Days turned into weeks as we traveled ever forward. Once such a trip would have been far beyond my capabilities, now it was almost easy with Linnea beside me. With our upgraded gear, few beasts had any chance of injuring us, let alone posing a real danger.

Before long, the last days of autumn passed, leading to heavy rains and then snow. It came earlier than expected, leaving us shivering in our tent without dry firewood to burn. Thankfully, this was something I'd expected, though not so early, and our next supply shipment contained dense firebricks.

While heavy, they burned with an intense heat and lasted longer than anything I knew of on Earth. With fire and the heaviest clothing we could get access to, we were able to continue pushing North even as the cold increased.

At times, I considered sending us back to the remaining winter months, but gnawing worry forced me onwards. The trip was taking longer than I'd expected, I'd had no idea of how difficult it was to trek through thick snow.

In the few hours a day I spent on Earth working on unlocking the secrets of the VR pods, I picked up bits and pieces of news from the taciturn Simon and Peter on the few occasions I saw him. All of it suggested a continued increase in the transfer of powers from VSO to Earth.

It wasn't slowing down, and if anything, it was getting faster. We still couldn't get an exact date for the expected transference event, but we did know it was coming and coming soon. At best, I figured we had a year, and the others agreed with me.

If we wanted to be off the earth and in VSO proper before that happened, then we needed to get this trip finished. Linnea not only agreed with me but pushed me to continue whenever I wavered. In addition to receiving the information we needed to modify the VR pods from the deal it included a potential lead on her sister's location, and she was determined to arrive as quickly as possible.

So we pushed forward, through the cold and the snow, only stopping to huddle in our tents during the worst weather. If there was anything to be thankful for, it was that almost all the beasts vanished when winter truly hit. Only the odd yeti or other cold-resistant creatures remained. With combat a rare occurrence, we were able to save the bulk of our energy for the endless walking.

This left us with only a small trickle of XP, but even then we'd each gained a level by the time we grew close to our destination nearly five months later.

Jared Hope

Class: Psion

Level: 13

XP: 3400/9100

Statistics:

Brawn: 12

Toughness: 46 (32)

Agility: 12

Perception: 12

Mind: 31

Will: 50 (75)

Free points: 0

Skills:

Archeology level 2

Translation level 2

Rifles level 4

Psi Sense Level 5

- Extra Information upgrade (4)

Swords Level 2

Technokinesis Level 6

Enhance Cognition Level 3

Skin Hardening level 4

Scouting level 4

Ethereal Roots level 4

General upgrade points: 1/10

Class upgrade points: 6/10

Traits:

General:

Database of Alien Languages

Strength of Corruption

Psionic Abilities:

Skin Hardening (Novice)

Ethereal Roots (Journeyman)

Enhance Cognition (Acolyte)

Fell Shield (Corrupted Journeyman)

Great Psionic Abilities:

Technokinesis (Master)

Status:

Tainted Eyes

Uninjured Full

Energy Well

I put both my free points into Will as I upgraded, it only made sense while I had the fifty percent increase from the corruption still present in my body. So far, the pills I'd been given had kept it at bay but it was something I'd have to deal with eventually. Assuming I could get myself to give up on the extra power it provided.

After that, I had my new class upgrade points to spend. I’d already planned to replace Skin hardening with the Fell Shield skill, and I proceeded to do that before anything else.

Our trip may have been light on combat, but four months was still a long time and, like many of my skills, Skin Hardening had leveled since I'd left. With the level being maintained during the transfer, I soon had Fell Shield as a level four skill.

It was the only skill I hadn't seen the upgrade options for, and I eagerly checked what I could spend my remaining four points on. While I could always upgrade one of my existing skills, I hadn’t found anything that was a must-have in them.

Fell Shield had several good options, a decrease in energy requirement, a method of shaping the shield to deflect projectiles rather than absorbing the full force, and a third that I purchased as soon as I’d read it.

Fell Shield Level 4

Allows full use of the Fell Shield skill and increases its durability by twenty percent.

Fell Vengeance upgrade (4 points)

When the shield is struck at close range, fell lightning bursts forth to ravage the attacker.

I had long lost count of the number of times I'd been bitten, tackled, punched, and otherwise attacked at close range. While the Fell Vengeance upgrade wouldn't do anything if I got shot, it would be amazingly effective against most of the beasts I encountered.

The extra damage as an essentially free effect was nice on its own, and I imagined that most creatures would stop attacking rather than continue hurting themselves. It would be a change from my previous style where I focused on being a front-line tank, instead being more in line with my new range combatant role.

Now that Linnea’s amour was on par with mine, there was much less need for me to block attacks. Not to mention that I could use Fell Shield on her nearly as easily as I could on myself. My now lower toughness also meant I couldn't get away with taking as much damage as before, making this a much safer style of fighting.

With beasts becoming more common again now that we were well into Spring, I had plenty of chances to try out my new ability over the last few days of our trip. The first time a gigantic wolf struck my shield in a burst of sparks I was almost as surprised as it was, but I soon grew used to the phenomena.

As described, it struck out with lightning against anyone hitting the shield in close quarters. It wasn't nearly enough to kill the beasts we were facing, but it left deep burns in their skin and sent them reeling backward.

As I'd anticipated, most backed off after the first or second strike, unwilling to continue injuring themselves to get at me. Only the most crazed or desperate continued trying to smash through the shield.

Given the rather extreme energy cost required to block hits, this was only a good thing. The fewer times I was struck, the more endurance I would have in a fight and the less downtime I would need to recover.

By the time my scanner began picking up the edges of the ruin I was almost entirely used to fighting from a distance, I now only had to use my sword or knife when I was so low on energy that I couldn't maintain the shield.

"We're getting close," I said to Linnea with a gesture toward the hill in front of us. "I think we’ll be to see it from up there."

"Finally!" she responded with a wry shake of the head. "I was beginning to think we were never going to get there. Let's get this over with so we can go home and relax for once."

For all her claimed annoyance, I could see her getting even more excited than I was. I could only imagine how eager she was at any chance of getting information on her sister.

"Just be prepared," I said with a fond smile. "With our track record, the whole place is probably swarming with hostile robots or worse."

She nodded and hefted her rifle, before striding in front up the hill. With the extensive vision enhancement provided by her scope, we had begun sending her forward to scout whenever we came across elevated terrain.

It helped us spot any particularly dangerous beasts up ahead and gave us an idea of the easiest path forward. Here it should get us an overview of the ruin without alerting anything guarding it.

I followed twenty feet behind, pausing as I drew close to the top. Ahead, Linnea dropped into a crouch, before finally settling into a crawl as she reached the peak. With just part of her head and her scope peeking over, it would take an extremely observant enemy to spot her.

After a few minutes, she stood and waved me forward. "Looks clear," she said with a shrug. "I can't see anything on the surface at least."

From next to her, I could see that our hill suddenly dropped off into a massive cliff. Nestled at its base was a valley in between where we stood and the side of another mountain.

I was at least a few hundred feet down, further than we could climb safely. Thankfully, the cliff gradually sloped down to our right until it reached the same level as the valley floor. It would probably take another day for us to make our way around, but we would make it there safely.

The ruin itself was a large circle with smaller buildings surrounding a massive dome. The bulk of it looked to have collapsed with only the central structure still standing. Even that had holes in places, though I couldn't tell what had caused them from this distance.

"Looks like orbital strikes," Linnea spoke up from next to me. "Just like the other facilities we've seen."

"Hopefully what we’re looking for is still intact then," I sighed with a shake of my head. If not, we’ve wasted months for nothing, I continued silently in my head, not even daring to voice the possibility.

Linnea only nodded, before turning to make her way down the hill. Just as I'd thought, we had to camp near the base of the valley and continue in the morning. By midday, we were less than a mile away as we paused to eat before pushing onwards.

The central dome loomed massive as we approached, seeming far larger than it had looked from high above. It was large enough to house my frigate if you could get it inside and completely dwarfed us as we began picking our way through the outer buildings.

They were in such a bad state that we didn't bother pausing to search them. That could come later after we cleared the whole area. If I had my way it would also be done by someone else entirely. Interesting as it might be to pick through the remains for valuables, I had more important demands on my time now.

Although the dome didn't have a door on this side, a hole at head height provided us with an entrance. Inside was a cavernous space, dotted with massive crates and inert machinery. Much of it was in ruins near holes in the roof, but the rest was in surprisingly good shape.

To my further surprise, nothing attacked us as we pushed forward, the place seeming to be dead and empty.

"This feels too easy," I muttered, shaking my head.

Linnea nodded beside me and raised her rifle to look through the scope.

"Nothing on thermal. It seems to be just as dead as it looks. There's something more significant in the center though, might be what we're looking for."

We crept forward carefully, unable to shake the feeling that something was going to go wrong. Despite this, we made it to the center with no more difficulty than a few rough sections of the floor.

Before us was some kind of building, a separate structure within the larger structure of the dome. It was fully intact and made of a smooth metal that barely showed age or damage.

We circled it until we found a cargo door with a keypad next to it. I reached out with Technokinesis, wincing as I had to power the device with my own energy. A second later it sprang to life, and I coaxed it into opening without needing a passcode.

Inside was a single square platform, large enough to fit two stacks of the crates we’d seen outside. Currently, it was empty, but I didn't need my Technokinesis to realize it was an elevator. The mine we needed had to be below.

"Powering this is going to suck," I sighed as I readied myself for the strain. I'm going to be low on energy when we get to the bottom."

Linnea laid a hand on my shoulder and spoke in a worried tone. "Don't push yourself too hard, we can call for a generator to be flown in."

I considered it for a second before shaking my head. "I want to give it a try at least, I don’t want to wait another day now that we’re so close. If it's beyond me, I'll stop and wait for a delivery."

With that, I reached out and brought the elevator to life. Lights snapped on, shining down on us from above as the platform gave a groan and began lowering into the ground.

We’d arrived at last, now we just had to secure the Resulum so we could call Broker and complete the deal.

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