Over the course of the next several hours, I worked tirelessly cutting scavenged and repurposed electrical wires to length, stripping their ends, and soldering the exposed copper ends to various contacts across both the wireless transceivers' boards and the many, many rockets I was using as the explosive payload. After going at it like a machine practically nonstop for hours on end, I had finally stockpiled more than enough IEDs to carry out my destructive plan.
These last several hours were monotonous, to say the least, but were nevertheless extremely rewarding. I mean, it was new and interesting when I first started, however after doing the same song and dance for the dozenth time; I was pretty much over it and had sapped as much enjoyment and fun out of the activity as I was going to get from it.
Looking over my work proudly, I stared at the rows upon rows of stacked rocket bundles with random colored wires running out of them to small square-ish wireless transceivers. I eyed them for a couple moments longer when I had a sudden thought occur to me.
Now that I've discontinued my bomb making and have had a chance to think, how am I going to transport and plant all these bombs... Yeah, that's a good fucking question.
...
Well, I suppose I could transport them several at a time with the assistance of a backpack, along with my inventory. But doing so would, one take forever, two increase my level of suspicion potentially, and three pose a danger to myself. I don't particularly feel like carrying around a bunch of explosive munitions on my back that could easily go off after taking fire, so that option is not even on the table.
Since carrying them those ways is out of the question, my only viable option would be to either go look for backpack storage deck upgrades to expand my inventory space, which would be heavily dependent on luck. Or I can skip the desperate looting spree in favor of just simply raising my storage capacity via my most recent badass token gains... Haa, as much as I would love to use them to power myself up further, my current predicament requires I spend them on expanding my digital backpack space.
Having come to the conclusion that that was my only real option I had in front of me, I went ahead and pulled the trigger and dumped as many badass tokens as I could into my backpack space stat.
[ Badass Tokens -480 ]
[ Backpack Space +48 ]
I'm still going to have to make multiple trips back and forth with this current capacity, but at least it's not going to be anywhere near as many as it would've been previously. Nonetheless, I wish I could've stored them as grenades because I could've doubled the amount I could've taken with me in one go, but such is life.
With nearly all of my precious badass tokens spent somewhat unwillingly, I removed all the unnecessary weapons I knew I wouldn't use in my future fight and deposited them with the rest of the weapons I've looted thus far. After freeing a bit more space for further ordnance carrying capacity, I changed focus to the 2 skill points I earned prior to my mass IED manufacturing. Unwilling to just sit on them for no reason, I pulled up the skill tree and found I had a new option available.
[ Brawn Skill Tree ]
| Hard to Kill | (5/5)
+4% Maximum Health and regenerate 0.1% of your Maximum Health per second per level.
| Incite | (5/5)
Taking damage gives +6% Movement Speed and +5% Reload Speed for a few seconds.
| Asbestos | (0/5)
-8% Negative Status Effect Duration per level.
| I'm the Juggernaut | (5/5)
Kill Skill. Killing an enemy gives you a +4% Damage Reduction for a short time.
| Ain't Got Time to Bleed | (5/5)
Whilst in your Gunzerking state, you will regenerate up to 0.8% of your Maximum Health per second per level depending on how low your health is.
| Fistful of Hurt | (1/1)
Throw a heavy punch, dealing massive damage and knockback. This ability has a cooldown of 15 seconds.
| Out of Bubblegum | (0/5)
Gain +7% Fire Rate per level when your shield is depleted.
| Bus That Can't Slow Down | (5/5)
+10% Movement Speed per level while Gunzerking.
| Just Got Real | (0/5)
Gain up to +8% Gun Damage per level depending on how low your health is.
| Sexual Tyrannosaurus | (0/5)
Taking damage gives +0.4% Health Regeneration per level for 5 seconds. This effect does not stack.
| Come At Me Bro | (0/1)
While Gunzerking, you can flip your enemies the bird, instantly healing you to full health, granting a massive damage reduction for a few seconds, and taunting them into attacking you.
Oh, Come At Me Bro is finally unlocked, nice. I definitely can't pass up on that skill.
Collecting that life-saving skill in a heartbeat, I began perusing the other skills to see what I wanted to start filling next. I went through the list and from the limited skills I had to choose from; I decided Asbestos was the one for me simply because of its ability to reduce the duration of negative status effects like dazes, stuns, and elemental damage over time. Out of Bubblegum was a decent option too for increased fire rate, but I personally valued Asbestos effects more hence why I went with it.
Okay, with my skill points spent, it's time I've taken a look at this new class mod I've obtained and expanded my grenade arsenal with grenade mods I quote unquote found.
| Uncommon || Pangolin | Armored Tank Class Mod
Shield Capacity Boost: 750
Shield Recharge Rate Boost: 500
I'm the Juggernaut Skill: +2
I didn't get a chance to look at this mod previously, but this would certainly boost my defensive capabilities by a decent bit. It would've even over leveled my I'm the Juggernaut skill boosting my damage resistance after a kill by another 8% to a total of 28%.
In spite of how great that all sounds, I don't believe it would be worthwhile to trade out my ammo regeneration for it, which I use throughout my battles to sustain my main means of damage. So, it's unfortunate that I won't be able to utilize this piece of gear... Hmm, on second thought, I think I got an idea.
Coming up with an idea on the spot, I went about testing it out by sticking the class mod on my belt and attempting to swap to it via my H.U.D. and walla it worked just like a charm.
"I'm genuinely surprised that worked."
Ecstatic at the fact that my harebrained idea successfully panned out, I swapped back to my Hoarder class mod and kept passively increasing my supply of munitions. From there, I organised my thoughts for a second and brought out my most recent haul of grenade mods, specifically the ones I considered useful, and began transforming a small segment of my grenade shells from their base models to their far more deadly and powerful modded versions.
That should be enough for my upcoming fight. Now I just need to add some additional pouches to my armored suit to carry them all.
Done making 10 corrosive contact grenades, 10 MIRV grenades, and 10 longbow grenades, I doubled up on my suit's grenade capacity. Once I was finished there, I shared another bite with my 5 companions below before beginning to lay out my fallback countermeasures, my incendiary proximity minefield.
…
It took me a while to get it all setup just the way I wanted it, but the minute I had the entire southern zone mined up, I made a quick stop at the mineshaft, picked up literal dozens of improvised explosive devices and stowed them away in my digital backpack.
Finally ready to move onto the next major step in my plan, I moved out under the cover of night and began exploring the expansive Dahl mining facility turned bandit base and planting my boom strategically. Striding through the darkness like a ghost, I flew back and forth from my hideout, planting more, more explosives in and across the densely populated areas of the former mining facility. And after sticking to the shadows for a number of hours, I had at last planted the final IED and was set to move out of the blast zone.
That was the very last one time to move onto setting this place ablaze and annihilating the bandit population.
Prepared to begin my grand finale, I returned to my safe house once more, equipped my heavy full body suit of armor, swapped over to my Tank class mod further boosting my already strong energy shield, and traveled to an empty uninhabited rusted towering structure overlooking nearly the entirety of the bandit compound from the eastside.
Ascending the weathered stairs, they creaked and strained under my immense weight, but nonetheless held strong as I continued to climb the steps. The moment I reached the upmost level, I didn't waste a single second and brought out my alien sniper. I then got into position by the metal railing running along the balcony-like platform I found myself on, prepared to pick off and slaughter any bandits that didn't get consumed by fire and blown to pieces.
There will be no going back after this.
Determined to accomplish my goals and make my mark on this world regardless of the cost of life, I prepared to take my first big step and brought out my detonator.
*Deep breath*
"Here goes nothing." I said, voicing my thoughts aloud before fully depressing the detonator's trigger with an audible click.
As soon as I pressed the red button on the cylindrical detonator, the entire base lit up in blinding light, followed by an earthquake-like rumbling and a booming explosion that broke through my suit's hearing protection as if it was non-existent.
[ Status Changes ]
Skill Points: 2 → 0
Badass Tokens: 480 → 8
Backpack Space: +48
[ New Skills ]
Tier 2: | Asbestos | (1/5)
Tier 6: | Come At Me Bro |
[ Loot Acquired ]
Ammunition: 27,771
______
Usual plug: if you want to read ahead, you can do so on Patreon.