Chapter Two Delta

The Junkman's Savior

ISK Balance: 155,778,018.32

I just couldn't catch a break today. Zipping around in a pod really makes you appreciate the obnoxiously flashing egg's agility when there's an Apocalypse, two Drakes, Hurricane, Scorpion, and a Purifier on your tail. You'd think with such an investment in impressive ships and the effort to get them together they'd have something better to do than chase a harmless pod around. I found it slightly incongruous I was being chased by a group called the Soul of Fountain when I had already made it into the Outer Ring, but they had the guns and I had the pod they wanted to pop, so I made no quip about how they should go home.

In our two or three jump chase my pod gave me a significant lead, and I rapidly made it to a safespot before triumpantly Control-Q-ing. When I logged back on an hour or two later, I had freed myself of Fountain's shadow - the Outer Ring was now mine to explore. A glance at my map and the clever cross-application of some filters showed a suspicious system with seven ship kills and seven pod kills to match in the past hour. To me, this screamed bubble camp, so I decided to avoid the bubble bath and made a note to stop before I made that jump.

Far before I had to worry about this system, I stumbled unexpectedly upon ORE space. Never before have I been so overjoyed to happen upon NPC stations. This meant two important things to me - first, I could find a new ship. Second, I could jump clone back to my old home and grab my long-neglected copy of the Salvaging skillbook, which would give me something to do while I roamed. It seemed extraordinarily appropriate; of course the vagabond should be gathering scrap as he wanders, to build a grand machine to reach the Jovians with or - more realisticly - trade for ISK or favors when he was down on his luck. I was severely disappointed to find ORE apparently doesn't deal in Stabbers, or any Minmatar ships for that matter - a good thing to remember for later.

Nevertheless, I made the clone jump down to Catch, my former home, costing myself a twenty-four hour timeframe just to get a low-rank skill. Perhaps there is some visiting to be done down here. A member of Masssive Homicide noted my former alliance status and asked if I wanted to join MASSH. I declined, but mentally noted something that amused me. Not so long ago, I had a friend in MASSH, back when the corporation was part of FREGE Alliance in the drone regions. I wanted my friend to be able to come visit me in my home, so I helped my friend get MASSH blue standings to my alliance. He loved my 0.0 home so much it would soon become his home, too, and he left MASSH. As I spoke to this MASSH member, I wondered to myself if it was those blue standings my friend and I garnered that eventually introduced MASSH to my alliance and led them to ingrain themselves and become members. It's a unique feeling to have made a small impact on the path of other players.

While biding my time in Catch, that fellow LocutusOBorg from a couple days back recontacted me. He's moved on from the NPC corp and is dabbling in manufacturing. His drake is still alive, too. Before I logged, I promised him he'd be building Titans for huge conglomerates before long. I hope the best for him.