--- 10 - Infestation ---
Infectious Vapors was a skill Flamescale had been avoiding. It was indiscriminate compared to the others, and while Hidden Infection did allow her some control, the effects had a tendency to be added to various residues without a clear idea if that was also able to be controlled. However, she had to consider it going forward simply because it also was a vector that didn't need more obvious methods, and it also in theory worked well with her specific scent.
Infected Material on the other hand was one that she knew was only going to be useful when she was detected, and one of the past few infiltration missions with multiple bodies and contagion skills had shown that she was not entirely ready to make up for the time needed to infect targets at her current infection chance. Each of the three infection skills had ten levels, and while they started with a solid chance, in practice even residues' best starting chance of the three didn't get truly reliable until level five.
Infected Material was a construction skill, something that let you rework the battlefield around you mid-mission to your advantage. Mostly useful for pure combat as it was always a very obvious thing to do. In this case Flamescale unlocked new options by having other skills. The basic options were Infected Coating, which was just residue that didn't time out, and Infected Structure, which was solidified infected material for basic walls and other structural elements. Infectious Strikes gave the Infected Mass option as a small blob that acted as a glob spitting turret. Infected Pool gave a regenerative pool of infected material, but required the potent and expensive health regeneration passive skill of the Mass Infection branch, which also unlocked even stronger Dense Infection building materials.
Finally the Mass Infection branch's final skill, which required a level of every other skill on the branch, unlocked the Infected Hive. Which honestly was more of a feature of that final skill. Infected Creation made it so you could just outright create new infected creatures, which by default looked like you and could only get minimal visual modifications from your character's form. It also allowed you to convert regular infected into that sort of creature, and from what she and Yellow-Glow had discovered based on Sledge's information was actually the other skill that could have unlocked Dual Form in her Skill Tree. Those creatures received your entire skill set with some minor decreases from your raw stats, but required using the Hive structure in order to perform the reshape or creation action.
"There are rumors that they are going to add a method to keep creatures made that way," Yellow-Glow said as they went over the data from the past few infiltration missions. He had gotten rather busy with guide work again, and she had heard that Mark had a big medical stay again. "But there have been rumors about that as old as Void Strike."
"I'm not sure I want to turn locals into versions of myself just to keep me company here," Flamescale admitted a touch uncomfortable with the idea.
"I would personally enjoy the extra help, although my robotic conversion variant on such things isn't in a great skill tree," Yellow-Glow reminded her. "I am hopeful to get a better one eventually, but being that sort of hazard to biological life will just have to wait. You on the other hand have enough versions of yourself already without that method."
"Exactly, there is already two of me, and I have seven more to still get without that," Flamescale laughed back at that comment. "It sounds like the materials can be a good backup though, so I'm going to try it out. So, any developments on the wider situation?"
"It is going to be a short time before we have the next season," Yellow-Glow admitted with a sigh. "A month at most. I am not sure what the nature of this new Ancient threat will be. The best options are either actual remnants of the Ancients, or their creations aligned with a local faction. We won't know for sure until we get the release announcement. Keep an eye out for now, but I have too much information and not enough help at the moment."
"Still haven't found anyone trustworthy?" she asked seriously. Because this was a topic that mattered for the serious parts of this existence they rarely touched on, and not just the simple game mechanics they usually worked with other players to figure out. Exploring new missions, gear, and skills was one thing, but looking for the secrets to future content required acknowledging the truth of things to a degree.
"I am looking into Sledge again. He is definitely able to handle the secret parts of such research properly, but I do not believe he has the desire," her friend equally seriously admitted. "He is the best option at the moment, which while he isn't a bad option does say that the others are not even being considered."
"We need more people we can actually talk with," Flamescale admitted tiredly. "I won't keep you longer then, be safe, Yellow-Glow."
"Be safe, Flamescale," Yellow-Glow said and cut the line.
Those missions had not been that great for skill points. Her Fluid Pestilence Skill Tree was only up to 44, which was enough to let her also grab Flame Absorb again as a healing skill. Without a way to use Fire elemental attacks against herself easily it wasn't a great healing option, and it did complicate cleanup of her infected by being transferred to them as well, but it was better than the minimal healing she had from one-off skills.
It was a problem Flamescale had for a long time, she didn't like doing the fast missions over and over, so she didn't earn points for her STs anywhere near as fast as other players. It was worse at the moment because she didn't have the easy ways to play she really wanted out of this ST. More bodies or more reliable infection both had a cost of more points, which meant that they didn't help until she already had the points for them.
The mission console had an interesting option right at the top. A request from the anti-pirate forces to infiltrate and extract data from a Macrophylla research facility. Which was the sort of notable thing that screamed "important things here" and attracted her attention immediately. The details were more clearly filled out than usual as well, and it noted there was a quantum communications dead drop, but a backup of capturing the local communications center to transmit the data that way as a backup.
"They are saying what the backup plan is?" Flamescale questioned aloud, and her second body leaned over so she could look at it twice over to make sure that she was seeing it right. "Where are they putting the Rift that they need to do that?" Usually missions only sent you backup options after you messed up, and even then typically with it being your job to figure out you needed a comm center to learn the details. If things were defined it usually meant whoever hired you had done something tricky when they made the contract.
She considered the situation outlined in the contract, and went through her bio-weapon one-off skills. Flamescale had a two missile tube bio-missile skill that she rarely used as those were even more obvious than the spine launchers, but were a solid extra damage option. There was also the one off version of the acid sprayers that she had a single version of, but that was mostly handled by her spit attack from the basic Infected skill so it was less valuable. A quick check revealed that the spit attack added both residue and vapors to its effect with those skills, and the missiles apparently ended up spraying out a mixture of those two as well at the cost of what turned out to be little to no improvement from Infectious Strikes.
Infected Strength was a general stat buff where she needed the first level to get Infected Material in the first place, so she had a bit more capability there now, but the extra firepower of a pair of bio-missiles seemed like it might end up more useful if things went wrong. As long as she stayed solid long enough to reload, which was a question actually, but it did give them to her infected as well, and they could actually hide the launchers. She put the two of them along her back, right between her shoulders one above the other like a pair of good sized spikes.
It wasn't a great setup, there was a reason she didn't even use the spines most of the time, let alone the much more noticeable missiles, but there was something up with this mission. She didn't want to leave it for someone else, even if it might be more than she could currently handle. "This is the hard part," Flamescale sighed and looked herself over again. "I knew it would be, but it is still hard getting what I want to be without stopping what I want to do."
Flamescale took the mission anyway, with a gear loadout focused on her still fairly new nanotech security crackers and some higher end plasma pistols. Unlike the light plasma rifles these were rare, with a much hotter end result that rivaled laser rifles in damage, at the cost of taking more battery and gas per shot. Experimental models that she couldn't replace very easily, but that would take out anything the Macrophylla had on the mission with a single shot, even without the massive boosts of a fully completed ST.
The Void Rift left her inside of the target, in a slightly disused storage room, and it was always a terrible sign when your contract had to have been made using mundane infiltration before you even arrived. With a cringe she inspected the vents out of the room, and the electronics inside. A map would be useful, but just finding anything important would be a start.
The first thing Flamescale found was a maintenance worker arriving to clean the storage room, who did not appreciate being taken over in order to get her that map. They also revealed that the whole place was on total lockdown. That let her vent flowing body redirect to the communications center to see how it looked just in case. She allowed the worker to resume their tasks as if she wasn't there, mostly because it would likely be noticed if they did something else.
The second body went out a different vent, with the goal of reaching a guard shower. Replacing soaps with infectious residue was halfway plausible for her particular residue, if a bit unlikely to work in a Leaf base. They were more the type to consider a shower more like a cafeteria, which was still not truly accurate as at minimum the plants weren't the type to visit them all at once.
Flamescale found the communications center first, soon followed by her other body locating a secondary computer system before reaching the showers that only had a single occupant. The comm center had a larger group of three Macrophylla present, but Flamescale was fairly sure she could lock down the room in an emergency. So she spat at the single occupant of the secondary computer system to coat them in residue and fill the room with vapors.
Then a new tutorial message appeared to inform her about the details of how you made attempts to infect targets who were already infected by someone else. Which was a problem for a large number of reasons, most of all the fact that this was not an Open Instance and there should not be any other Void Entities here. The details were complicated, but basically amounted to it being a bit of a fight between the two infections, with it being a factor of both the infection chance of the method used and total skill points invested in infection related skills. Apparently her Multiform tree was counting for some reason, as a majority of her points were listed as working for her, and the opponent was only listed as a few points.
Despite the fact that the target was infected almost instantly the real issue was that she was certain the infected were connected locally. So her other body dropped through the comm center vent to take over those Leafs too just as the alarms went off. Two of the three comm center Macrophylla it turned out were already infected as she splattered them, and apparently without the desire to take over the last who she simply bit with her fang based character creator attack to overtake.
The formerly infected were worryingly without much thought compared to the others, despite somehow being able to work as normal. It was a much duller set of surface thoughts, with a careful look showing outright holes in their minds where the local infection had damaged them. It actually took giving them orders to keep them from a bit of panic now, as it seemed Flamescale's infection was restoring their minds as much as was possible.
Her computer room body started to hack the system she had found, with an order to the captured infected in that room to start setting up some infected materials to try and help hold the room. Her comms body did much the same with getting into communications with the backup line as the three infected started to fortify and infest the communications center. Finally she had the initial infected worker get started on just wandering around with weapons and installing additional infected masses to try and add some additional infection sources.
"This is Void Entity Flamescale to anti-pirate force contractor. My infiltration attempt has been discovered," she said when the line opened, and smiled at how she was able to set up a data link as well from the computer system using a second body. Something she was fairly sure she couldn't manage as easily with just one body, even with infected to try and work with. "I have located some of the desired data and can begin transmission." The air was already filling with vapors misting off the residue and infected materials being laid down.
"We are reading you, Entity Flamescale," the other side of the line replied in the language used by the 319. "Please begin transmission as soon as able, and maintain presence at site as long as possible. Macrophylla orbital forces have begun reaction to your presence."
Flamescale didn't have much chance to actually do more than grab all of the data she could find that looked halfway like what was requested, with the computer body also taking data chip copies. Defensively she ordered her infected to move out as soon as they finished the basics, with the other computer rooms as a primary target but orders to spread everywhere. That didn't happen quickly, the maintenance worker idly thought about going to infest the main ventilation units, and got given that mission in response, while the communications center found itself assaulted by the first responding security forces.
A team of six Leaf guards was the first to arrive, but a bio-missile from one of the three infected was a rather impressive response. It splattered out hot blobs of infected material and a smoke cloud of vapors that were also hot enough to at least scar the walls outside the hall. Three of the guards were already infected and taken over quickly, while two others died from the blast, and the final one took a moment to adapt to the orders revealing that the other surviving guards were already infected.
And their mind immediately went to the settlement above the base.
"What settlement are the guards talking about?" Flamescale demanded the other end of the communications line as soon as she discovered that.
"Huh, I didn't expect the Entity to be more concerned with them than my bosses," the other end sighed with despair. "We have a rumor, that something terrible is being worked on there. Horrible enough to summon one of you under a minor settlement." Then there was a harsh beeping on the other end. "Wait a moment."
Flamescale still had her infected begin to overrun and take over as much of the facility as possible, with concern that she was going to need demolition charges to clean out the entire infected hive. She still worked out if she needed to move to another computer station. Still kept the transmission of the data going.
The anti-pirate force member then swore darkly. "Void Entity Flamescale, we have a change in mission objectives," they said grimly. "You are to hold the facility until a response force has arrived to destroy it. If possible you are to reach and halt any local dropships from lifting off, and eliminate any forces that land on the world."
"What's happening?" she questioned at that extreme change in actions.
"The data we have so far indicates the infectious material sensors on the lower labs went offline weeks ago, and the goals of the research team have notably shifted," they explained. "Something is trying to have them reach the sixth world of this system." There was a brief pause. "The local Macrophylla orbital command has admitted they have needed to implement containment on some who return from the settlement and lab. They are calling off a number of their dropships, but some are not responding properly. Anti-pirate battleships are three hours out, transmit all data you can find and prepare to evacuate yourself when they arrive for orbital bombardment."
"I can hold, but if I have to that long there is not going to be anything you can leave behind," Flamescale declared tiredly as she looked around the now red goo coated and considerably warmer rooms she was in. "I am a bigger hazard here, and you must leave none of my infection behind because of that."
There was a long pause before she got a response. "My commander just sighed loudly in case you didn't hear that," they replied. "As apparently we had expected to have that sort of outcome as an excuse in the situation where you didn't just slaughter everyone. Because it turns out this data was just verification of something already suspected. Be careful of the dropships, it is unclear how contested the orbitals are right now."
Flamescale didn't reply to that, and instead just took off the remaining leash she had on her infected just going all out and infecting everything. Orders to not leave the world or let anyone else, to spread her infected materials over any surface they could find, and to target anyone not already infected with all weapons. It was her worst case scenario, but as the vapors and infected reached the surface it became clear it was needed as civilians infected by the other infection before she even arrived started to join into her growing control.
That control was a growing sort of presence in the back of her head. Still her, but a her that was distributed a bit to manage the thoughts and information she could access from her infected. It felt like the attempts she had helped with to make database Synch-Tech, systems to provide added knowledge directly to users while connected. The difference was this was probably going to end up being dozens, maybe hundreds, of living people. At least half of which were already infected, and were making their way to rather sealed local shuttles and dropships.
"I think I hate this," Flamescale's computer system body said as that system was fully uploaded and copied. She started to move it to the next major computer room. The halls were heavily coated, dotted with infected mass nodes that made her open the construction menu herself inside the mission for the first time. It revealed that the little bio-turrets were able to be placed with only a single combat ability at a time, so either the default spit of goo, a set of four spine launchers, or a pair of bio-missiles.
It was an interesting way to give herself a bit more firepower, with the downside that they needed her to have them be infectious to create them, and her infected were actually spending a good amount of time making them all. Flamescale could think of times where it would be a massive help, especially if she did find targets to destroy that were immune to her infection. The various armored vehicles that the surface infected were starting to encounter from the dropships were a great example that was making her very glad she added bio-missiles for this mission.
Three hours was a massive time for a single battle, but she quickly discovered why the local infection wasn't just bombarding her masses of corrupted Macrophylla. The lowermost levels of the facility were locked out very tightly, with even her various fire enhanced infected doing little to get inside. A probe of the knowledge in the far too many minds revealed the lowermost section was self contained, with the ability to lock down even the vents for months if needed.
Flamescale wasn't sure what she could find if she could break in, but she also was a bit worried, so she passed along the detail of how deep that area was to the anti-pirate forces and settled in for a long terrible mission.
---
There was some worthwhile gear that she had taken the time to collect that needed to be sorted. There were ten more points for her Skill Tree to possibly spend. There was a massive pile of data to prepare to transfer to Yellow-Glow in the hope that something in there would help figure out why this happened and if it was part of the next season or not.
That last one was probably the best to work on given Flamescale's mood after the disaster of the last mission, but she didn't want to do any of it. She didn't want Yellow-Glow to try and distract her with raw data analysis, or to lose herself in figuring out if there was any new stuff worth more than it seemed in mission, or to figure out how to use the technical upside of such a long and difficult mission giving her those points she desired.
Flamescale wanted, just for once, to seriously talk about the horror she just unleashed on actual people. Even if it was apparently a better end than they could have faced to some tiny degree.
"Trust takes trust," she sighed as the only thing that could come to mind occurred to her, and called Sledge.
"Flamescale, I'm surprised to hear from you. Yellow-Glow sent along the data from the cybernetics a while back," the pangolin Void Entity answered, his actual face and body visible. It was an odd mix of mammal mouth and almost dragon like large plate scales down from the back of his head to cover his entire body all the way down the end of his tail.
"I've just had a terrible mission, and I want to talk with someone about it," she honestly explained. "I hope that you're someone I can talk with about it."
"I suppose I can try and listen," Sledge said with a bit of confusion.
Flamescale didn't start immediately, because that wasn't enough. "Why do you still do missions, Sledge?"
"Is it not the nature of Void Entities to seek entertainment and power among these worlds?" the other Void Entity questioned back half sarcastically.
"Not the average Void Entity. You, Sledge, who speaks of the morals of aiding the anti-pirate forces," Flamescale specified darkly, mind still stuck on what that group had just asked her to do. "Why not just sleep away eternity, or find a quiet world and just live in peace among the locals?"
"I did try that once," Sledge said shortly as he truly looked at her for the first time since the call began. Inspected her reaction, and then told a story. "It began on the worst day of my life, a moment of realization so terrible that I could not bear to continue to fight. So I hung up my armor, put away my weapons, and left on my skills because I was not entirely stupid, then paid for access to an arcology I knew was safe and happy.
"The first week they didn't trust me. The second they allowed me to work for my stay. The third I began to make friends, and find a new place for myself after losing my old one. For four and a half months I lived quietly among the locals of that world.
"Then the Pale Stem General arrived with his fleet of destruction, and reduced my arcology to a glassy crater. For the second time in my life I awoke in my Void Base having lost everything and everyone I cared for. Only this time, when I searched for a reason why I had lost them I found one.
"The Pale Stem General's rampage was one of the many poorly received parts to the second season of Void Strike. There were guides for how to stop it that were over a month old by that point, and you could find the answer in the forums even earlier. If I had not isolated myself, then this time I could have saved the ones I loved, but more than that..." Sledge trailed off for a moment, the first real break in the tale. "More than that I realized that I could have stopped him in more than just that one reality. I could have spent my time stopping him from doing it in many, even if there would always be ones where I did not.
"However, that would take the time I had spent among those I lost. I could not live peacefully and fight against the darker parts of existence at once. So I made the choice, that instead of finding another place to try and remake a normal life, I would return to taking missions. With a goal of finding those that made things better for all."
"My condolences for your losses," Flamescale replied sincerely, and now sure that he did in fact know the truth of this existence. In the worst way. "Have you had to interact with any of their counterparts in other instances, or are they not the type to end up speaking with a Void Entity?"
Sledge looked at her closely after that response to his story, and then looked faintly horrified. "You believe me," he declared quietly. "You- You know what I Meant."
"I just had a terrible mission, Sledge," Flamescale repeated. "I need someone who understands why to talk to about it." Because this was terrible, but not enough to make her stop. Not when she still didn't know what would come next. Not when she was finally starting to feel good in her skin here. Metaphorically speaking, she didn't really have 'skin' here and now. "What do you do when a mission is better for many, but horrible for those you have to kill?"
"I seek the reason why it happened, clean myself up, and visit the few locals I do often interact with now," he answered her easily, and a bit of tension seemed to leave him. "Mostly to check if they are okay, somewhat to have them help maintain my armor, and partly to speak with them about their ideas on what to do." Sledge chuckled. "I suppose it is time for me to be the one who is spoken with."
+++ Arc 1 End +++
[Author's Note]
Here we have the final part of my first arc for this story. The setup and establishment of the setting and story with a focus on Flamescale's new power set.
We also have the moment where I probably have left enough details in to give clarity on another big question people have had, but I'll have to see the response to tell.
