Factory of the Magical Variety

by Conglomerate

Chapter 24: Depleted

I knew the resource wells I had found wouldn't last forever, but I was amazed at how fast they depleted. Sure getting destroyed and rebuilding will do that, but I was sure they would last longer. Thankfully there was just enough to rebuild the propellers, but little else.

The Oleite well was now completely empty, there was none residing in the divot and none was bubbling up either. That meant the reservoir was either depleted, or it didn't have enough pressure to force the rest above ground.

The Rodite are wasn't faring much better either, all the surface deposits were used up, leaving only small traces of dust and the seams underground.

It wasn't all bad, the Carbite location still had a lot to give, but even I could tell it wouldn't last much longer, about half of the field of ore had been harvested. There was still a lot left, but I would have to get searching and soon.

There was one problem, my attempts at searching had come up blank, every time I went out flying I didn't spot any. But then again, I wasn't really paying attention for those specific resources, I'd have to check again.

Right now I'll stick with what I know, Oleite pockets tend to appear close to each other, so there might be another reservoir nearby. Any Oleite floating in the lake would give it away, so I'd search there first.

There was still Rodite as well, though it was all underground, which brought another problem. I still didn't have a way to mine under the ground.

For things like Oleite and Rodite, a simple Auto Miner could be used to extract any resources just under the surface. But Auto Miners need Titanite, which I now had to pay for. I still didn't have the cost, but assuming it's rarity, it was going to cost a lot.

I would probably be selling resources to afford Titanite, or just outright trade for it. The only problem was that I only resources I had plenty of were Plumbite, Fibrewood, and Rubber Jelly. Things like Erudite, Ignite, and Luxite might sell for more, but they were rarer and about as essential as Titanite.

I could fabricate some more expensive components, however I didn't own this world just yet, and if it was found out that I distributed technology to an unknown party, the Federation would have my metaphorical head. I simply couldn't make money off of advanced components.

That didn't mean I was completely out of options, I could refine everything to raise it's price. Simply selling raw resources was not a good idea, so I could make a bit more money than I normally could. It helped that I could grow Luxite, it would definitely make more money if I had higher production.

There were a few things I needed to look into, first was figuring out how to grow the other crystals. Ignite was the priority, as I could always dig or trade for more Erudite. I was not going back to the desert any time soon. I'd have to figure out how to grow it on my own.

The second was to find some Oleite and Rodite on the surface though, and that was an issue. The thing about crystals is that they grew in specific conditions, conditions that are easy to spot. The common metals like Plumbite and I guess Cuprite as well were abundant pretty much anywhere. Resources like Titanite and Carbite were a bit less common as they form deep within the crust of a planet, and normally don't breach the surface often.

Rodite and Oleite are different though, they both don't have an environment they naturally occur in, seeing as they are both fossilized resources, it really depends on what the environment was millions of years ago. So really Oleite and Rodite could appear anywhere, and seeing as Zecora had uses for them, there had to be more available.

The main question was where? Simply because they occurred in a forest here didn't mean they occurred in forests everywhere. To find Oleite and Rodite, you had to search everywhere, so that's what I had to do.

I was able to rebuild the plane for the most part, and cannibalizing some extra batteries and a repair bubble from the base, it was similar in design to the one that was now frozen up north. I made sure to hook it up with an upgraded radar, as I would be flying a bit low.

I didn't arm it to the teeth like last time, but I did bring some guns, I didn't want to fight anything, but I will defend myself. I made sure to equip it with lots of collectors, I needed to bring as much back as possible right now.

Looking at the maps I had been given, I could tell they weren't to complete scale. I couldn't read the language written on them either, but it was pretty obvious that the only things written down were names. I made a very rough image of the maps to overlay the radar so I could track my progress.

Taking flight, I knew I wouldn't find anything in the immediate area, I had frequented it too much to not notice anything. Starting to the West, I began a simple search pattern of searching a small piece of the map before moving to the next. I made sure to avoid any towns and fly low.

The first few pieces held some deposits of Plumbite, and others Cuprite, there was even another outcropping of Carbite, though it was very small. I didn't see any Oleite or Rodite yet though, so I kept searching. I made sure to mark whatever I saw on my map.

---

After a long time of searching, I found what I was looking for. In one place there were several seams of Oleite that dotted around a field close to some hills. In another, the telltale green color of Rodite was visible running down the slope of a large mountain. Upon closer inspection, it appeared to be an inactive Volcano.

They were both quite far from the base, so I'd definitely want to run a train route to each of them later, but I would have to wait until I could ask the Princess to build tracks. I'm sure they'd love free labor and infrastructure, it might even take off from the cost of Titanite.

There was something else of interest as well. Far away from base and at the edge of my search area was a medium size plateau. The reason it peaked my interest was that train tracks lead to it, but they looked very old, they probably couldn't even support a regular train, much less one of my high speed trains.

Plateau's were one of my favorite places to build, easily defendable from all locations, and most techs can't scale the steep slopes. There wasn't anything on it, not even a trace of something old that was gone. I marked this location on the map I had, maybe something useful was hidden there.

In the meantime, I had found what I was looking for, and had loaded up on as much as my tech could carry. I would definitely be back soon, considering my track record for destruction. Not to mention that these resources could potentially sell for a bit as well. I would have to check that when I got back.

The flight back to base was uneventful, but when I got back, I found Twilight waiting for me at the top of the ravine. She looked up at the incoming plane and got up from sitting.

There was a problem though, I hadn't attached any speakers to the plane just yet, so I wasn't able to communicate with her. Thankfully, I could just use 'Tecker' as a scapegoat, and simply just landed behind her and went down the ramp.

Being as quick as possible, I switched back to the original tech, and went back outside to confront Twilight. She looked very annoyed when I made it up to the top.

"That Tecker sure isn't very nice," she commented, "at least you're here."

"He told me you were outside, how long have you been waiting?" I asked.

"Only a few minutes, but there is an important reason I'm here" Twilight answered.

"What, pray tell, might that be?" I curiously asked.

"The Princesses have sent somepony over to help figure out your 'payment' for your Cobalt. They didn't want to enter the forest however, so they should be waiting by the edge." Twilight explained to me.

"Very well then, let me grab a few things that should help." I replied, turning back to go get some things from my base.

"Be quick, I'm not sure how much longer they are going to wait." Twilight called back.

Moving into the base, I made sure to grab two of every resource I was willing to sell/trade. Some Fibrewood, Plumbite, Rodite, Oleite, Rubber jelly, and Luxite. Making sure to refine half of them. I put them into my collectors, and headed back out.

Twilight nodded as I came back up, and we both travelled to the forest edge. It was a bit of a long walk, considering Twilight was walking, but we eventually made it to the edge. There waiting on a blanket on the ground was another pony. They looked simple enough, no wings or horn, a brown coat and black mane.

Twilight walked up to the pony and introduced us.

"Tecka, this is Filthy Rich. Filthy Rich, this is Tecka." She started.

"Hello," was all I said,

"Good afternoon," this 'Filthy Rich' said, quite an odd name.

"I've heard your here to help me with my expenses?" I asked Filthy Rich.

"Indeed I am, though I haven't been told exactly what you are buying." Filthy Rich said.

"I have been hoping to buy Cobalt, and quite a lot at that," I explained.

"Cobalt huh? That's a lot of money, how are you looking to pay?" he asked.

"Most likely through trade, I have other resources I can sell, I have brought a couple." I replied.

"Care to show me?"

I then proceeded to show Filthy Rich all of my 'merchandise'. After he took a look at each resource, both refined and not, he gave his final verdict.

"This refined wood is odd, it probably wouldn't sell for much, but wood in general will. The Blast Coal is valuable, but not in high demand, Rubber is always useful and will sell for a lot. This Acid Stone you have looks like it'll have it's fair share of uses, though it isn't very known. The Red Oil you have is very valuable, there are lots looking to buy it. The iron you have is useful, but not very valuable. This Sunstone however, is probably the most expensive thing you have, to get chunks this large and finely cut is really rare, you could make quite the amount with these.

All in All, I'd say around six or seven Sunstone chunks like these could buy you an ingot of Cobalt of your standard. Your looking at twenty units of Red Oil, or thirty units of Acid Stone. You could probably exchange ten Blast Coal for Cobalt if you found a buyer, and you'd need around a hundred pieces of Iron and double that for wood. Rubber however, you could probably exchange around fifty bricks of it.

Keep in mind these are very rough calculations based on what you've shown me, so the prices will probably change. How much Cobalt are you looking to buy anyway?" Filthy Rich finished.

Doing some quick math in my mind, I came up with a rough estimate, just enough to fabricate a very small shield.

"About fifty ingots of my standard," I said.

Both Filthy Rich and Twilight gawked at how much I was needing, I was a bit surprised too. The amount of resources I'd have to sell in order to get that much was staggering. I could probably harvest this entire forest and still not have enough. I was not happy.

Well, no time like the present, I should probably start with upgrading my Luxite growing capabilities. Then move on to building a large harvesting tech. If only I had access to Geocorp, this would be so much easier.

To Be Continued...

Author's Note:

While writing this chapter I was reminded of Starcraft, where you would sometimes get an alert saying "Mineral Source Depleted" or something. Onto the next topic, I am nearing the end of Part 1, that's right, I'm splitting this story into parts. I still know the end goal, and other conflicts that will arise, but I'm getting a bit tired of writing for now, so I'm going to take a break at the end of part one. There's going to be a pretty good cliff hanger at the end too, so stay tuned.