Congratulations! Your Combat Units have defeated Ombre Jaguar! You gain 100 experience!
Experience: 1775/3000
Congratulations!
You have acquired the skill: Overdrive (Level 1)
Although it may have looked as if you slowed-down time, you are in fact speeding up your own perception of time. This skill allows you to assess the battlefield to quickly create a defensive strategy while safely hiding behind “time”. This affect lasts for up to 30 seconds, is usable once a battle, and can be cancelled before the time limit is reached. Additionally, until your Processing Speed/Agility is repaired, you will be unable to directly order your units until after the battle is complete – they will still follow all previously given orders, however. Upgraded levels in Overdrive will increase the time limit, allow for multiple uses, and provide additional bonuses to units.
Time limit at current level: 30 seconds
Use limit at current level: Once per battle
Congratulations!
You have upgraded the skill: Cooperation (Level 2)
Although they might be natural enemies, the Combat Units you currently control work together to defeat a common enemy. By utilizing units with predator/prey distinctions, you force a sense of cooperation found nowhere else on this world.
Bonus at current skill level: 10% increased defense for Combat Units participating in a battle beside a natural enemy
Phew! That was an intense battle – but the rewards are awesome! The ability to “freeze time” was game-changing – he just needed to remember when he used it that he couldn’t issue orders afterwards. That’s just great – yet another stat I need fixed before I can operate properly! He knew he still had a long way to go, but he was making progress at least.
He wanted the Jaguar for “cloning” purposes, so he instructed Frank to start dragging the body back to his core so that he could convert it in his shell. Knowing it would take a while, he left his party to check on the rest of his units, leaving Lolly and Jack orders to keep watch and to alert him if anything attacked. With that taken care of, he went to check on the situation around his home base, to which he found everything in good order. And then he went back to waiting.
Chapter 20 – Quick lizards
About twelve hours ago his party had arrived back at his territory (which he considered as everything his drones could currently reach), where he had drones waiting to bring the Ombre Jaguar corpse the rest of the way to his shell. After giving them a well-deserved rest and time to feed themselves, he excitedly joined them again as they made their way heading East this time.
Riding a small high from the success of his party, he was nevertheless a little disappointed that he wasn’t going to be able to create his own Ombre Jaguar anytime soon.[21] Although he could theoretically afford it at 500 Bio Units – if he were to get rid of some of his other Combat Units – he still wouldn’t be able create it in his shell-based Molecular Converter. Along with the Scaly Bear, he needed a Bioconversion Lab before he could convert anything over 300 Bio Units. I really need to have a talk with ALANNA about these different facilities and how much they’re going to cost. He resolved to talk with her after he finished his exploration quest – that way he could hunker down and concentrate on building without being distracted.
Before his party left for the East, he made some minor changes to the harness that would help Lolly and Jack feel a little more secure while they bounced along with Frank. As usual, Milton followed along with them, firmly entrenched in Jack’s mind as he watched them speed through the undergrowth surrounding the trees. He was pleased to see that the small changes he made allowed Lolly to curl her body around another protrusion in the harness instead of flapping along, hanging on for dear life. In addition, the contoured seat for Jack kept him firmly in place, allowing a freedom of movement when needed but also a sense of security when Frank turned abruptly.
As for Frank, he just loved to run. From what he could tell from his previous Greywieners, as long as he could run freely then he was happy. Everything else that he had to do – from battles to exploration – was more of a nuisance than a difficulty. That suited Milton fine, since that was what he wanted him for anyway.
Trees. More trees. And then some more trees. Just like the other times his units had ventured out from his Core, there wasn’t much out in the surrounding countryside other than a proliferation of trees. He was beginning to suspect that something might have happened upon his landing in this section of the forest – seeing as there weren’t many hostile creatures within a mile of his Core. It seemed as if it was only when he ventured past a certain point that he began to encounter dangerous creatures. Personally, for Milton, he was glad that he hadn’t had to fight off all these different animals as soon as he arrived. Logically, however, he thought that it was strange; it was as if there was a reason there was nothing much around. Hmm…I wonder how long I was here on this planet before I “woke up”? Yet another thing to ask ALANNA about when I have the time.
Putting aside those questions for another day, he brought his attention back to his party just in time to see a break in the trees ahead. Practically on the edge-of-his-seat in anticipation, he anxiously awaited as Frank put on speed to reach the edge of the forest – apparently, Milton wasn’t the only one who was tired of dodging around all the trees on his run.
The trees gradually lessened until they began to look sporadic in their placement, the thinning of the edge of the forest evident by the increased sunlight streaming through. As they were passing the last few small trees, they burst out onto a very small valley about 200 feet across, with a small stream about 5 feet wide meandering its way through the middle of it. On the other side of the valley, a short mountain range ran across his view, spanning from horizon to horizon from North to South. Instead of huge snowcapped mountains he would’ve expected from a range like this, these were only about 1000 feet tall – not quite tall enough to be covered in snow, at least not at this time of year. Jagged peaks they were not; the tops of these mountains looked as though they had been smoothed-over, as if the passage of time had worn away the edges.
Near the base of the range, massive cave entrances were pockmarked throughout the exterior, each about 500 feet away from each other. The regularity of openings was curious, leading Milton to the conclusion that they were not natural. He directed his party to cautiously explore the outside of the nearest cave, crossing the small stream with little effort. As they approached the entrance, Milton changed his mind about it being unnatural, because he saw no evidence that any claw or tooth had created the 50-foot opening. Still, their consistent placement had him on edge; his party was nervous as well.
Not one to go home empty-handed on some vague feelings of discomfort, he instructed Frank to enter the cave, his claws clacking loudly against the stone floor and lightly echoing in the large open space. He didn’t have to worry about light yet, fortunately, because there was plenty of it streaming in through the entrance. About 150 feet inside the cave, the tunnel they were walking down started to narrow drastically until it was similar in size to his own. After another 50 feet, the light began fading as the path they were following drifted off to the right, blocking easy access to the sunlight. Just as he was about to turn his instinctively-slowing party around due to the complete darkness, they saw a deep-green glow coming from around a corner a short distance ahead.
Milton switched his perspective from Jack to Frank, so that he could see for himself what lay ahead. Now walking as slowly and quietly as possible, Frank inched his way forward, sticking his head around the corner when he was close enough. To Milton’s surprise, instead of anything dangerous there instead was slowly-pulsing, glowing green streaks of rock running through the walls of the tunnel ahead, bathing the pathway ahead in more than enough light to see. I wonder what that is? I’ve never seen anything like this and even my knowledge of Geology, though admittedly incomplete, has no answers either. I should probably go ask ALANNA about th—.
Further down the tunnel, Milton saw a change in the rock surrounding the party. The green glowing streaks were slowly replaced by walls full of sedimentary rock, with dark layers prevalent within them. Excited at potentially finding another source of metal, he temporarily ignored the temperament of his party members as they reacted to something close by. When he finally paid attention, it was too late – they were surrounded on both sides.
Standing above 6 feet, the five giant lizards stood silently watching them from 30 feet away – three in front and two behind. They were the size of very large walruses, long frills on top of their heads with a skin flap standing erect and flowing down the center of their backs. Their skin appeared tough, almost as if it was made of the same material as the tunnel walls. They looked green – at least by the pulsing green light inside the tunnel – but they could have been any dark color. He’d have to see them in the light of day to know for sure, which when he looked at them he didn’t want to ever do.
With what he took as hostile expressions on their faces, Milton considered his chances of escaping alive to be slim-to-none. Before they could attack, he consciously activated his Overdrive skill, slowing down time to a crawl. He gave quick orders to Frank, causing the frightened unit to jump into action – racing toward the gap between the two lizards guarding the exit. As time started slowly moving faster and faster as the skill effect was expiring, he was hoping that the speed of his Greywiener was enough to get past their massive opponents.
It appeared that the lizards were slow to react as Frank shot for the gap without any opposing movements. As soon as he got within a couple of feet, however, the lizard on the right moved so quickly that he barely saw the massive maw of the creature before it caught them all up in one scoop, swallowing them alive without even chewing. Milton cut the connection as he started to experience the pain and panic of his party, his recent vow to stop connecting too deep with them forgotten with his excitement over his discoveries.
Holy crap! That lizard was way too fast for its size. Frank didn’t even have a chance. If they were able to out-speed a greyhound – how fast can they really move? He had been thinking of them as just large, slow giant lizards but now with their lightning-fast strikes, he thought of them more as quick lizards, or Quizards. Milton took a couple of minutes to compose himself after such a devastating setback, especially since his party may have found something useful in those caves. With that thought, he turned his attention to ALANNA, intending to ask her about the glowing green streaks he had found in the mountain range.
“Hey, ALANNA, what do you know about—”, he started before he was rudely interrupted by one of his squirrel scouts. “Hold on a second, I have to check something out. It’s probably nothing, but just in case I better go look.” The squirrel who had contacted him was one of new ones that he had sent East and it had ventured a bit further out from his Core compared to the others. With impatience, he connected to mind of his scout, expecting it to be another false alarm. He had received a few of them now that he had a bigger scouting force – which was understandable since they covered more territory – but it was a little annoying to be called away from what he was doing when a random Scaly Bear wandered past the tree the squirrel was hiding in.
ALANNA was still waiting for him with thinly-veiled impatience when Milton returned after a very quick look through the eyes of his Eastern squirrel, yelling, “Crap! Not a false alarm! We have incoming and I’m really worried this time.” He quickly recapped what he had found and what had happened to his party, briefly detailing the Quizards that had decimated Frank and the others.
“How long until they get here?” ALANNA asked, appearing concerned but not as worried as Milton felt.
“Within minutes – I barely even saw them as they disappeared from my scouts’ sight, heading here in a direct path following the trail Frank must have left as he passed by. They are so fast, I’m not sure I can stop them.”
“Hey! Stop talking that shit! I have faith in you, so have some fucking faith in yourself! You can do this – your defenses are all set up to kill motherfuckers like this. And, of course, you have me – what else could you need?” She looked expectantly at him, as if waiting for him to acknowledge her greatness.
“Wait – what do you mean by that? Can you help defend my Core? If so, what can you do?”
“Hold up, I didn’t say that. Although it’s true that I do have some defensive capabilities, they are only allowed for use in self-defense. If anything attacks little ol’ me, I will fuck it up, but only if it targets me. With your ‘leakage’ problem, however, I’m likely to be perpetually ignored until you get that shit fixed,” she chuckled. Milton wasn’t sure if she chose to make light of the situation because she wanted to relieve a little tension with the upcoming attacks, or if she really didn’t think it was a big deal.
As he was talking to her, in the back of his mind he had been recalling and setting up his above-ground army just in front of his entrance. Using a slightly different strategy than before, he had his Lollipop snakes curl themselves around the necks of his Jackalopes. Along with his group of Pygmy Wolves, they gathered in front of the entrance instead of off to the side. His thought was that the Jackalopes could rush the Quizards and deliver the snakes at the same time, taking advantage of the rabbits’ speed to place the mouthy snakes in vulnerable spots on the giant lizards. His Pygmy Wolves would gang up on the first lizards that came close, using their swarm tactics to inflict damage and slow down the enemy.
As far as plans went, it was fairly simplistic – but he didn’t have time to set up anything better. As Milton made sure his drones were in place in the Core Room, his traps were all prepared as much as possible, and his Clawed Badger was near his shell as backup, he watched through one of his above-ground sensors as five giant Quizards broke through the trees and raced for his dungeon without stopping.
Chapter 21 – You got this
If he hadn’t seen their legs moving rapidly over the ground, he would have thought that the giant lizards barreling through the clearing could fly – they were moving that fast. Within seconds, they had traveled the length of a football field and collided with his army without hesitation. Now that he could see them closer – and with sunlight to boot – he could see that they were a mixture of brown-and-green mottled coloring, their formally upright frills on their head and backs tight against their bodies as they traveled. As his Jackalopes sped along the ground on an impact course, Milton was hopeful that they could inflict some damage on potentially vulnerable areas; their eyes, noses, and necks.
His hopes were dashed as the Jackalopes reached the lead lizard without retaliation, using their powerful hind legs to jump at the last moment to reach its neck. The accompanied snakes sprung off the heads of the antlered rabbits, flinging themselves upwards aiming for eyes and noses. The Quizard didn’t react until the last moment, ignoring the Jackalopes and snatching six of his snakes up in its mouth with a quick sweep of its jaw. Four of the snakes made it through – two landed on and bit its nose, and the other two reached the same eye, biting down and attaching themselves to an eyeball larger than their heads.
The Jackalopes fared quite a bit worse than their partners – upon impact with the lead Quizards’ neck, eight of them kamikaze’d and snapped their necks, rebounding from the thick skin and drawing a very small amount of blood. The other two impacted but didn’t do any damage, instead falling to the ground with stunned expressions on their cute bunny faces.
Loudly hissing in pain, the lead Quizard stomped in frustrat
ion at the snakes on its face, inadvertently squashing the stunned Jackalopes on the ground. Slamming its face on the ground, the giant lizard squashed and scraped the offending reptiles from it vulnerable nose and eye. Their mangled bodies joined the dead Jackalopes on the ground, just as his Pygmy Wolves arrived late to the party.
Since the Quizard still had its head down, and with a damaged and bleeding eye, the wolves took advantage and jumped using all six of their feet, landing on the back of the giant lizard. Biting and scratching at the thinner skin along its frills, Milton watched as they did some damage and caused it to hiss loudly in pain again. The Quizard, again frustrated at something it couldn’t reach with its hands, rolled to the side again and again in some sort of death roll, smearing his adorable purple wolves along the ground in bloody red streaks of wolf parts.
While this was all going down, the other Quizards ignored their comrade and rushed past the embattled giant lizard. They were moving so quickly down the tunnel that Milton had to rapidly switch his perspective from different sensor orbs to keep up. He thought that they were moving even faster now that they were close to their destination, but it was hard to tell without some sort of reference point.
In fact, he was worried that they were moving so fast that they wouldn’t trigger the pit trap in time. His fears were allayed when the first Quizard – who had a small lead on the others – ran over the tilting cover and slid down the angled platform onto the spikes below. In addition to the hiss of expelled breath and a painful-sounding wheeze, Milton could hear stone cracking, which meant that if he made it through this attack he had some repairs to perform.
The other lizards slid to a stop before the trap, the second one in line almost skidding into the new lead Quizard, narrowly missing knocking it into the pit. For the first time, the giant reptiles stood frozen as they watched the cover tilt back up into place, ready for the next creature to dare crossing. Temporarily stymied by the surprise obstacle, Milton was sure that he had a fool-proof trap in place – they couldn’t cross along the sides because they were too narrow, and they were too heavy to make it across normally.
The Station Core: A Dungeon Core Epic (Station Cores Book 1) Page 15
