Magical Engineering [Progression Fantasy, LitRPG] (Book 3 Complete)

"How did you find out about the GPA issue already? I was just about to call this meeting myself?" Grant asked as I walked through the door with Karlinovo following.

"Wait, what? I don't know anything new about the GPA. This was supposed to be about a masquerade I was invited to, but we can cover that second. What is the GPA doing?" I asked.

Grant had a look of rage and fear on his face, and I had no idea how exactly they could have caused that. Rage sure, but fear? They had no real power over us. So what the hell had managed to happen?

"They are demanding that I inform you of something they did, but before I do, I want you to know I didn't know anything about it and I'm not going to do it," Grant replied, the rage seeming to win out on his face.

"Dammit, what the hell did they do?" I said, letting the anger infect me.

"Somehow they know about the competition coming up, and they are entering me, representing them," he answered, slamming a fist down on the table while turning his head away from me.

"How? Pryte, can they do that? As much as I may not want to, I own the universe, right?" I asked. Something bigger was going on. I could feel that, and it mixed with the already growing anxiety into a dread.

"Technically, if they can come up with the entrance fees, the way this was all worded, they can enter. But how the hell they did that or even learned about this, I don't know," Pryte answered, giving Grant a suspicious look for a moment.

"I already said I won't enter it, so it sure as hell wasn't me!" Grant said, his anger continuing to flare.

"Guys, let's not start pointing fingers. I believe Grant. I would also rather he just enter. It saves us from having to worry about whatever their next plan is to get someone in. The real question is, who are they working with? Someone clearly still wants control of Earth." I tried to put some authority behind my words, as I didn't want Grant and Pryte fighting.

Did I know for sure Grant wasn't actually the mole? No, I didn't. But at the same time, I found it incredibly hard to believe. Sure, it was always possible he could have pulled the rug over us, especially me, but he seemed too earnest to play the spy well. This would be a conversation better had with just Timon and Pryte later. And it certainly wasn't one I was looking forward to.

"If you're thinking Korl is behind it, I very much doubt it. While they're a schemer, something has been off here since the beginning. It's more likely that whoever wanted Sanquar originally is making another play without Korl. Glunderlin, after they left the archives the first time, did anyone pass through Smithtown from off-world?" Pryte asked, turning his head toward the former mayor and now city councilman.

"Is this the real reason everything has been so quiet for months? Someone had a plan cooked up and was just waiting on when to spring it? Why the hell are they so obsessed with this universe anyway?" My questions flew out of my lips too fast. I wasn't sure everyone caught them, which was likely for the best, as I doubted there were any good answers.

"I'm sorry, Dave. It's whatever is locked up inside my barely functioning brain that keeps causing this," Sanquar said, sounding ashamed.

Dammit, I didn't mean to send him back down a guilt-fueled spiral. None of this was his fault. He was just a catalyst. From everything I was starting to understand, there were plenty of shitty people doing shitty things long before he was trying to change anything, and while it was entirely possible one of the people he had pissed off was behind this, that didn't even matter. What mattered was the fact that they were doing it at all.

"Sanquar, we are only alive because you sent me to the Spiral. Whether or not this involves someone still hunting you isn't your fault, do you understand me?" I said in a firm dad voice. None of this was his or Grant's fault, and I was getting very tired of the people continuing to force things on us.

After a somewhat equal parts awkward and tense silence, Glunderlin spoke first. "It's possible someone passed through. We had some strange interactions early with the gate, and some reports of phantoms in the city. But after everything else happened with the highway, we just assumed it was part of that."

"Wait, what kind of phantoms? Describe them exactly as you heard about them," Timon asked, suddenly leaning forward in his chair.

He rarely spoke at the bigger meetings, so his sudden interest was a bit shocking. We had managed to keep a lot of his actual class secret from most of the people here, for better or worse. Pryte seemed to think it was best we let the guise hold as long as possible.

"Uh, um, well, I never saw them, but what I was told they were like moving shadows. Sometimes you'd see something out of the corner of your eye, other times you just find a piece of food missing or hear a door shut when no one else was there to have done it. A lot of it initially was assumed to be scared children, plus things were pretty tense, but then, well, you know the rest." The Reltleon's cheeks kept puffing up as he spoke. I had never seen any of them do that before.

"Deepscales, probably highly trained. Certainly very expensive. They aren't who you fought in the woods either. You'd be dead if they were." There was less humor in Timon's voice than usual.

"What do you think is going on then?" Pryte asked, resting his chin on his hand.

"I believe we've had a bunch of deepscales on Earth for a while now. They likely came through right after we took out the big Orc boss and spread out. No real way to hunt them down, either. To put it into perspective, just how bad this is, Mel would have dropped his swearing and given us those wide begging eyes he does when he really wants to get his point across," Timon answered.

"Wait, are you saying the ones we already fought weren't related to those who are already here?" I asked. That was a giant coincidence if they weren't.

"No, now that I think about it more, I think one large group with different objectives came at the same time. Depending on the sophistication of the operation, it's entirely possible the failed primal snatch and grab was meant to be the distraction to not make us question other activities, and we bumbled into that going better than it could otherwise have gone," Timon answered.

"There has to be a way to hunt them down. For them to be entirely covert, they couldn't even communicate," Grant added. He was still fuming, possibly more than ever, with the new revelations.

"It's not that there are no ways, it's that we have no ways. Yeah, maybe Elody could spend a year hunting a single one down, and then possibly die in the confrontation, but that isn't likely to help anyone," he replied

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"So then what the hell do we do?" I asked, just as frustrated with the new revelation.

"For now, we play this like we haven't realized it, and as with so many other topics, it's something that doesn't leave this room. Grant find out what Stevens knows about you and only you. When Laura returns, I doubt it's safe for her to leave the city," Pryte answered.

"She won't listen if we tell her she has to stay here. Especially if she thinks she can talk the situation down, and Mom always thinks she can," John added. He wasn't wrong.

"We can deal with that part of the problem when it happens, but at the moment, there isn't a lot else we can do about this news. So, Dave, what did you actually call this meeting for?" Pryte asked.

I bit down on my current bout of anger and anxiety. While the masquerade invite had its own share of things I didn't like about it going for it, it didn't produce the same simmering rage that the GPA had finally managed to invoke in me. And I needed to keep that under control, at least for now. We were quickly heading for a point where I would do something I would probably later regret, but I wasn't sure how to help with that problem.

"The Dwarf and the dungeon core snagged me out of the System again. They invited us to a meeting in a week, and I have instructions on how to build a single-use gate to get there locked in my brain. Ivan is already working on that part," I explained, keeping my words as calm and collected as I could.

Pryte let out the loudest and longest sigh I had ever heard in my life. Nearly ten full seconds of the noise passed before he finally spoke. "So, I guess the theme of this year is multitasking crises. Are you going alone to this? I assume you haven't done something as uncharacteristic as plotting to skip it?"

"Well, actually, I get to bring one extra person as well as a driver. So you and Timon are both stuck joining me on this one," I replied, giving Pryte a somewhat guilty smile.

Despite the look I gave him, I was pretty sure he'd be okay with the invite. He had wanted to go originally anyway. He was just now stuck in the overly serious position, trying to play both himself and Mel in the Cloudforms' absence, and while he could pretend, I knew that his fun-loving side was just waiting to come out.

I spotted Pryte's returned smile for just a second before he put back on the stern face and spoke again. "I suppose we can join you. Glunderlin, while we are gone, you're in charge of anything crazy that comes up. Maud or Ivan should be able to contact us."

"Maybe. She might actually have some trouble there," I started to say as Karlinovo cut me off with his own explanation.

"It seems the soul messaging system Dave is tied into originates with him. Other connections to him, if they are far enough away, begin to require mana to access the chat. The draw wasn't huge, at least yet. But I can't be counted on to stay connected to him if that happens again, as it was, I had to drain a mana battery just for the little conversation earlier," Karlinovo explained.

"That is a problem, but we should still be able to count on Maud or Apollyon if needed, hopefully," Pryte replied.

The meeting continued on for several more hours, and turned into a catered dinner, after it became apparent that no one had good solutions for the GPA, and everyone felt similar to me on the masquerade. At worst, it was some sort of trap, and at best, it was probably just a self-serving order of people desperate for a taste of their own power. But either way, it was likely worth the risk to learn more. As it stood, the last meeting proved they weren't in as much control as they would have otherwise liked to be.

After a dinner full of worry about me from Alex, John, and, surprisingly, Elody as well, I was now alone with Pryte and Timon. There were still things I wanted to cover, and as much as I trusted everyone in the previous gathering, I was learning it was best to keep some plans in as few brains as possible. Normally, that would include Mel, but he wasn't here at the moment, so these two would have to do.

"So what are we really doing about all this?" Timon said in between bites of a pumpkin pie. Apparently, that was one of his favorite foods he had tried since joining us on Earth.

"Good question," Pryte said, sighing again.

"Obviously, the GPA have to be removed, but we can't do that until we really find out who is behind them. So what do we do about Grant and the competition?" I asked, not expecting any real answer.

I wasn't willing to kill Grant, and Timon knew that. I also wasn't willing to let him do that, so he wasn't going to suggest that either. I didn't care how much the other factions used assassinations and fear as a way of controlling things. I wasn't going to start doing that here. If I had to be in charge, we'd do things in ways I could stomach.

"Nothing, well, not exactly nothing. I'm getting tired of nothing. As far as the Earth and Spiral is concerned, Grant is going to participate perfectly normally, and you're going to tell him to. Sure, they will assume we are planning something, and we can make him take a dive if we have to, but in reality, you can take Grant in a fight, Dave. And I'll be shocked if at least one of the events isn't one-on-one fights," Timon answered.

"I'm not entirely sure about that. He's far better trained than I am," I replied. I wasn't sure about my own uncertainty either. I had done some pretty insane things on the tenth floor of the Arena, not to mention I had every intention of being able to take out the first-floor powerhouse alone long before we hit the competition itself. So it was possible I had surpassed Grant so far in raw power, and his training wasn't enough to keep up.

"I'm entirely sure, and so is Mel. He may not be here to say it, and he probably wouldn't even if he was, but you've broken enough rules in your core, sockets, and tools at this point that you've got a very powerful future ahead of you, assuming of course we don't all die when one of the people who is already at that very powerful future decides they won't want you there. Which reminds me, I should probably check into who my ex works for these days," Timon replied.

"Timon is right. But that still doesn't address the GPA part of this. We have a spy problem on Earth. How do we eliminate an infestation of Deepscales?" Pryte asked, looking at the mantis.

"So I know you don't want me knocking off any humans, and I'm guessing no Reltleons either, but how do you feel about Deepscales? Obviously, I can't kill them all one by one. They'd realize we were onto them then, but I can start tracking them down and figuring out just how many are here, and where they are generally located at. Once I think we've found all of them, or at least what we can reasonably find. We hit 'em all at once," Timon explained.

"I'm okay with that. And to be clear, I'm not saying we can never kill a human, or anyone for that matter. I just don't want random assassinations. I accept the reality that we are in life-or-death situations and people will have to die if they attempt to kill us. I'm not that naive. That said, I thought you said we couldn't win against them?" I replied

"And while I did say that. I didn't exactly mean it. I just didn't want anyone going off half-cocked and trying to hunt them down. Grant seemed ready to try it, and he probably would die. But you or me? Or even Rabyn or Elody? No, we can kill them as long as we plan it out right," Timon answered.

"Despite what a lot of faction leaders would probably claim, I don't think you're naive at all. You just have the benefit of an empathy that the Spiral hasn't managed to beat out of you yet," Pryte added.

"Yet being the operative word here," I said, adding my own sigh to the conversation. "Alright, let's start working on documenting all the deepscales. Timon, if you feel there is anyone who would be useful and that you can trust, bring them in on it and let Pryte and me know. Otherwise, gentlemen, today has been a busy day, and I still need to let our resident mad scientist play with my brain."

In my searches of the secrets dungeons hold, I have found myself traveling through many a deep cavern or lost castle, all full of dangerous secrets and even scarier monsters. I search for a door that I am not even sure truly exists. But I have long heard rumors that sometimes in the most remote dungeons, a connection is formed to something outside our normal reality.

That is what I hunt. A doorway to where the dungeon energy originates. I want to see what primordial things exist on the other side of such a path. What horrors lurk? Are they the same nameless terrors some call outsiders? And why exactly do so many dungeon cores fear them?

The real question, I suppose, is what exactly I will do if I ever find such a door. Am I willing to plunge through it alone? I doubt I'll have much choice should I decide to go that route, as it is rare I can even find an ally willing to enter the dungeons I venture into.

Though perhaps I have been looking in the wrong places for someone to accompany me on these travels. I have met more than one dungeon core in my time who weren't outright hostile to my existence. In fact, a few have been surprisingly good hosts and answered many of my questions. Have I overlooked the real potential allies?

The Mysteries of Dungeons by Sir Reginald Percy Thomas Alquine