One year ago.

“Space slug, top left,” Flor said to Alastair. Alastair turned and flared it, and the slug shrieked then fell to the ground. {Somehow there was a pocket of air there. Suspension of disbelief, man.}

Alastair walked to the corpse and put the entire thing in his inventory.

“One more and we should have all we need to complete this fetch quest.”

Flor knew Alastair didn’t enjoy fetch quests. He’d much rather be out completing mining puzzles and hauling in rocks. But he had quit his clan about a month ago and he and Flor were solo adventuring. He claimed he quit the clan because the Holst’s Solar Explorer expansion pack had ruined clan mining. Even though she had been playing for about a year, she didn’t follow the forums or game news closely.

“Can you explain again about the thing with the Exoplanets update?”

“What? You mean my rant on exploited labor?” he said while flaring at another space slug.

“That’s the one,” she said while giving the room one more sweep. “I think this chamber is clear.”

“The Exoplanets expansion updated a few things. When it came online they introduced three new planets. But those planets are so far away that they couldn’t be reached with current in-game technology. Fortunately, they also introduced new technology trees that grant the upgrades needed to travel that far. But, since those new technologies required substantial resources, Solar Cell modified how resources were mined. However, they didn’t increase the ease of extracting resources. Since more resources were needed, they allowed for freemium accounts, which opened the game to the exploitation of human labor. So most group mining is now overtaken by free accounts, which flooded the market with cheap resources. People on the forums complain that most of that is being accomplished in child labor farms in certain countries.”

“So, basically, because of exploited child labor, you aren’t able to mine with groups anymore,” she summarized.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“Yeah, that’s about it.”

“I wonder if there are any academic papers on the subject. Seriously, though, what if we were to mine together?”

“I mean, that would be awesome! But we’d need a mining ship and resources and a master’s license. And those take money that we don’t have and won’t get easily doing fetch quests.”

“You’re not convinced we can get all that money by selling toasted space slugs to the vendor on Luna?”

“I’m sure these things are considered a delicacy when extra crispy. Not a delicacy I think I’ll ever appreciate,” he said. “I’m still healthy and we’ve got a full clip of flares. Should we keep going?”

She moved toward the next chamber, and he followed. She pulled up the sonar ping and blasted it through the entrance. After a moment, the return sound mapped onto his radar, with several protrusions and possible space slugs showing through the space. A countdown time showed on the device. She would ping again after a minute to get a relative layout of movement which would indicate slugs.

“What if I told you I obtained my Master’s license?”

Alastair remained silent, looking at the radar, almost as if he hadn’t heard her, waiting for her to ping again. She did, and they waited for the sound to return. Several protrusions returned to be just that, but several others had moved somewhat, indicating they were likely slugs.

“Al? Did you hear what I said?”

“Yeah, but licenses are so rare that I’m working through emotions that might result in my not believing you.”

“Are we going to clear out slugs?”

“Are you joking about the license?” he asked.

“I’m not.”

“Like, if we had the money, you could buy a Tier 1 mining rig right now,” he said. “And hire a crew?”

“How many slugs equate to a Tier 1 mining ship?”

“Not including fetch quest rewards, something like one toasty slug to five credits.”

“So, a couple of thousand slugs, at a minimum, for even the down payment.”

She looked at him, and he was doing some mental arithmetic. He said, “Assuming respawn rates, and everything else, maybe we could get there in a month. But, how did you get the license?”

Anticipating this question, she said, “I was playing through a side quest. It was one of the common support ones from Mars to the belt. The crew all died suddenly, and I was left managing the entire ship for an abbreviated six months. The shipping company was happy that their ship had arrived with only the loss of crew, so they threw me a license in case I ever wanted to work for them again. I’ve had it for about a month but I wanted to tell you when we were in person. Or at least in the same room.”

“You sneaky, amazing woman! What else aren’t you telling me? You don’t have a ship hidden in your suit do you?”

“No, but I might have a lead on one…”

Fin