Capítulo 540: Casino Royale
"Processing."
"Can't we just blow up the doors to stop the Ghosts from entering?" Veronica asks while getting ready to fight yet another horde.
Afton shakes his head and continues firing, "Not if you want to remain on the Holograms good books... Even as Bodyguards, I doubt firing explosives and causing massive property damage is within our limitations.
"Processing."
Dean himself had started shooting along with the rest of the group, but, the number of Ghosts coming through the doors was getting larger and larger every second that passed. In a couple minutes, they'd be completely overrun.
A stray Ghost stumbles in with a spear in hand and absentmindedly throws it at Dean... The spear flies through the air as everyone follows it with anxious looks on their faces...
*SUUKHH!*
The spear finds its target and hits Dean in the arm, the spear going straight through his bicep and causing him to fall backwards with a strangled yell.
"Confirmed. Targets designated." the hologram guardsman suddenly says just as Dean is injured, holding up it's arms against its head and light begins gathering...
*PEEEEWW!*
A laser blasts out and strikes a Ghost in the chest, instantly disintegrating a large portion of it... This is quickly followed by the other holographic guards in the room who'd joined the fray, all launching a bombardment of lasers at the Ghosts.
If that wasn't enough, turrets pop out of the roof and begin firing a litany of ballistic and energy projectiles at the unfortunate Ghoul, causing any that enter to get instantly annihilated.
Afton holsters his weapon as he sees them and quickly heads to Dean, injecting some Med X into the Ghoul's arm to alleviate the pain slightly. "You alright?"
"URRGH! Of course bloody not!! I've got a great big spear lodged in my arm!" he exclaims while holding his shoulder still, not daring to move his injury.
Afton nods and looks at the spear, scowling at its design... He doubted the Ghosts were smart enough to create something like this... The spearhead was barbed, and parts of the handle were mangled enough that it'd be difficult to pull out, it was as if it were designed to cause as much damage as possible.
Shaking his head, he pulls out his Ultra Chainsaw and quickly cuts the spear up before extracting it. Following that up with a Stimpack to clot the wound and begin the healing process. "Alright, that should be enough." he adds as he's bandaging the wound.
Dean growls, "Damned Holograms. Sinclaire held no expense on everything except their programming. I wonder if I really had to get injured for them to do anything." he spits, obviously still in pain.
Afton pulls him to his feet, "At least they're doing something now though... If you hadn't orchestrated this then the whole Casino would be overrun by now..."
Dean smirks, "Praise me anymore and I might think that you're hitting on me." he says before turning around and heading deeper into the Casino.
"Where are you going!?" Veronica yells after him.
Dean shrugs, "To get a drink." he grouses.
Afton glances at everyone else and shrugs, "We can discuss our plans after we sit down I guess." he says before following Dean.
Dean had already pulled out a barstool and made himself comfortable while he orders his drink... The holographic waitress wasn't actually able to make anything, so instead, a complex set of machines mixed his cocktail for him.
After around ten seconds, a Martini with an olive stuck in it is slid in front of him. "Drinks are on the house Mr Domino." the Hologram states.
Dean just nods and takes a sip, afterwards eating the olive. Afton sits down next to him and takes his helmet off, ordering himself a drink as the rest of the group get comfortable. Though, even now they could still hear the Casino's security systems fighting off the Ghosts.
Dean looks at the waitress and gestures at the group, "Drinks are on me." he shamelessly says, taking advantage of the fact all his expenses were covered under the contract he'd signed two hundred years ago with Sinclaire.
Afton shrugs, "Err, we're in Mexico so, get me some Tequila shots."
"Wine for me, and water for these two." Veronica says, gesturing at Christine and Anja. It probably wouldn't be a good idea to have them drinking. Anja's blood was currently like 50% pain killer, and Christine's throat was still fresh from having been cut apart, scrapped out, and damaged. Drinking alcohol would probably have her silently screaming on the floor in pain.
Afton smiles to himself as his shots come out, a small packet of salt and some lime slices. This brought him a great deal of nostalgia. This was his preferred method of getting shit faced in his previous world, and now having this stuff set out before him had him reminiscing like an old man.
As always, you follow the 'procedure'... Lick salt, drink shot, suck lime. It wasn't exactly pleasant, but the add ons took your mind off of the terrible flavour of the cactus alcohol. Once done he glances at his companions and leans on the bar to address them, but not before blocking Elijah's connection to their collars. "Alright, what's the plan guys? I personally want to find where the Cloud control system is, if it exists... But I doubt that'll be an easy or efficient thing to accomplish." he explains.
Dean glances at them, "I for one want to stop HIM from getting the 'treasure' Sinclaire supposedly hid here. Whatever it is, letting that madman get it doesn't sit right with me."
Veronica and Christine nods, "For all we know, the Cloud control system might be the treasure... I think stopping Elijah should be our top priority. We can work on escaping this place after."
Afton nods, agreeing with them. If Elijah gained control of the Cloud, the first thing he'd do is use the ventilation system to drown the group in it. After that, he'd spread it around the world, threatening all those who don't comply with his terms with annihilation...
REFLEXIONES DE LOS CREADORES 
Niggross
Niggross Hope you bois liked the chap, if I missed anything please let me know. Thanks!
If you like my content or want to read ahead please go to : https://www.patreon.com/N.agross, I'd appreciate it.
Also, thanks to my patrons for their support :
ShinAmazake
Chris Lindsey
Kingsprovince
Michael Jarrett
Nazlican Erdem
Capítulo 541: Just needs a Keye
With that, the group split off to do various things. Dean, left to look around in areas he had exclusive access to due to his status as a singer. Though, Afton was cautious about giving the ghoul too much independence, he'd shown that he was more than willing to 'crack a few eggs' to make an omelette. Still, if he was ever worried about what the ghoul was up to he could always contact him via his collar... If he didn't answer it meant that he'd either betrayed them, gotten knocked unconscious, or been captured by Elijah.
Veronica wanted to stay in the lobby to take care of Anja and Christine, even if the latter wanted to be active in hunting Elijah. In the end she'd actually pulled Afton to the side and almost begged him to persuade Christine to stay behind and not do anything dangerous.
Yeah, that surprised him... Fortunately, he'd ended up stumbling across something that could be useful... Apparently, there was an upper limit on the amount of cash you win in the Casino... Once you hit the limit, you'd be stopped from playing and granted a VIP position, this might allow them to gain access to some of the more secure areas without having to fight through hundreds of Holograms and Auto-Turrets.
With that, he'd left the trio at a Blackjack table as they attempted to reach the VIP status. Afton wasn't sure if they'd manage it, as all of them had pretty terrible luck, but maybe they could overcome it with skill? Veronica could probably count cards? Christine probably could have before her injury... Now however he was unsure if she was even able to count.
Obviously, Anja would be less than useless at this sort of task... The first problem was that she was blind, the second is that she'd never seriously gambled...
That left Afton, who was currently clambering through maintenance tunnels with an annoyed look. He'd crawled down here to see if there was some kind of secret bunker that produced the Cloud, but was thoroughly annoyed when he spotted the thick red mist lingering partway through.
He could see the fans nearby, but none were working, meaning that the ventilation system was malfunctioning, which led to this obstacle. He sighs to himself, first things first is fixing the ventilation then... Though, how he was going to locate it in this monolithic casino was another matter entirely.
Like this, three days pass with almost no progress whatsoever... The Sierra Madre Casino was simply so huge that navigating through it took hours alone, let alone trying to map out and figure out what is where. It wasn't like there was a map of the place lying around, so the group had to do things via trial and error...
During this time Afton had found a few things of interest. Aside from the dorms which the group liberally use to rest in, he'd found a number of security rooms that controlled specific parts of the Casino's Holograms and Turrets. The only bad thing about them was the fact that they weren't the main security hub, meaning anything in the room could be overridden if Elijah found it.
Still, using his newly gained authority over local Holograms, he started investigating the more restricted sections. These places, in particular, seemed to be more damaged and ruined than the rest of the Casino... The reason for this? This was where the VIP rooms were, and these rooms had large balconies that looked over the Sierra Madre mountain range.
Obviously, the Cloud had come in through the doors left open by their former residents, making this place far more dangerous than the rest of the Casino. Walls were chipped, cracked, and fragile, the floor had large holes in it leading to god knows where, and the overall structural stability was suspect.
Afton was very nervous about walking through it while wearing his Power armour. He weighed over half a ton with it on, and he was quite sure the floor was barely rated for that weight even before everything went to shit.
Searching through the rooms, he didn't find much aside from a few malfunctioning Holograms. He had to put them out of commission by destroying their emitters, but other than that it was uneventful... The Cloud had peculiar effects on technology he'd found, while it corroded and destroyed most of it, sometimes it seemed to only target specific components, which didn't really make sense due to what he'd seen of it.
He had found something interesting though... A room affectionately labelled 'Vera Keyes', he'd asked Dean about that name a while ago, but all he'd said was that she was like him, a singer invited by Sinclaire. to perform.
Strangely, once he entered he found a number of seemingly random things... Vera Keyes skeleton was lying in a chair in the corner of the room, still wearing her trademark starlet dress. In the next room he'd found an Auto-Doc?
Afton scans through the prerecorded data that'd been collected two hundred years ago and realises that this was Vera Keyes personal Auto-Doc... It held almost all the information about her body, from her DNA, to her eye colour, to her hip shape.
Vera Keyes, it seems, was terminally ill. And had had this Auto-Doc secreted to her room so nobody would know about it... Judging by the many used dosages of Med X next to her corpse, she was using Chems to stifle the pain.
Quite depressing to say the least... "*Bzztch* Dean, I found your friend, Vera." he states into the radio while waiting for a response.
"Oh? How did you manage that?" the ghoul curiously asks via his collar.
"I located her room and found her dead in the corner... Did you know she was terminally ill?" he abruptly asks, quickly silencing Dean.
Dean stills at this, memories flashing in his mind while dots were quickly connecting... No, he hadn't known that, but it did explain many of her choices in the end... Choices that could've led to the deaths of both of them. Well, that did to one of them.
REFLEXIONES DE LOS CREADORES
Niggross
Niggross
Hope you bois liked the chap, if I missed anything please let me know. Thanks!
Also, thanks to my patrons for their support :
ShinAmazake
Chris Lindsey
Kingsprovince
Michael Jarrett
Nazlican Erdem
Estado de energía semanal
200+ Ranking de
Poder 
8 Piedra de
Poder 
Comentario de párrafo