337: Problem Solver (Patreon)

Flying through the air, the Highspawn Efrizi sensed some interesting ripples below. Someone was fighting. After focusing intently on the ripples for a minute, he determined it was a battle between a weak Cultivator and a Spirit Beast.

Drawing closer, debating whether it was worth descending, he caught the feel of something else, something very interesting. Just a hint, but… is that a Tier 2 Artifact…? For a moment he tensed with concern, but the Cultivator down there was only using Tier 1 Symbiotes.

A weak death ripple washed out, as from a Tier 1 Spirit Beast.

Closer still, and he was floating above a clearing in the jungle. A slain Toothbearer and the signs of battle littered the area, all of it illuminated by clear moonlight. He made out a dark figure slumped against a tree. Peering closer, the figure resolved into a blood-stained human Cultivator in a torn black robe.

Efrizi clearly felt the sense of a Tier 2 Artifact. After a moment’s thought, he descended. Wherever it was, he would find it. This Tier 1 certainly couldn’t stop him.

His mandibles spread in a pleased smile. Vorath had sent him as a simple messenger, to alert the Empress of Vexira’s increasing disloyalty. A low job, given to him because he was considered the weakest Highspawn. Far more risk than reward was likely to be found travelling through the jungle.

But Heaven smiled upon him. When he returned, he would be armed at last with a Tier 2 Artifact, and his standing amongst his brothers would see a sharp rise.

He settled silently onto the ground and gazed eagerly at the Cultivator. The man was gasping for breath and clutching at his bloodied chest.

Efrizi released his Cloak. The descending hum of his wings filled the air, and he heard the Cultivator let out a gasp as the man’s pale face turned to him.

‘Hornet,’ whispered the man, with a pleasing dread.

‘Good, you know my kind. That saves us some time,’ said Efrizi, in clipped Shenran. Stepping forwards he sent out his Soul Sense. It blanketed the human, broke the man’s weak resistance in an instant, and Efrizi pressed his stingers threateningly against the human’s Soul.

‘You know that your death has arrived, yes? The only question is this: how much pain will you suffer, before I kill you? I felt an Artifact. Now…’ His Soul Sense brushed closely around the human, feeling. ‘Where is it, human? Tell me, and your death will be painless.’

‘I’ve… I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,’ the human whispered, voice weak. But Efrizi saw how his other hand clutched tightly to his side, pressing closer against his hip, hiding something.

Efrizi’s Soul Sense pressed tight and he felt a kind of empty spot. The kind often given when closely feeling at Artifacts designed to give off no ripples, or sheathed in something made to hide them.

Efrizi’s stinger rose and struck down. The man convulsed, teeth clenched, Soul spasming in response to the venom. Efrizi stepped eagerly forward, eyes on whatever the human was holding in his clenching grasp. He sank smoothly to a knee, reaching out.

He was taken completely by surprise when the human’s arm blurred into motion, leaping up like something alive. He had time only to see the shine of a dagger before there came a horrible crunch, a shock of unbelievable pain.

His disbelieving eyes saw the dagger buried to the hilt just below his right arm, through a gap in his armour. His vision fuzzed as a wave of stunning energy rocked his Soul, shattered it like glass. The pain was unbelievable, like a spike through his mind. And yet he was Tier 2, a Highspawn, and he pulled his Soul together with force of will.

But in that time the human had wormed around him and the dagger punched into him again, then again, then again, and each stab tore through his Soul like a Toothbearer’s claws.

Efrizi’s Soul collapsed. His body followed suit, flopping in the human’s grasp.

###

Nicolai gazed into the Hornet’s multifaceted eyes, glinting like ice in the moonlight. He moved smoothly forward, laid the Highspawn down and drew the Quiet Knife free.

His Soul was still spasming and his Symbiotes unusable, and his body too should have been locked up and unmoving. But once again the spine jack and his bionic gave him a way.

Becoming a full borg was starting to look increasingly worth the investment. If stung, his Soul and Symbiotes would still be rendered useless, but he’d at least be able to move his body without issue.

He thought on what was available to him, through his discounted Buy Back list. All of it a century out of date at least, but there should be some decent Level 2 and 3 options available even so. He’d need to redo a lot of his Nodes, but he was planning to do that anyway, before pushing to Tier 2.

A niggling pain pulled his mind away from augmentation. Twitching his robe aside he saw a large, tick-like bug which had just successfully dug itself into the skin of his calf. The parasites infesting this jungle were another problem that becoming a full-borg would solve. He’d barely had his skinsuit off for even ten minutes and already they were coming for him.

He raised the Quiet Knife and bent to the process of ridding himself of parasites, and then to the equally unpleasant task of purging the Highspawn’s stinger venom.

Some time later Nicolai stood, healed, suited up, and free from venom. He flexed his borrowed wings and rose into the air. All that was left to mark the Highspawn were its ashes.

He’d burned its body, plus the parasites which’d bitten him, with an incendiary grenade. Surprisingly, its armour had burned just fine once the temperature was high enough. The albino wasp had also began to weaken and die with the death of the Highspawn, so he’d burned it too.

All the ashes were safely buried in a deep hole which he’d dug with the Spectral Claw.

He shot into the air and sped off back the way he’d come.

###

Nicolai didn’t head directly back to the Queen. He had another target in mind. The world turned and the jungle slid endlessly past below.

The sun was peeking over the horizon by the time he arrived. The Queen’s Flying Art had begun to weaken over the last hour and now it broke apart entirely, as though it couldn’t bear the touch of sunlight. The Wings he bore took up the strain, as he floated down towards another slightly hilly, rocky area, situated roughly a mile from his actual base. He was following the directions of his Treasure Finder. He dropped down, found a crack and wormed into it.

Another cave. Nowhere near as good as his true base; just a small hideaway with an entrance that could be sealed. He unzipped his skinsuit and slid the Quiet Knife free.

Then he focused his Soul, pinched the flat of the blade between finger and thumb, and slowly squeezed down the length of it. After a few minutes he’d gotten the tracker out.

He tugged a small stone, retrieved from the jungle, from one of his harness’s pockets. Pushing the tracker into the stone was easily done, and then he weighed it thoughtfully. He felt quite a strong urge to leave the cave and hurl it as far as he could. Alas, that would be rather stupid.

Instead he found a small crack in the wall and lodged the stone in there. He followed up by tucking the Quiet Knife, and its sheath, into a different crack.

The Queen might be smarter than Serrin thought. She might be aware that Serrin knew a way around this tracking method, even anticipated that Serrin would tell him. Thus she may have included a second method which he didn’t know about. Until he found a way to thoroughly test the Knife, he wouldn’t take it to his true base.

Next he removed the Symbiotes he’d gained, one by one. All those making up the Cloak and the Wings. As he’d broken all of these in, he was able to give them directions. Like: stay here. He tucked them into the Symbiote holding bags he had left over, then pulled a metal box from his storage.

This was the box into which he’d put Kleos and Maric, back when he’d taken them to the Coffin. It was lined with Rituals, so as to contain any ripples from within. The bags went inside, their ripples hidden.

The Queen and the Ripper had a contentious relationship, so far as he could tell. He didn’t think she would have commanded the Ripper to give him Symbiotes that she could track.

But what if the Ripper decided to track him?

Nicolai’s view of just about every Hornet he’d met was: completely untrustworthy. There was only one exception, and even Serrin he wasn’t 100% sure about.

Until he’d found a way to test these Symbiotes, too, he wouldn’t bring them back to his true base. After all, if he lost them he could likely get replacements from the Ripper.

Then he spent some time doing what he could to make the base a bit more defended and better hidden, as well as more livable.

He took to this as though he would truly live here, doing all he could. He fully intended to make this into a proper base. An outpost of sorts. The more secure and invested in it seemed, the more convincing it would be as a false base. Plus, he would end up coming here often enough and might as well secure it.

There was only so much he could do with what he had. After placing a few things he had no need for from his Storage to round it out, give the impression it was lived in, he left.

He’d only been there 15 minutes and 16 seconds but even that was dangerous. If the Scoundrels tagged him with their tracker while he was here he would have to go elsewhere, he couldn’t risk leaving such valuable items in a place where they’d tracked him. Fortunately, no ripples touched on him.

Thus he made no effort to conceal the place further. It was already very well hidden. In fact, it was only reachable by someone who could fly or willing to go for a reasonably strenuous climb. Of course, those were the kind of people he was most worried about, but at least he shouldn’t have to worry about random jungle creatures coming in. You had to fly over the rocky area, then descend into a small hole, and from there, the entrance to the cave.

Once he left, he began moving through the jungle in his typical manner, using the Spectral Claw and Pegasi Ring to go as fast as possible. Immediately he was beset by a yearning for the Wing Symbiotes he’d left. Their flight was both faster and smoother.

He arrived after some time, and didn’t enter through the normal route. Instead, he looped all the way around to where the greybugs had dug into the hill.

At the entrance, he found a large number of jungle creatures—Toothbearers and others—consuming and fighting over the corpses of the greybugs scattered around. He slipped by them and into the tunnels, retracing the same route he had taken last time until he came within range of his base through Local.

Still no tunnel through to the base, as it should be. Sealed by Legal’s explosives. Nicolai pinged out some Local identifiers and waited.

Legal pinged him back.

‘What’s the situation?’

‘Everything is in order,’ Legal replied, with more than a hint of smugness. ‘A temporary set of security doors have been installed, it was a quick job but we now have a proper airlock, secure from ripples. All salvageable bots have been accounted for, we’re up to six in reasonable condition, two in… less reasonable condition. Ammo stocks are up to eighty percent of what we had when the bugs invaded, I intend to get us to double that. Is Simulations there? I want to talk about anti-bug bots.’

Nicolai and the other modules spent a while communicating with Legal, imparting fresh orders, plus a rapid-fire exchange where they came up with designs for some close combat bots.

He wasn’t sure why there was still no sign of Scoundrels, but one point of relief was that they shouldn’t be able to find this place easily, even when he was away. There was no access to the base from the tunnels the bugs had dug. The entrance tunnel had numerous intact security doors and the entrance was very well hidden. Even if they’d placed cameras, all they would’ve seen was him enter the big hole the bugs had dug.

As a whole, the base was surrounded by thick walls of earth. Only something like the greybugs, capable of tunnelling through rock and stone in a short time, had posed a real threat.

And though he was able to connect to it via Local, others wouldn’t be. The signals within the base were all very focused and short-range, and the only way to communicate with the bots and Infiltrator was to first send out identifiers. Without that, the base gave off no signs of activity.

From what he’d gathered, the Scoundrels had one true method of detecting him. The ripple-based ping that they'd been using on him now and then. It would be more accurate the closer they were, but unless they were right on top of him, it would always be somewhat vague.

As to the Blood Hunters, those automatically spawned near to him, and they could control roughly how close the spawning was. But other than that they had little conscious control over the process. If they were very skilled in spiritual matters, they might be able to use the spirit wire, once formed, to track him, but so far as he knew few possessed such skills. Serrin was the only one he'd met for sure who could do such a thing.

Therefore the odds were decent they didn’t know exactly where the base was. Thus the pings. They would have been here, nosing around, while he was away. And they’d be back once he was gone.

The best way to kill them might be to leverage that, but currently he hadn’t the time or resources.

Before leaving he carefully spread some drones over the hill. These were quiet on Local and simply recorded everything around them without giving off any sign of their presence. When he returned, he would collect them and see who had come by.

He returned to the fake base, retrieved his Symbiotes, reinserted the tracker into the Quiet Knife, and headed back to the Hornet Hive.

The main question in his mind was: how had Serrin gotten on?