Day 29

Ben had to admit, there was a kind of eerie beauty to the Overcavern Forest. It was a place with layers to it, with different rules for every band and segment. Flying above it was a bad idea, as the sky above the Overcavern Forest was ruled by powerful flying monsters. Similarly, The Ground and The Trunks were also considered no fly zones, as there were too many monsters both large enough and nimble enough to jump onto a vehicle and kill everyone inside.

No, if someone wanted to navigate the Overcavern Forest, the only relatively safe way to do it would be through The Moss. It was a strange corridor, a highway navigable only by those who could fly and did not ever need to land on anything to rest. Everything was covered in a thick carpet of deadly moss, the kind which a single brush against could spell certain death, the kind which just sat there completely neutral until provoked. It wasn't a safe place to be, nowhere in the Overcavern Forest was, but for a group of adventurers in a new spaceship looking to cover some ground without putting themselves in undue danger? It was the right place to be.

Ben alone sat in the cockpit, being the both the only member of his party able to drive and the only member who would be any good at it. His view through the circular window wasn't that great, but between the screens off to his left and right, along with his [True Map], he found navigating to be absurdly easy. It helped that the [True Map] integrated with the navigation system of the ship, which had been named the Frankie V1, much to the delight of the Utility Pocket Elemental, who was curled up on Ben's lap, asleep. Ben had no idea where he was getting all his accessories, but the elemental now sported a little crown, a little cape and his cute little 'Bank Robber' sticker. Ben gave the little guy a fond pet, the focused on navigating once again.

"This beats fucking walking so much," he said, mentally zooming out his map and seeing the ocean of red dots that represented hostile monsters. They were all outside The Moss, which his [True Map] represented as neutral colored exclamation marks. Environmental hazards, at best. It was a good stroke of luck that brought them out this way. One of the Elder Gremlin quest targets, who had previously been too far away to reach on foot, was now within range. Even better, it wasn't surrounded by absurdly dangerous, high level monsters. It was just hidden really, really well, and that would have been enough if it hadn't been marked by Red and tracked by the wish powered [True Map].

Ben sipped some coffee flavored stamina potion, a new product offered by Mice Labs, and smiled at the sweet flavor. It amused him to no end to imagine that sugar was such a destructive drug to all these aliens. Sugar! Ben grinned and took another drink, savoring it. He continued chuckling as the ship silently and stealthily navigated through the silent, gargantuan and hostile alien forest around them. Ben carefully watched his map, then brought the ship to a stop. He started flipping switches to switch from stealth mode and get the weapons systems fired up.

"Frankie," Ben said, and the Utility Pocket Elemental looked up sleepily from Ben's lap to pretend to listen, "Did you know that most weapon systems in The World are magical?" Frankie intuited that he was supposed to shake his head no, so he did. "They are. Say you've got a machine gun, well, there aren't any bullets in it. It fires [Mana Bullets], which are pretty good and best of all, they never run out. All you've got to do is keep feeding the gun mana, and it will keep firing."

Frankie nodded his head slowly.

"This ship, however, does not fire [Mana Bullets] or [Mana Missiles]. There are no complex spell formations that generate powerful attack spells on this ship, no sir." Ben patted the ship, which he had owned for exactly one week, "this baby right here fires conventional weapons, which are shot for shot, much more powerful than their spelled counterparts. Of course, carrying around conventional ammunition and potentially running out in the middle of a fight means that despite their charm and advantages, conventional weapons aren't used anymore."

Ben grinned and attached his Utility Pocket to the weapons system of the Frankie V1.

"That's not really a problem for us, is it?" he said, and checked his map. There was a red crosshairs icon with a lock on it some distance away. "Target is locked," Ben said casually, having spent almost literally all his free time the previous week training himself to operate the ship and use it effectively, his finger hovering over the big red button.

Ben closed his eyes, and remembered.

--

The interior of Mice Labs had the kind of aesthetic that appealed to science fiction readers like Ben specifically. Strange machines sat atop modular worktables, lit up in peculiar ways. Everything was clean and set in it's place, following a hidden order, a pattern only visible to those who worked there. Mice in lab coats, along with the occasional human, worked in sterile conditions, carefully creating things with purposes that Ben could only guess at.

He was led through Mice Labs, the actual size of which Ben still didn't have a good grasp of, by Nick and Atomis. Nick was walking with a kind of excited zing, and Atomis was practically vibrating on Nick's shoulder, occasionally giving an excited squeak. Sketch was with Ben, who had come to Mice Labs alone.

"These two's work's been all swiss ever since you got them started on this project," Sketch said casually, "nothing but holes. Shitty work because of this side project."

"Sorry?" Ben asked, not sure if he was supposed to apologize.

"Ignore him," Atomis said, breathing hard, "he's a moron. Come this way, come come, hurry up Nick can't you walk any faster?"

"Just moderate your expectations," Nick said, "we whipped these up as fast as we could, and The System classifies them as [Low Grade], but-"

"We're here," Atomis hissed, dark delight in his voice.

They emerged into a new room, which was clearly some kind of holodeck, and looked up at the single missile on proud display. It stood straight up, resting on a circular platform, with lights shining on it to make it shine, the exterior of the missile being both shining glass, and highly polished chrome. The holodeck was set to show an image of. . . Earth. Ben felt a sense of vertigo that came from both feeling like he was standing midair, and from seeing the familiar sky.

"Isn't it magnificent?" Atomis said, the little mouse staring up at the [Low Grade Nuclear Missile] with a nearly innocent delight in his eyes, the tiny creature filled to the brim with as much concentrated awe as his body could contain. "We've barely scratched the surface of what the technology of this new world can accomplish, of the weapons that only we seem to be able to see, hiding in plain sight in front of their stupid, blind eyes."

"Atomis is really excited," Nick said, grinning and shaking his head. "His [Mad Scientist] class comes with a few drawbacks, one of which is a tendency to launch into megalomaniacal rants both while he's working, and after he's finished."

"Oh, he'd get along great with Vivi then," Ben commented, "those two should team up sometime, that'd be fun. Do you mind if I. . ?" Ben pointed at the missile, and Nick nodded.

"It's yours man, you paid for it and brought us the materials."

Ben walked up to the missile, which was much, much bigger than he was. He climbed atop the raised dias and reached up as high as he could, touching the cold and perfectly smooth metallic shell. His hand tingled at the touch, much the same way it would if he'd touched the hand of a beautiful woman. He felt it was weird that touching a nuclear missile that he owned was giving him the same tingles that a woman would, and resigned himself to Short Bus knowing about it the next time the man-shark saw him and read his mind.

Ben nodded his head slightly, closed his eyes, and opened a Utility Pocket under the missile, feeding it into his inventory slowly, dramatically, like an archer carefully pulling back an arrow. When he opened his eyes, the missile was gone.

"One missile, that's not bad!" Ben said cheerfully, walking back over to the group. Atomis began chuckling, then cackling like a. . . well, like a [Mad Scientist].

"Heh," Nick said, "yeah buddy, we've got more than one. How many do you want?"

--

Ben opened his eyes. "Fire barrage."

From the tiny, slightly humming ship floating in the middle of the air, missiles began pour forth. They were the kinds of missiles that a ship of that size should only have about four of, the kinds of missiles that were stored under the wings and were comparable to the size of ship itself. They never stopped firing, one after another, two or three at a time, precision missiles with primitive, low-grade nuclear warheads at their tips. They ripped through the silence, propelled by rocket fuel and guided by both magic and technology, and to Ben it was one of the most beautiful things he'd ever seen. The missiles had an incredible range to them, and they expertly weaved and navigated through the trees until they were out of sight.

"Five," Ben said, reading off of a little counter on his map, "four, three, two, one. . ."

In the distance, the forest lit up, then lit up again and again, like a camera flash from a polaroid the size of a building. Percussive waves of force followed, rippling through The Moss and causing the living, hateful stuff to writhe and shift, looking for something to grab and eat. The ship rode the waves of force like a surfboard sitting atop the ocean, Ben calmly watching.

One missile had detonated a little early, close enough that Ben could actually see the explosion. "Oh!" Ben said, automatically shifting the ship into reverse, "that's our cue to go!" Ben glanced at the [True Map] and saw a skull where once there had been a target.

[Quest Update!]

[You have killed an Elder Gremlin! Congratulations! One down, quite a few more to go.]

[Quest Achievement: Overkill.]

[That monster could have been killed by a baseball bat to the head, but you chose to execute it with 20+ [Low Grade Nuclear Missiles]. Now that's what I call Overkill!]

[You have received an upgrade to your Utility Pocket.]

[You have received the Ammo Bag Upgrade! Mini-pockets with only ammunition inside them no longer have a mana upkeep. Mini-pockets attached to weapons that require ammunition will automatically dispense ammunition.]

[Current Utility Pocket Upgrades: Utility Pocket Elemental, Inactive Pocket of Sanctuary, Experience Vault, Anti-Theft and Privacy Upgrade (Maximum), Ammo Bag. There are always more ways to upgrade your Utility Pocket!]

Ben took a deep breath, the impending sensation of death from The Quest washed away by the notifications. He correctly felt like killing the Elder Gremlin had put them in a position where The Quest would no longer be prodding them quite so hard, now that they'd made significant and concrete progress towards completing it.

He exhaled, pressed a button, and started talking like a caricature of a pilot.

"Aaaahhhh this is your Prince speaking. I hope you're all enjoying the maiden voyage of HMS Frankie V1, and we here at Ben Air apologize for the slight turbulence caused by the detonation of fissile nuclear materials. If you should be so fortunate as to be seated next to a window, you might just catch a glimpse of a gorgeous mushroom cloud filled with the vaporized ashes of an Elder Gremlin. As that has completed our Quest objectives for the day, I'm happy to announce we've all got some free time to get some more training in so it's my suggestion-"

From under the cockpit, someone hit the ceiling, like an angry downstairs neighbor in an apartment complex.

"All right, cool it," Ben said in a normal voice, "we're going home, jeeze, we're going back to the apartment! I was joking!" From below, it sounded like his entire party was pounding on the ceiling. Ben started to laugh, then stomp on the floor.

Victory was sweet.