Chương 41: Ch. 38 - A Foothold

Luna was happy to replace the augmentation on her bracelet for the one she had been coveting. I couldn't give her the onyx-like gem fast enough.

"Gimme!" she yelped as she snatched it from my hands. She unlatched the deep blue sapphire and tossed it to me like it was a pen. She snapped it onto her bracelet and stared at the jewellery, changing the refraction as it twisted in her wrist. I handed all four gems to Ilonar who was holding a tablet in her hands. We were in the remnants of her shop, the embers on the floor put out with a firm pedal smothering.

"Alright. But we have some logistics to go through," she said.

"First, Luna Arashi has to modify the actual gems."

"How do I do that?" she asked, stepping into the shop.

"Ah, there she is," said Ilonar.

"It is simple, for you. However it requires the use of a HUD."

"Which I don't have unless I'm in mech," she said, her voice flat.

"And we aren't in a position to afford a personal space."

"How much does one cost?" I asked.

"How… How much? Are you serious?" asked Luna, incredulously.

"More than a million credits. And that is just to get the dimension. It would take multiple delves with a full crew and the process would take significantly longer than the few days we've been here."

"He wasn't much for school," said Caddie.

"Watch it," I growled under my breath.

"I knew it was expensive, but I didn't know how much."

"And each one of us has to get one. The amounts get staggering," continued Luna.

"You need the space to go to the deeper floors, but you can't get the credits for it unless you go to the deeper floors. A vicious cycle. That's why very few people pick a level 0 Walker. You just got lucky you got a companion." Luna put her hands on her waist and shook her head.

"And its why skipping floors was the next best thing to going to a deeper floor."

"Yeah," I said.

"We can't go further without more armor or shields. We might have the Frame rank to go down, but we would need the extra integrity or shields. And we need more credits for that. Plus the credits for back home." My head was starting to hurt.

"And the debt I still owe. Crap."

"So, yeah," said Luna.

"But for right now, I have a tinker augmentation. I can start my build."

"So how are we going to earn more credits?" I asked.

"That's for next time," said Luna.

"For now, we set up this portal and head home. You have the water taps and filters, right?"

"Yeah. I thought I told you. I have a decent amount."

"And each tap was 10, 000 credits. And each water filter was 1, 000 credits."

"Wait… A thousand?" I asked, eyebrows raised.

"Are you sure?"

"Only if we're not late. The price goes down the less in demand it is," she said.

"Luna. I have 200 water filters. All together, that's about…" I thought for a second.

"800, 000 credits."

"I know you think that's a lot," said Luna.

"But in the grand scheme of it all. Its a drop in the bucket. Its a lot back home, yeah, for the normal person. But we are delvers. The high level pilots are in the billions." The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"Okay, geesh. Sorry I thought I had money," I said, putting my hands up.

"So what now?"

"Now," said Luna.

"Now I walk to my mech, tinker with the gems to change the coordinates, ensure it's DNA locked to each of us, and give it back to Ilonar to make the portal." Luna walked back to her mech, the new tinker gem jangling as she skipped over. She approached her "Maya" mech with a smile of pure glee. Like the past couple of hours weren't the worst moments any of us had ever experienced. There was a certain level of awe I had of her, that she wasn't thinking about anything except getting what she needed.

The "Tinker" augmentation for her, was like permission to do things. Each mech had a slot that worked as a placeholder for augmentations. A way to read the description. Her new augmentation meant she had new menus she could access to play with items in her inventory. When the gem was placed into the slot, it was considered part of her inventory, so it was a way for her to work on it without the expensive set up. The drawback was that each one took hours of processing. And she could only do one at a time.

If she had a tinkerer's bench, she could do multiple at a time. Or change the properties of her equipment or tweak certain things. All of it required processing time. And she couldn't leave her mech while it was working. As soon as she stepped out, it would go to stand-by and shut off. It wasn't ideal in the slightest, but it was what we had. And we were grateful. Or at least, Luna was. She didn't lose the beam in her smile. By the eighth hour was when she was finally done.

She celebrated by stretching her limbs and descending to the hangar.

"Alright," she said.

"All done."

"Was this really that big a deal to you?" asked Jeromy.

"The Tinker augmentation I mean."

"Yeah," she said.

"It was… is literally step one of making the most bad-ass mech anyone has ever seen. It lets me tweak energy outputs, stabilizers. It lets me combine equipment. It was literally everything I needed to make Maya the best mech anyone had ever seen."

"Don't they fall off?" asked Jeromy.

"Powerful now, but less powerful later?"

"Not when I'm done with her." She hit the metal on her Frame like a salesman.

"Great," winced Jeromy. Luna pranced to Ilonar, who was waiting at her shop. The bodies had been mostly cleared out, and the crowd that had been silent, murmured amongst each other. They weren't back to normal, but they were healing.

"Alright, I got the gems ready," said Luna.

"Now you add it, right?"

"Yes," said Ilonar.

"Under the authority as the magistrate, I can make a portal out the gems for your Frames." She swiped at the screen on her tablet and tapped away.

"There was something bugging me though," I said.

"You mentioned you died. What was that about?" She looked up from her task, narrowed her eyes and returned to her work.

"A saying of my people. Do not worry yourself," she said. Her words rang hollow, but pressing it further wasn't on my to-do list. We, admittedly, were finally letting exhaustion, stress and trauma catch up to us. Asking again didn't have the same value as the prospect of going home. So close to being done with this Delve had a way of making it all too real.

"Won't the tax-man take everything?" I asked Luna, clumsily changing the subject.

"He'll take all of it. But he's also the one that has to pay," said Luna.

"That makes me feel better. That guy annoys me."

"Can't wait to meet him," said Jeromy.

"He'll love me."

"It is done," said Ilonar, putting the tablet back down.

"Now when you choose to return, it will be available." Her gaze went through us, to outside and then back to us.

"We have a parting gift. As a thank you for saving our homes."

"Gifts?" said Jeromy.

"Oh, please be a puppy."

"No," said Ilonar.

"For each of you, it is small. We cannot provide too much, but it is something all the same." Palina walked in, cupping a small object in her hands.

"A long time ago, my people made contact with yours. It was a small scouting party. Your world was not habitable for us. But this was gifted to us," said Ilonar. Palina opened her hands and in it was a… rubber duck. It was in pristine condition. I had seen them in some Earth books, but never in person. It was cute.

"Uh, thanks," I said. I grabbed the duck and attached to it was a small chain and clasp. It was clearly meant to be held by the clasp to let the duck dangle.

"I am simply returning a gift to a worthy owner," smiled Ilonar.

"Aww," said Jeromy.

"I was hoping for a puppy."

"So," said Luna.

"Can my gift be?" She trailed off.

"Yes," said Ilonar.

"When you return, we can start your training in earnest. I will have the inverters for the three of you." Jeromy's eyes went wide.

"Oh, buddy," said Jeromy.

"Are you learning magic?"

"Not magic," said Caddie.

"Sorry. Let me correct myself. Are WE learning magic?"

"You did that on purpose," said Caddie.

"Yes," said Ilonar.

"You will be learning basic abilities. And with the right equipment, it will allow your Frame to be an extension of those abilities." Jeromy's mouth wasn't on the floor because it was still attached to his head. But it was closer.

"That is better than puppies."