Present Day
The next morning, Daniel and the others were woken by the alarm set on their Codices:
“Local Time is: 6:00. Approximately 99 Imperium Standard Days remain for your mission.”
A chorus of groans rang out across their camp as everyone rolled over and got out of bed. Pioneer training had whipped all of them into excellent physical shape, but yesterday had been hard and they had only gotten 5 hours of sleep, thanks to their late-night campfire. Every man emerged into the pre-dawn light rubbing his eyes and nursing sore legs. Well, every man besides Gulliman:
“Look alive, you Trambonian slime sweepers! You’re already behind on Quota!”
He boomed out, startling some local birds:
“We’ll split off into two teams. One will follow the river in one direction, while the other goes the opposite way. Stick near the water! Don’t go far into the jungle if you can avoid it. Look for valuable plants or rocks. Like this one.”
He held up a smooth, white stone, about the size of a fist. Unbidden, Daniel’s Codex popped up with an explanation:
“Briconium-Laden Rock: Briconium is one of the few metals capable of safely conducting dimensional currents. Useful in the creation of both Warp and Meta tech, its current market value is approx. 350 credits per gram. This specimen is roughly 1000 grams, though it is mostly impurities. Est pure Briconium composition is 0.12%. Processing is required to extract the pure Briconium. After the processing fee, the specimen is valued at 388 Credits.”
The rock disappeared in a flash of blue as the Sergeant continued:
“It must be our lucky day because I found this little bastard in the mud just last night. Just the information that this little river has Briconium should go towards meeting the Quota. But we may not be the only bastards to find this place, and Command will want to know more in terms of specifics. Gather as much of this stuff as you can and keep your eyes peeled. With any luck, we’ll meet Quota just with this find.”
With that news, every single man was immediately awake and alert. The Sergeant divvied them up into two different groups, placing Daniel, the Dunid, and a lot of the older looking men into one group while taking a lot of the younger and stronger men in his own group. That included Jordan, and he just shrugged and shook his head wryly at Daniel at this new development. Apparently, Danny and his fuzzy friend had found themselves on the good Sergeant’s bad side.
There was nothing that could be done about that now, so Daniel just shrugged back at his friend and led his group up the river. They tried to stay aware of their surroundings while also looking at the ground, sifting through the dirt to find more of those precious white stones. It was slow and dirty work, but they saw very real success. A few pebbles here, a small stone there. The tiniest glint of white in the sunlight was all Hardgrave needed to stoop down and bury his hand in the mud, retrieving a smooth stone the size of a large cookie that he brushed off:
“Briconium-Laden Rock: Est weight 600 grams. Est BM comp 0.15%. After-Fee Valuation: 294 Credits.”
He happily whisked it away into storage and kept moving. Over the course of the morning, he personally found a total of about 1100 credits worth of Briconium before they broke for an early lunch. Most of the others hadn’t had the same luck, but nearly everyone had put away around 800. The Dunid indicated happily that he had found 1700, an assertion that Daniel wholeheartedly believed since the humanoid’s paws could dig through the riverbed more effectively than a human hand. The shaggy-man still couldn’t communicate with words, but Hardgrave had figured out that he knew how to write. The Dunid understood Daniel’s questions, and it answered him by writing in the dirt, which was how he knew the amount it had gathered.
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With lunch finished, they continued their journey upriver. After another hour of walking, Daniel eventually noticed that something strange was happening. The chittering of the smaller forest creatures and the cries of the birds had vanished. They were left alone in a sudden silence, only the sounds of flowing water and the squelch of their boots remaining to keep them company. Alarmed, Daniel turned his attention from the riverbank to the forest, glaring into the depths of the jungle with suspicion. Then, his whole world went sideways.
The only warning Daniel had was a mighty tug on his right ankle before he was suddenly sideways, then upside down, dangling in the air helplessly. The jerking motion was so hard that he let go of his spear, the long shaft of metal falling uselessly into the muddy bank. Daniel gave out an involuntary yell as he was plucked from safety and heard a similar cry from behind him. He also heard the calls of surprise from his comrades still on dry land, including the loud hum of concern from the Dunid. Hardgrave twisted violently get a look at what was happening, eyes wide in shock.
He and another man had been snatched at the ankles by two long and bulky purple tentacles, one for each of them. They were being dragged away from shore, towards the middle of the river, the safety of the banks growing ever distant. Some of their compatriots had equipped several older, gunpowder rifles, and they were firing at the tentacles from the shore, the crackcrack from their firearms echoing across the waters. White with fear, Daniel waved in negation at them:
“Stop! Don’t shoot!”
Those men were more liable to hit Daniel or the other man than the tentacles, and Hardgrave heard a bullet whistle past his head just after he started waving, missing him by a few centimeters. Then, the monster revealed itself.
Four other tentacles emerged from the water, all orbiting a singular massive mouth that was surrounded by the rest of the fiend’s web like, violet colored body. There were three on each side of the monster’s discus shaped central body, with one emerging on Daniel’s right as the other three appeared on the opposite side of the duo. The tentacles undulated in excitement at the prospect of the prey, the teeth of the central mouth clattering in anticipation. Those teeth were the only parts of the creature that broke the mauve color scheme, their jagged edges glistening a dark and diseased yellow. The Codex popped up with an explanation, but Daniel waved it away. Now wasn’t the time for light reading.
The fiend opened Its mouth, revealing pink Insides, and began to bring the other man towards it. Daniel recognized him as the older guy who had mentioned needing to feed his five kids, by the name of Alvin. Alvin gave a great wail of fear as he was carried toward inevitable doom, and the shout galvanized Daniel into action. He equipped his revolver in a flash of blue light and shifted to get a shot at the monster’s vulnerable pink insides. Lining up the irons, he held his breath. And squeezed the trigger.
The hand cannon boomed out once, then twice, firing its exorbitant payload into the belly of the beast. He was upside down and at an awkward angle, but he saw that his aim was true. Both bullets landed home and drew blood, prompting the creature to let out a scream of agony. Its tentacles began flailing, tossing Daniel and Alvin around in a pain induced rage. Knuckles white, Hardgrave held onto his gun and fought not to get disoriented. His whole perspective spun as he lurched from one side to the other, the tentacle’s death grip searing a line of agony in his leg, but he knew he would only get one more chance.
Sure enough, when the fiend finally calmed down, it began reaching for Daniel with its only other tentacle on this side of its body. He was ready for it, and Hardgrave primed, aimed and fired in the space of a heartbeat. He struck the tendril head on, causing it to abort its attack in a spray of blue blood, then he acquired his second target. The tentacle holding Alvin was struck with a bullet of its own, causing it to spasm wildly in pain and throw Alvin away involuntarily. He screamed as he sailed towards shore, but Daniel’s eyes lit up as he recognized his ticket out of here. Core straining, he moved to take aimed at the tenacle holding him. But his plans were upended in a heartbeat.
As if sensing his plan, the tentacle jerked pre-emptively. It gave Daniel almost what he wanted before he even shot at it. It threw him away, but not toward shore. His fifth shot went wild as Daniel was flung directly upward, tumbling vertically end-over-end through the air. Hardgrave lost his bearings mid-flight, eyes crossing as he fought to determine which way was down. He felt rather than saw the beast moving underneath him, maw undoubtably open to catch its flying morsel. Helplessly, the man reached the zenith of his fall and began crashing down to earth. But the beast had underestimated its prey.
Daniel couldn’t say exactly how he did it, but halfway through his fall instinct suddenly kicked in. Faster than thought, he aimed his gun straight downward and fired off his final shot. The bullet zipped down and struck the creature in its most tender area, sending up a spray of turbid, navy colored vital fluid. The monster had finally had enough. Teeth closing in a final clack, the monster let out one last muted scream of rage and sank below the waves. No sooner had it done that than did Daniel hit the water. Gasping in shock, he nevertheless immediately began swimming for shore with every muscle fiber in his body, dismissing his empty revolver as he did. Fortunately, the beast had truly given up on him, so Daniel managed to fight his way back to dry land without further molestation.
Hardgrave heaved in exhaustion as he paddled toward shore, and some of his comrades came out into the river to help him for the final leg of the journey. They dragged the younger man to the banks of the river as quickly as they could, and all the swimmers were soon on all fours and panting in the mud of the river’s edge. Everyone else was looking at Daniel in a mixture of awe and respect, stunned into silence at the spectacle they had just witnessed. Daniel, for his part, was just trying to get his vision to stop fuzzing at the edges as he gulped greedily for more air. But as his perspective cleared up, he noticed something glinting in the mud beneath his hands. He felt around more carefully, and withdrew a large stone roughly the size of his fist:
“Briconium-Laden Rock: Est weight 1100 grams. Est BM comp 0.13%.
After-Fee Val: 463 Credits.”
Without thought, Daniel gave a small snort, then burst into laughter. It was a deep belly laugh that he couldn’t stop once he’d started, and soon the others joined in. Nine humans and one Dunid chuckled/vibrated on the banks of an unknown river on a distant planet, far at the edges of civilization. They laughed for far longer than appropriate. But no one was around to complain.