Mistrunner 4 - Chapter 14 - Back into the Bazaar (Patreon)

I don’t know what’s happening, but it feels important. Every time I turn around, Mira does something unbelievable, and I feel like she’s becoming less human with each passing day. I’m trying to keep up, but no matter what I do, she just keeps getting further ahead.

Patrick Ward

Exiting the Rift was anticlimactic, especially after the battles we’d endured in the Emerald Forest and the Palace. However, when we did step back into the real world, both Patrick’s and my storage spaces were absolutely packed full of Rift shards. In addition, we each carried large, full packs on our backs, and Patrick carried an enormous crate he’d filled with those valuable crystals.

In short, we’d looted more Rift shards than either of us had collectively seen before. Suddenly, we had more wealth than either of us could accurately calculate. In short, the operation had been an unmitigated success, which meant that we had a good chance of accomplishing our goals. More importantly, it meant that we wouldn’t be forced to run multiple Rifts just to rearm or resupply.

Not anytime soon, at least.

I was well aware of our expenses, though. Just keeping the Leviathan in the air was expensive enough, and that wasn’t even considering the cost of ammunition and other supplies. No – for the short term, we were fine, but that wouldn’t necessarily be the case in a few months. So, there was every chance that we’d be forced to run another Rift before the dawn of the Integration.

Which was less than a year away.

In that time, Patrick and I – as well as anyone else willing – would have to ready ourselves for war. Because that was what was coming. And I knew it would be a bloody one, too. The aliens weren’t likely to give up without a significant fight, so I had to prepare myself for a long, violent conflict that could very well leave Earth in ruins.

And yet, that was better than the alternative.

Those thoughts accompanied me as Patrick and I stepped through the Rift aperture and back into the Crutacaan stronghold. Unfortunately, not even that went as planned, and I quickly found myself swept away in a strong current that pulled me through the small settlement. My mind swirled as I rocketed past submerged buildings, and more by instinct than as a result of conscious thought, I reached out and grabbed hold of the corner of a structure. The fingers of the Hand of God dug into the plastisteel surface, barely arresting my momentum before I was swept out to sea.

Even as the current tugged against me, I retrieved the respirator from my arsenal implant and slapped it over my face. Once my own oxygen supply was assured, I took a moment to search for Patrick.

And I found him standing just beside the Rift aperture, his white-and-gold armor practically glowing in the scant light. He’d thrust his arm-blade deep into the seabed, anchoring him in place. However, I suspected he’d only managed to do that much because he was weighed down by the sturdy armor.

“What the hell?” I muttered through Secure Connection. “How heavy is that thing?”

“A few thousand pounds,” he answered. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Just took me by surprise is all,” I said. “What happened?”

“The shield keeping the water out probably ran out of juice,” he answered. “I bet it was a resource hog.”

That made sense. Running a Mist shield – especially one powerful enough to keep out millions of gallons of water – was expensive, and since we’d killed all the Crutacaans, there was no one to recharge it. Either way, it didn’t really matter; we were done with the settlement, so there was nothing keeping us around.

“May as well get out of here, then. Watch out for sea monsters. I’ll meet you back at the cliffs,” I said. I wanted to stick around, but the current was far too strong. With that reality hanging over me, I let go of the building and kicked my way to the surface. As I did so, I had to fight against the riptide that wanted nothing more than to pull me out to sea, but with my attributes, I managed it well enough. Fortunately, the current weakened as I got closer to the surface, and after I finally broke through the waves, I had little trouble swimming toward shore.

Still, by the time I reached the cliffs, I was already tired of being in the water. So, I wasted no time before latching on and climbing to dry land. Once I reached the top of the cliff, I flipped over and basked in the weak sunlight of an overcast day. That was how, almost twenty minutes later, Patrick found me.

I felt him before I even opened my eyes – Mist Control continued to grow stronger with every passing moment, it seemed – and when he drew closer, I asked, “Have a nice little swim? Or was it a stroll along the seabed?” I opened one eye to see him standing over me in his dripping armor. “You can’t swim in that thing, can you?”

“Nope. Thanks for waiting up.”

“You didn’t expect me to swim along beside you, did you? You’ve proven you can handle yourself just fine. You don’t need me to be your bodyguard.”

That much was true. While the armor was too big and bulky to be completely without weaknesses, it – and by extension, Patrick – had proven powerful enough that I didn’t think I needed to worry about his safety quite as much. Still, I knew I’d never completely leave that anxiety behind.

Thankfully, he didn’t argue, and soon enough, we were on our way back to the Leviathan. When we reached the ship, I swept it for tracking devices – my experiences with Alistaris had shown me that people could bypass whatever security measures we had in place – and after finding none, we finally let ourselves relax.

Patrick left his armor in the cargo bay where he clearly intended to work on it sometime in the near future while I took a long, hot shower. It was telling that Patrick didn’t even consider joining me. We were both too exhausted for that kind of thing, and as soon as I was clean and comfortable, I headed straight to bed. Just before I fell asleep, he joined me.

The next couple of days were spent in recovery. For my part, the regeneration associated with [Mist-Infused Body] had healed me completely, but it had done nothing to allay the pervasive lethargy that had built up over the course of delving the Rift. Some of it was physical, but the bulk of that exhaustion was the result of stress and mental fatigue. Because of that, we both took our time ensuring that we were in the best possible condition before moving on.

Even so, a few days later found us flying to the least contentious town that had a Bazaar access point. Curiously, it wasn’t a particularly large settlement. During a previous visit, Patrick and I had discovered that only around fifty thousand people lived in Montreal. Apparently, it had once been much larger, but a catastrophe had struck a few decades after the onset of the Mist, killing the bulk of the residents. Since then, they’d rebuilt, but they’d yet to regain their former glory.

“Did you ever find out what exactly happened here?” I asked, looking out the window at the island city, which was situated at the confluence of two large rivers. There were other waterways nearby as well, and the I could see the tops of ruined buildings poking above the surface of a sizable lake.

“Monstrous beavers.”

“What?”

“Beavers. You know, rodent-like creatures that build dams.”

“Yeah. I learned about them in school. But they’re not supposed to be dangerous, right?” I queried.

As he guided the Leviathan to a dock, he shrugged and said, “Well, when they’re the size of a hover car, apparently that changes. Not many people left who know the whole story, but last time we were here, I talked to this old man who said that thousands of them came pouring out of the river, overwhelmed their Mist shields, and then swarmed the whole city. Killed plenty of people on their own, but most of the casualties happened when they dammed one of the rivers and flooded the town.”

“Doesn’t look flooded.”

“That’s because a group of settlers came and took it back,” he explained. “The guy said it took almost ten years to get rid of the beavers, then another couple to drain it.”

“Why’d they bother? Just move somewhere else.”

As he guided the Leviathan closer, he gave a small shrug before saying, “I don’t know. People get attached to where they live.”

“That’s stupid. One place is as good as any other.”

But I knew I was a little abnormal in that sentiment. Most people couldn’t just pick up and leave, and even if they were capable of doing so, they usually wouldn’t choose to. Back in Nova, it had taken an ongoing gang war to get people to abandon the city. And those people had terrible lives. I couldn’t imagine what kind of sentiment might come along with a city that treated its citizens well.

Perhaps that was the sort of place Montreal had been.

Now, though, it looked little different than dozens of other cities I’d visited. It was clearly built on the ruins of something much older, and some of those ancient buildings remained. However, most of the old city had been replaced by more modern buildings reminiscent of the megabuildings back in Nova. They were much smaller, but the layout was similar enough to prompt a wave of nostalgia.

And guilt followed close on its heels. I pushed both aside and focused on the dock, which was a series of tall platforms rising above the river. Supported by single pillars, most were too small to accommodate the Leviathan, but there were a few appropriately sized berths. Patrick expertly navigated to one such platform, then set it down.

I took a deep breath, then said, “You ready? We have everything, right?”

“I do. Did you contact that guy who buys shards?”

“Everything’s set up. All we have to figure out is the price, which is your department,” I said. We’d already counted everything out and sent Borack, the insectoid who always bought my Rift shards, an inventory detailing the entire stock of crystallized Mist. And he’d given me a rough value, though I intended to let Patrick negotiate. He had some abilities associated with haggling, so he was far better at it than I ever could be.

“Fair enough. You think we’ll have enough for everything?”

“That depends on Ana’s prices. Skills aren’t cheap.”

He shook his head. “Not a bad problem to have, though. Think of all the possibilities. You’ve got three open slots. That’s as many as most people have altogether.”

I was well aware of how unique – or nearly so – my Nexus Implant was. However, because I hadn’t spent a ton of time researching possible skills, I wasn’t really sure what direction I wanted to go. Thankfully, Anaseteramanimix was good at her job – at least as far as I could tell – and I trusted that she would steer me in the right direction.

Before that, though, we needed to pay the dock fee, traverse the city, and enter the Bazaar via the obelisk that would send our consciousness to the space station in question. One day soon, we wouldn’t have to go through such a hassle, and as soon as the Initialization’s quarantine was dropped, we’d be able to take the Leviathan into space and dock with the station directly.

But that was still a little ways off, so for now, we needed to jump through the same hoops as everyone else.

So, after we disembarked and Patrick paid the dock fee, we took the Cutter into the city. The hoverbike had been damaged during the fight in Olympus, but Patrick had repaired it to almost perfect condition. I still felt a slight wobble in the steering, but he assured me that it was all in my head. Either way, it was still more than serviceable, which was all we really needed for the time being.

Montreal turned out to be a fairly normal town, and I was too excited to notice much more than the bare minimum. We reached the building containing the access point for the Bazaar about twenty minutes later.

It turned out to be one of the few pre-Initialization buildings in the city, and it was characterized by large, green dome atop a squarish main structure made of white stone. Otherwise, it was set apart by a long set of stairs that cut through an expansive lawn out front.

“Lots of wasted space,” I remarked.

“I think it looks nice. It –”

His sentence was cut short by the chiming of bells.  For my part, the sudden noise prompted a sudden reaction as I yanked Ferdinand II from the holster at my hip. Only a second later, I realized that might have overreacted, because no one else in the vicinity had even flinched.

“Sorry,” I said, holstering my weapon. “Still a bit jumpy.”

Indeed, after everything I’d been through over the past few years, it had become incredibly difficult to turn my combat instincts off. Sometimes, it meant waking up in the middle of the night, having been dragged out of unconsciousness by a stray sound. Other times, I had to endure a formless dread that I was on the verge of being attacked. Rationally, I knew it was all just a result of spending weeks at a time behind enemy lines, but that didn’t really help me deal with it any more easily.

“It’s okay,” Patrick said in an understanding tone. He reached out and squeezed my shoulder. “It’s fine.”

I sighed. I hated showing weakness, even to him. But to Patrick’s credit, he never judged me for it. In fact, he’d only ever wanted to support me as best he could. It was one of the reasons I loved him.

“I’m alright.”

Then, we continued on our way, climbing the steps until we reached three sets of doors. We entered through the middle pair. The interior of the building reminded me of some of the ancient churches I had seen throughout my travels. The vaulted ceilings and arched halls were certainly impressive, either way.

Soon enough, we found our way to a large chamber that must’ve been beneath the dome. At the end of that cavernous room stood the red-and-black obelisk that would allow for access to the Bazaar. There were a few people waiting for their turn, but the area was a lot emptier than I would have expected. Only two others stood guard, though they didn’t seem altogether necessary, given the placidity of the people in line.

Patrick and I found our way to the back of the queue, and though the person directly in front of his did let her gaze linger a bit on Patrick’s exposed cybernetics, there were no real issues until we finally reached the front of the line almost two hours later.

The moment one of the guards told us the cost associated with accessing the obelisk, I understood the reason there were so few people there. Still, we didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. Neither of us wanted to go elsewhere, and for a variety of reasons, not least of which was that all the other access points were located in cities where we’d already worn out our welcome.

Or I had, at least. Patrick usually flew under the radar.

So, we paid our fees, then stepped forward to join the other four people with their hands currently on the obelisk. The moment I touched its surface, I was prompted to pay the system’s fee. It was exorbitant, but that was true of every time I’d accessed the Bazaar. So, I paid yet another fee, then let the system whisk my consciousness away.

At first, it was much like it always was. I felt like a ghost being pulled upward, first through the dome, and then, into the atmosphere. However, only a few seconds into the journey, my {Mist Warden} senses awakened. When they did, I let out a scream of surprise as I beheld the dense column of Mist leading from the access point and disappearing into the sky.

I rode along that river of Mist – more of a pipe, really – until, finally, I stumbled onto the Bazaar’s metallic floor.

At first, everything looked the same, but the moment I glanced up, I saw that most of the people were nothing but blobs of Mist. In retrospect, that made perfect sense. We were all just projections. But even so, I was definitely taken aback.

“Mira? Are you okay?” Patrick asked, his voice coming from a blob of blue Mist right beside me.

“Uh…no. No, I’m not.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Not here,” I answered. “Let’s…let’s go see Borack. Then, we have some shopping to do.”