I was almost certain I had seen this game before, and most likely had played it. My fingers moved faster and faster with every second, and I issued order after order. I sent my first cheap robot to capture. Made the second as strong as I could, gave it orders, then left the base. I was controlling the strange flying platform again. The robots I had made were off somewhere to the right — the map was a narrow strip dotted with strange buildings, with my base on the far left. Since the robots moved to the right, that must be where the enemy was... What would happen if I lowered the platform onto one of the robots? My hands itched to do it... Would I accidentally crush them? I’d have to risk it... The menu on the right changed and I saw lines I liked — I had direct control over the combat robot now. I was driving it. Now I finally understood how everything worked... Onward, you hunk of metal! We have the enemy in our sights!
Nether Earth didn’t take too long to play, and once I captured a few factories to produce resources, everything went smoothly. I was playing against similar robots, and the dull yellow landscape was soon lit up with the flash of laser beams and atomic bomb explosions. When a nuclear explosion destroyed the final enemy base, the system acknowledged my victory.
Game Challenge Complete.
Outcome: Win.
Reward: 20 sol.
Winstreak: 2/3.
Reward Bonus (GC): 0%
GC Selection Chance Bonus: 0%
Extra Prize Chance: 0%
“We fought well,” I said to myself, stretching and massaging my numb limbs.
The reward was a good one. Twenty sol would go a long way.
Balance: 78 sol.
“You played well.” A woman in a tight vest and tight shorts, with red sneakers on her bare feet, approached the wall ledge. A bag was slung across her chest, with a small bottle of greenish liquid hanging from it, and a short, spiked club rested on her hip. Short hair, brown eyes, left cheek streaked with scars. I only took a quick glance at her face. But her limbs… Her arms and legs drew my attention like a magnet. These were no ordinary limbs, but athletic wonders. Not an ounce of fat. They were solid, lean, with sculpted muscles, and swollen veins snaking under her skin. They were also all different colors — her left arm was bronze, with faded remnants of an old tattoo, and the right one was white. Her legs, at least, matched — both were pitch black.
“Thanks,” I replied, looking at her baseball cap, where the number ‘299’ had been embroidered by hand, along with a familiar yellow flame.
My visitor was from the Solar Flame Brigade. If her appearance was anything to go by, she probably didn’t spend a lot of time cleaning slime off metal blocks. She was a fighter. I couldn’t imagine she always dressed the way she looked now — it reminded me of the way people dress on vacation.
“Are there dead pluxes under those rags?”
“There are.”
“Gray?”
“Three grays. One’s all yellow, and plunar. Why?”
“I’d like to take them off your hands,” she explained simply, not trying to hide her interest. “I had a day off today, so I slept in. When I crawled out of my capsule, the hallways were full of goblins and zombies screaming about some wounded soldiers in hallway 23 sitting next to a bloody mountain of plux corpses.”
“Mountain?” I chuckled, pressing my back into my makeshift chair of dead flesh. “Not quite a mountain. Not even a hill. A little pile, more like.”
“Will you give ‘em to me? I’ll pay, of course.”
“How much do dead pluxes go for these days?” I asked with undisguised interest.
“Depends what you’ll take. Sol? Items?”
“Let’s say sol.”
“Will you show me the pluxes?”
“Take a look.” I turned slightly to pull off the rags. I heard gasps and excited voices, and a few orcs came a little closer, casting greedy eyes at the plux corpses.
“Hmm... Not much...”
“Not much,” I admitted.
“Five for each gray one. Ten for the tangerine.”
“What? Tangerine? You mean the yellow one?”
“Yeah. It’s orange, like a tangerine.”
“It commands just about as well as a tangerine, too,” I nodded.
“What does that have to do with anything?” The woman looked confused. “A fruit commander?”
“I don’t really understand, either.” I confessed, moving so that the pile of dead pluxes was between us. “What about if I want items? Weapons?”
She shook her head. “No weapons. Are you kidding? If you want cheap weapons, you can just buy ‘em yourself at any vending machine. You can get something like a short awl for around five sol. And if you want something more hardcore, well, no one would give you anything good for this pathetic lot. I can give you two plain black t-shirts. They don’t sell black ones at the trade points around here.”
“Three black t-shirts, a little good advice, and your green drink there,” I offered.
“I don’t get it.”
“What’s there not to get?”
“I don’t get what you mean by advice.”
“You look like you’ve been here a while. I’m new, so I’d be glad for a few tips.”
