ARC2/C30 – Sold

Traksis realised she’d picked up yet another new ability.

[Mind Dominion – control of the mental impressions and mental functioning of life forms]

On leaving the MR with Sam, who appeared to be still in a state of shock, met up with Hiroma and the others from the resistance. Hiroma immediately took over the situation when Traksis explained the little she knew, including details of her newly acquired ability.

Traksis was greatly relieved not knowing what to do for Sam, now that the immediate threat seemed to have been neutralised.

Sam was taken into a room for examination but soon after was released. It was determined that he just needed rest to recuperate.

Hiroma detailed that Sam had almost been taken, from right under their noses by most likely a high ranking, Order of Seers, operative. A Seller.

Sellers are able to manipulate people’s memories, implanting false ones. And if high level enough can even filter a person’s surface thoughts altering their reality. There are low level Sellers as well, who are called Bleachers and can simply wipe someone’s memory.

The operative working on Sam was clearly one of the highest grade. Velta, Hiroma and the others in the resistance council tried to piece together what information Sam might have given away during the operative’s time with him.

It was a blow to find that now at least one faction was aware that there was more than one vore in existence.

They were glad that Sam had no access to the resistance funds as the operative had cleared out his credits leaving him with nothing.

Velta and the others were not concerned about the speed with which Traksis was evolving. They would need all the support they could get over the coming days.

---

Sam awoke to find Traksis at his bedside, like a forlorn family member. He felt such a wreck whoever or whatever had taken control of his mind, had not only done a number on his psyche, leaving him feeling like his brain had been threw a shredder but also his many injuries had been forsaken as the creature had used him like a puppet. But mostly he felt angry and impotent at the same time.

He felt a surge of gratitude for his little vore pal Traksis that had saved him. Although she was far from small now. His memories of her had actually been factual.

The others not so. He had not made a million by selling cores, in fact he had lost all his remaining credits. Apparently there had been an establishment dealing in cores but it had been a shady underground operation.

But as always he had to count his blessings, he was alive, no one had got hurt and thanks to Traksis they even managed to come out on top.

He winced as he tried to get up, not being sure if the splitting headache that made bright lights appear in his vision, was worse or the continual burning sensation down his right side. Did they not have medication in this world? He could sure do with a shot of something for the pain.

Then he felt as if a cool balm was pressed against his mind and looked up to see Traksis watching him. It was mind control again! This time he lay back and let sleep take him, surely a few minutes wouldn’t hurt the war effort.

Traksis was greatly relieved, her master had looked an awful state, sweating profusely and thrashing feverishly, in his sleep. She was wary about using [Mind Dominion] as she had no experience of using it, whatsoever. But after surreptitiously, trying it out on a few people around, she got a feel for it.

It wasn’t exactly that it was hard to use, it was just so complex. Probably unsurprisingly as it did allow for manipulation of so many things. So she started with what she considered would be simplest and stayed away from anything that could affect memories. She chose mood instead.

She had tried to make Sam’s mood one of calmness and peaceful serenity. And it seemed to have worked. She only wished she could do something about his condition.

Now that she had found him again she did not really want to let him out of her sight. Before it had been due to him being a psi-battery but now she didn’t need that any more. She wasn’t a hundred percent sure why she felt she needed to stay with him. She just did. Though she became more and more restless as time went on, thinking of her own family back in the Seracian’s territories.

---

Sarah and Maria had been discussing for hours what they should do. As apart, from training they had little else to do, stuck in the confines of the resistance base, fearful of leaving to face the world outside. Only Maria’s false bravado had kept Sarah’s spirits up.

Now that they had heard of Traksis, the insectoid, becoming a second vore, and had also witnessed for themselves her fighting prowess in the MR. And then seen her dramatic evolution. They were in awe and both fired up, determined to try and follow in her footsteps somehow.

Hiroma and the others had said that it could be to do with the last multi-verse merger causing a greater probability of species evolving into vores. He had something about vibrational confluence that she didn’t really care about. The point was there was a chance and they would take it.

Due to this they had both been waiting for a chance to approach Traksis. Not Sam as he was far to injured still. However, even though they had managed to get an ability to communicate with other lifeforms they still had some trepidation about approaching the insectoid.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Maria was of course more upfront, it wasn’t as if they would even be taking up any of her time as from that they could see she was just laying in vigil over Sam’s prone form, like an oversized protective guard dog.

Traksis told them what she had told the others that she had no idea exactly had she had become a vore. But that it was most lightly her continual draining of Sam’s psi-energy.

Traksis knew that wasn’t the whole truth as she thought her unique abilities could have played a part. Knowledge of her abilities, had been made available to the resistance when she had a debriefing but she didn’t want it to be common knowledge that it could have something to do with her vore abilities. Otherwise not only would she have all the factions targeting her but also possibly some that she felt were currently allies.

Traksis did however have something she wanted to do. And as her knew found ability allowed her to emote people’s feelings she could tell these two were totally trustworthy. So she made a deal with them, that if they watched over Sam, she would help them when she got back.

She needed to try and find what remained of her kin.

However when she attempted to leave, Sam immediately stirred, the powers of Traksis’ new ability immediately fading. Sam had clearly read Traksis’ intent and attempted to rise from his prone position. He of course used [Flight] to make up for his lack of natural mobility.

News reports were in that the Seracian’s had met with a surprising amount of resistance. This meant they were fighting on all fronts. Hiroma thought they may have been over confident in their analyses of the takeover.

As the Seracian had for years had a great advantage over the Order of Seers. The Order were after all a faction relying on their psychic prowess to a great extent. But this was useless against the Seracian shock troops, which were all droids. AI could not be controlled or manipulated by any of the Order’s psi-mages. Making the initial, takeover an easy win for the Seracians.

The same could not be said for the other large factions. The Profoss and Altross factions being heavily elemental in nature, could easily hold their own. But the largest threat should they not decide to make an alliance was the Antragros Faction who were demonic in nature and abilities.

And it now seemed unlikely that they would side with the Seracians after their recent disclosure of an alliance with the Korinth Vanguard. VORE Worshipers who would do anything to see the return of the vanquished vore race.

This hopefully meant the Seracians would not have the manpower to make an all out attack on this planet. But that did not mean that they could remain here, either.

As, it was clear their base of operations were compromised, they would have to move immediately. But when Sam was alerted to this fact he told them he intended to enter the MR at this point one more time before moving on to another location.

Traksis could not let him make such a risk. He could not protect himself against any remaining operatives from the Order, or any Sellers from factions, greedy to obtain a vore. So she would not let him go alone.

She would go with him then they would travel together into the Seracian kingdom to retrieve her kin. Sam was needed to stealth such a large number (she hoped) of remaining kin back to safe territory via the MR.

Hiroma was just glad to see Traksis was sticking to Sam like super glue. There was little the resistance could do to safeguard Sam except give him resistance locations that were as yet unknown.

Making their way into the MR, they were immediately greeted by streaming hordes of Seracian droids. Sam had thought their previous skirmish had been extensive but he had been informed by Hiroma that the number of these low level droids, the Seracians had at their disposal was practically limitless. Seracian faction members were seen at competition fights or training in the MR but were a rarity on the frontlines.

Moving into position and stealthing, Sam hoped to actually get some cores this time to boost not just his level but his now non-existent credits. Traksis followed his every move, her speed and [Pursuit] ability making it impossible to lose her. She also found she could not also more easily pre-empt his every move. Which was just as well, as Sam’s tactic was the same as previously, random.

No way was he getting downed again by being surrounded by a fleet of flightships only for them all too simultaneously detonate.

Sam and Traksis had of course thought up a battle plan. Whereby they would put up a fair resistance to the incoming soldiers. This would allow them to fool the Seracians into thinking they had not entered their Kingdom but had fled instead. Also collecting a nice amount of spoils on the way.

Sam would stealth staying within range of the entrance to the MR. This would allow him to maintain a psi-bubble barrier over the entrance to the home world. Stopping any droids.

This would hamper his mobility and make things much harder but it was the best plan they had come up with.

Traksis would try and disable any incoming flightships, while Sam used [Aerokinesis] as buffer to position incoming waves of droids. Then using, his ever trusty [Cryo Wave] to disable the droids without blowing them up and losing their precious cores.

Traksis proved to be the bigger hitter of the two of them – able to provide much needed cover to Sam at an instance. He had actually stopped trying to see where she was as her movements were just a blur at this stage, her speed phenomenal.

Now Sam tried to use [Absorbtion] and found he was able to continue dispatching the endless stream of droids while picking of a high percentage, to absorb.

Sam really hoped he could uplevel [Absorbtion] to get something like Traksis’ ability. An ability which could be offensive and defensive at the same time would go along way to allaying his fears of getting blown up again.

He also wondered if the [Psychic Vision] ability would be in his price range but then was almost hit by the explosion of several nearby droids. Thankfully his own quadruple wrapped of psi energy bubble kept him safe from such small explosions.

Sam’s bubble barrier at the entrance to the MR allowed him to cocoon those cores that he did not have time to absorb. And before the bubble became too large, he was able to contract it sending droid carcases through to Sarah and Maria on the other side, who would stand guard over his precious spoils of cores. Though of course he had said they could absorb as many as they wanted. The rest they could sell for funds, giving a share to the resistance to do with as they willed.

For most normal people carrying, hundreds or even thousands of cores around was not simple.

Sam could see how the Seracian’s had been confident about their supremacy and wondered just how powerful the other factions were that they could stand against such attacks.

He did however know that all factions had ways to circumvent the problem of lack of psi energy in any conflict. They would of course use the standard technique of rotating formations of troops in and out of battle so they could recuperate their psi reserves. But also factions other than the Seracians used cores. Cores as psi-batteries allowing troops to recharge their psi-energy during battle.

At last after six hours of grinding, Sam heard a ping as the system message he had been waiting for appeared.

The higher the tier of ability the slower it was to level, unless you happened to by a vore who could use it continuously for hours on end and had an almost limitless supply of things for it to process.

[Absorption] broke through to level 100.

[Absorption is Level 100 break through to Tier-D achieved]

[Processing… new abilities]

[Tier-E abilities available:

[Life-Force Absorption: The power to absorb life-force/energy and utilize it in some way. ]

[Power Absorption: The power to absorb or steal powers from others.]