"So, where does that leave us? No expeditions with the Black Ships until I'm rebirth twenty? Is that what we're saying?" Beth asked.
"Unfortunately, given your teams strength and experience, yes. We need so guarantee of your strength; get at least one of your team mbers to Ascended and then we can talk," Illiem said.
"All that expedition talk was great, but we also wanted to ask about what's in demand right now," Sera reminded them.
"You should know the kinds of things that sell by now," Illiem said. "The rarer the resources, the better, and any equipnt of high level and rarity is always valuable. If you are looking for sothing specific you should be targeting in an expedition, anything related to monsters would be your best bet, though that is likely the most dangerous thing to go after. Otherwise, focus on finding gems and mana crystals. We can always sell more of both of them, as the demand is high from every profession for both types of items."
"Nothing of any more specific nature than that? Like, 'rubies are really hot right now,' or sothing like that?" Beth asked.
"Sorry, we don't have any specific demands at this ti. You can always check our pricing tables, which you have access to as a gold badge, to see what is going for the highest rate right now," Illiem replied with a small shrug.
"Well, I guess we'll just have to keep undergoing rebirths and work to get to a point where we can contribute," Beth said, putting her hands on her knees in preparation for rising. "Is there anything the Black Ships needs from us?"
"I assure you, we have our affairs in order," Illiem said with a dismissive wave. "Should you require anything, you have but to contact us."
"Then I think we'll be off," Beth said, standing and gesturing to the other two.
"Not the most helpful thing in the world," Sera said once they were out of the building.
"A lot more information than you might think," Val said. "Just the way he talked about certain topics, the way he changed his tone or body language, gave away a lot. On top of that, what he explained about expeditions, while good information, also represents his and, to an extent, the Black Ships views on expeditions and how they run them. Other trade firms or companies might think about those thing differently, which also gives us a basis to compare."
"Too much politicking for whether we fly sowhere and grab loot or not," Beth grumbled. "I know they're dangerous and all, but having to work around preconceived notions and analyze what everyone is doing and thinking just for a mission that is basically 'fly here, kill things, grab resources,' is really tedious."
"I'm not going to argue, but that's the way the universe works," Val replied with a shrug. "Besides, he basically all but told us to do a few planetary expeditions and sell the results to him. That gives a focus for the short term, at least."
"We should find at least one Platinum mission, if we can," Beth said as they were returning to the mansion. "We should be trying to utilize our ti efficiently. The whole two birds and one stone kind of idea."
"Hunting down Platinum missions is going to be difficult," Val said. "We should check all the Halls we worked with for the Gold missions first, but I don't know that any of them will have anything."
"We also need to head to Arbitus Pri," Sera said as they entered the house. "We should check the place out and see if they have anything at the main headquarters."
"Buying property there is going to be difficult," Val said as they sat in the living room.
"Why's that?" Beth asked. "Apart from the usual of it being a popular place with high prices."
"That's part of it," Val said. "The real reason, both for Arbitus Pri and for the City of nded Dreams, is that we're going to need connections. It's less so for Arbitus, but getting a spot actually in the City itself will be impossible without an in. Even obtaining sothing elsewhere on Millennia's Echo will be almost impossible without so kind of connection to provide us with a leg up."
"That won't be too hard," Beth said with a small grin. "We have connections with most of the Exalted in the galaxy and the only two Manumitted currently living here. Rember that Abigail said that basically all Exalted have houses and business in the City; we don't want to just stay with them, but we can use those connections to help secure us a place."
"Right, and that brings up the second and third problem: price," Val said.
"Price is two problems?" Sera asked with a raised brow.
"Yes, it's two problems because it's two different factors," Val explained. "Firstly, don't think you're getting anything like this mansion for anywhere near the sa price. Zephyr Pri is sothing of a resort world and has a relatively low permanent population, coupled with the fact that their governnt is quite well-run, leads to housing being expensive but not impossible here. There's also the fact that taxes and fees are a minor burden that is mostly used for simple infrastructure and to help with the few less fortunate people that live here. Neither of those things hold true for either of the other places we're talking about."
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"Shit, always the taxes," Beth muttered.
"That's right," Val said with a small sigh. "It's both the price and the taxes. The houses will be massively inflated in both places, especially the City of nded Dreams. On top of that, for various reasons, the taxes on both worlds are steep. One of the biggest reasons, at least for the City, is that they want to discourage hangers-on from taking up space. They don't want people there to just schmooze with powerful Ascended or Exalted holding onto valuable property, so they charge extortionate amounts in taxes and fees to make sure it's a person or team that really has the wealth holding onto the place. Wealth is power and power is wealth, or so many would have you believe, and the City sets out to prove that."
"You've looked it, apparently, so how much are we talking?" Beth asked, already grimacing at the thought of how much they would have to spend.
"Arbitus Pri is better," Val started with. "I've only briefly looked at that, after you ntioned it, and a reasonable place there, nothing this size, but enough for just this team to use, would run about forty adamantine coins."
"Fuck ," Beth swore, Sera matching her sentints though with a little less vitriol.
"The taxes would be easier to handle, as well, but they aren't like the taxes here," Val continued relentlessly. "You'd be looking at a full adamantine coin a year for taxes on a property like that."
"That's so much money. Like, genuinely, that's an insane amount of money," Beth growled. "Looks like our little fact-finding expedition is going to be strictly that for now. We can't afford even a cardboard box in an alley at those kinds of rates."
"We do have so money owed to us from the Seven Lights still," Sera reminded them.
"That's true, we've got at least a handful more adamantine coins coming in from that," Beth said, relaxing just a bit.
"Don't relax just yet," Val said, eliciting another growl from Beth. "And don't growl at ; I get enough of that from my girlfriend."
"Then you should be used to it," Beth said, rolling her eyes.
"Yes, right, well, anyway," Val stamred a bit. "Ahem, as I was saying, I did a brief look into the City of nded Dreams and Millennia's Echo as well and, well, it's not pretty. It is, in fact, far worse than even Arbitus, so we should be prepared for that."
"How much?" Beth asked, already wincing.
"Sothing with a half dozen bedrooms and a little bit of extra space in the house? On Millennia's Echo, fifty adamantine coins. In the City of nded Dreams itself? Quadruple that," Val stated.
"Fuck sideways," Beth swore.
"That's not even the best part," Val continued, getting yet another growl from Beth. "The best part is, that sa small house, the one in the City itself? Twenty-five adamantine coins a year in taxes and fees."
"Alright, maybe the people running that city can go fuck themselves," Beth said angrily, flexing her fists and causing all her knuckles to crack. "Ten years of taxes plus the house would be close to five neutronium coins, unless I did my math wrong? Couldn't we just, I don't know, park our ship in orbit and use that?"
"Not happening," Val said, vigorously shaking her head no. "It's not even a Millennia's Echo thing, but a lot of planets have rules and regulations about that. Any ten copper team with even a small airship would be doing that, which would create an absolute and total traffic and movent nightmare for everyone involved. Flying around those places isn't heavily restricted, and basically all of us have at least the basic CRA pilot's license at this point, but having ships just hovering places long-term is a big no-go. Besides, and I know you don't care as much about this part, but it would be considered rather plebeian and gauche to live and work out of a ship."
"There are exceptions," Sera comnted.
"Yes, there are, but those exceptions involve either an Exalted, and I an a true Exalted, not our lovely mini-Exalted," Val said, glancing at Beth. "Or, they involve soone that has a really powerful ship, like a dreadnought or titan, though that usually also ans an Exalted or two are involved. People at that level of wealth and power get to bend or even outright break the rules, but we're not that yet. Not nearly."
"This is annoying," Beth complained, not getting much sympathy from the other two.
"We'll have to just deal with it," Val said with a shrug. "Nothing I'm not used to. Not unless you've got one crazy trick that nobody else knows to quickly get thirty-five more rebirths done?"
"You'd better believe I'd already have used it by this point," Beth said, rolling her eyes for the second ti that afternoon.
"Well, then, that's that," Val said with a shrug. "We're not strong enough, or rich enough, to really do what we want, sorry to say. We'll just have to follow the rules and keep getting stronger."
"Reach out to your families," Beth said to the two with a sigh. "I'll get Kris to do the sa, and then I'll contact everyone else. Let's see if we can at least start the process now and try to get our foot in the door for the City, which would give us so ti to get so money built up. Let's also get everyone together and go check out Arbitus and see what it's like. Also, we need missions, so we'll see if they just happen to have any Platinum missions free that we can grab."
"They also do track those kinds of missions there," Sera said. "Gold and Silver missions, while important, aren't necessarily tracked at a higher level than local Halls or the planet. Platinum missions and up are important and dangerous enough that they have a higher degree of scrutiny on them, at least, most of the ti they do."
"Maybe we'll get lucky and catch a fish or two, then," Beth said, standing up and gesturing for the others to get moving.
The team split to take care of their tasks, or to go inform others they now had more work to do, which wasn't exactly t with delight, but the team was used to pushing through at this point. Beth leaned on her contacts, or the ones that would respond, anyway, cycling through people and asking about quarters in the City of nded Dreams. The answers she got back were less than promising, with people either not answering, not able to help, or telling her to focus on things in her own bracket for now, though that last one was from Baelvyr and she just ignored his advice there. If not now, then they would still be doing this at so point, so better to get the ball rolling early, though the ball had stopped after rolling half an inch, it seed. Zane was out of communication and Fallon replied to a request to speak that unless it was life-or-death, he was busy for a year and wouldn't be able to help Beth's team with anything.
Having exhausted her rather short, but rather prominent, list of contacts, Beth couldn't do anything other than put the City on the back burner for now. The only person she hadn't contacted was Selene, as the newly minted Exalted was likely undergoing her own struggle to acquire resources and property and wouldn't have the ti or connections to try to help them with getting a house in such a difficult location. Sera and Val had both gotten back nothing useful from their families, the team being a little too early on for people to consider them a wise investnt with such valuable things, and Kris said there was a big limit to what she could get from her clan. Nobody else in the group had connections nearly as potent as Beth's or families or clans as strong as Sera, Val, and Kris did, so with all those avenues blocked, they were simply stuck for now.
They put all that aside, however, and made their way to Arbitus Pri, using the CRA network to get there in just a few jumps. The tangled webwork that was the CRA teleporter network had only one or two good things going for it in its current state, and being able to get to Arbitus Pri from anywhere in the galaxy in just two or three jumps, at most, was the biggest of those positives. Beth thought she might volunteer her services in helping with the system at so point in the distant future, though not without it counting as a mission, of course. She figured helping untangle the cluster that was the CRA teleporter web was worth a Platinum mission at the very least, and she might even be able to spin it into a Diamond mission if she patched up the whole thing, but she wouldn't be getting to that for a while. Her knowledge of spatial mana and magic was coming along very nicely at this point, but her knowledge of runes and the structure needed to repair or rework such a network was still, essentially, at the novice level. She and Sera were both at the very precipice of Master in their crafting professions, however, and in pushing that forward, she would be studying and using runes a great deal, though where that would fit into her schedule at this point, she wasn't sure. Then again, Millennia's Echo was out and Arbitus might be a bust, which would leave them with leveling and crafting as the two things to focus on. Outside of getting on board on expedition, of course.
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