Capítulo 248: Sporiously?
After clearing a path to the staircase they wasted no time in walking down it, at the bottom they were greeted by a door that was slightly open... Thick roots stopped it from closing and looked as if they were trying to escape the floor and move upwards...
From the gap in the door Afton could also see small amounts of spores escaping into the staircase... No doubt he'd be swimming in it as soon as he opened this door. Readying his weapon and taking one last glance to Anja he smacks a fist on the control panel, causing the door to rattle and slowly lift out of their path.
Unfortunately, Afton hadn't spotted new movement from a source he hadn't expected in time. A root snaps around his leg like some sort of wooden rope, he shot a couple times at it as the limb tightened its grip.
*Slam!*
Afton gives a yelp as he's forcefully wrenched over and dragged into the room covered in a thick fog of spores. He stifles the oncoming coughing fit and continues to fire at the wooden limb, slowly blowing chunks out of its surprisingly strong flesh.
It still hadn't let go and he was on his last bullet, he couldn't see anything around him due to the thick fog, but he'd managed to recover from the surprise enough to activate VATS.
Time stops and Afton scowls at the fact he'd not immediately used this ability to figure out what was happening... Though, he could attribute his negligence to his head slamming against the metal floor of the Vault.
He takes a glance around himself and isn't able to see anything through the fog of spores... Fortunately, he doesn't have to be able to see as long as he has VATS. He activates the targeting function and his eyes immediately lock on to a glowing silhouette through the fog...
What he saw wasn't a Spore Carrier, but some kind of Venus fly-trap looking thing. Its body consists of a stem and a large head filled to the brim with teeth... Afton's initial assumption that the fungus could only reanimate human bodies was instantly blown away.
Frowning, he locks onto the root wrapping his leg and raises a brow when he sees the name of the enemy attacking him... Spore Carrier? Was this root connected to one of those plant zombies? He had thought it was another creature entirely...
His eyes travel across the glowing limb that led into the distance, eventually spotting the relatively large silhouette through the fog. From what he could see, it looked like a Spore Carrier, the only exceptions being its larger size and root-like arm...
Shaking his head, he checks everything else around him before making a gameplan. Once done he deactivates VATS and instantly presses the barrel of his gun to the root, shooting one last time and finally freeing himself.
He holsters That Gun and draws lucky, firing at the Spore Plant that looked as if it was going to spit something at him.
*Pang!*
He barely moves out of the way of the projectile that had indeed just been spat at him. It was incredibly difficult to shoot through the fog accurately, so instead, he threw himself backwards, accidentally colliding with something.
"OOFF!" a raspy, feminine voice exclaims.
Afton quickly recognises this as Anja, his companion having likely rushed into the fog to assist him. He grabs her wrist and drags her back towards the staircase they'd originally come down. Once there he slams his fist on the door control, causing it to slam shut, cutting through the root that had previously been keeping it open.
Finding himself in a relatively safe spot, Afton allows himself to finally start coughing, "*Cough! Cough!* T-those fucking plants have mutated down there! *Cough! Cough!*"
Anja herself still looks somewhat shaken from seeing him just get dragged into the fog without being able to do anything. She begins to apologise but Afton just shakes his head at her, not being able to rebuff her as he's unable to talk while coughing his lungs out.
After a while he finally sits back against the steps and sighs, "You ready to go back in there?" he asks, receiving a scathing look from his companion. He gives a weak chuckle and shrugs, "Unless you got any better ideas?"
...
"Yeah, I didn't think so... Hm, actually." he mutters to himself, reaching to his back, pulling his out Anti-Material rifle and shoving it into her hands. Anja is barely able to hold it up with all her strength, and gives him a confused look.
Afton doesn't stop there and holds out a handful of incendiary .50 calibre bullets. "I may not be able to use it anymore, but that doesn't mean you can't."
"S-sir, I can barely lift this..."
"Then place it on the floor and use its bipod to aim." he states in a manner questioning her intelligence.
Anja nods and places the weapon on the floor, there's just enough room for her to lay down and aim comfortably. He quickly goes through the way to operate the weapon, explaining on to reload, cock, and unjam it if needed.
"And remember, prepare yourself for the kick... Trust me, it's probably going to hurt." he says ominously.
With that he reloads his weapons and opens the door again, activating VATS to see where the enemies are. Once he's located them he points in their direction, all the while firing at the new whip-like root that tries to slam against Anja and the Anti-Material rifle... If he didn't know any better he'd say that it was intelligently targeting the biggest threats.
"Fire there!" Afton shouts, gesturing at the direction with his pistol after fighting off the root.
*BAANG!*
The Anti-Material rifle explodes and fires a bullet in the vague direction he was pointing. Once it hits a wave of heat washes over the duo as the incendiary round burns through a large portion of the airborne spores, not to mention utterly destroying the Spore Plant that'd luckily been hit.
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Capítulo 249: 'Rooting' out the problem...
After the incendiary round exploded the thick fog of spores lingering in the room had cleared to a small degree, this meant that the spores were at least somewhat susceptible to fire. If only Afton had kept the Flamers and Incinerators he used to have.
"Quickly, again!" exclaims as he ducks under a swipe from the whip-like root. It was fortunate that he had too! Since the wall that'd been struck now had a sizeable dent decorating it.
He unloads the rest of the bullets in That Gun at the recovering root and blows a good portion of it apart. With that he glances at Anja to see if she'd managed to reload it yet and nods when she cocks the bolt. "Fire there!" gestures towards the Spore Carrier controlling the roots, though they were unlikely to hit it as it was a fair distance away and still concealed by the spores.
*BAANG!*
Again, the Anti-Material rifle fires and sent a bullet flyings in the direction of the target. Unfortunately, it is way off and hits the wall behind it, still, the incendiary round does its job and ignites a good portion of the spores. This also manages to clip the Spore Carrier, causing it to release a raspy growl in response.
Afton holsters the empty That Gun and stills for a moment before reaching for the Laser rifle he'd stored in his backpack. If the Incendiary bullets were able to ingite the spores, then wouldn't superheated lasers be able to?
The rifle is heavy in one arm, but he has enough strength to heft it up and pull the trigger in the direction of the enemy.
*PWWWUUUUSH!*
A thick green laser beam explodes from the rifle, the kick of it almost blowing the weapon clear out of his hand. The attack flies through the room and strikes the Spore Carrier in its shoulder, most importantly, all the spores it travels through are instantly destroyed, a large area around the laser burning them away.
He fires a couple more times randomly, not seeking to hurt the enemy but to just remove the spores, Anja fires a couple more Incendiary rounds and after a few minutes of this, the room is entirely cleared of spores.
There's no time to celebrate however as now they were able to properly see the Spore Carrier that'd been attacking them. From the silhouette, Afton had been able to see how much larger it was compared to the others, but that wasn't the only difference... Instead of green bark skin it was grey like rock. It's legs were fused with the ground, somehow connected to the maze of roots covering the room.
Last but not least, it's arms were not even arms, but the roots that'd been attacking them up until now... Though, both looked heavily damage from their assault on it. Afton hefts the Laser Rifle and points it at the monster, but before he's able to destroy it the roots underneath him snap into action, wrapping his legs tightly together. Apparently, those root-arms aren't the only things its able to control.
Anja fires an incendiary round at the floor next to Afton's feet, igniting a large portion of the roots and allowing him to escape their grasp as they wave around and erratically attack everything in reach.
After being freed he fires another beam at the creature, the superheated blast strikes it in the chest, liquifying whatever organs it has left. Another shot burns a hole straight through its chest, causing a chain reaction where its upper body simply disintegrates into ash.
With that done they both breathe a sigh of relief, it was one thing fighting regular spore carriers, but fighting a mutated one with who knows how many abilities? Very stressful to say the least.
Afton glances around the room now that he's able to see the place properly, was relatively large and had large cordoned off bays in the middle of it, they were filled with what looks like soil, and plants of every kind were growing from them.
He spots the devastated corpse of the Spore Plant, the venus fly trap-creature tht shot some sort of projectile at him. He gives it a nudge with his foot and is surprised by how tough the material that composed its body was. It was like leather, but less dry and more slippery.
Shaking his head he walks over to Anja, "I think we've found a way to deal with the spores now." he says, passing her the prototype laser rifle and strapping the Anti-Material rifle onto his back. "You know how to use it, right?"
Anja shakes her head and Afton is forced to quickly go through the ways to operate it. Once he was 'relatively' sure she'd be able to use it without killing him or herself, he looked to the sealed door on the other side of the room.
He was 110% sure there'd be more mutated creatures down here, so they'd need to be prepared for anything. He props the axe next to the door and readies That Gun as he opens it, immediately activating VATS when the fog of spores floods into the room.
OOOOOoooooooohhhhhhhh shit! He mentally intones as he sees just how many enemies there were in the hallway set before him. "Anja... Start, shooting." he says in as low a tone as he can manage in order to not attract their attention.
His companion does as ordered and immediately starts randomly spraying laser beams through the doorway. Afton was momentarily confused by the fact the weapon wasn't dealing as much damage as last time, but eventually realises that his Perk had been boosting its power.
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