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(BUS)Chapter 48: Grunt work
🕑 Added 2024-12-14 17:27:03 +0000 UTCBaha contacted us as well "Hey, strangers! If you're still alive, I've got some more work for you! Come see me and I'll fill you in." he said over the echo.
"Split up?" I asked and everyone nodded in agreement so I continued "Alright so who's going where? I want to see what Baha's got for us personally." I said with a shrug.
"I want to see what's up with the catch-a-ride, might be important later." Roland said.
"I'm with you on seeing what T.K has for us." Lilith said with a shrug.
"Which one let's me punch something?" Brick asked.
"No idea, both probably though I'd say Baha likely has the best chance of it." I said honestly after some thought.
"I'll do that then." Brick said and Mordy just shrugged and walked over to Roland letting us know his choice.
With our choice made up Lilith, Brick and I headed over to Baha's place while Roland and Mordy went to check out the catch-a-ride. Like before Baha was sitting on his porch and had a yellow exclamation mark over his head to signal he had a quest.
"Always nice to have company out here friends. Not many visitors since my wife passed away. Anyways I've got a few jobs that someone of your talents could handle. First up I need you folks to get my leg back from the Skag that ate both my original and prosthetic, named him Scar. I stabbed it through the eye so you'll know when you see it and if you kill him while you're at it, I got a special gift for you! Second livings tough out here and if i'm going to survive the winter I'll need to plant my crops soon. Used to get bladeflower seeds from the caves in Skag gully before I sealed it up back when I hunted Skags. Their vomit must make for amazing fertilizer. Blasted smelly piss mongers apparently are good for something. If you're willing to risk your life and personal hygiene to give a blind man a hand I'll reward you!" he said seriously.
I looked at my companions and they both nodded.
"Alright we're in for both tasks. Be back for those payments later." I said and Baha grinned.
"Happy hunting!" he said.
"Dibs on Scar!" Brick said immediately and I just shrugged.
"I don't mind grabbing the seeds while you kill the big Skag, just bring me the body for my powers." I said and he grinned.
With that settled we set off for Skag gully killing the Skags that some fucking how reappeared despite us murderizing them good hours ago, fucking hours! When Zed said there was an abundance of the damn things I didn't think it would be so bad that they'd repopulate an area we cleared out entirely in a matter of hours. I was almost willing to say they were WORSE than Ratch somehow with how ridiculously invasive they were.-
At least if you killed off a Ratch nest good and properly the things at least took a while to repopulate a spot if ever depending on if another member of the species found the empty nest or not. The only good point with Skags over Ratch was that they were too damn big to hitch a ride on a ship without being spotted. Thanks to this Pandora was the only place with the things and from what I can tell that's a very good thing. Skag gully was no fucking different either as all those dens we cleared out hours ago were full again with new residents.-
"Hey Lilith look a new quest!" I said pointing at the abandoned echo sitting on a camping cot excitedly. When I saw what it was though I grimaced "It's another fetch quest, you wanna take this and we'll meet up here in about an hour or two?" I asked and she nodded.
"I'll find you after I'm done." she said with a smirk before vanishing as she used her powers.
"You want her to show us up? Let's move it!" I said and Brick and I ran into the gully full bore.
We killed off the Skags once again in the first part of the area earning me a neat 11,630 units of lifeforce before we split up at the part of the area that started heading to the caves and area Scar was according to Baha. I noticed that the Skags started to get bigger once I got close to the caves collecting three bunches of bladeflower seeds already.-
'Looks like these caves are the main hub for the Skags in this area or at the very least the place with the oldest ones.' I noted mentally after dropping my sixth person sized Skag since I got here.
The traits were the same in all the Skags so far even though there seemed to be a variant that spat out corrosive stomach acid to attack. For these ones the armored spikes on their backs were longer than the others and they had a slightly green tinge to them but oddly their traits were no different than the others. The bigger the Skags were the more lifeforce I got though as each one was worth about as much as a person at around 1,000 units. Just reaching the caves netted me a cool 21,921 units since the area was popping with activity.-
I was much more interested in the caves once I got to them though as there I saw these glowing blueish cyan crystals in large clumps all over the area. I wasn't sure what they were or what they could be used for so I found some that were loose enough and pried them off the walls and put them in my inventory to check out later. They hummed with energy in my hands so I had a good feeling about the stuff. Considering what I've seen so far it wouldn't surprise me to learn they were worth a fortune but the locals didn't know and so ignored them.-
Surprisingly I found a red chest hidden in the caves that judging from the weeds overgrown around it had either been forgotten or whose owner had been killed. Whatever the case I killed the Skags next to it and kicked it open easily. I sighed when I saw it only held a couple common quality pistols in it along with some ammo. Lilith showed up next to me in a flash of light at this point.
"Sup." she said with a cocky smirk.
"Just found this chest here, nothing worth keeping for my armory. I take it you've finished up your side of things?" I asked not bothered by her sudden appearance since I had sorta expected it at some point.
"Yeah, I'm awesome like that." she bragged.
I rolled my eyes "Yeah and I'm sure you totally didn't use your powers to Phasewalk the whole way." I said sarcastically.
"You got me, but everything's just so weak here!" she complained.
"Can't say you're wrong, though not everyone is as badass as us." I said with a grin and she agreed.
We went through the caves collecting the remaining bunches of bladeflower seeds while murderizing everything that moved. I couldn't help but notice that while certainly not on the same level as me Lilith was not bad at all with those guns of hers. To be fair though I had traits and serious sim training behind my skills while she just had what she already knew before getting to Pandora. Add on her powers that let her travel through another dimension and thus effectively teleport and she was quite a force to be reckoned with.-
"You know you aren't using your powers to their fullest right?" I asked curiously after seeing the way she used them.
"How would you know if I was or wasn't?" she asked slightly offended as we walked.
"I have a record of how one of the previous holders of the powers used it and your use looks like a pale imitation by comparison. Here take a look for yourself." I said taking out my echo and pulling up one of the digital copies of the information I made when I was on Athenas.
She didn't look offended anymore but more suspicious like she found it hard to believe I had knowledge on her powers that even she didn't. I found her attitude amusing as Maya was no different when she learnt about it but proof was proof and she could only read it and weep. -
"This! This is incredible! Where did you get this!?" she asked excitedly after getting past her shock.
"Like I said when I was telling my story I went to Athenas in hope of finding information on sirens and succeeded. That's only part of what I have in total." I said as I took my echo back.
"You HAVE to send me a copy of that stuff! I've been using my powers so roughly if that is to be believed but with a guide..." she said and I nodded in understanding.
The stuff written about the [Phasewalk] power was like all the other siren powers, busted when used to it's limit. I'm talking teleporting huge amounts of material all at once and basically being an incarnation of fire itself. This meant innate immunity to burning and massive amounts of elemental generation on top of being pretty much untouchable since you know teleportation. Lilith's current use of the power was lackluster by comparison as she couldn't ACTUALLY teleport but rather went into a separate dimension that made each of her steps count as five outside of it.-
Certainly still useful but nowhere close to what the records showed she was capable of. Anyways I promised to give her a copy of the stuff I had on her powers and we headed back to the entrance of the gully to meet up with Brick. We found him sitting on the biggest Skag I've seen so far that was the size of a cow and oddly enough had a whole ass kitchen knife sticking through half it's face.-
"Did Baha actually try to use a fucking kitchen knife to kill this thing? Respect, that's hardcore!" I said genuinely impressed.
"Wasn't even a good warm up, kinda boring to be honest." Brick said not sharing my opinion.
"Ah but that's the thing my massive muscly mate, Baha is a twig of a man so that is pretty damn impressive." I said with a grin and he thought about it for a moment before grudgingly nodded in agreement.
_______________________________________________
Alexander Drake
Lifeforce: 234,956
Integrated Traits: [Gun expertise-Uncommon grade], [Clever mind-Rare grade],[Enhanced senses-Epic grade]X2, [Omega body-Rare grade]x4, [Supreme armored hide-Epic grade]X2, [Bone regeneration-Uncommon grade], [Corrosion resistance-Uncommon grade], [Energy projection-Epic grade]x2, [Superior vitality-Epic grade],[Flame breath-Uncommon grade],[Regeneration-Epic grade], [Disease resistance-Epic grade],[Amphibious lungs-Uncommon grade], [Thermal sensing-Uncommon grade], [Water resistance-Common grade],[Active camouflage-Epic grade], [Eridian engineering expertise-Mythical grade], [Quick thinking], [Efficient lungs-Rare grade]x2, [Fire resistance-Epic grade], [Elemental body(fire)-Legendary grade], [Shock resistance-Epic grade]X3, [Energetic sustenance(shock)-Epic grade]X2, [Radiation resistance-Epic grade]X3, [Energetic sustenance(radiation)-Epic grade]X2, [True omnivore-Rare grade], [Biometallic bones-Epic grade],[Elemental body(shock)-Rare grade]X2,[Quick thinking-Rare grade], [Hyperflexibility-Rare grade], [Strong circulation-Epic grade], [Minor spatial awareness-Epic grade], [Buzzaxe expertise-Uncommon grade], [Siren(Phaselock)(Altered)-Mythical grade]
Stored traits:
Comments
BillyJJ
Honestly our man seems like the type to make “having a harem of all 6 hot siren girls” his life goal, idk why he hasn’t flirted with Lilith at all
Kyle Peterson
I'm just hoping to see more of the baha wave guns, they were interesting in the game.
Christian Jeffress
Thanks for another great chapter.
