TS6 - Chapter 19

“We need to have a sit down meeting with Jaalin and Belle,” Kat remarked as she peered over the side of a massive hole.  Dorrik and Kaleek were with her in a dark tunnel.  The walls around them were made of stone bricks, loosely bound with old and crumbling mortar.  As Kat looked more closely at the pit in front of her, she noticed even more of the old brick lining its walls.  

“Looks like a well of some sort,” Kaleek noted, eyeing up the shaft.  “Older than the dirt we’re walking on, but isn’t everything around here?”

Dorrik fished out a scrap of paper before checking it.  Ink flowed across its surface, rapidly forming shapes and words.  While the lokkel scrutinized the document, Kaleek picked up a rock, tossing and catching it once before whipping it at the far end of the well.

It clattered off the bricks before falling deep into the pit below.  A couple seconds later, Kat heard the ‘clack’ of the stone drifting back to hit the wall nearest to herself followed shortly by a splash as it hit water.  

“How deep is it?”  Kaleek asked, peeking over the edge to look into the well’s depths.

Kat shrugged, briefly running through some math in her head before responding.  “About five seconds with fairly standard gravity so I’d say a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty paces?  Enough that I wouldn’t want to belly flop into the water down there.”

Kaleek wrinkled his nose before shaking his head.

“Eh,” he agreed, “the water is probably only a pace or so deep anyway.  If it’s more than a hundred paces down, we’d need at least fifteen to twenty paces deep of water to cushion the fall, especially for someone like me that’s wearing heavy armor.  I’m pretty sure an unassisted leap would end in nothing but broken bones and split organs.”

“But descend we must,” Dorrik replied, packing up the slip of paper.  “According to our map, we’ve explored almost every nook and cranny of the first two levels of these ruins.  If the rumors about a high tier dungeon in this area are true, that means that it lies below.”

That meant she was up.  Kat had been working on her gravity control for a couple of days now.  After hours spent in the center of a circle of pitching and tennis ball service machines, she felt a lot more comfortable with her new abilities.

“Do you think you can manage the descent, Miss Kat?”  Dorrik asked, drawing both of his swords as he nodded toward the pit.

“I can handle seven tennis balls at once from high speed service simulators,” she replied, trying to fill her voice with confidence.  “The two of you shouldn’t be that much trouble.”

He nodded to her, stepping up to the edge of the well before turning back to address her once more.

“Then we are in your hands.”  Dorrik stepped off into the abyss.  It only took Kat a half second or so to find the lokkel with her gravity domain and to slow his fall until he was only moving a couple paces a second, not that much more than an ordinary fast sprint.  She jumped off the edge after him, followed a second later by Kaleek.  She let herself and the desoph fall a little further, catching up with Dorrik, before she began altering their trajectory as well.

“You know,” Kaleek said conspiratorially.  “When Kat said that she can ‘handle’ seven tennis balls at once, she wasn’t lying, but she can only manage that half the time and ‘handling’ the tennis balls means batting them aside or stopping them rather than making them hover around her or anything.”

Dorrik glanced over at her, his expression and crest placid before turning his attention back to the shaft of the well that they were descending.

“Miss Kat will be careful,” Dorrik responded calmly.  “Plus, our trip has been smooth so far, what would make you think that something would suddenly change unless for some reason one of us would foolishly try to distract her?”

The outer edges of Kat’s domain kissed the floor of the well.  She couldn’t tell through her senses alone whether the ground was made of rock, brick, water, or even lava.  All she knew for sure is that it seemed to be solid and roughly as heavy as most of the surfaces around her.

Ten paces from touching down, she released Kaleek, letting him drop to the ground unhurt but sputtering as he splashed into the shallow water below.  Two seconds later, she touched down gently alongside Dorrik.

“Sorry,” She said, with no hint of an apology in her voice.  “I guess I lost control of my domain for a second there.  I suppose I’ll have to spend more time practicing once I wake up.  A shame really.”

Kaleek sprang to his feet, a wild grin on his face.  “You’ll have to do better than that to shake me” he called out happily.  “Honestly?  Were you trying to punish a desoph by spilling me into the water?  That quick fall and splash was the most fun I’ve had this entire delve.  Practically an amusement park ride.”

“Well I’m glad you enjoyed it,” Kat replied, her lips quirking into a quick smile.  “Just let me know the next time you want me to toss you into a body of water, I’ll be happy to oblige.”

“You missed your calling as the tyrannical warlord princess of a barbarian world Kat,” Kaleek replied cheerfully.  “You should really leave it all behind and become the administrator of some sort of adventure park.  Desoph pups would pay you good money to toss them around with gravity like that.”

“And would we provide those pups with minaaq fish afterward?” Kat asked, shaking her head at Kaleek’s antics as the warrior ducked his head to lead the three of them through a passageway that had been battered into the side of the well.

“Of course not,” he replied.  “Minaaq are an adult only enterprise.  I don’t know what you expose your youth to on Earth, but the desoph prefer to keep our children uncorrupted.  Unless you’re an uncle or a grandparent.  Then half the fun is to spoil the little ones with gifts right under their parents’ muzzles.”

“Kaleek,” Dorrik said, his voice heavy with defeat.  “Would you mind at least pretending that you’re not on Earth?  I am going to be asked to report on what has happened on Earth since the stallesp invasion and you are making it very hard to ignore your presence.”

“I suppose I am fairly hard to ignore,” Kaleek said cheekily.  “I think it's a combination of my winning personality and my devilishly good looks, but I’ve heard from others that my perfect state of physical fitness has some impact on the matter as well.”

Kat snorted, doing her best to restrain laughter as Dorrik just sighed.

“I am choosing to ignore this entire conversation,” Dorrik replied.  “Both for the sake of maintaining plausible deniability later, and for the purpose of maintaining my own state of mental well-being.  Moving on.  Miss Kat, why do you say that there needs to be a sit down meeting?”

Kaleek pushed forward ducking under a beam made out of decaying masonry as he led their team into the murky darkness, each step splashing as they forged on through the ankle deep water.

“A couple of reasons,” Kat responded, pushing a hint of mana into her gravity domain in order to expand its limits.  It wasn’t as fine tuned a sense as her hearing or even her low light vision, but feeling the weight of her surroundings had certain perks.  Namely the ability to find gaps or secret rooms in the surrounding walls.

“First, the stallesp representative has asked for a one on one meeting, and if I’m meeting him I should probably meet with Jaalin too.  As much as I want to tell him to drive his little spaceship directly into the sun, everyone around me is telling me that it’s unwise to directly sabotage political negotiations before they even begin.”

Dorrik nodded in agreement.  “That is true Miss Kat.  Much of the current situation is a farce forced upon your world by the Galactic Consensus, but that does not mean that you can ignore it entirely.  Refusing to even speak with the stallesp will be seen as both rude and an affront.  Many of the races unsympathetic toward Earth will use it as justification for the stallesp’s actions even though the invasion preceded your response to it.  This is not fair, but the past year or so has confirmed an unfortunate truth.  A notable portion of the Consensus has turned its back on the tradition and history that made it great in favor of commerce and expansion.”

“I think I noticed that,” Kat said dryly.  “A huge part of me wants to tell those folk to take a long walk off a short pier.  If they can break the norms and conventions, then so can I.”

She sighed, reaching up to brush some hair out of her face and leaving a damp smear.  At some point her hands had gotten wet.  Kat wasn’t really sure why she noticed or cared, it just stood out to her as the three of them trudged through the dark toward a dungeon that may or may not exist.

“But Jasper, Whippoorwill, and Belle all have points,” she continued.  “Rules and norms can be slanted in favor of the powerful party, barely binding them, but that doesn’t make the same true for a weaker party like us.  Earth has some support from the traditionalists, and the skirmish that your people fought on our behalf earlier will probably keep the stallesp and their allies from any truly extreme violations, but ultimately we are the ones dependent upon galactic goodwill and they are the ones with a fleet of battlecruisers, each armed with plasma cannons that could glass one of our cities in a couple of shots.”

“Honestly?” Kat remarked with a bit of a dark chuckle.  “It’s a little refreshing in a way.  This is how it always was for me as a runner and a samurai.  There were some rules defining noninterference with samurai and samurai honor, but as soon as a job became important enough, all of that went out the window.  The contracts favored the rich and powerful.  The arbitration courts favored the rich and powerful.  All we could do was bide our time in the darkness and ready ourselves for a sudden strike that might change everything.”

In the distance she heard the echo of splashes.  Something else was moving in the tunnel but they were distant.  Far enough away that her domain wouldn’t even be able to touch the interlopers.

“And here I am again,” Kat continued.  “Bound by rules that don’t benefit me except that they create an opportunity.  Mr. Jackson is further along than me and he is benefitting from outside help, but if I move fast enough, I might be able to overtake him.  If I succeed?  Everything is forgiven.  If I fail?  I am cast down, declared a villain in the history books and Earth moves on to the galactic stage as an impoverished work colony, exploited for our minerals until we run out and then abandoned entirely.”

“It isn’t fair, but it’s almost a relief.  I’ve spent half of my time as a shareholder wringing my hands and looking over my shoulder, uncertain when or how someone is going to come for me.  Now?  I know what I need to do.  It might be an uphill climb, but at least I can see the path up the mountain.”

“I would rather you not have an uphill climb,” Dorrik said with a frown.  “The Galactic Consensus is… should be better than this.  It is supposed to be a forum for uplifting new races so that we can all work together, using our distinct cultures and interests to enrich each other rather than tearing each other apart.”

“Well,” Kat responded, shrugging helplessly.  “That brings me to the second point of that meeting I wanted to call.  If the stallesp aren’t going to play fair, I don’t plan on playing fair either.  Right now my people are trying to track down Mr. Jackson, the other serious candidate.  If we find him, I plan on ensuring that there is no one with a higher level than me left on Earth and I wanted to talk with everyone about how that could happen without it becoming an issue with the Consensus.”

Dorrik froze, his foot hovering in mid air for almost a full second before he hurried to catch up with Kaleek and Kat.  When he spoke, his voice was an angry hiss.

“Miss Kat, those rules are in place for a reason.  If you try to attack this other candidate, he will be given free reign to attack you in return.”

“He already has,” Kat replied.  “Multiple times.  He bragged about his most recent attempt.  I don’t think that Mr. Jackson is the type to scrupulously follow laws or rules.  More the opposite really.”

“I’d be foolish to ignore my advantage over him,” she continued.  “He’s like three levels ahead of me and closing in on the finish, but I have a massive company with soldiers and bombs.  Taking advantage of that might not be fair, but neither is him leveraging his relationship with the stallesp for years as he climbed up the tower.”

Before Dorrik could reply, she raised a hand, cutting the lokkel off as she started hearing distant voices.  With another motion of her hand, the rest of her team stepped to the side, preparing their weapons and spells in silence.

Almost a minute later, another person stepped around the corner.  They were just a bit shorter than Kat, but almost three times as broad and heavily built with a face like an angler fish jutting necklessly out of their huge, scaled shoulders.  In front of their face, a ball of light glowed on the end of a fleshy tether that poked out of the top of its head.

The adventurer made it a couple of steps before they froze, the wan glow of their lantern finally illuminating Kaleek.  The otter grinned, his armor glinting.

A second later, another two of the fish people walked around the corner, one with a heavy mace held in both hands and the other holding a scepter covered in platinum and jewels.  The newcomers were joking with each other in scratchy voices and almost ran into their scout before they stopped as well.

“Hello,” Kaleek called out.  “Great night for a dungeon crawl, right friends?”

The fish folk glanced back and forth.  Finally the one in the lead that had spotted them first spoke up, his voice reedy and scratchy.

“It is.  I presume the three of you are here for the Scorching Depths Dungeon?  Are you sure you’re up for it?  The dungeon is a silver tier and a fairly nasty one at that.”

“I think we should be able to handle it,” Kat replied.  “It sounds like you’re coming back from a visit to the Scorching Depths.  I don’t suppose you could give us some directions to the entrance?  Maybe let us know what sort of monsters we’ll be running into?”

Once again, the three newcomers looked at each other.  The one with the scepter responded after a couple seconds of silence.

“You seem soft and rather pink.  Might I ask if you’re a human?  A lot of people are interested in your world and information about your race’s likes and dislikes is growing in value.  If you’d be willing to answer a couple of questions, that would be a fair exchange for the information you’re seeking.”

“Sure,” Kat said with an easy shrug.  “Why not.”

That generated a series of smiles from the three aliens.  They relaxed their grip on their weapons and walked toward Kat and her friends.

“What sort of consumer goods do humans like?”  The first fish person, the one who still appeared to be unarmed, asked.  “If someone were to try to establish trade with your race, what sort of products should they bring?”

“Honestly?”  Kat replied, “industrial production equipment would probably be my main preference.  Earth is going to want to build itself up enough that it has its own products to sell on the galactic market as soon as possible.  If you’re looking for smaller things to sell, consumer electronics are usually popular.  Most humans I know watch a lot of entertainment streams.”

“Of course,” she continued, “if you’re going to bring something, you’d better bring enough product to create and capitalize off of a trend.  Earth has some pretty good technology for entertainment channels at the moment, so it’ll take something impressive to actually make a dent in the market, and without proper market share, no one is make anything for your new product.  Unless you can find a way to integrate modern tech with digital and chip based computers, none of the existing shows and channels will play on it.  Maybe if you bring in something innovative enough you’d inspire some production companies to play along, but that would mean setting up shop on Earth for the long hall and investing some serious money.  It isn’t a bad plan, but it isn’t exactly something a merchant can use to make a quick mark.”

The fish men went silent, their gowing lanterns bobbing as they seemed to confer with each other without any words.

“Maybe vehicles?”  Kat asked, filling in the gap as the aliens exchanged looks.  “Earth is currently using mostly petrochemicals to power its vehicles, but hydrogen cells and crystal arrays aren’t completely unheard of.  You can’t exactly find them at gas stations, but a crystal array will last long enough in most flyers that you would only need to change it out once a month or so.  Hover cars are already a premium luxury product for the rich.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they would jump on the opportunity to purchase a product designed for alien technology from the ground up rather than the currently existing hybrids.

This time, the aliens nodded happily, flashing her three simultaneous grins that exposed mouths filled with needle-like teeth.

“Vehicles and transportation are good,” the unarmed one replied, their voice scrapping across Kat’s ears.  “We can put together a shipment of flying vehicles suitable for humans.  Good profit in vehicles.”

“I’m glad I could help,” Kat replied, flashing her own much less unnerving smile back at them.  “Now if you wouldn’t mind-”

“A deal made, a deal honored,” the weaponless fish person, seemingly their spokesperson, replied.  “The dungeon is two hundred paces ahead.  There you will take a right turn and descend down a broken staircase.  The dungeon itself is vertical.  We climbed a cliff with caves set into its side.  While climbing we were assailed by scaled raptors of some sort. They were dangerous but would have handled them fairly easily if it weren’t for the climb.  As it was, Rejawwaka was knocked from the cliff once and we were only able to rescue her through a quick bit of magic, otherwise the fall would have ended.her.”

Kat squinted at the three aliens, trying and failing to make out which one of them was a female.

“When we stopped in the caves to fight the raptors,” the fish person continued, “we were assaulted by fine monsters that sought to suck the life essence from us.  The process was both physical, they had thorns, the drew and drawn blood, and magical as our stamina and mana faded rapidly while we were in contact with the vines.  Finally, the boss is a large version of the vines except its extremities are lightning quick and it can shoot thorns.”

Dorrik stepped forward nodding slightly to the three of them.

“Thank you for your assistance,” he said before motioning with a hand for Kaleek and Kat to step aside.  “I am sure you wish to return to the adventurer’s hall to enjoy the fruits of your victory.  We will wish you a safe journey back.”

“Not assistance,” the fish alien replied.  “A bargain.  We both offered something of value to the other.  Both sides benefited from the exchange, nothing more and nothing less.”

“Well it was a beneficial exchange then,” Kat offered, stepping to the side.  The alien nodded, and the three of them walked past, keeping a wary eye on Kat and her party until they turned a corner.”

“Helpful fellows,” Kaleek remarked.  “Enterprising too.  I’m glad you didn’t bring up minaaq cultivation.  That’s my gig.  I don’t want anyone else crowding in on my gig.”

Dorrik didn’t say anything.  His crest hung limply on the back of his neck as he shook his head, looking exhausted beyond words.

“Actually,” Kaleek continued, “what species were those little guys?  I was trying to figure out how close their homeworld is to Earth to get an idea as to how long I’ll have before interlopers started showing up, but I honestly have no clue where they’re from.”

“Neither do I,” Dorrik replied.  “They must be one of the newer races to join the Consensus.  I haven’t kept track of all of the new additions in the last century or two.”

He shrugged and began walking down the tunnel, ducking slightly to pass under a partially broken chunk of brick that was jutting out into the walkway.  Just as Kat was turning to join them, her hearing picked up the high pitched and scratchy voice of one of the fish aliens, some three hundred paces away.

“I’m done wasting mana on Mind Link, but you’re right.  The human has to be the one that Dringkoss was talking about.  He’ll pay good money to know what level its on and where its adventuring.”

Kat frowned, glancing over her shoulder toward where the fish people had walked off into the dark.  She didn’t know for sure who Dringkoss was, even if she had some ideas.  Still, there was no world where she wanted people keeping tabs on her.  That could only lead to a dark place.

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