NABC [352] 4.73 Final Flight IV
[352] 4.73 Final Flight IV
A machine paradise, or maybe a hell or steel and oil. That’s what awaits us as we slip past the threshold and into the main body of the great tree. Maybe whoever designed this place was a fan of irony. Or, as another sinister thought comes to my mind, maybe this place really was once a giant tree, but has since been hollowed out and turned into some dark antithesis of itself, absorbing the world’s lifeforce and using it to fuel an ever-accelerating destruction of the world.Reminds me a little bit of the System itself. I doubt that parallel is without the intention of some force grander and more mysterious than my own.
I see no people inside, just machines and more machines operating the machines. A factory on a titanic scale, assembly lines moving pieces of carefully-wrought metal together to be welded into larger and larger pieces and eventually into new robots which get up and join their brethren on the production line. And all this with nary a human in sight.
“How bizarre,” Chloe says as we duck into a small alley with a heap of junk at our backs.
There’s a bunch of scrap metal to hide behind, maybe discarded husks of robots with defects in their design or programming. Maybe just obsolete models judged no longer necessary thanks to the singularity. In either case, we wait behind chunks of steel as a random guard sweeps the area, holding our breath until it passes.
“Bizarre indeed,” I say. “But more importantly than that, who is behind all this? There has to be an initial spark. Automatons, unlike living beings, don’t have any will of their own. It’s like with those Seraphina robots back in that dungeon a couple weeks back.”
“But not like the original Seraphina. Or you, of course.”
“Or the one with Renault. Which implies that it must have some sort of biological component.”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. For now, how are we going to get off this floor? The place is swarming with even more guards ever since we sneaked in. And much as I’m sure the idea excites you, no, we are not equipped to take on dozens or even hundreds or thousands of those damned robot hulks!”
“We simply wait,” I say. “And we let ourselves get taken with the rest of the trash.”
“Wait, love,” Chloe says. “I thought we’re trying to get deeper in the dungeon, not thrown out.”
“I never said we’d get taken out. A place like this isn’t going to accept waste. Every piece of scrap metal is going to get smelted down and repurposed.”
“You want us to get thrown in the incinerator? Are you mad? You might have some added heat tolerance thanks to your shiny new toy, but I’m still going to fry!”
“I never said we were going to get incinerated, or that we wouldn’t fight back if they tried. I don’t know what exactly is going to happen to us. All I know is that we’re going to end up somewhere much, much less heavily defended than the factory floor. And maybe we’ll pick up some intelligence on the way.”
Just as we finish our unspoken conversation, two droids step into line of sight. They look toward each other, communicating with stroboscopic pulses of light and the occasional auditory beep. Their conversation finished in the blink of an eye, they beep about, calling the attention of a handful of other clunkers. These, in turn, begin the process of raising the floor containing the pile of scrap, including the two of us buried within, up toward wherever the reprocessing bay is.
Chloe clings onto me tightly. I do my best to comfort her, all the while remaining fully attentive of our surroundings. It’s pitch black, and though I don’t sense any presence watching us, I’m certain that electronic surveillance and ‘quality’ control is going on everywhere in this tower, silently and invisibly from atop the panopticon.
The machine clangs to a stop and we’re pushed into the next phase of the processing. Large compactors are pulverizing chunks of metal into ingots to be turned into the goddesses only know what. I’d expected a massive single press, but instead, there are different conveyor belts with increasingly heavy gusts of wind being used to separate out the chunks of metal by their size and density.
I pick up a shining piece of golden metal that calls out to me and slip it into my [Inventory]. Then, the two of us make our way off the line and down another hall. It’s eerily quiet. The sirens and warnings of intrusion are still going; their echoes faintly reverberate even here. But there’s no signs of intelligence or hostility in this part of the tower. I don’t dare to hope that we’re not being watched, but at least we have a brief respite to formulate a plan of action.
“I’m guessing we need to go to the highest place in the tree?”
“That would be the logical place to start. I’d also suggest the centermost, but without some sort of map to go off, I think we’ll have to settle for height.”
I start scanning the area with my [Valkyrion’s Perception] for any sign of a ventilation shaft. Alas, the architects behind this particular design were wise to the idea of crawling through such a passage. Instead of a single large tunnel, there are dozens of tiny holes in the wall, none wider than a centimeter, from which air is constantly pushed through. It might be possible to bore our way through, but that’d create way too much noise and risk attracting the wrong sorts of attention.
I pick Chloe up into a princess carry and, after confirming that I can once again do so, lift off in the air. The ceiling is far higher than it ought to be and even more dark, to the point where I begin wondering if there’s yet more spatial fuckery underway. But we do eventually reach the top, about two hundred feet above the ground. Footsteps echo from above, and more of the pings that these robots use to get one another’s attention. I tense as brace for them to collapse the ceiling and draw us into a brawl here in the compactor bay, but after a few long seconds, the footsteps continue and slowly fade away into the distance.
Chloe and I exhale in unison. My heart is racing and I take a brief moment to focus on my [Ether] flow before continuing with the task at hand. Still no ventilation shafts, and still no signs of organic life other than the two of us, but once we float back toward ground level, I do find a passageway that leads elsewhere into the giant tree. We take it.
And we nearly regret it. Only at the last second do I realize that I very nearly flew— no footsteps— into a massive floor filled with hundreds of thousands of robotic soldiers. Deactivated ones, yes, but completed ones that could be active at a moment’s notice. We pull back at once and find an alternative path around the mammoth chamber, down other pathways that are eerie in just how quiet they are.
“This isn’t just some sort of energy gathering project,” Chloe says. “That many soldiers? That looks like an invasion force.”
And by the goddesses, she’s right, it is. Some force is gathering energy, using it to build all these soldiers, and then gathering up an army large enough to annihilate an entire continent.
“But why?” I ask.
“I guess the same reason why Daryl did what he did and why Renault is doing what he’s doing. For power and control. And because nothing and no one can stop them.”
“I suppose that’s as good of an explanation as any. Now we just need to figure out the who and the how to shut this damn thing down.”
Dread and unease set in as we continue down the pathway. So far we’ve been lucky as we’ve navigated unused corridors. It’s obvious that we’re being led somewhere by something. The movement patterns of these droids are simply too convenient, the existence of these unused paths a stark contrast to the robotic efficiency the rest of the facility employs. But neither Chloe nor I have found any better ideas, leaving us to traverse the pathways, knowing full well this may all be a trap.
Our wanderings lead us to a small room with a terminal of some sort. Thanks to the knowledge I got from Jirel and Josefine last weekend, I recognize the glyphs on the keys as that same alphabetic script that was also on the named monsters’ armor. I don’t know words at first, but then, just like with how Skill Books decrypt themselves when used, their meaning gradually resolves itself in my mind. Must have some sort of universal translation built in.
I boot the device. More words appear, which I start to read.
“Something about the World Tree Project,” I say.
“World Tree Project?” Chloe asks.
“Says here that it started forty years ago and has been operating ever since.”
“Strange,” Chloe says. “The World Tree, in most instances of mythology, is supposed to be a source of nourishment that protects and sustains the world. But this one seems to be doing exactly the opposite.”
I start digging through the code. Options appear before me.
Initial Concept of the World Tree ProjectImplementation of the World Tree ProjectData compiled from the World Tree Project????????
Without having anything better to go off, I start with the first of the four options:
Initial Concept of the World Tree Project:
Countless simulations have confirmed a most uncomfortable truth. The world of Soreille is dying.
Although its lifespan is still measured in the tens of millennia, that does not mean that we are immune to the negative effects of the dying land until then. As the planet’s life force slowly fades away, crop yields will fall, the air and soil will gradually lose its ability to sustain life. Trees will wither and die, and the web of life will unravel. We predict that we have at most three thousand years before the decline of the world becomes terminal.
Being the only group currently aware of this impending finality, the researchers of [corrupted] have put forth a novel and ambitious proposal. Using our mastery of science and Ethertech, we should be able to slow the decline of Soreille, perhaps even reverse it altogether. [Redacted] has condemned the project as unethical and a violation of the natural order, and has withdrawn his support. The rest of us remain steadfast in our belief that it would be even more unethical to allow the world to decline and so much life to perish.
After detailing our findings and further weeks of deliberation and discussion, the council of [corrupted] has greenlit our operation and authorized funding in the amount of seventeen billion credits to construct and demonstrate a proof of concept design.
The rest is unintelligible.
“How odd,” Chloe says under her breath before switching back to telepathy. “So, this really was a facility to rejuvenate a dying world at one point.”
“And it seems to have been designed and initially run by humans before being taken over at some point by robots.”
“You think they died and their work was continued by these machines after their death.”
“No. This was designed to rejuvenate the world, but this seems to be doing the exact opposite.”
“Because of these machines.”
“It is… possible.”
Rather than continuing to speculate, I open up the second file.
Implementation of the World Tree Project:
It has long been established that the planet can be likened to lifeform in and of itself, and possesses a vital force analogous to the [Health] of a creature.
Using a protocol developed by [corrupted] back in 12,122 A.I., the first, small-scale tests were conducted, demonstrating the potential to convert the limitless Ether in the air and cosmos into vital force. However, the ability to revitalize the planet would require much, much bigger scales to collect, amplify, and reinfuse the planet to stave off its otherwise inevitable decline.
“They were… developing their own healing magic, and on a planetary scale” Chloe says. “Didn’t you say that that shouldn’t be possible?”
“As far as I know, Madison said it was virtually impossible. But they figured out a way.”