Even with Syllena he had been speaking English. And apparently this english came out much more different and scary sounding than he expected, maybe it sounded like english to him but very different to others?
He had seen how terrified the girl was, so he hoped she wasn’t too shaken. Telling her to wait outside, as he had no wish to allow the teen to get hurt during the potential fight below. She might have faked her unconsciousness but why would he blame her for that?
He’d be as scared as her if he was in a similar situation. The stairs went down for a while, clearly wherever this led, this was very very deep underground. A towering door greeted him at the end of this long flight of stairs.
Just before entering, he turned around, staring where he came from, still seeing a small point of light showing the entrance. He could see Sofya’s blurry shape at the hallway’s entrance.
“Good, she’s listening.”
He swiftly turned back toward the door and waved his hand, opening the door which turned into the same pebble as always, making sure to close it back behind him just to be sure.
THUMP!
“Humf-fuck…he closed the door.”
David turned around as the door was slammed into by who he guessed was Sofya’s sprinting body. There was no way she had been able to run the whole flight of stairs this quickly. Had she been tailing him?
“How did I not spot her?! Must be that luck of hers. Truly worthy of being a cheat skill. My Sight is at the level of an Ancestor and I couldn’t spot or feel her. I’ll have to be especially careful with those Fate Chosen."
While David was in no way eager to kill anyone, he had read too many novels and books in his life to not know how this would go if he tried to kill a “main character” by sending anything other than himself. Just endless powerups till he got wrecked.
“In fact it’s just better if I make sure to keep every Fate Chosen as far away from me as possible. They have to constantly get into trouble because of their natures. Following them or having one around would bring great rewards and opportunity. But equally great perils.”
He had taken care to kill every Prothean that could have respawned in the facility so she would be safe outside. He observed the room he now floated in, it was covered in huge machinery, everything looked straight out of a sci-fi novel with holographic screen flashing different shapes, information and lines of an unknown language.
“Syllena, can you do anything about this language barrier? I’m technically a Cygilites, can you ask the System if I can at least be granted mastery over their language?”
[We’ll ask. Request sent.]
[Answer received.]
[Prothean Language Mastery granted.]
[Cygilites Language Mastery granted.]
A new knowledge entered his mind. The Prothean writings on the Holographic screens soon became comprehensible sentences and reports. Having two new languages slammed into your head was surprisingly neither unpleasant nor painful.
The System seemed to know what it was doing. With his new mastery over both new languages, he was now able to understand what the writings and reports seemed to talk about.
And yes those were reports of the war between the Cygilites and the Gods. The Protheans truly did seem to talk about the Cygilites like parents would.
“Solante-Siphor has become a truly renowned general of the Cygilites, he has even slain one of the Ascended, to believe a Maralictor has been able to slay an Major Ascended in an ambush! I believe he will be perfect, we have to hurry the completion of the Mater Patria.”
“Repport 153678 : Maralictor Solante-Siphor has perished under the sword of the Ascended, Seraphina the Burning Wings, he went down taking two Lesser Ascended with him.”
This kind of reports could be seen everywhere, the Protheans scientist using what seemed to be Protheans profanities to curse the Ascended, which had to be the gods. He also saw numerous titles used by the Protheans.
It seemed to be how they ranked their metallic children in terms of power :
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Phalanx (Level 1 to 30) → Decurion (Level 30 to 40) → Lictor (Level 40 to 50) → Paralictor (Ancestor to Beyonder) → Maralictor (Authority to Thrones) → Nemesor (Dominions). At least that’s what David interpreted from the reports corresponding to every title.
It seemed like Sceptus Vector and David would be Paralictor (if we didn’t count his low charisma score). The Protheans were able to craft machines that could fight gods. They were truly worthy of their reputation as genius inventors.
But David was in no happy mood to learn this, everywhere he looked, every console, every screen… all of it was covered in testimonials of anguish, sadness, anger, spite, hate, despair, grief, guilt… It was almost too much. And why would it even display those messages on the home page?
David reached the main console at the end of the room, he saw the screen show numerous disagreements between what seemed to be this group of Protheans and another, most likely the main group, this complex seemed more like an outpost.
The outpost’s Protheans were advocating to join the war, they had enough of receiving reports of their children's death, they wanted to join them, to show the gods the true power of Prothean Science, the main group however kept trying to convince them otherwise.
But they didn’t succeed, the outpost cut all communication except the reports to never forget why they were going to go against every principle of their culture. They were going to create a weapon of such absolute power the gods would have no other choice but let them leave.
The science reports seemed to say that their previous project Mater Patria had been completed. And they had started to make a new wing in the complex to work away from their previous one. Apparently whatever Mater Patria was, they did not wish to bother it.
As David looked around, he saw that there were indeed two wings : the Mater Patria wing and another titled Retribution. He decided to explore the Mater Patria first, he could guess the Prothean must have succeeded in making their weapons otherwise David wouldn’t have been tasked with killing or convincing a mysterious being.
The Mater Patria’s wing opened itself, showing a line up of three huge rooms, each filled with different experiments, the first room seemed to be filled with hundreds, and he meant HUNDREDs of mushrooms of all sort, shape and size.
Some were put in the middle of a tank of lava and seemed to be able to survive, some in the blackest of artificial nights, some on pieces of floating asteroids put into a vacuum. Others in more normal environments, however each one seemed more alien than the last.
David’s plant fanboy persona was quickly awakened, while he tended to prefer more regular plants to mushrooms, he had to admit those new plants fascinated him. Mushrooms growing in lava? In ice? Each seemed more different and stranger than the rest.
“Syllena, put a note to remind me to come back here when I become a full Ancestor. I have to store some of those mushrooms!”
[Done! We did not know that florists had mycologist and botanist knowledge and ability to do experiments!]
“We don’t… damn it… you’re right, It’s better to leave them here, I don’t wanna ruin some potentially unique plants or mushrooms.”
David kept moving through to the next room, he saw less pleasant things this time, the mushrooms were inside jars and floating cylinders full of strange liquid, each of different color.
The unpleasant part being the fact most of those mushrooms seemed to imitate a part of the human body. Heads, hands, feets, torso, heart… he saw nothing that seemed to indicate a battle had taken place, every tool cleaned, every jar or cylinder filled, nothing was broken. No battles happened here. The Protheans had the time to clean and tidy up the place before leaving.
There also seemed to be a console in every room, which contained the experiments reports. David was truly curious to read them but he wanted to explore the whole wing first.
He entered the last room, of which one of the walls was a huge strange black crystal door, which was quite noticeable considering the Prothean used liquid silver for doors. So this was most likely…a containment chamber?
The last room was surprisingly empty other than showing huge glass walls with the same mushrooms as in the first room but bigger and thicker. They also seemed to be planted in a weird blue colored soil.
He approached the crystal wall first, looking inside and trying to see what was behind but he couldn’t see anything at all. However a small black pillar not far from the console made him believe he should be able to control it and open the crystal, which he did.
The wall started to disappear, literally turning into a small black diamond which went to sock itself into a small dent in the floor. Now that the wall was gone, David could see what laid behind, it was just another mushroom.
A sort of mushroom. As it looked like strange glowing purple balls, each of them seemingly beating like a heart. In fact, David could hear a sound similar to a heartbeat. Thick green liquid flowing through the mushroom which was growing on a body. The body was still perfectly preserved. And as David leaned forward. The eyes snapped open.
David swiftly recoiled back and used [Analyze] on the mushroom and the body.
[Corphex Verrator] : A prothean made parasitic mushroom species whose main goal is to latch on to a god’s body and use their divine energy to produce and create a bulb full of divine energy.
[Dominion Level Being’s Body] : Despite its post mortem reflexes and the surviving will inhabiting this body. This Dominion is definitely dead, to safeguard itself it found a way to push its will and mind directly into one of the Corphex Verrator’s bulbs.
“Holy shit.”
[Bad word!]
“Sorry Syllena. But what the hell? The Prothean are using a god as fertilizer for their mushrooms?! I thought they were pacifists.”
But David remembered the Protheans had been turned into “Science first, morals and regrets second” type of scientists. They created because they could, not because they should.
And if they had this attitude when reaching Zenthia, David understood the gods a bit more. He took a better look at the body. It was… some sort of cat girls?
“Well I can already guess which race is gonna be the most popular when this game comes out.”
The feminine figure inside had tanned skin, black hairs and gave out, overall, an Egyptian vibe. She also seemed very tall, even for David’s current [Huge Size] body. The goddess had a hole in her body from which mushrooms grew from, a rather bloody sight.
This was an actual goddess, a dominion ranked being that could most likely shatter a continent with her thoughts if she wasn’t limited by the System, or hadn’t become mushroom soil.
[Analyze]
David used [Analyse] on every bulb, wanting to know what this divine energy could be used for and most importantly in which bulb was the Dominion’s mind hiding inside.
[Corphex Verrator’s Bulb] : A mushroom’s bulb full of divine energy from a Dominion rank being. Anyone using this bulb to absorb its essence would see its stats rise massively however the lingering Intent inside this energy would definitely fight back. Anyone below the level of a Beyonder would be turned into a melting pile of flesh. Has no effect on robotic beings.
David starred at the bulb which housed the Dominion’s will, it was the smallest and most unassuming.
A trick no doubt to prompt the weakest possible target to use this bulb and end up being taken over by the will of the Dominion ranked being. He remembered some of the novels he had read and decided to attempt something.
“I know you’re in there. Do not hide. I come in peace.”
No answer.
David lifted his hand, a green light starting to come as he gathered energy for a Gauss Pulse which he would have never truly fired, however he wouldn’t have needed to as no more than a second after, a voice interrupted him.
“STOP! Fuck! I just had to be found by a soulless construct smart enough to know where I was?! Luck must be fucking with me!”
The small bulb glowed brighter than before as the massive shape of the Dominion rose above David, a small wisp linking it to the bulb, thousands of profanities in languages David had never heard started to be heard throughout the entire facility.
The goddess was seemingly releasing thousands of years of frustration on a robot.
I hope everyone is enjoying this chapter. If you spot any mistake do not hesitate to tell me in the comments. My main language isn't english so I'm more than eager to increase my level and better myself. Same for the System's current "appearance" do not hesitate if you dislike it and want something more simple and maybe easier to read!
Have a great day!