(Third person POV- Hyperion office)
"Any updates on the vault hunters angel?" the man behind angel asked as he leaned back in his chair.
"They have collected the first piece of the vault key and moved into New Haven for the moment." the angel said with an odd tone.
"I know that tone, there's more you aren't telling me. What is it?" the man asked sternly.
"The anomaly, Alex. He's set up some sort of refinement furnace outside New Haven that has a powerful shield around it, a similar shield is set up around New Haven itself. Through the external scans I ran with the local Claptrap unit the furnace is an entirely unknown design, highly efficient if the amount of scrap being refined by it is any indication." the angel said seriously.
"A refinement furnace? Why would he set up something as pointless as that?" the man asked with a confused look.
"He HAS been rather vocal about his disapproval of the cleanliness of the area. A bigger concern however is that I still haven't been able to understand how my connection to the vault hunters echoes gets cut off when they enter the Eridian artifact he possesses. For all we know the mission has long since been compromised as a result of any discussions that took place within it." the angel said seriously.
"Have they made any moves that run counter to the mission?" the man asked with a frown.
"Not overtly." the angel stated honestly.
"Then for now we won't jump to any conclusions that we can't prove with facts. Still this Alex character is proving hard to predict. Clearly he's no idiot that I can lead by the nose like the others but that begs the question, what is his angle?" the man muttered deep in thought.
(Normal POV)
Tannis looks over the papers eagerly for a good few minutes before looking at me with a sort of reluctant acknowledgment.
"Loathe as I am to admit it your knowledge on the Eridians is clearly superior to my own. Many of the things I have only postulated so far you already have confirmations on. As promised here are my own research notes that I deem of equal value." she said sending a data packet to my echo using her own.
I didn't hesitate to open it up and look it over like a kid in a candy store eager to grab a treat for themselves.
'Hmm? I can see how she came up with many of these theories but some of them are wrong or looking at it from the wrong angle, especially the parts involved with the Eridians manufacturing process. To be fair however if I didn't have the knowledge I do I would never guess that they used atomic and quantum rearrangement as standard practice for their creation process either.' I thought as I scanned the content thirstily.
"You have made some educated guesses that are wrong due to the incomplete information you no doubt used as your basis. But otherwise I'd say your understanding of the Eridians is second only to my own and I'm willing to bet I'm the best in the field." I said with an impressed look.
She sighed in resignation with a face tinged in unwillingness "I assumed as much but hearing it spoken aloud gives it a feeling of finality. Over a decade of research and hard work, only to be relegated to second best. Leaves a foul taste on the tongue." she said.
"But that's the fun part though! Knowing you aren't the best gives even more reason to tighten up the bootstraps and put the nose to the grindstone as it were. While you may never be able to surpass me there's no reason you can't stand as my equal, in this field at least that is." I said with a grin.
"Huh? Never thought I'd be the one getting a pep talk, it's.... nice." she said with a small smile.
"FINALLY HERE!" I heard Brick yell from near the entrance to the dig site making me chuckle.
The group walked over to the little shack Tannis and I were in and immediately complained about how many times they got lost on the way here as they kept taking the wrong turn or getting sidetracked by bandits and spider ants.
"Sounds like you had fun then. Introductions! This is Patricia Tannis." I said pointing at the scientist before moving on "That's Roland, Brick, Lilith, Mordecai and Bloodwing respectively." I continued by pointing at each of my friends in order of identification.
"Good to know. Now I suppose it's time we addressed the Scrollophant in the room. I would like the piece of the vault key you have recovered so I may run some tests on it. I myself used to possess one such piece but now it is in the hands of Crazy Earl along with many of my unmentionables. Do you like bugs by chance?" Tannis said and I had a bad feeling about this.
She continued proving my bad feeling right "Have you met the bearded turtle yet? Crazy Earl? He hides from me in his scrapyard to the south. I have to blow a hole in his junk pile if I ever need to see him. Anyway, he has a piece of the vault key along with most of my underwear. The details of that transaction are unimportant, just get that artifact back!" she said seriously.
"Didn't need to know you traded away your panties, but to summarize part of a trade had this dude get in possession of a piece of the vault key and we need to get it from him." I said and she nodded.
"That is an accurate summarization of what I said yes." she said with a funny look.
"Fantastic, you heard her folks. Back to the garbage we go!" I said with a chuckle as they all grimaced.
I left the key piece with Tannis less out of trust and more because I was curious how much about it she'd be able to uncover now that she had a fraction of my understanding of Eridian tech. Obviously what I had actually gave her was a periphery glance, the tip of the iceberg if you will of my true knowledge. The stuff I knew that could be explained by thorough study of ruins and scattered pieces of tech but not what my Eridian library had dumped into my head. It was honestly a pain in the ass to separate my knowledge like this.-
The fact was Tannis while clearly brilliant and dedicated simply couldn't be trusted. I saw enough of Pandoran living to understand you don't survive alone unless you are ridiculously powerful, paranoid or have backing. Tannis was clearly the third of those options as her dig site was suspiciously untouched by bandits and had no defenses in place at all. One might argue that this was because she was in an isolated area but bandits from what I could tell wouldn't care as the space was easily defensible and basically free to take.-
Regardless of her trustibility as a person I knew I could trust her scientific interest if nothing else and that was enough for now. I didn't leave the others behind this time in my Badger but purposefully kept to a slower speed to lead the way. Reading the map of this area was a bit of a pain so them getting lost was not odd but I'd rather prevent that if I could. It wasn't even that hard to get to the place we needed to go as it was the first fork in the road that wasn't blocked off one way coming from New Haven.-
Unfortunately as I drove near it I saw the amount of scrap and trash grow and as I feared the scrapyard in question was located in the miles of filth that New Haven was built in though further in. The sort of nexus point of the area we had to go through to get to this scrapyard however was fucking infested with bandits. Bandits who I might add weren't happy to see us at all. I charged into the fray without hesitation however as close to thirty bandits attacked all at once. Most were marauders or bruisers who used guns but a good seven or so were Psychos with Buzzaxes, those died first.
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https://www.pa treon.com/user?u=81578854#:~:text=pa treon.com/pa treon_loskro
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Alexander Drake
Lifeforce:204,903
Integrated Traits: [Gun expertise-Uncommon grade]X4, [Clever mind-Rare grade],[Enhanced senses-Epic grade]X2, [Demi-supreme body-Legendary grade], [Supreme armored hide-Epic grade]X2, [Energy projection-Legendary grade], [Superior vitality-Epic grade]X2,[Flame breath-Uncommon grade],[Regeneration-Epic grade]X2, [Disease resistance-Epic grade],[Amphibious lungs-Uncommon grade], [Thermal sensing-Uncommon grade], [Water resistance-Common grade],[Active camouflage-Epic grade], [Eridian engineering expertise-Mythical grade], [Efficient lungs-Rare grade]x2, [Fire resistance-Epic grade]X3, [Elemental body(fire)-Legendary grade], [Shock resistance-Epic grade]X4, [Energetic sustenance(shock)-Epic grade]X2, [Radiation resistance-Epic grade]X3, [Energetic sustenance(radiation)-Epic grade]X2, [Biometallic bones-Epic grade],[Elemental body(shock)-Rare grade]X3,[Quick thinking-Rare grade], [Minor spatial awareness-Epic grade], [Buzzaxe expertise-Uncommon grade], [Siren(Phaselock)(Altered)-Mythical grade], [Pugilist expertise-Uncommon grade], [Adrenal rush-Rare grade], [Mechanical engineering expertise-Rare grade], [Gunsmithing expertise(degrading)-Common grade]X3, [Elemental body(Corrosive)-Rare grade], [Corrosion resistance-Rare grade], [Mechanical Savant-Epic grade],
Stored traits: [Flame projection gland]