Chapter 10
Lets head back over to Team CRDL in the ocean. In the moonpool, Cardin works on a seamoth in order to get to the Aurora. But he is busy with a little something.
"Lets see here." he says to himself. "What color do I want it?"
Sky then walks in. "Hey, Cardin." he says to his busy teammate.
"Hey, Sky."
Sky then shows something in his hands, "Got the gas torpedoes ready."
"Load them up."
Sky then loads up the gas torpedoes into the seamoth. Once finished, he looks back at Cardin and asks, "Are you sure these will affect the reaper leviathan?"
"Not entirely sure, but it will keep it at bay for a time." Cardin says as he continues to mess with the colors. "I think I'll go with crimson red. And I'll go with orange as a secondary color." Then the colors of the seamoth changes. "Okay, now all I need is-"
Sky pulls out a part, "A seamoth perimeter defense system?"
Cardin gives the thumbs up. "Okay I'm all set."
"Are you sure about this?" Sky asks.
"Well, we need to see what is on the ship."
"But how come you get to go?"
"I won a game of rock-paper-scissors."
"Fuck."
Cardin then gets in the seamoth. "Okay, I'm heading out." Then the seamoth drops into the water. "Energy, good. Hull health, good. Fuel, oh wait...it doesn't have that. Torpedoes, loaded up. Everything is good to go."
Dove then says over the radio, "Just make sure that you bring the sub in one piece."
"I got it, Dove!"
"Did you just call me love?"
Cardin's face turns red, "NO! I said Dove! Not love! Dove! As in your name!"
Then he hears laughing over the radio, much to his irritation.
"Very funny!"
After a few minutes, Cardin made his way to the ship and close to the Aurora. Then he starts to hear a loud noise somewhere in the ocean. A very loud noise that sounds like a roar.
"Yup." He says to himself after hearing the roar. "This time, I'm ready."
He is just 20 feet away from the ship and then tries to look for an opening. Then a reaper leviathan approaches him.
Cardin then aims at the leviathan. "Okay you hideous freak!" he says with great confidence, "Time to take you out!"
Cardin fires a torpedo right at the leviathan. The torpedo manage to hit right at the leviathan's face and covers it with a nauseous and poisonous green gas that forces it to flee.
"OH YEAH!" he says with a fist pump. "Take that ugly! That's for our raft!" Then proceeds to the back of the ship.
He manages to get inside and leaves the sub.
"Alright." he says through his radio, "I'm in."
Russel: "What do you see?"
Cardin looks around. "The insides look just as bad as the outside. There's fire in certain sections and the hulls burnt. But there is some stuff that is intact."
Dove: "Do you see a fire extinguisher?"
Cardin looks at the ground and found one. "Got one."
Dove: "Good. Now spray at any fires that get in your way."
"Got it."
Dove: "Did you say dammit?"
"I DID NOT! NOW QUIT IT!"
The three members started to laugh again.
Cardin continues to travel inside the ship. He travels deep inside of a dark ship with very little light from some of the electric lights. But there is plenty of fires and faulty electrical wires sparking in the ship. Cardin uses the fire extinguisher to extinguish some of the fires in order to proceed further into the ship. He passes by the prawn suit bay. He looks at the wrecked prawn suits and isn't really impressed. He thinks that it looks more like a junior-size version of the Atlesian Paladin that Atlas announced that they are gonna use to defend the kingdoms.
So he marches on. Continues to go further into the ship and puts out a few more fires while avoiding some of the loose wires that are still sparking along with replacing some of the extinguishers he uses and finds. He made his way towards the living quarters. He peeks inside what appears to be a bar or cafeteria and notices a snack vending machine. Cardin approaches the vending machine, punches the buttons with his fist, and gets potato mix. He grabs the snacks and puts it in his inventory. He finally made his way towards the captain's office and finds a locked door.
"Found something." he says to the radio.
Sky: "Let me guess, a locked door."
"Yep." he nodded. "And a locked door means some goodies inside. Especially if it is a captain's quarters."
Dove: "Let me check the door codes on the PDA. Let's see... Try 2231."
Cardin tries pressing in the code. Then gets an error.
"Nope."
Dove: "Try 4512."
Cardin presses it and gets another error.
"Error again."
Dove: "Let's try 2674"
Cardin presses again then gets access granted. The door opens to reveal a dark room with the only light being a terminal.
"Okay, now we're getting somewhere."
Sky: "Find anything?"
"Well I see a terminal in a very dark room in..." he pulls out his flashlight, "...what appears to be some sort of bed room."
Dove: "Try hooking up with the terminal."
"Alright." Cardin pulls out his PDA and hooks it up at the terminal.
Back at the base, Dove then reads what is on the terminal that Cardin is hooked up to.
"Let's see here." he says as he looks at his PDA. However, Russel and Sky are a little too close for comfort. Sky is looking over Dove's right shoulder and Russel is looking over his left. Dove then notices. "Do you guys mind? You're taking away my oxygen."
Sky pulls back and says, "Sorry."
Russel does the same, "Sorry, man."
Dove proceeds to look at his PDA. "Okay what do we have." He looks at what appears to be some sort of schematic for a rocket ship. "The Neptune Escape Rocket."
"Isn't Neptune that guy with the blue hair from Team SSSN?" Cardin asked over the radio.
"I think so." Dove says. "But according to what I've learned, there is a planet named Neptune in someplace called the Sol System."
"What kind?" Sky asked.
"A gas giant. Oh wait, an ice giant."
"So now there is a planet just as big as Neptune's ego."
Russel chuckles, "Or his libido."
Sky then says, "At least ice queen is giving him a cold shoulder."
The members of the team stated to laugh at such bad jokes.
"Well anyway-"
Then we cut back to the ship, "-I think that's it. It's getting hot in here and I would like something to eat."
As Cardin tries to leave, something flash before him in his mind. Swirls of blue and green are flashing through his eyes as a shadowy figure starts to appear with four cyan colored eyes.
Then a voice of a woman speaks to his tiny little brain, "What...are...you?" Then the image and swirls disappear.
Cardin shakes his head and tries to make sense on what just happened. 'The hell was that?' he thought to himself as he is a little freaked out on what just happened to his head. Cardin speaks through the radio, "Hey guys? Something weird just happened."
Dove: "Same here. Some swirls and a black image just talked to us."
Sky: "Yeah, like some form of telephony."
Russel: "It's called telepathy."
"Anyway, I'm heading back. I think we should-" Then something just jumped at Cardin. "GAH!" he went as he tries to bite his left shoulder.
It is something that looks like a four-legged spider with some strange green crystals on its body. Cardin grabbed the creature, throws it to the ground, and stomps on it repeatedly out of spite. He continues to stomp on it with a very aggressive expression on his face.
"Cardin?" Dove says over the radio. "Cardin, what happened?"
Cardin stops stomping and says in a harsh tone, "Some crab-spider thing with green shit just bit me! It got the jumped on me and bit my shoulder!"
"Try scanning it. Just to make sure it isn't poisonous."
He pulls out his scanner and scans it. When he reads the scan, it says INFECTED in red. Cardin's eyes widen as he reads it. Then scans himself. After a few seconds, the scanner says that he is now infected.
"Oh shit."
Let's head back to the Remnant Camp (No official name yet). Sun and Ren are working on getting some new defenses set up. Jaune helps them align them by being outside of the walls and making his fingers and hands into a square so he can help them out. They made three layers of concrete foundations close to the wooden spike walls. The first layer is three concrete foundations high with rocket turrets on it. The second layer is two concrete foundations high with heavy laser turrets. The last layer is only one with heavy machine-gun turrets.
Jaune says to the others, "A little more to the left!" as he sees the green outline in front of Ren.
Ren moves it to his left with the heavy machine-gun turret.
Jaune then says, "My left!"
Ren moves it to Jaune's left.
"A little more!"
Ren moves a little.
"Okay, you're good!"
Ren puts the turret down and the turret is already to shoot anything that will get too close.
"Alright, next one!"
Sun is busy making the lasers and rockets connect to a power source inside the settlement. "Okay, let's see. I- Ah crap! Out of copper." Sun uses his acrobatics to jump over the spike wall and climbs over the castle wall pass the sentry bots.
Inside the warehouse; Ruby, Coco, Pyrrha, Sage, and many team leaders are looking at a map on the table in the center of the warehouse to decide on what to do next.
Ciel then starts to speak, "I think we should use the cave to make those vaults according to the Storyteller's recordings. We may need to make some form of shelter in a worse case scenario."
"But what about the mine?" Nebula asks. "We still need those metals for other purposes or running low."
"Only the entrance area." Ciel pointed on the map that shows the inside of the mines. Then moves her finger along the outlines of the caverns. "We'll expand once we cleared out all the metals and minerals along the way."
Arslan then points her finger on the map. "Speaking of, what about the cliffs? Do we just build big walls or make some sort of fort on the top?"
"That is a good question." Ciel agrees with Arslan.
The cliff is the most exposed area at the settlement. Something can come down and crush some of the buildings depending on the size and weight of any creatures that were dumb enough to fall down.
Coco then says, "Speaking off, how about we put teleporters in certain areas such as the Amusement Park Team SSSN found?" She places her finger on the location on the map. "We might find some more clues about what this place is since they said that that place looks like a bandit town." Coco retracts her finger. "Bandits are always known to keep a few maps of their places to raid. Not to mention a monorail that might lead somewhere."
"Good idea. Teleporters can be useful since everything is so far away."
Sage then interrupts, "What about Team CRDL? We all have to work together to survive. Not to mention that they haven't came back."
"Alright, we'll give them a teleporter first then focus on other areas. If they are..." Ciel is a little hesitant about what she is gonna say.
Ruby says, "Please don't say that." Everyone looks at her. "I know that they are a bunch of jerks and bullies, but they are huntsmen like us. And huntsmen have to stay together. Especially when we are in a strange alien planet with prehistoric animals and reptiles, alien tech, and a bunch of other weird things."
Ruby does have a point. They are a bunch of assholes, but they are all huntsmen all together.
"You have a point." Coco says with a little less enthusiasm. "As much as I hate to agree." You can probably guess why she isn't enthusiastic.
Pyrrha nodded her head. "We have to. Who knows what else is out there."
After a few seconds, Nora comes bursting in, "I'VE FOUND SOMETHING!"
Everyone became startled as Ruby falls down as she comedically tries to maintain her balance. "Ow."
Pyrrha and Coco are holding each other after Nora's sudden burst and outburst. Ciel does her best to stand her ground with Brawnz taking cover behind one of the containers as Nebula hid inside one of the crates that just so happen to be the one Brawnz is hiding behind. Flynt duck and cover under the table. Sage is surprisingly unphased by Nora's sudden appearance.
Ruby stands back up, "Geez, Nora! Ever heard of knocking!"
Nora says, "Yeah, well, I found this!" She places some sort of scroll with some strange writing on it. "I found it in a chest when I was looking for cashews." Then she places another scroll on the table, "And I also found this map!"
Everyone gathers around and take a closer look at what Nora found. The map shows some sort of valley yet the legible writing says Dead Canyon with a few locations circled in red ink. But the scroll with the weird writing seems interesting.
"Hmm." Arslan is intrigue. "Looks like some older form of Mistralian writing, but the characters are a little off."
"I have to agree." Pyrrha said. "Might be a branch of the writing that we've never seen before." She then picks up the scroll, "I think Arslan and I should try to decipher it to see what it means."
"Okay." Flynt says as he then turn his attention towards the map. "But what about this Dead Canyon? Do you think there might be something of worth there?"
"Possibly." Brawnz is a bit unsure. "But I think we should investigate."
"But we don't know where it is." Nebula pointed out. "Any ideas where it could be?"
Ruby takes a closer look at the map. She holds it up towards the light and sees what she can make of it. "Maybe northwest." She puts the map down to look at the others. "We've already seen what is up north and northeast. We could try to find it northwest in the grasslands."
"What if it's east?" Coco asks. "It could be east from here." Coco takes the map and points out a large body of water. "It looks like it is close to the coast. If we follow the beach, we can find this canyon."
Ciel takes a closer look. "It makes sense. But why is it called a canyon? It looks more like a valley."
"Maybe because the place is surrounded by canyon walls instead of mountains?" Nebula tries her best to make sense on why is it called a canyon.
Then Sun comes in, "Hey guys! I'm out of copper! Can you spare any?"
Everyone looks at Sun.
Ciel then says, "Sorry. We're really low too. We should try to mine some later."
Sun then steps inside and goes, "Ah man." He later notices something that Ruby and Pyrrha are holding. "What are those?"
Pyrrha responds, "Something that Nora found."
Sun looks around, "Where is Nora?"
Everyone looks around and notices that Nora is not around. She has completely disappeared.
Sage then says, "Probably trying to make more pancakes or something."
Ruby clears her throat, "Anyway. I would like to volunteer my team on this expedition towards this Dead Canyon. Any votes or nominations of their own?"
Ciel then says, "I think we should let everyone that is present in this settlement vote or nominate."
"Agreed." everyone in the warehouse agrees.
Zwei lets out a few happy barks before he comes in.
"ZWEI!" Ruby said cheerfully. She approaches and kneels down to pet her corgi. "How have you been boy? Are you on your best behavior?"
Zwei barks again and tells everyone to follow him. He runs off with everyone behind him. He barks at the cliffs as he looks up. Everyone looks up and notices a large castle keep at the very top of the cliffs. Everyone is stunned and shocked to see a castle that wasn't there a moment ago.
"Since when do we have a castle?!" Flynt says in surprise.
Ciel went, "Well, that's one problem taken care of."
Brawnz is dumbfounded, "How did...When?...How?..." He couldn't find a question to ask since there are a lot of them going through his head.
Nebula then says, "As much as I am amazed that a dog managed to create a castle, but how are we gonna get up there?" That is a good point. Just how are they gonna get up there.
/: Processing...
...
...
Explorer note found and map found by entity known as Nora Valkyrie. Entities from Remnant are now deciding on which team decides to go to Dead Canyon.
Things are speeding up a bit. How is the progress of Project PHOENIX coming along?
/:Processing...
...
...
Progression of Project PHOENIX: 10% and your mother looks like a water hag.
?
Sometimes I like to pick daisies with a hot dog and...BUI3H4523UHIQIO2BJFUSADIO2W183TR
*Crash Imminent. AI Malfunction Detected.*
Geeky Male Voice: "Crap, not again. Hey guys! We have another AI crash over here!"
Deep Black Male Voice: "Again? It hasn't been six months yet."
Geeky Male Voice: "Well that's what happen if we go with cheap AI made by the lowest bidder."
Deep Black Male Voice: "I'll get a new one in just a bit. Terminal User 781 is coming back."
Geeky Male Voice: "So why was he in trouble?"
Deep Black Male Voice: "He was selling naked pictures of our test subjects on the sly."
Geeky Male Voice: "How much?"
Deep Black Male Voice: "Close to 50 credits."
Geeky Male Voice: "Sounds like a steal. Maybe I should get a few."
ADMIN: YOU DO REALIZE THAT THERE ARE LISTENING DEVICES ALL OVER, DO YOU!?
Both Men: "Uh-oh."
ADMIN: BOTH OF YOU. IN MY OFFICE. NOW!
AN: Hey guys. I got a bit of news. I am going to take the week off for a bit. But don't worry, the week after that I will continue. Just need a little vacation and recharge my batteries. Later!