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Obsidian Moon
52. Future Goals

52. Future Goals

The daylight opacity of the atmospheric dome slowly became translucent as Eric watched, signaling the transition from artificial day to void-glowing night. From where he stood looking up, at the left side of his visual field he could clearly make out several bright, irregular asteroids, reflecting light from the system’s distant sun like so many moons. To his right, somewhat obscured by the asteroid’s reflected radiance, he could make out distant and very unfamiliar stars and galactic whorls in a multitude of colors.

It was a humbling, breathtaking sight.

Below his vantage point, the Stage spread outward in all its abandoned glory, on until the outer wall and its guardian Statues. Many of the monuments, buildings and streets glowed in different aetheric colors under Eric’s Dragon Sight, signaling that the city was not as yet completely dead, and perhaps, with the right management, could one day be brought back to life.

He shifted where he stood, his boots grinding down on the gritty surface cover that formed the thin top layer of probably imported soil that crowned the floating rock they had decided to spend the night on. The monolithic structure that they had chosen to shelter on was apparently a single block of rectangular matte black stone twenty-five-meters tall whose tapering base hovered, totally unsupported by anything Eric or the team had discovered, over a silvery bowl of metal. A delicate lattice of glowing blue-white vines, apparently capable of living in both void and atmosphere, decorated the gigantic stone’s unnaturally smooth sides with its long, blue-black leaves and delicate clusters of small white flowers. The team had chosen the distinctive monument as their roost for the night not only because it had a small intact cottage at its top but also because it overlooked the wide street that marked the border of the Third and Fourth Quarters.

Eric turned around at the sound of something large alighting on the packed dirt of the floating structure. He watched silently as Cid lumbered forward, the menacing silhouette of his battlesuit-clad form flanked by two slim triangular drones that he called his Lancers.

Eric smiled and raised a hand in greeting, his eyes already curiously recognizing several new features of the man’s armor. Much of it was still recognizable as the old Bastion suit that the Terran scientist had started with, although by now so much of it had been replaced or overlayed by Cid’s modifications that the man was already calling it a prototype “Mantis” battlesuit.

“Greetings, Primus.” Cid said, raising his right hand as he stopped in front of Eric. Unsuited, and wearing distinctly non-military cold-weather gear, Eric stood nearly a head shorter than the scientist, and had to tilt his head back to look at his friend’s helmeted face.

“Glad to see you, Mr. Arth-Veda.” Eric replied pleasantly, noting with interest the new additions to the man’s combat load-out: Cid’s customized Voidwalker frame boasted larger and wider than normal jump-boots encasing the battlesuit’s legs, its metal side frames supporting two large plasma cannons designed to come up under Cid’s arms, while its bulky power pack and jet shielding covered the entirety of Cid’s back like a turtle shell. Eric’s eyes widened as he noted that aside from the new and improved signature ‘guntlets’ Cid had also managed to install two foldable bladed arms that jutted prominently off his shoulders, flanking his suits insectile helmet, which now sported six round lenses in a tight cluster at the helm’s front, each glowing orange in the dim light.

“He also has a concealed compartment on the backpack containing grenades, sir.” Pig added helpfully. “As well as a holdout spatial ring in a small chain at his hip.”

Eric grunted in acknowledgement, impressed by the extent of Cid’s preparations.

“I hear you slotted in your Third Core,” His helm’s vocalizer added a slight buzz to Cid’s voice, keeping to the insect theme of his whole ensemble. “Get anything interesting from it?”

“Roger that,” Eric confirmed, gesturing for Cid towards the side of the path where the rest of the team’s Voidwalker frames were parked. “Come inside and have some dinner while I tell you all about it.”

Giving Eric a sloppy salute, Cid stomped over to the row of Voidwalker’s, backing up a bit to place himself in line with the rest. Then he released the clamps that secured the mobility device to his battlesuit with an audible hiss, before stepping down from the bulky elevated boots. The escorting Lancer drones settled onto their slots at the back of the Voidwalker frame, and powered down to conserve energy. Nodding with satisfaction, the scientist then gave a mental command and his suit broke apart into sections, sliding and rearranging until it was nothing but a compact, somewhat bulky dark-green pauldron on the man’s right shoulder, decorated with a tight circular arrangement of six orange gems that looked exactly like the lenses of the helm he had been wearing a few moments before.

Eric shook his head in wonder at the smug expression on Cid’s face. “How in the hells you managed to figure out that folding armor trick, I’m sure I’ll never understand!”

“Ah, but it’s actually simple, Captain!” Cid began, talking about spatial compression, aetheric core sequestration, and configurable dimensional loci as he started to walk beside Eric down the small overgrown path that led to the cabin where the rest of the team had set up camp for the night. Eric listened politely, nodding at the appropriate places, but otherwise let the highly technical and esoteric explanation just flow through his ears.

“It is as Mr. Baratuu told us to expect,” Eric began half an hour later as they all huddled around an aetheric brazier that Osar had produced from his ring. Pig pulled up the relevant window and Eric allowed everyone to view it. “I have not yet looked at the descriptors, so that all of us could see the options and share our thoughts.”

You have created your Root Core.

Of the Cores given aspects you receive augmentations to Void.

You have gained the ability Gravitas.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

You may now choose a Spirit Boon.

You may now choose a second profession for your Type.

Everyone read the notification silently while Eric looked from one to the other expectantly.

Serra was the first to break the silence. “I assume you’re going to take Cook for that second profession, aren’t you sir?”

Eric shot Serra an annoyed glance as Cid and Osar chuckled at her jab.

“It’s the Chef profession, Jakobin,” Eric half-growled, while Serra gave him an eye roll and a wide grin. “And yes, I will be choosing that for my second profession.”

“Excellent, sir! Can’t wait to actually taste whatever you eventually decide to cook.”

Everyone laughed again at Eric’s offended look.

“It is true Jad-Os,” Osar said. “You should stop planning and just start cooking.”

Eric just smiled back and nodded, knowing that everyone was probably just tired of Osar’s grilled or fried meats that was all they had been eating these past few weeks. The truth was, Eric was hesitant to put his cooking skills to the test not because he was unsure of his skills per se, but because he was fearful of how his companions would react to what he prepared.

It was a foolish concern, but he couldn’t seem to shake it off.

To change the topic of the conversation, Eric cleared his throat. “Osar, what can you tell us about this mentioned Spirit Boon?”

“Not much, Jad-Os,” Osar admitted, stroking his chin fronds as he glared at Eric’s projected notification screen. “I myself did not get to choose, since the System just assigned one to me.” With a wave of his hand and a bit of mental effort, Osar manifested a light green screen and flipped it around for everyone else to see.

Many as One (Spirit Boon)

As long as you are an acknowledged member of a group and are within close proximity (ten meters) to five other members of a group you gain a constant +5 bonus to all attributes.

Further Effects may become available if certain conditions are met.

“Interesting.” Cid said softly, extending his arms to the brazier before them. The Stage’s air was cold yet dry, which made for some uncomfortable, to humans at least, temperature ranges. “Vashanka’s notes mentioned Spirit Boons and their effects in passing, speculating that they were the System’s way of tying in individuals to a greater whole.” At everyone’s blank expression, Cid shrugged. “Those were his words… if it’s any help, he also stated that they were the keys to the higher planes and suggested further study, which in his case almost always meant capture and experimentation on the ‘lesser’ races.”

“That sounds like some fucked-up reading.” Serra murmured.

“He can get pretty disgusting,” Cid admitted with a disturbed frown. “However, he appeared to be a quite a recognized genius in the fields of alchemy and botany. His insights on the aetheric physiology of plants and their abilities to absorb, resorb, and combine stray aetheric emanations with nascent strain conversions gave me the ideas that allowed the development of those restoration jellies you all seem to love so much.”

Everyone nodded solemnly, acknowledging the truth in Cid’s words.

Working with Serra and leaning heavily on his own studies and experiments, Cid had created a series of new health restoring preparations that were somehow more ailment-targeted and effective, while simultaneously being somehow easier to manufacture. The best thing was, in Eric’s opinion, Cid had utilized several substances extracted from the beast’s they had killed to make the potions into a jelly form, which was so much easier to consume in the midst of combat.

“What choices did you receive, Jad-Os?” Osar asked, reorienting the conversation back to their original topic.

With Pig’s help Eric opened up a new window, showing the choices he had been given. Everyone shuffled closer to read them, discussing pros and cons, arguing and speculating on possible effects and their applications as well as their impact, if any, to the group’s combat dynamics.

And so, the night passed.

The next morning, as the Stage’s dome turned from transparent back to opaque, spreading a facsimile of daylight across the city, Eric and the team gathered, fully suited and ready for battle, at the edge of the floating monolith.

From where they stood, they could all make out a large mound in the distance, about a kilometer and a half from their position, a curl of dark smoke rising from its smoothed-out top.

The Lair of the Gharun Spawn, the last of the Stage Bosses that Luna had identified, and the most likely holder of the Red Level Access Key.

Eric looked to his right, where Serra and Osar stood.

Serra was resplendent in her white and gold armor, the tines of her crowned helm giving her a dignified look, totally at odds with her ferocity on the battlefield. There was a faint, otherworldly glow about her entire form, which they all had speculated probably came about because of the two Celestial cores she had slotted in. It was an interesting idea, and Osar had suggested that she take the last Celestial core they had, that of Xol of Mathrel, although it was just Epic grade. Serra had told them all that she would think about it, but had already taken the core into her ring.

Eric figured there was a good chance she would use the core regardless of anything else they found on the Stage.

Osar, as always, looked frighteningly competent in his full battle gear, the edge of his oversized sword resting on his broad shoulder pauldrons, his gauntleted hands, the left one being distinctly bulkier than the right, clenching and unclenching on the blade’s long handle. Cid had designed the gauntlets that the Urgan now wore, powered by a spatial aether core modified to convert unaligned aether into a shield better than anything they currently had in their arsenal.

< Good job on those suit mods, > Eric said over the active Squad-Net, talking specifically to Cid but keeping the channel open so everyone could hear. Serra and Osar turned in their direction, both of them nodding, although they did not speak. < Truly, you’ve done a hell of a job for all of us these past few months on the science and innovation front Mr. Arth-Veda. It would not be an exaggeration to say that we could not have done any of this without you. >

< It has been a pleasure to work on them, sir. > Cid replied, sounding a bit embarrassed by the attention turned his way. His next words though, were firm, showcasing the confidence he had in his own abilities. < I am starting to see that this Empire, maybe even this entire Universe, is at least technologically at par with human civilization in our former Universe. >

Everyone was silent, hearing the truth in the young man's words.

< The fundamental laws of physics here are very, very similar, but also vastly different because of the influence of the System and its interactions with ever-pervasive aether… It is really quite fascinating. >

< There is a universe worth more of things to learn, friend Cid, > Osar said, his voice sounding deeper coming from the confines of his helm. < In the fringes of the Scaled Empire there are numerous research facilities run by manufacturing and military Clans and Corporations… more so in the Empire itself. Even now, you would be considered a high-priority asset to any Clan. >

Eric agreed with the Urgan’s words, which also brought to the forefront something he had been thinking over more and more as the days passed.

They were, as a group, in a unique position: They had control of what was looking like a fortified and powerful home base, a good amount of stored resources, and the potential of gaining more by exploiting both the Obsidian Moon’s mysteries as well as the teleport network found in the Room of Doors. Once the damned quest was finished Eric planned to pivot their concerns towards growing their numbers and building a power base capable of meeting any challenge the new Universe threw at them.

Perhaps it was time they established their own Clan.