"So, let me get the timeline straight," Jack says, stirring his boiling bowl of Void-Crab noodles with a pair of titanium-looking chopsticks. "You blew up the Arcanorum battery farm, surfed an exploding Wayline, and somehow survived the Interstitial without liquefying."
"We have a high Egress," I say, leaning back on my plastic crate. I take a sip from my Ever-Spring Flask. The purified water tastes like victory. "And I got really good at steering."
"Right. And then you landed... where?" Jack asks, his holographic mohawk buzzing with static as he chews.
"The exact name eludes us," Vrex rumbles from my side. The gargoyle has finished applying his newly purchased Star-Forge Paste to his micro-fractures, and his granite skin currently glows with a healthy, granite sheen. "The Astrolabe failed to query the Resonant Stream. It completely lacks data and planetary classification. I believe the local ruin calls it the 'Sunken Gate'."
Jack stops chewing.
He freezes, holding the food in his mouth and remaining perfectly still. The neon pink servos in his power armor whine slightly as he slowly lowers his chopsticks into the broth.
"Zero data," Jack repeats, his voice dropping all of its flamboyant sarcasm. "The Astrolabe gave you a 'Data Corrupted or Non-Existent' error?"
"Yeah," I shrug, pulling my new Caelorian-Weave Greatcoat tighter around my shoulders. The iridescent black fabric hums quietly, eager to deflect something. "It is a Tier 1 Dead World. Underwater. Completely flooded. It looks like the locals triggered a magical cascade a thousand years ago and slagged the whole place. Total graveyard."
"And what did you do there?" Jack asks. His amber eyes are wide, staring unblinkingly, pinning me to the spot.
"We took a walk," Vrex supplies, his golden eyes narrowing at Jack's sudden intensity. "We assessed the structural failure of their architecture. We held a philosophical debate. Then we found a Wayline fissure and came here to the Gyre to go shopping. It constitutes a tactical retreat."
Jack closes his eyes. He pinches the bridge of his nose with a rhinestone-studded gauntlet. He takes a deep, shuddering breath, looking exactly like a man who just watched someone use a winning lottery ticket as a napkin.
"You fucking idiots," Jack whispers.
"Excuse me?" Vrex growls, the floorboards groaning under his shifting weight.
"You absolute, colossal, monumental fucking idiots!" Jack explodes, slamming his hands onto the metal drum serving as our table. The broth spills over the sides. "You found a virgin node! An uncharted reality! And you took a walk?!"
I frown, glancing at Vrex. "It is a Tier 1 world, Jack. A vacuum actively suffocating us. It possesses exclusively wet rocks and barnacles."
"It makes zero difference even if it is a dimension made entirely of wet socks!" Jack shouts, throwing his hands up. People in the Mnemosyne Market turn to stare. Jack ignores them. "Do you have any idea how the Astrolabe actually works? What it actually wants?"
"It wants us to survive," I say defensively.
"Astrolabe wants novelty," Jack corrects, leaning over the table, his face inches from mine. "It operates as a cartography engine, Kaelen. It feeds on new experiences. Consider why I remain stuck at Magnitude 210 for a decade. Because I have seen it all. I fight the same monsters, walk the same trade routes, and bargain with the same Guilds. The Astrolabe finds me boring."
He points a gauntlet directly at my chest.
"When you step foot on a world lacking data in the Resonant Stream, you initiate the Path of First Contact. You become the true pioneer. Every step you take, every rock you scan, every breath of dead air you breathe generates an astronomical amount of Remembrance. The Astrolabe rewards explosive, exponential growth to Wayfarers who chart the unknown."
Vrex’s stone brow furrows. "If this is true, why does this remain a secret? I monitor the Stream. Wayfarers boast of everything. They post Echoes of their breakfasts. Why do they withhold the bounty of uncharted worlds?"
Jack laughs, a bitter, cynical sound. "Because of greed, boulder-boy. The elite Wayfarers actively suppress that information. They find an unmapped Wayline, and they keep their mouths shut. They monopolize the node. They farm it for Starlight Points until they map the whole damn thing, and then they sell the coordinates."
"Maybe they suppress that information due to the extreme danger?" I ask.
"....Yeah, that too" Jack admits.
But still....
It represents the Fog of War. In any strategy game, revealing the map grants experience. We literally stumbled into the fog, looked around, called it damp, and walked right back out.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
"How many points did we miss?" I ask, my voice suddenly very quiet.
"For mapping a Tier 1 Dead World? Assuming you cataloged the ruins, found the epicenter of the cataclysm, and mapped the local physics?" Jack does the math in his head. "Ten Starlight Points. Maybe fifteen. Each."
Vrex chokes on his own ambient hum. "Fifteen? That provides an entire rank's worth of progression."
"And that serves as just the appetizer," Jack continues, his eyes gleaming with the manic energy of a true scavenger. "Uncharted nodes connect to larger networks. Waylines flow like rivers. They branch. An undiscovered world almost always holds hidden Waylines leading to other unmapped realities. You walked away from the entire vein."
I stare at the neon lights of the Gilded Gyre. I think about the 65 Magnitude sitting in my soul. I think about the terrifying Ascendant that nearly deleted us in Arcanorum. We need power. And I just turned my back on the fastest leveling route in the multiverse because of wet shoes.
"We have to go back," I say, standing up.
"Obviously," Jack snorts.
"The Wayline from Arcanorum collapsed," Vrex points out, ever the pragmatist. "The fissure we used to arrive in the Gyre closed directly behind us. It served as a one-way spillway. We lack the coordinates to return."
"You lack them," Jack grins, a sharp, wolfish expression breaking through his scruffy beard. "I, however, possess a Kensho of 65. I watched the exact frequency of the spatial tear you idiots arrived through. I memorized the address."
I look at him. "You can open a portal?"
"I navigate the deep void. I operate exclusively as a Wayfarer," Jack says, stepping away from the noodle stand and hoisting his massive rifle onto his shoulder. "Attempting to body-surf back to an unstable, disconnected node guarantees your destruction. The Interstitial pressure will crush you. You require a hull. You require shielding. You require a ship."
"We lack a ship," I say. "We own the Paperweight, acting basically as an iron bathtub with a steam engine. It functions exclusively on water."
"We also hold exactly thirty Lucent Shards left," Vrex adds. "A Void-Ship falls completely outside our budget."
Jack’s grin widens, the holographic mohawk flaring bright magenta. "Consider why I felt so eager to take this babysitting job. Think about why a Magnitude 210 veteran requires the funds from dealing with Vash's complaints."
He turns and points toward the high-orbit dry docks, silhouetted against the overlapping, derelict starships making up the Gyre's ceiling.
"I just bought a Class-3 Void-Skipper. Top of the line. It features hard-light sails, a reality-anchored hull, and enough speed to outrun a solar flare, when fully fueled and ready to dive." Jack slaps my shoulder, his gauntlet clanging against my new Caelorian-Weave. "You two provide the location. I provide the ride. We go to the Sunken Gate, we map the hell out of it, and we all get rich. Deal?"
I look at Vrex. The giant rock monster nods once, his golden eyes burning with the prospect of maximum efficiency.
This looks similar to cygnus situation? But then again, It was already mapped according to our astrolabe albeit missing a little of its history at that time. This is completely new.
"Deal," I say.
"Great. Let's get to the docks," Jack says, already walking away. "We need to do a gear check. Since that place stands as a graveyard, we might encounter whatever killed it."
I stop, letting the chaotic flow of the Gyre's pedestrians pass around me. A gear check. Right. We are heading back into the dark. I need to know exactly what I hold in the tank.
Open Schema.
The Astrolabe blooms in my mind, the burnished silver rings spinning into place. I bypass the stats and dive straight into the Locus. The mental image of the rainy London rooftop materializes, serving as my personal sanctuary of hoarded goods and stolen miracles.
I take a mental headcount.
[Entity: Kaelen Vance]
[Magnitude: 65]
Equipped / On Person:
-
Void-Knife [Grade 1: Inert (Tyrant)] - My bully of a blade. Still hungry.
-
Wayfarer’s Sash [Grade 2: Latent (Regnant)] - Keeping my pants up and my weight distributed.
-
The Gill-Mesh Choker [Grade 2: Latent] - Essential for the underwater hellscape we were heading back to.
-
Ever-Spring Flask[Grade 2: Latent (Regnant)] - Infinite hydration.
-
Caelorian-Weave Greatcoat[Grade 2: Latent (Tyrant)] - My brand new kinetic-deflection armor. Black, sleek, and violently anti-friction.
-
Whisper-Link [Grade 3: Anchored (Regnant)] - Tucked in my ear, keeping me connected to the giant and the flamingo.
In Locus (Storage):
-
The Warden’s Veto [Grade 4: Defiant (Dictum)] - The nullification handcuffs I stole from the Magisters. My ultimate trump card.
-
Volatile Dream-Matter (Raw) [Grade 3: Anchored (Tyrant)] - Twenty pounds of highly unstable, psycho-reactive god-sweat. Basically magical C4.
-
The Null-Weave Bivouac [Grade 2: Latent (Regnant)] - Stealth camping gear.
-
Oren’s Almanac of Flows [Grade 1: Inert (Educational)] - Farming tips, but maybe useful for reading the environment.
-
The Hearth-Stone Beacon [Grade 2: Latent (Dictum)] - The lantern that enforces a breathable atmosphere. Vital if the water gets toxic.
-
The Gordian Tether[Grade 2: Latent (Regnant)] - My spatial-anchor rope. For when I need to swing from thin air.
-
The Absolute Shim [Grade 2: Latent (Dictum)] - The ultimate lockpick/crowbar.
-
Currency: 30 Lucent Shards & 12 Faint Shards. My emergency battery fund.
-
Consumables: 1x Greater Pearl of Vitality, ~33 Nutri-Bricks, 6 Void-Fruits.
I close the Locus and glance at Vrex. He performs his own internal audit, his stone fingers tapping a rhythmic sequence against his thigh. I require zero Kensho to know his loadout. He functions as a walking fortress at Magnitude 114. He holds his Mantle of the Stubborn Earth, his upgraded Prism-Filter Mana-Lung, and the Abyssal Ballast Core allowing him to walk on the ocean floor like a simple stroll in the park. He carries the bulk of our healing draughts and his own stash of Greater Pearls.
We stand fully armored, and we possess a guide.
"Inventory shows green," I call out, jogging to catch up with Jack and Vrex. "We stand ready."
Jack glances back over his shoulder, his neon armor gleaming in the artificial twilight of the station. "Good. The deep void completely ignores your stats, Kaelen. It solely respects what you maintain a grip on when the current tries to rip you apart."
He turns his gaze toward the towering docks.
"Next stop, the Sunken Gate. Let's go map the graveyard."