While I found myself surprisingly entertained by what had just happened outside, I did figure that I should perhaps make myself scarce. A not insignificant part of me wanted there to be some kind of icon for the people to represent the Legion. Sure, it’s more of a whim than anything at the moment since I’m not really sure what or why I would need to have the persona of ‘The Reaper’ but if nothing else it would be useful for me to have cultivated a persona for public interactions.

...I might be more affected by Smith than I thought I was.

In any case, I’m sure that it’ll be fine. Or if it’s not then I’d have to deal with that when I came to it. Jesus, now that I’m thinking about it more, don’t I have 2 split personalities already? Myself, Smith, and… uh… subconscious me?

As I made my way through the Legion Headquarters, I started to subconsciously take stock of everything.

To my right, the vast congregation room that had been adjusted to have circular tables, inbuilt displays. Against the far wall - and every wall in between, really - large scrolling screens bore information. Most of that information was basic stuff being constantly and slowly cycled through, but none of it was especially interesting.

I took a breath and pushed with my mind, opening the obelisk menu, and then following the trail that I’d felt Smith take earlier with the lights. In my vision, schematics of the building and the varying interactables within began to sort themselves. Navigating by thought took a bit of time, but I found the interface quite responsive, and quickly made my way to the subcategory for these screens. I added a few more interesting things, a map of the areas around the city with coloration shifts to list known biotic concentrations that the obelisk was detecting. It was messy and non-focused, the obelisk only picking up minute traces of information from basic biotic life forms. It was, after all, geared towards the intent to give us a heads up if another Unique appeared.

Supposedly.

I did notice to my chagrin that it only extended out a few kilometers from the obelisk itself, which was effectively only covering about four miles out from the edges of the occupied portions of the city. Far below what I’d like in terms of early warning, but expanding the system would probably take additional biotic cores. I’d have liked to use the hive core from the salt mines, but that was too high risk at the time. Or at the very least I thought it was too much of a risk, we were already taking too much damage as is without our topside forces having to suddenly deal with a frenzied horde, and who knows how long that would have taken to corrupt.

Corrupt? Override? Purge? Not too sure on that note what Smith was doing with those.

I turned my attention to a few more things at that note, some of the scrolls coming active with known information about strains of biotics that we knew existed, the basic Wolf being the first. Black, and dull grey, these beasts weren’t too strong physically and could be destroyed by small arms fire or martial weaponry. What they lacked in personal strength, though, they made up for in sheer numerical superiority. Moreover, their jaws did not reflect the standard bite pressure of their natural counterparts.

Once they bite, they would hold on, their teeth easily the most durable part of their bodies. They would keep the pressure, and increase it exponentially. So far, I don’t think I’ve seen anything they couldn’t bite through with more than five seconds of continued pressure. Like a pneumatic vice from hell, their jaws would close, regardless what what was in between them. Considering the fact that they could open those jaws as wide as they wanted, that didn’t leave too much that they couldn’t damage.

The only other known variant of the Wolf was the Greyhound. We’d run into the seemingly immortal biotics en masse. Seemingly exactly like their simple Wolf-kin biotics, the major difference was in the fact that their coloration was almost exclusively a dull grey and shimmering silver, like liquid mercury. When they were destroyed they would reform, though we weren’t sure of the limits on that ability as of yet. I’m still not certain if a certain damage threshold would keep them from being able to come back together, but I hoped that we wouldn’t have need to find that out at any time. They were maybe 2nd generation biotic, though I wasn’t absolutely certain. With luck, they were just mutants and wouldn’t happen again. Destroying the core in their hives seemed to kill them for good, at least so far.

Then, of course, the Salt Scarabs, the average scarab being about the size of a minivan and able to project deadly salt projectiles from between modified wings. They were clearly more advanced than wolves, but I can’t say if that means their able to be counted as 2nd generation? We’d never seen anything like them, so maybe we’d be using the ‘generations’ as a measure of overall danger for them? Tentatively, I’ll dub the Salt Scarabs as Gen 2. If we find out that there’s a totally different scheme that we should be using the measure their overall threat level at a glance, then we’ll switch at that time.

The things were lethal, no two-ways about it. Kevlar worked to some extent, but the damn projectiles could still get through it, enough to risk lethal injury. In melee, a simple kevlar vest wouldn’t help too much either, but it was certainly better than having nothing. Problem being that they had a wide variety of bladed, spiked, and powerful limbs for direct combat. That, combined with their strength and weight, made them incredibly dangerous in close quarters combat. Their armored forms made them all but impervious to small arms fire if it wasn’t en masse, and they clearly showed some sort of organized hierarchy. Basic soldier, hive guard that doubled as leaders for groups, and then the queen that had nearly disemboweled me. Easily the most dangerous biotic we’d run across so far.

No, that wasn’t correct. The Unique’s were the worst if left to their own devices, but in a straight fight, that queen was somewhere near the top. The only thing worse was…

Wolven. Yeah, that was right. It didn’t take much consideration to say that the thing that could envelope other living organisms to incorporate them into a massive body was probably our top priority to be on guard against. It was the biggest reason why our teams weren’t going too far away from the city, and why there were several teams close together towards the north. Beyond safety in numbers, they were combing the territory for any sign of Louis Athello’s team. I could see them, just at the edge of the territory now, and I could likewise see their score rising sporadically as they took out nearby wolves.

In spite of clearing the nearest hives, there were still plenty of wolves around. The concentration was much lower, thankfully, but not so much as to take it easy. By now, every team knew the value in having a ‘finder,’ someone highly skilled in navigating and tracking threats before they were upon you. Whether through tech or through personal skill, it quickly became a requirement. Some people already had general guidelines for teams, making it more about tips and suggestions for others based on the information and experience of peers.

It was received quite well, and other groups had been contributing more and more information as well. While we were all in competition for the board, it seemed that it was a healthy competition so far. I hoped it would stay that way.

I turned my attention back to the map and watched as the northerly teams, six in all for now, left the detection range of the obelisk. Not too much longer and the communication range would be exceeded, but that was shored up by using radio’s. Unfortunately in recent times there was a great deal of interference on radio frequencies. We could potentially get around it with additional relays, but the fact that the terrain was mountainous around Gilramore made radio transmissions sketchy in the first place. Add in the issue with some kind of other source of interference, and communication suddenly became a major issue.

Beyond that, we had to look towards other projects. I intended to take our team scouting for more hives soon, likely to the east. The overall geography of Gilramore and the surrounding areas didn’t bode well for any real choke points. We had too wide of an expanse of forest to the south until the mountains, wherein the salt mine was located. Our eastern side was forest, up until it shrank away through a short series of valleys, of which several box canyons of a sort were located. We’d fought Wolven in that location, and then it disappeared, still as of yet unsighted. Beyond that area, though, was something of a saltmarsh and then there was the bay, though it was a good 50 km away. We’d need to restore the roads, if they needed it, to get out there and have a source of fish. Anything to get away from using ME on the obelisk for food.

The north was hilly and mountainous terrain, flush with a deciduous forest that stretched for hundreds of kilometers and was an excellent source of lumber and possible farmland in the near future. I assumed. I’m no expert in farming, but I’m guessing the land would be good to convert once we could actually ensure safety. Then again, maybe we’d go with hydroponics? If we could gain access to sea-water, converting it to freshwater through deselanization shouldn’t be too difficult with access to obelisk tech. That’d effectively limit how much we needed in terms of landspace, but maintenance and skills would be the trick.

To the west was more forest, and somewhat hilly terrain. A broad river and adjoining creeks joined in many areas, but it was far from what I would call a flood plains or the like, but if nothing else we had a ready source of water there, though our groundwater table was quite good overall, honestly, so neither the river nor the ocean was of particular concern.

Given our area, we lucked out in terms of resources. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like for a city in the middle of a desert during this. The fact that I had time to even consider other areas was enough evidence that things weren’t too bad here.

Everything was, dare I say it, stabilizing pretty well here.

It wouldn’t last, not forever, and the biggest concern on my mind came in one big misshapen lump of flesh. Wolven was still out there, and the last time we’d run across it, we’d done some serious damage, but I doubted it would leave us alone forever. We needed to start looking for it, I didn’t want to have to deal with the thing, but I couldn’t help but imagine what kind of horror we’d run into if we left it to its own devices for too long. Beyond that, for all I knew it was finding stronger biotics to… use.

In the meantime, I kept testing a few things, seeing the general limits of the obelisk to confirm a few things.

Living things were out, even seeds couldn’t actually be made. Inorganics were in, regardless of what I asked for. Leading to several canisters of basic materials. I briefly - and I emphasize the briefly here - considered seeing if I could have uranium created, but I know far too little about how that process goes. Is uranium radioactive before any processing occurs? I’d assume yes, and while I’m pretty sure my new biosteel could take it, I’d prefer to keep my normal fleshy bits for as long as possible.

On that note… there were a lot of parts that weren’t fleshy anymore. My left arm, of course, but a lot of my digestive tract and other organs had been either replaced or reinforced from damages. Even my gut, where I’d been stabbed previously, was a blackened mass of biosteel flesh about six inches across.

Others didn’t get access to this stuff, not easily anyways. I’m guessing that my ‘Reaper’ classification gives me access to this and the rest of my arsenal. I have noticed how costs for some items is increasing as I purchase more of them. The weapons themselves have spiked in cost, though it’s well worth having an arsenal.

...Of which we now have. Funny how being left to my own devices leads to me actually doing things.

Well, it’s not like I don’t have a huge amount of Matter Energy to myself. The only thing I might spend it on would be a few upgrades.

If there were any upgrades, anyways. There were a few things that I was interested in, but not really to a huge extent. At the moment, the only thing that I might be lacking was some really hard hitting gear, like a bazooka, but the mines and grenades filled that niche. I was mobile enough as is with the suit and my steadily strengthening body. I had melee range, short, mid, and long range accounted for. The weapons I was using hit plenty hard enough, and I wasn’t as interested in the thought of donning a suit of armor quite like what Daniel had. In any case, I was planning on investing my M.E. into our future Research and Development division. At first, I’d open the department up to existing members, but they’d still be required to hunt, at least for now. Not a lot, after all I’d want them to be productive with their experiments first and foremost, but if they could test their gear, all the better. A field test would be worth much more than something in a lab.

It would be prudent to set that up sooner rather than later while we still had a handle on the situation. If we waited too long… well, I certainly didn’t want to be playing catch-up with whatever strange biotics came out of the woodwork next. The mines were a stark reality check on what that could turn into.

As I sat down on my cot, feeling my mind begin to wind down, I thought about what happened again. The guilt had lessened, but even so…

“Smith?” I called aloud.

[Yes?] Came the deep timbre of his voice seemingly from all around.

I took a deep breath, “Let’s go over what happened in the mines tonight.”

[Matthew, while I appreciate your willingness to check for mistakes… I don’t believe this would be a healthy use of your time.] Smith said with a clear note of concern in his voice.

“You’re probably right, but I want to check all the same. I want to see where our weak points are, what we need. I… I want to know where I can improve. Where we can all improve.” I swallowed hard, not looking forward to this.

But it was necessary. That’s what I honestly believe.

[Very well… but I’ll interrupt it if I feel you’re being affected too much.] His words accompanied my fading consciousness, [Remember, sometimes nothing can be gained without something being given, Matthew.]

I nodded to myself, even as I felt the blackness of unconsciousness take me.

And then I was back in a more familiar darkness...