Eldritch Creature's Guide

Soon enough, the Silvermoon Princess arrived she looked down the shaft where it was leading, uncertain who would go the first one, as she looked at Samiel intensely as he, in the end, relented under her gaze.

He took out one Silver-Tier Crystal while he inserted some of his Mana into it, forcing it to glow as he dropped it down. Soon it fell onto the ground, as both of them saw that the next level of the doomsday shelter's second level wasn't as deep as they initially thought.

Thus Samiel started descending down through the ladder. He quickly reached the second level of Vault-76; while he saw there a switch on the metallic wall, which he pushed as the entire place lit up like a christmas tree. Samiel observed the place; it was a small room with only a few things that caught his attention as he quickly scanned it with his eyes.

Probably the most notable were a few skeletons that were long decomposed and even some parts of their bones started falling apart, though that was bugging Samiel because they should be initially Professionals, so there were some other factors in play.

He then looked at the next one of the skeletons that was holding in his hand an ID Card that was probably for the huge metallic doors that were at the end of the room, the sole entrance and exit to whatever was behind them.

"Ok... I don't like this."

Yvraine said when she looked at the room because there was one small detail that was giving this situation a very ominous feeling. The mini-computer that was for the ID Cards next to the huge metallic doors was full of dried blood, meaning that the people that died here were probably escaping from something that was behind those doors. However, while not killing them directly, they, in the end, succumbed to their injuries.

"You were eager to explore the underground levels of this shelter... so, please stop being fussy, ready weapons and come. Maybe we will find something interesting, though..."

Samiel stated as Yvraine grumbled but readied her Jade Swords, hoping that whatever was behind the doors was dead. In the end, the last time the shelter was opened was two Epochs ago, so even technically speaking, if there were survivors and whatever, they couldn't withstand around 200,000 years in this doomsday shelter.

Seeing that Yvraine was combat-ready, Samiel took the ID Card from the skeleton and swiped it through the reader on the mini-computer as suddenly, mechanisms in the huge metallic doors started working and the doors were opening slowly while the lights were already on.

"Why green light... it looks more creepy this way..."

The light which lit up in the long metallic corridor was green or light green in color, giving the entire place a very creepy feeling. He immediately conjured an Ice Trident and summoned Ashimer to advance with them as they went through the corridors.

On the ground, they noticed a few more skeletons lying around, together with some that seemed like some kind of assault rifles, probably working on the Psionic Energy, judging by the crystals which were inserted in the assault rifle.

Samiel picked one up as he held it and tried to shoot several times into nothingness that was in front of him. To his surprise, energy projectiles came out of the assault rifle and each one of them was comparable to a 1st Level Spell in terms of offensive power.

"It is still working... the Korias guys had some quality guns."

Samiel stated as he observed the assault rifle before storing it in his dimensional storage that if he could obtain more, they would sell pretty well. Unfortunately, right now, the IMC doesn't have any capabilities to produce more of these weapons as for that, he would need first to find people qualified to work with the Primordial Psionic Energy.

What reminded him that after he completed the Advancement Quest, he needed to return to the 3rd Floor of the Tower to meet with the dwarves that were working for him and check on the forges in the Zephystrand.

Not to mention, from the last news he got from master Brigric Goldengroc, they were very close to reverse-engineering the Power Armors that the elite black ops assassins of the Avalon Kingdom were wearing and the first prototypes were already built and were in testing, so Samiel was pretty curious how they turned up.

When someone was climbing the Tower as part of The Journey, they could move only backward through various channels, not forward. Meaning Samiel could go to the lower Floors, which he had already "cleared" through someone's help, or by his own intentions or use any other way, but he could go to the higher Floor where he didn't clear the Advancement Quest or bypass the Floor. If he did that, then The Journey would fail and he will lose the benefit of it.

"We should be going..."

Yvraine said as they advanced further through the metallic corridors. Interestingly enough, they were descending a bit deeper; there were no doors, any side corridors or anything, just this long empty path with some ventilations installed here and there that led nobody knows where, but fortunately, they would find out when they arrived there.

After walking for some time, they finally arrived at the end of the corridor, in front of other metal doors, though these ones were very similar to the entrance doors to the Vault-76. They were absolutely humongous, round in shape, with a huge number of 76 imprinted on them.

"There is something written there."

Suddenly Yvraine came to a stop, as there was some text on the sign next to the door.

"Doom-T Corporation Special Projects Division, Research Site Alpha."

When he read that, he was surprised and, at the same time, eager to enter and find out what was inside. When Samiel and Yvraine searched through the first level of the Vault-76, they found that everywhere they looked was the name of the Doom-Tex Corporation; clearly, it was some kind of mega-conglomerate in the Korias Empire that had much more power than it should have.

"The common sense tells us that if the private corporation as this power, then, it should probably be doing something pretty nefarious, and that means whatever is behind those doors... I have a slight feeling that it isn't dead."

Samiel stated as he was putting one plus one together. His intuition was telling him this and his intuition was, till this day, every time right, so he didn't see a reason why it wasn't right once again.

"If Doom-Tex Corporation was experimenting with the Primordial Psionic Energy, it is highly possible that the genetically engineered lifeforms would not be restricted to the short lifespan or they created some monsters that are sustained by the Primordial Psionic Energy to this day."

What Yvraine said was highly possible, while typically genetically engineered lifeforms have a very limited lifespan and even most advanced Magetek or other technological trees could prolong it to tens of thousands of years if someone as powerful as Primordial Psionic Energy was taken into the equation... then the result would vastly differ.

"I am going to open the vault door... be ready in case we are attacked."

Samiel stated as Yvraine nodded and he then swiped with the ID Card that he obtained from the skeleton through the mini-computer as the door started opening itself. Soon enough, they saw what was beyond; it was an atrium, probably as big as the entire level 1 of the doomsday shelter and it appeared to be some laboratory of some kind.

There were countless steel-glass tanks filled with green liquid and in them, there were several creatures floating, connected to some kind of machinery that was probably still functioning and keeping them asleep.

Samiel didn't recognize them, but Yvraine did...

"Death Claws..."

She said more with dread than with fascination and when he heard that name, suddenly, his Eidetic Memory kicked in as he remembered everything that he knew about the Death Claws. As countless pieces of information flooded into his brain as he remembered everything he knew, saw or heard about the creatures.

Deathclaws are a large, carnivorous, bipedal reptile species designed for maximum lethality. The choice to make them bipedal was natural, as bipedalism raises the head, providing a greater field of vision and thus improving the ability to detect targets or resources. They had frightening regeneration levels, their senses and instincts were eclipsing almost everything of the same tier and they could also act as pack animals, making them far more dangerous in groups.

They were gene-engineered for the first time by the Solheim Civilization in the 35th Epoch of the Psion Era as means of replacing the standing army of the Solheim with the Death Claws. Solheimesse collected countless species and DNA samples to create a perfectly gene-engineered killing machine.

The result was... only partially successful.

The Death Claw experiment was successful, but they proved to be extremely difficult to control, often failing to carry out even simple commands, their restraints on them were failing and countless times they entered a berserker state where they lost control and were killing everything around them, be it foe or ally.

For countless years and across several Epochs, the research on the Death Claws was conducted by countless factions and civilizations and many improvements were made on the original research that was started by the Solheim, which abandoned the plans to use the Death Claws as a standardized army instead of their soldiers.

Not to mention the biggest reason why nobody managed to mass-produce Death Claws into tens of thousands is because even one of them was very costly to manufacture because the resources needed for them were scarce and often came from high-tiered lifeforms.

"There are tens of them here..."

Samiel muttered as he went to one thing, which seemed like the main computer of the entire research facility alpha of the Doom-Tex Corporation and by pushing up one button, he turned the power on of the main computer.

"We need to first go through their logs to see what exactly they were researching here and if there are other things here aside from these experimental Death Claws..."

Samiel said, inserting the ID Card into the main computer.

[Welcome Division Head Vaister.]

When the computer turned on upon insertion of the ID Card, Samiel was greeted by V.I. or the virtual intelligence that was pre-installed there, as he started searching for the research logs. Fortunately, luck was on his side because the ID Card he picked up belonged to the Division Head of the Special Research Division of the Doom-Tex Corporation, meaning he had unlimited access to everything.

"Wait a moment... if this was the Division Head... someone as important wouldn't be in some random bunker... he would be somewhere where essential and most crucial research for the corporation would be carried out... computer search for the main shelters of the Doom-Tex Corporation, highlight the ones that are still active, black for the destroyed, red for the ones that were taken over someone."

Yvraine held him mutter as he only now realized it.