Episode 31- The humble beginnings of something greater.
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"It's great to have a base, but what next?" The two hatcheries and one spawning pool changed to ten spawning pools. That's it, that's all the progress that happened. Still only zerglings and drones listened to him, hydralisks and even overlords ignored him completely, and the rest… he couldn't even reach a minimum of understanding, he was in limbo. Some stray zerglings loosely controlled trickle slowly to him, and Dobromir's calming and influential presence made them even more laid back. The spawning pools were used as just swimming pools, and the drones were slowly piling up the minerals and vespane, which were unneeded for now.
"Hmmm… I can't really make different buildings, and the zerg 'colonies' are just too disgusting." His mind still empty, he started slowly walking aimlessly through his base. All the zerglings were laying around, some alone, some in weird zergly cuddly piles, and all had myriads of positions. Laying on the stomach or back was normal, but two zerglings propped each other with their backs, sleeping while sitting, or the one who tried sitting with crossed legs and front legs folded in the lap and succeeded. There was one sleeping on his head, with the rest of the body up, which was very weird. The ones who weren't sleeping were currently occupying the pools, resting or paddling around.
They all were sleeping on the ground, under the starry sky, including Dobromir, but excluding the few zerg who slept burrowed. The drones worked only a few hours a day, with the rest spent on resting. Still strolling around, his mind went over to the buildings, the need for an architect and then… "Right, terran leftovers. There should be some buildings left, right?"
"You already know your path, and your purpose." Trixie wasn't even using magic, she already knew after all. "You just need to find the right path, the right answer? Raynor, char, your brother will guide you." She suddenly stood up, and stretched every which way. "Anyway, my job here is done, now where The Great And Powerful Trixie would find extra sparkling water this time of day…?" With that, Wit remained alone in the tent, which started to dim by itself. Finally, only one source of light remained, glowing softly with blue light. Intrigued, he walked over and looked into the observers' big ocular. It showed a small terran camp, hidden in some canyon, on a volcanic planet, obviously Char itself.
Now, he was sitting inside a small starboat, steered by Maria the pilot. As precaution, Dobromir had hidden somewhere on himself a locator, to give a more precise location of his current whereabouts. Currently, they were eveding the circling zerg, which wasn't hard given the small size of the boat. Additionally, they were equipped with very small and portable psionic repulsor, very useful for discouraging any zerg that took interest.
Wit himself was equipped with his simple clothing, consisting of long puffy pants, a sleeveless tabard that acted as shirt and a simple flat mask. The mask had two glowing eye holes and three lines as an accent on the lower part. His bare arms were hidden beneath neatly wrapped bandages. Wooden sandals adorned his feet clad in the two clawed thick socks. When it came to hat… now that part was tricky.
Thanks to the blessings from one of the Crones, he finally received the basic understanding of his shroominess and the other shrooms. With that, he slowly started manipulating the mushroom cap on top of his head to change its shape. The squishy mass already hardened, and thinned somewhat, which was a step into the right direction. Now, only making it more round, thinner and drying it out completely, giving it the look of a real hat.
And let's not forget about the most iconic weapon, the sword which looked like a giant clock arrow. Now, that's almost perfect and fully functional cosplay.
"Now, what am I supposed to do with this thing? It's practically my only option, but does this thing even work?" Standing before Dobromir was a big Terran Infested Command Center, THE biggest.
Raynor's command center was already taken away by Kerrgian as a… "Prize? I guess it's a trophy, more likely. Buuut… the Duke's command center is five times as big, and the mess… ugh, there is a lot of work before me." And indeed it was a mess, overgrown by zergy growths, a few tentacles and a big twisted mass of flesh.
Taking a deep breath, he walked slowly inside, taking in the sights. The whole floor was covered by creep, and a few shambling infected were milling around. The interior there was very spacious, destined for ERK construction and the storage for both minerals and vespane. Considering the size and the equipment strewn about, more or less damaged, and the assembly lines, a whole four of ERK's could be constructed at the same time.
"Infected, can I DO something with them? I guess it doesn't hurt to try." Dobromir walked closer to one of them and watched as the infected marine stopped, both walking around twitching from time to time weirdly. They stared at each other and… those eyes were empty, both of human and even zerg intelligence. Even zerglings had some animal-like reactions, but normal infection ate away even this, it seems. Outstretching his arm, the one of the only two sane infected tried to do something. Slowly, the weird tube growth receded from the poor fellows mouth, showing a face, nothing special, just purple skin and vacant eyes.
Now, the weird growth was just dangling around, somewhat shrinked but not completely. "I guess you will be my open project from now on. Come, there are places for me to see." With a wave of hand, and slight pulse of his magic, the infested marine started following after him. The rest didn't even look in their direction.
Next was a few unrecognizable rooms, most of them totally overgrown by the zerg growth. A few storage rooms, living spaces here and there, nothing unusual for a base this big. Finally the master control room, "What a monster, this screen is big to be proudly presented in a medium sized cinema. And all those consoles… seems there is some fun to be had. Now, where is it…" He started looking all over the stations that weren't smashed or destroyed. "A scan system, built into the base itself. I guess with a base of this size, additional equipment doesn't need to be added separately. And is that… mineral & vespane scanner? You certainly won't see those very often. There are some filters for biosignatures… flyers… massive moving things… this certainly couldn't come cheap. Anyway…"
Dobromir skipped a few consoles that weren't of interest, before reaching the ONE. "Let's see, fuel is full, the installation doesn't have any problems… the exhausts are partly blocked? Probably some zerg mass, LET'S BURN IT!" He hit the button, and the somewhat unused engines whirred to life. If he was outside, Dobromir could probably hear and smell the sizzling meat, but it didn't matter anyway.
"Destination, our little base. Time to expand it by twenty-fold!" He grabbed the controls, and started flying forward. In the truest behemoth fashion, the Giant command center started to slowly, but majestically move forward.
No zerg looked up at them, beside the leader who spared them a quick glance, then properly ignored them. Wit and his chaperone were hovering in the place, some distance from the ground to not disturb the zerg too much. Considering the current power level of batteries, they could hover for another four hours, before the need for them to land or rise to the cosmos. Even with the Po'midors level of technological advancement, the gathering of solar energy was still lower than upkeep. There was an option of switching to biofuel in emergencies, but on a small boat as this the supply would last only for an hour.
"Watch the horizon!" after seeing him turn in the wrong direction, she added "The other horizon!"
Wit turned around and saw a dot in the distance. It was slowly growing… but still a dot. "What is that?" "Here" Taking the given spy glass, he extended it and looked through. It still was and dot but after a moment the vision started adjusting every so slowly, "There is nothing quite like an spyglass enchanted by the spy master among spymasters. Hmmm…" It looked like… command center? It kept slowly zooming in, "It a giant infected command center, it could… rival a small battlecruiser i guess? Definitely bigger than our Smothership by at least half."
"Infected? Is there any possibility that someone other than the one and only is steering it?" The pilot lady and this individual traveled many times… and many years, it really was quite obvious.
"I mean, yes it's dobromir and he is one, but not only. Anyway, considering this huge zergling on the ground, I can already guess where he is going. Leave me right… here."
She looking in the pointed direction, some distance away from the zerg to not disturb them, but close enough to quickly walk up. "Seems doable".
"Magistrate? Magistrate, come in, Trixie is calling you!"
The man who for some time was picking himself from the previous rollercoaster of dramas and tragedies, quickly rushed over to the console in his new small home and touched the incoming transmission. Weird, he didn't remember someone being able to talk before picking the call, but this wasn't the time to ponder it.
"Yes, I am here! What's the emergency?"
"There is no emergency. The Great Trixie just wanted to hear a status update."
Normally, the Magistrate would probably be irritated by this voice and personality, but after everything that happened to him and around him, he just… Accepted. Accepted Trixie, for who and how she is and didn't even feel a speck of annoyance. He began the path of the sage, even without knowing.
"We are currently half self-sufficient. Thanks to a few deposits of minerals, we were able to construct more ERK's, doubling what the main colony gave us. The next ten constructed would be available for taking back. The supply depots are fully functional, the basic food is already available. The dome is fully functional and in perfect shape. But we still have problems with energy supply. We are still looking for the nearest vespane gas and need to substitute it with biofuel. The solar panels are a great help but still not enough."
"Trixie already sees the problem in your reasoning." She was shaking her head slowly from side to side.
"What problem?" He did get softly scolded and corrected from time to time. Considering no insults were throwed or even any offenses, taking it as constructive criticism was very easy.
"Vespan Gase is very very fuel efficient, it should be used as emergency or high grade fuel. Also, don't forget our researchers who need it for their experiments."
"So what should we do, oh Great and Powerful one?" It definitely worked, as always.
She puffed her chest high, arms on hips and head held high. A breeze began gently blowing back her hair and softly swishing purple cape adorned with stars. "Trixie already found a solution to your problem. A geothermal vent. Even if the surface of the planet is dead, no one said anything about the underground." 'PING!' "The greatest Overseer among all Overseers, The Great And Powerful Trixie Lulamoon has just sent you the instructions, follow them to victory! Trixie, out."
And that was the end of the call. All the previous ones were similar and probably annoying for an outside person's view. But under all those pomp and self importance, there was WORK done by her. All insights were useful and all Instructions done to the tee gave great resultats. The best Overseer was certainly no extravasation, especially the Seer part.
Author's word's to say:
Yes, I just bringed a wonderful person from another universe, those who know, know.
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And the cosplay was and is of Nox the Timelord from Wakfu, to be more specific, how he first showed. Here is the link if you want to see.
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https/r/wakfu/comments/1675dii/my_favorite_nox_outfit/
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The clothes for the Mil won't really be a cosplay, more of a reference to the traditional garb.