The hall's new lights cast deep, sharp-edged shadows that turned every pile of rubble into a potential ambush point. Isaac worked with a methodical, grinding patience that bordered on obsession. He started near the crystal core, creating a clear, defensible zone. Each piece of debris—chunks of masonry, splintered timber, shattered flagstone—was assessed not as trash, but as a resource.
He would lift a stone. The System would flash: [Salvage (Stone/Metal): +0.5] or [+0.2]. He would carry it to a growing, orderly pile against one wall, designated by his mind as the Salvage Stockpile. It was brutally physical work. Sweat stung his eyes and soaked through his hoodie within minutes. His muscles, accustomed to library chairs and keyboards, burned in protest. But the numbers in the corner of his vision crept upward. It was a progress bar made of sweat and grit.
Salvage (Stone/Metal): 14.8
He paused, leaning against a toppled pillar, breathing hard. He'd been at it for what felt like hours, his internal clock hopelessly skewed by the unchanging, artificial light and the twin green moons hanging motionless in the high windows. The silence was a living thing, broken only by his own exertions and the distant, maddening drip… drip… of moisture.
He needed to scout. The Barracks were his primary target, but the schematic showed them accessible through the interior archway he'd barricaded. Venturing out alone, in the dark, with a pistol of unknown capacity, was a calculated risk. But sitting still was a guaranteed failure.
He checked the pistol. It had a simple indicator on the grip—a series of five tiny crystal segments. Four glowed a steady blue. One was dark. He'd fired one shot. So, four left? Or did the dark one represent a spent charge? He couldn't know.
He approached his makeshift barricade at the interior archway. Carefully, quietly, he moved the heaviest stones just enough to create a narrow gap he could squeeze through. The darkness beyond was absolute, a wall of black that seemed to swallow the light from the Core Chamber.
He raised the pistol. The targeting reticule appeared, but it couldn't penetrate the gloom. He took a deep breath, stepped through the gap, and immediately flattened himself against the cold stone wall beside the doorway.
Nothing attacked.
His eyes adjusted slowly. He was in a broad corridor, its ceiling lost in shadow. The Bastion's new power did not extend here. The only illumination came from the faint bleed of light from the Core Chamber behind him and, farther down the corridor, a few patches of the same sickly green moss he'd seen earlier. It painted the world in ghastly, monochrome relief.
The air was colder here, stale and thick with dust. The floor was littered with more debris and the occasional, dark stain that could have been oil or old blood. Doors, some ajar, some sealed shut, lined the corridor.
According to the flickering minimap in his vision, the Barracks were to the left, fifty meters down, then through a reinforced door. The schematic was frustratingly vague, showing only outlines.
He moved, adhering to the wall, his steps soft. He passed an open doorway. A glance inside revealed a room filled with rotted cots and rusted footlockers—a dormitory. Nothing of value his System recognized.
Another doorway led to a room that might have been an armory. Empty racks and weapon stands lay overturned. In the corner, something glinted dully. He crept in. It was a short sword, its blade notched and stained, but still intact. He picked it up. It was heavier than it looked, poorly balanced.
Material Analysis: Low-grade Steel. Degradation: 40%. Salvage Value: 1.2 Units (Stone/Metal). Combat Utility: Low.
Not a weapon. Raw material. He slung it through his belt anyway. It was mass.
A sound. Not the skittering of swarmlings. This was a slow, grinding scrape, like stone on stone. It came from ahead, from the direction of the Barracks.
Isaac froze, his breath held. The sound repeated, rhythmic, deliberate. He inched forward, pistol raised. The green moss-light grew thicker near the end of the corridor, where a large, iron-bound door stood partially open. The Barracks.
The scraping came from within.
He peered around the doorframe.
The Barracks was a cavernous drill hall, now a graveyard of military ambition. Rotted training dummies, collapsed equipment racks, and rows of rusted bunk frames filled the space. And in the center of it, bathed in the pallid moss-glow, was the source of the sound.
It was a creature, but unlike the swarmlings. It stood on two thick, stony legs, its torso a hunched mass of what looked like conglomerate rock and fossilized bone. One of its arms ended in a crude, hammer-like fist of fused stone. The other was a longer, hooked talon of black chitin. It was methodically, mindlessly, using its hammer-fist to pound on a large, metal-framed console set into the far wall—the Barracks Control Node, according to Isaac's schematic. With each ponderous blow, sparks of residual energy flared, and the System display in Isaac's vision flickered with damage reports.
Alert: Barracks Control Node under assault. Integrity: 31%.
Entity Identified: Gloomspawn – Category: Amalgam (Tier-1). Threat Assessment: Moderate. Physical resilience high. Speed low.
An Amalgam. It was bigger, slower, and obviously fixated on destroying the console. It hadn't noticed him.
Isaac's mind raced. He had the pistol. Four shots, maybe. The creature's back was to him. A weak point? The System highlighted a pulsating, vein-like cluster of violet energy deep within the rocky mass of its torso—a much larger, unstable version of the Essence Cores the swarmlings had.
A direct assault was risky. The pistol might not penetrate its stony hide deeply enough to reach the core. He needed an advantage. He needed the geometry.
His eyes swept the room. The bunk frames were arranged in orderly rows, creating narrow lanes. The ceiling was high, with heavy, rusted chains hanging from rafters, some with broken lanterns still attached. Near the door where he stood was a large, overturned table of solid timber.
A plan, crude but functional, assembled itself in his mind.
He moved silently back into the corridor. Sheathing the pistol for a moment, he gripped the edge of the heavy oak door and began to push. It groaned, a low, aching sound that made him wince. The scraping inside the Barracks stopped.
He shoved harder, putting his whole weight into it. The door swung another foot with a screech of protesting hinges.
THUD. A heavy, ground-shaking step from inside the Barracks. The Amalgam had heard.
Isaac didn't wait. He ducked back into the corridor, around the corner from the doorway, and braced. He heard the creature's lumbering steps approach the door. It paused, a shadow blocking the moss-light. Then it began to squeeze its bulk through the opening he'd created.
Now.
As the creature's hammer-arm and hunched shoulder cleared the doorway, Isaac, from his hiding spot around the corner, leveled the pistol at the door itself—not at the creature, but at the heavy iron hinge on the top.
CRACK-HISS.
The energy bolt struck the ancient, corroded metal. It didn't vaporize it completely, but it superheated and weakened it catastrophically. With a shriek of tearing metal, the top hinge melted and snapped.
The Amalgam, halfway through, lurched as the door's weight suddenly shifted. It roared, a sound of grinding gravel, and turned its stony head, its "face" a mere depression in the rock, towards Isaac.
Isaac was already moving. He darted back into the Barracks, past the confused creature, leading it away from the door. He sprinted down a lane between bunk rows.
The Amalgam tore itself the rest of the way through the doorway, the now-lopsided door tearing free and crashing to the floor behind it. It focused on him and charged, its movements surprisingly fast for its size, a juggernaut of destructive intent.
Isaac didn't look back. He ran for the far wall, for the sparking Control Node. As he neared it, he grabbed the edge of a heavy equipment rack and pulled it down behind him, creating a minor obstacle. The Amalgam smashed through it without breaking stride.
He was at the node. The creature was twenty feet away, ten, raising its hammer-fist for a blow that would crush both him and the console.
Isaac dropped to his knees and slid the last few feet, directly under the console's metal frame, into the shallow space between it and the wall.
The hammer-fist came down.
But not on him. The Amalgam, unable to halt its momentum, aimed its blow at the console. The massive stone fist slammed into the metal housing just above Isaac's head.
CLANG! The impact was deafening. The console sparked violently, and the System screamed a warning. But the frame held.
And in that moment, with the creature's torso bent forward, its stony underbelly and the pulsating violet core within were exposed, barely three feet above Isaac's face.
He didn't aim. He shoved the muzzle of the plasma pistol up against the glowing cluster of energy and pulled the trigger.
CRACK-HISS.
The blast was muffled, internal. The blue-white energy didn't just strike the core; it was channeled directly into it.
The Amalgam froze. A web of incandescent blue cracks spiderwebbed out from the point of impact across its entire stony body. Light, pure and violent, bled from every fissure. It made a sound like a mountain collapsing in on itself, a deep, shuddering groan.
Then it exploded.
Not in a fiery blast, but in a violent discharge of kinetic energy and petrified shrapnel. Isaac curled into a ball as chunks of rock and hardened gloom-matter pelted the console and the wall around him. A wave of force washed over him, followed by a shower of gravel and dust.
Silence, ringing and absolute, descended.
Isaac coughed, pushing himself up. The space around him was littered with debris. Where the Amalgam had stood was a small crater in the stone floor, and in its center, pulsing with a gentle, steady light, was a core the size of his fist.
Target Eliminated. Essence Core (Standard) Acquired: +15 Units.
Alert: Barracks Control Node Integrity: 19%. Immediate repair advised to prevent system collapse.
Fifteen Essence. A fortune. But the node was critical. He crawled out, retrieved the large core—it was warm, humming with potential—and approached the sparking console. The housing was dented, screens shattered. He placed his hand on it.
Facility: Barracks (Level 0). Status: Critical. Repairs Required: 10 Essence, 5 Salvage. Initiate? Y/N
He had the Essence now. He had over 14 Salvage back in the hall. But he needed to get it here. And he needed to do it before something else wandered in.
He looked at the ruined doorway, then at the sparkling core in his hand, then at the dying console.
The geometry had changed. He had a resource. He had a critically damaged facility. And he had a long, dangerous walk back through the dark.
"One problem at a time," he muttered, tucking the large core into his hoodie pocket. It glowed through the fabric, a beacon in the gloom. He picked up his pistol, checked the grip. Three crystal segments glowed now.
Three shots left.
He turned and began the careful journey back to the Core Chamber, every sense straining against the oppressive, watchful dark. The salvage pile was no longer just a stockpile. It was the price of an army. And he was its only delivery man.