Mosquito settled into her chair in the com with a fresh cup of coffee. It was her fourth cup today. She lamented that scrum coffee didn’t give the same kick as real coffee. It kind of did, but not exactly the same. One of the high points of Argyra for her was that she had already identified several locations that seemed to be ideal for coffee cultivation. She hoped she would be able to start the process within a couple years. The synthesized coffee wasn’t terrible, but it just wasn’t the same. Some might call her obsessed. She preferred to say devoted.
There were 4 recon drones outside of the entrances to the mountain entries into Tedexa Goran. One was going to stay outside and hopefully ensure connectivity to the lander by acting as a relay if necessary. She was going to inspect each entry one at a time until she had a better layout of the interior. Even though she was using virtual screens that only she could see. She was feeding the output to an imaging program that would turn the drones’ survey data into a wired model on one screen and also anyone in the con could tune into the live feed of any of the drones.
She entered the right most entry. There were 3 entrances that were about 60 meters apart. The central entry was twice as wide and tall as the entrances on either side of it. The tunnels themselves all seemed to be smooth and well built. The floor and walls all had either well defined hexagons or worn and perhaps partially covered hexagons where dirt had blown into the tunnel and filled the gaps at the edges.
Skeet found it curious that there were no sentries at the exterior entrances. Perhaps there was a chokepoint ahead. Or having sentries drew more trouble that it prevented. Or maybe nothing typically entered the mountain via these tunnels.
Before too long, there was a sconce on the wall holding an unlit torch. Again, curious but not sure how relevant it was. As the drone went further in the tunnel, she could see the sconces were evenly spaced at about 6 meters in between. The tunnel took an easy bend to the right and there was a round room. It was empty except for another tunnel almost immediately to her left. That tunnel was now perpendicular to the entrance tunnel. Skeet stopped and considered the round room. Round like a cylinder on its end, not a hexagon. She suspected that the round room would help prevent any wind from rushing in. The wind would hit that tunnel and be turned back in on itself. Probably not perfect but perhaps better than nothing.
The tunnel bent to the right again and then turned to the left again. Now the tunnel was again lined up with the entrance direction except that it was curling slightly to the right. Before too long, she could see the end of the tunnel.
The room at the end of the half kilometer tunnel was a hexagon that was divided with what appeared to be a steel wall made of 5 panels with a door in the center. There was a closed slit in the center of the door at head height.
“Well...That’s inconvenient.” Skeet’s brow furrowed.
The drone signal was getting a little shaky as well. She brought in a drone about halfway up the center tunnel which appeared to be the same in construction as the other tunnel in shape and design except bigger.
While she considered a plan she brought in a drone through the third tunnel. No surprises.
She considered the situation. She needed to get past the door. Even if she got them to open the viewport, that probably wouldn’t be enough to get the drone through. She needed them to open the door.
She sipped her coffee. Maybe they would open it if someone was calling for help? She spun in her chair as she considered options. She could cut a loud fight scene from a vid and project the audio through a drone? She looked back and the door. Perhaps I’m overthinking this.
The drones had some camouflage that allowed it to blend in with surroundings. It was excellent in the sky, but less effective in a closed area like the tunnel. She’d have to move fast.
She moved the drone in the central tunnel closer to the door. She was going to try and get 2 drones through in case she needed another relay. 2 drones were lined up just above the door.
One dropped down and tapped on the door several times and shot back up to its previous position. There were voices, although muffled. They didn't sound too enthusiastic about checking the door.
The viewport opened. “Who’s there?”
After a moment, “Answer me!” Still no answer. “What do you think? Should we check?”
A different voice answered. “We’re not supposed to open it. What if it’s a wraithwasp or some other shadow beast?”
“Shouldn’t we kill it then? We don’t want the return parties to get caught unaware.”
“Are the torches lit?”
“No.”
“Prophets burn.” The second voice muttered. “Fine, it’s probably nothing. I’ll stand ready here, you open the door and look out.”
“Why do I have to open the door, Bokor?”
“Because Balgor, I’m in charge and I said so”
“Right, you’re in charge. Why am I taking all the risk?”
“Because I have to report back if something happens to you.”
A moment of hesitation and being unable to counter the logic. “Fine.”
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
The door opened. Unexpectedly as the guard stepped through the door, the torches around the entrance lit.
“Huh, motion detecting torches? Maybe life detecting torches?” Skeet mused.
“Well? Bokor demanded.
“I don't see nothing.” Balgor looked from side to side and stepped over to look down the tunnel to his right.
“What about the ground?” The guard in charge asked.
“The ground? Uh, the ground is still here.”
“You are dumber than a sack of rocks,” the guard in charge grumbled as he stepped out. “Is there anything on the ground?”
Skeet took her chance and shot both drones through the doorway and down the tunnel on the other side.
“You and me both are standing on the ground.” Balgor noted.
“Are you being dumb on purpose?”
Skeet moved both drones further in. This tunnel seemed to go straight through. She could see a light at the end of the tunnel. The end of the tunnel looked different. It had the appearance of having been destroyed and rebuilt with other stone. They were standard bricks rather than hexagons. As she moved forward, she was struck by the view.
She exited the tunnel with both drones and floated them up and blended them in with the rock wall behind the drones. The cavern in front of her was massive. As it is, it doesn’t seem like it should be standing. Surely, there is a limit to how much a mountain can be excavated before it collapses. And to add to the wonder of it, the cavern was shaped like half of a dome. Beyond the half dome was an open sky over a forest that extended as far as the eye could see.
A city was laid out in front of her. In the center was a tower that was just inside the edge of the dome. The city was made of gray stone buildings with white domes. They appeared to be well-built and ornate.
Skeet moved one drone up along the interior slope of the dome that stretched out over the city. She could make out more of the buildings of the city. There were also some smaller one- and two-story cottage like buildings mixed in with the domed buildings. The domed buildings tended to be 3-5 stories. There are also some open markets toward the left side and on the right...slaves. She couldn’t be sure. She zoomed in and there were people and animals and cages and chains. And the people.
They were all kinds of shapes and sizes. None of them were human. Well, maybe. She zoomed in on a woman with a shaved head and....nope...pointed ears. And the facial proportions weren’t quite right. She looked around, taking it all in. There was a guard. He had green skin and tusks. An orc? Another guard...another orc. She sent the other drone back to check the guards she passed by earlier. They were fully covered except for their face so she never saw what they looked like.
“My god...” Skeet muttered when she got a look at the guards. They too were orcs. Or at least what we would call orcs. “They sounded so normal.”
She looked back at the city. She could see a slope moving down to the forest on the other side of the city. A road winding up the slope from the forest to the city. She could see a road cut through the forest. And on one side of the road, a huge section of the forest was cleared and there were tents. Lots of tents. She wanted to get a closer look and moved the drone toward the open sky.
Right before she moved out from under the dome, she remembered that this was a portal. There is no telling if the drone can survive going through the portal or if the signal can pass through. She noticed that the city continued on the other side of the portal but there was a clear demarcation on the ground. She decided to wait until dark before trying to pass a drone across. Hopefully, she could do it without losing a drone. Light passed through the portal. So LIFI was an option although it would be short range. These drones aren’t rigged with lasers, but they do have infrared. She might be able to get Flywheel to write the firmware and do a field update. She decided to see if she could bounce an IR signal off a building on the other side of the portal and see it with a drone.
As she was setting up that test, something caught her eye on the southwest patrol drone. There was combat. She notified Mako and the duty archon since Mako was not at the lander. And she watched a little closer. One figure was blurry.
The figure was fighting the Spiny Arboreal Dragons and beating the snot out of them.
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Mahina kicked herself for not being more careful. Humans never look up. Her HUD showed the red blips but there was such an abundance out here that she didn’t notice the steady increase around her. At first, there were a couple of spines that shot at her and stuck in parts of her armor but didn’t pierce her dermal plating. Her initial instinct was to use her pistol, but then she looked up and saw the sheer number and knew the pistol wasn’t going to be a lot of help with just a few shots. She growled in irritation. Fine. You guys want some of this...you got it.
Mahina pulled out the machete and leapt at the lizards in the trees. Her stats were particularly high at the moment due to her newest honormark. She didn’t take time to look at them, but she easily launched herself into the trees and started hacking away at the slightly larger than cat-sized lizards.
The dragons seemed panicked at her leap and at how quickly she was dispatching them. Some ran and some turned to try firing spines at her. They didn’t have an answer for an enemy that could move through the trees like they did. Her only issue were trees with low clearance to the next higher branch, but her machete easily sliced them down.
She leapt from branch to branch. Sometimes she would cut the branch she was standing on to force the dragons to the ground where they were more easily dealt with. Then, she would leap back up and do it again. It was a route. The dragons quickly realized their mistake and ran.
Mahina considered chasing but she’d had enough. She looked at herself and laughed. She had spines sticking out in every direction. She looked like a black cactus. As she started pulling them out, she got a notification.
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Congratulations!
You defeated Spiny Arboreal Dragon. (Level 12) x38
Irragen points awarded!
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It took her a few moments to pull out the rest of the spines. She wasn’t sure she got them all. As she started moving toward lander, something dropped into her view and dropped its camouflage. The drone held in front of Mahina and spun on its axis.
Mahina sighed. “Well, I was hoping my anonymity and activities would stay quiet a little longer. But the Spiny Arboreal Dragon is out of the bag, eh?”
Skeet pinged her comm. She spoke when the channel was open. “I mean, I don’t have to share the footage of you singlehandedly beating the ass of more than 3 dozen of those little shits. But I really, really, really, want to. That was awesome.”
“It’s fine. Things progressed far faster than I had anticipated. I have too much data to share to keep it quiet anyway.” On that note she disabled the scrambler token.
“Ok, well...holy shit! What happened to your helmet?” Skeet exclaimed once her drone was able to resolve the picture.
“You know...Unruly wildlife.” Mahina continued her journey toward the lander.
“Ok. Stay safe. It seems like you can handle whatever comes at you. I’ll check the path between you and the lander and try to warn you if anything comes up.”
“Thanks, Mosquito.” Mahina replied as she decided to run back to the lander before something else crawled out and attacked her.