When Anton drew closer to the ship, he felt a fluctuation of energy from within it- but not a worrying one. While it was possible that they were charging up weapons to attack, the most obvious consequence was a thin field of energy extending beyond the ship and reaching towards him. Even if it was an unfamiliar style, it was still nearly impossible to mistake what it was for.
Anton reached out a small tendril of his energy, attempting to transmit sound to the ship. “Hello, lone vessel, can you understand me?”
It took a moment, but he heard a response. A woman’s voice was transmitted to Anton through the connection. “We understand you, traveler. We go by the designation the Astral Spear, may we be informed of your name?”
“Anton Krantz, sect head of the Order of One Hundred Stars, and member of the Lower Realms Alliance.”
With a thorough answer like that, he was seeking more information, and he got his response. “The Astral Spear flies under the banner of the Shining Cooperative.”
That was something at least. “In all my travels, I have not yet come across the Shining Cooperative,” Anton said. “Which system do you hail from?”
“We are not confined to a single system,” the woman replied. “Your Lower Realms Alliance is new to us as well. Where is it located?”
Anton wished he could just answer things straightforwardly, but trust with new groups continued to be difficult, especially when they kept finding new reasons. However, he could still give some information. “We have members over quite a large territory, but we are mostly concentrated some hundreds of lightyears to the southwest, by our reckoning.”
That was specific enough information to answer the question, while being vague enough that it really didn’t tell them anything of use. If they were capable of visiting thousands of systems in a short time, it wouldn’t make a difference whether or not they knew about the general location of the Alliance. And if they weren’t, it wouldn’t tell them too much.
The next response took a significant amount of time. “That is a great distance away. What brings you this far out?”
“Exploration,” Anton said simply. And there was more information he could give that should provide a useful reaction. “Due to troublesome invasions from the upper realms, we have found ourselves needing to uncover a large territory to properly plan against their intrusions.”
“Indeed,” came the woman’s voice. “The Trigold Cluster is an extremely problematic neighbor.” Anton could detect her sincerity, and her distaste for the Trigold Cluster. If only that was enough. But alas, it was not. Like Ekict, this Shining Cooperative could be putting up a friendly front while despising all outsiders. If so, they would be a problem.
“Ah yes,” Anton continued. “I forgot to ask. I have heard the name of your ship and your group, but what about yourself?”
The answer took a few moments. “Kybele,” she said, the name three distinct syllables. “Captain of the Astral Spear. However, my name is not the most worthy to be spoken.”
Good. A level of humility… and that meant someone Anton wanted to interact with more. As long as it didn’t turn out to be false humility, but he could vaguely make out her Life Transformation cultivation, which was not by any means weak- but little compared to the ship itself.
After some probing, Anton came to the understanding that they likely controlled ten to twenty occupied systems, and laid claim to unoccupied systems around them. Ultimately, most of their territory was sufficiently far from the majority of the Lower Realms Alliance that it wasn’t likely to be an issue for some time.
However, there was an exception- Poriza and In’istra were only a handful of systems away from here, less than forty lightyears. There might be an even larger buffer before the actual territory of the Shining Cooperative given that the ship was obviously exploring this system just as Anton was, but they would still need to know. Anton would send those messages once he was away from possible interception.
Both sides were clearly hesitant to reveal too much information, yet Anton also got the clear impression that the Shining Cooperative or at least Kybele wanted peace. The matter of identifying others ships was a bit difficult, however. Anton didn’t have proper scanners with him so he could only send his impression back to the Alliance, and the fact that these seemed to be pure cultivators meant they wouldn’t be able to interface with some of the identification systems of the Alliance without having actually met and worked something out.
“Will you have more members of your alliance in this area in the near future?” Kybele asked.
“Not quite this far,” Anton said. “But perhaps vaguely nearby.”
“Understood. We were hoping to maintain communications, but this ship carries no extra long range systems.”
“I don’t have anything I could transfer to you, either,” Anton said. Not safely. It might seem like they didn’t have any technological knowhow, but he still didn’t want to leave anything with them to be potentially broken down and reverse engineered. “However, we could arrange for a future meeting. It might have to be a significant time out, to allow for message and travel time.” That was something Anton didn’t want to give away too easily either- whether they were slower or faster, both would have some implication for how they would interact with this group.
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“That sounds like it would be quite useful. Given the significant distances involved, how long would you anticipate?”
“That would depend on whether it is to be a smaller or larger event. Five years would be sufficient to bring a diplomatic team to some sort of neutral location.” There would be some risk to such a team, of course, but if this Shining Cooperative actually did anything foolish on their second meeting then a conflict might be inevitable. “Of course, I do not mind conversing longer, but my primary purpose here is exploration and not diplomacy.”
“Of course. We would invite you to visit our lands, but we don’t want to inconvenience an esteemed individual such as yourself.”
Was that actually an invitation? Sort of. Anton felt he understood the actual implications behind it based on his Insight. And frankly, he wouldn’t want himself to go into their territory any more than they would.
“I am aware that my presence would not be the most relaxing for your people,” Anton said. “I have several locations in mind involving systems with sufficient natural energy, and sufficient neighbors to travel to them at least from our side. If you wish to consult your star records to determine if you have knowledge of these particular locations, we can settle on one that would be best for both sides.”
It was actually a relatively big ask to bring this Shining Cooperative to something similar to a neutral, halfway point. Depending on the arrangement of their territory, they would have to go a hundred lightyears or more- with the Lower Realms Alliance going about a hundred and fifty or a hundred and seventy-five lightyears from their furthest permanent outposts, depending on which location was chosen and only considering straight line distances and not actual travel requirements.
Anton was open to allowing for more time or a location closer to the Shining Cooperative, but Kybele seemed determined to work something out. “We don’t seem to have any of those systems in question listed,” Kybele said. “Can you list the largest stars nearby?”
So their sensors or telescopes or the like were somewhat limited. Anton understood that, and it wasn’t unreasonable. But could he list the largest stars nearby the destinations he listed? What did they take him for? Of course he could. He knew so many stars.
It helped that Anton could simply point towards the stars he intended, lining himself up relative to the Astral Spear so that they could more accurately pinpoint his movements along with his words and general directions.
Eventually, they came to an agreement on the location, though Kybele had to take Anton’s words that appropriate systems were available. Hopefully, he wasn’t pushing their travel abilities too far- but he assured them that the Lower Realms Alliance would remain available for a significant time just in case. If nothing else, they might not have precisely the same length years. Though that was actually something they could smooth out considering they both knew the length of a normal cycle of the Tides of the Worlds. It wasn’t an exact duration, but it would get them within ten percent at most.
“I hope that our alliances can mutually prosper in the future,” Anton said when things were coming to a close. “Now then, I do intend to continue traveling north. If you would like to suggest a route that would cause a minimum amount of disturbance to your people, I am open to various options.” There was more than one way to go around a cloud of occupied systems. Even if the galactic plane felt flat, Anton could have explored just as far from Ceretos in the ‘vertical’ directions as he was now. Their little slice of the lower realms covered a vast area, but the known regions of the upper realms beyond were also merely a small sample of the actual galaxy.
It took Kybele some time to come up with a suggestion for Anton. Most likely because she was hesitant to draw an exact line for the edge of their territory. “This should be sufficient,” she said finally. “Word will be sent ahead, so should you encounter any more of our ships they will be prepared for your presence.”
Anton nodded… and resolved himself to move slowly. He didn’t know what sort of communication speed this group had, and he also didn’t want them to know how fast he could actually move regardless. That included when he wasn’t moving through a string of bound systems. It would be better for them to wholly underestimate his individual mobility.
Regardless of all of the secrecy, Anton had a good impression of the Shining Cooperative. Perhaps that would change, if he came next to any of their systems- there was quite a lot he might learn without actually getting near any of their planets, and he wasn’t certain where exactly the proposed route would take him. But he did plan to stick with it, because it was only polite after asking. If he simply planned to go where he pleased, he wouldn’t have asked at all.
“It is unfortunate that we could not speak more comfortably,” Anton said. “But I wouldn’t invite me inside your ship either.” Nor would he have wanted to go inside. Though he seriously doubted they would be able to entrap him, underestimating new formations from unknown people was a great way to get killed.
“It is indeed a shame,” Kybele replied. “But at least we were able to hear about another group actually standing up to the upper realms. Not just individual systems struggling with their limited resources to resist a perpetual cycle.”
Anton nodded- she should at least be able to detect that much, despite the distance between them. He wondered how long they had been functioning as a group. Was it a similar time? It seemed unlikely they were any more recent than the Lower Realms Alliance, as they would only have had a couple centuries of recovery and expansion. So most likely they had been functional before the short cycle as well- but beyond that, Anton didn’t know. And while it was an important detail, it was also not one he was comfortable asking at the moment.
Anton certainly hadn’t expected this at the beginning of his day- being generous, since he couldn’t have proper days when between systems and he also didn’t sleep while traveling through space. And the various negotiations had taken quite a long time, so it might have actually been several days. But regardless of the actual time and what he called it, Anton was pleasantly surprised. And he hoped to maintain that pleasantness. But he was still going to properly warn Poriza and In’istra the second he was between systems and away from this group. Because they were the most isolated pieces at the moment, except for perhaps Akrys which was in a very different direction, more or less ‘safely’ nestled against the border with the upper realms.