I show Freja and Micha? to their room before heading to the pawnshop to bring the weapons to the armory. The only items I''ll keep are the American 180 and the Wild West sniper rifle. With the two weapons under one arm and the knight''s helm under the other, I head to my room to put everything away. The rifles find a temporary home in the corner until I can mount them on the wall, and the knight''s helm sits beside the copper kettle. As I look at my new items, I remember I have one other thing. I pull the pocket watch out of my pocket, and something else falls out. I place the watch on the desk and pick up the coin that fell. It takes a moment to recognize it, but once it clicks, I can''t help but feel a bit stupid.
“We forgot about the upgrade token,” I mutter, heading back downstairs to the atrium, where I find Monty still sitting at the base terminal, poring over the massive list of available atrium projects. I glance at the screen. “Found anything good?”
He nods. “A couple of them are good. Like... this one. The machine shop would let us make a large number of items quickly, like machine parts, weapon parts, or armor. But it would need twenty people to operate.”
I nod. “So our problem is personnel. Wait—how did you know we need that many?”
Monty opens the machine shop blueprint. “Each dot represents one person—five per machine shop. We need four of them for the special upgrade, so twenty in total.”
I ask, “What about the other four we looked at earlier?”
“The command center needs one person per spot, so four. The recreation area doesn’t need anyone unless you count cutting the grass. The trading warehouse needs three per spot, meaning twelve people. The guard station only needs two, but I don’t think we get a special upgrade for having four,” Monty explains.
I consider the options. The machine shop requires too many people, but maybe we could upgrade the armory to function similarly once we fix the door and wall lockers. But now it’s between the recreation area, the command center, and the trading warehouse. The guard station isn’t useful enough when there are only two of us.
“Do we really need a recreation area? It’d be nice to have some grass, but we’re getting a hydroponics room soon. We could just put some chairs and tables there to sit at,” I say.
Monty checks the requirements for the three options we’re considering. “The recreation area needs a level-three water filter, but we’re at level one. The command center needs a server room and a level-two generator. The trading warehouse needs a functional elevator.”
I shrug. “Let’s look at the materials tomorrow. I’m exhausted.”
Monty nods and turns off the base terminal. “Yeah, you’re right. I can already hear my bed calling my name.”
“Hear what?” I ask.
“My bed, calling my name. Goodnight,” he says before heading upstairs to his room.
I take one last look at the hydroponics room, noting the screen''s update:
<table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%; background-color: rgba(34, 34, 34, 1); border-color: rgba(34, 255, 34, 1); border-style: solid" border="1">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="width: 98.8582%">Industrial Hydroponics Under Construction
Progress: 3%
Estimated Time: 2 days</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
With that, I follow Monty’s example and head to my room, collapsing into bed.
<hr>
The next morning, I wake up to knocking on my door. I open it to find Freja standing there.
“Good morning. I’m sorry to wake you, but is there another washroom I can use? The ones upstairs seem to be under disassembly.”
I rub the sleep from my eyes and tell her, “Yeah, sorry. The goblins who lived here before trashed the female shower room. You’ll have to use the male one. The last two showers are fine—just use the last one; it still has a door.”
“This used to be a goblin nest?” Freja asks.
I nod. “Yep. It took a long time to clean up all the trash and get it into the recycler.”
“What’s the recycler? I’ve never heard of it before,” she asks.
“I’ll show you after your shower. I need to check on something anyway,” I reply.
Freja heads off to the shower, and I go to Monty’s room, but he''s already gone. I find him in the kitchen, baking proper bread with the yeast we brought back.
“I’m going to see what we need to fix the elevator. Freja is using the shower, so don’t go there right now,” I tell him.
Monty nods. “We’ll need the elevator soon. I doubt the stuff for the atrium upgrade is light.”
I head over to the base terminal and turn it on.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
<table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%; background-color: rgba(34, 34, 34, 1); border-color: rgba(34, 255, 34, 1); border-style: solid" border="1">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="width: 98.8582%">
Base Status
Entry Floor:
<ul>
<li>Loading Area</li>
<li>Elevator (Damaged)</li>
<li>Guard Room (Damaged)</li>
</ul>
Main Floor:
<ul>
<li>Kitchen (Damaged)</li>
<li>Restroom</li>
<li>Lounge (Damaged)</li>
<li>Generator Room</li>
<li>Atrium</li>
<li>Recycler</li>
<li>Room 1 (Empty)</li>
<li>Room 2 (Empty)</li>
<li>Room 3 (Empty)</li>
</ul>
First Floor:
<ul>
<li>Bedroom 1</li>
<li>Bedroom 2 (Empty)</li>
<li>Bedroom 3 (Empty)</li>
<li>Bedroom 4 (Empty)</li>
<li>Bedroom 5</li>
<li>Bedroom 6</li>
<li>Shower Room (Male, Damaged)</li>
<li>Shower Room (Female, Empty)</li>
<li>Officer Quarters 1 (Empty)</li>
<li>Officer Quarters 2</li>
<li>Officer Quarters 3</li>
<li>Officer Quarters 4 (Empty)</li>
<li>Commander''s Quarters</li>
</ul>
Sub-Level:
<ul>
<li>Storage</li>
<li>Armory (Damaged)</li>
<li>Freezer (Damaged)</li>
<li>Fridge (Damaged)</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
I click on the elevator to see what’s needed for the repair:
<table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%; background-color: rgba(34, 34, 34, 1); border-color: rgba(34, 255, 34, 1); border-style: solid" border="1">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="width: 98.8582%">
**Repair Elevator:
<ul>
<li>Clear Door Obstruction (0/1)</li>
<li>Reconnect Engine in Y Configuration (0/1)</li>
<li>Reconnect Buttons (0/3)</li>
<li>Remove Foreign Object (0/1)**</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
Looking at the surprisingly short list, I wonder what “put the engine in Y configuration” means. Not knowing, I go to Monty.
“Monty, what does it mean to put an engine in Y configuration?” I ask.
Monty stops cooking, turns around, and says, “What? How should I know? I don’t mess with electric engines. I tried to figure one out once and got shocked hard enough that I had a hole in my hand. It wasn’t even bleeding, just burned shut.”
After Monty’s great example of why I should turn off the power before working on it, I start by checking the elevator power, but it’s already off. I open the elevator doors on the first floor and climb up the ladder to the stuck elevator. As I reach the bottom part of the elevator, I see something stuck where the elevator doors open. I yank it out but can’t identify it, so I keep climbing upwards until I reach the top of the elevator shaft. I turn on my flashlight and look up at the place where the electrical engine should be. I climb onto the platform and find a large engine... and a very charred corpse.
I look at the thing in my hand—a charred arm—and drop it before wiping my hand on my pants. Taking a closer look at the corpse, I say to myself, “It’s definitely a goblin... or was a goblin. What did it do?”
I notice the severed arm is clutching a small metal strip. I straighten the strip and search for where it might have come from. I find another plate like it connected to two prongs, with one more to the left. I unscrew the nut on the middle and left prongs before placing the straightened-out strip perfectly in place. The goblin had smashed the top of the engine to pieces, so I have to tape the lid back on.
I summon the base screen again to check if the repair worked:
<table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%; background-color: rgba(34, 34, 34, 1); border-color: rgba(34, 255, 34, 1); border-style: solid" border="1">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="width: 98.8582%">
**Repair Elevator:
<ul>
<li>Clear Door Obstruction (1/1)</li>
<li>Reconnect Engine in Y Configuration (1/1)</li>
<li>Reconnect Buttons (0/3)</li>
<li>Remove Foreign Object (0/1)**</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
I guess the “foreign object” is the goblin, so I yell down the elevator shaft, “MONTY!”
After a bit of waiting, I’m about to yell again when Micha? answers, “Hello? Is everything okay?”
“Hey, Micha?, could you do me a favor? Bring a large trashcan to the elevator door on the entry floor,” I ask.
“Okay, I’ll be up in a moment,” Micha? responds.
I begin lowering the charred goblin onto the elevator and wait for Micha?. After a while, I drop down into the elevator and open the doors from the inside. As soon as I step out, Micha? comes up the stairs with the trashcan, out of breath. “It’s good you’re fixing the elevator... that’s too many stairs.”
I chuckle and ask, “Could you hold the trashcan in place while I lower somthing into it?”
He nods, unaware of the situation. I climb back through the hatch onto the elevator roof, first throwing the arm into the trashcan. Micha? asks, “Was that an—”
Before he can finish his sentence, I lower the charred goblin corpse down, saying, “If you were going to say ‘charred goblin corpse,’ you’re right. If not, I wouldn’t blame you. I wasn’t expecting to find this here either.”
Once the corpse is low enough, I drop it into the trashcan, climb down the hatch, and take a moment to catch my breath.