Chapter 110: Chapter 106

We ended up binding the captives after they kept flailing violently in their cells, to the point where they were breaking their arms and legs from constantly hammering and kicking away at the walls.

 

Due to the fact that whatever the hell it was transformed my citizens into literally faceless things, outright dissecting them and playing around with the corpses was not an immediate option. We were approaching this with the chance of reversing the effects of literally melting away one’s face, but so far the current data isn’t looking too good for them.

 

Application of healing emitters and even our latest iteration of BSC were useless, and a quick blood test found every affected person having, as Eva put it, ‘severely erroneous’ DNA. According to Curie, it was amazing how the helical structure could be warped and disfigured so badly, and yet still retain their integrity. X-rays also showed that somehow their skulls had changed, losing features like eye sockets, nasal cavities and jaws, as a smooth bony plate took their place. Also, their brains became a trypophobic’s nightmare, the scans showing the organ looking more like a sponge than anything else.

 

How they survived without breathing, eating or drinking, we don’t know, and we were equally clueless as to how they could seemingly ‘see’ us and discern human movements from non-human ones. Our medical experts and the vast medical database available to our AIs were completely stumped, and I was bloody worried, having no meta knowledge whatsoever about such a threat.

 

A peek into the console gave some information, but nothing to toggle or edit. Their stats were definitely above the average level, likely to the point where they could crack an engine block without their hands suffering too much. Also, “Faceless=True” was fucking locked, and I had no idea what that stat being enabled meant. Other than the obvious loss of face, of course.

 

So the expedition to Fallen River was required, and against everyone else’s wishes, I went in with only bots to accompany me. Because we might be dealing with eldritch bullshit, I made sure the audio/video streams were locked down to prevent anyone back in the Nexus from accidentally getting mind-blasted.

 

As for myself?

 

Here’s hoping the console will save me. Because after that surprise incident with the Atom, I sure as hell don’t expect the bots to be able to detect any supernatural bullshit.

 

The scouting party of Sentinels and Eversors had already cleared the ruins (or whatever’s left of them) of any standard threats, so I found myself entering a quiet, wave-eroded landscape where it looked like buildings were either slowly being dragged out to shore, or had crumbled as their foundations were devoured by every crash of the ocean’s waves.

 

While the bots hadn’t detected anything out of the ordinary, and my mundane senses were about as oblivious, the console showed that there was a background emission of something akin to radiation, only more…eldritch. “Fog.Level” was a disturbing new variable that seemed to fluctuate mildly as I wandered across the sandy ruins, but I eventually figured out by way of ‘Hot/Cold’ back-and-forth-ing where the invisible fog was approximately emanating form.

 

The source of it all turned out to be visually unimpressive, a small basement half-exposed after half of the house fell away after the foundation was eroded away, with a solid slab of marble at the center of it. Visually boring, but there was an unsettling and definitely malevolent air to the place. It didn’t help that in the console, I saw stats on the remaining walls. 

 

I didn’t understand the significance of most of the values, but “Ward.Strength=N/A” didn’t sound good, and neither did “Faceless.Awake=0” that appeared for the marble block.

 

Nothing else in the little basement provided any clues or hints to what I might be dealing with, which sucked worse than a pool of ticks, so it looked like I’ll have to spend a lot of time trawling through the console stats in an attempt to gather some intel of value. I tried resetting the room to its original state, but returning the sealed off room to its original state didn’t do anything to most of its console values. 

 

Pulling off one section of the wall to allow the outside light back in, I decided to take a gamble, so I locked down my own stats and placed a hand on the marble slab.

 

The moment my fingertips made contact with the cold stone, immediately something surged into my head, and I saw through the console as new values flickered into existence like a fireworks show going off. 

 

“Faceless”

“Faceless.Attn”

“Faceless.Corr.Lvl”

You are reading story Uncommon Wealth at novel35.com

“Faceless.Curse.Gen”

“Faceless.Curse.Shared”

“Faceless.Dream.Start”

“Faceless.Dream.Lvl”

“Faceless.Dream.Str”

“Faceless.Exalt.Lvl”

 

And so on, and so forth, Faceless this, Faceless that. Then I felt something seeping in through my fingers and I quickly pulled away. I could actually feel the new stats straining against me as I toggled them off or set their values to 0 the moment they popped up. A quick near-panicked moment later, I selected the new stats and deleted them from my being.

 

Holy fuck was I glad I had the console to this reality. The invisible weight that lifted off my shoulders was a relief I’ve never felt before. I spent a good few seconds to make sure nothing about me got corrupted. Every value looked okay, my fingers looked and felt fine, my head was clear.

 

Tentatively, I unlocked my stats, and thankfully nothing happened.

 

Right then. Deep breaths. Fuck this.

 

I lifted the entire basement and the slab within it with my remote pickup, and then lay the whole thing down on more stable grounds. Then I spawned out the prefabs to build a quick but durable containment bunker around the room, and broke the communications seal and got to contacting my intelligence agency.

 

“Desdemona? Priority job, related to the recent weirdness. Eva and Cabal have tried the archives already, so I need you and your folks to see if anyone in and out of the Nexus has any idea of the shit Fallen River might have gone through. Really old stuff, most likely. We’re looking for the type of hearsay and rumors that’s kept within communities and kept out of books.”

 

The woman didn’t give any signs of doubt or hesitation at the impossibility of the task. Then again, she had led the Railroad through tough times. “Understood, Sev. I’ll let you know when we have something.”

 

“If anyone’s getting visions, hallucinations or bad dreams because of this, send them to me ASAP. It can be a tingling headache, a bit of migraine, I don’t care. No working a bit more to finish their assignment, skip the healing arches, just send them straight to me.”

 

With that bit of delegation done, I moved on to my digital advisors. “Right, highest security clearance.” Which meant nobody but me would get access to this down the line. “Keep a secure partition for handling this whole Fallen River thing. I might need to delete all of this later for safety’s sake.”

 

It took a few minutes before they both reported successful backups and partitioning. “Cabal, select the afflicted with the least amount of social impact for more in-depth studies. Prepare the appropriate message of condolences to their family, if they have one. I’ll personally deliver it to them.” 

 

I waited for his confirmation before continuing, glancing at the basement and its…altar that I lifted out of the sand.

 

“Eva, prep a supply of expendables from Tleilax and start sending the first one over here when you’re ready. Random selection for now. Also, quarantine the ruins here. Heavy patrols.”

 

Time to make some sacrifices for the greater good.

You can find story with these keywords: Uncommon Wealth, Read Uncommon Wealth, Uncommon Wealth novel, Uncommon Wealth book, Uncommon Wealth story, Uncommon Wealth full, Uncommon Wealth Latest Chapter