The world shifted back to its normal coloration a few seconds later. Realizing that the situation was little different than most jobs she had taken, she did what she always did. She pressed forward. Beam cannon at the ready, she surveilled the area in search of hostiles. Nothing moved, not even the dust on an errant breeze.

For several minutes she rushed along the rocky terrain unmolested. Her lucky did not hold out for much longer, however. Several odd creatures rose up fully intent on making up for that lack of molestation. Circular, and shaped a bit like a cyclopean potato, the creatures were an odd mixture of meat ball and metallic tentacles.

Slavering jaws opened wide as the defenders of the ancient city rushed toward her. The tentacles revealed themselves to be eyestalks as they turned baleful eyes toward their prey. Various multicolored beams of light shot toward her, but they were simple enough to anticipate due to the movement of the eyes. While the stalks themselves were a tricky mechanical bit of flair, the eyes could only shoot at something directly in front of them.

A bright white beam of light lanced just behind her where she had stood a moment before. A large rock suddenly lost several hundred pounds of mass as a neat hole appeared along one of its sides, its previous contents disintegrated by the blast.

Sheets of ice, pools of acid, and all manner of other ridiculous effects occurred as the one-eyed cyborg potatoes did their best to pin her down. However, despite their flight capability and capacity to attack in multiple directions at once, they were far too slow.

Three shots of high-yield plasma ripped through the air and tore into the nearest creature with burning intensity. It shrieked and flailed around in mid-air for a brief second before it burst into dust.

Samantha continued her work. She dodged beams of ice, fire, and even electrical discharges while she took the remaining creatures down. She gained neither loot nor experience for her efforts but she did gain a little insight into the potential problem that the research team had faced.

"Dillozouan quantum effluvia... Probably a recycling program that's keeping the guardian in business," she said confidently. It was no wonder the research team could not beat the monster. Such devices, an incredible advancement over simple Nano-technology, had to be turned off in just the right way. If there was no safety device available to turn them off, they had to be defeated in a pattern of actions specific to that guardian. Though, usually there were obvious signs as to what needed to be done.

She checked her map coordinates, pleased to note that her map still seemed to work, then set out again. Only a small number of encounters occurred before she reached the entrance to the underground portion of the ruined city.

A simple enough mission, she moved forward carefully with her beam cannon fully charged for its next shot. She soon came upon a stone pillar with writing on it that would be unintelligible to most people. It would almost be seen as simple weathering of the stone to the untrained eye. Samantha grinned as she took sight of it.

"Gee. Thanks," she said lightly. Her adopted people had left an instruction manual behind for anyone who happened across the guardian. It detailed how they might stop it, should it prove dangerous. Of course, there were perhaps a handful of people in the entire galaxy who could read it, but it was the thought that counted. Right?

Samantha read through the information provided briefly then nodded. It seemed simple enough. She switched her weaponry over to a freeze beam, and prepped a few grenades that she had brought along. If the manual was correct, this would not take long.

"If it's correct then..." She trotted forward then stopped just shy of where the beast would be activated. She charged her freeze beam to its maximum output setting then stepped forward past the rocky ground onto a paved stone roadway.

A loud whirring sound echoed through the air followed by a buzzing hum. The sound of water being sucked down a drain followed even as a black cloud of dust began to swirl and writher inside the door way. A gigantic version of the flying potato things began to form.

This was the part where most people would start to fire. However, that was a trap. The creature would feed on the energy from particle weapons and grow stronger, while projectile weapons would merely be ineffective for the current phase of the fight.

She waited patiently while the guardian formed. Without the boost to its energy reserves due to the absorption of particle attacks it was sluggish.

The moment it shifted from a dense black cloud that held to vague shape of the flying potato things, and became a fully rendered one-eyed monstrosity, it opened its massive toothy maw to roar out a challenge. This was what she had to wait for, and she made good use of her time. She fired her freeze beam. Due to its lack of energy gained by absorbing attacks, the creature was too slow to react. It took a giant eyeball full of cryogenic death then froze solidly in place.

She wasted no time and rushed forward while the creature's mouth was frozen open. It had already begun to thaw out before she got into range, but the instructions had proved correct so far. She lobbed a plasma grenade inside before it could unthaw completely, then leapt to the side in anticipation of the shockwave from the explosion.

The monstrosity blew apart in a shower of black dust. Revealed was a glowing piece of crystal roughly the size of a basketball. While the quantum effluvia began to swirl around it, she switched to her plasma beam and fired off multiple shots with unerring accuracy.

It managed to reconstitute itself once, but it was stuck in a basic combat loop. The moment it reformed it tried to roar. She froze it in place, lobbed a grenade, and then opened fire when its core was exposed.

In truth, it was not much of a fight. Any idiot could hit a brightly glowing piece of rock, she thought. With such an obvious weak spot it should take even a completely brain dead individual no time at all to defeat such a creature. Those thoughts were proved right after it reconstituted itself once more it was destroyed on the third round of attacks. It never even managed to fire off a single blast from its tentacles.

The black dust fell to the ground even as the crystal ruptured then exploded in a fury of light, sounds, and crystalline shards. The guardian, properly defeated at last, would not rise again to bother the research team. Of course, there would be far worse guardians further into the city but that was their problem. She had only been hired for the surface detail.

The world turned black and white. A message screen appeared which informed her that she had earned six hundred experience points for the mission. She could claim her rewards by searching the remains of the guardian, and by stepping past the entrance to the underground city then heading along the left hand corridor.

"Interesting..." she said with a thoughtful hum.

Samantha trotted forward then began to search through the black soot left behind in the wake of the monster's destruction. After a few minutes she noticed a slight shimmer near a rock. "What's this? A ticket?"

A new message window appeared that told her what her treasure happened to be. It was a class three treasure item awarded due to her champion's actions and her own completion of the side mission.

"A class three item specific to the companion Samantha Jeran. OK..." The moment she finished speaking, the ticket burst into flames then disappeared. On the ground before her there appeared a softly glowing sphere of light.

She reached down to touch the sphere, as it was obviously a reward of some kind, then blinked as the light dispersed and quickly became something entirely different. She did her best impression of Scott in that moment. "The hell?"

SUPPORT ITEM

Jet Boots

Level: 1/7 [Epic]

EXP: 0/600

Hit Points: 0.001

Agility: +10 [Cannot Upgrade]

Durability: 72/72

Special Options

Air Dash - Ignore the laws of physics and dash through the air. You may continue any jump that you have begun for an additional [1] second. You may also change directions in mid-air.

Agility Stabilization: You will have improved ability to avoid stumbling and tripping when you equip these boots.

Color Coordination: This item will automatically color coordinate with whatever outfit you are wearing. If you are otherwise naked, the default color scheme will be blue.

Cool Down: 1 Min(s)

"Agility plus ten... That's good, right?" Samantha eyed the boots carefully. They were ridiculous. While they certainly looked stylish and actually matched her current outfit, that did not matter. They were simply impractical for a bounty hunter on a mission.

"Seriously? That pervert would send me a pair of high-heeled boots that make me jump around a lot," she said with a mildly amused snort.

She was curious to see what they would do, but she did not want to be caught in hostile terrain. So, she headed off to collect her other reward.