Vivid Stars Online

A quick message to Linnea soon told me they had already finished their debriefing and were waiting outside the palace. It only took a couple of minutes for me to be escorted through the winding hallways before I could join them.

On the way out, I sent another message asking them to play along, with a promise to explain later. Then I stormed out of the building, looking furious.

“We're leaving,” I snapped as I walked past without stopping. “There’s no point in staying around here any longer.”

I made sure to keep up the act until we reached mono-rail before I finally allowed Linnea to ‘calm me down’. Only once we had settled into an empty carriage, however, did I finally explain what was going on.

“So you're bait,” Linnea responded with a frown as I finished. “I don’t exactly like it, but I can see how it might work.”

“Yeah,” I responded with a nod. “As long as I can keep up the act when out in public, whoever is feeding them information will hopefully pick up on it. Leaving in the middle of the night tomorrow should help as well, that’s not something I’ve ever done before.”

“So,” I continued, a little nervously. “Are you up for coming? It’s going to be dangerous, even with this mysterious operative’s help.”

Linnea turned a little to stare at me directly before her face broke into a grin. “Of course, I’m coming. I can hardly just leave you to go out and die on your own, even if you would come back.”

“And I’m coming too,” Elana shouted as she leaned over her sister to face me as well. “I can barely wait to find out what the last facility has ready for you. I bet it’s going to have the best robots yet.”

I blinked in surprise before responding. “What?”

She broke into a laugh before explaining. “Surely you’ve noticed that each of the facilities has been harder than the last, right? The first one had barely any defenses, just those little security robots.”

“Then the second one had those retrofitted worker robots, while the third had properly fabricated flying drones. I figure that they're either talking to each other or at least know when one of the others dies.”

“Oh,” I could only say in response as my mind whirled with implications. That made so much sense that it wasn’t funny. The second one hadn’t had much time to work with so it could only refit what it had, the third facility had far longer and had created custom drones to fight me.

That did indeed leave the question of what the last facility would have. It would have even more time than the third facility, if only by a few weeks, and if it could truly tell that all three of the other AIs were dead, then it might really get desperate.

It might even explain why the other two facilities had never tried the auto-destruct. I’d put it down to a difference in goals, or perhaps even personality between the AIs, however, if they could detect that the self-destruct had failed the first time, they might not even have bothered to try.

“Your right,” I finally responded with a frown. “That makes sense, and it also makes me a little worried about what we might find. Are you sure you want to risk coming? I can’t guarantee that we can keep you safe.”

“Hmph,” she snorted. “I think I showed you in the fight against the mercs that I’m not as helpless as I used to be. Besides, I can just respawn if needed. As long as I don’t get trapped as I did with the spider, then I’ll be fine.”

“OK then,” I nodded. “You're more than welcome in that case. We meet up at Brian’s landing pad just before midnight tomorrow.”

She nodded before smirking at Linnea and me. “With that organized, I’ll leave you two alone for a bit. Have fun.” With that, she left, dragging the two recovered drones with her.

I smiled a little awkwardly at Linnea before gathering my courage. “I was going to maybe get a hotel room somewhere if you’d, um, like to join me?”

For a moment she looked surprised before her face broke out into a smile. “Yes, Jared. I was beginning to think you’d never ask.”

I could only nod in response before pulling up a search on my phone. After finding an appropriate location, I made a booking, and we changed trains to reach it.

After spending an extremely pleasant afternoon, evening, and night with Linnea, we were both up early the next morning to prepare. After spending a little more time together and having breakfast, we split up to get ready for the trip.

Linnea was heading off to get some better armor with the funds I’d paid her for the last trip, having learned a hard lesson at the end of Adam’s shotgun, while I was heading back to the guild.

I grabbed some additional supplies along the way, appearing surreptitious as I did so, before I booked a meeting room at the guild. I also told the receptionist that I would be expecting a mercenary to show up at some point and asked her to show them up.

Subterfuge wasn’t exactly something I was used to, however, I hoped that struck the right balance between appearing to be hiding something and still leaving enough clues behind. If anyone was watching me, it should paint a picture of me setting up a clandestine trip.

Then I spent a few hours locked inside the room planning our route. It looked like it would take a couple of weeks to make it there from the base of the last mountain we had visited. As that was the furthest north we had scouted so far, it was also the furthest that Brian would be willing to take us.

It was a good thing that I was being well paid for the trip, and that one of the mercenaries I was bringing was actually the Duchess’ operative, as the price of the trip would have been exorbitant otherwise.

As it was, I would still come out of this well ahead, even if we didn’t manage to loot anything from the facility. If we managed to get some loot as well, I would be set for nearly a year, even without my solo exploring revenue.

That was good since I planned to funnel funds toward Elana so that she could build me a custom combat robot. With the Technokinesis upgrade, I was hoping to get at the last facility that would truly push my combat ability to the next level.

Not long after I had finished mapping the route, a knock at the door drew my attention. Standing up, I opened it to find a petite woman standing on the other side.

She couldn’t have been taller than five feet and was slim even for that. Her body was entirely clad in a smooth, figure-hugging material that I recognized as the same nano weave armor I wore.

This even included a full helmet that covered her entire face, leaving just a bare of green eyes and her mouth free. A long sword was strapped across her back, while her thighs each had a dagger strapped to them.

I couldn't spot a gun of any kind, leading me to believe that she was a close combat-focused fighter, with perhaps some kind of psionic ranged attack. While it felt strangely muted, I could still sense powerful psionics within her, and all of her blades were what I termed Psi blades.

“Jared Hope?” She asked, her tone clear, and crisp as it echoed through the hallways. “I am here about the job request you posted.”

I nodded in response, scowling and gesturing for her to stay quiet despite being glad to see that she was playing along. If anyone was spying on us, in person or technologically, they would see me trying to keep her reason for being here quiet.

With a last exaggerated frown, I gestured her inside the obviously looked both ways down the hallway before closing the door. Once the door was securely locked, I apologized for the ruse.

“It is no matter,” she responded with a shrug. “Are you sure it is safe to talk in here?”

“Yeah,” I responded with a nod. “The explorer’s guild is pretty strict about security in their meeting rooms. Information is kind of our business when you think about it.”

“Very well then,” she nodded, her tone still crisp. “For this mission, you may refer to me as Felisa. That alias is fully registered with the Mercenary Guild with multiple, though not too many, missions on record. Just the kind of competent, but still cheap, individual that you usually hire.”

“Right,” I responded, a little thrown by just how professional and organized she was. It was a stark reminder that while I and the sisters were just gamers in the end, the NPCs here were completely serious about their roles.

Of course, some kind of black ops person would be like this, I thought with a shake of my head. Returning my attention to Felisa, I explained the plan. “We will meet up at my transportation’s landing pad tonight at midnight for an initial two-week trip. After that, we will have supplies shuttled in before finishing our climb to the mountain.”

“A good choice,” she responded with a small smile. “If we were truly trying to sneak there undetected, we would strive to take everything we needed with us. In this case, the resupply at the end will give our enemy a vital chance to find us again if they have failed to track us that far.”

“Yeah,” I responded, feeling a little embarrassed that I hadn’t thought of that. I was just doing what I normally did on an expedition. “Do you have questions?” I asked, trying to draw attention away from my embarrassment.

If Felisa noticed, she didn’t give any indication, instead tilting her head for a moment before responding. “No, that is sufficient explanation. I will gather supplies if you will share the location with me.”

I nodded and sent her the details after she shared her number with me. Moments later, she was gone with barely a farewell, leaving me shaking my head in surprise. She seems competent enough, though, I thought with a grin. I bet whoever our enemy sends is going to be surprised.

Anyone the Duchess trusted to send on this mission had to be far more dangerous than her publicly available mercenary record suggested. If our enemies used that to base their response on, they would be in for quite the shock.

With that settled, I finished my own preparations, including drinking the latest enhancement elixir. It was as pleasant as always, and afterward, I pulled up my stats to see how I was going.

Jared Hope

Class: Psion

Level: 9

XP: 3950/4500

Statistics:

Brawn: 9

Toughness: 35

Agility: 9

Perception: 9

Mind: 24

Will: 31

Free points: 0

Skills:

Archeology level 2

Translation level 2

Pistols level 3

Psi Sense Level 4

Light Blades Level 1

Technokinses Level 3

Packmaster Level 2

Skin Hardening Level 2

Scouting level 2

Ethereal Roots level 2

Traits:

General:

Database of Alien Languages

Psionic Abilities:

Skin Hardening (Initiate)

Ethereal Roots (Initiate)

Great Psionic Abilities

Technokinesis (Journeyman)

Status:

Uninjured

Full Energy Well

With my free points from the last level having gone into Will, it was almost rivaling my Toughness which should give me a much-needed power boost against the next AI. I hoped that with my new abilities, I would be able to easily defeat it in a fight, though I would likely still need to reach the core to do so.

I’d also gained a few additional skill levels, in particular, Scouting and Packmaster had both reached level two despite not being class skills. I guess that’s the benefit of using them both almost continually, I thought with a grin.

What came as a surprise was that I was nearly to level ten. I hadn’t really been keeping track of the XP over the last few rushed days of the trip, and it had all added up nicely.

That should let me reach level ten before we got ambushed again, which would push my stats even higher. With all the increases, and with my new Technokinesis ability, I was almost looking forward to the fight ahead.