Jace got used to the rumbling engine and bumpy road quickly enough, and was able to ride along the cracked, broken roads with little issue. He did not even have to navigate around obstacles as the path was cleared of any debris. You’d think that they would have vehicles with all of this open road, he thought. Abandoned when people went through Cosmogenic Merging. But he had not seen anything of that nature. Maybe they had some type of public transport that eliminated the need.
Riding a vehicle was something he had never experienced before. The rush of wind through his hair when he poked it above the windshield, the strong thrumming of the behemoth under him, and the exhilaration of sheer speed was a thrill that coursed through his whole being. Ollie was flying alongside and above him, constantly scanning the environment in a slow, bobbing circle.
He flew down next to Jace’s ear and practically had to shout over the roaring engine, "You are being followed! Brontasps!"
Jace looked over his shoulder and saw a horrific sight that shook him to his core. Snakes the size of small dogs were slithering over the landscape at a ridiculous speed. Traveling in a pack of five as the suns shone down from on high. How are they keeping up? Jace looked down at the speed gauge and grimaced, Oh. Only 50 mph. To someone who had never gone that fast before? It was an insane speed. But apparently these things were far faster, as they gained ground on him.
"They have a top speed of seventy miles per hour!" Ollie shouted once more. "You can go faster and outrun them or fight them!"
I’d rather get more Stardust. "What all can they do?" He shouted back as he accelerated a bit faster, wanting to maintain his current distance until he had all the information.
"They will try to surround you, take nips with venomous fangs that will paralyze, and then drag you back to their nest. They are ferocious and will not run off even if there is only one left. They’re not as tough as the Vyrknadine are, but they are faster!"
Right. Okay. Dark Matter Shield (Rank 3). The faint purple film covered his body, and he stopped accelerating, letting the vehicle slow down at its own pace. The Brontasps closed the distance and were thirty feet away when Jace dug his clawed foot into the ground, spun the bike around, and came to a stop.
With a single deft movement, he dismounted and drew his sword, wincing as he did so because of the broken fingers, and then tossed it to his prosthetic right arm. Dark Matter Blade (Rank 5) [Rending]. The blade ignited with purple and crimson fury as the Brontasps finally reached him. One charged right at him while the other four circled around him.
The lead one struck out and Jace’s Swordmage Stance (Rank 3) guided his body to deftly bend around the strike. He struck down, severed the head entirely, and then pivoted with the momentum of the swing. Wow. These things are way weaker than the Vyrkn-things. Jace felt his energy drain slightly as one of the creatures in his blind spot struck out and buried its fangs into his shield.
Jace wheeled around and lopped its head off with ease as it writhed down to the ground. The other three all struck out at once. An idea popped into Jace’s head, and he swung his sword in a rapid spin. The creatures couldn’t see it, and with the single, circular cleave, he carved into the mouths and heads of each. Not decapitating blows – the angle for that was wrong – but the miasmic purple and crimson coated their heads as the black micro-singularities spread.
All three creatures recoiled away and writhed on the ground before coming to a stop. "That wasn’t too difficult," Jace stated as he looked around for any others. He winced as he heard the hypercycle clatter to the ground. Right, the kickstand.
Ollie held up his paw, "Dust them?"
"Go for it."
<<<<<>>>>>
[Stardust Acquired: 500.]
<<<<<>>>>>
"100 each?" Jace asked as he sheathed the weapon and let the shield fade. "That seems pretty damn good."
"It puts you at 895 right now," Ollie replied. "You could always go searching for their nest."
"Are they invasive like other things?"
"Querying...no. Does not look like it."
Jace nodded, "Would killing them mean that the prey animals get out of control with breeding and end up starving themselves?"
"The Neeshk? Yes. They would eventually overpopulate."
Jace walked back to the hypercycle and pulled it upright, "Then I’m not going to go take out their nest."
Ollie flew up and put himself in front of Jace’s face. "Why not? They are worth 100 Stardust each for adults. You could get a lot of levels out of it."
"Xera’s faction is about keeping the balance of The Cosmic System, right? I don’t think that upsetting and unbalancing the ecosystem would be keeping the balance. If she wanted me to clear them out, she’d give a Quest, wouldn’t she?"
Ollie opened his mouth as if to say something but stopped himself and frowned. "I cannot fault that logic."
Jace refueled the hyperbike and stowed the empty jug of fuel. "How far can this take us?"
"About 500 miles on a single tank."
"Is that far enough to get to these Black Hole Conclave Signers?"
"Yup!"
Jace nodded and revved the engine, swung the vehicle around, and took off towards his destination.
Quinn stepped through the portal with Greg by her side. Valerie flew just above her, and Darrin was hovering just above Greg’s head. The two Wayfinders pulled up a map of the world. "Velenar Prime," Valerie stated as the globe slowly spun.
"Remember, purple and yellow flowers," Quinn said as she looked around the portal-arrival location. The field they were in was a lush, off-white color.
"Right. The more we get the better," Greg stated as he knelt next to the grass.
"Correct," his spider Wayfinder replied. "The purple goes for 4 Stardust, the yellow is worth 7."
Quinn looked up at the bleak, grey skies and spied a few black clouds floating on the horizon. "They’re both night blooms, correct?"
"Yes," Valerie replied. "See how this grass is off-white? It’s been picked dry. We’ll have to go farther to find the stuff."
Greg shook his head as he stood up, "How far?"
"Twenty miles," Quinn said as she manipulated the floating globe and zoomed in on a region just to the South of them. "And remember, this world has daytime and nighttime predators."
Quinn got out of her sleeping bag and sat up as her internal clock went off, ringing in her mind. Quietly, she set up the small camp stove and cranked the generator that spun up an electric hot plate.
Greg let out a massive yawn and sat up, "Morning. What’s for breakfast?"
Quinn chuckled and shook her head, "Just some warmed-up sludge."
"Mmm, sludge. My favorite." Greg smiled as he got out of the sleeping bag and began rolling it up.
Both of their Wayfinders appeared with a faint pop noise. "Good morning!" Valerie tweeted out as she landed on Quinn’s shoulder. "One more day of travel and then a full night of flower picking!"
Quinn nodded, "Yeah. I think a few more nights and we’ll be full up of what we can carry back."
Greg frowned as he finished rolling up the sleeping back. "That Vyrknadine last night was a tough son-of-a-bitch. Took four shocks!" He reached over for the electricity-imbued cudgel known as a Stunstick.
I’d be screwed if you weren’t around, she thought. She had been bending over, picking the various flowers when a growling came from right in front of her. She was thrown to the ground and a horrific creature bit down on her. But she felt no pain. Instead, Greg screamed out in pain, pulled his weapon, and went to work beating the creature to death. It was a violent, gory encounter...and Quinn was given a newfound fear of the man who was protecting her. He was dangerous, no doubt about that. Thank God he’s on my payroll.
Patching him up was messy work, as the bite that would’ve clamped down on her shoulder instead appeared on his. If we get attacked again, by surprise, we’re screwed. She only had a knife to defend herself with.
Her ears perked up as she heard a sound. A whining, whirring, growling sound. "Do you-"
Greg was already on his feet, Stunstick in hand, and his body was covered in a rocky crust. "Stay in here." He went outside the tent. His spider went with him.
Quinn turned off the stove, set it to the side, and crouched with her knife drawn, waiting. The sound of the hypercycle – a common sound out in the badlands that extended outside of Sydney – came closer before it came to an abrupt stop. She heard Greg shout something, another person shouted in return...and then laughing?
Valerie looked up at her, "It sounds like whoever it is isn’t hostile."
Greg opened the tent flap with a huge grin on his face, "You won’t believe it! I found one of my old contacts! Come on outside."
Quinn got out of the tent and followed Greg’s footsteps with her eyes. He walked over to a cloaked and hooded man with a sword hilt strapped to his waist, weird, prosthetic legs, and a singular prosthetic arm. She telescoped in on the face as he turned to her, and gasped.
Holy shit. He’s alive? Henriette should’ve killed him. The woman sent by General Logistics was a heavy hitter. Maybe she hasn’t found him yet. She began walking closer and noted the model of the hyperbike. Nope. He must’ve killed her and taken that.
"You’re level 14 already? That’s crazy! I’ve just been saving up my Stardust to buy some sweet stuff for my gal," Greg was talking in a very relaxed manner.
"Yeah," the familiar-to-Quinn voice replied. "Missy, right? How’s she doing?"
Quinn rummaged through her memory database and pulled up the conversation with the courier from the small meeting before the Aspirant Trial. Definitely him. "Jace?"
The man turned to her, and she got a good look at him, "Oh. Quinn, right?" He made a hand gesture – palm facing inward in front of his chest, with the middle, pinky, and thumb curled inward leaving the index and ring finger sticking out.
She walked closer and looked at his arms. "Looks like you lost something."
The courier grimaced and nodded, "Yup. My right arm, and both my legs."
"Shit, dude," Greg replied. "Mind showing me?"
Jace nodded and pulled his pant legging up, revealing a deep, crimson metallic color with black lines. Most noticeable were the almost hawk-like claws where the feet should be, and the weird, omnidirectional knee joint. He also rolled up his sleeve the rest of the way and she saw that the metal integrated with the flesh...perfectly.
Too perfectly. He used the ferrofluid. That’s going to keep a big target from General Logistics on his back. Quinn knew that if they got ahold of him, they could dissect him and filter out the CIF. He would remain a high-profile target once they got word that their agent failed in the recovery task.
He pulled his sleeve back down. "I completed a few Quests for the prosthetics." He tapped the hypercycle, "And I took this after taking down an ice-using Aspirant from General Logistics."
Quinn felt a sense of shame and guilt. The type that burrowed deep and wouldn’t let go. She had set a corpo goon after a fellow street kid – one of the worst betrayals possible. But I was bound by Broker contract, she thought. Despite that, the guilt still festered in her chest.
A spectral river otter appeared from inside the hypercycle. "Hi, I’m Oliver. Ollie to my friends." He frowned and crossed his cute paws, "You are not my friends...yet."
Greg chuckled and gestured to the spider on his shoulder, "This is Darrin."
"And I’m Valerie!" the flitting bird exclaimed.
Oliver nodded as he floated out towards Valerie, "You’re the one who gave us the heads-up about the Nebula Aspirant. Thanks for that."
"Sure."
Jace swung his leg off the vehicle and stood up. He was a bit taller than Quinn remembered from their brief meeting, and he was much, much more muscular. "Wait. Quinn’s Wayfinder told us we were being hunted?" He looked into Quinn’s eyes, "How did you know we were being hunted?"
"I...sort of...gave the corpo the information," Quinn muttered as she looked away – unable to look him in the face.
She could feel the anger directed her way. Jace turned back to the hypercycle and pulled his hood back up, "The snake-things are easy to kill, but they attack in groups during the day. The wolf-things – Vyrk-whatevers – those are harder to kill. Get on their back, and they can’t hurt you easily." The voice was monotone; completely devoid of emotion.
He looked at Quinn, and she saw the disappointment and feeling of betrayal in his gaze. He turned the hypercycle on and sped away with his Wayfinder.
Damnit, Quinn thought. I just alienated a huge asset. She glanced at Valerie and whispered, "Was his symbol the one we researched?"
"Yup. Dark Matter. And we only got that information because X let me through the firewall. So, we are lucky in that regard!"
Great. An asset with a super unique Cosmic Power. Stupid, Quinn. Broke the code and shot yourself in the foot. She sighed and looked at Greg, "Come on, let’s eat breakfast."