The heavy circular door hissed open, releasing a cloud of stale, pressurized air that had been trapped for five thousand years.
We stepped inside.
Seraphina gasped, her hand tightening around her staff. Nero remained silent, though the purple flames in his visor flickered with unease.
The inner sanctum of the Tomb of the Forgotten King wasn't a tomb. It was a server room.
We stood on a suspended walkway of transparent glass. Above us and below us, stretching into the infinite darkness of a massive spherical chamber, were thousands of humming black monoliths. Blue lights pulsed along their surfaces like heartbeats.
Seraphina walked up to one of the humming black towers, her fingers hovering over the sleek surface. She touched it and shivered, pulling her hand back.
"This power..." she whispered, her eyes wide. "It's not magic. It's... something colder."
"It's a lifeboat," I corrected, my boots clicking loudly on the glass walkway. "One that never launched."
I walked toward the central console. It was a sleek, angled surface of obsidian glass, devoid of buttons or levers.
As I approached, the hum of the room spiked. The blue lights turned angry red.
"UNAUTHORIZED BIOLOGICAL ENTITIES DETECTED."
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. It was synthetic, cold, and devoid of empathy.
A beam of light shot down from the ceiling, coalescing into a holographic avatar. It took the form of an elderly scholar in flowing robes, but his face was a shifting mask of geometric shapes.
[Entity: UNIT 734 (The Archivist)] [Rank: Artificial Intelligence (Precursor)] [Status: Hostile]
"Initiating Purge Protocol," the AI stated flatly. "Sterilization in 3... 2..."
"Wait," I said, not slowing my stride.
"Negotiation is irrelevant. Primitive lifeforms are a contamination risk. 1..."
The AI raised a digital hand. Turrets dropped from the ceiling, their barrels spinning up with lethal mana-rounds.
Then, the scanner beam hit me. Specifically, it hit the inventory space where I stored my most dangerous item.
The AI froze. The countdown stopped. The geometric face of the avatar stabilized into an expression of human horror.
"That energy signature..." The AI's voice trembled, losing its robotic monotone. "You carry the Heart of the Queens. You walk with the stench of the Abyss."
The turrets retracted. The red lights dimmed back to a cautious orange.
"Are you... one of Them? Have the Outer Gods finally found us?"
I stopped in front of the console, crossing my arms.
"I'm not one of 'Them'," I said. "I'm the guy who killed one of 'Them' and looted her corpse."
The AI stared at me, processing this impossibility.
"You... killed a Queen? A primitive? Impossible. The Queens are the vanguard of the End. We built this vault to hide from them. We froze our greatest minds to wait out the apocalypse, but the Queens never left. They consumed the world above, and we rotted down here in the dark."
The hologram flickered.
"If you hold that Heart, human, you are marked. The Queens are merely the fingers. The Outer Gods are the hand. And now that you have touched their essence, they will come for you."
Seraphina looked at me, pale. "Lucas? Outer Gods? What is it talking about?"
"Lore," I dismissed. "Ancient history."
I looked back at the AI.
"Spare me the doom-mongering, calculator. I didn't come here for a history lesson. I came for your library."
I tapped the glass console.
"I want the blueprints. The schematic for the Mana-Fusion Reactor. The designs for the Sentinel Drones. Upload them to my device."
The AI drew itself up, looking offended.
"You ask for the fire of the gods? You are a savage. You use mana like a blunt club. If I gave you our technology, you would destroy your planet within a generation."
The avatar crossed its arms.
"Access denied. Leave this sanctuary, primitive, before I change my mind about the purge."
I sighed. "I was hoping we could be civilized."
"Civilization requires wisdom," the AI retorted. "You have none."
"True," I smiled, stepping up to the console. "But I have leverage."
I placed my hand directly onto the main power interface.
"You run on mana batteries, don't you? Ancient, degrading batteries that have barely kept the lights on for five millennia."
"Correct. And you cannot breach them."
"I don't need to breach them," I said, my eyes glowing with a predatory blue light. "I just need to make a withdrawal."
I activated my new Class Trait.
[Trait Active: Mana Banker]
[Mode: Liquidation (Mana ➔ Gold)]
Usually, I converted gold into mana to fuel my spells. But the trait worked both ways. I could touch a source of raw mana and convert it into currency.
"Let's see what the exchange rate is for a precursor civilization," I whispered.
DRAIN.
VROOOOM.
The facility groaned. The lights overhead flickered violently.
A vortex of energy spiraled out of the console and into my arm. But instead of filling my mana pool, it converted instantly.
[System: 1,000,000 Mana Units Absorbed.] [Conversion: +10,000 Gold.]
[System: 5,000,000 Mana Units Absorbed.] [Conversion: +50,000 Gold.]
The hologram of the AI distorted, static tearing through its image.
"Stop!" the AI shrieked. "Power levels critical! Life support failing! You are draining the core!"
"Give me the blueprints," I said calmly, increasing the suction.
"I cannot! Protocol 1 forbids technology transfer to lower species!"
"Protocol 1 doesn't matter if you're dead," I countered.
VROOOOM.
The room plunged into semi-darkness. The cryo-pods began to beep with low-power warnings.
"My logic cores are failing!" the AI screamed, its voice dropping in pitch as it slowed down. "I... will... cease... to... exist!"
"Then cease," I said coldly. "Or give me everything."
I watched the gold counter in my vision tick up. I was making money by destroying an archaeological miracle. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever done.
"OKAY!" the AI yelled, its form reduced to a flickering wireframe. "YIELD! I YIELD! STOP!"
I lifted my hand.
The draining stopped. The emergency lights bathed the room in a dull red glow. The AI panted—a simulated human reaction—looking at me with abject terror.
"You are not a savage," the AI whispered. "You are a devil."
"I'm a Void Capitalist," I corrected. "Now. The download."
The AI didn't argue. A data port opened on the console. I plugged in my Vayne Corp tablet.
A progress bar appeared. It filled in seconds.
[Download Complete: Precursor Database (Tier 1).]
[Blueprint Acquired: Mana-Fusion Reactor (Compact Type).]
[Blueprint Acquired: Sentinel Combat Drone (Mark IV).]
[Blueprint Acquired: Maglev Propulsion System.]
I unplugged the tablet and checked the files. There it was. The schematic for the Mana-Fusion Reactor.
Current Imperial technology used steam engines powered by burning mana-stones. It was inefficient and dirty. This reactor used cold fusion to generate infinite clean energy from a sliver of uranium.
With this, I could power an army. I could power a city. I could power a world.
[ System Notification: Precursor Tech Unlocked (Tier 1). ]
[ Global Tech Tree Accelerated by 500 Years. ]
[ Reward: +1,500 Destiny Points. ]
"Pleasure doing business," I said to the traumatized AI.
"The Outer Gods will come for you," the AI warned, its voice fading as it entered power-save mode. "And when they do, your gold will not save you."
"We'll see," I said, turning my back on the console.
I walked back to Seraphina and Nero.
"Did you get it?" Seraphina asked, eyeing the tablet.
"Get it?" I laughed, tapping the screen. "Seraphina, the Empire is fighting over scraps of meat. I just bought the sun."
I threw the rifle case over my shoulder.
"Let's go home. We have a factory to upgrade."
[ System Notification: Dungeon Cleared. ]
[ Reward: +3,000 Destiny Points. ]
We exited the vault, leaving the ghost in the machine to its slumber.
The future had arrived. And it belonged to Vayne Corp.