by Dan Thomas
“Uh, I think they sell a lot of it, some of it we keep, and the rest Mamba turns into weapons and tools.” ShadowHog took another glance inside. “This is nearly ready.”
“What, like, spears and pickaxes?” Max panted.
ShadowHog walked back into the tool alcove, grabbing an ingot mold. “Yeah, I think so. Spears, arrows, ballista bolts, and bullets. We also make a lot of tools; Remington goes through a lot when he takes people mining.”
“You make bullets here?” Max asked in disbelief as ShadowHog bent down in front of the smelter, placing the mold in the metal holder and twisting a spigot at the bottom which opened a hole into the base of the furnace. Molten metal spilled out into the ceramic metal mold.
“Yeah, we’ve got a couple of bullet presses, Striker gets them out every couple of weeks and we knock out a few batches. Apparently, bullets go bad quite quickly here, so Striker says we have to cycle out the older stuff every so often. They all get stored in the command tower, in the vault.” ShadowHog closed the spigot as the mold filled up. He then reached for a pair of tongs and picked up the mold. He got up and placed the cooling metal onto the anvil.
Max stopped pulling the bellows and walked over to join him. The liquid iron quickly cooled into a solid, which ShadowHog promptly tipped out of the mold onto the surface of the anvil, and then dumped it into a bucket of water that spat and hissed as the hot metal sank.
ShadowHog reached into the water and pulled out the metal, which was still steaming, and placed it back on the anvil. “There we go, one ingot done. And you should have gotten some experience for that as well. Seems you were part of the process. I’ve found you level up Intuition a bit by smelting the metal.”
“Well, glad I could help, and get some levels as well.” Max looked back at the alcove. He wasn’t ready to stop looking around the workshop, or quizzing ShadowHog. “Do you want a hand with the rest of the ingots? While I’m here I might as well help you finish up if you only have a few more bars to make.”
ShadowHog beamed at him. “That would be great if you could! I’d appreciate the help and the conversation.” He looked past Murf. “We’re going to run out of charcoal soon, though. Wait here, I’m just going to run over to the storehouse and grab another load.”
“All right, I’ll be right here.” Max watched ShadowHog exit the forge and jog over toward the large building, before turning to the tools. “Okay, let’s see what we’ve got here.”
The small alcove felt like a larder, but instead of herbs and cheese, it housed minerals and forging equipment.
Max began picking over the crates on the floor. ShadowHog wasn’t kidding when he said that they had a surplus of raw ore. And it did seem that most of it was iron and copper, both native, but uncommon on Primeva. Copper was much easier to work with, but iron was much stronger, making good armor, and tools more durable than flint and obsidian, but not as sharp. He could see some saflyx, an ore harvested from a semi-rare cactus in Avarice, and one half-full barrel looked as though it housed agrylium, an incredibly lightweight material. Which Max was surprised to find here considering it was a fairly coveted metal only found in Aerium.
Nothing crazy, though, they were all valuable ores, but not super rare to come by. Many Crews found it cheaper to import refined metals across worlds to their base than to set up any sort of production on another world. Though in Max’s experience, Primeva was very rarely the first choice, or even second choice when it came to finding a location to set up such an industry.
He then turned his gaze up to the shelves, filled with clay pots. Max reached up and gingerly lifted one down, pulling the lid off to reveal coarse, white sand-like powder within. flux.
Max replaced the clay jar and grabbed the next one along the shelf, and then the next.
“Jesus.” Flux was rare for a reason on worlds like Primeva. It was supposed to be difficult to craft more advanced items such as metal, and as a result, it was an expensive process in this world, mostly due to the shortage of flux. Even with what they had stolen from Max’s Crew, and likely others, they must have either found a huge vein of the stuff or been spending huge amounts of coins on bringing it from off-world—the commission price of bringing flux to Primeva was extortionate.
He turned to another shelf and grabbed the nearest pot. Dragging it toward him, he popped the lid and stared down at the contents. It was over half full of black powder. Gunpowder. Not as rare as flux, but still difficult to get hold of in any large quantities. And it often had to be traded along with a payment for players on other worlds to turn into bullets.
It was useful to know that it was stored here, but there wasn’t any way he could do much damage with it—there wasn’t anything valuable enough to damage in the forge with a small explosion.
Aware that he didn’t have much time, Max moved to the back of the alcove, where the tools were hanging on racks. He grabbed a hammer off the wall and examined it more closely. The head had an elongated shape, and despite how big it was, the tool felt light in his hand. Turning it over, Max could just make out a shallow engraving around the bottom of the head.
“Enchanted?” Max whispered to himself. Mythia was the only world you could enchant items, and there was a lucrative trade in enchanting off-world items due to the difficulty in it. He stuck the tool back on the rack and stepped back out into the forge. Only a few moments later ShadowHog appeared in the doorway, a bucket filled with charcoal in each hand.
“This should do us for a few more ingots,” he said, hauling the buckets across the room and emptying them into the crate in the corner.
“Looks like it.” Max watched him intently, although his mind was buzzing with questions about what the Ravagers had stashed away, and how they had come by it.
Max watched his newfound friend unload the charcoal for a moment. “This might seem a bit random, but I’ve been thinking about something you said earlier.”
ShadowHog turned to look at him. “Uh...yeah?”
Max waved him off. “Yeah, nothing serious. It was just you mentioned shipments coming in. From off-world? I was just curious about that.”
ShadowHog straightened up, the smile back on his face. “Oh, yeah! Every so often, maybe every two or three months, the core group brings in a crate of supplies. They keep it all under tarps, and we’re not allowed too close, so we never really know what they’ve got, but I’ve caught a couple of glimpses, and I’ve seen robots.”
“Huh. That must be super expensive to bring through.”
ShadowHog nodded eagerly. “Sure. I mean, we sell a lot of stuff, but…” He lowered his voice, stepping toward Max. “Rumor has it, the Ravagers have a sponsor.”
Max raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” He tapped his nose. “Between you and me, it’s either got to be a bigger Crew, or maybe a company outside the game, trying to make money in Terra Verse.”
“Wow.” Max ran a hand through his hair. “I know I said I’d give you a hand with the rest of the iron...but I’ve just had something come up in real life, I’ve gotta go real quick. Catch you later.” Max dashed for the door.
“Uh, yeah, sure...bye?” ShadowHog stared after him for a second before returning to his work.
He did, after all, have a quota to fulfill.
Chapter Forty-Three
“Are you sure?” Sam asked, her face on the TV screen showing a concerned expression.
“Deadly.” Max took a swig of the orange juice on the table. “Just sitting in their workshop was more iron than we’ve ever brought home in one haul, and I think there’s even more in their storehouse. Gunpowder as well, copper, and apparently they get rare metals in fairly often, too.”
“And a gun turret?” Pez looked up from the pencil he was fiddling with, leaning back on the sofa.
Max nodded. “Oh, yeah. It’s not huge, but it’s going to do some damage to whatever we bring to the fight. They also have armor for some of their dinos, I’m not sure which, but if we attack fast and they don’t
see us coming, they won’t have a chance to put it on.”
“We’ve just tamed a Torosaurus, think pigmy Triceratops, but it’ll fit between the boulders and carry the battering ram no problem. I managed to track down a herd of them, so couldn’t we tame another one and make a big shield to fit over its crest as well?” The image of Chopsticks next to Sam suggested.
Max shook his head. “I don’t think we’d be able to make anything strong enough to take that amount of damage any time soon.”
Sam took a deep breath. “We’ll just have to push the plan back. We still don’t have an edge on them.”
“How long are we talking?” Pez looked up to the TV.
Sam held up her hands. “I don’t know. Another few weeks? A couple of months? Unless we can find a weakness, we’re going to just have to craft and tame until we can counter whatever they have.”
“You want me to keep this up for months?” Max asked.
“If that’s how long it takes, yes,” Sam said.
Max leaned back into the sofa, breathing out. “I don’t know if I can keep this up for that long.”
“Does anyone suspect you?” Chopsticks asked.
Max scratched his head. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Then there’s no reason to not keep going for now,” Sam sighed.
“My sanity?” Max placed his drink back on the table.
“And you’re sure there isn’t any sort of flaw in their defenses? Any way in?” Pez looked to Max.
Max scratched his chin. “Not that I can see. They’ve got two gates, so we could attack from two sides, but the trouble is that the second gate leads directly down to the river, so you’d struggle to bring anything around.”
Sam sighed. “Anything else? Can you get to where their weapons are?”
“I’m not sure where their weapons are stored. There might be some in the storehouse, but I wouldn’t be surprised if most of them are underground in their vault.”
“That’s so fishy,” Sam played with her hair while she thought. “The shipments, the underground store, the off-world items. Something’s got to be up. There’s no way they’re making that much money selling metals from Primeva. We’ve tried it, it’s just too expensive to do. Why wouldn’t they set up in Mythia, or somewhere they can turn a better profit?”
“You think they’re cheating?” Chopsticks asked incredulously. “How would they even do that? No one’s been able to find a cheat or an exploit in Terra Verse for years.”
“I’m with Chopsticks,” Max said. “ShadowHog said that he thought they were being sponsored by someone. Either from inside or outside Terra Verse. Remember what Indigo said about big businesses buying up the real estate in the Hubs? Maybe this has to do with that.”
Chopsticks snapped his fingers. “That would make sense. Perhaps...companies are buying out Crews to stamp down emerging Crews to thin out the competition. I don’t know about you, but it almost seems like they’re building an army.”
Pez held out his hands. “Whoa, whoa. Who’s Indigo? And how did this turn into conspiracy theories?”
“She’s a collector from Cerribue. She’s where Max got his scrap from,” Sam explained.
“All right, sure,” Pez said. “But companies, celebrities and whatever have been sponsoring Crews for ages. It’s not new or suspicious.”
“True,” Sam said. “But they’re almost always the bigger Crews, like the big Apex Crews. Why would anyone invest so much money on a second-rate bunch of hooligans to just keep buying toys from different worlds?”
“It could be to do with the event coming up?” Chopsticks suggested. “We’ve all seen the news, the forum posts, the rumors. And remember what Oswald said?”
“There’s an Oswald, too?” Pez shook his head.
“I still don’t think that warrants the amount of spending the Ravagers are doing.” Max rubbed his eyes. “Look, whatever they’ve got going on doesn’t matter. What matters is how we go about dealing with them where I don’t spend the rest of my life spying on them.”
Sam clicked a pen and began scribbling something down. “Here’s what I’m thinking. We’re going to need a bigger attack force. I’m talking more dinos.”
“Yes,” Chopsticks pumped his fist.
Sam continued writing as she spoke. “Chopsticks, I want you to make more of those exploding Snap Nuts, we’re starting to build our gunpowder back up now that we’ve expanded the saltpeter pit. The more packed full of gunpowder they are, the better. But that does mean that you’re going to have to grind out a load of materials because you already used what we had stockpiled.”
“Aw, man.” Chopsticks sighed before perking up. “Oh! I think I saw a Hesperosaurus roaming around in the plains the other day, might be worth a look? It’s bigger than a Kentrosaurus, with bigger spikes. It’s as close to a Stegosaurus we’re going to get without sourcing some Ephemeral Amica, which need I remind you we’ve never successfully harvested without being eaten by Troodons,” Chopsticks said.
Sam nodded. “Definitely. We need to go out and find some Utahraptors as well.”
“Do you know how rare they are around here?” Chopsticks said. “I’d probably be looking for days before I found one. The last one we spotted was when Max died in the backend of Cerribue.”
Pez grimaced. “All right, but what about more Deinonychus? And maybe we could find some flying dinos as well.”
Chopsticks nodded. “Remember how it went last time we tried to catch Pterosaurs? The only person I know who’s successfully tamed a flying dino is Jag, and even he managed to get it killed. We could pick up another Deinonychus or two, the trouble is that they’re just so expensive to keep.”
“The Ravagers seem to be managing them,” Pez folded his arms.
“The Ravagers also consistently have ten or more players online who can hunt for enough food,” Max butted in. “Instead, how about we get more herbivores, that herd of Stegoceras—the boneheads—should still be near the base. We could stack up on them because we can actually feed them, and while they’re not as good in combat as the raptors are, they’ll be a bit tankier. We don’t need them to wipe out the Ravagers’ raptors, we just need them to take the heat while we deal with the players. Once the bigger dinos—that Hesperosaurus, the Torosaurus, or even Abe and Lis—get inside, we’ll be good, but it’s just getting them there, and keeping the players occupied so that they’re not taking too many shots and being injured by the time they get inside.”
“I think we can manage that,” Chopsticks said. “We can snag herbivores a lot quicker, and they should be able to outlast their carnivores, especially if we can take care of their Carnotaurs, and that Majungatholus. On the topic of the raptors, I’m going to try to find some Tentor Polypores. If we can poison our arrows, we can do some real damage to any of their raptors.”
“Do we even have enough Amica and Shards?” Pez asked. “And isn’t training herbivores for combat really annoying to do?”
“I don’t think we’ve got enough right now,” Sam said. “We’ll have to make more chips, and we’ll have to go looking for more Amica. We’ve got some spare resources stockpiled, so we could probably trade for some as well. I’ll see if I can find more Amica, and maybe a quartz vein for Shards if we’re lucky. And yeah, it’s going to be a pain to get them ready for combat, but the beauty of herbivores is that they’re easy to feed, we can sit on them without having to go hunting all of the time. If you get a chance, make a list of what animals they have, and we’ll try to tame things that can counter them.”
Max rubbed his forehead again. “All right.”
“And Max,” Sam said, “keep doing what you’re doing, but you need to try and get into that command tower again. If they’re hiding an ace or two up their sleeves, we need to know and try to do something about it. Also, see if you can fuck with anything. I’m talking poisoned food, missing dinos, hell, even wet charcoal or something to just disrupt them a bit.”
“Not much then. I’ll try my best.�
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Sam gave him a half-smile. “All right, I’m going to head back into game and try to find some more obsidian before I do anything else. I’ll see you guys later.” She ended the video call, the image of Chopsticks’ desk now taking up the whole TV.
“She’s a born leader, that’s for sure.” Pez stretched his arms over his head.
“That’s one way to put it,” Chopsticks glanced over his shoulder. “Right, I’d better get to it, too. Seems I’m on grinding duty. I’m glad that our dinos are safe.” He reached to turn off the call. “Oh, and Max? You’re doing a great job, dude.” Chopsticks ended the call.
Max couldn’t help but smile at Chopsticks’ encouragement.
“Never thought that Chopsticks would be so reliable,” Pez chuckled. “But seriously, it’s been good to see everyone pull together. And he’s right, you are doing great, Max.”
Max looked over to his roommate with tired eyes. “Thanks, I do really appreciate it. It’s been a busy few weeks, especially with all the late nights trying to squeeze in-game time in between work. I just hope it’s all worth it.”
“Don’t worry, it will be.” With a groan, Pez pushed himself to his feet. “I’m going to go catch some sleep. Unlike Sam and Chopsticks, I’m done pulling all-nighters for now. You should get some rest, too.”
“Yeah, I will.” Max watched Pez as he left the room, his stare then returning to the coffee table in front of him.
Pez was right. It was good to see everyone getting along, working toward a common goal. And he was glad to have seen more of his friends, even if it was all for revenge. He just wished there wasn’t so much riding on his ability at espionage.
Max settled into the sofa and pulled his phone out of his pocket. Unlocking it brought him to the forum pages he had last been on. He quickly checked his messages, making sure that no one from the Ravagers had posted any new jobs that needed doing, or tried to get in touch with Max’s alternative account for Murf.
