the containment field is failing and there’s a spawner in Lab 9…”
BEE: The risk is significant. Based on my records, spawners
generate spawns when exposed to sufficient Aether. Without a dungeon
system to regulate them, they will continue producing spawns
indefinitely. And if the containment field is offline, any spawns
already created are loose. Or will be soon.
Petra looked at Tess, her face drawn. “What do we do?”
Tess turned back to the console, pulling up the containment field
diagnostics again. “Bee says if that thing is a Spawner we need to get
this fixed before it gets enough Aether to start up. Most of the systems
are here in the control room, but I can’t use my skills on them.
But…”
She might be able to fix some of it, but definitely not all.
But that meant helping House Tertian contain whatever they’d created
here.
It meant being complicit.
“Tess.” Petra’s voice was quiet. “What the hell is my family doing
here?”
Tess didn’t answer. She just stared at the diagnostic screens, red
indicators flashing, and tried to figure out how she’d ended up in a
research facility with a dungeon spawner and a failing containment
field. This was exactly what she’d been afraid of when she’d taken the
Tertian contract—getting pulled deeper and deeper into something she
couldn’t walk away from.
And she was in it now. No way out but through.
“I don’t know what they’re doing,” Tess said finally. “But if that
spawner is active and the containment field stays offline, people are
going to get hurt. None of the researchers looked like combat classes,
and the guards are outside.”
Petra’s jaw tightened. “I noticed.”
“They can’t fight spawns. They can’t run fast enough to matter.” Tess
pulled up the power distribution schematic on the center console.
“Whatever your family is doing here, we can yell at them about it later.
Right now, I need to get this field online before something gets
out.”
If something hadn’t already. Director Allen’s sudden departure made
Tess worry even more.
“Alright.” She rolled her shoulders and cracked her knuckles. “I
can’t fix the skill crystals directly. Let’s see what else we’re working
with.”
Tess activated [ANALYZE] again, focusing on the power distribution
pathways.
Four primary nodes controlled the containment field. Crystal A
handled field generation—the actual barrier keeping things inside Lab 9.
Crystal B managed boundary stability, preventing fluctuations that could
create gaps. Crystal C regulated Aether flow, and Crystal D maintained
environmental sealing.
According to the readouts, Crystal A was completely offline. The
other three were in critical condition but still functioning.
Barely.
·········································
POWER DISTRIBUTION NETWORK
Total Capacity: 8.47 AW
Current Load: 4.12 AW
Available Headroom: 4.35 AW
User Tech Skill: 6
·········································
Node A — Field Generation [Tech 7]
Status: Offline
Power Requirement: 3.40 AW
Signal: Disconnected
Note: Primary power coupling severed. Signal relay damaged.
Node B — Boundary Stability [Tech 7]
Status: Critical
Load: 1.56 / 1.80 AW — Headroom: 0.24 AW
Node C — Aether Regulation [Tech 8]
Status: Critical
Load: 1.28 / 1.40 AW — Headroom: 0.12 AW
Node D — Environmental Seal [Tech 7]
Status: Critical
Load: 1.28 / 1.50 AW — Headroom: 0.22 AW
·········································
Tess stared at the numbers. Node A needed 3.40 ArcWatts of power, and
she had 4.35 available. Simple math said it should work if she fixed the
connection.
But nothing was ever simple.
“The field generator is offline because the power coupling is
severed,” Tess said, half to Petra, half to Bee. “Physical damage, not
system failure. And the signal relay is damaged too—that’s why the
entire system keeps throwing ‘parent node unresolved’ errors. It’s
looking for a handshake that isn’t coming.”
BEE: Can you repair the physical damage?
“Can you fix it?” Petra said at the same time.
“Maybe. But here’s the problem.” Tess pointed out the three nodes in
the system. “These are all running hot. If I just reconnect Node A over
there and dump 3.4 ArcWatts of power into the system, the surge is going
to ripple through the entire network. The other nodes can’t handle the
spike.”
Petra moved closer, studying the readouts. “How much of a spike?”
“Depends on how I route it.” Tess looked deeper through [ANALYZE] at
interconnections between nodes. “The power network is designed for load
balancing. When Node A comes online, it’s going to pull from the shared
distribution bus. It looks like it’s going to pull across the whole
thing, which means the other three nodes on the way.”
“How bad?”
Tess did the math in her head. “If I route power directly through the
main bus, the surge would hit maybe 15% across all nodes simultaneously.
Node C would blow immediately—it’s only got 0.12 ArcWatts of headroom.
The others would probably survive, but…”
“Let me guess,” Petra finished. “That’s the most important node?”
“Exactly.”
BEE: This is a resource allocation problem. You need to
distribute the power restoration in a way that keeps all nodes within
safe operating limits.
Tess nodded slowly. She was already working through the
possibilities.
The containment system had four power routing pathways she could
access. Each pathway connected different combinations of nodes, and each
had different surge characteristics.
Pathway Alpha: Main distribution bus. Connected all four nodes.
Fastest restoration, but highest surge potential.
Pathway Beta: Secondary trunk line. Connected Nodes A and B only.
Lower capacity, but isolated from C and D.
Pathway Gamma: Auxiliary feed. Connected Nodes A and D. Moderate
capacity, some bleed-through to other nodes.
Pathway Delta: Emergency bypass. Connected Node A directly to the
primary power supply, bypassing other nodes entirely. But it required
physical access to the junction box, which meant leaving the control
room.
Tess stared at the huge schematic in her vision. She could only
directly change one pathway at a time—her TECH 6 wouldn’t let her
interact at all with the skill crystals involved. It was a physical
puzzle she’d need to solve with good old-fashioned tools. A frustrating,
high-stakes puzzle where the wrong answer meant people could get
hurt.
“Okay,” Tess muttered. “Think it through. What do I actually need to
accomplish?”
Two things: restore power to Node A, and restore the signal
connection so the system stops looking for a parent node that doesn’t
exist.
Figure out power first, then signal. Or maybe she could do both at
once if she were clever about it.
Pathway Delta would let her bring Node A online without affecting the
other nodes at all. Zero surge risk. But she’d have to physically access
the junction box, which meant following the connection through the halls
to find it.
Pathways Beta and Gamma both had surge bleed-through, but directed to
different nodes. Beta would spike B, which had 0.24 ArcWatts of
headroom. Gamma would spike D, which had 0.22 ArcWatts.
What about using both?
Tess shifted her view to the power routing interface and started
running calculations. If she split the power restoration across two
pathways simultaneously, the surge would be distributed rather than
concentrated. Beta carried a 2 ArcWatt maximum capacity. Gamma carried
1.8.
She needed 3.4 total ArcWatts for Node A.
If she routed 1.8 through Gamma and 1.6 through Beta…
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
The surge from Gamma would hit Node D, 1.8 AW through a pathway that
connected to a node running 1.28 of 1.5. The transient spike would be
maybe 8%, or about 0.14 AW. That put D at 1.42, under the 1.5 limit.
Safe.
The surge from Beta would hit Node B: 1.60 AW through a pathway
connecting to a node running 1.56 of 1.8. Spike of roughly 7%, or about
0.11 AW. That put B at 1.67, under the 1.8 limit. Safe.
And Node C stayed isolated from both pathways. No surge at all.
Tess exhaled, steadying her hands. “Okay. Let’s trace the flow.”
Petra straightened. “Don’t tell me you figured it out… that
fast?”
“Split the power load across two pathways. Route 1.8 through Gamma,
1.6 through Beta. The surges stay within tolerance for all three
critical nodes, and Node A comes online with full power.”
BEE: That is an elegant solution. What about the signal
connection?
Tess pulled up the signal routing schematic. The relay damage was in
Junction Box 7, which sat between the control room and Lab 9. She
couldn’t fix the physical damage from here.
But maybe she didn’t need to.
“The system keeps looking for a parent node handshake, which I assume
isn’t coming.” Tess said slowly. “Can we spoof it?”
BEE: If this equipment was extracted from dungeon
infrastructure. It still expects to operate within that
hierarchy.
“So we make one. Clearly it was running before. Maybe we try to see
how they did it?”
BEE: Explain.
Tess was already pulling up the signal configuration interface on the
terminal. “The handshake protocol is just a call-and-response. Child
node sends a ping, parent node sends an acknowledgment code. If I can
figure out what acknowledgment code it’s expecting, I can configure Node
A to respond to its own pings. Look, right there, someone has already
set it up that way. I just have to restore whatever that subroutine was
doing.”
“They made it think it’s talking to itself?” Petra asked.
“Someone did, yeah. There’s some kind of signature on it.” Tess’s
fingers flew across the console. “It’s a hack. Someone created a custom
bypass profile named ‘pwnd_lol’ to force the handshake. It’s terrible
and inelegant, but it’s how they had it working. I just need to
reactivate it.”
BEE: I… can help with this. Transmitting a standard
acknowledgment format for dungeon infrastructure
handshakes.
A string of alphanumeric codes appeared in Tess’s vision—Bee’s text
coming through her {NULL} class directly.
BEE: The specific authorization key will be unique to this
system, but the format should be consistent. You will need to extract
the key from Node A’s configuration.
“Bee! That’s… wow, that’s long. I can’t memorize that—just keep
transmitting it.”
Tess didn’t need her interface for this. Instead, she pulled up node
A on the terminal and started scanning through glitchy directories and
unreadable code.
Buried in the chaos, she found what she was looking for: the
authorization key. A massive string of letters and numbers that Node A
used to identify its parent. If it weren’t for Bee, she wouldn’t know
what she was looking for.
PARENT_AUTHORIZATION_KEY: "7f3d-91a2-cc48-b6e1-..."
Tess scrolled through the text, comparing it to the one Bee was
transmitting. Some sections of it were definitely shorter, melted
together without dashes, but she could fix that with an example in her
vision.
“What can I do?” Petra asked.
Tess didn’t look up from the console. “There should be a terminal on
the left side of the room. See if you can access any research
documentation. Let’s find out what’s actually going on here.”
Petra moved to the indicated terminal. Tess heard her tapping at the
interface, heard the soft beep of biometric authorization.
“I’m in. Whoa, I’m very in,” Petra said. “What am I looking
for?”
“Anything that explains why they have a dungeon spawner in a research
facility.”
More tapping, then a pause.
“There’s a lot here,” Petra said, her voice strange. “Project files.
Research logs. Experiment documentation.”
“Read me some titles.”
“‘Spawn Behavior Analysis: Controlled Environment Testing.’ ‘Aether
Signature Mapping: Extraction Protocol Results.’ ‘Manifestation Rate
Optimization: Phase Three.’”
Tess kept working on the signal configuration, repeating each title
for Bee to hear.
“‘Combat Training Application Assessment,’” Petra continued. “‘Level
Progression Correlation Study.’ ‘Spawn Difficulty Scaling: Proposed
Implementation.’”
BEE: They are attempting to create spawns for training. So
that people can level up by fighting them.
“Bee says they’re trying to train people with spawns outside of the
dungeon?” Tess paused in her work. “That’s… actually not the worst
motivation I could imagine.”
“It’s still wrong,” Petra said flatly. “You can’t just manufacture
dungeon creatures outside the dungeon. There’s no floor reset. No
containment. Nothing managing the population.”
“I know,” Tess said grimly.
She returned to her work, fingers moving faster now. A dash
there, there, remove a space.
“There’s more,” Petra said. “‘Extraction Methodology: Revised
Approach.’ ‘Fragment Viability Assessment.’ ‘Living Crystal
Integration.’”
“Living crystal?”
“The spawner. They’re calling it living crystal.” Petra’s voice was
bitter. “Makes it sound like a potted plant instead of a dungeon
component.”
Tess filed that observation away for later. Right now, she had bigger
problems.
The signal key was complete. She committed the changes, watching the
system status update in real-time. Node A’s signal indicator shifted
from red to amber, searching for the spoofed handshake.
Three seconds. Five. Seven.
The indicator turned green.
“Hacked signal’s up,” Tess said, staring at the signature on the
status screen. “Time to fix the power.”
She pulled up the routing interface and began implementing her
split-pathway solution. Gamma first: 1.8 ArcWatts flowing through the
auxiliary feed. She watched the surge indicators, ready to abort if
anything spiked beyond tolerance.
Node D flickered. Its load jumped from 1.28 to 1.41, then stabilized
at 1.39. Within limits.
“Gamma pathway stable,” Tess reported. “Implementing Beta.”
The second pathway required more precision. She had to coordinate the
power flow so that both pathways reached Node A simultaneously. A
staggered restoration would create an imbalanced load that could
destabilize the entire system.
Tess’s hands hovered over the console. This was the tricky part.
“Petra, I need you to monitor the surge indicators on your terminal.
If anything goes red, tell me immediately.”
“Got it.”
Tess initiated the Beta pathway with a tap. With 1.6 AW of power
flowing through the secondary trunk line, synchronized with the Gamma
feed already in progress.
Node B’s load jumped from 1.56 to 1.66. It held for a moment,
wavered…
“B is at 1.66,” Petra called out. “Climbing. 1.67. 1.68.”
“Come on,” Tess muttered.
The surge peaked at 1.69, then fell as the system equalized. 1.68.
1.67. 1.66. Stable.
“We’re good,” Petra said, relief clear in her voice.
Node A’s power indicator shifted from red to amber to green.
·········································
NODE A — FIELD GENERATION
Status: Online
Power Supply: Connected
Signal: Connected
Containment Field: Initializing…
·········································
Tess watched the initialization sequence progress. 20%. 40%. 60%.
The viewport overlooking Lab 9 flickered as the containment field
manifested—a faint shimmer in the air around the spawner structure, like
heat haze but more deliberate. The crystalline growths were still
pulsing, still reaching, but now there was a barrier between them and
the rest of the facility.
80%. 90%.
CONTAINMENT_FIELD: ONLINE
INTEGRITY: 78%
STATUS: STABLE
Not perfect. The damaged nodes were still degrading the overall
system performance. But 78% was a lot better than 31%. And she didn’t
even need to use AP, not that she could with the TECH requirements.
Tess let out a long breath and slumped down against the console.
“It’s up,” she said. “Field’s online.”
Petra stepped away from her terminal, moving to stand beside Tess,
staring out over the facility.
“My family built this,” Petra said. “Or paid someone to build it.
Same thing.”
“Yeah.”
“For training. So people could level up without having to enter the
dungeon.”
“That’s what the documents suggest.”
Petra sighed and slumped down next to Tess. “Until recently, this
might have actually been a good idea. It’s not like the dungeon was
really a viable option.”
Tess checked her interface.
{NULL} LEVEL 6
TECH 6
AP 6/6
Level Progress 44%
Forty-four percent. She’d just pulled off one of the most technically
demanding repairs of her life, dealt with dungeon-extracted technology,
and solved a resource allocation puzzle under time pressure.
Forty-four percent.
Tess stared at the number. Was it because she didn’t use [INTERFACE]?
Didn’t use AP?
Before Tess could respond to Petra, the console behind her began
beeping loudly. She stood and checked the screen. The containment field
coming online had triggered additional system connections. Sensors,
monitoring equipment, status trackers that had been dormant when the
field was down were all coming online.
The primary display populated with a facility-wide overview. Camera
feeds. Motion sensors. Environmental monitors. Everything fed into a
single integrated security system.
Tess watched the data scroll past. Her fingers paused on the
console.
Something was wrong. Petra stood and looked over Tess’s shoulder.
The motion sensors were showing activity. Not in Lab 9; that was
contained now. But in Corridor 7, and at Junction 4, and near the
entrance to this part of the lab.
“Petra.”
“I see it.”
Tess pulled up the camera feeds, cycling through the facility’s
internal surveillance network. Most showed empty hallways, abandoned
workstations, a lack of researchers that had evacuated while she’d been
focused on the repair.
Then she found Corridor 7.
The feed was grainy; the emergency lighting dim. But the movement was
unmistakable.
Something was running through the hallway. Fast. Too fast for a
person.
It was mechanical—that was Tess’s first impression. Articulated
limbs, a low-slung body, multiple joints bending in ways that weren’t
natural.
“That’s a spawn,” Petra said, her voice flat.
“There’s more than one.” Tess switched to another feed. Junction 4. A
second construct was visible, this one smaller but just as fast. It was
moving toward the research wing.
A third feed showed motion near the control room they were in. She
couldn’t see details, just shadows and the flicker of movement.
Three spawns—at least three.
The sensors hadn’t detected them before because they were tied to the
containment system. When Tess brought the field online, she’d also
brought the monitoring network back to life.
She’d fixed the containment field. And in doing so, she’d revealed
that containment had already failed.
Klaxons wailed. Red emergency lighting pulsed through the control
room.
Tess pulled out her multi-tool, opened a panel and snipped a wire.
The klaxon in the room went dead, but the light continued pulsing.
“The spawner must have already been active,” Tess said. “I can’t tell
for how long. Without containment, without monitoring…”
“They didn’t know.” Petra was already moving toward the door, her
hands going to the vibroblades at her hips. “Those things have been
loose this whole time? While Allen was giving us tours and demanding
repairs. His urgent departure certainly makes more sense.”
“And he didn’t tell us.” Tess grabbed her tool belt, checking that
everything was secure. “He left us here working on the field while
spawns could have been running around the facility.”
“I’m going to have words with him. Later.” Petra drew both
vibroblades, the weapons humming as they powered on. “Right now, we have
a problem.”
Tess looked at the camera feeds again. The spawns were fast,
aggressive, clearly hunting for something. But they weren’t huge.
Nothing like the alpha spawn that had been stomping around Floor 1 when
she met Petra.
“Can you handle them?”
“I’m a level 5 Blade Dancer, Tess,” Petra’s smile was thin and sharp.
“I’ve got this.”
Updates Wednesday and Saturday
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