helldive

Johnathan Calls Olia. “hey. I have some bad news. It’s a tier one.” Olia is bartending, and as he hands a customer his drink he slams the table with the glass, shattering it and spilling the drink onto the customer, it pissing off the customer. “oh sorry, sorry hehe you get free drinks for the rest of the day, again I'm very sorry. VHITH TAKE OVER FOR A MOMENT.” Vhith is running around trying to catch up with the orders and hears Olia. He nods and sighs, hating the extra workload. Olia heads back into his brothel and walks into a secured room filled with monitors. He sits down on a very comfortable chair and talks to Johnathan. “alright I'm alone. How bad is it looking hunny?” Johnathan sends the scan data, and Olia immediately opens up the file and sees the red and blue diagram of the planet. “The blue is the core shroom roots, and the red is the old earth monster tunnels.” Olia clicks his tongue and sits back into his chair with a very annoyed expression. He then sighs, sits up straight and moves closer to type on his keyboard, emailing someone while talking to Johnathan.

“yeahhh…this is bad. Let me contact my ‘manager’ and I’ll get your updated contract and payment as soon as possible. Should be done by the end of the day.”

“understood. In the meantime I’m gonna look for mercs wanting to deal with this, but I'm not having my hopes up.”

“alright.” Olia ends the call and gets another call soon after.

Johnathan uses a network for mercenaries and makes a premium contract saying. “help needed asap. close quarters experience with re-breather required. tier one old earth monster on Vrak. pay TBD on contract issuance. -Signed Johnathan x tier 0 hunter.” Johnathan knows that a contract like this will attract no one. Extreme high risk with no guarantee for a reward is gonna scare off any merc worth his salt, but it is against code of conduct to lie about any detail and will have him banned. He then heads to the thirst trap for a drink.

Once Johnathan reaches the thirst trap he doesn’t see Olia behind the bar just Vhith. Johnathan sits down, and poor Vhith breathlessly asks for Johnathan's order. “C-can I get…your…your order, sir.”

“something strong, please. And I'm no rush, so take your time.”

Vhith nods and smiles, and he tries to catch up with the backlog of orders. While waiting Johnathan begins his preparations and makes some calls to random individuals, and checks on his contract to see if anyone is interested. As he works Vhith finally catches up with some of his orders and gives Johnathan a glass of imported 990 Taantar villinue a disgusting black ooze of a drink, but if you can look past its look and texture it’s actually quite pleasant. It's heavily sought after since Taantar is no more.

Johnathan is surprised and looks at Vhith. “umm. Olia asked me to let you have a glass of the good stuff. I, uh, don’t know if it’s still good or not…sorry.” Vhith looks down. To Vhith and many others this just looks like rotten sludge, but Johnathan reassures him that, that is what it’s supposed to look like. Johnathan then uses a spoon to scoop up some of the villinue. He gulps it down, and it hits the back of his throat something fierce, but after a minute it subsides, leaving a nice tingle and a mildly spicy taste on his tongue. “Thanks Vhith. you can go now.” Vhith nods and absentmindedly bumps into a tap as he goes back to taking orders.

As he takes another scoop Johnathan hears a familiar voice. “oh hey it’s Johnathan!” Johnathan turns around to see Vhilem and his brother Triton. “oh hey it’s you two. By any chance did you get that re-breather?” Vhilem walks up to Johnathan and nods. He then shows him the re-breather that they recently bought. “yeah I got real lucky. I asked a guy I met earlier the other day if he knew anyone who was selling, and he pointed me to them.”

“That’s great.” Johnathan says dismissively. “But I got a new job I need to work on, so if you can leave me alone that be great.”

Vhilem is surprised at Johnathan’s tone of voice. “oh! I'm sorry.”

“it’s not your fault. That thing we fought turned out to be tier one threat. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to take it out in time before this planet is condemned.”

“condemed?” ask Vhilem

“you don’t know what it means?” asks Johnathan, and Vhilem shakes his head in response. “If a planet is condemned it means human life can not exist there and or the planet is shattered.”

Hearing this, Vhilem gets worked up. “we have to do something then! If we can please let us join!” Johnathan likes Vhilem’s attitude and smiles. “Honestly, you might be the only ones who are going to be willing to help me. Look I need to make a few calls and get the new contract from Olia. you two find some good gear that can handle what we fought. I’ll call you when I'm ready.” Vhilem nods.

“Come on Triton let’s get some upgrades.” Triton nods in agreement. They both leave. Johnathan takes another scoop and takes a deep breath. “some more babysitting for me I guess. hmmm but if Triton gets another swig off that green blood. Hey Sasha, do you still have some of the green blood that we got from fighting the old earth monster?” “yes sir.” “Turn it into an inhaleable and mix it with my nanites.” “Yes sir.”

“Now let’s see who’s available.” Johnathan makes a search query looking for drillers nearby. After a while he finds an individual who’s willing to lend his driller for a fee. Johnathan agrees and send half the money, promising the other half when the driller gets to Vrak. Johnathan pays a little extra to insure the driller comes in as soon as possible. With that out of the way he notices Olia sent a message, It reads. “my manager agreed to increasing the contract from 10k to 50k. he is also interested in knowing more of something called ‘green blood’ you probably know what it is. He also says, ‘have a good day’.”

“tsk.” Johnathan clicks his tongue angrily. “good ol Nox can’t know shit without them knowing. Oh well, can probably make some extra cash from it. Sasha make some sturdy, airtight containers and make sure they are acid proof.” “Yes, sir.” The machines on his spaceship get to work, and Johnathan opens up the map of the tunnels underground, planning how to efficiently deal with the problem.

Over to Vhilem and Triton. The sun is as bright as every other day in Vrak, but the people are heading home to sleep. Being so late out, most merchants are gone, except for one. A merchant with long earlobes and wearing nothing but worn down pants. “Hello! welcome welcome my friend. I assume you want some more info?”

“yeah.” Vhilem then hands 20 creds to the merchant.

“ahaha very good, very good. What are you looking for my man.”

“we need something for close quarters combat. Fast and can deal with lots of enemies.”

“Ahhhh now that needs a Nox kill-a-ton a snubbed auto shotgun. It just so happens I have one and have both its custom explosive shot and regular spread shot. 500 creds.”

“Only one?” asks Vhilem

“Yes only one. These are hard to come by. Nox Etra makes em, and they don’t sell their hardware to the average customer. Mainly high end body guards and the like.”

“I see. Well, I’ll take it with the ammo.” Vhilem pays for the gun, and the merchant takes out a secure container. He inputs a password, biometric scan, face scan, audible password, a DNA scan, and inserts a key. It opens, and out comes a short, boxy gun with a long rectangular mag, a forward grip, and a screen with ammo count on the backmost top of the gun. Vhilem hands it to Triton and is snuggly fits in his hands. He holds it sideways, and it’s barely as long as Tritons torso. The merchant then hands them two black trash bags one filled with black mags and the other filled with red mags.

“The black ones are the spread shot, while the red ones are the explosive ones. It’s gauged in .410 which is on the smaller side but it was made with the explosive shells in mind. No recoil and compact well worth the purchase, my friends. Also, it has a button on the left side. Click it.” Triton then clicks the button and on the screen under the numbers a circle turns into a line.

“Ok…what did that do?” asks Vhilem.

“Hehehe it changed the spread pattern. Obviously doesn’t do shit with slugs but with anything with pellets they will obey the pattern. Also pro tip, hold down the button it makes a screen with all the different patterns pop up instead of going through each and everyone individually” Vhilem is amazed.

“Well, thanks Mr uhhh?” “Im John.” “well thanks John.” John nods enthusiastically and puts away the case. “We don’t get the case?”

“Hell no! That case is worth more than the gun. Find your own!”

“Well, uh, ok then. We’ll be going now take care.”

“Oh, wait a moment.” The merchant stops the two from leaving. “40 more creds and I have a special bit of info for you.” Vhilem rolls his eye but gives the 40 creds. “thank you thank you my friend. You seek better gear and I just happen to know a guy. Go to dock space 58 and ask for Ikom. guy sells much more military stuff than I do, less valuable though, In my opinion. If you catch what I mean ehh ehhhh.” Vhilem just smiles not understanding what he means. He waves goodbye, and John waves goodbye as well. Vhilem then walks through Norn and into the edge of the city where the jungle rules supreme. “Triton give me the gun. I wanna try it out.” Triton hands the gun to Vhilem.

Vhilem aims it at the trees to get a feel for it. Compared to the long guns they got from Johnathan this one is way easier to handle. The screen says 30 when Vhilem chambers a shell it goes down to 29. Vhilem then clicks on the side button and the line goes from horizontal to vertical and he holds the button down and clicks on the circle He then fires it at a tree and a perfect circle is formed on the tree. The damage is quite impressive as well. Vhilem fired from 53 yards away and, not only does it still carry devastating power it actually managed to almost fully destroy the tree. He gets close to see not a single pellet veered off the pattern. Vhilem is impressed. Like John said no recoil, and it obeys the pattern, but now comes the real show. Vhilem gets excited, He unloads the gun and inserts a red mag. He takes a few more steps back and fires at a different, slightly thicker tree. The shot rings out and the explosion completely annihilate the tree. The tree falls backwards because of the force of the explosion. Curiously the explosion doesn’t affect the trees near the destroyed tree but the explosion did damage another tree behind the destroyed one.

Vhilem notices this and wants to do an experiment. “Hey Triton. Do me a favor find me something flat. Anything with some weight will do.” Triton nods and looks around, and so does Vhilem. Vhilem finds a few sticks and bring them. Triton finds a flat stone slab as big as his torso and effortlessly brings it over. “Where do you want it?” Ask Triton. “uhhh put it over there.” Vhilem points at a small boulder. Triton lays it straight up, and then Vhilem places sticks near it and behind it. “Alright. Get back.” Vhilem tells Triton and they both go about 40 yards away. Vhilem then clicks the button to change the shot pattern to a dot. He aims, fires, and the explosion is not as glorious as before. They get close and Vhilem’s suspicions are confirmed. The slab of rock has a small hole that goes through the rock, the sticks behind the rock and well past the boulder, but the sticks on the left and right are unaffected. The sticks lay on the boulder and not a single one, other than the few behind the stone slab, where moved. Vhilem changes the pattern again to a horizontal line and fires again. All the sticks were destroyed and the stone slab was, essentially, cut in half. The boulder was slightly affected, but not as bad as the dot pattern.

Vhilem laughs at how glorious the explosions were and decides that he will handle to shotgun. Triton doesn’t object. Before he forgets he takes out the red mag, unloads the chamber and switches back to the black one. “He said space 58 right. let’s see if that guy is there.” Triton nods, and they both head to the docks. They take about an hour to get from where they were and into the docks, and then search for space 58. It doesn’t take them long to find it and see a food truck. Vhilem and Triton look at each and shrug. Vhilem walks up and knocks. The window opens up, and a fat man in a clean apron and wearing a hair net is sitting looking at his phone and smoking a cig. He doesn’t look away from his phone and in a deep gravelly voice he talks to Vhilem slowly. “what want? Sell fake good food.”

Vhilem responds. “are you Ikom?”

“No.” The chef answers, “but you seek good guns, armor, I guy. Go to door, it open. Come in.” The two walk around and open the door and enter, It’s a tight fit. The chef then closes the window, and the interior changes. Almost everything from the inside changes, and the interior is almost all just guns, armor, grenades, and anything in between.

“No one want good fake food. Only stupid gun and armor *blegh*. Name Feryun, Ikom brother. No alive now.” He never looks up from his phone and his smoke is gone, he lights up a new one. The two brothers browse around.

In the top row are weapons of all kinds mainly cheap conventional weapons but a few are behind shielded cases. One of them is a plasma rifle but there are two others that the brothers do not know what they are. In the middle section are various armors. The bottom row has various grenades and attachments. Vhilem points to a gray full body suit and asks what it is. Without looking up Feryun somehow knows what Vhilem is pointing at. “titanium weave with replaceable plating. light, very good at handling pointy attacks and smacks, can handle low caliber bullets, good armor. I also sell some carbon fiber plates. 346 creds and I’ll thrown in a set of plates.”

“do you have a second one?”

“yeah yeah.”

Vhilem nods to himself and buys the armor. Feryun gets two plastic bags and puts the armor and plates in the bags and hands them to Vhilem. He then sits back down and is back on his phone. “And what kind of grenades are these?” asked Vhilem. “Left to right. Internal destructor, make your insides jelly while keeping your outsides intact, hurts a lot. Delta grenade, it sucks in instead of push away, useful. Lastly a cage, makes near indestructible barrier to either keep safe or keep in. All 50 creds.” Vhilem picks up 3 internal destructors, 2 delta grenades, and 1 cage. He pays for it and it’s bagged. Then Vhilem asks a strange question. “So uh, can I buy some ‘good fake food’.” Feryun looks up excitedly from the offer. “Of course friend! On me on me. Let us enjoy ourselves!” He then excitedly gets up and changes the interior again back to a kitchen. The two brothers leave, and outside a projected table and chairs are now there when it wasn’t. The brothers take a chair and wait for their meal.

After a few minutes Feryun rings a bell and three plates are taken by a drone and onto the table. Feryun then gets out and sits down with the brothers. “I try my best! love cooking better than silly weapons!” He then picks up his meal and takes a satisfying chomp. The two brothers join in and Vhilem is delighted at how it tastes. Triton eats it at a moderate pace. “mmmm what is this called, Feryun?” “mmmmm ughh *gulp* it’s called a ‘cheese burger’ learned it from planet Whellin.” he takes another bite.

“Its quite nice but, How did you get rid of the dirt taste?”

“we have lots of grease. Very expensive but worth it.” he finishes his burger and taps his belly.

“so how’d your brother go?” asks Vhilem

“He was stupid. He try and steal one of those swords from Gorth. Lost his head instead.” Feryun shakes his head, and he takes a deep breath. “Tell him. No stupid, stupid we do good we no need stupid sword. But noooo need more money egh.” Feryun looks down. “I miss him.”

Vhilem pats Feryun on the back. “Rough. I hope he’s in a better place now. So what are you gonna do next?”

“ehhh probably go back home to Cyro. Gorth nice enough to give back body. Bury him near mom.” Vhilem finishes his food, and so does Triton. Vhilem then gets up and puts his arm around Feryun. “ey if where ever Cyro can we get another free meal?” Vhilem gives him a wide warm smile, and it has an effect on Feryun. He smiles back to Vhilem and gets up. “Promise! Cyro has real cows! We eat like gods ahaha.” Feryun then heads back to his food truck. “Oh, I forget. I stay for a bit. Come whenever friend.” Vhilem waves goodbye, and so does Feryun. The two brothers leave and walk back to the thirst trap.

They see a CLOSED sign out front; they enter anyway. The only person there is Olia, and he is smoking and drinking. “CAN’T YOU FUC…. oh it’s you two.” He takes another swig. Vhilem walks up to the bar and sits down. “Damn. What’s got you so down?” He takes another swig. “Fuging stressed uggh. That damnnn monshter is gonna fuck it all up. I don’t want to leave! You know how damn hard it ish to find a nice quiet area…FUCK!” He puts his head down onto the bar. “But we’re gonna take care of it! ain’t that right Triton!” Triton nods. He takes another swig and finishes his cigaret. “I’m sure you will hun, especially with johnny on the hunt. I jush don’t handle stress all that well. Become extremely self destructive.”

Vhilem then pats Olia on the head and gives him a reassuring smile. “Hey man don’t worry. We’ll get it in time promise…Olia?” Olia is fast asleep.

“Triton can you take him to his room? You remember which one is his room, right?” Triton walks behind the bar and picks him up. “I remember.” Triton then walks away and takes Olia to his room upstairs. Vhilem heads to the room that they rented from Olia, and he waits for Triton in there. Triton gets into Olia’s room and lays Olia down on his couch. He then leaves and heads to their room and walks in. Vhilem is asleep, and Triton does the same.

Vhilem’s phone rings, and it wakes him. He sees that it’s from Johnathan. He picks up the call. “Hey. meet me at the heavy docks, space 5. It’s not where the regular docks are it’s on the other end of Norn. I’ll send the coordinates. Get here in 4 hours or I’ll leave without you.” “alright. meet you there.”

Vhilem ends the call and stretches. He gets up and wakes up his brother. Once he’s up they get suited up in the titanium weave and insert the plates. They then also put on the carbon fiber suit on top of it. Lastly, they put on their helmets and the re-breather. Once the re-breather is on, it makes an airtight seal around the open section of the helmet and fully covers their face. They then quickly check their guns, and once they are ready, they leave. They get outside and head to the heavy docking port. They take about 20 minutes to get there since they went jogging not wanting to waste time. As they get close they see massive ships. Not as big as freighter but somewhere in between. They quickly find space 5 and see Johnathan in front of a massive skeletal ship. It stands on 6 “legs” that hold the ship up. In the middle is smaller cylindrical ship with a massive drill head at the bottom and an engine at the top. The main ship has four catwalks that are retracted that lead into the driller. At the top is the main ship itself, a rectangular shaped hull with a massive viewing port at the front. Johnathan is leaning on one of the ships legs.

He notices both Triton and Vhilem and is surprised at how early they are. Vhilem walks up to Johnathan. “We're ready when you are, sir.”

“damn you two are early, good. No one else is coming, so we’ll get going as soon as you give your confirmation to the contract. The basics of the contract are you and your brother get 5k each. Payment will be sent once the old earth monster is dealt with.” Johnathan’s nanites form a pad and he hands it to Vhilem then presses his finger, and the contract is confirmed. “Oh, and here a gift for Triton” Johnathan throws the inhalable to Triton, and he catches it.

“what is it.” asks Triton.

“It’s some of that green blood mixed with my nanites. They are pre programed to regulate immediately, giving you that weird high but also making sure you won’t die from it. It’s an inhalable just put it into your mouth and breathe it in. It also has a predetermined amount of huffs, around 10.” Triton puts it into his pocket. Johnathan then walks to a ladder and the two brothers follow him.

They have to climb up a massive ladder that takes them about 10 minutes to climb. Once they get to the top they reach the catwalk where the driller is. Johnathan hooks himself up with a safety harness and tells the two brothers to do the same. Vhilem and Triton hook up and check to see if it’s on tight. “You ever went up to space outside a ship?” asks Johnathan. Vhilem slowly shakes his head no and even though his face is behind a helmet Johnathan can tell Vhilem is terrified. Vhilem tightly hangs on to a guard rail.

Once Johnathan is sure that everything is ready, Johnathan then calls the operator. “were good to go. Send her off on the exact coordinates I gave you.” from the viewing port the operator looks down and sees Johnathan and gives a thumbs up. He turns on the ship and fires it up.

The ship flies off into the stars and a thin barrier protects the three from the harsher g forces, but the g forces are still extremely strong. Vhilem is forced onto the floor and is hanging on for dear life. Triton is hanging on tightly, but is ok. Johnathan is uneffected he stands up tall. After a few minutes they reach outer space, and the artificial gravity kicks in.

Vhilem gets on his feet. He is still hanging on to the rail guard and his legs are shaking. Johnathan walks up to him and pats him on the back. “you ok pal?” Johnathan laughs to reassure Vhilem. Vhilem gives him a shaky thumbs up and his arm falls limply onto the rail. Vhilem takes a few deep breaths and then pushes himself off the rail. “So what’s next.” asks Vhilem.

“next we wait for the operator to get into position. Once he’s in position the lights.” Johnathan points to the light bulbs all around the legs of the ship. “They will turn yellow, telling us to get ready and then green once the driller is ready to go.” Not long after the lights all around the ship turn yellow and the cat walk rolls out connecting to the driller entrance. Once it’s connected to the driller, the driller opens up, and the inside is nothing but upright seats with some screens. “alright that’s our cue. Let’s get inside and strap in.”

Johnathan and crew walk into the driller. Johnathan then shows the two brothers how to strap in and then Johnathan straps himself in. Johnathan then calls the operator, “alright were ready. Send her down.” The lights all around the ship turn green, and the driller closes its hatch. The screens inside the driller turn on, showing the outside and the current depth. The starting of the driller engine is extremely loud, and the driller rumbles to life. The cat walk outside disconnects, and the operator gets the signal that everything is ready. He taps on his screen, and buttons behind a protective glass case open up. He pushes a yellow button, and the driller is released. He pushes a blue button, and the protective barrier around the lower section of the ship is turned off. Then the green button lights up, and once he pushes it the driller moves. once it’s far enough away from the main ship the driller fully ignites and goes down to Vrak in full force.