He took the loot out of his inventory and spread it out on the workbench.
Where the fuck did he get system-generated stuff?
He
"Nice, this can go to one of the sisters. Diedre got the needle, might give this to Francine."
"Huh? Is this sex gel? But what is Empathic sensitivity, and what has that got to do with sex gel?"
"A bonded knife, now I won't lose it, but it can still be stolen, unlike a soulbond weapon. This goes to my belt." Loo bonded with the knife and placed it in one of the rings on his armoured belt.
Louie shrugged. "We can use the stock."
He pressed Y suddenly he could barely move, and he heard a crash that sounded like a storage closet falling over. He struggled to stand and had to lean on the workbench.
"What the hell is wrong with me?"
He opened his status and saw a light blinking.
When he concentrated on it, he got a flashing notification telling him he is overburdened.
Louie groaned and opened his inventory.
He was shocked to see that it is chock full with what looked like wrapped pallets.
Each pallet took up a staggering 100sq space.
"What the hell is all this?"
He removed one of the pallets and immediately felt better.
Louie removed the bowie knife and started cutting the wrapping from the pallet.
He noticed that the wrapping was some kind of cloth material and exceedingly tough to cut.
"Damn, this will come in quite handy."
Louie opened his inventory to see how many wrapped pallets there were.
He gave a soft whistle and laughed.
He rolled the material and placed it back in his inventory.
Shit, I got to go see if Johan is still awake. He should see this.
He left the tent and saw the sisters wrapped in each other's arms, fast asleep.
BOB perked up, but he waved him back down next to the bed and left the room.
Luckily he found Johan coming out of the bathroom on his way to his room. "Sorry, Johan, but I don't think you will get much sleep tonight."
"Sigh, what's wrong now? You know I have been up since yesterday morning. I only got 2 hours of sleep before your guard woke me."
Louie clapped him on his shoulder. "That's the curse of leadership." He handed him a Red Bull and shared the BB with him.
"Have a pick me up. I want to show and give you something."
Johan stumbled over his feet. "Holy shit, where did you get this?"
"That fucker Paterson had it. I got it as loot."
Johan started laughing as he chugged the energy drink. "I guess the rumour was true that they used cattle sperm in red bull."
Louie looked at him in shock. "What?"
Johan laughed harder.
Louie re-read the report, and things started to fall into place. "Holy shit, really? and you drank that?"
John wiped his eyes. "They don't use sperm, but it's the same stuff that you get in sperm but synthesized."
"This is good stuff. You saw the report." Johan closed his eyes and concentrated, he stumbled at first but then he started floating above the ground like Darth Vader, Walking/floating without moving his legs.
Louie just shook his head as he led him down the ramp into the underground workshops.
"So, what's this about?" Louie indicated that he should wait and see.
As they stepped through the door of an empty workshop, Louie removed one of the pallets and asked Johan to help him unwrap it.
Johan looked in amazement at the pallet stacked with tin foods. "Where did you get this? Is there more?"
"Jip about 200 pallets."
He just shook his head. "I'm past being amazed. Where the hell did you get this."
"Paterson, I got a deed in the loot, and It gave me the option to demolish the building and receive the stock. This is the stock."
"What do you want me to do?"
Louie thought for a moment. "I will give you half the pallets with foodstuff, but I want your people to help unwrap them all, not cut, unwrap. You can also keep half the wrapping material."
Louie handed him the roll of wrapping he took from the pallet in the tent. And the BB. "I'm sure that your crafters can find a use for it."
"Huh, Gnomes? Those creepy little garden fuckers are real?"
"Yea, but I think the system is just using stuff that it knows."
Johan nodded. "Their ignorance is our gain." He turned around and started for the stairs. "I saw Hannie still up. I will ask him to wake some people to unwrap the pallets."
"Thanks, Johan. Good night." He mumbled something about getting some sleep as he walked away.
Louie looked over the workshop and started removing pallets. He had filled three workshops when Hannie came down the stairs with a bunch of grumpy men and women. "Thank you all for coming to help."
'Grumble grumble' Louie looked at where the grumbles are coming from. "I know how you guys miss your old, wake-me-up, coffee."
They all perked up when he mentioned coffee. He stood away from the wrapped pallet and indicated the mana coffee machine on top of the pallet.
"Coffee for everybody while you are unwrapping the pallets. Do not cut the wrapping, unwrap them."
They rushed to the coffee machine while Louie continued unpacking pallets.
While they were busy unwrapping the pallets, he created a big storeroom with floor-to-ceiling stone shelves for all the tin foods and other products.
He had to make frequent trips out to the wall to dump the excess stone outside to be used in the morning for the newly planned wall extension.
After the pallets were all done, Louie went through them and tried to split the tin foods down the middle where possible. He saw that one woman organized a chain brigade and started moving the trays of canned products into the storeroom.
Louie asked her if somebody could organize his half of the stock into pallets and he will pay that person with material for a weapon or armour piece. But it must be done before they leave at 10:00 for Starter town.
Louie went back to his room and entered the tent.
He went through the wooden partition to a section, he kept separated for a workshop.
He had divided the tent into four sections the living room/kitchen, a bedroom that had 8 bunk beds, the workshop, and a storage space that took up half the tent.
He removed one of the mana crossbows that they took from the Dungeon. How can I turn this thing into a personal weapon?
There was a small mana stone in the stock. He infused it with mana, and the string was pulled back, and a bolt appeared in the slot.
Hmm, every 2 minutes. That's why those golems had three crossbows mounted.
Louie removed some pieces of the crossbow golems from his inventory and his engraving pen.
Ok, how can I remove or replace the bow?
"Hmm, can you still call it a crossbow if it has no bow? I will need a way to fire the bolt without having a bow sticking out the side of the weapon."
Hmm, go steampunk? Why not?
Take a tape measure. You pull the tape out. Press the button, and the tape shoots back. It has a small return coil spring.
Can a spring give enough tension to shoot a bolt?
Well, the limbs of a bow are basically a spring. So I will need bigger coil springs, time to see what's in all those parts lockers we took from the Dungeon workshop.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
He removed the lockers, and they were filled with cogs and gears and other small parts.
After searching through them for a while, he found a couple of small pulleys, a thin steel cable, and four 10centemeter steel return coil springs.
He mounted two on each side, one on the foregrip of the now bow-less crossbow and the other at the back in the buttstock.
He then fitted the pulleys and ran the cables through them, and fixed them to the springs.
He fit everything together and dry-fired it. There was a load 'Twang!' And the place was filled with parts and cabling.
"SHIT!"
He ducked as a pulley went streaking past his head.
He gathered all the pieces up, and after examining the remains, he couldn't see what went wrong.
"Ok, let's try it this way. I hope it works."
He activated his skills,
In front of him appeared a BB depicting a wire diagram of the weapon he had made.
Two spots started to flash red. He concentrated on the flashing, and his vision zoomed in on the weak red spots.
Damn, this is so cool.
He started rotating the weapon and taking it apart until the only parts in the frame were shown in red. There was an option to save the schematic, but he declined since the weapon broke.
He found himself on the floor clutching his head.
He noticed the mana starvation icon blinking in his vision.
Damn, I guess it helps that you do something difficult.
Right-clicking on his new spell.
Shit, that spell is a mana hog.
He right-clicked on the blueprint.
Ok, I think I can make a couple of blueprints and give them to Brandon and see what he can make of it.
Now, back to this crossbow. And the broken part.
Louie found the part that had caused such a catastrophic failure and saw that it was one of the pieces he cut from metal he took from the school.
Looking everything over, he believed that it failed because it wasn't system generated and had very little mana running through its structure.
Ok, so only use System metals for mana-powered weapons or use improvise before testing it.
He took a piece of Golem metal and carefully started carving the pieces that he needed.
Well, I won't say no to any skills or spells.
He fitted the newly carved piece and slowly assembled the whole crossbow.
It's not a crossbow anymore, maybe a bolt gun? Mmm maybe. Let's see if it fires.
Louie carefully cocked the boltgun, placed a bolt in the groove, took aim, and fired.
It was the biggest . . . piece of crap he had ever made, it looked ugly as sin, and it fired like an old man coughing. The bolt didn't even travel 3meters.
He cocked it again, and it fired again.
It's crap, but it works. Maybe I can make a magazine and have a faster load speed.
He used the glue and made a long rectangular housing that can house six bolts and fit on top of the crossbow.
He fits the magazine, and inserted one of the ice mage nozzles instead of bolts, and replaced the mana stone with a mana crystal.
Shit, I hope this isn't another Lightning sabre of Doom.
He gave a short prayer to whatever god was listening to.
"Hello, whoever is out there listening, grant me some luck in creating this piece of monster-killing weaponry."
He closed his eyes.
After the glow faded, he opened his left eye slowly and looked at what he had in his hand.
He opened both eyes as he stared at something that he was sure would fit in any sci-fi movie.
It didn't look like any crossbow he had ever seen.
Bloody hell! With this blue rune here, this looks more like something from Star Wars.
He lovingly ran his hands over the weapon.
"Damn, it's not another Lightning sabre of Doom. Thanks, Neith, whoever you are."
Suddenly a BB appeared in front of him.
"Oookaaaay." He looked around nervously just to make sure. "Thank you again."
He removed one of the target dummies from his inventory that he looted from the Dungeon practice yards and placed it in the corner of the tent leaning against a stone wall.
"Let's test this puppy."
Louie stood as far away as possible and fired a shot at the dummy. There was a soft whine and a slight recoil as a 60centimeter long ice spear skewered the dummy to the wall.
"Hell yes!"
He fired another couple of ice bolts, ripping the dummy apart. Ice vapour was leaking from the boltgun, making it look really badass.
"Damn, I think I'm in love." He clutched the weapon to his chest.
He got a notification telling him he had received a blueprint in his inventory. There was also a copy saved in his journal.
"Ok, let see if I can grind this spell."
He started removing weapons from his inventory, four of each kind of weapon and shield.
He meditated between each use of the spell, and when he was done, he was out of mana, but his spell had levelled up twice.
He placed his boltgun in his inventory together with all his weapons and started cleaning up the mess.
He remembered he had heard a crash just before he was overburdened with all the wrapped pallets as he left the workshop.
He moved to the storage section of the tent, and on opening the door, he found it filled with different size pallets. It was packed right up to the door and stacked to the roof.
Louie shook his head. Where the fuck did this all come from.
There were pallets with camping gear, clothes, materials, cleaning Liquids, and all kinds of stuff, and those were only the stuff he could see.
He shook his head again. Look like it's from every store in the mall. I haven't got time for this right now.
He closed the door and left the tent to go see how they were doing on the groceries.
BOB lift his head as he left the tent, but he waved him back to his poof as he wanted to get up.
"Stay, boy, watch over them."
BOB just grunted as he lay down again. Louie closed the door behind him and went down to the underground storeroom and workshops.
In passing, he noticed that Brandon has set up his blacksmith, but everything was still clean and neat.
Got to give him the blueprints before we leave.
He was surprised to see that they were finished unpacking all their pallets on the shelves, and five were still busy sorting his products by type.
They had condensed the items till there were only seventy-five pallets.
He glanced at the pallets, each one stacked neatly, reaching just over a meter in height, various boxes and bags carefully slotted together, creating a stable cube.
They did a nice job.
He took out his WTF chest and concentrated on a pallet to make sure he got the image of the content down.
He placed the image in his journal before storing the pallet in the chest.
"Is that a spatial chest?" Louie looked up and saw that everybody was watching him, or more, watching the chest.
"Yes. I got it from the vendor in the Starter Town Dungeon."
"Dungeon?"
Well, look like Johan hasn't had time to spread the word yet.
"Yes, the Huguenot tunnel has turned into a Dungeon."
He proceeds to tell them about the Dungeon and Starter Town as he continued inventorying his stock. As he stored the last pallet, they were all giving him astonished looks.
"Thank you all for sorting this stuff. It would have taken me days to do this. Here is something to show my appreciation."
He handed each of them a bag of tricks (BOT) pouch. And a weapon of their choice from the Dungeon stock.
"The pouch is from the Dungeon, it's a 10sq bag of holding."
They nearly fell over themselves as they tried to thank him. He also handed the woman that was the leader of the group and the one that made the lists, a roll of wrapping and shared the report with her as she gave him a list of the stock they had sorted.
"Thank you for sorting all this, I'm truly grateful."
It was just before 05:00 as he crossed the courtyard and walked up the stairs.
He saw Bianca at the fire, starting with breakfast for the troops on guard duty and the teams going out searching for survivors again.
Haha, I think that Johan decided to sleep in this morning.
Louie had just closed his eyes as he sat down on one of the couches when there was a knock against the post.
"Morning, Sir. Sorry to disturb you, but you asked for a wake-up call at six."
Louie stood up and gave a deep bone-cracking stretch.
"Thank you."
He wanted to go wake the sisters up, but they were already awake.
"Morning, Ladies. We will be leaving here today. Around 10:00. So if f I were you, then I would go get something to eat and use the bathrooms before everybody else woke up."
Deidre asked. "Are there baths?"
"Yes, there is a couple of baths. And there is also a glyph that when triggered will clean everything, even your clothes." I will send BOB with you guys. You are quite low in levels, so BOB can take care of you."
They scratched behind BOB's ear as they left the tower.
There was a knock on the wall at the door as Leon stepped into the room.
"I saw the ladies going down. Busy night?" He asked with a big smile.
Louie shook his head. "Yes, but not like you think. You know I don't condone slavery."
"But is it taking advantage if they ask to be with you?"
Louie thought for a moment. "I don't know, but it won't surprise me if the sex slave class forces them to be more compliant. So no. Nothing will happen."
Leon nodded. "What's on the agenda today, except moving back to Starter Town, sir?"
"I got some stuff to take care of, but I want us to leave at 10:00 at the latest. Have everybody run through the bathroom refresh glyphs before we leave. You still got the list of the recruit with the most coins from the march to here? Tell them they can improve on their ranking back to Town."
Louie had packed up the tent and fixed the room with a new bed and table and a couple of couches not forgetting the coffee machine. While they were talking, he had removed the cleaning artefact.
"Stand closer, Leon. Let's get clean before we start this day." Louie triggered the statue.
Louie saw a young man sitting at the foot of the stairs as they went down. "Good morning. Can I help you?"
The young man jumped to his feet.
"Morning, sir, I'm Christian Else. I have talked to my parents, and I would like to go with you when you leave."
Louie looked him up and down. Noticing that he was wearing a tattered robe.
"You were one of the LARPers? Who were you?"
He coughed and turned slightly red. "Merlin, Sir."
Louie smiled. "You know any spells, Merlin?"
The young man groaned. "I unlocked one spell and received an affinity, sir."
Louie laughed. "You don't like to be called Merlin?"
"No, sir, they expect that I should know a lot of magic."
"Ok, fair. What affinity and spell did you unlock?"
"Water and waterjet. But it's very weak Sir, more like a pressure washer."
Louie indicated that he should follow him as they walked to the shooting range and indicate the targets. "Show me."
Christian shrugged and raised his hand. A spray of water shot out at the target twenty meters away. The water covered the targets, but it was more of a strong fire hose trying to put out a fire that was too far away. The water kept flowing for about ten seconds before it cut off.
"It's not a good spell."
Louie disagreed. He was looking at the water.
"What happens to the water?"
Christian gave him a confused look. "Sorry, what?"
Louie indicated the still-wet targets. "The water? What happens after you end the spell? "
He shrugged. "It stays wet till the sun dries it or is absorbed into the ground. Why?"
Loo slapped him on the shoulder. "This is a great spell. You can come with us, on one condition. Start small and use a small target. Did you know that water can cut through steel?"
As they walked away, Louie shouted back at the young man looking at the wet targets.
"We leave at ten. Think outside the box, Christian."
Leon spoke up. "I will go see that the guys get ready to move out. See you later, Sir."
"Later, Leon." He walked over to the kitchen area to grab something to eat.
"Morning, Bianca."
"Morning Louie. Thanks for all the groceries."
He laughed. "Thank that fucker, Paterson."
She hands him a plate filled with beans, mash, and viennas.
"Breakfast out of the tin with instant mash this morning. The frairs are making a smoker/still up in the corner next to the shooting range, so we might have some smoked meat soon. They were talking of getting some bacon."
Louie smiled as he took his first mouthful of beans.
He looked up in surprise.
Damn, this is good. Louie looked around till he spotted the tin from which the beans came.
Bianca saw him pick up the can.
"You noticed it too? It's some strange brand. When I use
Huh? Dwaren canned beans? He used
He shared his report with Bianca.
"It's either a Dwarf or Drow race that makes them, but I would bet for Dwarfs because the report mentions miners."
She shook her head. "But why, I thought Johan said that you got this as loot from that scumbag?" Louie thought for a while.
"I did, but I think that the system just absorbed all the stock that was in the mall when it was demolished and replaced it with something that was the same. Something that was already in the system."
She looked sceptical.
"No, just think about it for a moment. Do you think that the system would send somebody to pack all those stock on pallets and wrap them, then teleport it all here, or just absorb them and create something it already knows? I bet it's easier just to create stuff you already have in the system."
She looked at the cans and the other empty container. "I better tell everybody not to throw the empty cans and stuff away. Since it's system-generated, we might be able to use it, especially the glass containers. Might do some jams and preserves."
Louie smiled at her. "Thinking outside the box, nice."
He saw two of the frairs walk over to where they were building their smoker/still. He remembered hearing them talking about brewing beer and making mampoer.
"What's their story?"
Bianca looked in the direction of the shooting range. "Brother and friends of Christian's girlfriend. They were planning a stall showing brewing in the middle ages."
"Christian wants to leave with me. What about his girlfriend?"
Bianca turned away from the shooting range with a sorrowful expression. "She died the first night at the hospital when we were overrun. That's when Lola unlocked her class. I think that's why he wants to go with you."
Louie felt the anger stir but suppressed it.
Who should I be angry with, Gaea or the politicians who kept on ignoring the warnings?
He directed his anger at the unfairness of it all, all the innocents lost.
"I'm sorry for your loss."
He thought for a moment. "Who is Lola?"
Bianca smiled. "Our daughter, you might have heard us calling her Amelia. When she turned 13, she became a goth and insist that her name is Amelia, it's going on for ten years now, and nearly everybody knows her as Amelia."
Louie nodded and saw Brandon coming out of his room.
"Sorry Bianca, I got to run. Thanks for the meal."
Louie wanted to offer to clean the dishes with the refresh statue but, after a minute, decide against it. The last thing he needed is for the artefact to clean the pots and pans and get rid of the prepared breakfast.
https://www.royalroad.com/profile/211521), for the code for BB's, I'm still struggling with it lol.
Be well.