Progress. I had to make progress. Building defenses could wait until I had created and deployed the ergon condenser. I briefly flickered on my erg sight as I returned to the factory, and nodded as I saw the increasing interactions between the erg of the factory and the erg of the surroundings. My current plan was to deploy the condenser within the factory itself, rather than outside of it. The factor would, naturally, be the safest place to hold something that critical, though obviously the safety would increase with layers of defenses.

After that, I could see if I received any quests, and if nothing pressing showed up there, I would set up some walls and then go look for my car. With a plan of action in mind, I settled back in the lobby and opened up my crafting menu again. The crafting queue had emptied during my thoughts, and I considered whether it would be possible to have multiple internal processors. It’d probably just be easier to build the facilities instead.

First, I queued up the required joiners, which were crafted much more swiftly than the ingots were, taking about thirty seconds each. Despite the relatively short wait, the two minutes felt like an eternity as I watched the time slowly tick down. When it finally did, I immediately started crafting the condenser. The condenser would take a full thirty minutes to make all on its own, so I closed out the crafting menu and resumed exploring the interior of the factory after dismissing a notification telling me that I had gained a level in the Joiners skill.

My last time through, I had only explored the first floor, leaving the upper floors a complete mystery. The second floor remained a mystery though. A single hallway led to a large, square room with a total of eleven doors on the various walls. I tried each door only to find them very securely locked, and since I didn’t want to go around breaking this place just yet, I decided to leave it be.

The third floor proved a more fruitful exploration, though I did have to wait for a minute or so after getting to that floor to catch my breath, my low endurance striking again. Too many stairs. The third floor split into two hallways from its landing, and one of them was filled with another set of locked doors. The second hallway though, had a bunch of locked doors too. However, the very last door was not locked.

I swung the door open to reveal a surprisingly comfortably furnished room, with a plush red carpet, and walls painted the color of a clear sky. A desk was set against one wall, while a large bed was aligned along another, complete with very comfy looking bedding. What really caught my attention, though, was another room beyond this one. I moved in and swiftly opened that door to reveal a fully furnished bathroom.

In a rush, I turned the sink on and marveled as freshly flowing water emerged. Immediately, I dunked my head under the faucet and drank my fill, finally letting out a contented sigh as my belly filled with water. Only then did I lift my head up to look at my reflection in the mirror, blinking as it was still covered in blood from my battle, and I was still adorned in the battle harness. I left the harness on for the moment, but took the time to slowly scrub off the blood and dirt from my face and hands.

I’d definitely need to take a shower sooner or later, but that would probably be best done once I had secured my clothes from the car. I did run my wet hands through my hair, slicking it back and revealing more of my angular face to inspection. No one would ever call me pretty, but I was fine with that, I had no need to be desired.

A bruise was slowly forming on my right cheek, where I had impacted the ground, tender to the touch. Not for the first time, I wondered at my luck to be granted my opportunities. Not everyone was chosen, after all, not everyone had access to what I now had access to. Or what I had once had access to. I remembered my mother’s words, repeated over and over again over my youth, “to whom more is given, more is expected.”

What were my expectations here? How could I ever hope to live up to them?

The erg condenser was built.

I returned to the lobby and inspected my inventory.

INVENTORY

Tier 1 Battle Harness (equipped)

Tier 1 War Drill (equipped)

Ergon Condenser x1

Tier 1 Ore x40

Tier 1 Metal Ingot x4

Focus Crystal x3

Concentrating on the Ergon Condenser’s entry in the menu, I felt something click and then a holographic wireframe of the condenser appeared before my vision. With a wave of my hand, I moved the hologram in and out; as it came into contact with a wall it turned from red to blue and rotated to press its base against the wall, clicking lightly into place. It took more effort to pull it from that position, but it eventually tugged away, turning back to red.

Ultimately, I settled on placing the condenser on the ceiling, right in front of the opposite wall from the entrance. It wouldn’t take up any extra space there, but would be instantly visible to anyone granted entry, a sign of the dominion of this place and its greater purpose. I concentrated again with the hologram in place and the actual device phased in, like a glass filling from the top down.

A loud thunk resounded throughout the entire factory and lights began turning on, around the corners of the ceiling, casting the entire space into a pale white light, decidedly unnatural but in a way that spoke to the pleasures of modernity. Somehow, these lights coming on sent a wave of relaxation through me that came with it a sense of exhaustion. That bed sounded real nice right now.

QUEST COMPLETE

Level up!

+10 Perk Points

Foundational Facilities 1->5

Please choose facility to activate:

Library

Store

Cafeteria

Processing Bay

Research Lab

I tried to pull up help entries on those listed facilities but no windows would open while the system was waiting for my choice to be made. All five of them had some degree of appeal, and I could feel my stomach growling at the thought of a cafeteria. Food was going to become an issue sooner rather than later. But I had to be practical, I had to think long-term, and if there was anything that I was currently lacking, it was information.

Okay I was lacking a lot of other things too, but a source of reliable information was what I wanted most at the moment.

Library.

Selection made.

Library opened on second floor.

Knowledge is a wise choice, though sometimes what is truly necessary for success is to eschew wisdom and embrace recklessness. Only the truly reckless can hope to overcome when faced with the terrors to come, but it is important to know when to be reckless and when not to be, and there wisdom is the only true guide.

ERROR: Chosen

You have received the following Factory quest:

Power Supply (2/?): Create an ergonic condenser, secure it from attack, and attach it to the factory power supply.

Reward: Access to one factory facility of choice.

I nodded as I received the follow up quest, putting it into the back of my mind for now. This would be relatively easy to do once the walls had been built, but it was still a lower priority than going and trying to find my car. None of these facilities would help much with that, and staying holed up would only lead to further stagnation. I needed to get out there and see what the world had to bring, sooner or later.

I did queue up my remaining ingots to make Screw Joiners, and fueled the rest of my ore into making ingots, no reason not to be prepared as possible for making the wall. For now, though, I had a new task at hand. I rushed up the stairs to the second floor, feeling my heart beat out a steady rhythm as I reached the floor, before walking down the hallway at a more sedate rate.

The lights on the second floor had a faint red undertone to them, casting the hallway in a more ominous glow than I had been expecting, but I cast that from my mind and continued on my way forward, anticipation welling up inside of me. When I reached the central room of the second floor, I saw that each of the doors had a light above them, one green, the rest red.

I had only received five options from the quest but there were eleven doors here, there had to be more options that would open up as I further advanced down the quest chain. For a moment, my thoughts drifted to what other sorts of facilities might be available, but soon I shook my head and made my way towards the green door. Excitement welled in me for the first time in quite a while, the promise of something new, something potentially very helpful, sparking joy inside of me.

A short hallway led from that center room to one illuminated in a more greenish light, clearly some sort of color coding was going on. Rather than having stacks and stacks of books, though, the room was arranged in a large circular structure, with the books only in the outside layer. The inside layer had desks with small screens and keyboards built into them.

In the very center of the room, a short and bespectacled man stood, facing me as I entered. He cleared his throat audibly, but did not move from his position as he spoke. “Good afternoon, young manager. Welcome to the library, I am the librarian and I’m here to help you with anything you might have questions about.”