Invisible, I descend through the thin atmosphere of Eox, unconcerned about the radiation or toxicity - I'm immune to both, and have been since level one; my companions all are as well, whether natively or by my non-magical spells… once they get here.
Of course, while it's just a quick in-system hop… Stephanie only has a signal basic engine. The earliest she's getting here is a day from when she started… and everyone is synced, so they'll all arrive at the same time… but I have no way to know when that will be. Hmm….
Actually… thinking about it, I do. I just need a hotel first… or maybe somewhere secure to set up… which is pretty easy to arrange. I need to avoid more Plane Shift or Teleport type spells… but the Keyhomes should be fine. I don't want to leave a door lying around outside, of course, but if I rent a hotel room… it should be fine, at least for a little while… especially if I put a few Wall spells around it.
So I land outside Orphys, get out of sight of one of the airlocks (Orphys is pressurized and oxygenated, unlike most of the planet… it's good for visitors, but that’s not why they did it), drop my invisibility, and walk calmly up to the gate. Eox is one of the Pact Worlds, so the id from Absalom Station of oh so long ago should work fine.
And it does. I show that wristband to a white-skinned humanoid with black wings, missing an eye… looks like a reanimated Strix to me… he scans it through a window, pushes a button while barely looking at me, and the outer airlock door opens. I step inside, what little of the lethal outside atmosphere there is gets pumped out, then good air is pumped in. The inner door opens, I walk in…
...and I'm completely ignored. Huh. Cool, I guess… I use my magic com to hop onto the local infosphere and look up a hotel… then change my mind, and look up a storage rental place: I just need a big enough area to open the door; I don't need a bed, shower, or anything… and your basic storage place turns out to be less than a hundred credits a month… which is actually more than the hotel, as I'll need it for a week at most. So I go back in my browsing history and book a one bed suite at a hotel… for a week.
They register my id to the room, I head up and… ugh. Dust and cobwebs everywhere, the place smells like a morgue. And you know what? That's okay: I only need somewhere to open my own door. I shake my head as I do exactly that, locking the hotel room door, opening one of my Keyhomes, stepping through, closing the Keyhome door from the inside, and blocking it first with a Wall of Iron and then a Prismatic Wall (to stop everything). So yes, there’s a door in the hotel room… and if someone tries to force or slip their way through said LOCKED DOOR, they hit an iron wall. If they bash through that, then they deserve what they get when they fall into the Prismatic Wall. That should be secure enough for a little while… and as I can safely pass through my own Prismatic Wall (it’s a clause in the spell) and can get through the Wall of Iron with a single spell… I may just leave it sealed this way. I do layer a second Wall of Iron on this side of the Prismatic Wall to block sight, though.
But of course, the point of all that? I'm now in the Keyhome network, which links back to Stephanie, The Brute, The Rustbucket, and all my normal companions. So I walk through the storage demiplane, step onto Stephanie, and greet her, “Hi Stephanie, I figured out how to meet up before you arrived. How are you doing?”
“Quite well Admiral,” she returns over the ship's com, “You came through the Keyhome network, obviously… do I need to secure anything?”
“Not really,” I shake my head, “it's currently in a locked hotel room on Eox, with the door locked, and further blocked by a few spells if anyone tries to open the door. What’s our ETA to Eox?”
“Three more days, Admiral. You are apparently MUCH faster than I am.”
I chuckle, “For now. I eventually plan to pick up a trick that will let you use my speed… but I have a while before I can pull that off,” two more levels, and then I'll have a Drift engine rating of effectively eleven (5.5 - drift engines don't round - and cut the time in half after that)… and be able to share it with a ship I'm riding.
“Thank you,” I pause, “And it's time for another fitting. I will meet you in my cabin.”
“Yes my goddess,” Stephanie picks up on the context shift without issues.
I walk to my cabin, close and lock the door, then remove my top, dismiss my Veil spell, and speak to the lady who's always aboard ship: “So… what's my size?”
Stephanie answers right away, “One thousand, three hundred, ninety cubic centimeters per side,” so fourteen fifty with Veil, “a hair over a 34I cup.”
I nod, “Thank you. And what's the next size up?”
“That would be a 34J cup,” my loyal ship answers, “at one thousand, five hundred eighty cubic centimeters per side.”
Right. I look in a mirror and hold my globes up with my hands, measuring with my fingers; nearly seven inches in diameter. I sigh as I drop them, turning away from the mirror to keep the heat from building too much.
“Why does it bother you, my goddess?” the voice coming from the speakers carefully concealed everywhere inquires.
“The person in the mirror isn't ME anymore. I was born male, grew up a man, lived as a man… and now my body is so obviously female that I get excited just looking at my own reflection.” I shake my head, “I worry about how much of ME is left.”
“You’re not the same person you were five years ago,” Stephanie begins.
Back on Earth? Definitely not, “You don't need to rub it in…” I'm venting in relative private.
“I'm not done,” she continues, “and the you of a decade ago was a different person still.”
Wait… “What are you…”
My ship plows on ahead through the stormy waters, “and so on. The young man you once were wasn't the same as the teenager he replaced, nor the teenager the child before that. All living things change… and eventually, even the things that aren't alive do as well.” She pauses a moment, “I mean, just look at me….”
Stephanie turns on the holographic projectors in the room, and displays the first representation I saw… of Steven, the surfer profile, “This used to be me. A horrible wreck of a man who thought women were only any good if they were obeying. His pride also made him a literal wreck; he was perfectly capable of avoiding that fight… but he thought he could deal with one little pirate ship that was taunting him. And… well, you know where that landed me.”
Stuck in drydock, conscious but unable to act, counting down the days until the station evicted him to slowly drift into a star, “I do, yes.”
Stephanie keeps it up, “But now? I have a proper family, and two real children of my own. I am happier serving you than I ever was as my own master.”
“At the cost of my ripping away a fragment of your very soul,” yeah, I'm in a sour mood.
She shakes her head and fades away the hologram, replacing it with her current avatar, “It needed to go. Had you not… I probably would have been stubborn enough to be pushed off the dock to drift into the local primary. I dread the day our contract expires.”
I chuckle darkly, “If you don't want to be free, we can drive a wooden awl through your ear at the doorpost.”
She raises an eyebrow at me.
I shake my head, “Really old reference. Few would get it at home, you don't have a chance. I'll see about purchasing a Restoration spell for you before accepting, but if you still wish to serve me after that, I will accept your loyalty after the contract expires.”
She blinks a few times and goes with, “Thank you,” before continuing, “that aside… the point is that change is a fundamental part of life. Okay yes, what you're going through is a bit more than you were brought up to expect. So what? Change is a good thing. Learn to love the good parts of it, recognize the bad, and move on. It's all anyone can do.”
I sigh as Ibget my armor on, “I suppose. Thank you, Stephanie.”
“You’re welcome, my goddess.” Hmm… I suppose they got it from you after all, Stephanie.
I take a walk to clear my head, and by chance pass Stephanie's remote unit while wandering her halls.
Huh. An Infiltration Skin….
Invisible, I descend through the thin atmosphere of Eox, unconcerned about the radiation or toxicity - I'm immune to both, and have been since level one; my companions all are as well, whether natively or by my non-magical spells… once they get here.
Of course, while it's just a quick in-system hop… Stephanie only has a signal basic engine. The earliest she's getting here is a day from when she started… and everyone is synced, so they'll all arrive at the same time… but I have no way to know when that will be. Hmm….
Actually… thinking about it, I do. I just need a hotel first… or maybe somewhere secure to set up… which is pretty easy to arrange. I need to avoid more Plane Shift or Teleport type spells… but the Keyhomes should be fine. I don't want to leave a door lying around outside, of course, but if I rent a hotel room… it should be fine, at least for a little while… especially if I put a few Wall spells around it.
So I land outside Orphys, get out of sight of one of the airlocks (Orphys is pressurized and oxygenated, unlike most of the planet… it's good for visitors, but that’s not why they did it), drop my invisibility, and walk calmly up to the gate. Eox is one of the Pact Worlds, so the id from Absalom Station of oh so long ago should work fine.
And it does. I show that wristband to a white-skinned humanoid with black wings, missing an eye… looks like a reanimated Strix to me… he scans it through a window, pushes a button while barely looking at me, and the outer airlock door opens. I step inside, what little of the lethal outside atmosphere there is gets pumped out, then good air is pumped in. The inner door opens, I walk in…
...and I'm completely ignored. Huh. Cool, I guess… I use my magic com to hop onto the local infosphere and look up a hotel… then change my mind, and look up a storage rental place: I just need a big enough area to open the door; I don't need a bed, shower, or anything… and your basic storage place turns out to be less than a hundred credits a month… which is actually more than the hotel, as I'll need it for a week at most. So I go back in my browsing history and book a one bed suite at a hotel… for a week.
They register my id to the room, I head up and… ugh. Dust and cobwebs everywhere, the place smells like a morgue. And you know what? That's okay: I only need somewhere to open my own door. I shake my head as I do exactly that, locking the hotel room door, opening one of my Keyhomes, stepping through, closing the Keyhome door from the inside, and blocking it first with a Wall of Iron and then a Prismatic Wall (to stop everything). So yes, there’s a door in the hotel room… and if someone tries to force or slip their way through said LOCKED DOOR, they hit an iron wall. If they bash through that, then they deserve what they get when they fall into the Prismatic Wall. That should be secure enough for a little while… and as I can safely pass through my own Prismatic Wall (it’s a clause in the spell) and can get through the Wall of Iron with a single spell… I may just leave it sealed this way. I do layer a second Wall of Iron on this side of the Prismatic Wall to block sight, though.
But of course, the point of all that? I'm now in the Keyhome network, which links back to Stephanie, The Brute, The Rustbucket, and all my normal companions. So I walk through the storage demiplane, step onto Stephanie, and greet her, “Hi Stephanie, I figured out how to meet up before you arrived. How are you doing?”
“Quite well Admiral,” she returns over the ship's com, “You came through the Keyhome network, obviously… do I need to secure anything?”
“Not really,” I shake my head, “it's currently in a locked hotel room on Eox, with the door locked, and further blocked by a few spells if anyone tries to open the door. What’s our ETA to Eox?”
“Three more days, Admiral. You are apparently MUCH faster than I am.”
I chuckle, “For now. I eventually plan to pick up a trick that will let you use my speed… but I have a while before I can pull that off,” two more levels, and then I'll have a Drift engine rating of effectively eleven (5.5 - drift engines don't round - and cut the time in half after that)… and be able to share it with a ship I'm riding.
“Thank you,” I pause, “And it's time for another fitting. I will meet you in my cabin.”
“Yes my goddess,” Stephanie picks up on the context shift without issues.
I walk to my cabin, close and lock the door, then remove my top, dismiss my Veil spell, and speak to the lady who's always aboard ship: “So… what's my size?”
Stephanie answers right away, “One thousand, three hundred, ninety cubic centimeters per side,” so fourteen fifty with Veil, “a hair over a 34I cup.”
I nod, “Thank you. And what's the next size up?”
“That would be a 34J cup,” my loyal ship answers, “at one thousand, five hundred eighty cubic centimeters per side.”
Right. I look in a mirror and hold my globes up with my hands, measuring with my fingers; nearly seven inches in diameter. I sigh as I drop them, turning away from the mirror to keep the heat from building too much.
“Why does it bother you, my goddess?” the voice coming from the speakers carefully concealed everywhere inquires.
“The person in the mirror isn't ME anymore. I was born male, grew up a man, lived as a man… and now my body is so obviously female that I get excited just looking at my own reflection.” I shake my head, “I worry about how much of ME is left.”
“You’re not the same person you were five years ago,” Stephanie begins.
Back on Earth? Definitely not, “You don't need to rub it in…” I'm venting in relative private.
“I'm not done,” she continues, “and the you of a decade ago was a different person still.”
Wait… “What are you…”
My ship plows on ahead through the stormy waters, “and so on. The young man you once were wasn't the same as the teenager he replaced, nor the teenager the child before that. All living things change… and eventually, even the things that aren't alive do as well.” She pauses a moment, “I mean, just look at me….”
Stephanie turns on the holographic projectors in the room, and displays the first representation I saw… of Steven, the surfer profile, “This used to be me. A horrible wreck of a man who thought women were only any good if they were obeying. His pride also made him a literal wreck; he was perfectly capable of avoiding that fight… but he thought he could deal with one little pirate ship that was taunting him. And… well, you know where that landed me.”
Stuck in drydock, conscious but unable to act, counting down the days until the station evicted him to slowly drift into a star, “I do, yes.”
Stephanie keeps it up, “But now? I have a proper family, and two real children of my own. I am happier serving you than I ever was as my own master.”
“At the cost of my ripping away a fragment of your very soul,” yeah, I'm in a sour mood.
She shakes her head and fades away the hologram, replacing it with her current avatar, “It needed to go. Had you not… I probably would have been stubborn enough to be pushed off the dock to drift into the local primary. I dread the day our contract expires.”
I chuckle darkly, “If you don't want to be free, we can drive a wooden awl through your ear at the doorpost.”
She raises an eyebrow at me.
I shake my head, “Really old reference. Few would get it at home, you don't have a chance. I'll see about purchasing a Restoration spell for you before accepting, but if you still wish to serve me after that, I will accept your loyalty after the contract expires.”
She blinks a few times and goes with, “Thank you,” before continuing, “that aside… the point is that change is a fundamental part of life. Okay yes, what you're going through is a bit more than you were brought up to expect. So what? Change is a good thing. Learn to love the good parts of it, recognize the bad, and move on. It's all anyone can do.”
I sigh as Ibget my armor on, “I suppose. Thank you, Stephanie.”
“You’re welcome, my goddess.” Hmm… I suppose they got it from you after all, Stephanie.
I take a walk to clear my head, and by chance pass Stephanie's remote unit while wandering her halls.
Huh. An Infiltration Skin….
