Chapter 174: Chapter 169

The breach in Site Alpha wasn’t too much of a big deal, all things considered. Sure Madison almost died, but I guess that balances out the lack of precautions she and NOD overall took. Being too used to studying corpses and artifacts revealed the (in hindsight) obvious flaws in their standard operations.

 

Granted, conventional Nexus kit was supposed to be highly resilient to eldritch stuff, including the fucking air conditioning that was supposed to cycle and clean out potential metaphysical pollution in the air. But it once again shows that we can’t fully prepare for what we have no clue about.

 

Seriously, how the hell did the sentient clouds of eldritch gas go through the Tiberium mesh filters?

 

On the bright side, the eyebots tracked the moving farts across the wasteland, and like a good cliche they headed straight to a pre-war mine. A quick check with local maps provided the name: Lucky Hole Mine.

 

Because of course it was.

 

The place was still freshly conquered, so 1st Company hadn’t had the time to investigate it yet, especially with its lower metanatural yield which automatically knocked it down a few pegs in the priority list.

 

Interestingly, after the gas clouds disappeared down the mine, the energy readings barely increased in the region. The process of assimilation or dispersal or whatever seemed highly inefficient, as only a fraction of the total amount of metaphysical stuff the clouds carried remained after they went down the Lucky Hole Mine.

 

Curious, but considering we’re dealing with metanatural bullshit, it shouldn’t be too surprising. I’ll have to investigate the place soon, right after we’ve confirmed that the other mothmen graveyards were secured. Sites Theta and Omega were going on a tighter lockdown, and the new Tiberium alloys were being used to restrain the specimens. Hopefully the diluted concentrations wouldn’t overly affect the mothmen as the NOD labcoats got to work.

 

I personally oversaw the new security measures in Site Theta. The robots swapped out the tent’s heavy cloth for a metal-clad structure instead, and the air filtration/conditioning was moved to the entrance’s buffer room. It made the work site a bit stuffy, but that’s the price for security. Also, I switched out the Mr Brainy robots for Sentinels, with a quartet of Strigois guarding the place for more thorough protection.

 

As satisfied as I was with the setup, a console look at the corpses replaced the little pride with confusion.

 

Nevermind that these mothmen were all identical ID wise, they registered under ‘Wasteland.Creatures’ instead of the expected ‘Horrors’ like the Jessup-Allande Anomaly or the Faceless, or at least ‘Corrupted’ like the deranged Atom cultists. No, these things counted like Deathclaws and mirelurks. 

 

With the NOD researchers wisely keeping quiet and out of my way, I peered through the mothmen’s lines for better clues.

 

De nada.

 

They’re as natural as ghouls, ratkin and centaurs, with not a whiff of eldritch on the-

 

‘RootMan.Tether=True’

‘Tether.Str=100’

‘TetherFeed=0.2’

‘MothStage=2’

‘MothExp=5031’

 

I take that back. There were enough suspicious lines in them, but that still didn’t answer why they didn’t react badly to Tiberium.

 

“Assistant Trevor?”

 

The former Enclave lieutenant, now a highly skilled (but still uncertified) occultist snapped to attention. “Yes sir?”

 

“Evacuate the worksite, please. I’m going to try what Dr Li did.”

 

There was no hesitation in her as she turned around to hurry everyone out of the site.

 

“Cabal? Seal the site, air filtration included.”

 

With just me and the robots left inside, I double-checked my own stats before I spawned a Tiberium blade and ordered a Sentinel to stab into one of the bodies. The brown gas that came up as the body deflated noisily was not as horrible as I had imagined. Also, it wasn’t a cloud of gas, but a cloud of spores. At least the console said so. 

 

‘Creature.ID=MothSpores’

 

See? Also also, they weren’t eldritch at all. Utterly mundane.

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The sheath of barely tangible energy that wrapped around them to clump them up like a cloud? That was eldritch.

 

Screw the bullshit of metaphysics.

 

The other mothmen awoke as expected, but the Sentinels immediately pinned them to the ground before they could so much as stretch their limbs. Their awakened, agitated state made them more obviously eldritch, with new lines popping up to create their stabby mouthpieces and glowing eyes. That they could literally appear when they awoke…interesting and disturbing connotations, that. They tried shrieking, but the otherworldly sonic attack did diddly squat to me and the bots.

 

Anyway, I took the time to study the struggling mothmen for a moment before returning my attention to the spore cloud slowly floating towards the sole exit.

 

“Cabal, air seal integrity?”

 

“Due to semi-porous foundation, air seal is approximately ninety-five percent effective.”

 

So…the thing dragging the spores out is affected by airflow or something?

 

“Reactivate air filtration.”

 

With the faint humming of the air conditioning starting up, the spores immediately began speeding up. Ordering an immediate shutdown saw the cloud jerk forwards from inertia before slowing to a near stop. Huh. New theories to work with. But for now, I spawned two hollow Tiberium hemispheres and captured the sporecloud in them. The moment the seal was made, the eldritch sheath around them dissipated, and the spores fell onto their enclosure.

 

With that out of the way, I then looked to the mothmen, and gave a few quick checks on their console. I couldn’t change their stats, and the slightest damage (a literal scratch on one with a Sentinel’s claw) caused them to begin spewing spores. I groaned with annoyance. We’ll need special containment for these fuckers.

 

“Cabal. Construction of a hermetic lab in Tleilax, and let me know when it’s done.”

 

While I awaited the specialized testing area, I had the Sentinels keep the remaining mothmen from moving too much, and captured the rest of the spores with Tiberium spheres. Of course, the moment the spheres were unsealed, the spores became wreathed in the ‘Tether’ energy again.

 

Fucking annoying.

 

I headed outside and got the NOD occultists to reassign themselves to other tasks. Site Theta was effectively offline. A had Cabal relay my findings to Madison, along with the recordings of what had happened, and then it was straight to the Lucky Hole Mine for me.

 

Two dozen of 1st Company joined me in the flight to the mine, with the rest of the company converging to the location after mopping up their current objectives.

 

The mine’s exterior was nothing more than a rusted ruin. We had to pry it all off to gain access to the mine, which didn’t take more than a few seconds with how many eager power-armored soldiers I had.

 

“Metanatural energies are faint, Sev,” Edward reported as we slowly moved underground. Under our feet the bare earth felt a bit loose, rotting wood snapped and creaked, and rusted metal cracked. The air had a weird woody tang in it, and judging from the rust and wood sticking out it seemed that a good portion of the mine had caved in. Based on our sensors, the dirt walls around us were bathed in the eldritch.

 

The troopers had blades and pistols out considering the close confines, and as we slowly mapped out the place, it seemed that there weren’t any encounters to be had.

 

“Uh, Sev, that looks weird to you?”

 

Until Sylvie pointed to a collection of overgrown roots that seemed to conveniently form a wall. Of course, I had to give it a look. I had the troopers back up a bit as I tossed my own Tiberium blade at it.

 

Familiar shrieks echoed all throughout the mines. The dirt walls collapsed as things burst through them, and we found ourselves surrounded by man-sized moths with glowing eyes. They created a maelstrom of wings and legs around us, their sonic barrages completely unaffecting anyone.

 

“We’re surrounded,” Sylvie said as she and the others formed a defensive circle.

 

“Then it’d be disappointing if we miss,” Edward replied drily.

 

I reached out experimentally to grab a moth and gave the struggling thing a look. It was heavily laced with metaphysical bullshit, unsurprisingly. I spawned and sprayed some aerosolized Tiberium powder in its face, and the fuzzy thing screeched before going dead limp, the green powder eating away at its face as if it was acid.

 

“Right, see if you can get a few specimens,” I ordered calmly. “Otherwise, 1st Company… Dalek.”

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