"I still can't believe what happened and here you are telling me that that was not even much of a challenge."
"Well they may be big and can fly but they are very relatively slow and we can fight from a distance if we so chose so there was no real threat to us. Have you never faces something similar before, droids becoming bigger as an adaptation is fairly common in the lower intelligence models."
"Yeah I haven't been in a fight since 8th grade and I can't even remember what it was about."
A boy and a girl were happily chatting while traversing some grassy hills, behind them were trailing two men who were whispering to each other.
"So what do you make of him?" Jin asked his father.
"Hard to say." replayed Tormund a thoughtful expression on his face.
"That's all? He is the oddest man I have ever met. He does not seem to have any awareness of his surroundings you don't see that even in farmers, and don't let me begin about how transparent his emotion seems to be. No one is that straight forward." Jin said.
"Well, Leah made no indication that he was hiding anything as of yet and technically it is not impossible for someone to be like that. Young kids are usually like that untile the world beats it out of them or they die in some alley. But generally they don't end up growing that old." came Tormuns reply.
"So he is the luckiest man alive? I find it a lot more likely that he is hiding his true personality somehow." Jin said with a deadpan expression.
"Well, he did survive a droid encounter with no armor activated so he might actually be." Tormund said with a teasing smile. "You should trust in your sister it is not that easy to hide your true self from her side effect and the chances of him having a side effect that counters hers is minimal."
"But it is still a possibility" Jin did not relent.
"Indeed it is, and that is why I plan to test him in the next couple of days so that we may determine what he is made of and to decide what to do with him." Tormund responded his gaze turning sharp.
--------------------------------------------------
"So Michel is this the first time you have gone scaveging..." Leah said as Michel tripped over a rock and landing head first on the ground "I could not help but notice you seem a bit inexperienced at the whole outdoor activities." she said helping him back up.
"Thanks, well I grew up in the city so I guess that I did not get to do that much fieldwork, shall we call it." he said with an embers chuckle "To tell you the truth I used to go with my parents out for hiking and picknicks a lot when I was little, before mom passed away. I guess me and dad unconsciously avoided doing the whole outdoor thing since then."
"I am sorry to hear that. I hope did not bring back any unpleasant memories" Leah said.
"It's ok. It's been quite a while since then and I have managed to get over it somewhat" responded Michel with a melancholic look.
"So your family must have been fairly rich then. You don't see a lot of people going for picknicks around these parts." Leah asked.
"Far from it. We were not poor by any means but I would not call my family rich either, I guess we could be called your typical middle-class family. As for how people are around these parts... as you may have already been able to tell I am not local, and to be honest I was hoping you could fill me in on where I am and what those things that attacked me were."
"Well, they were just some autonomous drones left from the war. They are just following there last order, which is in general just guard this place or maintain this facility, it is quite the common thing to meet them when you go scavaging. For example, the big ones that you saw are commonly encountered when there is a ranch with big animals on the shard." Leah replied while half nealing inspecting a bush that may be worth taking back with them.
"Wait, why would robots care about a ranch wouldn't they be centered around an energy source that may keep them working?" Michel asked confused.
Leah just looked at Michel incredulous until her face lit up in sudden realization and she said "My bad you must have misunderstood me. When a scavenger refers to a ranch we actually refer to a
fulser farm."
When she only got a blank look in reply she was dumfounded "Wait you really have no idea what I am talking about do you?"
"What is a fulser?" he asked with an awkward smile.
"..." Leah just stared at him for a moment and after a sigh, she answered "It is an animal that is able to produce Selium, you were not wrong in thinking that the robots would be centered around an energy sorce. In ranches usually, there are two types of drones around one big type like the one you have seen they are responsible for catching and minimizing the fulsers into energy cells and another type that herds them around. Of course, this is not an absolute but it is common enough that you can think of it as the norm"
"So the droids run on selium that they get from the fulsers somehow?" Michel asked still a bit confused.
"How can you not know this? this is common knowledge." Leah asked incredulously
"Well we don't really have selium and fulsers where I come from, so I hope you will forgive me for my ignorance in these matters." Michel said trying to placate the girl, but all he got was a blank stare back.
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"What do you mean you don't have selium" she said with a raised voice that drew the attention of Jin and Tormund that were on a nearby hill surveying something. "The whole dam world is selium, the earth, the water, the plants, even you and me it all is selium now there is nothing else left" said with a slightly angry tone while giving him a stear.
While Michel was trying to figure out what he did that had triggered the girl off Tormund arrived near them and asked "What is going on?"
"He is unironically asking what selium is that is what is happening" Leah replied her voice still a bit raised.
Tormund arched a brow and after pondering what his daughter said for a moment and said "I have actually met this situation before when I was still in the legion. A group of survivors that had ended up on an unanchored shard had decided to not tell their descendants about the war and it's implications."
"Why would anyone do that?" Leah asked still a bit shaken but a lot calmer
"When you do not have the tools to do anything about your fate what would you do?" he asked.
"But..." she tried to say but was interrupted by Tormund "Don't underestimate what people would do for there family, so that they may live a happy life."
Leah just looked down her fist clenched and slightly trembling.
After things have seemed to have calmed down a bit Michel made up the courage to ask "...So..Sorry, but what are anchors?"
"Not now." came the curt reply of Tormund. "We have spotted the fulser herd. There are about 20 fulsers and 4 droids herding them." he said addressing Leah and Jin "We will each take a droid down."
"E..eathch?" aked Mickel "Is there another person in your group that is not here?"
"No." was the only reply that he got back. Tormund simply threw a rectangular object at Michel and started heading for the hill he had come from.
Michel barely managed to catch the object, the rectangular object almost falling to the ground.
On closer inspection, the object was a grey rectangle with indentations for fingers, so that it may be better gripped. Aside from that the 6cm object having no other defining features.
Just as he remembered that this was the trigger he had received from his system Tormunds voice sounded "Stop standing there and come."
As Michel made his way up the hill he was desperately trying to figure out how to use the item.
When he arrived at the top of the hill the voice that he was starting to dread sounded again "I have placed a standard sward in a slot in your trigger so you don't have to fight unarmed. Now at the 2 o'clock direction you can notice the dust trail of the heard " Tormund said not looking at Michel "the droids are boxing in the heard from all sides, you will be taking the droid closes from us, Leah the one on the far side, Jin the one on ower right and I take the last one. Let's go"
As he said the last word he and the rest had pulled similar rectangular boxes similar to the one he had albeit with different colors from there cloths and without any apparent specific action a light started to envelop them starting from the trigger.
Next thing Michel new they had changed clothes into a tight-fitting getup and were sprinting towards the heard.
"What... do I do now? " Michel said looking at his trigger desperately wishing to figure out how to start his. The next thing he knew his body was being covered in light starting from the hand that was holding the trigger, a prompt appearing in his field of view.
Activating selium armor
"I knew you would not abandon me when I needed you" he heard himself mutter while staring at the blue box provided by the system.
Next thing he knew he was also dressed in a blue and black tight-fitting suit. His left shoulder being protected by a rectangular metal guard.
"Well, I guess this is the armor now where is the sward."
ARMOR SLOTS Slot 1: SL sword Slot 5: empty Slot 2: empty Slot 6: empty Slot 3: empty Slot 7: empty Slot 4: empty Slot 8: empty
"Ok... now can you make it appear?" he said. After a moment he looked at his still empty hand and while wishing for the sward to appear he said "Please".
No sooner did the words leave his mouth that a double edged long sword materialized in his hand. It was plain looking and the crossguard was the only thing that made it look any different from a sharpened metal rod.
Before Michel could think more about it Tormunds voice sounded in his mind "Stop standing there and come."
While Michel was trying to figure out how to use his armor Tormud and the others had traversed half the distance to the cloud of dust that was being stirred by the fulser heard.
"This is going to be a long day, isn't it?" Michel heard himself say as he started running towards the rest, almost tripping and falling as the armor moved at the speed of a car.
"Definitely a long day"