(Ruins Exploration, Research Facility Zillen Outpost X-22, F5)
[https://i.imgur.com/LNv1F4p.png]
The light of teleportation brings me in, and I fade out of sight just before the elevator doors open in the too narrow corridor. I walk up to the door and instruct the illusion drone to create an image of a clear hallway. After that I came into sight and put on a mask over my face. I got it from one of the F2 floors.
> Qubica Environmental Mask Msk-4 (Rank 2.5)
Amongst one of its features is that it can synthesize oxygen in addition to filtering the harmful substances in the air. It is a better version of the gas mask my other self gave me a dozen levels ago.
Next I take out a tool I got from the Qubica F1 floor.
> Qubica Acid Torch Tool-24 (Rank 2.4)
It looks like a water gun. It has a large canister of greenish liquid on it. During testing of grenades, I tried using acid grenades on the dungeon walls and found that it melts the carbon material they are made of. The Acid Torch is a more convenient way of delivering the same substance. It would hurt a lot if I hosed somebody with this, but bullets are more effective at stopping humans, hence why this is a tool. It has a limited range.
I brought one last special item with me.
> Qubica Shovel Tool-3 (Rank 1.7)
Ideal for digging holes. I sling it back over my back and then point the acid torch at the floor next to the door.
Sprrrttttt!
I spray the acid and slowly it starts eating into the otherwise impenetrable material the hallway is made of. After half a foot, it melts all the way until it reaches the ground.
> Qubica Bucket Tool-2 (Rank 1.5)
Before I start, one at a time I synthesize two buckets as well as a medium sized MWP. They have ambidextrous hands with fingers as well 180 degree joints on their arms. I won’t be able to take the MWP with me into the hole, but it will at least serve to help me carry the earth and deposit it to the back of the room without me having to come out of the hole and do it manually by myself.
Sigh.
Let me get one with it. I grip the shovel, press it with my foot into the ground and start digging. I fill up the first bucket, have the MWP deposit it into the elevator. It would be much easier if I had a boring machine of some sort, but I guess I’ll just have to do it the crude way. My body is well suited for physical labor despite how it looks.
I dig a foot into the hole and step into it, gradually deepening it.
Sash!
I dig my shovel into the ground and place it into the bucket.
As I work, at the back of the elevator, the pile of earth keeps increasing in volume.
Sash! Sash! Sash!
I dig and dig, shovel after shovel, bucket after bucket. It takes me 5 hours, but I manage to advance 10 feet in. By my mental estimate I should be a third of the way towards my intended target. The big welcoming area has two entrances on either side of it, and I am aiming for the north-western one. Since I’ve become Inspired, my mental map has been incredibly accurate, and I can exactly visualize what the above room is like as well as where I am relative to it.
Right now I am in a big humid hole, surrounded by earth. I am tired, thirsty and hungry from the constant physical exertion.
I take a seat on the ground, and give the order to synthesize a medical object. The nanofog coalesces into a bottle of pills.
> Adna Biological Body Energy Pills (rank 2.3)
First, I take off the environmental mask, and then the stealth suit top. It doesn’t have a zipper per se, rather I give it a mental command and the top splits open at my face allowing me to pull it off. Instead of doing that and getting my hair messed up in this dirty hole, I instead open it only enough to bring the pill bottle to my mouth. I pop the top open and empty it of its contents.
I toss the bottle away, and the suit reseals on mental command obscuring my whole face again. I bring my mask to my face again.
I wait for a couple of minutes for the energy pills to kick in, and satisfied with my meal, I get up on my feet, grab the shovel and get to work again.
Sash! Sash! Sash!
20 feet in, after another 5 hours of work, I fill up the elevator as well the hallway with earth. Anymore and the MWP would have to go past the door into the room outside. Suppose I did that, the artillery bot would blast him. The resulting fireball would flow into the hole cooking me alive.
With that being the case, I start filling the buckets and empty them at the back of the tunnel instead. The MWP served its purpose. Before I leave it alone, I synthesize twin EMP autocannons for it.
[https://i.imgur.com/7ltGcy6.png]
Clink!
23 feet in, I encounter a problem. My shovel strikes a wall of solid rock. It feels quite thick too. I press my ear to its surface and give it a knock with a shovel getting a feel for the reverberations as they flow through the stone.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Clink! Clink! Clink!
Using the resonance of the waves as they travel through the rock, the 3d model of it manifests in my mind. I am really unlucky, it is like 10 feet in all dimensions.
There is no choice.
> Qubica Jackhammer Tool-11 (Rank 1.7)
I synthesize a battery powered jackhammer and heft it against the rock.
Slam! Slam! Slam!
Gradually the hard rock breaks. After I’ve shattered enough, I put it into a bucket and deposit it at the other end of the tunnel. By now the hole from which I’ve entered has been obscured by the earth.
I synthesize a water bottle and quaff it down before resuming work.
Slam! Slam! Slam!
I jackhammer the rock, and the pebbles at the other end accumulate. Gradually its volume starts to build up and it snakes its way down the corridor.
Whereas before it took me an hour to progress a single foot, due to having to dig through solid rock it takes me 3 hours instead, but I persevere.
> Qubica Drill Tool-9 (Rank 1.8)
> Qubica Plastic Explosive 1A Tool-16 (Rank 2.0)
This is despite me using minor explosives to speed up the work. I’d drill in the holes or jackhammer them before filling them with plastic explosives.
> Qubica Riot Shield Shld-2 (rank 2.2)
Then I position myself at a safe distance and take cover behind a body sized shield.
I fill myself with water when I get thirsty, and I eat the energy pills when I get hungry and that is what keeps me going. My brain does not need sleep.
Crack!
The last of the rock gives way and I reach the ground at the other side.
This brings a smile to my lips. I should be currently 3 feet beyond the entrance to the level. I bring in the shovel and from a high position dig out the top part, as far as I can just so I can slide an object into a hole. I then synthesize an acid grenade, push it all the way to the back two feet in, and bury the hole with the surrounding earth.
“Hah!” I do a little mental calculation to make sure that the acid fog from the grenade won’t leak in through the earth. If it does, there will be nothing to disperse it in this tunnel and I’ll die a horrible death for all my effort here.
But it is not like 53 hours of digging a tunnel is that big of a deal for me. It might have been tiring for me when I was a human, but I’ve learned how to put in effort after I’d become Inspired.
With that out of the way, I give the mental command to the grenade to activate.
I can’t tell if anything has happened directly, so I wait 10 minutes in order to make absolutely sure the acid has bonded with the carbon material of the floor above. Then I pick the shovel and dig up the hole again.
What I see on the other side is a ray of light from the hole above. After I closed the passage behind me I’d been working in absolute darkness, relying only on my hearing, and now I can finally stop acting like a bat.
I listen in and I get a sense of the area beyond. On one of the past floors, X-23 F1 to be more specific, I’ve gotten significantly improved ears so relying on my hearing has gotten easier compared to when I was baseline.
On the floor above I can hear the wheeling of the spiderbot in the hall above. Besides that, I can also make out a camera at the far door, a couple of feet away from the hole.
I immediately get to work.
The plan is to first get closer to the camera so I can disable it by overlaying an illusion of the drone moving back and forth in the hallway. Or maybe an empty hallway depending on my need.
I dig for a couple of hours, until I get close enough, and then I do the acid grenade trick again. A tiny hole emerges from below the floor.
In the tunnel below, I finally conclude that it is time to move into action.
I give the order to lone MWP to attack. On mental command, the doors in front of it open and it comes out blazing autocannons. The lines of electric bullets strike the large, artillery spiderbot, disabling it before it ever gets off a shot. Before it can tag anyone else, it is struck down by concentrated fire from the remaining enemies.
[https://i.imgur.com/FwHCQDs.png]
Wiiaaa! Wiiaaa! Wiiaaa!
The alarm sounds start blaring throughout the level.
Unbeknownst to others, the illusion drone survived and is now invisible and safe in the middle of the room. Not even the scouts can notice it. I have it disable all the wireless communication sans my own.
Under the tunnel I observe the enemy’s reactions and as my next move, using an illusion directly over its lens I disable the camera in the room above. As for the spiderbot in the room, I’d hoped it would run into the room, giving me free reign of the hallway. It is instead waiting in the middle with its barrel raised.
I use an illusion to move it out of the way. First by projecting onto its sensors I have it see the door opening, then my own form peeking from behind the corner, then as soon as it starts turning, the door closing. It opens the door and rushes into the room.
I give the mental command and the door closes, but none of the enemies in the room react to that. The chasing enemy looks around in the other room and when it turns to go back, it finds that the door won’t open to my signal jamming and just remains standing there stupefied.
Since I do not need to go out of the hole, it is the safest place possible at the moment, I stay there. Instead I start the synthesis of a medium MWP, after which I arm it with EMP autocannons. I synthesize a few illusion drones to cover it in a stealth field.
Safe under its stealth field, I have one of the illusion drones open the door and peek out into the room.
There are a couple of drones in defensive positions around both entrances to that particular room. I make sure to jam the communications and the doors. Then I give the order to the MWP to rush forward. Made invisible by the illusion drones it slips by unnoticed and does a strafing run with its twin autocannons blazing. With unerring shots, it disables the 8 spiderbots standing guard in the room along with the scout pose.
Realizing they are under attack, enemies in the first room turn around and try to catch us from the rear only to realize they cannot get out of the room.
At that point finally, feeling safe, I synthesized an acid grenade directly on the floor above me. I step a safe distance away and as I observe the activated grenade melts the floor away, the acidic fumes evaporating in the air harmlessly. Having a large enough hole for my body to pass through, I finally step forth on the level again after over two full days of being in that dark tunnel.
> Qubica Web Grenade Gunk-3 (rank 2.4)
[https://i.imgur.com/m8zpvBV.png]
I had time to synthesize these in anticipation of my emergence. I toss one at the door behind me and it explodes into a mass of white, sticky gunk. The battery of the illusion drone keeping the doors closed will eventually run out of power and I do not want to be caught from behind when that happens. I go into the other room, walk past the disabled spiderbots, and block the other entrance in a similar fashion, with a lot of white web.
As an experiment, I have the illusion drone disable the jamming on that particular door and it starts to open, but before it can move beyond an inch, it gets stuck.
Excellent.
I release the other door as well, and the same thing happens. Confirming that my rear is safe I hide in the hallway and close the door behind me.
Then I give the order to release the door in the other room, a couple of spiderbots stream in, but as they hurriedly scan around they can only see the dead allies. Neither them nor the cameras can see the autocannons being trained on them.
And then they blaze, rendering them inert in a shower of sparks.
Having made a firm foothold, and having breached the initial line of defense, the rest of the level is even easier than the first.
Under the cover of stealth, my medium MWP is the perfect hunter-killer, mowing down its opposition everywhere it goes. The only thing I have to do is stroll behind it at a leisurely pace, following the trail of dead robots left in its wake like a chain of lightning.
> Mission Success!
> Time: 56h.
> Symbiotics Base assault drone schematics have been added to the database.