Kaosubaloo

CW: Suicide

After looting the main room, we moved deeper into the facility, which was mostly a series of hallways connecting smaller rooms. There was the occasional machine mixed into them, but the closest we got to the front was the cafeteria, which had about a dozen machines sized for ankle biting.

The place, as you might imagine, was absolutely full of interesting bits of machinery that would probably be good for me for building drones in the future. A little more surprising was that it was also full of herbs. Not that I recognized them, but Dimm pointed it out whenever we walked by a flower that was good for potion making. Apparently Laura got into it in the Beta and ended up giving her a few lectures about them.

Loot aside, we also found what seemed to be the main puzzle of the dungeon; a big fuck-off safe that we needed a special key to get into.

How to get the key?

That’s where the factory came in. We needed to 3D print it! But we needed to repair the printer first, which required scavenging parts from other broken machines. My crafting skills actually proved to be surprisingly useful, and I ended up doing all of the actual repair work once we figured out what was wrong with it.

Clink. Clank. Bang.

The key that came out was one of those weird 3D keys. It had a long central shaft with teeth coming off of it in four cardinal directions, Plus a little hole in the top with a hook in it. It was just a whole bunch of teeth though, which made me think that maybe there was an alternate solution here where you picked the lock...but you’d have to be pretty dang good at lockpicking to manage, looking at this thing. So I guess more of an easter egg than an intended solution.

“Tessa, are you okay?” Dimm put emphasis on my name. She stopped in the hallway that led to the safe, serious look on her face. I noticed and stopped a couple steps further down, turning back to look at her.

“I’m not sure what you mean? I feel great!”

Danny chewed on her lip, probably trying to decide whether she’d say what she was going to say next. “Turning off the roleplay here for a sec. Bee? You’ve been acting really weird since we met up in town.”

I growled at the use of my nickname. “Don’t call me Bee in here.” I said forcefully.

“You see, that’s the sort of thing I mean! I’ve never seen you upset over your nickname before; or over a dumb roleplaying thing for that matter.” She groaned. “You’re usually always in your own little shell. I’m happy to see you coming out of it, but I feel like there’s something deeper going on for this much change!”

I angry-pouted, and shrugged. “I just like being Tessa. I don’t need to worry about dumb real world stuff while I’m in here; and I get to play will cool robots and stuff.”

“Fuck it.” She banged the foot of her staff on the floor. “Do you like roleplaying Tessa, or do you want to be Tessa?”

Any anger I was feeling drained out of my system. I could feel my eyes go wide, and I probably did other things with my body too that I wasn’t so aware of.

“Are you trans?”

I could feel my arms start to shake, and firmly gripped them down on each other to keep it from showing. Flashes of confrontations slipped through my mind; memories from when I was smaller than Tessa, and an adult would yell at me, and I’d freeze up. At some point I’d started shaking my head; my voice robbed by my anxiety.

Danny wore a conflicted sort of concern on her face. She’d seen me like this before, though not often. “Look, it’s okay. Laura and I will support you, you know?” She reached out to touch me; a hand meant to be comforting on my shoulder.

I flinched badly at the contact, backpedaling until it turned into a jog in the opposite direction.

Where was I going? Right. Vault. Needed to open the vault.

I felt a bit numb. Between that and the shaking, turning the key was hard, but I managed. The door swung open.

Inside were a few boxes of consumables, what exactly I couldn’t tell, plus a pair of pedestals. On one was some sort of technomage thing that I ignored in favour of the other. The second pedestal held a gun, or rifle I supposed? It looked a little bit like a P90, all blocky-like, but with several important differences.

From it’s central body stood out a large, blocky battery, where it was mostly but not entirely pushed into its slot. Around the hand hold were several knobs or dials, which probably controlled the output. And in place of a barrel was a circle of copper and gold, with evidence of several more smaller circles buried into the body of the gun, forming a tesla coil with the largest ring on the business end.

I went up to examine it in detail. It even had a strap to hang on when it wasn’t in use to keep it in hand’s reach. I was just starting to pocket the spare batteries when Dimm caught up with me.

“Bee....Tessa. We’re not done talking. We need to make sure you’re okay.”

“SHUT UP!” I surprised myself with the volume of my voice. “I’m not talking about this! So shut up or leave me the hell alone!”

As if in response to my words, the whole factory shook.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The sounds of machines turning on became audible, gears starting to grind away little plantstuff as something bigger began to take shape.

I yelled again, then ran out the door. This time Danny ran after me, but I had just enough points into stealth to outspeed them, despite their longer legs. The sound was coming from the large entrance room and that’s where I was heading.

The room was still littered with machine parts and plants, but in the middle, standing over where the 3D printer was, was something new. A huge machine, free of plant life, which towered over me on four legs. It looked a bit like a bear, but with the legs of a giraffe and a swiveling turret on its underbelly.

So actually not much like a bear.

I flipped a switch on my new Tesla Rifle and it started to buzz with energy. An inner ring underneath the main one began to slowly spin, collecting static to amplify its charge.

Where my pistol was a single pop-zap of charge, the Rifle unleashed a continuous bolt which jaggedly traced lines across the floors and walls until it found a target it cared to stick to. In this case the very large, very metallic boss machine.

It was a very loud and very destructive weapon...but as with the gun, not especially accurate. The zapping quickly drew the attention of the boss and by the time the lightning decided to hit it, the turret was swiveling towards me.

I’d like to say that I didn’t see it. That I was distracted by my new weapon and that by the time I noticed, it was too late to do anything about it. But in hindsight, I think I’d be lying.

In that moment I saw an escape from my problems; and I took it.

Kaosubaloo

Some context on this one, because it's a doozy: What Danny does in this chapter was well meaning, but it is absolutely not something you should ever do to a person. Don't crack someone before they're ready! And definitely don't confront them about it!! It's a recipe for anxiety and bad thoughts!

Okay. Getting off my soap box now. I just really wanted to make sure that this was totally clear for anyone reading this...