Nocturnal University 2: Course of Destruction

Nocturnal University #2

Course of Destruction

By

Ethan Somerville

SMASHWORDS EDITION

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PUBLISHED BY:

Storm Publishing on Smashwords

Nocturnal University 2 – Course of Destruction

Copyright © 2015/2017 by Ethan Somerville

www.stormpublishing.net

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

Copyright © 2015/2017

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Chapter 1

Dr Roberta Bristlecone left the communal technomancy laboratory at precisely three o’clock in the morning, calling a cheerful good morning to the other scientists as she departed. She only received a few surly grunts in reply and Dr Ashe didn’t bother answering at all. Her fellow professors and graduates had long since ceased voicing their disapproval at her short work hours. After all she had laboured long and hard crafting her façade of an extremely old and eccentric scientist.

Sometimes she did retire early, feeling that someone of her extreme statue deserved a break. But lately she had been returning to her new secret underground laboratory, located deep in abandoned tunnels beneath the Technomancy building. For several hours each morning she worked diligently on her own project - a Gate Machine. Ever since Dr Halon Widget had met his grisly end at the hands – or rather pointer – of Professor Abbacus, Dr Bristlecone had been labouring feverishly to get the inter-dimensional portal finished.

She’d realised she couldn’t continue as leisurely as she had been before. Time was of the essence. Necronites were starting to gather in secret enclaves all over the world and raise their voices in supplication to their dark lord. It was as though they had sensed something, a thinness in the Wall of Fire; an impending rift.

Indeed Dr Bristlecone could feel it too, a building excitement that made her Mark of Singularity tingle and her old body sizzle all over with an energy she hadn’t felt for at least three thousand years. Her bushy needle hair frizzed out alarmingly and just the other day she pulled a pine cone from it – she couldn’t remember the last time she’d produced one of those. People remarked on how tall and straight and young she looked.

Of course they were just being nice. Dr Roberta Bristlecone was now so old she was permanently stuck in a half-human, half-tree form. Only her massive will kept her from succumbing to the ever-present urge to take root permanently. She may have been tall at over two metres, but she had gnarly bark skin, spindly tree limbs and thick wooden-framed spectacles permanently attached to her face. Her features were thin and pointed and her long bony fingers were festooned with wickedly sharp talons no-one thought the slightest bit out of the ordinary. She always wore long multi-coloured dresses. Her bare feet looked more like tree roots. Whenever she was forced to run a lecture her appearance and brusque manner scared most students away.

Now Dr Bristlecone strode confidently through the narrow, twisting, turning tunnels that led down to her dark, dank lab. This secret space contained all the normal equipment one might find in a place of research; long wooden benches littered with half-finished experiments, racks of computers humming busily away and shelves of supplies and chemicals. But unlike a normal lab this room had been hollowed out by earth elementals, and all the furniture grown rather than built. The benches were all comprised of thickly twisted living roots, the shelves a complicated network of intertwined vines. Even the computers hung in thick nests of branches, and their electrical cables merged seamlessly with the sub-botanic network.

Like all supernaturals Dr Bristlecone could see in the dark. However she still needed to read, and small bulbs glowed in the ceiling, providing a soft illumination that actually made the bizarre lab look more cosy than creepy.

The doctor would never have been able to create such a large, unknown space without many sympathisers. When she first started to pick up her pace she let it be known through the sub-botanic matrix that she needed her own area to create a machine with the power to search out a better world; a place where all trees and elementals could live and thrive without daydweller interference. To her joy she learned that a significant percentage of tree spirits were actually not the peace-loving hippies everyone believed them to be. These dissatisfied trees were only too happy to be involved in her project and even brought in a few of their elemental friends to help out.

They didn’t know her true agenda or that she was really a Necronite. Over the millennia she had been alive and in communion with various sub-botanic matrices around the planet she had learnt how to compartmentalise her mind, section off the secret areas she didn’t want anyone to know about. Now she could merge completely with her fellow flora without fear that her secret darkness would become common knowledge. It was how she had managed to keep her evil alignment hidden for so long.

However as she worked with the other spirits and elementals they grew closer and Bristlecone found new friends and companions she could rely on. Everything in her lab soon worked at peak efficiency. The doctor began to rejoice, finally seeing an end to her plan.

Then the bottom fell out of her word. The trees’ secret dream to reclaim the Earth was realised when Ogden Connifer, president of the Nightmare Games Organising Committee, managed to set off an ancient, unknown Eighth Circle rune known as Plantagenesis. From her laboratory Dr Bristlecone watched in horror as the powerful, deadly Magick burst out from the town of Appleton and started to streak across the leylines of the Earth.

Its power was even strong enough to reach the Nocturnal University, floating about a kilometre above the Earth’s surface. Excited tree-spirits, working in the engine-rooms, disobeyed orders so they could bring the gigantic floating island down to the surface and join with the Magick.

Seeing the Earth consumed beneath a thick, verdant coating of new vegetation appealed to the doctor’s plant nature, but it would never satisfy the Necronite part of her, the part that wanted the entire universe to end.

She couldn’t let Plantagenesis succeed, but how on Earth could she possibly stop it?

However, before she could act, Professor Abbacus stepped in and vaporised Connifer with an orbital laser. An orbital laser. And according to various sources he’d launched that weapon into space well over a hundred years earlier, just after the Martian invasion. Bristlecone supposed she ought to be grateful to him for ruining the Plantagenesis rune and allowing her own project to continue, but still … the thought of the power he commanded continued to make her shiver. If only he could be brought over to her side. A mage of his calibre would make the Cult of the Unmaker virtually unstoppable.

After Ogden’s death Dr Bristlecone’s fellow tree-spirits became lost and dispirited. They continued to help the doctor with her Gate Machine, but only half-heartedly. Systems began to falter and break down. Lights flickered and died. Connections failed. The spirits still wanted her project to find them another planet to succeed, but they all felt terribly guilty for succumbing to the allure of the Plantagenesis Rune. After all a supernatural boy had had to die so its Magick could activate.

Unlike her fellows Dr Bristlecone really didn’t care about the fate of one miserable little werebear, but she offered false platitudes anyway. She did her best to soothe their guilty spirits, but nothing helped.

Now, as she faced her experiment with her gnarly fists on her hips, she experienced a flare of frustration. Like the rest of the lab her gate-machine, lurking in a dark, shadowy corner, was a bizarre mishmash of organic and mechanical technology. Stone columns with roots as thick as a man’s wrist encircling them supported a sheet of branches and wires that looked like a huge organic circuit-board. A few lights shone down, illuminating a three metre wide stone ring covered with runes. It was wrapped with lianas that trailed off it, joining with the roots that encircled the columns. More roots ran to a stand-alone computer with a large, semi-transparent screen. A very thick cable, made from entwined roots and wires, ran down from the back of the gate machine and disappeared into the ground. It led right down to the university’s massive engines and would utilise their power directly. Her spirit allies had helped her to circumvent the various security systems in place around the engines, designed to prevent just this sort of syphoning.

Dr Bristlecone hadn’t wanted to use this particular power source because eventually someone would notice her tampering, but to activate a device strong enough to rip a hole in a sealed reality she needed a lot of energy. The only other sources powerful enough were a high-carat manastones. Unfortunately these were few and far between. The School of Magick kept some for various experiments and emergencies – and guarded them jealously. Soul jars containing demons could also have done it, but she would have needed at least a hundred of them, perhaps more.

Dr Bristlecone doubted there were that many in the entire Nocturnal University. And these days all soul jars were currently in use and closely observed, even more jealously guarded than the manastones.

Her Gate Machine appeared complete, but so far the doctor had not been able to get it working. She had attempted to power it up four times already without success, and this would be her fifth. She had no idea what was wrong with it. She had read countless books, worked endless spells, scrawled equation after equation and followed reams of instructions from sources all over the world. Everything had been connected and re-connected. Did it have sufficient power? Or was her own spirits’ lethargy affecting it?

She activated the standalone computer and started tapping away on its wooden keys. The machine’s schematic appeared on its paper-thin screen. Almost immediately a low hum started and strange lights started to pulse through the thick roots encircling the columns. Dr Bristlecone’s ancient, slow-moving heart raced to about twenty beats per minute. She clasped her gnarly old hands together in anticipation.

Come on, come on you dilapidated heap of junk, she begged. Work! I’ve spent the last two years getting you up and running! Why won’t you work?

The roots around the columns were now glowing brightly with several colours and light spread from them to the lianas encircling the stone ring. The various runes inscribed around it also started to glow and pulse with energy. Dr Bristlecone squinted through her wooden-framed spectacles at the dark space within the ring, hoping, willing something to happen.

The hum rose to a deafening shriek. The Gate Machine throbbed with power. Static electricity made the old doctor’s hair stood straight up and her ragged dress stick to her skinny body. But within the stone ring lay nothing. Darkness. A blackness so tangible she could almost touch it.

Dr Bristlecone hissed in frustration and stomped back over to her computer. She deactivated the machine with an angry stab of one taloned finger. The ear-splitting shriek faded and the device shuddered into silence. Why couldn’t she break through? What was she doing wrong? Was the Wall of Fire really that impenetrable? The Gate Machine had been drawing in energy so intense it could have ripped a hole to the Immaterium several kilometres wide or broken through to any parallel universe she wanted.

Fortunately the doctor had not been aiming at any of these places.

She fell to her knees in the middle of the stone floor. Why? she begged out loud. What am I doing wrong, my Lord? She didn’t care who was listening. Her assistants wouldn’t know which Lord she was referring to, anyway.

She bowed her head, but heard only silence. Tears of frustration burned her eyes. But then she felt something rumble deep inside her mind, and a soothing warmth flooded her body, flowing from her head right down to her long root toes. Her woody face creaked into an ecstatic smile.

He didn’t often communicate with her directly – it took considerable effort to reach out through the Wall of Fire. Oh Master, you are with me! But please – please tell me why my machine isn’t working! The science is correct, all the spells are active, and it is powered by the entire university! What more does it need?

The Dark God was silent, but Bristlecone felt a compulsion to turn her head and look at the machine. It is alive, Necronis’ deep voice rumbled inside her mind, so low she barely heard it. It still belongs to the Hated One and thus it is subconsciously resisting its purpose. For it to open a portal to my realm it must belong to me.

I … I don’t understand, the doctor thought.

All the spirits and elementals that comprise the Gate Machine must belong to me. They must be converted.

Bristlecone lifted a shaking hand to her mouth. Her spirits plummeted. Convert everyone here? But … but I don’t have anything like that level of power!

You will very shortly. Be patient.

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Chapter 2

As always the Nocturnal University was a massive floating contradiction of conflicting architecture; with modern constructions of steel and glass squeezed in between Victorian and Georgian mansions with lots of columns and decorations, and plainer Elizabethan structures with tiny windows and walls blanketed with ivy. It continued to shift and change. New buildings sprang up all the time, while older ones subsided beneath the ground to eventually disappear into legend. The library continued to confound with its floating levels, wings soaring off at odd angles, and spatial distortion spells sufficient to give the unwary cracking migraines.

However, since Dr Widget and his Necronite cultists had managed to blow several of the university’s massive engines and nearly send the entire island crashing to Earth, efforts had been made to reduce the conflicting spells that could, at any time, explode