Steve and Jennifer inspected the large map laying upon Jennifer's inn bed. The map had grown increasingly detailed over the past few days, as the two of them had mapped out the major untapped resource deposits in the caves surrounding the village. There were other notable details on the map as well, like the border between the village, the farms, and the various biomes of wilderness beyond them. There was also a small border on one edge of the map where there was a discontinuity in terrain due to the various worlds being stitched together into Nexus. Jennifer liked to call it a, "dimensional sandwich layer," or DSL for short. This nearby DSL would soon be an active area of exploration for Steve and Jennifer, assuming the rest of the group decided to stay in this village for a few more days.
"What do you think, Steve?" Jennifer asked. "Should we check out that northwest patch, or should we consider this DSL's resources covered?"
"I think we've covered it well enough," Steve said. "We don't know how long we'll be in this area, so we should check out that nearby desert region, once we've done some experiments on these new materials we found. That way we can decide how much of it we want to have on us."
"Agreed," said Jennifer. "Do you think we should take a look at those crystals, too? It's definitely a risk, but they could reveal something important about the Tower's motivations."
Steve pondered for a moment, scratching his beard. "It's a risk. Their henchmen could detect our crystals on their radar and track us down. We could do our experiments some distance away from the village. They will likely search the village anyway, but if we leave behind a convincingly active laboratory, that could distract them. I could set up some redstone detectors set to the frequency of our radio, which would alert us in advance if they start searching the laboratory. Given how valuable these crystals must be, it might be worth the gamble."
"That sounds like a good plan," Jennifer said. "Do you think we should ask Shadow to help us? It might help to have someone with magic knowledge, given that Wolfric isn't around."
Steve scratched his beard again. "That's also a risk. The nightmare investigation is still going on. She could be the Dreamweaver."
"That's true, but there is only a chance that Shadow is the Dreamweaver, and on top of that, we don't really know what the Dreamweaver's intentions are. There are a lot of odd people in our little Nexus caravan, and we don't know any of them very well."
"We know Fristad a bit more than most."
"Yea, we do know Fristad more, but… something tells me he wouldn't be interested."
"I see your point," Steve said. "I guess we're better off just trusting her. She seems very knowledgeable."
Jennifer grinned with the gleam of adventure. "It's settled, then. Should we set up a base of operations over there in the southeast corner?"
Steve and Jennifer walked down the inn stairs, and were pleasantly surprised, if a bit startled, when they saw Fire land in the foyer in front of them, having jumped down from a higher floor.
"Hey, Fire!" Steve said. "Taking the stairs isn't your style, huh?"
Fire turned around. "Normally it would be, but I figured it would be faster this time around, and it's good to practice my reflexes a bit. Also in my defense, narrow stairs with small steps aren't exactly friendly to people my size."
"That's fair. Jennifer and I were wondering if you knew where Shadow was?"
"She is just in the inn dining area having a drink," Fire said. "Is there something you want to ask her?"
Steve figured it would be best to just tell the truth. "We thought we'd ask her if she would like to help us do some research on some materials we found on our mining trips. Some of the materials in this DSL are unfamiliar to us."
"I'm sure she'll be happy to assist you with that, she does like herself some research from time to time." Fire said.
"Great. Thanks, Fire."
Steve and Jennifer walked into the dining hall and walked to the bench where Shadow was sitting, sipping some expensive-looking wine that Steve was pretty sure wasn't served at this inn.
"Hello Shadow," Steve said. "Jennifer and I are doing some materials research and were wondering if you would be interested in joining us?" Steve then remembered the reason why they were building a research base so far from the village. "For reasons that will become clear pretty quickly, we'd like to keep the details between the three of us. Fire can also know about it if he wants to."
Shadow took another sip from her wine, then said: "Sure, don't have anything else planned."
"Great. We leave when you're ready."
"Just let me finish this glass."
After Shadow finished her glass of wine and made it float back to the bar, she joined Steve and Jennifer at the front of the inn, and the three of them departed for the predetermined spot in the forest that represented the southeast corner of Steve and Jennifer's map. The downpour outside had made no sign of letting up. Shadow used a spell to deflect the rain around the three of them.
After a short journey; Steve, Jennifer, and Shadow arrived at a small clearing in a forest. Steve assessed the area and nodded. "This spot will do."
Jennifer nodded. "Once we've built the initial room, we can start planning out the details."
In a short period of time, Steve and Jennifer had assembled a staircase leading into an underground room, similar in design to the underground bunkers they built in the days when their motley team was traveling away from the Tower. Shadow walked into the room to get a feel for its size.
Steve walked behind Jennifer down the staircase and pulled the lever, causing the pistons to extend and seal the ground above them. "Now that we're in a bunker in a relatively isolated location, let's talk about the reason we went through all the trouble to build it. As you probably guessed, Jen and I have been mining for the past several days, and we found some new resources we'd like to understand better. However, we also have been carrying around some gems for a while - well, I guess you could call them crystals. Technicalities in rock definitions aside, the Entity is looking for them. Long story short, the last time I took the crystals out of my ender chest, we were quickly ambushed by an enderman and some giants and then got swept up in negotiations with the Entity. The Entity's henchmen have detectors designed to find these crystals, so once they're out of the ender chest, we're putting ourselves at risk."
Jennifer nodded. "I think it's a necessary risk. If we learn more about how the crystals work, we can understand the Entity's motivations better, and perhaps even put them to good use."
Shadow replied: "I'll try my best to be quick then."
"We have a few ideas," Steve said. "First, we should do research on the newer materials. Second, we will set up detectors in the lab set to the frequencies of our radios, which will let us know if the Entity's henchmen go looking for our crystals while we're gone."
"I like it, them finding something also helps take some pressure away from the village. Well, after the inevitable area sweep is done. From what Fire said this Ender seems quite competent when it comes to military things."
Steve frowned. He knew that their experiments on the crystals could force the group to leave the village, but he was getting the impression from Shadow that this was a certainty, not just a possibility. This made him feel a little more guilty. He hoped it would turn out to be the right decision in the long run.
"That's good to know," Steve said.
"How about we catalogue all of the materials we found, then decide how we will do our experiments?" Jennifer proposed.
Steve and Shadow agreed, and samples of the various materials were laid out onto a quickly constructed stone table.
Most of the materials Steve and Jennifer mined were similar to the ores and gems from their own world, but some appeared to have subtle differences. The redstone dust they found in the current DSL was discovered by accident to be water resistant. The lapis lazuli had a strange smell. Steve was interested to see if that was connected to the lapis smuggling operations they encountered earlier. The other cave materials Steve and Jennifer recognized from their world were also laid out on the table, on the off-chance that these dimensional variants had unique properties that were less obvious. Finally, there were three materials on the table that were completely unfamiliar. The first one was a soft, black dust with the consistency of clay. The second one was a glowing, purple-blue rock. And the third was a deep blue metal ore which refused to melt in a coal-powered furnace.
Shadow asked: "You have more samples, right? If I want to analyze those quickly, disintegration is the best way."
"Yes, we have at least two stacks of each material, with the exception of the glowing rock, which we have about half a stack of. As for the crystals, we only have a few of those, so it would be best to not waste them, although we should still find a way to analyze them quickly," Steve said.
"Alright, let's begin." Shadow said.
She pointed her palm at the sample of redstone, glowing runes appeared over her arm and a few seconds later a blindingly bright beam of energy struck the sample, accompanied by a low crackling and humming. After a few moments the beam disappeared, only leaving behind a hole in the table and some heated air. Shadow then repeated this process multiple times. When she arrived at the purple-blue rock something was different though, the sample remained mostly intact, only to be obliterated by a second, seemingly more powerful blast.
Shadow quickly explained: "Obvious things first, those rocks seem to absorb magic but can only store a certain amount before becoming saturated. This is similar to how silver behaves in my world, which is interesting. As for the other samples, the lapis is just regular lapis except with traces of sulfur, which explains the smell. The redstone is interesting, if you were to mix it with iron powder and smelt it into an alloy you'd get a material with good conductive properties. The black dust is an excellent electrical insulator. The blue metal seems to be of Nether origin, it's quite lightweight, durable and tools made from it could have self-sharpening properties."
Steve did a triple take. He knew Shadow was a competent wizard, but he didn't expect her to finish analyzing the samples so quickly.
Does she need a drink of water? Or maybe a second opinion? Then again, does she even need to drink water? Is such a question even warranted, given the custom of drinking water when experiencing stress may not exist in the culture which Shadow originates from? Steve thought to himself, before composing himself and coming up with an appropriate response for the situation before this pause could lengthen into a quadruple take. "That's an impressive analysis. It's nice to know the redstone in this dimension has the same alloying properties as in our world. Combined with its water-resistant properties and the insulating dust, that gives us just what we need to make new electronics if we need them. As for the blue metal and the magic-absorbing glowing rocks, those might be worth experimenting with more while we're here. I would be interested to see how the blue metal works as a pickaxe, provided I can figure out how to smelt it."
Jennifer nodded. "I would be interested to see if the blue metal could be used to make re-usable arrows."
"I've tried smelting the blue metal ore in a furnace, but was not successful," Steve explained. "Given that, according to Shadow's analysis, the metal is originally from the Nether, it should be possible to melt the ore using lava." Steve took out a furnace and placed it down to the left of the table, then took out a single bucket of lava and began testing his theory.
"Those glowing rocks are too brittle to be used for magic-resistant armor, and aside from that we don't have a lot of them," Jennifer thought aloud. "Maybe they could be used as a potion ingredient. What do you think, Shadow?"
"For non-magical people drinking powdered anti-magic rock probably doesn't change much. But it could be used for curse purging or some amount of protection from magic, in splash potion form you could probably also disrupt low-energy spells or temporarily disable casters." Shadow replied.
Sounds like a way to counter the Dreamweaver, Steve thought to himself. He didn't want to say it aloud, on the off-chance Shadow was the Dreamweaver.
"It's worth a shot," Jennifer said, pulling out a brewing stand from her pocket and placing it on the table.
In a few moments, a standard triplet of potions was brewed using a small amount of the glowing stone crushed up and thrown in at the end as a catalyst. Jennifer kept the gunpowder on standby. At this point, Steve was euphemistically cursing under his breath as the blue metal in his furnace refused to melt, and was turning over in his head about how to proceed.
As the glowing rock finished dissolving into the potion to form a glowing purple liquid, Jennifer sprinkled in the gunpowder, then took out a heavily damaged bow, which faintly gleamed purple from enchantment. "One test we could try would be to apply the potion to this bow in splash potion form," Jennifer proposed. "Since you're a magic user, maybe you have some other ideas on how we could test the potions."
Shadow nodded. "I could conjure up a magical light source on the ground. I'd prefer if the tests didn't involve splashing me with the potion. My clothes are magical as well and I think you would prefer for them not to disappear."
"Sounds like a plan," Jennifer said.
Jennifer placed the damaged enchanted bow onto the ground, and threw a potion at it. She jumped slightly as the bowstring snapped.
Jennifer walked up to the broken bow, picked it up, and inspected it. Not surprisingly, the broken bow no longer had its enchantment. Broken equipment tended to be that way. But interestingly, the torn bowstring was far from the only new source of damage. New scratches and dents had appeared all along the length of the wood, as if all the bumps and grazes absorbed by the enchantment over the course of the bow's life were released back onto the bow.
"Judging from the bow breaking, and the new damage that wasn't there before, it looks like the unbreaking enchantment failed catastrophically," Jennifer said. "Let's try the magical light source."
Shadow stepped back and pointed her hand toward the ground, and a single rune glowed on her finger. A glowing white ball of light about the size of a closed fist appeared on the ground, next to it was an identical one.
"One of those orbs is actively supplied with energy by me, the other one slowly drains from its surroundings to sustain itself. Let's see if anything different happens."
Jennifer threw a splash potion so that it landed in between the two lights. Both lights vanished. After a few moments passed, one of the lights began to barely glow again, until it was restored to its original brightness. Only the actively powered light had survived.
Meanwhile, Steve was testing a blast furnace he built, which took up quite a bit of space in the room. The furnace was being heated by coals with lava underneath to get the process started, and the only thing left was to stoke the flames and hope the ore would melt. After the unperturbed and rather athletic Steve gave the bellows some elbow grease, he checked inside the furnace and was pleased to find the ore had sunk into his newly crafted ingot casts.
"Any luck with melting the ore?" Jennifer asked, not able to see inside the furnace from her angle.
"Thankfully, yes." Steve said. "Do you mind helping me smelt the rest of this, and then we can craft some tools for testing?"
Jennifer agreed. Shadow also offered to help, and used some of her magic to increase the heat in the furnace to speed up the melting. Once the first set of ingots cooled, Steve and Jennifer used the ingots to create a pickaxe and some arrows. Steve was impressed by the pick's mining speed, and Jennifer was pleased with the durability of the arrows and the speed at which they fired, so they made more. Once the remaining resources were stored away, there was only one thing left to test.
Steve placed his ender chest onto the ground. He looked toward Jennifer, and then toward Shadow.
"Any ideas?"
"About how to test the crystals?" Jennifer probed.
"Exactly."
Shadow shrugged. "I'll see what I can do once it's here."
"I'll take out just one for now," Steve said. He reached into the ender chest and took out a crystal. This one had a small dent in the top, was yellow in color, and glowed much like the other crystals did. He handed the crystal to Shadow.
There was a look of surprise on Shadow's face. She said: "No wonder people carrying these get caught by the Entity's goons. This one alone has a massive energy signature, no telling of a whole bag. Alright, let me examine it further."
Shadow held the crystal close to her head and closed her eyes, different runes on her body flashed in irregular intervals. After about a minute Shadow handed the crystal back to Steve. "This crystal… it has something like a metaphysical chain attached to it, it seems it's connected to a world close to Nexus. I have never seen anything like it."
Steve nervously put the crystal back into the ender chest, figuring every second the crystal was exposed was another moment at which the Tower could take notice.
"Could you explain that in layman's words, please?" Steve asked politely.
"From what I could tell this crystal somehow formed somewhere in a different world, then was taken to Nexus. It is still connected to the place where it formed, like an anchor. It's quite interesting: the crystals seem to exist in more than three dimensions, a part of them punctures the 'walls' of the world and is in direct contact with the Void. We know that something caused a pull that created Nexus, it might have been these crystals that were pulled on and took their worlds with them. I can't really say more on how or why they exist but knowing that they do seems important."
"What about the energy signature?" Jennifer asked.
"The crystals themselves are actually unremarkable in their energy. The 'chains' back to their place of origin seem to be anchored to those void-exposed points. These breaches are what cause the massive energy signatures, like quickly dragging a stick through water creates waves. I think the signatures are less important to us since those only aid in finding the crystals, the chains themselves are what's important."
Steve becomes deep in thought. "So, the energy signature of the crystals is what makes us a glowing target on the Entity minions' radar. No surprise there. But at the same time it's not a good power source. So, whatever these 'dimensional chains' do, the Tower must have found a use for them…"
Jennifer mused, "If I was a villain commanding a giant castle, and I had poor interior design sense, and I was collecting a bunch of dimensional chains from all over the place, what would I do?"
"Pull on them?" Steve offered.
Jennifer gave Steve a funny look. "That wasn't the elaborate explanation I was hoping for that would tie together all of the Entity's weird character traits, but yes, that would be my first guess. I would pull on them. Then what would happen after that? Shadow?"
"That depends entirely on how those chains work. They could be static so nothing happens, the link could also break, in the most likely case it would actually start tearing out parts of the other world, especially when you look at..."
Steve and Jennifer looked at each other.
"Like the dimensional sandwich layers here in Nexus." Jennifer concluded.
"Funny how it's called 'Nexus'," Steve said. "It's almost like this place wants to be the center of the multiverse."
"So, it's not just a fancy name for a dimensional hub where a bunch of peoples and cultures from different worlds come together and hang out?" Jennifer remarked sarcastically.
Shadow said: "With some of the things the Prophet says, any hope of it just being that is becoming increasingly delusional."
"Great," Steve said. "It seems we've stumbled into the center of what quite possibly could be the end of the multiverse."