Chapter 294: Spectro Orckalite

Taking their time making their way down the recently opened, spiraling passageway even farther into the former orckalite ant nest, the trio of Founders soon found themselves standing before yet another sealed chamber.

“Well, that’s annoying,” Eric grumbled. “What’s the point of opening a passageway only to close it at the bottom?”

“Thematically fitting,” Tom shrugged.

“How so?” Eric asked.

“Not sure, I was just throwing it out there,” Tom shrugged once more.

“See, this is what happens when you prod his entire wise elder schtick; it falls apart,” Eric jerked a thumb toward Tom as he smirked. “But all his people just grovel and go 'Yes, Grand Patriarch' or stuff like that.”

Rory, meanwhile, paid the bickering duo no mind, instead focusing on the sealed chamber wall, which felt vaguely familiar. Pressing his hand against it, he flinched a moment later as the duo looked at him strangely.

“What was that about? Piss yourself?” Eric asked.

“No,” Rory said. “It’s a special form of lock mechanism that only lifts when certain requirements are met.”

“So, a puzzle door,” Eric answered.

“Not quite; in this case, it's not really a puzzle; it’s looking for specific items to be brought here. My guess is that throughout these hives and dens and whatnot scattered in this region, each has a bonus area that can only be unlocked by bringing items from other ones.”

“Oh, so like a full, clear reward?” Tom offered up.

“Exactly,” Rory nodded.

“Well, that fuckin’ blows, because now we have to leave,” Eric grumbled.

“Not exactly,” Rory said, grinning for the first time. “Because I think I can hotwire it.”

“I don’t think you can say hotwire about a door,” Tom muttered.

“You’re saying you can bust in and we can do some sweet, sweet looting without ever going through the proper procurement process?” Eric asked.

“Bingo,” Rory confirmed.

“Shit, say less, my friend,” Eric said, offering his hand for an outstretched high five.

Staring at the man’s hand for a moment, Rory shrugged as he clasped hands with the habitual kleptomaniac.

“So, how exactly are you busting in?” Eric asked after a moment.

“Simple, but not really. This door is locked by a mechanism that functions a bit like a skill slate, lots of intent comprehension, and reweaving, and all that fun jazz. To let us know what items are required, it needs to tell us, but that’s also the vulnerability. I can latch onto those points and ‘rewire’ them to essentially be whatever we want them to be.”

“Not that I’m against the idea,” Tom suddenly spoke up. “But doesn’t this seem like a strange lack of foresight from E.O.N?”

“I don’t think it was E.O.N. that set this up,” Rory shook his head. “I’m guessing a lot of how this planet functions is a bit of a rush job, lots of corners cut to prepare it for us. Eon allowed them to catch up to Aelia by giving them the energy needed to rush this stuff, basically, but it doesn’t seem to be doing much more for them than that. In this case, I’m assuming The First likely chose a one-size-fits-all mechanism for these sub-dungeons or whatever you want to call them. Because of that, you end up with situations like this where The First never even considered the possibility.”

“Oh, shit,” Eric grinned. “I love a rich family with shitty security cameras.”

“One way to think about it,” Rory sighed.

“How long?” Tom asked.

“Normally… two days? But I can cut that down to eighteen hours as long as you guys keep an eye on me.”

“What, going to do some fancy ritual?” Eric asked.

“Nah,” Rory shook his head. “But I am going to be staring at the wall unblinking, and if I really dive into that, I won’t be able to spare any awareness externally.”

“We will watch over you,” Tom offered, glaring at Eric. “Right?”

“Right,” Tom grumbled. “I thought breaking in and stealing shit would be a little more exciting.”

“Real life isn’t like the movies,” Rory said with a tut-tut of his tongue and a quick wag of his finger. “Well then, I suppose I don’t have any more reason to wait around.”

“Unless you’re about to suggest a circle jerk, in which case I’m out, not my jams,” Eric said with a crass snort.

Just ignore him.

Lips set into a tight, creased line of non-amusement, Rory shook his head before focusing on the doorway, Tom in the background, likewise rolling his eyes.

“I knew I’d seen one of these before,” Zoey sighed, staring at the barrier of mossy wet rock in their way.

“A rock?” Allison asked.

“No, you know as well as I do that random rocks appearing after a monster is killed aren’t usually coincidental,” Zoey reminded her younger sister. With a strong suspicion of what it was, she pressed her hand against it, then shuddered a moment later.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to for the genuine story.

“Are you okay?” Allison asked her older sister, momentarily concerned.

“Yeah, but it is what I thought. Once, Rory and I pursued this territory alpha through a delve space that involved climbing a really fucking tall spire. Occasionally, there would be these doorways that were mini trials to clear. Something about this rock gave me that same feeling.”

“So, what does it need us to do?” Allison asked.

“Well, it wants us to bring specific goodies from other places. An oversized turtle shell, the mandibles of a giant ant…”

“Oh,” Allison said, understanding. “So, we can probably assume that all of these places have these ‘hidden caches’ that can only be opened after clearing others out as well.”

“Bingo,” Zoey said, borrowing the vernacular from Rory. “Except…”

“Except?”

“I think there has been a bit of an error.”

“An error? We did something wrong?”

“Not us.” Zoey shook her head, smirking slightly. “The ‘security measures,’ if you want to call it that. When E.O.N. sets these things up itself, they are watertight, vacuum sealed, whatever phrasing you want to pick from, you can tell there is nothing to pick at around those edges, you do it how E.O.N wants you to, or not at all.”

“But not here?”

“No,” Zoey shook her head. “Now, I don’t think I have the skills needed to break through with that said, but…”

“But?” Allison repeated, her older sister enjoying playing the mystery up a bit too much for Allison’s liking.

“But I think I know someone who can.”

“Anddddd through,” Rory sighed, cracking his neck as he slowly eased himself out of his trancelike state.

The ‘doorway’ before them, a glorified slab of stone that they could tell was impenetrable from the moment they’d seen it, began to crumble and disintegrate before their very eyes, cascading to the floor in a rush of debris and dust.

“Shit, you’re going to have to teach me to do that,” Eric said.

“It’s not that complicated a process, at least not in this case. It was just untangling a ‘knot’ of meanings, cutting out pieces of the threading, and restitching together a new thread in place of the removed sections.”

“I don’t know how to sew,” Eric said, deadpan.

“I… I wasn’t being literal,” Rory sighed. The moment lasted only a brief second longer, until Rory felt as if he were having a seizure , his eye utterly spasming as he bent over, groaning and clutching his face.

“Wow, shit, you dying?” Eric asked, suddenly caught off guard, before he, too, grabbed at his head.

“Guys?” Tom asked, looking between the two.

“ Fine ,” Rory groaned as he slowly stood back up, a droplet of blood leaking from his eye. “But I just got a major hit.”

“A major hit?” Tom asked.

“Valuables,” Eric answered as he stood upright a moment after. “Bob the Builder here probably has an eye skill like mine; you can sense valuables.”

“Something like that,” Rory answered, not surprised that the Rogue would have something similar to his former Eye for Potential .

The chamber, unsealed, looked like nothing more special than a nesting or resting area large enough for the former Orckalite Avenger. What was special was the lump of metal in the very center of the room. It looked like the rest of the rose orckalite they had seen across the walls and shattered boulders within the hive, except that, rather than pink and black, it shone with opulent iridescence.

“Hot damn ,” Eric whistled.

“Double that,” Rory agreed.

Tom, the only one without any potential vision of the three, looked at the strange orckalite variant in confusion.

“What’s so special about it? It’s a high grade, relatively speaking,” Tom frowned. “But it's only one step up from Rare; Aberrant is hardly the craziest rarity any of us have seen before. I can say that with certainty.”

“I’m not the expert on this stuff,” Eric said, raising his hands as if in surrender. “But I can say it ain’t that simple.”

“It’s not,” Rory confirmed. “Rarities and grades are non-conforming; you don’t lump them all together equally. For things that are extremely common, such as trees, a ‘rare grade’ material isn’t actually that rare. In contrast, for materials that are normally exceptionally rare, an uncommon grade might already be better than a rare grade of another material. Then some things even break those rules.”

“Uh-huh,” Tom nodded along as Rory lectured.

“Metal fits into that second camp. They tend to stay lower on the grade scale, from what I’ve seen so far, and you only reach higher grade materials through alloying or the like.”

“Uh-huh,” Eric said, taking his turn with the dunce cap.

“Rose Orckalite is already a bit of a weird case,” Rory said, as he suddenly summoned a chunk that he had nabbed on their way down.

Rose Orckalite

A metal formed of irregularities, it is defined by mismatches. While there is little difference in physical integrity compared to high-grade uncommon metals, the irregularities shine through when viewed through a conceptual lens, carrying the conceptual strength expected of mid-grade rare metals.

The fact that, physically speaking, it wasn’t much better than any other metal Rory had seen in raw state before had been a bit of a downer, but the fact that it was comparatively soft while also having a high level of conceptual integrity was something that Rory felt like could have some serious promise with only a bit of experimenting.

The same could not be said about the new variant of Orckalite that they were all staring at.

Spectro Orckalite

Light exists not as a single visible color or even a narrow band, but as a wide spectrum ranging from the lowest frequencies to high-intensity light. Spectro Orckalite is the source from which all lesser Orckalite is derived, degrading over time into its lesser variants.

“So, Rose Orckalite is just one of several types of Orckalite,” Tom noted.

“Seems that way,” Rory agreed.

“Why the fuck do I get a full description for this stuff, but not normal Orckalite?” Eric asked.

“Probably because it's purposefully vague with Spectro Orckalite,” Rory answered. “Whereas Rose Orckalite hinted at things.”

“Uh-huh, chalking it up to E.O.N bullshit,” Eric muttered. “It’s a pretty big fuckin’ lump of metal at least.”

“Thankfully,” Rory said. The deposit of Spectro Orckalite was the size of a coffee shop table, enough material that if split up five ways, wouldn’t cause arguments.

“Question,” Eric stuck his hand up as Rory frowned.

“Yeah?”

“What are the chances that The First wanted to just hand this shit out for free?”

“It’s not for free; we had to go through three territory alphas,” Tom pointed out.

“Semantics, you know what I mean,” Eric grumbled.

“Not high,” Rory said, answering the question, and having a bad feeling that he knew where Eric was taking this.

“Right, so, that means it’s probably E.O.N that is making sure there are juicy rewards to find… Meaning it’s needed to balance the odds.”

“Meaning, E.O.N fully expects us to need these qualities of rewards to prevail or make this entire thing fair,” Tom quietly said.

The trio was silent for several seconds before Eric spoke up.

“Well, now that I fucked the mood, how about we hit the pub after a hard day’s work? I’ll just keep the Spectro McGuffin safe on-”

“No,” Tom sighed. “Rory, you hold on to it. Not like any of us can make good use of this stuff, and Eric there will probably sleep on it or something.”

“Hey, you make me sound like a sexual deviant. If I slept on it, it would be like a dragon sleeping on their hoard, and not like-”

“I got it,” Rory interrupted, his eye twitching as he very briefly granted an unwanted image. “I got it.”

“If you say so,” Eric shrugged. “So… back to camp?”

“Back to camp,” Rory sighed.