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(BUS)Chapter 23: Tissue paper castle
🕑 Added 2024-10-05 15:21:40 +0000 UTCThanks to my sim training I had developed a sense for gunfights and how to deal with them. Perhaps it didn't need to be said but unless you were a soldier during a serious war on earth you had no reason to actually know how to handle a gunfight fluently. It was VERY fucking different in my new reality, here everyone and their dog had a gun and itchy trigger fingers. The further in the borderlands you went the worse this became to the point some planets like Pandora considered it strange if there wasn't the sound of explosions or gunfire.-
Since I was bound for Pandora I naturally prepared to deal with that extremely hostile planet.
"Let me grab a quick shower first then we can go." I told Clay after he asked his question.
Fifteen minutes later I was freshly washed and ready to head to Athenas.
"The old man told me your reason for wanting to go to Athenas but do you really think you'll find somethin on sirens there?" Clay asked casually as we walked out the manor towards his ship.
I shrugged "I don't have my hopes up or anything but it's worth a shot if nothing else." I said honestly.
"Suppose your right, if I had crazy ass powers I'd probably want to know as much about them as I could too." he said nodding.
"I won't find anything about my powers." I said completely sure about that fact.
"Why's that?" he asked curiously.
"When I got my powers they came with a short message left by one of the things that created the sirens. Not a whole lot of details mind you but the thing made it clear that my powers were the only ones that never escaped. In other words there has never been another siren with my powers beyond the first who had been killed and sealed in the vault till I opened it." I said calmly.
"Damn kid that's some crazy stuff right there, valuable too but you of all people should understand that. Though got me wondering now, why go to Athenas if you know you'll not find anythin about your powers there?" Clay asked curiously as we boarded his ship.
"I am hoping to find stuff on the other sirens, I've looked over what I could on the echonet but half that shit was speculation or conjectures with only a few actually useful nuggets of information. One particularly juicy piece of information I found was that those monks on Athenas had a job offer to bring them a siren a while back, they took it down fourteen years ago. Care to take a guess what that means?" I asked with a grin.
Clay stiffened and his eyes went wide "You think they got one there?" he asked almost whispering the question.
"Hmm, I think they either do or a siren paid them a visit to tell them what she thought of their "job". Considering the utter lack of deaths reported at that time though the former is most likely the case." I said with a grin.
"Present company excluded i've never met one of those sirens myself but i've heard stories from folk that have. If one of them wasn't happy with those monks there'd definitely be a lot more deaths involved." he said nodding in understanding.
I took a seat on one of the crates that Clay always seemed to have in his ship for whatever reason after that as he went to start up the ship and take us to orbit so we could warp to Athenas. Apparently Clay hadn't actually ever been to the place himself in his career as a smuggler which made sense considering the monks wouldn't have any real need for his services.-
Athenas was considered a neutral planet which referred to how it was very mellow and peaceful in all ways. The wildlife tended to be friendly or shy and the weather or living conditions were cool and calm normally. This was ironic as the monks on the planet tended to call their order "the impending storm", obviously not a very good name considering the planet.-
I watched the ship shoot up into the atmosphere of Eden six from the window and couldn't help but admire how beautiful the view was. A vast pitch black background littered with an uncountable number of bright pinpricks of light for as far as the eye could see. Clay punched in the coordinates of Athenas as the ship rumbled as it began to rotate in the void to face our destination as the nav-unit took control of the ship. Then with a sudden lurching sensation we blasted out so fast the very stars blurred across the window and even vanished to be replaced by new ones.-
It only took a mere two minutes for us to arrive in the general vicinity of Athenas. Fun fact but did you know that the reason nobody was afraid of crashing into a planet at these speeds was because while actually moving faster than light the ship and by extension everything in it was sort of temporarily on a separate but closely related plane of existence? It was some super high level shit that gave me a headache trying to even look at much less understand but I at the least could grasp the rough gist of it.-
When we came out of this warp space I got my first real look at Athenas and I found it eerily similar to earth at first glance as it was a big ball of mostly water with continents and smaller islands all around it while one side was dark and the other covered with the light of it's sun. Athenas didn't have a moon but you could see the clouds moving across it's atmosphere.
'Hello beautiful.' i thought with a smile
Clay took control of the ship from here and piloted us to an open patch of land near the largest monastery/town on the planet which was also where the siren queen once ruled from.
Some of the locals clearly noticed us arriving as there was a a small group of monks approaching the ship as we landed and clay opened the cargo doors.
"My parts done from here kid so imma head out. Try not to get into too much trouble you hear?" clay said and I chuckled and gave him a thumbs up.
"Young man I am brother Heramis of the order of the impending storm, why have you come to Athenas?" one of the monks with thick blue robes and a bald head and gaunt face asked.
"Scholarly pursuits I suppose would be the closest answer I could give simply. The complicated answer is that I am here to find information on sirens of which I know you have." I said casually as I looked around.
This place was comprised of white colored stone in various natural shapes and green grass with some flowers and what appeared to be blue leafed bonsai trees. The air was slightly breezy and the sunlight was pleasantly warm against me.
"I see, unfortunately the archives are strictly reserved for members of the order and not open to the public." the monk said calmly.
"That won't be a problem for me, I wasn't asking." I said calmly.
The expression on the monks faces turned ugly "You would threaten us, a peaceful order, just to get what you want?" the monk asked angrily.
"You misunderstand, see i'm going to go into that archive of yours but I won't need violence to do so you'll see. Run along now, you no doubt have someone to warn or something right?" I asked casually.
The monks quickly left for that exact reason no doubt but I fully intended to take my time walking to that monastery.
The scenery was simply too nice not to enjoy after all. It was rather funny when i eventually reached the main gate to the monastery/town and they had barred it with a red thick metal door and a white stone wall nearly twelve feet tall that they looked down mockingly from the top of. I smirked at this and crouched down before jumping as hard as I could leaving the monks dumbfounded as I easily cleared the top of the wall and landed safely on the other side.-
"You'll need to do better than that~" I teasingly called over my shoulder as I casually continued my stroll towards the heart of the monastery.
The citizens of the town were normal folks but looked at me in fear and with expressions like they were begging me to leave. I wasn't the most skilled people reader but I could tell that they weren't afraid of me but rather something else that they thought I would cause to come after them.
'Do these monks actually have a siren here that they are using as a guard dog?' I wondered seriously.
"PSST, Hey mister!" a woman's voice called out from my left and I looked to see a middle aged looking brunette woman with dark skin leaning out of a window halfway with her body semi-hidden behind a wooden window shutter.
"Yes?" I asked interested in what she had to say.
"You are the guy that's got the monks in a tizzy right? Listen they have a monster on their side that will get you if you keep defying them like this." she said scared.
"Oh really? What sort of monster are we talking here?" i asked very interested.
"One of those sirens you hear rumors about, the girls that can kill you with their minds." she said with a fearful look as if she was afraid the siren would appear just because she spoke of it.
"Now that you know I imagine you'll leave peacefully before we have to let our ward deal with you?" a monk said as he walked up arrogantly and the woman fearfully closed the shutters at his appearance.
I laughed "As a matter of fact no I don't think I will, now then I believe there are some tomes awaiting my perusal. Good day." I said casually as I walked right past the monk with a grin.
Against anyone else perhaps knowing of a siren guarding this place might be enough to get them to leave without a fight but as a siren myself? No chance. It was an interesting strategy to say the least, using a siren to rule through fear when you took an oath of nonviolence yourself. For normal folks like that woman who saw sirens as monstrous things capable of horrific feats this might work but anywhere else I doubted it. You tried this shit on Eden six and the whole planet might laugh in your face before they unloaded a shotgun into it.-
It didn't take long before more monks started to show up all talking about how their siren was gonna destroy me and stuff and I realized something as a result, things weren't so fucking simple. If it was then why hasn't this siren of theirs shown up yet? Either they didn't have one or the siren wasn't as under their leash as they claim and refused to show up. My moneys on the second fucking option being the case.
_______________________________________________
Alexander Drake
Lifeforce: 580,578
Integrated Traits: [Gun expertise-Uncommon grade], [Clever mind-Uncommon grade]X3,[Enhanced senses-Rare grade], [Omega body-Rare grade]x4,[Superior bones-Rare grade],[Armored hide-Rare grade], [Fire resistance-Uncommon grade], [Bone regeneration-Uncommon grade], [Corrosion resistance-Uncommon grade], [Energy projection-Epic grade], [Superior vitality-Epic grade],[Flame breath-Uncommon grade],[Minor regeneration-Rare grade][Iron stomach-Uncommon grade], [Disease resistance-Epic grade],[Amphibious lungs-Uncommon grade], [Thermal sensing-Uncommon grade], [Water resistance-Common grade]
Stored traits: [Amphibious lungs], [Water resistance]
Comments
Cmols897
how cool would it be if Alex makes a team of Sirens, i dont think weve even truly seen two sirens fight together so it would be interesting to see and explore
Christian Jeffress
Thank you very much for another entertaining chapter.
