Finally we can leave this blasted rock.

After we found the dungeon core we began initiating out our plan. A few spacewalks explosions and some crashing of asteroids together later we were able to act pissed off enough that no corporations should be after us. We’ve been “mining” for another nineteen cycles for no reason other than to play the mission off as a failure. It was such a tragedy when another asteroid hit the area we had be working as we were regrouping on the ship after Tarux caused another disaster which resulted in him serving guard duty for the rest of the operation. We tried to dig it out but the asteroid began to move back into the danger zone in the asteroid belt as asteroid collisions became more and more frequent. So dissatisfied, tired and angry we left saying we should never have tried our hand as miners.

There were a few other inconsequential things that happened. Like Tarux and Erindror had a sparring match were Erin got beat so bad he couldn’t move without feeling something ache, but it wasn’t anything that Vengella couldn’t fix. Then there were the Fizzouks dancing and singing after he returned to the ship with Tarux, a truly painful experience. Mivro was so bored one day that she and Tarux decided to do some target practice that may or may not have set an asteroid into another asteroid that then happened to be pushed into the danger zone. All and all nothing really bad had happened.

But now we’re on our way out of the sector and towards the nearest space port so we can offload the rest of the excess oar we gathered between our last resupply and our current departure. Now we’ll gather more rations and fly to an unaligned grey station to work on our ship. After Fizzouk installs the dungeon core into the ships systems we’ll run the ship through some tests and see if everything is working properly. And if we find out everything is working right after its installation. Or once we run out of resources, whichever comes first, we’ll get back into the swing of things with some pick up quests before heading back into dungeons.

But for now we’re meeting to discuss how we all did on this adventure. We have quite a diverse group and I trust all of them. First there is Mivro a lithe being covered in her black cloak and grey clothes as she brushes her long bushy obsidian tail, which complements her solid purple eyes, but is in stark contrast to her bleached skin tone. She has large angular ears that end in points that pull tightly to her head.

Across from her is Erindror with his four organic arms folded into himself while another pair rest on parts of his gun. His grey skin gives way to some small augmentations across his body like the one over his left ruby eye. He wears a bronze colored shirt and a black vest. His feather like hair is a copper color pulled tightly into a long ponytail. His legs are large and thick with talon hooves.

Tarux rests in the back while still looking over the others heads. He has black scales with an orange pattern running down along his back. His legs rest along his side bending like the large predator he is with large flat feet. His tail lies to his side with its cudgeled end lying by his front leg. His spine has sharp squared bone plate running down its length with wide gaps in between. His head is elongated with four bright orange eyes spectacled with grey.

And sitting next to Mivro is Vengella. She is a dark green purple color with pine green hair and imperial purple eyes. She has taken the form of a Hefestian but has more curves than they would usually have. She wears a royal blue dress and grey lab coat for our sake. And the vines that make up her skin are thin as they criss cross all along her body.

And Fizzouk is sitting on the flour tinkering with something. He uses all six of his arms, four of which are mechanical and grafted to his body. While the last organic pair is his smaller frontal pair that rest under his other pair of arms. His body has many mechanical parts to it from a layered metallic scale skin covering his torso to the vents and motors that poke out ever so slightly every so often. He has metallic coal feather hair in crisscross dreadlocks down to the nape of his neck. His face always seems to be set in a scowl with black lips and emerald eyes. He wears brown pants and a green vest reluctantly saying that the metal is enough covering.

And it’s with this lot that I’m meeting with. So far it’s not very well....

“I was soooooo bored up here on the ship. I wasn’t even allowed to get off the stick when you all we’re playing miner!”

“Who said we were having fun down there Mivro. It’s not like any of us, besides Fizzouk, were enjoying the job either.”

“You at least you were constantly working Erin. I don’t like being idle. But that was the job I was given till we could move into stage two of the plan. And do you have any idea how awkward it gets when Vengella askes for a taste of your blood once she gets tired of the blood we keep on hand for her nutrients.”

“Hey you thanked me for a few of the releases those gave you when we were up here alone. And besides I don’t ask anyone else for a taste besi…”

“Well Vengella never asks me for my blood. So no I don’t know how that is. But I’m sure I wouldn’t mind the pretty lady having a taste of my blood.”

“And you probably won’t have to worry about that Erin since Hafestian blood in general doesn't lose its shocking flavor until a week after it’s been extracted from the body. But once that time passes it’s quite pleasant, so if you want me to drink from your body you’ll have to die for me. “

“Well on that cheery note. I’m glad to be off that rock. Hopefully with no reason to return there any time in the future. Agreed?”

“Yeah, agreed Tarux. I’m glad we’re done with that floating block of boredom. I just wish we had been able to find the dungeon core closer to the time that had been estimated.”

“Well Erindror, you can thank the stupid rock for that.”

“True enough Orsu.”

Ok time to get everyone back on track.

“Now everyone I know this wasn’t one of the most amazing objectives we have had. But before we even started to plan this opp. out we all agreed it would be beneficial in the long run. So now that it’s done we can start to work on the dungeon cores installation into Fizzouk’s mana generator and work it into the ship's drive core. And once we complete that we’ll be able to get back out there slaying monsters and dungeon diving with better equipment which means more safety against bigger enemies that lead to bigger profit.”

“We all know how much this could benefit us as an unaffiliated fringe spacer crew. So much so that we may be able to increase our crew size to the point where we could become a registered spacer crew for hire instead of a group of spacers doing odd jobs from the bars when the monsters resource value starts to run dry. We’ll be able to take the corporate and sector contracts and not have to worry about getting scammed after the job is done. I know we all can’t wait to get our crew officially established so we can finally enjoy the benefits fringe crews receive.”

“But before we dream our time in warp away we need to evaluate how the operation went. So to start off let's look at how effective our scans of the asteroid was, Fizzouk?”

“Well Orsu the scans we received were accurate since we found the dungeon core in that area. But the area scanned was large and when we tried to narrow the scanners scope it started to pick up other dense mana signatures causing our search area to remain larger then I had predicted.”

“Well Fizzouk, once the ship is in port see if you can get ahold of a better scanner. Also make sure we’re fully stocked on materials for your fabricator. Next on the list is the mining aspect. But more importantly then that is the secrecy of our true objectives. So Tarux, Mivro how did we do?”

“Well Orsu the ground transmissions were pretty secure with very few conversations about our objective coming up at all. Besides my incessant com use for mundane purpose to help everyone have some time to vent helped people to keep them focused on anything other than the objective. I either had them annoyed at my like I did with Fizz or I had them just goofing off.”

“The corporate probe in the sector wasn’t in range too often while we we’re doing our operation. Even if it had a better com interceptor then they usually do it still was out of range for the majority of the coms that it could have picked up. Its course also didn’t change during the operation so that leads me to believe that the company that controls that probe didn’t view it once during our stay. If someone had the probe would have changed its route to a more optimal one for picking up com transmissions.”

“Thank you Tarux, Mivro. I know that monitoring all that can be difficult to keep up with but we needed a second layer to catch any times we had a transmission that gave away our goal. But from your reports I’m sure we won’t having any corporations coming after us for taking away one of their resource generators, even before they claim it. So I’d like to thank you both for your work. Now let’s move onto the dungeon cores retrieval?”

“So once I had found its mana signature I reported in on it. Then I mined my way closer to the other side of its domain. Then I used some light breach charges that had just enough force to blow the wall down. Then I entered the dungeon and was assaulted by a stone golem. I was in close proximity to the dungeon so I holstered my assault cannon and beat it down in a swift brawl. I collected its core and waited for Fizz to show up. Once he did we prepared for the transmission we would need to make and while we were the dungeon attacked. We swiftly retrieved the dungeon at that point and locked it in stasis. Then we pulled out as we relayed our distress through the coms. The dungeon core and golem core are both now on the ship in Fizz’s care.”

“Ok good I’ve looked through both yours and Fizzouks reports so that will be all on that topic. Fizzouk how well has the dungeon been behaving in the stasis cell?”

“Well Orsu whenever I adjust the stasis cell the dungeon tries to claim more area around it for its domain. But so far it hasn’t claimed anything out of its stasis cell. But when it is tiring to claim anything I get warnings from my implanted systems that worn me of dense mana levels originating from the dungeons core. But the stasis cell is secure and we won’t have to worry about the dungeon trying to claim the ship.”

“That’s very good to know Fizzouk, thank you. The fact that the chances of that happening are low is really reassuring and the fact that the dungeons mana is so dense will allow us to be alerted of its escape if it ever comes to it. Now Mivro how did the asteroid bombing runs go?”

“Well Orsu the bombing themselves went well. They were a great stress relief for me and Tarux. But the number of asteroids we caused to colloid into the one we were working on might tip them off that we were up to something. The operator would have to be suspecting something though to actually look through the data, or a stickler for details, both qualities that someone would be wasting by being a simple probe operator. But it could cause the probe to collide with an asteroid if no one checks it in the next three or four star cycles. But were that to happen the company would chew out the probe operator in charge of that probe for not doing there probe’s required orbit path check and adjusting it when they saw the collision imminent. The sensitive data on the probe will be lost as well so we will be much harder to trace if they were going to try and come after us. The ammunition we used on the bombardment runs were from Rengar from that shady dealer when we had gotten low on credits. Many of torpedoes and bombs used were underpowered and a few more than I was comfortable with where misfires. But all and all it went according to the plan.”

“Good thank you for the report Mivro. Erindror when we resupply our armaments at port check them and make sure they are up to code. If we have any more sketchy armaments in our hold please get them off the ship as soon as it is safe to do so Mivro. I don’t want to go into a fight only to fire our first shot and die in a blazing inferno.”

“Now I’ll go over the evacuation of the asteroid to conclude this meeting. We refilled most of our ore reserves from what we mined and gathered a few hundred tons of the more precious ores for resale. We also retrieved all of our equipment and we had no major injuries on the asteroid. Overall I view this operation as very successful. Now does anyone else have anything to add to the report?”

“I do Orsu.”

“Yes Fizzouk.”

“It’s about the golem core we recovered from the dungeon. It seems to have a strangely high capacity for mana as well as an exceptional rate of fluid mana transition. I believe it will be useful in the development of Kal… of the ship. So I propose that we keep the golem core.”

“Well you know the rules by all rights I’m fine with you keeping it but Tarux has the final say on whether it gets sold or not as it would be his profit to gain.”

“Oh Tarux please may I have the golem core? I know it will be important for the ships development.”

“You know what Fizz I’ll give it to you, on one condition.”

“Oh yes what is your condition I’ll do it with hast!”

“Well Fizz I was wondering if you could augment my armor’s tail section, specifically the part that covers my tails cudgel. I would like it augmented if possible so that I can use my latent mana to super heat the air around my tail into plasma or maybe allow me to swing out fire when I attack with it. You’ll get the golem core once you’ve augmented my armor.”

“That’s a stupid idea but I’ll do it anyway for the golem core. But to add a stipulation you can’t sell the golem core until we reach five more stations. Is that acceptable for our deal?”

“Sure deal. Now Captain did you have anything else to say?”

“No Tarux I’m good. If anyone has any other matters they would like to bring up now’s the time. Otherwise find me when I’m not busy…”

“Nothing... good. Everyone dismissed.”

Now time to let out some stress.

“Hey Tarux you want to spar?”

“Sure thing Boss. Melee or range?”

“Melee as usual!”

I can’t wait to swing my halberd around again. With this mission going on I haven’t had the time to train with it like I would have liked. But now while we’re in warp I can let it all out. Especially with someone of the same species like Tarux.

I can’t wait for our tails to clash once more.