Vivid Stars Online

We soon found that the network of caves extending from the worm’s cavern was extensive. While some of them were the full size of the worm, many were small enough that I had to force myself to enter them.

It was an arduous trip for me, however, I could feel it slowly becoming easier each time I moved through one of the tunnels. Luckily, the area was devoid of other Beasts, something I put down to Grand Cave Worm eating them all or scaring them away.

After nearly an hour of this exploration, I nearly jumped out of my skin when my watch gave off a loud beeping sound. Looking down at my watch showed an overlay of our surroundings with a section of it highlighted.

It took me a minute before I realized it was the new mineral scanning equipment that I’d picked up before we left. Pulling up the more detailed information showed me it was a significantly sized Hematite deposit. A quick read revealed it was one of the best ores for extracting iron, something that was indeed high on the Guild’s priority list.

“Nice,” I muttered as I saved the location. Turning back toward Linnea, I continued. “Let’s keep going for a while and see if we can find any more, I’m not sure if this alone would be enough to make it worth digging all the way down here.”

At her responding nod, we continued walking and sometimes crawling through the tunnels. In the end, we found three more deposits, all more hematite. I hoped it was enough to interest the Guild, as we had been down in the caves for most of the day by this point.

I was more than ready to leave, so we began back-tracking our way out of the caves. It was fairly easygoing except for swimming back through the pool of water, though that at least cleaned most of the blood and dirt off me.

Luckily, we didn’t encounter any more fish, so we were able to leave the pool and proceed through the rest of the cave without issue. We finally reached the exit with only about half an hour to go on my logout timer.

I rushed to set up camp and a large fire with Linnea’s help. It was nice to be back in the forest with abundant wood supplies as it would allow us both to sleep without worrying about Beast activity. We finished with only a few minutes to go, so I bid Linnea good night before slipping into my tent and logging out.

The next morning, we woke and moved back to the clearing where we would be picked up by Brian. On the way I tried using my new Psionic ability during the fights we encountered, only to find it barely had any effect.

Chalking it up to the fact that I lacked the linked skill, as the ability had warned me, I put it aside until I reached level seven. Hopefully, it would become useful once I had the skill and its effectiveness was no longer restricted.

We reached the clearing with no serious incidents and were soon flying back to the city. Upon touching down, I sent Linnea the rest of her funds rather than waiting the two days we had agreed upon since the total was only a little more than the down payment.

The entire trip had been much smoother and quicker than I had thought it might be. Though I suppose the game wanted me to go that route right near the start, I mused as I began heading toward the Guild. It’s no wonder it was quicker than some things I’ve done since then.

Since it had finished so quickly, I still had a decent supply of funds for my next trip. Unless Bradford had some mission he needed doing, that would be a trip to the nearest facility I’d found on the Arkathian tablet.

Even the closest one would be a major undertaking that would likely need to be done in stages. Much like my first mission out to the lake, I would have to set up at least one location where we could be re-supplied on the way.

I still hadn’t fully planned it out by the time I reached the guild, however, I put it aside for now in favor of reporting my findings. After reading through the Guild regulations, I found that since it wasn’t an official mission, I didn’t even have to report to Bradford in person.

Instead, I just had to upload my findings to the guild priorities section of the database, which would thankfully not make them public. After that, I just had to wait for the Guild to decide if it was worth sending someone to confirm my findings.

If the Guild did not deem the deposits worth it, I would only get a small payout and would still have ownership of the information. That meant I could potentially find a different buyer for it, though I was doubtful that I would be able to.

In my mind, if the Guild didn’t think it was viable to exploit those resources, then I probably wouldn’t find anyone else who thought differently. I would still give it a go, however, I wouldn’t be holding out hope for it.

On the other hand, if the Guild thought the information was worth it, they would send another team to confirm my scans. Once that was done, I would get a significant payout for exclusive rights to the information and resources.

I wasn’t sure what would happen after that, however, I guessed they would pass it on to the city or a private company so that they could set up a mining operation. Either way, I would get my payment along with a significant amount of reputation with the guild.

Having researched the process, I submitted my scans to the appropriate section before booking a room to plan my next expedition in. Between the orbital scans the Explorer database held and the ancient Arkathian map, I had a general idea of the distance to the facility.

However, it was out of the area that the guild had explored, so I lacked any detailed information. I was sure that things would have changed significantly since the Arkathian map had been made, so I didn’t put too much trust in anything it said.

Instead, I planned for a gradual trip up from the edge of the lake, through the vast plains we’d seen there, and up into another section of the mountain range. I conservatively estimated that this would take at least three weeks, a much longer trip than I was comfortable making in one go.

During my first mission, I had actually flown all the way back to town after traveling as far as I could. While this had worked, particularly since I’d needed to get more backup, I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend that much time traveling back and forth on this trip.

Instead, I began putting together a plan that would see my group being resupplied between two and three times on the journey, depending on how we went. Since all we really needed was for Brian to drop off another load of supplies, this should work without delaying us.

I knew that Brian was happy to land as long as he had a recent scan of the local area that confirmed it was safe. It was only if we wanted to return to be dropped off later that he needed more detailed scans of the area over time.

A quick check over the shops I’d been buying supplies from showed that I could order remotely and have them delivered to Brian’s landing pad for a small additional fee. That meant I should be able to organize everything on the go as needed.

With the general plan in place, I just had to organize my support. Unfortunately, that was where I hit a bit of a snag as it turned out that Linnea wasn’t able to commit to a multi-week trip for some time.

While I could potentially organize for her to be dropped off once we had traveled most of the distance, that didn’t help me right now.

I briefly considered trying to go it alone, before discarding the idea. While I was a lot stronger than before I got my abilities, I was still hampered by a limited amount of energy per day. I was pretty confident of winning most single fights if I blew all my energy, however, on a trip like this that wouldn’t be sustainable.

Instead, I once again started looking through the Mercenary Guild’s member list. While many of them were very expensive, some were charging the same three hundred credits an hour that Linnea was.

I sent a message to each of them before heading off to do some shopping while I waited. Even though I hadn’t used too many supplies on my brief journey, I would still have to replace them. I also had Beast cores I was eager to sell.

That brought a pleasant surprise as I found that the Grand Cave Worm core was worth thirteen thousand credits on its own. When combined with the other, smaller, cores that we had acquired, my total came to a little over eighteen thousand credits.

While this didn’t bring me up to a profit for the trip, it paid for most of it. If the ore deposits ended up being viable, then it would likely cover the difference and more. Besides this, in my mind, the real win was my new ability, even if I couldn’t use it yet.

That brought an idea to mind, and I put up a post on the information section of the guild database. While the location of the Psi Rift probably wasn’t worth as much now that it was recharging, it might still be worth something.

I considered keeping it secret and waiting until I could use it again myself, however, it would almost certainly be discovered if the Guild sent out a party to check my ore deposits. Given that, I felt it best to get some value out of it now while it was still a secret.

By the time I had done that and gathered all my supplies, I had responses back from the mercenaries. While two of them were not available for such a long trip, the last one was happy to sign up for at least the first three weeks.

That was fine by me since I believed we would be at the base of the mountain at a minimum by that point. Then I could decide If I wanted to swap the new guy out for Linnea or if I should hire them both for additional backup.

While that decision would largely depend on how much money I had left, I would also have to take the level of danger into account. We were traveling further north and as I’d found out, the further from settled areas, and in particular the further north you went, the more dangerous the Beasts got.

With funding in mind, I returned to the shop where I had been selling my cores and organized for them to receive shipments in the future. If I didn’t have to sell the cores in person, then I could send them back after a resupply to gain a much-needed cash injection.

While that might not be enough on its own to pay for all my expenses, in particular the cost of paying my backup, it should be enough to stretch out my funds. My experience so far had been that cores I found paid for somewhere between sixty to eighty percent of what I put into a mission.

With my payment for the Arkathian ruin information coming up, I was confident that I wouldn’t run out of money before reaching the facility at least. However, I would have to rely on finding at least a reasonable payout there if I wanted to make a profit.

It was only after organizing everything that I got a message that forced me to push my plans back. It was Bradford informing me that the Duchess wanted to meet me in two days.

I winced at reading that, however, I still responded in the affirmative. While I kind of wanted to push it back or even refuse, I knew that would be a bad idea. I only hoped that meeting a member of the nobility wouldn't cause too much trouble.