Chương 55: 2.14 New Noise - Refused (5:10)

WiddershinsLogic PALE REGIMENT FTW!!! Zeke, you are doing good work here. You've got a creepy factory ruin that rarely gets talked about in fanfics, some killer robots chasing you, and now the Pale Regiment is strolling around like masked archivists of doom. ShivSays Agree. This just got a lot more interesting. The Pale Regiment shows up in so many of the deeper lore entries in Frontiers, but it's always a tell, don't show kind of thing. It kind of pisses me off because of that.

They're always referenced and hinted at, and you'll get NPCs who are afraid of them, but you never really get to see what they can do in the games. I always thought they were creepy as hell, but never got to see what they could truly do. I'm interested to see what they get up to here. Hambone Samesies. Zeke, if you end up working for the Pale Regiment, that might be the best possible outcome for you. Out of all the factions wandering around The MIZ, they're one of the few that actually have their shit together.

Plus, they've got so much tech that you can play around with. You could get a better Tech Slate or some armor that'll actually protect you. You're in luck. CrushDaddyXx (Primary) Or. Hear me out. You don't work for them and instead wait until they drop their guard and then you go full protagonist mode on them and start knocking those creepy porcelain masks off their faces one by one. I've always wanted the opportunity to go ham on the Pale Regiment ever since their first appearance.

Now here's the chance for me to live vicariously through you Zeke. EnidCheats I hate to be seen agreeing with Crush, but yea. Zeke should definitely start catching bodies here. The Pale Regiment is the woooooorst. They're the worst. CircuitSaint Zeke, please ignore the combat goblins. Crush wants you to punch literally every faction you meet, and that's not a good idea.

If that is the Pale Regiment - and based off your description of them and the masks, it definitely sounds like them - then you should absolutely try talking to them before you start throwing punches. They're one of the most important factions in Frontiers, and probably the only reason that half the settlements out in the Deadlands have working infrastructure. Shootingblnks Yea, and the other half of the settlements hate their creepy porcelain faces. Zeke would instantly earn a bunch of allies if he took them out.

Zeke, if you're smart, you'd figure out a way to trap those creeps inside the Fossilized Factory Belt and let the place eat them alive. Just… make sure that none of them are able to get a message out if you go that route. If the rest of the Pale Regiment finds out that you've killed one of their scavenger teams, that would be bad for your continued survival in the region. HippiePuppyGoBrr He could just head out of Frontiers.

If he gets a bunch of cash from the Reclaimer, he could catch a ride out of the region and go somewhere safer after killing off the Pale Regiment dicks. BabyBloos Kill 'em, Zeke. Do it for the good of the Deadlands. Z3ke (Original Poster) Okay… how about you all tell me who these people are instead of trying to get me to fight everything. I remember Null talking about them all the way back when he was the Primary, but I'll be honest and say that was a long time ago and I've forgotten a lot since then.

I remember him talking about how they ran the library that I've been using, and he told me to stay the hell away from them because I wasn't strong enough yet. But that's about it. So, can someone refresh my memory? NullSigil I'm hurt, Zeke. Truly wounded. To think that my carefully curated wisdom - delivered with precision, clarity, and a frankly heroic amount of patience - meant so little to you that you forgot it all after only a few short weeks apart.

I feel like a disappointed college professor watching his start pupil come to class on the last day of the term, sit down, and then proceed to eat his final exam. But because I'm both magnanimous and your favorite Primary, I will once again descend from my ivory tower and bless this thread with a lore dump. Brace yourself, my padawan. The first thing you need to know about the Pale Regiment is that they are one of the most contentious factions in Frontiers.

Depending on who you ask, they are either a) the only reason civilization still exists after the Fracture. Or b) a bunch of authoritarian knowledge-hoarding weirdos walking around in creepy masks. Interestingly enough, both those statements are completely true. Their entire raison d'être is information. (Yea, I'm fancy enough to use french phrases.) After the Fracture hit, most of humanity's knowledge base was obliterated.

Data centers were destroyed, libraries collapsed, archives vanished, research labs went dark, and digital storage failed. The people survived, kinda, but the knowledge that allowed for modern civilization to run mostly didn't. Let me put it this way. If the world ended tomorrow, could you build a working shower? Could you manufacture soap from scrap? Could you design and build an engine from the ground up? Do you know how generators work? Or modern agricultural methods? Can you make a lightbulb? No?

Congrats, you understand the problem now. Even those few people who could do one of those things would still find themselves struggling in a post-apocalyptic world. A mechanical engineer might understand engines, but they'd be totally useless when confronted with plumbing. A chemist might know reagents, but they'd have no clue how to cast steel. And that's only the smallest problem that civilization faced. Specialists need special tools to do their job.

Think back to when you were a bartender and not some rockstar who hasn't written a single song or performed in front of a single crowd. Think how difficult it would be for you to make a drink without a shaker, or a rocks glass, or one of those spout thingies that you put on liquor bottles. All civilization runs on thousands of tiny knowledge systems, and after the Fracture, most of those vanished overnight. Enter the Pale Regiment. Their original mission was actually pretty noble.

They devoted themselves to the accumulation and dissemination of information. That was it. They traveled across the newly ruined world and scavenged for information. They poked through servers, libraries, universities, research labs, old archives, and anywhere else that might still contain some limited bit of knowledge. Then they took all that info that they gathered and stored it away in a giant building that is now known as the Library of Reclaimed Thought.

It's the single largest surviving knowledge archive in Frontiers. You can find EVERYTHING in there. They've got blueprints, medical texts, agricultural manuals, engineering diagrams, and so so much more. If a settlement needed to relearn how to purify water, build an engine, or repair a wind turbine, they turned to the Pale Regiment. That's why a lot of settlements owe them their survival. But it's also why a lot of people hate them now. Over time, the Pale Regiment developed a doctrine called The Schema.

It says that the old world collapsed because knowledge was scattered and uncontrolled. There were too many independent actors and powers and competing systems. So, their solution was to rebuild civilization under a single structured design. Their design. They now control the knowledge pipeline. They collect information, catalogue it, and decide who gets access.

If you're a settlement out in the Deadlands and you don't want to bend the knee to the Pale Regiment - or even if they just don't like the way you look - then you're shit out of luck. The best description for them is a bunch of fascist librarians, which is an oxymoron until you realize how weirdly accurate of a description it is. Imagine a group of librarians who think that the best way for humanity to survive is if they had all the information and chose who got to benefit from it.

Now give those librarians armored troops, prototype weapons, and a cult-like identity, and let them choose who lives and dies. That's the Pale Regiment. They're like those asshole librarians who shush you when you sneeze quietly, and their shush is so much louder than any noise you ever made. In short, they're assholes. CrushDaddyXx (Primary) That's exactly why you should fight them Zeke. It's imperative to punch fascists in the face.

In the immortal words of America: World Police - they're assholes who just want to shit all over everything. UnhelpfullyHelpful That's not the best analogy, especially since they do help a lot of people. But I agree with Null, Zeke should definitely stay away from them. The Pale Regiment is waaay outside what Zeke can handle right now. They're one of the richest factions in the game. They've got pre-Fracture weapons, prototype tech, and armories filled with equipment.

Their gear probably costs more than everything Zeke owns combined. Well… everything except the glyph notebook. DO NOT SHOW THEM THE GLYPH NOTEBOOK, ZEKE. SpicyShoyu Show them the glyph notebook Zeke. It'll be funny. SaltedPecanPie If you decide to fight them, make sure you try and get one of their masks. They're enchanted, but unfortunately no one knows what the enchantments do. Whenever you kill one of the Pale Regiment in the games - which is rare - and you try and loot the mask, it just melts in your hands.

It can actually wound your PC if you try and pick it up. Members of the Pale Regiment suppress their personal identity in favor of institutional identity. The masks are all part of that philosophy and are supposed to symbolize that the individual doesn't matter, only The Schema. It's all very cult-like and creepy. But the masks might be worth something to a collector. 10161066 Zeke, Null is right in that you shouldn't mess with the Pale Regiment.

They'll work with you if it advances their objectives, but they're always evaluating people based on how useful they are to the Schema. You don't really want to catch their eye. They'll either think you're dangerous, and they'll hunt you. Or they'll think you're useless, and be okay with having you die if it advances their cause. CrushDaddyXx (Primary) Or. OR. Hear me out again. Zeke steals one of their masks. I want to see what happens. StoryLeech He dies. What would happen is he dies. Z3ke (Original Poster) Well…

I think I have to work with them now. After we shut the doors and locked them down, all of us just stood there for a moment. One of the Pale Regiment soldiers dragged a bulky machine across the floor and wedged it against the door, settling it in place as a barricade. Then we all just watched the door. Nobody said anything. We all just waited to see if the creatures that had attacked would come crashing through. A few seconds passed. Then a few more. Nothing happened.

When we figured we were all safe, everyone finally started breathing again. We'd just run what felt like half the length of the Fossilized Factory Belt, and my lungs were trying to crawl out of my throat. My chest burned and my breathing was ragged, and we all needed some time to calm down. Without even discussing it, both the Pale Regiment people and my own crew split off and claimed opposite sides of the room. This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Milicent dropped into a crouch and braced her hands on her knees while she tried to catch her breath.

"Holy shit," she wheezed between gasps. Jared just staggered around until he found a wall and then leaned against it. He wiped sweat off his forehead with the sleeve of his coat. Daryl, meanwhile, looked fine. He stood a few feet in front of us like a guard dog, breathing slow and steady while his eyes scanned the exits, the ceiling, and the Pale Regiment across the room. I dropped down onto the floor and pulled out my Tech Slate.

From the outside it probably looked like I was jotting down notes about what just happened. Which… technically I was. But it was all because I was updating all of you and hoping the forum had some idea about how I could survive all this.

"I hate them," Milicent muttered quietly.

"Same," said Jared without even opening his eyes. It's pretty safe to say that they're in the anti-Pale Regiment camp.

"Well, they did help us not die just now," I said quietly. Milicent shrugged at that like it was a very minor detail.

"Still creepy," she said. I couldn't argue with that so I just went back to typing out my message to all you guys. After a few minutes, motion caught my eye and I looked up to see one of the Pale Regiment guys step away from his group and start walking over towards us. It was the leader; the guy who I'd spoken with before we all got chased by whatever was out there. Now that I had a better view of him, I realized his porcelain mask was slightly different from the others.

It was longer and the cheeks were smoothed and curved. It almost looked elegant in a really disturbing way, and I wondered if he'd stolen the thing from a museum or something. He stopped a few feet away from us.

"You triggered the defense grid." His voice came through some kind of modulator in the mask and it sounded flat and distorted. I saw Jared immediately bristle at the suggestion that we screwed up.

"Wasn't us." The masked head tilted slightly, and I thought he was going to argue with Jared, but instead he simply turned his attention back to me.

"The Factory retains several automated security systems. They appear to have identified you as intruders."

"We didn't have any problems until you showed up," Milicent shot back as she stood. Daryl shifted slightly beside me and I noticed him studying the Pale Regiment soldiers. He was judging distance and sizing them up, probably calculating exactly how he would cause the most damage as soon as the fighting kicked off. That was not what I wanted, so I quickly jumped in.

"I didn't get a good look at them," I admitted.

"What the hell were those things?"

"Hemocyte Swarm Units," he said.

"They are maintenance-defense constructs. Small autonomous mechanized units that are designed to operate in large numbers." He paused and glanced briefly at Daryl, seemingly knowing what he was doing.

"Functionally analogous to white blood cells."

"Oh, that's comforting," I sighed.

"The factory complex is the body. We are the infection."

"I'm not a big fan of metaphors where I'm a bacteria," I said. He ignored that and gestured around the room.

"This chamber is shielded. The swarm units cannot enter." That explained a lot. The moment we slammed the door shut the swarm had stopped pursuing us. I had assumed that the barricade was holding them back, but honestly what little I spotted from the machines made me think that they could easily tear through whatever we put in front of them.

"Great. So…we live here now?" I asked.

"No." He pointed towards the far end of the room and my eyes followed. There was a collapsed pile of machinery and rubble that was blocking off part of the wall there.

"There is an access corridor beyond that obstruction."

"And you can open it?"

"My team can."

"Fantastic," I clapped my hands together.

"Then we're free. What's the problem?"

"It leads back to the Factory. The swarm units will reacquire us the moment we exit this chamber." Jared groaned and Milicent frowned. I glanced over at my team and none of them looked too thrilled with the situation we'd just found ourselves in.

"So we just run again. What's the problem? We outran them once. We can do it again." I tried sounding confident but my brain was screaming about the idea of trying to sprint away from several thousand small murder-bots. Daryl shook his head.

"No. We wouldn't make it very far. We only made it to this room because we started ahead of the main swarm. If they clock us early, they'll surround us and pick us off." The masked leader waited until Daryl finished and then he looked back at me.

"Our plan is to fight. We require your assistance." I looked over at my team. Milicent's expression said absolutely not. Jared just sighed and had a look on his face of I hate this place. Daryl remained completely neutral, waiting for me to decide what they did. I sighed and rubbed my temples. Between the Pale Regiment wanting to fight a last stand against the autonomous swarm, and all of you constantly telling me to punch everything and everyone that I meet, I was getting a little tired.

"You got any intel on this place?" I asked. The mask tilted slightly.

"If you've got a map or some schematics or anything like that, then we might be able to do more than just run and pray. Maybe we set up traps or find some blind spots in the defense system." I couldn't tell him that I wanted a map so I could describe it to all you and hopefully you'd all come up with an answer that wouldn't get me killed. The leader went completely still. He just stared at me and the whole thing was incredibly unnerving. I've never liked people looking at me for extended periods of time.

It's just a pet peeve of mine. This was so much worse because the porcelain mask completely hid the guy's face. It felt like I was being studied by something that wasn't entirely human. After what felt like ages, he finally nodded and slowly reached inside his coat. He pulled out a folded sheet of paper and handed it to me.

"We have been mapping the factory." I unfolded the paper and immediately realized why he'd hesitated to hand it to me. It was an entire map of the surrounding factory. There were multiple corridors and assembly halls and storage vaults. There were conveyor arteries running through the factory like veins. The whole thing was insanely detailed and I recognized that it was information worth a fortune.

"Okay," I said slowly.

"Now we're talking." I handed the map over to Jared and he studied it for about three seconds before his eyes lit up like someone just handed him some ice cream.

"Give us a moment to come up with a plan and I'll get back to you. But right now…it looks like we're fighting." The masked leader nodded and then headed back to his group. I watched as the Pale Regiment gathered at the far end of the room where the metal and rubble was. They began working immediately, pulling chunks of debris aside while one of them pulled small tools from a sack at his side. I turned back to my group and found Milicent shooting me daggers.

"It's either pairing up with them or dying here in this room when we run out of water." She huffed and sat back down against the wall. She clearly wasn't happy, but she was also willing to agree with what I suggested. Jared was crouched over the map and Daryl was a few steps away from us, his arms crossed as he kept an eye on the Pale Regiment. Satisfied that I wasn't about to get stabbed by anyone, I pulled out my Tech Slate to talk to you guys. So, that's where I'm at.

We're in this tiny room with an access corridor nearby. There are a bunch of murder-bots on the other side of the door. And Crush is about to be a happy guy because we're apparently about to go fight them. Now… how the hell do I kill these things? TwoGirlsOneCuphead Oh Zeke, you're actually in luck here. Assuming that the Pale Regiment leader is true when he said it's a Hemocyte Swarm. They aren't an elite monster. They're more like automated janitors who happen to be lethal.

The good news is that they're scary because there are a lot of them, not because they're smart. So you can outthink them and out plan them. SignalLoss Yea. The swarm runs on extremely simple threat-detection protocols. They don't really do tactics, they just detect an intruder and then swarm it. But individually and collectively, those things are dumb as rocks. They track via heat, so if you can find a way to mask your heat signature you should be able to move around without triggering them.

Z3ke (Original Poster) How the hell does that work? This entire factory is like a thousand degrees. Everything in here is hot as hell. So how are they tracking heat? BrokenKing42 It's not that kind of hot. Industrial facilities run at stable background temperatures. You are a moving heat signature. It would be extremely easy to pick you up. Sensors aren't just looking for heat, they're looking for temperature variance and differential. To a defense system, you would basically look like a walking flare.

CrushDaddyXx (Primary) So what I'm hearing is that Zeke needs to smear himself in mud like Arnold in Predator. I fully support this plan. Yo Zeke, when you kill the swarm, you need to look at it and be like "you're one ugly mother-" ScienceDad27 Jesus, no. Don't listen to Crush. The mud thing in Predator doesn't work in real life, and it wouldn't work here. You're going to need to figure something else out. HelpfullyUnhelpful You're all missing the obvious solution to all Zeke's problems. Hey Zeke.

Look to your left. Who do you see standing there? Z3ke (Original Poster) Uh… Daryl? He's just standing here and staring at the Pale Regiment as they work. He kinda looks like a cat watching a vacuum cleaner. HelpfullyUnhelpful Damn. That was a 50-50 shot and I still lost. I was really hoping it would work, but whatever. I meant for you to look at Milicent. You know, the competent glyphwright that you hired to take down the Reclaimer. NullSigil Oh. I see where you're going with this Helpfully.

That's actually a good time to test something out. Yo, Zeke. You've got a problem right now in the form of murderous robots. But you've also got a bigger problem coming down the road in the form of a gigantic murderous robot. And to kill it, you need to figure out whether Milicent can hang in the big leagues and can do what she needs to. Congrats, you've just found yourself a stress test. Glyphs are programmable, and you've got a swarm of predictable enemies chasing after you.

This forum can help design a glyph, Milicent will write it out, and then BOOM, problem solved. MoronicMnemonic Unless she betrays them the first time things get spicy. She could be looking at this situation and decide that working with the Pale Regiment isn't in her interest. So she'd just take whatever glyph the forum gives her and she ditches Zeke. MunchkinHoles It's not like Zeke can make the glyph. And I doubt you want Zeke showing off the Tech Slate to the Pale Regiment and having them make the glyph.

That would just get Zeke killed or kidnapped and experimented on. So, what's the plan? Tenset We want to limit what information we provide Milicent. Her compliance is currently hinged on the Glyph knowledge held by Patch, but we know that she'll need to use the Reclaimer Plan Glyphs well before then. We don't want to give her something substantial enough that she thinks it's enough to leave or betray Zeke.

Despite wanting to test Milicent's feasibility to write the Reclaimer Plan Glyphs, we do not want her to be exposed to the mana attunement Glyphs before enacting the plan to kill the Reclaimer. Even more importantly, we do not want her to be able to attune anything to Zeke's mana. Zeke's safety is priority #1 7Spirals That's easy enough then. We just… don't give her those glyphs. But there is a ton of stuff in that pdf that Zeke has. OR, this forum could design a glyph and Zeke would hand it over to her.

General-Schnaps Well, if some on this forum are hesitant to trust her, why not use something super safe, as a test? Glyphs that serve as alarms and light up or make loud noises when they come into contact with non-human creatures. GraceFall You could place a decoy Glyph to attract the monsters to other traps - sounds, scents, heat, that kind of thing. MushroomCleric I like it. Since the Hemocyte Swarm focuses on heat, we could put together a glyph that concentrates heat in a small area. It wouldn't need much mana.

Hell, one of the Pale Regiment people could even power it. That would draw in the swarm and make them an easy target for either more glyphs, or for Daryl and the Pale Regiment soldiers to cut them all down. So we've got a trap glyph. Now we just need some way to kill them. What's everyone got? Vawentine I'm a sucker for ice powers, how about the glyph that slowly freezes the enemy and turns them into ice statues? Crackferret A more useful effect could be a slow in the form of ice on the floor or momentum stealing.

7Spirals It wouldn't work. Ice is the wrong tool for the environment. Remember, Zeke is in the Fossilized Factory Belt. With all the furnaces and pipes and heat vents, the entire place is basically a giant oven. It's a million degrees there. Ice would melt too quick. At best, something like that might slow the swarm for a moment and it would be useful if all Zeke was planning to do was run for it. But remember that the Pale Regiment leader already said he wants to fight their way out.

If Milicent lays down an ice glyph, it would buy them maybe a minute before the heat eats the effect and the swarm adapts. Euan I think a thermobaric glyph or something with overpressure in enclosed spaces could be cool. CrushDaddyXx (Primary) YES. Listen to Euan, Zeke. He is someone who understands the value of explosions. Big boom. Swarm goes away. Problem solved. StoryLeech Slow your roll bro. We don't even know how talented Milicent is with glyphwriting.

If she copies something like that down wrong, the whole thing could blow up in Zeke's face. Even if she writes it perfectly, it could still end up going wrong. Look at where Zeke is. The factory is ancient, partially collapsed, and barely stable. Setting off a thermobaric blast might kill the swarm. And it also might bring down half the factory too. Best case scenario is that rubble goes everywhere, causing devastation.

The worst case scenario is that rubble goes everywhere, causing devastation, and closing off the exact path that Zeke needs to reach the research sites and the Reclaimer. Dodough Probably should be something simple. A glyph that electrocutes enemies. Then Zeke and the others can kill the swarm. Saltmines Is nobody else concerned about the obvious problem here? Think about the situation for a second.

Zeke pulls out his tech slate and he starts copying down some complicated glyph design so that Milicent can write it out. He's doing that IN FRONT OF both Milicent and members of the Pale Regiment - the single most information-obsessed faction in the entire MIZ. You really think that neither of them is going to ask questions about how Zeke suddenly has access to things like thermobaric glyphs or advanced cryo glyphs? I promise you that they're going to question him about it. K1LLPR1EST Shit.

Salt's absolutely right. If Zeke flashes a Tech Slate filled with rare glyph designs in front of the Pale regiment, they're not going to ask politely about them. They're going to "requisition" that slate. And by requisition, I mean kill everyone and take it from his cold dead hands. Tenset These glyphs must only do what is written on the tin. No bells and whistles. We limit what Milicent can gain from this glyph, but still provide it to show more worth from Zeke.

Ideally, Zeke should be able to memorize and create this glyph, that is how simple it should be. The thought behind it is threefold. First and least importantly, it could give him his first level in Glyph Writing. Nice, but not necessary. Second, it takes heat off his Tech Slate. If Zeke can create this glyph without referencing the Tech Slate, he diverts attention from it, which keeps his connection to the forum safe. Third, it gives more importance to Zeke himself to Milicent.

It shows Zeke has more competence and knowledge with glyphs than the book that has been left with Patch. Milicent will likely be less willing to betray or kill Zeke because she'll desire this knowledge. MushroomCleric Hmmm. That could work, but it would come with a risk. Glyphs are extremely sensitive. Zeke would need to memorize the entire glyph and if he screws up a single line when it's redrawn, the whole thing could misfire, which would be catastrophic.

In the interest of not accidentally vaporizing Zeke, we should probably avoid the more complicated designs. The_Kijs I submit for consideration the Rubber Band glyph. <bad. internet. conn. glyph. xygghtyaq. jpeg> It attunes itself to any living creature above a certain mass that passes over it, and then exerts a pulling force on that creature towards the glyph that increases proportional to distance and the mass of the creature. The bigger you are and the further you get from the glyph, the harder it pulls on you.

Ideally, the glyph has enough charge that the target can't just force their way past without getting tired, so they'll be pulled back to the glyph. CrushDaddyXx (Primary) That idea sounds good. But, and it's something that Sir Mix-a-lot can't lie about, this plan isn't as simple as slapping a glyph on the floor and calling it a day. Zeke, if you want this to work you're going to need to actually plan it out.

As much as I want to write out a whole plan for you, we aren't able to see the map of your Fossilized Factory Belt. So, we can come up with a plan but you're going to need to get Jared and the Pale Regiment creeps together to get it to work. First, you're going to need a location. You need to get Jared on that immediately. Have him comb through that map and find a section of the factory that's a decent distance away from the swarm that's chasing you.

The farther away you are when they first detect you, the more time you'll have to set the trap. You need the location first because of what the Pale Regiment guy said: that the swarm is going to clock you the moment you get into that access corridor they're digging open. What you're looking for is a place where you can funnel the swarm. Think narrow corridors that feed into a single room. Think bottleneck or somewhere where the swarm has to come at you in a tight wave instead of surrounding you.

Once you have your room picked out, you move on to step number two, which is to call the swarm in. To do that, you use the heat collection glyph. The Hemocyte Swarm tracks thermal signatures. If you concentrate heat in one spot, it'll look like the world's biggest dinner bell to them. You plant the heat glyph and then it pulls the swarm right to it. While that heat glyph is being written, Milicent needs to be working on the Rubber Band Glyph in the middle of the room. That's the trap.

Ideally, Milicent finished first and plants the Rubber Band Glyph dead center, then you drop the heat glyph nearby and the swarm comes running. Once the swarm enters the room, you and your team pull back outside the pull radius and the glyph does its thing. Every time the swarm tries to push forward, the pull drags them back to the center of the room. At that point you, Daryl, and the Pale Regiment can just stand outside the radius and take your time picking them off. Here's the tricky part.

You need to memorize both glyphs, because if you pull out your Tech Slate and start copying designs while standing there, you're going to have a dozen very dangerous people suddenly extremely interested in where you got that knowledge. Memorize the designs, write them from memory, and have an answer ready for when the Pale Regiment asks you how you know about those glyphs. Say you picked it up while scavenging or something. Just don't make it sound too impressive.

Your goal here is to survive the swarm, not accidentally convince the Pale Regiment that you're a walking encyclopedia of glyphs. Now… that's the basic plan. You need to talk it over with your team and the Pale Regiment creeps, and listen to their ideas. If they've got something that can help, or if they have extra weapons that can kill off the swarm faster, then integrate all that into the original plan. I, for one, am extremely excited about this.

You're going to smash a whole swarm and maybe walk away with that map of the Fossilized Factory Belt. That gets you a step closer to the Reclaimer and a massive fight.