This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/KyleKKent on 2024-11-04 00:27:33+00:00.

First

Weight of Dynasty

The sound of shrieking metal rings out as Hart’Ghuran cuts out the central control of the interceptor. The other pieces of the stalled out ship had fallen into the dust and vanished under the sorcerer’s power. Whoever has taken over the interceptor has already left. But all systems have memory in them and traces are always left. He grabs it and rips out the device, ensuring that the main processor and memory are fully intact before nodding to the rest.

“I’m bringing this below to get some answers.” He tells them before jumping off the cloud and gathering Axiom around himself.

“Need a hand?” The Metak that had been blurring around the battlefield offers.

“If you can get me to the guard it would be appreciated.” He says aware that a camera drone is still following even as the small woman grabs his sword arm and expands her wings to glide down safely with him. “Thank you warrior.”

“Fight well!” She says as she soars upwards, before rocketing off to the side and redirecting some debris to land softly in the middle of the street rather than crash into a building. Saving both multiple millions in damages and multiple lives as well.

“Princess Tryti’Margat, I think we would all like to know who is responsible for this travesty and where next to direct our wrath.” Hart’Ghuran says as he walks up to the Princess who nods as his coming and gestures for some guards to take the device from him. “I have not been on Soben’Ryd long, is it usually so exciting?”

“Not normally.”

“Pity, my visit has finally gotten exciting.” He says and she gives him a baffled look as he flashes a dazzling smile.

“You’re enjoying this?”

“Not the damage, but things get beautifully simple and satisfying when it’s a straight fight.” Hart’Ghuran says as he runs a finger along the length of his sword. “Anyways, if you’ll excuse me. I’m going to see about getting you at least one more sample.”

He then takes a few steps away and crouches down hard before launching himself upwards. The Sorcerer sees what he’s doing and the dust cloud contorts and reaches downward. He lands in it and it pulls him up.

“They’re going to try and figure out who’s responsible for this, but if we get more memory cores and control processors the easier they’ll have it.” Hart’Ghuran says and The Sorcerer nods.

“Human! Swordsman! If you sense a data core or the like you are to leave it intact!” The Sorcerer shouts hard and it echoes from all the dust in the sky.

“Target confirmed!” The Human’s voice echoes back before the sound of his sword shredding metal sounds out, then there is another in rapid succession. “Catch!”

Hart’Ghuran sheathes his sword and shifts to intercept the head sized chunk of electronics and machinery. It hits like a kick to the chest but his catch is good. This one still has a control panel and screen on them.

“Metak! Can you get this to the guards below?” He calls to the dark blur shooting through the air.

“Got it!” She says as she zooms towards him and he holds up the package. It’s plucked from his fingers and carried below within moments.

“There are a few interceptors left. And they’re changing things up.” Giria notes as she gestures upwards with her laser cannons. The remaining interceptors are circling above, as if the person in control is unsure and thinking things through. But it was also proof that whoever was controlling them didn’t just slap a basic attack pattern in the machines and walk away. They were watching.

Which means they were in grabbing range. Perhaps not immediate grabbing range, but they were tied to this in a way that could be tracked and traced.

Which means that whoever’s responsible for this madness can have their head on a spike in short order.

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“Get off me! Get off me!” The Head Traffic Controller says after she comes to. She had gone on far too long between regenerative comas and had grown old and frail enough that the stress had induced a heart attack. But she had bounced back and was going to make sure that if this madness killed her then it would kill whoever started it.

“But ma’am! You outright collapsed from sheer strain! It’s not good for you! You need to be in the hospital!”

“And if this madness isn’t answered for I’ll be dragged out of the hospital to be presented to the headswoman for sheer fucking negligence! I swore an oath to serve and while we may only technically be of the royal army we still stand and serve as we swore! We’re not warriors! We’re administrators and technicians! So we use our skills and minds to fight this battle! Now we move! We’re going to the servers, narrowing down which one was the entry point and disconnecting it before scanning it on a closed system! Is that understood!?” She calls out as she has a hand glowing with Axiom to her chest to repair the sheer strain she had been under.

When this mess is over she’s going to de-age herself to the onset of puberty. She never wants to feel this kind of hell on her heart again. Those preachy bitches in The Continuum can suck it.

Unfortunately as they move through the control centre the smell of burning silicon and slag tickles their noses and they rush harder. By the time they arrive they see a tiny drone with a plasma pistol incorporated into itself burn down the last server to uselessness before building up energy. The Head Traffic Controllor moves to grab it and gets a grip by the gun which she tears off.

There is a sensation of building energy when one of her employees rips it open and tears out the plasma charge. The tiny device powers down and they break off the anti-gravity nodes.

“We bring this in. And we get replacements. Whoever this was, they were thorough and careful. But not perfect.” She says.

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“…? That’s the tenth AI instance sending it’s self deletion alert out.” She notes to herself on her burner communicator. If things get weird it not only has an inbuilt plasma bomb, but has no link to her actual communicator or anything of the sort. You need at least several layers of redundancy to keep from being found out more or less right away these days. When hackers get motivated they get things done.

She turns to the news feed showing the revealed Sorcerer and his quickly assembled army ripping apart the remains of the compromised interceptors before she receives three more alerts of the AI self deletion. Then the cameras are taken in the middle of a dust storm to show a reinforced area rapidly being overwhelmed by sheer LIFE growing over it and crushing the walls and defences like empty drink cans.

Her eyeridges go up in impressed surprise as an entire factory with numerous defences is slowly dragged into the ground, it’s dome shape shield flickering and sputtering as the projectors are ripped apart by vegitation as it’s dragged into the stone. Then it’s all quickly grown over as if nothing had ever existed there at all. An entire fortification swallowed whole by the world itself. And now trees are growing overtop and flowering.

It would be picturesque if it wasn’t so horrifying in implication. The turrets, reinforced walls and poison spewing factory that composed that installation would have given an army pause without ground based or orbital indirect fire. Maybe a bombing run or three with it’s shields up. But the terrain just ate it. Literally.

“If those things spread to more and more Apuk worlds it’s going to be very, very damn hard to get anything violent done on them.” She notes to herself as her communicator goes off again and she checks it. Not only has a handful of other AI copies sent out the self deletion alert, but there’s a message from her employer’s contact. “Well, at least I’m still getting work,”

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“Hmm… the sensation has shifted. It feels very… indirect now. I think whoever caused this mess is backing off, but not completely. They’re definitely on the back foot though.” Harold says.

“Your instincts are both more and less useful than they should be.” Giria notes.

“Take it up with your ancestor, she’s the one that beat them into me.” Harold remarks even as he starts looking around the area with something less then a sensation of threat/no threat. “Not really sure the occasional tree and shrub counts as a forest.”

“It’s more a collection of all life in an area. In some ways you’re technically part of it right now.” Morg’Arqun states as he taps a nearby boulder a bit. “Hmm… what do you think, you guys want the metal or weapons or something?”

“I’m good.” Harold says.

“Can I keep this?” Arden’Karm asks and Harold chuckles.

“I’m afraid not, however if you just get in contact with The Undaunted you should be able to either buy one or buy the blueprints from one. Send a recording of today and you might squeeze out a discount too.”

“Oh… how do I do that?” Arden’Karm asks.

“The Village in The Dark Forest of Serbow is rife with them. Just visit there and you’ll likely be able to buy one custom made right then and there.” Morg’Arqun says as Arden hands back the pop gun to store followed by the belt carrying only the Mania bullet left.

“I suppose it is appropriate that you’ve developed one for the pop gun.” Harold remarks with a grin.

“What?”

“Nevermind, joke didn’t land.” Harold states with…

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1gj1p89/oocs_into_a_wider_galaxy_part_154/