Elsewhere

Sometime later, Duke rose to his feet and took stock of his situation. First, I’m way too close to the Clanhold if anyone attacks it with a weapon like the dreadnaught’s. That was absolutely insane. Second, I need to find out if the ship got out of here.

Duke TELEPORTED to the area he had used for his own mech training, hoping it was out of range of anything hitting the Clanhold. He sighed as he realized that, once again, he didn’t have the time needed to do what he wanted to do.

With a sense of dread, he activated his communications crystal. “Iron Reaver, this is Duke. Come in please.” It did not occur to him until after he spoke that he had reverted to his military radio discipline. Am I that anxious? Damn.

He waited a few minutes and repeated the call. After an hour of repeating the call, he resigned himself to the situation. The ship was gone, and he was alone again. What did strike him as interesting is that there was no sign of the Syndicate fleet in the sky above. Maybe I really took the dreadnaught out. That would be something. I guess I should check my notifications and see what they tell me. Then I have to move on to plan…oh, fuck it. I’ll call it plan Z at this point.

He just had too many notifications. Most were experience notifications. This was a problem he had run into before and managed to get the system to combine similar ones together and summarize.

*** For defeating 87,196 foes of varying levels and tiers ranging from 1 to 4, you receive 24,661,209 experience. You have gained 105 levels to reach level 250. You have Tiered up to Tier 6. You gain 86 levels. You are now level 87. You have 3,717 Characteristic Points to spend.

You have options for your Tier 6 advancement:

Create a new Ability (restrictions apply)

Gain an additional Class Ability (Tier-based restrictions apply)

Merge exiting Abilities to create a new Ability

Gain 600 bonus Characteristic Points

Gain 100 levels in any Skill or Ability

Increase the rank of any one Class Ability

You have improved several of your Skills and Abilities:

Your Stealth Skill has ranked up to Practiced 3

Your Areial Maneuvering Skill has increased to Practiced 51

Your TELEPORTATION Ability has increased to Grandmaster 106

Your REGENERATION Ability has increased to Master 14

Your DUNGEON MANIPULATION Ability has ranked up to Practiced 4

Your AURA CONCEALMENT Ability has increased to Initiate 27

Your LASTING DISGUISE Ability has increased to Initiate 25

Your OVERCHANNEL Ability has increased to Adept 112

Your MENTAL FORTITUDE Ability has increased to Adept 65

Your UMBRAL REAPER Ability has increased to Adept 105

Your CLEANSE Ability has increased to Practiced 48

Your RESTORE Ability has increased to Master 84

Your INVENTORY Ability has increased to Practiced 58

Your FLIGHT Ability has ranked up to Adept 3

Your CLAIRVOYANCE Ability has ranked up to Practiced 2

Your DUNGEON SENSE Ability has increased to Master 48

You have gained a new Skill. Starship Piloting has been gained at Untrained 1 ***

Duke blew out a breath. Tier 6. 37-hundred points to spend. Wow. That was more than I expected. Then again, I didn’t walk into this expecting to kill almost 90,000 Syndicate goons. I should feel some way about that but, strangely, I don’t. I have to deal with other harsh realities right now. The Iron Reaver is missing and the whole Clan with them. That blast would have been enough to destroy the ship for sure. Dammit! Time to see if the rest of the Syndicate ships are still around. Well, that and figure out what I’m taking for my Tier 6 Ability. And allocate points – have to do that too.

Duke decided to allocate points first off. He poured enough points into his Agility to bring it up to 2,500. Then brought his Intuition up to 2,000. He then brought his base for Strength, Endurance, and Reason up to 1500. The remaining 176 points went into Psyche, bringing it up to over 39,000 with his Title enhancement.

The turmoil in his mind that he didn’t even realize had been there settled back down with the Psyche increase. With a shake of his head, he delved into the Class Abilities available to him. When he opened up the menu, he saw that he had three Abilities available at his Tier: DUNGEON MONSTER CREATION, DUNGEON ENGINEERING, and DUNGEON TRANSPORTATION.

Duke delved into each in order.

*** DUNGEON MONSTER CREATION: This Ability allows you to create dungeon monsters outside of a dungeon. These monsters are wholly under your control and can be given commands or even piloted remotely. Given sufficient Mana investment and Ability rank, these creations could be intelligent and able to operate independently. Over time, these creations have the potential to earn experience and grow like any other lifeform.

DUNGEON ENGINEERING: This Ability takes DUNGEON MANIPULATION to a whole new level. It allows you to rapidly make dramatic changes in a dungeon’s design and layout. A dungeon’s entire theme, cast, and layout can be changed in a matter of minutes. It also significantly increases the value of items that can be removed from dungeons.

DUNGEON TRANSPORTATION: This Ability allows for instantaneous transportation from any dungeon to another dungeon that you have either planted or have visited. This transportation is limited to you but can cover any distance across the cosmos and all associated dimensions. ***

Duke spent some time pondering these choices as they all seemed to have significant benefits to him. I don’t need DUNGEON TRANSPORTATION since I have my TELEPORTATION that can get me anywhere I need to be. But then again, removing any distance restriction would be amazing. No, I’m going to skip this one for now. With my Ability and stat increases my maximum range on TELEPORTATION is around 17,000 light years. I can get to where I need to be pretty quickly.

DUNGEON ENGINEERING was another one that Duke discounted immediately but that last line intrigued him. Just how significant is the increase in the value of things I can take out of a dungeon? Could I pop into a dungeon, create a custom-designed weapon to exploit an enemy’s weakness, and pop out to hit them with it? Could I create an entire ship and fly it out? So many unknowns but I’m certain I could at least do the weapon thing. That could be a game-changer if I have any prep time. Or I could just create a bunch of weapons and have them sitting in my INVENTORY.

Finally, DUNGEON MONSTER CREATION seems very interesting. I have no idea what the Mana costs or restrictions are on it. It doesn’t list a cap on how many I can create so I could possibly make an entire army of runescripted dinosaurs to run rampant on my enemies. It might be a high Mana-cost but my Mana pool is tremendous right now, and will only increase. I wonder how intelligent I could make a dungeon monster?

Duke considered the choices before him and finally decided. He chose DUNGEON MONSTER CREATION and instantly was flooded with knowledge about how the Ability worked and what it cost to use. He imagined it would be very expensive to create powerful monsters, but since it was all a Mana cost, he grinned as he knew his Mana was way beyond what anyone at his Tier should have. As he set about to create his first monster, he was interrupted by his comms crystal.

“Duke, I don’t know if you hear me, but I could really use some help. This is Mira and we are at the rendezvous point but the Syndicate is in pursuit. I don’t know how they followed us here but there are three heavy cruisers chasing me taking pot shots at long range. I can outrun them for quite a while, but they might be calling in some fast-attack ships. That would be a bigger problem.”

“I’m on my way,” Duke responded, dismissing the screens for DUNGEON MONSTER CREATION and pouring 10 million Mana into a TELEPORT to get him to the bridge of the Iron Reaver, grinning like an idiot at not having lost everyone. Despite the three heavy cruisers in pursuit, Duke’s mood had elevated instantly upon hearing that the ship made it out.

The bridge was a vision of tension. The entire Elder Council of the Clan were taking up stations assisting Mira and Lya whose hands flashed over controls, keeping the ship ahead of their pursuers. The Elders held on with white knuckles as they tried their best to assist. No one seemed to notice Duke as he had arrived at the rear of the bridge, behind everyone.

“Don’t let them open the airlock! Mechs aren’t going to do shit against a trio of heavy cruisers!”

“Captain, I really don’t think they care. They are going to go screaming into space and fight our enemies. That is the way of the Clan.”

Duke stepped forward, “Perhaps I can give the heavy cruisers something else to worry about.”

“Holy fuck, Duke! I’m damned glad to see you. I don’t know what you did to the dreadnaught, but it got them pissed like I’ve never seen. They left the transports behind to pursue us and the goddam idiots in the mech bay think they can take them on!”

“Let them know that I have it handled. Just keep your distance and out of weapons range,” Duke responded coldly. He calmly walked over to the navigational console, Lya nearly leaping out of his way like prey fleeing a predator. Without a thought to her reaction, he pulled up a visual of the pursuing ships only to discover that they were of a design he did not recognize. He chuckled to himself as he realized that he had only seen one other design of a heavy cruiser so his opinion of what was unusual was pretty weak.

The ships were all the same design which looked to Duke like giant metallic mantises. There was a roughly triangular forward section that Duke assumed contained the bridge that extended at an angle out of a neck which extended from the main body. It gave the impression that the “head” of the craft was looking down slightly from the body. There were a pair of “wings” on each side of the ship that seemed to hold the weapons of the ship. Finally, there were legs extending under the ship which Duke assumed were for landing or maybe they had some form of grappling capability. He just didn’t know.

Duke looked up from the display of the two ships to meet eyes with Mira, “Fear not. I will squash these insects.”

“Those insects have enough firepower, individually, to tear my ship to pieces with a single volley. And they have some sort of way of tracking us even after we jumped here so that is more than a small problem. And what the fuck is up with your eyes?”

“My eyes?”

“Yes, your eyes,” Mira produced a small mirror and handed it to Duke.

“Wow, that’s new,” Duke responded as he saw his eyes in the mirror’s reflection. His pupils looked like a pair of burning coals surrounded by swirling black smoke. “No wonder everyone’s so freaked out looking at me. Let me see if I can fix that.” He pulled on his LASTING DISGUISE Ability to bring his eyes back to their original appearance.

“Yeah, that’s tons better. You don’t look nearly as freaky. Now, you said something about having a plan to take care of our pursuers…”

“You bet. I’m going to go over there and kill all of them. Simple plan.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“What about their shields?”

“Just watch.”

Duke TELEPORTED to the upper neck section of the “leftmost” ship. As expected, he was not able to penetrate the ship’s shielding but that was fine with Duke. None of the ship’s weapons could reach him in this position with them all being mounted below the wings of the ship. Yep, this is the spot. Even if they send some poor soul out an airlock, I can handle them.

Duke smiled as he placed his left hand on the translucent shielding below him and engaged his MANA DRAIN Ability. Instantly, his Mana pool was topped off and the excess Mana went somewhere he did not know but he had some ideas on how to use it. He reached down with his other hand and engaged a second instance of MANA DRAIN. Mana from the shields rushed into and through him but it did exactly what he was hoping for; it made a hole in the shielding that he could cast through as he moved his hands apart.

Pushing his SIMULCASTING Ability, Duke used his CLAIRVOYANCE to see into the ship. He saw a corridor with a few crew members moving about. With a grin, Duke employed his newest Ability and began to create dungeon creatures in the hallway. He began with something simple, something he had only fought once but became very familiar with their capabilities.

Duke started creating Twilight Stalkers inside the corridor with one simple instruction: kill everything they came upon. Creating them at a Tier Two, level fifty, was easy and only cost a bit over one hundred thousand Mana each. Duke chuckled at the cost as his Mana regen had leapt up to over eight hundred thousand a second. He could create the Twilight Stalkers with just his Mana Regen. Not that he needed to – the MANA DRAIN on the shields was supplying him with more than enough Mana for his creations. Once he had created fifty of them, he paused to watch them propagate through the ship with his CLAIRVOYANCE because it gave more detail than his DUNGEON SENSE for something like this. He liked what he saw.