49 Forging a Path
Braxton still had a few gates in his inventory. It had been a while since he reviewed what all was in it. On the cusp of an expedition was a good time to review. He found four gates. He was down to two MREs, two flares, three combat suits and his environmental one. He had hundreds of empty vials. He had ten vials of the Stone Ghost blood remaining. He had used up his stores of everything else.
His weapons storage was much better off. He was down to six rounds for his grenade launcher but everything else was plentiful. He also noticed the new weapon he had forgot about picking up when on the spaceship. It looked like a pistol of small caliber in a manner of speaking. The barrel looked copper in color and it had a lens covering the end. It was only about three eighths of an inch around and looked like it would break easy. Braxton didn't see any crystals or bullets nor any moving parts except a trigger and what he figured was a safety lever. It was yet another thing that barely seemed to register on X system. He was able to absorb it and it showed up but X had no information on it.
For kicks Braxton summoned it in the training section of the lab. He stopped by for more grenades. He wanted to seem what it might be capable of. He flipped off the safety lever and pulled he trigger. Nothing happened. He was disappointed with the results. He wasn't ready to give up on it yet. He took it back to check the old suit of gear he found with it.
"X system what is the status on translating the new nanites on the suit." Braxton inquired. It had been a while since he had checkup up on it.
"Roughly 1% completely." X said stoically.
"Wow, I'll be an old man before you unlock anything useful." Braxton replied.
"1% is about a thousand year of technological advances. We've just not unlocked a link we can use to connect into most of it." X system stated.
"Okay, keep working. Can you keep up to date on it while I'm traveling?" Braxton inquired.
"Negative the facility blocks transmissions to the outside." X system informed.
"Great grandpa was paranoid." Braxton thought to himself.
Braxton returned home. He ordered a kayak, two cases of MREs and a grappling hook with one hundred feet rope. He wasn't sure if he'd ever need a grappling hook again but, he thought about it while trying to gear up again. The stuff he wanted arrived over the next few days. He had been slacking off longer than he had planned and had yet to return to base camp. The issues with Ickthous still made him angry and he had plenty of other hints to keep busy with.
With his gear all in and ready, it was time to set off again. He traveled back to the top on the hill three days from base camp after sorting out Ickthous. He also let him know he might not return and collected his construction suit from the camp.
At the top of the hill, Braxton setup a gate. He finished drinking the last Stone Ghost blood vial at the top. Before he went on he tested to see if it would make his armor suit invisible. That results were not as good as he would like. It ended up being about the same as his Combat Camouflage visually. The invisibility didn't show a heat signature though. He wasn't sure if that would apply in his armor or not but the two skills didn't stack. The magic version seemed superior.
He walked forward alone. He was following the green arrow indicator on his UI. His goal was the southern pyramid hill. He marked the northern one on his map the best he could. It wasn't long after he reached the bottom of the hill, he had to summon his sword. The underbrush was so thick he had to cut his way into the jungle. The ground was anything but flat either.
There were paths animals made through the jungle but, he didn't see any on the ground. He saw many different thing in the trees. Monkeys, sloths and snakes were the most frequent types. Many screamed at him. Others just watched. His passage was noisy. His Moonlight Halo flashed a couple of time on plants. He skirted them, making a wide path around each before returning to his course.
He made it almost ten miles the first day. He found a clearing about the size of a small hut and made camp. The ground was solid stone and was raised about a foot off the forest floor. It appeared to be a perfect circle. When he scanned it using his UI the details came back with only a .03% flaw from being a perfect circle. As to its purpose or manufacture no details could be found. It did give him the feeling something humanoid once called this place home. It lent credence to the theory the pyramids might be man made too. The stone made a good campsite.
The blue light was constant everywhere in this underground world he had come to think of as his second home. Under the trees it was dimmer. It was like he was stuck in perpetual twilight now. He did not stay the night. After he stopped moving and stomping around he heard the noise of the jungle come to life all around him. He setup a gate and returned home.
He could pick another night to rough it in the jungle. He felt a little like a wuss but he didn't really care. A hot shower, a warm bed and the company of a very hot woman were his rewards for returning home. He was about to go to sleep when the doctor joined the couple in bed. Vixen guided her on top of Braxton. Vixen said "We are on a new path. I hope you enjoy it."
The three explored the new path together for a week. Braxton enjoyed it so much he forgot about the jungle, business and his family history completely.
He returned to the jungle more worn out than when he left. He soldiered on with high morale. Swinging wildly clearing a path. He reached the riverbank that day. The river was a thousand yards across where he was. There were many creatures. They all looked prehistoric, some had jaws longer than his kayak filled with sharp teeth. The smallest crocodile like creatures he saw were ten feet long.
Crossing here was not on the top of his todo list. He played through his options. He could use invisibility and try to swim across. He could try to glide but, he would have to climb a tree on a hill and glide into a valley for that to have a chance. No such place was readily available. His construction suit could probably build a raft. So far that seemed like the best option.
He could try to kill a few of the creatures and see how they reacted. Braxton decided that was a solid idea. If he got in the middle and had to kill one it would be a good idea to see how they would react. He found a tall rock along the riverbank. The grappling hook allowed him to climb up on top of it easily.
Braxton took aim on the river. It took a few minutes to find a creature floating on the surface. He had to turn off the Moonlight Halo. There were to many creatures highlighted to focus on one. He water didn't seem to inhibit that function. He locked on the floater it was a small croc. The bullet hit true and the top of its head blew off the body. Braxton watched but no much seemed to be happening around its body in his scope. After two minutes he opened his other eye.
It was almost like a circle of activity in the water. He activated the Moonlight Halos again. That made it possible for him to watch. All around the body creatures were in a frenzied battle. Blood was flowing in streams away from he fighting creatures. That only seemed to cause more chaos and drawn more creatures upriver. The area upriver had a space that was currently void of any creatures.
The frenzy lasted for ten to fifteen minutes before everything returned to normal. Braxton had no idea how many creatures had died. His UI had many less creatures highlighted. Many had crawled out of the river to lick their wounds too. He was currently stuck on the rock he had climbed. There were plenty of easy kills he could collected. That idea was one he wanted to capitalize on but he still needed a way across.
He scanned up and down river for narrow sections. Upper river he couldn't see anything. Down river he didn't have a clear view very far. He summoned the mini gun. Took aim and fired a short burst into the heads of two different looking crocodile type creatures. He was pretty sure they were dead. They flopped around a bit then went still. There was a bit of snapping on the bodies by other nearby creatures. Eventually the others cleared away. Braxton didn't understand why they didn't attack and eat these ones. It wasn't a horrible issue. The difference was glaring, but chalked it up to them being full after the frenzied feeding earlier.
He used the rope and descended to collect their bodies. Then returned to the top of the rock again. It was large enough to camp on for the night. He had a fire and cooked blood and meat. The openness of the area didn't have the choking effect of being surrounded like the last site. This place was pleasant and mostly quiet.
He headed downstream the next day. After five miles of walking he found a waterfall. A natural rock brigade was carved out above the falls. Braxton was able to walk easily across. His traveling the rest of the day was easy. It was like walking down a brick road. Much of the path was overgrown but it was a path he didn't have to chop much away from. There were plenty of dead falls across it but most were easy to get over or around. At one time it would've been a bustling city.
