I spent the night making more Engraving hooch from the 350 remaining litres of berry brew that I made at Summer farms. I get about fifty liters of the engraving aid out of the effort and end up drinking a liter myself while messing around with engraving.
I find out why the engraved crystals have such uniform facets: sympathetic engraving. Uniform inward compression runes and some strong containment runes make some excellent containers for volatile liquids. That said, I left my lab dirty after slinking off to pass out in my bed. I read my messages as I clean my workspaces.
/your efforts convey Novice 3
/Your training and law-enforcement track convey Novice 7
/additional xp awarded for being the first amongst your kind to discover a skill reinforcing recipe.
/additional xp awarded for resurrecting a lost recipe.
/additional xp awarded for developing a multi-purpose recipe.
/your recipe is being reviewed by the Andromeda Forum.
/your prolonged effort to destroy your innards conveys the skill of Intermediate 4
/reduced experience awarded for lack of apparent hostility
/reduced experience awarded for automated system kills
It has apparently been weeks since I’ve checked my messages, and this is proof positive of why you don’t spend your imbalances unless it’s particularly tasty. Four levels, when I only really earned two, two and a half. Zia would probably tell me that I could have gotten that in the same number of days on her hunt, but she’d be proud of me just the same. Well, save for the unintentional executions. Those are pretty horrible and I should create a fund for the survivors of the event.
Oh, you just got a vitriolic message from the Health Club. Which means we should go with my optimized Humboldt design, instead of my accommodating design.
You’re bulldozing? She sends me the designs and I see that she’s designed a spoke and wheel pattern around the confluence of Little Humboldt and Humboldt rivers. I like it. Claim it, file it with Nevahrado with my ID and I’ll interview contested claimants when I get done with my Deputy tasks.
A skim of the message tells me the Health Club Board members are irate that I ‘seduced’ Marcella away from their project and that they can handle things without the help of ‘arrogant children’. I look up how many Health Club contracts I have that would immediately affect me to cancel. A few, but I notify Marcus about the cut, he counters with an express approval of Warram asset acquisition that I quickly approve. Cancel Health club contracts due to harassment and lack of faith. One hundred credit fee paid, and they can eat their fucking income.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Dear Health Club Board of Directors,
Your continued antagonism and unprofessional conduct with Nova Chem, and the settlement of Camp Elsewhere has compelled me to pursue the exit clauses in our contracts. Your people must exit Nova-controlled properties and lands within one day of this notice or suffer potentially lethal consequences.
Get Fucked, you Petty Bitches.
Kimber Novarro - Owner, Chemist, Conqueror.
I think that sends my desired message. Tova laughs at me.
I alert Aria that I desire to fly to Durango this morning, and that I need whatever sensor suite modifications to investigate a murder. She tells me that an appropriate tier 2+ rated infiltration suit should be ordered. I counter with that I want a re-entry suit that can investigate. She copies me on a query to an Astorian preferred vendor in the Andromeda Galaxy that can do the work. Her estimate on cost, based on his last commission as between 30k and 50k credits. I can afford it, but I better not have to replace it. Like ever. The manufacturer says it’ll take two weeks to build, so I put in the order.
I don’t get much done on the way to Durango, I should focus on the magic related to my [Pass Judgement] Talent, but Divine Aether has been difficult to manifest. The queries I made to the System (I really should be calling it the Matrix at this point) tell me that it actually takes a measure of true faith to enact. For me, that’s hard though, as I trust the system to have my back, but not to help me initiate.
Who do you trust to help you initiate, that is known to respond to prayers and blasphemes?
It can’t be that easy.
I channel some aether, focus on an effect and exclaim “May the Empress’ wrath strike you down!” and a fucking golden lightning bolt shoots from my hands to the bay door, leaving a dithered scorch mark in the metal.
“Kimber,” the voice of Aria quivered, “please do not do that again. It was quite painful.”
“I’m so sorry, Aria! Honey I am so sorry.” I put my hands on the hatch as I pump aether into her systems to help her heal the divine aspected damage. The slow, but visible reconstruction with the positive warble tells me I didn’t mess up too badly.
The Durango resource rights have escalated from just water, to water, mineral, and power generation potential? The hells are they talking about. I look at the overhead mapping and the agreement doesn’t look that complicated. It also looks like the land should belong to the city of Durango, but the citizens are claiming property that should be the city’s? Why didn’t I see this before.
“The City had not made a contested claim until they saw a claim filed to Nevahrado that would be for more than just water rights.”
“Prima fascia, that makes this easier as it seems the city is apparently contesting their original water claims.”
I meet with city officials and with their affidavits, I invalidate the previous agreements between the two private parties and assign all overlapping claims to the city. I see few overlaps that do not include the city and then message the claimants that mineral rights are still relevant, but water and potential power generation have since been invalidated.
I go in to help the mayor of Durango to set up their settlement interface so that this can’t happen again, then fly to a meeting with the irate residents that have land outside of the city-claimed land. I show, listen to their squabbles about historic habitation and subsistence ranges that should be considered with their mineral claims. I call bullshit and assign the mountain ridge as the demarcation line and tell them to stop creating tickets for me to resolve.
Greedy and petty is the worst flavor of human.
I take some orbit isolation time before trying to deal with the marauder problem between Beaver Utah and Caliente Nevada.
“I only have 100m of cable, Kimber.”
“That should be fine, Aria, I just need a little bit of isolation. Can you pull us out a few hundred kilometers?” She chirps at me and then finally, I see a planet instead of some too-close accident waiting to happen.
“We are uncomfortably close to the first Van Allen Belt, Kimber, though your current suit claims to be able to handle it.” I tell her to aim my walk away from the belt issue and I drift toward Earth on my extending tether.
I do a version of meditation that is supposed to suffuse my whole body with my mana instead of focusing them on my gathering and usage areas. This is apparently the minimum accomplishment needed to pursue mastery with an element.
I switch between manifesting the Matrix and the law, as opposed to the wrath of the Empress. I can feel the wrath of the Empire in my veins, but Andromeda needs more purpose, needs a just purpose to enact my will. Is there a place for both here? And how is that possible?
[Justicar Acolyte]
I look at the words and query them as well, finding that only the justice portion of the Track is supported by the Matrix. The rest is an Empire structured enforcer. The quirk here being that the Empress is pseudo divine by weight of belief and the mythos of her accomplishments--both terrifying and amazing. What’s also been odd, is that I haven’t had any color commentary when I use ‘Empress’ as an expletive lately.
“Have you integrated the sensor suite, Aria?”
“Yes Kimber. The aether-sensors need to be calibrated, but it will be difficult on a planet with so little of it. A charged and a spent battery would help.” Fortunately I have those.
Before we head back, I take a moment to appreciate the quirky whirlwind that my life has been since I turned fourteen and was picked up at the orphanage. From a scrappy, reedy thing with a chip on her shoulder, just trying to be useful and protect the little ones; to a beefy, gun-toting alchemist that has a space-capable shuttle and a tin star that was always a far-distant dream.
I got to meditate in space today. How fucking cool is that?