every single crate or bag that had been on his Air Skimmer when it had been flipped over – even the ones that had fallen off upon impact with the sand up above, which he thought might be lost forever.

So, at least he wasn’t going to starve over the next week or so, but that still didn’t help him escape the tunnels. Loading everything back onto his Air Skimmer, he spent another few minutes looking it over for damage, seeing that some of the wooden framing – especially that which was holding up the roof – was cracked, but it was still holding its shape well enough that he didn’t think that it would begin to fall apart unless there was even more damage done to it. If it hadn’t been for the Strengthen Area Fusion making all the iron and wood stronger, all the abuse that it had gone through likely would’ve destroyed it by that point.

Luckily, none of the Fusions were damaged in the slightest, including the Multi-Thruster, which worked just as well down in the tunnel as it did aboveground, though once he was out of the area where the sand had piled up, it was actually better because the stone floor had very little dust that was picked up. The loud roar of rushing air was a bit more pronounced in the relatively closed space than out in the open, but it didn’t bother him too much.  Of course, anything within a mile of the tunnel would likely be able to hear him coming, but there wasn’t much he could do about that other than leave his vessel behind – and there was no way he was doing that.

Now, he just had to pick a direction and find a way out from the tunnels. As he stood in his Air Skimmer and looked down both directions of the tunnel, he realized that he had no idea which direction was which. He’d been so turned around during the fight with the scorpion followed by his frantic attempts at keeping his vessel from sinking that he had no idea which way was east by this point. Even the direction his flipped-over Skimmer had been facing at the time it started to sink was no help, as the landing upon the sand hill and sliding down it had turned everything around to the point where it was impossible to extrapolate where it had been facing.

With a shrug, Larek picked to go down the tunnel that his vessel just happened to be facing at that point, because there were no distinguishing characteristics between them that would make one way or the other the obvious choice. With the resolve to turn around if there was some indication that he was going the wrong way, his progress down the tunnel was swift – and largely unchanging. It wasn’t nearly as bad as skimming above the sand that he’d been doing over the last week, as at least the tunnels seemed to curve gently one way or the other seemingly at random, but the glowing crystal veins in the walls didn’t really have very much variation to them. It got to the point where they were almost as indistinguishable from each other as the sand dunes on the surface had been, and after a few hours of travel, he began to think he was going in circles as there was no change.

Just when he was starting to doubt that he’d gone the right way and was contemplating turning around, something finally caught his attention. A large portion of the tunnel wall on his right had been destroyed by something, leaving rubble strewn over the floor, including what appeared to be crystal dust fragments that no longer had a glow about them. The opening was roughly ovoid in shape, and he estimated it to be nearly 20 feet tall and 15 feet wide at its widest, and when he stopped across from it, he couldn’t see anything inside. Not because there was nothing to see, but because the darkness coming from whatever was through the opening seemed to smother the glowing light from the rest of the tunnel, like a wall of impenetrable shadows.

As much as he knew that he should probably keep going along the tunnel to find a way out, Larek was curious enough about this sudden change in the environment that he had to investigate. It was self-serving, though, because it was entirely possible that this hole in the wall could lead him to a way out of the mess he found himself in.

Taking out one of the simple Illuminate +2 Fusions he had in his belt pouches, he activated it and tossed it into the opening. As soon as he saw it pass through the barrier of darkness, the brighter light illuminated what was inside briefly, which turned out to be a rough-hewn tunnel that led… somewhere. He couldn’t see much past about 15 feet, unfortunately, because as soon as the stone he had placed the Illuminate Fusion on had passed that distance, it seemed to be swallowed up by darkness once again. Or at least the wall of shadowy substance was strong enough that it smothered the light to the point where it couldn’t reach outside the opening anymore.

Remembering his experience with the shadowy environment of the Shadow Rats back in the Empire, Larek set the Air Skimmer down near the rubble in the tunnel, jumped down and picked through the damaged stones strewn everywhere, and when he found a piece that was what he needed, he jumped back into his vessel. Activating his Secure Hideaway, Larek sat down and used his axe to carve the stone he had collected into a longer, roughly cylindrical shaped rod that he could easily hold in his hand. Once that was done, he spent the next 15 minutes creating a Directional Illumination +8 Fusion on it, similar to the one he had used to defeat the Shadow Rats except slightly more powerful.

With that completed, he stood back up, left his Air Skimmer where it was with the Secure Hideaway protecting it, and then strode toward the opening on foot. While his vessel would’ve fit, he didn’t know what was inside; if it was a monster more dangerous than simple Shadow Rats, he didn’t want the Skimmer to take any unnecessary damage. The frame was already on the verge of breaking and deliberately putting it into danger of being damaged further was a poor idea, especially since it would be relatively close-quarters inside the tunnel he had seen inside the opening.

Climbing over the rubble, he entered a tunnel that looked like something had literally ripped its way through solid rock. As opposed to the relatively smooth exterior of the main tunnel he’d been traveling down, he could see what appeared to be deep scratch marks in the stone walls, and there were parts of the stone where it the rock had been sheared off, as if it have been ripped out by physical force alone. Not wanting to meet up with something that could do that, Larek nearly turned around, but he pushed himself to go deeper into the tunnel. He was resigned to finding a way out, and he wasn’t going to let a little darkness stop him from gaining what he needed.

As he walked further into the tunnel, he quickly learned why it seemed as if his Illuminate +2 stone had disappeared. The darkness seemed to thicken and become denser with each step, and soon enough he had to increase the Magnitude of his Directional Illumination up to 3, then 4 just to see a few feet ahead of him. By the time he found the stone he tossed inside, deactivated its Fusion, and slipped it back into his belt pouch, he was already at Mag 6; a few more steps and he was forced to used the nearly blinding light of Mag 7. As much as it strained his eyes, it was the only thing that helped to penetrate more than a few feet of the cloying shadows that surrounded him.

From what he could observe, the ripped-up tunnel he was in began to turn away from the main tunnel, which – when he looked back that way – was currently blocked by the darkness of his surroundings, even with the aid of his Fusion. Pushing on, he traveled nearly 200 feet with no significant change before something caught his attention just on the edge of the cone of illumination he was shining ahead of him.

Jerking the Fusion to look toward what caught his attention, his light touched briefly upon a shadowy figure that was at least 12 feet tall and vaguely humanoid in shape. There was no definition to the figure other than the fact that he could see that it had legs and a torso that was in proportion, but its arms were long enough that its hands appeared to drag upon the ground. Atop its shoulders was a perfectly round head with no neck to speak of, and two voids of blackness that was somehow darker than anything else he’d seen down in the tunnel stared back at him where its eyes should be. In addition, there appeared to be 6 separate curved horns that sat on top of its head, all curved toward the front like a set of teeth.

It was shocking, to say the least, as Larek hadn’t been expecting to find something quite like that, but the screech of agony as wisps of shadow seemed to burn off the figure nearly made him drop the stone rod in an effort to cover his ears, but he somehow managed to hold on tight to it.

The amount of time that the light was upon the figure was no more than a second before it seemed to flit away, and Larek attempted to find it by flashing his Directional Illumination Fusion around, but it appeared to be gone. Calming himself and regulating his breathing from such a scare, Larek leveled the staff he was wielding in his left hand and prepared to unleash magical projectiles at the figure if he saw it again.

Unfortunately, Larek didn’t have eyes on the back of his head, and the moment he took another step forward, he sensed something intangible hit him from behind. It began sinking into his body at a rapid pace, causing the Combat Fusionist to collapse to his knees, the stone Fusion and staff in his hands dropping as his fingers went numb. As he struggled to regain feeling in them and stay at least generally upright on his knees, he began to feel an intrusive presence that he immediately connected to the notification he had been given earlier.

An Umbral Demon had found him and was attempting to replace his soul.