I already have my base or at least a part of it and here you can see how I built it. I have been able to unlock new recipes to create new and better tools. The scanner room turned out to be more useful than I thought and I've been using it a lot to scour the map for lost databases, which I've used to learn how to improve my survival gear.
On one of those trips in search of resources and abandoned research bases, I received a signal that my PAD failed to decipher and categorized it as an alien signal. Something that I found curious considering that I am on an alien planet. The point is that I decided to go to the point of origin of the signal to see what it was about and as I approached the place I could see some dark towers that emitted a blinking green light, but that was not where the signal came from, because the locator showed me that it was further on inside the cave.
I went deeper into the cave, taking advantage of the fact that I had a better oxygen tank and that there were several oxygen-producing plants in the surroundings. When I reached the end of the cave I came across this huge construction, which looked like an entrance, and I approached it to see what it was all about.
Seeing that there was nothing apparently hostile or dangerous, I crossed the entrance, which was a force field that kept the water out of what appeared to be an oxygen-filled cave system. Inside, the architecture was evidently alien and, as I advanced, I heard a voice muttering something regarding an emergency storage space.
I continued advancing through that cave in search of that someone or something that suddenly began to answer my questions and start a conversation. Reaching the other end was difficult, as the bridge was broken and I had to go around it while being watched by some strange spider robots, which until now had remained passive.
When I arrived, I found another lobby in which there were more of these robots, spiders and three pedestals with these strange glowing green cubes just like the ones I found on Delta Station Island. I took the glowing cubes and continued to the back of the room where there was a door.
As I walked through the door, a much, much larger room appeared before me, in the center of which was a huge metal cube that moved and from which the voice I had been talking to seemed to be coming out.
After a series of questions, you can understand that what the ALTERRA people call Architects are actually a series of artificial intelligences and this was one of them. For some reason, this architect was having problems with his storage device and let me know that I owned a compatible one. Faced with such a discovery, curiosity got the better of me and I agreed to have it copied to my PAD so I could interact more with this AI.
What I didn't know was that the compatible storage device was never my PAD. The architect was all the time talking about my brain, a part of it, and after a sudden movement of the cube he held me down and, after seeing a very bright light, I lost consciousness.
When I woke up, the metal cube had disarmed, the power in the whole place had gone out, and I had a voice in my head telling me it was time to get out of there. Very angry, I let him know that what he had done was wrong and that he was invading my privacy. The architect told me that nothing could be done for now, but that we could work it out later. Not entirely convinced, I returned to my base.
Upon returning to the base, the AI informed me that she was not the only one of her kind on the planet and that, if I helped her search for a series of artifacts, we could build a device that would put her in contact with the others of her kind, since they apparently function as a hive. I decided to help her, although at first I doubted whether that was a good thing, but in the end I had no choice.
After that conversation, the AI didn't speak to me again, so I focused on continuing to check the abandoned research stations.
During one of my night raids, the AI spoke to me again to inform me that very close to our position it had detected one of the artifacts we needed. I went to the site and, to my surprise, the artifact was inside one of the caverns where the sea monkeys nest.
Upon seeing the artifact, I was surprised at its size and how well it was concealed. I was also surprised that there were no hostile specimens around. I hope that will be the case with the rest, although we all know it won't be.
It only remains for me to continue to survive on this hostile planet and help the AI to see how my story continues at my current crossroads.
Cover page created in Canva
Translated by DeepL
