One week later...
Whatever this place is, it is tight as a virgin nun. Security is all around, 24/7 nonstop. I'm talking about patrolling robots with a mean stick, wishing a meatbag would. I'm talking about surveillance cameras at every hallway, corridor and rooms. The entire thing's a secured labyrinth.
I don't blame them, the operation in this place is looks very important. The whole place is an army production site. The whole structure is basically a whole automation of producing these robots, non-stop all day. I'm estimating about a more than a hundred bot per models are produced every day and the with this factory's non-stop work, I'm looking at thousands in a week.
Whoever is making this army, I'm afraid to meet the opposition. You don't causally build this kind of production without a reason. This is simply the prep stage by the looks of it and these models are fodder, expendable bodies for the army.
I haven't meet the elite models yet, if there's one at all.
As for me, I laid dormant on my hiding spot, laing low for the duration. I'm really in a rough spot right now, can't get out or risk destruction to that mean looking Scorpion bot. On the other hand, I'll start rusting by the time I'm wasting in these place.
I need out!
Lucky for me, I can still connect to the system of this place. Just a simple backdoor, allowing me access to the security cameras and nothing more. I feared digging deeper would alert the residence of the place if I did. Whoever they are, they're no humans that's for sure with the lack of meatbags in the factory.
So for an entire week, good lord, I've been mapping out the layout of the entire structure via cameras as my canvas. It wasn't much, with some areas being blindspots or lack of surveillance in certain areas. Not a problem honestly, all I want in this place is to get out.
I'm tempted to dig deep in the place but my safety and the goal takes priority.
Then an opportunity came.
As it turns out, the factory has a docking bay that is constantly used by one ship. Fresh supplies constantly stream in and out of that ship, like metals and ores for the factory to use and some pretty funky looking rocks. The ship is then resupplied with weapons and robots from the factory.
Then came a human.
A raven haired man is the Captain of the ship and cooperating with these robots! How lucky! Looks like I found my out!
They arrived on the factory a few days ago to deliver new cargo of raw materials and I have been mapping and planning the best way to sneak in that ship. That ship will be much useful to me!
Yes, I'm gonna commit grand theft skyship!
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Now in order for this heist to be successful, I need the perfect timing, route and hiding spot.
So here's the plan.
Currently, I'm in the storage unit of the factory, hidden beneath the raw materials and ores going in, the factory resource cache if you will. What I need to do is get to the weapons cache, easier said than done.
To get there, I have to by pass a long corridor into a massive conveyor belt system guarded by a giant robot scorpion. Getting caught is a sentence to the scrap table so I have to sneaky!
A bold plan is needed.
In the factory main system, I need to shut down the entire factory, creating a blackout. It's needed to bypass the cameras. The guards still needed to be dealt with but I have a plan.
Next, I needed the routes of all patrolling robots and find those near my area towards the weapons depot.
Next, I needed the schedule of the next visit of that ship!
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Days later...
My new ride came back to the factory, little scratched up but still ready go. That meant to little time to spare for me waste.
Operation Sneak 101 is a Go!
With one push in the systems, the entire factory went to a halt, blacking out. The production machinery halted midway, robots looking up in question at the sudden power outage. Fortunately, non of them suspect a single thing. In their systems, alert of the El power stones malfunctioning is a normal occurrence that will be fixed by the maintenance team quickly.
Tha was enough time for a ball to sneak.
Rolling behind a massive rotound robot, I masked the rolling sound with the guards rather loud footsteps, thumping on the metal floor. I followed the thing till the next cross-section where another guard is patrolling. I repeated my feat again to this guard and to the next till I rolled in the conveyor belt room.
On the main floor, that mean looking scorpion is guarding the area, six compound eye giving it a 360 degree eyesight, no blindspots.
Except for one.
Opening my flaps, mechanical arms stretched towards the ceiling and grasped the pipelines. Using these pipes, I moved across the room over the lone guard until I found my target.
A hatch straight towards the weapons depot.
With a swing, I flung myself towards the open hole and slid down with a loud thump. I didn't bother, the robots will simply associate the sound to the machinery. Meanwhile, I was just in time as I fell into a cart filled with ammo, cannon shells by the look of it.
I wiggled and squeezed myself in between the haphazard munitions, making sure I don't touch the primers of said ammos, it would be a shame if I blow myself up before I completed my heist.
Now underneath some cover, I simply waited and lo and behold, the power came back on and my eyes with it. Cameras came back online and I used it to follow my current location. I'm still in the weapons depot but it wasn't long before a worker bot pulled the cart into the long winding hallways. I followed the cart through the cameras, not waiting for long till I saw my cart being pushed into the ship and passed to human workers.
The next part will be thrilling then.
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"Are all resupply loaded?"
"Yes, Captain!" A black crow commander saluted to said Captain.
Raven, the captain, huffed but nodded to the man's excellent work. The are the Black Crows, a sky pirate group made of ex-mercenaries and ex-soldiers from all around the continent, mostly from Velder like their captain.
Raven himself is special compared to all of them. He's an experience soldier of the Velder Kingdom only to be framed and executed for a crime he didn't commit due to the nobles of the kingdom, slighted by his rise in the ranks in Velder army. But before his execution, he was saved by his old comrades and fiancee in an attempt to break him out.
They all died in order for him to escape but gravely injured. By then, he was dying in the outskirts of Velder until a Nasod scouting party found him.
What followed soon is his rebirth as the Nasod Kingdom's human weapon. His missing arm was replaced with a Nasod arm. He was then brainwashed to hate humans, relatively easy with his hatred to Velder Kingdom and those who persecuted him. He then founded the Black Crows, a memento to his old comrades and fiancee. Tempted by riches and weapons of the Nasod Kingdom, many flocked into this pirate group.
"Prepare to sail, we'll leaving in a minute!" The man ordered to the crew, they still have plenty of work to do. The Nasod King needs more El shards despite getting the massive El shard he delivered last week. Just shows how much power is needed to build the Nasod army.
Suddenly, a large commotion erupted amongst the engineers.
"Waaagh!"
"What's that?!"
"It's over there!"
"Get it!"
"Is that a Nasod!"
Raven raised an eyebrow at the men scrambling and hopping around, as if something is darting between their legs while cannon shells rolled haphazardly beneath them.
"Oi! Careful with those." He barked at them, causing all of them to freeze. Finally, he got a clear view to what is making the ruckus.
A green ball.
As it tried to roll pass him, he stepped on it, stopping it from it's tracks.
"Why is there a Nasod here? Your no combat model I know." He asks towards the small Nasod. It's larger than the aerial drones in the ship but he doesn't know nor recognize this Nasod model. It's no combat unit for sure though as it helplessly wiggle underneath his foot.
Suddenly, it spoke.
"Haro is just Haro, now let Haro go!" It whined on a robotic voice but there's a tone to it. A hint of fear.
Raven's brow rose up, surprised and somewhat curious. Nasods are not know to speak, only reserved to higher elite models which is very rare and mostly found near the Nasod King's employ. Not to mention, Nasod never exhibits emotions nor copy them.
Yet this model is showing that.
Is it mimicking human emotions or copying it?
"Haro?" Raven scoffed at the name of the model.
"What at the hell are you doing in my ship, stowaway?" The term kinda fits for the tiny Nasod.
"Haro is here to commit a heist, Haro steal ship!" It chirped.
Raven can't help but laugh. He took off his foot and immediately picked up the scrambling ball with his Nasod arm, the clawed hand barely fitting around the ball.
"And how will you do that?" Raven asks with a smirk.
"Glad you asked." The ball chirped again, it's voice laced with mockery.
Suddenly, all the turrets in the ship aimed at every Black Crow mercenary. Everyone immediately raised their weapons up in fear and confusion at the sudden takeover of their ship. Meanwhile, Raven narrowed his eyes at the casual theft of his ship's control.
"Neat trick." He eyed the tiny thing. To think this one would be one of those elite Nasod units, able to command and takeover lesser Nasods and machinery. He had heard of them but never saw one before.
"Why are you here really?" He asks once again, not even glancing at the turrets aiming at him. He is control right now, not the Nasod. Before the bullet can even land on him, he would already crushed or put the thing on the bullets mark.
There's nothing to be afraid of this display.
"...You got balls, you know. Wanna talk?"
Raven blinked at the casual way it talked but nodded.
"Alright, let's talk."
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Meanwhile, Altera Pongo Village...
A certain party have arrived on the underground village of the Pongo's.
"Finally, were here!" Elsword, panted, tired at the climb and the trek he made here. Not easy to do when he has a passenger. On his back, he adjusted a sleeping Aisha.
"So glad we managed to do it." Rena panted close behind him, following their pongo guide.
Their travels wasn't an easy one.
After leaving the rocky terrain of Bethma, they had hires a ship to sail underneath the floating Altera island. Now comes the hard part which is climbing the dang thing! There's no other way to climb the island as it was an isolated ruin of the Nasod Kingdom.
Luckily, Aisha had the idea of firing an arrow with a tied rope to the nearest outcrop of the island's bottom. Rena did the deed for that easily, the hard part is the climb.
It was a very looooooooong climb up. Aisha's body gave up not even halfway, forcing Elsword to carry the girl on his back while Rena followed. After the climbing the rope, they had to manually climb the island's edges barehanded.
That was the hardest part.
Lady luck came to them when they stumbled an opening on the edges, discovering the pongo village in the process.
"Let's rest for now." Elsword said.
"Agreed. Will move our search tomorrow." Rena agreed.
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