Chapter 64

Menseio Station
Jonuth Kidravia’s Ship - Abi
08:22 Ship Time
September 10, 2019

The first thing I heard when I woke up was a whirring sound, clearly produced by machine of some kind. My vision was blurry when I opened my eyes, but it soon passed. I was in a medical pod, that much was certain, but it was different from the ones I had seen previously. It was distinctively crystalline, and that, along with the brilliant white ceiling above me suggested that I was back aboard Abi.

Looking down at my body, I could see a pair of mechanical arms at work. It was weird watching them work without feeling even the smallest modicum of pain, but Mason could attest to how good Scyftan painkillers are. One of the arms was bombarding my stomach with some sort of energy, while the other was poking and prodding at the flesh around a small wound about two inches in diameter. It was much smaller than it had been previously, that much was clear, based on the patch of skin that was decidedly more pink than the skin around it.

Looking around the room, I could see that there were about a dozen medical pods, including my own, but the rest of them were empty. There was no one else to be seen which made my sigh in relief. Smiling, I rested my head against the pillow and let the pod do its work.

[What are you smiling about?] Abi asked.

[Either anyone else that was hurt wasn’t hurt as badly as I was and they left here already, or no one else was hurt. Either makes me happy.]

She chuckled before taking on a more serious tone. [Then I guess I should ask just what the hell you were thinking?! I gave you the Beacon so you could use it to teleport to safety, not use it to evacuate everyone else into the pocket world attached to it. What if Ben hadn’t been fast enough to close it behind you? Everyone in there could’ve been killed!]

[But they weren’t. You don’t know what I saw. If Kiri, Yuki and I hadn’t acted in concert, then Ercan, Ben’s mom and dad and a number of other people would’ve been slain in that opening salvo. I wasn’t about to use my free ticket to safety and risk anyone else getting hurt. It took Kiri, Yuki and I working together to protect everyone, and if I wasn’t there, who knows who might’ve happened. You better get used to it, because if something like that happens again, I’m not going to be abandoning anyone.]

[Aargh! You’re just like your father and grandfather!]

[Thank you.]

[That wasn’t a compliment! They had the habit of making my job, the jobs of those tasked to protect them, much harder than it needs to be! You’re no different!]

[I’m sorry, but there are situations where I will listen to you and the people protecting me, and there will be situations where I won’t. Situations like last night’s are ones where I won’t. Sometimes I’ll need to take action and other times I will leave it to others. Last night was a situation where I couldn’t just sit back. You can be angry all you want, but if I had done what you, my mom and everyone else wanted, then a bunch of people would have died.]

There was an awkward silence before Abi told me to take the Beacon out of my inventory.

[What for?] I asked.

[Just do it!]

I did as she asked and it disappeared. A moment later, it reappeared with some minor differences. There were now two circles, one green and one red.

[You’ll no longer be able to open up the pocket world by just throwing the Beacon up into the air. Instead, you’ll need to press the green button and then throw it up. If you press the red button and throw it into the air, then a forcefield with a diameter of fifty meters will form around it, drawing power from my Mana Core and protecting everyone standing within twenty-five meters of the Beacon itself. If you press both buttons before throwing it into the air, then the pocket world will open, and the forcefield will also form, with the same fifty meter diameter.]

[If you ever get into a situation like the one last night, press both buttons and then throw the Beacon into the air. It will allow you to evacuate people into the pocket world, while also keeping you safe if you choose to remain outside of it. The shield has two modes, one of which is a regular forcefield, allowing some things in while keeping other things out, while the other is a hardshield. The only thing it will let in is light. When the hardshield is activated, there is no way to deactivate it without me doing so. Make sure that everyone is evacuated into the pocket world before you activate the hardshield as anyone that remains outside will be on their own.]

[Why weren’t the shields included when you made it?]

[Because I thought you might be different from your ancestors, ] she replied, testily. [Besides the two new buttons the Beacon doesn’t look different, but on the inside much has changed. Originally there was a small part of my Mana Core surrounded by a few inches of crystal to protect it, but I had to modify it. Now, the Mana Core is about five times larger, and is encompassed by a shield generator. Surrounding both of those is a much thinner layer of crystal, which means that it isn’t as durable as before. It can easily absorb shots from energy weapons, but gauss guns will have a much easier time of it. Keep it safe.]

[I will, ] I nodded, putting it away. [Speaking of safety. I want you to do some searching and find sets of Skill Gems for my friends and sisters. Tessa too, if she needs them, but I’m sure her father has her covered.]

[I can do that, ] she replied, in a less annoyed tone of voice. [I’m assuming you want the same set for them that you just received?]

[Yes, but there will be some additions. Precognition, for one. I also want all of us to have all three versions of the Siphoning Skills as well, so I’ll be needing Siphoning Shot and Siphoning Bolt. The only other things I can think of is Mana Shield for everyone, and maybe Blink. Do you have anything to add?]

[A few things, but you do realize that this will cost billions of credits, right? I thought you were going to wait until we got back to Earth and you could get everything for a fraction of the price.]

[I was, until last night. I’ve known about my heritage for less than a month and there have already been two assassination attempts on me, and the vast majority of the galactic population doesn’t even know I’m alive. I think those attempts will only increase in frequency until Dhir is taken care of. And if those assassins can’t get to me, they’ll go after people I care about. The sooner each of them gets a set of Skill Gems, and you finish your mystery project, the safer they’ll be. Who attacked us, anyways?]

[It was another team that is part of The Storm Bringers, ] Abi replied. [The name they go by is Infinite Chaos, and as you can imagine, they specialize in Chaos spells. They’re a lesser team according to Illia, which is why they resorted to using their ship for the attack, rather than try to fight us head on.]

[Do we know if the Hellraisers had anything to do with it? It’s a little odd that The Indomitables have been searching everywhere for members of The Storm Bringers, and then we’re here for less than a day and we bump into one.]

[I am certain that they didn’t. Illia spent some time with your mom yesterday, but the other nine members were restricted in their movement. Those restrictions were removed roughly thirty minutes ago when I gave them back their equipment so they could begin teaching their assigned Spectres.]

[You’re keeping track of them, I hope?]

[If they communicate with N’ardil or any of her people, I’ll know about it, and their inhibitors will activate the moment they come within five hundred meters of you or your sisters. I’ll increase that threshold once they leave the station with their groups.]

[Good. What’s being done with the other group. Infinite Chaos, you said?]

[Yes. I captured their ship with a tractor beam and brought it on board, but not before they destroyed most of Mr. Warvyn’s home. They tried to fight their way out of the landing bay, something they found impossible with the ship-wide inhibitor active. Now the ten of them are in the quarters that had originally been assigned to the Hellraisers. Esriro will be questioning them over the next few days before handing them over to the Pygmaean authorities. Would you like to speak to them before she hands them off?]

[No, ] I replied with a brief shake of my head. [I trust her to take care of it. Back to the Skill Gems. You had some ideas?]

[Ranged skills and spells for you, Mason and Anja, and melee ones for Ben and Sonja, to start. You have a small number of ranged abilities, but none of them are particularly powerful ones. Mason only has Earth Spike which can be used at range, while Anja only has Ice Shard. You won’t always be able to fight in close, so you need abilities you can use for fighting at range. The same is also true the other way around. You, Mason and Anja all have a number of melee abilities, but neither Ben nor Sonja have a single one. Siphoning Strike will help with that, as will the other variants for you, Mason and Anja.]

[So what do you have in mind?]

[Familiars for each of you. The majority of your abilities aren’t linked to any one school of magic, but that would be an Earth Familiar for Mason, Fire Familiar for Ben, Water Familiar for Anja and Air Familiar for Sonja. All familiars work in the same way, having two effects. The first one will increase the overall damage you deal with spells in the same school of magic, while the second one causes your familiar to cast lesser damage copies of same-school spells. An example would be Ben casting Fireball; The damage of it would be increased and his familiar would cast a copy of the spell that might do a quarter of the damage.]

[I would also suggest at least one powerful Tier S Skill for each of you. Something like Stone Daggers for Mason and Glacial Shards for Anja, and then Crushing Blow for Ben and Triple Strike for Sonja. Maybe not those skills exactly, but something similar.]

[What about me?] I asked.

[That’s up to you. As I said, many of your abilities aren’t linked to the same school of magic, so you could go in any direction you wish. Arcane, Chaos, Holy, Nature, Shadow, Unholy and Water are the remaining schools of magic. It is usually a good idea to focus on one school in particular, though there are many who focus on two or three different ones. If I had to suggest a school of magic, I would say Arcane, Chaos or Shadow.]

[Why those three?]

[They’re all quite different from one another, but powerful in their own right. Arcane is the best bet if you’re looking for pure firepower, mobility and overall control of a battlefield. Shadow and Unholy are similar in that both are focused on dealing damage over time and summoning temporary monsters, but each of the two schools go about it in different ways. Shadow is about dealing damage overtime using spells and curses such as Curse of Pain which attack the soul directly, while Unholy uses diseases and poisons to attack the body instead.]

[There are situations where both Shadow and Unholy struggle to deal damage, depending on what you’re fighting, but that’s where their summons and other skills come in. You’ve already seen Ben summon Skeletal Warriors and Archers, but there are many other undead that can be summoned, such as ghouls, golems and behemoths of bone if you’re looking at Unholy summons. For Shadow summons, you’ll be dealing with many types of demons such as hellhounds, hellbats, and satyrs, to name a few.]

[Yeah ... I think I’ll go with Arcane. So what did you mean when you said that it’s the best bet for mobility and control of a battlefield?]

[I figured that’s what you would choose. In terms of mobility, Arcane is far and away the best school of magic. You already know Blink, Teleport and Portal, but there is also Mass Teleport and Swap, for example. As for control, there are a large number of spells that can affect how a battle plays out. Stasis Trap can make a group of enemies a non-factor in a fight for a short time, or Mirage can be used to make your forces look larger than they are. There is Rewind and Time Warp, both of which quite literally reverse time in a localized area. Rewind can only be used on one target, while Time Warp affects everyone within a certain range. When activated, everyone who is affected will be moved to where they were ten seconds prior, and any abilities used in those ten seconds will be refreshed.]

[Imagine a group of people with Meteor Shower and a ring like Ben’s that allows a spell to be stored inside. They could all instantly cast a Meteor Shower and then have someone use Time Warp to refresh Meteor Shower and their rings. They could then move forward and cast Meteor Shower once again.]

[That sounds insanely powerful. What’s stopping an entire army from having the ability though?]

[Three things. Cost, the fact that Time Warp has a three day cooldown, and the fact that someone cannot be affected by Time Warp more than once every twenty-four hours. Time Warp can be such a powerful ability that it is more expensive than any other Skill Gem discovered thus far. I think I would be lucky to find one for around fifty billion credits. More than likely, the cost would be hundreds of billions for the skill. Whenever one pops up, the various navies around the Scutum-Centaurus Arm end up in a bidding war trying to get their hands on it. Looking through reports, it seems like the most recent one was found one hundred sixteen years ago, and it went for seventy-eight billion credits.]

[Wow. Okay, for Arcane, what spells were you thinking?]

[Arcane Familiar, Arcane Blast, Arcane Salvo, Disintegrate, Rewind and Astral Spirit. That will give you three powerful damaging spells, a utility spell, and another skill to help with mobility. When used, Astral Spirit will send an astral copy of yourself along a path in front of you, with the maximum distance increasing as the ability reaches higher ranks. While it is active, you can reactivate the ability to swap places with the astral spirit. It can open up some interesting strategies since you don’t necessarily need to swap places with your astral copy.]

[I can think of a few uses for it. So besides Disintegrate, the rest sound fairly self explanatory. It sounds powerful, but what does Disintegrate actually do?]

[You saw Savarnei and the other purple dragons use their breath weapons on the ship belonging to Infinite Chaos, right?] she asked, to which I nodded. [Disintegrate is pretty much the exact same thing. I’m not sure how different they would be in terms of the amount of damage they deal, but both are sustained beams of arcane energy. It’s a channeled ability, so you can use it for as long as you wish, but the moment you stop channeling it, it goes on a one minute cooldown.]

[But I can use Rewind to use it again immediately, right?]

[Only if you had been channeling Disintegrate for less than ten seconds before you activated Rewind. If you were channeling it for over ten seconds before activating Rewind, then you would still be channeling it when the effect of Rewind ended.]

[Oh, right. So I would be better off using it to refresh someone else’s abilities, though Ben and Sonja would be the best bets, as it stands currently. Alright, do you want to put together a list and then get started? You’ll probably want to talk to my sisters and see what kind of spells they want.]

[I put together a list as we talked, and I’ll speak with your sisters a little bit later. You’re correct that Tessa already has a set of powerful Skill Gems, so it’s just the eight of you.]

[Cool. So how much longer am I going to be in this pod? I’m starving.]

She chuckled. [Take a look.]

My head had been resting on the pillow in the pod, so I hadn’t noticed how much work the two small mechanical arms had done while we were talking. The wound was two inches in diameter when I woke up, but now the hole was almost gone.

[The beam that is focused on the wound promotes new skin growth, while the needle-like arm serves two purposes. It injects a local anesthetic into the area so you don’t feel any pain, while simultaneously excising any epithelialized skin along the edges of the wound, as necessary. The wound on your back and the damage to your internal organs needed to be taken care of first, so a bandage was placed on the wound on your stomach. It makes the beam’s job harder if a wound has already started to heal, so it is better if the wound it is working on is as fresh as possible.]

[I see, ] I said, not knowing what epithelialized meant in the slightest. [So five minutes?]

She laughed again. [More like two. The pod will open automatically when it is done doing it’s work, and I’ve set some new clothes in the bathroom which is through the door to your left. You’ll be able to shower and then go on with your day. I believe you have an appointment to make with a tailor, after all.]

She gave me a rundown of all my injuries while I was showering, and that’s when I found out that my wound had been caused by a round from a gauss gun mounted on Infinite Chaos’ ship. She said that the round must have gone through something before striking me, as the round that hit me would have had no problem breaking through Mana Shield and passing right through me before hitting someone else.It was slowed down enough that it barely got through Mana Shield before striking me. From what Abi had heard, the projectile had broken through the skin of my stomach where it got lodged briefly, before falling harmlessly to the floor of the pocket world as I collapsed.

Once showered and dressed, I left the room containing the pod I was in and was immediately leapt upon by someone with long blond hair.

“Thank you!” she said.

I knew who it was immediately, as there would only be one woman waiting for me to leave medical. It was made even more obvious by the man who was standing behind her.

“You’re welcome, Oya.”

She let go and backed up to stand beside her father, who walked up to me. I reached out to shake his hand, but he reached out and pulled me into a hug.

“Thank you for saving my daughter. If you hadn’t moved in front of that round, then it would have shredded her heart and torn through her spine, killing her almost instantly,” he whispered.

“You’re welcome. I wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.”

He stepped back and nodded. “If you need anything while you’re here, let me know. I owe you a serious debt.”

“You don’t owe me a thing, I would’ve stepped in front of that round for anyone ... well, almost anyone. I would be more than happy to stand aside and let someone like Dhir take that round instead.”

He laughed. “So would I.”

“I was surprised that you were the only two people waiting,” I said as the three of us made our way to the mess.

“Oh, there were more last night,” Ercan replied. “She wouldn’t let anyone inside of medical and everyone was blocking the adjacent hall. She told everyone that they would be updated on your progress, but demanded that they vacate the area. A few people protested, but eventually went on their way. It’s hard to argue with someone who has absolute control over the ship.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Yeah, I can see how that would be a fruitless effort.”

My arrival in the mess drew a lot more attention than I thought it would, particularly because of the amount of people that were eating breakfast. The dragons were to be expected, of course, as the mess is where they would be taking the majority of their meals. That there were over three dozen other Scyftans, Pygmaeans and humans present was a surprise, however, considering that there were over a hundred restaurants on the massive station.

My mom was the first to notice my arrival, and practically ran over to me and embraced me in a bone-breaking hug. After a minute she let go, and asked to see the wound. Or where it had been, now that it was fully healed.’

“That’s absolutely remarkable,” Ben’s dad, Michael, said as he, and many others huddled around me to get a look.

Most of them had seen the wound before I was taken to medical, so it was a sharp contrast between how it looked then and how it looked now.

“Those medical chambers do good work,” Mason replied. “There isn’t even a scar or anything from where the bone broke through my skin a few weeks ago.”