chapter 97
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“We just have to wait until they leave, then we’ll take everything there.”
“Yeah, I can’t believe someone else moved in there. It's nice when credits just walk into your neighbourhood.”
“I am sure they will have some sort of security set up, so we need to be ready for that.”
“Not to worry. My people should be back soon; I sent them to scout the place out. Wait, I think they’re here, I’m hearing a car pulling up.”
“Boss, it’s bad news. Look at this shit. They thickened and extended the walls. They are also now electrified. There are a lot of guard towers spread all around the property. Seven Fingers managed to confirm that there are a lot of automated turrets.”
“Yeah, and they seem to have some autonomy, not fully commanded by a central system, but that’s all my skills could get. They also have flying drones and even humanoid guard droids constantly patrolling with heavy weaponry.”
“Who the hell moved in there?”
“I don’t know, boss, but whoever you got credits from to steal from these people and cause as much damage as possible is not something we should get into. I have a bad feeling about all of this.”
“This is bad. We need to figure something out.”
POV: Remi
We were about halfway done fortifying our new base. We first focused on more standard threats like thieves and some lighter assaults. The hangar here was quite large; the ship only took about 1/3 of the space. We had already set up some walls to separate out the rest of the area.
Now, whenever we opened the hangar doors, no one could see what was actually happening inside. What was happening was a factory that was being continuously expanded. We had multiple backups for most of our machinery; right now, those parts are being used to expand our manufacturing capabilities.
Originally, I didn’t plan on doing so much. The plan was to expand our manufacturing capabilities a little bit and start making some components that would sell really well. Turns out, with our capabilities we could make some serious credits, as we could make quite complex components.
Bob was willing to sacrifice his freedom to come with us to clear portals in exchange for running this entire operation and keeping the base safe.
He will eventually get his upgrades and he could train here as well, but while he wanted to learn how to properly fight, he was still more interested in the manufacturing and logistics parts.
He was also the only option to stay behind. While my Hardened Connections skill worked over long distances, we would not be here to actively protect anyone if someone tried to steal a bond from me. In Bob’s case it didn’t matter, as he would just kill anyone who took control of his bond.
Stolen story; please report.
That was also why he was currently in control of a lot more AIs that were now nested underneath him, in much the same way FH was the superior of so many AIs helping to control the Mark II.
We were already half done manufacturing both the additional aerial defences and underground defences. Bob was going to be in charge of a fortress, because there was no way I was going to let him stay behind with fewer protections.
Currently, I had just finished the three dozen shield generators. These weren't powerful ones like the ones on the ship, but we also didn't have the materials or the credits to make so many that were so powerful.
They were still good enough for regular handheld weaponry. They only had to hold up a little bit because the main defense for this fortress was firepower. When you kill whoever wants to hurt you, you don't need to defend for long.
This last shield generator I was working on was a bit special. This wasn't for the base but to help us efficiently clear portals. This one I was actually using parts that were meant to be replacements for the ship’s shield generators, so this one was actually powerful.
It could also dial down its power quite a lot, which would help it with its main function. It was going to make an area around a portal be capable of containing atmosphere.
It was going to be fitted into a flying drone that was going to be quite big. The batteries would not last long if it needed to strengthen the shields fully, but to hold atmosphere it barely needed to use any. We should have plenty of time to hook up a proper power supply so it could continue to operate for long term.
The problem with shields was that they could still be seen through, and I bet there are skills that could phase through them as well. So the next project was an expandable dome that was going to go under the shield.
The dome would fit perfectly to the front of the ship and have an area large enough that we could easily operate around a portal. This way we could have an airtight seal and easy access to the ship’s cargo hold to bring back anything we get from inside a portal.
Quite a few of the maintenance drones will be repurposed to be harvesters to bring out every ounce of value from every portal.
Eventually, I was pulled away from my work as it was time to eat. We were also using my lunch breaks as meetings.
“The portals are free to use by anyone. Only the strongest are actually claimed, but even then it's the first there that gets the spoils. There is no way of identifying what’s inside a portal, only whenever someone goes in can we guess what might be found inside,” FH explained.
“What environments could we encounter?” Dean asked.
“The most common ones are grasslands, rocky caves, and lake shores. There are more uncommon ones, with the most unfortunate ones being underwater portals.” Everyone groaned as FH said that.
“That shouldn’t be too big a problem. I could make some modifications so the harvesters could easily work even underwater. All of us here could also function underwater, although weaponry would be a bit of a problem, but I think I could make some things that work.”
“Really? That’s good news, because there are a lot of water portals, and there's actually a bonus to clearing them, as the Adventurer Guild wants them gone since they’re taking up too much real estate right now,” FH said a bit excitedly.
“If the reward is good enough, we can consider doing them without much in the way of experience. We could brute force those to get the extra credit.”
“Captain, it’s not just some extra credit. They also reward quite a lot of Guild points, and those could be exchanged for some really expensive stuff that's really hard to get.”
“Roger that. I’ll get on to making some weaponry that’s good for underwater fighting. Can you get me a list of expected monsters in those types of portals?”
“Of course, in fact I have a long list of expected monsters we might run into, what their weaknesses are, and the best parts to harvest on any of them. As a side note, while a large portion of the portals appearing do have previous references to cleared portals, there’s always a chance of something new and dangerous, so we need to be on guard for that.”
What followed was a lesson in the most common portal layouts and what type of monsters we were expecting to be fighting. We also learned the most valuable types of monsters that we could encounter.
The most valuable was a weasel-looking burrower that was the size of a small car. Apparently, this was the monster that could drop a skill stone with a storage skill. That was our number one target.
Mostly, we were going to go with not targeting anything specific but sweeping everything clear. Most other groups did things the other way. They found good portals and only ever killed the profitable monsters to continue to constantly farm the ever-generating monsters.
The problem with that approach was that it was incredibly slow. That was the reason why, in most civilised space, people built permanent portal anchors. The reset time for a portal was 10 times faster with it than without it.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t build any of the permanent portal anchors, at least not right now. Hopefully, in the future, I will be capable of doing so, because it would be so much better to find a really good portal and repeatedly clear it instead of hoping to find a good one doing random portals.
Time continued to go by quite fast, and then after just another two weeks, we had ourselves a proper fortress base. Now there were quite a few junkyards nearby that were calling to me, but I continued to ignore them as I really wanted to clear a couple of portals to get some progress in getting stronger.
“Everyone, start loading up gear for portal clearing. We leave in three hours.” Immediately, movement exploded all around us. There were so many droids starting to move about, readying us for liftoff.