Forbidden Zone, page 31
Dimensional Shift Enacted
Dimensional Barrier Strengthened due to code shift on lines 1SA8-91231-MDMS-198231…
Ticket created due to conflict in code change by Medium Administrator Tully
Code alterations sequenced, dimensional barrier strengthening accepted (temporarily)…
System Mana use increased by 471% in locations…
Additional tickets created due to Mana Loss…
There.
“John!”
“Dimensional Shift on my count!” I snap. It’s not enough to escape entirely, but I’ve got a solution for that. One I picked up a long time ago. “Ali. Conjure a Hand, give him our going-away present and the Hod. He needs to be out there.”
Thankfully, the Spirit doesn’t argue but taps into my Skill and Mana. He pulls on it even as I focus somewhere else, splicing my Skills to another area. The Galactic Fleet strengthened the barrier between us, made it harder to stay within the void, rejected us from the secondary dimension. Fair enough… I splice Penetration into the Heartbreak’s Dimensional Shift. I borrow Ali’s view for a second and trigger Judgment of All through him, the Penetration Shield appearing around Heartbreak. As I do so, I also see the Hand forming before me and the package that Ali hands off, along with my boots and a simple EVA suit.
Seconds later, the Hand is jetting off, headed for the center of the lines.
“The ship won’t hold!” Endila screams.
I hear the pop and hiss of machines shorting, the whine of discordant instruments. The Penetration shield is holding, but the boarders are still doing damage. Boarding shuttles bounce off the shield hard. Others shatter as renewed attacks tear into ships, individuals, missiles. I’m burning up as the excess Mana from System coding tears me open on the inside. The first few Hands that threw themselves out there to delay are gone, while the one within is doing his best against the swarms of boarders.
“It has to. In three!” I reply on my hands and knees, bent over and barely holding the spliced Skill together. It’s impossible. There’s too much damage, too many attacks coming in, the Mana within me too jagged, too harsh. “Shifting… NOW!”
The ship jumps into the void dimension, tearing through the new barrier like a hot sword through paper walls. We set off a chain reaction along the way, the barrier a gaping hole left in its place. Void elementals pour out, a consequence of our escape.
More fire as the Galactic fleet attacks the creatures that should not exist in our reality. Boarding shuttles and crash pods are torn into, their passengers locked in desperate battle. The System attempts to compensate for the damage, tries to patch the hole, but I’m there in the midst of it. I fight a battle between the System, between the Administrator—no, Administrators—who come to deal with the sudden slew of tickets and find me.
Code changes, as swift as thought. The System attempts to fix the gaping hole in reality, using excess Mana to weave a patch. I clean up a ticket, reducing the Mana waste in the original dimensional lock. It’s exactly the wrong thing to do right now, since the System needs the Mana. I still get the experience, though it is discounted. More importantly, the sudden shift tears open the hole again, the void flooding through as elementals tear at the edges of reality.
Administrators pull at my Linked Skill. Another tears at the Evolved Shield protecting the Heartbreak. I let them, knowing Penetration is not required. I feel the edges of other Skills attempting to reassert normalcy around us, the work of non-Administrators. I use those, pitting Skills against one another, linking them together or in opposition. The dimensional barrier strains.
My control slips as the pain rises in a never-ending crescendo. I lose control of the various Skills, the wound in the world patching itself as System Mana reasserts itself. The wound closes, but slowly. I struggle through the pain, searching for another way around the System. Administrators attack me directly, flooding my link to the System, diverting some of the energy meant to fix the problem.
Blood and ash, fried cantaloupes and bread fill my senses. I can’t see anymore as my body burns up from inside, my eyes burnt husks.
Then a shift, a falter in their side. The explosion when the PoenJoe Goleminised-Mana Generator Mark 18 goes off in the middle of the hyperspace stream is enough to throw everything out of whack. I feel one of the Administrators disappear entirely from the stream, even as I wrestle back control of my own mind.
The System grows fed up with our actions. Just as suddenly as it started, all our connections are cut, our Administrator privileges revoked for the moment. Excess Mana still floods through me, even as some of that Mana is twisted to help my body heal.
Even so, it burns. I’m overloaded, my Mana channels on fire.
I can’t see, so I borrow Ali’s view. Judgment of All, Grand Cross, Beacon of the Angels, Extra Hands. Each Skill used causes even more pain as I flex a connection that has been forcibly restricted. There’s still too much Mana, more Mana than my body can handle.
I spit and cough, blood pooling around my lips and under my helmet. More Skills, more spells. It’s only when the pain lessens that my control loosens, that I find darkness claiming me. Mental defenses, stretched to the maximum, push me to oblivion so that they can wipe away the memories of what has happened.
I rage, but the darkness still claims me.
It always wins after all.
Chapter 23
I wake after ten minutes. Not long enough, but sadly, all the time I have to rest. It’s enough to allow the System to restore my physical body from the brink of destruction. Mostly. My sense of smell is off, and the taste of licorice on my tongue refuses to go away, no matter how I spit. But I can see, and I can move. The rest of the rivulets of lava that bathe my body, I know they’re just in my head. As real as any pain, but manageable till the System gets around to wiping it.
In the meantime, we’ve been running in the void dimension. Ezz is busy fixing the engines, Endila rebuilding runes destroyed when the ship was burnt apart, and the Hand I have left is hunting down the last of the raiders. Ali’s busy popping through walls and harassing the few that are alive, helping to stop them from sabotaging the ship while guiding Mikito to finish them off.
Dornalor and Harry had a few hectic moments themselves when an Assassin popped into the cockpit, nearly beheading the Pirate Captain. If not for his Master Class Skill—Mutineer’s Folly—Dornalor would have died, but on his ship, in his place of power, the Captain rules the roost. Even gravely injured by the Skill feedback, the Assassin pushed the pair to the brink as I lay insensate in the copilot’s chair.
Awake, I check for problems and review the footage of what happened before I yank a Hand into reality to be sent to help Mikito. That done, I stretch and stand, looking around. Harry’s in the corner, mopping up the last of the blood and replacing a burnt-out console, while Dornalor stares into space, reading his notifications. I follow suit and tap into the Heartbreak’s sensors.
“How much longer?” I say, sweeping my gaze over the plot.
The gaping hole in reality is gone, the damage we’ve wrought fixed. The elementals, no longer focused on the shining bright light of physical space, are hunting us now, the damage done to the bones leaving us leaking and brilliant. Thankfully, only a few at a time follow us, for there is much brighter prey.
The Galactic Fleet has followed us, a few at a time as they breach the unsteady dimensional barrier. They are swarmed by the elementals, but they’re doing a great job at destroying them. That only means they get swarmed more, so while they have a rough idea of where we are, it’s hard for them to use their full Skills and sensors while being swarmed. Not to mention the fact that the void dimension isn’t particularly forgiving to non-elemental sensors.
“Till we get caught or that we can stay here?” Dornalor says, lips twisted up wryly. “I’d say a few hours at least for the first. And just about the same for the second.”
“How long to reach the planet?”
“At our current speed? Six hours.”
“And how much longer can we stay in the void?” I ask.
“Another three hours at most,” Dornalor says. “The closer we get to the sun, the more the connection between our dimension and the void frays and the harder the dimensional wall. The void dimension is deepest, closest to us when there is no light. And after our little incident, we can’t use my Skill to cut a way through the dimensional walls. Never mind what such a rough transition would do to our ship.”
“So we’re short,” I say, closing my eyes in exhaustion. “After all that…”
“We did better than I expected.” Dornalor shrugs. “Endila’s doing his best, but we took quite a lot of damage from the damn raiders when they got in. Ezz has the engines running, but they used a number of backfire Skills on that too, so we’re nowhere as fast as we could be. Thankfully, we’re built for damage, so we can reroute when we need to but…”
“But there’s only so much that can be done.” I nod, glancing at the wireframe of the ship. There aren’t many remaining dots, and those I see are in combat with Mikito and the Hands. We’ll be clear soon enough. Even if… “What are our other options?”
“We could try one of the dragon outposts.” Dornalor points at a space station hanging just off to the side of the plane, anchored to a moon of another planet. It’s not directly between us and Xylargh on the solar map, but in the same general direction. One of the reasons why we came in via this hyperspace steam and not another. “Or we can try for the planet itself and go with Endila’s plan. You know he planned for this, what with the void diminishing.”
“I don’t know if the boy’s a genius or insane,” I say.
Ali, floating down from the top of the ship where he’s been battling and baiting the elementals, chimes in. “That’s why you like him, eh?”
“Funny. But I kinda do,” I say.
“Don’t let your ‘son’ hear that. He might get upset,” Ali teases.
I roll my eyes and change the subject. “What do you have against the void elementals anyway? Every time you get a chance, you go blast them.”
“It’s a spirit thing. You can feel it too. The way they’re kind of opposed to our affinity.” I nod, knowing what he means. It’s like a whine at the edge of my hearing when we’re here, an annoyance that can be ignored but is frustrating. “It’s worse for me.”
“You didn’t say,” I point out.
“Would whining help? I’m not like you, boy-o. I keep my feelings to myself and don’t splatter them on those around.”
“Is that a dig at me being violent or at me crying?” I say, cocking my head. No anger at his mentions, since well, he’s not wrong.
Ali grins in reply while Dornalor clears his throat.
Harry, listening to us and wringing his hands, speaks up. “If we do the station, we can make it, right? Then we can get help… or maybe get lost?”
“We could also be trapped and hunted down,” I say. “No guarantees we could find any Dragon Lords willing to help us. Not on a single station.”
Dornalor nods. “My preference is the second option, as it always has been. The stations probably aren’t equipped to do anything, while we might be able to make a run for it. If the kid’s right, that is.” He frowns. “Assuming the Administrators don’t change the rules further.”
“We’re safe from that for now.” I rub my eyes, remembering the pain, the way it ate into me. The sudden slamming of the access lines that the System enforced on us all. It reminds me that I have notifications to read, which I call up and sort through. “Yeah… thought so.”
It only hurts a little to show the notification I received when the System smacked us all down.
Alert! All System Administrator Privileges Revoked in Sector 003
“Why?” Harry asks, frowning.
“Why what?” Mikito’s voice comes over the party chat, cutting in.
“You done?” I say, surprised.
“Obviously. Now, why what?”
Rather than strain myself, I inform her of the notification. After that, there are more questions, so I tell them what happened when we breached the dimensional barrier. I keep it short, not bothering to explain the metaphysical struggles that went on.
Of course, Al simplifies my explanation even further. “So, you pissed off the System. Only you…”
“Sounds about right…” Harry mutters. For all the wryness in his voice, he looks worried.
Dornalor smirks a little, while there’s silence from Mikito’s end. Endila is muted, since the kid has a mouth on him and is busy working. Ezz knows better than to say anything, or perhaps it’s just shy. Sometimes, it’s hard to tell with the sentient golem where AI programming and actual thought begins. If there is any…
I shrug, feeling a little embarrassed. Instead of facing it, I keep poking at my notifications, looking for further information. More experience, more notifications, then, of course, what I’ve been dreading.
Medium System Administrator Lee has been censured by the System and System Edit authority removed. Further penalties await confirmation by Senior Administrators.
“Froze wastes and a thousand hells…” I whisper. My only advantage, our only advantage, was my System Edit. Learning to use it at the right time has kept us alive, for the most part. This…
“John?”
“Boy-o?”
I ignore them, my heart thudding painfully. What was nearly impossible just became fully so. And I’m not sure what to say or how to say it.
“Eh, baka?”
Still, the dots in my vision, the indication that there’s more to be seen drive me on. As I hope for divine intervention. Or the closest thing, in my case.
Penalties for Middle System Administrator John Lee Assessing
!Error! ~ Root Administrator Override ~ !Error!
Request for penalty evaluation sent to Root Administrator
Penalty Evaluations Reviewed.
Penalties Applied.
Another notification, following along this in a different format. I make a face, but I can take the loss of all System experience gained from our little tussle. It’s a small enough penalty, to keep my Skills. I can’t even imagine the kind of penalties the other Administrators received.
Middle System Administrator John Lee has all Administrative Skills Restored
Please be careful, Redeemer of the Dead
“Goblin shit.” I slump back in my chair at the notice and use of my Title.
That Title has always bothered me. It’s an unusual one, an extremely pointed Title. Not to say it’s exceptional in being exclusive. Unusual Titles are something the library is more than happy to point out are uncommon but not unique. Unique, unusual Titles are often given to individuals who are exceptional, or it might be a case that exceptional individuals gain unique Titles.
In either case, it’s partly why so many choose that Title over others when greeting me. Redeemer of the Dead is unique, important in ways that any System-connected entity understands on an instinctive level. It’s not uncommon enough to put a target on me but…
It’s unusual still. Especially to see it in my notifications, when it’s never shown up before. Is this a message from the Root Administrator? Has he, she, it been watching me since the beginning? Or is this just courtesy? I don’t know, and my team is getting insistent in their requests for clarification.
I set this mystery aside for now, just as I do so many others.
This is not the time.
“Sorry. I was blocked out for a bit from my System Administrator Skills. But it’s back. For now, at least, though I think I shouldn’t try anything too ambitious.” I stretch a little, feeling the reminder of pain running through my body and add, “If I could even do anything major…”
Harry purses his lips, but nods.
Dornalor gestures back to the map. “So, your thoughts?”
“If the Captain is asking, I’d say let’s run for it.” I shrug. “Maybe Endila is right. And if not, at least we’ll be closer. Maybe I could open a Portal…”
It’s a fool’s dream to think we could Portal our way in. Even the Erethran specialist with their evolved Skills would face trouble here. Between the overflow of unaspected Mana in direct conflict with the huge amount of System Mana being churned, long-range Skills are all problematic.
As for the void dimension, it grows shallow, less powerful the closer we get to the blazing sun and sentient life. By the time we near Xylargh, punching through—even if we could stay in it—would be impossible. We have to transition.
“Then let us run,” Dornalor says. He spins away, tapping at his consoles and dismissing me.
I hesitate before pushing myself to my feet, wincing as my body tries to shed the memory of pain. Harry glances at me once, then looks away.
“I’ll be in the galley for a bit.”
The pair ignore my pronouncement and I walk off, Ali choosing to blip upward to burn a few more Elementals. If their lack of acknowledgement is a little lonely, a little off-putting, I don’t let it show.
We’re all under stress.
***
Hours pass in slow motion it seems, until we’re ready to break into reality again. The fleet behind us has taken quite the beating, and they have stopped sending others in after us. We’ve managed to hide in the shadows, the fleet’s sensors failing in the weird shadow dimension, but they’re spread out enough that they’ll catch us eventually. The simple fact that we have to go to Xylargh means our options shrink as we get closer.
By this point, I’ve recovered a bit, the same way you could say a new marathon runner is recovered the day after, though there’s no way in the thousand hells I’m going to mess with the dimensional walls again.
