I choose a Portal instead of using Dimensional Step so we can see what we’re walking into at the headquarters of the Taller’ovst Mana Research Institute. I can’t see anything dangerous to us so we walk through, but it’s chaos as we emerge. Intense plumes of Mana from the containment unit venting I’ve done still flare across a churning pink and purple sky as towering reptilian bipeds with scaled hides, quadrupeds covered in metallic plates, and short wide beings with six pure black eyes race around frantically everywhere. Nobody even notices us as dozens of groups of compact crab-like creatures assemble equipment that’s pointed at the sky. Their mirrored shells, rotating joints, and retractable limbs seem perfect for the task.

  It’s only then that I realize they’re not running around in panic, they’re running around in excitement and investigating what’s happening above them. We all look around at the activity. Galactics shouting at each other, pointing at the sizzling, electrifying scene above us that almost seems like it will rip space apart. A few seconds later Jeff breaks the spell.

  “We’re not here for this, Bronwic,” he reminds me.

  I close my eyes and reach out with my Skills to find the connections I locked in to people involved in the containment complex in Egypt. It’s not 100% certain they’ll be the same ones that were involved in Cappadocia and the first one, but in my head it will be the same people targeting us. And maybe that’s just the tip of the iceberg; what if there are a bunch of similar situations waiting to blow up that we still don’t know about?

  We Step down underground into what looks like a massive NASA control room with hundreds of notification screens on a wall that must be 50 meters high. Stretching in a semi-circle from one side of that wall to the other are rows upon rows of seats facing the wall, some with additional notification screens and some without. We’re positioned on the left side of the top row, about halfway in. Spindly humanoids with elongated limbs and flower-like faces with heavy eyes and fangs sit everywhere. Hovering in a section through the middle are hundreds of graceful, floating beings that look like they’re made entirely of fibrous muscle and exposed nerves floating in viscous clouds of ambient static electricity. It’s like some kind of exposed hive mind.

  “What the fuck is this?” exclaims Jeff.

  Our entrance has been noticed, and the thin humanoids scatter away from us, chittering and screeching without any words, in a wide radius. Laser beams, electric shocks, freezing effects, and more hit us from automated defences. Thick black metal chains spear up out of the floor to wrap us up. I ignore it all as it slides off me leaving me untouched. Nothing affects Jeff and he gets pissed, a very non Knight-like pair of heavy blasters appearing in his hands to take out the automated lasers. Logan gestures with his right hand and the chains trying to grasp us simply fall to the floor, drained of any ability to move.

  “There,” I say, and point to a sealed door to our left. With a surge I use Perfect Focus to triple my Strength and smash through the door, blasting it apart. I watch in slow motion as hunks of reinforced metal go flying into the room and smash into half a dozen of the creatures inside. None of them are more than staggered, but the tone is set and I park myself a third of the way into the room, then stop. Logan follows behind me and Jeff takes up the doorway side on, daring anyone to try to enter into where we are.

  My Skills reach out and categorize everyone in the room and my Affinities reach out to grasp and understand everything around me. Within an instant I know who the boss is.

  Altiirin U’llavitarik Hytivikal (Level 7 Lead Dark Mana Researcher) (Legendary)

  [J’neera Research Head] [Taller’ovst Mana Research Institute]

  Health: 2800/2800

  Mana: 3290/5810

  Conditions: Mana Insight, Dark Mana Sensitive, Eye of Insight, Mana Containment, Mana Block, Mana Manipulation, All Seeing, Farsight, more…

  Guards burst in through several doors but they don’t make it even a step before I’ve triggered Tempest Siphon and their withered corpses hit the floor.

  Altiirin sends Mana into an item carried on its body and I sense a Wormhole or Portal begin to open to whisk it away. Before anything has formed a fold in space, I lock everything down and deny the item its ability to activate, then flash through the room. Even though it’s not necessary, I stab a finger into Altiirin’s floating, disturbing body and rock it back within its field of electricity as I trigger Geas. My Stamina drops precipitously before rebounding straight back up.

  “You will tell me the truth when I ask you to the best of your abilities, and not hide information relevant to me or the situation,” I tell it. My words and intent reverberate through reality and its being, and I feel the Skill sink in and bind it.

  Some of the others are still trying to escape, but there is no escape from Jeff and Logan. Others go for their technology and experiments to do who knows what with them. I trigger Psychic Eruption to stun them all, and then there’s silence. Logan looks at me with questioning eyes, wondering what my Skills can do and how I’m going to handle this situation, but Jeff is used to all of this kind of activity and simply keeps an eye on what’s going on outside the room in case things escalate while I’m busy.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “Explain why two Dark Mana experiments and containment facilities have almost blown up catastrophically on my home planet, Earth?” I ask it.

  Before Altiirin can answer, space ripples beside me with a very powerful disturbance. I lock whatever is trying to arrive out by clamping my will and Affinities down with even more force. The invader is very strong, but I shrug it off with a mental shove until I recognize the Mana signature in the Portal as my old friend, Syvox. For fuck’s sake. I feel like I will regret it even as I release my hold and allow the Portal to form. It forcefully dumps Syvox down beside me, his huge legs and feet sinking deep into the floor. He glances back at the Portal in contemplation like it’s betrayed him and then turns his attention back to us.

  “Been waiting for something like this to happen for centuries,” he says with his slightly robotic twang. I can feel the Skills and active technology rolling off him in waves and no doubt he’s already taken a full reckoning of the situation.

  Altiirin, compelled by my Geas, has already started answering and I’ve missed the first part of what it’s said.

  “Repeat yourself from the start,” I instruct it, and we listen in relative silence, with only the panic outside the room in the background..

  “Experimental Mana research facilities like ours are part of the economic package on a world like Earth. How else can the SSA make it work? There are dozens of similar experiments across your world, though none as dangerous as the ones that have failed.”

  “Always suspected it,” says Syvox softly in the background. Out of the corner of my eye I see long tendrils spearing out from him to interface with some of the panels in the room. Logan and Jeff both glance at Syvox, but I ignore it to focus on what the Galactic is saying.

  “Because of the high Mana levels on Earth and the sudden nature of the Influx, your planet was marked for the highest level experimentation for extreme Mana concentration and combinatorics relating to Dark Mana. There was a substantial chance that planetary level destructive force would be generated.”

  “Why?” I ask, confused and feeling myself get heated. “Why risk all the investments in Earth? Why risk the lives of hundreds of millions of humans and Galactics?”

  “It was not anticipated that your species would survive, at least not to the level it has. The assistance the SSA gave Earth, while considerable, was nowhere near what it could have been. You were left to mostly muddle through on your own. While I was on Earth completing the final set up, I saw humans caught completely unaware, no warning or preparation before the Mana Influx. It was inevitable you would be overwhelmed by Monsters or Galactics, or a colonization organization. We committed an order of magnitude more resources to our research on Earth than we have on any other planet. Then Oblivion Shroud found out what we were doing and they showed up to dominate your world and steal our research.”

  “Oblivion Shroud was there because of this?” asks Jeff, but Altiirin is compelled to answer my question by my Geas and keeps on going at the same time.

  “They focused a large portion of their attention on places where we had research stations. Some they captured, and some of those were damaged in the fighting. Combat was most intense in the containment units where our most proprietary, high level experiments were being run and we didn’t manage to hold them off, then Oblivion Shroud retreated. By the time we realized and were able to return to those sites, it was too late to recover them.”

  “No powerful SSA members or members of your organization could recapture them?”

  “AMLs that high disrupt Skills and spells and cause people to essentially be Mana poisoned. Nobody could get in and we abandoned Earth. There was no point fighting off Oblivion Shroud for something no longer of value to us.”\

  Massive waves of destructive energy, plasma beams, and a mercenary force slam into Jeff with concussive force, but he beats them back and his swords flash a few times. Then superheated air blasts our from him as he ignites a Firenado in the enclosed space. A few heartbeats later it’s quiet again.

  “No warnings to the people of Earth?”

  “What was the point? They would either fail in a chain reaction obliterating everything or the chain reaction would get out of control and rupture catastrophically. Either way, there was nothing you could do. No way off planet, and no way to stop it.”

  Notifications from Syvox start appearing in the corner of my vision. I pull one up quickly and see that it’s information about the experiments being conducted on Earth including all of the sites of various types and danger classifications. For now, minimize them all and give Syvox a quick acknowledgement.

  “And yet… we did stop it. Twice?” I remind it.

  “Indeed. Considered not just impossibly improbable, but truly impossible. We would pay quadrillions of Credits for information on what actually happened.”

  I can see Syvox watching me carefully and decide I’ve had enough, then a thought occurs to me.

  “Was Tenebris involved in this?” I ask.

  “Tenebris? Someone in his organization is one of the few we have a relationship with for our research on high AML environments, particularly regarding Bane Worlds, but nothing like frontier research like this. At least, not that I know of.”

  I consider putting a Geas on this creature to prevent it from establishing more research installations like this without proper negotiation and acceptance from a local population, but what’s one person going to do? Surely whoever its superiors are will know it has been compromised here; I can’t imagine I can stop an organization like this from doing research. Even if I cut off its head there’s no doubt the researchers and scientists themselves would splinter and try to do their own research.

  “Can you pull everything from my solar system?” I ask Syvox. He flicks a cybernetic finger at me and notifications pour into the corner of my vision.

  I want to take revenge on this fucker, but is there any point? I trigger Geas again, putting all my increased Dark Mana force behind it to multiply the effect massively.

  “You will make it your sole purpose in life to create situations where it’s necessary, research is done in cooperation with indigenous species and that they are fairly compensated for any risks that are involved.”

  I push past the mental resistance and can feel my Skill taking hold of the creature’s mind and will. It makes me feel disgusted with myself, but then I firmly hold in my mind all the humans that have been killed by Oblivion Shroud and the ones who would have been killed if I hadn’t been able to vent those high concentration of Dark Mana into space.

  I know where we need to go next.