The m caught me by surprise. It snuck up on me because I'd been w on the power armor designs all night long. The most obvious improvement, was repg the armor's eel pting and pos for the Khai alloy, which I'd starting calling Crysbronze.
During the formation of Crysbrohe starting alloy was a true slurry of dozens of differeals. This slurry was then infused with an artificial form of khaydarin crystal and then the molecur ttice was vibrated into the most stabile formation possible. Did I really uand the chemistry of it? No, not yet. The fe hahe heavy lifting of the calcutions, I only o uand the process. While that didn't sit well with me, I didn't have the time to dig into every siail right now. This oep improved the defensive performance of the armor by about 25%. As ara bonus, it lightehe armor's weight by 10% as well.
The step was to repce the armor's incredibly intricate electrical system with yers of the artificial Psicrystal. My experiments had shown that Psicrystal was everything one needed for maes. It acted as a circuit, a resistor, a transistor, or even a superductor. It could gee fields, full spectrum eleagic fields, which meant Psicrystal could act as a fuel cell, a battery, a geor, and so much more. In rge enough sizes it could store huge amounts of data, or even fun as an easily programable processor itself. A yer of Psicrystal gave the armor a 12% increase increase iion speed aehe battery life of the suit by 50%. It was also added vast series of improvements to the onboard puter assistance module for things like targeting and mapping. I thought about pletely repg the peion module, but I wasn't quite sure how to get the psicrystal to remain stable uhe full load required by bat. I kneossible with a rger crystal, I simply hadn't figured out a way to do it at the required size. I struggled to alter the baseline code of the armor's systems to ie with the Psicrystal code, but I managed a few work arounds.
Lastly, I used some of the more meical feedback systems of the Dragoon and the Khai cyberware to cobble together a small improvement to the strength enha of the suit, however it yielded only a 6% improvement. I was certain that I could k that up once I got some more experieinkering with both teologies. Sadly, I didn't see a way to upgrade the gel impact lini, most Protoss equipment seemed to y equivalent of impact gel. That was hardcore, but maybe they didn't ?
Oh and I'd finally figured out how to get the Fes to ehe armor in other colors. I decided to go with a deep forest green with a midnight blue trim. A stylized version of Meadran, rendered in silver, would be our emblem. When the first of the new suits rolled off the assembler, I immediately fell in love with it. It looked amazing, and I was dying to hht in, but I hadn't made it for me. I had Jitters help me haul it out to where Raynor was training our future soldiers. Oof, just the torso was fug hefty, even with my new Body stat.
Between us, we finally ma it all the way out to New Lordaeron's Town Hall. The sun was still rising but Raynor had already been running the recruits ragged, he stopped when he saw the armor. He went pletely still. Sadly, I couldn't tell if that was a good still or a bad still.
"Good M! Special delivery for James Raynor!" I was excited, if it worked properly this armor would ge so much. The Protoss robots were great and they could certainly defend our territory, but we roops that were faster to produumbers would allow us to expand forcefully, if that became necessary. Also increased our military would bring peaind for the citizens.
James gave the armor a critical iioested every joint, poked at every pte. At his satisfied nod, we assembled it around him, making sure that everything fit him to a tee.
Raynor ran a quick diagnostics test. I crossed my fingers, and when that returned an all clear, he quickly started a series of movemes. After a few minutes, he decred, "Handles like a dream. Smooth as silk and twice as useful. Might have gone a different way on the colors, but hey, this is your rodeo." Now that I khe armor worked properly, I had Jitters setup twes oher side of, and just behind, the Town Hall.
"It'll be a hassle, but we'll s everyone up ahem all a suit, probably by tomorrow." I called over a few Probes to get started on sing the recruits.
"Sounds great, Hoss. I'll keep w 'em 'til then." Raynor had his facepte closed, which showed that I has copied his skull pattern on to the cover. Very intimidating. He started barking at his boys, getting them to redouble their efforts.
I, oher hand, decided to take a break. I wandered over to the nearby hill side and sat down to stare far out into the badnds for a spell. The minty purple grass had already takehis area and made for some fortable sitting. Jitters floated over to be o me as I stared out at the terrible desert, my mind trying to e up with pns t life back to everything I saw. My little Robo-Buddy gave a troubled beep.
"Nah, I'm fine. Just a little overwhelmed, by all of this." I waved my arm to take ihing. "Half the time, I've got no clue what I'm doing, and the other half I'm still fused about whether or not what I'm doing is the right thing." His tering beep was vaguely reproachful. "Hmm. Yeah, I know I'm doing the best I . That's what bothers me the most. Why didn't they take someone who knew about the kinds of things that are going on here? I 't help but feel like I'm missing opportunities just because I don't uand how this all works." Jitters bumped lightly against me. A kind show of support. I gave him a pat, a f thoughts at him. His stated, he flew off to get some more work done, leavio my thoughts.
[ Adjusting...]
[ Quests Offered
Establish two new Outposts in the Badnds around Night City,
They must be at least 50 miles apart.
Reward: 2000 pany Points, 1 Merary Squad Token
Accept: Y/N ]
[ Quest Offered
Establish Outposts in Night City Charter Hills and Santa Domingo areas,
They must be at least half a mile apart.
Reward: 4000 pany Points, 1 Theme Token
Accept: Y/N ]
[ Quest Offered
Regain trol of your first Outpost and rebuild it,
Reward: 3000 pany Points, 1 Hero Token
Accept: Y/N ]
[ Quest Offered
Kill 100 Gangoons or 50 Corpo Agents,
Repeatable and Ongoing.
Reward: 1000 pany Points, 1 Random Supply Token
Accept: Y/N ]
[ Quest Offered
Make an alliah a local fa,
Reward: 1000 pany Points, 1 Adjutant Token
Accept: Y/N ]
[ Quest Offered
Survey a different city,
Must have at least 1,000,000 inhabitants.
Reward: 2000 pany Points, 1 Power Token
Accept: Y/N ]
"What the Fuck!" The flood of requests startled me. All this time not even a whisper. Now bam! Here's a bunch of tasks for you. It seemed like the pany knew when I was vulnerable, and liked to pile it on.
I started reading the Quests. More outposts, which was already part of the pn, so no stress there. I hit yes on those. A Merc Squad? Do I have to pay them? Maybe not the best reward. In trast, I definitely wanted a aheme Token for more power and flexibility. Taking back my first outpost seemed like a no brainer. You bet your sweet ass I wahat back, again no worries there. I accepted that one. Another Hero, please. I needed all the help I could get, and Raynor was already proving to be a godsend. He was helping the Lordaeron folks get settled in far better than I ever could. I've never been much of a people person.
Killing Gangoon and Corpos, well sure, I'd already made my peace with killing for profit. As long as I khe target was scum, I'd be able to sleep at night. No problem sayio that Quest. Extra supplies would probably be a great bonus. Hmm, I'm already in the process of making an alliah the Aldecaldos. I felt good about grabbing that one. I wondered what an Adjutant would do for us. Survey a different city. That one seemed like a hassle since I already had a ton of work on my pte. But there was no time limit and I'd o expand to other cities eventually anyway. Sure bring it on. What's one more stick of strahile my first Power had seemed to be a dud, maybe another one would be just what I needed.
Well, having clear goals was better then sitting around moping. ask, we were going to start some Probes digging their way back towards NC. More work, always.
A dozen new Probes were issioned from Alina for the newly dubbed "Projederbridge". This project would create a waystation, slightly to the north of New Lordaeron, which would allow troops and vehicles access to an underground roadway. This project would further build a road that traveled back towards the broken bridge area and struct a new bridge across the yhly 500' below the former bridge. Ohe stru tinued ohe other side of the yon, the roadway would then be aimed towards linking up with and expanding the tuhe Probes from my Japantown Outpost were digging. After hitting the and looking at a fes of NC, I wondered why the quest wanted me to build another Outpost in Charter Hills which was right o Japantown.
Projederbridge's waystation path leading deeper into the earth, would be a gently ined spiral road. This would make it easier to walk, if needed, or to drive up or down. The bridge itself would be loosely based off the Glen yon Dam Bridge in Arizona because it was the only yon spanning bridge I remembered well enough.
That reminded me of a fun trip with my parents and sister, we saw a lot of the Southwest that summer. Though my parents' real goal was to to see some band they were huge fans of. They didn't take us to the cert. Leaving my sister and I stu a Hotel room fether with nothing else to do. Though being the well behaved children we were, we fell asleep watg the cable els we didn't get bae. Hmm. What bands were shared between this world and mine? Where was the deviation poiween the shared history of the two differehs? A good question though I'm not sure how useful it would be for me to find those answers.
The good news was that once I veyed my thoughts on the designs to the Probes, my input was no longer necessary. The Robo-Buddies would handle all of the work, some part of me was w if it was bad to rely on them so much. I khat they were capable of real emotions, but they seemed so happy to help. I decided to just take a walk to clear my head. I cast a quick series of spells on myself. Thanks to my se spell I never had to take off my clothes or armor anymore. At this point, I was so wound up, so worried about hidden threats, that I wouldn't even take off my armor in the Valley.
I slowly made my way over to one of the farms, cause my ptions to turn towards whether we should start a few more pounds. The Nomads would be here soon and I'd like to have enough food produ for everyone. Speaking of more mouths to feed, I should expand our rations subscription, maybe triple the current amount? More folks would be ing ter I'm sure. Sihe rations were specially packed in an interdimensional taihey never went bad. Which meant that it was always better to have too mud not tha and not have it.
That thought tackled, I soon began enjoying walking amongst the already waist high stalks of . My eyes started to notice the differences between these crops and ordinary pnts from bay inal world. Mana had started to saturate everything in the area quite nicely, helping everything to grow not only faster but stronger. We would likely have the first harvests within the week, and future cycles would bee even faster as the energy further increased growth rates. Then I sidered what the cost of all this accelerated growth might be, but thankful got distracted by the motions of the farmers weeding and cheg the pnts for pests. They had mentioned before that there hardly seemed to be any of the usual bugs, but the weeds were being a real hassle. Was that the magiergies flowing around us, or just part of the wastend's normal dition?
Expansions of the base farm buildings had already turned eato a little plex. It was as if each farming pound was it's own little domain, and with a rapidly developing ecosystem of their own. They had their own wells now, toolsheds, posting bins, silos and barns. Also a few trees lined each farm, those were already boo wisps for more lumber produ. I was told that surrounding each farm with trees helped with wind erosion of the top soil. Lastly each farm no matter the type, had their own chi coup. Apparently the Ferassian chis were over poputing the valley, so now new chicks were rounded up by the Probes and brought to live on the farms. The grubs that were the chi primary food source had already found their way to the fields, somehow, where they help aerate the soil.
Huh, I soon uood that I didn't o be so worried about the logistics. Mana infusion made most things better. 'Course my fuzzy wuzzy mood that didn't st long. I noticed that the farm houses were big enough to house the farmers and any hands, but what about the builders and the borers? Preemptively sensing my darkening thoughts, Alina assured me that enough housing was already going up not only for the workers and the recruits but for visitors and guests and any new summons.
Though right now, the main priority of the Lordaeron builders was a barracks. A mini fortress where footmen, and after further development, knights could be trained. I wasn't yet sure what the utility of these soldiers would be, but I was more than eager to find out. Walking back towards the Town Hall I caught sight of Probes sing each of the recruits while Raynor rahrough their drills. I waved at everyone as I tinued back toward the Valley. My current goal was to hit the pany Store for more rations and maybe some new farm stock.
Lumi met me at the end of the caves. After we had some perfunctreeting scratches, he got to his current business. 'Small Brother, is it safe to start roaming outside the Valley yet?'
'Sure, just stay within the zone of the Pylon ce and you should be fine. Let Faergin know if you see him before I do.' The treant sure liked to roam around, dang merrily the whole time. He ossibly trying to find a pce to root, or maybe to make up for time spent in the panies' stasis.
Lumi was already gone before I'd fihe sentence. I guess even he had a version of the zoomies. "Ha!" I was quite amused by his antics. He was still a e despite everything else.
I didn't mao catch sight of Faergin, but did stop by to cheeadran. I'd noticed he was being quieter tely, I asked if he needed anything. 'No, Young O is the nature of my kind to spend long periods in slow thought. We are quiet by nature and find the pace of other folk dizzying at times.' He felt sleepy, and maybe I had been pushing him too hard. I still had little uanding of the needs and desires of the tree folk.
'Ah, I should have thought of that. Sorry Meadran, I'll let you have some peace.' With everything that had been happening, Meadran had probably seen it all as one big blur of activity. It was fair leaning oree as much as I had been. Sure, I was desperate at the time, but now I had others to help out.
'Thank you, Young One.'
I finally got to the pany Store. I was starting to realize just how bound, hoed I was to this system. Feelings of being exploited were bubbling up from my gut. It might be a while before they got to a full boil, but they were there. After all, I'd never asked for this. Yet, I knew I'd already accepted that helping folks and this nd was my responsibility. Even if I didn't uand why I thought that way. Maybe this art of what Meadra whealked about the differeween knowing and uanding.
Turning my mind back to the task at hand, I pondered my options iore's menu. Since we were installing Moon Wells into each Farm, I went with rice this time. A nice sounding Pandarian Jade Rice for 500 ts. Then I scroll through the beans options. I picked up a set of Hinternd Hardy Beanstalks for 300 ts. Those would require trellises but I was sure it wouldn't be a problem. Let's see, what else? I wanted some ba. Baakes everythier. Well, not absolutely everything, but a lot of things, maybe even most things. I choose a Cambernd Pig for another 500 ts. Then I doubled the subscription on the livestock feed for 200 more ts.
After that, I went with a bulk package of high quality rations for 1000 people for 500 a month. It rolled into my other subscription so I only spent 400 more ts. Leavih just 300 pany Points. I was really going to have to hustle and plete some of those quests before month came around. I had no desire to see how the pa with defaulting on payments.
After making sure the Probes knew about the new crates. I went back to the Town Hall and summowo more builders and borer along with six more farmers. Then I let Dughan and Raynor know about the new farms, and fresh batch of supplies ing in. I went on to expin about the Nomads and hoere to treat them as huests.
Dughan gave his typical crashing salute, "As you wish My Lord." Reliable as always.
Raynor just ughed, "Tryin' to impress your dy friend, Hoss?" And there it was, a small smirk on Dughan's face, before he schooled his expression back to ral. I was so gd to be able to amuse everyone.
"What? No! I'm just trying to make sure there going to be plenty of food." I grumbled, which apparently was the signal to start ripping into me.
They both got into giving me shit for the hour. So happy to help moral.
Why me?