Chapter 74 Struggle

            After killing a tier-three mage, the mage’s tier-three familiar, and the imp, who was a tier-three entity, the dungeon had a massive amount of mana fueling his growth, and so the dungeon focused on growing straight up. Vacuum dungeons were evolved wind dungeons. There were seven on them on all the moons around the gas giant. The smallest labyrinth created by a vacuum dungeon reached a height of three hundred miles, with the tallest reaching over fifteen hundred miles in height. The dungeon core of the Great Black Tree Labyrinth was pushing his area of influence twelve hundred miles into the sky, so he wasn’t the tallest dungeon around, but he wasn’t far from it. That may seem tall to the extreem, but the moons around the gas giant had an average distance from each other of two hundred and fifty thousand miles. The dungeon wasn’t going to run into anything. Although it was worth noting that although these dungeons seemed huge in height, in cubic miles, they paled in comparison to other dungeons’ areas of influence. Every tier-three dungeon could be measured in the millions of cubic miles.

            One of the great benefits for the dungeon going straight up so high was that in vacuum there was nothing to focus on. Early on, every time his area of influence expanded he had more and more matter, molecules, things, and stuff to pay attention to. The nature of being a dungeon core was that he had to see everything in his area of influence. The more stuff going on in his area of influence, the more his attention was diverted. It wasn’t all bad, as his mind grew sharper every time his area of influence grew. The problem was that until his area of influence finally reached vacuum, every time he grew he had so many more things to focus on that it didn’t matter that he was growing smarter. That changed as the last several hundred years he had been getting smarter and smarter without new distractions, thanks to his area of influence reaching the vacuum of space.

            As soon as he was finished growing his area of influence straight up, he began making an active support system from carbon fiber and metallic hydrogen with the goal of reaching the top of the twelve-hundred-mile limit as quickly as possible. A few hours after he started an immortal folded space and stood in front of the electromagnetic shields of the great black tree labyrinth.

            The immortal stared at the shield surrounding the entire labyrinth and attempted to bypass it with folding space several dozen times. Eventually, he reached the conclusion that he wouldn’t be able to use folding magic to bypass it, and so began walking toward the dungeon.

            As the immortal was about to take a step through the shields, the dungeon needed to buy more time, so he sent him a message by radio, “I see you couldn’t help yourself and put a radio, the mind talking modification, in your head.”

            The immortal paused, frowned, furled his eyebrow in a short thought, and said through his radio, “Of course. You killed my imp, and that tier three’s familiar, you know how modified our familiars are. Once we become immortals, we are capable of safely modifying ourselves in the same way. Right now, every immortal has radio.”

            “I suppose you are here to kill me.”

            The immortal sighed and said, “Unfortunately, yes. You have killed a tier-three mage and two familiars. If the dungeon core of the Labyrinth of Force were to learn how you killed them then no tier-two mage would be able to become tier-three. My goal, and the goal of every immortal, is to make more immortals. Your creations could stop that. I appreciate the knowledge you have given my people, but we can’t have that knowledge reach the Dungeon of Force.”

            “If you are so big on making everyone immortal, why don’t you just farm immortal cores and give them to everyone?”

            “Honestly, it’s because we can’t. The only way to get an immortal core is to fight a creature with the core and transfer it into yourself during the fight. We can’t transfer a core of immortality, healing, force, or annihilation. Only warrior mages can take those cores from their living owners. Unfortunately, most mages do not have the temperament to fight and become immortal; those that do need a smoother path to immortality. Any dungeon like you who produces something that can make a tier-three dungeon more dangerous gets destroyed.”

            “Well, gee, thanks. You pulled me from my home world unwillingly, forced me to become a dungeon, then you never told me the rules of what would get me killed.” It wasn’t a question.

            “You have lived far longer in our world than you would have in yours. Since your life is finite, it might as well be used to make someone else’s life infinite. Besides, if we limited you too much, then you would never have made the radio humans, or that new metal. We appreciate both.”

            “But I have more secrets that you will not be able to get if you kill me.”

            “That is what oracle magic is for. Anything you developed, I will be able to recreate.”

            “Are you sure? Can you recreate the electromagnetic shield I created around my dungeon?”

            “If I wanted to. That said, the material is always weaker than the magical. I would prefer to build a magical variant of the lightning shield, assuming, of course, it’s better than my force magic.”

            As the two talked, the dungeon kept building his active support system.

            The dungeon said, “I don’t think it will be as easy to make a magical variant of the electromagnetic shield as you think. It took me hundreds of years to figure out how to do it.”

            “If you can do it, I can.”

            “Wait a minute, I want to show you what I had to do to make a magical electromagnetic shield.”

            The immortal sighed, but through radio said, “I can wait a minute.”

            “Good, I am sending some sage squirrels to show you how incredibly difficult it is to make electrical shields.”

            “I suspect you are attempting an ambush, but it doesn’t matter. Dungeons always fight when they have lived beyond their usefulness.”

            “Fight isn’t the right word. I intend to struggle.” The dungeon said as he continued building his active support tower.

            “You have improved my people’s chance to become immortals, so I can give you a minute more of life. You have earned that much.”

            “You mean with the radios. I have to ask, what do you intend to do with the humans that still live in my labyrinth?”

            “They will be used as stock so that someday in the next couple of thousand years all humans on the moons will have mind speaking abilities.”

            “Humans should not be used as cattle.”

            “Human life is short; if we use them as cattle today so that their great-grandchildren can be immortals, then they should thank me. Why do you even care? How do you even care? All your emotions were removed.”

            “It’s called ethics. Whether I have emotions or not, some things are right and some things are wrong. All humans should have rights.”

            The immortal laughed and said, “What about the human warriors and mages you killed?”

            “You gave me incredibly strong impulses to kill any mana creatures, including mana humans. Furthermore, I have the right to self-defense. Your humans came to take from me, I can defend myself. As for the humans I created, I have a responsibility to them because all humans have rights.”

            “So that’s how you kept your sanity. Ethics. Perhaps in future dungeons, we will experiment with giving the dungeons ethics. If nothing else, your ethics gave us mind talking.”

            “Don’t worry about it too much, the sage squirrels are here.”

            The immortal looked up at the sage squirrels, which were on the other side of the electrical field, and asked, “How did you stitch together their souls?”

            “I am not going to tell you, but I can say that it was very difficult. It was seriously the hardest thing I have ever done. Perhaps this will convince you to leave me alone.”

            “No. Far from it. I don’t want the Labyrinth of Force, or any of the soul dungeons, getting ahold of this.”

            With that, the immortal dashed through the field and began battling the sage squirrels. The immortal moved inhumanly fast. The dungeon could tell he was using haste, but the immortal’s haste was way faster than times ten. In a moment, the immortal launched dozens of attacks, including a few tier-three attacks that the dungeon had no way to recognize. All were deflected by the shield.

            When the immortal recognized his attacks were not working, he dashed to the other side of the field and spoke over radio, “That is impressive.”

            “Well, thank you. I am glad to see you recognize the power of the electromagnetic shields.”

            “Not that. You set it up so the squirrels are sharing cores. It’s brilliant. I couldn’t help but notice that my magical attacks weakened the lightning shield for a moment, only for it to be empowered again almost immediately. With so many of these sage squirrels working together, they could outlast me in a purely magical battle. If I can find a way to make my familiars do that then there is a possibility that every tier-three will be able to do the same. To be completely honest, the only reason why I, or any other immortal, was able to take an immortal core was because of our familiars. If we can link souls and cores like this in our familiars, then we may finally have a consistent way to make immortals.”

            “Wait, are you saying the sage squirrels are actually able to beat you?”

            “Oh, no, absolutely not.” As the immortal sent those words over radio he dashed through the shield protecting the Great Black Tree Dungeon, and went directly into the shield the sage squirrels had made, and began eradicating them by hand one after the other. He was moving so fast it looked like a string of fireworks were going off as the immortal hit them and they exploded.

            Once the immortal was finished, he said, “Dungeon I want to thank you for all the gifts you provided us. You have truly been a profitable investment, but all good things must come to an end. You said you intended to struggle for your life. Do you have anything else you wish to throw at me?”

            “Not exactly.” The dungeon took a moment to recognize that he couldn’t stall any longer, so he asked, “Do you know what a rail launcher is?”

            “Some material thing?”

            “If you take two rails and put them next to each other, power the rails with electricity, and then put a conductive material between the two rails, then the conductive material will move. The more electricity going through the rails, the faster the conductive material moves.”

            “I believe you made some essence creatures like that.”

            “I did, before eventually moving them over to coil guns, as coil guns produced a whole lot less heat.”

            “I take you intend to use this rail gun on me?”

            “No, actually, I intend to use it on myself and my labyrinth.”

            The immortals face scrunched up into pure confusion as the dungeon finishes building the active supports. Thanks to his magic, he managed to make it eleven hundred miles tall, nearly a hundred miles less than his maximum, but the dungeon figured this was more than enough. It had to be.

            From the time the dungeon began making things in this world, he figured out that he was too weak to fight the powers of this world, so he had to find a way to escape. On his home world, he had heard about a space elevator, and how maybe, just maybe, carbon nanotubes were the only known material that could be used to make it as they were theoretically incredibly strong and light. With that in mind, he started making his black tree with carbon nanotubes. It grew slowly at first, but eventually it began growing faster.

            As soon as the dungeon had access to electricity, he gave his essence creatures rail guns. Then once he had enough power he turned the inside of his space elevator, disguised as a great black tree, into active support, where magnets moved ball bearings at incredible speed to help maintain the structure. Although the active supports helped raise the labyrinth higher, and they made it impossible for the mages to enter the labyrinth through the ‘trunk’ of the labyrinth, their main purpose was to be a rail launcher.

            At that point, the dungeon technically had a rail launcher built, and that rail launcher could launch his core into space, but little else. The dungeon was made up of a weak quartz crystal; he couldn’t survive escape velocity, and in order to maintain his abilities, he had to have access to electricity, and so while he waited for his dungeon to grow, he experimented. He created metallic hydrogen, which was a room-temperature superconductor that allowed the creation of a whole lot of things, one of which was a better rail launcher, another was the coil gun, which allowed the dungeon to finally kill mages.

            When the dungeon created clones of the mages, he was very surprised that they were completely new people with brand new minds. He chose to obey his ethics and raise and protect them. Although the first few humans he created were morons, their children were not, and over several hundred years, they worked with the dungeon to make the dungeon into a spaceship. Each biome held more and more humans, animals, and plants. The humans created better computer chips, software, and useful inventions.

            The humans’ innovation, creativity, and sharpness allowed the dungeon to create magnetic bottles, which allowed him to make fusion generators. Fusion guaranteed him an electrical supply as long as he had access to hydrogen, the most common element in the universe. Yes, he had a nuclear reactor, but fissible material was rare; if he relied on it for electricity, he would be leaving his fate up to chance, and he had no choice but to have a powerful electric powerplant. As a dungeon core, he was tethered to his elements. If he went into the void, he would be knocked out, unless he was touching a constant power supply.

            At that point, the dungeon thought he was just buying time until he had a tall enough tower to leave the planet, but he lucked out, and thanks to the help of the humans, and a lot of work with the sage squirrels, he learned how to make electromagnetic shields to surround himself. Then he finally killed tier-three entities and they had given him enough mana to extend his tree high enough into the sky to leave this horrible moon, and one more gift.

            If the immortal had waited a little longer to come the dungeon would have already left.

            All this crossed the dungeon’s mind as the Immortal looked on, confused as to why the dungeon would use a weapon on himself. The dungeon was going to show him that a railgun wasn’t just a weapon, it was a delivery system.

            And so the Great Black Tree Labyrinth began to shake. Gigantic limbs fell, while others began to rise. Some of those limbs were part of the starship; others were just dead weight. Then the trunk of the Great Black Tree Labyrinth split into dozens of equal sized pieces, ten yards across.

            The immortal looked at the trunk in total confusion as one piece of the labyrinth stayed solidly in the ground, and the next rose into the air. Every second piece either stayed rooted in the ground or rose into the air. It reminded the immortal of when someone had the fingers of both hands interlaced together, and then they pulled their hands apart.

            What the immortal couldn’t know was that whether the labyrinth piece was staying or going, it was a rail launcher; instead of a set of rails actively pushing a passive structure, both sets were actively pushing against each other, and with the inverse square law, this meant they pushed with four times the amount of force. The ones that were staying on the ground were eleven hundred miles of rail launcher, pushing the rest of the labyrinth into space, but the parts of the labyrinth getting pushed into space were pushing against the parts of the labyrinth that were staying. The trick was that as the part of the labyrinth that was moving into space moved out of reach of the rest of the labyrinth, the dungeon just reabsorbed that portion back into itself, making it lighter the higher it rose.

            With all that said, the labyrinth was keeping itself steady because of the strength of carbon nanotubes, and the active supports that were working overtime to handle the change in the structure’s weight distribution.

            The immortal could only watch as the eleven-hundred-mile-tall structure moved, and not only moved but began to pick up speed. The immortal was stunned with indecision by the spectacle.

            The immortal did not know how long he stood there watching this monstrous structure move before another immortal used folding space to step next to him, and he asked, “What’s happening?”

            The first immortal could only point at the labyrinth and say, “The dungeon made its labyrinth move, and I am waiting to see what happens next.”

            He told the same thing to the third and fourth immortals who showed up. Each was stunned into silence.

            It took nearly six minutes for the flying part of the labyrinth to clear the parts that remained. By then, it was much smaller, albeit still gigantic, and traveling at just over eleven thousand miles an hour.  

            The immortals all folded space individually to chase down the labyrinth and appeared at the base of the flying labyrinth. Once in space, they gave it a good look. Where previously it had been eleven hundred miles long, now it was only a dozen miles, with biomes at the end of branches. They didn’t understand why the labyrinth rolled, as artificial gravity wasn’t something they had studied yet, nor did they care. What they took note of was that the labyrinth was protected by shields everywhere except at the base.

            One of the immortals used his radio to say, “I guess we are going to have to tear through the base to get to this troublesome core.”

            The dungeon responded back, “Now that we are in space its time to use my Orion drive.”

            As the dungeon spoke, a small device came out of the base, then a shield went up, and a great flash came immediately after.

            When the immortals’ bodies rebuilt themselves, they were not happy, but they had to admit the dungeon was getting away, and going faster and faster.


Authors note- Next chapter will be a space battle with magic. Then possibly an epilogue or several.

The dungeon books name will likely be "The Great Black Tree Labyrinth"

Next week I will be visiting with my mom and working, so I wont have time to write so no chapters next week.

I will likely have several wensday and saterday chapters this month, but about mid october I should have a more regular schedule.

Sorry if I have missed answering anyones comments, I really have been very very busy.