Chương 169: Chapter 167 – Carapace and Capacitor

Cole beat the others to the armory where he found Jefferson with a pallet and hard case. The armorer's eyes lit when he saw Cole, and he waved.

"Good timing."

"I just talked to the twins," said Cole.

"Perfect, then you know most of this stuff is your team's loot. Damn decent of the locals to send it back our way. There's a good bit of it, y'all must have gone on quite the tear." Cole moved over and looked into the bin at the loosely packed otherworld armaments, gear, and what looked like several gadgets. Beneath that, belts and magazines of ammunition and two additional canisters of LF medium.

"We did kind of save the city," said Cole. Some time and distance between himself and Deadlight's death had taken the worst of the edge off, but that had been the first time he'd seen a fellow Kicker killed in action. Cole started pulling items from the case and sorting them into smaller crates to be taken into the lab and analyzed. The loot split fairly evenly between the dull metallic finish of automaton drops and chitinous striped armaments that likely came from the bugs in Dark City.

The front door chimed, so Cole went up to the front and let in Howie, Nona, and Wayland and set them to carrying crates down to the lab. Cole followed.

"Brr, cold down here!" said Howie.

"The twins like it cold," said Cole.

"Twins? No one told me we had a pair of twins on the base," said Wayland, grinning.

"Don't get your hopes up," said Howie.

"Hey, how come you're here, anyway? You can't use any of this loot."

"Don't mean it's not interesting," said Wayland. He shrugged.

"Only so many laps I can run 'round the base before I go stir-crazy. My squire's looking for a place out in town for me. Besides, I heard Airborne can supercharge otherworld armaments and I kinda wanted to see if he could look at my gun before we do this op. From what I hear, these Beast Cult assholes are no joke."

"I'm not tossing you into the crucible," said Cole.

"You'll be part of the secondary support team, back from the line of fire." Wayland turned a bit red at that.

"I'm lower enhancement level but I can carry my own water."

"I know, that's why I want to keep you alive to carry it when it counts. If we're doing heavy fighting with Beast Cult, something has gone awry. We've got another operation prior that will help you close the gap. But I will look at your gun today. Think about what kind of upgrades you might want for it." Cole hefted his crate up onto the workbench beside Nona, across from the other two and started pulling things out.

"Mark anything you think is interesting and set it aside. Weapons to be field stripped go in the far crate," Cole pointed at the crate next to his workstation.

"We gotta make log entries of this stuff?" asked Wayland.

"LF analyzers do it automatically," said Jefferson, huffing as he swung the last crate through the door.

"Phew. What I wouldn't give for super strength. You kids make these boxes look light."

"We'd do that even without enhancements, old man," said Howie, flexing his unimpressive biceps. Jeff rightfully ignored him.

"As soon as the portables sync with Termlink, all those goodies will get tagged and I'll generate labels for anything you want to keep."

"Ooh, here's something," said Howie, holding up a knife with the same glowing-orange edge of the assassin bug.

"Vorpal knife of the unseen flanker."

"Can I see that?" asked Nona. She held out her hand and Howie carefully passed it over, keeping the edge well away from them. Nona gave a few practice stabs and then tested the edge. It sank into the workbench.

"Hey!" snapped Jefferson.

"Don't go tearing up my equipment!"

"Sorry," said Nona. She turned to Cole.

"This is a good knife."

"Keep it, then. What's the unseen flanker affix?"

"On lethal damage it grants the user six seconds of camouflage," said Howie. He grinned.

"As if Nona wasn't scary and sneaky enough."

"Not just the user," said Nona, looking at the analyzer.

"The victim, too." Cole whistled Nona could cut herself a bloody, unseen path with something like that. And he could picture her doing it. He'd seen the footage from the Beast Cult camp where Nona had taken down the serf and slipped right in. Howie was right. Scary and sneaky were exactly how to put that. Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

"Got armor inserts here," said Wayland.

"MSV plates, looks like. Above average—one protection from poison, one protection from electrical."

"Give Besson the poison one and Alexa the electrical," said Cole. Roxy had her breastplate instead of a traditional vest, and Cole highly doubted that she'd give it up for a bonus. In part because she enjoyed the savage warrior aesthetic she was putting together with her chest armor, shield, and helmet. Plus, her Malleable Mender could help her neutralize poisoning and shock.

"In fact, save anything with elemental resistances. Hard Tone and Morganstern mentioned that it's good to have sets.

"Speaking of Besson," said Howie, "Think I found a replacement for his gun. He said his was lacking in the oomph department. Howie held up a stubby belt-fed gun with three, short rotating barrels protruding from a jagged, skeletal casing.

"This must have come off one of those big fuckers. Average oppressor repeater of replenishment. Never seen oppressor before."

"Must be unique to the automatons," said Cole. He glanced to Jefferson for confirmation.

"Possible." Howie continued.

"It has a fear effect on anyone staring down the business end, and dealing damage with it boosts his resilience."

"That's perfect," said Cole.

"Boosting his resilience lets his ability last longer."

"Howie," said Nona, holding up another armament with a single, chitinous tube and two supporting legs.

"Oh, ho ho! No way!" said Howie, holding out his arms and cradling the launcher as if it were a newborn.

"An otherworld mortar! I was beginning to think one would never drop." Cole circled around the table and tapped it with the analyzer. <Above average swarming stovepipe of giant culling Damage and area effect increased by 32% Swarming – Ethereal munitions split into multiple, course-correcting submunitions. Giant-culling – Damage bonus is doubled against targets larger than the user. > Cole turned the analyzer around and showed it to Howie, whose grin somehow got even wider.

"Oh, man, I can't wait to see that swarming affix in action. Hexighast has all sorts of affixes we've never seen. Maybe we ought to go to bug and bot planets more often."

"Cole, I think I found some stuff for you," said Wayland.

"I've got a shield for Roxy," said Nona. Cole took Waylands offering first, a helmet that reminded him of the cowling on the automaton transports and an amulet of a barbed arrowhead skull. <Average helmet of swift leaching Reduces damage from electrical attacks Traveling at high velocity generates charges over time>"Hell yeah," said Howie.

"That's perfect for your charge economy. You're zipping around anyway—now your leaps can refund themselves a bit."

"Doesn't say how much," said Cole.

"It might be too little to be worth it." He handed the helmet off to Jefferson, who tapped it with his own analyzer.

"Swift leaching is new, too. Probably needs to be used before the analyzer can get a fix on the rate of leaching." Jefferson rapped his knuckles against the brushed metal finish.

"A fresh matte camo coat, some premium pads, and an accessory rail and it can be ready to go for your next op."

"Sounds good," said Cole. He picked up the amulet.

"What's this other thing?" <Above average necrotizing amulet of piercing +1 speed Attacks which fully pierce enemies have a 32% chance of rapidly dissolving flesh near the wound channel. Once per day, increase piercing weapon and projectile armor penetration by 36% for 10 seconds. > Nothing but money. With his kinetic redirection, his bullets might start melting any enemies they didn't kill outright. And the daily would be clutch against single tough enemies, especially in combo with his meteoric projectiles.

Cole set the amulet aside as Nona handed over a small grey shield with wires running through it and gears on tracks on the back. The front had a circular red lens set into a thick housing. The handle on the inside looked like a dirty bike chain.

"Not a lot of coverage on this—" as soon as Cole squeezed the handle, the gears whirred to life, sliding side and top panels out and into place on the edges of the plate.

"Never mind." The top plate sliding away revealed a small screen, which buzzed to life with a low-fi image of the front of the shield. The fuzzy Wayland and Howie on the screen were outlined in blue.

"Huh. That's badass," said Cole. He tapped it with the analyzer. <Above-average Storm bulwark of Red Reaping Increases Acuity by 2 Storm – Striking this shield has a 36% chance to deal electrical damage to the attacker. Red Reaping – Once per day, charge this shield to intercept all projectiles and close enemies in a cone in front of the user for five seconds. > Cole quickly let go of the handle and turned the shield away from the workbench.

"Jesus, Nona! You could have said something about this being a handheld Red-fucking-Reaper! We're in an active Lewis Field, here." Nona shrugged.

"It's no more dangerous than any other active item ability. It won't harm anyone you deem to be an ally." She narrowed her eyes at Cole.

"Unlike some demonic pistols. Or all Earth firearms, for that matter." Cole clicked his tongue.

"Fair. At least I ditched that pistol."

"What pistol?" asked Howie.

"Dropped from Guall and his buddies. Bonus damage to allies," said Cole. Howie's brows knitted.

"That's a thing? A thing you kept?" Cole shrugged.

"It was a basic-bitch otherworld pistol, otherwise. One that didn't go off if you dropped it wrong." The rest of the loot mostly turned out to be lackluster or minor side-grades. Anything with elemental resistance Cole put aside for later use and he burned all his Field Strip charges reducing several other weapons to parts. With most of the loot sorted, Cole turned to using Tinker to start enhancing some of their new equipment.

A Hemorrhaging affix barrel went into Wayland's carbine, along with a fire control group that caused extra damage to cursed targets. Cole wasn't sure he'd be able to enhance Howie's mortar, but it seemed able to take at least a few parts from launcher-type weapons. Cole found a breech of Feedback to further enhance it against barriers and shields, and an outer casing with elemental priming, enhancing follow-up elemental attacks to enemies damaged by the mortar.

The team's capacity for sudden excessive violence was only going up.