Magical Engineering

Alex

From the moment I had stepped out of the ship, the voices were already in my head, gnawing and digging. But they were nothing compared to what I had felt this entire trip. Keeping up my normal face in defiance of their whispers wasn't even a challenge when weighed against the horrors that had occupied every waking moment.

These voices didn't hold a candle to the loss of William. My grief worked as a shield to insulate me from their incessant chittering. And soon my joy would block them entirely.

Their attempts to get into my head increased after Mel's display of power. And while I had no way to know for sure if they were connected, it would have been idiotic of me to assume they weren't. That meant the dungeon was watching us and bringing more power to bear as it saw our own strength. But as I had just said, there were jesters that had to die.

“Do the walls pulsate like that for the whole dungeon?” Maud asked in disgust. She was standing in front of one, tracing her finger along the swelling lines within it, but not quite touching them.

Yorela quickly walked over to Maud and pulled her hand away from the wall. “All chaos dungeons are different, but any dungeon I’ve ever seen that pulsated like that, well, let's just say it wasn't something you wanted to touch.”

“Yeah, Yorela is right. Keep yer asses away from those walls. We don't need anyone getting absorbed and winding up somewhere else in the damn dungeon,” Mel added. He was floating in the center of the chamber we were in, spinning and looking around everywhere.

It was a level of alertness that I had never seen out of him, but I imagined most people who had fought by his side already had. Mel looked both capable and worried. It was something I could completely understand.

Dad had looked like that so many times in my childhood. Again, it explains so much about why Mel and my father got along, even if at first glance they seemed so very different. But no, both of them, underneath that surface, were full of a competence that was covered in a deep anxiety. And that wasn't even getting into the complicated father dynamics that both of them shared.

“Come on, get your asses in gear. We need to get moving deeper before any of the jesters truly realize we're here. And considering we've got no idea what level of connection they have with the dungeon core, it's possible they already do,” Yorela ordered.

That was when the awkward silence began. Everyone else had just as much trouble keeping up the small talk as I had recently as we moved further into this nightmare of a dungeon. Worse yet, I could feel those little whispers growing in their intensity, and if I could, that meant everyone else was feeling it even worse.

“Uh, guys?” Maud questioned nervously. She had been the first to break the silence in over ten minutes. “I'm losing connection again with the soul chat. Do you think this place blocks our connection to the System?”

“No. Well, it can weaken our connection to the System, certainly. Nothing in chaotic space can actually block it. And that same weakness occurs throughout the entire thing. As for the soul chat, that doesn't seem System-based, at least from what's been described so far. I could be wrong though, this isn't remotely anything I'm an expert on,” Yorela answered.

“What exactly is happening to it?” Sanquar asked.

“It's like it's cracking. I don't know, it's hard to explain. It's almost like there's white noise making it difficult to get a clear signal. I don't really know a good way to describe it other than that. Is the soul chat analog?” she replied.

“Interference. Dungeon's probably alive,” Mel replied. “And if the full dungeon is alive, this shit just got an asston more dangerous.”

“Nah, it's about the same. Chaos dungeons, to exist the way they do, always seem to be a bit more alive than those in the Spiral. It's likely tied to everything we already talked about. Whatever that whispering is at the dungeon core here, it just has a more open pathway to them and deeper connections to their dungeons out here,” Yorela explained.

“Wait, dungeons can be alive? I thought that was just the dungeon cores within them,” I asked, suddenly confused about how any of this worked. My thought that I had finally started to wrap my head around any of this had been apparently very wrong.

“Ya ain't gonna get a good answer here, Alex. None of us are experts at dungeons. Hell, at this point, yer dad is probably one of the biggest experts out there, and I doubt he even knows how this works. But the best I can explain is that, whatever the extension of a dungeon core that a dungeon is, it don't always draw its energy from the core itself, or even most of the time. Wherever that's all coming from, sometimes it comes a hell of a lot more alive than others,” Mel answered.

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“Mel's right. This is just one of those weird areas of study,” Yorela added.

“You all know how little sense that makes when you say that, right? With the full population of the Spiral and just how many things there are that are so understudied, how is that even possible?” John asked, sounding somewhat bewildered.

“Oh, they know. Everyone who really starts to think about it very much knows. So much information vanishes from the public archives so often. A lot of worlds, when they're first integrated, look at the Spiral a lot like Earth does right now and wonder how any of this is possible. But that answer is an entrenched ruling system of the big factions and whoever their power brokers are in the Spire itself. It's also not a safe topic to discuss in a lot of places in the Spiral,” Sanquar answered.

“I don't like it. Then again, I am a wizard now, so maybe the trade-off is okay,” Maud said, giving one of her giant smiles that was obviously there to diffuse the growing aura of fear that was pushing down on everyone.

I could see each of their shoulders slumping just a little more as we continued our deeper march. And while I could feel the same overwhelming presence, it interacted differently in my brain. I was already scared. But that fear had melded with an angry determination. It was something that the whispers couldn't stop.

“The Spiral is many things to people. Some do find that trade-off well worth it. Others see their civilization destroyed for daring to question it. And as more of my memories start to come back to me, I find myself in the latter group.” Sanquar's voice was distant and haunted. His words didn't seem to carry as far as they should in the space.

“Are you guys okay? You're talking a bit weirder now, and half of you look ready to slump over,” Vrilk asked.

“We ain't kid. Whatever is in the air here is pushing down hard against us. Surprised ya ain’t feeling it too,” Mel replied.

Somehow, he had dropped nearly all the way to the ground before I had noticed how low he was floating. How had I missed just how strong this fear was until now? But Mel was right. Why was Vrilk immune?

“It's the energies of this damn place. Kid's probably been feeling it all his life. I doubt he's immune, just bigger tolerance. If this gets much stronger, he's going to feel the same way we are. But do your best to keep moving forward. Push those fears aside. Right now, they're all fake,” Yorela replied.

That confirmed it. The voices were getting to all of them. My little mental protections were keeping me safe, or at least reasonably safe, while the others were fighting something inside their heads. I only hoped they could hold until we were done.

“I don't know if it's just this place. I do feel something out there. Doesn't feel the way chaotic space normally feels. Wait, can you guys see that?” Vrilk asked, pointing toward a wall in the tunnel.

“See what?” I asked. There didn't seem to be anything special about the wall. It's pulsating just the same as everything else.

“I kind of just thought you were ignoring it at first, but then I noticed that none of you were even looking that way, which seemed strange. But there's a tunnel there, and a weird tower at the end of it. You really don't see it?” The fear was finally starting to grow in Vrilk's questions.

Mel closed his eyes as his body rotated away from me, his face now in direct line to where Vrilk had been pointing. His color started to rapidly shift as it looked like energy was building up within him. Several smaller Cloudforms, all looking like Mel but in miniature, appeared around him.

“Alright, that's helping disperse some of this damn effect. Kid’s right, there is a tunnel here that was being hidden from us. And while I ain't no expert, I've seen a few pictures and books before, and I think that's a jester's tower down there.”

Yorela walked straight to the wall Mel was facing. “Right here?” she asked.

“Yep,” Mel replied.

She then took two steps forward and vanished through the wall. “Yeah, it’s a Jester tower, alright. That probably explains all the interference. Kinda surprised we found it so easily. But also makes a little sense that they kept it this close to the entrance. I'm guessing this is directly connected to a tower of their home world,” Yorela called back, her voice sounding distant.

“Come on, get yer asses through that wall. We can debate the dangers of attacking a Jester tower head-on later,” Mel ordered.

“I don't think we have much of a choice, dangerous or not,” Sanquar said before stepping through.

I followed him immediately, seeing just what they had been talking about. Once on the other side of the wall, it was obvious the tunnel ended and opened wide, and in the center of that giant space was a building. It looked like it had been constructed out of animal parts. Bones and flesh made up the walls, some of them still moving.

“Is that tower made up of what it looks like, or is this still some illusion?” I asked. The sight had finally managed to truly unnerve me.

“Likely both. The Jesters’ magic is horribly corrupting, but I doubt that it is truly made up of half-dead living beings like that. It's probably closer to something they grew themselves,” Yorela answered, shaking her head at the sight.

That didn't change my opinion much. And the idea that William was somewhere in there, being forced to feel this horrible, rotting presence, turned more of the fear into rage. He didn't deserve this at all.

Beside me, the moose let out a loud guttural bellow and charged forward, his head down, antlers leading the way. Things that had been invisible before shimmered into my view as they were knocked aside by his charge. Small, half-alive jesters crumpled to the ground, trampled below him as he continued towards the tower.

“Dammit!” Yorela yelled. “We've got jesters. They know we're here. They probably know we were here the whole time. Get your asses over here now!”

The jesters seem to coalesce their own innate magic into horrible creations. They then use these creations to build their society. Each building block is alive in its own right. It's just conscious enough to understand the horror it's been forced to exist in.

Why the jesters prefer this method of building, no one knows. Or at least no one willing to talk to me knows. At the moment, my best guess is that it somehow amplifies their own magic. But as I have found a contact willing to take me to their home world, deep in chaotic space, perhaps soon I will learn more.

Xenobiology: Races Outside the Spiral by OITLR