The next morning Orion returned to the main base to investigate the damage. Luckily the swollen metal corpse of the robot was still inert, so he broke it down with the Battle Sledge. He was pleased to see the weapon doubled as a mining hammer, but needed even fewer hits to break things down. As the last few shards glowed blue and vanished into him, Orion examined the spoils of battle. There were more machine parts and bones, but something new caught his attention. He pulled what looked like a mini cassette out of his inventory and examined it.

  [Scorch Mod: Adds Fire element to Weapons or Armor. Small chance to inflict 'Burned' debuff which deals damage over time.]

  So this is why the robot was able to become an inferno of hate. Orion speculated about adding the Mod to his shotgun to up its damage output. But from the level up announcements he had seen, he was rocking more of a strength build. He wished he could check his stats, but his personal HUD was still on the blink so there was no way to confirm that.

  He pulled out his Battle Sledge and looked it over for the first time. He’d been in such a rush before he hadn’t had the chance. It was a simple design, the head of the hammer was a square block of orgite, balanced on the middle of a long handle with a decorative knob on the end. One side of the block had two rectangular chunks of metal scooped out of the top, making it look like a set of stairs. It was about as uncomplicated and utilitarian as you could get.

  He looked for the mod slot and found it in the handle cap. He slotted the cassette into it and the head of the hammer lit up. The face and sides of the hammer started glowing a reddish orange in a flame pattern. After a few seconds the holographic pattern changed to a different flame, blinking back and forth like a neon sign. Again, simple but pleasing to Orion. He was a simple guy.

  [Weapon Modified! Would you like to rename Orgite Battle Sledge? Y/N?]

  Orion smiled and selected ‘Y’. He chuckled as he renamed the weapon Sunflare. Shouldering the weapon he walked up to the large pile where the fire robot had been buried. Squaring his stance he swung down at it with both fists. With a satisfying ring of metal on metal, a tenth of the pile vanished into his inventory in an instant.

  “That’ll do nicely.” Orion grinned.

  After spending the rest of the morning breaking down robots in the facility, Orion took a break for lunch. Munching down on a ratillac kebab he mindlessly scrolled through the crafting recipes. Idly he typed ‘Shower’ into the search bar. The only one he could craft was a basic standing shower with a bucket full of holes, but it required one ration of water per use. He was down to three rations of water, the water recycler only able to filter so much before needing a fresh supply.

  He closed the HUD with a frustrated groan, trying to ignore the smell of stale sweat. Sometimes when Orion sat down he caught a whiff of himself and gagged. He’d found no reliable water sources in the desert, and none of the bathrooms in the base had running water. He just had to deal with smelling for now and hoped there weren’t status debuffs for being filthy in the game.

  Disheartened, Orion scrolled to the Gizmos screen to build a replacement peg leg for the one he broke in the fight. When he typed ‘prosthetics’ into the search bar, a second icon appeared for an ‘Orgite Peg Leg’. The design looked pretty blocky, like the Sunflare hammer, but it had pretty good durability.

  He wondered if there was something about orgite’s molecular structure that naturally formed it into rectangular shapes, similar to bismuth. He built a few, leveling up his Machinist trade to level three. He equipped one and stored the rest, but kept an extra in his inventory just in case.

  Orion also noticed ‘Practice Dummy’ was an option in Gizmos, and he crafted one curiously. It was just a stick with a padded doll-like Org torso T-Posing on top. The dummy had patched blue fabric and a crudely drawn face doodled on, the tusky mouth smiling at Orion stupidly. Walking it out to an empty spot of the courtyard he planted the dummy and pulled out Sunflare.

  “Sorry about this, buddy.” Orion said mournfully. “Cuz I’m about to knock that stupid grin off your face.”

  Orion grabbed Sunflare in both hands, wheeled back and put his full weight into a baseball swing. The hammer plowed into the dummy like a freight train, setting it on fire and causing it to whip around wildly on the pole.

  [Critical Hit! Debuff 'Burned' applied!]

  A holographic appeared over the dummy, accompanied with a green heath bar that ticked down to the halfway point. The dummy vibrated like a spring on the wooden post, the health bar slowly refilling as Orion watched. When the swaying stopped the painted smile stared back again, unscathed.

  Orion was flabbergasted. “Oh, you asked for it!”

  Orion continued to hit the dummy for a few minutes. His Two-Handed Weapon skill increased but he quickly dismissed the notification. No matter how hard or fast he hit the dummy it snapped back without a scratch. Orion switched to his shotgun, firing round after round into the smirking doll face. He put the muzzle right between the walleyed, painted face and unloaded his entire clip into it with similar results. The health bar stopped registering damage with only a few pixels of green left. He threw down the shotgun and equipped the Pocket Nuke.

  Orion clicked on the hand cannon’s button. It hummed to life and after a few seconds an angry green beam punched through the air, engulfing the target. Critical hit notifications sprang frantically on the HUD window as the dummy burst into green flame. Orion roared with anger as the Pocket Nuke started to get hot in his hands. The green panels on the side of the cannon started to glow red and warning alarms started to sound.

  ‘Warning! Pocket Nuke reaching critical mass! Continual fire may result in a catastrophic nuclear explosion!’

  Orion’s finger left the trigger and dropped the Pocket Nuke, letting the gun cool down. The palms of his hands were burned and blistered from gripping the hot metal, but it was worth it! There was a towering column of green fire where the target once stood. Orion pointed at the target and yelled, “That’s what you get! That’s what you get!”

  Suddenly the flames extinguished and standing there, in pristine condition, was the derpy blue faux Org. There wasn’t so much as a speck of ash on the fabric hide, nor even a thread out of place. The painted face wasn’t even smudged, the tusked smile mocking Orion.

  Orion felt a sense of creeping terror wash over him as he stared at the dead, painted eyes. He chided himself for his paranoia. Obviously the decoy was designed to take a beating without being destroyed, it was just game mechanics! Taking a calming breath, Orion walked over to the dummy and stared it down.

  “You win this round.” Orion hissed, “You’re just lucky I have other plans today.”

  Those plans included gathering new materials. His mining had improved enough to gather ore from stone, but he wasn’t getting any more experience from the regular rocks around him. He thought about mining Bite Rock, but decided to leave that for last. Orion also needed to find more unique materials to unlock those unknown recipes in his crafting menu.

  The most obvious place to start was the crater. There were big rocks down there, sure. What he was really interested in were the mining tanks and getting a look at the purple schmutz in the center mound.

  Grabbing whatever gear he thought he would need, Orion started to carefully pick his way down the crater’s slope. He wandered toward the nearest mining machine first. It was approximately two hundred feet away, but gravity helped him close the distance pretty quickly.

  Half buried in the ground, the machine looked relatively untouched. Orion noted that the paint job was stripped away on the west facing side. He wondered if he could repair the tank, or if it was better for him to break it down for parts. Orion placed a hand on the fender to try and lift himself to the door when the entire vehicle shifted.

  “Okay, I know I’m not that strong.” Orion said.

  Kneeling to investigate, Orion saw that the ground wasn’t hard packed mud, but a darker soil that crumbled under his hand. Not gritty like sand, but a rich crimson loam. It had the same consistency as the topsoil from his mom’s garden. Tempering his excitement, Orion pulled out his shovel and put a few scoops of the fluffy earth into his inventory. Maybe this could be used for farming, or at least unlock new craftables.

  With the ground being unstable, the best option was to salvage the vehicle. Orion pulled out Sunflare and started pounding at the side of the tank. It was tougher than the robots and took longer to break down. After a while he started to see ‘Reinforced Steel Plates’, ‘Glass’ and ‘Machine Parts’ fill his inventory. A good chunk of the machine started to disappear into blue light as he worked. It was noisy work, but this was exactly what he needed. Orion grinned as a notice popped up to inform him his Mining skill leveled once again.

  Orion grinned, “Just what the doctor ordered.”

  With a few more strikes, the side of the cockpit vanished. Orion reeled back for another swing and yelled in surprise, losing his balance. There were two mummified corpses inside the cockpit. Both of them were short, with large eye sockets on large round craniums. They looked like Grays from the character creation screen, but half the height. One was lying on the floor while the other slumped over the controls. It looked as if they’d gotten trapped in the machine during the attack.

  Suddenly Orion didn’t feel like getting the rest of the tank broken down. He’d try to swing back and grab these corpses for the graveyard once he’d retrieved his makeshift stretcher from storage. Ignoring them for now, Orion looked up at the cannon on top of the tank. It was too big to wield, being bigger than Orion himself, but he wondered if it could be salvaged whole. Having a big cannon might come in handy if another wave of the robot monsters came back.

  Orion put his hands on the fender again and lifted one leg up to brace against the wheels. Or what would have been wheels. On closer inspection the tank seemed to be propelled by hover panels. The machine didn’t move so Orion slowly hoisted himself up and stepped into the cockpit. Bracing his hands on the edge of the missing wall, Orion scooted himself along the fender and peered up at the cannon’s connections. Large bolts and wires could be seen but Orion doubted he had the right tools to safely remove it.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Nothing else for it, he’d just have to break it down for parts. Orion willed Sunflare to his hand again and started pounding down on the cannon. More plates and parts popped into his inventory, but what really caught his attention was something called [Terra Mod]. He was about to check its stats when the whole vehicle under him shifted again.

  The front tipped forward and Orion lost his balance. The front of the vehicle dipped dangerously as the soil started to swallow the tank again. Orion fell on the fender, his peg leg providing poor grip, and bashed his chin on the hard metal. He slid off the slick surface like a kid on a playground slide and got a faceful of dirt. Orion regained his feet just as the ground around him started to suck him down too. Panicking, he scrambled up the slope as the tank was swallowed by a rapidly growing sinkhole.

  Orion frowned as he watched the open cockpit fill up with earth and the mining tank vanished beneath the surface. Orion glanced at the pit he’s stood in moments before and pressed a hand to his heart. He vowed to make two more graves for the fallen tank drivers. the crater having done the job of burying them already.

  Orion decided to leave the other tanks alone for now. Until he could be reasonably sure he wasn’t going to repeat this incident it was best to leave them alone. He started walking down towards the mound again. Scavenging the mining operation was probably a bust, but he could at least see what the purple stuff was. Orion squinted against the noon sunlight, wishing he was a pair of binoculars. Hope flared as he saw faint movement from the top of the island.

  It looked like grass! It was thin and patchy, but he could see what looked like mauve colored blades of long grass. There were even long stalks with little budding white flowers on it, the kind you see when a lawn went overgrown for too long. The ground beneath the grass was the same red velvet color as the soil samples he’d taken. If that were true, he could farm!

  Orion took a few excited steps forward when the light overhead vanished. Confused, Orion looked up and saw that dark clouds were rolling in from the west. He stared open-mouthed at the sight. Up to this point Orion had seen nothing but relentlessly clear skies and blazing hot sun. Was a storm rolling in?

  If it was going to rain, that meant water! Fresh water to drink, to clean with, maybe enough to store. He might even be able to scrub away the dried sweat making his hide itch. If that were true, he’d need to head back and prepare containers to catch it. There was also the fear of what might happen if the water started pouring down the loose soil of the crater while Orion was still in it.

  Making up his mind, Orion abandoned the grass and started to march up the hill. He had almost gotten back to the spot where the tank sank when his left leg fell into a hole. Orion sank to one knee, bracing his fall with his hands. Shaking his head at his own clumsiness, Orion tried to stand but his prosthetic was snagged on something. Orion glanced at the darkening sky and placed his boot firmly against the ground.

  “I do not have time for this today!” Orion heaved himself up with all his might.

  His peg leg popped out of the ground and Orion saw what he was caught on. Two milky white tentacles with nearly translucent skin were coiled around his peg leg. Startled, Orion hopped backwards and the dirt shifted to reveal a maggot the size of a rottweiler.

  “Gross!” Orion exclaimed, shaking his leg. “Get the hell off me!”

  One of the tentacles writhed and opened four pointy teeth at Orion in a silent scream. Orion noticed that just under the nearly clear skin, cybernetic organs pulsed with sickly orange glow, metal grinding against squishy flesh. Along the thing’s back were metallic ridges and supporting ribs between wormy segments, similar to Org spine plates. The maggot was strong too, and Orion watched in horror as the tip of his artificial leg was engulfed up by the worm's toothless mouth.

  Orion equipped his shotgun and aimed it, “Nope!”

  Orion fired and hit the maggot directly in its side. Flesh and pus erupted from the maggots too-thin skin, and the creature jerked back. The tentacles still had a solid grip on Orion’s leg and it yanked him off balance. Landing heavily on his ass, Orion righted himself and fired more laser buckshot into the toothless maw. The shot took out several chunks of the worm’s mouth and severed a tentacle. The maggot released a high pitched shriek. The sound hurt Orion so badly that he took physical damage from it, even with his meaty hands clamped over his ears. He wondered if these critters had some kind of sonic attack.

  The remaining tendrils retained a firm grip and the prosthetic and dragged Orion back toward into the hole it emerged from. Thinking fast, Orion unequipped the leg and it popped off soundlessly. He heard the square metal peg smack the writhing worm in the face. It gave another squeaky shriek, but the ground muffled it.

  “Yeah! I hope the corner hit you right in your dumb face!” Orion yelled back as he equipped the spare leg from his inventory and ran.

  Orion got halfway back up the hill when another, much louder shriek tore through the air. Turning quickly, Orion saw the ground bulging near the center mound in several places. The bulges were moving, displacing the soil before submerging again. It was moving closer in a side-winding pattern, as if searching for something. The hidden enemy roared again, its voice bassier, but the low frequency caused ripples in the surface that extended out from the source.

  “Oh shit,” Orion turned and ran. “It’s fucking hunting me with sonar!”

  Orion ran up the crater slope, climbing the last ten feet before he hauled his exhausted body over the edge. Collapsing on the baked clay, Orion rolled onto his back and panted from exertion. Suddenly worried he wasn’t far enough, Orion quietly crawled over to the edge of the crater and peered down. The swaying bulges of dirt slowed and one more sonic roar emitted from the creature. The rumbling stopped, the ground setting below.

  Orion was about to walk away when the creature’s body breached the surface like a humpback whale. Gelatin green flesh mottled with dark spot swam through the dirt effortlessly. Black metal bands were implanted along its back, connected to circular discs on the sides. It had to be the size and length of a subway train, maybe bigger!

  Orion rolled over and took a deep, calming breath. This planet was hazardous, and someone dropped him right in the middle. Caught between a worm and a hard place, a real Sylla and Charybdis situation. Homer would be proud.

  “D’oh.” Orion grunted, checked his replacement leg, then started walking towards base.

  Having survived his near death experience, Orion started making plans. Glancing at the sky, Orion saw the afternoon sun completely obscured now. Flashes of lightning crackled in the inky clouds, forcing Orion to pick up the pace. He needed to craft some barrels, and if by some miracle his crafting tree had it, soap. He could grab some fresh clothes from inside the base, wash up, and wait out the storm in his shed. That would give him time to sort out his new materials.

  A ratillac drove between his legs with a squeal of tires. Orion was still staring at it as another drove past. Followed by two more ratillacs. Then a whole traffic jam’s worth of tiny rat cars flooded past him, heading for some unseen destination. Orion’s hair stood up on the back of his neck and he slowly turned to look behind him.

  A sandstorm was rolling in. A wall of red dust particles was roaring toward the base at a deceptively fast pace. Columns of lightning streaked through the sandstorm, and several giant twisters spun chaotically in the approaching wall of dust. The crater barely slowed it down, the evil cloud filling the empty space and even seemed to pick up pace as it poured in. The ratillacs were racing across the bridge from the crater rig and driving past Orion in a desperate attempt to flee the storm.

  ‘When in Rome,’ was Orion’s last thought before he turned and bolted towards his shelter. Orion worried about his shed being able to hold up against the storm but the main base was too far away. His only hope was that his little homestead was up to the task of weathering the storm.

  Heart pounding loud enough to hear and sweat running nearly horizontal across his face, Orion literally ran for his life. He was grateful that he’d taken levels in warden, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to maintain this punishing pace in the poisonous atmosphere. But the storm was gaining on him, the wind howling and lightning striking so often Orion was casting multiple shadows in his path. Orion burst into his shelter door and slammed it behind him, bracing against what was to come.

  The storm hit like a tsunami. The small shed rocked backwards and the walls shuddered as the sandstorm swallowed it like a hungry beast. Lightning struck the ground around the tormented domicile in a deafening symphony of fury. Something heavy struck the building and sheared the roof clean off. Missing a vital stabilizing point, the rest of the shed fell apart and Orion was sucked into the sky like being shot out of a circus cannon.

  Orion nearly passed out immediately as he was tossed around in the air. Having no sense of direction, no light except for the flashes of electricity around him, Orion was truly helpless. Rubble pelted him as he pinwheeled through the air, and he tried to dodge the dark shadows as they were flung toward him.

  One of the sand tornadoes sucked him in and Orion was sent spinning in a different direction. An uprooted tree boomeranged toward Orion, the trunk hitting him in the chest and shattered against him. Dizzy and in excruciating pain, Orion had to fight to remain conscious. Abruptly Orion felt himself slammed against a wall, dropping down to the ground. The warning alarms rang in Orion’s ears, and the red pulsating light crept into his vision again. Steadying himself, Orion used the wall to climb to his feet. The stone provided some shelter from the raging storm, and Orion was somewhat relieved to realize he’d been pummeled against Bite Rock.

  Dully pleased that he hadn’t destroyed Bite Rock, he clung to the comforting solid surface of the boulder. If he could just wait out the storm here, maybe Orion’s regeneration could heal him enough to let the storm pass. Orion turned himself with difficulty and started to shimmy himself across the dark surface of the boulder. There was a wedge between the formation of rocks that might protect him from the winds better.

  The warning lights were just starting to diminish in his periphery when lightning flashed directly above Orion. The world slowed as he watched the blinding light trace through the sky and curve towards him, his cybernetic enhancements acting like a lightning rod. White hot pain shot through the Orion’s body as millions of volts of electricity arced into his spine and vaporized him instantly.

  [You Have Died]

  Orion opened his eyes. At first he thought he was still in the middle of the storm. There were dark clouds boiling overhead, thunder rumbling and lightning flashing in the atmosphere. It was only the light pattering of rain told Orion that he was somewhere else.

  Instead he found himself floating over the Sea of Souls once again. The creepy black water flowed beneath him, and several bone colored rock formations formed a large semi-circle in the water. Candles with blue flames held by willowy ghosts floated in the space between the stones.

  The sound of battle reached his ears and he turned to see a large island that had what looked like the fossilized skull of a titanic cyclops. The ring of rocks gave the impression of broken teeth protruding from the water, but Orion recognized it for what it was. He was in a Battle Arena! They were commonly found in Seas of Spiritus whenever players would encounter a boss.

  Floating closer he saw two ships locked in combat. He recognized the Deck Puncher, though it had changed greatly since he last saw her. The once bark brown wood had been replaced with nearly charcoal black planks, much like the dark wood of the skeletal hand trees. White wood adorned the keel and the ribs of the ship, giving it the impression of some long dead sea monster. The twin masts had diaphanous white sails, tattered at the bottom like cobwebs at a haunted house. A figurehead of a skeletal mermaid with one fist punching out at the sea completed the look.

  The second ship was a simple white raft made of bones. Skulls lined the bottom of the raft, woven together with long bones of some great creature. Possibly the bones were donated by the dead cyclops. The deck was covered in a slightly ratty but otherwise pristine carpet with patterns like a Greek vase. Pictograms on the edge of the carpet showed a boatman ferrying the dead to the underworld. A throne sat on the back of the raft, crafted from polished black wood and draped in the pelts of a three-headed wolf. A gorgon skull complete with skeletal snakes decorated the top. Four copper braziers with blue flame decorated the four corners of the raft.

  Riding on the raft was a tall, grim figure in a long black coat. A wide-brimmed hat covered its head, and a bird-like plague mask obscured the face. The bottom of its robe never touched the floor of the raft, but instead turned into curling black smoke. And in its hands was a long black oar, a wicked scythe made from a sharpened rib affixed to the top.

  A thrill of anticipation filled him as memories came flooding back. Orion was staring at the final boss of the Sea of Souls. The Deck Puncher was about to face off against Charon the Ferryman.