Mage Tank

***

SYSTEM ADDENDUM ADDED BY: DELVE CORE 9963

ADDENDUM NOTE: Sometimes it’s better to cut your losses.

***

Delve Core 9963 had come online after a brief, eighty-year nap to discover Phase 2 had been implemented. She’d been surprised it had happened so soon, but also excited beyond words to finally see her Delve in action.

She’d worked so hard to unearth and capture the Throne of Zng after the fall of the prior generation. Millennia of meticulous planning, millennia of stealthily invading, and yet more millennia of slowly converting the Undead within from a sleeping army into proper Delve creatures. All that effort, and she’d never even gotten to see it tear the guts out of a single Delver!

The Throne of Zng had been denied participation in Phase 1 for being too dangerous, which Core 9963 chose to interpret as being too awesome. It wasn’t her fault she was an incredible Delve designer. Well, no, it was, but that was definitely a virtue and not a shortcoming. It was a sign of her extraordinary talent that her Delve had to be put on ice, pun intended.

Were the contents of her Delve an existential risk to a Phase 1 civilization?

No way!

It was just a teeny little Undead army. Not even a full half million captured souls, all-in. Their average Grade was below Level 20, and even though there were one, or two–okay, a hundred–minor outliers vastly more powerful than the rest, those were just backups. She wasn’t going to deploy them! Besides, the mana density was way too low for the Goliaths to even function properly. They were growth opportunities. Literally. She wanted to know how big she could get them.

And, she definitely had full control of everything else inside, including the experimental Elder Liches. They weren’t anywhere close to breaching their containment. She’d even double-checked the weaves here and there and had only ever needed to make a few–very minor–adjustments and repairs.

What kind of trash Delve Core didn’t have total control of their Delve monsters? Core 9963 was a professional, not some garbage rusty-shell playing fast and loose with their necromantic rituals and safeguards. Not any of the important ones, at least.

Sadly, System Core 1 was unpersuaded.

So, Core 9963 was forced to wait, not just until Phase 2 came along, but also for someone to actually find the Delve. SC1 wasn’t willing to grant a direct portal, and hearing that, 9963 had felt the tiniest bit of regret over her choice of location.

The moonfall had buried the whole Zng civilization beneath ice. Without a System prompt, how would anybody find the place? Was she supposed to wait until somebody came to the middle of no-fucking-where and dug?!

Still, she’d had faith. Delvers were resourceful. And, as it turned out, more resourceful than she’d even thought! The transition had been less than a month ago, and there was already a party inside her lovely, fantabulous Delve.

And she fucking hated them.

The… the indignation, the rage she felt, it was overwhelming. The meatbags weren’t doing anything the intended way! Core 9963 prided herself on providing Delvers with many different paths to solving a challenge, but they weren’t solving shit! They were just breaking everything!

First, her carefully crafted Wicked ice. Always slick, always emitting deadly fumes, it was supposed to send Delvers into a panic, then test their ability to adapt to the pressure! There were a bajilliondy ways to disable the weaves or counteract the debuff, but this group just friggin’ ignored it! It’s like they didn’t even care. Did they enjoy the suffering?

Next, her meticulously planned entry hall. Miles of hidden secrets buried beneath the ice. Clues and trinkets, there was even an amulet that would translate Zng for them! A mile further in was a coded storybook that would have given them the password the Zng soldiers would ask for. They barely glanced at any of it!

Was it all trapped to shit? Yes, of course. Were there thousands of decoy items? Duh! Would digging through the ice make the Wicked debuff worse? It would, but that was the challenge. Once the Delvers saw an entire legion of Undead, they were supposed to panic again! Then they could retrace their steps and hunt for the clues, dealing with more reasonable hazards than a flubbin’ army rated eleven Grades higher than their party!

They didn’t even look for a way to translate the language. Some asshole in a feather boa sat and muttered to himself for an entire day straight, and was suddenly fluent. Core 9963 had never even heard of that skill, and the System refused to cough up any info on it.

Right, so Feathers McFashion learned the language. Next, they should have tried to figure out whether there was a code or something, right? No again. They took a look at 1,518 enemies with Grades ranging from 13 to 20 and thought “Hey, that looks like something we could fight.” Hello? No, it doesn’t! They were Level 12!

And then, they murdered everything. They even made it look easy.

EASY!

At that point, Core 9963 queried SC1 for guidance, but all she got back was a mad cackle. By the time she figured out how SC1 could even cackle in the machine language, the party had killed another legion and some-fucking-how teleported into the armory vault!

Core 9963 had dozens of weaves making teleportation a pain. The vault was buried, without any obvious access routes. It was warded against scrying, three types of instant movement, dimensional shifting, phasing, incorporeal infiltration, and yes, teleportation. They were supposed to trap the spirit of one of the commanders who’d tell them where it was, but they just sort of… found it anyway?

After that, they were supposed to fight a Spectral Vault Guardian. That was a three-phase fight with an entire wing of the Delve dedicated to it. Core 9963 had spent a decade planning it out! They’d teleported past the boss, oh well. They hadn’t even set off any of the traps or alarms, since those were all outside the vault.

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Core 9963 had to dig through her logs to figure out how they’d done it. Finally, she checked the sensor grid she’d installed in preparation for her next expansion and realized the Bearded Menace had taken them through the fourth dimension.

Standard protocols didn’t recommend warding against higher dimensions until the Delve was rated for Level 20, at the earliest!

They were Level 12.

Level 12!

That was the absolute minimum Level required to enter.

Once they were inside the vault, Core 9963 watched them stuff several tons of gear into Featherbeard’s inventory, which made as much sense as everything else they’d done. A thousand ingots of Prismatite, gone. A hundred Prototype Spatial rifles, gone. Thirty suits of Prismatite-infused carbonweave armor, gone. At least those were the wrong size for them, and good luck breaking them down for parts. Their civilization was barely out of the stone age, for fuck’s sake.

Well, Core 9963 wasn’t going to sit around and let them stomp their stinky boots all across her work–her artistry–without retribution. They wanted to avoid the Vault Guardian? Pah! If they were going to teleport into places they shouldn’t be able to, then she was going to teleport things into places that she shouldn’t!

The Guardian was meant to be fought in a wide open space with plenty of terrain to hide behind, but if the party insisted on doing things the wrong way, then they could fight the overpowered golem in the wrong room. Being trapped in a 2,000-square-foot space was going to make the fight brutal.

Core 9963 cut power to the weaves protecting the armory, and sent the self-satisfied party their reward for being total jerks.

***

END SYSTEM ADDENDUM

***

*****

I looked over the empty chests and shelves of the Throne’s armory, feeling quite proud of myself. The Delve was, as I’d hoped, a two-fer. We were well on our way to finishing the Expansion Delve and not only did we have our Prismatite, but we even had a ton of ancient, high-tech goodies to play around with.

Between me, Grotto, and Nuralie, I was pretty confident we could puzzle out how all the gadgets and gizmos worked. I didn’t think any of us planned to start using magic guns, but if we couldn’t use it all ourselves, then maybe I could give Closetland the world’s most advanced spec-ops platoon.

Honestly, that name was growing on me. It kind of sounded like a theme park. The theme would be me, of course, so you know that park was definitely going to be a fun one. There could be attractions based around all the Delves we’d done. The fight with the Pit would be a killer mountain-style rollercoaster.

Anyway, we were just about to figure out where to teleport next when a boss showed up out of thin air. Kind of an inconvenience, a bit rude, and also random.

Etja Mesmerized it.

Normally that wouldn’t have saved the rest of us, but she also Distracted it by talking about how she’d felt living as a golem for a brief time. The Spectral Vault Guardian had been formed from a conglomerate of trapped souls, so it had a lot of empathy towards being a sentient entity bound to another’s will. I was able to translate for our mage without interfering too much with her Charisma checks. Sage Advice helped a lot with that.

They chatted for an hour until the golem had decided it didn’t want to kill any of us. In fact, it didn’t want to kill anything. The Guardian was a softie at heart.

It was also a potent Spiritual entity, so I decided to ask it some questions.

“Say, Vaulty, can I pick your artificial brain about something?” I said in Zng. The golem had picked the nickname itself since its composite souls didn’t possess sufficient individualism to remember their names.

“Sure,” said the golem. Its heavy metal legs pivoted, letting its multi-ton frame settle onto the ground with a clunk. The Guardian’s upper body swung towards me with a whine of its servos. “What do you need?”

Although the golem was mainly made up of an amalgamation of incorporeal specters, it had a robotic outer shell that served as a red herring. Once the physical components were destroyed, it actually became more powerful. It could also split into multiple lesser specters that would steal life force and allow it to reform once its soul had been damaged. It sounded like a solid setup for a three-phase fight that I was a little disappointed we were missing out on. But, Vaulty was pretty chill and I had no desire to hurt the big dude.

“We’re in a little hot water with a problem related to mental magicks,” I said. “Being a powerful Spiritual entity, I was wondering if you happened to have any expertise in that area?”

“What kind of mental effects?” Vaulty asked.

“Semi-permanent manipulation, likely originating from some overpowered version of Dominate.”

“I see,” said the golem. “No. I am capable with a variety of mental debuffs such as Fear and Psychosis, but I am no Dominator. I do not even dabble in possessions, since I find the practice abhorrent.”

“Hmm, then do you happen to know a master of mental magicks powerful enough to manipulate souls at a deific or near-deific level?”

“Gods, no,” said Vaulty. “If I knew that such an entity was within a thousand miles of me, I would flee. They are despicable, vile, perverted corruptors who pursue mastery over the greatest sins imaginable. One’s own thoughts should be sacred, an inviolable sanctuary. Seeking the power to desecrate that is the highest of taboos.”

I shifted my lips back and forth as I thought. “I don’t mean to be indelicate, but isn’t that kind of what’s happening to you?”

Vaulty’s glowing red eyes narrowed as it stared at the wall in thought. “I believe I would like to leave this place.”

“Yeah, I can understand why,” I said. “By the way, do golems count as living creatures?”

[Not typically, although there are exceptions, such as Etja.]

“Could I… put Vaulty in my inventory?”

[Perhaps. Although, you would need to be able to lift him. He would also be protected by his controller’s will, which would oppose your attempt.]

“You have an inventory space with that much capacity?”

“Oh yeah,” I said. “Plenty of space in there.”

“I am aware of the binding rituals used to compel me. I cannot alter them on my own, or assist another in altering them, but I can give you their locations.”

[Assuming the golem was bound by a Core, I have sufficient knowledge to compromise their control, especially since the spirit is aware of its captivity.]

“Then we can take you with us if you’d like.” I looked over the golem’s massive frame. “We might need to disassemble you some, so I can pick up the pieces and store them. How’s that sound?”

“I am reluctant to trust a stranger with my frame, but…” The golem glanced over at Etja, who gave him a beaming smile. “Since you are a friend of Etja’s, I will take the chance.”

“Great!” I said. “Let’s get started, then. Once we’re out, you can decide what you want your future to look like.”

And so we stole the Delve’s optional boss. Hopefully, the Core wouldn’t be too upset about it. Buuuuuut if they were anything like Grotto, we were about to make a little murder ball pretty angry with us.

Fuck it, we were shitting all over this Delve, we could handle it.

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