The Autonomous Salvage Drone looked like a mechanical tick the size of a small dog. It was a low-slung, six-legged chassis of dull grey alloy, with a central collection hopper and two articulated gripper arms that ended in crude pincers. It hummed with a low-grade essence motor as it scuttled out of the Manufactorum's production chute, pausing to orient itself before its blank optical sensor swiveled toward Isaac.
Unit: Salvage Drone - SD-001. Awaiting directives.
Isaac felt a flicker of the same dissonance he'd felt with the first Militia. It was a tool. A useful, mindless tool. "Primary Directive: Proceed to Nexus Gamma-7 via the secured patrol route. Interface with Garrison Commander M-002. Secondary Directive: Harvest Volatile Crystal Fragments from the designated debris field. Tertiary Directive: Transport harvested materials directly to the Manufactorum intake bay. Prioritize safety and material integrity. Do not engage hostiles. If threatened, return to the Bastion immediately."
The drone emitted a soft chirp of acknowledgment. It turned with insectile precision and scuttled toward the postern gate, its legs clicking softly on the stone. A few moments later, Isaac watched on the tactical map as a new, slow-moving blue dot began tracing the golden line toward the Nexus.
It would take time. The drone was not fast. But it was automatic. It was the beginning of an extractive economy.
With the drone deployed, Isaac turned to the next problem: the Bastion's empty belly. The 0.3 units of salvage were a mocking reminder of his paucity. He had walls, power, and soldiers, but no clay to shape them with. His eyes went to the map, to the Metallic Anomaly three kilometers northwest.
A mining operation. That's what he needed. But to secure a mining site, he needed more than a garrison. He needed a forward base, defenses, and a secure transport corridor three times longer than his current one. It was a project of weeks, not hours.
He needed an interim solution. A stopgap.
His gaze drifted to the Bastion's own structure. The mountain it was built into. The System's initial scans of the interior had shown mineral deposits in the bedrock, but they were deep, requiring proper mining equipment he didn't have.
But what about… expansion?
The Bastion wasn't just the halls he'd cleared. The schematic showed vast, collapsed sections, sealed tunnels, lower levels that had been fused shut during the fall. What if he didn't go out? What if he went down?
He called up the architectural schematics, focusing on the lowest mapped level—the Sub-Level 1: Geothermic Tap & Primary Storage. It was marked \[Collapsed/Contaminated\]. A geothermic tap. A potential internal power source, independent of the Leylines. And storage. Where there was storage, there might be… stores.
It was a gamble. Clearing internal spaces was what he knew. But this would be deeper, darker, and labelled 'contaminated' by a system that considered Gloom-tainted air a minor nuisance.
The two new Militia, M-011 and M-012, finished their production cycles and reported to the Core Chamber. With M-001, that gave him three operational units inside. The garrison of four held the Nexus. Two were in repair. He had nine bodies total, plus the drone.
He could risk a small probing action. A reconnaissance in force, not into the unknown plain, but into the Bastion's bowels.
"M-001, M-011, M-012. Combat loadout. We're exploring Sub-Level 1. The environment is likely hazardous. Expect structural instability and possible Gloom residual presence."
"Acknowledged."
The access was not through the grand corridors, but via a heavy, circular pressure hatch in the floor of the Logistics Depot, now cleared of rubble. The hatch was sealed with a massive manual wheel, rusted solid. It took the combined strength of Isaac and his three Militia, muscles straining and synthetic sinews humming, to crack the corrosion and turn it. With a final, shrieking groan, the wheel spun.
Isaac pulled the hatch open. A gust of air, warm and carrying a metallic, sulfurous reek, washed over them. A ladder, its rungs worn but intact, descended into utter blackness.
"M-011, point. Light packs on."
The Militia attached small, essence-powered glow-sticks to their chests, casting shaky cones of white light. One after another, they descended into the earth.
The shaft went down thirty meters. They emerged into a tunnel, its walls smoothly bored through solid rock, reinforced with struts of the same grey alloy as the Bastion's superstructure. The air was thick and warm, vibrating with a deep, sub-auditory hum—the ghost of the geothermic tap, still active on some residual level. But the Gloom was here too. Patches of a fuzzy, phosphorescent black mold grew on the walls, pulsating slowly. The floor was dusted with a fine, ash-like substance.
Environmental Alert: Elevated Gloom-Spore concentration. Prolonged exposure hazardous to biologicals. Minimal effect on synthetic units.
His militia were unaffected. Isaac felt a slight tightness in his chest, a headache forming behind his eyes. The System would likely purge it with a trickle of Essence, but it was a warning.
They moved in silence, the only sounds the hum, the scuff of boots, and the drip of distant, heated water. The tunnel branched. The left fork led toward the source of the heat and hum—the tap. The right fork sloped downward more sharply, heading to storage.
"Storage first," Isaac murmured. "If there's anything left, it'll be there."
The right-hand tunnel widened into a vast, vaulted chamber. Primary Storage. It was a catastrophe. Massive storage racks, three stories high, were toppled like dominoes. Crates of unknown material had burst open, their contents long since rotted or reacted into inert sludge. But not everything was lost.
His light swept over the wreckage. There, partly crushed under a fallen rack but intact, were stacks of dull metal ingots, identical to the ones from the Depot but stamped with different runes. Dense Alloy Plates. And beside them, sealed in transparent cylindrical cases that had miraculously survived, were rods of shimmering, opalescent crystal—Refined Focus Crystals, a grade above the raw conductive ones.
Salvage. High-grade, pre-processed salvage.
Resource Cache Discovered: Dense Alloy Plates (x20). Salvage Value: 5 Units (S/M) each.
Resource Cache Discovered: Refined Focus Crystals (x10). Salvage Value: 3 Units (Advanced) each.
It was a treasure trove. One hundred units of metal salvage. Thirty units of advanced crystal. More than enough for the Barracks upgrade, the processor, another drone…
But between them and the cache was the wreckage. And something else.
As M-011 stepped forward to investigate, the pile of shattered crates and twisted metal to its left moved. Not a creature emerging, but the debris itself shifting, flowing like a liquid and coalescing. It formed a low, wide mound of sharp-edged scrap metal, rusted plating, and splintered wood, from which four jagged, metallic limbs unfolded. In its center, a cluster of the same black mold glowed with malevolent intelligence. A Gloom-Scrap Amalgam.
Entity Identified: Gloomspawn – Category: Scrapjack (Tier-1). Threat Assessment: Moderate-High. Ambush predator. Highly resistant to ballistic penetration. Vulnerable to concussive force and extreme heat.
It was a guardian, born of the ruin, waiting for scavengers.
It didn't roar. It screeched, a sound of tearing metal, and lunged with shocking speed, a limb like a bundle of rebar spearing toward M-011.
"Fall back! Don't let it pin you!" Isaac yelled, drawing his pistol. The confined space was a deathtrap for muskets.
M-011 dodged, the rebar-limb scraping sparks off its breastplate. M-001 and M-012 brought their muskets up, but Isaac saw the problem—shooting this thing would be like throwing peas at a junkyard.
"Hold fire! M-001, distraction! M-012, with me—flank right!"
He needed the geometry again. The chamber was wide but cluttered. The Scrapjack was between them and the cache, but also between them and the tunnel exit.
M-001 charged forward, not to attack, but to slam its musket like a club against the creature's central mass. The blow did no damage, but it got its attention. The Scrapjack turned, two limbs whipping toward M-001, who backpedaled swiftly, leading it away from the cache and toward a more open area near a collapsed wall.
Isaac and M-012 circled. His eyes darted, looking for an advantage. Concussive force. Extreme heat. He had a plasma pistol. Extreme, localized heat.
"M-012! See that support column next to it? The cracked one! On my mark, fire at the base! We'll try to drop the ceiling on it!"
They repositioned. M-001 was dancing a deadly ballet, avoiding crushing blows by inches. The Scrapjack was focused, relentless.
"Now!"
M-012 fired. The musket ball struck the base of the already-stressed stone column. Chips flew. The column groaned.
The Scrapjack, sensing the vibration, started to turn.
Isaac didn't aim for the creature. He aimed for the column, just above where M-012 had hit.
CRACK-HISS.
The plasma bolt struck the stone. Superheated rock exploded. The column shattered.
With a grinding roar, a section of the vaulted ceiling—several tons of rock and reinforcing metal—gave way and crashed down directly onto the Scrapjack.
The creature was buried, not crushed. Its limbs thrashed from beneath the rubble, scrabbling wildly. It was trapped, but very much alive and enraged.
Isaac saw his chance. He ran forward, not toward the creature, but toward the cache. "M-001, M-012! Grab what you can! The ingots! One each! Now!"
They moved with him. They shoved aside lighter debris, grabbed two of the heavy Dense Alloy Plates, and hoisted them. They were enormously heavy, even for their augmented strength.
"Forget the rest! Back to the tunnel!"
They retreated, leaving the trapped Scrapjack screeching and flailing under the rock. They had what they came for. Two plates. Ten units of high-grade salvage. A proof of concept.
They climbed back up the ladder, hauling the heavy plates with ropes fashioned from torn cloth. As they sealed the pressure hatch behind them, the enraged sounds from below were cut off.
Isaac leaned against the wall of the Depot, sweating and breathing hard. The spore-headache pounded. But on the floor lay two ingots of priceless material.
Salvage (Stone/Metal): +10.
It wasn't the hundred he'd dreamed of. But it was a start. And more importantly, he'd found a new resource vein: the Bastion's own corpse. It was dangerous, contaminated, and guarded by the very ruin it offered.
He looked at the hatch. Down there was salvage, and the geothermal tap. Potential energy. Potential industry.
The drone outside would bring in the trickle from the Nexus. Down here was the motherlode, waiting to be dug out, one dangerous load at a time.
The conveyor of his new economy had two belts now: one slowly feeding from the outside world, the other waiting to be violently jump-started from the depths below. The grind was just beginning.