Unlike most deals in this modern day and age, the agreement between the denizens of the hotel and Architectural Constructions was not precisely defined through exhaustive legalese. Instead it was handshakes behind closed doors, surreptitious deliveries, and exclusive tethered two-way connections. Snake stared at one of these packages, collecting them with the rest of the company’s ‘correspondence’.
“This is everything?” she asked.
A man in a mask nodded silently, placing the unassuming cardboard box down in her lab and departing, disappearing into the dark of the storm. This left the hotelgoers with a variety of these unmarked boxes, most of them arranged into a pile in the main lobby. One of them was already opened, providing the group a tablet specifically keyed to its copy at some unknown location. A dark figure appeared on the screen when it was turned on.
“Greetings, all,” he said. “I’ve been assigned to be your mission operator from now on.”
Acid squinted at the humanoid outline she could hardly make out. “Why do we need one of those?”
“If the state your friends are in is any indication… There might be one or two reasons. More likely three or four.”
Vola looked down at the ground resentfully, Mei sharing a mind with her and averting her eyes. Dave slumped over the couch, still not fully recovered. Dime did not say anything; though he wasn’t part of the skirmish outside at the time he’d still been gravely injured. Whatever Snake had used to save him made him weak, leaving him chair-ridden. Walking was a struggle and it winded him in the time it took to walk across a room.
“Okay, well,” said Acid, “What’s in these boxes?”
“Half the help. The other half’s mercenaries that’ll meet up with you on-site; having them connect with you right now would blow our element of surprise.”
Rico pulled a few glass vials out of a crate, spinning one in a circle to watch the contents swirl around inside. It was some kind of dark-gray to black substance that shifted in saturation constantly. Entirely unmarked, the notion of imbibing it was inherently dubious at best and downright unthinkable at worst.
Acid picked one up to carefully observe between two fingers. “What’re the vials supposed to be?”
The voice on the other end is awkward. “Not really legal, but it’s distilled Dust.”
“The hell? Why would I ever want to drink any of that?”
“Don’t try it now, but it does significantly boost your Empowerment for a time.”
“What? You can just do that?” Acid stared at the glass tube in her palm with a little more respect. “Why ISN’T it legal, then?”
“It can be addictive for some people, and the side effects of withdrawal or overdose are… painful. And deadly.”
Rico put the vial back in the crate where it belonged, muttering “Well now I don’t really WANT to use it.”
A brief crackle carried over the tablet, the figure briefly looking away out of awkwardness. “Use them in moderation and you should be fine. Just make sure someone can cover for you when it wears off. The burning in your neck really, really hurts.”
Mei shuffled over to the crate, grabbing one of the vials and twisting the cork off with some difficulty. In one long swig she downed the whole thing, tossing it aside with a clatter. Rico stared at her, gobsmacked.
“”What are you-- didn’t you hear the guy? He said it was addictive!”
“Then I’ll be the trial run,” she said. “ We’ll see how good it is before we take one in the middle of battle.”
“I… guess you have a point.”
“Where do these even come from? I thought Dust dissipated from, like, everything,” murmured Acid.
“No clue,” said the mission operator. “Several of the largest companies just have a deal with the Cult of the Maw.”
“The what?”
“A relatively underground organization. They’ve been pawning off these drugs for years now. No one’s been able to figure out how.”
Mei coughed, hacking with both hands on her throat as her breathing became wheezing. Unze rushed over to support her. Rico took a step in her direction, fearing the worst.
“Oh my god, are you okay?”
“Y-yeah, I’m--” Mei stumbled out the door towards the nearest sink. “--I need water.”
“Uh… do you have anything else?” asked Acid.
“One of the boxes should have some cubes stacked inside,” replied the tablet.
Indeed, one of the boxes did have a variety of colored cubes inside, each large enough to take up an entire palm’s worth of space. Acid took a second to admire the quality make of one, crisscrossing lines and separate shell pieces shielding the more delicate components within.
“Pre-fabs.” The tablet buzzes with his explanation. “Press a button on their side and they’ll root themselves in a few seconds. You can throw up solid defenses in moments.”
Different colored cubes each had unique labels. Gray boxes were marked as wall segments. Blue cubes were marked as power sources. Black ones had only an image of a turret on them, although it was pretty much self-explanatory.
“So I just toss one and let it unfold?”
The figure on the tablet flinched a bit. “Absolutely not. You can’t align anything properly just haphazardly throwing them around! They’re very valuable, you know, it takes multiple Empowerments to make them.”
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“How do these work, exactly?” Snake picked one up, tossing it up in the air and catching it in an open palm. “These aren’t heavy at all for something supposed to contain so much.”
“We had to skimp when it came to mass. It’ll block small arms fire, but a cannonball or something of similar mass will probably blow it right open. Use your judgment to know when to use them.”
Dime rolled by in his wheelchair. “Anything like a Rejuvenation Potion?”
“Sorry. It slipped my mind. I’ll have one passed onto you soon,” said the handler.
Fortunately for Snake, it wasn’t very hard for the corporation to acquire some choice ingredients she’d be incapable of finding otherwise. There was ONE other avenue she could take… but she would prefer to avoid it. Best not to let drama follow her around.
She pinched a vial of swirling purple, roiling within the confines of its glass prison. Every second it seemed to scream, to beg to onlookers for freedom. The path ahead would be dangerous for sure, but with a backup plan, they could at least save their asses should push come to shove. So she prepared a burner, pouring a teaspoon of ground Memoryflower into the beaker she had off to the side.
As Empowerments exploded across the scene throughout the weeks following the First Storm, it was only natural that some would root in places unexpected to humanity. The luminescent blue flowers that tended to grow in small patches in the strangest places were somewhat rare, despite being able to show up literally anywhere. From active volcanoes to the tops of skyscrapers, anything was possible. For years no one knew what they were or what they meant, but scientists eventually settled on species divergence due to an Empowerment.
What was interesting was that Empowerments were mostly a human thing, almost never affecting anything else. Sure, from time to time you might get a robot like Pewter, or a sapient animal, but that was the end of it. So for plants to be affected too brought up weird questions like ‘do plants have souls before being Empowered’ and ‘what about after that’ and ‘is the ecosystem gonna survive’. After over a decade of analysis, it was tentatively concluded that Memoryflowers cropped up in the presence of their namesake.
Particularly powerful emotional upsurges heralded their arrival days later. Making memories was now a physical phenomenon, as evidence of life-turnpoints and other lifelong memories would mark the ground where they occurred. This particular flower had grown at the site of a climactic confrontation between a mob boss and the son of a man he’d killed. Reports from police had claimed so much blood had been spilled that the road had literally been painted red.
Snake wasn’t sure why the flower had come with lore attached via note, but perhaps secondhand memories of the event itself preserved it better. When she’d crushed it, it let out a sound like ‘it’s over’ and turned to powder. Subsequently she reached for a dropper filled with the blood of a portalfly, squeezing out two drops into the beaker, along with a few tablespoons of water.
Portalflies were another ingredient hard to obtain in large supply, mostly due to their ability to create flash-portals for fractions of a second. Able to cross a dozen meters instantly, catching them proved to be insanely difficult. Moreover, each insect was rather small, so producing a usable quantity of blood troubled even the most efficient companies. Worst of all, portalflies were a rarely seen species. Perhaps it was because of their special ability or pure coincidence, but they only ever traveled as small groups of a dozen or so, feeding on decaying organics. Being able to see one was thought of as a sign of good luck.
After a minute or so, she added a chemical cocktail dubbed ‘Brewglue’. A potent and effective bonding substance, the highest quality drugs demanded it in their formula. The product of a brilliant scientist, it was now a standard bonder for most quality medicines. With a funnel and a little bit of trepidation, she carefully emptied the purple vial into the beaker and corked it. Shaking it around to mix the contents, she watched the inside turn from a mix of color to a sad brown. Perfect.
She marched out of the lab with the singular potion in her hands. Scanning over the room, she ignored Dave trying to attach a gun to an animatronics hand, Mei retching into a trash can, and Unze constructing a minifort in the lobby. Instead, she strolled over to Dime to drop the potion in his hands. He held the glass bottle, swirling it a little before looking up.
“What’s this for?”
“It’s for… next time,” said Snake. “If I’m not there next time, throw this at the floor. It’ll warp you home. At least it should, if my research is to be any indication.”
“Where did you get this?”
“Made it. Took some rarer ingredients but it’s worth it.”
“What do I do with it?”
She shrugged. “Keep it safe. Hopefully you’ll never have to use it, but… I don’t want to see you gone. So always bring it with you. Okay?”
He had smiled and told her ‘sure’ then, but it wasn’t like he was in the best position to make use of a potion anyways. Dime sat in his room rolling the glassware over his palms, wondering where to put it. Carrying it on him was difficult when he couldn’t walk; a potion belt was out of the question. Attaching it to the frame of the wheelchair risked it breaking on accident from an unintentional bump or an enemy striking it with a stray attack.
Knock knock!
“Come in,” he said.
Wisp stepped inside, gently closing the door behind him. “Hey, just wanted to check in on how you’re doing…”
“Just peachy. Really liking being too weak to walk,” Dime said dryly.
“You’ll recover soon, I’m sure. Did the company not send anything to help with that?”
“They forgot about it. Hopefully they send something soon.”
“Figures. The plan is to mount an assault in the next few weeks… do you think you’ll be fine by then?”
Dime lifted the potion to the light, once again noticing how it looked like bottled mudwater. “Maybe. No guarantees.”
“What’s that?” Wisp pointed at the potion.
“Snake told me it was a Recall Potion. Warps home… wherever that is.”
“Do you drink it or…?”
“No. I have to break it.”
Wisp rubbed his chin. “That sounds inconvenient since you’re in a wheelchair. Skirmishes will probably take place in a few days, and if you’re not fine by then…”
“Yeah. It sucks.”
“No, it’s fine. Pass it to me. I’ll hold onto it just in case, y’know?”
He didn’t really want to do that. Snake did ask him to hold onto it, and she could be scary sometimes, plus she probably knew what she was doing. If she said so, then keeping it on his person would be the best course of action.
“Sorry, Wisp. Snake asked me to keep it.”
“Really? Why?”
“I think she’s worried about what might happen to me if she’s not around.”
“But it would be more useful on the frontlines, right? You’re not in danger but everyone going out will be.”
“I don’t know. Maybe ask Snake for the potion if you really need it.”
Wisp bent down onto one knee so he could look Dime in the eyes, a dead-seriousness in his voice.
“I want to find Kyki as much as anyone else, and I’m sure no one could blame me for that. Just hand it to me, I’ll keep it safe. Don’t worry.”
A light tiredness glazed over Dime’s eye lens. Evidently the fatigue was getting to him more than he thought. With one arm he dropped it into Wisp’s hands.
“Mhm. Here you go.”
“Thanks. I’m going to go get geared up with everyone else, alright? We’ll end this before you know it! In the meantime, please stay here and rest until you’re fully recovered. Okay?”
“...okay,” murmured Dime.
Wisp strode out of the room, closing the door behind him as he left. The last he saw of the little demon was tired eyes drawn to the ground, his body urging him to sleep. The path ahead was treacherous, but with this potion… Wisp thumbed the glass. Now his friends would have a way out, just in case things went back. He could feel Kyki’s presence out there, waiting for him, and he resolved to save them no matter what.