[CYA] Chapter 169: Venom Station (Patreon)

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jzuCFSb1GnOMhNOV_Mq6-bovv-_lyqcD76MtuuxILPM/edit?usp=sharing

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<Alex, Real - Dorgon Calls for Aid, Innominate Dining Hall>

Alex and Grant were sitting in the dining hall when Natasha walked in. “Alex?”

Grant was just taking a bite, but Alex looked her way. “Yeah, Natasha?”

“About time to jump. Are you ready?”

He nodded. “Should be. How is it Grant?”

Grant chewed and swallowed. “Not bad. Not bad at all.” He took in a long breath, clearly smelling the food before taking another, much smaller bite and swallowing it. “It’s interesting. I can recognize the taste, but there’s more. Like my mouth had a tasteless coating keeping me away from the flavors, now that’s gone.”

“The bio-clean-up has lots of benefits. And, hey!” Alex smiled, reaching across the table to clap him on the shoulder. “You made this yourself. There you go.”

Natasha sat down beside the men.

Alex arched an eyebrow at her. “I thought it was time to go?”

She shrugged. “Soon enough. I wanted to ask you something.”

He grunted. “Go ahead.”

“You can send magic into an enemy and often learn from it, is that right? That’s how you’ve gotten some of your abilities?”

He waggeled his head back and forth. “Near enough, I suppose. What are you getting at?”

She smiled expectantly. “Can you do the opposite?”

He frowned. “Use my life to make them forget how to do things to weaken them?”

She blinked a few times. “You know, I suppose that is the opposite.” She huffed a laugh. “I meant, can you send in the magic to teach what you’ve learned to others?”

Alex cocked his head to the side. “Huh… I don’t know. It’s Life, by the way, not magic, but I’m willing to try. It’s a bit outside of the description, but much is, before I figure it out.”

She smiled. “Mind trying on me?”

“Sure. I assume this is about our next mission. So venom resistance?”

She nodded, laying her arm on the table.

Alex placed his palm on her forearm and sent a hundred Life into her with the express purpose of training her body, her Life, to defend against venom.

What he got back was odd. It clearly failed, but not in a ‘it might have succeeded’ sort of way. His Life flowed back into him and he sighed. “I don’t think this is going to work…”

<Alex, Imagining - The Sense Surrounding Training Others’ Life>

Deep in the woods, a dog carried a ball up to the base of a tree and dropped it.

The ball slowly rolled away as the dog watched the tree, waiting for a reaction.

When the blue rubber sphere got far enough away, the dog went and got it, returning it to the roots for another try.

The tree never moved no matter how many times the dog attempted to teach the tree to play.

<Alex, Real - Dorgon Calls for Aid, Innominate Dining Hall>

Alex grunted. “The sense I get is that your Life can’t learn this. It can’t really learn anything. My ability to pick up attributes doesn’t seem to be due to them being transferable. I think it’s because my Life can learn them. Does that make sense?”

Natasha let out a disappointed sigh but nodded. “Yes. I suppose that makes some sense.” She slapped the table. “Come on. It’s jump time.”

<Alex, Real - Dorgon Calls for Aid, Innominate Duty Station>

Alex guided the spun-up jump-drive, feeling the guardrails Kaylee’s improvements had added. Interestingly, those very rails helped him see where he’d gone wrong in previous jumps, and that allowed him to narrow in the point of arrival even more than if he’d simply relied on the rails to begin with.

In essence, he could see what the rails were nudging and keeping in tighter parameters, and that told him exactly what mattered for accuracy. Oh, this is way more valuable than  we realized.

He sent the information through his bracelets, then put it from his mind.

Mana—tinged with gravity and other aspects—flooded out through the substructure of the Innominate, and then the ship folded like an origami square.

As a meticulously crafted, flapping dragon, they dove into nothing and emerged from the ripples that action had created as a matter of course.

The ship shattered outward from the folded perfection, the shards slotting neatly back into proper shape, leaving the Innominate at relative rest some two hundred thousand miles from the planet around which the station orbited.

Alex immediately started the ship moving, as it had begun to fall toward the planet’s surface as soon as space had stabilized around it.

As to how long this jump had taken? He had no idea. Time was relative anyway so why did it matter?

Alex blinked a few times. That’s… odd.

He sighed, placing the thoughts in the bucket of ‘jump-drive madness’ and moved on. “On an intercept course for the space station. Estimated ninety minutes before we enter a stable orbit at a safe distance. Course locked in and shifting to auto-pilot.”

Natasha sent the scans his way, and he was content with the results. There were still life signs in various seemingly sealed compartments even though they weren’t getting any responses to attempts at communication. Most of the station was empty of any large sources of magic or life energy. There was no undeath or any other known animate force in evidence either.

“Looks good for my training.”

He was about to disengage from his duty station when he focused outward, coming out of the readings and specifics that had been dominating his thoughts since the jump.

An oddity caught his vision and he stared, mouth slightly agape.

The local star was green.

More than its color, the magic radiating off of it was welcoming, like a warmth that resonated with him down to his core.

From his admittedly amateur understanding, a green star wasn’t possible with mundane physics. The magic he felt from it was likely the source. “Natasha?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you seeing that star?”

“Yes, Alex. It’s the largest thing for thousands of miles. It would be pretty hard to miss.”

He huffed a laugh. “I mean. It’s green…”

He transitioned to bridge mode and found everyone looking his way.

He blinked a few times. “That shouldn’t be possible… right? I’m feeling life magic from it.”

Natasha nodded. “It does seem to have something in it, throwing out life magic, yes. It’s one reason this star system is so full of life. Even the asteroids have monsters of various kinds spawning on their surfaces.”

Kaylee interjected. “That is the theorized source of whatever is affecting the space station. The stellar light engenders life in anything exposed to it long enough.”

Alex arched an eyebrow. “So… will the Innominate come to life if we stay here long enough?”

John chuckled. “No.” He pulled up some information before him. “It’s more likely that we get some sort of magical lichen spawning on our outer hull. It’s not a way to make living items.”

Thinking of his sword, Alex turned to Audry. “Are there any mines in the system?”

The caramel skinned woman nodded but sighed. “Yes, but sadly, all the living iron mines are fully claimed and rigorously mined. The other materials are highly regulated as well. The mine owners actually increased the rewards on this station mission, as they use the space station for shore leave for their crews, and when it went dark, the miners were less than happy.”

Alex was frowning. “How do you all know this already? Why wasn’t this a part of the briefing and the decision?”

Grant cleared his throat. “It was, Alex. You were… playing with your shoes. Even so, I asked if you were paying attention…”

Alex gave the younger man a flat look. “I wasn’t playing, Grant, I was delving into the magic they contain.” He grimaced. “But I guess I wasn’t paying as much attention as I thought I was.”

Grant shrugged. “Either way. We’re here now, and it seems like you are lacking some important information.”

When Alex looked around, he found everyone nodding. “Oh…” He cleared his throat, reflexively creating some water and swallowing. “I’ll… I’ll try to pay more attention going forward.”

Juba huffed a laugh. “I’m glad that he’s the one going onto the station.” The man took a deep breath and let it out in a rush. “But come on, Alex. I’ll give you a rundown of the station and what information we have that could be relevant. I assume you missed that as well?”

Alex scratched the back of his head. “Thank you. I’ve… I’ve been a bit focused.”

Kaylee cleared her throat. “I want everyone to send Alex a brief summary of information pertaining to their station so he has a good general overview for this system.”

He grimaced again but nodded. “Thank you.”

She smiled. “You’ve got ninety minutes to brush up.”

Audry took a step forward on the bridge. “Am I alright to deploy the collectors? The life magic in the light will make for a good haul of life aspect, even if not as much as if we could mine.” The woman hesitated for a moment. “I could push for the stellar life aspect, but we won’t even get a tenth the haul. It really is a shame that the last star was entirely mundane, or we could have gotten a good amount of daylight, given how long we were there… Still, I don’t know that we’ll be here for nearly as long as we were there.”

Kaylee nodded then shrugged. “We shouldn’t have any ship combat, so that’s safe enough. I’m okay with that. As to what you aim for, use your discretion. We trust your judgement.”

The woman smiled, appreciative of the vote of confidence, especially when the others added their agreement.

Alex was a bit confused, but he knew it wouldn’t go well if he flagged another thing that he’d clearly missed. I’ll just look it up in the ship’s databases.

It was funny, because his race and primary class were both life-aspected, which clearly seemed to mirror—or at least reference—something similar to these aspects.

Juba met Alex in the central cargo room, pulling up a structural diagram for the space station and helping Alex add it to his own equipment, along with the universal security keys to allow the station to recognize him and allow him access wherever he needed to go.

The most important of those was the access from the exterior airlocks. The Innominate would not be physically connecting to the station, as that posed far, far too great a security risk. 

Even so, Alex was excited.

He liked the Innominate, and he was enjoying training and making the most of this less tenuous scenario, but he was feeling a little… closed in.

Now, he was going to go on a spacewalk.

Juba would be sending assault drones with him, and the man would be piloting them remotely to help back-up Alex as needed, but that was it.

Alex would be on his own.

That also meant that he needed to review all the information. As such, he set to it.

At the estimated time, he received feedback from his bracelets as the ship came into place, following the commands that he’d left for it and taking up a stationary position relative to the beleaguered station.

Juba and Alex moved to one of the air locks, small cubes that were each about two-and-a-half feet to a side were already waiting for them.

“Do you have your own harvester, or would you like to use mine?”

Alex frowned. “I’ll use yours…”

Juba pulled out a foot-and-a-half square of thick metal with magical spellwork carved in and through it. The only movable part was a small three-position toggle off to the side.

Alex instantly understood what the spellwork said, and he found himself gaping.

The headings of the scripts basically conveyed, ‘Pull the aspects of power from that which this is resting upon, and condense it into usable chunks.’

The details were… overwhelming as Alex was coming to expect. When he looked closer at the simple toggle on one side he saw that it had easy to understand labels. Basic, Intermediate, Advanced.

Juba saw Alex’s confusion and sighed. “That will choose the specificity aimed for when you channel your mana into the collector. Most magical monsters only have enough aspect to create basic aspects. If you encounter something unusually powerful, you are welcome to try for an Intermediate, but that usually fails for anything below level twenty-five, and even then it's a toss-up. Advanced is only if you encounter something Legendary, or of ridiculous power or rarity.” He gave Alex a once over with his eyes. “If you kill it, don’t use Advanced. If you didn’t kill it, it probably belongs to the station, and you shouldn’t de-aspect it.”

Alex nodded, feeling only marginally attacked by the sentiment. “Understood.”

He covertly pulled up a description of aspects on his bracelet and had to acknowledge it was rather self explanatory.

Aspects - GeneralDistilled magical conditioning, manifested as small crystals.

Aspects of various kinds are required for crafting and maintenance of non-System magical items and, in some cases, even System generated gear.

Alex read further, and found that it was effectively a way of conditioning materials and priming them to accept magic of various types. Alex almost wanted to call them mana crystals, but the Aspects didn’t really seem to have any mana within them directly.

In terms of cooking, they were spices rather than the core foodstuffs.

To his surprise, it seemed that his myriad repairings of his dadao with his own HP and Life had effectively been aspecting it, priming it so that when he remade it with his own Life, that power was able to take hold and make the dadao truly become the weapon it was now.

If he’d tried that from the start, it would either have failed or not succeeded nearly to the same extent. Even using his HP and Life likely wouldn’t have worked as a primer except that his race and primary class were life-aspected, meaning the health that he gained from them—the improvement to his Life—carried that same aspect, that same flavoring.

More broadly, there were different guidelines for aspecting different materials types, and many materials wouldn’t aspect well to certain magics, but all in all, aspects seemed to be a core part of what he’d been missing in regard to crafting. Not the only part by any means, but certainly a large portion.

I really have been too narrowly focused, haven’t I…

Juba cleared his throat. “Are you ready?”

Alex pulled the harvester into his Inventory and nodded. “One more check, and I’m good to go.”

He glanced at his HP and sighed. It wasn’t close to full, but it had come a long way in the last few days.

Alex JohnsonHP: 9,134/9,134 [13545]

Living (Linage) Steel Dadao7995/7995 [8000]

He moved another fifty Life from his sword to himself, and nodded in satisfaction. “I’m good to go.”

Juba clapped him on the shoulder and stepped out of the airlock. “You do have a means of traveling in the vacuum?”

Alex gave him a flat look. “Of course I do.”

He checked his finger and found the ring of breathing ready and waiting.

Ring of Breathing, CommonOnce attuned to a wearer this ring allows the attuned to breathe as dictated by their biology. Ongoing mana cost is determined by the normal infeasibility of this action.

This cost will range from a minimum of 1 MP every five seconds to a maximum of 100 per second.

Note: This will not replace the need for the organs required for biological respiration.

He then checked his Greatcoat of the Traveler.

Greatcoat of the TravelerThis wool coat is worked with magics to keep the wearer comfortable in all sorts of natural climates and weather conditions.

The lucky wearer will find himself cool when it is hot, warm when it is cold, and dry when it is wet. Additionally, it has minor protective and durability enhancements, which make the material as durable as tough leather.

He wouldn’t be protected against attacks or magical phenomena, but from what he could read in the magics, space was a natural environment, and he would therefore be protected from the harsh temperature and pressure issues, at least to a degree.

He had also checked these things with Bev days earlier, when he thought that he’d be able to take a space walk just for fun. That hadn’t ended up happening, but he at least had her assurance that he would be able to be in the vacuum of space in this gear, even if, in her words, it wouldn’t be a walk in the park.

“I’m good to go.”

Juba gave him a flat look. “I said traveling, my friend, not existing.”

Alex blinked a few times. “Oh… Then no.”

The large black man groaned out a laugh. “My drones will guide you if you cannot manage on your own.”

Alex scratched the side of his neck, feeling rather embarrassed. “Thank you…”

Juba gave a nod and a smile. “Of course. Happy days, my friend. I look forward to your return.”

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