Vivid Stars Online

It took a couple of hours for my Psi energy reserves to recharge. It was a nervous wait, with some part of me still expecting something to go wrong at any second. Nothing happened, however, with the AI remaining silent.

I almost decided to just leave it be at one point, however, Adam’s continued warnings against leaving it convinced me to keep going. He made the very valid point that while it may not be able to do anything in this room, that might not extend to the rest of the facility.

His many tales of the horrors that had befallen explorers in other ruins were more than enough to harden my resolve.

When I was ready, I sat in the center of the room, right next to one of the larger banks of servers. Linnea and Adam guarded the door from outside the room, ready for some kind of last assault. Their position outside would also hopefully keep them safe if the electronics in the room overloaded.

After preparing myself as much as I could, I focused on reaching out to the AI’s presence in the room. While it was far beyond anything that I had attuned to before, my ability still classed it as a single item.

It was an odd experience, with the vastness of the AI’s hardware being more than I could hold in my mind at the same time. I was reduced to focusing on small parts of it as I moved my attention around the room.

The same resistance that had hindered me in opening the facility’s doors was omnipresent here, pressing down on me and trying to force me out. The AI was fighting me with everything it had, and just moving around was a struggle.

I knew I needed to do so, however, as I had the sense that I was currently in a non-critical system. Though important, destroying things here wouldn’t take the AI out.

So I focused on moving around and trying to sense my way to something more critical. Ironically, it was the very resistance the AI provided that was my guide. The further away I got from the critical systems, the weaker the resistance got.

Conversely, the closer I got, the harder it fought to keep me out. This was a significant boon as I didn’t have the energy to explore the entire network of hardware.

Onward I moved, ever deeper into the network as I grew closer to the core systems. My energy was draining as I moved, however, it was fairly slow as I hadn’t tried to affect anything yet. Still, it would be best if I could find the critical point as soon as possible before my reserves dropped too low.

After minutes of this struggle, I reached a spot where the AI was defending more than any other. Every direction that I tried to leave from had the resistance vanish as if it was overjoyed to see me go.

This was the spot to try to do my damage. With as much focus as I could muster, I began attempting the same metaphysical wrenching motion that I had used on the robots.

The AI fought back, hard, pressing against me with everything it could muster to try to force me out.

I persisted, going through with the motion before I was violently thrown back into my body.

It hadn’t felt like the AI had removed me, instead, it was like the space I had been viewing myself in no longer existed.

Cracking my eyes open, I could see sparks flashing from banks of servers as minor explosions detonated around me. Smoke was filling the room, and I dragged myself up and stumbled to the door while struggling to breathe.

Linnea and Adam were waiting, both looking worried. Their faces slipped into relief as they saw me before they ducked in and helped pull me out. We hurried down the hallway to cleaner air, where I collapsed, gasping.

“I think that did it,” I said with a grin once I got my breath back. “Even if it somehow survived, I’m pretty sure it won’t be in any condition to bother us.”

“Nice!” Linnea responded with a grin. “I guess means we’re free to explore the place?”

I nodded in response before moving over to the nearest door. I was a little worried that I had fried the entire facility’s power, thus breaking the doors like in the last facility. I was presently surprised, however, to find that the doors were still powered.

It opened smoothly at my mental probe with no hint of the resistance that the AI had been providing. Beyond, a small bedroom was revealed, though most of the bed had collapsed.

“OK,” I said, turning to the other two with a smile. “Looks like we still need me to open the doors, however, I’ll be able to do so with no real restriction now. The only thing I’m concerned about is supplies. I think we can spare two days before heading back?”

Adam tilted his head for a moment before responding. “Yeah, that should be alright. We’ll be pretty much empty on the last day so it will be cutting things close, however, we should make it if nothing goes wrong. Worst case, we can get food by hunting, though that will slow us down significantly.”

Linnea nodded in agreement, showing that we were all on board. I started by having a quick look around the bedroom, before quickly giving up on it. It was small and contained only a few storage areas that were entirely empty.

Whoever had lived here had cleared out well, leaving nothing behind. I had a feeling that most of the residential areas would be the same, so I focused our time on the military and industrial areas of the facility.

We were restricted in what we could carry, though we had a fair amount of space from the supplies that we had already consumed. The weight would be the biggest issue, and I focused on gathering anything that was small and not too heavy.

We found a couple more Arkathian tablets and more of the loose electrical gadgets that I had sold last time. A small workshop had several of what looked like powered tools, most of which we could fit.

Finally, we came across the armory, which had the largest haul of all. Rows of lockers lined the back wall, one of which had not been entirely emptied. At the bottom of it was a metal crate that had a small collection of gear inside.

It looked like most of a soldier’s kit and contained a full set of the nano weave armor I had been using the leggings of. It also had a long knife and, best of all, a sleek black pistol.

I Attuned to both the knife and the pistol to see if I could get an idea of what they did. Both of them were incredibly easy to connect with and I could sense ancient remnants of Psi energy in them.

“Wow,” I sighed as I looked them over. “I think some ancient Arkathian Psion used these.”

Focusing on the knife, I tried to sharpen the edge like I had done with my own. It instantly followed my will before going even further. A glowing purple edge sprung along the blade, extending nearly an inch from the actual metal.

Testing it on the edge of the locker showed it was incredibly sharp, even being capable of slicing metal with a little force behind it. I was growing increasingly excited by the find and turned my attention to the pistol.

It was a little smaller than my gun and I couldn’t see anywhere to load ammunition or plasma packs in. I focused my attention on it and tried to get a feel for how the internals functioned.

Like the knife, it accepted my will easily, allowing me to explore it with my mind. I was growing fairly good at this after my battle with the AI and I could scan through the whole gun fairly quickly.

Oddly, I couldn’t find anything that felt like a power source within it. Then an idea struck me and I tried empowering the gun, as I did with my pistol. It eagerly sucked up my energy until it stopped after taking about one percent of my reserves.

It felt like I could push more in if I wanted to, however, I held off for now. Instead, I was eager to test it and aimed at the far wall. I warned Linnea and Adam that I was going to test something and we all took cover before I pulled the trigger.

A purple bolt shot from the gun and flew through the air before striking the wall with a minor explosion. While it was hard to get an exact idea, I felt it had about twice the power of the normal shots from my gun.

“Nice,” I said with a grin. Ammo was a significant expense, so if I could do away with it, for the most part, I would get some nice savings. I would still keep my old pistol if I was low on power, but I would be certainly using this gun most of the time.

For a second test, I focused on pushing the energy as high as I could go, which turned out to be five percent of my reserves. This caused an explosion even larger than my normal empowered shots for about half the cost.

Grinning at finally getting some class-appropriate gear, I started equipping all my new items. First was the full set of nano weave armor.

This included the leggings that I already had a copy of, a pair of soft boots that looked like the kind you would wear with a wetsuit, and the long-sleeved top that included a cowl. It was all highly comfortable and molded itself to fit me as I put it on.

Even the boots felt more padded than they should have, making them at least as suitable for hiking as my old ones. The cowl felt a little odd to wear, however, it folded out of the way on the back of my neck when not used.

“Looking good, Jared,” Linnea said with a grin as I began strapping on my weapons. “You're looking like an actual Psion now.”

“I guess I am,” I said, grinning back as I paused. While they didn’t quite look like robes, the armor still gave that kind of feeling with the cowl up. I could just imagine what a small army of Arkathians dressed like this would have looked like, and it felt like the sight would have been extremely intimidating.

Smiling at the thought, I returned to my equipment. The two new weapons, which I started calling my Psi dagger and Psi pistol, simply stuck to any part of the armor I attached them to.

This was convenient as I didn’t have holsters for them. That allowed me to strap on the holsters for my old weapons, leaving me with a gun on each hip and a dagger strapped to each thigh.

By this point, it was pretty late, and we moved back to the hangar to sleep the night. It was the single largest space In the facility and had, as far as we could tell, the only exit.

This would give us the option of retreating outside or through one of the doors deeper into the facility if anything occurred during the night.

I almost had a heart attack as the door to the hangar opened and revealed four of the robots standing on the other side. I almost shot one before I realized they were just standing there, inert.

“I guess it had some soldiers guarding the exit after all,” Linnea said with a laugh of relief beside me. “I wonder why it didn’t bring them in to fight us, though?”

“I guess Adam was correct,” I responded with a nod at the man. “It must have had limitations on where it can deploy troops. I mean, they probably wouldn’t have wanted it to focus on just defending the core in the event of an attack.”

Adam nodded in response, before moving up to examine one of them. “They look like they're still active and powered. Perhaps they're just waiting for commands? Do you think you can do anything with them, Jared?”

Cocking my head,” I focused my attention on one of them. This time, instead of destroying it, I focused on trying to give it a command. At first, nothing happened, however, as I continued pushing, it eventually started jerkily moving across the room.

“Nice,” I said with a laugh. I didn’t think I’d be able to get them fighting any time soon, if ever, however, it would certainly allow us to carry a lot more out of here.

“Looks like we’ve got a lot more looting to do tomorrow,” I continued, my facing breaking into a wide grin. “We just got a lot more carrying capacity.