Morning came far too quickly for Noah, sunlight shining through the large window above his bed. Rolling out of bed he got dressed quickly, grabbed his bag and walked out of his room.

Consulting the map of the ship that ACAS held, he followed the directions to the mess hall. Walking through the crowded corridors he eventually got there. Looking inside he could barely believe his eyes. The room was cavernous and filled to the brim with people of many different species. Mostly it was more of the Daltomirians, the same as those in the village.

Walking into the room, Noah walked to the counter.

“Hi, this is my first time in here, what should I get?”

The server behind the counter grunted

“What can you afford? The food from the village is going for a high price at the minute, but your basic MRE’s are cheap.”

“I think I best go for the MRE’s; I don’t need to be running out of credits.” With a thought, Noah got ACAS to send the 2 credits for the MRE.

Turning around with his tray in hand, Noah looked around the room looking for a place to sit. Quickly he spotted the unmistakable shape of Samantha in the distance. She was sitting alone at a table by the edge of the room.

Smoothly and with practice from cafeterias throughout his life, Noah walked to her table.

“Excuse me, is anyone sitting here?” he indicated to the seat on the other side of the table from her.

“No, no, sit by all means” Samantha looked up with a bright smile.

“What are you going to be doing today Noah?” Samantha asked, looking happy to have someone to talk to.

“Oh, I’m going to be getting these relics identified, just thought I’d grab some food first.”

“Hey, I just had a thought, could you come with me Samantha? If I get them identified and choose to sell them I don’t wanna get ripped off. If you don’t mind coming with of course?” Noah exclaimed excitedly.

“Well I’m not busy today, processing is all but done, sure I can come with you, oh and call me Sammie, or Sam.”

“Cheers Sammie, you’ll be helping me out so much.”

Quickly the pair of them finished their meals and deposited their trays in the recycler.

“Lead the way Noah, I believe your ACAS has the directions?”

“Yeah he does, this way.”

Walking down the corridors, Noah had to squeeze past people muttering apologies as he did so, Sammie however, had it a bit easier. She just walked along the ceiling. If she hadn’t, the bulk of her spider body would have been pushing everyone in the corridor out of the way.

Samantha grinned down at Noah “having fun down there?”

“Oh yeah, just tons of fun.” He grunted back as he squeezed his way through yet more people.

“You know I could just pick you up? We would get there a lot faster.” Samantha suggested.

After struggling through a few more groups of people Noah shrugged and raised his arms.

“Yeah why not, can’t be any worse than this.”

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Before he could change his mind, Sammie reached down, grabbed him and started moving. Noah’s feet were dangling a good foot above the heads of those walking along the floor. Slowly Sammie started accelerating. Soon they were racing across the ceiling. She moved across the ceiling with insane speed jinking to the side to avoid various obstructions with millimetres to spare.

In no time at all the reached the market. From their vantage point on the ceiling they could both see down the length of the room. Signs separating different areas of the market, telling customers where things could be found.

Seeing the sign for identifiers in the distance Sammie and Noah kept on traveling forward over the head of the crowds towards it.

They quickly reached it and Sammie dropped them both to the ground. Walking along they were accosted by criers shouting out sales and prices. Far by the most common was.

“NO IDENTIFY, NO PAY. NO IDENTIFY, NO PAY!”

Stopping at a random stall, Noah pulled out his relics. Carefully putting them on the counter Noah leaned forward.

“Can you identify these for me? And what’s the price.”

Of course, I can identify these for you, young sir. The price per item is 20 credits. As you may have heard, if I can’t identify your items then there will be no charge.”

“Noah, we should go elsewhere, unless this guy is one of the best 20 credits per item is way too high.” Sammie whispered to him.

“Cheers Sammie.” He whispered back to her. “Thank you, but ill have a browse around first.” Noah said to the shopkeeper.

The pair walked through the market stopping at various stalls of Identifiers. All of them were trying to price gouge the new customer, eyes too blinded by greed to notice Sammie.

“Sammie, is that a skill you’ve got? All these guys don’t seem to have noticed you until we walk away.”

“Yeah, I have a fairly high level [Conceal] skill. If they can’t even see through that, then they are not going to be able to identify your items.”

“Nice, that sounds like a pretty useful skill.”

Walking to the last stall, it looked fairly run down, so the pair were not overly confident in the abilities of the merchant.

“Welcome sir, and Miss, my name is Jarthis, how can I help you today.”

“You can see me?” Samantha asked in shock.

“Yes of course, should I not be able to?” Jarthis replied, a confused look on his face.

“I have a high level [Conceal] skill I have been using to weed out the lower level identifiers. You are the only one so far that has been able to see through it.” Sammie replied.

“Well, I have levelled perception specifically Miss. If I did not, how would I be able to perform by job to the best of my ability?” Jarthis asked.

“What are your prices Jarthis?” Noah inquired.

“I stick to the usual if I can’t identify it, then there is no charge deal, the rest of the merchants here do, however I only charge 5 credits per item.” Jarthis replied, with just a hint of desperation in his voice.

“Jarthis, if you don’t mind answering, why is your stall…. Like this.” Sammie asked spreading her arms to indicate the state of the stall.

“I do not wish to speak ill of others Miss, but, I did not agree to the same pricing tactics as the rest of the Identifiers, so they drove me back here and prevented custom getting here.”

“That sounds shitty. Well I think ill be spending my credits here. Here, I have these three relics that I need identifying. Ill send 15 credits through ACAS so you can get started?”

“Jarthis looked up with happiness lighting up his face. “Of course, Sir, I will [Identify] these for you promptly”

With that Jarthis took the first of the relics and stared at it intently, looking at every nook and crevice of the device. He soon put the relic back down. Jarthis went through the same process for the last two relics, spending a great deal longer on the last relic than the first two.

Noah soon received a notification that 5 credits had been returned to him.

“I could not identify the last item, and for that I apologize, but I did manage to identify the first two. I have sent the details over to your ACAS.”

“Ok ACAS, Show me”

Item Gained

Nanite Chestplate

This Armour was crafted by a long dead civilisation not recorded in the system. Some effects may be undiscovered. It has Self repair.

Item Gained

Belt of Titans

Gives the user the strength of Titans for a short while. The immense strength infused into the user's body results in a great wave of fatigue, and rest is absolutely necessary after each use.

“Wow these seem amazing, ACAS send Sammie the details please.”

As soon as Samantha saw the details of the relics her mouth fell open. “Noah, now you have to show me where you found these. A Chestplate from a civilisation not known to the system! That’s amazingly rare.”

Samantha quickly stalked forward and gloomed over the nervous shopkeeper.

“You will not tell anyone of this. Ill pay for your silence, check your ACAS. Noah, I think we should use this guy in particular for any more finds you make. It will buy his silence more than credits.”

Noah grumbled internally with Samantha saying involving herself, but then quickly decided that it made sense. She has more knowledge of this galaxy then he did. “Sure Sammie, that makes sense, plus he seems like the only one here that can identify them anyway.”

“Are you ok with that Jarthis? I know this has been sprung on you fairly quickly.”

“of course, sir, I am more than happy.” Jarthis said desperately, leaning backwards from the looming Samantha. “I wish you the best of luck on your travels.”

“Come on Sammie, you’re scaring him, let’s go. Oh, hey Jarthis, did you figure out how to use this Chestplate?” Noah held up the small rectangular object.

“Yes Sir, just place it on your chest and hold your finger on the middle. It will absorb and small patch of skin from your finger and learn your DNA. It is a superb safety mechanism. Only you and those you trust to add to the system will be able to take the armour off you.”

“Thank you Jarthis, Good luck.”

“Hey Sammie, I’ve got some cool new gear, and some cool abilities. Wanna spar?”

The look on her face answered his question and the pair of them began making their way to the training halls.

“Ooh I’m looking forward to seeing that Glavenius in action” Sammie beamed in excitement.