The trip back is uneventful, although I do take some time off (with buffed summons filling in) to implant one of my Ioun stones under my skin; three days of fasting, a Charisma check (which is pretty easy for me), a Mysticism and Medicine check (Knowledge(Arcana) and Heal in the source, “Pathfinder Chronicles Seekers of Secrets”, but the skills are updated for Starfinder), and the tiny Orange Prism Ioun stone is implanted in the skin in my left armpit… freeing up the spot in my Wayfinder, which I leave open. I’ll eventually get the other two done as well, at which point I won’t need the wayfinder anymore.
I leave Euler and Cowbird onboard Stephanie with instructions to select and download updates for the entertainment archives. Nothing but porn isn’t very useful when my crew looks better, are less shy, and eager to play when I’m ‘in the mood’, you know?
I cast Invisibility, disembark, and fly through space, secure data module in hand, leaving Stephanie cloaked. Pausing briefly outside the airlock, I test: See Invisibility doesn't spot her, but True Seeing does. Good to know I'll be able to see her… once I'm close. True Seeing is limited to one hundred twenty feet, while See Invisibility is only limited by normal things that block sight. And, you know, I can always just call her on my personal com and ask her to drop the cloak, or come to me.
Regardless, I use a “public” airlock, and am soon walking the corridors of Absalom Station again. “Hmm… so many people…” my pink partner purrs.
Regardless… I head towards my contact's address after looking it up on my com and… huh. That guy, the dwarf loaded down with concealed weapons… he's been following me, and I can kind of see the outline of a logo scrubbed off his armor: A ship zooming in front of something… oh, great. I calmly keep my composure and drop a few Fleeting buff spells on myself, feeling a little uncomfortable as my shirt and pants tighten… or rather, as my hips, rear, and chest expand a bit. One of the buffs I apply to myself is Enable Function: It's a third party spell for giving skills and feats to constructs… which I qualify as, thanks to the Constructed ability I picked up at level one for the immunities. The feat I grab? Extra JP, to pick up a specific monster ability: Machine Telepathy, from the Spectra line of Starfinder monsters. It lets me hack computers from a hundred feet away… and personal coms are generally tier zero computers: Easy prey. I just need a check result of thirteen for basic access, thirty three for root… I have a normal modifier of sixteen, so taking ten while pretending to examine a store display gets me in, confirms there's no fake shell, then Divine Insight to buff up my check slightly lets me take ten for root access. Message history… there we go. Decent picture of me… maybe when I was delivering the first survey results? The picture of Euler is out of date… oh, but there’s one of her without a name… soaked in blood… ten thousand credits and a small craft for our heads, huh? And he agreed to take the job, even. Well, that answers that. Professional murderer. I no longer care about his rights so… let's find out what she knows, eh?
I hear Patricia licking her lips at that one; I expect I'll have another headache soon… oh well.
I look around for a nice out of the way place… ah, there we go. That alley looks suitably unmonitored… and Machine Telepathy confirms it as I slowly stroll in. I get out of his sight, cast Superior Invisibility on myself (it’s from Spell Compendium: Natively dismissable, doesn't end when attacking, ignores Invisibility Purge and several other things... great spell), craft a Major Image of myself checking my personal com a little ways away, and wait for him to follow… he sends a little flying drone first… I guess he's not a complete dummy.
He does fall for the bait, though.
I have my illusionary me react curiously to the drone, and when he comes into view and summarily shoots the illusion, I hit him with two quick castings of Dominate Monster… and apparently I'm a bit miffed, as his shirt explodes off his chest, and he… or rather, she… now has twin basketballs hanging there.
“Oh. That's dull… just a foot fetish,” Patricia seems unimpressed, “Just walk her out an airlock and be done with her.”
《Stand there, and do nothing except answer all my questions honestly,》 I command her across the telepathic channel forged by the spell.
“Yes Mistress,” she verbally acknowledges, standing there a bit glassy-eyed. The Dominate line of spells is neither gentle nor subtle… but there’s a lot worse spells I could be using.
But this is a PROFESSIONAL MURDERER, so I don’t care to be gentle: I care to be effective, “Why are you hunting me?”
“I'm paid,” she intones.
Right, “Why does your employer want me dead?” As if I don't know….
“I don't know. I'm paid to kill people, not ask questions.” Oh, this girl is going to be useless, isn't she?
Fine… “How old is the bounty on me?”
She gives a date… yeah, the day after I left the station last. Figures. All right… “How would you claim the reward?”
“Mail proof of death to a specific email…” she gives it to me, “same as always.”
Hmm. I could rob her, but I don't actually need money… or gear, for that matter. Pity I can't just tell her to do anything obviously suicidal... like turn herself in, “What are your email credentials that you use?”
I take some time and collect all of her credentials and accounts, along with her two factor authentication methods and their keys (mostly she has a little program on her personal com handling it, some biometrics as a backup for a few accounts). I take a moment to copy off the program and underlying data to my own personal com, hit her with Mind Blank so divination spells won't find her, then follow up with a Trap the Soul spell (which, despite the name, affects the body first and foremost) to put her and all her gear in a gemstone… which I pocket. She's going to look a lot like Cowbird if I ever let her out. Which I probably won't. Hmm… what's the ethical difference between killing someone and trapping them in stasis forever? Eh. She is, or at least, was, a professional murderer. I'm not going to lose sleep over it.
Not that I sleep.
I then continue blithely on, dismiss my invisibility in a different alley, and collect my pay for the survey.
I start looking at Huge ships I could trade for… we need to wait until after the birth, but… oh. Ugh. I made a mistake earlier: The beast I want to grab the ability to share my drift drive capability from? The sondria: It's CR 14. I can't nab abilities from it until I hit eleventh (and that only by pushing it down with negative CR templates). Which… means I'll need to skimp on something. Ugh. Shields and Sensor Drones… still doesn't quite make up the difference. I'll…. need to deal with slightly worse sensors, I guess. I hate doing that, as it means we won't see a ship like ourselves, but they might see us if they're looking hard enough.
Ugh. Well… can't have everything, and we'll probably need the punch soon. I shake my head. And I should figure out what happened with Slimecorp (no, not their real name…), so I cast Ears of the City: It's a wonderful spell for finding things out.
So I concentrate… why is that corporation still in business?
Why wouldn't they be? Nothing happened. They found a new system, full of minerals they could mine, and a guy who'd crash landed on a planet there broke the news of a life-bearing world with natives on the same day their scout returned him to civilization and reported back, before their press team could do the job. A little embarrassing that they didn't break the news first, but no big deal: Everything's on the up and up.
Right. Okay. If they wanted someone dead, how would they do it?
They post bounties on pirates all the time. And if someone just happens to have the same name as or look a lot like a known pirate… well, bounty hunters are sometimes a little overzealous, but they're all independent contractors; you'll have to take it up with them.
So this has happened before, then?
In one sense, the answer I get back from the spell on that one is a very simple “yes.” But that doesn't really capture the answer I receive. It is as though a chorus of several thousand people all shout out “YES” as loudly as they can, rght in my ear. Not very pleasant.
Well… we're really hard to kill. I line up another survey job - it really is a great choice for us right now - and start to head back to Stephanie and the other girls. Among other reasons, my head is starting to pound, and I know what that means….
The trip back is uneventful, although I do take some time off (with buffed summons filling in) to implant one of my Ioun stones under my skin; three days of fasting, a Charisma check (which is pretty easy for me), a Mysticism and Medicine check (Knowledge(Arcana) and Heal in the source, “Pathfinder Chronicles Seekers of Secrets”, but the skills are updated for Starfinder), and the tiny Orange Prism Ioun stone is implanted in the skin in my left armpit… freeing up the spot in my Wayfinder, which I leave open. I’ll eventually get the other two done as well, at which point I won’t need the wayfinder anymore.
I leave Euler and Cowbird onboard Stephanie with instructions to select and download updates for the entertainment archives. Nothing but porn isn’t very useful when my crew looks better, are less shy, and eager to play when I’m ‘in the mood’, you know?
I cast Invisibility, disembark, and fly through space, secure data module in hand, leaving Stephanie cloaked. Pausing briefly outside the airlock, I test: See Invisibility doesn't spot her, but True Seeing does. Good to know I'll be able to see her… once I'm close. True Seeing is limited to one hundred twenty feet, while See Invisibility is only limited by normal things that block sight. And, you know, I can always just call her on my personal com and ask her to drop the cloak, or come to me.
Regardless, I use a “public” airlock, and am soon walking the corridors of Absalom Station again. “Hmm… so many people…” my pink partner purrs.
Regardless… I head towards my contact's address after looking it up on my com and… huh. That guy, the dwarf loaded down with concealed weapons… he's been following me, and I can kind of see the outline of a logo scrubbed off his armor: A ship zooming in front of something… oh, great. I calmly keep my composure and drop a few Fleeting buff spells on myself, feeling a little uncomfortable as my shirt and pants tighten… or rather, as my hips, rear, and chest expand a bit. One of the buffs I apply to myself is Enable Function: It's a third party spell for giving skills and feats to constructs… which I qualify as, thanks to the Constructed ability I picked up at level one for the immunities. The feat I grab? Extra JP, to pick up a specific monster ability: Machine Telepathy, from the Spectra line of Starfinder monsters. It lets me hack computers from a hundred feet away… and personal coms are generally tier zero computers: Easy prey. I just need a check result of thirteen for basic access, thirty three for root… I have a normal modifier of sixteen, so taking ten while pretending to examine a store display gets me in, confirms there's no fake shell, then Divine Insight to buff up my check slightly lets me take ten for root access. Message history… there we go. Decent picture of me… maybe when I was delivering the first survey results? The picture of Euler is out of date… oh, but there’s one of her without a name… soaked in blood… ten thousand credits and a small craft for our heads, huh? And he agreed to take the job, even. Well, that answers that. Professional murderer. I no longer care about his rights so… let's find out what she knows, eh?
I hear Patricia licking her lips at that one; I expect I'll have another headache soon… oh well.
I look around for a nice out of the way place… ah, there we go. That alley looks suitably unmonitored… and Machine Telepathy confirms it as I slowly stroll in. I get out of his sight, cast Superior Invisibility on myself (it’s from Spell Compendium: Natively dismissable, doesn't end when attacking, ignores Invisibility Purge and several other things... great spell), craft a Major Image of myself checking my personal com a little ways away, and wait for him to follow… he sends a little flying drone first… I guess he's not a complete dummy.
He does fall for the bait, though.
I have my illusionary me react curiously to the drone, and when he comes into view and summarily shoots the illusion, I hit him with two quick castings of Dominate Monster… and apparently I'm a bit miffed, as his shirt explodes off his chest, and he… or rather, she… now has twin basketballs hanging there.
“Oh. That's dull… just a foot fetish,” Patricia seems unimpressed, “Just walk her out an airlock and be done with her.”
《Stand there, and do nothing except answer all my questions honestly,》 I command her across the telepathic channel forged by the spell.
“Yes Mistress,” she verbally acknowledges, standing there a bit glassy-eyed. The Dominate line of spells is neither gentle nor subtle… but there’s a lot worse spells I could be using.
But this is a PROFESSIONAL MURDERER, so I don’t care to be gentle: I care to be effective, “Why are you hunting me?”
“I'm paid,” she intones.
Right, “Why does your employer want me dead?” As if I don't know….
“I don't know. I'm paid to kill people, not ask questions.” Oh, this girl is going to be useless, isn't she?
Fine… “How old is the bounty on me?”
She gives a date… yeah, the day after I left the station last. Figures. All right… “How would you claim the reward?”
“Mail proof of death to a specific email…” she gives it to me, “same as always.”
Hmm. I could rob her, but I don't actually need money… or gear, for that matter. Pity I can't just tell her to do anything obviously suicidal... like turn herself in, “What are your email credentials that you use?”
I take some time and collect all of her credentials and accounts, along with her two factor authentication methods and their keys (mostly she has a little program on her personal com handling it, some biometrics as a backup for a few accounts). I take a moment to copy off the program and underlying data to my own personal com, hit her with Mind Blank so divination spells won't find her, then follow up with a Trap the Soul spell (which, despite the name, affects the body first and foremost) to put her and all her gear in a gemstone… which I pocket. She's going to look a lot like Cowbird if I ever let her out. Which I probably won't. Hmm… what's the ethical difference between killing someone and trapping them in stasis forever? Eh. She is, or at least, was, a professional murderer. I'm not going to lose sleep over it.
Not that I sleep.
I then continue blithely on, dismiss my invisibility in a different alley, and collect my pay for the survey.
I start looking at Huge ships I could trade for… we need to wait until after the birth, but… oh. Ugh. I made a mistake earlier: The beast I want to grab the ability to share my drift drive capability from? The sondria: It's CR 14. I can't nab abilities from it until I hit eleventh (and that only by pushing it down with negative CR templates). Which… means I'll need to skimp on something. Ugh. Shields and Sensor Drones… still doesn't quite make up the difference. I'll…. need to deal with slightly worse sensors, I guess. I hate doing that, as it means we won't see a ship like ourselves, but they might see us if they're looking hard enough.
Ugh. Well… can't have everything, and we'll probably need the punch soon. I shake my head. And I should figure out what happened with Slimecorp (no, not their real name…), so I cast Ears of the City: It's a wonderful spell for finding things out.
So I concentrate… why is that corporation still in business?
Why wouldn't they be? Nothing happened. They found a new system, full of minerals they could mine, and a guy who'd crash landed on a planet there broke the news of a life-bearing world with natives on the same day their scout returned him to civilization and reported back, before their press team could do the job. A little embarrassing that they didn't break the news first, but no big deal: Everything's on the up and up.
Right. Okay. If they wanted someone dead, how would they do it?
They post bounties on pirates all the time. And if someone just happens to have the same name as or look a lot like a known pirate… well, bounty hunters are sometimes a little overzealous, but they're all independent contractors; you'll have to take it up with them.
So this has happened before, then?
In one sense, the answer I get back from the spell on that one is a very simple “yes.” But that doesn't really capture the answer I receive. It is as though a chorus of several thousand people all shout out “YES” as loudly as they can, rght in my ear. Not very pleasant.
Well… we're really hard to kill. I line up another survey job - it really is a great choice for us right now - and start to head back to Stephanie and the other girls. Among other reasons, my head is starting to pound, and I know what that means….
