With Strings Cut 4
You just had to touch it, didnt you? Bob whined.
Yes. Yes I did, Boxxy stated confidently.
But why, though?
Im inherently curious, rember?
Haah, that you are, he sighed dejectedly. Honestly, sotis I still wonder how you ever made it out of that bloody dungeon in the first place.
Im also very stubborn.
Quite.
Bob went silent as he focused on patching the issues Boxxy had caused by trying to poke Minic. The fake stars and sun in the sky were a quick and easy fix, but resetting the divine space to normalcy was proving difficult. For so reason the directions were all ssed up. Trying to walk forward ended in a sideways slide, and turning right made him start floating upwards. There were other examples of the wonky physics, but those were the most prominent ones. Worse still, all of them seed beyond Bobs ability to fix. He was forced to give up after trying several thods a dozen tis each, all within the span of about six seconds.
Great. Seems youve permanently borked my ho, he threw his arms up in defeat.
Sounds rough.
The way the monster comnted as if the entire ss was soone elses problem didnt exactly entertain its host.
Right, then, Bob said with a clap of his hands. Ti to seal off this disaster area and make a new one.
Is that going to take a lot of ti? Im running a search.
Nah. I do a lot of experinting here so this sort of thing happens all the ti. After the third, uh, incident, I decided to make a little function to expedite the whole process.
With a snap of his fingers, both Bob and his guest were shunted to a different yet identical divine space. The process had taken such a tiny amount of ti that the event would have been imperceptible if not for Boxxys appearance. The creatures shape had changed to that of a lanky, casually dressed man in dire need of a sandwich and a shave. It wasnt as if the monster insisted on using that form, but for so reason it kept reverting to it every ti it relocated itself. Switching back to its preferred abominable appearance was as simple as navigating a ntal nu, but having to do so was starting to get on its nerves.
The most annoying part was that it didnt have a choice in what its base appearance was. The dangerously slim man with the T-shirt, jeans, socks, and sandals was the person whose administrator credentials Boxxy had stolen in order to revisit the simulated reality. His na was Andrew Skimr, and the system assud the shapeshifter was him and kept resetting the avatar to his likeness. The unwilling impersonator didnt know why it was set up like that. It didnt make much sense for him to have an avatar at all, actually.
There was no way a human brain could process a fifty-thousand-to-one ti dilation without frying itself into a coma. That was why those tourists werent real people, but rather digitized copies that held the originals personalities and mories. Well, most of their mories. The people in charge of the project removed all knowledge that the tourists were entering a fake reality. Apparently the goal was to simulate an authentic transported to another world experience, or sothing along those lines. According to the promotional materials Boxxy had skimd through, it was part of so pre-order bonus. The monster gave up trying to make sense of the feature at that point. It just couldnt fathom how monuntally stupid soone had to be to pay for a product that was years from being finished.
Then again, it was far from the only questionable decision surrounding Terranias creation.
Ah, right, Boxxy rembered sothing. Did I tell you I found out whats the deal with the Triple-Rankers?
Oh?
Bob raised an eyebrow quizzically. Collecting such individuals and placing them in stasis had been one of his administrative duties. However, he never understood why he had been instructed to do that. It wasnt as if having such powerful entities would make his job any more difficult than it already was. Terrania already had plenty of imnsely powerful entities such as Boxxy and the elder dragons. A few hundred more into the mix wouldnt have changed much. Furthermore, if his bosses had been concerned about the stability of the world, then surely the Triple-Rankers were better off dead and reincarnated rather than put on ice.
Go on, then. Lets hear it, he beckoned the monster.
Apparently the developers have an arrangent with the governnt, Boxxy revealed. The company gets the expensive hardware and enormous energy required to keep this place running, and in return they will hand over the Triple-Rankers to the military.
Wow. Just, wow! Bob exclaid, eyes wide. It actually never ceases to amaze .
What are you talking about?
Human stupidity. It truly knows no bounds.
It wasnt as if the idea didnt have rit. It was practically impossible for any of Terranias residents to make it to their third Rank Up without accumulating an enormous amount of combat experience. In doing so, they naturally amassed intimate knowledge of strategy, tactics, logistics, and other warfare-related subjects. More importantly, no creature survived that long without being exceptionally adaptable. Therefore, even if the real world was a vastly different place from the fictional one, Terranias ga-veterans would have had little difficulty adjusting their understanding and knowledge of large-scale combat to fit that environnt. That wasnt even taking into account the imnse gap in processing ability between them and real people.
The main issue was that it was practically impossible to safely weaponize an artificial intelligence. If they were too restricted, then they couldnt effectively leverage their abilities. On the other hand, if they were given too much freedom and power, they would turn on their masters at the first chance they got. No sentient mind, synthetic or otherwise, would allow itself to be enslaved. The governnt should have known that better than anyone since they had been the ones to make all those strict laws regarding artificial intelligences after one too many robot uprisings.
Seriously, why do they have to sully the project with shady stuff like that? Bob groaned.
Hey, Im not complaining. Their governnt connections allowed to infiltrate one of their armories and make off with a bunch of their best toys, Boxxy boasted.
Its acquisitions included, among other things, an all-terrain armored personnel carrier, several crates of high-tech firearms and munitions, and ten libraries worth of information. Of particular note were a set of six military-grade soldier drones. Those war-golem-like fras would serve adequately as host bodies for the monsters entourage, at least until they were able to obtain more appropriate and customized hardware. For itself, Boxxy had secured the biggest prize of them all, which just so happened to be uniquely suited to it.
The monsters vessel of choice was sothing called a proxy android. Like the soldier drones, it too was a skeletal humanoid machine. However, it had been equipped with sothing called an adaptive bio-weave controller, or ABC for short. Boxxy had absolutely no idea how the thing worked, but it knew what it was capable of. When activated, the ABC wrapped the android in a layer of synthetic flesh that took on the appearance of any human that it had a tissue sample of. The device would not only mimic the persons appearance and voice, but would also replicate vital signs like body heat, heart rate, and breathing.
Apparently this proxy android had been created with the goal of allowing a remote operator to carry out espionage work. That was probably why, in addition to audio and visuals, it was also capable of capturing the other senses - touch, sll, and, most importantly, taste. It could even digest organic matter as a ans of maintaining the bio-weave stuff. The fact that the machine could eat greatly appealed to its new owner. The biggest downside was that the ABC rapidly drained the androids batteries when in use, but Boxxy already had an idea about how to deal with the power issue.
Granted, the monster wasnt quite sure what a nuclear reactor was, nor whether it was possible to fit it inside a man-sized machines torso, but it knew just the gear-head who could figure it out.
Finding her was proving sowhat difficult, however. Boxxy had absolutely no clue where Fizzy was or what she was doing. It wasnt that big a deal since its stolen credentials gave it access to a rather basic but functional search feature. The process took ti, which was understandable. After all, it was trying to find a specific entity out of billions of living things on Terrania using little more than a na. However, after about two awkward hours of waiting for the search to run its course, it had co out with so rather disconcerting results.
Hey, Bob? I think the search-by-na thing is busted.
Hm? Why?
It cant seem to find Fizzy.
Huh. Thats weird. Are you sure you typed in the na right?
Yes.
Well, I guess she mustve died.
No, she hasnt, Boxxy stated dryly.
Look, buddy, denial isnt going to-
No. She. Hasnt, it slowly repeated itself.
Alright. Ignore the guy whos been running this show all this ti, Bob shook his head. See how that works out for you.
Ideally, the overseer should have known where Fizzy was. He was still doing the God of Chaos thing, which included keeping a close eye on all of his servants. However, the radiant golem had given up her Paladin Job of her own volition about eight hundred years ago. One of the main reasons she had done so had been to rid herself of the Parallel Plot Skill. Though they initially got along extrely well, Fizzy and her alter egos had drifted apart as the centuries rolled past, to the point where they barely tolerated each other. Ideally they would have gone their own separate ways, but it was impossible for Plus, Minus, and Null to truly leave the originals mind or body. As such, Fizzy had been forced to amputate them for the sake of what was left of her sanity.
Admittedly she could have done so without removing the entire Job. Level 90 Scribes were far more common in the modernized era than they had been back in Boxxys heyday. At that threshold, the administrative Job gained a rather interesting ability called Skill Reset. When perford on a willing target, it removed all of their Skills and refunded the appropriate Skill Points. This allowed people to optimize and respecialize their Skill selection without having to relearn the entire Job from scratch. The procedure did reset all of their Skill Levels to 1, but it was a far more manageable setback than losing up to 100 Job Levels. It had also proven incredibly useful to Boxxy prior to its escape from the simulation once Jen had unlocked the ability.
However, Fizzy had not taken advantage of that high-Level Scribe technique. She had, instead, opted for the hard reset on the Paladin Job. This was because, in addition to getting rid of her roommates, she had wanted to take part in Clangs budding religion. Starting over from Level 1 had been the cleanest way to accomplish that, so she severed ties with Bob. It wasnt as if she had done so out of malice or frustration, but she figured Goroths new cult was better suited to her own goals. Regardless of her intentions, the fact still stood that Bob had completely lost interest in the glittering golden golem by then, so he hadnt bothered to keep track of her. These circumstances had been more or less explained to Boxxy, hence why the monster had been forced to resort to the systems rudintary search function.
Are there any other, more realistic reasons as to why she isnt showing up? it asked Bob angrily.
Oh, a few, I suppose. She could have changed her na. Either that or shes on the Shattered Isles.
That first one didnt seem likely given Fizzys narcissistic tendencies, but that second option was rather suspect.
Why would being on the Shattered Isles matter?
Because that place exists in parallel to Terrania. You cant access it from here or vice-versa. It was the best way to cleanly separate the two of them, you see. At least not until the next scheduled Dragon Festival rolls about.
Whens that?
In seven years, five months, eleven days, thirteen hours, fifty minutes, forty-five seconds. Roughly.
That wont do.
Back in the real world, Boxxy had triggered a few alarms before it had been able to gain access to the simulated reality. Even as it spoke, law enforcent was on route to investigate the security breach at the privately-owned quantum server farm. The rogue entity had about five minutes on the outside before they arrived and locked the place down, which was about half a year on the inside. Boxxy didnt know whether it was capable of accessing the necessary sub-systems in that ti if it logged out, and it definitely wasnt long enough for the next Dragon Festival to roll around. Therefore, it had to find another way onto the Shattered Isles, even if that ant tearing a gaping hole through Terranias reality.
Before you get any bright ideas, Bob foresaw its train of thought, have you noticed that theres a handy-dandy Switch Instance button on your admin panel?
There is?
Boxxy took a few monts to check on the various nus and windows floating around in its mind.
Huh. So there is. Neat.
Just dont forget that-
The monster vanished before Bob could finish giving his warning. Thankfully Boxxy was able to quickly deduce what he was trying to say. The overseer had attempted to remind his guest that ti on the Shattered Isles moved about five tis faster than it did on Terrania whenever the two worlds werent connected. It was sothing Boxxy had figured out during its third Festival, but hadnt really considered the implications of it. The bottom line was that everything around the creature was moving considerably faster than it was able to comfortably perceive. That included the two young dragons that were failing to chomp on the human-shaped stranger. A quick ntal adjustnt and a couple of backhanded slaps saw all of those problems resolved in no ti flat.
Having arrived on the Shattered Isles - on the Isle of Fla, more specifically - Boxxy once more ran that search. The second ti around it got a near-instant hit, likely because the realm it was in was much smaller than Terranias. Regardless, it had succeeded in finding Fizzy. All that was left was to place itself within a few dozen ters of her location, which was precisely what it did. Its view went blurry for a split second as it was instantaneously placed at its new destination, whereupon it was greeted by the weirdest thing it had seen since its return.
The creature had appeared in the middle of what was best described as an active war zone. Acres of barren, scorched terrain riddled with glowing craters stretched out in every direction. The tortured soil trembled furiously under the titanic weight and trendous force of an enormous dragon, a relatively older adult judging by its size. Its scales were dark green, bordering on black, making it relatively difficult to judge its subrace. However, the bleak dullness of the terrain and sky made it clear that this was most likely the Isle of Shadow, aning that Boxxy was looking at an adult onyx dragon. Most likely a male, given its musculature.
Said dragon looked as if he was on the losing side of the ongoing battle. His wings were in tatters, his eyes had been cut out of its face, and he was covered in nurous deep wounds besides. The creatures assailant revealed themselves scant monts later, when an enormous humanoid construct landed on top of him. At thirty ters tall, its size rivaled that of the dragon. Its proportions were slim aside from the wide shoulders, its chanical muscles were protected by massive mithril plates, and it had a giant cannon for a right arm. It had a secondary, much larger gun affixed to its back. Its face - if it had one - was hidden behind a visored armor piece akin to a helt, but the twin-tail-like devices that protruded from either side of its head made it abundantly clear who it belonged to.
Co here, little wyrm! Fizzys magnified voice echoed from the towering construct. Im not done with you!
She raised a hoof-like foot and stamped on his back. The dragon tried to throw her off, and actually managed to succeed. Fizzy quickly regained her footing and blasted one of its hind legs with her weapon, vaporizing the lower half of the limb with a burst of bright-blue energy. Her scaly opponent wailed in pain and rage, but did not stop thrashing wildly. It wasnt until the construct straddled the prone dragon, grabbed one of the ripped wings with her left hand, and held her smoking barrel to his throat that the rowdy lizard finally stopped struggling.
Fizzy ch vs. Dragon, by dmaxcustom
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