《Gateway》Chapter 44 - Leaving Home (Part Two)
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Chapter 44 - Leaving Home (Part Two)
Søren tapped a few icons and a small holographic image streamed from the drone appeared in front of him in the air, tiny lines of light flickering in and out of view from one corner of the dataslate to the image. The bird's eye view from the drone showed several campfires in between some patchwork hide tents and bedrolls. The last bits of light from the sun illuminated the camp, throwing parts of it into deep shadows. Several people could be seen tending to meals cooking over the campfires, while others were cleaning weapons, and yet others were lounging around relaxing.
The largest tent had two people standing outside the entrance, guarding the tent and the people inside it. Søren adjusted the feed from the drone, enabling an infrared filter. Algorithms built in to the app quickly altered the feed further, highlighting each of the Scrapper Raiders in the camp, including the ones inside the tents hidden from view. Neeka's eyes darted back and forth as she took in the holo.
"That's twenty of them. Twenty-one counting the one Sehro took care of," Neeka said after counting. "The others may have gone out to forage for food and water."
"What if they're hidden like this one was?" Sehro asked.
"Could be. There are a lot of rocks and boulders scattered around here. It looks like a defensible location," Søren said. "We could ignore the camp and raiders or maybe we could talk to them--"
"You know what the Scrappers do Søren," Neeka interrupted Søren and admonished him with a stern glance. "They will not be the ally you want them to be against the Collective and their hordelings."
Søren frowned. It was easy to treat this world like a game. The subtle influence of the interface. The drip, drip, drip of Pavlovian rewards and advancements. The world, so far removed from reality, but also as familiar to him, as his Søren's memories of many VR games. It was all piling up and affecting him more than he cared to admit.
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"I... I guess. I'm not entirely convinced we couldn't --- "
Movement on the holo in front of Søren drew their attention. The missing three Scrappers had come into range of the camera drone. Two were dragging an unconscious creature between them. A bi-pedal humanoid.
"Looks like they've captured someone. Not a Fuerven," Neeka said after leaning in to peer closely at the holo.
"I could use the armor holo to try and rescue that person. Maybe steal their food. Force them to return to where they came from," Søren suggested hopefully.
"I don't know Søren," Sehro said. "Maybe if you knew more about Scrappers and this world, but you've been here less than a month. They would recognize something was wrong right away."
Søren furrowed his brow and looked back at the view from the camera drone. The three that had returned to the camp with the captive had made it to the campfires in the middle. They tossed the unconscious person to the ground roughly and could be seen getting pats on the back from other Scrappers that had joined them at the fires. Some others had picked up the captive and pushed them into a lashed together wooden cage near the edge of the firelight.
"We have to rescue them," Søren announced. He jerked his head up from the holo in front of him as the notification of a mission updating sounded in his mind. If Sehro and Neeka's reactions were anything to go by, they had received the same notification.
Clear the Scrapper Raider's Camp
A raiding party of Scrapper's have set up a temporary camp at the Crossroads. Remove the Scrapper threat before they become a danger to Caisleán.
1 / 24 Scrapper Raider slain
0 / 1 Scrapper Raider Captain slain
0 / 1 Scrapper Captive rescued (mission fails if captive is slain)
Rewards
• 1500 TEK
• 1 settlement build point
• [Uncommon] engram
"I really hate this system," Søren growled.
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Untameable Vivian Sok works hard and plays even harder, but her carefree senior year is ruined when the infuriating yet irresistible varsity linebacker moves into her dorm.⋆☆⋆Controlled chaos. Vivian Sok lives by it.With emotional walls that rival Everest, Vivian strives for organised mess in all areas of her life. She sets careful rules to have both fun and her future: getting into Med school comes first. Vodka comes a close second. Screw the patriarchy at every opportunity.And never, ever, fall in love again.When college linebacker Jamie Tanner moves into a new hall of residence, he does not expect to meet wildfire personified. Fiery, powerful, and a little destructive, Viv becomes a temptingly bad idea he cannot shake.Except, the thing about chaos?It can't be controlled.⋆☆⋆[ Winner of @ContemporaryLit's Spring Write-Off Challenge 2021 ][ Stand-alone. Completed. Word Count: 80K - 90K ]
8 75Sword and Bloodline
Bloodlines the pride of several families, without it you can't cultivate well and need to forge a path for yourself. These bloodlines were those of mystical beasts, strong ones who could split mountains with their claws. One way or the other cultivators began to posses the blood of this beasts and their human blood was flushed out, and so their generations were being born with the bloodline of mystical beasts. Lee our protagonist, was born in a clan with no bloodline and so they had to forcefully carve out a path for themselves through weapons. Our protagonist was suddenly struck with a very good luck that granted him two paths to tread. That of the.... SWORD AND BLOODLINE.
8 97Wandering Dungeon
Garrett finds himself reborn as a small crystal, a dungeon core. Why does he exist? How did he get here? His dungeon guide will have to work extra hard to make him a great dungeon, but how is Garrett suppose to become a great dungeon if he can't even create monsters? This story might sound like a standard dungeon core story and might be a little slow or awkwardly paced sometimes, (This is my first story that I'm seriously writing) but I promise it is a dungeon story unlike any others. Any and all comments and reviews are welcome. They will help me learn and become a better writer so I can provide a better and more well written story for you and others to enjoy.
8 150Bear trap (statehumans CalTex)
(This book has nothing to do with furries, otherkins, or irl therianthropes. Both by their own definitions and my own, we have nothing to do with each other. Keep being your weird selves just don't pretend I'm a part of those groups because I wrote this book with animal/human hybrids in it. Any comments trying to talk about furries or otherkins will be deleted because it makes me physically uncomfortable. Therians are ok tho because it's basically the fancy way to say people who have spirit animals)There are two races in this world, humans and therianthropes, which are humans with animal qualities, that can shapeshift into their animal counterpart. The therianthropes, once divided by predator and prey, joined together in hiding after the humans began to hunt therianthropes for sport. California, a young grizzly bear therianthrope, was always curious to see the world beyond the forest he and his people lived within. Texas, a young farmhand, always wanted to catch a therianthrope, believing it would make him the hero of his village after violent massacres and thefts had been performed on it, supposedly by therianthropes.But when these two young men's paths collide, secrets, strange new feelings, and a magical adventure turns everything they thought they knew about the others race upside down.Warnings:- statehumans- countryhumans - the country and statehumans are all kinda just mixed together. There is no obvious separation between state and country, they're all just people - guns- and ships- hunting - idk, vegans?- gay stuff- not super gory, but people do get hurt - maybe death
8 250Changing the human made villainess.
°Status: On going°°After dying in a house fire, Aria got reincarnated as the daughter of Duke Callista. Lady Aderi Nova Callista. A villainess in a story. A villainess who was made and forced to make the main character's life miserable. She was fated to die according to the novel. Aria swore that she'll stay away from every event in the novel that will lead to her death. But can she really change the fate of the villainess? °{Disclaimer} This story is a work of fiction. All the names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents in this story are either the product of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. This story also contains drawings by the author, and there will be misspellings and wrong grammar.°Published: February 20, 2022Finished: ???
8 208Only you babe
so i have seen the sandlot many times and ik Phillips is the "bad guy" but like cmon you can't lie he's cute or whateva 👀but anyways this story is about Benny's sister Sofia falling for the enemy🧍♀️(lowercase intended)Anyways this will probably be kinda slow updates we'll see started:7/11/21ended:
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