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

"Come on, we've gotta go, we need out of the building now!" I barked out the command, trying to think of the best way back now. While I wasn't sure on that yet, I did at least have an idea of how to escape. "Actually, no, not out, down. Get us to the lowest basement level we can find."

I pulled up a new chat window as we moved.

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>Dave: They destroyed the gate, we're stuck here. Gamma, keep them distracted as we work our way downstairs. If you are in any danger, return to the System storage. Try to stay non-lethal still.

>Gamma: Okay. They are not much resistance, but that may have been a distraction, so that they could destroy the gate while they rally a stronger defense.

>Karlinovo: How long are you going to stick with that, realistically? They are trying to kill you now, I assume.

>Dave: Oh, if we come across anyone in charge, I'll attempt to place them in custody, and failing that, as much as I don't want to, I will kill them. They pose too much of a danger to us otherwise. But the rank and file, I can't fully blame for this, we may as well be an invading army to them. And yes, I agree, Gamma. There is probably a large force mobilizing against us.

>Karlinovo: I assume you want me to find Timon and figure out how to get you back?

>Dave: Find him and make sure he's aware of what's going on, Elody too. I'll let you know how to retrieve us once I figure out how the hell to escape exactly.

>Corey: I am going to start rapidly cycling out mana channels. It will tire me, but it should reduce the mana load on your cores, allowing for faster core energy regeneration.

>Dave: Appreciated. We are likely going to need it. Just don't exhaust yourself to the point you can't function.

>Corey: Understood.

>Dave: Beta, go cause chaos. Same orders as Gamma.

>Beta: For the Empire!

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I closed the chat window, freeing Gamma from System storage at the same time, just as we entered a stairwell. "How many floors are below us?" I asked, intending to just jump. While it would damage the shields, armed soldiers would likely do worse than the fall would.

"Thirty," Roberts answered.

"Good, that should buy us more time. Jump." I lept over the railing at the same moment I said the word, not waiting to see if they followed. I knew Pryte would.

In the case of Roberts, though, I was treating this more as a test. I wasn't blind to the idea that this was all a setup to embed someone within the city loyal to the GPA. He would get some interviews once we were back to explore just that possibility, but considering they had just cut off our best escape route, it seemed unlikely. Still, I wanted to see if he was willing to listen and trust me.

I was often called too trusting of a man, but that wasn't the truth of it. I just liked giving people the benefit of the doubt and letting them hang themselves. I hated thinking the worst of people, and even considering the man to be a spy annoyed me a bit. The grim reality of what we had just been through, though, was forcing me to entertain thoughts I'd have left to others.

The thud of two forms hitting the ground behind me, alongside the drain to the shields, told me he had listened. There was only a single door on the level, likely locked, and unlike the previous one I had ripped loose, made of metal. The fact that I also didn't want to destroy it made that all the worse.

"Any chance your locking spell can also unlock?" I asked, looking at Pryte.

"Oh, now you're willing to wait for me to open a door without destroying it?" Pryte replied, shaking his head at me. He sounded amused. Was he still having fun with all of this?

"I'll take that as a yes. And yes, I am now willing to wait. So if you could." I held out a hand, gesturing to the door in front of us.

Pryte snapped his fingers, and the door swung open. Once we were inside, he again snapped his fingers, relocking the door. The dim, emergency lighting revealed the space as some sort of combination storage and maintenance room. I just hoped the lack of windows meant we were underground.

"So what's the plan for getting us out of here?" Pryte asked as he looked around the room.

"I quickly run through my deep cave mana orb that I haven't really touched since I slotted it, and figure out how best to get us out of here," I answered as I pulled up the System menu for it.

As I was below ground, spelunking was the obvious answer. Hopefully, the idea that it increased all of my abilities would apply to my shields as well as mana generation. I quickly moved that up to the max first. With the orb being tier two, that meant thirty-one ranks. By the time I was done here, I wouldn't have much of a skill point reserve left. But it was also the only option I could think of.

Next up was stone speak. I'd need that to find an escape. The problem there was the ability said the stone woke up confused, and I had no idea how long it would take to get through to it. Hopefully, another thirty-one ranks there would help with that issue, but I couldn't be sure until I tried.

After that, I maxed out the second-tier ability stone passage, and the two third-tier ones, command the stone and no crack too small. I hoped to use those in combination with stone speak to get the stone to open up. Another problem we were about to face was that I had no way to bring the others with me through smaller spaces. That meant I needed to get the stone to let us pass. That was where I hoped commanding the stone would come in.

Finally, I maxed out stone bond. Keeping a potential spy here, as well as a way in and out undetected, seemed useful. It was possible that it would also help with getting the stone to move as needed. As I had no idea what awakened stone was about to be like, though, these were all just desperate hopes.

I took a deep breath, letting it out slowly as I worked to get a grasp on the growing stress of the situation. This was what I got for trying to show off. At least if we still escaped without a trace while the GPA thought they had us trapped, it would probably keep them afraid of us.

"Any clue what awakened stone is like?" I asked, shrugging at Pryte. I certainly had no idea.

"Most things that aren't alive react poorly to their initial experience of life. I take it you are about to try to tunnel us out of here somehow?" He answered.

"If I can, no real idea how well this is going to work." I triggered spelunking as I spoke, instantly feeling the change. I wasn't sure exactly how deep underground we were, so I couldn't easily judge just how the depth was affecting me, but my soul-core reaction sped up just as I had hoped it would.

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I walked up to one of the cinder block walls of the room. Did cinder blocks count as stone? I suspected they didn't, which meant I was going to need to get to the stone behind them. Before I started smashing away, I first touched one and tried stone speak. As expected, nothing happened.

I tried surging the mana across the bond I had with Alpha and pulling them into my System storage at the same time. That also didn't work. It had been a long shot anyway, but they would have made getting past the blocks a lot easier.

"I don't suppose anyone sees a hammer or anything?" I asked, turning back to the others.

"The one time you leave Alpha behind, we need a hammer…" Pryte replied, laughing just slightly as he started to search the room, Roberts joining him.

"Glad to see you're taking this seriously," I replied, grabbing a piece of rebar from nearby. It wasn't a mallet, but it would crack a cinderblock well enough. Wait, did I actually need something else to crack the wall? Dammit, was that the real reason Pryte had laughed?

I walked up to the wall, made a strong first, and took a single hard swing. The block I hit cracked, as did a dozen on either side of it. Pryte's loud laughter behind me confirmed the theory that yes, he found it hilarious I didn't realize how strong I had grown. This was what I got for separating myself so much from the rest of the regular world, whatever regular meant anymore.

"Any reason you didn't feel the need to mention your thoughts here before we started searching for a tool?" I asked as I worked the shattered blocks free.

"Honestly, I wasn't sure how strong you were exactly. I only assumed you could break the walls. And as much as we may need to get out of here, I don't really think we are in that much danger," Pryte answered, shaking his head at me, still slightly laughing. "Plus, I'm kind of having fun with all this. It gets boring being stuck as the responsible one all the time."

"Remind me to make sure you get more leisure time when we get home. You clearly need a few hobbies," I said, trying not to laugh myself. The fact that the cores were both perfectly fine meant that, yes, Pryte was entirely correct. We were pretty safe here, and I'd be incredibly hard-pressed not to call this a little fun. Okay, it was a very fun up until they destroyed the gate, but that was a miscalculation on my part.

I placed one finger on the rough stone that had been exposed behind the cinderblock and triggered stone speak. As the mana left my core into the stone, I added command the stone and stone bond into my channeling. A loud cracking sound accompanied a shifting of the wall just as I felt my spells end.

"Uh, hello, did that work?" I asked, feeling a bit like an idiot addressing a hole in the wall.

"The Earth moves! Why does it move? It has never moved in such ways!" a voice yelled out as an odd-looking face appeared on the rock.

Damn, hadn't considered the fact that we had accidentally started the Earth down a path of growth would have any effect on me awakening stone. "Yeah, we can cover that later. Any chance you'd be willing to do me and my friends a favor, though?"

"Favors are as old as stone, sealed within granite, all must be repaid before the end," it answered, somehow even more cryptically than the last.

I had no idea what that meant. And looking back at Pryte for some ideas didn't help at all. He just returned my stare with a shrug.

Wait, hadn't I just bonded it? Maybe I was going about this the wrong way. I was used to being a bit gentler with people, the GPA notwithstanding, but it was possible I hadn't considered the actual wording on the spell itself.

"Open a path to the nearest chamber with breathable air that isn't this building," I said firmly, not sure if the rock would fully understand what breathable air meant in relation to humans. I added learning about awakened creatures, especially those that hadn't started as a living creature, to a long list of things to study up on.

Following my words, a low humming sound started throbbing from the wall. Over the next few seconds, the hum morphed into a crunch as the wall began to rend itself apart. Through the hole I had made a long, dark cave came into view. The passage looked to connect to a bigger, nearly empty room at the other end. Had it found another deep basement to shunt us into?

There was no way I'd be able to replace the material I had destroyed to hide the hole, which meant it would be pretty likely they would discover my new creation if I left it like this. An idea hit me as I widened the spot just large enough for us to fit through.

"Looks like you found something," Pryte said as I worked.

"Yeah, as soon as it's big enough for us to fit through, I'm going to make a few more holes around, and then if you two could help me get all the rubble into the tunnel, that would be great," I replied, continuing my work.

"What's the plan?" Pryte asked.

"I believe he's trying to obscure our exit, even if this will be a solid wall again when we leave. If we add more possible points, it makes it harder to realize this was exactly how where exited. Not a bad idea," Roberts answered before I could.

"Yeah, not sure how well it will work, but I'd rather them not smash their way through my new creation here." I moved to another spot in a different wall as I spoke, starting to make another hole.

I repeated the process another dozen times while the others cleared all the broken stone into the tunnel. To finish it off, I moved a few boxes in front of a couple of the spots, trying to further make it seem like they had already been there. Just as I was about to call it good, a bigger explosion rocked the building, making me glad I had finished.

"Yeah, it's time to go," Pryte said, likely having spotted my own expression.

I pulled up a chat window as we walked into the tunnel and sent a quick message.

I pulled in both of the cores as I closed the chat window and turned toward the stone face once we had left the tunnel. "Close the passage, keep yourself hidden and safe. I will find a way to come back and talk with you further."

"Ancient ways, new paths, Earth speaks again, long silent, too long," it replied as the tunnel we had just come through vanished in a rumbling sound.

"There's something off about what that thing kept saying. Reminds me way too much of the prophecy we just heard," Pryte added as I looked around the new basement we found ourselves in.

"Yeah, I know. I was hoping, though, that this was just how all awaken stone sounded. I take it that's not the case?" I asked, a bit unnerved by the closing messages. Was it possible that whatever the dungeon energy was doing deep underground was affecting the Earth that much? Sure, it was growing, but what did that really mean?

Wait, hadn't the Orcs fled partially underground? What would happen to them exposed to the new mana flow, death curse, and dungeon energies all at once? Had we accidentally created a super Orc somewhere deep within the planet? That was a worrying thought for later.

"I don't know. Surprisingly, of all the things I've encountered in my long life, I've rarely been in the company of young golems. Too boring for my tastes generally," Pryte answered.

"I feel like I'm missing a lot of details to really understand what you two are so worried about. But it seems to me like the escape from the GPA should remain our priority focus," Roberts said, sounding confused.

"Yeah, there is going to be a lot we need to catch you up on. As I explained before, things have changed, and it's time to change how we deal with them," I answered, spotting an old elevator on one side of the room. "But first, let's go get some sunlight. I'm sure you haven't been enjoying the darkness." The former president, after all, had no way to see in the absence of light, unlike Pryte or me.

The Four Golems were the musical group you called when you needed a concert for a planet. They were specialists in making mountains dance. Rarely have I ever seen a hilltop sway like I had during their prime. Their performance in the Granite Nebula even brought the Living Planets to tears.

It was a shame when they broke up. But all great things must come to an end, especially in the world of art and erosion. They gave us a millennium of rock, how could we ever demand more?

A History of Music in the Spiral by Emwood Greens