Chapter 288: Forward Base Claimed

“So, here is the situation,” Rory said, standing in front of a projection formed through several light gems working in tandem. “We know there are ten Kaisers, some sort of super boss that makes Territory Alphas look like drone-class monsters.”

“We assume ,” The Spear corrected.

“Semantics,” Rory sighed. “But yes, we assume , all we know is they have the ‘energy’ of a tier ten monster, but unlikely to literally be as strong as a tier ten, or this would be suicide even if we had one hundred of each of us.”

“And that would be cheating,” The Rogue nodded sagely.

“Y-yes, yes, it basically would be cheating,” Rory said, holding back the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Eon wouldn’t let The First blatantly cheat like that, but neither here nor there, so, back to what I was saying . We know there are ten Kaisers, and the Kaisers seem to rule over portions of the planet, which are then broken up into individual ‘fiefs’ that are controlled or at least ‘headed’ by fiefdom alphas, which are themselves just territory alphas. Beating these territory alphas let us claim these ‘fiefs’ for ourselves.”

“So we need to clear out every fief to face the Kaiser of a region?” Tom asked.

“No, or I think it’s optional,” Rory shook his head.

“What makes you say that?” The Monk followed up.

“Hunch,” Rory said. “And also, that’s essentially been the M.O for basically ever , you can either take an optional route of making an event or boss easier, or you can face it head-on, or even in some cases, force a more challenging version. My guess is that with each fief we conquer, some of the latent energy that these Kaisers have access to is choked out.”

“That matches with how The First phrased the Kaisers as having the energy of a tier ten.” Allison nodded along.

“Exactly, but that’s not the end of the story.”

The projection that showed a hexagonal grid shifted, now pulling up the image of the deceased Apophis serpents.

“These are Apophis serpents,” Rory said, pointing out the obvious.

“Yes, we could all read their descriptions,” Zoey crossed her arms. “At least I think everyone here can read. Hey, what do you think people see on their interfaces if they can’t read?”

“Again, neither here nor there,” Rory groaned.

“Just asking questions,” Zoey said with a shrug.

“Neither here nor there ,” Rory repeated through gritted teeth. “Anyway, these Apophis serpents are an extremely rare form of monster. As in, I only know of a single one.”

“Your pet,” Eric said.

“Not my pet,” Rory corrected. “But you’ve got the right idea. So, how did they end up here?”

“E.O.N?” Eric shrugged his shoulders.

“Bingo,” Rory said, pointing a pair of finger guns at the shadowy rogue.

“Oh, really?” Eric seemed taken aback at being correct.

“In part,” Rory said. “Remember, The First explained that the monsters here weren’t brought up through the ordinary World Spirit fashion, that’s why they are sources of Anomalous Energy . My assumption is that Eon basically gave the First a catalog of the best hits, and the First was then given some excess energy to seed them directly. Furthermore, I think I figured something out.”

“Yeah, such as?” Zoey asked.

“I, I was about to explain,” Rory sighed. “Whatever. Fine, my assumption is that each Founder is ‘assigned’ two Kaisers. Five of us, ten Kaisers total.”

“And what makes you say that?” Allison asked.

“This,” Rory twisted his hand and pushed out, the interface pop-up from earlier presented to each of them once more.

“The Light Bringer Kaiser. What about it?” Eric asked.

“Pop quiz trivia,” Rory said. “In Christian theology, what was Lucifer represented by?”

“A snake?” Eric offered.

“Yes, but not what I was looking for,” Rory shook his head.

“Morning Star in some contexts,” Allison answered.

“Corrected. Second, does anyone know where Lucifer was first found?”

“Roman pantheon, god of Venus or something like that,” Zoey, of all people, pointed out.

“Bingo,” Rory nodded. “So, let’s put it together, Phosphorus,”

“Was the name for Venus?” Tom nearly jumped. “So, Phosphorus the Light Bringer is an allegory to Lucifer?”

“Almost,” Rory said, taking a moment to shake his head. “Less ‘Lucifer’ as in the Christian theology, and more so as the concept it represents.”

“A fallen angel,” Zoey said quietly, having pieced together Rory’s theory as everyone else looked mildly confused.

“Once upon a time, there was a Territory Alpha I was allied with, sworn friends with,” Rory said. “The Khan of Blue Lighting, known also as The Koi that Would Be, or the Empyrean Serpent.”

“Oh,” Eric answered. “This Kaiser. You think when E.O.N gave The First a catalog of the best hits, the best monsters from Aelia-”

“The Koi That Would Be was included in that ‘catalog,’” Rory nodded. “I think this ‘Phosphorus’ is the Khan of Blue Lightning reborn as a ‘fallen angel.’”

“Is that bad?” Eric asked. “Can’t we, like, just talk to it then?”

“It’s not genuinely the same monster,” Rory shook his head as a splintered crystal appeared in his hand. “Cracked Samsara Seed. Have any of you received any of these as drops yet?”

“Two,” Allison held two fingers up.

“Well, that makes the explanation easy. Just like Samsara seeds, outside of the ‘perfect’ Samsara seeds, may be used to raise an approximation of the original monster, I think this Phosphorus is in the same situation. I think.”

“You think ,” Allison said rather pointedly.

“Well, I can’t say for certain, my theory seems solid enough, the fact that Apophis serpents were the fief alphas as a part of Phosphorus’s region seems to imply this region is coded on ‘Architect’ history.”

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“It does make sense,” Zoey agreed with a shrug. “The good news is that we can take advantage of that, can’t we? If we can figure out what the Kaiser of a region is based on before actually facing it, we can start planning far in advance.”

“Yes, which I think is expected of us,” Rory said. “Which, if everything we’ve said is correct, then Phosphorus is a serpent-type monster that, at minimum, is a master of Heavenly concept manipulation, a concept that is parallel to lightning, meaning it's strong at durability negation as well as purification forces.”

“Well, that sucks for me,” Eric grumbled. “Primal Night is strong, but pound for pound this Kaiser will eat me up for dinner and spit me out, its lightning will shred my darkness.”

“Likewise,” Rory agreed. “One of my affinities-”

“ One of ?” Eric asked, as Rory ignored the question.

“-blood is inherently a corruptive-type affinity.”

“Durability negation sucks for me,” Zoey said with a frown.

“Nothing about Heavenly energy should outright counter me,” Tom said, the only one so far who wasn’t facing an annoying counter.

“Ditto,” Allison said. “With the one exception being strong enough purification forces can potentially ‘block’ my ability to bend and bounce off nearby space.”

“Wonderful,” Rory sighed. Based on what he’d seen, it was basically exactly as he’d expected, but the reality wasn’t something he wanted to have confirmed so blatantly.

“Sooooo,” Eric let the word drag out for several seconds before twirling a finger. “We take this first Kaiser nice and easy. Fully conquer its region. No need to make things harder when we don’t even really know what to expect.”

“Agreed,” Allison said, her face partially puckered as if she didn’t like the thought of turning away from a challenge. “I’m all for a no-holds-barred fight, but this isn’t against a peer or even a Territory Alpha, but something far beyond.”

“Ehh, can’t say I disagree,” Zoey nodded along.

“Does anyone have any disagreement then?” Rory asked, as the other Founders all shook their heads.

“Excellent,” Rory said, crossing his arms. “So, our plan of action will start in phases. First, we take full control of this territory and see whether that offers any specific advantages. From there, we potentially fan outwards, locating fief alphas, slaying them, and claiming more of the region for ourselves.”

“Should we roll together as a full group?” Tom asked.

“I think for the next territory we tackle, yes, but if we find territories doable in smaller groups, we can break up. Given the size of the planet, sticking together will make this take a very long time, like, a hundred years minimum .”

“You really think it will take that long?” Eric asked.

“Yes,” Rory answered honestly. He’d had experience clearing large areas before in the Deep Chambers and the Climb back the Reverse Mountains, and those weren’t anything compared to the full size of The First.

“What do you think is going to happen back on Aelia?” Eric questioned a second time.

“Life,” Allison answered on his behalf. “Life will go on. At this point, the planet should be relatively stable, without us there, no Banes, and our people are all essentially allies. They’ll probably continue expanding and adventuring as sentient life has done for all of history and erased history.”

“Damn, we’re going to be a little more than made-up folklore by the time we get back,” Eric sighed, before grinning. “Man, that will make stealing stuff so much fun.”

“Please don’t get ideas,” Tom sighed.

“Too late,” Eric shook his head before turning to look at Rory. “Anything really valuable at your place? Something that will be forgotten for a good few hundred years, that when I snatch it will go down in history?”

“Why would I answer that?” Rory asked.

“Dunno,” Eric shrugged.

“No, I’m not answering that,” Rory said. “Anyone, any questions, comments, concerns?”

“Can I have one of those cool ass gliders too?” Eric asked, continuing his harassment campaign against Rory, who once more chose to ignore the man.

“What about our Bane events?” Tom asked. “Allison referenced it, but with us not on Aelia, how do we expect that to go?”

“I assume that they will find their way here through some Eon bullshittery,” Rory said. “Zoey and I have fought in a tag battle involving our Banes before, so there is precedent for it turning into a group project.”

“Oh, fun,” Eric nodded. “So, someone can kill my Bane for me, great news.”

Ignoring the Rogue, a skill Rory suspected he was going to be working on quite a lot, Rory glanced around before nodding.

“Well, I guess we can finally go to bed.”

“Alright, won’t lie, that’s pretty damn nifty,” Rory muttered to himself, eyes closed and hand stuck within the glowing green orb that represented the shop inventory. The intent had been to get a feel for how much an anomalous bead was worth as far as buying power went, but he had discovered something in the process.

The shop inventory wasn’t static, increasing in offered items since the defeat of the triplet alphas.

Oh, the change wasn’t that drastic, only five new offerings. The first was a ‘Construct Servitor’, a golem that could be purchased for two whole anomalous beads. For someone who wasn’t Rory, he could see the appeal of an out-of-the-box construct that could be instilled with rather basic instructions or even used as guards.

Rory was more interested in option two, though, a ‘Construct Slate Board.’ For the cost of one bead, you’d receive a small slate that wasn’t altogether dissimilar from the skill slate Rory had used long ago to create the Earth Soul skill. You’d have to create your own golem body for the construct, and handle actually ‘programming’ the slate, but it would have far more flexibility and usability, for half the cost.

Item number three was moving away from the construct theme. An anomalous spire, it would crush pneuma into anomalous beads at a very slow and inefficient rate. Still, it was technically a form of anomalous bead income independent of killing monsters. It was also one thousand beads in cost.

Spire. That reminds me, I’ve got an idea for the essence spire back home, but maybe I’ll hold off until tier nine…

Item number four was particularly interesting. Well, they were all interesting for that matter, but what was interesting about the ‘Inert Keystone’ was that it was essentially a multi-use item, depending on how it was attuned or to what, capping of magical contraptions or the likes.

Lastly, there was the most expensive item of all, a ‘Territory Anchor’ for a whopping ten thousand beads, which would essentially operate like a streamlined version of the Null Window back in Ehkorrus, a perfect spatial anchor and node point all in one.

“Well, I’m not going to waste beads on prefab constructs, that’s for certain,” Rory sighed. “Outside of that, I can really only afford the Inert Keystone.”

Rory only had a handful of beads, thirty-six total. The inert keystone was an interesting item as far as cost went, because it was a sliding cost ; one could mentally adjust how durable, pneuma conductivity, or other traits it had in their mind as they focused on it, changing the cost. Focusing on a relatively ‘low spec’ version, Rory soon was the proud owner of a capstone made of craggy blue stone, as well as ten hand-sized slats made of pristine black marble.

Placing the slates inside his inventory, only the keystone remained present as Rory examined it, nodding after several seconds.

This should work.

Establishing a pneuma network within Base Null was Rory’s first priority, if only because he’d long since come to understand how beneficial that had been for Ehkorrus. The base Heart was already tackled. From the three territory alphas, they’d managed to retrieve one monster core, tier eight, and the size of a volleyball; it would make an excellent heart for the time being. Pneuma crushers would feed pneuma into Null’s heart. The problem was that if the baseline environmental pneuma were too heavy or destructive, ordinary run-of-the-mill pneuma crushers would degrade and fail in no time at all. Typically, the solution was a rather advanced system of gems, inscription, and material science. Rory could shortcut that with the Inert Keystone he’d just gotten his hands on, using it as the point of contact in and out of the crusher.

All of that was work to be done, but before Rory could decide where the best place to start was, the shadows nearby shifted as the familiar face of the Rogue appeared.

“Oh, you really are here,” The Rogue said, seeming surprised as Rory frowned at the man.

“Where else was I supposed to be?” He asked.

“Well, the Vanguard said- you know what, not important. I came to find you.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Rory said as he vaguely waved at the man and how he’d appeared in front of him.

“Whatever, don’t be a smart ass,” Eric rolled his eyes. “There is something I think you’d like to see.”

“Being?”

“Just follow me,” The Rogue said as he gestured for Rory to step toward the shadows.

Ehh, don’t see why not.

Stepping into the darkness, Rory felt himself shimmering through space, the shadows linking to one another in a way that was somehow distinct from his usual method of flicker teleportation. The feeling lasted only a moment before the two of them appeared elsewhere, now standing atop a large hill overlooking a rather massive, gaping pit in the ground.

“Oh,” Rory said, eyes widening.

“See, that’s what I figured you might say.”

Within the pit was a swarm of ants, each larger than the average human, armored and rather dangerous looking, black and pink liquid sizzling through cracks in the pit all around the ants. More importantly, it was what the ants were moving .

Boulders, boulders filled with sparkling veins of ore .

“The others are busy clearing out other pockets of monsters, tackling anything that is capable of being handled independently. I’m not exactly great at handling large area monster extermination, but skulking around such a hive is easy enough. You’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg of the goodies this place has.”

“Are you asking to team up?” Rory asked after a moment.

“Well, I’m not asking to circle jerk, that’s for certain,” The man crassly joked.

Rory glanced into the pit once more before crossing his arms.

“Let’s do this.”