Chương 24: Ch. 22 - Careful What You Wish For

I was outside Luna's room, harassing the door with incessant knocks. When she didn't answer, they turned to slams. I banged on the door like a loan shark come for their money. The door creaked open.

"I will kill you," she hissed, rubbing her eyes.

"What is it?"

"Okay, first, did you sleep your eight?" I asked.

"Solar hours? Yes. I sleep more-" I stopped her.

"No time. Get dressed. We need to get to work." She pushed the door to close it and I jammed my foot to stop it.

"Luna, I'm serious. This is big. Really big but we don't have time."

"Stefano. I'm tired. I usually sleep for twelve hours," she groaned.

"We can go back floors."

"What do you mean. That's not possible." She pushed the door further but I refused to budge.

"Luna. I'm serious. I have an adviser. He says that the reset allows us to travel between floors. We can go back to the second! But we need to find a quest."

"We already have something to do. We need to find those filters." Her head tapped the door in exasperation.

"No. A quest is from here, in the dungeon. An assignment is from the ship. We need to find a quest to travel between floors."

"You're not going to let this go…are you?"

"No." She sighed, tapping her forehead on the door again.

"Fine," she relented.

"Give me ten minutes. And breakfast." I stepped back from the door and she closed it. I paced the hallway about a dozen times. Each second wasted was another quest we were missing out on. I was biting my nails, humming a tune to keep the nerves at bay.

"Caddie, set a timer for ten minutes," I said.

"I can of course do that," said Caddie.

"But it might be best not to."

"Fine." When the door finally opened, Luna stretched and yawned as she stepped through.

"Alright, let's get going," I said. I was walking down, two steps at a time down the stairs. I turned left to head to the repair bay. When I looked back, Luna had turned right and was heading inside the restaurant.

"Are you kidding me."

"Your heart rate is elevated," said Caddie.

"I recommend breathing exercises. Or yoga."

"What I need," I hissed.

"Is to find a quest." I stomped over, pushing past the virtual assistant. I swear I heard Caddie make a spitting sound as we strolled past her. Luna was in the same chair as yesterday, her hair a mess and draped over her eyes.

"We need to go," I said.

"I'm getting food," she said. Her blatant disregard for earth shattering news was getting on my nerves.

"Luna. I get that you're trying to enjoy your time here. But we are not on vacation. We need to find a quest-" She cut me off. A level of diatribe I hadn't heard from her.

"No," she hissed.

"What you need is to chill out. I just woke up. I don't have any pilot augmentations like you. I get hungry at a normal human level. I have needs at a normal human level. You don't. And on top of that, where do you think we'll find a quest? Out in the ocean with nothing around? Wandering aimlessly is going to get us nowhere." I was taken aback, literally taking a step back. I wasn't angry. I was startled. She was right, of course. We still didn't have a map and we would need to get resources for her.

I was thinking selfishly and deserved her anger. But before I could say anything, after a moment of just looking at each other, she broke eye contact first, staring at the table.

"I'm sorry," she said. I took a seat next to her.

"It should be me apologizing," I said.

"You're right." Her food arrived and I ordered one as well. We ate in relative silence. Relative because Caddie was playing more music from Earth. A violin piece he claimed was supposed to make food taste better. After breakfast, it was clear we had to get an augmentation for Luna. We decided to check the local shop. The insignia above the door entrance was a long list of the family and who owned it. There wasn't much to the exterior other than a sign that said "Shop." The interior was a different story.

There were shelves that lined every wall. Aisles upon aisles of random stuff. An Elvian female with soft red eyes and long white hair stood behind the counter. She was the first older looking Elvian I had seen. But it wasn't that much older. It was like comparing her in the range of a fifty year old. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

"Hello. I am Ilonar Merchant. I am the eldest of my family line that still lives. I have two daughters, three grandchildren, and one great grand-child. I am of humble birth but attained a very minor royal title of heiress. I work part-time in this shop but was the ex owner. I bid you welcome to this humble establishment. Please introduce yourself to initiate commerce." Luna whispered to me, "Do they all do that?"

"From what I've gathered, yes," I said. An idea ran through my head but I wasn't sure if it was rude or not.

"I have a question. Would it be rude to have someone introduce us?"

"Are you of the upper echelons of your civilization? Heralds are usually reserved for those of noble birth amongst Elvians! Please, I am humbled to be in the presence of someone as high birth as you!" She bowed. Luna gave me a strange look.

"It's not like that," I said to Luna.

"I just thought Caddie could introduce us so we don't have to do it all the time, you know?" She shrugged and turned to Caddie who was floating overhead.

"I can't wait to see how we are going to be introduced," said Luna with a grin. The way she said it made me nervous. I was having second thoughts creep into my head.

"On second thought-" I tried saying but was promptly interrupted by a boisterous and chatty bot.

"INTRODUCING!" He blared trumpet sounds from wherever the speakers were on him. It echoed in the space like there was a chorus of instruments. My face immediately showed regret to my question as blood rushed to my cheeks. Luna had a grin from ear to ear.

"Before you stands the pilot, Stefano Reyes, champion of the colony ship, The Bastille. He is the eldest and only offspring to Casandra Reyes, a healer of galactic RENOWN!" More trumpets.

"His titles include, Pilot of the Aegis!" Pause.

"That's it! He is still early in his adventure, but make no mistake, with me as his trusty aid, we will conquer the very depths of THIS DUNGEON!" The fanfare blared and I had to cover my ears. Ilonar clapped.

"INTRODUCING!" He hovered over to Luna and shown a spotlight upon her. She took a step back from the light and he followed her.

"Ha!" I yelped.

"Your turn!" She covered her face.

"Luna Arashi, the newest pilot to squad 1. Second child of Mitsuo Arashi and Finoa Arashi, tailors of wide acclaim! Yet she seeks her own path. Her knowledge and intellect have few rivals. Her titles include: Chief Engineer of Squad 1. Support Pilot of squad 1. The savant. There is no test she can't pass. And there is no puzzle she can't solve. She is, Luna, THE SAGE!" The horns blared and she cupped her face deeper into her palms. Her face, redder than an apple, peaked through the slits of her fingers.

"I want to die," she mumbled.

"Not on my watch," I said.

"I can't be the only one getting all this attention." Caddie was done and hovered back to just above my head. Ilonar clapped again.

"Marvelous," she said.

"You honor me."

"Caddie," I said.

"I couldn't help notice that Luna had more titles than me."

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said.

"Both introductions were factual and based on merit." I ignored the slight.

"Please," said Ilonar.

"Please do me the honor of perusing through my humble goods." We got lucky, at least for the first part. There were some common augmentations available for only 500 credits. Now don't get me wrong, it's not like that was a small amount, but in comparison to the amounts of capital thrown around everywhere, it wasn't that bad. Luna was able to sell the loot she had, even with the tax, earning a decent amount. She didn't sell everything, but she had a good amount of credits. She ended up buying two augmentations.

Similar to the ones I had that made it easier to stay for prolonged periods of time. There was one for sleep but that was more expensive because it was rarer. There were no filters or taps that she was selling.

"Now we just need to get you something that can hold the augmentations," I said. She settled on a bracelet from the shop. The generic kind that were bought from the Dungeon but the trade-off was they didn't hold that many, not like the one I had around my neck. I still had more slots available than I knew what do with.

"It looks nice," she said, the gems gleaming in the light on her wrist.

"We should still buy some provisions, right?"

"Might not be a bad idea," I said. And so, we finished getting everything ready, even though we didn't have an inkling of what to do next.

"Ilonar," said Luna.

"Do you know of any quests nearby?"

"Wait," I said.

"You're just asking?"

"Why not? You got a better idea?" she said.

"Unfortunately, no," said Ilonar.

"We are pretty peaceful for the most part. And I don't have any work for you."

"Well, it didn't hurt to ask," said Luna.

"Thank you." Ilonar cupped her chin like she was thinking. I gave a slight nod and turned to the exit.

"But," said Ilonar. We stopped and my heart rate spiked.

"We have seen some strange individuals in town." I waited, like Caddie was going to say something. I was expecting it. Nothing happened after a moment and I deflated.

"What strangers?" I asked.

"I'm not sure. Just what I've heard. I try not to get into the gossip that circulates this town. My granddaughter said some pilot was here yesterday. He said he was forced to buy sulfur to get revenge. Something about an old quest as well."

"Alright," I said, turning to Luna.

"Might as well take a look. We might stumble onto something and looking for another settlement might mean we're starting over." I knew it probably meant that someone had already gotten ahead of us on this.

"Is he still in town?"

"I'm not sure," she said.

"He was staying at the Inn."

"Good a place to start as any. Thank you," I said, leaving the shop.

"What's up?" asked Luna.

"You have a look on your face."

"I'm just thinking," I said.

"Why would a pilot be here and buy sulfur?" We walked to the Inn where Strentor's son was behind the counter. Shorter than his dad, he was happy to make introductions. I had Caddie handle that part again.

"Have you seen another pilot?" I asked, after introductions.

"He just checked out," he said.

"I believe he was headed somewhere." I shrugged and walked out to the hangar. Luna was following close behind while Caddie reformed into an earring. A group of mechs took off from the repair bay before I could even notice any particular details. But it was three mechs in total. I put an arm up to stop Luna from walking further. My heart sank and I wished I had gotten more detail.

"What's up?" she asked. She peered over my shoulder and her eyes went wide. The body of a pilot was sprawled on the floor, right next to his Gatherer unit. No one else was here. A lone inventory bot was on the hangar floor, looted. Caddie projected a screen before me and read aloud the new notification that littered my screen. [NEW QUEST] [A Murder Most Foul] [How did someone die in what is supposed to be a safe zone? I guess we'll figure it out together] [Do you Accept?][Y][N] I clicked yes on the quest and took a long breath.