Outrun - Cyberpunk LitRPG

I checked the map idly even as I calculated my exact position based on my surroundings. They were a bit different than the city archive’s map, but the level of variance was within my expectations. It was becoming more and more apparent the archive couldn’t be a hundred percent trusted, either thanks to cartographical error or reasons more intentional.

I was about a block off of the Constellation Night Market's current location. It had been a couple of days since hanging out with Mira and Uncle Ezra. It was a nice get-together and send-off. Hopefully, I'll see them again in a year or two.

I spent my time doing some maintenance and messed around with my gear. I didn’t do anything too crazy, instead just enjoyed life and relaxing. I pumped out more Absolom figurines and more Wretched, but that was about it in terms of making things.

I worked my way over to the right warehouse. I was in the part of Portside that was dominated by warehouses and shipping yards, with only a few restaurants and residential areas hidden amongst the massive buildings. Light levels around here were quite a bit lower, thanks to the lower amount of advertisements and only occasionally working streetlights.

And of course, everything had that fine layer of Portside grit over it. The people weren’t excluded from that either. I took more care than usual to avoid back alleys and vagrants just in case the desperate tried something desperate.

I checked my equipment, fully loaded of course, and made my final approach. The warehouse was a fairly small one based on the blueprint from the city archives. I didn’t see how they’d manage to have such a massive Night Market housed in it if the turnout was comparable to the last.

The front entrance had nine guards calmly standing around, all armed to the teeth. They looked to be the same group as last time, more PMC than freelance merc. They were all dressed the same, looked the same, and armed roughly the same in a weird sense of uniformity that usually wasn’t seen outside of the corps. All of them had that patch of a roughly rectangular constellation on their arms.

I approached the guards, none of them reacting to me in the slightest outside of the one in the middle. He tracked me with his eyes, observing my movements like a hawk watching its prey, as he stepped forward.

I fished my phone out and held up the image I was given after scanning the card. “Here for the market.”

The lead guy approached, staring at my phone. His eyes shifted, revealing them to be some kind of chrome. Probably a scanner of some sort, if I had to guess. “Clear.”

One of the other guards opened the door for me, allowing access to the darkness beyond. I could easily pierce through said darkness, ‘course, but I was more focused on the leader of the group.

He reached for his pocket, causing my shoulders to pull back tensely as my hand itched to grab the grenade in my pants. He pulled out a metallic card. It looked exactly the same as last time- an off rectangle constellation of some sort surrounded by a sea of stars.

He offered it to me. “Don’t lose this. We don’t offer seconds, and it’s your pass to the next market. Just scan it with your phone.”

Woah, definitely deja vu. That was, like, the exact same thing I was told last time. I snagged the card, slid it into the inner pocket of my jacket, and headed into the building without another word, though I did carefully watch them out of my peripherals.

The inside of the warehouse was… not what I expected in the slightest. Instead of the compact place being tightly packed with stalls and buyers, it was almost entirely empty. Well, not empty since there were shelves covered in dusty boxes around everywhere, but there weren’t stalls or people. I walked around, the dimness of the place having no effect on me as I followed a trail of disturbed dust.

I spotted several guards along the way, each as loaded up as the last. They didn’t do anything, just eerily watched me from the shadows. Or at least, it would’ve been eerie if I couldn’t see them just fine.

The middle of the warehouse sat entirely void of racks or boxes. Instead, several armed guards stood around a massive hole in the concrete. The hole was big enough to support what looked to be modified swing stages hanging over it. There were three of them scattered around the hole like makeshift lifts. A PMC stood on every platform as an operator.

Should I just leave? This wasn’t part of the plan. I didn’t have any knowledge of where the lifts might lead to. I made escape plans for the warehouse itself, not for an underground section of it. And who knows, it might even lead down into the Underground proper.

I took a deep breath. I didn’t actually need to go to the Night Market. Realistically, I just wanted to get parts and supplies to make some new armor to help out with my planned spree of heists. The armor would help, but I didn’t need it. I hadn’t needed it in the past, at least.

On the other hand, having better armor would help me stay alive if things went south. And they had a high likelihood of going south. My next several heists were going to get complicated. They would be the biggest heists I’d ever tried to pull, outside of maybe that one on the Neo-Jokers.

But even then, that was just a gang. I’d be going against corporations that had been designing security for potentially centuries. Sure, I had some insider knowledge of the security systems I’d be trying to breach, but that could only carry me so far. Especially if they had anything daemon or Netrunner related, and I knew for a fact one of the places I wanted to hit had a Netrunner on top of several private security forces. The guy hadn’t shut up about how much he spent on security.

Blackout, the tech, would help immensely in all aspects, but I’d need a radiation core to get the damn thing to work at a minimum. The Night Market was my best bet for finding the right kind of materials to make one. I’d also need a bunch of other specialized materials for some other gadgets I had in mind.

I took a deep breath and flicked on Cold-Blooded. My body instantly chilled as my thoughts calmed down and my emotions bled out. With a more focused mind, I ran some calculations and thought a bit deeper about my situation.

With a sigh, I deactivated the Perk and headed to the closest lift. Logically, I’d be fine. With a group as big as the Constellation, which either owned or operated their own private military contractors, there was very little chance I’d be attacked inside of their Night Market. Unsafe Night Markets tend not to last long, and Constellation must’ve lasted a very long time to be as big as it is.

The operator didn’t speak as he calmly clicked on a control panel’s button, lowering us down into the depths. We remained dead silent as the lift left the light of the warehouse. It was a rather long way down, at least seven or eight stories though I suspected more.

The lift exited out into a large cavern. It wasn’t as big as the one Mira and I found, but it was several times larger than the warehouse. Stands and stalls sat scattered about the place, packed tightly like sardines. Some of the structures even looked more permanent, as if this was a recurring place for the Constellation Night Market.

Lights and lanterns dangled from the rock ceiling, shedding dim light all over the place. Some stalls were covered in lights while others basked in the darkness. The rocky ground - not as rough as I expected it to be - was uneven in places, allowing some stalls to be higher or lower depending on where they were set up.

Low whispers of negotiations held sway over the place, the conversations quietly echoing around. Lanterns flickered on lit paths, casting inconsistent light all over the place. Dim figures wandered about the various stalls. Several people were tailed by what looked to be armed guards, revealing their wealth even without directly showing it off. I didn’t blame them. I wish I brought a guard or something to help carry stuff out of here.

The stalls were lined with goods of all kinds. Whereas the last one had a theme, tech, this one didn’t seem to have one. Everything from potions glowing with ethereal pulses to homemade-looking chrome sat scattered around the various stalls. There were even several people with food stalls set up, catering to the shoppers. I appreciated the hustle as they vented delicious scents all around.

I had several things I wanted to get, but I paused for a moment and checked how much money I had. I brought along the four ounces of gold, so I had ten thousand at the very least. Add onto that thirty-five hundred Rayn- wait, rent was in three days… okay, add onto that nineteen hundred Rayn, and I was in a better spot than the last time I was here. Still not as much as I wanted though.

I wondered about the stalls, eyeing the things on sale as I meandered about the place. I flicked Aetherial Perception intermittently, staying vigilant to any effects or items that resonated with the Aether. There were a surprisingly high number of them. Even tech stalls had an item or two that were enchanted. Some even gave off auras, like the items taken from Cwalu. It was deeply uncomfortable.

It was due to this vigilance that I caught an ethereal strand sneaking through the air, lightly wrapping around my wrist. I didn’t immediately react to it, instead turning on Cold-Blooded as I tried to figure out what was happening. The strand loosely tugged me off toward the back side of the cave, almost as if asking me to follow it. It was such a minute thing, I doubt I would’ve even noticed if not for Aetherial Perception.

Should I try to break it? Or see where it's leading me… I was relatively safe in the Night Market, and I had grenades if things looked like they were going south…

After a few moments of hesitation, I decided to loosely follow it. I worked my way through the stalls and market stands, the strand pulling me toward a permanent-looking pavilion in the back filled with merchandise. A familiar form stood in the loaded pavilion.

Suvroc, the four-eye masked kinetic that sold me my printer, stood calmly behind a table covered in machines of various kinds. A flash of Aetherial Perception revealed the strand connected to a small golden coin resting on top of the table. As soon as I closed the distance with it, the strand broke apart, reforming as it snaked off towards the rest of the Night Market once more.

“Ah! Welcome back! Come, come, choombata! Come view poor Suvroc’s wares! I’m sure I have what you’re looking for! And if I don’t? I know who does!” The man spoke in the same slightly crazed, ecstatic tone to his voice as the last time.

”How have you been, Suvroc?” I asked as I stared down intently at the coin, trying to figure out what exactly its purpose was.

The four red eyes of the mask seemed to stare into my soul. His head flicked down to the coin before looking back up at me. “Suvroc is good! Very good. Recently, I even acquired this mystical coin!” He grabbed the gold thing, waving it around. ”It helps bring potential customers right to my shop!”

His words… I don’t know why, but the way he casually offered information about the coin... it was almost as if he knew I felt it and was offering a peace deal. I needed to be careful of this guy. “How intriguing…”

”Indeed, indeed. Come now, what can the great Suvroc do for you?” The person bowed his head, waving his arms around the merchandise.

I looked around at the guy’s wares. Most of what he had was machinery or stuff related to machinery. “I don’t think you have what I’m looking for.”

”Suvroc knows who does though!” He waved his hands out towards the rest of the market.

I thought through my list of items. Most of what I wanted I’d already seen on the way here, but there were a couple things. “You know where I can find a Rykon shard?” Rykon was the material used in the radioactive core of Advent’s eye.

”Ah, looking to make a bomb? I doubt anyone here sells enough for that…”

”What- no. I just need a couple small slivers.” What the hell? The Net didn’t say anything about Rykon and bombs. Just that it was a rare radioactive material highly reactive with electricity.

”Oh… well, ole’ Merlo could probably sell some to you. She’s a purveyor of crystals, you could say. Look for the massive banner covered in gold symbols and ask for the purple ones.” Suvroc leaned forward onto his table. “Say, how about a game?”

”A game?” I asked, feeling a bit apprehensive. I don’t know what it was, but something about this guy gave me the creeps. It's like he knew more than he should even if his way of speaking made him sound like a dumb child.

”A simple game! Suvroc’s fourth favorite game! You share a bit of information, and then I share a bit of information. It could be about anything, the more interesting the better!” Suvroc’s voice contained such mirth and excitement that it had to be fake. Even Mira didn’t sound quite like this.

I thought briefly about it, and Cold-Blooded helped me to calmly analyze the situation. I didn’t have anything to lose from such a game. Er- I did, but as long as I said something mostly unrelated to me it wouldn't be an issue. “I guess… hmm…” What could I say? “La Soga was in Ayhtryn City a few days ago.”

”How interesting… okay, Suvroc finds this acceptable. The Eidolons have been incredibly active in the city as of late. A massive battle broke out the other night between over a dozen different Eidolons' Magi.”

Cold-Blooded kept me from freezing up more than I already was. “How interesting… you know why?”

“Hmm… for a price!” Suvroc rubbed his hands together.

I promptly took a few steps away. It was interesting, but I needed all my money. At least until I knew how expensive this shopping trip would be. “I’ll go see Merlo then.”

”Take care, choombata!” Suvroc turned towards the next person approaching his stall. Aetherial Perception revealed the same strand loosely wrapped around their wrist.

I turned away from the stand, heading back towards the rest of the Night Market.