Infinity Legends

Chapter 23: The Vault

The further underground the team went, the more disturbing their surroundings got. What first started as white hallways with failing lamps gradually evolved to labs covered in vats of acid and disfigured creatures floating in tubes of mysterious red substances. The announcements on the speakers had gone from hand-washing reminders to all out war propaganda, and resistance started growing fierce.

The lab’s automated defenses were still up and running and seemed to have been reorganized specifically to guard the dark-matter vault. Drones, stationary turrets, androids and war machines very similar to DM3-C4 were crowding the way and got stronger and more concentrated the closer they were to the vault.

Furthermore, such resistance had provided DM3 uncountable opportunities to shine—literally, given the shiny nature of his energy shield—by providing cover for the organic members of the party. Hiding behind the robot’s legs, Takol and Serry had constant cover from which to shoot at the coming waves of guard bots. DM3 himself had fired a couple laser beams and crushed a couple of smaller robots under his massive legs.

All of that had given Gurm more than enough opportunities to look square at Kramen’s face and declare “I told you!”. Even Takol was part of DM3 fan club less than three minutes into the adventure, leaving Kramen completely alone in his feeling of uneasiness toward their newest ally.

He just knew that sooner or later the damn thing would turn on them! A dungeon never offered you a super-powerful bodyguard without some kind of catch, and the harder said catch was to find, the worst its consequences.

With the robot as guide and protector, however, it had taken the team no more than twenty minutes to reach their goal: a corridor ending in a gigantic vault door with a huge c***k in it from which dark-matter spilled out. The black goo ran over the floor and up the walls, reaching even the ceiling, and, from the surface of the dark-matter coating, a supernatural purple fire licked the air.

“Warning!” DM3 buzzed. “Highly concentrated unstable dark-matter ahead. Specialized assistance required.”

“Yeah, I think we all saw that…” Kramen complained.

“Don’t listen to him,” Takol patted one of DM3’s spider legs. “Thanks for the heads-up, buddy!”

“And luckily we do have specialized assistance,” Lord said as he started playing a mystical-sounding tune. “Girls, do your thing!”

As the music filled the air, both mages reached out with their empty hands, Potathunder’s notes empowering their dark-matter manipulation like never before. With little more than a flick of her wrists, Gurm parted the deadly mass before them, pushing the pitch-black goo aside to open a narrow passage to the vault door. She held the position for a moment, then Serry unleashed upon the corridor a blast of ice, freezing the dark-matter and ensuring Gurm’s path would remain open for as long as they needed it.

“Path is clear,” DM3 announced, forcing an eyeroll from Kramen, then proceeded down the hall to the broken vault door. “Caution still advised. Please refrain from touching the dark-matter.”

The breach in the door was just wide enough for DM3 to crawl inside but left enough room for all the humans and aliens to comfortably walk through together. The vault was a large circular room with energy pylons sticking out of the floor and ceiling in three concentric circles, and in the very core of the space was a large obelisk of crystalized dark-matter. The pylons, Kramen realized, generated an energy barrier that kept the dark-matter stable in a solid state, but as the lab degraded under the weight of the years some of the pylons had stopped working, allowing treacherous tendrils of uncontrolled dark-matter to leak out of the obelisk.

“Ample round room, simple obstacles, only one way out, valuable treasure in the middle…” Kramen muttered as they approached the solidified dark-matter. “This is a boss fight scenery if I ever saw one.”

“No doubt,” Takol firmed the grip on his rifle. “Everyone stay frosty.”

“I’m always frosty, hon,” Serry blew a whiff of snow onto Takol’s snout. “Now how do we get the crystal?”

“Analyzing containment field composition,” DM3 said as his red scanner ran over the energy barrier around the obelisk, then his red eyes spun to face an energy pylon, repeating the scan. “Trespassing impossible. Pylon shut-down required.”

“That’d let the dark-matter spill out,” Kramen said.

“And that’s how we get our boss,” Gurm shook her head. “But it is what it is. Takol, get your mines.”

“Unnecessary,” DM3 spoke, then ran a quick scan of the entire room, stopping at a point on the ceiling. “Dark-matter containment fuse located.”

The robot crossed the room with the metallic clings of his eight thick legs, then seamlessly transitioned to walk up the walls and onto the ceiling as if gravity had no effect on it. As DM3 reached the point where he had located the fuse, two intense lasers burrowed into the metallic ceiling. Having carved a circular hole in the surface, DM3 reached in with its forward legs and ripped out a chunk of circuitry, and just like that every pylon in the room died and a wave of darkness emerged from the obelisk, shrouding the entire vault in shadows.

Nothing could be seen or heard for a moment, until emergency lights slowly heated up and came to life, gradually painting the room red. Not that it made much for visibility given the otherworldly fog resulting from the obelisk’s release.

“Everyone okay?” Takol asked, rifle trained at shadows.

One by one, all his companions responded affirmatively. All of them except for Kramen.

The cyborg stood perfectly still, legs and arms stiff as his eyes stared into the darkness ahead. Takol, Serry, Lord and Gurm approached him and, upon raising their heads to meet his sight, felt their spines shiver.

Standing just as stiff, not ten meters away, there was another Kramen. A perfect copy, was it not for the snow-white skin and the black-purple tendrils of dark-matter creeping over his body.

The real Kramen took a step back, and so did the doppelganger.

 Kramen looked at his friends, with the double copying the gesture despite having no one to look at. Then Kramen raised a hand, the copy following suit like a reflection on a mirror. The real Kramen took a step forward, with the other one once again replying in equal measure.

“Careful,” Serry whispered as the Kramens took another step each. “Permadeath’s up for me.”

It was up for Kramen, too, but he was simply fascinated by the being in front of him. They were a mere two steps away from each other when the bizarro Kramen lounged forward, grabbed Kramen’s pistol from its holster and pushed him back. As Kramen stumbled back and fell on his butt, he raised his eyes to see himself pointing his own weapon at him.

The plasma roar echoed at the same time of a heavy metal clash as DM3 dropped from the ceiling to block the shot with its iron body. In a second, he had swung his arms to launch the corrupted Kramen across the room. Upon colliding with a deactivated pylon, the doppelganger dissolved in a black and purple cloud.

“EE-ZEE-PEE-ZEE,” DM3 said, but in a second another four shadows leaped from the darkness. One resembling a sickly Takol, one a dark-clothed version of Serry, another a disfigured Gurmonya and the last a maddened Lord Potathunder.

The legends were true. They were up against themselves!