The man himself was standing over the corpse of a bandit with it's sternum spread open as he not so carefully dug out it's organs.

"Why am I not surprised? Hadn't seen you for a minute after that mess with Steele and thought you might have stopped going to New Haven." I said as we walked in.

"Nah, just been getting lots of fresh ones thanks to the little league out the town is all. Gotta get it while the gettins good." he said cheerfully as he tore out the heart from the corpse.

"Right, well speaking of the league they haven't been causing folk any trouble have they?" I asked not willing to take the word of Vater alone just yet.

"Nope! They preach a bit tryin to get folk to join their weird cult but otherwise more helpful than anything else." Zed said with a shrug.

"Out of curiosity what exactly IS their beliefs?" Lil asked while the rest of my friends leaned forward with interest.

"Well i'm no expert or anything but they seem to think Alex here's a god made flesh and that serving him will grant them eternal life and endless power. Might be more to it but that's all I could understand." he said with a shrug.

"The endless power thing is a bit of a stretch but eternal life's not totally impossible." I said genuinely surprised at how reasonable the religion sounded.

"Seriously?" Zed asked in surprise.

"Yeah, all I'd need to do is give them an [agelessness] trait and they'd simply stop aging. At that point they'd only die if something killed them. Definitely not a god yet though." I said honestly.

"So uh, how much would it run a fella to get something like that?" Zed asked awkwardly.

"Not something I plan to sell. " I said seriously.

"Probably for the best." he said a little disappointed but didn't seem to care much beyond that.

After that things went about as normal for us as we headed back to New Haven. My friends took some of the bandit and wildlife extermination quests to pass the time when they weren't relaxing. I myself had started to put out feelers on topographical scans of the planet to try and find a decent base location. My refinement furnaces had rapidly multiplied as now I had twenty of them that all together refined enough trash everyday to make another furnace. -

The sheer difference in appearance of the area around New Haven was staggering to look at. In a full five miles in every direction there wasn't a speck of trash leaving plain dirt on rock instead. The air quality had noticeably improved in that zone. It wasn't all good news though as this now wide open area pissed off the wildlife that lived in the trash as well as the bandits that used it as both cover and housing. There was now a permanent bounty on any and all bandits near New Haven as they regularly tried to assault the town.-

Not that these assaults ever truly succeeded with the many combat bots I had near the town as a result of my furnaces killing without prejudice at the first sign of aggression. Besides this I spent most of my time either crafting various prototypes for weapons or retro fitting the vehicles I had borrowed without the intention of returning from the Crimson fastness that was empty now. Scooter was my partner for this bit as he was beyond happy to work with me on the things.-

The first thing we did though with each and every last one was take them fully apart to remove the brickware in them. Atlas as it turned out had small additions in each of it's weapons and vehicles that could receive a signal and brick the things just that easy. I only discovered this measure thanks to my experiments with the companies weaponry and the pairing parts. It was a dick move if I'm being honest. The corporation had set things up so that if it ever went down no one could use it's products anymore regardless of whether or not that person legally owned said product.-

It was good news for me though as it meant there would be a MASSIVE fucking gap in the market that I could flood with my own products for a fast and clean conversion. The idea behind the brickware may have been malicious but it would only make the conversion of the corporation from Atlas to Drake smoother. Anyways Scooter and I disassembled the armored vehicles from the Crimson fastness and set about redesigning them better than before. For starters we both agreed that the stiffly angular shape had to go or at least be smoothed over.-

We both understood the design was a way to assemble the vehicles armor plating cheaply but it was not a great design for a vehicle meant for patrolling roads and thus needing agility as well as tankiness. Other than that it was most many small cost cutting problems that the vehicles had such as the materials of the parts and the efficiency of them that we dealt with. The overall design of the vehicles were pretty good other than these points. Once we tweaked them bit by bit using my maker thing to create the new parts and redesigned the armor to be lighter and more aerodynamic without ruining it's defensive purpose the new vehicles were complete and they were beautiful.-

Sleek rounded grey metal body like a sort of manta ray with the engines and various technical systems being bleeding edge with a hint of Eridian tech mixed in. The weapons were straight up swapped with my own personal designed weapons creating a beast of an armored vehicle that was not only durable but also agile and deadly. We both agreed to rename this new type of vehicle "Hyenas" for the sheer brutal dominance they would no doubt hold in groups.-

The manufacturing for them would be a bit more pricey than the original vehicles but I was quite satisfied with the cost to functionality ratio here. As for my prototype weapons I had developed exactly seven types so far with two being common quality, one being uncommon, two being rare, one epic and one legendary. The common quality ones were a pistol and shield combo with the effect that shots that hit the shield could trigger the gun to fire faster. A simple effect but one that would be very fucking useful in the middle of a warzone.-

The uncommon quality weapon was actually a special glove that had five monomolecular edged daggers that could be thrown and retrieved using the glove. An unorthodox weapon type but one with a lot of potential in my opinion. The two rare quality weapons were an assault rifle and a sniper. The first had an alternate shooting mode that caused a single "sticky" bullet to be fired and every other normal bullet after that to always hit the location of that first bullet. The sniper had a charge firing mode instead that allowed the user to charge a shot for a higher damage output in exchange for a drastically lowered fire rate.-

The epic item was a submachine gun with an alternate firing mode that shot all of it's bullets out at once like a shotgun, real nasty up close but not great at range. Finally was the legendary that I had to admit I wracked my brain over. See I couldn't make something that needed my direct interference to make or I'd never stop working on making them but it also needed to really pop.

[Name: Dr.007

Level: Legendary

Type: Repeater pistol

Damage type: N/A

Manufacturer: DRAKE

Affix: Shaken, not stirred

On headshot kill fully restore shield charge and gain a temporary increase in firing speed(stacks)]

I'd say I succeeded.

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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: 948,019

Integrated Traits: [Clever mind-Rare grade],[Enhanced senses-Epic grade]X2, [Supreme armored hide-Epic grade]X2, [Energy projection-Legendary grade], [Superior vitality-Epic grade]X3,[Lesser dragon breath-Epic 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, [Biometallic bones-Epic grade], [Quick thinking-Rare grade], [Minor spatial awareness-Epic grade], [Siren(Phaselock)(Altered)-Mythical grade], [Adrenal rush-Rare grade], [Mechanical engineering expertise-Rare grade]X3, [Gunsmithing expertise(degrading)-Common grade]X3, [Mechanical Savant-Epic grade], [Embodiment of destruction(partial)-Mythical grade], [Siren(Phasetrance)-Mythical grade], [Supreme body-Legendary grade]X3, [Martial mastery-Epic grade], [Tinkering instinct-Rare grade]

Stored traits: [Agelessness-Legendary grade], [Beautiful form-Rare grade]X3