Mistrunner 2 - Chapter 50 - Octavangians (Patreon)

Sometimes, I wonder if I did the right thing. Jeremiah was running the Specters into the ground. I knew it. He knew it. Everyone did. Hundreds of thousands of credits gone, just for one little girl. I couldn’t let him do it. Someone had to remember that there were thousands of people depending on us.

Nora Lancaster

For a long moment, I wasn’t even sure what I was looking at. At first, I thought it was just a man standing next to an animal of some sort. But then I saw the tentacles – or more importantly, what they were doing at that moment.

Clearly, it was one of the aliens who’d claimed the Rift, but this creature was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. It was as if someone had mashed together a man and an octopus, the combination being far more monstrous than the description suggested. With purple skin, a half dozen thick, ropy tentacles instead of arms, and a head with what looked like a sea anemone instead of hair, the octavangian was a truly horrifying sight. And that was before I flared Observationand saw what he was doing with the creature whose body had been wrapped in the alien’s muscular tendrils.

The octavangian’s black-furred prey was some sort of huge canine, but with oversized jaws and overdeveloped musculature. In addition, it had an extra pair of legs in the center of its torso. It was intimidating enough that even I wasn’t certain if I’d come out on top if I had to tangle with the creature in a melee. However, the octavangian that had wrapped its tentacles around the creature seemed to have no trouble at all. Sure, the canine fought back, and fiercely, but its struggle was pointless. With Observationflared, I could hear its bones cracking under the massive force of those six muscular appendages.

But it was the buzzing that truly unnerved me – or rather the source of the sound. With Observationrunning at full blast, I could see the bladed claws extending from the underside of the alien’s tentacles, but with how fast they were moving, I had some difficulty making out the details. What I saw was enough, though.

The claws had a metallic gleam, though I had no idea if they were organic or artificial. What I did know was that they were moving so fast that they blurred together. Like a chainsaw, they ripped into the unfortunate canine, sending blood and bits of meat spraying into the air. All the while, the octavangian let out what sounded like a burbling laugh.

It was nauseating.

I had seen some grotesque things in my short life, but nothing came close to the sight of an octopus man gleefully tearing a canine to shreds.

But I didn’t look away. If I wanted to assault the Rift, I needed to get past the octavangian guards. And given what I saw, the odds that I could do so peacefully were almost nonexistent.

It wasn’t so much the act itself that I found so objectionable. I had no issues with killing the wildlife. Few were the animals that weren’t aggressive, and anyone who didn’t approach life in the wilderness with the same mindset was a naïve idiot. Killing the animals that had been mutated by the Mist was just part of life in the wild.

Rather, I was disgusted by the obvious glee the octavangian took in the slaughter. Of course, I knew that the alien’s appearance played some part in my revulsion; I could admit that, at least in my own mind. If I’d seen the creature in more peaceful circumstances, I might have overlooked my own bias, but watching it tear that canine apart removed any filter I might have tried to maintain.

Or perhaps my prejudice was just that strong against the aliens. But in my defense, my uncle had instilled in me a healthy disdain for our would-be overlords. So, was it really that surprising that I would latch onto any negative trait – even if it was only their looks – and hold it up as evidence of their monstrosity?

Whatever the case, despite the overwhelming desire to look away, I continued to watch as the canine surrendered to its wounds. The octavangian kept going well after the creature was dead, and that same burbling laugh combined with the buzz of its moving claws continued to fill the air. Eventually, though, there was nothing left to shred, and the alien retracted its six tentacles. When the alien had finished its gruesome act, the bulk of the appendages seemed to pull into its torso – how, I didn’t know – leaving it with six arm-length tendrils poking out of a red jumpsuit.

It stood there for a long moment, the wavy anemone-like protrusions on its head wiggling in the air, until, finally, it just turned and walked away. I followed it with my eyes until it reached a building and turned left, taking it out of my line of sight. Only then did I let out a sigh of relief.

As much as I wanted to kill the thing – and every instinct was screaming at me to do just that – I knew that would have been a mistake. I needed to gather information first; otherwise, I stood the risk of bringing the whole operation down on my head. Maybe I could win in such a situation, but then again, maybe not. The first aliens I’d fought – the castorix I’d encountered before delving my first Rift – weren’t that powerful, but I also knew that I’d cheated a little in that fight by disabling their robot guards. If I hadn’t, I had no doubt that things would have been much more difficult.

So, it stood to reason that these octavangians would prove even more troubling. And if I was going to get past them, I needed a good plan.

To that end, once I was sure the coast was clear, I crept out from the alley in which I’d been hiding and followed the alien’s path. I tried not to pay attention to the pile of gore that was all that was left of the canine as I passed it by. Instead, my every sense was tuned into my surroundings; the last thing I wanted was to walk into an ambush. I still had Stealth wrapped around me, but who knew whether or not the aliens could see through it? For all I knew, there were machines or cybernetics that could do just that, not to mention the existence of skills that could pierce through the concealment.

Not taking any chances, I hugged the wall of a ruined building as I followed in the octavangian’s footsteps until I reached the first corner.  I stopped, then leaned out to check that the way was clear, and when I saw no evidence of the alien, I slipped out of my hiding spot and kept going.

Though I was certain that there were plenty of skills and abilities that could do so, I had no way to easily track the alien. Sure, if we’d been in the forest, I could’ve made a better showing – Jorge had taught me the basics – but in a ruined city where most of the surfaces were concrete? I just didn’t have the talent for that kind of thing.

Even so, I could make some educated guesses as to where the alien was heading. For one, the rubble-strewn street it had chosen made a beeline toward the huge stadium, suggesting that was its destination. For another, I could feel the rising levels of ambient Mist with every step I took in that direction. I’d felt the same around my first Rift, so it didn’t take a leap of logic to assume that’s where the alien was probably going.

As I slowly made my way in that direction, I kept my senses trained on the environment. Keeping Observation flared gave me a bit of a headache, but it had proved its worth often enough that I couldn’t imagine going into unknown territory without it. And sure enough, after only a hundred feet, the strategy bore fruit when I saw a three-inch circular plate attached to one of the walls.

I stopped in my tracks, sinking down to a crouch as I studied the oddity. Other than a few puddles of water from the rainstorm the night before, nothing else within the ruined city had been shiny, so the plate looked immediately out of place. Couple that with the fact that it didn’t seem to serve any discernible purpose, and it wasn’t long before I reached the conclusion that it was integral to the octavangians’ defense.

I knew there was every chance that I was being too cautious and that the round plaque was some curiously well-preserved remnant of a dead society, but if that proved to be the case, my caution wouldn’t have been an issue. I lost nothing by being careful. So, I settled down a few dozen feet away from the object and began my study.

After staring at it with Observation flared for ten minutes netted no results, I switched to the sense that had come with my {Mistrunner} class. Before I’d attained the class, those senses were faint and hard to read; now, though, that sense had become an integral part of my toolkit.

I shifted my focus, finding that it was indeed ripe for a Misthack. So, I sank my awareness into it, resulting in a familiar menu:

Initiate Misthack? [Yes] or [No]

I chose the affirmative option, prompting another menu:

Misthack Successful. Options:

· Reboot System

· Hijack System

· Deactivate System

· Upload Ghost

Craving more information, I chose to hijack the system. As soon as I did, an incredibly complex Mistwall bloomed before me. It contained a hundred nodes, all arranged in a cluster around the system, and the moment I sank my mind into the first, I knew I was in trouble.

Usually, the first few nodes were the easiest to crack and almost always consisted of eminently solvable equations. They weren’t exactly two plus two, but to my advanced Mind, they might as well have been. However, this Mistwall started with logic puzzles that would have been at home at the end of any other chain of defenses. But after plunging headlong into the system, I didn’t have much choice but to keep going.

Sure, I could pull back and only suffer a minor backlash, but in a system as advanced as the one I’d found, I knew it was almost guaranteed that the octavangians would know that someone had tampered with their equipment. The only way to skate in under the radar and avoid discovery was to keep pushing forward.

So, that’s what I did, bending every ounce of brainpower toward that goal. The first node fell fairly quickly; though it was much more difficulty than what I was used to seeing, it still wasn’t enough to keep me out. However, the complexity of the puzzles and equations continued to mount with every fallen node, and by the time I’d pushed past the halfway mark, the mental fatigue had started to get to me.

That was the problem with attacking unknown systems. Taken in isolation, even the most difficulty to conquer nodes weren’t that hard to overcome. All it took was time, focus, and care. However, solving a single equation or puzzle was very different than tearing through a hundred progressively more difficult problems in a row. It was enough to strain even the most formidable mind, so the real deciding factor was a person’s willpower. Lots of people had the skills. Few had the stubborn refusal to quit required to make full use of them.

I liked to think I was one of those few.

But confidence could only take me so far, and by the time I toppled the seventy-fifth node, I felt like someone was repeatedly jabbing an icepick into my brain. I knew it was going to be a close call, and I needed to make a choice. If I kept going, I might conquer the defenses. But I also had a good chance of failing, too. And if that happened, the backlash would be immense.

By comparison, if I pulled out now, it would be much easier to endure, and I would stand a much better chance of escaping.

So, I needed to make a choice. Either I could chance it and should I fail, run the risk of knocking myself out with the backlash. Or I could choose to give up, suffer a much slighter backlash, and escape on my own terms.

But that came with its own issues – chiefly that it would alert the aliens to my presence. If they knew someone like me was around, they would take steps to counter my skills. And that would make delving the Rift that much more difficult. In fact, if I pulled out now, it was probably a good idea to abandon the idea of delving the Rift altogether.

And I wasn’t going to do that.

Perhaps it was stupid. Or maybe I was just letting my stubbornness push me into foolishness. But I really did think keeping going was my best option. So, that’s what I did.

Immediately after making that decision, I began to regret it. Still, I pushed on, and one node after another fell before me. I couldn’t enjoy it, though. The headache continued to intensify, and soon enough, my focus began to waver.

I kept going, harnessing every ounce of concentration I could muster. Even so, I wasn’t certain if it was going to be enough. The eightieth node was a struggle. The eight-fifth was a labor the likes of which I’d never experienced. The ninetieth and ninety-fifth depleted my reserves like nothing else ever had. And finally, the hundredth node was a knock-down, drag-out war of attrition, the result of which was uncertain until the very last second.

And then, suddenly, it was over.

I let out a deep breath and wiped the sweat from my brow before diving into the system. And what I saw was more than a little surprising. In some ways, it resembled the cameras I hacked so frequently back in Nova City. However, instead of using visual means for detection, it used aural input. The slightest noise would trip the sensors, and I assumed it would prompt a response from the octavangians.

Fortunately, by Misthacking one, I had inadvertently gained access to all of them – which made sense, given the difficulty involved. I’d effectively hacked thirty-four devices all at once. Obviously, with that kind of infrastructure backing it up, it was never going to be easy. In fact, I knew just how lucky I was to have made it through that Mistwall.

Pushing that from my exhausted mind, I focused on what information I could glean from the system. And it wasn’t much. Aside from its basic purpose – an early warning system – I could only surmise that the thirty-four sensors had been laid out in a loose web around the stadium. Beyond their purview, there were no other defenses.

Which I found odd, but I wasn’t going to complain.

So, I shut them down and ran forward, hoping to bypass the web before they had a chance to reboot. I sprinted down the street, maintaining Stealth even though I knew the sound of my steps was probably enough to expose me. I couldn’t worry about that, though. I needed to get inside the defenses.

And I barely made it, too. By the time they rebooted, I’d ensconced myself in one of the crumbling buildings, where I intended to rest my mind for a few minutes. As I did so, I chastised myself for taking such a huge chance. At the time, using Misthack on the sensor hadn’t seemed like a big risk, but that was because I’d assumed the aliens’ technology was on par with what I’d seen back in Nova. Obviously, that wasn’t the case, and I was incredibly lucky that I hadn’t gotten myself killed.

Sighing, I sank to my backside as I closed my eyes. I kept Observation going, but without flaring it to its maximum capability, the mental strain was negligible. Like that, I settled down to wait for my recovery.

It took almost an hour before my headache began to fade, and another hour until it was gone completely – a testament to how close to the edge I’d gotten. If there’d been even one more node, I would have failed.

But I hadn’t, and all I could do now was resolve to do better in the future.

Sighing, I pushed myself back to my feet and resumed my trek toward the stadium. Fortunately, I didn’t find any other defenses in my way, but the journey actually took a lot longer than I’d expected. The sheer size of the structure had thrown off my perception, and I’d assumed it was a lot closer than it actually was. By the time I reached it, I could only stare in awe at the building.

It rose more than a hundred feet into the air and was shaped like an enormous bowl, albeit with one open end. I couldn’t see inside, but I suspected that was where the octavangians had set up shop.

Once again, I settled down in an out-of-the-way alley to gather information. However, my reconnaissance wasn’t very effective, and all I saw were a few other aliens coming and going. Using all of my senses, I at least felt reasonably sure that there were no other automated defenses. So, the way was open for me to explore further.

Knowing that if I went back, I’d have to disable the aural sensors two more times – one on the way out and another time when I came back – I decided that I needed to take care of the octavangians before going back for Patrick. I’m self-aware enough to realize that my reticence to return was also tied up in the fact that bringing him along for the ride would only make things more difficult. I was better off working alone rather than trying to protect him – which begged the question of why I’d agreed to let him accompany me in the first place.

I didn’t want to answer that at the moment, so I pushed the query to the back of my mind where it belonged. Instead, I focused on doing what I needed to do.