"I have the distinct impression you are going to be difficult." I said annoyed.
"You want a favor from me? Well pick my nose and i'll pick yours as the saying goes. I got trespassers crawling all over my property here. They got their eye on my treasure. You get out there and start exterminatin' interlopers. Then we'll see about whatever it was you wanted." the old fuck said before sliding the peephole shut in our faces.
"I know you can hear me so listen the fuck up. You try and jerk us around and I'll personally come back here and broil your ass alive in that fucking box of yours." I said firmly before we left to deal with these "interlopers" of his.
There were a few spider ants when we got to the fork in the path and I let Ladon deal with them which turned out the be hilarious. The big lizard climbed over the hard carapace before ripping off the thorax with his teeth getting that webby gunk all in his mouth and looking like he was chewing bubblegum for a minute before finally getting rid of it.-
The other two spider ants got the flamethrower treatment after that as he clearly wasn't going to make the same mistake twice. We took the path to the right that led to a wide open dump that was turned into an encampment for the bandits. They apparently took the scrap and turned it into walkways and rough sheds that they were living in and patrolling. I was disgusted however as there was a literal lake of sewage and other sludge as well as piles of trash everywhere. Even New Haven was better in my opinion as at least that place was dry.-
"Mordy you want to try sniping them one by one and see how long it takes them to realize?" I asked with a grin.
"Sounds like fun, I'm in." he said as he took the Nailer off his back and scoped in.
For the next five minutes we watched as one bandit after another got holes in their heads in the distance. That was how long it took for these dumb motherfuckers to realize that someone was picking them off with a sniper. When they did however it made no difference as by then a good fifteen of them had been removed from the census permanently.-
All that was left was maybe ten others who Mordy shot before they could even get close enough to try and shoot us with their piss poor aim. I gained a neat 22,050 lifeforce from them though along with a [Mechanical engineering expertise(degraded)-Common grade]. It wasn't all that useful to me since I had the rare non degraded version but improvement in that field no matter how little is always appreciated. We went back to Earl at that point since we'd done what he wanted and now it was time to talk vault key fragments.-
"We killed all the trespassers." I said loudly when the peep slit opened again.
"You killed all the trespassers? I have no idea what you are talking about, I don't see any trespassers." he said and I had to stop myself from breathing fire through the peep slit and on his face. "One more thing. I'm all outta booze. You wanna get my alien whatsit? You're gonna go pick up a new supply from the bandits out at Treacher's landing. They brew a mean moonshine out there. Don't know what's in it, but who cares? Those bandits don't part with it willingly, of course. That's why you're going and not me!" he said but I put my gun in the slit before he could rudely close it again.
"Now lets be clear here. If you don't actually have the thing waiting for us when we get back there isn't enough locks in the universe that'll save you from us, get me?" I said after taking off my mask and staring the old man down through the slit.
"Wait! I mighta sorta lied to you. Krom stole that alien hunk o'junk from me, he stabbed me twice." the guy said aggrieved and in panic.
"And why the fuck didn't you say that before trying to waste our fucking time!?" I demanded angrily.
"I thought I could get some free crap outta you before spillin the beans. No harm done right? If you lot are stupid enough to take him on you'll find Krom to the northeast, in his canyon. Just follow the river north and past Flood lock. If you get that alien doo-dad back from him you and that Tannis woman do whatever you want with it. I'm done with it." the bastard said before ignoring my gun and sliding the peep slit shut.
"Easy Alex! Like he said, no harm done. No reason to kill the codger." Mordy said trying to calm me down.
"I was bluffing about killing him actually." I said with a chuckle.
"WHAT!?" they all exclaimed in shock.
"Yeah, while I thought the guy probably didn't have the thing he was the only lead we have so obviously I wasn't going to kill him without getting what he knew first. Guy is clearly paranoid about his safety so threatening it was the fastest way to get him to squeal." I said with a shrug.
"Psychological warfare? Doesn't seem like something you'd be good at." Roland said impressed.
"Oh i'm REALLY fucking good at it, just don't bother with it most of the time since theres no benefit and only wastes time I could be spent doing something more productive, like killing stuff." I said honestly.
"Remind me not to get on your bad side." Lil joked and we all laughed.
We took the fast travel station at the start of the scrapyard back to New Haven since we wanted to be fresh faced when we went to Krom's canyon to grab that vault key piece.
We weren't stopped by Pierce when we got there which I took to mean she learnt her lesson and headed to my furnace. The furnace itself was still going but the refined materials were starting to pile up so I opened my house up and had Brick help me haul it all to one of my storage rooms to be stored until I needed it. There was a LOT of different materials that I had to store and later organize. I even managed to get a whole barrel sulfur which was one of the ingredients for gunpowder. -
I already had plenty of burnable carbon that could be used in place of normal charcoal and only needed the potassium nitrate to make my own magic black powder of death. One thing that was uber plentiful from the refining of all this trash however was plastic and steel. The sheer volume of these two materials alone was more than eighty percent of all the refined materials total. Still I was quite satisfied with the furnace so far as an area of a hundred yards in every direction had been cleared of trash entirely leaving only sand and stone behind.-
Admittedly that wasn't a lot considering the sheer amount of trash that was left but it was a damn fine start. I did notice however that the rate the trash was being fed into the furnace was not nearly fast enough so I decided I'd make some new robots to speed it up once we turned into the house for the night.
"Gotta admit I was kinda skeptical at first when you said you wanted to clear out this trash but it looks like you might actually pull it off in a few years." Lil said impressed as she looked at the cleared out area.
"I'll be setting up more furnaces when enough materials are collected to speed it up but I never doubted it was doable, just time consuming. Once I finally get rid of all this trash I might work to terraform the area into something you'd ACTUALLY want to live in, maybe add trees to throw off the locals." I said with a chuckle.
"I'd like to see that one day." Roland said with a small smile as his gaze was distant like he was imagining the scene in his mind.
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https://www.pa treon.com/user?u=81578854#:~:text=pa treon.com/pa treon_loskro
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Alexander Drake
Lifeforce:259,524
Integrated Traits: [Gun expertise-Uncommon grade]X4, [Clever mind-Rare grade],[Enhanced senses-Epic grade]X2, [Demi-supreme body-Legendary grade], [Supreme armored hide-Epic grade]X2, [Energy projection-Legendary grade], [Superior vitality-Epic grade]X2,[Flame breath-Uncommon grade],[Regeneration-Epic grade]X2, [Disease resistance-Epic grade],[Amphibious lungs-Uncommon grade], [Thermal sensing-Uncommon grade], [Water resistance-Common grade],[Active camouflage-Epic grade], [Eridian engineering expertise-Mythical grade], [Efficient lungs-Rare grade]x2, [Fire resistance-Epic grade]X3, [Elemental body(fire)-Legendary grade], [Shock resistance-Epic grade]X4, [Energetic sustenance(shock)-Epic grade]X2, [Radiation resistance-Epic grade]X3, [Energetic sustenance(radiation)-Epic grade]X2, [Biometallic bones-Epic grade],[Elemental body(shock)-Rare grade]X3,[Quick thinking-Rare grade], [Minor spatial awareness-Epic grade], [Buzzaxe expertise-Uncommon grade], [Siren(Phaselock)(Altered)-Mythical grade], [Pugilist expertise-Uncommon grade], [Adrenal rush-Rare grade], [Mechanical engineering expertise-Rare grade], [Gunsmithing expertise(degrading)-Common grade]X3, [Elemental body(Corrosive)-Rare grade], [Corrosion resistance-Rare grade], [Mechanical Savant-Epic grade],
Stored traits: [Flame projection gland], [Mechanical engineering expertise(degraded)-Common grade]