It was the wasps’ nest, and it took up the top several floors of the tower directly below the control center.
My axe easily hacked through the material, and I pushed through to find myself in a small hexagonal chamber. More of the papery walls lined the sides of the compartment, and I followed the metallic floor plating to the far side of the chamber before I cut my way through it too.
I made it through three more chambers and had just started up the next flight of stairs when a massive black limb ripped through the wall and speared into my side. I managed to twist as the clawed leg hit me, but it still tore through my armored suit and into the flesh beneath. I cried out as I was flung aside from the impact.
The insect leg pulled back then stabbed through the wall at Talli, who had been on the stairs behind me. Fortunately, the gnome was already in motion, and the attack missed her.
Ipbar and Alryn leveled their arms toward the source of the attacks at the center of the tower and opened fire with their suit weapons. Their projectiles shredded the walls of the chamber and left it in tattered ruins that evaporated in flames as the beam weaponry punched through it. With the chamber walls nearly gone, we could all see the insect that turned within the heart of the tower and swung its clawed limbs down to swipe at us.
The huge wasp was easily twice the size of the previous wasps we had fought.
“It’s the queen of the hive,” I gasped through clenched teeth.
I pushed myself to my feet as the three gnomes dodged more attacks and poured fire into the wasp queen.
The weapons fire from the suits did damage, but not as effectively as it had against the other wasps. I opened up my Inventory and pulled out my hybrid rifle. I ignored the pain in my side as I brought the weapon to my shoulder. I lined up on the queen’s head and squeezed the trigger.
The hybrid rifle whined loudly in the enclosed area before it fired. The electric thunder of the weapon stunned all of us as the round punched into the side of the queen’s head. The impact knocked the queen from her perch, and she dropped almost a full level before her legs dug into the walls far enough to stop her sudden descent.
With her head now on our level, I aimed and fired the hybrid weapon at her again. This time, the round caught on the mandible and jolted the insect violently to the side as her head was twisted around.
The recovery from the attack was even slower. The queen’s head turned to face us gradually, and I saw that one side of the insect’s mandibles were completely sheared away. The queen lunged toward me with her maw gaping wide and lone mandible twitching. I fired the hybrid weapon once more. This time, the round blasted into the open mouthparts.
The queen was thrown backward and bounced off the far side of the hive chamber before she tumbled downward. The tower shook as the queen bounced off each landing before the body hit the ground far below.
I didn’t feel or hear anything after that, so I checked my notifications. I only had experience gained for the wasps and none for the queen.
“Are you all right, Hal?” Talli asked with concern over the comm.
“I’ll live.” I sighed. “The queen’s not dead yet though.”
“I can fix that!” Talli shouted.
The gnome vaulted over the inside rail of the stairs, and thrusters fired from the feet of her mech suit, keeping her hovering as she centered herself in the middle of the tower. She twisted her suit toward me so that I could see her face lit by the glow of the instrument panel inside the cockpit. Talli winked at me, then her thrusters cut out.
The armored suit dropped like a rock out of sight. A crash echoed up the tower a few seconds later, followed by an experience notification for the death of the wasp queen.
I stored my weapons then sank down onto the nearest step.
“Show-off,” Alryn grumbled as he looked over the railing toward the bottom of the tower.
“Are you still with us, Talli?” Ipbar asked.
“Yep,” Talli replied cheerfully over the comm. “Buuuut my suit is stuck in the roof of the first floor.”
Ipbar looked at Alryn, who sighed heavily.
“Yeah, yeah,” Alryn said. “I’ll go pry her loose. Again.”
Ipbar chuckled as he walked over to me, and a small nozzle popped from the arm of his suit. A mist emanated from the nozzle as he directed it over the gash in my side. The mist sank into my skin and instantly dulled the pain as my health rapidly climbed back upward.
“There you go,” said Ipbar. “I can’t do anything about your jumpsuit now, but we should have people with the skills to fix it up later once we can get some of our equipment set up.”
“Thanks.” I stood and stretched experimentally, pleasantly surprised to find the wound not stiff or sore in the slightest. I rubbed the hole in my jumpsuit and looked at the skin. The flesh was slightly red where the wound had been, but it was smooth to the touch and I felt no lingering pain. “That’s impressive stuff. What was it?”
“Healing potion,” replied Ipbar. “The suit has a potion reservoir that can be injected internally or applied externally to allies.”
“That sounds very useful,” I said. “It seems like having high-quality consumables like potions or other utility items improves survivability.”
Ipbar nodded. “A good alchemist is worth their weight in Credits.”
“Does your clan have an alchemist like that?”
Ipbar gave me a smug smile and an unconvincing shrug through the cockpit of his suit before he turned to look at the hive material that blocked our path up the stairs.
“That cannon you’ve got there is impressive too,” said Ipbar, intentionally changing the subject.
If he didn’t want to share the info, then there was probably a reason, and I had no cause to distrust these gnomes so far.
Ipbar swept his arm across the hall from one side to the other as he fired a beam rifle attached to the arm of the suit. The energy seared through the papery wall, and flames flickered along it, not quite catching fire.
“It’s saved my ass a few times already,” I said as Ipbar worked on the hive.
“Oh?” Ipbar replied.
“Ever heard of a jabberwock?” I asked.
“No way,” said the gnome. He stopped firing his energy weapon at the hive wall and turned back toward me. “That’s a story I have got to hear.”
I gave him the same smug look and shrug he’d used earlier. Ipbar clearly recognized the expression and glared at me in mock anger.
“How are you doing on charges for the beams?” I asked with my own subject change. “It might be better to save them for combat and just cut through the old-fashioned way.”
Ipbar sighed over the comm. “You’re right.”
He stepped back on the landing to give me room to work. I drew my axe from the holster at my back and hacked at the wall. The blade tore easily through the hive material in most places, but it took more effort to cut through the thicker areas where the combs sections intersected.
I managed to carve my way up two flights of stairs to the next landing before Alryn and Talli rejoined us. The legs of Talli’s suit were splashed with ichor nearly up to the waist, but the armor seemed otherwise undamaged.
There were no further incidents as I cut our way up to the bottom of the control center. The stairs led all the way up to an armored hatch in the center of the tower.
After a couple attempts at lifting the door, I let the gnomes work on the hatch with their energy beams. Alryn also had a small cutting saw that lowered from a boxy extrusion on one hand of his armor.
Eventually, the door gave way with a clang as it clattered to the bottom of the flight of stairs to rest on the landing below.
With the obstacle removed, I climbed up into the tower with the gnomes close behind. Only the mid-day light that streamed in through the angled windows allowed me to see clearly here, but there was no one in the control center, and all of the consoles sat dark. The windows gave a three-hundred-sixty-degree view of the airport and the surro
unding area.
“All right,” said Ipbar. “The tower is clear. We’ll head down and figure out where to head next.”
I looked out the windows for a moment and turned to Ipbar. “You should have a few people up here to keep an eye out for any problems.”
The gnome looked at me speculatively then nodded. “I’ll let Elder Borgym know about your suggestion.”
The gnomes led as we tramped back down the stairs of the tower. When we reached the bottom, we found that the other gnomes had been busy too. All the equipment from the runway had been brought over to the base of the tower.
Elder Borgym waited for us by the assembled crates and containers. “Great work on clearing the tower.”
He gestured toward the four of us and a quest update materialized for me.
Quest Update: Assist the Sprocketsworth clan with clearing the airport facilities.
PIT Air Traffic Control Tower cleared.
Rewards: 5,000 Credits and 2,000 XP. +100 reputation with Sprocketsworth clan.
“Thank you,” I said to Borgym while I acknowledged the prompt.
“It’s a good start,” replied the gnome. “We’d like to clear the office building next so that we can set it up as our clan headquarters.”
The three combat-suited gnomes followed me as we went back into the building. The building was only a couple stories tall and about a hundred feet square. We quickly swept through it and found nothing but empty offices.
When we returned to Borgym and reported the building clear, he provided another Quest update that gave me another thousand Credits and 500 XP. Clearly, my larger payout from the earlier update had been from the monster kills.
After we announced the building clear, a crowd of the gnomes streamed inside with all of their belongings in hand. The piles outside vanished quickly as many returned for multiple trips.
Next, Borgym directed our combat squad at some of the nearby hangars that had formerly belonged to American Airlines. It took several hours to make our way through each of the structures, though we only had two incidents with monsters.
The first was a giant hedgehog that had tunneled up through the cement floor of one hangar. The monster’s fur had mutated into spikes like a porcupine, and it shot the stingers across the hangar.
During that fight, I ran out of beam charges for my energy pistols. Since I didn’t want to get anywhere near the creature’s spikes, I ended up forced into using my projectile pistols. That left me low on ammo when we found a nest of giant, acid-spitting spiders in the last hangar. The gnomes were short on rounds too, and we ended up in a brutal melee with the swarm.
By the time it was done, my jumpsuit was in tatters and there were actual holes etched through all of the armor suits. Nobody had any serious injuries, but we had all been splattered with acid. The four of us dragged ourselves back to the tower HQ in sorry shape.
Borgym took one look at our ragged appearance and told us to call it a night.
The three gnomes popped the canopies of their armor and a ladder unrolled down the front of each suit. Then the gnomes dismounted by turning around and climbing out of the cockpits.
Each of the three gnomes wore black, skin-tight coveralls, and I couldn’t help but watch as Talli wiggled backward out of her armor. The knowing chuckle Borgym directed at me let me know that my observation hadn’t been as subtle as I hoped.
I gave the old gnome a shrug, much too tired to feel guilty.
Another gnome directed me inside and had me swap out the rags of my armored jumpsuit after they guided me to an open space inside an empty office. I pulled the bedroll from the adventuring pack in my Inventory and laid it out in the corner. I flopped onto the thin but surprisingly comfortable pad and promptly passed out.
Chapter 14
The bright morning light that streamed in through the office blinds dragged me from the depths of slumber.
I blinked at the sunlight, then yawned and stretched my arms as I sat up to find my jumpsuit folded next to my head, along with a large box of ammunition for my Luxor pistols. The room was empty beside me and my bedroll, so I quickly dressed in the freshly cleaned and repaired suit.
I stowed my bedding, then I went through all of my weapons to check that they were recharged or reloaded with the ammunition left for me. While I loaded rounds into the magazines for my pistols, I checked my notifications. Besides the usual experience gains for monster kills and quest updates, I found one that caught my interest.
You Have Entered a Safe Zone (Traffic Control Tower, Pittsburgh Sprocketsworth Starport)
Mana flows in this area are stabilized. No monster spawning will happen.
This Safe Space includes:
Air and Space Traffic Control Tower
Sprocketsworth Clan Headquarters
Apparently the gnomes had made it to the Shop and purchased the building at some point during the night. I wondered how many of the other cleared buildings the clan had also bought.
Quest Update: Assist the Sprocketsworth clan with clearing the airport facilities.
Multiple facilities cleared.
Rewards: 12,000 Credits and 5,000 XP. +200 reputation with Sprocketsworth clan.
That mostly answered my questions.
And that was a huge chunk of experience. If I could continue to prove my worth to these gnomes and continue to complete these Quests in the process, it would go a long way to getting me to the Levels I needed in order to face threats like the jabberwock and whatever forces had blown up the school.
I finished my preparations and headed to the door, which I cautiously opened. I found the hallway filled with gnomes that hurried past in either direction. I wandered out of the office and worked my way through the flow of traffic to get back outside. When I reached the main entrance, I found it had been rebuilt overnight.
A guard post now overlooked the foyer, and the doors were now extended into two sets of double doors. The chamber within the pair of doors was like an airlock.
From the windows that looked outside, I couldn’t see Borgym or any other gnomes outside, so I asked the guard who manned the post where I could find the Elder. The guard directed me to find the operations room on the second floor.
It didn’t take me long to find the room, but it was only when I peeked inside that I realized the building now had power. Tiered rows of consoles faced a wall covered in large video monitors. The layout reminded me of footage from NASA mission control, but most of the monitors were dark, and the chairs at the terminals were empty.
Along the top tier at the back of the room, Borgym sat at a console and gave orders to the few operators throughout the room. The gnome elder saw me and beckoned for me to join him.
I climbed up on the platform carefully. I could fit, but it had clearly been designed for the much smaller gnomes.
“Good morning, Adventurer Mason!” Borgym bellowed as I eased toward him, turned sideways to avoid bumping the console equipment while I stepped along the elevated tier.
“Good morning,” I replied. I never had been much of a morning person, but it always paid to be polite to your employer. “Thank you for the ammo and jumpsuit.”
“It was nothing,” Borgym said dismissively. “The least we could do for the help you provided to almost establish us as the first active starport on Earth.”
“Almost?” I asked.
“Well,” Borgym said hesitantly, “we have the traffic control tower, hangars, and support facilities.”
“I sense a ‘but’ at the end there,” I said.
Borgym sighed. “We own the terminal too. Technically.”
I raised an eyebrow, and Borgym’s expression grew dark for the first time since I’d met the cheery older gnome.
“It’s full of monsters,” he said. Worry creased his brow.
“So we clear it.” I shrugged. “Like the tower and hangars.”
“It’s not that simple,” he replied. “Buying a building from the System stabilizes the Mana in the location. When monste
rs infest the location as it is stabilized, those creatures become a part of that location. It’s almost like a Dungeon. If killed, the monsters will just respawn after a period. Normally, you’d pay for it to be fixed, but we don’t have the liquidity to do that.”
“That’s less than ideal,” I said. I hadn’t realized there was a downside to just purchasing a location.
“Right,” Borgym said. “Unless all of the monsters are killed and someone with a specialized Class Skill can adjust the Mana flows while the area is clear, then the monsters will just keep coming back.”
“Is that what happens in a Dungeon?” I asked.
Borgym nodded. “A Dungeon occurs in an area with high Mana density. That abundance of Mana allows the System to replace any slain monsters after a period of time. If the monsters aren’t slain periodically, then they absorb that ambient Mana and become far more powerful over time. If they’re left too long, then they can even create an Alpha monster or multiply exponentially.”
“So assuming we can take out the monsters in the terminal, do you have access to whatever skill is needed to stop the monsters from respawning?”
Borgym hesitated as if reluctant to divulge his reply. “The clan does have an Architect with the necessary Class Skill.”
“What’s the problem then?” I asked.
“We’re not Adventurers, Hal,” Borgym replied. “We’re a clan of Artisans.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand the distinction.”
“Artisans are crafters,” Borgym explained. “We build and create things. The System gives us experience for innovation and efficiency in our designs. While we can receive XP for monster killing, our Skills and Quests are almost exclusively focused on furthering our crafts. The more and better things we build, the further we advance in our Class.”
The elderly gnome waved in my direction as he continued. “Adventurers like you gain experience for destroying monsters and sentients that are a part of the System. There are whole Guilds devoted to that avenue of advancement, but it’s a path our clan has tried to avoid.”
Fist Full of Credits: A New Apocalyptic LitRPG Series (System Apocalypse - Relentless Book 1) Page 16
