The Magma Drudge was not just a monster. It was a symptom. A living clog in the Bastion's geothermal artery. According to the fragmented facility schematics, the tap was meant to provide a baseline of thermal and kinetic energy, a supplement to the Leylines. With it active and purified, the Bastion's power regeneration could triple. It could power more turrets, faster production, heavier defenses. It was the key to breaking the siege economy.
But the Drudge was also a Tier-2+ creature, likely tougher than the Behemoths, in an environment that favored it utterly: superheated, confined, and deadly. An assault would be a nightmare. A failed assault would leave the Bastion critically weakened and give the creature a potential path up into the lower levels.
Isaac needed a solution that wasn't a head-on fight. He needed to kill the dragon without entering its lair.
He reviewed the data from S-001's initial scout and the earlier, disastrous scavenging run. The maintenance corridor led to the tap access door. The tap chamber itself was a large, cylindrical vault with the geothermal borehole in the center, surrounded by walkways and control stations now melted into surreal shapes. The Drudge resided in or near the borehole, bathing in the raw heat.
He called up the Manufactorum's chemical and material archives, a sparse list unlocked by various scans and salvaged data. One entry, flagged from the analysis of the volatile crystals, caught his eye: Exothermic Catalytic Agent. When introduced to a high-temperature geothermal environment, it could trigger a violent, cascading chemical reaction—a thermal runaway. In essence, it could make the heat feed upon itself until it either consumed all available fuel or exploded.
It was a weapon of absolute, indiscriminate destruction. It could permanently damage the geothermal tap. It could also collapse the entire Sub-Level. It was the definition of a desperate gamble.
But the siege was a desperate situation.
"System, design a delivery mechanism for a Catalytic Agent payload to the geothermal borehole. Parameters: Must be deployable from the maintenance corridor entrance. Must penetrate the tap chamber and survive initial heat to deposit the agent into the primary heat exchange fluid or the borehole itself."
The system processed, cycling through designs. It rejected simple thrown canisters (would melt), projectile weapons (inaccurate), and drones (would be destroyed by the Drudge). Finally, it settled on a brutally simple concept: The Bore Charge.
A heavy, needle-nosed projectile made of the most heat-resistant alloy he could fabricate, filled with the catalytic agent. It would be fired from a Ram-Spear, a single-use, magnetically accelerated launcher built into the corridor wall itself, using the Bastion's residual power in a massive, draining surge. It was a mining tool turned into a bunker buster.
Design: 'Magma-Bane' Bore Charge. Cost: 8 Advanced Salvage, 15 Essence.
Design: 'Vulcan's Lament' Ram-Spear Launcher (Single-Use). Cost: 12 Salvage (S/M), 10 Essence, 3 Crystals.
The costs were staggering. He would be spending nearly all his remaining high-grade resources on a single shot. A shot that, if it failed, would leave him with nothing.
The Sergeant, standing nearby, processed the data stream. "Commander, the probability of catastrophic failure for the geothermal tap facility is estimated at 68% if the catalytic reaction is successful. The probability of the reaction failing to neutralize the hostiles is 22%. The probability of the hostiles being alerted and ascending to our level before detonation is 10%."
Isaac stared at the percentages. A 68% chance of destroying the very resource he wanted to claim. But a 100% chance of stagnation and eventual defeat if he did nothing.
"We're not trying to claim the tap, Sergeant," he said, his voice quiet. "We're trying to kill the dragon. If we collapse its cave on top of it, that's a victory. We'll worry about digging out the treasure later."
"Understood. The objective is denial and elimination, not acquisition."
"Exactly. Manufactorum, prioritize fabrication of the Bore Charge and the Ram-Spear Launcher. Use all designated resources."
The Manufactorum whirred into its most complex project yet. For hours, it forged the dense, layered alloy of the charge's penetrator tip. It synthesized the unstable catalytic agent in a sealed, heavily shielded compartment. It assembled the heavy electromagnetic coils for the launcher.
While it worked, Isaac and the Sergeant prepared the battlefield. They would have one chance to deploy the launcher in the maintenance corridor before the Drudge was alerted. They needed a distraction.
"We'll use sound and heat," Isaac decided. "S-001 can plant a series of thermal decoys—simple essence-burners—further down the corridor, past the tap door. We activate them remotely. The Drudge should be drawn to the anomalous heat source, buying us a window to move the launcher into position and fire."
It was a flimsy plan. But it was all they had.
Two days later, the components were ready. The Bore Charge was a sinister-looking cylinder, cold to the touch despite the volatile payload within. The Ram-Spear Launcher was a massive, boxy apparatus that had to be carried in pieces by four Militia down the narrow maintenance shaft.
The air in the lower corridor was hotter than ever, vibrating with the Drudge's subterranean rhythm. S-001, cloaked and silent, placed three thermal decoys fifty meters past the warped tap door, fixing them to the walls. The team then assembled the launcher on its tripod, directly facing the tap door from forty meters away. The Bore Charge was loaded into its breech with a heavy clunk. The system linked, charging the capacitors with a rising, hair-raising whine.
"Sergeant, you have command of the firing sequence. I'll trigger the decoys. The moment the Drudge moves past the door toward the decoys, you fire. Do not wait for my signal. Use your judgment."
"Acknowledged. Firing solution is pre-programmed. Awaiting target displacement."
Isaac took a position at the corridor junction, his hand on the remote trigger for the decoys. He nodded to the Sergeant, who stood by the launcher's manual override, a physical trigger for a digital weapon.
"Activating decoys… now."
He pressed the trigger. Down the hall, the three essence-burners flared to life, casting a sudden, intense white light and throwing waves of artificial heat.
For a moment, nothing. Then, from behind the warped metal door, a deep, grinding roar shook the corridor. The door itself glowed cherry-red at its edges. Something massive was moving, attracted by the sudden, rival heat.
The door screeched, buckling outward. A wall of blistering air rushed down the corridor. Then the Magma Drudge emerged. It was a colossal worm of cooled magma and living stone, its maw a circular saw of glowing teeth, its body radiating heat that made the air waver. It sensed the decoys and surged past the launcher's position, its bulk scraping the walls, focused on the offending heat sources.
"Target displaced," the Sergeant stated, its voice calm. Its hand didn't move to the manual trigger. It was letting the automated system track.
The Drudge's mid-section filled the doorway, blocking the borehole from view. The launcher's targeting laser painted a spot just behind its head, on the exposed section of its body that was still in line with the borehole entrance.
The whine of the capacitors reached a piercing peak.
The Sergeant's finger hovered. The Drudge was almost clear.
Then, one of the Drudge's stubby, sensory cilia brushed against the launcher's tripod. Its massive head began to turn, its heat-focused attention shifting to the new, large metal object beside it.
The Sergeant fired.
Not with the button. It slammed the manual, physical trigger.
KRA-KOOOOOM!
The sound was not of an explosion, but of a fundamental rip in the air. A magnetic field of incredible strength discharged in a microsecond. The Bore Charge vanished from the breech, accelerated to hypersonic speed in the confined space.
It struck the Drudge not on the intended spot, but on the leading edge of its turning head, just below its maw. The penetrator tip, designed for rock, punched through the stony hide. The charge burrowed deep into the creature's body.
For a horrible second, nothing. The Drudge recoiled, shrieking in pain and fury, its maw turning toward the launcher to vomit molten rock.
Then, the catalyst met the Drudge's internal, magmatic heat.
The creature imploded. Not with fire, but with a violent inversion of energy. Its body turned black, then crystalline, then shattered from the inside out in a shower of superheated, glassy shrapnel. The shockwave blew the tap door off its hinges and roared down the corridor toward the borehole.
Isaac ducked behind the junction as a wave of concussive heat and debris washed over them. The sound was a deep, subterranean thunder that seemed to last forever.
When it faded, an eerie silence fell, broken only by the drip of molten stone and the creak of tortured metal. The corridor was filled with acrid smoke and the smell of ozone and burned earth.
The Sergeant emerged from behind the launcher's smoking ruin. "Primary target eliminated. Seismic activity suggests significant collapse in the geothermal tap chamber."
Isaac approached the blasted doorway. Where the tap chamber had been, there was now a collapsed pit, filled with rubble and slowly cooling, blackened stone. The geothermal energy signature was gone, replaced by a dull, fading heat. He had killed the dragon. And buried its treasure under a mountain of its own corpse.
Major Hostile Eliminated: Magma Drudge (Tier-2+). Essence Acquired: +90 Units.
Facility: Geothermal Tap – Status: Destroyed/Collapsed.
He felt no triumph. Only a hollow, necessary relief. He had spent his best resources to annihilate a potential asset. But he had also removed a lethal threat from within his walls. The Bastion was secure, from the inside at least.
He looked at the Sergeant, its synthetic face placid in the settling dust. "Well judged, Sergeant."
"The firing solution was compromised. Manual intervention was required. The objective was achieved."
Isaac nodded. He had a dragon-slayer. And a sealed, smoldering tomb beneath his feet. The siege continued, but the enemy within was dead. Now there was only the enemy at the gate, and the vast, pulsing Convergence beyond.
He had cleared the board for the final, external struggle. And he was almost out of pieces.