As Apophis set out to join his group in the docking bay, two players from the SuperGuild "Hyrule" bumped rudely into him! They were about the same level as Apophis, which meant that they were probably elite players.
Apophis turned around and glared at the two players, who also seemed to want to fight with Apophis, probably because of the way he'd insulted their guild leader, Zelda.
Yet none of them wanted to make the first hostile move. After all, they were in a very lucrative zone for the Federation, who would surely neutralize them all at a moment's notice if they caused a scene.
Apophis snapped, "Look where you're walking, you morons!"
One of the two players smiled. "You dare insult a SuperGuild member? On your knees, you vermin! Apologize immediately, or say goodbye to your account!"
Apophis didn't answer, knowing that neither of them would actually try anything. Instead, he noted their nicknames and left the two standing there.
He quickly found a patrol of Federation guards and said to their superior officer, "Hello, Captain. I'm Major Apophis, reporting two individuals wanted for drug trafficking, loitering near Hangar 8."
He revealed their names and appearances, after which the captain thanked him and Apophis headed back to the hangar where his team was waiting.
On the way, he saw two troublemakers being arrested.
Apophis smiled arrogantly at the fools while the guards handcuffed them and took them into custody. For their parts, the two players threw copious insults at Apophis, but he just ignored them and rejoined his ship.
Now it was time for his crew to begin their quest, "Resurrection of Enclabossa," and head to complete their first IronMan Dungeon! Its difficulty rating would be set for lvl 10-20 players, but Apophis was confident they'd be successful despite the high level range.
He remembered a dungeon of this type lying near to their current location. Before they could reach it, however, the MK.1 would need to penetrate the border of the Commonwealth of the Lizardmen, since their destination of the planet "Asur" lay within it.
The Commonwealth of the Lizardmen was politically allied with the United Federation of Planets, but the population was viscerally hostile to humans. The Lizardmen saw humans as a threat against their civilization, and players in particular had the "Genocidal" trait that would make it wise to avoid contact with the Lizardmen if possible.
As the MK.1 left the Isirus Space Station, a small fleet of ships followed them into hyperspace.
While everyone went to sleep on the ship, Apophis went to the ship's mess hall and took out the mystery box he'd bought for 100,000 GC. He set it on the table and inspected it.
Mystery Box [???]
Summary: A very mysterious box.
Apophis rolled his eyes. "Wow, thanks for all the information. I don't know what I'd do without your help!"
The box was a beautiful, perfect cube of metal without even a single scratch or mark. Of course, that also meant there was no obvious opening.
Apophis tried to use physical strength and super-hot flames to open it, but nothing worked!
After several hours of unsuccessful attempts, Apophis was losing hope and almost thought it might be a scam.
But just when he was about to go to bed, the ship shuddered with slight turbulence.
The cube lit up with a brief, blue light that illuminated the entire room, then disappeared just as quickly!
What had just happened?
Apophis stared at the cube for a few moments. Had something within the cube caused their turbulence, or was it the other way around?
He got up and checked the ship's system logs, quickly finding his answer. Just moments before, the ship had experienced turbulence when it passed through the gravity shadow of a pulsar star!
It was, of course, a common occurrence in hyperspace to pass through the locations where stars and planets existed in normal space. Black holes were the only things one needed to avoid if one wanted to remain alive.
Apophis looked through their flight plan. Apparently, the ship would cross another pulsar star in only a few minutes.
Apophis stood in front of the cube, watching it carefully—until, once again, it lit up with blue light and shut down just as quickly as before!
Apophis disengaged the ship's autopilot and pulled them out of hyperspace in the same system where they'd crossed the second pulsar star.
Now bathed in the pulsating electromagnetic radiation of the system's star, the cube radiated a continuous blue light. The closer they got to the pulsar star, the stronger the radiation became...
