mtlumby2d Chapter 43: Heart of Blue
Chapter 43: Heart of Blue
King Mathias The Fourth’s Soul Casino
Invitation Only
As he looked over at the sign at the base of the Neurotower, Shroud didn’t know what to make of it. He didn’t know what to make of .
“Are you going to stand there for another hour?” Ace teased him, blissfully unaware of the gravity of the situation.
“Mur thinks he loves himself too much.” The imp, in his Pitborn form, had taken the role of a bouncer in this new history and kept watch over the casino’s Gate. His new job hadn’t affected his behavior in the slightest.
“Where is Kari?” Shroud asked anxiously. The pain in his left arm had receded, and his Network feed of his friend showed him only darkness. Stitch’s one showed him safe, experimenting with his 'children'.
“Still in a medical coma,” Ace replied. “Stitch said she should wake up in a week or so.”
“She fought the good fight,” Mur said, with uncharacteristic respect. “She is strong, she will endure.”
The Blue Sorcerer figured the night of the hunters had happened, but due to being two people short it was won at a greater cost. “Ace, this is going to be a strange question,” Shroud began, “but do I have a biography running around?”
“Of course you do. You even made an holo-movie out of it, remember?”
Urgh, did he take all of Mammon's antics when he replaced him? “I would like to watch it,” Shroud said, as he walked through the Gate and into the soul casino, finding it relatively unchanged compared to the previous timeline. That didn’t make sense. If Mammon had been erased like he worried Maggie and Sol had been, then that whole casino should have never existed.
No. Not erased. Sealed. That meant that chest bastard existed somewhere. Celia had said the same and wanted him free. “Where is Mammon?” Shroud asked Ace.
“The seal, you mean?” Ace frowned, answering his question with another question. “What is Network?”
“My Lock, which connects people and allows me to observe you from afar,” Shroud replied, guessing what she did. “Right now it’s telling me you’re prodding to see if I’ve been replaced.”
“You haven’t,” she said, still worried. “An infiltrator would show more skill at deception. But you are acting very, very suspicious.”
“I think someone messed with my memories somehow,” he said, the real explanation probably being too complicated. “Maybe Melusine.”
“Messed up enough that you want to rewatch your whole life?” Ace clearly didn’t believe him. “Be honest, please.”
Shroud sighed, as he tried to find the best way to word it. “I used that Load feature, and apparently it transported me to an alternate history. Yours.”
To his amazement, Ace actually seemed to believe him, or at least didn’t reject his words instantly. She could probably tell he believed in it based on voice alone, and perhaps she was curious enough to entertain the possibility. “Alternate how?”
“I wasn’t king of the Midnight Market, Mammon was.” Ace chuckled at this, unaware of the irony involved. “And Blackcinders, as far as I know, isn’t about to invade.”
“Never heard of the Midnight Market. The mimics call this sphere Mimicworld, and it stuck. They are adorably simple-minded.” Ace arched an eyebrow. “Sol and Maggie, they were our teammates in the other history?”
She caught on fast. “You’re taking the news surprisingly well.”
“I am not a skeptical person, and I have seen sorcery just as worldshaking. Even then it does surprise me. What do you remember from the old history?”
“Concordia conquered Earth.”
“It did, ten years ago,” she said. “That’s when you emigrated to Mimicworld, thanks to a kind smuggler’s help.”
Was that the divergence element? “Can you elaborate further?”
“I apologize but I am not an expert in your life,” Ace teased him. “From the broad strokes, your father emigrated with you to Mimicworld, and stuck rich there, while your mother stayed on Terra Firma to continue her re
He had stepped in the womb of sorcery itself, and it empowered him.
The sorcerer felt a call from below, an invisible force pushing him to continue. When the path bifurcated, he took turns without understanding why. The compulsion grew stronger, enough to make him brush away thoughts of going back.
Technological tumors burst from the walls, dripping colored mist. Golden fibers carried bluish pulses of information below his feet, the fibers of a brain spanning the Midnight Market. His brain computed strange turns in the corridors, mathematical complexities that his obsolete human mind worked feverishly to comprehend.
At long last, he reached a cavity, maybe the bottom of the Neurotower. A dome that could fit multiple stadiums within, with a metal abyss opened at the center, a pit spitting out sorcerous bile. The mist had thickened, yet he could see a strange structure integrated to the ceiling above him. An immense sphere of metal and solid energy, integrated into the tower-structure, yet clearly a later addition. A jail whose prisoner struggled fruitlessly to escape.
Shroud ignored it, walking towards the iron maw that called him. He floated towards the crater, gazing down into the abyss and facing the blinding, divine light down.
He there.
All his life, his entire existence, every event in his worthless human life had only one purpose; to lead him to this furnace of sorcery, to become one with this glorious machine and take his rightful place as supreme ruler of all existence.
His mind was clear of all doubts. He no longer cared about his friends, about Concordia. They were below his notice. They hadn’t been to wield this power, to Save and Load and Network; they weren’t .
Only this technology, this abyss mattered. Only he could wield it to its full potential. He would learn how to use it, master it, unlock all of its ancient secrets, then he would emerge to network them all. Every dragon, every human, every tiny creature in the farthest corner of creation; his touch would spread like a virus that would infect the world. A networked would network another until all joined the ranks of his slaves.
He would synergize them until he subsumed their disgusting free-will and their rampant, disordered thoughts; until their minds were echoes of own, automatons that would obey only the divine lightning of his will. A perfect universe, where .
That was his destiny. To become a great iron god that would dominate the cosmos.
“This is not me.” The words left his mouth on their own, and he repeated them with more strength. “This is not me, this is not me.”
The structure affected his mind through Network.
It didn’t matter. He couldn’t deny the truth, the truth that the light would provide if he descended within. The power to rewrite history, to create a beautiful world where Mom and Dad were alive; he could erase all his mistakes and lows, keeping only the highs. A world where he ruled as emperor, as the One Above All.
He glanced at the light deeper into this iron abyss, down the maw that would digest him a and spit him out a . He just had to fall into the furnace of sorcery, let his imperfect flesh burn and reveal the shining metal beneath...
“This is not me!” Mathias repeated more strongly, turning away from the abyss, from the tower’s insidious call.
He was a man, in control of his fate, which was to become one with the iro- which was to save his friends. Friends he could bring back by giving himself to—whom he could bring back by .
Mathias focused on memories of his human life, which the call tried to drown in glorious visions. He focused on the kind face of Solomon, of Maggie, of Kari, of Ulysses and Perse and all those who would worship him once he became the greatest magician—once he turned his back on the abyss.
He was in control, not this tower. Yes, he was in control. It was meant to obey him, to fuel his ascension to the one abov—to fuel Magik Online. He opened his browser but wondered why settled for this knock-off when power welcom—when the power threatened to brainwash him into a monster. He searched for the Mindshield spell, which he wouldn’t need because was strong enough to master—because he needed protection.
Mathias purchased Mindshield, and cast it immediately, the power of the tower empowering his spell enough to make a layer of Blue Flux visible on his armor.
As if putting on earplugs to drown out a cacophony, the prideful thoughts lessened in potency, becoming background noise. Much to his horror, Shroud could still hear them, even with the spell protecting him; at least he could finally think for himself again.
What did Wormson say? That Blue Sorcerers thought themselves gods when they escalated and fell into madness?
Mathias had come perilously close. Another minute without protection in this heart of sorcery, and he would have never returned to sanity. Celia had told him Blue was control, efficiency. The more he channeled that power, the more his thoughts turned to control alone.
He needed to think as Mathias Martel while down there, to connect to his old, normal life and remain firmly grounded. The tower’s power, Network itself, threatened to subsume him if he wasn’t careful.
Mathias turned his back on the abyss and whatever horror laid at the bottom, focusing on the sphere above him. A forcefield similar to the one that protected the Occult Matrix on Earth, yet used here as containment.
The sorcerer gazed at a spirit of gold, a living storm of dust and gemstones. While the formless entity lacked shape, it often appeared just a tiny bit ready to solidify into a crown, a torso, hands...
Mammon wasn’t a mimic; or rather, only half of him.
Infernoid. Like Jack. The fusion of a fiend and a mimic into a single horror.
Could that explain Mammon’s strange sorcery? If the fiend wielded one color—probably Orange—and the host another, maybe it could combine them the same way Hacks did?
Wait. The mimics making up most of that world didn’t exist in the timeline where Mammon freed himself. Had that bastard had exterminated his own species somehow, in the old history?
“Serves you right,” Mathias taunted the imprisoned creature, who kept banging against his prison. The entity tried to speak to him, but no sound emerged. The dust shifted into the shape of a lock and a key, then a crown.
Trying to tempt him into opening the prison, eh?
Through the all-sides vision provided by Glass Field, the sorcerer noticed another person walking into this iron purgatory. “Well,” Mathias said, readying his lightshards. “Up for more?”
“I have not come to fight.” Melusine walked within his range, revealing themselves. The armor matched that of Sol but streamlined, sleeker and closer to the skin. Instead of the knight-like look of the priest’s attire, this one reminded Shroud of a warrior queen, espousing the humanoid, feminine form below. Four telescopic tentacles hung from its back, ready to strike. “I’ve come to help.”
“You remember.”
“Of course. Did you believe that power to be your only prerogative?” The agent, a woman, shook her head. “But we do not have much time. Blackcinders will attack soon.”
Players' StatsAccountDragonslayers Guild ModeratorNameShroudNetworkProgressHolderMathias MartelBroadcastUnlockedLevel2 (Adept)Grant SpellUnlockedAffinityBlueSynergizeUnlockedLockNetworkLocked Feature(0/7)Spellcoins9Overlock(0/1)Stored Saves6Save?Load?Spell CompendiumNameDotAffinityPremium Thoughts1BlueBabel1BluePurge1GreenBeastmaster2BlueMindshield2BlueHeal2GreenGlass Field2Orange/BlueLightbringer2Red/OrangeMad World2Blue/GreenAccountDragonslayers GuildNameYoshikageOversoulProgressHolderKari MatsumotoRememberUnlockedLevel2 (Adept)Channel SoulUnlockedAffinityYellowLocked Feature(1/3)LockOversoulLocked Feature(0/7)Spellcoins12Overlock(0/1)Spell CompendiumNameDotAffinityBabel1BlueWallcraw1GreenPeak1GreenNeedless1GreenWard1YellowDoom Sense1YellowSpiritsight1YellowHands of Slaughter3Yellow/Violet/RedAccountDragonslayers GuildNameThe Mur!AdamantProgressHolderMurmur the ImpHarderUnlockedLevel1 (Novice)Locked Feature(0/1)AffinityOrangeLocked Feature(0/3)LockAdamantLocked Feature(0/7)Spellcoins23Overlock(0/1)Spell CompendiumNameDotAffinityReinforce1OrangeDiceweight1OrangePitborn2Green/RedAccountDragonslayers GuildNameDocInseminateProgressHolderNathaniel StitchSpawnUnlockedLevel1 (Novice)Locked Feature(0/1)AffinityGreenLocked Feature(0/3)LockInseminateLocked Feature(0/7)Spellcoins15Overlock(0/1)Spell CompendiumNameDotAffinityNoneNoneNoneAccountDragonslayers GuildNameAceCastlingProgressHolderSaga FreysonSummonedUnlockedLevel2 (Adept)Piercing BoundaryUnlockedAffinityVioletLocked Feature(2/3)LockCastlingLocked Feature(0/7)Spellcoins1Overlock(0/1)Spell CompendiumNameDotAffinitySwitch1VioletPathfinder1VioletTimesense1VioletUrbanstep1VioletSeamancer1OrangeAccel1WhiteDoorway2VioletSplash2Orange/VioletRainmaker2Orange/Violet
Spell of the Day
Sharespell
Affinity: White
Dot: 2
Price: 6-10
Activation: Active, Direct Touch Vector.
By touching someone, the caster can transfer them a spell affecting the caster (such as Peak); the user thus loses the spell, while its effects and durations are transferred to the target..