Tunnel Rat

A sleek black and silver airship was making its way from the city of Shadowport and out over the ocean. No one noticed. Not the workers on the docks, not the other airships returning to the city, and not even the Eels who liked to leap high out of the water and attack the huge 'skywhales' that flew over them.

Onyx was thrilled to be flying. This was what his class and race were created to do. He could feel every bit of the ship as it glided through the air, putting more and more distance from him and their former captor. Something bothered him though. He could not 'feel' the other rooms behind the doors. They weren't part of his ship. He mentioned this to Milo and the two discussed ideas about what Dimensional Magics might be capable of.

"It must be nice to create your own, hidden little hidey-hole, or expand your house." Onyx could think of many uses for such in the real world.

Milo could as well. The skill was amazing in both worlds. "It seems to be something that high level mages and even Engineers can do. They call them Arcane Libraries and Arcane Workshops."

Onyx looked disgusted. "So mighty Philistron could have made his own Arcane Library, and instead he makes a Slaver Airship."

Milo suddenly had a horrible thought. "Oh shit, turn around now and head for land, fast as you can. I have to go check something."

Milo undid the lock on the arcane door, and jammed it open. He could see the shimmering barrier now, that separated one dimension from another. He raced through the large room filled with cages. In the far back, out of sight of any cages, he found another door. He threw himself into working the lock, and stepped into the room behind.

He recognized the underlying architecture. It was an Arcane Library, which meant there was another way into the airship. He raced through the rooms, seeing laboratories, a library, trophy rooms, and rooms packed with strange junk. Entering the last room, which held a collection of gold and silver statues from some temple, he saw the large familiar door. It would lead to a small balcony where Philistron would soon appear, and they would become his slaves again.

“Ah, that was a wonderful meal. But can you believe how rude the staff was? Who are they to tell me that Gar-kone is not how you pronounce 'waiter' in drakonic. He's lucky I left him with one leg to hobble around on. It did save us the bother of having to pay for the meal though."

The mage was feeling quite full, as was his familiar. He cast his basic levitation spell, and the little dragon took ahold of his collar and started flying back up to the airship.

"..."

"Fat? I am not getting fat."

"..."

"It's my thought that you are just lazy after a full meal. But we'll compromise: You take your time flying us home, and I'll take a small nap."

"..."

Milo was regretting not having bones. It made moving about so much harder. His tail was nearly useless, and he missed his magic. He'd resorted to stacking up the largest of books in the library into an improvised staircase when he couldn't find a ladder. When his work was finally done, he rested to catch his breath for a second, and read some of the spines.

Interspatial Relationships and the Balancing of Aspects Across Barriers

Forteans Pernicious Peeler and notes on Construction

Drakonik for Dummies

Origins of the Machine: A Compilation of Legend and Theory

Cantrips for the Beginning Fish Wrangler

Interesting stuff!

Well, most of it. Mating Habits of the Common Lantern Bug by Damien Franklin seemed like it might be a bit dry.

He pushed himself up, and realized he might be losing out on an opportunity. Even if the mage did manage to recapture them, he could still piss him off. He brought out his Smugglers Stash and started looting the various rooms, avoiding things heavily warded by Machine Code, taking rare books, items that might be magical, and any easy to get, unguarded treasure.

And then he saw the claw.

It was in the trophy room. Three-feet of thick arm bone connected to a hand with the bones of three short, stubby fingers with blunted nails. The thumb had, by contrast a very sharp, much longer claw. It was old. And even through the lines of Code that were guarding it, he could see the bone runes shining. He sat down and began to unravel the Machine Code, starting from one end of the spell-construct.

Milo wasn't concerned at first with the small bits of code he was unraveling, they just floated nearby, waiting to be used. But when he finished, he considered them. These were building blocks and he had a hole in his soul. Small strings of code were slowly filling it in, and there was the snarl of code in the center. Would he need more materials to fix himself?

Without thinking, he swept up the rest of the bits of code and swept them into himself, watching them fall down into that deep hole, or attach to other pieces. He'd sort it out later when he had time. He needed something to experiment with, assuming he lived through the next hour.

And now the claw was free. He touched it, a rune moved closer to him, but that was all. He tossed it into his Smugglers Stash, and took another look around the rooms. He felt refreshed. Was there something else he could add to his little surprise at the door?

"..."

"Rude! You could have just sung in my ear like you used to."

"..."

"Yes! Yes! I see it now. The damned ship isn't where we left it. I'm sure I locked it up! If it's one thing I hate, it’s a gang of airship thieves. Probably Squint and the Kulags. I know they tried to steal from others, but it never occurred to me the man was crazy enough to go after mine."

"..."

"Well, yes, I admit he IS crazy enough. But the cats seem rather smart enough to know better."

"But, nothing for it. I'll just have to go over to Light's End and get it back. We can have fun killing everyone in his gang."

A short flight later showed that there was no airship at Light's End. Squint was speaking to a large crowd about something. Obviously, the thieves had fled the city. Wouldn't they be surprised to find they couldn't escape him. They had all volunteered to join the slaves in the hold. He flew down to a rooftop, drew a quick Runic Circle with Machine Code and began the transference. It was slower than the system spell, but a few minutes couldn't matter.

Milo exited the Arcane Library. He'd spent a few more minutes adding to the contraption he had built inside. Hopefully it was enough. What worried him now wasn't what might happen if it didn't work as much as if it did. His traps tended to do more than he had ever planned for. The two levels of Extra Clever Traps had seemed too good to pass up, and he had to admit that they were fun.

He ran up to the two minions. "Hi guys, know where the keys are? Can you help me open the cages? No?"

"Open the Cages."

"Open the Cages, please."

“Start. Open All Cages. End.”

He tried everything he could think of. They didn't respond. It would have been sloppy if they did. Certainly, if he had enslaved minions, he'd make sure they only followed his orders.

He needed those cages opened, and soon. Time to go with what worked before. Let's get to work Ooobee."

Oooblimilo is happy that we are close enough to have new names for each other. I will call you tastybigthing.

"Yeah, that's fine. Another thing to worry about later. Let's get some acid on these little guys’ collars and hope they don't murder us with eyebeams for something."

The acid did its work, and Milo broke off the collars. Nothing happened for a few seconds, and then the grey minions began to shake, and hug themselves. Their anxiety passed and they went back to standing straight, but their eyes showed a deep intelligence.

"Regret wasted time now spent."

"Regret last contract. Now Void! Not a customer!"

"To Work!"

"To Work!"

"Great attitude guys. Work must be done right? Let's start with letting everyone out of these cages and getting them into the main body of the airship. To Work."

The little grey men looked at him. Fingers morphed into keys. "To Work!"

Nina heard the commotion and started herding people to the front and rear of the ship, away from Onyx. "Tall-Squeak, there isn't going to be room in here!"

Onyx looked up, and spoke, the intuitive-connection transmitted his voice throughout the airship like a P.A. system. "Have the tall ones put the small ones up onto the roof of the cabin, inside the air bag. Nothing there that can hurt them, just a lot of Auric and Radiant mana mixed with normal air. I'm more worried about how much weight the ship can hold when they aren't in another dimension."

Milo shut the door to the slave-pens and moved to the front of the ship. He could see the looming mountain beneath which was the city of Shadowport. "Steer her straight in and land at the docks. Then everyone out."

Nina looked stricken. "Into the city? Not around and land outside? What if the wizard is waiting for us?"

Milo looked at her and Onyx. "Philistron is already on his way, by another route. I'm sure of it. I even thought he'd be here by now. When we get to land, I want the two of you to leave and try to log-out of the game. As soon as you do, send a help message with the text: 'Help. Sidney. Wally. Machine Code. Cheese Basket' That should get their attention. Then explain how you got trapped. I'll be leaving as soon as I get people out of the ship."

Nina moved back to Onyx. The elf whispered. "Leave like he said. Obviously, we can't alert the AI that way. Get the others to send a message with a 64-way split to the signal and several cut-outs. Give details about Tall-Squeak and Philistron." The cat nodded. "Don't take too long yourself. I don’t want to have to come back for you." Nina moved to the door.

Onyx raised an eyebrow. “You’d make the mistake of coming back for me?”

Nina thought about it, ears twitching. “Probably not. So don’t screw up. Get out fast.”

Philistron appeared at the ledge of his Arcane Library. He hated entering this way, it was so exposed. He knew the Why of having to do it this way. The Great Void was an easily accessed gateway to other dimensions and was an ideal place to put Libraries, Workshops, Integral Trees, and Floating Island Fortresses. But he didn’t like the local fauna at all. It was always hungry. He slammed open the door and moved inside before something noticed him.

And fell on his ass as his feet lost their grip on the greased floor.

From his prone vantage point, he saw the dozen tipping buckets filled with potions and alchemical ingredients. Immediately, he placed a shield over his body to stop the caustic substances from burning him, without considering what such a mixture might do. Especially with the lit candles stuck all around the room.

Philistron was something of a hoarder. He'd raided dozens of laboratories over the years, stealing it all. He didn't need it, but he liked having things. Like-two dozen jars of Professor Crescendo's Big Finish! an explosive that would make Boom-Boom weep for joy if he only possessed a quarter filled jar.

To that Milo had added various acids, powdered rareearth metals, anything sulfurous, and any potions using fire, dark, or demonic aspects of magic. He'd had to guess on a lot of it. He only had a dozen five-gallon buckets to work with. Some of the other volatile substances he'd just placed along the wall near the door.

None of this touched the wizard, who began to cast another spell. His Dragonling was still hovering in the air, slightly outside. The resulting explosion knocked Krysofolax backwards a hundred feet, tumbling end over end until they could right themselves.

Philistron wasn't so lucky. The shield spell hadn't been perfect. There was enough space at the edge for the immense force of the explosions to sneak in, along with the intense heat. As he started burning, the wizard lost concentration, and was blasted from the room. On fire, unconscious, and half-dead he was knocked into the void. He was fortunate in one way. Since he was on fire, it was easy for Krysofolax to see him falling. It dove quickly to catch the burning wizard. The Great Void was deep, the dragonling had plenty of time to catch up.

The explosion had other effects. Some spectacular, and some more subtle. Firstly, the end of the Arcane Library was destroyed, weakening the magics that had created the entire structure. It was slowly falling to pieces. Philistron would have a couple of years before he lost all of it. He needed to stop falling first, though.

The other effects were a bright flash of light, a huge clap of thunderous noise, and the scent of many things pushed out into the void.

Krysofolax caught up with Philistron as the last of the fires were going out. It slapped at the wizard's face with its wings, finally waking him. Philistron felt himself falling, and cast levitation to stop his fall, the dragonling struggling to slow his speed. Eventually, the burned mage and exhausted dragonling floated in the void.

"Someone cheated! The God-Machine sent another Code Mage to attack us. Only someone using my own magics against me could have done this. Only a master planner could have set such a trap. But they didn't kill us, and that will be their undoing."

"..."

"The rat? What do you mean you smelled the rat as soon as the door opened? Don't be silly. What could he have done? The little cheese nibbler was a broken husk. And he adored me! It couldn't have been the rat!"

Philistron was reaching for something in his pocket, when he saw a far-off creature moving towards him. He pulled out a piece of Arcanite with a stored charge of Radiant Butterfly's Scintillating Ascent intending to use the spell's glowing butterfly wings to fly back to his library.

He didn't get the chance. Volax-Repat flew past at several times the speed of sound. The fragile crystal shattered. Philistron covered his ears and Krysofolax abandoned him. Fear took over and the dragonling fled in abject terror from her race's ancient enemy. Philistron cast a complex weaving of Machine Code designed to hide him from all enemies. It might have worked on a younger being.

Krysofolax had been correct. The Dragons were created early in the cycle to assist in lighting the stars. They had also picked a stupid fight with one of the other early creations of the gods. The fight was still going on to this day. Machine Code meant nothing to Volax-Repat. He had been created before the system was born. Philistron was in the Great Hunter's mouth and chewed into little pieces within seconds. Volax-Repat spent a fun couple of minutes hunting down and toying with the little Eel before it followed it's master into oblivion.

Volax-Repat was amused. Someone had thrown an Eel and an Eel-lover into the void, and then alerted him to the tasty snack. He could smell the little rat's scent. It was different, but enough the same to let him know who had sent him his treat. Volax-Repat flew high, looking for the lair of the Eel-lover. It was easy to spot, being half destroyed. With ease he entirely destroyed the rest of the structure. Once they were unraveling it was easy to get a toe-hold on them.

=*=

On the airship, the effect of Philistron’s death was immediately felt. The arcane doors went dark, and then crumbled, the airship began to shake as all of the wizard’s spells started to unravel, and dimensions that had been attached to it pulled away. Onyx, Nina, and Milo felt the runes on their chests fade away.

Nina saw the docks and rooftops of the city and leaped out of the airship. She landed hard, then faded away as she finally escaped the game.

Milo looked at Onyx. "You should go too."

Onyx smiled. "Just let me land my ship. She's too beautiful to wreck." He spotted a bit of open dock, and set the ship down gently, shutting off the engines. Then he hugged Milo hard.

"Take care, Tall-Squeak, I doubt either of us shall return. Stay Free. Forever Free." He began to log out.

The rat looked at him. "Call me Milo, that's my real name."

Onyx's eyes went wide. 'Milo!' and then the logout initiation completed its countdown, he was gone.

Milo exited the ship. He should log-out. Squint's voice stopped him.

"Milo! WOW! Buddy, let no one say you disappoint! She's a beauty! You ever need a favor, you just ask! Squint's your buddy!"

Milo looked at the crowd of people, many of which were from other places and had been in captivity for weeks or months. "Can you take care of these folks?"

Squint smiled and grasped Milo by the hand. "You got it buddy. I'll take care of them. I'm going to take care of everybody."

Milo logged out of the game.

A message was waiting for him in the games message box: "Come talk to me when you can. Wally."