Savage Awakening 505. Dreamer's Core

It all came down to a brutal close-quarters struggle.

The mecha-dwarf had certain advantages. It had runetech pistons in those Divine Profound fists. It had that mech-core, putting the heft of planets behind every punch. The rockets boosting its fists could down half-step Empyreans by themselves.

But Zane had his heart.

It turned out to be a pretty even matchup.

Rockets blasted out of its back. The mech kicked off hard—body-slamming Zane into the ground, bouncing his head off a slab of infinisteel. It head-butted him, and he heard something crunch—instantly, an eye began bruising, swelling shut. It jerked one of its arms free and started battering him about the head, beating him so bloody it knocked out a tooth.

But Zane kept his jaw clenched tight. He kept up that crush.

And the mecha-dwarf got to see just how stubborn he was.

He just kept eating its blows. Each hit harder than the last. The finest mech the dwarves had ever produced maxed out its efforts, all to put him down—

But that was the thing about Zane. It was almost like the more it hit him, the fiercer his determination grew. He started flexing harder, if anything, his heart working even harder, and each time that mech-core cranked it up a notch, his heart beat stronger to match.

And soon it began to grow clear. Undeath and galaxy-grade steel met flesh-and-blood man—but it was the man who was built to last.

Zane’s blood had splattered the blackened ground slick. But it was the mech that started to break; its shields began to crumple in, then again...

Zane roared—flexed to the limit.

He was making a coffin of the dwarf’s own mech.

His limit was broken, and he held there. He trusted his new body. He knew he could maintain that state until he damn near blacked out. Every ounce of every muscle he had—every chunk of muscle—went into that kill; the whole of his being was bent on it. It showed in the sheer force of his Prometheus Noose. The mech’s shields were wasted to scrap metal. Its limbs crushed flat.

Then the skeleton-dwarf inside started to feel it.

Its bones began shattering. It opened its maw, but no sound came out; its cannons started looking like crushed straws, quicksilver blasts choking in their own bent nozzles, all that Law flying randomly, too wrecked to aim properly.

It could no longer throw that man off.

Zane was on it like a hound with its teeth sunk in. He knew he had that mecha-dwarf dead to rights. He executed.

Warning!

Health under 25%

That was as close as the mech got before Zane gave it one last hard pull.

And completed the crush.

Then he stood, chest heaving, blood dripping from his messed-up locks.

The mecha-dwarf started to dissolve.

And at once, all the constructs he’d wrecked—all the essence the dwarf had—everything he’d won from the fight hit him at once.

Level up!

Level up!

Level up!

Level up!

Essence Level 579 -> 583

At the rate he was gaining, it wouldn’t be long now until he hit the level limit.

Skill up!

Prometheus Noose IV -> V

He stood there for a while, enjoying the feeling of his triumph.

Then he glanced down at the remnants of the mecha-dwarf—just a few scattered bones in crumpled steel now. He had no great connection to that Dormu fellow. But from what he could tell, the dwarf had been good people. He felt Dormu would’ve liked to know that after all these years, someone had taken down the one who’d ended his kingdom and pirated his corpse. It’d taken a while, but things had been set right.

Then he bent down and reached a fist into the heart of the mech.

He wrenched out its core.

Dreamer’s Mech-Core of the Grand Engineer [Legendary] (DP)

Forged of the finest steels the Dwarven civilization ever unearthed, by the hands of the Grand Engineer Dormu himself. A one-of-a-kind artifact. This artifact is extremely rich in Destruction, steel essence, and dreamsteel.

It was just like the Sage had said—the core had everything. It felt even richer, clasped in Zane’s fist.

There was a time this Dormu fellow had wielded this thing to defend his homeland—when he’d wielded it to fight to his dying breath… in that respect, Zane could relate to the man.

He wondered if Dormu had had a Reina or an Evan and Avery. Folks he fought to protect. He wondered if that was why the old dwarf had fought so hard—fought until they had to wrestle his life from him, backed up all the way to his throne.

He would finish this. The fight that Dormu had given his life to.

He wouldn’t do it for the dwarf—he’d do it for his own. But after fighting him and knowing him, he had some warmth for the fellow. It felt a little like why he liked Makos.

Just then, he felt a slight emotion in the air. Just some residue of the soul—the tiniest bit that was left of that old dwarf, wisps of soul-light rising from the bones as they dissolved.

A feeling of gratefulness.

Then it was gone.

He inspected the Core.

He felt a bit awkward, all of a sudden.

“I’m going to take a bite now,” he said to no one, just in case Dormu was still there.

There was no response.

Eh—he figured the fellow wouldn’t mind.

He took a chunky bite. He chewed it for a bit, breaking it down—this stuff was some of the hardest he’d ever tried—before blasting it with Red Giant and swallowing.

The moment it went down—

Shard of Destruction — 15% -> 19%

Friend of the System III — 66 -> 69% Progress

His physique got a good boost too, though not enough for another tier off of just that one bite. All in good time, he figured.

Then the universe started to rumble, which did make some sense with its owner gone.

A heartbeat later, it started tearing apart around him. Alarmed, he stuffed the core into his bag of holding—didn’t want to lose that.

Then it spat him back into the real world.

*** 

He stumbled out into open air—three feet away from the Barbarian Sage, who was busy hollering, “Don’t you give up down there, lad! You’ve got to—oh.”

They blinked at each other.

“Hey there,” said Zane, still smoking a little. He gave the old fellow a wave.

“How’d it go?”

“Pretty good,” he informed the Sage. “It gave me an interesting puzzle. I quite enjoyed breaking it, actually.”

“That’s what I like to hear!” The Sage ruffled his head. Then he looked around, scratching his chin. “Well—guess that’s the dwarf kingdom taken care of. Let me think if there’s anything else…”

A pause. “Don’t think so. That’s it, then—s’pose it’s about time we move on anyway.”

Zane nodded. “How long’s it been outside?”

After big fights, he often celebrated with Reina and his friends. He did kind of miss them. The Sage had said there was a time dilation.

“Five years or so. We’re making good time. We don’t want to spend much more than two decades in here. At this rate, we’ll make it out right on time. Right. What d’you say we go check out what else these dwarves’ve got locked up down there? Might be we’ll get all the steel you need ‘til Empyrean.”

They headed on off.

He was pretty sure the old fellow couldn’t see anything going on down there, and he was still cheering his heart out for Zane.

It warmed him. Sometimes in life, that was the kind of faith you needed.

*** 

It took about a half-day to find the treasury. Longer than he’d thought—the dwarves had buried their treasures deep. They had to go down a mineshaft that led a few hundred miles underground. There they found several gates already busted through, to the Sage’s disappointment.

“If those monster bastards took it all…” he growled.

The good news was, they didn’t.

The first vault held shelves on shelves of sunsteel—six or seven times as much as they’d gotten at the Forge.

“That’s a hell of a haul…ought to be enough to make you a full shard of Destruction,” said the Sage cheerfully. “Could get you through two, if you’re lucky.”

There was a good haul of infinisteel in another vault, too, along with a cache of lesser steels.

The most notable vault had a big, seemingly ordinary sack. But a familiar System-blue light shone from inside, lighting up the whole vault.

They took a peek inside.

“Would you look at that,” said the Sage. He picked up a coin—“25 System Credits. Looks like Aiwe and our ol’ builder friend got along damned well. Won’t find many of these in the galaxy.” 

Zane found a letter—“Looks like it was a gift to repay him for his work with the System,” he said. “The old guy never got to use it.”

“Hmm,” said the Sage, scratching his head. “That’s too bad, eh? You go on and claim ‘em, and let’s get outta here.”

Zane did feel a little weird taking the old dwarf’s gifts for himself. Not bad enough to not take them, granted. He’d still cash in—just a little awkwardly.

“You chewing on something, lad?” said the Sage.

When Zane explained, “Bah!” said the Sage, waving a hand. “One day when you’re in the river of souls, you go find him and pay him back if you like.”

“…Sure.”

He claimed the tokens. There were two.

+25 System Credits!

+25 System Credits!

That brought him up to 79 total Credits. Quite a hefty sum. It was enough to make him contemplate nabbing a perk or two. One offered to boost his Skill a rarity grade for 10 Credits, for instance. He held off for now.

He could always get that once he unlocked that next tier of the System Store. But he had a feeling when he got there, with all the Credits he was stacking… he’d have a chance to go for something massive.

It wouldn’t be too long now, he figured. There was quite a lot of dreamsteel in that Dreamer’s Core. It’d take him a little while to work through it all, but once he was done—he was pretty sure it’d be enough to put him over the top.

They found a few more vaults after that, but they’d been plundered pretty badly, it looked like. Monster work.

“I wonder why they didn’t take the Credits,” said Zane.

“Might not have known what they were,” said the Sage cheerfully. “Monsters can’t stand System stuff. There are all kinds of explanations. When it comes to looting, you see something shiny, you nab it and don’t think too hard on it.”

The Sage scratched his chin. “Good rule for life, that.”

At the end of the treasury, they found four walls full of murals. They were stained glass and all intact—despite the wreckage all around them. They were rife with Creation—Dormu’s work. It was still a little surprising to Zane how well they were preserved.

It showed a six-eyed serpent in what looked to be a nebula of swirling chaos and a bloody battlefield full of humans, floating helplessly in space. A few dozen at the front, made of brighter glass than all the rest. They wore the sigils of the Nine Great Factions, and not one of them could stand.

There was only one spot of light in the whole mural—a man and a woman by his side. The man was shirtless and quite muscular. The woman wasn’t shirtless, but her silhouette was quite shapely—he was pretty sure he knew who she was. His brow furrowed. She was boosting him as he faced the beast.

There was a plaque at the bottom of it all.

“Looks to be a vision that Dormu had,” said the Sage, squinting. “Let’s see—‘The Galaxy unspools, hell’s most unknown gates break open. The Empyreans fall like gnats. There—in man’s darkest hour—his strongest son and daughter make their final stand.’”

They both considered the picture. “…Hmm.”

“That’s definitely me, right?” said Zane.

“Looks like it.”

There was a silence.

Then the Sage gave him a hearty slap on the back. “Eh! You’ve got this. What are we thinking for lunch—drake leg?”

“Sure thing.”

The two of them headed off.

Zane didn’t overthink it. It didn’t help to work yourself up about these things—and deep down, he’d always kind of figured that was what it would come to. He knew the kind of man he was. He knew who he was capable of becoming.

He took out that mech core and removed another chunk.

Time to get to work.