Chapter 81: Lawless Zones

You might think that a soda machine wouldn’t be that big of a deal. That it wouldn’t be the single most important purchase we made. Or that it wouldn’t come in clutch in the biggest of possible ways and wouldn’t, in fact, be the crux of the longest-shot chain of events I had ever seen or even imagined.

You’d be right. It didn’t do any of that stuff. It was just awesome. Have you ever heard of slushies? It’s like this… listen, find a slushy, right now. The system knows what they are. Get one. Thank me later.

The Big Book of Brett, Page 61

—

The rest of the upgrades were of a more practical bent. One was so practical that they’d never actually see it, in any conventional sense.

Superior Energy Generation

This should honestly be more expensive. The reason it’s not is because, frankly, you probably don’t need it. Sure, you think you do. You’re probably shouting, “Wouldn’t want to run out of electricity!” Eager to waste money. But you weren’t going to run out of electricity anyway, frankly.

The only people who need this are trying to run big, stupid industrial machines for big, stupid purposes that could be powered by a cheaper system solution. Or, barring that, they are trying to build airtight, lethal security systems with points that would be better spent on reinforced walls and doors to keep people out in the first place.

If that sounds discouraging, good. That means you don’t need this and shouldn’t buy it. The guy who really does need it knows it, and isn’t reading this message anyway.

Sean needed it. Brett was sure, too. Was it a waste for nearly anyone else? There was no question that it was. But for them, it was going to be a godsend. If they could forge, they’d buy magic anvils. If Sean could use guns, they’d buy an ammo-reloading bay. Their needs were, well, weirder.

Materials Processor (Industrial Equipment, Requires Superior Energy Generation)

The Materials Processor processes materials. You want something powdered? It turns things into powder. You want something dissolved? It might be able to do that, too. When you need something cut into strips, turned into confetti, compacted into lumps, or generally manipulated in some way or another, the Materials Processor has your back.

This is a rare piece of equipment that comes with a spec sheet, but operating it is actually pretty simple. You dump stuff in, tell the machine what you want using the handy touchpad, and it does stuff to it. You’ll never touch the max workload limits of the machine, so don’t worry about burning it out.

Oh, and if you do somehow burn it out? You’ll know you were doing something weird and whose fault that was. Don’t come complaining after your plan to make dissolved bomb goo goes sideways on you.

In the few short days since Brett had joined Sean’s team, he had reduced an entire engine to powder for the sake of burning the legs clean off a bunch of Sean’s enemies. It took him dozens of hours working with files, and his hand still had blisters from the experience. The fact that this machine would do the same work in seconds made it worth it for that alone.

You could never, Brett said, have enough thermite. Sean decided not to ask how he knew.

Once Brett’s very boring buckets of tanner-stuff were purchased, that left just enough money to buy a baseline security upgrade they both agreed was a good idea. Experience had taught them, skipping out on quality would cost more in the long run.

Thigh-high Scry Eye

The Thigh-High Scry Eye is the front door home monitoring system you’ve always wanted, so long as you’re excited about the exact average of all base exterior monitoring items available.

It doesn’t do threat assessments. While it’s hard to notice, it isn’t exactly invisible to anyone who is specifically looking for it. While a top-end porch-camera type item will pierce invisibility to tell you exactly what you are facing, this doesn’t do that, either.

So why buy it? Well, there are some very nice things it does do. First, it provides a 360-panoramic view of the area around your door, all ported to a beautiful and functional crystal ball you can plop down anywhere you have space. Second, it’s invincible. While the eye can be temporarily banished, it can’t be destroyed, marking it as the least expensive truly permanent front-yard surveillance you can buy.

“That’s gonna be all the points. Are you ready, Brett?”

“Yup. Ready.”

Sean flipped the switch. Most of the items had allowed him to choose placement, which meant the Materials Processor, soda fountain, beds, and other miscellaneous items went just where they wanted them. And while the soda machine and beds seemed really nice, it all did look like a bit of a let down.

“Don’t stress out about that. So long as you live longer than a week or so, this is the kind of stuff that will pay off. Trust me on this.”

—

After moving the few personal items they kept in the main room to the former storage room, they officially separated the function of the rooms between sleep and work. There were a few chemicals that even Brett didn’t want to sleep by and some of his new Tanner’s chemicals fit the bill.

Brett immediately got to work creating vast amounts of garbage and throwing them into the Materials Processor to make components, which he then began to sort by quality.

“I’m going to leave you to that,” Sean said. “It’s still pretty early in the day, and I have some credits burning a hole in my pocket. I thought I’d have a look around town.”

Brett waved his arm dismissively, already deep in craft-project land, surrounded by piles of plastic strips as high as his knee. Sean poured himself an ultra-large soda with plenty of ice, then went out on the town.

—

“There’s no such thing, I’m afraid,” the alchemist said, shaking her head sadly. “At least not at these levels and with the kinds of materials we get. If you bring me something the system says will do that, the story changes. But you really won’t find that. And you probably wouldn’t want that, anyway.”

“I wouldn’t want stat potions? That give you free stats?” Sean smiled at her. “I assure you I do.”

“No, you don’t. Think about it. If you could get those, so could other people, and all these little rich assholes milling around here would have whatever maximum juiced stats the system allows for, bought and paid for by their shitty dictator parents. At best, you’d be playing catch-up. You don’t want that.”

The alchemist was the closest thing Sean had to someone who conformed to a pre-existing fantasy trope. He was short, rough-skinned, and heavily bearded in an orange sort of way that almost challenged Sean’s claim to the most-glorious-ginger-in-the-village title. He looked like a dwarf, so much so that Sean was afraid to even talk about it, for fear that it wasn’t a species thing at all and he’d just be bullying the guy on overall shortness and stoutness.

But that, in the end, was just how he looked. In terms of how he seemed, he was all geek. Sean liked geeks. He felt like he understood them, like he would have gone the same direction if his life had turned out a little bit differently. When Sean had stumbled into the shop, he had entered with a goal of learning more about potion-making in general and the dwarf didn’t disappoint. He ran Sean through a dozen different herbs and other materials he had on hand, excitedly explaining all the different things each could do.

All he asked for in return was a peek at some of Sean’s handiwork, which Sean gladly showed him.

“This is messy work. Really messy. Good effects, though.” The alchemist tossed it back. “You couldn’t have sprung for better bottles?”

“I couldn’t. It’s hard to explain, but my class will only tolerate so much fancy. Think of it like a sort of rough-and-ready wilderness survival alchemist class and you get most of the way there.”

“Yeah, I figured. Those are good classes, incidentally, in their own way. I can make a potion that’s more powerful than what you just showed me but I can’t make them as easily as you probably can make yours. My advice would be to keep levelling it and not to spend too much money here, as much as it pains me to say it.”

Sean agreed, although he still wanted to buy something just to show his appreciation. He dumped fifty credits in the shop, buying three flash-grenade type objects the dwarf called Sudden Fire Potions that would blow up three seconds after being thrown “with intent.” He didn’t know if he’d actually end up using them, but since he couldn’t make anything like them at the moment, it seemed like a good bet.

He shook hands with the dwarf and exited the shop, only to be immediately accosted by Justin.

“Sean!” He said. “Big news. You know Brady, right?”

Sean did. She was the lasers-and-distraction class from their initial meeting. He hadn’t seen her in action yet but he had been struck by her absolute confidence in her own class. Given that nobody was really “invincible” here, he suspected that confidence might have been more related to her personality than hard-and-fast data.

“I do. She seemed nice.”

“Agreed. Anyway, she did just okay in her dodgeball trial and basically the prize she got was a thirty-minute lead on some upcoming system announcement. She got it, and I copied it down.”

He handed off a piece of paper to Sean.

Special System Spaces Available!

You’ve probably noticed you can’t leave the village. There’s a high wall around the whole thing, blocking you off from the outside world. Up to this point, that was for a very good reason, since there wasn’t any outside world for you to go out into and the system didn’t want you hurtling through the vast void of nothing that exists beyond defined physics.

Now, though? That wall is coming down. The outside world awaits.

Off in the distance, you will see various terrain features. More often than not, those features contain system spaces of various kinds. Once per day, those dungeons can be raided for experience, prizes, and danger.

Don’t get too carried away. The real advantages to be gained here are still in the official, mandatory village events. But if you want to stay ahead of the curve, you can’t sleep on these spaces, either. Even a few stat points might matter, right?

Be honest. You’ve mostly explored the parts of the village that matter to you by now. At least this way, you won’t be bored.

Warning! The areas outside the village are lawless zones. None of the non-violence protections in place in the village apply in the wilderness. Watch your back.

“You’ve read it? Good. Come on.”

“Right now?”

“Yes, right now. The others are already assembling at a point on the wall. We staggered it so we’d all arrive at about the same time.”

“Why not wait? We could do at least some scouting from inside before we left.”

Justin frowned.

“You know Eike’s little contingent? It’s been growing. There’s about twenty of them now. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to get caught by them out there if I can help it.” Justin turned and walked at a brisk pace, presumably in the direction of the meeting point. “Especially after you declared war on their boss today.”

“Ah, yeah,” Sean said. “I guess that does change things.”