#battleborn lore

[Archived transcription of audio recorded in Nova’s med-bay, dated 19959.41] GHALT: Huh. That was…surprisingly painless. And you’re saying this injection is going to help my knees? BEATRIX: Almost assuredly. Or what’s LEFT of those pitifully collagenic patellae you generously call “knees”. As your primary-and-only-competent-care physician, I really must recommend we work something mechanical in there. Maybe…tritanium? All you UPR grunts love tritanium! GHALT: Yeah, on the OUTSIDE. Replacing my skeleton? SO not gonna happen. BEATRIX: Your loss. Captain, would you kindly bring the next patient in? OSCAR MIKE: Sup, Cap—hey, where’s the doctor? BEATRIX: You’re looking at her. Have a seat, Mr…Mike. I’m going to need you to remove your combat armor and helmet. OSCAR MIKE: My…what? No way! I’m just here for the free band-aids. BEATRIX: Is he always like this? GHALT: Pretty much. BEATRIX: Oscar, I’m going to ask one more time: pretty please, with sugar on top… OSCAR MIKE: Look, if I wasn’t in MEGA-PEAK CONDITION, could I do THIS? Bam! Totally healthy, no armor removal necessary! BEATRIX: I was hoping it would come to this. OSCAR MIKE: To what? BEATRIX: We don’t have an infracarbon-saw aboard this ship…yet. But I pride myself on innovation in the face of adversity, and I’ve made some…mostly positive findings thus far with this bladed boomerang I borrowed, and an electric toothbrush I’ve recoupled to the med-bay’s primary generator. This should be interesting. Nova, begin recording. NOVA: Hm? Oh, I record pretty much everything, everywhere, all the time. BEATRIX: Now THAT’S creepy. Remind me to check your archives later. Captain, restrain the patient. OSCAR MIKE: Uhhhh…CAPTAIN, PERMISSION TO NOT BE RESTRAINED. Ha! Take THAT, spooky doctor girl! GHALT: Permission denied. OSCAR MIKE: You can do that? GHALT: Yup. Unless you want to lose that chest plate and helmet, soldier. OSCAR MIKE: But…it’s cold! Awww, man! GHALT: And the base layer. BEATRIX: He’s blue? GHALT: Well, sure. What, you’ve never seen a Galahadrim’s skin before? BEATRIX: They lose their pigment on expiry. GHALT: What does—oh. Yeah, he’s blue. OSCAR MIKE: Do you need me to open my mouth and say “ahhh”? BEATRIX: No. In fact, do the opposite. Keep it closed, say nothing. [negligible background noise for 10 seconds] BEATRIX: Incredible…and you’re certain this is one of the RDC’s quick-culture clones? GHALT: Yeah, I’ve got it on pretty good authority. OSCAR MIKE: Don’t tell the others! GHALT: Riiiight. Anyway, why do you ask? BEATRIX: He’s actually remarkably healthy compared to most Galahadrim I’ve examined. I mean, all my specimens were also dead and suffering from a variety of injuries, but even so, almost all of them had evidence of pre-existing conditions stemming from ribosomal degradation. It’s exceedingly rare for the quick-culture process to “take” without a host of issues arising…at least, not without specific care to the specimens throughout the maturation phase. OSCAR MIKE: See? What’d I tell ya! I’m pretty much the greatest. BEATRIX: Captain, why did the UPR select Galahadrim for the program? As opposed to, say, Aplians? Their musculature is significantly further developed. Or the Aviants? Superior mobility, collectivistic instincts, quicker gestation, shorter juvenile period… GHALT: Well, originally, it was going to be an Aplian-based program, but changed to Galahadrim just a few months before the program began for a couple of reasons… OSCAR MIKE: Further developed MY ASS! Captain! Permission to wrestle! GHALT: Denied. OSCAR MIKE: Damn! BEATRIX: Yes, but why, Trevor, WHY did it change? If there’s some Galahadrim-specific physiological component of the cloning process, I need to know, both for my own research and to adequately care for Mr. Mike and Mr. Foxtrot. GHALT: No, no, it’s nothing like that, it’s. Well. Have you ever seen Montana eat? BEATRIX: Oh. Oh my. The caloric intake necessary to feed an army of mountains must be— GHALT: “Expensive as all hell,” was the official line. The Galahadrim— BEATRIX: I’ve seen their digestive tracts before, opened stomachs with corroded rocks and raw meat mixed with standard UPR rations. They’re efficient. I see. And the other reason? GHALT: Hm? BEATRIX: You said “a couple of reasons”, what’s the other reason for Galahadrim clones? GHALT: Oh. Uh. Well, at the time, the UPR was going through an aggressive recruitment campaign, you know, lots of “visit exotic places and blow them up!” kinda posters… BEATRIX: I don’t follow. GHALT: Well, the UPR’s Ministry of Media decided that some blue would…[sigh]…”pop” more. And we didn’t have a big enough population of Helicians, something about “staple variance factors”, I think? BEATRIX: Stable variance factorization. You need a particular threshold of genetic diversity to carry out a mass-cloning operation such that any unforeseen mutations don’t propagate enough generational momentum to impact the population as a whole. GHALT: Uh huh. BEATRIX: So…he’s blue. GHALT: Yup. OSCAR MIKE: And BADASS! And healthy as heck! BEATRIX: Right. Well, I have some archived footage to review. Oscar, I believe we’ve BOTH earned ourselves a piece of candy. GHALT: Candy? [Drawers opening and closing, metal clattering] BEATRIX: Captain, WHERE is the candy? GHALT: Uhhh… BEATRIX: HOW can I be expected to perform my medical duties if I CAN’T PROPERLY INCENTIVIZE MY PATIENTS? Or my SELF? Or my assistant! GHALT: Assistant? BEATRIX: I’m filing a requisition order. Nova! We need candy for the med-bay! https://forums.gearboxsoftware.com/t/battleplan-34-1-12-17/1554032

More Deande lore unlocked! Yaaaay! So now, lore-unlocking-wise, I have ISIC over halfway done, Deande at about halfway, and I have two parts of Rath's and Caldarius's lore unlocked. I'm on a roll, by my standards. :D

So, funny thing. I actually had a bit of Marquis lore unlocked to read. Pair that with the other stuff I've unlocked today? It's been a good day. I mean I have to take a math final tomorrow, but it's still been a good-or at least productive-day. :D

More Rath lore unlocked, bitches! Ugh, reading stuff about his betrayal like: "You've done nothing wrong, my child. That prick had it coming." I also finished two pieces of Mellka's lore as well. And I am not 100% sure if I pronounced her ancestral name correctly the first time or not, but if I did, that's great. Also I want to hug her, like, so much, cause she's been through some shit.

Darkspace Operations, Part 4 Maven piloted the plodding mining rig towards a high ridge overlooking the grand concourse of the hotel, doing her best to tune out Orendi’s clambering about the shoulders of the frame. Every few minutes, Orendi and her enormous hat would hang in front of the cockpit upside down, her collection of pointed teeth flashing as she pulled a face or offered some chaotic koan. “I wear my stars on the inside!” “I’ll carry you now, but first you have to leave.” “Four arms!” Maven would nod politely and offer mild responses, hoping to avoid provoking what passed for conversation with Orendi, which usually involved wanton explosions. “That seems like a good place for them.” “I’ll let you know when I get tired.” “I bet that comes in handy.” Eventually, Orendi simply sat atop the exosuit in palpable, silent frustration. Which was fine with Maven. She was used to not talking for long periods. When at last they reached the top of the hill, Maven lifted the cage of the cockpit and extricated herself from the suit, taking care not to tangle the hose of her breathing mask on any of the instruments. As an afterthought, she reached into the cockpit, fumbled for a switch, and deactivated the rig’s floodlight. Best to conserve power, just in case. She checked the tanks of air at her waist. Supplemented by an auxiliary supply in the suit, they were still nearly full. She slipped off the hyperspectral lens she’d been wearing, necessary to scrape the EM band for vision in Darkspace, and flicked the articulated flashlight that hung from a ring on her vest. Even if it was limited range, she was grateful to be working in the visible spectrum, to feel the air against part of her face again. Navigating by the wide cone of light, she unlatched a storage bin and set to the task of establishing a link with the Rogues’ primary ansible relay. Typically, the automated system took only a few minutes to establish and secure a connection, but the persistent interference from the micro-satellite artificial constellations, or the peculiar signal-diffusing atmosphere, or both, were slowing the link to a crawl. She left the ansible to its calculations and worked on setting up the telemetry station. With an adequate vantage and a clear signal, the equipment allowed for the monitoring of everything from simple ambient temperature to local deformations of spacetime. As she prepared the main console, the flashlight dimmed forebodingly before breathing its luminous last and flickering into death. “Are you kidding me…“ she muttered under her breath. Stupid. Forgot to check batteries, forgot to bring spares. She sighed and stood up to stretch, padding through her pack for the headgear she’d set aside only a moment before, when something caught her eye from the darkness. A glimmer of pale green. She closed her eyes—it might be an afterimage, or a phantom of the sensory deprivation of Darkspace. It went away. She opened her eyes and saw it again. It was impossible to gauge its distance without more reference, but it was there. She held the hype-specs to her eyes and peered through them in the alien, muted tones of artificially converted signal to get a better view. There was a crater perhaps a kilometer away, too miniscule to have been made by an asteroid of appreciable size—it couldn’t have been more than 20 meters in radius. At its center, flaring in the thermal infrared, was…something, embedded in the earth. Not large enough to be a craft. Maven tripped her way back to the rig, flipped the floods back on, lifted the cage and climbed back in, settling the uncomfortable goggles back in place. “Orendi, we gotta move!” Orendi burst out from within the storage compartment and scrambled to hang from the side rail, her hideous laughter battering against Maven’s veneer of calm. Together, they sped along the marbled walkways and ruined steps, the dreamlike clouds of spores cavitating in whorls in their wake. Closer to the crater, the air grew warmer, and every step kicked up lazy plumes of fungal explosions. In the thermal IR of the hyperspectral lens, the glowing anomaly washed out the surroundings beyond recognition. Maven stood above the strange, half-buried object—maybe a foot of which protruded through the dirt in an oblate dome—and spun the manipulator’s hand to excavate the soil around it. As gingerly as could be done with a giant metal arm, she plucked the object up. It looked like a seed, or an egg; definitely organic, in any case. Running along its veined, striated side was a long crack, through which Maven could feel a wash of warmth. It wasn’t triggering the suit’s radiological alarm, but something was definitely off-- “I want to hold the dream thing to DEATH!” Orendi pounced, knocking the pod from the rig’s metal fingertips. “Hey, watch it!” She recoiled immediately after grabbing it. “Owww, the fire dream bit me!” Her hands erupted into black flames as she held the object at arm’s length and slung a barrage of black flame into it with her two free arms. “NOBODY. BITES. ME. BUT. ME!” “Orendi…” Bits of the organic casing were flaking off under her assault. “Orendi!” Maven pounded the pneumatic driver into the ground, startling her partner. “You’ve reached the offices of Orendi and Orendi, how can I assist you?” “We’ve got contacts.” Maven nodded towards the opposite rim of the crater, where a group of skulks were shambling out of a Varelsi portal. She reached into an overhead panel and withdrew a bulky flare gun. The flare streamed into the barren sky before settling into a lazy drift high above. Orendi cackled hysterically under the grim white phosphorus, tossing the pod behind them. Maven turned around and lumbered after it—whatever it was, it had to be important if it got the Varelsi’s attention. “Orendi, I need you to focus, I can draw them off for a bit, but you have to take this and—oh.“ Maven turned back to face the skulks only to find they were gone, seemingly evaporated in the path of whatever strange energy Orendi harnessed and hurled their way. Orendi calmly climbed onto the outside of the cockpit and smiled. “I’ll teach you some time. The trick is knowing how to shoot fire! After that, it’s eeeasyyy.” Behind Orendi, Maven saw a Varelsi portal bloom. The Varelsi poured out everywhere she swept the floodlight, too many to count. “No time. We have to get to the ansible, now!” She opened the comms channel as the Varelsi rained their energy weapons after her. “Shayne! This is Maven, we need immediate reinforcements, repeat, immediate reinforcements! We are en route to the ansible, uploading position.” After a few moments, the radio crackled through the portal interference, “What? No, pause it, I don’t want to miss anything. Hey, Maven, what did you say? I couldn’t hear you over Aurox.” Maven shouted over the rattle of the suit’s thrusters, “We’re being overrun by Varelsi, we need reinforcements!” Panic crept into Shayne's voice, “Hang tight and stay close to Orendi, we’re on our way!” “C’mon, big guy, we’ve gotta run.” Shayne sprinted to a window and dove out to the stones of the entrance below—it was only a couple of stories, and she had Aurox and her energy shield. They hit the ground rolling and Aurox unwrapped himself from around Shayne as she groaned at the sight of the flare in the distance. “Uuugh, we’ve gotta run far!” Gustav’s voice squawked over Shayne’s radio, “Might want to belay that, captain. I am on approach, coming in hot.” The basso rumble of the Exceeder’s engine heralded its arrival as much as its headlights, sliding to a halt neatly at her side. The passenger door opened automatically. A digital woman’s voice invited her, “Welcome, Passenger 2.” Shayne hopped in excitedly. “Full speed ahead!” “Aye aye, captain.” Gustav slammed his foot on the accelerator, sending the car lunging forward like an Aplian whipcat. His personal eyepiece was nearly opaque as it displayed wayfinding routes, predictive steering guidance, energy anomaly alarms, and embedded consoles synced to the Exceeder’s own robust system. “Computer, patch to local ansible node at input coordinates, retrieve ansible contact ‘Reyna Valeria’ from User 1 personal account and call using provided encryption.” Shayne stared in wonder as they raced up the road at breakneck speed. “This thing can do all that?” Gustav laughed, “No, captain, I can do all that, with the right car.” "How's the head?" "Seems it was nothing a little adrenaline couldn't fix." Within a minute, they stopped on a dime in front of Maven and Orendi atop the hill. Reyna's voice was clear over the car’s speakers, “Malediction, Valkyrie here, whatcha got for me?” Shayne leaned inexpertly over Gustav, looking for a microphone, “Valkyrie, this is Malediction actual, we’ve got a big problem, our position is crawling with V, we need immediate reinforcements. Over.” There was a brief moment of radio silence before Reyna replied, “Copy that, Malediction Actual. Sending you reinforcements in a big way, hold position. ETA 5 minutes. Over.” “Acknowledged, over and out.” Shayne looked at Gustav expectantly. “Does it hang up automatically or what?” Reyna laughed on the other line, “Give ‘em hell, kid. Over and out.” https://forums.gearboxsoftware.com/t/darkspace-operations-part-4/1559751

Darkspace Operations, Part 3 In the foul, red dim of the Malediction, Azef labored wordlessly. He hardly needed the emergency light to adjust his ill-fitting armor, inspect his crudely modified weapons, perform the well-rehearsed laying of hands as he deftly passed over each piece of his gear to ensure it was prepared for whatever dark business lay ahead. It took only a minute or two before he was waiting outside, laden with a supplementary energy pack, medkit, deployable phasic barrier, grenade and ammunition bandoliers, and a number of other tools and armaments one might need to occupy a small country. He pulled his flask from his mag pouch and tipped it to his lips. The drink trickled like brittle fire, seeping in coarse rivulets into the cracks of his throat and instilling something like courage into his tired, aging veins. It was piercing, cloying, foul, and raw, unlike anything he’d enjoyed in the lofty halls of Tempest. “Highborn”, he’d called himself once. What use was high birth if he resigned himself to a low death under the heel of the Sustained? He idly synced his weapon sights to the headgear Captain Shayne had handed him, resting his back on the hull of the ship. There was more than one kind of immortality. He took another drink. Gustav joined him, still shivering from whatever strange malady had afflicted him since the crash. “I-I-Iii think the others are setting up the ssssuit.” Azef grunted and shook his head, pocketing the flask. “Aye, to be sure, the one thing we need most on a planet shrouded in whole by primeval darkness is a walking tank as loud as the night is long.” As if in answer, the thrumming of a power cell ignition swept away the silence inside the ship, rocking with a creak of protest. Maven sloshed the exosuit through the shallow water, carrying Shayne and Orendi on a pair of side rails. The rear exhaust ports gleamed fiendishly behind their thermal vents, offering a bit of much-needed mobile light and warmth. Beneath the hyperspectral headgear and rebreathing mask, entombed within the pilot cage of the exosuit, Maven’s voice was steady for the first time: “It looks like the core was damaged in the crash. At the rate I’m losing charge, this thing’s only got about 12 hours. That should be plenty, but the sooner we move out, the better.” Shayne hopped off the side, joined in an instant by Aurox from some unseen vantage. “Good call, Maven. Alright nerds, get moving and give me a comms check, let’s walk and talk.” Their communicators momentarily sparked with a chorus of tests and checks, before lapsing once again into silence. As the edge of the artificial shore grew closer, the lens seemed to dull with haze, bits of poorly resolved interference washing out its field of resolution. At the water’s edge, Shayne held up a closed hand, halting the group as the sea placidly lapped at their heels. “Maven, hit the brights, wouldja? I think something’s up with my hype-specs.” “Roger that, captain.” A satisfying chunk punctuated the activation of merciless beams of shoulder-mounted light. Shayne flipped her headgear up as she spun in a slow circle. Azef curiously skewed his lens off one eye. Motes of dust formed lazy clouds lingering in the air, almost playfully twisting on unseen breezes. Shayne slowly swept an arm through a nearby puff. “What the—“ Azef called out loudly, “Button up!” “I don’t have buttons?” Shayne countered, Gustav’s hands pausing at his collar. Azef paused a moment more in mute confusion before shouting through his filter-weave scarf already covering his mouth and nose, “Spores!” “Oh, sh—“ Shayne’s voice was cut off as she pressed a button on her belt, activating a light bubble of energy around her head. She pressed another button to open up the radio channel, “Usually I’m more worried about the air getting out of the ship.” Shayne looked quickly over her crew: Maven lifted the exosuit’s arm in an exaggerated thumbs up, Orendi laughed from atop Aurox, Azef gave an affirmative nod, and Gustav shrugged. “Goose, you good?” “I don’t uuusually leave the ssshhhip.” He managed through a fit of blinking. “Oh, Mother’s mercy, lad. Here!” Azef pulled an antiquated scrub-filter from his pack and tossed it to Gustav. “That bit goes between your teeth, form a seal and breath through there.” Gustav puzzled for a second as his eyepiece identified the filter and retrieved a user manual from the holonet. He drew a quick breath through it, then hurriedly asked, “If this is in my mouth, how do I talk?” before returning the filter to his mouth. Maven chuckled, “Sparingly. We good, Captain?” Shayne smiled. “We good. I wonder where all this spore junk came from?” Gustav waved his hand in a measured motion, took a short breath, and removed the filter. “Wayfind, L-l-l—”He shook his hand angrily, took another breath, and started again. “Wayfind, Luxverse 25, Regency North, Nnnnn—“. “It’s fine, Goose, it’s just a couple klicks…” He shot Shayne a withering glare. “Wayfind, Luxverse 25, Regency North, North Pavilion.” He placed the scrub filter back in his mouth before trudging onward. The rest of the crew followed in tense silence. Azef walked forward to match pace, lightly rapping Gustav’s chest with his off-hand. “A fine thing, lad, to be knowing one’s heading in such foul pitch.” Gustav stolidly ignored him. “Aye, ‘tis one thing to be in the dark, and another to be lost, but to suffer the both together’s as sure a course for disaster as any I know, and I know more of them than most.” He sighed. “Have you ever heard the story of the dragon and the dwarf?” Gustav turned and raised an eyebrow, then shook his head before facing forward again. “Aye, I thought as much.” “Once, ages upon ages ago, there was a young and curious dwarf. He lived in a peaceful world of simple verdure, where the sun was always warm, the nights cool, and the grasses soft as a cloud. When he was hungry, there was food in the trees and game on the ground. When he was thirsty, there was drink in the streams and rivers. However, as he grew up, he watched the dragons soaring overhead, and he wondered what it was like to fly. He resolved to learn how.” Azef offered Gustav the flask before wetting his lips and continuing with a nod. “Well, as so often happens, he became consumed. Not as usually happens with dragons, with the teeth and all, but more metaphorical-like. He was obsessed with the idea of flying, of the freedom to be found out there, on the other side of the rain and the clouds, to look the stars in the eye. He watched the creatures every chance he could, trying to find where they land, that he might ride one.” Gustav chuckled through his filter. Azef tilted his head in agreement, “Aye, a dwarf on a dragon, who ever imagined such a thing? Now, you could like as not guess what happened next. He saw less and less of the dragons in the sky as they seemed to die out. And the days grew colder, and the nights grew longer, and the dwarf grew afraid. Not for the dragons, but that he might never get his wish, his mad wish to fly. Every now and again, he’d come across one of the beast’s skeletons, the bones always clean of any flesh, though no animal were fool enough to bite a dragon, even a dead one. So it was that he saw his last living dragon on a calm and windless morning, looking for all the world like death on wings, its wasted and ancient shoulders struggling to stay aloft. For three days and three nights, the dwarf tracked it, neither of the two pausing for rest or food. At last, through the trees, the dwarf saw the dragon set down on top of a mountain.” By this point, Orendi, Shayne, and Aurox had gathered close, stepping softly in time with Azef and Gustav to avoid breaking the spell. Maven resigned herself to her heavy footfalls and followed behind. “He rushed to the mountain, passing every manner of beast and flower along the way, each trying to stop him. ‘The way is too far!’ warned the trees, but the dwarf pressed on. ‘The rock is too steep!’ cautioned the scalewolf, but still the dwarf climbed. ‘The peak is all fire, and smoke, and in the burning clouds, I heard a terrible roaring. Please, brother dwarf, for me, don’t go to that place.’ begged the beetle. But the dwarf was more determined than ever." "He reached the mountain top, where the ground yielded up its blood in roiling vents and pools of liquid stone. And the dragon was nowhere to be found. The dwarf was struck with grief. But then, through the gouts of black and the heat-haze, he thought he spied a tail wriggling through a cave set inside the mountaintop. By the time he reached the cave, it had collapsed, and there was nothing left of the dragon but a single scale. The dwarf began to pick through the rock, clearing the collapse, until he was well into the cavern as anything had ever been. No dragon. So what did the dwarf do?” Azef waited expectantly until Orendi curiously crooned, “Did he flyyy?” “No, girl, just the opposite. He dug. In the dark and cold of the stone, he felt the walls for the warmth of the dragon’s passing, and wherever he felt its warmth, he dug, chasing endlessly after a dream of fire. Hand over hand, fist by fist he clawed through the world, for years, a lifetime or more, deeper than anyone had ever known. The time came that the dwarf had bored through so much of the world, had so thoroughly mined it in his quest, that the whole damn thing came apart. Cracked, like a blade run through with rust. And when the fragments of the whole cursed planet drifted apart, the dwarf came to realize the dragon wasn’t there. Who knows what he’d been chasing, whether ‘twas his imagination, or perhaps something else entirely. But all he found was the dark, and the cold, and a world in pieces.” Gustav extended a hand until a flask filled it, took a swig, followed by a breath, then coolly remarked, “There a moral to this story?” “Aye.” He waited impatiently until a second later when Azef thundered him on the back with a roll of laughter that boomed even through the scarf over his mouth. Maven stopped. “Don’t go where you’ve got no business going.” “What’s the hold up, engineer o’ mine?” Maven raised the massive pneumatic driver of an arm to point. “Car.” Sure enough, beneath a weathered statue coated with dust and fungal blooms, a shuttle-car stood quaintly. Its roof had long ago been blown off, and its seats were all tatters and rot, but it had six relatively intact wheels and, presumably, an engine. “Shot—“ “Shotgun!” Shayne shouted over Gustav. He dejectedly clamped his mouth back on his filter and walked to the drivers’ seat. “How about it, navigator? Will she fly?” He turned, unamused, and resumed priming the ignition. The shuttle gave no sign of life as he jammed the green button on the center of the console. He pulled himself out, struggled at the hood for a moment, then waved Maven over. He pointed to the hood, then jerked his thumb upward twice. A moment later, the hood was crumpled and hanging from the exosuit’s hand. Gustav peered into the engine compartment. He grumbled, then kicked the bumper, sending a cloud of spores up blossoming into the air from the thick colony that had overgrown the engine. He made a curt hand gesture drawn across his neck. “Aw, man! I wanted to arrive at the hotel in style.” Maven spoke into her radio, “I doubt we’ll find anything out here that runs. Truth be told, I’m not too happy standing around this stuff myself. Don’t want to find any cultures around my breather gear.” “Yeah, yeah, let’s keep walking.” There was no conversation as they passed the relics of luxury along the way, statues and fountains, cars and artificial trees. At one point, they were startled by the apparition of a woman made of light, but it was just a projected advertisement, triggered by a motion sensor miraculously still functioning. The pavilion was surprisingly clean, save for a single massive wheel of deformed metal embedded in the stairs. Gustav’s eyepiece hummed busily. His breathing quickened as he first grabbed Azef’s sleeve, then patted his arm insistently before running over to the mangled heap. Gustav fell to his knees, his hands falling to the dimpled metal surface almost reverently. Maven was the first to speak, “What you got?” Gustav’s response was unclear through his manic laughter, stifled through the filter. “Gustav, say again? Didn’t catch any of that.” Gustav tore the scrub filter from his mouth and shouted, “Gold!” The rest of the crew shared a brief glance before sprinting to his side. “Gods, is it solid all the way through?” “It must weigh a ton!” “I WANT A SLICE!” “Not now, Orendi. This thing is huuuge! Aurox, see it you can lift it!” “Of course he can’t, you’d need a crane.” “If this is what’s laying on the ground, think of what’s inside!” “ORENDI WANTS TO SHINE!” “How many creds you think it’s worth?” “A fortune to the Consortium, perhaps, what with their circuitry and opulence, but ye’d be hard pressed finding a buyer elsewhere.” “Yeah, be nicer if they decorated in shards.” “Maybe they’ve got a plasmite fountain somewhere!” Their feverish discussion was interrupted by an explosion as Orendi sent a blast of fire skyward. “Hey, Orendi, cool it, alri—ohhh wow…” Shayne’s voice drifted off as she looked up at Orendi’s destruction. REGENCY N RTH was spelled out in similarly lavish fashion on the grand façade over the stairs. A moment later, it read REGENCY N TH as the colossal “R” fell from the eaves and slammed into the ground beside the “O” with a deafening blast of dust and stone. “THAT ONE’S MIIINE!” Shaken from the diversion, Shayne collected herself before addressing the crew. “Right! Okay, so obviously, this place has some awesome stuff for the Rogues. Let’s stick to the mission, get this done quick, and we’ll be back before you know it, living the high life. Aurox and I will check out the inside. Navigator Gustav, you and the Count are gonna need to hit the maintenance access console through the garage, check if any security is still active and deactivate it for me and the big guy. Maven, you and little miss walking apocalypse here are gonna give me a quick perimeter sweep, get to high ground and set up the mobile telemetry station and ansible. I want to be comms ready within the hour. Split up, keep the channels open, and let’s get to work!” Gustav’s eyepiece sifted through diagrams and schematics as his eye flitted back and forth behind the display. He removed the mouthpiece, “Wayfind, Regency North, maintenance and security.” Azef smiled, “Got it in one.” Gustav walked ahead confidently, “Looks like it’s ap-p-proximaaately—“ He cut himself short, “Through the garage.” The gate to the garage was an imposing hulk of segmented metallic sheets slipped down from a coil affixed to the ceiling. In minutes, Azef had set and detonated breaching charges at either end, toppling the whole gate forward into the cavernous structure. Within, there were scores of rusted, mangled vehicles. Gustav shook his head in dismay. “Looks like the fungus found its way inside. Circulation system must have outlasted its filter.” They walked on, Gustav following a trail only he could see, soberly passing the destroyed monuments of patrons past. “Through here.” He tried the door without success, then stepped aside to let Azef do his work. Azef stood rooted. “Hey, operator! Got a door that needs operation!” “Quiet, you damn fool, you’re ruining the moment. Look.” Gustav followed his gaze until his eyes rested on a slick of hovering, jet-black material limned in a soft, yellow light parked about thirty feet from the door. It looked uncomfortably predatorial. “Ssself-contained stasis-wrap and blackshield.” “Aye.” “Whatever’s under th-th-there is probably c-c-c-completely preserved.” “Aye.” “Untouched by any of thiiis devastation for decades.” “Can you open it?” Gustav knelt by the node on the hood of the car as a flood of information filled his HUD. He clicked a button on the side of his lens, shutting it off. “Do you have a medkit?” “What?” “Medkit, I need a defibrillator, something to deliver a strong electric charge! Been a long time since I’ve done this…” Azef tossed his pack to the ground, rifled through it for the kit, gingerly handing the portable defibrillator to Gustav. After a few moments, Gustav jumped back with a yelp of pain as the yellow light dimmed and the black caul dispersed, revealing the hovercar below. “Is that…” “Yeah. The Obsidian Terranautics ‘Phaeton Exceeder’, discontinued after only three months at market when Baron Farrowbank accused a valet driver of making his car look bad by comparison.” They paused in appreciation. “We shouldn’t.” “It p-p-probably doesn’t rrrun anyway.” They paused again. “But we should probably check, just in case.” “We are supposed to retrieve valuable technology.” “And what’s more valuable than this?” Gustav clicked his lens back on and gestured through a series of virtual consoles. He reached his hand to the driver’s door, and it sprang to life. The headlights blazed defiantly, an eager growl murmuring from within. A synthesized woman’s voice softly greeted them: “Welcome back, User One.” https://forums.gearboxsoftware.com/t/battleplan-45-3-30-17/1559041