Chapter 129 - The Forge

*(mood song: "Sweet - Ballroom Blitz")

Two days later, they all stood in the now cleaned control room, all the eggs now having been put on a container, and the enormous slug they had cut its tongue off and sealed it on a room, a bot controlled by Rose pointed at a button on the panel.

Rose bot: *wanna do the honors Erik?*

Erik: "of course, of course~" *click* "hehe~ time to die you ugly!"

*Warning, this might overheat the forge installations, do you wish to proceed? Yes/No*

Erik clicked on yes "it will be survivable right?"

Rose bot: *...maybe? this entire place might become a wet sauna, but don't worry, I will pump all the heat to the first and second floors, so you should be able to survive with your power armors on while on the third floor*

Erik: "...how long do you think that would take?"

Rose bot: *well, this place will overheat in about a week, and the cave system... will take about two weeks*

Erik: "in that case let's first explore and fix the upper floors this week, and then fix other things on the third floor next week, we also need to search for a secret tunnel or something to those secret installations, did you find anything?"

Rose bot: *well... I scanned the entire forge but lots of areas seem to be in disrepair, most of the life support systems were clogged and there's still some critters moving around so it will take a while, but don't worry, that also means that whatever means they used to hide this place from me will also be damaged*

Erik: "hmmm that's indeed plausible, then did you find anything useful in here? can you give me a summary?"

Rose bot held her chin as she thought outloud: *well, the armoury on the first floor was sealed so it's mostly intact...., as for the living quarters, the nanofibers on the beddings should be able to be cleaned and then they will dry with the base's overheat hmmm..., you could try searching for logs from the researchers but this place was abandoned for a long time so I doubt you would find any intact...*.

Erik: "what about the other floors? can you go into more detail?".

Rose bot: *well, the labs on the second floor I should be able to repair them and continue experimenting in them, I will tell you if I recover any data as right now I'm focussing on the life support systems, the assembly lines should be able to make proper plasma weaponry if properly repaired but we would need to gather the materials if you want any advanced weaponry..., as for the third floor... its the floor with the most damage, most circuits are destroyed as minerals have deposited over them from such a long time underwater, luckily all of this was built to last, so most things have auxiliary and repairing systems, if it wasn't for the slugs emptying the core then this place would have repaired itself long ago, or never decayed*

Erik: "hmm that seems to be the case, but...I wanted to ask though... what is exactly that core?"

Rose bot: *oh that? a crystalline form of electroconductive bio materials, it was extracted from a beast of the deep, another of the reasons why the ark planets like ark world 52836383637 were so sought after by the rebel forces and new empires that rebelled and rose in arms against the ancients that... monopolized these especial resources in their stupid and greedy opinions...*

Erik: "well, that's like letting homeless drifters into your spaceship, only to then hear them complain about you not gifting them your furniture... they were just guests allowed there to begin with... nothing else".

The bot nodded *indeed, I believe the same, some ARK worlds refused to be turned into mere machines by those savages... but they failed, I lost connection too long ago...*

Erik: "...you never told me how you broke Rose... what happened?"

Rose: [...it... it was long ago... it doesn't matter anymore, they probably killed each other by now, empires rise and fall quickly among the stars after all]

Erik: [please Rose, I sincerely wanna know...]

Rose: [...sigh.... fine... the researchers that were allowed into ARK world 52836383637 during that time were from a lizard like race, they were greedy and loved war, but of course, only those pacifists from their race and with good intentions were allowed in, but... they were incited by agents from their homeworld, and so the researchers were forced to steal technologies from the Ark, a trend that was expanding around the galaxy that the ancients were keeping knowledge to themselves that should be shared with the rest of the universe...., the ancients never gave it any importance as their technology was superior but... sigh... things became more and more equal over time, technology can be stolen and learned... and once the war erupted, like many other ARK worlds... I was invaded...] she fell silent.

Erik: [we can continue at another time if you want...]

Rose: [No... it's fine..., during those times... I didn't look like this... I had floating turret moons and other satellites, my own army of bots, an armada, I could scan the galaxy all around me and take on all the sensations, observe all the being living in the ARK... but my defenses were for naught as the attack started from inside... and I couldn't attack the researchers, they turned my systems off one after the other as they had long ago planned to do... the bombs fell all over me, their dropships descended and battled the local fauna, some going into hiding like the primitive ancestors of the octo people, this world... I don't really know how it even looks nowadays, they tried to hack me with their IA's and they sabotaged me, so I... I found ways to indirectly kill them let's say..., my systems were almost all gone, the universe around me that I used to know became just darkness all around... so I used something not even the ancients knew I had, something I created myself... I bent spacetime and moved all around me to a deserted location, the shielding only protected the planet though, so the spaceships in orbit though they were teleported too, the organic beings inside them would have been exposed to enormous amounts of radiation, so they should be dead... and that's my story, a girl that defended herself and ran away...]

Erik: [Rose...] he came out of the power armor as the atmosphere was already restored and hugged the bot.

Rose bot: *w-what? this bot has no tactile displays, it's useless so-*

Erik: "It's fine Rose, it's fine, we will get you repaired, I promise"

Rose: [...I... Thank you Erik] and the bot hugged him too.

*ejem cough cough* at that moment a fake electronic coughing broke the emotive moment, as Amanda came into the room *emm... don't know what's going on, but commander there are still some rogue lightning slugs around so you shouldn't get out of the armor* she came out of Erik's smaller power armor and gestured towards it *if that one was too big then please get inside this one, this place ain't safe yet... what? why are you both silent?*.

Rose bot: *I hate you so much...*

Amanda: *what? why?!*

Erik sighed "alright alright" getting into his smaller power armor and changing the chest module again "so..." he looked around outside "where's Inky?"

Amanda: *Oh, she said she was going to search for a bathroom and a place to sleep*

Erik nodded "I will go take a look too, wanna come?"

Amanda shook her head *Nah, I need to help Rose repair-* but then felt a coldness in her circuits as all of the Rose bots around glared at her *yeah, let's . go . explore, that. will . be . fun . ja . ja . ja* and went after him in her battlebot form, she had made it more flexible compared to last time.

--- First floor ---

Inky was looking inside a room, dried algae covered the bedsheets that were now wet and a brown color, the walls and surfaces wet and dripping water, a table, bedtables, and a closet also in the room, she first opened the closet and found suits, jackets, and dive suits, but all of them looked way oversized for her, and the clothes were wet and dirty, so she just took one t-shirt and ripped it into strips, thinking 'this could come in handy if Erik is injured', she opened a cabinet under it and found some clawed shoes and work boots, but they were also way oversized 'damn lizards with big feet...' she then opened the bed tables 'hmmm, just some moldy underwear, socks, moldy pills eww, huh whats this?' she then found a necklace made with some kind of monster teeth, and a picture in the middle of a female lizard person 'I can change the picture with mine and gift it to Erik... okay this I keep' and picked the collar.

At that moment she heard Erik from the hallway saying "Inky? are you here?" so she came out and waved at him, "over here!" seeing him in his normal power armor accompanied by Amanda.

Erik came closer and asked "so, did you find anything?"

Inky shook her head "nothing too useful, the clothes are too big and wet and slimy, there were some accessories I liked though"

Erik: "Oh? like what?"

Inky took off a bag made from an NBC suit from her side, taking out diverse accessories "see this necklace, I also have bracelets, rings and-"

But Erik stopped her "wait let me look at that bracelet" he grabbed a gray metallic bracelet and put it on his chest, at first nothing happened but then green lines started glowing on the bracelet and a screen appeared on it, turning on as some loading process seemed to be going on "yes! it worked!" then on the screen it appeared a prompt saying *Transfer possession and fuse? yes/no* he clicked yes and it fused with the piece on the chest of his power armor, extending a bit more, Erik was very pleased and asked Inky "where did you find this?"

Inky pointed at the end of the hallway "there, in the biggest room"

They walked inside and Erik instantly commented "this room should belong to the lead researcher or something like that..."

Amanda: *it does look big...*

As they looked around, the room was composed of a bed double the size of other's in the base, with a big wall by the side, decorations of now decomposed pictured and rotten desiccated animal specimens, it also had an attached bathroom, but... inside the once luxurious fifteen meters long bathtub, now there were only slugs, he quickly dispatched the ones he could, but the rest ran away screeching like rats as they came into the room, it was pretty dirty but there didn't seem to be much damage, though everything was oversized from their point of view.

Erik got to the table in the room, and opened the drawers, finding wet yellowish paper paste "guess it's already a miracle it held on so much"

Amanda: *well I detect some traces of silver in the alloys..., that should have kept bacteria away, and the drawers also have grooves on the borders..., so they probably were designed to be waterproof... age is a difficult thing to prepare to though*

Erik: "well, it's probably cracked or deformed somewhere and water started seeping through... this kind of table should have a hidden drawer under the front area... let's see..." he found a dent under the desk's frontal part and pressed it, a secret drawer revealing itself and coming out just one centimeter, "I knew it, let's see... huh?" he tried opening it but it didn't move.

Inky: "what's wrong?"

Erik: "It's stuck... shit"

Amanda: *I can help with that* her arms turned to rudimentary pincers with a serrated border that slowly dug into the stone and metal alloy of the hidden drawer, she then put her right foot on the table and started pulling *ugh... this is solid... * the drawer offered some resistance but *ah!* it finally broke, coming out and making Amanda fall to the floor.

Erik and Inky then looked inside the ripped off drawer, seeing a crystalline card with the portrait of a lizard person, probably a male similar to the one who had left the emergency message in the cube Erik had found.

Erik picked it up "hmm it should be a secret access code card to be this hidden... well I will keep it for now, there's a place we need to visit, the armoury"

The three arrived in front of a thick armoured door full of thick scars in the metal.

Erik: [what made this?]

Rose: [....a crab man general, part of the wildlife I let in ( ͡°- ͡°)]

Erik: [alright... how do I open the door, it seems wrecked...]

Rose: [give me a moment.... the internals seem to still be fine.... opening now]

The door started opening and a putrid smell came from inside, they came in and saw a six meters tall mummified lizard person wearing a gashed power armor and missing his left arm, while he held a big rifle in his right hand.

Erik unceremoniously came to it and ripped the rifle out of his dead hand, examining the sleek weapon, having a dark color with green lines, a logo of a lizard on the back, and a broken digital sight at the top, 'pretty cool... but... its extremely heavy... at least 90 kilograms...', what the dead soldier could probably have wielded with one hand, took Erik both his hands with the normal power armor on, though it shouldn't be a problem with the big power armor he thought.

Erik: [what am I holding Rose?]

Rose: [let's see... that seems like the last model of portable railgun weapons, they are made with bio alloy materials so they are really strong]

Erik: [stronger than my cannon rifles?]

Rose: [...¯\_( ͡°⊱ ͡°)_/¯ yeah, waaaay more, your gun couldn't damage the slug much right?, this would pierce it through in one try, so don't shoot inside here, also the power core in the weapon should be empty, it uses an abyssal core shard] nanobots extended from his suit, and felt the weapon, then a compartment popped open in the top, revealing a pale blue crystal cylinder [see, empty]

Erik then looked at the dead soldier and the armor seemed really strong [can that armor be recycled?]

Rose: [don't worry, once nanobots flood this base no material will be left unused ('ω' )]

Erik: [okay, thanks Rose]

Rose: [you are welcome (^ω^)]

Erik: "alright, it seems like this is a railgun weapon, there should be more on the lockers to the sides"

Inky and Amanda nodded and opened the lockers, quite a bit of them were empty, but in total there were twelve railgun rifles in good condition, and a half meters long sword with a thick handle of twelve centimeters, Erik took it into his hands, the entire thing a dark gray color with the characteristic opaque green lines, and as expected after twisting the handle he found a core inside, "so it's a power sword after all... huh?" and to his surprise, it wasn't completely empty, so he closed the handle again and supported the middle of the sword on a nearby table, touching around until he touched the logo on the sword guard, "this should be it..." and the sword came to life in a moment, it segmented into twelve pieces that started rotating at high speeds with sparks flowing between them, shredding half of the table and throwing shrapnel around, "wow!" until Erik clicked the logo again quickly and the sword stopped, retaking its previous shape, the sword was at least forty kilograms as Erik carefully left it on the floor.

Erik: "...well... that was intense... it felt like holding a giant CNC drill... wow..." he looked back and saw that Inky and Amanda had exited the room, looking from outside the doorway "it's fine now, don't worry"

They nodded and helped him continue looking, in the lockers there were also oversized protection suits and power armor, along with other equipment like oversized knives and stun grenades, even a sound emitting one used to distract beasts.

Rose: [Erik, wanna hear something nice? I've hacked and recovered some music from the researcher's files]

Erik: [Lizard rock music? sure go ahead] then all around the base a piece of guttural rock music started playing, he didn't understand what they were saying but the rhythm was nice [I like it, thanks]

Rose: [No problem (･ิω･ิ)]

Erik turned to the others "It's Rose putting on some music, it's fine" and they relaxed enjoying the music too, as they kept looking for anything valuable.