Chapter 28 - Need Before Greed (Part Two).

"What do you mean... not dead dead?" Neeka asked finally. Søren had mentally labeled the facial expressions of the three Fuerven as the Fuerven equivalent of a WTF expression.

"This, this shard and Icon of Heroes... can bring Sehro back. Maybe same way you came back," Søren suggested to Neeka. "Don't know what icon is, but can find out in Caisleán."

Neeka hissed and said, "That would be good for Home. Do what need be done. We go soon."

Søren nodded and touched the ceramic platform for the resurrection shard. He focused his intent on inspecting the platform, which opened a small context menu that hovered over the platform. One of the options was to store the shard in his dimensional storage. He selected that option and spent the build point, reducing the total he had available to four. The platform shimmered and turned to dust that faded away, leaving behind a blue crystalline shard close to six feet tall laying on the ground.

The creep from the Hordeling Monarch and the monarch's corpse began to disintegrate into black flakes of ephemeral shadows that slowed faded away. The [Pendant of Precision] was lying on the ground next to the resurrection shard. The shard vanished into the warped hole in reality as Søren watched. He then moved to the pendant and picked it up.

"Make sure Sehro gets this back," Søren said, handing it to Neeka. "Ready now."

Søren received a round of coughs and hisses from Neeka and the others as they turned away and started trudging up the long winding tunnel that led back to the source, away from the funerary chamber turned charnel house. He checked his inventory briefly before heading after the Fuerven. The shard was taking up over half his available space, but given the upgrades he'd purchased at the end of the Tutorial, he was fairly sure it would be pretty difficult to actually fill up the space normally.

The trip out of the cave was uneventful, each member of the group walking in silence, following the glowing illumination provided by Neeka's spear. Søren brought up the rear, occasionally checking on the progress of his skills. He had completed both defensive skills and received a notification about ranking up to Copper I. He tapped on the notification to bring it up and read it.

Congratulations Traveler! You have reached a rank of Copper I. You gain 1 attribute point and 1 skill point. Maximum TEK is increased by 100.

This rank signifies you have completed the Tutorial and are ready to go out and adventure in the many scenarios Gateway can offer. You may now access the System menu and Claim your rewards and purchases from your Inbox! Good luck Traveler!

Søren mentally tapped the system menu on the notification and saw a list of options slide up in the bottom right corner.

Hmm... Avatar Sheet, Inventory (51%), Friends (1), Inbox (442), Settings, Recall to a Gateway Station. That last one seems like it could be pretty dangerous if the station was destroyed when it hit the atmosphere like the Guide said it was going to. Maybe it would reroute to another station? Still not worth the risk right now. I've made some friends here and have a settlement to help build and a world to explore. Getting home is the goal, but I need to be smart about it. If this is real, then I've been transported to an Atlantean created world who knows how far away from Earth. That means there's an Atlantean stellar empire out there traversing the stars, mega corporations building worlds for entertainment, and a network of gates to move between these worlds.

Søren stumbled on a rock and windmilled his arms to catch his balance. The interface had blurred slightly and turned nearly transparent when he looked at his traveling companions. Neeka and the others twitched an eye back towards him, the other focused on the path ahead. He waved back at them to show he was ok. Handy trick they have. Bet they could text and drive without any problems. Let's see who this friend is that I apparently have.

He tapped on the option to bring up the friends list and it opened a new window in the top right corner. It had three tabs at the top; Friends, Blocked, Pending (1). In the empty friends tab, there were several categories including Local, System, Universal. He brought up the pending tab and at the top was a single word, Guide, followed by the Atlantean icons for accept and decline. No reason I can think of not to accept the Guide's invite. Søren accepted the invite and an error message popped up in his view.

ERROR > The local quantum messaging network is offline. Network restoration protocols can be enacted at the Haven Administration Center.

Interesting. I think this is a message from the Guide. They're trying to tell me something they couldn't. Probably prevented by the security protocols that were put in place after the Merge. Whatever that was, Søren considered as he recalled his conversation with the Guide during Avatar creation. Alright, so...

One, this Merge happened eight hundred and some years ago.

Two, inbound travel was restricted because of it. Outbound travel as well.

Three, this planet, Gaia, is a world-sized amusement park that was created by a corporation.

"Fuck," Søren uttered as a thought crossed his mind. Anger laced his words and he slipped into Danish. "Those bastards just cut and run. The cost to recover from the Merge was more than creating a new world. They wrote it off as a loss. Not worth the risk." He looked at Neeka, Hari, and Strik. They were just descendants of the original creations. The three Fuerven had stopped walking and were looking at him with the WTF look again. Søren waved them on.

"Sorry. Talk to myself," he explained in the halting Fuerven he was quickly gaining proficiency with. The translation integration seemed to work in subtle ways, adding hints at the meaning of words he heard them speaking and providing understanding of the intent of their expressions and gestures.

Another thought hit Søren as they resumed their steady pace upwards and out of the cave. Given the level of technology required to create and maintain something like this and using some kind of quantum network and an AI, they could also see this as an experiment. A way to see a return on the loss of the world. And I imagine they live very long lives, if not near immortal at this point. They did copy me and put me into this body. Waiting eight hundred or even a few thousand years is likely nothing to them.

Of course this could all just be a dream. I'm actually in a coma in a hospital somewhere. The trapped mind in VR could also be an option still, but I think that one's the least likely of all possibilities. This tech, this world and the people... far too realistic for what was available commercially and I can't recall anything near this level of realism in the works. Besides, I only had a passing interest in VR. How would I have ended up in a VR lab after reaching Iceland.

Søren felt the hint of a headache forming as his thoughts naturally turned towards Iceland and what his purpose had been for traveling there. Augh, fine. I'll stop. He shook his head and looked at the system menu again. Hmm, so much for inbox zero. Let's see what's in here. He selected inbox and another window appeared over the friends list. A massive list of messages appeared, but a majority of them looked like corrupted data. Strange characters and garbled text with greyed out icons. An icon at the bottom of the window read, Claim All. Søren tapped the icon and a stream of notifications appeared in the chat log.

SYSTEM > You have acquired [Strength Enhancement V].

SYSTEM > You have acquired [Stamina Enhancement V].

SYSTEM > You have acquired [Agility Enhancement V].

SYSTEM > You have acquired [Intellect Enhancement V].

SYSTEM > You have acquired [Skill Booster I (10)].

SYSTEM > You have acquired [Skill Booster II (6)].

SYSTEM > You have acquired [Skill Booster III (3)].

SYSTEM > You have acquired [Skill Booster IV (2)].

SYSTEM > You have acquired [Skill Booster V (1)].

SYSTEM > You have acquired [Scrap Armor Holo].

SYSTEM > You have acquired [Scavenger Armor Holo].

SYSTEM > You have acquired [Guardian Armor Holo].

SYSTEM > You have acquired [Experience Booster I (10)].

SYSTEM > You have acquired [Experience Booster III (3)].

SYSTEM > You have acquired [Experience Booster V (1)].

SYSTEM > You have acquired [TEK Booster I (10)].

SYSTEM > You have acquired [TEK Booster III (3)].

SYSTEM > You have acquired [TEK Booster V (1)].

Fucking pay to win... Søren thought with a mix of ire and amusement and excitement. Bet a lot of those would have been useful for this mission.

Søren tapped on each of the items in turn. The stat enhancements would increase his base attributes by five points each once installed on his Avatar sheet. Skill boosters would increase the copper rank of a skill by the amount of the booster up to a maximum of five, but legendary skills and paths were ineligible for these boosts. The armor holos seemed to be a cosmetic item that provided a specific holographic appearance over existing clothing or armor. Experience and TEK boosters increased the amount of XP and TEK earned for a short duration. Didn't apply to mission rewards though. Only killing creatures and crafting.

Let's spend a few of these skill boosts. Paid for them, may as well use them. Søren brought up his Avatar sheet and tabbed over to the list of skills. Eligible skills had a plus button next to them. Analyze to V first and then First Aid next. Logos seems like a good one to raise as well. The base skills for combat would be useful. And the aether sense skill. Definitely that one. May as well raise Artificer. Could make a difference in setting up the settlement more quickly.

Søren tapped the icons for each of the skills, applying the skill boosts and brought all of his skills except for [Path of the Shaper] to Copper V. Oh! The shaping skill. That one should be boostable. He opened his Potential and decided to spend one of his skill points on acquiring the skill instead of spending the time and TEK requirements to learn it. Søren returned to his list of skills and found [Shaper] had been added to the list. A few taps and it was ready to be boosted to Copper V as well. Let's do this, he thought as he hit the button to apply the boosts. He felt an burning wave of ice flood through his body and then fade away, leaving behind a wealth of knowledge. When it was over, he was left with just three of the lowest skill boosters.

A flurry of notifications appeared in his vision, accompanied by a fanfare that echoed throughout the caverns. A brief glow appeared beneath his feet and erupted into ribbons of golden light that spiraled around him upwards and vanished in a spray of gold mist and confetti that sparkled as it twisted and fell. This happened three more times before the echoes of the brass fanfare and display of golden radiance faded away, replaced by the now oppressive darkness of the caverns, lit only by Neeka's spear.

Congratulations Traveler! You have reached a rank of Copper II. You gain 1 attribute point and 1 skill point. Maximum TEK is increased by 200. Congratulations Traveler! You have reached a rank of Copper III. You gain 1 attribute point and 1 skill point. Maximum TEK is increased by 300. Congratulations Traveler! You have reached a rank of Copper IV. You gain 1 attribute point and 1 skill point. Maximum TEK is increased by 400. Congratulations Traveler! You have reached a rank of Copper V. You gain 1 attribute point and 1 skill point. Maximum TEK is increased by 500.

Søren stumbled again and fell to the ground this time as the sensations overwhelmed him momentarily. Neeka coughed sharply and the others halted. She moved back to check on Søren, crouching down next to him.

"Never saw that happen before. Rank up four times? You ok Søren?" Neeka asked.

"Yeah. I good. I am good," he reiterated. "Did some stuff with Interface. Much to take in." Søren watched as Neeka tilted her head sideways and turned both eyes onto him.

"Maybe wait to do more at camp," she suggested. Søren nodded at her and rose unsteadily to his feet. Neeka returned to the front of the group and started everyone moving again, though she kept one eye looking backwards at Søren. He shuffled along behind the others after dismissing most of his interface and the notifications he still needed to sort out. He surreptitiously brought up his Avatar sheet and looked over it briefly before completely dismissing the interface.

Attributes Base Enhancements Total Strength (STR) 15 +5 20 Stamina (STA) 15 +5 20 Agility (AGI) 15 +5 20 Intellect (INT) 17 +5 22 Derived Stats Base Enhancements Current / Maximum Hit Points (HP) 200 100 300 / 300 Endurance (END) 200 0 30 / 200 Nanotech (TEK) 1500 200% 1650 / 3000 Rank Copper V n/a Copper X Bonus Points Attributes Skill Points Perks Remaining 7 40 0 Skills Tier Rank Analyze Uncommon Copper V First Aid Uncommon Copper V Logos Epic Copper V Melee Attack Common Copper V Melee Defense Common Copper V Path of the Artificer Uncommon Copper V Path of the Shaper Legendary Copper I Ranged Attack Common Copper V Ranged Defense Common Copper V Sense Crystallized Aether Rare Copper V Shaping Uncommon Copper V Unarmed Combat Common Copper V Perks Tier Big Spender Legendary Brave Common Quickdraw Uncommon Quick Leaner Rare Resilient Common Sharpshooter Uncommon Thick Skin Common True North Common