Emily lets her mana flow freely again and gets Harriet to spread out through her body, twining threads of themselves through every spark of machina being used to control her movent. With her chanic stage hidden, they all leave the bar and head towards a tall building connected to one of the hub's walls. The rails of the transport bubbles run down from the ceiling and into the building, but there's also a wide-open doorway to the greater hub facing them, visible from several hundred tres away.
"That's the registry," Silvia explains, as she carries them through the air in a bubble of faint red qi. "There's one in every major station, and on every planet, within Guild space. We can get both your occupation marks there, but you'll need to head to the rcenary sector to establish a group and get a starter rating assigned. Also, if you're planning on having either of your children, or Pod, join you as rcenaries, it's best they aren't seen entering with us now."
Emily nods and holds a hand out to nsacus. He takes it without question. Her tattoos pulse once, and he vanishes into her Pocket Factory.
"Starter rating?" she questions. "Is that based on the cultivation levels of the group's mbers?"
"Yes and no," Silvia responds, lowering them towards the registry's front entrance. "The rating assigned to a rcenary group, or solo operative, is a marker to show the size of the group, what level being they can comfortably combat, the scale of conflict they can enter, and how many contracts they've closed. For example, you and nsacus together could comfortably fight a fifth-level being, or a few hundred first and second, so you'll probably be assigned a rating sowhere around S2P5Q100R0."
"More like a few thousand," Emily corrects as they step into a quiet hall with only a few people and several free-standing terminals. "I ant it when I said I was a one-woman army. I have enough troops in my Factory to win a war, and that's not even counting the monsters in nsacus' Death Dinsion."
"Wait, he has one too? I just assud the markings were part of his design."
"No, they're very new. I only added them a few weeks before we t you," Emily explains, while Silvia leads them towards a free terminal. "Our Dinsions also have vastly different properties."
"Oh?" the vampire purrs with interest, pulling her piracy mark from her storage ring and tapping it to a scanner below the terminal's screen. "Do tell."
The floor glows with runes in a ring around the terminal, and a translucent film rises around them, blocking out all sound from outside and blurring sight from the rest of the hall.
"Mine expands at a higher rate, even when I was only fourth circle, thanks to my natural spatial affinity and the dual energy sources supplying it. The entire space is charged with my machina, and sets any machines running inside into a constant state of slight Overdrive without causing damage, thanks to a passive repair attribute supplied by my mana. It's the perfect place to run automated production lines."
The terminal screen blinks to a nu showing the Heavy-blade Pirates' crew, and Silvia selects a tab to add new mbers before entering their first nas.
"nsacus', on the other hand, acts as an excess reservoir for the unrefined death energy he gathers. He has a limit on how fast he can refine that energy, and he couldn't hold it unrefined before, so he was losing a fair amount. His pocket dinsion changes that, and that makes it perfect for feeding his existing wendigos or creating new ones. If he's able to trap soone and pull them into the Death Dinsion, he can either slowly break them down until they're ready to be made anew, and the raw death suffusing the space will accelerate that process, or let his minions tear them to pieces on the spot, feeding them and the dinsion."
"Horrifying," Silvia comnts, though her tone is light, stepping aside and gesturing for Pod to approach the terminal as it asks for his energy signature. "I've never spoken to a necromancer, the most commonly known users of death magic, in depth before, but that sounds like a dream co true for them. How many of these wendigos does he have already?"
Silica places a paw on the scanner below the terminal's screen when her na appears after Pod, letting out a small burst of mana.
"Only three, but they're all made from fourth circle mages. It takes a fragnt of his cultivation to create permanent creatures, so we're prioritising quality over quantity."
Finally, Emily places her hand on the scanner and injects so mana. A few monts later, a tray beside the scanner pops open, presenting three piracy marks. Each one is a palm-sized rectangle made from steel alloy, with the Guild's emblem, two hands clasped at the wrist, embossed in the centre. Above the emblem is a skull and the crew's na, and below are each of their nas.
Pod and Emily place theirs in spatial storages, while Silica slips hers into her tail before staring at Emily's belt with pleading kit eyes.
"I'll make you one later," she reassures her daughter fondly, reaching out to scratch behind her ears.
"Right, let
just update my mark quickly, then we'll be on our way," Silvia says, dropping her own mark into the still-open tray. "It's best you return without
to get your rcenary marks. There are too many caras and watchful eyes to do both now."
After a few more taps on the screen and a burst of qi into the scanner, Silvia retrieves her mark and closes the session on the terminal, dropping the privacy barrier surrounding them. They leave the registry to continue touring the bustling hub, heading towards a magical tattoo parlour to browse the enchantnts available and expand Emily's common knowledge.
***
A few hours later, they make their way to a transport bubble access point and separate. Silvia takes Silica, Pod, and the chiric hounds to claim the bounties of the corpses in her storage before heading back to the ship, while Emily steps into a bubble with nsacus, her scarf wrapped around her face to conceal her identity. She selects the registry as their destination and pulls an updated barrier disk from her belt, with a darkness crystal slotted into one of the power sockets.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
The disk throws up a dark barrier that stretches to the bubble's walls, completely blocking the caras installed in the corners of the moving room. Emily unwraps the distinctive scarf around her head and carefully folds it up before placing it in her belt and taking out a set of plain black robes and a pair of reinforced black gloves. She puts on the robes and throws up the hood before sliding the gloves on and pulling out a small chunk of black iron, flooding it with raw mana to turn it malleable and override its weak mana-resistive nature. She casts Forgemaster, wrapping the iron in a cocoon of fire and tal threads and moulding it into a full-face mask that resembles her but has no trace of the distinctive markings around her eyes, leaving small holes to see through.
She takes out two small pellets of translucent black plastic, which she manufactured in her New Denntimo lab using the sap of one of their native non-magical trees, and heats them before pressing them into the mask's eye sockets, creating two see-through lenses. With her mask finished and cooled, she presses it snug to her face before running a light machina current along the surface of her skin, letting the energy's magnetic properties hold it fast.
Finally, Emily opens a small portal to her Dinsional Factory and calls out a squad of ten tal soldiers - four half golems and the rest a mix of infantry. She recalls the barrier disk and reconceals her magic circles just in ti for the bubble's door to open, letting them out into the registry.
She marches forward with nsacus at her side and her troops flanking them, approaching a free terminal and tapping the screen to initiate a session without a mark. A privacy barrier rises around them as a ssage pops up on the screen asking her to scan her mark or select which occupation she would like to register under. Emily selects rcenary, one of the first available options, and enters Coldstone as her na, followed by nsacus.
The terminal asks for their energy signatures, and Emily injects a burst of machina this ti before letting nsacus enter his mana.
The rcenary marks the terminal gives them look near identical to piracy marks, but there's no crew na, and instead of a skull, there's a crosshair: a circle with four separate lines cutting through it, pointing towards a dot in the centre. They take their marks, and Emily scans hers with machina to understand its structure, finding a small, unpowered chip inside designed to send out its stored data the mont an applicable receiver cos into range to power it.
Marvelling at the new communication thod, Emily closes their terminal session, and they return to the transport bubble they ca through, this ti selecting the rcenary sector as their destination. It takes nearly ten minutes for them to arrive, and when they step out of the transport bubble, they find themselves in a long, wide corridor lined with shopfronts, rentable training rooms, and inns offering more comfortable lodging than a small ship would. The ceiling is made of a thick, reinforced glass, giving a clear view out into the surrounding asteroid field lit by the station's external lights, with hundreds of stars glittering in the distance.
Emily leads her son and troops through the corridor with purpose, ignoring the curious and cautious gazes of the browsing rcenaries they pass. The end of the corridor eventually opens into a large chamber filled with privacy-barrier-protected tables, scrolling electronic mission boards both empty and crowded by people choosing their next job, several bars manned by androids, and a few counters manned by people, so humanoid and so not.
They head straight for one of the counters with a humanoid staff mber waiting behind it. They have pale blue skin and no hair, and they're wearing a uniform composed of a plain white shirt, black dress trousers, and a black waistcoat.
"Hello, how can I help you?" they ask with a polite smile, their voice soft and effeminate, as Emily approaches, seemingly unfazed by her appearance.
"I'd like to create a rcenary group and register for our initial rating assessnt," Emily responds, presenting her half-finished rcenary mark.
"Of course, and what would you like your group to be called?" the clerk asks, taking her mark and placing it into a machine below the counter that locks it in place with a chanical click.
"Elivarus," Emily answers without missing a beat, staying silent as the clerk looks up in confused hesitation, unsure how to spell the foreign word.
She raises a gloved hand and lets out a stream of machina, tracing the word in the air.
The clerk nods and looks back down at a hidden screen, copying the na quickly before presenting Emily's mark with it embossed above the Guild's emblem. They gesture for nsacus to hand over his as well, before shooting a questioning glance towards their guard squad that Emily waves off.
"Alright, your group has been registered. Our station evaluator is currently free if you're ready now?"
Emily nods.
"Wonderful, please take a seat. He'll be here soon." The clerk waves them off towards one of the closest free tables.
Emily and nsacus both sit down, and it only takes a few minutes for their evaluator to march in through the main entrance to the hall. He's a stout man, roughly the sa height as Perinith, but instead of a face full of wrinkles, he sports a mighty beard that stretches down to his thighs. There's an air of strength around him, reinforced by the sparks of machina that feel purer than Emily's jumping through his facial hair, putting him sowhere in the sixth phase. He's decked head to toe in thick black plate armour that makes him almost look like a machine himself.
The man heads straight for the clerk Emily registered with, and they point him towards her imdiately.
"Yer the folks I'm judging?" he barks with a gravelly tone the mont he turns to face them.
"That we are," Emily confirms, standing up and rising to tower over the man she assus is dwarfish.
"Perfect. Let's get this over with."
He turns back towards the entrance and sets off without another word, expecting them to follow.
Emily and nsacus fall into step beside him, slowing their pace to match his.
"The na's Gimrock, what're yers?"
"Coldstone."
"nsacus."
"Ha, you wouldn' 'appen to be related to those nsvermis, no?"
"I have no idea who you're referring to, but no," nsacus responds, his tone dripping with disdain.
"Horrid wormy things. Hiveminds. Like to make 'emselves look as human as possible. Ring any bells?"
"So that's what they're called," Emily cuts in. "The answer is still no, though. I created him myself; the na is just a coincidence."
She makes a note to look into the origin of the nsvermis anyway, just to sate her curiosity.
"Made 'im yerself? Impressive. Sa with these fellows?" Gimrock taps one of her tal soldier's legs.
"Yes."
"How many?"
"We have roughly ten thousand with us. Left behind a few thousand of an older generation to protect our assets when we left our ho planet."
"Ten thousand?" Gimrock baulks, pausing halfway through the corridor they've used to reach the open hall and taking his own rcenary mark from a chain around his neck, tapping it to a scanner beside a sealed door. "Must 'ave a mighty fine ship to carry that large an army."
"We make do with spatial expansion," Emily responds vaguely, following him into a chamber where she can feel the telltale fluctuations of said spatial expansion.
The room is plain-looking, with bare silver tal walls stretching out for several thousand tres and a closed ceiling without a view into the asteroid field.
"Makes sense. I'm a fan of tinkering on bots self," Gimrock says, letting out a flood of machina that fills the space, opening up several panels for various beast-shaped droids to slink out of, before turning to face Emily with a crackling grin. "Welco to
testing ground."
She gets the strangest feeling that it's not the two of them he's looking forward to testing most.
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