Chapter 53 – The Formalities
BOOM. The rocket hit, penetrated then exploded scattering plant matter all around the grassy valley. A few large clumps fell away from the main body of the spawner, but most turned into tiny bits that trailed steam and smoke as they flew.
The plant monster had been peeled like a banana and collapsed into a heap where it had stopped some 400 meters from Matt. He got the kill notification a moment later and cautiously began to approach the remaining pile of plant matter. He hadn’t faced one of these before and was curious if there were any salvageable materials left. He probably could have killed it without using explosives but just couldn’t be bothered.
Tengi scrunched his nose at the smell as they walked into the mess of vines and muck. Some of it was still twitching. Matt wasn’t sure about the life cycles of these plants, but planned to gather and burn everything after looking for anything useful. Echo began to pace off to the side of where spawner had been. The drake let out a low humming growl as he paced.
Matt was wondering what his problem was when he got bombarded by sensory input. His rear camera picked up movement, the threat detection field switched over to a lot of red and Echo sent him a mental image of vines moving more than they should be. “Awe Fuck” was all he could saw before a trio of tendrils slapped into his chest plate and sent him flying. He just was able to roll back to a kneeling position shortly after hitting the ground.
Out of the corner of his eye, Matt saw Tengi cut one of the vines in half with the knife he had given him. The deep dweller then rushed through the gap created, dancing his way to over to Matt while avoiding more tendrils. “Sorry about this.” Matt said as he grabbed Tengi by the front of his tunic. He then pivoted, twisting at the hips, rotating his upper body and hurling the little blue man out of the circle of vine monsters.
The high-pitched shriek might have been comical if not for the situation Matt was currently in. He was back peddling as fast as he could to get away from the now flailing clumps of vine monster. Once he saw that Tengi had made it out, helped by the over 50-meter toss, Matt used his teleport skill to break away from the swarm of vines.
Once back on the edge of the vine pile, Matt began firing his unstable rounds into the piles of plant. The new, enhanced version of his skill wasn’t used, it would be overkill for these lesser variants of the vine monsters. Now that he could get a clear look at the area from the outside, he saw a dozen of them sending tendrils his way, trying to snare him.
Matt fired into the front ranks, the rounds bursting and setting each of the choker vines alight in multiple places. The explosions from the imbued rounds were much more impressive from up close. Each one would remove a chunk of monster that was slightly larger than his gloved fist. A few of the closer ones ended up spraying a little of the pulpy sap back after the rounds detonated.
Echo had found his way around the flank of the group and was systematically taking down the back line while Matt finished up the front row that had initially chased after him. None of the vines seemed to be able to stick to Echo’s scales and the drake weaved in and out of the clustered monsters, sending arcing slashes of mana from his claws. These particular vines hadn’t had a chance to imbed themselves in the ground, leaving their soft sides very exposed.
Dodging to the left to avoid a slamming tendril, Matt let loose with an arc of plasma from his mana blast. The vine monsters in front of him were engulfed in flames and immediately retracted their tendrils, curling up as they burned alive.
Matt and Echo both broke away from the fight, retreating to wait out the flames at a safe distance. Echo was prowling around the back of the vines while Matt made his way back to where Tengi had retreated to. While on his way, his detection field picked up more movement in the nearby trees. He wasn’t sure of what it was but yelled to Tengi to run. Thankfully, the little blue humanoid made like a tree and got the fuck out of there.
Tengi made his escape just in time as a torrent of wooden spears flew from the woods and turned the ground into a giant pin cushion. Matt threw a frag into the woods, only having a general idea of where the monster was. It turns out that ‘close’ does in fact count in hand grenades as there was a shrieking hiss after the grenade went off.
Seeing his opportunity, Matt prepped another frag and threw it a little farther in and slightly more to the right. The first grenade had cleared out some of the brush and allowed him to get a better look at the… the… at this point, Matt wasn’t sure what it was. All he could see was a wall of green and brown that launched the occasional spear of wood at him.
The second grenade detonated a little closer to where he wanted but not quite close enough to cause permeate damage. I have just the thing. Matt thought to himself as he started pouring mana into his newly upgraded skill. This time he has a plan that involved the activation of 2 separate skills at once.
The first skill was of course the unstable imbuement that Matt had recently upgraded. He used this since it had been highly effective against the other plant like monsters in the area. The second skill was his rapid-fire skill that allowed him to increase his rate of fire. He wouldn’t need the recoil reduction but did want the extra volume.
Matt shouldered his rifle and centered it on the wall of plant monster. He leaned heavily into the gun as he pressed the trigger, wanting to mitigate as much of the recoil as possible but still have some spread. BAAAAANNNNGG. One long, 50 round burst at around 1200 rounds per minute. The magazine was empty in less than 3 seconds, but it gave him enough time to sweep it across the monster.
Not every round hit, some impacted trees and detonated while a couple went wide but of the 50 rounds, nearly 40 made contact. Those hits all exploded on contact sending gouts of flame, smoke and wet plant matter spewing into the surrounding woods. The salvo had done an impressive amount of damage but didn’t go unanswered.
A barrage of wooden stakes and spears flew from the woods, aimed not only at Matt but also the general area he was in. The density pretty much took away any possibility of dodging, but he did teleport back another 50 meters, clearing the area that the spears landed in. As he reappeared, he could see the monster for the first time.
Choker Vine Sentinel. Level 56
If Matt were to see the sentinel from a distance, he would say It looked like a spiny sea urchin. All around its body were 3 meter long sharpened, spear like protrusions. There were also several of the very familiar tendrils mixed in with the spines but not as many as the other variants he had seen. While this particular example had seen better days, Matt still had a fight on his hands judging by how quickly it was healing.
Matt had reloaded his rifle and fired another burst into the mass of spines and tendrils, causing a series of explosions from the impacts. The sentinel returned fire by flinging more spears at Matt. This time, he sensed the mana gathering, the spears detached themselves, hovering just off the body for a moment before being launched at him.
Unlike the previous times when the spears were launched, this instance has them being fired off one by one at a rate nearly like Matts own full auto. That would be 600 spears per minute. SPM? His thoughts were interrupted and he tried to dodge but was nearly impaled and forced to teleport, the result was a surprise for a seemingly simple enemy.
When he arrived after teleporting, Matt was instantly shot at by more of the spears, thus forcing another teleport. It was the same when he arrived at his new destination and again at the 3rd. This left him with no choice but the best kind of gamble. The desperate gamble.
Matt prepared himself as he teleported for a 5th time. When he arrived, instead of dodging, he summoned a vertical wall of plasma. It was just enough for him to fit behind. It took a moment, the construct not snapping into existence and instead fading in. This allowed one of the spears to penetrate, naturally igniting on its way through.
Stolen story; please report.
The now flaming spear took Matt in his lower abdomen. The armored plate absorbed the impact but was severely damaged in the process. The armored panel was rotated and forced downward into his hip while the spear deflected off and behind him. Still, he focused on summoning the wall. Half a second later, he was rewarded with a complete wall, solid as if made of brick.
Matt then used this new wall as a barricade to brace against, firing another long burst using both his rapid-fire skill and his unstable rounds. Another magazine was promptly emptied into the monster, but there was a slight problem. The problem was only slight because the strategy employed by the sentinel didn’t work.
After the first few rounds, the spines covering the sentinel bent and twisted, forming a shield of the wooden poles. It worked for almost a whole 6 rounds before the explosive and super-heated nature of Matts ammunition punched a hole in the spines. There was now a gaping hole that the rest of Matts magazine was fired into.
There were of course a few that hit the outside of the hole and failed to penetrate, instead exploding on the exterior of the makeshift shield. The monster also tried to defend itself by rotating and trying to turn the hole away from the incoming source of pain. By the time it was able to move any helpful amount, Matt had already run his magazine dry again.
“Fuck, shit.” Matt swore as he twisted and stepped fully behind the barrier to reload. His stomach was severely bruised at minimum and the armored plate was digging into his hip. He began to push mana into the armor to help repair it, but that process was very slow compared to generating munitions.
As Matt was behind the barrier, he heard it shudder several times in rapid succession. The sentinel was probably launching more spears at him. After peeking out, he confirmed that was indeed exactly what was happening.
The spears would impact the barrier and either glance off into the ground or be rebounded a few meters if they hit squarely. Either way, the shafts were splintered and set alight after contacting the blue wall of plasma. But for every hit, Matts mana was spent, and his concentration was strained.
While staying put sounded great, it wasn’t an option. The sentinel had begun to move to the flanks, reducing the amount of cover Matt actually had as it began to flank. Just as he was about to move his barrier, he got an impression from Echo. The Drake wanted him to distract the monster for a moment, which Matt could easily do.
He pulled out a frag and whipped it around the barrier, slinging it in a side arm toss. The grenade flew straight for the sentinel but skipped off the ground 20 meters short. The monster began to tighten up its spines as the green ball of death bounced toward it. Clearly it needed some protection since it was to slow to get away.
Matt saw a slight distortion in the woods behind the monster as the grenade detonated halfway through its third bounce. Boom. A brief flash that kicked up a lot of dust, and shattered a number of spines, went off in front of the sentinel. Behind it, Matt saw a narrow crescent wave of blue, arc out and impact the rear of the monster which caused its bulky form to shift violently.
After throwing the grenade, Matt hadn’t been idle. Instead of waiting, he prepped the launcher and fired just as the sentinel reacted to the hit from Echo. The rocket this time was a delayed fuse which streaked out, punching through the tangle of broken spines and into the body of the monster.
Whomp. A muffled explosion was immediately followed by the monster sagging as smoke poured from its many wounds. Matt fired into the monster with his rifle again, trying to get rounds into where the rocket hadn’t damaged. From the rear, Echo was laying into it with more slashes of plasma that seemed to finally be catching and keeping the thing on fire.
After what seemed like minutes but was actually only a couple seconds, the sentinel collapsed in on itself. The mass of plant matter had gone up in flames with the spines looking like candles atop a very unappealing cake. A moment later, Matt felt a series of system messages vying for his attention and finally opened them.
You have killed Choker Vine Spawner Hive. Level 51
Bonus experience earned for defeating an enemy above your level.
You have killed Choker Vine Sentinel. Level 56
Bonus experience earned for defeating an enemy above your level.
Class: Pilot – Gunfighter is now level 48
Stat points awarded.
Skill selection options are available.
You have won combat and secured ownership of Verdant Fields sub dimensional resource orb.
Matt laid back and sprawled in the grass. He was running low on resources and just couldn’t be bothered to fight anything else. “Well, Tengi, we did it.” Matt muttered to himself as he tried to repair his damaged armor panel.
“Yes. You win.” Tengi said as he walked over. He was surveying the damage that Matt had done while fighting the sentinel. “You hurt?”
“Eh, sort of. My armor is damaged and it’s causing some pain, but I am working on it.” Matt said. Indeed, the armor was repairing but it was going to take a while. The armor plate had done what it normally does when shot. The projectile hits the outer layer, fragmenting the middle ceramics and losing all its energy, thus failing to penetrate. The problem was that the projectile was usually a small bullet that weighed a few grams and not a 3-meter-long spear as thick as his arm, that had been set on fire.
Much of the armor was crushed and bent from the impact but as Matt poured mana into it, the panel began to regain its shape. This also had the effect of no longer trying to displace his pelvis when he moved.
“Ahh, yeah. That’s better.” Matt sighed after the panel had been fully restored. Echo had wandered over and helped Matt stand up, though he no longer needed it. “So, you got the orb?”
Tengi looked over from where he had been sitting. “Yes, I have now.”
“Sorry about the mess. I didn’t really have much choice.” Matt said after he stood and looked around, finally taking in the damage. Where there had once been a sea of lush grass, it was now covered in a patch work of burns, holes and decaying plant matter. Honestly, he was surprised that the woods weren’t on fire or something.
“No problem. Orb will fix after we go. It made for growing.” Tengi said and nodded toward the grass already sprouting from one of the bare patches from the rocket back blast.
Matt literally watched grass grow for a couple minutes, amazed at how the fields restored themselves. “Well, lets get this thing packed up and get you all settled in.”
*****
“Just a bit more! There. Hold it. Aaaaannd down!” Tobias called from the top of the wall. For the past several hours he had been overseeing the installation of the mounting platforms. They were a universal design that acted more as a steady, consistent base than anything else. “Meet me over at the next one.” He called to the pilots that were acting as cranes for his project.
“Is this where you want it?” Asked one of the acolytes or rather Fabrication Specialists’ that had recently evolved their class. “We can get it bolted in place while you go on.”
Tobias examined the orientation of the platform, ensuring that it was oriented in the proper direction in relation to the parapet. “Yeah, just be sure to witness mark the bolts and the corners after torquing them.” He reminded the crew. He got a thumbs up in response which made him snort. 2 weeks ago, and they had no idea what that gesture meant.
They had 18 of the platforms to install and had finished 15 in just a few hours with the help of the pilots. He planned to do final assembly of the actual guns over the next couple days and install them as he went. They already had crews picked out for the emplacements and just had to do some training before they would be ready to go.
As Tobias walked, he passed a few of the people working on the mid wall defenses. With the height of the parapet, they had decided to create some smaller positions more frequently within the walls themselves. The wall was nearly 20 meters to the top but around the 10-meter mark it was still 12 meters thick. So, there were teams of earth and stone masons creating dozens of firing ports and fighting positions in each segment of the wall.
Tobias planned to fill the mid wall positions with a mix of guns. Literal guns, of the 90-millimeter variety and also pintle mounted heavy machineguns. They had found that crew served weapons were rather effective if each crew made up one party. They could operate the gun and the ammunition generators and gain shared experience by being actively involved in the use of the weapon system.
One of the openings Tobias passed was made for the larger guns and he could see the 2 side passages already made for the supporting general-purpose machineguns. He smiled at the design, having used the codex that Matt made, he now knew a lot more about how to wage war than he ever thought possible.
Each of the 90 mil guns would be supported by 2 of the 6-millimeter belt fed guns that they already had been making. The 2 smaller machineguns would flank the larger one and provide close support incase anything got too close to the firing ports. They would also be devastating in their own right based on volume of fire alone.
Finally getting to the next position, Tobias was interrupted by one of his staff running up. “Master Tobias. The hammer forge and heat treat are done with the latest batch of barrels. Where do you want us to move them before milling?”
Tobias sighed. He no longer had an excuse to wave off the title ever since his evolution. “Please stack them in cradles in assembly room 5. Keep them along one wall with easy access to the doors so we don’t have to pivot around things to move them. I want it to be a straight shot in and out of the doors.”
The woman bowed deeply “It will be done.” She said before running off to handle the situation.
Tobias stared blankly at her retreating figure for a few moments. Then, with a shrug, he moved on to setting the next emplacement. Some would think it below the Principal Forge Master to directly oversee such tasks, but the man in question didn’t care. Besides, who would dare question a Principal Forge Master?