Dark Matter Ascension-Chapter 61B2 - : Meeting the merchant

Jace followed Goldpaw through the city streets. The whole place was abuzz with the sounds of chatter, people sharing stories about seeing or hearing enormous explosions in the richest district of the capital. “You made quite a splash up there,” Goldpaw said with a chuckle. “The talk of the town for weeks.”

“Yeah, and it almost killed me,” Jace replied as he followed.

“Ah, a scuffle with another Aspirant?”

“Ascendant.”

Goldpaw clicked his tongue and shook his head, “Shame. Well, you might want to lay low for a while. The rich folk are all up in a tussle.”

“Why does this world have these different levels of income?” Jace asked. “You’ve got access to The Cosmic Corridor, and from what I’ve heard, the Star Council is really good to equalize the playing field.”

Goldpaw laughed heartily and looked back to Jace, “The Yittka have always been a mercantile species. Our society was built off trade expeditions from plateau to plateau, avoiding the dangers of the jungles below. When Cosmogenic Merging hit way back hundreds of years ago, the Nebula Alliance got everyone’s interest.” He gestured to the city around him, “Most of us grew up in Khrox and moved back home because trade is in our blood.”

Doesn’t make much sense to me, Jace thought. But maybe they have something up with their brains, like Priam’s species being so trustworthy. Something that pushes them towards being merchants and traders. Or maybe they hate handouts? Jace shook his head, “So this merchant; who are they?”

“No one knows,” Goldpaw said with a grin, turning down a street and descending one of the networks down to a lower tier of the city. “Come on! We have to descend a few levels!”

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Jace paused at the top and looked out, seeing for the first time the enormous expanse of the jungle far off in the distance below the plateau that The Spirals was built upon. Using his eyes’ ability to zoom in on distant objects, he focused on some movement, and his breath caught in his lungs as he saw a titanic creature covered in armored shells and spikes, lumbering through the trees. “Ollie…what is that?”

Ollie put his paws around his eyes like binoculars, “Oh! That’s a juvenile Scale Scion!”

Juvenile? Jace thought. They get bigger? That thing is the size of my apartment building! “No wonder this is a Tier 6 world,” Jace replied as he began scaling down the ropes and following Goldpaw.

The rest of the journey to the lowest and poorest district known as Flaptown was uneventful, but Goldpaw made sure to pull up his cloak and hood: and glanced back to make sure Jace was still wrapped up with his hood and mask: as they passed what looked like graffiti on the walls. “Jester’s territory,” he whispered to Jace as they continued down to the lowest level.

Every district that they passed through looked very similar to the last: the main difference being the age of the constructions. The newer buildings were higher up, and these buildings on the lower levels were extremely old. Jace could see gaps between bricks here and there, and they even passed a number of buildings carved into the stone of the plateau itself: cave-based buildings.

They entered one such building, and Jace was immediately held at spearpoint by four heavily armed and armored individuals. Goldpaw had his hands up in an instant, and said the words, “Marmalade.”

There was a laugh from the back of the room and an elderly Yittka emerged from behind a wooden screen. He looked like Goldpaw when it came to build: big, burly, muscular: but his fur was light grey, and his eyes were milky, white marbles. “What brings you around, oh master of the Gold Paw’s thieves’ guild? I smell someone else with you.”

“An Aspirant,” Goldpaw stated as the men with spears lowered them: and readjusted the tips to Jace’s chest. “He has done some great work for us-”

“Yes, yes. Flicker, though that is not his real name. The Aspirant from Earth who survived a horrific series of circumstances that earned him the notice of the mysterious X and resulted in him becoming a Signer for the Dark Between Stars.” The white eyes stared at Jace, and he saw a Skill of some type active.

Oh, he’s got some type of magic sight. Neat. Jace crossed his arms, and the men with spears held steady but looked to be ready to stab at any second. “You know a lot about me.”

Goldpaw looked aside at Jace, and his face paled slightly, “Dark Between Stars?” He looked at the Merchant of Misinformation. “Never heard of them.”

“Oh, your precious Nebula Alliance hates them. In fact, this Flicker here is on Deckard Stonewall’s personal hit list.”

Goldpaw looked once more at Jace, aghast, “Never return to my headquarters. I want nothing to do with you if the Nebula Alliance’s leader wants you dead.” He left the building, and Jace faced the four spearpoints and the Merchant.

The man barked an order out, “Lower the spears, you’ll only piss him off.” The guards reluctantly pulled them back, and the Merchant gestured to the wooden screen, “Please, Flicker, join me back here.”

Jace scratched Ollie’s head as he followed the man behind the wooden screen. There was a long, lounging couch and an upright chair. The Merchant sat on the chair and gestured to the couch that Jace took a seat on. “Now…what do you seek?”

“I need to know the location of a cult, or their identities. They’re trying to break through reality.” Jace was calm and spoke softly.

The man snapped his fingers, and his Civilian mark on his hand shifted and vanished, becoming the swirling, dark shapes of Dark Matter, with a tiny dot at the center of burning gold. Gigastar. “I am not some Civilian. I, too, got Xera’s attention a long, long time ago. Let me guess, you are here for some ‘System saving’ measure?”

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Xera’s voice came out of Ollie’s mouth, “Pritchard! You asshole! You up and vanished on me!”

“Ah, Xera, pleasure. It has been a while.”

“You up and left!” she said, her voice coming through in fuming rage. “One failed mission and you up and quit on me.”

Pritchard chuckled and crossed his legs, as he activated some Skill and his Dark Matter symbol became the Civilian one once more. “I am no longer part of Xera’s faction. I am an Ascendant far below your Tier, Flicker.” He chuckled and shook his head, “Tier 2. Dark Matter [Merchant 25] and Gigastar [Trader 25]. What about you, eh?”

Xera in Ollie’s body turned to face Jace, and his mouth moved, but the voice of Xera came in through the earpiece. “Do not tell him a single thing. Pritchard is an ex-Signer. One of the worst decisions I made.”

“We need his information,” Jace whispered as he turned to face the man. “I need to track down this cult and stop them.”

“I am aware of their location, and their leader. But…if you want that information, I want something in return.” Pritchard chuckled as he stared at Jace. “Want to guess what it is? It’s an object you might be interested in if Xera ever bores you.”

“No clue, and no thanks,” Jace replied.

Pritchard pointed past Jace, “Far out past the plateau’s edge, deep in the jungles of this planet of endless night, there is a lake. At the center of that lake is an ancient temple, sunken below the waves. I have been led to believe that inside, there is an object of immense power. A magical object of eons past. Bring it to me, and I will not only give you the cult leader’s name, but the name of every member, and their various locations.”

“Or, you give it to me now, and I forgive your past transgressions,” Xera growled out from Ollie’s mouth. “You forget, I am still the System’s administrator and tech support. I can make life very difficult for you.”

“A threat, Xera, really? There’s a reason I chose this world as my retirement home. Not only is it my species’ world of origination, but there is very little that you can do to me…unless Jace here was the one who was about to do something.” He chortled, “The Cosmic System may have integrated this world, but you cannot affect my Stardust reserves; we both know it. And on this world, money is king.”

Jace stood up, “Can you do a contract? I want you to keep your word.” It’ll be a chance to fight and kill some of those giant creatures, which is bound to be a bunch of Stardust when broken down.

“I can and will.” He snapped his fingers, and there was a brief pulse of dark, purple and gold energy as a screen floated in front of Jace.

Ollie shook his head, and his eyes returned to normal. He flew up to the screen and perused it. “Change this clause here, and this sub-section here, and then we will sign.”

The screen shifted, and Ollie grabbed Jace’s hand: which brought an eyebrow raise of surprise from Pritchard: as he pulled Jace to touch the panel. There was a flash of golden and purple light, and then the screen vanished.

Xera’s voice came over the earpiece, and she was irritated, but there was that undercurrent of understanding in her tone. “Well, now you get to go on a jungle expedition. Enjoy killing the local fauna. It won’t disrupt the balance that much, and they’re all just dumb dinosaur-like creatures.”

Jace nodded to Pritchard, “I’ll be back.”

“I know it, Flicker.”

Jace left the building and headed to the edge of the plateau, glancing at Ollie. “Xera said she’d had Signers before…but I thought they all died?”

“Nope,” Ollie replied. “A lot of her Signers have, but some quit on her. Pritchard is one of them.”

Xera’s voice came over the earpiece, “He got into one fight and then quit. Did not want to deal with violence, despite me telling him that it was highly probable: he just saw aligning with my faction as quick Stardust.”

“I thought you Signed and were with the faction permanently?” Jace asked.

“No,” Xera replied. “You are only permanently committed once you make that choice post-Ascendant Trial. Why do you think I’ve been trying to court Quinn to my faction?”

Jace nodded as he reached the chest-high walls at the edge of the plateau. There were warning signs everywhere that cautioned people from leaving the city, but he spotted several lengths of rope that extended down into the jungle below. And he swore he could smell the slight burn of smoke. “They go into the jungle still, right?”

“Yup,” Ollie replied as he curled around Jace’s neck and popped his head out on top of the Aspirant’s hood. “Rarely, but sometimes.”

“Okay. Dark Energy Mine (Rank 1),” Jace muttered as he placed the bead on his chest, backed away from the ledge, and took some deep breaths. Here we go. “Ollie, map up, please.”

The screen appeared in the edge of Jace’s vision, and he adjusted his angle slightly. Taking off at a sprint and reaching his top speed, he launched from the top of the fence. Detonate. People all around were staring at awe as he took off into the skies.

“This isn’t good!” Priam shouted.

Greg could feel the sands under him shifting. Planting his hand on the ground, he barked out a Skill. “Planetary Palisade (Rank 10)!” The sand hardened and became a solid slab of rock that shifted and shaped to his will, and he forced it to become an enormous cube with a flew slats near the bottom to let air in and out: but it protected them from the blistering sandstorm. Greg let out a sigh as he stood up.

Dee was curled up on the floor of the concrete box. “B-big w-worm. Almost ate me,” She whispered. Priam walked over to her and whacked her on the head with his little metal tube. “Ow!” She said, more out of shock than pain. “What was that for.”

“Pull it together. We’ll need you when we get eaten.”

“You said when-”

“Yes, when.” Priam sighed and tapped his foot. “Make sure you have all of your defensive Skills active, and be ready to blow open a hole. If it dives down with us inside it, then we will have a rough time getting out of the belly.”

“What is it?” Greg asked.

“A Drygorger Wurm,” Priam replied. “They supposedly went extinct, but this one must have survived, or maybe Wricen brought it back as a pet? I don’t know. But they prey on sand sharks.”

“How do you know all this?” Dee asked as she stood up, the jolt of being whacked shaking her out of her seemingly brief mental break.

“I read a lot about my home world. Dad’s library had a ton of books,” Priam replied. “Now, we are a giant, solid object on the sand. If we don’t move, it might not detect vibrations and leave us alone. But, it might also think, ‘hmm, big object? I can eat it.’”

Well in that case, let’s just get the full suit of defensive Skills online. He already had most of them active, the exception was Planetary Retribution.

Priam waved his hands, “Exarch’s Ward (Rank 1) [Multi-Target],” he muttered as a barrier of golden energy appeared around the trio. It shifted colors, though, between the golden of divinity, a pure white color that reminded Greg of angelic wings with how the texture also shifted from honeycomb to something like feathers, a flaming, burnt orange, and the crackling pulse of electromagnetism. “Damage from anything related to Stars, Gigastars, Pulsar, or divine-magic will have severely reduced efficacy,” Priam stated. “Otherwise, it’s like my older barrier.”

“Handy,” Dee said as she patted Priam on the shoulder. “Now, we stay quiet, and hope that it doesn’t eat us.”

Greg saw the stone below them begin to crack and rupture. Shit.