Be careful of what you eat.
The night arrived faster than Apollo reached the HQ, making the world get covered by a thick layer of shadows... at least for the first 15 or so minutes. As he was thinking on how to proceed in the darkness, a bright moon rose from behind the Mountain, illuminating the whole forest as much as a stormy day.
This took care of the problem, allowing Apollo to continue on his way while he wondered if this moon was natural or artificial, a futile thought that wouldn't help him anything but satisfy his own curiosity.
Arriving at the HQ, he noticed two identical SoWs in front of him.
"How can I find out which one is what? Maybe I should try some command words...Identify! Status! Description! Who the hell are you!? Hello there, what's your name? Do you always come here? Can I get your number? Wait, why am I flirting with a metal ball? Hmm, this is not working out... Scan?"
As he said the word Scan, his bracer shot out a red fillet of light, like an ancient bar code reader.
"Finally! God, I never thought there would come a day when I actually wanted to read an user's manual..."
As the light fillet passed through the SoW, the bracer voiced out:
[Seed of War(Palace), creates a place for the player and servants to reside. Includes 1 bathroom, 1 kitchen, 1 master bedroom, 1 servants bedroom, 1 floor, 1 storage. Requires 4 km². Can be further expanded.]
(All right! This is a lot more useful than I had expected! ...Isn't the requirement a bit too big for something with only 4-5 rooms? It's probably reserving space for its expansions...)
(Let's see what it says about the other one.)
[Seed of War(Barrack), creates a place for the soldiers to reside. Can store the soldiers personal equipment and other belongings.]
(...Wait. Does this mean there are soldiers and servants? That they are two different classes? Hmm... this is making me a bit confused...)
"Grrr..."
(!?)
Apollo touched his belly and felt it growling.
(Now that I think about it, I have been walking around all day without a single piece of food! Let's build this Palace fast so we can cook something!)
"Seed of War Palace, follow me!"
A single seed started to shine and float and soon later started following Apollo.
(...fuck! I should have done this from the start!!!!)
After proving that sometimes thoughtless actions work better than thoughtful ones, Apollo walked for two hours or so, in direction of the middle of the valley, while distancing himself from the HQ and Lab, and finally made enough space to activate the SoW he brought along.
"Haaa...Haaa...Haaa...Finally! Damn! Walking thought this jungle is a lot harder than it seems!"
As the SoW expanded, part of it started "eating" all the trees around it, again and again and again until all that was left was bits of low grass and countless holes where the tree roots used to be. The whole 4km² was cleaned and right in the middle of it a little house was built, giving it an air of isolation and loneliness.
Apollo looked toward the HQ and saw it was plainly visible now and all trees and tall grass that made him suffer so much during this last trip were nowhere to be seen.
"Justice has been served!"
As explained by the Bracer, the "Palace" was quite small, but this didn't bother Apollo at all. No, actually this even pleased him, as it made him remember his own apartment, a cozy simple place with all he needed and no excess luxuries.
Entering inside, he went directly to the kitchen and noticed all the home appliances were in perfect state and looked like top quality products, enough for him to want to know who was their maker, so he could buy the same model if he ever got home, but to his surprise, no matter how hard he looked through them, he found nothing like a brand or specifications.
"Grrr....."
Before he could complain, his stomach protested again, making him give up that line of thought and start cooking whatever he could.
Opening the refrigerator, he noticed he didn't recognize a single piece of food stored inside it.
He grabbed a red fruit, sniffed it twice..
"Smells good! Let's have a taste!"
And bit a mouthful at once! Seconds later, his eyes opened wide, his checks turned red and as he swallowed the piece on his mouth, he screamed out loud.
"THIS IS FUCKING DELICIOUS!!!!"
His following reaction could only be described as addiction, he grabbed all the red fruits in the refrigerator and ate them one by one nonstop. Finally as the last red fruit was eaten, he dropped on his new sofa and relaxed satisfied.
"Haaaa.... That was great!!!"
Apollo happily lied on the sofa and decided to take a nap before proceeding. It was already night and there should be no problem for him to go to bed now, but even if he didn't admit it, he was curious about the next mission and what he would be able to do with a factory, so he limited himself to a simple nap instead of completely falling asleep.... or at least that was the plan...
-
Inside the 5th Monitoring Station, back in space, a scientist was finishing his daily report about the players progress.
"Damn! I can't believe only 7 people discovered Scan function! Are all of those guys stupid!? It's right in front of them!"
"It's already midnight and only 10 people were able to setup their Palace. As for the others, they are either too afraid to go back to their HQ at night, lost in the jungle or have gone completely nuts trying to find a special place with demarcations that doesn't exist!"
"If things keep going like this, I doubt many will be ready for when the third day arrives..."
"I better warn the security personnel so they can ready the rescue ahead of the time."
"But honestly, I can't blame those Players too much. The main villain here is no doubt that blind narcissist Boss who prohibited us from making a manual."
"Luckily I added some tips on the Scan function so the Players don't get completely lost..."
"But all this is useless if they don't discover the damn function!"
"Damn! So frustrating!!!!"
"Lets pray the other training grounds are having better results...."
-
The light of the Sun pass through the window's glass and illuminates the face of the sleeping Apollo.
"Hmm...hmm....just 5 more minutes..."
Unfortunately for him, the Planet couldn't give a damn about his opinion and continued to rotate as planned.
Soon the rays of the Sun concentrated on his face start bothering him, making him try to roll in the imaginary bed to face the opposite way. Unfortunately such imaginary bed was still imaginary and the result was he falling from the sofa head first to the floor.
Bang...
His body tremble two, three times, showing signs of life and he suddenly gets up in a rapid pace, running to the bathroom.
[Inserting relaxing background music....]
.
..
...
Half an hour later the bathroom door, opens up energetically.
Bang!
"Haaa...I'm alive again!!! God bless us! I thought I wouldn't make it..."
"Who would have thought that those delicious red fruits would have such a deadly hidden effect?"
"Next time let's limit ourselves to a single one at a time."
(...now that I think about it, maybe I should have scanned the fruits before eating them...)
(Well, now it's too late! Let's just take note for next time.)
"Talking about next time, I wonder what else I can find stored in the refrigerator!"