The party was in full swing. In the heart of Olympus, the main street offered a lively atmosphere with food, dancing, and games. Calvin observed a group of children playing ‘Marshall vs. the Raptors’ near the north wall. Of course, everyone wanted to be Marshall in that game.
Sitting together, Marshall and Liara seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves, their warm drinks and shared laughter creating a cozy atmosphere. It was nice to see that his transformation hadn’t put her off. That was a concern that lingered in the back of their minds, at least to some extent. What if their evolution had caused them to become disconnected from the people they loved? Fortunately, people were adapting to the new reality and they knew that someday, it would be them potentially evolving.
Amy, who’s now a sneaky little ninja, swooped out of the darkness and grabbed Calvin’s hand. He wouldn’t let her in on it, but he’d almost had a heart attack at her sudden appearance. It was a reminder to him that it was ok to not be on edge all the time.
“Are you enjoying yourself yet?” Amy asked.
“You know what? I am. Not normally much for parties, but look at this.”
They looked around, outside these walls, it was a brutal world. Everything struggled to not be the next battery for something else’s progress. It was fight or die. Here, they were at least relatively safe. They had been able to create a beacon of hope in the darkness that the system had yanked them into.
Calvin was under no illusion that there wouldn’t be many more dark days ahead, but humans were resilient. That fact was evident right in front of him as they all seemingly forgot their struggles briefly and celebrated life.
He and Amy meandered on through the celebrations. They made sure to hit up Ambrosia to check on Stan. Food was FLYING out of this place and Calvin knew Stan was putting in some serious work for all this.
“Hey Stan, you all good in here?” Calvin asked the busy chef.
“All good sir. Churning and burning as they say!”
“Make sure you get out there and enjoy the evening. Is there anything we can help with?”
“No sir, all good here. I’m just putting together a few more trays and then we’re shutting down. There’s enough food out there to feed half the tutorial. Hey, I’ve been meaning to bring it up though. We need brewers. Would you be fine if I put up a missive to get someone trained?”
“Please do. Actually, give me the details and I can put it up. Olympus will cover the reward and costs.”
“The people would appreciate it. Thank you! Enjoy your night sir.”
They scooped up a plate of food and headed over to Seth’s mad laboratory. They’d noticed he wasn’t at the party and Calvin figured he couldn’t wait to get back and start playing with all the new toys he got.
What they found was not entirely what they’d expected.
Seth was standing outside of his shop where all of the crates had been stacked, waiting to be sorted. With great enthusiasm, drones swiftly flew around, picking up crates and materials, skillfully transporting them all over the shop, and neatly placing them in organized piles. As the base rune worked its magic, certain materials vanished entirely upon being added to the town’s stockpile. They could see base nanites rising up from the rune and performing some sort of task with the materials that remained behind and that had Calvin curious.
“You’ve got some employees.” he called over to Seth. Calvin placed the tray of food on a somewhat cleared-out section of a workbench.
Seth’s smile revealed his excitement at that notion. “I sure do. I discovered I can control more drones than before. Not only that, but I have Andy helping sort and categorize everything. I should have started that before we left but didn’t even think about it. Did you know that’s what Andy’s job is? Base management? Seems so obvious now doesn’t it?”
Seth flipped up a screen in front of Calvin. It appeared to be the blueprints for the power core that was in the life bringer vessel. He reached down to the tray and grabbed a skewer of meat, stuffing bites into his face while talking.
“Been taking a look at the blueprints you all snatched up for me. Some real good stuff in here. Some fairly useless stuff too, like life support modules. Maybe it will come in handy later. This power core though, we actually have everything we need to set one up, and with the blueprints and materials, we can have the base nanites construct it. I plan on getting started shortly.”
“That’s great! How can we use it?”
“Well for starters, we can integrate the power pathways into the base rune. It will provide power to anything that needs it within the rune. Most importantly it will be the battery to power the barriers on our walls. I have barrier drones integrating themselves into the wall sections now. When are you all heading out for the next quest?”
Calvin was scanning the operation in awe. Seth was doing so much at once. He had drones here doing work, drones on the walls doing work, and he had Andy helping with cataloging, it was unbelievable. “Haven’t discussed it with the others yet, but we should probably get a move on either tonight or tomorrow morning. Most likely tomorrow, would like to let everyone get a little break. We still need to talk over the plan though.”
“Sounds good. Let me know when you all get together to discuss. I’m going to send some presents along with you. Oh, Andy.”
“Yes?”
“Could you let Ian know to drop by when he gets a moment?”
“Right away.”
Calvin and Amy watched the process for another minute or so and headed back to the cabin. They were going to take some time to just sit quietly with each other by the fire.
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The time passed quickly, too quickly. Calvin was always a busybody, and that was something Amy had always tried to caution him on back home. He never took the time for himself and always just dove into his work. Just like here in Olympus. Nobody could say Calvin wasn’t always going 100%. Getting him to sit and relax was a chore. It made a little sense here at least, considering the ramifications of not meeting their objectives.
Calvin sensed Freya approaching. She’d gone out beyond the walls for a little run and scouting mission. She hadn’t seen any other monsters out there, leaving them to wonder what the hell those raptors were on about.
Slowly the others began to filter in. Marshall was of course the last to stroll in. His clothes and hair were a bit of a mess. At least there wasn’t a dress code at these meetings.
The group deliberated about their next choices. They had the raptor quest and the Nightclaw scourge quest and there were pros and cons to heading to either of them next.
For the raptors, they’d just been attacked by a small group. This had the group worried about whether something might be brewing. Maybe there was a timer ticking away in the background that would slowly increase the pressure on them until they dealt with it. The same could be true for the Nightclaw quest as well, although they’d still not seen anything from that direction. The rune above what they believed to be the raptor quest was the closest, so they’d be able to get that one done faster, they’d also squeeze out just a little more power before facing the Scourge, whatever that was. The power thing was a minor concern to them. Considering everything they’d gained in their evolutions, everything else should just be a little icing on the cake and it would be a while before they evolved again.
The other major consideration that was nagging at them was Knox. He needed to be dealt with, and soon. Although Knox wasn’t a quest given by the system, Calvin was absolutely certain he did not want to let that maniac loose back on earth. Ending his brutal march of terror here in the tutorial was just as important to them as the missives.
They had secondary objectives too. They wanted to find out why Tank’s settlement hadn’t been challenged yet. Knox’s attack followed by the waves left it completely empty. Everyone who remained was now here in Olympus. Did Knox have no need for the settlement? Was it a trap? Would going there now potentially delay them long enough to prevent them from completing the raptor quest?
The team ultimately decided that there were too many questions. There were too many branching scenarios and assumptions that could lead them logically toward either path. They eventually settled on their original plan, with modifications of course.
They’d head to the raptors first thing in the morning. Marshall was still feeling a little ill and would likely have to spend the night in the pharmacy for treatment. Seth would finish up their goodie bag to send along on the trip and would also get a few scouting drones with enhanced power packs heading toward the other settlement to take a peek. With the Aetherforge and all of the new materials he’d scored, this shouldn’t be a difficult order.
Tank’s team would stay behind this time. They had punched through level 25 and wanted to plan their evolution a little more after seeing Calvin’s team go through theirs. They’d been running through numerous scenarios about what might be offered. They’d spend the evening discussing and then tomorrow would go through one by one, ensuring they remained an effective combat unit.
The meeting broke up after an hour or so and everyone went their separate ways. Calvin, Amy, and Freya stayed behind to get just a little more quiet time in before bedding down for the night and heading out the next morning.
The next morning was a quiet one. Many of the townspeople had stayed in after a long night of celebration. The soldiers were out and about training or changing up watch, striving to keep the town safe. Ambrosia was in full swing getting breakfast ready for those who were awake to eat it. Seth met up with the party as they geared up to leave. He’d promised a goodie bag and boy did he deliver. There were empty grenades for Marshall to charge up with healing nanojuice. There was a spare portal grenade in case of emergencies, and to allow Olympus to contact them if needed. Seth had prepared half a dozen mines with Runic Snare and left them with a few juiced-up Barrier drones.
With a quick send-off from Seth and Tank’s crew, they were off on the next merry adventure across the jungle and up into the distant mountains.
It hadn’t actually been that long since they’d ventured out this way, past the creeks on the way to the water bear pond, through the jungle leading up to Knox’s old encampment, yet it felt like it was a lifetime ago. It kind of was. They were all new people now. They weren’t even fully human, at least not in the Earth sense.
It took the better part of the day and as nightfall approached, they’d reached the foothills just outside of the rune’s influence. It was immediately clear where they needed to go. The foothills guided them toward a canyon that cut through the mountain range directly toward the center of the rune.
The environment was eerie. They could hear the cries of various creatures echoing through the canyon. Occasionally, there was a loud roar that shook the ground beneath their feet. The group figured this would likely be what they would face in there and it did not sound pleasant.
“Let’s set up camp for the night. I for one don’t feel like wandering into the dinosaur madhouse in the dark.” Calvin said.
The group agreed and they spent an uneventful night listening to the peaceful and melodic songs of the dinosaurs within.
The next morning they got right to it.
The hills very quickly opened up to a wide canyon. The walls of the canyon were sheer, hundreds of feet up. Along the walls, there were outcrops and caves leading out onto ledges.
It was damn hot in here. The environment had completely changed. The incredibly uneven floor of the canyon was littered with dried husks of plant material, large boulders that had broken off the canyon walls, and of course bones. Why wouldn’t there be bones strewn about? The bones were broken and mangled, obviously the victims of some horrible attack. Some of the bones were creatures they’d seen out in the jungle like water bears. Others were dinosaurs themselves. Were these damn things eating each other?
A screech broke them out of their musings. High up on the canyon walls, a flying creature stood perched on the edge watching them. It didn’t move toward them, it just watched, waited, and screeched.
Soon, there were two. Then five. In moments, dozens of winged beasts lined the rim of the canyon. The group knew instinctively it was about to be go time and they readied themselves for an assault. They were not ready for the assault that eventually did come, however.
Something was interesting about the canyon. The ground was rough, with large mounds of dirt spread around, surrounded by bones. The group had ignored these details, chalking it up to some unique system design for a standard ‘desert canyon’ biome. Maybe this wasn’t the case. The rumbling beneath their feet clued them into the possibility of danger from somewhere other than the skies.
Ian’s nanovision was on high alert, he looked down at the ground and suddenly had a realization. “Shit, there’s something beneath us. It’s big!”
They scrambled back as quickly as they could, just in time too. The ground where they stood exploded in fury. Dirt and rocks flew high into the air as the screeching cries of the winged beasts went completely silent in what appeared to be fear. Within the rising column of dust, a shape began appearing. It was roughly half as tall as the canyon walls by now and maybe 15 feet wide.
The group formed up, trying to get a clear understanding of what they were facing.
The large being bent over, emerging from the slowly dispersing cloud, and aimed its head directly at the group. What they saw was a massive gaping maw, filled with thousands upon thousands of teeth, lining the entire interior of the mouth all the way down its throat. The rows of teeth rotated independently of each other like saw blades and the group quickly understood what they were facing.
It was some sort of gigantic, god-damned nightmare worm.