Vivid Stars Online

I pulled myself out of the VR pod and stared around at my tiny apartment. It represented everything I was trying to leave behind, the life I would be stuck with if I didn’t achieve success.

For once, the sight didn’t inspire me to take action toward my dream. Instead, all I felt was shame at how I couldn’t bring myself to move forward.

Sighing, I moved over to my single bed and flopped down on it face-first. I didn’t know what to do, so I just lay there, lost in my indecision. A moment later, I groaned as I smelled the sheets that I hadn’t washed in nearly two weeks.

It seemed I couldn’t even sulk in peace. I guess I’d better go do some washing, I sighed in thought. Maybe clean the apartment a bit too, may as well do something useful with my time.

With another annoyed groan, I began dumping my sheets into a laundry basket. Load in hand, I began the long process of dragging it down seventeen flights of stairs to the basement.

Someday soon I'll be able to live somewhere with a working elevator, I thought reflexively, before catching myself. Unless I figured something out, I’d be more likely to end up homeless than in a nicer place.

On some level, I knew I was being overly dramatic about things, that I’d only really had one setback. So I shook off my dark thoughts and moved on with my task. By the time I’d gone through the mindless task of loading the laundry, I was feeling a little better.

There’s got to be a third option, I mused as I stared at my washing swirling around in the machine. So far, all I’ve been thinking about is that I need to go into the cave or basically give up on my dream. But surely there’s another way to handle this.

Warming up that idea, I began thinking back to everything I’d learned about Psionics so far. They had already proven to require exploration and investigation to learn how to use, who said that the quest was the only way to do so?

I’d learned from Bradford earlier that the planet had numerous ruins that were known to hold Psionic Devices. He’d called them Arkathian ruins, presumably from some kind of progenitor species.

Further, he’d said that they shielded all their ruins from Psionic Senses, suggesting to me that at least some of them were probably Psions. It wasn’t too much of a leap from there to assume that they must have had some way of activating Psionic Abilities.

If that was true, then it followed logically that an Arkathian Ruin might have what I needed. While it was far from certain, I also knew that the royal family on the planet were Psions. They had to be getting their powers somehow, and the ruins were the only thing I’d heard of so far that fit.

Now I just need to find one, I mused, trying not to get too excited. I guess that means continuing to explore until I find one, preferably one that's above ground. It was a shame the other explorers kept their good finds secret, otherwise, I might be able to find what I needed in the database.

Then it hit me: if they were keeping things secret, then it had to be for a reason. I’d assumed so far that it was to exploit the information somehow, but I’d never really thought how they would do so.

While some things might be directly useful to them, most of what you could find out in the wilderness would only be useful to other people. They have to be selling the information, It’s the only thing that makes sense, I realized with a grin.

That meant there might be another way to get the information I needed. Simply buy the location of a ruin. I quickly pulled up my bank account, enthusiasm falling a little as I took in the numbers.

A little under eight and a half thousand dollars, huh? That’s certainly dropped fast. Since I’d started the game, I’d spent one and a half months' worth of my normal expenses in just two weeks. While I’d be getting some or even most of that back between selling Beast cores and my reward for the mission, I imagined I’d end up spending that in-game, anyway.

I had to be careful about sinking more money into the game. If it got me past this block, however, it might be worth it. I couldn’t wait to get back into the game and see if my suppositions held any water.

The wait for my laundry to finish was almost agonizing, however, there wasn’t anything for it. The last time I’d left the laundry room for an hour, all my stuff was gone by the time I’d returned.

Eventually, I was done, and I practically sprinted up the stairs to my room. Not even stopping to make the bed again, I slipped into the pod and logged back into the game.

I woke in the room I’d hired in the Explorers guild and wasted no time in pulling up the Explorer Database. Not even bothering to move to a room with a larger screen, I began searching for what I needed.

Bradford had mentioned that there was some kind of message board explorers used to team up for missions, and I was hoping they used it for other things as well.

OK, let’s see, I thought as I pulled the application up. Team-up requests, warnings, Guild updates… Ah-ha, there it is, Information Exchange. I perused the board for a few minutes, getting an idea of how it worked.

People looking for information would post what they were after. Since I never saw a reply, I guessed they got answered by private message. It made sense. Otherwise, the seller would give information away for free.

Once I was confident I knew how it worked, I began typing up what I needed.

Looking for unexplored Arkathian ruin within the Eltheias region. I am only interested in ruins that are on the surface, nothing below ground. Payment can be in credits or information.

Looking it over, I was happy enough with it for a beginning message. I’d considered asking about ruins connected to Psionic Abilities directly. However, I eventually decided not to.

Psionics had been a rather mysterious subject since I’d arrived, one that people hardly ever seemed to discuss. Given that, I wasn’t sure if asking about it directly was something I should be doing. Besides, if there was a ruin that gave you Psionic Abilities, I imagined that information on it would be far more expensive.

Perhaps I’d go down that route if I didn’t have any luck, but for now, I’d look for unexplored ruins that might have what I was after. Anyway, part of the reason I’d chosen explorer was that I enjoyed exploring.

Part of me wanted to stay glued to my screen, waiting for a reply. However, I knew that was silly, I may as well make use of the time instead. I still had a pile of Beast cores from the expedition, selling them now would help to pay for any information that was available.

I earned fourteen thousand six hundred credits from the sale of the cores. While it was quite a significant amount, it was only around half of what I’d spent on the expedition. I’d have to hope that the reward I was due in a couple of weeks would at least cover the other half.

When I got back to my room, I checked my watch again, eager to see if I’d got a reply. Sure enough, I had a private message notification, which I quickly opened to read.

You sure have expensive tastes, friend. Not a lot of unexplored ruins out there, most people investigate it themselves if they find one. Still, I may have what you’re after, for the right price. Thirty-five thousand and the information is yours.

I winced as I saw the price, even as I grew excited that the information I needed was available. Even after selling the cores, I’d need to add a little over two thousand into the game to pay that.

While I could try to haggle, that would be hard over just text. If I annoyed the seller, who had sent this anonymously somehow, I might never hear from them again.

I guess it comes down to whether I’m going all in on the game or trying to hold back, I mused as I flopped down onto the room’s bed. So far, I’ve kind of been trying to do both, trying to succeed without spending too much.

Thinking about it told me it wasn’t really that hard a choice. I couldn’t go back to the way I was living. Working twelve-hour days just to survive was too much. No, if I had to go all in to succeed, then that was what I would do.

I began typing up a reply, asking for confirmation that it was above ground and that I would be given exclusive access to the information. I certainly wasn’t going to pay that much if the location was going to be sold to other people as well.

Only a minute later, I got a response confirming both. I hesitated for a few more seconds before agreeing to purchase the information. Moments later, I got a link directing me to an escrow site.

It seemed robust enough. The seller would upload the information and I would upload the funds. Then the escrow site would allow me to view the information in a read-only format.

If I accepted it was the real deal, then the sale would be complete, otherwise, the information would be deleted and I would get most of my money back. Happy with how it was going to work, I pulled enough money into the game and deposited the credits.

A couple of minutes later, I was prompted to view the information packet. The first thing I saw was a full three-dimensional hologram of the location. It was a massive, sprawling facility, broken in some places but intact for the most part.

From the surroundings, it looked to be nestled in a valley, I could see the edges of hills or mountains around it. It looked like exactly what I was after, the only problem was its location.

The next component of the packet was the location on a map, which showed it was far up in the mountains Linnea and I had bypassed. The very mountains that Brian refused to fly anywhere near.

That’s going to be hard to get to, I mused with a sigh. Still, it was what I’d been promised, so I confirmed the transaction and downloaded all the information.

Now that I had it all loaded, I could see the scanner path of the person who had gone out there. It had a treasure trove of information, showing both a safe path all the way up there and scans of the Beasts they’d encountered on the way there.

That made me feel a lot better. While it would be a hard journey, having a path already plotted would help a lot. I could even see on it how long it had taken them to get there and back, nine days in total.

It also suggested that I’d been a little hasty when I’d first looked at the explorer map. I’d assumed that because I didn’t see this kind of long path out of the explored area, it meant no one else was going on long expeditions. Now I realized that at least some people were, they just weren’t publicly sharing that information.

Overall, I was feeling optimistic now that I had a way forward. While I’d just spent a lot of money on gaining this information, and would spend more prepping for another expedition, having a way to finally complete my class was worth it.

Even if the ruin didn’t have what I wanted, I was sure there would be at least something useful there. I might even make back my investment if I was lucky.

Grinning, I messaged Linnea and asked if she was up for a dangerous nine-day trip. I certainly didn’t want to go up there alone, the Beasts I’d seen in the information packet would kill me for sure.