Author’s Note: So I can’t really think of much to say here today so please just enjoy the chapter.
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Chapter 2
After a bit more than an hour spent cursing the developers, fear about what might lay in the possible future, and lots of trying to rationalize away what I had gone through, I finally stepped out of the bathroom. I was grateful that Lynn was not there waiting for me which hopefully meant my tirade had gone unnoticed.
I thought about just logging off and coming back after I cooled down, but I had only been in game about six real world hours by this point. I had refreshed myself quite well before logging in so I could feasibly stay logged in for another game day or possibly two without running into problems. Any longer than that and staying in game would get in the way of the shopping date with Carol. All in all despite my recent horrible experience, I was still quite excited about exploring a new world and didn’t quite want to log off yet. Plus if I did log off I’d have to tell Carol that I wouldn’t be able to pick her up in game after all so I wanted to avoid that conversation until I absolutely had to.
Lynn should be done installing those cores by now, so she’s probably working on something else. I could wander around the ship looking for her but well it’s easier to just call for her. Sitting down on my bed I spoke her name aloud, “Lynn,” and instantly she appeared.
She was smiling cheerfully as usual, “Mistress, it’s good that you’re feeling better now. I installed the cores and have been having the maintenance droids clean up the engine room. Some of the scrap can be salvaged after we put it back through the synthesizer but the rest has become worthless garbage we’ll need to get rid of.”
That was pretty much as I expected, still won’t help much on building the new ones “What about the area map. How did that go?”
Lynn gave me a thumbs up, “Perfectly, Mistress. I even identified some very interesting entities that I know Mistress will be happy to hear about.”
“Well? Can you show me already?” I asked her pointedly.
Lynn’s face smoothed into a cool expression. “I don’t know if I should. Mistress has been a bit cold today. Mistress kept secrets from me and didn’t consult with me about her problems and even sent me away. I feel a bit neglected.”
I was surprised. This was most definitely a first. Lynn had never disobeyed a request. Of course I’d always been pretty light on her even when commanding her, and I even let her play her dress up games with me, but still this was something all new. Judging by what she said, she was asking for me to praise her and an apology or something along those lines? Well that wasn’t anything difficult, Lynn’s existence was a pretty vital component of my fun in this game.
“Lynn, I’m sorry for not talking with you. It was just a small issue I was embarrassed about. Also you know how much I appreciate you. If Lynn wasn’t here for me, I’d always be in trouble.” I tried to sound as sincere as possible.
Lynn’s cheerful smile returned in full blast, and she was giggling happily to herself as she spun around in the air. Eventually she stopped and then brought up a large screen showing the map she had collected from the drone. “Mistress look outside the forest here.” She pointed to an area of the map roughly thirty kilometers from the forest and eighty kilometers from our current position. “The previous images weren’t good enough quality to make these details out but this looks like a village, specifically a farming village judging by the surrounding area. And then over here” She pointed at another spot about a hundred-sixteen kilometers further away from the village. “I know Mistress can tell what this is.”
I nod at her, definitely happy at what I was seeing. “It looks like a town. Villages and towns means there’s intelligent life on this planet. What did the intelligent life look like Lynn?” I ask excitedly.
“From these images,” and she switched from the map to showing some close ups of the town and village, “they appear to be humans. They might not be perfectly identical to the humans from other planets we’ve met before, but on appearance alone they seem to be. One thing to note Mistress, if you look at their technology level, I would date it at around 16th to 17th century Europe on Earth. Even if the world is inhabited with sentient life, they won’t be able to help us with replacing the engine and drive of our ship.”
Lynn wasn’t happy about this I could tell, and I wasn’t happy to hear it either. It meant there would be no shortcuts for fixing the ship. We’d still need to build all the parts ourselves. The only possible shortcut to count on would be if the inhabitants of this world could point us in the direction necessary to find the needed materials.
There was an added complication though. Galactic Law absolutely forbid stealing resources from undeveloped worlds with sentient life. Of course, it was unlikely the government would ever know I did such a thing but it wasn’t a law I really felt like breaking, if I could help it. I could look for untapped veins myself which would take time, or I could try to bargain with the people of this world in order to purchase the materials. There was also the possibility of all the deposits for the materials I needed already being worked which would force me to take the second option, though I felt that would be unlikely. After all, a low tech level would prevent them from operating mines in certain areas that would pose little problem for me.
All of this really paled though compared to the reward for finding another inhabited planet. The government would pay huge for such a find with how rare it was. I’d also probably be looking at receiving a bonus from the other human owned worlds when I gave out news of a fifth human populated world. A lot of humans can be pretty snobby toward alien races so that news would be like another feather in their caps, or that’s how they’d treat it anyway. An inhabited world would also be extra fun to explore. I could explore the cultures of the world, evaluate their nations which would help for the report I’d need to send to the government, and there might even still be strange beasties to hunt or even strong individuals on the world despite the low tech level.
I decided. The path I’m going to take is to explore this world and try to bargain to get the materials I need. It will probably take loads of extra time but there’s no possibility I won’t be able to find the materials. I mean if this world was a crash landing event designation, then the planet has to have the resources necessary for the player to repair their ship. The game can’t leave a player stranded on a world with no recourse.
“Lynn, I think the best option is for me to go visit that nearest town. It’s not much of a distance for me to get there with the hover car. I’ll take the psi auto-translator so I’ll avoid any issues that arise from the likely language barrier, but I’ll try to learn the language as well. That should only take a week or two with my abilities. Anyway I’ll visit that town and take samples of some of the resources we need the most of, and try to discover if anyone has knowledge of it. If it’s not a known material here then I’ll see if they can point me in a direction for where to go to find other possible leads.”
Lynn was displaying a worried expression, “Mistress are you sure you should interact with these primitives? Humans have always been weird about alien races and Mistress’ appearance is much out of the norm despite you mostly being human. I know Mistress is very powerful but I don’t want you get attacked by them if you can help it. Maybe we might try hiding your appearance in some way?”
I considered Lynn’s suggestion and nodded. “It is a good idea. My clothes will hide the markings and I can style my hair to hide my horns, ears and implant. The only thing I can’t hide as simply are my eyes so hopefully there’s no problem with heterochromia here. I guess my hair’s color might be a problem too but I’m not a fan of dying it and absolutely not a fan of contacts either so I’ll just go with this. My clothes alone will appear odd so maybe the eyes or hair color will stand out less in comparison.”
Lynn didn’t look entirely satisfied but she acquiesced.
“Moving on to a more immediate necessity. Can you mark on the map where the drone landed?” A small red X appeared on the map. “I’ll go salvage that and then return. Actually that reminds me, what’s the local time?”
“I’d estimate approximately two hours until sundown, Mistress.” Lynn supplied.
“Ok, so the plan for now is, I’ll make a quick jaunt out to pick up the wreck and then come back and spend a few hours working on the exterior sensors before I go to bed. In the morning after I finish my preparations I’ll head to that town. I’ll probably leave the hover car some distance away from the town in stealth mode though.”
“What would Mistress like for me to do in the meantime?” Lynn asked.
I smiled at her. “Since I know how much you enjoy dressing me up, why don’t you put together an outfit for me that won’t look too out of place compared to what you saw the locals wearing.”
“It might be difficult Mistress, I might be able to synthesize something that looks similar but the materials are obviously going to be different and that will be conspicuous.”
“Well just try your best Lynn. I know you’ll surprise me with something good.” She smiled at the display of trust, but then I had a horrible thought and added an amendment. “Oh and make sure the clothes look like something a traveler would wear, I don’t want some kind of fancy dress.” Lynn looked disappointed at this addition so I felt confident that she had been going to try to put me in some dress that royalty might wear. Well I assume this world has royalty and nobility at least. It would make sense for the level of civilization. “Since I’m leaving the ship, I’m going to go get my shield and some equipment just in case I run into anything out there. Can you get the hover car started while I do that?”
“Right away, Mistress.” This time she bowed before vanishing.
Returning to my room briefly to pick up my shield set and equip it, I then headed to the room next to my own that I had converted into an armory. Normally a frigate class ship would have a larger armory elsewhere, but I had converted that into the room for the synthesizer. And while I might have a lot of weapons, I hadn’t needed anywhere near that much space for all of them. Plus I felt more reassured knowing all my weapons were close by instead of at the other end of the ship away from the cockpit and my room. <((If you are reading this series on any website other than royalroad.com, then you are doing so without the permission of the author, Xacual. If you have paid money and bought the story on Amazon or some other store, please file a report and request a refund as it has been stolen and is being sold illegally.))>
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
Looking over my options, I decided to go with my Whisperwind Particle Assault Rifle. I wouldn’t be wasting any of my precious bullets with it since it was an energy weapon and it should serve more than adequately for this dense forest where I might not have clear firing lines to use my more preferred longer ranged rifles. If there was a flaw with it, it would be the fact that Whisperwind is not very powerful and it had a tendency to overheat after firing only a few hundred shots. Of course calling it not very powerful was really only in comparison to my more devastating weapons. It was still a member of my chosen collection of personal weapons after all, so it was more than capable of shredding any kind of beast below level 80 and doing damage up to beasts at level 120. After that it was next to useless but beasts above that level were beyond rare on most worlds.
A large gun rested in a prominent position in the middle of the armory, so I took a few steps over and patted it and said, “Sorry partner, it’s not time for you to come out to play yet. I promise I’ll bring you along for world exploration.” My poor Requiem AAR was just too unsuited for the current environment.
I added a small plasma knife to my waist for if anything got close, and then left the armory and made my way to the hangar with my hover car. Getting there, I was surprised that the hover car wasn’t running and that the hangar bay was still closed. Lynn was floating there with an apologetic look on her face.
“Lynn, what’s wrong? Don’t tell me the hover car is broken too?” If it was unusable I might not be able to leave and get back to the ship before night fall.
She answered in a quiet voice. “No the hover car is working perfectly Mistress. It’s just, I overlooked some of the details that Lullaby finds herself in.” She waved her hand and brought up an image showing the ship. “After the hangar door failed to open I sent a maintenance droid outside the ship to get an idea of what was wrong and found this. The entire port side of the ship is buried under trees and dirt!”
“So basically, until we get all that cleared, the hover car will be stuck here and I’ll have to travel on foot.” I queried.
Lynn nodded. “Yes Mistress, I’ll have the maintenance droids work on it but they’re not exactly designed for digging even if I do produce tools for them to use. It will take at least a few weeks to clear all of that. I’m sorry, this is all my fault.”
“No, it’s not your fault Lynn. Traveling on foot won’t hurt me any. If I can’t use the hover car though for storage, I’ll have to carry around one of the subspace packs and that will be a very difficult to explain item.” Even then subspace packs were large and unwieldy. I’d have to carry it on my back, and while a subspace pack might be able to carry much more than would appear possible, there were pretty strict limits. At most one of the ones I owned could carry approximately a ton which meant I’d probably have to take two trips just to salvage the entire drone unless it was in worse shape than expected. “Lynn, please have the maintenance droids get started digging and then go work on my outfit. I’ll get this salvage work done, I’ll just use the mech’s hangar bay door to exit the ship instead.”
Luckily the equipment room was along the route to the other hangar bay, so it didn’t take long until I had the large subspace pack on my back and was hitting the switch for the door to open. I watched as the hangar door folded open giving me my first glimpse with my own eyes of the sky of this world. I activated the lift that would take me to the top of ship. As I rode the lift I opened my status to change my classes to Ranger and Gunner. Ranger was most suited for exploring with it’s bonuses to detection and Gunner was a no brainer. After arriving I sent the lift back down and hit the keypad on the outside panel for the door to return to its shut position, no reason to leave it open.
Examining the trees and undergrowth, smelling the fragrances in the air, this really did feel like I was on a forest back on Earth. It actually reminded me a lot of the redwood forest in California I had been to once. Towering and wide trees that stretched over a hundred meters into the air. I had never been an enthusiastic camper, but my parents had been so I was no stranger to this kind of environment. Opening my terminal to consult my map to get my bearings, I turned until I was facing the proper direction and then started to move. Even with the dense forest and undergrowth making it impossible to move how I would like, I was still travelling at a speed of roughly forty kilometers per hour and I wasn’t even close to pushing myself.
As I ran I took note of the presences I was picking up around me. My detection range was quite large, even with my shield eating a large percentage of my psi, reaching a range of one hundred meters in all directions. Some tried to follow me, but I quickly left them behind. Other presences never became aware of me while some merely observed. Of course presence detection had its flaws. There were many ways to hide oneself from detection from using your own psi to various equipment that shielded you from the psi of others. There were even supposedly pure body techniques that one could use, but I had never been all that interested so I never sought out learning them.
Upon arriving at the crash site, I was happy to see that it was mostly in pretty good shape, a testament of Lynn’s skills that she could fly and land a drone that was never really meant for such a thing. While it was mostly in good shape, it was thankfully also in pieces which would make it easier for me to transport it. Slinging the pack off my back, I opened it and proceeded to start picking up debris and inserting them into the pack where they appeared to vanish. It didn’t take long until I had collected enough for my pack to refuse to take in anymore.
Examining the somewhat cleaned up crashed site, I realized I might have to make three trips instead of the two I had been expecting. I might have underestimated the total weight of the drone. Shrugging, I closed my pack and started making my way back to the ship.
When I was about halfway to the ship, I noticed a large group of presences ahead of me so I stopped. There were at least sixty presences that I could pick out but there might be still more outside my range. I watched as the presences started to fan out around me in a wide circle before closing in. As they encircled me, I noticed more presences and a second circle had formed around the first. With the second ring the presences had increased to approximately double their previous number.
I decided to simply stand still and let them come to me. I slipped Whisperwind off my shoulder and readied it in my arms. I didn’t have long to wait, creeping out of the forest in all directions were odd looking beasts. They looked similar to white furred wolves but had what appeared to be yellow bone spikes sticking out of their bodies along their backs and on their legs. Their faces also had the bones, and they looked almost like a protective covering with two larger spikes pointed down and forward by their mouths. The most distinct of the beasts was the one directly in front of me. Unlike the others, this one was darker and at least twice as big plus the spikes it had were red, more numerous, and much longer.
Just like I stood here waiting for them, none of them seemed willing to move toward me despite their growls. The large one that I assumed was the pack leader just eyed me without making any noise. Well if they weren’t going to make a move, I guess I’ll scan them and see what I’m up against. Pointing my terminal at one of the nearer wolves got me this result.
After seeing that result, I examined the beasts around me more closely and I could see evidence of scars and other markings which I assume come from their fighting for dominance. I scanned about half the wolves and then the leader and got that the wolves ranged in level from about 25 to 40 at the high end. The leader was in a league of its own at 62. This still left the wolves in the lower range for beasts in game though.
I became aware of movement coming closer from beyond the immediate formation. The presence felt the same as the wolves but it was moving quite slow. As it got near the encirclement, the pack leader barked at the wolves next to it and they moved aside and let a wolf come forward through the opened gap. The wolf was dragging what looked like a fat yellow bird. It was about half the size of the wolf which probably explained why it was moving so slow. The wolf came to within a meter of me dragging the bird before finally leaving it and then turned and ran back the way it came.
I wasn’t sure what the wolves were doing. Did they just give me food? Why would a group of obvious predators do that especially when they outnumber me so greatly.
I was pulled from my thoughts by sudden movement from the wolves. I aimed my gun at the leader to take him out first but then noticed what the wolves were doing.
They were doing what looked like a bowing posture with bending their front legs and hanging their heads. Even the leader was doing it though unlike the others it was still looking me straight in the eye. After a minute of this they all straightened up before disappearing back into the trees, leaving me standing there stunned with the bird at my feet.
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How I’m trying to describe the wolves as looking like
The Whisperwind gun
The bird looks like one of these
As I mentioned before, I’m using PSO2 images to help me visualize some things.