User blog:OrigamiDragons/Life in an astro base: part two

Well, there is more to my previous story. A lot more. Actually not that much more, but whatever, roughly a blog-post-worth of more.

As you probably have read, in my last post about this, I was living in an astro base. It was a particularly large base, two connected actually, with many side corridors and pits. I wrote the last story before I discovered that astro bases are as COMMON as space giraffes in this world. I find so many, now, that I am too bored even to float down and poke around looking for Astros. They simply offer no reward. Polymers, sure, and enemies to fight, but so many and so few respectively. They simply aren't unique enough.

But something happened recently that made me think twice about the entertainment you can get from bases. And it happened, believe it or not, in the same base as my last story.

The following is told in a realistic style partly to creep you out and partly to entertain you.

The Astros were back.

I stood at the mouth of tunnel A3 and stared up the rock shaft at a powder blue blur on the rim. It didn't appear to have seen me yet but I had no doubt what it wanted. I had been berated with mystery shots for a long time now, jumping in pain from a bullet without a source. I had whirled around, staring for the grim sight of an Astro. I lived in constant fear of them, though i thought them long gone.

I retreated slowly back through the tunnel, out of its range. It would only be a step and it would fall directly towards me. I gripped my gun, holding it tightly, pointed out from my chest, every panting breath reminding me it was only v1, v1, v1. The powder blue astro was second only to pink and yellows, so it was sure to have at least a v2 gun. And even if it was the same as mine, how could I compete with that deadly aim?

In cowardice, I pressed myself all the way at the back of the tunnel, against the polymer on the far wall. I was trapped now. It would be no good to stay here, where I couldn't even see if it fell, so I edged further forward. Hesitantly I looked up. There it still was, turning it's head this way and that in contemplation of it's adapted home. Could it sense that the inhabitant was right under it's nose?

Yes, apparently. As I took a single step into the open space beneath the shaft, its head turned swiftly and it shot a single bullet into my arm. I jerked in pain, staring in horror at the hole ripped in my space suit. The tiny threads were already weaving together, sparks and wires chittering as they attempted to patch the hole, but too much of this and I wouldn't last long. I took blind aim at the target above, my bullet landing a good five blocks beneath it, embedding itself in the wall. The atsro stepped off the rim, and that was all I needed. Why, oh why, hadn't I put a cover not he main entrance?

I dashed across the space, the weak gravity holding me back yet slowing the astro. I rushed into the sloppy, 2x2 tunnel I had dug connecting the two bases. I emerged halfway up the shaft of a second base, only to realize suddenly there were two mint Astros turning circles on the floor already. In a panic, I turned on my jetpack and flew to the rim from here.

Oh, joy. At least three Astros of different colors had gathered on the surface, come to reclaim their rightful lair. Gunned down by a pink astro at the entrance to my home, all I could do was fling a bullet over my shoulder and rush to the surrounding trees.

In the trees, I didn't stop. Afraid they might be chasing me, I ran across two more ice fields and an island. Then in exhaustion I quit the world (world C) choosing instead to return to world A, a creative-mode world where I was building a towering moon base in complete safety. (See my second blog post).

It was a while before I returned to moon C. I appeared in the middle of an ice field, and after turning around a bit in confusion I realized this was where my wild run had left me. I had no idea how to get back to the base.

So I started out blindly, hopping over island after island with a sinking feeling. But my base was lost. I could journey forever across this wasteland, and find many other bases, but I would never get another shot at the Astros who had reclaimed their home.

But this is not the end of the story. It does seem like the end of the story, in fact remarkably so, having given the most final end it is possible to get, or so I thought.

So after this I didn't go back for a while. Ol world C had lost its charm, and I almost reset it several times. In fact, I started to think I HAD reset it, so distant was the memory. I could never go back there either way.

Until

One day. I had returned to world C, and was wandering about. I looked for mobs, bases, anything for entertainment. But I forgot I was in explore mode, so when I confronted a small group of powder blue Astros, I died. It was a simple death, a valiant death, I had put up a fair fight and even killed one of the atsros. But in the end my arm turned red and sunk into the ground, the gun frozen in my grasp.

So I re-inserted myself.

I Should mention at this point that on my wandering journeys across moon C I had collected several objects. Objects of greater value than v1 slugpistols. I had with me a v3 pistol, a v3 jetpack, a stack of 30 energy orbs (a glitch, I hadn't really collected so much neptunium, it just gave me infinite amounts for some reason) and a v2 drill. so I was well prepared for anything, except two powder blue Astros ganging up on me.

When I re-inserted myself, I expected to land on some random island, close to the site of my recent death. But instead, I found myself near the entrance of a base. As I peered inside, several things caught my eye:

A spiral staircase, made of rock, curling up the inside.

Mini-lights posted at every wall.

A couch made of red feldspar along one corner.

A powder blue astro standing next to the couch.

In that moment, I realized the impossible: an astro had built a couch!

No, not that. I realized I had been here before. I had so lavishly built the inside, it must have been from my earlier days. It was, I knew with a start, the very same base I had written a blog post about!

I could't breathe. The Astros would be easily taken care of, now, with my weapons improved. I had returned! I was here to reclaim my home! I have journeyed far and wide, my friends, and now you will not survive.I will take it back!

And I did.

I live here now, again, in the largest base I have ever come across. The Astros gone, and a brand new boron crystal window covering the shaft, I might just be safe here. Forever.

The moral of this story is to look both ways before you cross the street.