The server I manage has a few people from around my area, and we're all pretty good friends, but one guy has to be the top of it all. A good guy, but wants to be the top of the food chain if you know what I mean. I don't have any block protection mods installed since we're all 'mature' adults and know each other, so pranking/trolly griefing (portal turrets, leaf pile traps) is almost expected and hilarious. He's got a vault underground at bedrock, surrounded by warded blocks and only accessed via IC2 teleporter. He's spent time in the End before I knew about it, and captured all of the bees, even ones far out on Gregtech's asteroids, and placed them in the vault. He puts a few out in a trade station, but I wasn't planning on being a customer. Sells them for mega prices, the guy.
I had my eyes on the prize, so I set out to formulate a overcooked, over-complicated, and completely awesome sting operation. I NEEDED this bee to get Valuable bees.
Days and nights were spent thinking about how to infiltrate the fortified vault. I might've been able to brute force around, but I wanted to remain undetected to assure my safety in any future pranking. I finally came up with a master plan; I built myself a modular powersuit with the camoflauge and transparent armor upgrades (no potion particles with the suit's invisibility).
I was now completely (almost) undetectable, save for my step noises, but I still had no access to his portal room. It was locked behind an arcane door, and the only people that were authorized were him and his friend. As I was walking back to home base, I saw a friend's enchanting station and stared for a long while, due to my deep thought at how I was to get my hands on my prize. Bookcases lined the walls of the room like an enchanted library, their magical runes and glyphs bobbing and flowing to the table as if being pulled by a magical entity bound to it. Books, I thought.. We used books to leave notes to friends.
I had another idea.
I rushed home, ran downstairs to my deep sugarcane farm fueling my boilers, and grabbed a handful of them, crafting them into paper. I ran into my computer lab and set down a printer, grabbed some cyan dye (it's his friend's favorite color, his room is lined with cyan rockwool), and began typing, with the intent to forge his friend's identity and gain access to the, now closer growing, fat loot. I wrote some mundane things, like how they needed more power generation and was thinking about building more fusion coils (I knew they had at least 3 of the 20ish so far).. and how he needed a new Iron Key to the portal room door, playing it off as a bug. I instructed him to leave a key in a chest at certain coordinates in the nether, of only which I knew. We often use the nether as a secret stash holder, so this wasn't uncommon. His friend wasn't supposed to be back for a couple days, which gave me ample time to take his place..
My plan was coming together. I built a Gregtech player detector and an MFSU, and placed it just a few blocks underneath the chest I had directed him to, which was set to everyone but me. Hooked this up to a toggle latch and wireless transmitter, which was set to a private frequency. This, when powered, relayed the signal to a computer I had placed in my base, that was sending out a rednet signal to the rest of my computers around my base (each one was in the wall with a giant monitor for monitoring such things as reactor fuels, inventory, etc. A 'status' screen for my base as a whole, if you will.) This overwrote the messages I had written, and instead wrote, in big scrolling text, 'The trap has sprung.'
It wasn't even an entire 24 hours before my base lit up like the fourth of july.
I rushed as quickly as I could to the coordinates I had placed, and opened the chest. Inside was a stack of Ambrosia, the fake printed book I had made.. and a magic infused, glittering, Iron Key to the teleporter room. It was like Christmas morning.
Without missing a beat I was at his base, but my timing could definitely had been better. He was still online, and within earshot of the door. I toggled cloaking and night vision from my suit, which was at about half power, and waited on top of one of his microblock shelves. I must have been up there for ten minutes. I was in the same room as him, and he would surely be hostile if I was caught so deep within his maze of a fortress. As I was drawing near 25% power in my suit, I got nervous, and debated turning back. I could sneak my way out without making footstep noises, but it was a good distance and I wasn't about to come within arms reach of my goal to be crushed so easily. I needed a distraction, and I needed it NOW.
I crept out of the crafting room we were in and into his tungstensteel block lined reactor chambers. These were very well automated, and each had emergency shutoff and control via thermometers. If one heated up it would also trigger an industrial alarm. They were situated in long tubes of water (unnecessary, but it looks extremely good). My helmet had the water electrolyzer upgrade, so I thought I'd take a radioactive dive for a moment.. I didn't have the water swim speed upgrade, so my swim speed was slower than being in a cobweb, but no matter. Since I wasn't in view anymore, I took off my armor but my helmet, and continued forward into the dark, watery tunnel.
As I met the middle of the tube, three reactors greeted me with ominous, steely presence. I opened the one situated in the middle up, and took a look at its internals. A quad plutonium cell and iridium neutron reflectors, along with an entire array of vents and exchangers. A powerful MK1, extremely high efficiency reactor. Since I've turned up the nuclear power gen from 5 to 10 in the config, nuclear was a great option.
I knew my next actions could bring consequences, but I did them anyway. I knew tungstensteel blocks were blastproof. I reached into the far left reactor and grabbed its hot, half used cell, and placed it next to the plutonium cell in the middle one. Danger. I grabbed my thermometer from my canvas bag and checked the temperature; it was rising at well over 500 heat per second. I clocked the thermometer on the side of the reactor down to 2500 heat, as to not break any of the components inside. I sped out of the tunnel into the opposite side as I came in and waited anxiously. It wasn't a few minutes before I heard the screech of alarms and a frantic Ender bee king zip into the room shortly after. I had put my chestplate on just in time and reactivated my cloaking, and as quickly as I could, sped out of the door he just came in, while he was under water and I was above.
Well over 50 blocks away, now was my time to strike. My chat was filled with messages of 'busted ass reactor!', and had a quick laugh to myself. I reached for my precious key and slid it into the arcane lock. I heard the metallic clink and rattle of the lock as it recognized me as a user. Inside the portal room was very impressive; monitors filled the walls, and frames were guarding each small alcove that housed a teleporter to different destinations, with different color covers on corresponding doors. I activated the one that read 'High Security Vault', and stepped inside. As I entered, the frames shifted and closed behind me, trapping me inside of the alcove! Seconds later, with a hum and a flash, I was teleported inside.
I had made it. Standing, feet firm on magic stone, I was faced with a monolithic array of chests. One stood out, clearly not a chest--it was an indexer. I sped up to it, noticing how slow I was.. My suit was out of power! I was completely revealed, and without flight. I rummaged through what felt like thousands of bees..
Junk bees.
I was broken. I had come so far, cooked up a crazy scheme that actually worked, and executed nail biting strategy to get where I wanted, and no Ender bee. I searched through tons of chests, and found some very good stuff, but I wasn't here for that; I had all of the metals in the world.
As I was making my way to the back of the vault, getting increasingly more disappointed with every chest opened and barrel clicked, I saw an obsidian chest labeled 'backup species serums' near the middle. I was elated. Inside was not one, but two Ender species serums. Zero charges, good quality. I grabbed one and stuffed it into my Ender pouch as quickly as I could. I had won.
I couldn't leave with my life just yet; Mr. Nuclear had fixed his problem and was making sure everything was right in his base. I had a partially charged lapotron crystal in my canvas bag, but no way to use it. I rummaged through more chests and found the materials to make an MFSU, there on the spot. I placed it down, put the crystal into the energy-in slot, and my chestplate into the charge slot. Juice, baby. Not much, but enough. I sped out of the vault, into the portal room, and out into the main corridors. From there I rode his arcane levitators to the outside world, turned off cloaking.. and went back inside to ask if he needed any help. Completely oblivious, he said he had fixed the problem and thanked me for the offer. I sped home, and spent some time filling and purifying the serum vial.
Learned alot about the machines.