I was startled awake by the crash boom of the new Photon Cannons firing.

  A small trembling form was curled up on my p, seeking comfort from the terrifying noise. I gathered her into my left hand and softly comforted her with my right.

  "Shhh... It's okay, the loud noise will made the bad creatures go away." I sent her thoughts of comfort and safety.

  She seemed to grow more confident, with each repetition of a cannon firing. After only a dozen more volleys, she rexed fully. Now she appeared eager to explore. I kept her in my hand. I had no idea how good her sense of danger was yet. She might poke her nose into something that would bite it off. I wasn't going to let that happen.

  I checked the sky, I saw no signs of the arrival of dawn. The Moon however had shown her face, only partially hidden this night. The moonlight had brightened everything to the point where it wouldn't be difficult to navigate.

  Still holding my little friend, I walked over to the cliff and looked down.

  A huge list of sin Naga appeared, 40 gold coins were already in front of me. Score!

  The list included a Named one. Shyribellesa, Acolyte of Hate. Interesting. Otherwise, the only ones that really mattered right now, were the sorceresses, a siren, a priestess, and a called. Whatever that was. I offered them all up.

  [ Characteristics: Physical 15 / Mental 14 / Social 7 / Mana 4 / Psi Resonance 2 ]

  I ran a quick check of the numbers, that didn't seem right? 2 Mental, 2 Social, 2 Mana. the obvious answer was that the Named Naga was worth two points. Which two I couldn't say. Since she was probably a leader, I was guessing she was the source of the social points?

  Now what to do about the items?

  I called a Probe over.

  "I want you to go up as high as you can."

  The Probe rose to about 5 yards. We continued with some tests.

  On average, the Probes hovered at about 1-3 yards above the ground. 5 yards seemed to be as high as they go. They could cross small gaps without losing height. Dropping down from a greater height than they could hover didn't cause them any trouble.

  I eyeballed the cliff's height. Between 12 yards at it's lowest points and 20 yards at it's highest. In this area anyway.

  I could send Probes down there to gather goods, but they'd have to come back the long way. 15- 20 minutes at their fastest speed.

  Shaking my head, because I could see the still living Naga gathered at the shore just out of the range of the cannons. Gring spitefully up at us.

  Well, I wanted to test my new ability. Let's see if this would work.

  I set my dragonling down, with a firm though of 'Stay!' She seemed to understand.

  I unslung my rifle and took careful aim at one of the Myrmidons. Without optics or even iron sight, it was difficult to say if I would make this shot. I willed the ability to work, and I felt it actually steady my aim. I stroked the trigger.

  The snapping crank rang out, and the Naga's right shoulder disappeared. And the Naga somewhat behind him lost their left... well not hip really but something like it. I'd been aiming center mass, and the distance was about a 110-120 yards. Not bad for an unfamiliar weapon and no sights. Though I'm sure we could eventually do so much better.

  Wait, why couldn't the cannons hit them on the shore. Is it a range issue or a targeting issue. I ordered the nearest cannon to fire out over the water. The ball of blue energy travelled almost a mile out. What the fuck?

  So I ordered the cannon to fire at the Naga. It simply wouldn't. I changed the nature of the order to target the ground and it still wouldn't fire. It seemed it would target living things after a certain distance, or anywhere near them.

  Bloody hell. I groaned in frustration.

  The fucking noble ass Protoss had nerfed themselves. After running through my memories, I thought that was lore consistent. Their tech had been so advanced they were scared of what they would do with it, or something like that. Plus they loved mixing it up in melee.

  I grit my teeth and started pnning around their short sighted ideology.

  All of which meant, I couldn't retrieve anything down there right now. Or rather have the Probes do it. Too risky, and I couldn't afford to lose a single Probe until I had a Nexus. And I'd need all of the Probes still in stasis to accelerate building out this base. Sigh.

  I gathered up my little blue ball of cuteness, and went back to the bunker. I pulled out another fish, and her tail started thrashing furiously and her wings fluttered.

  I decided to see if she could handle eating the whole fish. Most wild things could. And I didn't want to take too much of the wild from her.

  She attacked it with gusto, tearing the scales apart with her cws. Soon the whole fish was gone.

  "You need a name... hmm, I'm no good with names. I kind of lost mine."

  She trilled in response to my voice.

  Ah, maybe that would work.

  "Your name will be Ryll."

  She fluttered her wings and let out a chirp. Ryll crawled up my armor to drape herself across my shoulder, nudging my chin with her head.

  The Naga were behaving for the moment, and my Probes were back to harvesting. The first Pylon was almost fully recharged. We might as well get a little more rest.

  I sat down and closed my eyes.

  I opened my eyes to see dawn had arrived. Golden light and soft shadows covered the pteau. A purring noise sounded by my ear. I shifted my head to look at Ryll. She'd was coiled up on my shoulder, napping.

  I slowly stood up and looked at the first Pylon. Fully Charged. I looked at the Portal, judging by how much of the sigils had lit up it was close to opening.

  "Wake up, little dy." I softly called to Ryll.

  Her eyes slowly opened. She chirped a sleepy greeting.

  I gathered my supplies. What to take? The backpack, sure. The first aid emergency bag. The fish pouch. Though those were likely to go bad soon. I figured out how to strap two of the gauss pistols to my belt. I topped off the ammo to the rifle. My Psibde focusers were still on my wrists. My coin pouch now stuffed with gold. Should I take the tools? No, I'd have the Probes.

  I had the Probes stack some resources next to the Portal. We'd have to make sure we could build at least one Pylon and a Photon Cannon to defend it. Otherwise, we'd hunt for resource on the other side.

  I wonder what we'd find, a different part of Azeroth? Another pnet in the Koprulu Sector? It could literally lead anywhere. I was nervous and so excited. Ryll picked up on my energy and flew around me in circles.

  It didn't take long for the white light of the Portal to appear.

  I turned to one of the Probes, "Go in and test the air, see if the immediate area is clear then return. Take no more than two minutes."

  It beeped affirmative, I think, and zipped through the Portal.

  It was a long two minutes.

  The Probe returned and beeped, twice. Which was the signal for all clear.

  I had each Probe start ferrying resources over.

  At the 7 minute mark they were done with the pile. I grabbed my supplies and went through, Ryll tched once again to my shoulder.

  The transfer was instantaneous with no weird effects.

  The other side of the Portal was a cave. The Portal was the only real source of light. It looked tall enough and wide enough to house a Pylon if only just. I had the Probes start the assembly. The Photon Cannon would be a really tight fit. Good thing we could pass through the shields freely. Otherwise their would be enough room to move around the structures.

  As much as I wanted to rush to the one opening I could see, and start exploring, I forced myself to wait. Making sure we had a secure location to fall back to was vital.

  Once the Pylon was up, and its blue glow took over lighting the cave. I got a message.

  [ You have now powered both sides of The Ancient Zemestian Portal

  New Options are Avaible.

  Open Portal - 20 Minutes per day

  Close Portal

  Lock Portal

  Add side location on current world - One Pylon or equivalent energy source

  Add new world - N/A

  Add new universe - N/A ]

  Who and/or what are Zemestians? Never heard of them.

  And why would we need to Lock the Portal?

  Well at least now I had control of went it opened. That alone might make this trip worth the risk.

  Soon enough the Photon cannon was ready.

  "Times a-wasting, lets check this pce out."

  The tunnel was just big enough for us to get through. several area, looked like colpses had happened not long ago. Thankfully it didn't take too long to exit.

  My jaw dropped, and my eyes bulged.

  We were obviously on another isnd, much smaller than the one we'd just left. That wasn't what threw me for a loop.

  Half a mile away, across ft dingy grey water was a city.

  Not just any city, Night City!

  "Ryll do you know what this means?"

  She chirped at me. Confused.

  "We are on Earth! Sure, maybe it's one of the less pleasant versions of Earth, but Earth none the less. And you know the best part, Ryll?"

  She cocked her head.

  "Those motherfuckers over there speak English. Meaning I can wheel and deal. And the even better part?"

  She kind of huffed at me. Yeah, I was being a bit annoying.

  "I know what this pce is like. If any of those scopmunching lowlife gonks even look at us funny, I won't feel the least bit bad about ftlining them."

  She growled at the city.

  "Yeah, not a great pce. That said please don't wander off while we're here. These people eat anything they can catch. Not that I have room to talk, but yeah, stay close." During the ordeal with the Zombie, edible things became scarce. Alternative were use, and they were... unpleasant.

  Of course, I now faced a critical question. How was I going to get from here to there?

  Well one thing was certain, I wouldn't have to worry about anything being alive in the water. So, I could swim it. Gross but doable. The Probes and Ryll could fly over. Water had just enough surface tension to keep the Probes up, if lower than normal. This water probably more so.

  "The only way out, is through... " I handed everything I was carrying including my armor over to the Probes. My original Lab subject scrubs were looked a little ragged, but I'd be able to get new threads soon enough.

  I stepped out into the water, colder than I thought it would be, given it was probably 85 - 90 degrees out here. I stopped getting used to the slimy feel of the liquid. I almost decided to try riding a Probe again. But I had a feeling that it wouldn't work too well over the water and I'd end up swimming anyway.

  "Meet me on the shore over there. If anyone else comes near you that isn't a cop, zap 'em." I pointed where I was aiming for. The Probes beeped acknowledgement.

  The Probes took off at about 30 miles an hour. Not fair, not fair at all.

  It turns out I could swim pretty damned fast, and in no time I was dripping on another beach. I looked around.

  With all the futuristic looking, but rundown beach houses, this was probably Pacifica. Or Clown Town. We don't talk about Clown Town. We try not to think about Clown Town, though it still haunts our dreams after all these years. If this was Clown Town, I was going to have the Probes figure out how to build nukes. As many as it would take to erase that horror from existence.

  Turns out the Probes already had my answer. Some Haitian looking fellows were smoldering nearby.

  "Oh thank the gods. We're in Pacifica. I can work with that."

  [ You are responsible for the deaths of 1 Voodoo Boys Enforcer, 1 Voodoo Boys Netstalker, 1 Voodoo Boys Hackslinger, do you offer up their corpses? Y/N ]

  "Of course, can't leave any evidence. Hehehe." I was fully aware there would still be plenty of traces for NCPD to find, but no need to make it easier on them. Not that they bothered much with Pacifica.

  [ You have unlocked a new Characteristic: Tech. ]

  [ New factors are in py. ]

  [ Cybernetics are considered part of the corpse. ]

  [ Characteristics: Physical 16 / Mental 14 / Social 7 / Mana 4 / Psi Resonance 2 / Tech 2 ]

  There goes my dreams of being a Scav. "Hahahahaha! No." Though pgue rat motherfuckers, are going to get offered up to my Glorious System.

  The Voodoo Boys' css bels were interesting. I don't remember those from the game. Hackslinger sure sounded nifty though. Hmm.

  I shrugged, long since accepting thing weren't going to match up exactly.

  Walking over to one of the nearby beach houses, I sat on one of the half ruined couches, my 8' tall butt being too rge for the chairs. Ryll fluttered over and returned to my shoulder. I had the Probes bring everything over including the items dropped by the Gangers.

  I don't think my appearance would be too much of a problem. Though the video game never fully touched on it, Biomodding was quite advanced here. I mean really crazy stuff. Thankfully, I had a little experience with the table top RPG, and knew that people did absolutely insane things to themselves here. All in the name of fashion. I guess we'd see just how bad this version of Night City got soon.

  Speaking of which, there should actually be a mirror around here some where. I could finally put a face to my serial number.

  Once I'd dried off. I put my armor back on. I'd no idea how useful it would be against the weapons here, but we'll sort that out ter. Once again geared up. I got ready to face the bullshit of the Dark Future.

  "Hahahaha. They'll never know what hit 'em" Ryll trilled her agreement.

  Matuscarantos