“Snob. Wake up.” Amy said, shaking Kendall awake. He blinked a few times, leaning up and getting blinded by a glare on the sand.
”Why’d you drive us into the Sahara?” Kendall asked rhetorically. She knocked him in the head, causing it to ricochet off of her hand and into the dash. He glared at her and leaned up fully, looking into the distance. Green, and a fence.
”Thank God. We’re not completely stranded- Wait! I’m joking.” Kendall said, barely avoiding another hit. She focused on the road after nearly driving off, thanks to Kendall’s remark. He had a sly grin on his face after that.
”In all seriousness, be careful. We have no idea if anybody’s ever here.”
”Yes, I’m aware of that.” She remarked. Kendall sighed. He never thought Amy was someone he’d have to deal with on a daily basis. He also never thought he could make a turret on the spot, but here we are.
“I’ll go out to meet them. Just… use that ground spike spell on them if they try anything, okay?” Kendall instructed. Amy nodded, watching him as he approached the fence with the shotgun on his back. An older woman approached the gate. Kendall noticed numerous snipers on ledges behind her, namely atop houses. Their camo didn’t work that well up there.
“Hello there, young man. What do you need?”
”We just need a safe place for now. Would you mind letting us in?” He asked kindly. The woman looked at Amy behind him.
”That girl, is she your sister?” She asked. Kendall nodded. Amy raised an eyebrow from back at the truck.
”Yeah, she is. She’s a little shy when meeting new people.” He said. He felt like Amy subconsciously knew they were talking about her, despite not being able to hear the conversation.
“I understand. Come in.” She said, pulling the gate open. Kendall walked back to the truck and got in. He briefed her on how to act.
”So I’m your shy sister? That’s the opposite of what I am.” Amy said angrily. Kendall’s attempts to calm her down failed.
”I know. It fit the situation, so I went with it. Just… ah, I don’t know. Act like it for a little bit. Then act normal, like you’ve gotten accustomed to them.” Kendall suggested. Amy grumbled as she backed the RV right next to the gate.
They hopped out of the truck, with Amy instantaneously going into the RV. It was what a shy person would do, so he shrugged and walked over to the old woman.
”Is there anything I need to know before settling here?” He asked. The woman shook her head.
”Only that we have a greenhouse straight down this street. Water fountains are connected to the river and filtered. That’s all you should need.” She kindly smiled and turned to walk away. She did act weird, but Kendall didn’t blame her. He didn’t have any idea how they survived here, maybe beside the snipers sitting on top of the buildings, but didn’t foresee any small number of sniper rifles surviving an onslaught of hundreds of goblins.
”Odd.” He murmured, before turning to go into the RV. As he opened the door, he saw the spacious inside. Unlike most, it actually had a lot of space instead of a kitchen, dining room, and living room taking it all up. The kitchen and dining room were on the right side, with a couch as a replacement for dinner chairs so they could simple compress the table and watch TV. Kendall already knew that he’d be using the left side for engineer things. He’d leave the bedroom to Amy.
Kendall sighed and sat down. He would inevitably need parts, and he had no idea where to find them unless this place had a scrapyard, too. He hoped it did.
”Yes, it has one.” The old lady said. It took Kendall about a hour to hunt her down, and thankfully to an avail.
“Do you know where is it?” He asked. She nodded and pointed to the greenhouse.
”It’s just behind there.” She said. Kendall nodded to her as a thanks and made his way past the greenhouse to see a lot of twenty broken down cars. Upon further inspection, some of them weren’t even broken. Some were just pulled there because their roof got crushed or something. Almost all of them had a full tank of gas, which would prove to be a problem if anything were to catch on fire, but it was unlikely. Kendall began his scavenging session shortly after this sitrep.
”Kendall. If you get this entire RV rusty, I’m going to kill you.” Amy said. Kendall waved her off and placed his (mostly) non-rusty car parts on the table. Well, parts of parts of cars. He guessed it would be best to find something that conducts electricity well enough to make an arc to begin with.
…
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”Holy crap.” Kendall said, holding the weird looking off brand Tesla coil gun in his hands. It looked incredibly crude, but it worked well enough. Somehow, it didn’t automatically target metal, which confused Kendall. It was lightning, and it was notorious for that. The lightning was, surprisingly, actually powerful. Kendall didn’t think it would work due to him having no understanding of lightning, but he just assumed doing things the right way the first time was part of the Engineer charm.
”What is that?” Amy asked. “And why is it so loud? I’m trying to meditate.”
“Lightning gun. C’mere, try it.” He said, eagerly attempting to hand it to her. She took it with resignation when Kendall’s smile faded a bit.
”I have never seen you this happy. Does it actually shoot lightning?” She asked. Kendall just instructed her to fire it and see.
Lightning cracked as a flash of light shot out into the atmosphere. It exploded midair, meeting a mass of positive charge. Kendall smiled.
”It’s cool, isn’t it?” He admired the gun in his hands. It had single-handedly brought Basic Engineering up to level two, and came out as rare. Admittedly, it was around 5 in the morning, but that was the neighbor’s problem.
”Yeah. How’d you even make this?” She asked.
”It was an old idea I had once. I decided to try it again with Basic Engineering, and it worked! You have absolutely no idea how long this took me to make, though.” He said. Through the smile, Amy could see bags under his eyes.
“You need to go to sleep.” She said. He groaned.
”I guess you’re right. In that case, goodnight.” Kendall said, moping through the front door. Amy followed behind him and watched as he climbed onto the couch. The only weird thing was, when she’d come down to meditate, he was asleep. He had to have gotten up to make it. Did he do it outside?
She gave up and won’t back to the bedroom to sleep. A part of her felt bad for making Kendall sleep on the couch.
While she thought about all this, Kendall inspected his weapon.
Lightning Gun (Rare)
A weapon that shoots lightning. It packs a punch.
Lightning is not affected by electromagnetism or gravity. Damage scales with size, density, and resistance.
Kendall was surprised to learn it didn’t have a set damage. It made sense, though. There are too many variables, so it just decides to go with real life logic instead of interface.
He put the lightning gun down and thought about a way to melt the car parts. If possible, he would prefer to use pure materials instead of car parts, but it had to be done. And armor was a must, with what he planned to make his combat style into
Kendall placed the biggest pieces he had on the table. All of it would be melted down and put into a mold once he was capable of it.
In any case, the least he could do was cut it into little pieces and weld them together with his little wireless welding thingy that he found out doesn’t hurt his eyes. He took it out and began welding it, which oddly happened to be silent. Sparks also didn’t fly. He didn’t understand how in the slightest, but appreciated it.
By seven o’clock, he had one arm done. He also made joints by abusing Basic Engineering. Not only that, but made blueprints for many different things.
He then made a priority list, and at the top was a monster tracker. He began making one, which he did by thoroughly inspecting his turret and finding the sensor in that. He then widened the radius by a ton, up to five miles in either direction.
It didn’t really take long because it was just copy pasting it from the turret. However, the arm he made? Way different story.
Augment is used to improve things using other things. Both metaphorically and literally. For example, if you bring a flamethrower to augment the arm, then it would attach it to your forearm. If you brought a sponge, the arm would become clean. More of a consumable item than an augment, but it didn’t matter to Kendall. He was just happy he could differentiate.
Another thing Augment did is make an upgraded version of something if you brought two of it. They didn’t have to be the exact same, but similar. Kendall obviously wasn’t going to use the crappy arm he made, so he made another one and combined them. The two items combined to form an uncommon Mechanical Arm. It didn’t enhance anything about you. Only more durability to your arm, lest you decide to augment it again. It was practically an open slate.
At the moment, all Kendall needed was to insulate the inside with something that didn’t burn and then charge the arm with electricity. He could probably do that by augmenting the arm with one of the car batteries, but at the moment, he was running off of… night before last night’s sleep. And it was seven in the morning, so that didn’t come to mind.
Kendall yawned. He didn’t have anything that could insulate and not burn, so he’d have to wait until he did. Amy walked through the bedroom door to see Kendall hunched over the table while stared intently at a car battery and a mechanical arm. She sighed.
”Kendall, go to sleep.”
”I couldn’t.” Kendall lied. He actually wanted to, but was too far in to turn around.
“When you can, go to sleep.” Amy said. She jumped when the tracker beeped, detecting a monster around the far side of the town.
”Sorry. I made a tracker. There’s a monster that way.” Kendall pointed to the far side of town. Amy sighed.
”We”ll deal with it later. Go to sleep.” She insisted. Kendall yawned.
”We should deal with the monster, first. Then I’ll sleep.” Kendall said. Amy sighed.
”Alright. Fine. We can go. How far away is it?” She asked. Kendall didn’t want to waste any gas, so he lowballed it.
”Only a mile or two. We can walk.” Kendall said. She sat down and looked at his assortment of items on the table.
”What are you gonna use all this for?” She asked. Kendall shrugged.
”The arm is probably going be used to absorb electric or lightning attacks. Lightning gun is kinda self-explanatory, and the tracker… I’m going to use it to find bosses.”
”Huh. When will you finish the arm?” She asked. Kendall shrugged.
”Hopefully soon. Anyways, we should get going.”
…
“I thought you said it was two miles.” Amy said. Kendall stared at the gate sitting in front of them, with a small black dot in the distance moving around and flaring occasionally. Their target.
”I lowballed it so we didn’t waste gas. But we’re probably one of two miles away now.” Kendall said. The bird in the distance screeched and dove down.
”You ready?” Amy asked. Kendall nodded and shouldered the Lightning Gun. He also had his mechanical arm equipped.
Mechanical Arm (Uncommon)
Allows you to parry certain attacks. The basic mechanical arm.
+5 Resistance (Right Arm)
“Yeah. Let’s go kill this bird.”