Dark Fate, Chapter 210

Chapter 210 – Discovery

I had expected that there would be some Rangers, Druids, and Beast Masters in Panama, and that some of them would be focused on aquatic matters, given the canal, and how much of Panama was near the coast. For the same reasons, I also hoped that some of them would have aquatic races. Happily, I was not disappointed.

Ramon Gallo was an Aquatic Elf, meaning that he could breathe underwater, but could only come above the surface for a couple hours at a time. Once he passed his time limit, he suffered a stacking debuff until he got back in the water. The good news was that, as he leveled up, that time limit would increase, allowing him to stay out of the water for longer. Also, just like with items designed to let air-breathers breathe underwater, there were magic items that could let him breathe on land. He just had to get to a System Shop in order to get one, or find a lucky drop somewhere.

As a Level 12 Ranger / Beast Master, his time limit was three hours, since it was based on the simple formula of (1 + Level/5) hours, rounded down. Long enough that he could get to a System Shop, if he needed to, but not so long that he could comfortably stay on land for more than a meal or two. If he hadn’t already been an outdoorsy kind of person, the time after the System Initialization would have been pure hell.

Now, though, he had a pet bull shark that he had Tamed. Together with Mordredor, the shark, Ramon patrolled the shallows in and around the canal, looking for monsters. His patrol path also gave us a rough timeline for when the kraken eggs had been placed here. Given the way Mordredor (whose name translated to ‘Biter’) reacted when they got within a kilometer of the egg sack, it was obvious that the shark would have alerted him if the eggs were here the last time he passed through this part of the lake, just over a week ago.

Unfortunately, that didn’t really help, much. This part of the lake wasn’t that far from the route ships took as they passed from one end of the canal to the other, and the few villages and towns along the coast had been choked out by monsters after the System made travel by the highways too dangerous. Anyone could have slipped off a ship in the night and used a small boat to drop the egg sack off, here, before rendezvousing with the transport before they left the lake, and continuing on their way like nothing happened.

Simply put, whoever had planned this attack was careful to erase all traces. All normal traces. There was still one avenue that I could pursue to find out who was responsible. But first, there was the matter of the kraken eggs. Couldn’t just let them sit around waiting to hatch, after all.

I oversaw the creation of a simple barrier around the eggs, so that the baby kraken couldn’t escape into the lake proper once their initial fratricidal frenzy was done. Tests concluded that the eggs were two, maybe three days from hatching, and their frenzy would probably last no more than a day. Ramon and Mordredor would be there, watching the eggs, along with researchers. The researchers would document what they saw, and Ramon would use his Beast Tamer abilities on the Juvenile Kraken that survived the frenzy. As the Juvenile Kraken grew, it would be a formidable defense against idiots trying this kind of thing again.

That done, I brought Ms. Hyde with me back to Panama City. She was one of the de facto leaders of the Adventurer community in Panama, after all, and it was likely she’d be named the first Guildmaster of the Panamanian Adventurers Guild, once things got moving in that direction. This was something that she needed to know, in case something like this happened again.

“So, your Majesty, why are we going to the System Shop?”

I grinned as I pushed open the door to the Shop. “Because whoever bought the supplement that forced the Kraken to move up to Tier 3 had to do it through the System Shop. All System Shops are connected, as you might expect, but each solar system is its own little ‘subnetwork’. This is why someone shopping in the System Shop is going to see a preference for local products, be they items, materials, ingredients, or whatever, followed by universal System items, like a [Class Change Tome (Wizard)], and then products from other subnetworks. And when you transfer products from one subnetwork to another, there is a trail.”

“Yes, and I can guess that is why you are here now, my old friend?”

I chuckled as I saw Shadraus standing in the middle of the room, still dressed in one of his absurd outfits, including the Hawaiian shirt with Day of the Dead skulls all over it. Keira clearly hadn’t seen him before, because her jaw was hanging open in surprise. I was nice enough to pretend I didn’t see that as I stepped forward to shank the old Lich’s hand.

“Pretty much. Someone decided to play dangerous games, giving some [Mystic Monster Maker] to a Kraken, and sending them at the canal. So, I want to know who went and got a case of the stupids, so I can properly educate them.”

“Naturally,” the lich nodded, before looking over to Keira, who had recovered from her shock by that point. “You are Keira Hyde, yes? One of the current leaders amongst the Adventurers here, right?” When she nodded, Shadraus continued, “Then this is something you’ll want to be aware of, as well, which is presumably why my old friend brought you along. You see, the System Shop does not keep detailed records of ‘in-network’ transactions. For instance, if you sold an item in the System Shop here in Panama City, and then someone bought it from the System Shop on Ceres, that would still be the same network, so no need for lots of records.”

“Wait, you mean that everything we buy on the System Shop was made by someone somewhere in the galaxy? I thought most of the things were just, you know, created with mana craziness, since the System seems to rewrite the rules.”

“Haha!” Shadraus laughed. “Yes, we all thought that, at one point or another. Common misconception, so don’t get upset with yourself. I will let you know that, when you get to Tier 2 as a crafter or merchant, whether it is through a class or profession, you get additional functionality from the System interface. Some of those functions involve filling commissions for those who need new gear.”

“And, at the same time,” I added, “someone who has a particular piece in mind, but there isn’t a local crafter who will make it for them, can go to the System Shop and commission the work. Same if you can’t go and source materials for things. You can’t get fully bespoke pieces, of course, but better than generic armor pieces. Probably going to pay more than you would if you had gathered materials yourself and were on good terms with a crafter capable of doing the work, but nothing’s perfect.”

“At any rate,” Shadraus continued, “transactions from out of the local ‘network’ are tracked, in detail, by the System. Mainly to prevent people from using the System Shop as a means of smuggling different goods across borders. Same with System Mail that is outside the network. Don’t want someone just using a capture ball on an alien princess and then just using the System Shop to mail her to some slavers on the other side of the galactic arm. That kind of thing causes too many disruptions, and weakens the position of the System Shop, and the System as a whole. So, we try to stomp on that as quickly as possible. Hence, the logs.”

Keira frowned. “So, why offer something like the [Mystic Monster Maker] at all in that case?”

“For the same reason why Prohibition or the War on Drugs failed so spectacularly in the US, my dear,” I said. “Simply banning it from the System Shop makes people look for underground markets and promotes organizations that might have less-than-wholesome ideas towards the System itself. There have been people who tried to meddle with the System, either trying to shut it down and enforce ‘equality’, or to control it, and the distribution of classes and such things to support their idea of a caste system, or similar. Thankfully, there are even more people who use the System to maintain their status quo, so that kind of foolishness is handled with extreme prejudice when it comes up.”

“Doesn’t stop people from trying, though,” Shadraus added. “I remember that one of the groups in the Middle East made a play to try and take Earth back out of the System, last time. Heard about that fight all the way in Georgia.”

“Well, turning the entire Middle East to glass, like the invaders did, is going to be talked about, even when civilization has fallen to pieces. They wanted to make sure that the entire group got well and truly wiped from the face of existence.”

“The way you two just talk about all that like it was old news, I’m starting to see why people get scared of you.”

The lich and I shared a laugh at that, before I turned my attention back to Keira. “You have to understand that, for us, it really is old news. Literally another lifetime. So, it has as much impact to us as you reading a history book about the Civil War does to you.”

“Indeed, indeed. So, back to business,” the lich said, his voice adopting a more mercantile tone. “For Ms. Hyde’s benefit, I’ll remind you that the logs cannot be accessed without first paying a price, and each search has its own cost attached to it. Even if the logs are a security measure, there needs to be guards against abuse.”

“Right, right,” I nodded. “Still the normal price?”

“Yes, since you’re a Tier 2, you need to provide either a Tier 2 Diamond or one thousand platinum coins for the single search.”

“One thousand!” gasped Keira. “That’s enough to fully outfit a Tier 1 team in top-tier Level 40 equipment, including armor, weapons, and accessories! That’s insane!”

“Yes, I thought as much,” I said, as I drew the required sum from my inventory. I didn’t even need to go to my bank account for a minor sum like that.

“Excellent,” Shadraus said, not bothering to react to Keira’s comment. “And, since I knew you would be coming by, I went ahead and took the liberty of pre-searching for the information.” He flicked a finger, and a file appeared on my tablet.

Item

Mystic Monster Maker

System Shop Location

Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Kamchatka Krai, Russia

Purchase Date

September 14, 2019

Purchase Quantity

24

Purchaser

Frantsev Vasil Vyacheslavovich

“Well, that answers the question of who was behind this,” I sighed. “Superpowers can’t leave well enough alone. I’ll have to consider what the best way to deal with them is. Perhaps a bit of intimidation, this time?”

“As opposed to annihilation, like your last couple ventures?” Shadraus quipped.

“Just so. Need to show people that I’m not a one trick pony, after all. Just need to arrange a private meeting where the people I need to speak with won’t have an option of ignoring me.”

“Yeah, that’s not scary at all,” Keira muttered.