Voidwalker Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Issues upon issues.

After getting back, I realized I had run out to mine before really looking over all the blueprints I had and did not have.

“Dumbass.” I grumbled as I grumbled as I dove back into the catalogue. So, I had all the Timber, Stone, and Alloy components, which saved a great deal of trouble for me despite how “cheap” they are generally. Most of them were only around thirty to ninety nanite clusters in cost.

Industrial technology was a bust, as I had nothing there. At the least the Electrical Wire was free, and opened the rest of the branches below it.

I had none of the prefabricated units. Big or Small. Which will be an issue since they had the most utility of the buildings I could construct, and were expensive. Same applied to the underwater structures.

No Exo-Craft were available to me, but interestingly, when I highlighted the Roamer, I had an alert.

“Ground Vehicle Scan entered. Altering. Blueprint Acquired. Exo-Craft Redesigning complete in one hour and ten minutes.”

Next thing I knew, the Roamer was suddenly mine. That made my brow rise with realization.

“So, if I find things like the blueprints already in the system, I can get them for free? Nice.”

So, I can build the Roamer now. How effective it will be in this snow? I think it might be pretty effective actually. Those ball tires provide a lot of surface area, and combined with a lot of torque, may go through most any terrain.

The other portions, such as decorations, decals, posters, and so on, were as I remember. I had all the decals, so I could put images everywhere, but nothing else.

The one thing I was pleased about was that I had the blueprint for the Food Processor. So, I can make it, but I needed the materials, one of which was Sodium. Given there are no yellow flowers to just pick up, I may need to refine it from other sources, or mine it if that is possible.

With that done, I had completely seen all that I had available to download. Unless I started finding data modules, I would have to rely on refining Platinum for a source of nanites. Given how hard that was to get to in the first place, I think I will be without any means of making Wire Looms, or purchasing blueprints for the foreseeable future.

That left finding things left behind by people. Given the wreckage I had discovered, that meant that somewhere there might be a settlement in this frozen land.

The problem is getting there in this cold.

“Making a Roamer would be a good start, but getting Paraffinium is an issue. This world may not even have any on it, assuming this is No Man’s Sky. However, it can be made.”

I paused in thought, and realized I might not need Paraffinium. Opening my construction menu, I looked at the Roamer Geobay, and groaned as there was no alternative materials to build it like the Wire Loom.

“Alright, I need to get the resources that will allow me to make Paraffinium.” I thought out loud, trying to remember what mixtures allow me to make it, when I remembered Silver, and Sulphurine. Sulphurine is easier to get since it’s a gas that can be converted from Nitrogen, which is converted from Radon. Given I’m on a Cold World, I would be harvesting Radon with an Atmosphere Harvester.

“Alright. First, I must…Aw dammit! I need the nanites to purchase the blueprints!”

I turned my thoughts back to the Platinum that was deep underground. It was tempting, and I knew I could do it relatively easily thanks to the Terrain Manipulator, but there were issues.

I didn’t know as much about mining as I now wished I did, but I knew enough to know it was a dangerous task to go that deep. To begin with, heat. The deeper you go, the higher the temperature rose as you got closer to the outer core under the mantle. I think that’s the reason? I don’t know, but I’m going with it.

The second one, which I’m far more familiar with, is pressure. Just like the ocean, the deeper underground you go, the higher the pressure on the rock around you. That depth is under the weight of literal megatons of earth, and one crack can cause a rock burst, which is like a cluster of fragmentation bombs going off. Not to mention a collapse of a mine. I am certain the tunnel the Manipulator makes can handle it since it would just create a wall around the tunnel that was denser than the material around it.

The real danger would be the heat. I remember something from my natural sciences class back in the day, but the temperature underground rose by…

“Uhh…What was it?” I asked for a moment, thinking hard before shaking my head.

“Doesn’t matter. It’s tens of degrees for every thousand feet. Let’s say fifteen and stick with that.”

At a depth of ten kilometers, that was over thirty-two thousand feet. Thirty-two times fifteen was…

“Four hundred and eighty degrees Fahrenheit” I grimaced. Far more than my shield could handle currently. In fact, even going after the cobalt, which was eight kilometers, would have temperatures near four hundred degrees.

“So that’s off the table” I noted dryly.

I paced around, before sighing.

“My only real choice is to wander around and try to find stuff then. Especially with my most present problem. Food.” I say while patting my belly. I can feel the hunger building, and unless the suit provides sustienence somehow, than I will starve.

“Water is not a problem obviously, but food? I cannot make any without the food processor, especially on an alien world.”

Despite this, I might have a solution. I checked my inventory, and then sought out to create the one food item I can make. I could make it, did so, and held it in my hand.

The large capsule shaped “Creature Pellet” was basically compressed nutrients. It was meant for attracting animals, and making them pets or harvesting food stuff from them. For me to eat it?

I open my helmet, and tentatively take a bite out of the soft, but crunchy food. I grimaced as I chewed before I calmed down, realizing it wasn’t like rabbit food.

“Huh…taste like raw herb.”

Then I was hit with a strong bitter taste. “Ugh! Okay, yuck.”

I powered through it and swallowed. “Bleh. If it weren’t for that Bitterness, it would have been fine. Maybe if I roast it on a fire…or just chew it to an extent, and swallow before it goes bad.”

Regardless, I spat out the flavor, before eating the rest of the pellet. Turned out you cannot chew it enough before the bitterness came in full force, so I had to bear with it. In the end, I ate the whole thing, and despite the taste, the belly was happy.

“Now we see if I throw up, or anything else later.” I said with anxiety.

I created a hundred pellets, and put the food issue to rest.

“Let’s see about finding materials then since Platinum and Cobalt are out.”

I started with Sodium since it was necessary for so many of the technologies I can craft. Nothing was detected, but when I searched for Sodium Nitrate, I was able to get a hit about nine kilometers away. It appeared to be a mineral formation or something since it used the mineral marker.

“That’s my destination. I need that for literally everything.”

So, that required the next problem. Traveling to the location in question.

“Well, to hell with walking through that cold. I’ll tunnel the whole damned way if I can!”

After a bit more thought, I nodded to myself and began the process of breaking down the “outpost” I created. Reclaiming everything that had been made, that left just the Base Computer. When one chooses to get rid of the base, the computer is destroyed. Could I just…give it up and carry the damned thing?

“Let’s check.”

I turned on the computer, and the options I had seen from the game were present, but there were a few additional ones. Evidently, I can upgrade the computer once I had grown the outpost enough, or just gotten enough materials, and turned into a settlement. Basically, that sends out a signal to space for people to hear and see on sensors that says “Hey, we have a place here. Come visit, spend money, immigrate. Please?”

I also can give up the location I claimed as my territory, at the cost of not being able to claim it again unless three solar cycles passed without anyone claiming the site. I gave up the site, and it detached itself from the location. I placed it in my inventory, and quickly got underground before my shield died on me.

“Alright. We got a destination. I got the tools…let’s go.”

I traveled underground, refilling the Terrain Manipulator when I needed to. It began to get tedious after the first kilometer, and outright boring after the second. I was about to take a break and eat when suddenly the tunnel I was digging opened out to the surface.

“Oh. Must have reached a gorge or valley.”

Peeking out, it appeared to be so, and I was about to dig down when I noticed it. Despite the blizzard blowing snow about, I saw the large structure to the distance. My eyes focused on it like a laser, using my survey scope to take in all the details.

“Large building. Skyscraper. Power is out from all appearances. Deep snow, likely burying the parking lot and smaller structures…most of the windows are broken. Abandoned.”

Turning off the scope, I made a plan and jumped down off the hillside tunnel I made, and fluttered down with boosts from the jet pack. Once I hit the ground, I fired the Terrain Manipulator downwards, and created a tunnel through the snow and into the ground.

Once more under the ground, I marked the building and began to tunnel towards it.

As I got closer, I ran into what appeared to be a concrete wall under the ground. Switching to the mining laser, I began to cut through the concrete and it burn through about five meters before penetrating through. Knowing there’s an underground portion to the structure, I began to cut through foot by foot until I had carved out a box. I then began the costly, and time consuming process of cutting the box down until I was through the hole.

The one benefit of the laser cutting I was doing was instead of melting stone, it just caused it to shatter from the molecular bonds breaking down. If the laser was more powerful, I would have been able to just cause the entire block to disappear in a cloud of dust. Instead, it burst apart piece by piece, leaving a big mess.

Still, I didn’t care, I wandered into the corridors of the structure. It was cold, at negative thirty Fahrenheit, but my shield wasn’t draining as quickly as it would on the surface.

“Okay. Let’s see here.” I spoke quietly as my torchlight brightened up the dark space. It was clearly a sublevel where maintenance and power were handled. Maybe I could find a generator and see about powering it up with NMS-Tech, or better yet, getting a scan and a free blueprint.

I turned into a room, and froze in place. Bodies. Human corpses. Frozen and decayed. Huddled together in various spots. I didn’t breathe for a minute as I gazed upon the room, and quickly took in hard and deep breaths as my brain caught up with rational thought.

“Oh my god. What the fuck.” I said, breathing ragged now as multiple scenarios ran wild through my mind.

Why were they here? Why did they die here? The cold? Why did they let themselves freeze to death? Was it a disaster they could not escape? Were they not prepared? Were they caught off guard? Did this happen quickly, so quickly they couldn’t do anything but hide underground?

The camera that was the AI was lighting up, and blinking as it took the room in. It must have been as surprised as I was, or maybe it’s taking in every piece of data it could. That seemed like a good idea actually.

I gathered my wits, and courage, then walked into the room. Kneeling next to the closest person, set my scope and began scanning them. It took about ten seconds before I got a readout of data.

“Two hundred years old, according to carbon scanning. That was the same thing I got from that truck and the skeletons. Something happened two hundred years ago. Something that was catastrophic enough to cause these people to die, and those people three kilometers back to be buried alive.”

I looked at the temperature, and my eyes narrowed. Having a suspicion, I looked at the clothes these people wore, and saw that while they were dressed warmly, none of them were dressed for winter. Casual clothing.

“…This environment is not natural, is it? Negative seventy? That’s cold as hell, and these people, and that truck, and evidently this building, were not equipped for such weather. Why would they freeze down here unless it was something they were totally unprepared for?”

I began the dirty job of checking the bodies for anything that could provide information. I grimaced as I touched the long dead bodies, feeling like a desecrator of a tomb, but I felt that the people here would rather I took what I could and learn what happened to them, so their existence was not forgotten and in vain.

Mostly just a coping mechanism, but the humanist part of me felt that was a moral good to see things in that manner. Most of these people had only what they were carrying at the time, which mostly was nothing, but one held a laptop. Scanning it over, it was damaged by time and the cold, but aside from these things, it was completely intact.

“Alright. Let’s see about fixing this.” I murmured took it into my inventory.

The AI in my Exo-Suit however decided to step in.

“Access object to gain items.”

I blinked, and highlighted the laptop.

“Oh, I can extract stuff from it, resulting in its destruction. Just like various tech pieces from NMS.” Putting that aside for the moment, I scanned the bodies again, and found there was an option to “Harvest” something. I grimaced, but allowed the Exo-Suit to do so. It lit up the bodies, somehow, and suddenly I had Mordite.

I blinked. Mordite were crystals that could be gathered from bodies, somehow. It appeared the suit could gather them in a manner I didn’t know or understand. It was also one of the materials I needed to create Faecium, which would allow me to create materials to construct technologies.

I could make Mordite, but I would have needed a Medium Refiner to do so, thus finding bodies of animals…and apparently people, are the best source currently.

Putting that aside for the moment, I checked my shield, and it was at sixty three percent. I had just over an hour before the shield fails. I blinked as I thought about that, and then frowned as I realized something.

“Wait. I wasn’t paying too much attention to the amount of time my shield had as the energy drained. I was treating the shield like it was in game, with only a few minutes to seconds of defense time. Was it this durable the whole time?”

Looking at the timer count down for a few minutes, apparently it was. I sighed in a growling fashion as I realized I was panicking the whole time, when I did not need to.

“Right then. Note to self, check things to see what is game mechanics, and what is more…realistic, from this point forward.”

I quickly sealed the hole I made so it wouldn’t get colder than it already had, draining my systems faster, and began to scavenge whatever the place had. I quickly learned that the items I picked up, computers, electrical conduits, and so on, weren’t just limited to becoming parts if I sacrificed them, but also into base materials if I selected that option. It didn’t allow me to get computer chips, or metal plating, but it did net me cobalt, platinum, and a variety of other minerals. Small amounts for sure, but it anything one does in small amounts can add up if you kept at it, this I knew.

Searching the entirety of the various sub-levels for nearly an hour allowed me to take the place apart, and gain a good amount of Pure Ferrite, Magnetized Ferrite, Cobalt, Gold, and Silver. Most of it was in tens of units, but I had enough to start finishing my equipment. I had a different goal however, provided I found enough of it in the building above.

“First I need to make a fire.” I noted as the shield was several minutes from shutting down. Taking out old carboard, and pieces of furniture that I found, I used an enclosed room to make a teepee of wood, and set to create kindling with an axe I made.

Yeah, interestingly, one of the things I had found out was that I can make new designs not in the No Man’s Sky game, provided I scanned something. I began scanning everything after that, and now have a ton of “decoration” designs, as well as “Low Tech” designs. It didn’t matter to me what they were so long as I could make them. Among some things I found was a wood splitting axe like I had back home in Alaska, and several types of hatchets.

The system created an NMS-fied version of a hatchet which I had chosen due to it being useful as both a tool and a weapon. It could also be modified, which I thought was neat. I had found a Vibro knife, but it was worthless due to age and the cold destroying the various components. The AI on the suit was able to extrapolate, and make its own version of the system for the Axe, as well as any bladed weapon/tool I created in the future. That required a few Ion Batteries however, which, I couldmake, but I wanted to save materials for things I really wanted.

Creating the pile as I needed, I fired the mining laser at some old paper and fabric I placed at the bottom of the pile, and lit it up. I kept feeding the small fire with small, thin pieces of wood and old paper to get it going hot, until it was burning loud and proud.

With the suit on, I didn’t need to worry about the smoke, and just let the room fill up with it. It was mostly concrete with sheet rock for walls, and the spaces that were open to other rooms le the smoke flow out and fill into them.

Soon enough the fire was blazing and kissing the ceiling, painting the concrete black with soot, and warming the space up. My shield began to fill up as it no longer needed to fight back against the cold, with the room temperature rising to sixty plus Fahrenheit. Once charged up, the shield was now able to resist the cold for another…

“One hour and forty-seven minutes? Wow. I really was panicking when I shouldn’t have.” I murmured.

Relief filled me with that knowledge, and I rested for the time before hitting the next goal. Searching the building above.