Sector 7G - The Iron Mud (Atlas's Domain)
Gravity was the enemy. Atlas stood at the edge of his island, looking down into the endless purple void. He held a feather in one hand and a steel wrench in the other. He dropped them both. They fell at the same speed. "Physics is still active," Atlas muttered. "That means I need Lift."
He walked back to his workshop—a chaotic sprawl of blast furnaces, refineries, and clay pits. The loss of the Void-Runner bike had been a tactical necessity, but a strategic setback. He was grounded. And against the Mimics, being grounded meant being food.
"Cavedweller!" The Kobold Vassal scurried out from a pile of timber. He was wearing a new pair of welding goggles Atlas had crafted for him. "Yes, Lord?" "We are pivoting industries. Stop smelting steel plates. I need Aluminum."
Cavedweller blinked behind his goggles. "Alu...minum? The light metal? We don't have bauxite ore, Lord. We only have the grey clay."
Atlas paused. He looked at the clay. "Kaolinite," Atlas realized. "Clay contains alumina. It's harder to extract than iron, requiring massive amounts of electricity for electrolysis... but I have the Bio-Batteries."
"Scrap the steel plan," Atlas corrected. "We're going lighter. Wood. Canvas. And high-grade Dope." "Dope?" "Varnish," Atlas sighed. "To tighten the fabric. We're building a kite with an engine."
Atlas sat on his throne to access the Earth Database. [Origin Points: 210]
He needed a flying machine. A plane needed a runway. He didn't have a runway; his island was rough mud. A helicopter needed complex swashplates and tail rotors. Too many moving parts to fail. He needed something rugged. Something that could take off from a dime and land in a swamp.
"System. Access Memory: [Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior]." "Unit: [ The Gyro Captain's Machine]."
[Analyzing Concept: Gyrocopter.][Mechanics:]Unpowered top rotor (provides lift via auto-rotation), powered rear propeller (provides thrust).[Pros:]STOL (Short Take-Off and Landing). Cannot stall. Low fuel consumption.[Cons:]Exposed cockpit. Low armor.
"I don't need armor," Atlas whispered. "I need altitude."
[Blueprint Cost: 100 Origin Points.] "Purchase."
A holographic wireframe appeared in the center of the workshop. It was ugly. It was skeletal. A triangular frame made of steel tubing. A seat taken from a wrecked car. A three-bladed rotor on top, and a roaring V-Twin engine on the back.
"It looks like a death trap," Cavedweller noted. "It's our death trap," Atlas corrected. "Now, we need fuel. The Centurion drank all our ethanol."
The Global Market Crash
Atlas opened the [Global Marketplace]. He needed sugar. Massive amounts of it to ferment into ethanol. He filtered the search by [Raw Ingredients].
> Seller: Green_Thumb (Elf) - [Sweet Berries x100] - Price: 10 Faith.> Seller: Plantation_Owner (Human) - [Sugar Cane x500] - Price: 40 Faith.> Seller: Candy_King - [Refined Sugar Sacks] - Price: 50 Faith.
Atlas checked his wallet. [Faith Points: 1,500] (Payments from Zhuge + Battle Rewards).
"I'm about to ruin the economy," Atlas smirked.
He didn't buy one stack. He hit [Buy All]. Transaction Complete.Transaction Complete.Transaction Complete.
In ten seconds, Atlas swept the entire sector's supply of sugar, berries, and fermentable fruits. 1,500 Faith Points vanished. In return, thousands of pounds of biomass flooded his inventory.
The Global Chat lit up instantly.
> User_Green_Thumb: Who just bought 5,000 berries?! I was saving those for potion crafting!> User_Baker_Bob: Hey! The price of Sugar Cane just spiked by 400%! What is happening?> User_Eco_Analyst: Someone is cornering the carbohydrate market. Is a famine coming?
Atlas ignored the chat. He dumped the raw materials into his Refinery. "Cavedweller. Mash it. Ferment it. Distill it. I want high-proof moonshine flowing by noon."
The Hangar
While the refinery bubbled with the sweet, rot-smell of industrial alcohol, Atlas worked on the Engine. The Gyrocopter needed a better power-to-weight ratio than the bike.
He couldn't use heavy cast iron. He used the Scrap King's Magnet again. He built a Radial Engine. Five cylinders arranged in a circle for air-cooling. He realized the Spark Plugs using tiny slivers of the Magic Crystals Zhuge gave him. Magic-Ignited Combustion.
He mounted the engine to the frame. He carved the propeller from the hardest wood on the island (taken from the dead tree near the throne). He stretched canvas (sewn from Gnoll leather) over the tail rudder and painted it with slime-varnish to make it airtight.
It took 12 hours. The result was the [Sky-Rat Mk I]. It sat on three small wheels. The rotor blades drooped sadly without wind to lift them.
"Fuel," Atlas commanded.
Cavedweller hauled a clay jerry can over. "Batch 1, Lord. 95% Purity." Atlas poured the clear liquid into the tank. He primed the carburetor. He walked to the rear propeller. "Clear prop!"
Atlas swung the propeller by hand. Cough. Sputter.BANG. Blue flame shot out of the exhaust pipe. VRRRRRR-POP-POP-VRRRRR.
The Radial Engine caught. The sound was a buzzsaw drone, high-pitched and angry. The rear propeller blurred into invisibility. The wind wash kicked up mud, splattering Cavedweller's goggles.
Atlas climbed into the open seat. He strapped himself in with a leather belt. He looked at the controls. A stick for pitch and roll. A pedal for the rudder. A throttle lever. No altimeter. No radio. Just vibes and physics.
"If I die," Atlas shouted over the engine, "feed my body to the Centurion!" "Yes, Master!" Cavedweller gave a thumbs up, terrified.
Atlas pushed the throttle. The Sky-Rat lurched forward. It bounced over the mud. 20mph. 30mph. The top rotor started to spin. Whup-whup-whup. The centrifugal force stiffened the blades. They bit into the air. 40mph. Atlas reached the edge of the cliff. He didn't pull up. He drove off the edge.
The First Flight
For a second, he fell. The stomach-churning sensation of freefall gripped him. The abyss opened up to swallow him. Then, the air rushed up through the rotor blades. Auto-rotation. The air pressure spun the blades faster. They generated Lift. The fall slowed. The glide began.
Atlas pulled the stick back. The rotor disc tilted. The lift vector pointed forward and up. The engine screamed. The Sky-Rat swooped out of the dive, leveling off.
"I'm flying," Atlas laughed. The wind tore at his mask. "I am the King of the Sky!"
He climbed. He rose above his island. He saw the smoke from his refinery. He saw the Centurion standing guard like a statue. He climbed higher. He saw Zhuge's Cloud Palace. He saw the wreckage of Khan's ships. And then, he saw Them.
Sector 8A - The Mimic Hive.
From 2,000 feet up, the scale of the infestation was horrifying. The grey slime hadn't just taken one island. It had bridged four of them. Thick, fleshy grey tendrils connected the floating rocks like spiderwebs. The "buildings" on the islands were gone. Replaced by pulsating grey sacks and tall, spiraling towers that looked like termite mounds made of bone.
Atlas banked the Gyrocopter, circling the perimeter. He activated the zoom on his mask.
[Scan Object][Entity: Mimic Spire.][Function: Anti-Air Defense?]
"They adapt fast," Atlas whispered. "They saw the Sylphs flying. They are building AA guns."
Suddenly, one of the spires twitched. The top opened like a flower. THWOOM. A projectile launched from the spire. It wasn't a bullet. It was a Acid-Spitter Bomb. A biological mortar shell filled with corrosive green bile.
It arced through the air, exploding about 500 feet below Atlas. A cloud of green mist lingered in the air. "Flak," Atlas noted. "Biological Flak clouds. If I fly through that, my wooden prop dissolves."
He pulled a notebook from his pocket (tied to his leg). Target Priority 1: The Spires.Weakness: Stationary.Solution: Dive Bombing.
He checked his fuel gauge. The radial engine was thirsty. 95% ethanol burned hot and fast. He had about 20 minutes of flight time left.
"I need to test their reaction time." Atlas pushed the nose down. The Gyrocopter entered a steep dive, the rotor whirring like a banshee. He aimed for a lone Mimic Spire on the outer edge.
He didn't have bombs loaded. He had Molotovs (leftover Napalm in glass bottles). He descended to 500 feet. The Spire tracked him. It swiveled with unnatural fluidity. THWOOM. It fired. Atlas yanked the stick hard right. The Gyrocopter juked. The acid bomb flew past his left flank, missing by meters. "Slow projectile speed," Atlas analyzed. "Dodgeable."
He leveled out, flying directly over the Spire. He grabbed a Molotov. He struck the fuse. He dropped it. Gravity did the rest. The bottle fell straight into the open mouth of the Spire.
Crash. Fwoom.
Fire erupted from inside the tower. The grey flesh writhed. The Spire convulsed, spewing black smoke instead of acid. It collapsed in on itself, melting into a puddle.
"Confirmed," Atlas shouted. "Fire works. Precision works."
He pulled up, climbing back to the safety of the high altitude, leaving a trail of black smoke in the purple sky.
The Landing
Landing a Gyrocopter was harder than flying it. You had to flare at the last second to kill your forward momentum. Atlas approached his mud runway. He cut the throttle. The rear prop stopped. The top rotor kept spinning on inertia. He drifted down. Flare. The wheels touched the mud. Bounce. Bounce. Slide. The Sky-Rat skidded to a halt ten feet from the cliff edge.
Cavedweller ran over, cheering. "You lived! You lived!" Atlas unbuckled, his legs shaking from the adrenaline and the vibration. "I lived," Atlas nodded. "And I have the data."
He walked to the Refinery, stripping off his flight gloves. "Cavedweller. How fast can you make these airframes?" "The wood is easy, Master. But the engines... the magnets..."
"We need mass production," Atlas paced. "I can't be the only pilot. I can't fly a fleet by myself." He stopped. He looked at the Centurion. He looked at the Vacuum Tubes.
"Drones," Atlas realized. "I don't need pilots. Gyrocopters are simple. Throttle up. Steer left. Steer right." "If I build a Logic Core for flight stabilization... I can build Kamikaze Drones." "The V-1 Buzz Bomb logic."
Ping. A message from Zhuge.
[Zhuge]: "Atlas. The market is in chaos. People are starving because you bought all the food. I have players at my border begging for rice." [Zhuge]: "Also... my scouts report the Grey Cloud is moving. The Mimics aren't waiting for us to attack. They are building bridges toward Khan's territory."
Atlas looked at his prototype plane. "Let them come," Atlas typed back. "Tell Khan to prepare the ground war. I'll cover the skies."
[Atlas]: "And Zhuge... sell me your rice too. I'm going to need a lot more fuel."