Book 5: Network Principles

I considered killing him. It was probably the smartest thing to do right there. But he was here half dead, begging for help, and as much as I disliked whatever he was for the games he had forced us through, somehow no one had been killed from his actions.

No, I couldn't kill him. At least not yet. He had tried to kill Glorp, and there were likely countless other names of the dead he was responsible for, but I had learned something from running this empire.

There was a value in what people knew. And this monster knew a lot, the least of it being just why he would ever come here begging me for help of all people. Resigned to that reality, I pulled up a chat window.

Dave: Rabyn, find Pryte and meet me in the forest behind my house. We have a problem.

Rabyn: Okay. What's going on?

Dave: Korl is here, half dead and begging for help.

Karlinovo: Kill him.

Rabyn: Don't do that. He can probably tell us who the factions were that hired him in the first place.

Dave: Yes, I already decided not to. Though we are going to have to have a talk about why you want him dead, Karlinovo.

Karlinovo: Fine, but make sure he's secured. I'll explain my encounters with him later.

Rabyn: Pryte said bring him to the bus. Timon left him a way inside.

Dave: Be there shortly.

"Can you walk?" I asked, looking down at the man. I wasn't even sure he was still conscious. I started a telemetry scan while I asked.

"No," he spluttered out before collapsing forward. The readings were even worse and didn't make a lot of sense.

He was actively regenerating already, but even as he did so, his organs were collapsing, his bones were breaking and healing, and there was something else, it was just detecting as an intrusion. What the hell was happening to him?

Dammit, Korl, did you just show up to die? I started pouring life mana into him, doing what I could to stitch up the wounds. Considering my own state, it wasn't the best idea, but based on the new readings, it was also the only thing keeping him alive. There was no way I could get him to the bus like this.

Dave: Scratch that. I need Elody here now. He's actively dying, and I can only do so much.

Gamma: I am with her. She says she's on the way.

Dave: Does anyone have any idea what could be basically liquifying internal organs and shattering bones despite regeneration fighting against it?

Karlinovo: Dammit. I knew we should have killed him. Actually, maybe not, that might have made this even worse. Dave put a shield around him. Reinforce it with your soul energy. No matter what you do, do not drop the shield. I'm on the way.

Rabyn: Pryte says listen to Karlinovo.

Dave: Great, so it's some sort of plague?

Karlinovo: No. I think it's worse than that. We need to get him to that little pocket universe Timon is hiding, quickly.

I placed a shield around Korl the second Karlinovo had demanded it. I wasn't entirely surprised that he had figured out Timon had a pocket dimension, but I was a bit surprised he was that willing to blurt it out in the soul chat. Whatever Korl had, had him worried.

The fact that something inside of the shield was hitting against it was worrying. It was core mana-based, whatever it was, as I could easily reabsorb the damage it was doing, but I had never felt anything like it before. And as far as I could see, nothing was actually hitting the shield. Outside of the fact that my abilities told me it was happening, I had no way of spotting that it was.

"Dave, are you okay?" Elody asked, skidding to a stop next to me, Gamma flying nearby.

"I'm fine. We need to keep Korl alive and get him to the bus. I have no idea what's affecting him," I replied, not entirely truthfully. The taxing of my mana channels like this hurt like hell. The after effect of healing Rabyn's soul knot was still in full effect, it seemed.

"I don't understand what's wrong with him. I've added my own healing effort to yours, but the information I'm getting from his body doesn't make any sense," Elody said, mirroring my own thoughts moments earlier.

"That's because someone tried to kill him, and killing Korl isn't exactly easy," Karlinovo said, coming around the side of the greenhouse, followed by Rabyn and Pryte. "There are very few ways to actually kill a Mimic of his age and skill, and all of them are very bad for us. If I thought there was any chance in hell he was suicidal, I'd think this was actually a planned attack."

"So what do we do then? Elody and Dave can't continuously heal him, I can tell from here that it's already starting to outpace them," Rabyn asked.

He was right. The initial burst of added healing magic Elody had provided had already weakened back to where it had been when I was alone. Whatever was trying to kill him was doing a pretty good job at it.

Karlinovo had called him a Mimic, and while they weren't a species I was too familiar with, I had read enough to take a few guesses at what that meant. Korl had no standard form. He was a shape-changer. And apparently a very good one. For his body to work like that, it almost certainly meant his internals could constantly shift and grow. He probably had a natural type of regeneration as well.

I suspected that whatever he had been attacked with was trying to destroy all of his cells and was actively adapting to us to do so. And that wasn't something I was remotely prepared to heal with my abilities. If I could cast regeneration on someone else, it was possible, but that was something that was still outside of my wheelhouse.

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"We do what I said. Gamma, can you manifest and carry him? Your manifested form shouldn't really be able to be infected by whatever it is. Once he's secure, we can discuss the next moves," Karlinovo answered.

"And how do we keep him alive?" I followed up. It wasn't a pressing concern, but if he ran to us for help, that boded poorly. I'd very much prefer learning what he knew before he died.

"We can figure that out once we don't have to worry about a plague! Let's go now!" Pryte yelled, more urgency in his voice than I had heard since the first floors of the Arena.

Gamma didn't wait to check with me and instead grabbed Korl in their manifested form and started running for the bus. Everyone followed, trying to keep up. It turned out the core could move surprisingly fast.

"Wait, let me open the door!" Pryte yelled as the bus came into view, with Gamma already standing in front of it.

I had no idea how Timon changed up where the door led to. Hell, I had only been in his personal world once before, but it seemed like Pryte had another few visits under his belt. Hopefully, the Gnome knew just where we were putting Korl.

Once Pryte had the door open, we all filed through to that same small world where the jester was imprisoned. "Take the front door into the small building, and head through the green door," Pryte instructed.

I still wasn't sure where we were securing Korl in the basement, but this was a much preferable place to keep him than the city. Why had Korl possibly come to us, of all people, for help? He had to have better allies. It was entirely possible that Karlinovo was on the right track about this being a trap, and we just didn't understand how yet.

"Put him in there. It wasn't designed for disease containment, but it was made to hold a shapeshifter, so it's the best thing we have," Pryte said as we stepped into the basement.

It looked different than the last time I had seen it. Before the jester's cell had been front and center. Now it was back in a corner with several other small chambers filling a much larger space. Had Timon redesigned it, or did it just reorder itself based on need?

"Can I drop the shield once he's inside?" I asked, hoping to get some of the strain off my core. I needed to finish the healing.

"Yes. Rabyn, do you have any foods with regenerative abilities?" Karlinovo asked.

"I've got a few sticks of jerky," he answered.

"Perfect, Gamma, feed those to Korl once you are inside the cell. Dave, Elody pour as much healing into him as you can handle while the jerky is in his system. In theory, if we can overfill whatever it is trying to break down his cellular bonds, we can kill it." Karlinovo produced a notepad while he was talking and started scribbling away.

"Okay." Gamma dropped Korl's body into the cell, and it sealed behind them. It looked like some sort of glass. I had a feeling it was a bit more complex than that, though. I assumed there was some magic in play. Hell, the entire reality was full of it.

Was the mana flow here strong enough for core formation? I wasn't entirely sure, considering the size of the place, it was possible the ambient mana was still far too low. It was also entirely possible that Timon's core itself produced all of this somehow. I made a mental note to discuss the possibilities of this place with him the next time I saw him.

As Gamma began to force-feed Korl, I started channeling just as Karlinovo had instructed. I was surprised at how easily my mana entered the containment cell. Why wasn't that blocked as well?

"Something is changing," Elody said, her healing magic buffeting my own. She was right, unlike before, whatever was trying to kill Korl couldn't keep up with our collected efforts.

"Keep holding your flows, both of you. Damn, I wish Timon had actual, useful equipment in here. We need to figure out what he was infected with. If any of it is still on Earth, we could have a giant problem down the road," Karlinovo said, scribbling away.

"He's getting healthier. But I can't tell if that's just due to the sheer amount of healing effects we are hitting him with or if we are actually stopping the infection," Rabyn added.

"It's both. Now that I've had time to study what's happening, I've found the agent. It's feeding on Korl's body to quickly multiply itself. If I had to guess, it's something tailor-made to kill a Mimic. Though I had no idea Korl was one. Impressive that he's managed to hide that," Elody said, all four eyes locked on her target.

"Yes, well, no one has ever accused Korl of not being resourceful. You don't amass his kind of connections otherwise. The big question is, who he managed to piss off enough that they went to this level of trouble to kill him, or why the hell he ran all the way here? I know you all had some dealings with him before, but it's not like we can protect him," Karlinovo said, taking a few steps closer to the cell and starting to trace some symbols on the exterior of it.

"We can figure that out if we can keep him alive. And it looks like the fight is starting to reverse again," I said, my own scan starting to show a decrease in our efforts.

"I'm aware. Rabyn, if you could charge these runes. I don't quite have the core strength for that just yet," Karlinovo replied, continuing to draw more symbols.

"Are these the same thing you used to keep us contained?" the Orc asked, as his own magic flared to life. Each of the symbols briefly glowed brightly as he channeled mana into it.

"Similar, with my new core, I can be a bit more intricate with them. Though the mana flow here may not work as well with them as back on Earth. Timon has a lot of direct influence over it you wouldn't otherwise see," Karlinovo answered.

"Okay, I think that did it," I said. For the first time since this had started, the actual infection was dying off instead of us just fighting the effects.

"Slowly lower your healing. I can't tell if we've purged the infection or not yet," Karlinovo said.

I watched my medical telemetry readout while doing what he said. Even as the healing mana decreased from both Elody and me, there was no return surge of damage to Korl's body. It looked like we had managed to overwhelm whatever had been attacking him.

"Okay, good, drop it entirely. I think we have it," Karlinovo continued his instructions.

"So Korl's a Mimic? That explains a lot. He has to be one of the oldest ones in the Spiral to have kept that so hidden," Pryte said.

"He's far older than any of us. Which makes this all the stranger. There's no good reason for him to come to us. I'm not thrilled at the idea of him learning I'm alive, but I don't see any way around that now," Karlinovo explained, sounding more annoyed by the word.

"I can help, if only you let me out," a sing-song voice chimed from somewhere deeper into the room.

"Ignore it. It's best not to talk to it without Timon around to control this place," Pryte said, and I nodded in agreement.

"Okay, he's going to be out for a while, I think. I need to get some more equipment from the workshop to be sure, but I think he's stable," Karlinovo said.

"Alright, Gamma, unmanifest if you could, that should clear anything from you," I said.

"Okay," the dungeon core replied, before vanishing.

"Is it safe to leave him alone?" I asked as we headed for the stairs. I had no clue what kind of security Timon had in place around here, if any, beyond the cells themselves. Though I expected it to be more than that.

"It should be. He didn't give me any details, which is, of course, no surprise, but he said anything locked away down here should be secure, though he did stress several times not to risk putting his ex down here," Pryte answered.

"Good enough for me, I suppose," I replied, as I made my way up out of here. For some reason, the place had given me a shiver of anxiety both times I had been, and it was something I'd prefer to get away from as soon as I could.

"That door wasn't open before," Rabyn said the moment we entered the upper floor.

No, it hadn't been. Worse yet, it was the red door Timon had said not to touch. While I had no idea how serious that warning actually was, it seemed we were about to find out.

"Pryte, any idea how real Timon's warnings were about the door?" I asked, looking to the Gnome.

"No, but he did reiterate them to me, so possibly serious," Pryte produced a small green gem in his hand as he said. "Timon, can you hear me?"

"Dammit, I said only use that in case of emergencies. It can't be an emergency already, can it?" Timon's voice answered from the gem.

"I don't know, but the red door is open," Pryte replied.

"Who opened it?" Timon's voice lost some of the usual humor. That meant this was serious.

"We don't know we were securing…" Pryte was cut off before he could finish.

"If that door is open, assume this isn't a secure communication. Get back to the city, I'll be there as soon as I can," Timon yelled.

Intent on heeding his orders, I opened the front door. It no longer led outside. Instead, I was staring into a darkened stone corridor that ran further than I could make out. "Too late for that, we are going to need to know what's going on as the way out is gone," I yelled.

No reply came from the gem this time. "Dammit. Okay, let's head back to the cells for now," Pryte said.

"No, I believe I know what Timon had behind the red door. How he had them, I have no idea. But it's best we do not open any further doors. That way we came will just lead us deeper into a maze," Elody said, upper set of eyes scanning the room as she spoke.

"What did he have?" Rabyn asked, a cleaver appearing in one of his hands.

"Have any of you ever heard of a weaver mother?" Elody answered with a question.

No one replied.

Elody continued looking nervous. "There is a species of mana beasts that live in one of the restricted universes called weavers. They are able to use their webs to map probabilistic fields. They live in a matriarchal colony with a single mother as their ruler. Supposedly, the weaver mothers are able to map fields of fate. They are also extremely dangerous."

"A rather undeserving reputation, I think. It's just that sometimes, when you can see the weave of fate itself, you go a bit mad." A small, almost grandmotherly voice spoke from the darkness at the end of the corridor.

One of the rarest ingredients any chef can get their hand on is a thread of weaver silk. It has to be refined for years before it is safe to consume, and then it is only good for the effect it produces for one day. If mixed with the right alcohol and drank within a strong fate-aligned mana flow, a glimpse of your future may be seen. A single choice, and the ruinous results that can be avoided if you don't make it.

Dangerous, Secret, and Lost Foods by Tony Dainour

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