“That is true,” Uline Tar confirmed readily. “The human lady bought a big list of all kinds of crap. It had a new firearm, professional Cartographer gear, and personal items like jewelry and cosmetics. But there were definitely no magnetic bombs!”
Minn-O gave a slight bow to her furry roommate for the support, then continued her speech:
“What’s more, Space Commando Eduard will soon be finding out that I am changing factions to be with my legal husband. Your leader Gerd Lozovsky has already agreed, and now, I need to get to Human-3 territory in the game to begin the body transfer procedure. To me it is very important. In fact it is a question of life and death. And how, I ask, would the destruction of this starship — my only way of getting to Earth — help me with that?”
Eduard apologized to my wayedda and admitted that he didn’t know all that. However, he then quickly suggested I mentally check Tini. Just in case, because the little Miyelonian would have the easiest time slipping into the narrow access closet, and his skills and class would allow him to easy handle traps and explosives, both removing and installing. To be fair, he was the only one who really fit the profile. Honestly, Eduard couldn’t even think up a single motive for the Miyelonian teen to blow up our starship, but Tini didn’t object and just told me to read his mind.
That’s just what I did. And... I froze. The suspicion that my ward was involved in the planting of the explosives was immediately upended. Tini had nothing whatsoever to do with that. However, my ward was not quite so simple as one might imagine. First of all, I immediately saw that the little thief had rifled through the backpacks of every crew member and even taken a few baubles. He dug through my stuff too, but he didn’t risk any pilfering. I decided to discuss that unbecoming information, but not in front of the others. Later, just between us. But that was not the main discovery.
Some of the kitten’s memory fragments were blocked! Someone had very skillfully closed a few episodes off, most notably almost half of his recent conversation with Leng Amiru U-Mayaoo! I suspected that the kitten himself couldn’t even remember what he’d spoken about with the Great Priestess, beyond what he told me. And there was some strange mental programming, commanding the little thief to take certain actions in certain situations... I wasn’t going to untangle all these cobwebs now. It was too hard for me anyway.
But from what I could see, there were plenty of curious incidents. Most of all, Tini’s Fame was now all the way to seventeen! Clearly, my ward was quite well known, which was a great surprise and strange for a Thief, whose profession usually meant doing one’s best to maintain quiet obscurity. Also, my kitten was getting some payments on the side! For every day he stayed with Gerd Gnat, the teen’s electronic wallet got fifty crypto. And that was a ton of money for an underage thief, who very recently had been getting by with pickpocketing. And apparently Tini was spying on me voluntarily. No one had forced or blackmailed him. Well, quite the find...
Psionic skill increased to level sixty-six!
Mysticism skill increased to level twenty-two!
I was out of magic points and forced to stop reading my ward’s mind. I looked to my now silent team, clearly surprised at how long I was taking. I hurried to reassure them:
“Tini definitely didn’t place the bombs!” After that sentence, I changed to Miyelonian and, while the others were loudly conversing amongst themselves, I added just for the kitten: “But we need to have a very serious chat!”
Chapter Twenty-Two. Family Matters
I HAD THAT CHAT with Tini in my cabin and it left me with contradictory feelings. On the one hand, my kitten admitted that his digging through our bags was not exactly legal, and definitely not dignified. But the Miyelonian thief didn’t feel any guilt for it. He was prepared to return the small things he’d stolen like Uline’s fur-bleaching brushes, or Imran’s extra underwear. He would even apologize. In Tini’s own word’s he had taken these things not to sell or keep, just to level his thief’s skills.
The kitten had approximately the same carefree opinion of his espionage. The orphan teen was proud and happy beyond words that the great figures of his race had paid him attention and even given him an important mission. He was to remain with the only Listener in the whole Universe and help him in any way possible. Tini didn’t see anything untoward in that and in fact thought he was doing me a huge favor by helping influential Miyelonians have a hand in my fate. The kitten sincerely believed that the attention and protection of the most powerful Miyelonian leaders such as the Great Priestess Leng Amiru U-Mayaoo or the most popular commander in the space fleet Keessi-Miau should not be squandered, and I needed to try and maintain friendly relations. Tini simply deified his protectors and even would have spied on me for free, if they asked. And he was all the prouder to receive fifty crypto per standard day, once unthinkable for a poor orphan like him.
It was a big struggle, but I managed to get the idea through to my kitten that round-the-clock surveillance and the scrupulous attention of prominent Miyelonians were not much to my liking. Free Captains did not always act within the bounds of law, after all. Some were smugglers, some pirates, and the rest were in no hurry to advertise the sources of their income. At the very least, that reduced competition. Our team also had to hide their commercial secrets, and it wasn’t even certain that these secrets would have a shade of criminality. I tried very hard to drive the simple thought into my ward’s head that the success of our enterprise depended on the ability of all team members to keep a secret. And that was why I really did not want him trumpeting our valuable findings and discoveries to strangers. In the end, I forbade my kitten from sharing information about the state of our frigate, mineral deposits, profitable trade routes or interesting anomalies with anyone outside our crew.
In the end, Tini understood, and even promised not to reveal any secrets. But the Miyelonian teen was not prepared to totally stop sending reports to his highly-placed contacts. The kitten walked away in a state of deep contemplation, and I understood him fully. Two important but distinct interests were at loggerheads — loyalty to his captain Gerd Gnat and a thick stew of awe and desire to serve the powerful Miyelonians. And I was not at all sure that Tini would choose my side. But was it worth judging my ward or limiting him? Hardly. When I was in Uraz Tukhsh’s crew, I also kept the interests of my faction and home planet in mind. The alien captain always came second.
But still, as much as possible, I tried to tweak the adolescent’s system of values and priorities. Let him think himself chosen, worthy of attention from the powerful. Let him send his reports to the Miyelonians, especially if he was getting money. But these reports could not contain information the captain wanted kept secret, or facts that were damaging to his master or team.
Psionic skill increased to level sixty-seven!
Mysticism skill increased to level twenty-three!
Yikes, how difficult this conversation with my ward had turned out... My mana, which hadn’t had time to fully recover since the meeting, was back down to zero. And the door hadn’t managed to close behind Tini before my travelling spouse slipped into my room. When I saw the Princess, I tried to stretch out my face into a pleasant and polite smile and not to let out the groan of despair trying to burst out of me. My wayedda had come at such a bad time! Conversations with Minn-O always required serious psychic interaction and a large expenditure of Magic Points. But I was bone dry...
Meanwhile, just after closing the door behind herself, Minn-O La-Fin blurted out that I shouldn’t pay any mind to Eduard Boyko’s accusation, because it was “all false.” The Princess declared that she was not trying to prove herself to her faction after her grandpa died and was especially not planning to blow up our frigate. What was more, Minn-O herself thought that Eduard had only accused her because he liked her. She said he was following her like a creep. For example, while repairing the ship, the Space Commando tried to be in the same brigade as the Princess constantly and if it didn’t work out, he still found a way to be near. Minn-
O constantly caught attentive gazes from her unwanted admirer. Eduard had tried to speak with the Dark Faction Princess a few times, including on frivolous topics that had nothing to do with ship repair. And a few times while working together, seemingly on accident, he had touched her... here Minn-O went deep red and used a euphemism: “where you can’t see without a mirror.”
So Minn-O’s indignation was not played up. Some unpleasant episodes really had taken place. I was even reminded of a conversation over lunch under the Dome, where the topic of the pretty Dark Faction girl and beautiful NPC Naiads had come up. Eduard had said something like “well they’ll never make a proper girlfriend, because they don’t exist in our world. They’re virtual, not real.” And although all that happened before the Princess said she was switching to the Human-3 Faction and our world, which immediately made her fully real, I still promised to speak with my underling and demand that he leave my wayedda alone.
So that issue was solved, but Minn-O was in no rush to leave my cabin. Again checking to make sure the door lock was working, she took a deep sigh, unfolded a hammock chair, hung it up and took a seat opposite me. Apparently, I could look forward to another long conversation about the politics of her magical world, the finer points of the competing magical families and complications with keeping the La-Fin family holdings.
“Gnat...” she faltered and turned deep red in embarrassment. “Say, why don’t we play strip poker!”
What?! My brows shot up in surprise. Well, well, that was the last way I expected this to go! I probably looked awkward, because Minn-O was tittering and trying to convince me:
“It’s free time now, you let the crew have leave. Uline is asleep, your factionmates have gone into the real world, and the Geckho are playing Na-Tikh-U. But I don’t know that game, so I decided to suggest we play a different one. I even took a deck with me. But for us newly-weds, playing for money would be boring and stupid.”
The Princess really surprised me. But all in all, why not? Although... I didn’t want to win by cheating, so I honestly told my travelling mistress she had no chance:
“I have the highest possible luck modifier, and my Perception is twenty-nine, so I can tell the cards apart by the backs, and I’ll always know exactly which cards you have. And it isn’t in my nature to give up, so you’re going to just lose again and again.”
“Well, losing also has its plusses,” she said, not upset in the least. “And I’ll be able to rouse you a bit. As it is you just sit around all official and beetle-browed. All your thoughts are occupied with fixing the starship, politics, war and other serious things. You never have any time for your wife!”
Her reproaches were totally justified, and I was prepared to admit my error and correct it quickly. I stood up from my seat and sat in the hammock next to my wayedda. Then, decisively embracing Minn-O, I kissed her:
“I really don’t think we need any cards now. There isn’t enough free time to waste it on that kind of nonsense!”
* * *
MINN-O WAS NOTHING like any of my past lovers. First of all, her ashen gray skin was unusual for our world. And next, she was trying to please me, but her inexperience and apparent ignorance of the basics of sexual mechanics truly befuddled me. I had to explain and show her things patiently and carefully as not to spook her. As it was, the highborn Princess was shaking in fear and worry. And naturally, there could be no mention of any “wild passion” here, although everything basically went exactly the way it was meant to. But when I tried to get out a condom (still from old reserves I hadn’t sold to Phylira) Minn-O was sincerely insulted and demanded that everything go “as nature intended.”
After we had “built on our success” in the ancient art of love a number of times, we simply lay in the hammock, embracing and placidly cooing about anything and everything. And that included “boring politics,” and the various visions of Earth’s future after the tong of safety passed. At that, Minn-O mentioned one very important thing, which I was intending to tell Ivan Lozovsky as soon as I got the chance.
Seemingly, the node the Geckho had occupied on the virtual Earth, the Spaceport, had begun appearing in her real world! Satellites over the alternative magical world, had detected a strange weather anomaly on an ice continent. Their pictures showed a small area with a different, much warmer climate. And also, unusual structures had been noted there, which experts quickly recognized as the Geckho space port and surrounding buildings. But the scientists who had been sent to study the anomaly had returned with nothing. For some reason, that part of the ice continent was unavailable, as if it simply didn’t exist. Members of the land expedition hadn’t seen any anomalies and had just passed through it, immediately finding themselves on the other side of the forbidden zone. But still, all attempts to ask the suzerains what was happening were ignored.
“I heard my grandpa swearing up a storm in a meeting with his advisors. After all, it turned out that the Geckho, without asking permission, just took and occupied part of my home planet! They isolated an area and built something there, and they were in no hurry to inform the human rulers of that world!”
“Well, not exactly rulers anymore,” I corrected my wayedda. “As much as it may hurt, Earth already formally belongs to the Geckho, and more accurately its viceroy Kung Waid Shishish. The Geckho just have no inclination to share information with their vassals, making us basically gather crumbs of data about the game that bends reality and its rules. And most people have no other way of figuring that out other than through the Geckho diplomat. But you and I are in a more privileged position. We can speak with members of many alien races, so it is our shared mission to figure out what happens to new planets after the tong of safety.”
Just then, a polite knock came at the door of my bunk. I looked at the naked Minn-O and she gave an understanding nod. A moment later, my companion was lying next to me in full gear, even her helmet for some reason. I threw my clothing and armor from my inventory into the proper slots as well, jumped up from the hammock and went to open the door. It was Imran.
“Gnat, sorry if it’s a bad time, but I have a message from Ivan Lozovsky. He wanted me to tell you the Dark Faction has a new leader, a level-23 Strategist named Gerd Ui-Taka.”
“He’s a little green for a faction leader, don’t you think...?” I asked dubiously, but then shuddered. “Wait... Ui-Taka? I know that name... Minn-O, isn’t that the big General you were telling me about?”
“You have a great memory, husband,” my wayedda smiled. “Yes, that is the man. The best strategist of my world according to many authoritative mages. He’s a general popular with the armed forces. He seized power over the Second Directory by force. He’s the first nonmage to rule in the last eight centuries.”
Imran eagerly added to the description of the new Dark Faction head:
“A real badass, or so they say. He asked to hold negotiations with our faction and came to our Capital on the antigrav that used to belong to Mage Thumor-Anhu. He not only came without weapons or armor, as agreed, he didn’t even have bodyguards. But even wearing a simple light toga and surrounded by our soldiers, he looked like he was in charge. All of our guys say he looks brutal, basically like the Terminator. His jaws are square, his body is pure muscle. You could send him straight to a Mister Universe competition! But the most important is his gaze. It’s attentive and calm at the same time, like a strong confident lion. His new First Advisor came with him, too. His name is Gerd Mac-Peu Un-Roi, a level-ninety-three Mage Diviner.”
“Wait, what about Avir-Syn La-Pirez?” Minn-O shot out, unable to hold back the surprised exclamation. “I mean, he’s my grandfather on my father’s side and was Thumor-Anhu’s First Advisor, right hand and the second highest-level player in our ranks! Avir-Syn was the most obvious candidate for new faction head, or at least deputy! Why not him?”
Imran could only answer all the emotional questions with a shoulder shrug:
“I can’t tell you things I don’t know. I’m just telling you the ne
ws. But as for why those exact players are the new leaders of the Dark Faction, you probably have a clearer picture.”
“Strange, of course. Although... Avir-Syn probably has plenty of concerns in the real world with the La-Fin family inheritance and his respectable age doesn’t allow the old mage to overexert himself... But there were other mages much stronger than the young Diviner. Some are even level 100 plus. Very strange that all of my father’s trusted individuals got skipped over. Ah, sorry Imran. Keep talking!”
Minn-O had just been thinking out loud, and my Dagestani friend was waiting patiently until the Princess finished. But I was thinking about something else. I was contemplating this genius leader, who enjoyed huge authority among the military. He also had a mage diviner as an advisor who Minn-O had described as very talented and capable of predicting whether an attack would succeed or not... That seemed like a very strong combination, if not to say nearly cheating. They’d be hard to take down if the Dark Faction decided to go on the offensive.
Imran was seemingly somewhat wounded by the mention of the enemy top players, because he couldn’t resist a comment:
“By the way, speaking of level-one-hundred players, our faction has one now! Gerd Tarasov, Leader of the First Legion! I heard the announcement myself under the Dome on loudspeaker. And Gerd Tamara isn’t too far behind, she’s level-98.”
Well, well! I guess our “legionnaires” leveled up a good deal on those sea creatures! I was especially impressed by Gerd Tamara’s progress, as she’d nearly caught up to our usual record-setter Igor Tarasov, even though she was ten levels behind him before. After all, at level-one hundred, a player could take three new skills, and that meant not only increasing abilities, but also a quick jump to 101, 102 and maybe even 103, because new skills leveled very quickly, which filled the progress bar.
Game Changer (Reality Benders Book #3) LitRPG Series Page 22