Lair Of The Mantis ended up being more than a myth, it just was not what I was expecting. Often when I think about riches I think in terms of credits. The real riches in this game are finding a new ship and getting some killer new armor or even weapons. Some of this was acquired while out following up a lead from looting a slate device of all things.
It is quite shocking if you pay attention to what kinds of things drop when you go out hunting pirates and the like in what you can find. Somewhere in my journeys, I ended up looting The Secret Outpost slate off a head spacer.
At the time like many other missions, I ended up skipping over it. I was far too busy messing around with outposts, getting into endless fights with pirates, and protecting the universe from the Terrormorph.
Curiosity however got the better of me while looking down my mission log and seeing the objective to “read the secret outpost slate.” I was half expecting this to be something I possibly junked to just get rid of stuff. I’m rather glad I did not.
As far as “lifetime opportunity” goes in Starfield I feel like there have been a lot of them. More times than not they end up not panning out. I was hoping this one would not end up being yet another wild goose chase.
So, I made my way to Denebola I-B which turned out to be a rather boring-looking moon from space. Where I would be sent was also on the dark side of it at the time. Before I could even make it to the outpost, I was already having to fight my way toward it. The surface had some spacers. I can only hope I was not too late since I've been putting off going here for quite a long time.
I felt things were already looking up when I went to loot one of the spacers I took out. He happened to be holding a legendary modified Equinox. While I was looking for more laser weapons at the time. I have not been a huge fan of the Equinox. I’d end up giving the weapon a couple of tires before storing it away at one of my outposts. The weapon had quite an insane fire rate, but low base damage, and I would prefer the opposite.
As suspected the outpost was covered in further spacers. There were also some further slates to read so since this entire thing started from finding one, I was rather intrigued if they would give any further insight into what Lair Of The Mantis was.
This place seemed to lure in the worst of the worst. The kind of people who would loot their dead friends and see it as a positive that the group they took in with them was getting fewer in fewer. The kind of people who would take shoes off a dead person if given the chance.
This place also seemed to be loaded with traps. Most never made it past the most basic of traps. Even worse I found evidence the spacers that attempted to raid this place for the loot would go off to send their “friends” ahead to get killed by the different traps in an attempt to work out how to get past them themselves.
I then found a person down in the thick of it. I suspected they would not hesitate to backstab me the moment they could. They, however, claimed to know about the traps and other things of this place. The fact they were still alive was more than enough to take the risk.
I ended up walking into one of the rooms that was traps. Naturally, with all the dead on the floor, I could tell things could go sideways quickly. The person I found was not helpful whatsoever. What was helpful was my sniper rifle in taking out the high-damage turrets that had gunned down so many before me.
The further I got into the place the more I'd find out about it. A woman at one time became the current Mantis. She had a child he was never around for as she was too consumed with her job at this place and going off on different missions.
She even expected her child one day to take over the operation of things. The deeper I got in the more clues I'd run into that she left trying to encourage said child to keep going till the end. I’m sure many spacers got a good laugh at the different recordings.
I also don’t feel bad for taking what I did out of this place. Her child never made it to the end. He would end up just being another corpse for this place to collect. He was just another person looking to get rich quickly off this place and the massive treasure everyone expected it to hold.
Then it happened. As I stepped into one of the rooms the person, I had found earlier sealed the door shut behind me thinking they had left me to my death. Funny enough as soon as they did a trap killed them. I was now again all alone in this place.
The amount of computer equipment in this place alone made me feel a small fortune was blown on creating and maintaining this place as a base of operations. It’s even a bit of a shame I could not turn it into one of my places to hold up. Some of the further rooms I'd go off to explore were quite mind-blowing.
One thing I was not expecting to get out of his whole ordeal was a spaceship. Sure enough, there was one sitting down here. With a click of a switch, I sent it to the surface, and I received an update that it was now mine. Once I was done exploring, I'd make my way back to the surface to further check it out. I’ve been wanting a new ship for quite some time. I can only hope it’s decent enough to give up the easy-to-navigate interior and the upgrades I've down to the basic ship I started with.
I then came across a suit of armor. This would end up being another treasure this place would end up giving me that day. I however did not find the entire thing worthwhile wearing.
I’m more of a gun-blazing-to-go-into-a-situation kind of player. The suit itself offered things like blending in with the environment for sneaking. That would be quite frankly amazing if that was my playstyle. It however was not.
I did find the reduced damage and even the reduced weight modifiers on some of the piece's amazing. I’d end up wearing some of the suits myself. Other pieces of it’d stash away at my outpost just in case I decided I wanted to wear the full thing for all the different modifiers this comes with.
The base resistance to this thing was quite amazing as well. It’s just a shame I did not go here sooner. This thing a few levels ago would have been quite an amazing upgrade and one I'd have kept using for quite some time. I, however, at this point, have done some quite high-level raiding of sites for some rather impressive gear all on its own. Perhaps in the future, I'll find a fully legendary suit like this again that is more to my playstyle.
I even found a legendary weapon nearby. It does some massive damage as well. The only issue is the kind of ammo it uses is not one I find a lot of. I decided to put this gun away as well for the day I ever have the special occasion I need something that looks like it could kill anything in a single shot if not two. Hopefully, by then I'll have a lot more ammo as well for the One Inch Punch Magsniper Legendary Rifle.
Once I had explored the final rooms of this place a few times over to ensure I was not missing out on anything else that was insane. I made my way to the surface. It was time to check out the ship.
Let’s just say while an interesting ship it again was not to my kind of playstyle. After exploring the different kinds of components on it I realized it has shielded cargo. If I did not know about the Wolf system and the station, there would be no chance of you getting caught bringing in contraband. This ship alone for smuggling stuff into places to sell would been worth the time.
This was, however, not a ship I was looking to have. While I could sell it, I'm sure the actual sell amount I'd get compared to the value would be quite a joke. I decided I'd keep the ship and just add it to my non-excitant ship collection. A collection I'm hoping to grow in a short while.
Final Thoughts
Always cool to find a place loaded with legendary items and even a ship! It’s a shame I did not have too much use for anything I got in there for the most part. I’d end up wearing some of the armor for a while before replacing it with other stuff. I also had quite a lot of fun using the gun as well.
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Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Starfield.
Disclosure: Starfield received for free through AMD rewards from the graphics card I purchased.
