(FTG)Chapter 91: A stroll through the garden (Patreon)

"More Big MT creations?" Adam asked less like a question and more a statement.

"Yeah. By far one of the worst things ever made there. Ignoring that we are here, obviously." I said shaking my head to clear it and motioning at the greenery spilling from the cracked vault door.

"If you remove the parasitism of the spores I have to admit they are clearly quite potent. The soil here is entirely unsuitable for this sort of vegetation yet here it is." Adam admits with an intrigued tone.

I nod and wade through the plants to the entrance of the vault that is rusted and covered in thick vines and moss. From the look of it the vault door had been forced open by the plants inside it as the massive gear shaped door was crooked and only open by a few feet rather than the complete opening that it normally being opened would cause. I slipped into the gap and and into the vault. Vault tec weren't terribly creative with their design choices so the entrance was identical to the one I found Adam in except decayed to a horrendous level. I mean corrosion everywhere, plants that had taken over cracks and coming out of pipes.-

There was a terminal with power on a metal table that I knew was set up by the ghoul woman named Keely. At the moment she should be trapped in the cave system that was at the bottom of the vault. Reaching there was key for two reasons. First rescuing her because anyone that sassy deserved to survive. Second to make a copy of the information on the main server of the vault. This had all the vault residents understanding of the spores and agriculture. -

Despite what Keely thinks the knowledge did have promising potential for terraforming the world back to a healthy state, the G.E.C.K units proved as much. Her concerns about this variant of the spores getting recreated and used again was however fully justified so I would be keeping this information in house so it's used properly. As for looting the vault? There was no point. Everything of use was either corroded to hell and back, taken over by plants or worth so little that grabbing it was more effort than it was worth.-

No, rather than deal with that I stepped into the overgrown crossroad of the first floor where there was a slightly broken elevator, the stairs and a maintenance room. I went over to the elevator and with Adam's help jury rigged a repair that got it working again. With that done I took the elevator to the fifth and bottommost floor of the vault that had the cave access and the data I wanted. The elevator door opened to a mess to say the least. The floor was mostly circular in shape but was blocked off by piled up stuff and plants that thought they were hiding the spore carriers in them.-

Spore carriers retained their human shape but were covered in green moss from head to toe including the eyes. On their backs were a few spikey looking spore mushroom columns that served as both the means to spread the spores and detect anyone who got near them. I pulled out my plasma rifle and ashed the carrier in the weeds without hesitation. I moved through the open doorway to the right of that blockage and into a room that was clearly meant to observe the cave system outside the vault. I knew this because it had windows looking into it.-

From those windows I saw the giant mantises roaming the corridors of the cave system. It was kinda funny that while humans got the cordyceps treatment these mutated enlarged insects were totally fine living in the spores. In fact they thrived here as the abundant vegetation served as both food and comfortable living space. While prewar mantises were purely carnivores that needed to hunt to survive these ones were omnivores. Basically everything in the wasteland was in fact. It came from the environmental pressure of food being a rarity.-

They either adapted to better hunt other creatures that were also mutating or they changed to expand their diet. The mantises did the latter. Anyways I moved through this long observation room and out the second doorway on the opposite side of the blockage. I ashed the spore carrier in the plants there before walking down the hallway and taking a left to the server room which was the only room without plants in the entire vault.-

"Adam if you'd be a doll and copy this data for me?" I asked as I walked up to the console.

"I assume you intend to utilize the terraformation properties of the spores and want as much data as possible towards that end?" adam asked.

"Exactly! I don't know how the G.E.C.K units were made but I do know they most likely used these spores, a variant of them at least. THAT is what I want. The variant of the spores that terraform an area and then simply die off. We figure out those and we can just crop dust the world a couple of times and immediately make life a thousand times better. Purifying the waters would come next but that will need a more targeted method." I say seriously.