After the warehouse had been trashed Corvayne called Wick and she was over in record time, beating out the police by a wide margin. She took pictures of everything, as well as taking notes on Corvayne's thoughts on the fight. Corvayne noticed she had forgot her scratchy voice. Maybe something to do with getting a good nights sleep? Grunt arrived not too long after the police did. Brines didn't mention the crate. Once the police left he alternated between sitting in the office shaking and asking Grunt if he knew he had hired an elf. Corvayne needed a moment to sort out what Grunt responded with. It was basically: 'I just thought it was cosmetic, there are no elves, she's just a weird kid.'

Wick came into the office and undermined them when she just rolled her eyes and told Brines that Hari was a real elf with real elf parents, she was a mage, and more importantly a model employee so would he please not say anything, nor get upset when she introduced him to a different alien hiding in the community center.

Brines of course was bewildered. “What the hell, why not bring them out at your talk? Your goal was to prove paranormal stuff exists!”

“No no. My goal is to learn about it. Educating people means they come to me when something weird is up. Like the guy who told me about the UFO. I think it's important to note I like attention, but never fame.” Wick smiled. “Also, Hari and Mosh are part of my team. I'm not going to expose them to the galaxy at large. Who the hell is going to believe me when I tell them the sky is yellow? Corvayne put your hand down you don't count. Anyway here... this is a photo of me and a goblin having burgers. That's Mosh, you'll meet him. Nice guy. Don't look so surprised! If you were at the meeting two years back where I covered fairy tales, there's always been stories of little green men.”

Brines looked between her and the phone. “That's a prop.”

Wick smiled. “Hah! I should have you write that down. Look, you want to be rich right?”

“I'm already kind of rich.”

Grunt made a stern arms folded pose, then rubbed his fingers together. He then pulled out a wallet, mimed reaching into it and handing out invisible credits to someone.

Brines sighed. “Ok, you're right. Almost everything I come up with burns money. I swear, it's not that I'm an idiot, my luck is terrible!”

Wick smiled and leaned in to Brines a little. “Good news. We are going to make you, and ourselves, rich. Probably rich enough to pay your dad back everything you've lost if we can keep this up a year.”

Grunt nodded, then gestured out the door at the hole in the wall.

She turned back to Brines. “Yeah, back to the topic on hand, I too wanna know what the hell was in that crate that those two kidnapped you out of your condo and had you drive over here.”

“I honestly don't know! There was something the foreman of the mine wanted out on the next ship to get it to Tripic.” He looked away a moment then back at Corvayne and Wick.

“... if it's shipping to the Capital... I REALLY wanna see what's inside it.” Wick said firmly and turned to give Corvayne a look. He recalled she was after power because she was afraid of small groups in the government who had powers as well. It made sense to Corvanye. The man was human and was certainly arrogant enough to be a noble or something. Knowing there might be more interest in Cascadia he was willing to find a way to move elsewhere to keep her out of harms way.

“Guys, guys guys... look, it belongs to my Family business. It was something from the mine that needed special delivery.” Brines was looking between them. Corvayne shrugged.

“I'm guessing they are on the way back to their ship. Did they steal your car Brines?” If they did, then they had a head start back to the ship.

“No I got the keys.” He jingled them as if they needed proof.

“Did they say how they got around before?”

“No but I think it was an police car. There was one parked by my car when they dragged me down to the garage. Thanks for the save by the way, did you pick up on the thing...”

Corvayne nodded. “It was pretty obvious right from the start that you were not coming at 2 AM without calling on offical buisness. Even Wick calls when she comes by late at night.”

“I forget sometimes she's doing IT work for us.” Brines said after a moment of thinking.

“Well, it's weird they didn't steal your car keys... are they going to fly back? That one could float... I think if they can move faster than we drive this would be over before it starts.”

Brines thought long and hard. Corvayne had guessed that Brines had an idea of what was in that crate that the pair wanted. The problem he clearly saw was that Wick was going to pop it open and take a peek of it for herself. “Look... the container had a tracker in it. If they don't just take whatever is inside out of the crate, we can follow where they go.”

“They are going back to their ship. They bee-lined for you, then the crate.” Corvayne folded his arms. “On the other hand, why didn't they drive their ship closer to the city? Or have transport ready?”

Wick laughed. “Lets go, Mister I will drive us. We'll get that crate back, and catch those two aliens!”

Grunt gestured around him then pointed at himself. Brines nodded. “You trust them that much?” Grunt nodded. Brines fiddled with his phone, then Grunt's beeped. “I sent you a link to the tracker. You said there was a ship?”

Grunt showed Corvayne a map of Cascadia's coast, a static image of it during the day. The marker was on it's way out of the city but to the north along the coast.

“Did they get turned around...? Hmm. Is there a way to mark where they make stops?”

Grunt demonstrated that the program could replay the progress of something tagged with a time stamp.

“Ok. We follow them, get the crate back if possible.” He folded his arms. “Even with Grunt, they have a lot of firepower. The lady with him has some way of speeding herself up. They both have shields, the guys are heavy duty equipment.”

“We taking everyone?” Wick turned to Corvayne.

“Everyone who's willing. These two are dangerous.” He wanted to get into why Wick had such an interest in the box. He also admitted he had enjoyed having a fair fight with another skilled warrior. Not that he thought it was a good idea to spar with someone swinging around a vibro weapon.

Hari was still clutching her side after the fight, but had a determined look on her face. “After Mosh patches me up, I wanna try again. I want to bash his smug face.”

Corvayne smiled and nodded. “Let's get you to that rematch.”

Grunt offered to ride in the back of the pickup this time. Mister either slept in the same robes he wore day to day or he had been awake as he seemed like he was perfectly happy to go on an unplanned road trip in the middle of the night. The route took them about halfway up the highway to the tower then split off just before a huge river, eventually leading them to what Corvayne guessed was the north part of Ripple Sound. He could see the lights of small towns shimmering against the dark water. When they pulled onto a slower road Mister I rolled down the window to let fresh air into the car. Despite being on his way to pick a fight, the drive felt suprisingly comfortable to Corvayne.

Once he had enough of watching scenery go by Corvayne leaned forward and gave Mosh's shoulder a poke. “I wanted to ask if there was anything we could do or make to fight shields or deal with force blasts.”

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

The goblin's face went from bored to pleased in a moment. “Well Boss, the guy has to have something that generates power! Even though shields are weird cheats for the energy involved, they still have to be maintained. Shields that are see-through have to go opaque when you flash them with a laser or you can just use a laser rifle to blow through them. They have to be permeable to air and slow moving objects or the user bounces off everything. Smart shields can adjust around all that, but it doesn't sound like that's what we are dealing with Boss. Good, strong, smart shields won't pop with just one heavy crate.”

“So they probably are not great, and I might be able to throw a [Whirling Axe] through a shield?”

“Yeah! That's using your noggin, it's made of air right? At the very least, the first one will certainly mess him up.”

“Crud, I should have brought that meat cleaver... that thing had enough heft too.”

“Oh yeah, it's easier for it to do that attack because it's sorta an axe too?”

“Just like the rapier I can use both [Backstab] and [Crescent Blade]...” Corvayne sighed. “I wanted to do more testing this week. Alien invaders trashing my house is messing up my weekend plans to go into a dungeon.” Not to mention dealing with Hari. Well, he shouldn't put it like that. If she had been around back at the village... maybe he'd still be there? Or had it been the training they do that changed everyone into jerks who had nothing better to do than trash talk him when he couldn't live up to their expectations?

Thinking of training and the fights ahead made him wish he could spend less time just doing forms and more time actually sparring. The problem was that Hari and Grunt were the only people versed in fighting with Corvayne's preferred melee weapons. Ok, Mister I probably could show him a thing or two about a bow. He had only trained a little with them compared to other weapons. Did his desert village trade to get wood for arrows? Did someone cart a few logs across thousands of miles, or did they just grow it in one of the underground farms? He hadn't spent much time in the cushy job of farming as they ALWAYS put him on patrol rotations. Probably because no one else would work with him. Or whoever decided that wanted to have him get eaten by forty foot long bugs.

He had to give them credit for holding a surprisingly low mortality rate even fighting those big monsters. How would his instructors handle the two aliens? They had EMP grenades. Probably toss one then move in to attack or fire off guns as a follow up. No, that struck him as wrong. He had been a little too ready to fight back there. His goal had been to get Brines free. Now, their goal was information. Possibly the object in the crate was some artifact and then it would be a struggle.

Or would it? They had a source of magical equipment. More importantly, Hari and the tome represented a unique resource. The pair they were after... the lady had tried to end the fight with the back of her blade when she saw Corvayne feint a mistake. He wouldn't treat these enemies the same way he would insane cannibal goblins.

“Wick.” He was in the window seat this time, with Wick using Hari as a sort of pillow instead of just sitting in the center seat. Clearly the healing had taken or Hari would be in agony rather than looking contented.

“Corvayne.” She hadn't bothered opening her eyes. “Are we there yet?”

“No, but I wanted to talk about if we can negotiate with these two.”

“After they tried to kill you?” She sat up a little, then scooted back and pulled Hari's arm around her.

“I don't think the large alien woman was really trying to kill. On her best shot at me, she flipped her blade around. I also didn't kill her when she left herself open for a counter.”

“As long as you don't hesitate when you're faced with someone who is really out to harm your friends or family.”

“I don't have a family Wick.” A bit of bitterness crept into his voice. He stopped himself. Too much living in the past, a spear moved forward. “Yet.”

“I was going to talk to you about that... I think you and I, separately, should have Mosh and Mister I try to help us with our issues. I already see him once a week for therapy, but I'd like to see if mend works with the pills for all my problems.”

Corvayne looked at her then nodded. “You are on it right now.”

“If it's really not habit forming, it will help me be more productive during the week. I mean, I want to talk to you sometime when we are both under it's effects because I feel like myself when I haven't felt like myself for a long time. Years.”

Corvayne felt suddenly a little... not insulted but perhaps defensive. “With your current clarity, do you think there's something wrong with me?”

“You get stressed out by... well... people. You obviously like people, given you're already willing to try to speak to some hopped up aristocrat and his alien heavy. At the very least, it might help you feel better.”

“I'm willing to try it.” Corvayne felt it was probably not going to be useful for him. After all, he'd had those wounds poked and scared over again and again over the years. It felt like spending too much time trying to dive him back to forgiving bad people rather than just leaving them to wallow in the dust.

Hari added in broken Cascadian. “Want Corvayne happy.”

Wick corrected her “Want Corvayne to be happy.”

Hari switched back to elvish. “I hate all the little words you guys use instead of modifying the start or end of words. I mean... 'Want Corvayne toobee happy' better?”

“I appreciate it Hari.” He smiled as best he could at her, still feeling a little conflicted. He didn't like her as much as he did Wick and he felt like she deserved better then wishy-washy appreciation. Maybe something to bring up if they both got hit with mends. It didn't help when she pulled out a banana and gave him an innocent look as she peeled it. Corvayne pointedly looked forward, and was glad when Mister Icariii started pulling them off the main road and down to the rocky coast.

Mister I pointed ahead. “Grunt texted me: the crate stopped over here.”

It was close to morning as they pulled off the paved roads onto a gravel path down to the bank of one of the smaller rivers stretching out from the sound. They came up on a house that looked to be extremely old set to look out over the river. Two stories, built around a rocky hill, green shingles missing, brown paint peeling. Pine trees towered over it. Corvayne saw a pickup truck that rivaled Mister I's for sheer wear and tear. Getting out of the car they could smell something reeking.

Hari's nose wrinkled and she frowned. “We are going to find a corpse.”

Corvanye nodded as he caught the smell as well. “Probably. Anyone who's squeamish, stay back.”

The interior of the home was trashed. The back had been slashed open and there were piles of sawdust around a body that had been decomposing for weeks. His head and a hand was missing. Wick turned around green and hurried over to the brush. Hari went up to the body and used [Investigate].

“Killed with some sort of saw-like weapon. Dead for weeks.”

Grunt picked up the empty crate near where the fallen man was. Corvayne accepted it and looked into it. “So whatever was IN the crate, they hoped to talk to him about it.”

Mister I noted “The container was on it's side... whoever was holding it probably flung it.”

Well, the next question was... “Who is this person?”

They spent a while looking around the house. There were piles of stuff that looked to be unopened. Most of the boxes held appliances or items bought for recreation like an inflatible boat and a small tent. A few boxes had been ripped to shreds by whatever had cut the man's head off. Corvayne found the missing hand on the floor and kicked it under a table, then headed upstairs. For a place with miles and miles of empty space around it, the house was pretty small. In the bedroom were numerous orange jumpsuits and an ID badge laying with a wallet.

He came back downstairs and showed it off. “He worked at Tel-Star mine... it says he was a general manager.”

Mister I looked at the ID. Grunt came over and did as well, then produced a piece of paper. The order from weeks ago, sent from the same name to the warehouse they worked at.

“So he shipped us the container, was killed probably not long after... I'm surprised we didn't get anyone showing up at our place.” Corvayne mused. “Who was the person who delivered it to us? Were they with a general company or a private courier?” Grunt held up 1 finger: The first.

“My guess is they know which mine this guy works at, and so that's their next stop. They want to know where whatever was in the crate came from. If it wasn't just the goal in and of itself, then it probably is a part of what they are looking for or evidence it's out there.”

Wick had recovered at this point. “Ugh. Why is there so much gore in going on adventures? Look... I got a hunch we gotta go to that mine too. Maybe... a tower entrance is out there?”

Corvayne stopped. “You think there might be another tower out there? Why... because they pulled this out?”

Wick blew her nose before replying. “That and the ruin rumor. Supposedly there were stone buildings out there at the site before they rolled in and built a pre-fab town. That isn't unheard of. There are a lot of weird ruins laying around on planets with no other signs of civilization. It strains plausability that all of it is off-grid colonies. Nobody is going to settle on a searing hot sulfur world and build huge rings of stones when most of any given giant planet is totally open to start a potato farm.”

Mister I rubbed his chin. “I think not everyone wishes to settle somewhere that will eventually be busy. I did listen to your lectures and agree with you. There are many planets that have artifacts on their digital maps. It is unfortunate that the difficulty in investigating out of place ruins is that one doesn't have a personal space ship...”

Mosh said, “I'd say swipe theirs but it's buried in goons by now.”

“They either think they can brute force their way back, or never planned on taking the same ship out they came in on.” Corvayne mused.

Wick got excited by that. “So... maybe they think there's a ship somewhere out in the desert? Hmm... I'll scan my phone while we drive.”

Mister I looked back. “Drive where?”

“To Tel-Star mine, of course!”

Mister I thought about it. “That's a long drive.”

“Yes? And?” Wick's hands waved around a little, a sign to Corvayne her mend was wearing off.

“You misunderstand my apprehension miss Wick! My truck literally cannot do it.” Mister I patted it lovingly but had a look of understated sorrow on his face. “If his truck wasn't destroyed you might be able to refuel at the controlled station on the way. That's assuming I'm not caught by Tel-Star police.”

Corvayne didn't think this would be a large sticking point. “Ok. So why not rent an Hoverbike and just ride out?”

Mister I blinked at him. “Perhaps because lift systems like that are extremely expensive and do not fit on a bike?”

Corvayne laughed. “Of course they fit on a bike... what else are they good for? Elevators?”

Mosh butt in here. “I guess space ship floors if you like old fashioned crunchy Agrav. Field generators work much better. Best is you have an Ark network. Basically like a better warp because it re-writes anchor points remotely to move people around.”

Corvayne winced. “Don't talk about warp. It's one of the rules.”

“Oh sorry Boss.”

Mister I held up a hand. “I appreciate that you two seem familiar with both experimental and beyond theoretical engines and such, but crossing the desert is impossible for us unless you can-”

Corvayne laughed. “I'll build a bike. Do you got tools in the back of the truck? I need an engine, the one in his truck will do. Most of what I would need would be in your garage. And that big empty store had everything if I'm missing something.”

Mister I thought about it. “How likely would building one cause the entire community center to go up in flames, destroying my humble home?”

“Zero.” Corvayne said with absolute certainty.

“About three percent.” Mosh said with absolute certainty at the same time.

“I can live with one point five!” The monk laughed.

Wick gestured off to the west: “This sounds like fun and all, but how does this solve us catching them? Those two will have ripped the mine apart by the time we roll in.”

“How many hours does it take to get to the mine? You said it's out in the middle of the desert.” Corvayne could guess given the distances but wanted assurance.

“It's about two and a half days if you drive straight through. Assuming you go at the speed the trucks do when they are on open ground, which is usually a solid hundred.”

“Okay. When the bike is done, I can cut that down to three hours with a tank of gas getting you there and back three times.” Corvayne smiled. Spaces-Torn-Asunder could have made a fully functional warp cruiser in the same time, but as his apprentice Corvayne at least could do his part. “Grunt, Mosh, wanna help me dismantle the car here real quick?”

Grunt poked Corvayne and mimed a bike, held up one finger. Two fingers, then his hands moving back and forth a little palms out. Two fingers, fist, six fingers. An X. Then two fingers, fist, two fingers and a look of concern: You might have time to make a pair of bikes, but one? It means you're going into a fight with just two people.

“Me and Wick are going to negotiate with the pair first. If it comes down to a fight? Bet on me.”

Grunt nodded, then pointed to his boots. Mosh saw it and handed Corvayne his amulet. “Yeah, Boss! We'll help you, but you better come back safe.”

Hari poked Corvayne. “Are you planning on running off without me?!”

“If I can make it fit three people I will take you.” He was pretty sure he couldn't.

“Hah! That's my Boss! Takes all the girls with him!” Mosh smiled. “With me helping, you'll all be riding in style!”

Now that worried him.