|?Let Fate Decide?|
He stared at the prompt and rolled the dice of fate. Aurelio reflexively crossed his fingers, hoping upon hope that the die would end positively. The event he was dealing with was greatly beneficial on higher rolls, providing the group with positive modifiers to the exploratory section of the game.
Something he wanted as a safety net considering his personal test of the system with the excursion was to abide by the dice and test out the threshold of his rule breaking abilities.
No need to abide by the system if it didn’t provide a benefit of any kind, right?
The cerulean die he conjured in the air spun like a dancer and landed with the grace of a club-footed amateur.
Two pips on the landed face.
Like magic, the weight of the world grew heavier on his shoulders. The calm and collected demeanor he’d fought to establish during his time on the planet was artificially stripped away from him, leaving behind an uncomfortable emptiness.
These were the physical effects of losing Heart, it seemed.
Confirming this was the case by pulling out his diagnostics sheet, he felt the importance of maintaining a high Heart value across the outpost would be paramount.
Among all of the other problems that needed to be addressed, the rat race of a tabletop gamer.
With a heavy heart and his head hung low, Aurelio crept out of the nest with his duty done and searched for the rest of his departing crew. Phineas was talking to Oja with a forced ease, peppering them with questions.
“So,” Phineas took a deep breath, “What was your crew like when you weren’t made of bolts and wires?”
Oja blinked and chuckled, “Oh why the sudden reluctance? You were so energetic to listen to my checkered past.”
“I’ll take a guess here and say that Aurelio here has something to do with why Phineas and I suddenly feel like we’re attending a funeral for a loved one.” Kalani stated in a strained tone.
He sighed, “Just a bad roll of the die is all. I’m sure that you all saw that star streaking across the sky?”
Kalani winced, “I’ve taken to hating anything that shoots across the sky at this point… but yes I watched that bright light cut through the dark.”
“Yeah, and it fizzled out as quickly as it came in. Made me feel like shit after.” Phineas added.
“Events on this planet have a habit of affecting the mind in peculiar ways, Commander. Something as innocuous as a shooting star can be an omen warning us of an upcoming calamity. A thundering tempest in the distance can indicate a boon arriving for the outpost by a nascent god. It's magical.” Oja explained with a reverence for the planet and its intricacies.
“We just got the short end of the stick this time around. I’m sure we can pull through once we’re out in the field.” Aurelio stated. He was, in fact, sure that their hollowness would lessen upon their departure. After all, their {Communion} innovation provided their crew with one point of Heart once they set out on their adventure.
Why or how this effect takes place was just another curiosity among the growing list that Aurelio wanted to investigate but this was near the bottom of the list for him.
“As for your question, Phineas,” Oja turned back to the scout and stared at him with a wistful recollection, “My crew was filled with a bunch of lighthearted idiots turned competent explorers by the trials and tribulations the planet threw at us.”
“And what were some of those trials and tribulations, as you so eloquently put it?” Kalani inquired.
Oja waved their hand theatrically across the outposts ramparts, “In these walls and beyond, our survival was consistently tested against the subterranean hordes of obsidian monsters that would dig their way up from the earth to tear at our walls. The Fountainheads were the most consistent aggressors that we dealt with on the surface but their armies composition was varied with more than those multi-armed brutes. Despite lacking skin, my body shudders at the thought of having to confront a Duet in those massive catacombs.”
Phineas gulped, “Why aren’t there any friendly creatures on this planet?”
Kalani chimed in, “They used to be friendly.”
Oja nodded, “Used to be the operative phrase here. The Monolids, as my colleague referred to them, were an advanced civilization that interacted favorably with the humans that built this outpost in an earlier generation. Some of the relics we robbed from their ruined coffers suggest as much. Our shared capacity to wield Ignition and revere their subterranean god was what endeared us to them. And we, in turn, offered our mechanical prowess to create beings like myself, artificial receptacles for their divine power.”
The Sawbones talked at length about the connections between the humans and the Monolids, with Kalani fleshing out sparser historical interpretations with her own assumptions, but the lecture felt distant. As if the words being stated were recited instead of thought about.
“I’ve been curious however,” Oja shifted the topic of conversation, “Where are the rest of you scavengers? This can’t be the whole crew, right?”
No one met the robot in the eye.
“This is it? Have you at least found signs of other scavengers still in the area?”
Another moment of silence. Another deafening damnation to their dire situation.
“We don’t need to worry about numbers right now.” Aurelio offered. “We found you in the swamps and I’m certain we’ll find other scavengers when the world presents them to us. Maybe they’ll flock back to the outpost if they see it operational again.”
He didn’t believe in such conclusions. The scavengers wouldn’t leave a well fortified campsite like the outpost behind unless they died out or some other power called them outside of the walls towards parts unknown. Aurelio knew of at least one other crewmate they could call upon, but they needed to be well equipped before he felt it would be safe enough to dive into the catacombs in search of this individual.
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At the very least Aurelio needed to make contact with them if he wanted to gain access to his second Role.
Oja shrugged, “If you’re certain of this then I won’t pry any further. I figured that the crew would be larger because my own colony was twenty people strong.”
“And what happened to the rest of them?” Phineas reflexively asked.
“I don’t know for sure. My love brought me to the Mire and fabricated a nest for me when the outpost got overrun by creatures we’d never seen before. My body was torn asunder by a vicious wolf-like predator and they were suffering their own injuries as they built that shelter for me.” Oja didn’t speak further, the recollection of the memory painful on their face.
Kalani corralled Aurelio to the side, “We need to get those turrets operational.”
He nodded.
The crew composed themselves for their journey. They were outfitted with the best the outpost could offer. Oja wielded the [Carbon Cleaver] with a measured ease, whispering something about preferring an axe or spear type weapon if they had the materials to craft one for them.
With lightened hearts, they crossed the outposts' threshold back to the familiar swamp infested landscape in search of novel prey.
---
Aurelio walked past the metallic pine forest into the embrace of the Metal Mire without fanfare. All that greeted them on their arrival was the sudden presence of bubbling ooze popping as ambient chatter in the background and the uncomfortable squelching of their boots on the muddy earth beneath them.
Their target was marked on their map with a large red dot. Phineas provided the group with a primary path to follow towards the target, dotted lines of secondary paths branching out from their current position should an obstacle on the primary path prove to be worse to confront than to avoid.
Aurelio made a conscious effort to observe the landscape before him like a game. Keeping that his compatriots were people in the back of his mind, he willed the system that corralled him with messages of fate and advancement to the forefront and manifested these elements into existence.
The others did not react to the shimmering line that grew in prominence and luster before him, nor did they question the tug that pulled them to follow the path. This was the trajectory of their expedition made material to his eyes only. He refrained from making any statements about the line to Kalani or the rest of the crew for fear of tainting his observations by introducing their rebellion to this thread of fate as a variable.
He blinked and watched the game board lay itself out to him within the HUD of his [Scrap Suit]. Just like in the tabletop game, cards were laid face down to simulate the journey the scavengers would have to go through to reach their quarry and engage the monster in combat.
The Malignance had four events to deal with before they were meant to be confronted, two pulling from the general host of events typical to the Metal Mire and two pulling from the monster's presence in the habitat.
Two general events and then two monster events in that order.
|?Reveal Your Path?|
The world around him slowed to a crawl yet his mental faculties experienced no such lethargy.
Working within the system gave him the privilege to think before he acted.
Aurelio made a mental note of that advantage and willed the first card to reveal itself.
|CHOSEN has drawn “SPARK OF RENEWAL”|
What he had once experienced as a peculiar lapse in memory as to their expeditions trek through the Mire gained clarity through his actions. This fate was imposed on their reality and the shimmering line that drew them towards the monster shifted in its serpentine route to accommodate the presence of the event.
There was an instinctual pull that brought them face to face with the topic of the event. His crewmates followed the path with a glassy-eyed obedience that left him disturbed and uncomfortable.
Even more so when a casual glance at the map of the Metal Mire showcased their group covered a lot of ground and lapsed a lot of time with what felt to him to be a quick one mile jaunt.
“What is that?” Kalani whispered, pulling Aurelio out of his head space to confront the conditions of the event.
Sitting at the center of a clearing unmarred by sludge and bile was an ancient eldritch machine. It evoked images of a booth or an iron maiden, outstretched hands beckoning users towards the brilliant ember that rested in the machine's center.
Oja glared at the machine, giving it a wide berth, “We should leave.”
“Why? Is it this thing gonna attack us too?” Phineas asked, hand brandishing the rigid [Black Needle] in preparation of an assault.
Oja shook their head, “No. The machine isn’t going to attack us. But it… I’ve seen a few of my crewmates operate machines like this before and some have turned up missing by the end of its alien machinations or reconstituted into my image. Those truly lucky gain favor with the planet in some divine way but… they don’t look at the world the same way. Their perspective on the problems we faced were always met with resignation, like Atlas shirking at the responsibility of holding up the world.”
Despite their description, Aurelio walked closer and generated two prompts for his troubles.
|?DECRYPT Results?|
|?Let Fate Decide?|
This is new.
DECRYPT was the last ability left in the starting set he’d come to expect from the innovations and its presence here confused him. If the INSPECT feature gave him a detailed understanding of terms and information the system felt worthy of scrutiny, then DECRYPT was… the predictive aftermath?
It aligned somewhat to the Reconnaissance family of innovations being preoccupied with predicting the conditions within a given biome and altering the landscape to produce certain results. Was this his crutch for having a faulty memory?
“What do you think we should do?” Phineas asked, shifting his gaze between the commander and Aurelio for guidance.
“I’m voting that we ignore the machine. If Oja has experienced a bad draw with it, we shouldn’t tempt fate to begin with. Especially when we have so little manpower to afford such a reckless gamble.” Kalani looked at Aurelio and dared him to argue otherwise.
He acquiesced, “I agree with our commander's assessment. Nothing good can come of messing with technology we don’t understand yet. If we find it again, I have an interest to inspect it further, but right now we should focus on keeping our crew alive and safe.”
He gave the machine one last cursory glance before walking down the illuminated path before him. Their decision bolstered the resolve in an unnatural but ultimately needed manner.
The unflipped cards presented themselves to Aurelio once more and and once more he willed the wheels of fate to bring him an event.
|CHOSEN has drawn “TRADER OF SUFFERINGS (MIRE)”|
He looked at the prompt and then watched a blip on their map appear nearby.
Aurelio smiled, looking forward to what they were going to deal with.