A Jaded Life

The way back to the surface took, amusingly, a lot longer than the way down. Sure, on the way down there had been numerous foes waiting for us to appear and fight us to the death but on the way up, there were even more rooms, waiting for us to check them out. One of the things to check out was the strange standing ring, though nothing we did seemed to have any effect on it at all. To all appearances, it was completely inert, though incredibly hard, possibly impervious to all sorts of magic. Or it might simply be part of the dungeon, not something we were supposed to interact with at all, or it could lead to an entirely different part of the dungeon as some sort of portal, though one only accessible if the right conditions were met. Whatever the case may be, as we currently were, none of us had an idea how we might be able to interact with the thing.

But there were other interesting things to investigate on our way back to the top. And, as we learned early during our ascent, it paid to be thorough. That lesson was taught to us by a hidden safe I had to carefully crack open with my magic in what appeared to have been the office of the base’s second-in-command. Within, we found a total of ten metal bars, each the size of a loaf of bread and a lot heavier than one would think at first glance.

Five of these bars, each stamped with their weight at four-hundred and thirty ounces, a serial number and a seal I couldn’t place, were made of gold, while the others, stamped with similar specifications, were made of silver. At least according to identify, otherwise, I would have been hard-pressed to differentiate the metals from other materials. Sure, I knew that gold was incredibly dense, explaining the weight of the bar, but without some sort of encyclopedia and a well-calibrated scale, I couldn’t do anything with that information. Similarly, I knew that silver was heavier than, say, aluminium but the exact factors had been forgotten as unimportant. Curiously, I noticed that their interior, when analysed with Earth Magic, was incredibly uniform, making me wonder if the dungeon had blocked the material-altering effects of the change or if the metal had been generated by it in the condition we found it.

And those bars were only the first interesting find which we happily stored in our magically expanded bags. Another similar find was made in their machine shop, where we came across their CNC milling machine and its numerous blanks. Sure, those blanks lacked the sheer dignified class the gold bars were radiating but they were just as useful, if not more so. Sure, the gold and silver would likely be useful for my enchanting but the blanks, made of steel, aluminium, brass and a couple of other alloys could be used by Alex for their alchemy. Neither the blanks nor the bars were something we could readily make more of, nor could we hope to stumble across similarly pure materials in the outside world, thanks to the change. Thus, these finds, represented a unique opportunity we wouldn’t want to squander. An opportunity to push my ability to enchant items and Alex’s ability to make new and interesting things with their alchemy to the limit and allow us to make something entirely new.

Compared to the metals, the fully stocked mess was almost an afterthought. Sure, getting fresh food in a fairly wide variety was awesome, especially as the place retained its electricity, preventing spoilage. Amusingly, the mess also answered the question I had before, whether the dungeon created the metals or simply relics from before the change by giving us meals-ready-to-eat, alongside a few diary products. Those, by themself, weren’t all too interesting, though I was somewhat curious how they’d taste. No, the interesting parts, especially when it came to the dairy products, were the expiration dates. While I had no idea how long the MREs would keep, and thus what their expiration dates should be, I was fairly confident that no jug of milk bought before the change should have an expiration date in December of our current year. If that were the case, the milk would have had to have an expiration date almost a year in the future when it was packaged, not something I could believe. Thus, the milk, and likely the rest of the things we found in the dungeon, had been created by the dungeon in some inexplicable way.

Maybe that also explained what we found in one of the laboratories. There, placed within a heavy metallic box, we came across a metal I had never even heard of. Naquadah, the label called it, a description confirmed by Inspect, but other than that, we got nothing. Just from its weight, it might be some strange alloy of gold and tungsten or something like that, or specially treated tungsten with Naquadah being some sort of brand name, like Aspirin being a brand name for a specific organic acid the name of which I couldn’t quite recall, something starting with an A in any case. But people didn’t know the chemical name, they knew the brand name, even if they used an off-brand product, they’d call it Aspirin. Maybe this was the same. Or it might be an alien supermetal, secreted by these strange stomach worms we had found in the various people here. Who knew, I certainly didn’t and wasn’t too interested in finding out. Dissecting worms, or frogs, was far too close to biology-lab in high school for comfort. Not that the dissection was the problem but the high school part.

Maybe I could figure it out in the future, or Alex could make something with it. It certainly wasn’t going to stay here, not if it might be something completely unique. Plus, we had some space remaining in our bags, even if things started to get a little tight, especially after our visit to the mess and the electrician's workshop. In that workshop, we had come across another fairly wide variety of metals drawn into spools of wire. The largest was copper, unsurprisingly, drawn into spools bigger than the size of my waist but it wasn’t the only one. We also found silver, gold and platinum-wires, alongside different alloys, all of which might be useful for some future enchanting project. Or to make jewellery, there, we most certainly could use the wires, if we wanted to.

And it wasn’t just a wealth of material items we came across. We stumbled across another confirmation of the idea that the dungeon was making the stuff we found down here when Luna found a couple of papers in one of the laboratories that partially described the Kara’Kesh we had looted from the head-snake. While the documents didn’t have any details on the construction, there was quite a bit about the fundamental usage, though large parts of it went over my head. Those papers added another objective to our investigation, namely, checking out the various laboratories and papers in the hope of finding something useful, adding even more rooms to search to our trek up the seemingly endless stairs.

Amusingly, I started to wish for one of the snakeheads to have hidden somewhere, just so we had something else to do, other than check out the countless storage rooms, laboratories and barracks. Alas, we had no such luck, be it good or bad, and didn’t find any foes on our way. Just the wealth of material items and information, both of which should be considered a treasure in and of itself.

When we finally got back to the surface, the sun was already peeking out from beneath the horizon, making us briefly consider if we should try and make haste back but the few pink clouds in the otherwise bright, blue sky quickly put that idea to rest. We wouldn’t make it, so we should just stay here, in one of the remaining shacks and wait out the day. Which was exactly what we did, sleep in shifts for a few hours, until we were able to get back to our tower during the night.

Once there, I quickly put things back in order, wondering who had visited the tower in our absence. There were a few things out of place but nothing had been damaged, or even truly changed. Whoever it had been, they had been fairly respectful, though curious. I might have to take a closer look at some later point but, for now, I had other things to do. Namely, retread to the top of my tower and get comfortable on my throne.

The divide was beckoning and I truly wanted to challenge it, at least after putting the last two points I had open into Intelligence, pushing the attribute to ninety-five- I briefly considered whether I should put them into Intuition, just as I always did, but decided against it. Having my primary attribute at ninety-five, hopefully, one-hundred and five after crossing the divide, bringing the attribute higher than my level, was too big a temptation to pass up on. Sure, sixty Intuition sounded great, as did seventy after crossing the divide, but it lacked the same magnitude.

The trait I received, Improved Recall, wasn’t all that impressive, at least on the face of it. Improving my ability to recall new memories sounded good, but I wasn’t sure just how effective it actually would be. I already had a fairly good memory, even if the occasional detail slipped from my mind, and now, my memory was supposedly even better. I’d have to wait and see.

But regardless of my newly improved memory, now, it was time to challenge the second divide. To reach for even more power and break through the obstacles placed on my path by the system. It was a hurdle but only by leaping across it could I reach the higher path I wanted to tread on. A challenge and an opportunity rolled into one.

And I could hardly wait. Taking another deep breath, I drew out the power I held deep within me as I leaned back on my throne and sought to become something new. Something MORE.