Excerpt of History of the Eras abridged

***4rd ERA***

Mana mutation

While the 3rd Era had random mutations in flora and fauna, the 4th Era multiplied their abilities because of mana.

Mana is a metaphysical immaterial form of energy that was linked to matter, be it a rock, a tree, an animal or even a human.

It was believed that everything had mana a minimum quantity that was a standard to all matter but in certain cases that amount could grow.

On minimal mana levels they barely had an improvement in any aspect. A rock may be stronger, more durable, lighter, heavier, reflect more light or maybe all of them but would be barely noticeable. On plants and animals however, it seemed targeted by the nature of each one. Hard trees became harder, a fast animal would be faster and an insect that relied on stealth would become much harder to detect.

Because mana was linked to matter, bigger and denser things would have higher amounts of mana. The more mana a body had the more it could mutate. It was more common to see an elephant with more minor mutations than an ant. However, minerals and liquids behaved differently. A big rock may be the same as a small rock and may have a perceptible change or none, other times all the change would be focused in one specific spot due to luck or some specific reasons. In a volcanic world they found a rock that constantly kept the same temperature, it would generate a steady stream of heat constantly. I another world they found a mountain that floated among the clouds and it had a plant that could absorb and generate lightning.

While animals and plants were dangerous and could mutate to become even more fungus and insects were hidden dangers that could grown with few checks. On a world that had multiple automated subway lines a fungus took over all of them. It could release a spore that would overtake certain insect nervous systems and used them as defenders and then into food.

Another world was conquered by bees. A queen bee evolved an brought a new species to life. They would kill and destroy all enemies and would let live only those who didn’t interfere with them.

Because of this humanity had to further adapt their environment and cities to provide protection. While humanity was already living in armored cities, now they looked like bio-domes with a full ceiling that could allow some light to enter and a foundation made of different materials that would provide a stable base and prevent any and all plant matter to reproduce.

Still, materials where needed and people had to enter and leave so, to prevent contamination and dispersion of dangerous life forms contamination protocols were created and decontamination agents synthesized.

The next two weeks passed in a flash for Marcus. It was a perfect routine.

Wake up, breakfast, go to work at Val's, investigate all mana signals, absorb as much as possible when working with mechs that had pieces of fauna or flora stuck to it and avoiding Neural Interfaces. Go back home, have lunch, work in possible schematics while testing different configurations to reach at the optimal solution/

By the end of the 2nd week, he had most of the components for the mechs selected and was running basic comparison tests between schematics, checking energy consumption, efficiency, and efficacy.

It was both hard, incredibly boring, technically challenging, and exhausting. However, he found incredible things from time to time that were not covered by his education. Some modules while being used at the same time created spikes in energy consumption and even in required bandwidth for the pilot. Other times it was just learning what he had studied, you don’t put cryogenic material ANYWHERE near a joint.

Thankfully he also worked at Val’s. He could only work so many hours a day doing comparison tests before starting to wonder WHY HE WANTED TO DO THIS or falling asleep or contemplating becoming a modder. Worse part was that he still had to do the complex analysis to come once the final schematics where picked, he would need to rent a design bay with extra computational power if he wanted to do multiple rounds.

On the other hand, Val and the rest were being extra supportive of him to the point of annoyance for Marcus. He had worked here for 15 years already, he didn't need extra breaks or less work. Stopping the design process regularly helped him maintain clarity and avoid burnout and the computer took its time to run calculations so it was more than enough time. Obviously, they didn't believe that.

"Are you absolutely sure you are OK Marcus" asked Valentina with obvious worry in her voice, she had seen him work harder than ever at the workshop and then he went to design his very first mech for the government, if he failed there would be no shame but if he fucked his design, they may put a black mark in his resume.

"Yes Val, I'm OK, never been better, I'm great so please do let me work" Marcus replied while trying (and failing) to keep his annoyance in check.

He couldn't comprehend why they were behaving like that, he was normal, like always.

Still, he ignored the worried looks from the rest and went to sub level 1. He preferred to dismantle wrecks or even assembly jobs than manufacturing, however from time to time he had to create custom pieces for refits or repairs which took lots of time and he had been assigned 2 junkers with no repair parts which needed custom pieces for regular repair.

Not 2 hours designing, printing, and doing small touch ups in the new pieces a ping comes in his data pad.

It was a short critical message, only 6 words long. "Bay 10, wear protecting gear, NOW"

Marcus blanched and shuddered, today was going to be a shitty and exhausting day.

He hurried through the stairs and ran along the bays till he reached the airlock for bay 10.

When a mech came very damaged with someone trapped inside the capsule the Vigiles did a very short and fast decontamination procedures that was not enough so they would place the mech into a sealed box carry it to bay 10 which was sealed.

Bay 10 was had a huge external door where the Vigiles would bring the box with a truck and anchor it in the middle, the bay would close itself and the box containing the mech would open itself to allow the crew to work it.

The ambient was fully sterile and would be cleaned thoroughly to prevent any possible contamination. It was used ONLY during emergency procedures to save a pilot's life and everyone that went inside had to wear fully protective equipment, even then they would have to be decontaminated with the suit, decontaminated without the suit, and still placed into a sterile room for observation.

Marcus hated this bay, he worked only 4 times in emergencies like this. 1 was dead on arrival, his first time and a dead body due to the inertial force exerted inside had broken the body against the soft walls. The second time the pilot had suffered some kind of attack and died shortly after reaching bay 10.

The 3rd time had been an accident, the pilot was injured, unresponsive but alive, he survived with no problem.

The 4th time was the worst, the capsule had been penetrated by some kind of small animal who took its time killing the pilot. They heard how the animal was feeding of the pilot’s body while he was still alive. They pumped it full of poison until both died.

Marcus had begun to remember the capsule of the last time while changing his clothes and putting the skin tight protection suit on top. A totally white rubber like suit with a fully transparent helmet that had its own oxygen reserves.

After the chamber closed the door and allowed him in, he saw that both Otho and Hilaria were already on working on separating the corpse of a massive wolf from the front of the mechs body, it was a normal green and grey logging mech with a silver leg.... "Darius" whispered Marcus.

Marcus just stood there looking, the mech was fully covered in blood, the mouth of the wolf was locked still biting some armor plates in the abdomen while the frontal paws seemed to try to hug the mech. They were twisted and broken, probably because the arms of the mech.

The top frontal part had a few claw marks same as the side but when Marcus looked at the back, it was full of claw marks. Too many for it to be from just 1 wolf.

Otho was wearing a small exo suit with a chainsaw cutting the shoulders of the beast while Hilaria had arrived only a few seconds before him and was at the main console studying the data.

Between huffs Otho said "Darius is inside, seem like there was some filtration, he is unresponsive but has steady life signs" during no part had Otho released the chainsaw and kept trying to sever the right paw. The noise was an awful wet and loud thing. Thankfully the inner speaker of the suit allowed everyone to hear what Otho said.

Hilaria was the woman in charge in these cases, an expert for this kind of situation. "The blood seems to be wreaking havoc with the bay’s scanners so we have to go blind" she said in a stern tone "There should be 2 hatches, Otho is going for the frontal bottom one, Marcus you start with the top back. I’ll do emergency discharges and join Otho"

A two-pronged approach was not the most efficient but was excellent in this case, you just don't have enough space for too many people working in a small space and they had the front covered.

Taking a portable analyzer, he went for the back of the mech. A mess was an understatement. Most claw marks came from the back of the right shoulder to the mid-section, the armor plates had shifted and bent in different angles most even going inside the inner structure. Removing them would be incredibly hard. As bad luck would have it the upper hatch is between the shoulder blades should be and the place where most plates had overlapped.

Marcus started to scan the armor plates for cutting or release points with no luck. It wasn’t going to be easy.

"I think I can do it Hil, I’ll start from the neck that holds the top sensor and make my way down trying to release the latch of the internal spine, then cut my way downwards to remove the shifted plates over the entrance"

While It wasn’t a completely dangerous situation it was still a race against time, they didn’t know Darius’s state, the capsule had an infiltration so some seed, spore or insect could have gotten inside and that could be deadly. Worse if you considering that some mutate faster in new environments and a human flesh-eating fungus was not good for anyone.

He started to move at his fastest speed, took the plasma cutter and went to work. The neck hadn’t been released, the sensor was just broken so he had to cut all the power cables to remove the base.

"Power lines and fuel?" asked Marcus.

"I drained the fuel lines already" said Otho while keeping his grizzly work.

"Power is drained but be careful, there could be an internal battery" said Hilaria while grabbing a plasma cutter and trying to release the right mangled leg.

Marcus kept cutting eventually reaching the back support but the latches had shifted, they were not releasing so he had to cut all of it. The time kept passing and he was not advancing fast enough. He started to feel more apprehensive, the plasma cutter was not fast enough nor had enough range, he had to carefully cut parts to remove parts to remove parts and then finally open a space so he could remove a whole piece of armor and then repeat. He needed to go faster, to be more effective.

Time started to flow more and more slowly, while Marcus kept his full attention at the tip of the torch and as he started to remove parts he also started to move faster, he kept finding the broken and distorted latches, he would cut them and the plate would be released so he started to move faster.

‘Faster, smarter’ Marcus kept thinking ‘Work smart, not hard’

By the time he realized he had cleared the whole upper hatch entrance and, surprisingly, he had reached it faster than they could remove the monster from the front.

"Good news, I have reached the upper hatch, bad news is warped sideways and towards the inside"

The capsule was supposed to protect the pilot as best as possible, they were both harder, more resistant to cuts, heat and damage than normal metal, that was also why a the capsule of a cheap mech costed about 1/3 of the full price. Cutting the armored upper hatch could take hours. They had to find a seam and cut around.

Hil and Otho rushed to his side and winced while looking at the warped metal.

"Do you know who was the last one to modify or repair this capsule? Does it have any weak spots?" asked Otho to Hilaria

Hilaria took a data pad and checked "We only placed it but he bought it second hand… and it was refurbished"

"Shit, any schematics on it?" asked Marcus.

"For the base model sure but it was refurbished and, you know Darius, he surely had something changed"

A short-lived smile was shared between the 3.

Darius had been a logger since he was 30 and still kept working in his 90. He was both cheap and a mod fanatic. He would buy a junker, fix it by himself by renting a bay or pay a team to do short and cheap repairs. Once it was working, he would sell it, buy a new one and start all over again.

"OK, no time to wait" said Otho "According to the schematics this is a standard dual entrance with explosive lines placed in the hatches for emergencies. They should be around this seam so if we reach them, we could trigger them to blow the top part"

"Explosives could have been moved or expended and not replaced or due to the warping be unable to open it or just not be there" countered Hilaria.

"What about removing the data cable block?" asked Marcus "All these models have it and should be weaker"

"And do what then? We need to remove a few more plates AND the struts to even reach there and then you still wouldn’t be able to cut it easily from the inside. All those seams are reinforced"

Desperation and inaction were not a good combination, Marcus was feeling impatient, he wanted to do something, he had to THINK, to SEE. So, he moved, instead of looking at the blueprint that may or may not be correct he went to see the capsule to analyze it.

This capsule was a cylinder with half a sphere on each end where the hatches would be. He could see the top half sphere looked squished almost flatly on one side into a weird angle, he could see some marring and how the metal have folded over the hatch.

Both Hilaria and Otho looked momentarily at him with worry but focused one more time in the blueprint.

"There has to be something" Marcus kept repeating to himself. He had to be able to do it, he had to ... there.

"Hey look this" called Marcus while pointing at one side. He couldn't wait, from the top of the mech he started to release some plates so he could fit better inside.

"See there? If I'm not mistaken this model was a sideloaded and was refurbished later into a tube capsule. Even if we can't cut it to open sideways, we can follow that gash upwards into the top seam and then cut around the base of the hatch removing the whole piece"

Otho looked carefully and replied "It looks like a broken piece and there is no other indicator that this model is a sideloaded"

"On the blueprints it's a solid capsule" concurred Hilaria.

Marcus knew he was right; he could almost see the joint. Sure, he still needed a few minutes to be able to cut through the things in the middle but he would do it so he didn't stop.

Both Otho and Hilaria looked at each other and said nothing, they believed to be a fool's dream but had no better idea nor a better option. Also following a natural break would allow him to cut faster than just try to melt the outside. As they saw that Marcus was moving they started to move again.

Hilaria started to remove the cover plates around the top and back of the mech, Marcus would need more space to move properly and if he managed to open the capsule it would be needed to remove the full hatch, in case that it didn’t it may reveal further cut points or possibilities.

Meanwhile Otho went for the other side of the hatch. The capsule had usually 6 hardpoints attachments to the internal structure, 3 where already broken and it he could remove the bottom one they may just rip the full capsule outside with the crane.

Marcus lost notion of time and space, his full focus was guiding the plasma torch into the joint he saw, once plasma reached there the joint would lose integrity faster than normal armor and he would be able to release the whole top.

Minutes passed, parts were removed and finally...

"There" muttered Marcus, a shift in the light of the torch due to the different materials the gash did reach the seam, as he saw it was a joint and as such had a weaker thermal layer so he picked up speed.

Otho was the first to realize it he could see from the bottom that Marcus torch was moving faster, disbelief showed in his face, disbelief that changed into hope. He was surprised Marcus was right but, it was the best kind of surprise.

Hilaria realized a few minutes later, when Marcus had already started to cut around the side of the hatch. As he begun to cut the semi sphere top they all realized she was right, the micro explosives were not on the top hatch but around the seam, the one that Marcus was cutting right now.

A sudden dull explosion happened and the full top part suddenly was free. It barely took 1 minute for Otho to remove the whole metal piece with the exo.

Inside the capsule was Darius, he had some blood around his head but showed no signs of further injury, blood loss or any other problems, he just seemed unconscious.

They lowered an anchor with the crane and just lifted him from the capsule, then placed him in a stretcher and into a door that connected to an emergency vehicle, it would proceed to decontaminate him and transport him into the hospital.

Today was a good day.