The sight of the military base entered my eyes and as Trinity mentioned, it is completely flooded with Husks. Half of them roamed around the base while the rest swarmed a large fortified building in the centre of the base. Judging by the horde, there were no Heavies nor Huggers in it, but the damage to the fortified building is obvious. It would take a few more days before they breached the building.
Out of the entire group, only three of Trinity’s team were Lvl 1. Trinity herself and one other called Geode. The other Lvl 1 had perished while escaping, covering for them at the last moment, allowing them to escape.
Trinity herself is a Swashbuckler. A class that is heavily focused on swordsmanship, it focused less on armour and defences and more on reflexes to dodge and positioning themselves in a fight. Compared to a swordsman who cuts a path through enemies, her class danced through them, picking off targets while avoiding damage. She wore armour due to having to escape earlier, but normally doesn’t use it.
Geode is a Berserker, a class that I questioned heavily as to why someone would pick it. The more he is damaged, the more damage he does and the less damage he receives. By utilising fist weapons like claws, he would usually be in the front line, culling Husks down. But the class relied far too much on avoiding taking heavy blows since it would be insta death. I didn’t ask him straight up why he picked this class, but I did question it in my mind.
“Alright, the situation seems to be the same as before.” Blinking as I deactivate Hawkeye, I look around once more at the group. “We’ll go as planned. Trinity, your group is not to do anything, you’re all a liability. Don’t try to be heroes, you’ll disturb our momentum if you do so.”
With an expression like I had just punched her, Trinity scrowled before nodding. I knew my statement pissed her off, but I could tell she knew it’s the truth as well. Looking at Winter, I give her a nod. “Don’t let them reach Aerith.”
“Got it. Don’t die.” With Aerith, Winter walked off while Dawn approached my side.
“Dawn, if it gets too much…”
“I know. Don’t worry, this armour should alleviate some of the damage.” Thanks to Trinity, Dawn had been covered in chainmail. Our plan is simple, using the ammunition I brought along I would eliminate a few hundred from this distance. If we drew the attention of the swarm, Dawn would taunt them all and kite them away slowly from the base while Winter did the same. Aerith would be responsible for helping with her Ice Magic, controlling the Husks with her Frozen Orbs and Walls.
Walking to a kilometre and a half of the base, I kneel on one knee while Dawn shoves her shield into the ground. Placing my sniper on the shield, I aimed down my sight and looked for any threatening Husks before firing. My shots pierce the Husks, blowing them up as I aim to take out as many as I can with a single shot.
With them grouped so heavily, I quickly mowed down dozens, but the noise of my sniper resounded throughout the area. Most of the Husks quickly turned towards the sound, towards us. I fired more shots as they started to stumble and then run towards us. Standing, I nod to Dawn who took her shield back as we both started to run back.
The plan from here is to keep our distance and keep firing on the group, killing as much as we can. Any remaining Husks would then be led away by Winter and Aerith and then Trinity would lead her team in to bring all of her people out. They would focus on escaping away from the military sight before sending us all clear. We would then focus on losing the swarm before heading back to them.
The only problem here is if another swarm came along, but with the possibility of Sheep and the rest arriving within a day, we would be alright. Stopping every now and then, I fired into the group, dealing with the Runners who were the fastest in catching up to us, not allowing them within five hundred metres. The sight of thousands of Husks chasing us truly made me feel fearful of making any mistakes…and a little excited.
“Midnight, the river.” Looking up, I saw the river we planned to use as a stopgap, at least for a short while. It was at least ten metres wide, but the water was running calmly. Turning before the river, I shot a few more times with Dawn also using a handgun to shoot into the mass group following us. As they got within three hundred metres, we both turned and leapt across the river before both of us grabbed an incendiary grenade from our belts and lobbed them over.
“We’re about two kilometres from the military base.” Muttering to myself as I took more potshots into the burning swarm of Husks, I watched as they rushed into the river, a slight smile on my face.
“Give me an update, Winter.”
“You guys left about a hundred behind, we’re slowly kiting them while cleaning them up. Want us to head to you?”
“Negative. Once this swarm crosses the river we’ll escape from them before circling around back to you. Focus on helping Trinity.”
“Roger.”
“Trinity, change of plan, stay at the base for now, fortify yourselves in the building.”
“Got it.”
Since we had successfully led the swarm here, we knew once we escaped there wouldn’t be a high chance of it coming back. As I keep firing the swarm soon crosses the other side as Dawn and I throw another grenade down, a smoke grenade.
Both of us sprint away. With our speed on our feet, we easily outpaced the horde. At Lvl 1 this wouldn’t be possible, as Runners would easily catch us, but the advancement to Lvl 2 allowed us to keep ahead of them easily. Running while shooting the Runners, we soon outpace the swarm and continue running. Coming to a stop after about ten kilometres, we start making our way back, closely keeping an eye on our surroundings.
“That went a lot easier than I had thought it would, didn’t it, Midnight?”
Looking up, I smiled at Dawn. “You know if one of us tripped it would’ve ended badly, right? We only did as well as we did because the Husks don’t represent a challenge to us right now. At least, in terms of speed. We don’t have the ability to kill a horde that big, but pulling them all away is easy. Hopefully they won't…” Lifting my head, I turn to look around before setting my eyes in a certain direction.
We were passing an old dirt road and in the direction that I looked I saw a fenced off area, the fencing having fallen apart. An old booth that screamed security sat there, mostly fallen apart, but this isn’t what drew my attention.
Something past this seemed to…call out to me. I felt an attraction to whatever laid beyond this security point, my mind and body both wanting to head there now and explore it.
“Say, Belinda?”
At the mention of her name, Dawn straightened up and looked at me.
“Do you feel an odd pull…attraction to something beyond that fence?”
She looked at the old fence and shook her head. “I don’t, to me it’s just an old fence and booth. Is something wrong?”
“Ah, yea. There seems to be something calling out to me there…Let’s go, we’ll check it out later.” This isn’t a horror story, I knew from fantasy novels or manga that either an exciting fortune awaited us down there or death. I wasn’t risking the biscuit on a bet, I’d ensure we’d explore it as a team. We ran back while keeping an eye on our surroundings, stopping in at Hawkeye range to check on the Husks we led away. Seeing as they were just stumbling around in this new location, we headed back to the military base.
After a half day, we finally reached the base once more. Overall, it had taken an entire day to kite the Husks away and return. Seeing Winter and Aerith near the base, we headed over to them as they met us halfway.
After chatting for a moment, we knocked on the door to the fortified building. Trinity stepped out and as she did I saw a small portion of the people behind her, all looking rather barebones. We didn’t have much food from our world left, in fact it would be enough to give everyone here two meals each. Even with Ghost’s farm at full force we would barely keep everyone fed. Pursing my lips, I knew it would be back to that shitty, canned food we had stockpiled.
“Trinity, I know your group would like nothing but to come out, but until we can be sure we’re ready for everyone to hit the road, we need you all to stay inside.”
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Trinity nods. “I’m aware, leave them to me.” With that, she went back without another word and closed the door. Feeling a bit annoyed at the lack of follow up, I found a good spot to keep watch while the other three girls played with a set of cards Dawn had.
After only a few more hours, I spotted a convoy of cars heading towards us and seeing the leading car is the one we had driven here a few days ago, I got up, stretched and jumped down.
“They’re here and they bought the semi.” The girls simply nod as they finish their round of cards and as they do, the convoy pulls in with Sheep jumping out of the SUV, heading straight towards me.
“Mid, is everything good?”
“Mm, we kited the Husks away. So far so good, thankfully they’re mindless beasts. Look, there is something I want to check out before we go…”
Explaining the odd attraction I had had, Sheep nodded thoughtfully. “Alright, it’s going to take several hours to unload the fuel and food we prepared. Don’t worry, we mainly brought canned food and some non-perishables like rice. We’ll get the buses refuelled and food into those inside while you take a team to explore that place. Just don’t go dying.”
“Yea yea, I know. I’ll take Ghost, Melody, Winter and Aerith.”
“Scout, support, front line and utility. Good line up. Take the minivan in case you need to bring stuff back, if need be we can use the semi to load up more. I’ll give you twenty four hours to come back.”
“Got it, it’s outside of radio range.” Both of us nod strongly before I gather up those I wanted to bring. Resupplying ourselves with healing potions, I informed Trinity of the situation before we headed off. The drive took two hours, but before we got close, I once again felt that attraction and asking around found no one else felt it. Which implied it had something to do with me…with Machinist.
Driving through the destroyed fence, we kept driving until we arrived at an old destroyed campsite, as it had been trampled. My eyes immediately locked onto the only building here and ignoring the tents, I led everyone over to it. Easily moving the broken door aside, we avoided the rubble as I kept following this feeling before stopping in a room. This place had been set up as a last resort kill zone, old and rusted mounted machine guns, barricades and the lack of bodies made for a very unsettling feeling.
The room we stopped in is the most heavily fortified room here. Judging by the damage to the walls, roof and floors, it's obvious that the last fight took place. Whoever fought here had eventually died. Were the Husks really that strong? Walking around the room, I felt the attraction to come from…below.
“There must be a staircase around here…” We separate and search around the room before Aerith calls out.
“Over here! It’s a…switch?” Gathering around the small indent in the wall Aerith found, we found a switch that looked rather strange, but I felt like I had seen it before. Remembering how one would use it, I grabbed the handle and pulled it towards myself gently before pulling it up.
A loud screeching sound of metal resounded throughout the room as a small square opened up in the middle of the room, revealing a spiral staircase made of stone leading down. Ghost stepped forward while pulling out a flashlight.
“My turn.” Saying this, he led the way down as we followed behind him. Keeping myself alert, I followed the light as we kept going down. Minutes quickly passed before hours did. After three hours passed, we finally reached the bottom, a dark forbidding corridor before us. We continued to walk, the source of the attraction getting closer and before long we reached a fork in the path.
“Right.” Before anyone asked, I pointed to the right path. Shining the light down the right side, Ghost nods before doing the same to the left but he twitched slightly as the rest of us did. Nothing was within sight that caused us to flinch, but my instincts were telling me, shouting at me, to avoid that path. I didn’t know why, but without a word all of us started down the right path.
An hour passed as we walked, none of us speaking. Surrounded by darkness and this deep underground…it was eerily quiet. We soon reached a door and Ghost easily pushed it open, leading the way in. As we entered and looked around with our flashlights, we saw something that caused us all to quickly raise our guns, nearly shooting at it.
There stood a humanoid silhouette, a raised arm with the outline of a heavy gun on it. Carefully we moved forward bit by bit, taking in our surroundings. On either side of the room sat large pipes with dozens of tinier pipes leading off them into strange devices. Reaching the humanoid figure, we carefully inspected it from range and our discovery set my heartbeat racing.
"Is that…is that a fucking robot?" Hearing Winter's mutter, I kept looking at it carefully. It is indeed a robot, filled with rust and barely holding on. It has a machine gun as one hand and the other hand is essentially a large butcher's knife.
It had no eyes but still had a head. We looked over it carefully and ensured that it wouldn't just power on before turning our attention to the strange devices around the room, devices that seemed extremely familiar.
"VR…Pods?" There stood a dozen pods on either side of the room, some that had fallen apart whilst some were intact but all of them had rusted over. Approaching them, I carefully looked inside one of them, but something didn't seem right with these VR Pods…
Inside, there were no connectors, no injectors nor any oxygen intakes. But there is a drain at the bottom and at the middle and top were what seemed to be pipes that poured in gas or liquid…
"Stasis Pods?" Mumbling to myself, I look behind it before seeing that nothing was there that would indicate it's a Stasis Pod. Moving to the front with a hand on my chin, I looked up and down before remembering a function of the System we rarely used.
"System Call: Information."
Healing Tank.
A machine built by the previous inhabitants of this world, this Healing Tank is used to submerge those who are critically injured and heal their injuries. Can not cure disease.
"Oh fuck…" Looking at this machine with excitement, a thought arose that quelled my emotions instantly. "That's right, this is just the tank, we'd need the liquid as well." Turning around, I signalled everyone back before explaining what I had discovered.
"If we can find the recipe…" With Melody's words, we split up and started looking around the dark room. That feeling of attraction remained and heading towards it, I soon arrived in front of the only thing not rusted in this place.
There, a solid black box sat, made of a metal I didn't recognize. It came up to my knees and kneeling, I looked it over and found a switch on one side. Carefully moving the switch, I watched as the black box parted at the top to reveal its contents.
You have discovered an inheritance of a past civilisation. Rewards are within it.
As I peeked into the box, I saw an unbelievable sight. Files upon files sat there, along with what looked to be hard drives, usb sticks and three large vials of a strange teal liquid. Using the System once more, I found these vials to be the healing liquid.
"This is more than an inheritance…if I'm not wrong, this was put here to be found…did the previous inhabitants want to pass this onto us? Why?"
Picking up one of the files, I placed the butt of the torch in my mouth before sitting down and opening the file. The first page was written in the language of this world and turning to another page I saw a transcript of what seemed to be the language into…other languages that I didn't recognise.
"A cipher? Is it to help decrypt the language? These languages though…ah, of course, this world would’ve had other languages, not just the one." Muttering through the torch, I turned the page and found more ciphers, but this time words into drawings.
A word which then had a tree next to it. Another word with a humanoid figure next to it, more examples kept going for two pages. Even with this, deciphering their language would take a long time. Flipping through the file, I found it to be several pages of writing and drawings of machines, Husks and more.
"Researchers? Then was I attracted to this because it's related to machinery?" Closing the file and removing the torch from my mouth, I placed the file back into the box before looking through the contents once again.
That feeling of attraction had faded the moment I opened this box, meaning I had found what pulled me here. Closing the box with the intent to look at it later, I stood up and looked for the others.
Meeting up, we found that Ghost had found another passageway and making our way through it found it led to multiple rooms, which looked like…
"Living quarters." Aerith mutters as we inspect the rooms. Old, rusted beds, shower and toilet rooms along with what seemed to be a recreational room.
"This is giving me the creeps. Where are the bodies? Shouldn't there be proof of people having been down here?" As I mutter this, we meet back up in the recreational room.
"Perhaps they've decomposed already? Judging by the plantation taking over the town and the amount of rust built up on the machines here it seems to have been a very long time…" As Melody spoke, she looked around with a frown. "But if they decomposed there would still be signs…"
"Maybe they all went up to fight against the Husks and perished upstairs? Though that doesn't seem right, it's like this place had been built as a last resort bunker." Ghost sighs as he finishes speaking. All of us were deep in thought before I shook my head and clapped.
"Alright, Ghost, Winter, I want you two to head back and grab the semi. The rest of us, we're bringing as much as we can back with us. Avoid the left passageway too, for some reason my instincts tell me to avoid it."
With my words, we started taking the pods off their holders and moving everything out. With this trip out to a military base we found five hundred people and a legacy left by the previous inhabitants of this world…an uneasy feeling welled up within me once more, the coincidence of obtaining so much is a bit too much. Is it really just us getting so lucky…