I grabbed the railing at the overlook down to Rosso’s grove, leaning out to see his serene face still pointed up towards the ledge.

“Rosso! How's your evening going?” I started, wanting to gauge his mood before I started negotiation.

His flowery mouth-piece, now closed with the setting of the sun, bloomed before croaking out, “Dark skies and rumble rumors, Kaninak. I hear the valley next has been redecorated?”

“Ah, yes. About that, it was an accident, and I mean to make recompense”, I internally cringed at my own word choice. Something about speaking with Rosso for more than a casual greeting caused me to slip into a bad imitation of outdated formal speech, being stressed made it worse. “The UI prompted me to treasure, and I did not realize the - uh… consequences of my drilling.”

“A treasure? One of my rare bounties perhaps?” The flower leaned in eagerly.

I shook my head, stepping closer to the bulbous flower and glancing over my shoulders. After confirming that the atrium was empty of others, I pulled the Heart of Stone from my inventory and showed it to the bulb. “It is not listed as a bounty, but seems like something you would be interested in?”

“A Heart! I had hoped, but there is no promise!” The forest surrounding us rustled and shook, a number of leaves and small dead branches falling from the canopy that ringed the flower filled Atrium. The mouthpiece lowered its volume and continued, “Yes, I have claim to this Specialty. I offer…”, both the flower and tree-like mass down below let out a low buzzing rumble as Rosso considered for a moment. “Both forgiveness, and one-of-five the market rate”.

I hefted the glowing crystal in my hand, realizing only now that I had never really examined the item, too distracted by the chaos of respawning since I had found it. The stone resembled a giant sharply pointed rough-cut diamond, as thick as my wrist and long as my hand, with a dim interior glow that shifted through various shades of reds and yellows, occasionally blocked out by roaming patches of deep umber.

“Twenty percent? I thought you were more kind Rosso. I’ll protest until I see at least half”, I bluffed.

The sound of creaking branches and rustling leaves shook through the forest like a wave once more, “One-in-three then! Plus Accord for you to show off to your keepers if you no talk back!”

I blinked at the flower, and glanced at the tree down below with its unchanging face smiling up at me. I had not thought to bargain for anything reputation related, or expected the vehemence in his reply. He had offered the smallest form of diplomatic ties, something that every human faction was falling over themselves to establish with the Ambassadors.

“Thirty three percent and an Accord of Friendship?” I rubbed the stubble that had grown on my chin. “What is the market rate on these anyways?”

The leaves rustled again, and the flower-bulb shivered. Instead of a reply, he sent a trade request which I accepted. I waved the crystal, still in my hand, through the hovering window and it appeared on my side of the deal. The Mark of Accord filled in first, followed a moment later by 51340 credits.

I stared at the number, reading over it again and again, losing focus on everything else as my breathing picked up. Rosso made a noise like a snapping twig, which jolted me out of my shock and I swiftly hit “Accept” on the trade. He did the same, and we repeated the confirmation on the secondary screen.

“That's… holy shit, Rosso”.

“I think was fair deal, not shit deal, Friend.” His voice was back to the easy going if heavily accented tone he normally had.

I laughed, loudly, the stress and tension of the day finally overflowing at my relief. Tears started to roll down my face, and I turned away, not wanting Rosso to see. It took a moment, but I eventually managed to compose myself and turn back to face him. I cleared my throat and wiped my hand across my face, “Thank you, Friend. That's not what I meant. This… this is life changing. Thank you”

The flower made a repeated internal clacky slapping noise, the Kaldamori version of laughter, as it shook in amusement, even his main body let out a groaning creak of a noise in his grove down below.

“Go, bud-ling, spend and boast. Maybe buy repair for your leaking, klak klak klak, take day off, go brag to Council, maybe they stop sending so many spams now that I pick one”, the runner root chuckled before slowly starting to fold back up for the night.

“Thank you, Rosso. Friend” I said quietly as he closed up shop, before turning and walking off towards the entry lot.

I had some major decisions to make, I had never considered finding a bounty this large in any of my plans, and the Accord changed everything. I’d avoided Factions Ranking so far, not wanting to get tangled up in the PvP wars and skirmishes that governed the system.

I decided to not worry about that just yet, and enjoy the massive payday while I could. Fantasizing about all of the things I’d wanted for so long yet could never afford, I made my way back to the lot outside of his gates and opened a Portal to the Hub.

As I stepped through, I glanced up and down the street, thinking about which shops I wanted to visit first. I had planned to head to the promo shop and grab some of the things I’d coveted over my years of frequenting the store.

I was shocked and surprised when an electric sensation suddenly jolted through my body, the borders of my vision flashed red, and my ears rang with an enormous buzzing burst of claxon. I reflexively dove to my right, hitting the ground and covering my head against whatever the hell had attacked me. I felt a pain in my stomach as I landed, and I rolled away from it, looking around for my attacker and garnering a few strange looks from the mostly foreign crowd of people stepping around me.

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A heart pounding moment later, after scanning the crowd for an attacker yet not seeing anyone even paying any attention to me, I took a few breaths and started to stand up. I paused again, noticing that I had something clenched in my hand that was pressed against my stomach. Somehow, I was holding another glowing crystal Heart of Stone, it pulsed with light and power in my white-knuckle grip.

I pulled it into my inventory as soon as I registered what I was holding, and glanced around the crowd. I was still hardly being paid any attention, people rarely talked to each other on the street. Competition was ferocious over the minimal jobs and contracts within walking distance of Humanities collective neighborhood, if you could even make it through a Link.

After recovering my senses, I realized I was making a scene and the looks I was receiving were annoyed rather than outright hostile. I pulled my hood up over my head and stepped in line with the movement of the crowd.

My mind spun, and I was launched right back into spiraling thoughts of what-the-fuck. I just wandered, letting the crowd guide my path and attempting to piece together the events of the day. None of this made any sense, yet I struggled to manifest much anger against whatever was messing with me. I had planned, schemed, and grinded my way to my current position, yet I had been blindly pushed into more progress today than I had hoped and planned to achieve in the next five years.

I lost track of time as I wandered, wallowing in confused thoughts and possibilities, not noticing the shifting demographics of the crowd around me as more and more Masked Factions mingled in the press. Mythical creatures given as highly convincing false skins to break-away factions of aliens deemed difficult to relate with. I’d heard there were thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of Masked Factions. Unique to each world's mythology, yet small enough that you rarely saw them outside of the borders of their adopted homes.

I eventually realized I was near the border of the Human and Thoo districts. I could see some of the large slow moving creatures moving through the crowd ahead. The size of a cow, and a mottled grayish-tan, they looked somewhat like giant star-fish crossed with an elephant. They walked on four legs, tipped with a hardened three-toed foot, with a trunk that rose from the top of their mostly symmetrical body that they used much like an elephant would. Thoo were other recent additions to the ever expanding Hub, and were the parent species of the Masked Centaur faction that occupied a small peninsula on the coast of Borokor.

The sight of the strange aliens distracted me enough to break out of my mental lock, and I pivoted and crossed the boardwalk before turning back to start walking back towards more familiar streets. I now noticed that at some point, I had received a message and had a little notification pinging on my UI. Wondering who would message me, I opened my inbox and frowned when I noticed the details.

From: Lights and Credits

My bad for the confusion, it’ll make sense eventually but not yet. Last thing I need is for you to like - flip out, man. Keep following the lights, I got your back.

You should probably bank that duped Stone too, maybe invest in some more inventory space too.

I came to a sudden stop as I read through the message, causing the dwarv behind me to bump into the back of my legs with the low cart they were pushing. “Aye, big-man. Keep it movin’ ‘n quit yer gawking”.

I glanced back, waving at them and mumbling an apology as I continued on, finishing the message as I kept pace with the stream of sophonts.

Unsure whether to be relieved or even more bothered by the mysterious message, I decided to continue following its advice, for now. I’d run things by Tevin and Rin when I got home in the real world and could do the thinking then.

I kept pace with the crowd, now scanning the windows and plethora of ads and signs that littered every surface other than the street itself. I followed the signs until they led me to the nearest Bank.

Similar to a Link, every bank looked the same, except rather than squat aerodynamic star-ships, they were towering golden monoliths that seemed to stretch higher and higher until they disappeared into the ever-night sky. Each Neighborhood started with 4 of the buildings, and more could be purchased from the Core if our squabbling Factions could ever get their shit together enough to afford it.

I walked through one of the many golden doors that lined the ground floor of the Bank and crossed the small lobby to the counter. A bored looking Tellagnochi sat behind the counter, squat crab-like creatures, and waved over at an automated service center off to its side, clearly uninterested in speaking with me.

I was fine with its disinterest, equally uninterested in dealing with the notoriously rude and abrasive Coreworlds subspecies.

The screen lit up as I approached it, projecting some of the data and a number of ads in the air around me.

I cycled through the singularly clear UI of the banking system, quickly depositing the stone through the menu, and grinning at my account total which was now over 50 thousand credits. I broke into a huge smile when I checked my estimated bank total and saw it well over 200k.

Feeling slightly better about the strange message and happenings of the day, I checked the prices on extra inventory and bank space. Grateful that in this case, the units of measurement between the Coreworlds and Humanity agreed on something. Frustratingly, I noticed that the options were all billed on the same day as your Payment days. With the way they jerked us around, the number of days between payments seemed to vary anywhere from 25 to 35 days with no discernible pattern, it would be difficult to budget for.

[x] Standard: 2 M³ - Complimentary

[ ] Courier: 6 M³ - 150 Cr. per Cycle

[ ] Trader: 12 M³ - 2150 Cr. per Cycle

[ ] Haulier: 24 M³ - 3450 Cr. per Cycle

[ ] Supplier: 60 M³ - 41350 Cr. per Cycle

[ ] Personal Warehouse: 150 M³ - 510 kCr. per Cycle

I scoffed at the prices, the courier price for a double sized inventory seemed fairly reasonable, but they quickly rose to ridiculous levels. I doubted there were more than a handful of sophonts anywhere outside of the First-Five factions that could afford a half-million credits per cycle.

Still, I selected Courier and navigated my way through the confirmation screens that followed, only holding off on allowing it to automatically deduct payments from my account. Being so used to just barely scraping by, the thought of automating payments being withdrawn from my account sent a shiver of anxiety up my spine.

Sometimes you had to skip payments on certain things, making choices about what’s vital and what was not truly necessary. Inventory space seemed like a stupid thing to choose over food, rent, or transport.

Just before I closed the menu and walked away, I focused my intent on the credit total of my account again, prompting the Bank to read out my total for confirmation.

Account Balance: Fifty-One-Thousand-Two-Hundred-Seven-Point-Seven-Three

While I normally dreaded the deep booming tone of the Bank system when it spoke. This time, for the first time, hearing it aloud caused an uncontrollable smile to crack through my resting-bastard-face.