'Alright so there's only one land which sucks but at least I got another talisman. That's two mana guaranteed every day.' I think as I look over my newest acquisitions.
I had two things I could directly summon right now but one of them was basically redundant while the other would serve no real purpose besides giving me another creature, not even a strong one. My summoned talisman had like I thought "untapped" at the start of the day so if I included my island that was a total of two mana. If I wanted to experiment with the effects of mana ramp though I needed either a forest or to waste my two mana on Mycosynth wellspring.-
I knew thanks to this that I'd need at least another day, maybe two, to really get going. It would probably be even longer if I didn't get lucky and pull two Pristine talismans in back to back packs. Once I got that second talisman that would leave me with two mana everyday plus whatever I got from my packs. For now though I contented myself to wait. Or I was going to until the system chimed up.
{Emergency quest generated!}
{Quest: Caravan conundrum
Description: Theres a caravan under attack by vicious scorpions nearby! Be a pal and help out or let the darkness flow through you and wait for them to perish so you get all their goods!
Objectives: Rescue the caravan(optional), Let them die(optional)
Extra Condition: countdown before second choice automatically accepted (15:52)
Rewards: New set unlock(rescue route chosen) OR 1X Pack opening token(Let die route chosen).}
'How is this a fucking choice!? I'm being morally blackmailed!' I cursed the system as I grabbed my gun and made sure it's magazine was full before hitting the button to the garage.
"Skirge! Find the caravan being attacked and let me know where it is! Double time!" I ordered and the not so small bug lifted off the roof where it was resting and shot high into the sky like a blur.
"Mount up and ready yourself!" I ordered my soldier guy who snapped into action without a second of delay.
While I waited for the bug to tell me where the caravan was I backed my bike out of the garage and closed the door back up and waited anxiously.
Soon enough the bug appeared in front of me with that ominous hum of it's and raised a clawed limb to point in a direction, the same one I came from when I first showed up in this world.
"Both of you follow me!" I ordered before twisting the accelerator on the bike hard.
The bike revved and shot forward like a beast eager to escape a cage. Dust was kicked up as I leaned forward to reduce drag as I raced towards the direction of the caravan hoping I didn't arrive late. My summons chased me in their own ways with the thundering of hooves from the horse running being quite loud. -
I rode the bike hard and it strained from not being designed for such speeds off road. I heard the caravan before I spotted it. Gunfire echoed through the air letting me know the caravan was still kicking about and putting up a fight. As the earth curved and the dark shapes of the caravan came into view I sucked in a breath. I understood at a single glance why the system issued the quest and it wasn't because it was giving me an easy pay day.-
There were dozens of the same kind of scorpions I killed before swarming what appeared to be a single two headed hairless cow with supplies strapped to it. There were also two people with guns firing in a panic at the scorpions and only barely keeping them back. Seeing what I did I made a snap decision to summon my collection before taking out the mutagenic growth card. I held it in one hand as I steadied the bike and paid the two life targeting my Vault Skirge. The card burned as my payment went through and a green orb shot into the black bug. -
If it was ugly before now it was downright terrifying. That extra two two caused it's body to swell to the size of a person and spikes to grow from it's back while it's two front limbs turned into scythes of different sizes with jagged serrated edges.
"Kill the scorpions!" I commanded and the monstrous creature seemed to vanish as it shot forward eagerly.
I braked the bike to slow down as I approached and my soldier guy kept going to kill the scorpions since my order applied to it too. As my bug arrived the two people looked like they wanted to shoot it but thankfully held off when they noticed it only targeting the scorpions. I rolled up and yelled to them.
"Be not afraid! You are being rescued!"
I don't think they got it given one of them cursed at me. Something about not being afraid being insane. I ignored that though and parked the bike before drawing my gun and carefully aiming at the giant scorpions and letting my lead fury fly. I missed most shots but thankfully there were a lot of the buggers so you couldn't tell.-
My soldier guy was skewering the things rapidly like a kebob of death before swinging his spear to toss the corpses off and repeating the process. My bug on the other hand was on straight demon time as it blended the scorpions up as it blurred through the air like black death. The dozens of scorpions were no match for our glorious power and soon fell to pieces(literally).
"Rescue complete!" I said pumped from the adrenaline of a real fight.
I ignored the squishing and crunching sound as I rode my bike over to the caravan. Up close I saw that the people were a scraggly looking dust covered asian man who seemed on the older side wearing rough leather clothes and holding a blocky worn silver gun, the same sort of ten millimeter as what I have. The other person was a young asian woman with similar features to the man but easily half the age. She had on a brown dusty hood and was holding another ten millimeter pistol.-
"We are real thankful for the save and all, but is that THING safe to be around?" the man asked nervously as he eyed the Skirge that was mindlessly cleaning the gore off it's scythe limbs.
"Oh yeah perfectly safe so long as nobody does something stupid and attacks it. If it helps I can send it away for now?" I offered casually.
"If you say it's safe we'll take your word for it. But uh, maybe lets keep it at a distance." the man said slightly more at ease but still nervous.
"That's fine. Why are you two here though? This place clearly isn't a well traveled route, there'd be more signs of it otherwise." I asked curiously.
"We hoped to open a new caravan route, one not controlled by the legion or NCR. We figured going around them using this road might work, didn't know it was infested with these things." he said with a tired sigh.