The entire First Quadrant of the Stage spread out beneath Eric as he flew over it, a shattered monument to the grandeur and vision of a xenos race long since passed into the mists of history. It was a dismal, disconcerting sight in the main, a grid of straight streets and uniform blocks marred by the destructive signs of war, ruin, and decay, all overshadowed by the Fortress Belzond, whose squat, threatening bulk always loomed large on Eric’s right side.
After a short, fifteen-minute flight, Eric carefully landed on a small, crumbling balcony that still jutted out along the side of one of the apartment buildings that had collapsed inward to form large mound that capped the location of the chitterers nest. Cautiously, Eric made his way along the sloping floor and into the room beyond, his visor’s vision mode switching to low-light mode, allowing Eric to see fairly well despite the scant illumination provided by the weak starlight. Luna’s hover-drone had already zipped inside, scanning for danger, its long, spindly steel legs held behind it as it moved around.
Eric glanced at the symbols on the left side of his helmet visor’s display, noting that his oxygen level was still blue while his aether bar was at light yellow from the normal dark green.
“Pig?” Eric began but was cut off by a cool sensation rushing through his body as a hypodermic aether infusion was shot into his lower back by his battlesuit’s auto-injectors. The effects were immediate, and the aether bar was back in the green in less than a minute. Earlier, during their prep-phase back in the Plunderer, Cid had explained to Eric the differences between the aether infusion vial and the aether regeneration vial he was loading onto the suits auto-injection ports.
“It’s a tradeoff between a quick refill as opposed to a gradual, but longer-lasting additive effect Primus,” The scientist had looked at Eric with bleary, blood-shot eyes, having hardly slept in the hours before, busy preparing for their assault by working on a heavy, multiple-barrel hand-held cannon he claimed would be an improvement over the previous model he had used. “I’ve been working on a similar dual solution for health potions since what we have are all instant infusions.”
“You figured how to create stuff already?” Eric had asked, his eyebrows rising in surprise.
“Not yet, sir,” Cid had answered with a slow smile, scratching the side of his head in embarrassment. “But after choosing the alchemist and glyphic artisan professions I’ve gotten a better understanding of how some of our consumables were developed and created. Enough to try some experimental solutions anyway.”
Cid’s profession choices and the avenues of crafting and research it opened up had been a pleasant surprise, as Eric in particular had been growing concerned about the rate they were using up the operationally essential consumables they had in stock. The health and aether recovery potions in particular were running low so if Cid could reliably manufacture replacements and hopefully make new or improved versions for those items then that at least was one problem taken care of.
His conversation with Cid had also reminded Eric that he was in possession of a substantial library of books, notes, and scrolls concerning botany, alchemy, and crafting in general that he had found stored in Vashanka’s ring. The dead void dragon seemed to have been quite the artisan with a wide variety of interests.
Cid would probably be able to use them for his crafting and research.
“This room is secure Sir,” Pig spoke, bringing Eric back to the present. “The rest of the team seems to have come into contact with the guardians of the lair.”
Eric crouched slightly as a tremor rippled through the building, sending clouds of dust drifting in the barely illuminated space. He slip-slid down one-side of the tilted floor and came to a stop in a half-occluded doorway, looking at a stairwell that led down into the darkness. Luna’s hover-drone drifted to Eric’s side, its fans blowing the suspended dust motes aside as it passed through. The drone’s single ocular lens flickered briefly, and a cold white light illuminated the cracked walls and crooked stairs. Eric once more pulled up his sword before turning to the drone.
“Find me a path downward.”
With a brief wiggle of acknowledgement, the drone complied.
The last chitterer gave a final shudder and slid into a crumpled heap against the ichor-splattered wall, the feral red glint of its multiple eyes fading into the grey of death. Serra flicked her heavy war-hammer to the side, trying to clear its glyph-carved head of thin, black chitterer blood. Her companions moved to her flanks, their battlesuits showing signs of the fierce defensive battle the chitterer guards were fighting as their three-man team made their way deeper and deeper into the lair complex.
Osar, menacingly bulky in a new gray and white painted battlesuit, kicked aside the chitterer Serra had just killed and leaned his back against the wall, pointing at Serra and Cid before giving a waving motion with his hand to indicate which of the two passageways out of the room they should follow. Serra gave the big Urgan an exaggerated nod to show him she understood, before tapping Cid on the shoulder and gesturing for him to cover her.
It was a bit unnerving for her to be operating in total silence, without the familiar team-Net she was accustomed to during H-X operations. She missed hearing the Captain’s calm orders and guidance in particular, a combat element she had grown to rely on in the handful of years they had been working together: There was a certain comfort in knowing someone competent was keeping a careful and experienced eye on the bigger tactical picture, and that all she had to worry about was who her next target was and how hard should she hit it.
Additionally, her companions were throwing her off her usual game a bit; Osar because his fighting style and instinctual adjustments were so different from what she was used to and Cid because he had none. Or rather, because he had totally wrong ones: The scientist was almost a complete novice in the art of actual physical combat, and was prone to mistakes that, had she and Osar been even just a little bit less experienced or watchful, would have resulted in the scientist’s death or maiming many times over since the mission began.
It wasn’t even because Cid was ignorant about the realities of real fighting but more because the man was used to playing player versus player arena type games. In Serra’s opinion it was the ingrained assumptions and reflexes of a combat game enthusiast that were causing Cid the most problems.
“Line of fire left.” Angel warned suddenly, giving Serra just enough time to activate her left side boosters and scoot to the right, narrowly avoiding a scatter of metal pellets from Cid’s forearm mounted ‘guntlet’, a name the scientist had seemed to be proud of. Admittedly, Serra had let out a good chuckle at the man’s pun earlier when he had been showing off his newest modification, but that shit got old fast when the same contraption was wielded so thoughtlessly that it had almost killed her at least half a dozen times in a thirty-minute time period.
Serra bit her lower lip in frustration, swallowing the curses she wanted to scream at the fool as she smoothly transitioned from a dodge to a rushing attack at the flank of a chitterer that had somehow managed to squeeze past Osar’s masterful defense and position itself behind the big Urgan. The lack of a functioning tac-Net was actually a blessing, Serra thought philosophically as she fended off a murderous strike at her midsection with the short haft of her hammer: Otherwise she’d have blistered Cid’s ears off with her invective.
“Passage ending in estimated ten meters.” Angel announced, reading off their battlesuit’s passive sensors. Serra grunted in acknowledgement as she ducked under a swinging limb, touched her hand on the knobby carapace beneath the leg, and activated her Penetrating Pulse spell to flash burn the chitterer’s innards using Light aether without damaging the outside shell. As the creature collapsed into a lifeless heap, Serra glanced briefly at the spell cooldown timers she had set up with Angel’s help, seeing that the Pulse spell would now need twenty minutes to be usable again. Giving a mental shrug, her gaze fell on a golden bar that was slowly inching towards full and smiled in anticipation. Her synergy with her battlesuit was finally close to its current limit!
When Osar had given her the battlesuit cube he had thought would fit her specifically it seemed he had done so without actually knowing what it was he was truly handing over. It was understandable really, since examining the cube yielded nothing but a short, terse notification window:
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Meruvan Stage Battlesuit (Purity)
Gender-Locked: Female
Affinity Requirement: Light 3
Why the hell would a battlesuit be gender-locked? Serra still had no idea, though she was sure that had been a deciding factor as to why Osar had selected the cube for her. It was only when she claimed the battlesuit and actually donned it that she was able to see the full blurb:
Meruvan Stage Battlesuit (Purity)
Crafted for the daughters of the Autocrat Line of Meru Sunweaver
By the Jewelled-Smith Renenka Laenya
Purity is a Legacy Stage Battlesuit capable of staged evolutions as synergy with the suit claimant increase over use and time.
Attribute Augmentation: +2 to Psyche and Gen
Claimant Synergy: Unaligned (Progress: 0%)
Activated Systems (Unaligned):
Concilium Standard Enviro-Protection
Cosmetic Customization
Passive Sensors: Sonar, Thermal, Ultraviolet
Serra would have been worried about the battlesuit being made specifically for an ‘Autocrat’ line except that she discovered that the Cosmetic Customization part of the Activated Systems meant that she could tailor the shape and coloration of the battlesuit along certain parameters, limited at the moment by her synergy score, as long as she wore the suit during meditation. There were even some presets available which had truly opened Serra’s minds to the suit’s configurational possibilities, though she would never be caught dead wearing anything so… daring. So last night she had finally settled for a fairly straightforward gold and ivory color-scheme with a distinctly Terran-flavored design she had copied from the descriptions of women warriors in the books that the Captain had given her to read.
“Large chamber entered. Multiple hostiles detected!”
The three of them burst into an open space, large enough that it was difficult to see the far walls with their image intensifying helmets, a feature that was apparently standard across all battlesuits. Larger-than-normal chitterers created a bristling wall around the Behemoth that Luna’s drones had identified as the nest leader.
As they had agreed to do so earlier, Osar and Cid stopped at the mouth of the passageway while Serra continued forward. About two meters away from her companions, Serra took a deep breath. Her eyes flashed dangerously as she activated her Flame Eruption ability, quickly modified by Energy Conversion to spew out acid instead of flame. Her aether pool dropped precipitously as a cone of adapted aether rushed outward to encompass nearly the entire cavern. A moment later Serra was forced to avert her eyes as pale green spouts of boiling, flesh melting acid erupted from the ground beneath the gathered chitterers’ feet.
The effect was quite thoroughly gruesome.
More than half of the protective swarm was killed outright, collapsing in steaming heaps of corroding carapace and boiling, bubbling flesh. The rest were seriously injured, except for the Behemoth that had deployed some sort of shimmering force shield that had shielded it somewhat from Serra’s blast. Even as Serra watched the shield flickered and died, showing the acid-splotched carapace of the hive leader.
As Serra staggered back to deploy an aether replenishment potion Osar rushed forward while Cid took up position to the side, ready to capitalize on the opening Serra had given them.
Hellfire!
Eric instinctively shielded his eyes as he saw the familiar aetheric gridlines of Serra’s favorite ability rushed out towards the chitterer line. To his amazement, instead of the expected bright blaze of light and fire, what he saw was a wave of caustic, seething death rise up and splash down over the packed bodies of their foes.
Unbelieving, Eric watched as dozens of the Behemoth’s guardians died immediately with the rest staggering about in confusion and pain. How the hell was Serra getting all the overpowered abilities?
Eric was perched on a massive metal girder high above the lair’s floor, looking down at the unfolding battle, the Ciquillian pain-lance charged with Imbue Weapon and ready to be used. The trip down the dozens of collapsed floors and ruined stairwells had taken nearly fifteen minutes, and there had been one or two close calls as sections of the path he had been following collapsed beneath his weight. As the team moved forward to deal with the stragglers and find an opening to bring down the Behemoth, Eric took the time to observe his teammates.
Serra was as awesomely overpowered as always, smashing away the injured chitterers in her path with a few quick swings of her glowing hammer and blasts of light from her hands. Meanwhile Osar was in his usual place at the front, using his sword and shield to carve a path towards their target. For the first time Eric was able to observe his xenos oathsworn from a distance, noting that although the Urgan’s moves were well-executed and effective, there was a slight hesitation to the way he used his abilities that Eric found peculiar.
He would have to ask the Urgan about that later.
Cid on the other hand, looked vastly improved, wielding not only the force-augmenting firepower of his suit modifications but also utilizing a variety of grenades, wands, and spells to good effect, though his shooting angles and situational awareness was somewhat questionable and even downright dangerous. That would have to be addressed sooner and later, before any unfortunate incidents could occur. When pressed, the scientist would still fall back to using his spear to keep his attackers at bay, following up with abilities and item attacks that more often than not left corpses on the ground.
Eric nodded to himself, already mentally drafting a training plan when suddenly the situation below him changed.
The team had been whittling down the survivors of Serra’s devastating attack, leaving the chitterer Behemoth isolated and unprotected. They had just dropped the last of the bodyguards when the Behemoth had suddenly reared up on four of its hind legs and did something.
Eric’s Dragon Sight showed a pale red wave of Mind aether blasting forward, catching all three of his companions and sending all of them to their knees as they clutched at their helmeted heads. With hardly a pause, the injured beast lurched forward, ready to dispose of the brash creatures that had dared to assault it in its own lair.
“It’s a mind-attack, sir!” Pig announced, even as Eric sprang into action.
With a shout that no one but he could hear, Eric leaped off the ledge, using his suit’s jump jets to control his fall. About midway down he activated his Squad Net ability, reaching out to his companions and hoping it would help them snap out of their stunned states.
You have invited Serra Jakobin, Osar Baratuu, and Cid Arth-Veda as members of your Squad Net. Once accepted all squad members may talk and be heard by each other if within a ten-meter radius centered on you.
Pig shunted the notification away as soon as it appeared while Eric dropped a few meters more. From his height he could see more chitterers converging onto the lair from various passageways in a tide that was sure to overwhelm the team if they allowed themselves to be engulfed. As he watched the nearing horde new notifications began appearing in front of him:
Serra Jakobin is in range and automatically added.
Osar Baratuu is in range and automatically added.
Cid Arth-veda is in range and automatically added.
< EVADE! > Eric shouted into the Net, seeing the still isolated Behemoth rush to within striking distance of Osar, who had somehow recovered enough to get up to one knee. The enraged beast swung a massive claw horizontally, a blow which Osar managed to catch with his shield, but which still sent the big man rolling among the piles of seething chitterer soup.
Eric flipped over, placing the pain-lance between his legs and firing downwards.
The thick line of energy struck the Behemoth’s head at the narrow space between its stalked compound eyes, the pain-lances secondary effect sending the creature into a jerky, spasmodic dance. Eric immediately followed up with Tendril Trap, gratified to see dark tentacles of shadowy force reach up to grasp the front part of the Behemoth’s head. Pig allowed a notification to pop up, and Eric gasped as he read what it said.
Tendril Trap is a physical touch attack. Would you like to activate Black Spot? Yes/No
“Yes!”
Mark. Burden.
The effects were immediate: The Behemoth's forward section smashed into the ground, a spiderweb of cracks appearing over the creature’s carapace. Even as a spray of acidic slime splashed upward a white actinic beam of light punched into the front part of the creature’s head.
< ATTACK! > Cid shouted over the squad net, while Eric flipped over and directed his jump-jets to move himself slightly over to the side. The chitterer reinforcements were converging quickly, crawling along the walls and starting to drop down from the ceiling. Eric looked out to where Cid was standing, his new tri-barreled cannon unslung, one of the huge barrels still glowing red-hot.
Osar, still kneeling, raised his hand and sent a blindingly bright lightning bolt arcing into the chitterer’s damaged face, followed by a screaming Serra as she slammed her hammer into steaming, ichor-stained area. The Behemoth staggered backward, pulling free of the anchoring tendrils that had held it down. Before it could recover and counter-attack another white beam of light struck its ruined face, fired from Cid's cannon.
The Behemoth’s legs collapsed beneath it, its mass making its lifeless carcass slide back several meters before coming to rest. The advancing horde of chitterers stumbled as one, before turning on each other in a killing frenzy that littered the floor with hundreds of dead and dying creatures.
Eric landed heavily beside Osar, helping the Urgan to his feet as Serra and Cid came alongside, weapons ready and watching the orgy of violence that was going on all around them. It only took a few minutes after, but soon the team was left in possession of the corpse-strewn field.
They had won.