The rest of the trip is uneventful. I commission a few more Keyhomes from my crafting minions, which I link to my cargo plane via Create Greater Demiplane's Portal option. Part of it is so I'll have more doors for loading and unloading cargo, part of it… well, if I leave one on each ship, there's a clause about escaping from a Keyhome that we'll be able to use to get from one ship to another, even if they are moving at such fantastic speeds that teleportation isn't an option.
I book a dock… but it's not even for the shuttle; it's a decoy so there's an explanation if anyone checks. I can travel the gap, no problem, and my ‘guests’ are off-plane, after all. I manufacture credsticks for everyone, load them up with a thousand credits each, cast Invisibility on myself, and fly over. I open the appropriate Keyhome at the dock, restore my visibility, unload everyone, and hand them the credsticks on their way out. They don't like me… but they absolutely line up for the handout; it's better than I had when I first arrived.
Then of course, I close up my Keyhome and teleport over to collect my pay for the delivery job… probably my last such for a very long time. I don't want my location to be particularly predictable; someone might…
My thoughts are interrupted at the door to the colony company's office by noticing there's a man leveling a rifle at me from across the way. Great… well, I see the stupid idiot, so… I concentrate a moment and reach for the ‘doorbell’, smiling as a few shots hit the invisible Wall of Force behind me. Unrecognizable component-free casting of any Sorcerer, Wizard, Cleric, or Druid spell as an at-will swift action? There's some things money can't buy.
For everything else, there's credsticks.
He takes a few more potshots (none of which breach the Wall of Force) as I calmly ring the ‘doorbell’, explain that I'm here for payment, walk in, and dismiss the wall as I close the door behind me.
The lady at the desk is nice enough… I guess I beat the surviving colonists here. I teleport out a cool seventy grand richer than when I walked in.
… and maybe I should have teleported directly iinto Stephanie. There's another assassin who apparently set up while I was with the colononisation company. I do the Wall of Force thing again… and find out they talk to each other, as the beam from the light-based laser rifle passes right through the INVISIBLE Wall like it’s not even there… because as far as a laser is concerned, it isn't. The damage is negligible; I could take a dozen hits even without my Regeneration.
But YEOUCH that's hot. Healing from any injury and being immune to an attack are two very different things. But hey, the only question is how I'll win, not if: He's not an actual threat.
So I stop time, teleport over to the assassin, and take some time to examine him. A psacynoid, he has eight limbs: Four legs and four arms. The four legs sprout from a bulbous, rounded trunk at the base of his body. A slender torso rises up to a similarly shaped bulb that forms his head; some might mistake this torso for an elongated neck were it not for the psacynoid's four thin arms extending from it. The head features a wide mouth and an upward-pointing olfactory organ that looks like a crest of hair. The bottom bulb holds most of a psacynoid's internal organs, including the stomach and heart, while his brain resides in the upper bulb encased in a thick skull. He's wielding a comet hammer in two hands, and the laser rifle he shot me with in the other two. He's wearing heavy armor, the Defiance Series, Specialist type. He also has a few grenades on his belt. Nothing that looks like ID, though. Hmm.
Hmm. What to do? Ah, I have it.
I start with an Invisible Spell Dimenson Lock… not that I expect he can teleport, mind… and a Forcecage spell (the Windowless Cell variant, that's six planes of solid force with no gaps, arranged in a cube). I then plate the cube with foot thick Adamantine walls via multiple Major Creation spells, to give him something upon which to wear out the battery in his weapon. Annoyingly, the Adamantine comes out pink.
I then dismiss the first Wall of Force, and let time resume.
This is a busy station… I'm sure someone will get curious enough about the pink metal to figure out it isn't supposed to be there, harvest it, and break through the Forcecage… and they'll get a nice reward for the good deed: Adamantine is valuable stuff.
And if not… well, contract killer. He'll die eventually… the environmental protections in his suit should keep him in air for a week or so; I expect he'll die of thirst before anything else. Not a great way to go… but again: He tried to kill me. I'm not going to lose sleep over him.
But this is a good reason to not stick around Absalom Station: Too many players who want what I have, and have lots of assets to command.
So I cycle the airlock, cast Invisibility on myself, and fly back to my ship. Once aboard, I head to the bridge, where Linda and Cowbird already await, and give the orders: “Stephanie, patch me through to Euler on The Brute, and listen in as well.”
“Yes Admiral,” she complies.
I give more orders, “Euler, please sync your jump engine with Stephanie's. There's enough assasins here that this is not a great place for shore leave… also, we do have those veggies to deliver. Stephanie, plot a course, and start us that direction once the course is set.”
“As you command, Admiral Alex,” they both recite.
I pause a moment, “Did you two practice that?”
“...yes…” Stephanie answers sheepishly, “It's… mostly a joke at the moment, but as I keep having kids it will become progressively more accurate. So I talked it over with Euler and Linda, they agreed, then we informed Cowbird of how it will be going forward.”
I nod, “Fair enough. Well… Stephanie, you can captain yourself, obviously. Euler, you already have The Brute, and…” I turn to Linda, “I'm willing to try you out as captain of The Rustbucket.”
She squeals like a schoolgirl, “Thank you!”
If she's that happy about it now, I wonder how she'll feel when I go through with the upgrade plans? “Keep in mind, this is a trial run, and most of the time The Rustbucket will stay docked. It's the least well armed of the three and we mostly will be using her for the fuel synthesizer and UPB plant.”
“And the occasional minesweeping,” Linda can't keep that smile off her face.
Which is okay, “I actually have a plan to address that, I just need some time at a friendly spaceport to get the appropriate minesweeping add-ons,” which will incidentally also help with swarms of enemy fighters. It'll also get that 'WAY too many missiles’ effect I've seen in Anime.
I'm kind of looking forward to it.
“Still. I get to be a captain!” Yes, she's hooked. The captain’s cabin in these ships probably helps. What can I say? After my time in the field, I like my creature comforts.
I chuckle, “Enjoy. In the meantime… work to do.”
I take her around and introduce her to her crew, such as it is (the Rustbucket only seats four, so she has three of my summons under her command), and then let her at it. We then continue on through the Drift. This section is particularly empty; it is a desolate void, an empty path inhabited by not even the tiniest speck of reality. There are no other ships, no planar bubbles, and no sign that any other path charted through the Drift has gone this way before. Our science officers tell me they're not even finding the usual scattered ions that come from starship exhaust. It's a nice break.
After an even two weeks of travel, we reach our current destination: Silselrik, a world in an elliptical orbit around a binary star system, it has very variable gravity… fortunately, the giant ooze carrying the city we'll land on, Midios, avoids the worst of the gravity storms… but I do drop a False Gravity spell on myself; it's a nice little gem from Spell Compendium: It lets me redefine “down” as it applies to me, and is only third level. I would normally use it to change the angle on splells that are restricted to being vertical (such as Wall of Force) to make them horizontal… but I figure it will also get me off of the floor in a pinch. Just in case.
We call ground control and secure a landing site (the miles-wide ooze that carries the city literally eats vibration, so enjoys starships taking off and landing, provided it is shielded from the heat,which the spaceport handles)... which is also why we take The Brute down, rather than The Rustbucket. Fuel is basically free, so might as well, right?
The rest of the trip is uneventful. I commission a few more Keyhomes from my crafting minions, which I link to my cargo plane via Create Greater Demiplane's Portal option. Part of it is so I'll have more doors for loading and unloading cargo, part of it… well, if I leave one on each ship, there's a clause about escaping from a Keyhome that we'll be able to use to get from one ship to another, even if they are moving at such fantastic speeds that teleportation isn't an option.
I book a dock… but it's not even for the shuttle; it's a decoy so there's an explanation if anyone checks. I can travel the gap, no problem, and my ‘guests’ are off-plane, after all. I manufacture credsticks for everyone, load them up with a thousand credits each, cast Invisibility on myself, and fly over. I open the appropriate Keyhome at the dock, restore my visibility, unload everyone, and hand them the credsticks on their way out. They don't like me… but they absolutely line up for the handout; it's better than I had when I first arrived.
Then of course, I close up my Keyhome and teleport over to collect my pay for the delivery job… probably my last such for a very long time. I don't want my location to be particularly predictable; someone might…
My thoughts are interrupted at the door to the colony company's office by noticing there's a man leveling a rifle at me from across the way. Great… well, I see the stupid idiot, so… I concentrate a moment and reach for the ‘doorbell’, smiling as a few shots hit the invisible Wall of Force behind me. Unrecognizable component-free casting of any Sorcerer, Wizard, Cleric, or Druid spell as an at-will swift action? There's some things money can't buy.
For everything else, there's credsticks.
He takes a few more potshots (none of which breach the Wall of Force) as I calmly ring the ‘doorbell’, explain that I'm here for payment, walk in, and dismiss the wall as I close the door behind me.
The lady at the desk is nice enough… I guess I beat the surviving colonists here. I teleport out a cool seventy grand richer than when I walked in.
… and maybe I should have teleported directly iinto Stephanie. There's another assassin who apparently set up while I was with the colononisation company. I do the Wall of Force thing again… and find out they talk to each other, as the beam from the light-based laser rifle passes right through the INVISIBLE Wall like it’s not even there… because as far as a laser is concerned, it isn't. The damage is negligible; I could take a dozen hits even without my Regeneration.
But YEOUCH that's hot. Healing from any injury and being immune to an attack are two very different things. But hey, the only question is how I'll win, not if: He's not an actual threat.
So I stop time, teleport over to the assassin, and take some time to examine him. A psacynoid, he has eight limbs: Four legs and four arms. The four legs sprout from a bulbous, rounded trunk at the base of his body. A slender torso rises up to a similarly shaped bulb that forms his head; some might mistake this torso for an elongated neck were it not for the psacynoid's four thin arms extending from it. The head features a wide mouth and an upward-pointing olfactory organ that looks like a crest of hair. The bottom bulb holds most of a psacynoid's internal organs, including the stomach and heart, while his brain resides in the upper bulb encased in a thick skull. He's wielding a comet hammer in two hands, and the laser rifle he shot me with in the other two. He's wearing heavy armor, the Defiance Series, Specialist type. He also has a few grenades on his belt. Nothing that looks like ID, though. Hmm.
Hmm. What to do? Ah, I have it.
I start with an Invisible Spell Dimenson Lock… not that I expect he can teleport, mind… and a Forcecage spell (the Windowless Cell variant, that's six planes of solid force with no gaps, arranged in a cube). I then plate the cube with foot thick Adamantine walls via multiple Major Creation spells, to give him something upon which to wear out the battery in his weapon. Annoyingly, the Adamantine comes out pink.
I then dismiss the first Wall of Force, and let time resume.
This is a busy station… I'm sure someone will get curious enough about the pink metal to figure out it isn't supposed to be there, harvest it, and break through the Forcecage… and they'll get a nice reward for the good deed: Adamantine is valuable stuff.
And if not… well, contract killer. He'll die eventually… the environmental protections in his suit should keep him in air for a week or so; I expect he'll die of thirst before anything else. Not a great way to go… but again: He tried to kill me. I'm not going to lose sleep over him.
But this is a good reason to not stick around Absalom Station: Too many players who want what I have, and have lots of assets to command.
So I cycle the airlock, cast Invisibility on myself, and fly back to my ship. Once aboard, I head to the bridge, where Linda and Cowbird already await, and give the orders: “Stephanie, patch me through to Euler on The Brute, and listen in as well.”
“Yes Admiral,” she complies.
I give more orders, “Euler, please sync your jump engine with Stephanie's. There's enough assasins here that this is not a great place for shore leave… also, we do have those veggies to deliver. Stephanie, plot a course, and start us that direction once the course is set.”
“As you command, Admiral Alex,” they both recite.
I pause a moment, “Did you two practice that?”
“...yes…” Stephanie answers sheepishly, “It's… mostly a joke at the moment, but as I keep having kids it will become progressively more accurate. So I talked it over with Euler and Linda, they agreed, then we informed Cowbird of how it will be going forward.”
I nod, “Fair enough. Well… Stephanie, you can captain yourself, obviously. Euler, you already have The Brute, and…” I turn to Linda, “I'm willing to try you out as captain of The Rustbucket.”
She squeals like a schoolgirl, “Thank you!”
If she's that happy about it now, I wonder how she'll feel when I go through with the upgrade plans? “Keep in mind, this is a trial run, and most of the time The Rustbucket will stay docked. It's the least well armed of the three and we mostly will be using her for the fuel synthesizer and UPB plant.”
“And the occasional minesweeping,” Linda can't keep that smile off her face.
Which is okay, “I actually have a plan to address that, I just need some time at a friendly spaceport to get the appropriate minesweeping add-ons,” which will incidentally also help with swarms of enemy fighters. It'll also get that 'WAY too many missiles’ effect I've seen in Anime.
I'm kind of looking forward to it.
“Still. I get to be a captain!” Yes, she's hooked. The captain’s cabin in these ships probably helps. What can I say? After my time in the field, I like my creature comforts.
I chuckle, “Enjoy. In the meantime… work to do.”
I take her around and introduce her to her crew, such as it is (the Rustbucket only seats four, so she has three of my summons under her command), and then let her at it. We then continue on through the Drift. This section is particularly empty; it is a desolate void, an empty path inhabited by not even the tiniest speck of reality. There are no other ships, no planar bubbles, and no sign that any other path charted through the Drift has gone this way before. Our science officers tell me they're not even finding the usual scattered ions that come from starship exhaust. It's a nice break.
After an even two weeks of travel, we reach our current destination: Silselrik, a world in an elliptical orbit around a binary star system, it has very variable gravity… fortunately, the giant ooze carrying the city we'll land on, Midios, avoids the worst of the gravity storms… but I do drop a False Gravity spell on myself; it's a nice little gem from Spell Compendium: It lets me redefine “down” as it applies to me, and is only third level. I would normally use it to change the angle on splells that are restricted to being vertical (such as Wall of Force) to make them horizontal… but I figure it will also get me off of the floor in a pinch. Just in case.
We call ground control and secure a landing site (the miles-wide ooze that carries the city literally eats vibration, so enjoys starships taking off and landing, provided it is shielded from the heat,which the spaceport handles)... which is also why we take The Brute down, rather than The Rustbucket. Fuel is basically free, so might as well, right?
