Vivid Stars Online

My first task the next morning was to sell the many cores we had gathered during our trip. I visited the same shop as last time and was overjoyed to find the one hundred and ninety-four cores we had gathered sold for forty-one thousand four hundred credits.

That’s more than I paid Linnea for the trip, I thought with a grin as I left the shop. Actually, it covers her cost and all the consumables I bought. If I get a reasonable price for the Arkathian loot, then I might even make a profit.

Moving over to the nearest monorail station, I took the next train headed toward the central government district. It was the busiest train I’d caught yet with dozens of people all headed in the same direction. I transferred the rest of Linnea’s payment during the journey, she’d more than earned it.

It only took fifteen minutes before the train arrived and we all departed. While the NPCs streamed past me, I simply stood there, taking in the sight of the monolithic building in front of me.

It was a huge gothic palace, done in white marble like most of the buildings in the city. This one, however, dwarfed everything I’d seen so far, including the Elendes spaceport.

It was the most impressive building I’d ever seen in person, in the game or out of it, and it took more than a minute of staring before I could shake myself and move on.

A squad of four individuals clad in heavy armor stood guard at the entrance. I watched them for a few minutes, noticing that they weren’t stopping or questioning anyone.

I guess they're just around in case anything goes wrong, I mused, before striding up to the gargantuan double doors. While they did nothing to impede my progress, I almost stumbled as my Psi Sense picked up a Well of Psionic energy within one of them.

The guard in question had by far the fanciest armor, with multiple insignia that I didn’t recognize but assumed stood for some kind of rank. Then I moved on as I saw them turn their head toward me.

It felt like their eyes followed me until I was out of sight. I bet they noticed me too, I thought with a shudder. It was the first time I’d met another Psion and I couldn’t help but wonder what Ability they had and how I would stack up to it.

I knew those thoughts were pointless, however, so I instead focused on the room in front of me. There was a series of five reception desks, each made of gorgeously carved wood. None of them had any signs showing they had a special usage, so I joined the shortest line.

Ten minutes later, it was my time to step up and take my place in front of the desk. “Hello,” I addressed the uniformed man. “My name is Jared Hope and I have just completed the exploration of an Arkathian ruin. I'm here to report the location and to sell off items recovered from within.”

The man blinked for a moment before he nodded his head and typed something on the screen in front of him. “Of course, sir. If you would take a seat in the waiting room, someone will be by to escort you shortly.” He pointed at a door to the right as he spoke.

I thanked him and moved over, soon finding myself in a large space filled with comfortable-looking lounges. More than a dozen other finely dressed people were already using the space, all of them making me feel rather underdressed.

Maybe I should have got some nicer clothes? I thought with a wince as I settled down. While the set I was wearing didn’t have any tears and had been washed the night before, it was still simple attire compared to even the plainest outfits that I could see.

To my surprise, a woman hurried over to offer me refreshments once I’d sat down. I asked for tea, then settled down to wait. This must be the nice waiting room if they're serving refreshments, even with the shortages. Arkathian ruins must be something of a big deal.

The twenty-odd minutes I waited was highly enjoyable after the last week of roughing it. Even when we hadn’t been on the move or fighting, I’d always been at least a bit on edge during the expedition.

Even when I was out of the game, I couldn’t help but worry about what was going on inside. In comparison, this chance to just sit back and relax felt a little like heaven. I was even a little disappointed when a crisply uniformed man marched up to my chair.

“Jared Hope?” He said, phrasing the statement as a question.

At my responding nod, he gestured for me to follow him before turning sharply. By the time I was on my feet, he was already marching away and I had to move quickly not to fall behind.

We walked through the palace in silence, moving deeper into the building and up several flights of stairs. By the time we reached an office door marked Chief of Archeology, I had been completely turned around. If you asked me to leave on my own, I would have to rely on my watch for directions.

The man I was with, who still hadn’t introduced himself, knocked sharply on the door. A moment later, a voice from the other side called for us to enter. He turned but gestured for me to enter rather than moving through the door himself.

I blinked for a moment, a little surprised at that, before getting myself together and moving forward. I nodded at the man as I went past, then opened the door and stepped inside.

The room I entered was filled with shelves, dozens of them crammed into far too little space. I had to edge myself around several of them before the owner of the voice came into view.

He was tall and dressed in a fine suit, the first Earth-style clothing I’d seen in the game. His face filled with excitement as he spied me, his eyes landing on the large pack on my back.

“You must be the man they called me about. I hear you explored a ruin. And you have items to sell?” His voice rose in pitch and speed as he spoke, until I could barely understand his last words.

“That is correct,” I responded, trying to keep my speech more formal than usual. “I have full recordings of the trip, the location of the facility, and a number of artifacts that were recovered from the site.”

“Excellent, sit, sit,” he said, gesturing me over to a pair of wooden chairs stuffed into a corner. There was barely room for us to sit facing each other without touching. Shrugging, I settled in. My Psi Sense pinged as I moved past him, this man was another Psion.

“First, allow me to introduce myself,” the man said with a flourish as he moved to sit across from me. “I am professor Henry Walter Henceforthe, chief of archeology for the Elendes region. If you will tell me the tale of your expedition and share your scans, I will appropriately compensate you.”

Liking the sound of that, I launched into the tale of the entire trip. While I didn’t cover every little detail to save time, I hit upon all the important parts. Henry nearly jumped out of his seat when I mention the ritual chamber, leading me to believe that I’d been right about it being important.

After I finally finished with our defeat of the AI and the return home, he spoke up. “Excellent, Excellent. Good work in clearing out that beastly AI as well, the old Arkathian ones always cause problems if you leave them alone.”

Leaning in conspiratorially, he continued. “And in particular, good work on finding that chamber. The Duchess herself will be most pleased with that discovery.”

Intrigued, I leaned forward as well. “Are they that rare? I said in response.

Henry shrugged his shoulders as he leaned back. “Not rare exactly, there are certainly many that we have located, however, they are something we can never have enough of.”

I nodded. I guess when you have something that can give people Psionic powers, you want as many as you can get. Particularly if they give different powers. “Well, I can transfer the information whenever you are ready.”

Henry lept to his feet in response, moving so quickly that I nearly got whiplash trying to follow him. “Of course, this way, please. We will need to hook you up to one of the Archaeology bureau's machines.”

He continued as I followed him past shelves lined with bizarre objects. “Policy is that your information needs to be copied, then wiped from your device. While that won’t stop you from telling anyone or returning yourself, it will at least stop you from giving anyone a detailed route.”

“Also, don’t return yourself,” he finished as he gestured me toward a machine sitting on another desk. “I’m afraid our military is quite protective of these sites once they come to our notice.”

The device on the table was about the size of a toaster and had a cable coming out of the top. At Henry’s urging, I took off my watch and plugged the cable into a small socket I hadn’t even known it had.

After that, I navigated to the information and confirmed that I wished to copy and then delete it. Moments later it was complete and I couldn’t find a trace of the scanner data on my watch, it was as if I had never had it in the first place.

Henry was fiddling with his own watch, and he was soon nodding his head with a smile. “Excellent,” he said for the fourth time since I’d arrived. “I can confirm receipt of the information. Due to the excellent work you have done in exploring and clearing out the location, we will increase the usual finder's fee to fifty thousand credits. We will just need to have a team check out the location first.

This again, I thought, suppressing a sigh. I probably should have been expecting it after my last mission, but it’s still a little annoying. On the other hand, that’s a lot of money, so I can’t be too annoyed with it.

Fifty thousand credits would be more than a month’s expenses if I withdrew it, even after VSO’s currency withdrawal cut and taxes. Still not enough to cover everything I’d put into the game on its own, but it might be if I put it together with everything else I was getting.

Next, we moved on to selling the loot from the ruins, which included the cores from the spider Beasts. I hadn’t sold them with the other cores because I suspected that their artificial nature would have them included as part of the facility’s loot.

I turned out I was right as Henry happily took them, along with the other bits and pieces. He gave me a total of twenty-three thousand credits for the lot, a price I was happy to accept.

With our business done, I managed to extract myself after answering questions for another fifteen minutes. It seemed that Henry was extremely interested in everything Arkathian and it was all I could do to leave gracefully.

Finally, he let me go with a vague promise to make sure the Dutchess heard of my find. While I wasn’t entirely sure that I wanted to be known to the local nobility, I eventually decided that every advantage would be good to have. Besides, it didn’t look like I could talk him out of it, anyway.

The same escort as earlier was waiting outside to take me out of the building, and I had to wonder if he’d been standing there the whole time. I suppose it would make sense, right? I thought as I followed him out of the building.

Henry was clearly an important person, so I doubt they would just leave him unguarded. Even if he was a Psion. If anything, that was the reason that the guard had felt comfortable standing outside rather than watching me in person.

Once I’d been escorted all the way out of the building, passing the Psion on the front door again along the way, I made my way back to the station. It was time to head back to the Explorer’s guild and check in with Bradford.

He’d told me it would be one or two weeks till he had a response and we were getting closer to the two-week end of that range. While I hadn’t received the message he’d promised me, it would at least be worth getting an update.

Once I knew the status of that I could do a bit of accounting and see where I stood,