by Jeff Sproul
With that, he popped the hatch on the vehicle and hopped out. Sadly, there was really no better place for him to put the vehicle. It'd just have to sit out in the open next to the wall of the facility.
There was a tiny indicator in his vision, a small white speck that he could use to identify where the vehicle was. He reached out and tapped the side panel on the outside of the vehicle. The hatch closed and the entire vehicle vanished from sight. Interestingly enough, Riley could hear the faintest droning sound, which had to be coming from the vehicle. Hopefully nobody would walk right by it. In fact, it was as if there was a lot of hoping going on for him right now.
He hoped that there weren't NPC monsters running around nearby, or within the facility.
He hoped that there were no players on their way to this location.
He hoped that he had enough resources and know-how to get the facility functioning.
He hoped that…well, this could go on all day.
He shook his head and mentally prepped himself. He turned to the wall and looked up at it. This close, he was able to at least partially see. Everything was still dark, but it was probably as good a time as any to use his goggles.
He gestured in mid-air and brought up his status screen again. He then tapped one of the side-tabs and brought up his inventory and gear. He dragged an icon that looked like a pair of goggles right over to his headgear loadout slot. A pair of black goggles quickly materialized over his eyes with a band around his head. Now, it was almost impossible to see, as the goggles weren’t powered yet.
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Daylight Vision Goggles
While powered and equipped, these goggles will provide the user with vision, as if their surroundings were lit by daylight.Must be powered. Takes 5 GUs of power every minute.
Alternate Function:
When triggered, the goggles can provide a Stealth Detection value of 10 at the cost of an additional 10 GUs a minute.
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His status screen was still somewhat visible. He dragged a battery from his inventory over to a gadget slot on his gear loadout.
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Deep Charge Battery
When equipped, provides up to 30 GUs of power every minute. Has a capacity of 10,000 GUs.
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The moment the battery went into the gadget slot, a small soda can-sized cylinder appeared on his belt. Simultaneously, the goggles lit up on the inside of the circular frames. The area illuminated immediately, allowing Riley to look around as if it were daylight, even though in reality, everything around him was still dark. At least now with the goggles and the power supply, he'd be able to see his surroundings without running into everything.
Next, he pulled an icon that looked like a pair of boots over to his loadout.
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Material Grip Treads
When powered and equipped, these boots allow the wearer to walk on any solid surface.Must be powered. Takes 10 GUs of power every minute.
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A pair of black boots with metallic soles appeared in place of the brown ones he'd been wearing.
He dispersed the inventory screen and walked over to the wall. But before he did anything further, he stopped and realized he'd forgotten one of the most important things. He quickly turned around and walked back to the rover and tapped the panel, which was still indicated in his visual interface.
The panel lit up and he pressed a button to pop the rear hatch. He walked to the back of the vehicle and pulled out a metal crate, about the size of a large backpack. The crate really wasn't great at helping him remain concealed. It had a small panel on the front side that faced him. In this regard, it worked a lot like the rover. He could access the interface and the items within. The metal crate had two straps that he could pull over his arms so he could even carry it much like a backpack, even if it was more cumbersome.
With the crate securely on his back, he closed the hatch and re-initialized the invisibility of the rover. Then, he returned to the wall. He lifted a foot and planted it flat to the wall's surface. He lifted his other and did the same. He had to strain only slightly to keep himself level with the wall, but in no time at all, he was walking up it as if it was the ground itself. His Power attribute affected how much he could carry and how easily he could move while carrying different amounts of weight. It wasn't exceptionally high, but the crate wasn't all that heavy. The main problem was scaling a wall with a bit of extra weight on his back.
Since the goggles were now on and powered, he took this time to glance around at his surroundings. There really wasn't much more that he could make out, even if he could see clearly now. There was still dirt everywhere, along with mountains and hills and…this facility. Still pretty bland overall, but at least now he could see its blandness rather crisply, along with anything that might try and kill him.
Step by step, he made his way up the wall. He hadn't thought to figure out how high it was, but if he had to guess, it was somewhere around four stories tall. It wouldn't take long to reach the top.
As he neared the zenith of the wall, he had to strain a bit more to lean up and grab the top edge. Luckily, it wasn't bladed or sharp or anything. Or electrified.
He wished he had some sort of item to help him grab onto things. Like some sort of magical hook that could shoot from his hands and latch onto objects so he could pull himself up to them. But alas, he did not.
He was planning on getting a pair of gloves to help him scale structures better. Or maybe even find another Ring of Expert Climbing, like he'd had before. But sadly, the ring had been broken down to its core components so that Aaron could take those components and add in some other more expensive ones to make the boots he was currently wearing. The boots allowed him to free up his hands a little, but also, they had higher stats than the ring. It also made his ring slot available for something else, such as a special effect.
The Hellions update had implemented a lot of recipes and crafting mechanics, but the Bastions update went even further. It added all sorts of methods for players to more creatively make the items they wanted to be using, if they could find the materials for them. Each item could be broken down into parts. Those parts could then be used in the crafting of a new item or sold off. It allowed players to get gear from hunting monsters, and if that gear was useless, they could just find a crafter to break it down and get its core parts to sell or exchange.
This fundamental change in the game had drastically shifted the game's economy. There had been a lot of junk items in circulation which had very low value unless you were a new player. But the items that you could get from breaking something down were dependent on your crafting capability. If Riley wanted to break something down, he technically could, but there would be a lot of wasted potential, since he didn't have any crafting skills.
Riley crouched on the top of the wall. It was the same height all the way around, but now he had a good view into the compound. He figured that on the opposite wall, the segments he'd seen allowed for some sort of gate function, if there were vehicles that needed to come into the facility.
Just as he'd seen from the outside and from the aerial view that Chrono had showed him, there were five structures. There was one in the exact center and one on each corner, with about a street's worth of space between. There were no indications as to what the buildings did. Even from his current view, they all looked the same, except that the center one was larger and more armored than the four buildings around it.
There was no movement as far as he could see. No monsters, no players. So far so good. He took a few minutes to just crouch there and look around, waiting to see if anything would happen or if anyone would pop out of any of the structures.
But all was silent. He couldn't even hear the soft drone of the rover anymore.
He reached up and flipped one of the small switches on the side of his goggles. A soft white glaze overlaid his vision. It didn't impede what he could see, it just added some extra brightness to things. But this allowed him to detect stealth,
and he was now able to see if there was anything cloaked around. Unfortunately, it also increased the amount of power the goggles used. Now, he was starting to loosely form a timetable that he needed to operate on, due to the fact that his battery wouldn't last forever. But a brief bit of math told him that he had plenty of time as long as everything went according to plan.
Well, he better get to work. He carefully oriented himself to the inner side of the wall and placed his feet carefully. It felt easier descending the wall than ascending it. He constantly felt as if he was going to fall forward, but thanks to the boots and the power source, he'd be fine.
He made it to the ground once more and headed straight for the nearest building. He wished that he had some sort of invisibility or cloaking item. Maybe he should grab something like a cloak of concealment some time, or something a bit more powerful. He'd have to talk to Aaron and Chrono and see what their thoughts were. Aaron knew a lot about crafting and could whip up all sorts of things with the right components. But Chrono had gone out on his own and built an entire lair from scratch, the size of which some small clans would've been happy to have. So Chrono had a lot of knowledge about the hellion side of the game's crafting, while Aaron knew what the paragon's side had. So far, Riley hadn't dabbled all that much in hellion items, except for their alliance base. Which was nothing but hellion architecture.
The ground within this outpost was dirt, just like the outside. So how far down did the wall go? Could he dig beneath it? He hadn't seen any noticeable tunnels, but then again, he hadn't been looking. He should probably go for a walk around the inside perimeter, but how much time did he really have? Should he be in a hurry? Could he take his time? Was there potentially another player, or group of players, on their way right now?
He pulled himself from the notion and pushed forward. He couldn't think too much about it now. He had a job to do.
The items he was equipped with had cut into his savings. But he figured that if he was going to do well in Bastions, then he was going to need whatever advantages he could afford. He just wasn't going to have much of a financial buffer for a few months.
With careful steps, he reached the first of the outer buildings. There was a door on the outside, which had one of the universal data-pad-like interfaces that everything new in the game tended to possess.
He walked up to it and pressed a finger to a green button and watched as the door slid open.
Chapter 2: Outpost
With his dark vision, he was able to see clearly as he peeked around. The bottom floor looked to be some sort of control room, the type of room that players would go to in order to interface with the building. There were four terminals in the center as well as wiring, pipes, and metal crates. A bunch of what looked to be useless decor which served no actual purpose, other than to make the room look more techy.
He made an extra effort to double-check areas he'd already looked, just in case something was standing still and waiting for him. Just because he had 'detect stealth' didn't mean that something else didn't have an even stronger stealth ability.
Despite his desire to make sure that nothing was lurking in the shadows, he still made his way quickly over to the terminals at the center of the room. Once he reached them, he quickly glanced around to see if any of them looked any more important than the others. But they all looked the same.
Riley pulled his backpack-crate off his shoulders and set it on the floor beside one of the terminals. With a quick tap, he opened the crate with a 5-digit pin code, which happened to be 1-2-3-4-5. Very original. He'd thought of it.
He opened the crate up and started to delve inside. There were all sorts of items within. Each was neatly packed and oriented to maximize the space of the container, which he was now making a mess of. A few poryte crystals, some baz rods. There were five pistol-sized firearms and fifteen battery-sized power cells, among other things.
He didn't need any of the firearms himself, but the troops he would hopefully make would need a weapon of some sort. He couldn't rely on the base having the schematics for anything cheap, efficient, or powerful.
It was also just as likely that the installation could have one of the best schematics for firearms in the entire game. There was no way of knowing.
Well, actually there was. He was about to find out.
He pulled one of the baz rods from the crate and slid it into a circular slot on the terminal. The terminal was made up of a cube-like foundation, with a monitor on top. There was an outcropped display at arm level.
The display lit up, as did the monitor on top. The monitor ran a bunch of words up the screen.
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Outpost: 'Dismal Wastelands Outpost'
Mode: Dormant
Power: Manual Power
Privileges: N/A
Defenses: N/A
Surveillance: N/A
Command Module: Offline
Printer: Accessible
Printer Power: Requires power source
Local Storage: Empty
Base Storage: Inaccessible
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Riley scanned the words. It looked like a simple preliminary readout, letting him know that the system was in a dormant status, which he’d already figured from the look of everything. The power was going to be manual only, which was the baz rod he'd inserted. If the system had been powered, the terminal would've already been on, most likely. Or at least, it would show 'Base Power' as the source.
Riley pondered what 'N/A' was referring to for Privileges. Obviously, the 'N/A' meant 'Not available.' Or 'Not applicable.' But did that mean the owner was killed? Or that they relinquished rights to the base to cut their losses? Or, did something happen to the command module in the center building? He'd heard that if monsters got inside, they'd slowly (depending on their AI) work their way to the command core and damage it so that it would relinquish the privileges to a 'N/A' status. Meaning that if you weren't protecting your base, you could lose it to local monsters. Which may or may not still be around, once the base was taken offline.
Riley wished there was some way of knowing what had happened to the installation so that he knew how best to approach things.
Defenses looked to be inoperable, or depleted. There probably weren't any to speak of.
If surveillance was 'N/A' then it was unlikely that the system had any footage for him to check. Chrono had apparently been able to record footage of when he and the others had attacked and destroyed his base back toward the early days of the Hellions expansion. He wasn't sure how he'd done it, but that was a pre-Bastions hellion lair, and not a Bastions hero-centric outpost.
He'd do his best to look for surveillance footage, but he suspected there wouldn't be any.
Next was the Command Module. It was set to offline. Which was…maybe a good sign? He wasn't sure if there was a 'destroyed' or 'damaged' status or not. If there was no command module at all, then his job was going to be problematic. Especially if there were eventually going to be hostiles in the area.
The printer was accessible, which was a good sign. It looked like he was going to need another power source for it, though.
Local storage was empty, which he figured it might be. If this structure was the extractor, or just storage, it might have something available to him resource-wise. But the whole structure was some kind of printer. Which was interesting, since Aaron and Chrono made it sound as though a hero-centric printer would be smaller, like the size of a car.
Base storage was inaccessible, which made sense since the power was off. He speculated that some of the tubes he saw going into the floor linked up with other buildings and ran underground. Even if no physical items were sent in the game, it was a signifier that it would link up and be able to transport items between buildings.
Riley tapped an icon on the interface that said 'printer.' Upon doing so, the text on the screen changed and read:
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Printer unavailable.
Printer requires a power source.
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He walked over to the crate that he'd brought and pulled out another rod. Then, he started looking around. The place kind of looked like a bit of a mess. But he supposed that was sort of the appeal that the design was going for. He spotted vents and grates in the floor and ceiling. There was a decent amount of room to walk around in. It was entirely open, from wall to wall, but it was filled with a ton of junk.
But now, inspecting all of this junk had become his job.
He went to one of the closest walls and walked the length of all four of them.
He wished he had someone there to talk to. But there was no reason to call Aaron or Chrono unnecessarily.
It was nerve-wracking, since he had no idea if or when something might come out and attack him.
Something glinted in the corner of his eye. He glanced over in the direction of it. He thought that maybe it was just going to be some other useless crate or useless decor. But what he saw put him on edge. He froze.
About twenty feet away was a gold ring lying on the floor.
He stared at it, noticing that there was a loose metal panel beside it. He stared for a few seconds, then looked down at his feet. The floor was made up of one foot by one foot, square metal panels. Which meant that there were quite a few of them in a room of this size.
Figuring that nothing was going to come out and attack him, since nothing had already, he slowly walked over toward the ring. He remained ever vigilant as he looked around, keeping a close eye on small corners. There was no real space for something to hide that was his height or larger. But he was thinking about all sorts of tiny monsters that could be lurking.
He reached the simple gold ring and crouched to pick it up. Once his fingers touched it, a small screen appeared, showing him the item’s stats.
