Chapter 2 memories.

Thaum sat in the most comfortable seat. [initiating pilot mode.] the wall surrounding the chairs glitched for a moment. Then projected what was outside the ship. Thaum laughed, “well that explains why this structure is surrounded by nothing.”

The smile slowly faded as he started to meditate. Memories of the previous owner of this body started to trickle into his consciousness. They started to flow faster, but he restricted them to a trickle. With a barrier between himself and the memories.

He wanted to see them. But he didn’t need another set of useless memories he would have to clean up later.

One memory two. The most emotional memories pushed their way through first. A bike. First ship. Death of comrades, of enemies. A woman. Becoming a fugitive. Freezing himself for half a century to spite his pursuers.

Thaum quickly finished digesting the information. Paying close attention to anything technical-related. The jump in technology was the only real surprise in the man's memories. Everything else he had seen or done before.

“computer show me those reports on the cockpit screen now,” said Thaum.

A list of reports appeared. He sifted through them and found a few critical ones. Fuel low. Ship hull damaged from micrometeorites. The repair bots that would fix that are extremely low. The material they would use had already been used. The medical nanomachines that kept him alive during cryo-sleep were also depleted. And the environmental controls a buggy mess.

He asked, “how close are we to a supply port.”

[1280 lightyears current fuel will not be sufficient to reach this port.]

“any suggestions.”

[captian set the ship adrift towards the Venalla nebula. Which is only 108 lightyears away. You can use the onboard collector and replicator to make a basic fuel.]

Thaum thought ‘that is going to take a while before saying “if that is our only option. I guess that is what we are going to do… engage.”

The ship hummed to life. Shook briefly then turned and accelerated to a big purple cloud in space.

Thaum meditated again, but mana in space was far from abundant. He adjusted course several times when he felt there was a wind of mana he could follow and absorb.

The journey was uneventful and soon his ship flew into the nebula. His meditation was interrupted when the sparse mana he was taking in suddenly turned into an ocean. Thaum opened his eyes and realized it was the nebula.

Some part of it was either mana or it hoarded the mana that traveled through it. He didn’t know. He spent almost all of his time on worlds because the vast emptiness was boring. But this was a very welcome surprise. It was rare to find such dense and calm mana. It was probably floating here for millions if not billions of years.

[error collection system failure. Cause. Damage to the hull is preventing collection cone from leaving its hatch. Recommend doing an EVA to manually fi--]

Thaum interrupted, “you’re ruining the mood of this pleasant surprise. I should have gone to a nebula far sooner.” He closed his eyes. The entire ship and a few hundred meters of its surroundings appeared in his mind.

On the bottom of the ship, a hatch was half open. Damage to the plate was preventing it from hinging outward. With a thought a giant blue hand materialized and ripped the hatch open. “there” said Thaum.

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Several days later.

[fuel storage full]

Thaum opened his eyes. “with current stores how long can we stay here and still get to a port.”

[With the ability to generate fuel I estimate twenty years plus or minus five before hull breach from micro asteroid impacts. Medical supplies insufficient to reenter cryosleep.]

Thaum ran some calculations of his own. He inspected his body several times. It would take around a year for this body to become an archmage. Ten if he left it to his phoenix hibernation spell. He said, “set an alarm for 10 years later. And unless it's life-threatening, or will prevent us from making it to a refueling station do not disturb me.”

He then went to the replicator and used the last stores of raw material to create various metals and crystals, ‘this is very convenient’ he thought.

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Several days later he had a basic (to him) array set up. The arcane construct surrounded his lying form as he drifted out of consciousness. This was his phoenix hibernation spell. He had become powerful in so many of his lives that he became tired of the chore. He also didn’t want to deal with the problems of being weak, so instead, he created a spell to do it for him while he slept. Then engraved the spell into his soul so he could use it in any of his lives.

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[beep beep beep. Captain it has been 10 years beep beep beep] she was saying the word beep strangely enough. Thaum got up and stretched. This body was now thirty-six, but it felt like it was a decade or two older.

He checked his body and said, “computer set course to the nearest refueling station.”

[course set]

he thought, ‘should have said go to the nearest refueling station’ then said, “engage.”

The ship hummed to life once more and accelerated. Thaum suddenly started sliding to the back of the ship. He slapped his glowing hand to the deck and stopped sliding, “what happened to the inertial dampeners?”

The cockpit screen turned on showing the stars now streaks passing the ship. [inertial dampeners are functioning, however, because of lack of maintenance they have a 0.0000000064 phase drift. Care should be taken when moving around the ship]

‘perfect’ he thought. He infused mana into his feet and walked to the Captain’s seat and strapped in. Thaum went through the logs and planned out his next move.

Everything on the ship of value was illegal. His accounts were drained, locked, monitored or all of the above. So he needed money. Being a homeless bard telling stories on the road was probably unrealistic. Space ships and all.

What would he do after obtaining money? He would be sure to set aside some time to study the technology. A lot of what surrounded him now would be worth making in any life. Even if he assumed it would be hard to make from scratch.

So far step 1 profit, step two… step three study tech. He occasionally would fulfill the desires of his host's previous soul. This one simply wanted “money power and bitches”. Nothing new to Thaum, but he could see the use of money and power. With it, he could access a greater variety of technology. Even the restricted ones.

Then the question turns to who he is going to take the money and power from. They don’t come from nowhere after all. He pulled up a list of enemies from the database. Thaum thought, ‘how cute, he even wrote down what they did to earn his ire’.

1. John Smith – took my girl.

“haha” Thaum laughed when he linked the sentence to a memory, “it even goes back to his childhood. What a bastard kid”

2. Jeff holdings – scammed me outa 40 credits.

3. … 4 5 6 … 99 … 435.

Thaum was not sure whether to be impressed by the completeness of the list or the pettiness of half the names on it. He looked for a good target. Someone actually evil. Still alive after his cryosleep and likely not dead from their work as would most of this man's acquaintances would be.

He came to one name he thought deserving. Alan Wane. Half the reason he was on the run. Evil to a comical degree. And very much rich enough to still be alive today. He was probably only middle-aged with the amount of money he could throw around. But most importantly, powerful. Enough so that Thaum would be satisfied with the position when he took it, and be hard/entertaining to take.

He mapped out the course. It was a year of travel with FTL and probably by design. Wane wanted him dead as much as Thaum’s host wanted Wane dead. Nothing protects you like a billion light years and floating through an empty bit of unused space as an ice-block.

Thaum sighed. Money first then. Ships have probably advanced since he got this ship and it was dated when he “acquired” it. That and this ship had more illegal modifications than legal ones. Which makes docking at some ports difficult. And expensive.

He asked the computer, “How long until we arrive.”

[Seven hours thirty-one minutes.]

Thaum had the ship stop. Then told it to do something about the inertial dampeners while he worked on something.

He entered one of the storage rooms and started moving boxes. There was another medical capsule like the one he woke up in hidden in the corner. Thaum opened it and saw another man. Thaum absentmindedly said, “if only you were better at math. You would have figured out the medical nanobots were only enough for one person to sleep for so long.”

Thaum said, “turn the safety protocols back on this device.” Then ripped a necklace from the corpse.

The corpse was his accomplice Jack and the necklace his nest egg for when things went sideways. It also happened to be made of the most expensive material on the ship. Appolimus. Thaum found a comfortable place and began his work.

Money may be difficult for other people, but he was an archmagus. An ancient one. And according to his host's memories the only mage in the galaxy. This was strange, however, it would mean no-one is going to complain when he duplicates this expensive material.

He scanned the Appolimus with his mind's eye. Feeling for everything that makes this material the way it is. What its made of. Its impurities. How it interacts with other things.

His brow creased. Sweat started to form. New materials were rare and this one was complex. Hours passed and turned to days. He took a deep breath and stood up satisfied. Then went to take a shower.

With one look at the shower, he said, “computer turn off gravity.” He began to float. Water appeared from his palms quickly engulfing his form. His head popped out the end of a floating ball of steaming water, “that's better.” he sighed.

After his zero-g bath, the water vanished. Then he floated back to work. He grabbed some sacrificial material. Mostly tools he wouldn’t need or use. Then began transmuting the common metals into Appolimus.

The process was slow, however, he had spent the extra time to make an array spell to speed things up. It was essentially magical programming. So instead of having to constantly activate the spell. Turning one sand grain-sized material into another. He just had to feed it mana and wait. He could even run multiple concurrent versions of the spell and speed up the process, if he didn’t mind the mana consumption.

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3 days later.