Each of them took the name of a Greek or Roman god whose domain overlapped with their own. They said that this was to make it easy to know who to call for each domain. Personally, the other two of us thought they did it because they were so crazy that they thought they were those gods.
My colleague had to put the control schema known colloquially as “The System” in place to limit the damage they would be able to do. With the system in place, each of the strains of Nanobots would only be able to affect things in their primary domains and would be non-transferable. New individuals were capped at 100% “affinity” in any given strain, but every human would have enough system nanobots, it only took a few, to prevent madness.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t limit it to the seven patients. With the system in place, each of the Domains was unable to gain power in a different domain without giving up their extreme power in their primary Domain. As they had no desire to do this, as long as my colleague stood to enforce this, there was a balance. With this, the original nanobots became system nanobots. They retained their original ability to craft anything that a person could imagine and added the ability to substitute as Nanobots from any of the other domains.
The Seven Domains were understandably upset about balance. Most people are upset when things are balanced. To counteract this, we agreed with them that the System domain would not show up on anyone’s screen unless they already have significant system nanobots. We disguised the system domain as the crafting domain. My colleague went into hiding and chose not to interact with the world because of the power of his Nanobots. I adopted the name of Theta-Sigma, just to piss off the other Seven, and took up my role as the Domain of Time and Space.
Sir Francis Gordon, 2075
Lucas sighed. “Apparently I am too close to enemies to get my notifications. I guess I just keep going.”
As no rats had assaulted Lucas while he rested, it was obvious there were no more Rats nearby in the maze. If there were, they would have attacked after the noise that battle generated. It was also obvious that the rats had to run in from somewhere.
“Thinking out loud here Rose, but please flash if I am missing something obvious,” said Lucas. The rats ran in here after hearing noises, that means they are not stationed in the maze.” As Lucas spoke, Lucas wandered around the outside edge of the maze, looking for an entrance. “It isn’t a long run, which means that they can’t have been coming from too far away. But noise doesn’t transfer too well because there were no further reinforcements.” A light flashed. Lucas looks up. There is a hole in the cement wall in front of him. It was obviously made by animals; you could tell this by the number of teeth and claw marks in the concrete.
“I think we just found out how they are getting into the main section of the base. If this is truly their entrance, then it is safe to say that the Ninja Room is clear,” thought Lucas. “The last three rats must be in the storage room. If I clear that, then the Rats are done.”
With that, Lucas squeezed through the hole in the concrete.
Immediately Lucas wished there was more light. It wasn’t exactly dark. It was the twilighty haze of almost visible. There was just enough light to see, but not enough light to see in very much detail, or to see most colors. The only thing Lucas could see was shadows.
“I guess the first thing I need to do is either find a light or turn all the lights on,” thought Lucas. Looking up, the light fixtures appeared to be present and in the right positions, so the light switch was probably just turned off somewhere.
Moving slowly along the wall, Lucas half felt, half saw his way around the edge of the room in the direction he assumed the entrance from the Dojo Area was. Most doors would have to have a panic bar to get out due to fire safety requirements, so at the very least he could prop open the door and have a light by the entrance. Best case scenario, there were functional light switches by the door. Cracking a piece of wood on the floor, Leo pauses to see if he has been noticed.
“Squeak.”
“Shit,” thought Lucas. “I can hear them, but I bet they can see me better than I can see them.” Activating stealth, Lucas's progress slowed even further as he attempted to avoid detection while he simultaneously looked for the entrance. Just as he finally found the door, the rats found him.
Before he could do anything, the fact that the rats obviously saw him forced Lucas out of stealth. Figuring he was at an extreme disadvantage if he fought in a room this dark, Lucas slammed his shoulder into the door.
Luckily for Lucas, the doorway back to the Dojo was a door that took fire safety into account, and there was a panic bar on the inside. With a “Thud” Lucas fell through the open doorway to land on his shoulder.
Scrambling to his feet, Lucas drew his daggers and turned to face whatever had been lurking in the shadows.
Facing him were three rats. The last three rats left in the complex assuming the quest text was accurate. Even prepared to face three rats, Lucas was a little startled by what he saw. Of the three rats, one was the Rat boss. He was 50% larger than the other two rats standing with him. Doing a quick inspect, Lucas was able to tell the rat was also 50% stronger, 25% faster, and had 50% more health. Oddly enough the system also said his name was Templeton. Unfortunately, the system also told Lucas that Templeton was a Rat King.
Again with the unlucky streak, the rats accompanying Templeton were also named monsters; Wilbur and Uncle. At least they were just named elites without any extra stat boosts.
“This is not going to be an easy fight,” thought Lucas. “I’m pretty sure I can do it since I took down four earlier, but this is going to hurt.”
Mind over Matter! Haste! Slow! Lucas rapidly cast his spells on appropriate targets. Considering the speed advantage Templeton had, Lucas targeted Templeton with the Slow spell.
Immediately Templeton stopped outpacing the elites in their race towards Lucas. This gave Lucas enough time to jump to his feet and drop into a fighting stance.
Wilbur darted left as Uncle darted right. Meanwhile, Templeton was still headed straight for Lucas.
“Rat’s with Tactics,” thought Lucas, “apparently they are trying to surround me.”
Darting towards Uncle, Lucas managed to cut Uncle on his right flank. Lucas immediately noticed a drop in speed from Uncle. “I’ve got to keep myself out of their circle if I want to keep my mobility. Without mobility, I'm toast.”
Swinging around, Lucas activated dash and headed towards Wilbur. Jumping his head and landing on Wilbur’s back, Lucas dug his daggers into both of Wilbur's sides to keep him from overshooting, and to do a bit of damage at the same time. Dismounting, Lucas realized he had hurt Wilbur more than he thought he would when he noticed Wilbur's health bar was half missing. Because of the long gouges in his side, Wilbur also had bleeding damage slowly ticking away at his health. Unlike the earlier rats, Wilbur ran.
Facing Templeton, Lucas needed a plan of attack. He probably couldn’t jump him and even with the speed buffs, he was not faster than the Rat Boss. He might have taken Wilbur out of the fight unscratched, but he did not believe for a moment that he would get that lucky with Templeton.
While Lucas was focused on Templeton, Uncle swung around and bit Lucas on the Leg. It didn’t do a lot of damage but did manage to get enough of a bite that Lucas noticed a disease debuff pop up on his interface. “Without treatment, the user will experience temporary paralysis in 120 seconds. Paralysis will expire after 5 minutes or after the disease is cured, whichever occurs first.”
Suddenly Lucas had a time limit. Before Uncle could pull away, Lucas slammed his dagger as hard as he could into the skull. Uncle’s health bar dropped by a fourth. Uncle backed away to prevent any more quick hits. Before Lucas could pivot, Templeton charged in and bit him. Lucas instantly lost a quarter of his health bar.
“Too many hits like that, and I won’t make it,” Lucas said to nobody in particular. He just hoped Rose was listening to his muttering still.
When Templeton let go, Lucas managed to get a good dagger hit of his own. Templeton’s health bar barely moved. Maybe a tenth of it was gone if Lucas still reading it right.
Keeping an eye out for Uncle, Lucas darted in and struck Templeton 3 more times before he could retaliate. Thankfully the combo took Templeton down to half health, unfortunately, Lucas got bit again to get those strikes, taking him down another 15%. Before Templeton could disengage, Lucas slammed his daggers into Templeton's Ear. The double critical hit finished him off. Turning to finish off Uncle, Lucas wasn’t sure where he had gone. Noting that he had 20 seconds left on the clock before paralysis hit, Lucas ran over to the Ninja course door, pulled out the wood stop, opened the door and slammed it shut behind him before he fell over as the disease activated the paralysis debuff.
When the paralysis finally wore off, Lucas noted he was still alone, and Mind over Matter had faithfully healed him back up to full.
Quietly exiting the Ninja course, Lucas began his search for Uncle and Wilbur. It didn’t take him long to find Uncle. Uncle was waiting for him to leave the safety of the Ninja course.
Running at him at his best speed, Lucas activated dash, dodged a swipe from Uncle, and slammed his daggers into Uncle’s spine, instantly killing him.
This left just Wilbur. Following the trail of blood left from Wilbur's retreat, it led back into the storage room. With the door propped open, Lucas was able to see a light switch on the wall. When Lucas turned on the switch, he estimated that 25% of the lights turned on. “I can deal with this,” thought Lucas. “Enough light to see, but not overly bright.”
Continuing to follow the trail, Lucas came to the crack in the base wall that Rose described earlier. It really was more of a cave entrance than a crack at this point. It was tall enough that Lucas could walk in without fear of hitting his head. Not too deep into the cave, he saw Wilbur. He hadn’t made it back wherever he was headed. The bleed debuff finished him off before he got where he was going.
As he turned to leave, Lucas heard a gentle tinkling. It sounded like a very small stream discharging onto pebbles. Knowing the possibilities of what that meant, Lucas retreated into the base proper to find an improvised torch of some sort. Activating Loot Locate on the racks of items that had been stored, Lucas managed to find a flashlight. And surprisingly it was packed with spare stabilized batteries. “Advertised as good for a thousand years. I wonder if the batteries still work,” said Lucas. Popping in the new batteries, the flashlight turned right on without any issues. “Honestly that is pretty surprising,” thought Lucas, “I had always figured the 1000 years was marketing hype.”
Returning to the Cave, Lucas followed the sound of the water downward. It didn’t take but one or two turns and maybe 5 minutes of walking before he saw it. There was a small stream flowing underground past the probably somewhere around the 8th basement level. The stream flowed up against the wall of the 8th basement, so it was entirely possible that it had been tapped by the Goblins from the inside. Filling his empty bottle, Lucas retreated into the base.
Passing the base wall, Lucas blocked off the cave entrance with a stack of larger storage crates. Using a pallet jack, Lucas was able to move enough crates to the entrance that he was able to make a makeshift wall. Using just the pallet jack, Lucas could remove a single box from the side and create an entrance just large enough that Lucas could squeeze through and refill his water bottles.
As soon as Lucas slid the last crate in place, Lucas was inundated with Pop-Ups
As the loot appeared at Lucas's feet, Lucas thought “On the plus side, I get a free attribute point and some nice loot. On the minus side, the base is considered a dungeon and it’s not just the system calling it that due to age. Does that mean that the Rats will come back no matter what I do? Or does that simply mean that dangerous mobs live in the vicinity, proceed at your own risk?”
Unable to conclude, Lucas decided his best course of action would be to search the surrounding storeroom for usable items.
Walking from shelving unit to shelving unit, activating Loot Locate as he went, Lucas was presented with a single loot window for the room that the system arranged by the probability of usefulness.
Lucas immediately began the search for a copy of most of the items. Most specifically he needed that keycard so he could lock the door back up. Quickly finding the items he was looking for due to the good organization of the storage unit, Lucas inspected his prizes and then quickly equipped the upgrades. Stuffing the other items into his new backpack, Lucas turned and headed back to Rose’s room so he could discuss what he should do next.
Status Screen:
Common Red (I cannot get the text to stay black in the preview, so these are temporarily red.)
