ARC2/C34 – The Profoss Faction
They donated some of their cores to the locals as a show of good faith before departing via the MR to the first decent trading planet on their list.
Sam had surreptitiously, saved all the higher tier cores he had come across after the first two MR to sell on the market. He would get them evaluated first if that was a thing and take anything that he considered of special value for himself and the resistance.
It was spooky entering the sleek establishment after being completely duped last time around. And he looked a few times at his trusty comrade Traksis before entering. Traksis picked up on Sam’s mood without even having to use her ability. She tried to reassure him that this time around was not an illusion.
The building looked like some kind of mini fortress, all sleek grey exterior and marble interior. The bulky security guard outside said that Sam needed to make a prior arrangement before entering. But when told how many cores he had the guard when off to talk to his superiors. The manager had slick crimson hair tucked into a ponytail, and a regal look about him. He looked around suspiciously until Sam materialised the few hundred cores, that were floating in a tightly packed arrangement. Then the manager and security guards eyes just widened for a moment, which was kind of funny to Sam.
With the continual stress Sam felt himself under anything that lightened the mood a little was fine by him.
With some shifting they squeezed into the foyer of the establishment proper, escorted by Sam and the manager. Sam quizzed the manager about the price and after double checking with AF, an agreement was struck for 25k for each Tier-E core. The prices for higher tier cores had started to go up, despite the influx due to the war. Once the cores were verified the money would be able to be transfered to his account. There was no bar here, Sam was only greeted with more security and wondered if everything would go smoothly but all was fine and approximately 9 million credits went into his account.
Before he left the manager couldn’t help but ask, as he had been watching Traksis much of the time. “What species is that?” he asked simply.
“One of a kind, one of a kind” said Sam in response. He presumed Traksis would be described as maybe a hybrid, technically. But of course she was just Traksis.
Sam didn’t bother to check for cores that might be useful from the market place as he had come to the realisation that the abilities that he and Traksis had were far from normal. And Traksis one he was pretty certain was top secret.
What was not secret clearly was Sam and Traksis’ whereabouts. Every time they entered the MR. Which then required them to change locations. As despite the Order not making any move to try and trap them. He was certain they still kept tabs on him and Traksis, or at least the Seracians now did.
In fact he was just certain he had evidence. Previously when he had used too much of the psi-resources of the MR it had warped and shown signs of fragmentation and distortion. Now there wasn’t even a ripple when he used all his skills to maximum effect. When did the MR even get all its power from?
Also why were vore’s so sort after when now vore like powers existed, allowing people to suck the psi-energy out of others. Wasn’t that what a vore was? A psychic vampire.
He thought darkly that it must all be a political farce or maybe just the Order of Seers had been out of touch. It had been many millennia since the MR was created, after all.
But he had no idea what to do about any of it. He could only try and get stronger. It was his mantra.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
He told Traksis that if it came to it and they were trapped again for her to just try to escape. As if at least one of them got out alive they could protect the others. Escape at all costs.
Sam transferred most of the credits to the resistance, not having any need for much himself currently. Pondering on what a boon it would have been to Earth to have something like the MR. A facility that offered distribution of goods to any distance at no extra cost.
What he wanted no market place could offer, a safety and a home. As the inverse was also true of the MR. No place was too far to reach, no place was safe.
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When Sam got back to Tartris, he updated Sarah and Maria on the situation, transferring half his remaining credits to them. He scoffed down some rations kindly provided by the resistance not even noticing the flavour as AF fed him the latest news on the war.
It appeared that unsurprisingly many home worlds had fallen. Some from the Seracian’s onslaught and some from hearing that the Vanguard were definitely siding with them in the War. He was glad to hear that none of the other factions had as yet capitulated and were still holding their ground.
Maybe he should switch to helping them as he realised now the folly of choosing to visit unaffiliated worlds, thinking they would be safer. When they were the ones first to fall to the Seracians.
He decided to check out the Profoss faction affiliated worlds, first. Having no real idea what to expect of their people he exited the MR on the first world on the list he had been given by Hiroma, Jalathan. He was glad he had his AI friend, there was no way he would remember all this places otherwise. Also AF for a few thousand credits only had images to use for the MR to get to all of them.
At least this world looked kind of nice, and not a burnt out wreck. It made a change. He greeted the people there, trying to be as polite as possible. Some of them were armed with bows which was a novel sight. They paid him little attention. Which made sense two people did not usual pose a threat, to an experienced and well funded force.
They informed him that they had had only a few attacks so far. Sam decided rather than try every world till he found a battle to join he might as well just visit the MR to get some cores to curry favour with the Profoss. As he knew he was guaranteed of at least Seracian forces.
And sure enough after getting some strange looks for stepping right back into the MR, he was greeted with the familiar sight of hordes of streaming silver, that was squadron after squadron of Seracian droids.
He tried using [Absorption Field Projection] as a barrier this time to stop any Seracians escaping. But then found they were only homing in on him and Traksis this time. It took a bit of getting used to, so he put another couple of k into his intelligence. And found he was able to sweep a projection field back and forth like a giant fly swatter. One that was a few hundred meters across.
Then he had a change of plan and stopped using the skill. Instead he used [Cryo wave] to collect a thousand or so cores for the locals. The Profoss were different from the previous worlds he had visited in that, as a faction distributing cores here, would give him a good reputation throughout their system. So it was worth making it a sizeable one.
After collecting sufficient for his purposes he moved onto using all his skills with abandon, trying to get in as much levelling as possible as usual.
All his recent fights since leaving earth had felt like shooting fish in a barrel. But he needed any advantage he could take in this war.
After about an hour or so, of this, he and Traksis decided to exit and merely placed an absorption field over the exit to vapourise any Seracians who decided to follow them back to Jalathan.
The cores were very warmly received by the Profoss, faction who reported that they would accept them as a symbolic of a new alliance between them and the resistance. Sam glad that all had gone smoothly, and remembering that he had not slept that day, returned to resistance base on Tartris.
Sarah and Maria were found training in an area set aside as a practise ground. They were a bit ansy at being left out of the fight so far. But Hiroma had come up with an idea, that Sam was not totally sure about. He wanted them to sign up with two of the main factions.
Sam was immeditately going to try and stop them until he heard Hiroma’s arguments.
As Tartris was weakly defended, unless Sam or Traksis were prepared to stay remain there permanently as a defense force. Sam knowing this was out of the question as for one he would feel like being trapped in a cage, immediately regretted leaving the two behind.
Joining a faction would actually be safer for them and allow them to gain much needed news on developments and even some intel on the factions themselves.
Sam saw that Sarah and Maria had already bought themselves some weaponry and new armour with the credits he had given them. At looked ready to roll.