When morning came, Landom was tired as hell. He didn’t get much sleep that night. After he heard the ruckus below his room and rushed down with Keran, it took him quite some time to clean up the mess.

At first he thought Robin had gotten himself into a bar fight, but he dropped that idea quickly, after realizing that Niu had been drugged. Alena brought the woman to her room to rest and Keran helped Robin with some Recovery Stims. Landom had a quick call with the rest of the team on the Hubble to make sure everything was in order on their side and then focused on the situation at the inn.

There was a small medical center in this town, so he called over the doc and a few helping hands to get the thugs. They were all put to sleep for 12 hours and taken into the infirmary for healing. He also notified local security and they promised that ‘someone would be waiting for them, when they wake up’.

He kept the innkeeper however, as Landom wanted to ask him some questions. Unfortunately the whole interrogation was pretty lackluster. Apparently someone offered him a nice sum of credits if he could knock out Robin and Niu without anyone noticing. He roped in some friends as a backup plan and added a simple drug to the drinks.

When Robin didn’t fall asleep, they kicked the level of this operation up by one and wanted to overwhelm him. Landom believed most of what the man said and a quick research confirmed that the innkeeper and his friends weren’t listed as criminals. They were just adventurers blinded by the easy money. That was also why none of them pulled out a gun, they never had the idea to shoot anyone. Only when he began to fear for the lives of his buddies, did the innkeeper take more drastic measures - or he at least tried.

Well, neither was that night quiet nor unnoticed by anyone. So whoever pulled the strings in the back, was long gone or laid low. Still, Landom planned to do some more digging. Two of his people were nearly abducted directly under his nose - a mistake he didn’t want to repeat.

On that note, he had to admit that Alena did a great job. She was a bit brutal, but at least no one will have any lasting injuries and it wasn’t as if the situation had asked for a soft-handed approach.

When he was finally able to call it a day, he woke up Keran to take over the watch and fell on his bed. He only had two hours, but his mind still kept him awake a while longer.

“This is the adventurous life Robin is dreaming of?” He asked into the silent, dark room.

“First the pirates, now a kidnapping attempt… and Robin’s list is much longer, this is only what happened when I was around.” He closed his eyes and thought about his family back on Rucasur. He had no idea what time it was at home, but he liked the thought of his wife also lying in her bed, dreaming of him.

“It has a certain charm, but only as long as nothing bad really happens, as long as no one dies. Last time it was already close, way too close, for me.” Subconsciously, he rubbed the spot on his torso where the energy weapon from the pirates had hit him, “This will be my adventure, something I’ll be able to tell my boys when I come home. But never knowing if I will see my family again? No way…” Landom muttered and finally fell asleep.

***

Wow, Niu was pissed - like reallllly pissed.

Not because someone drugged her, no. What made her nearly explode was the fact that she had missed all the action, Robin getting beaten up and Alena saving the day. Patience and Sevastian also weren’t happy to have missed the show, only Timothy didn’t seem to care at all.

When the whole crew met for breakfast in the inn the next morning, the overall mood was quite bad. It irritated Robin a bit that most of the negative vibes came from those that weren’t even there when shit hit the fan, but whatever.

The innkeeper was gone, taken by the security team that came earlier, but one of his substitutes took over and kept the business running.

“We will move out later today and have to decide on the team. Landom, you said you wanna stay here and look into what happened last night?” Robin looked over to the man in charge of security. They had a quick chat the night before and he gave him a bit of background information on his beef with Ramones and the situation between Niu and her family. If Landom wanted to start an investigation, he should at least have all the available information at hand.

“Yeah, someone has to stay to keep an eye on the Hubble and since I wanted to dig a bit into the kidnapping attempt, I’ll remain here. I need some assistance however.”

“Sure, you make the call - who do you need?” Robin shrugged.

“Well, the one with the most helpful mutation would be you…” Landom gave an awkward smile.

“Yeah, not happening.” Robin laughed, “Who else?”

“The Vlasov siblings? Especially Alena’s mutation would be a boon.”

“Fine for me.” Alena said.

“I wanna have some action, too!” Sevastian grumbled but got a hit to the back of his head.

“Fine for him, too.” She said and glared at her brother.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

“I’ll also stay here and if anything happens, I’ll come and pick you up with the Hubble to save the day!” Niu chimed in.

“That sounds like a plan. Keran and I can both fly one of the small ships, with Timothy and Patience in the copilot’s seat. We don't expect any fights on our search for the laboratory anyways. Let’s go to the shore and think over our approach on the islands.” Robin closed the discussion and waved at the waiter to pay.

The young man quickly came over with a flustered face.

“Sir, you don’t have to pay! Not after what happened last night. That’s the least I can do!”

“Nah, it’s fine. Just buy us a round tomorrow and we are good. Wasn’t your fault, was it?” Robin said and quickly wired him the credits before he could object.

When they reached the beach, Patience, Happy and Sevastian showed the same surprised reaction as Robin had the day before. He let them run loose for some time and began to discuss with the rest how they should proceed from here.

“We talked to many people yesterday, but it seems like there is no way to discern which island will float where. Therefore, most adventurers just take random routes in hope to have a lucky encounter.” Keran explained.

“With this approach, it could take us forever to find something. Not to mention the fact that we don’t know what we’re looking for and whatever it is has probably been hidden somehow…” Landom added.

“It should be a ruin from the Eltaran. I’m pretty sure of that and hopefully my mutation will allow us to find anything that’s hidden under the ground.” Robin mused.

“Don’t bet on it.” Timothy said, “As soon as you are in range of the electromagnetic storm, your Energy Senses should be at least partly impacted, too.”

“Can you give us a short introduction of the Eltaran?” Alena asked Timothy who nodded enthusiastically.

“Sure. They are or were a very old race, from the days of the Starborn at least.” He began and immediately Landom interrupted him.

“Are or were? I heard they are still around, gone underground somewhere…”

“Yes and no. The Eltaran have always lived in hiding. They are specialists in gene-manipulation and therefore highly sought-out. Even the Starborn tried to catch each one they could find. Today there haven’t been sightings of them for centuries, no one knows if they are still alive or went extinct like so many other races. The Eltaran did much of their experiments on their own body, that’s how they quickly lost their fertility - not completely but having children is a rarity for them. In turn they live much longer. However, with a low reproduction rate, the risk of extinction rises massively.” Timothy explained and Keran nodded in agreement.

“So they are experts in veiling their tracks? Damnit…” Robin muttered, with no good idea how to tackle this problem. However suddenly he felt an itch on his back, his passive sense told him that energy was building up behind him. Irritated, he spun around and looked into the forest - only trees could be seen there.

Just as his Echo-Pulse showed him what had triggered his passive sense, the cloaked dude he saw at the inn stepped out of the shadows… like, literally. One moment there were just trees, bushes and grass and the next moment a figure walked out of one of the long shadows. As amazing as it was, Robin and the others couldn’t marvel any longer at it, since the figure in the gray cloak pointed a strange looking weapon in their direction.

“I hate this town…”

Robin heard Landom mutter next to him and had to suppress a chuckle while he, like everyone else, raised his hands.

“You have a map to the facility of the Eltaran?” The figure spoke and the deep voice confirmed that it was a man.

“Nope, just an info that it should be here - if we had a map, we wouldn’t stand here and rack our brains, would we?” Robin said, annoyance seeping in his voice.

“Where did you get that info and what exactly is it saying?”

“Why the hell should I tell you?” Robin angrily retorted - he had to agree with Landom, what was wrong with this fucking town?

“Because I’m aiming a weapon at you and your friends…” The hooded man flatly said.

“Well, point taken…” Robin conceded and thought on how he could get out of this situation - handing over the map was hardly possible. When he saw something in the corner of his eyes, he just started talking.

“You know, we really had a bad night already - you should know since you’ve watched when I was beaten up, right? Why the hell didn’t you step in and help? Maybe we could have become friends and all this wouldn’t be necessary!” He blabbered and the dude threw him a questioning gaze.

“Really, I mean it!” Robin continued, “Just think about all the pain you wouldn’t have…”

Before he could finish, the man heard something behind him and turned around, just in time to catch Sevastian's fist with his stomach.

“...to suffer.” Completed Robin his sentence while the man dropped his gun and buckled over. Landom immediately rushed forward and fixated him in a tight grip. Meanwhile Sevastian raised his fist and cheered.

“Yes, finally! Ha! My time to shine!”

Patience also came closer and patted his shoulder.

“Not bad, didn’t think you would be such a sneaky bastard. I always thought of you as someone who fights face-to-face with honor…”

His eyes went wide and he turned to face her.

“I… normally… this… I…” He stuttered and earned a few laughs from the others.

“Come on, leave him alone, Patience.” Robin chided her, “You did well, mate. I’m pretty sure this dude didn’t wanna shoot us, he hadn’t even pressed the safety button on his gun, but you never know and your move was pretty awesome!”

Sevastian awkwardly scratched his head and shuffled over to his sister.

“Let’s see who we have here…” Landom said and pulled back the man’s hood. When they saw his face, there actually were some astonished gasps.

The man was old, not ancient like Prof. Aurelius, but the short white hair was definitely a sign of old age. He also had a white, bushy beard and his eyes, in stark contrast, seemed to give off a thin trail of black smoke. While that definitely a strange sight, his ears were what disclosed him to be of another race. Half the size of Robin’s hand, they were forming a triangle with the pointy end to the back of his head.

What really caught them off guard was, when the man blinked and suddenly a 3rd eye opened vertically in the center of his forehead.

Robin wasn’t even surprised when he saw the message from ROMAS pop up.

* This man is an Eltaran

“That was... way too easy?“ He muttered in confusion.