My spelunking activities went on for several hours and revolved around me exterminating nearly every alien creature I encountered on my path, exploring many of the branching tunnels. After repeated attempts to unearth a worthwhile escape route for the umpteenth time, I once more hit a dead end and had to turn back.
That's another tunnel fully cleared. Time to head on back... Again.
Having fully explored yet another offshoot, I once again began the boring journey of retracing my steps and maneuvering around my path of destruction. Putting one foot in front of the other, I was entirely confident that there wasn't a single entity left still breathing on this route. So, with my safety pretty much assured, I let my strapped machine gun settle against my chest and tended to my sore left shoulder that started to hurt after one of those larva crab worms got the jump on me.
"Man, these hours of running about and clearing out the local wildlife are starting to catch up with me." I complained whilst I rubbed and massaged my shoulder as best I could through my suit of armor.
I continued for a couple moments longer and drew my two machine pistols to let my arms and shoulders rest for a few minutes while I slowly wandered to the main passage. The instant I made it back to the largest of the tunnels, I contemplated my next action and gave it plenty of thought.
I'm pretty tired, so it wouldn't necessarily be that bad of an idea to head on home and get some sleep. Having said that, I've yet to step foot into a single branch on the left side, so maybe I should hit one of those before turning back...
I gave the idea a bit more thought and couldn't stop my adventurous heart from leading me. "Haa, I still got some energy in me, so I'll go for one more."
Deciding to explore one last offshoot, this time a left side branch, I holstered my machine pistols, grabbed my Atlas havoc, and set off once again, still keen on mapping a viable escape route through this increasingly expansive and seemingly endless network of tunnels and cavernous caves and making even more progress. The second I arrived at the first of the left side branches, I took a nice big deep breath, settled my nerves and as soon as I put myself in the right headspace; I stepped foot into this previously unexplored side.
I ventured into the dark mine tunnel that had been dug out by miners in the past and before long; I came upon a large piece of heavy machinery that was abandoned years ago and left here to rust and rot away into nothing. Mildly curious about the piece of equipment, I approached it, gave it a general scan, and moved onto its operator cabin to see if I could pick up something of value. As I began nearing the cracked and broken glass, I felt the hair on the back of my neck raise.
There must be danger close by.
Trusting the senses I'd been cultivating through my many fights here in these network of passages, I began examining my surroundings like a hawk and slowly creeped up to the cabin with my weapon drawn and ready. Right as I got within 3 meters of the cabin and shone my lights on it, an entirely dark green spitter skag lobbed a mouthful of corrosive spit at me and as it was, traveling in my direction it strained its hind leg muscles and leaped following right behind its corrosive vomit.
Already prepared for the dangers that lurked around, I effortlessly sidestepped the projectile attack and once the skag was within my melee range; I took my machine gun and bashed the butt of my stock into the side of its skull. That single action of mine caved its skull in and caused it to fall to the ground with an audible thump.
That was a good try, but it's going to take a lot more than that to take me down.
Unwilling to let others claim my kill nor lose out any amount of exp no matter how small and piddly it may be, I raised my right blood covered foot and ruthlessly stomped down with all of my weight. The moment all 375 of my pounds met and pressed on to its already dented head, a curb stomp reminiscent of Gears Of War occurred right before my very eyes.
I'm not not gonna lie. I always wanted to do that.
I thought to myself, not yet aware that I was becoming increasingly more ruthless the longer I remained down here and racked up more and more kills. Not giving my actions any thought that many would have considered far too extreme, including my previous self, I searched the cabin quickly but only found skag shit and some busted valueless junk.
It's a damn good thing I got this sealed suit of mine. I can only imagine the smell of this thing's nest.
Glad that I didn't have to be subjected to repulsive sensory overload, I continued striding deeper into what I presumed to be the territory of the skags. I hadn't encountered even a single skag in any of the branches on the right side, thus far, so I could only assume this was the skags' zone.
…
On my journey through this tunnel, I quickly found my initial assumption was spot on because I had been fighting skags nearly non stop as I pushed onward and explored further. My slaughter didn't end till half an hour later when I finally put down the last elder skag and stepped into a large cave chamber filled to the brim with skag sized holes all along the walls.
Those must be dens. I wonder if they have anything of value... Well, none of the creatures I've exterminated up to now had anything, at least anything, I could use or take, so probably not.
Keeping my wits about me and staying on my toes as always, I started walking to the nearest skag den to see if I couldn't extract some value from this last venture of mine. I reached the first den entrance moments later and as soon as I shined my lights into it; I saw nothing besides nesting material in the way of dried up moss and cave plants, along with a sizable amount of animal refuse.
Nothing, huh... Let me try the other dens before I call it a day.
Having no luck with the first den, I moved on to the next one and then the next one and then the one after that. However, no matter how many of them I searched, I found nothing of any note.
Damn, this place has nothing but dogshit.
Somewhat aggravated with the situation as a whole, as well my lack of findings, I moved towards the sole remaining den. Right as I reached a few feet away from it, I heard what I could only describe as the sound of a pup. Intrigued, I approached the tunnel and stuck my head in and low and behold; I found a cluster of newborn skag pups.
"Puppies, aye."
Staring at the five pitch black skag pups, I began thinking about what I wanted to do with them. My mind went back and forth between disposing of them to rescuing them and possibly domesticating them.
I know it's going to be a hassle taking these guys with me and attempting to raise them, given my uncertain and not so stable situation, but I'm going to need comrades at some point or another, so why not Pandora's version of dogs? They are a type of dog so if they are anywhere near as loyal as k9s from my original world, then I couldn't ask for a better companion. I also did say it would be pretty cool to have my own skags and since these 5 are pups just barely opening their eyes, this is the perfect opportunity to have them imprint on me.
Not willing to pass up on the perfect opportunity to obtain a bunch of uniquely colored skags, I hunched over, entered their den, and closed in on the pups who were looking at me fearfully. The little rascals let loose a couple of cries and yelps, but I nevertheless scooped them up and backed out of the den. With my cluster of pups in hand, I started taking the route I took to get here.
After backtracking for a number of minutes, I once again popped out onto the main mine tunnel. Cautious as ever, I examined my surroundings and once I was sure I was fine for the moment; I turned my attention to the branches I had already cleared.
If I leave these tunnels, as they are, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the other residents down here move in to claim that unoccupied territory whilst I'm away getting a bit of rest. I don't have any interest in re-clearing routes I've already taken, so let me lay down a few proximity mines before I head to my safe house.
Wanting to return to refuge as soon as humanly possible, I zoomed around the place and set up the entire stock of proximity mines I was lugging around in the previously explored tunnels. Once I was finished doing my work and was about to start walking back, I all of a sudden heard a ton of rumbling coming from the dimly lit darkness of the main mine passage. Aware that the sudden onset of noise could very well spell trouble, I paused in place and focused my senses on the rumbling to see if I couldn't distinguish what it was.
I'm not entirely sure what it is, but it doesn't sound nor look like the tunnel is collapsing, so that's a relief.
Letting loose a sigh of relief, I continued my thoughts.
At any rate, I got a handful of puppies, so I'm not sticking around to find out what trouble is coming my way.
Confident that the mine wasn't coming down and not wanting to stick around with my crying pups who were making more of a racket than when they first saw me approaching, I kept my weapon readied and sped off in the opposite direction. Running at a speedy pace, I made it back to the bulkhead door before whatever was rushing over could make it to my previous location.
The minute I made it inside, I sprinted over to the massive door's control panel and just as I initiated its closing procedures, the proximity mines I had set up at the branches started going off and releasing loud booms. This was then followed by a roar that sounded a hell of a lot like Crawmerax's, although not anywhere near as loud.
It appears my actions didn't go unnoticed after all.
Listening to the loud roars echoing from the tunnel, I got ready in case anything went wrong and swapped to my Big Steel Helix Rocket Launcher. I watched the slowly closing opening as the rotating lights around the door chirped and just as it was about to seal shut; I caught a glimpse of what was causing all that rumbling.
"Holy shit, that's a big motherfucker."
What I saw for a second was a massive crab worm that looked to be around 5 meters in height and god knows how long.
[ Status Changes ]
Level: 12 → 26
Experience Points: +25,005
Total Experience Points Earned: 10,360 → 35,365
Health: 3,603 → 5,284.4
Health Regeneration: 21.015 HP/s → 30.822 HP/s
Stamina: 3,000 → 4,400
Stamina Regeneration: 6.6 SP/s → 8 SP/s
Skill Points: 6 → 20
Badass Tokens: 767 → 2,494
Pistol Proficiency: lvl 1 | Reload Speed +6% - Stability +6% | → lvl 3 | Accuracy +6% - Damage +6% - Reload Speed +6% - Stability +6% |
Machine Gun Proficiency: lvl 14 | Accuracy +14% - Cooling Rate +14% - Damage +14% - Magazine Size +14% - Recoil Reduction +14% - Reload Speed +14% - Stability +14% | → lvl 39 | Accuracy +39% - Cooling Rate +39% - Damage +39% - Magazine Size +39% - Recoil Reduction +39% - Reload Speed +39% - Stability +39% |
[ Loot Acquired ]
Ammunition: 15,284