Chapter 17: Chapter 16 – Down the Rabbit’s Hole

Aaron Fell three meters down, earth fell all around him covering his armor and weapons, pulling a dagger in each hand he stayed still, alert to any noise as he waited for the dust to settle so he could better inspect the situation, it did so slowly and with no signs of any creature showing up to check on the noise, when he recovered enough vision he put the daggers back in their sheaths and pulled his rifle.

 

The hole he fell in revealed a tunnel just a little over two meter high going away from the river and towards West Fairmount Park with a slight inclination down “Control I found something, I think it’s the same kind of tunnel Beta team is about to enter I will scout ahead keep a tab on my location please” “Understood Loki”

 

Using his helmet’s night vision he managed to walk through the tunnel without using any light that would reveal his location but this time he was far more careful, engaging his armor’s full camouflage ability and maintaining an invisible rope shield both at his front and back, it actually cost him quite a bid of mana but he had a lot to spare and he didn’t want to get a fireball to the face or something like that.

 

Touching the wall he noticed it was covered with some kind of sticky muck that held the walls, over the distance of about 500 meters he saw many small tunnels connecting to the one he was in, some were just big enough for a small dog to pass while others could house a crouched man but the one he followed seemed to be the main one “Control are you getting this… control?”  great he lost communications, that was not supposed to be possible with those armors.

 

He briefly considered retreating and following Beta team but now that he found the tunnels he was fairly sure the hole on Jefferson station would lead them here anyway, what are the odds of two unknown estrange tunnels in the same city? Anyway he could probably deal with anything that came through and there were enough side tunnels big enough for him to fit in if he really had to escape.

 

As he continued to make his way down the quiet tunnels he finally crossed paths with another bigger one, it was nearly four meters high and five meter wide covered with the same stick substance as the others but still dripping from the selling, as he stepped into the new tunnel his metal but sunk about two centimeters in the thing and he actually had to use a little strength to take each step.

 

Making an educated guess that what he was after would be further down he took this new tunnel, sticking close to the wall and holding his rifle ready for any eventuality he didn’t forget to put a silencer on it so he could kill whatever creature lived here without warning everything else.

 

The number of tunnels that intersected with the one he was walking increased the further down he went, he had already been walking for nearly an hour and the map making feature on his helmet was going crazy trying to plot out their probable destinations as well as mapping out what he had already walked as the tunnel twisted and turned randomly thankfully he didn’t have to do like Theseus and leave one of his strings to mark the way, he would probably run out of mana before getting to the end of this thing.

[Congratulations your <Multitask> has increased a level]

[Congratulations your <Telekinesis> has increased a level]

 [Congratulations thanks to the constant use of your <Telekinesis> you have created a skill would you like to name it?

YES / NO]        

He chose no once again, seeing as he would probably just call this rope shield anyway and the system had done such good job with <Titan’s Hand> a very imposing name much better than ‘The hand’ or ‘useful pulley system’ as he had called it before, plus he was curious about it.

[ Congratulations you have created the skill <Telekinetic Shield>]

[TELEKINETIC SHIELD

Manifests a shield made out mana converted into telekinetic energy it can block both physical and magical attacks:

+ 2 Def in all aspects]

“Oh <system> I expected better from you, how unoriginal” He suppose there wasn’t much you could call a shield made out of coiled invisible telekinetic rope and it wasn’t really a very powerful or original concept to begin with, there was no sense calling it the godly aegis now.

 

Looking at his shield he noticed his skill slowly blending in on itself, it was still made out of a invisible rope but now it looked far more uniform and well made, he immediately noticed a decrease in both the mana and concentration needed to maintain the shield’s form, he stopped loosing 8 mana per minute to lose only 4, still it was too much for him to maintain for much longer and he choose to dismiss them both, he would call it again if he needed to turn any corners or something like that.

 

His boots continued to make squish noises as he descended the tunnel for a while when he heard a clicking noise on one of the connected tunnels, immediately stopping in his tracks he glued himself to a wall on instinct before remembering what was covering the damn thing sinking a whole 2 centimeters down, pushing away immediately he felt his hands sink deeper on the wall while his body was released with a sticky noise, his back looked like it had been covered by snot.

 

“Ugh… just ugh” finally managing to get away from the wall he didn’t even care about the noise anymore, he was not a clean freak but this was just too much, shaking his arms to get rid of the glue he shook his head, at least his weapon hadn’t gotten covered in the thing, whatever creature had made that clicking didn’t seems to notice the noise he made so it was either deaf or too busy to care.

 

He briefly considered continuing down the main tunnel or following the noise eventually deciding for the latter as he could always find the main tunnel again with his helmet’s map, manifesting only one <telekinetic shield> this time he stepped on top of it and used his powers to manipulate the thing floating 20 centimeters off the ground, a neat little trick he enjoyed doing to impress people but unpractical as it drastically increased mana cost, this time it was necessary to keep him from making even more noise.

 

As he moved the shield through the tunnel he crouched down on top of it and aimed his riffle still keeping close to the wall, this tunnel was smaller than the main one and had a bend about 400 meters down, this time he did slice the pie, slowly increasing the area he could see so he wouldn’t get surprised or ambushed at what he found.

 

At first he didn’t recognize the creatures, a mass of dark things were covering the entire end of the tunnel and crawling all over the walls, using his zoom he could finally see them clearly, red hairy ants the size of large cats were furiously working to expand a tunnel, taking out big chunks of earth out of the wall with their pincers they passed it along to those behind them, those in turn ran back through small tunnels on the selling taking with them pieces of earth twice as big as themselves, the ants were so numerous it was impossible to count working so frenetically they didn’t even notice him floating behind them, in less than a minute the tunnel had grown about five meters in depth with the same 3 meters of high and 4 of width.

 

After a minute of work the ants plucking out earth pieces rotate with new ones and, at the corners, he noticed ants with slightly bigger abdomens spewing the stick goo to make the walls stay in place “What the fuck, it’s a fucking anthill” disappointing with not having to fight powerful underground creatures and monsters from the depths he watched a little longer and saw a single ant come over from a more distant hole than the others, materializing a string he laced its head and pulled it closer.

 

The cat sized ant clicked it’s pincers loudly in annoyance and he watched worriedly the others, they just continued working so he released his breathing and moved back behind the bend before dispelling his shield, the fall made his boots sink even deeper in ant vomiting but he ignored it and looked at the creature.

 [Dwarf Ant Worker – Level 1

HEALTH: 100%

STR: 3                  END: 2

DEX: 3                  SPD: 2

WIS: 1                  INT: 1]

It was a black and much like the average garden ant he had seen in his childhood just about a meter long and 30 centimeters high, it tried closing its pincers over his finger but the armor blocked it so completely he didn’t even fell the pressure, getting one of his strings around the joint of neck and thorax he squeezed cutting it off and dropping it on the ground, it’s headless body continued moving by itself and he felt a little bad, like the boy who pulled wings off flies, but he couldn’t risk it somehow communicating his presence.

 

Returning to the main tunnel he continued on, quickly but carefully so he wouldn’t warn any of the ants for another twenty minutes before his communicator suddenly started working again “Loki, this is control answer us! Loky!” “Control I am here” “What the hell is going on Loki?” “I don’t know yet but the hole was a damn anthill control, it is covered in a sticky muck I thing somehow blocks my signal” “Have you encountered any threat?” “Not yet, the tunnels seem mostly deserted but I found a couple of them working, they are about the size of a housecat and seems too busy to even notice me.”

You are reading story Welcome to the System at novel35.com

 

“Very well Loki I will try to warn Beta team their signal is still on but weakned, I thing they are still far away from the center of the tunnels” all the while Aaron had been walking ahead and looking around, he had finally turned another corner when he was forced to stop stunned “Control can you trace my location” “Just a moment, the signal just increased in intensity I am getting an image, damn how did we miss that hole  it could fit a small car through! Yeah we got your location Loki”

 

Looking at the image before his eyes he was mightily impressed, the tunnel ended in a precipice and there was an opening the size of half a football field with thousands of similar tunnels, about 30 meter up the opening started to close ending in a small hole of about 2 meters from where he could see the sun, looking down he saw the precipice continued for a hundred meters and nearly all the first 40 meters were absolutely filled with worker ants, there must be millions of the things there crawling all around.   

 

“Fuck that’s gonna take some work to get rid of, how the hell did they dig so much in only 4 days?” sending a recording of what he was seeing to control he said “I am gonna see if I can assassinate their queen, it should make it far easier to deal with them if I do, pass that along to the Einherjar will you” “Understood Loki good luck”

 

Using one of his blades to scrap a piece of the tunnels edge clean of the muck he sat down and pulled an energy bar from his pack, eating it slowly he watched the ants working frenetically for an hour as his mana recovery bought him back above one thousand, Manifesting a very long string he used his power to attach it to the opening in the ceiling then he slit down.

 

As he was recovering his mana he had seen some of the workers bringing some larvae out of a tunnel and into another, guessing they had came from the queen’s chambers he approached, his armor’s camouflage ability was really exceptional, no ant discovered him even when he was just 4 meters above them, his strings normally lasted about an hour if he didn’t dissolve them so he left the one he had used hanging there for his returned and moved on

 

The tunnel he chose was the biggest he had seen till now at 6 meters high and 8 wide and its floor was filled with ants, some of the hasty ones even walked through the walls, he manifested another long and thick string and tied a long dagger to each end, piercing them both into the ceiling of the tunnel he tested it and saw they were pretty secure, using the rope to pull himself he advanced through the tunnel quietly, even here the tunnel’s ceiling was not used very much.

 

Advancing slowly he soon saw the signs that his communication had been cut off again, he considered just dropping down and walking with the ants, it’s not like they could actually hurt him with their power but enough of them could pile on top of him to stop his movements and then what face would he make when Erick had to pull him out of a ant pile he was stuffed in.

 

After his string ran out he briefly manifested a shield to step on again before pulling the first dagger out and sending it ahead, fixing it on the ceiling once more he continued to pull himself, although it was far more strenuous on the body the amount of mana he saved this way was necessary if he wanted to stay above half his total pool, always a good choice if only for the fact that having a small amount of mana left him feeling incredibly depressed.

 

After the third time he had to do that he saw his first branching tunnel, it was just slightly smaller than the first one and had nearly no ants coming out of it, he knew it was certainly not the right one but his curiosity got the better of him, getting a hundred meter inside he stopped seeing them altogether and dropped down, pulling his daggers from the ceiling he flicked them to get rid of the muck then sheathed them “Damn I am gonna have to clean the whole armor latter”

 

Following the way he ended up into a wide open room, inside were bones, thousands upon thousands of bones, pieces of cloth thrown away and all kinds of discarded items laying about, he saw many guns and other weapons he guessed came from goblins and other humanoid creatures, the bones were all picked clean “I guess I found our missing creatures” a few particular items caught his attention.

 

Walking towards the first one he pulled it up, it was a black flowing hide full of holes

 [Stalker’s hide                  CLASS: C-

 ABILITIES:

The wearer is 10% harder to notice

The hide of a stalker beast killed while still invisible it retains a little of its power.

Slain by Roger Sanders - Never used - in poor condition]

 

 Interesting it would come in handy sometime if he found a way to repair the thing, going towards the second he knelt down and spread the bones apart to see a small ring, pulling it in his hand he also inspected it

 [A ring                 CLASS: N / A

 ABILITIES:

N/A.

A normal average ring, the diamond on top of it is false]

 

 Well he couldn’t win them all, stepping over the bones once again he stopped in front of a smaller humane skeleton, he would have guessed it belonged to a young boy were it not for the abnormally sharp fangs, a hobgoblin them, picking up the glowing white orb bellow it’s cranium.

 [Rune Inscription (Impact) – Skill Book

Can draw a forgotten rune to generate a powerful impact on activation.

Higher levels increase strength of rune - Higher levels increase effect of rune.

Mana cost dictates power of the rune - At higher levels can have other effects]

 

He had passed on the consume spirit skill book but this one interested him a lot, holding it in front of his face he looked deep within the white orb at a small point of light for a while, slowly the light filled his vision and them words started appearing in his mind, it was not that he read them or listened to a strange godly voice they just entered his mind directly and he knew the information, at the end of the transfer a single symbol appeared, the <Impact Rune> he now knew, it burned itself into his mind.

 

He staggered back and fell to his knees but the orb was still glued to his hand, that’s when he knew he had made a mistake, he felt the light inside the orb start to drill into his hand slowly and incredibly painfully as it opened a new patch in his body, he remembered the day he snapped and his mana manifested wildly, he remembered how painful it was for a huge amount of mana to pass through a small patch but this time there was no patch, when the light finally reached his head he started crying, he bit his lips and drew blood his hands going white as he squeezed the orb desperately and arched his back.

 

The light from the orb drew a beautiful figure in his body marking a very specific pathway before finally reaching his mana pool in his brain, then it drew the mana out, the pain was like nothing he had ever felt, beyond his fears, beyond his anger down to his very soul and he screamed, screamed until his throat couldn’t make a sound anymore, down on the other tunnel thousands of ants stopped what they were doing, their feelers twitching as they turned towards their dumping ground.