The taller Kellmar brother took a step forward.
The memory hit—running through dark alleys, boots pounding behind
her, lungs burning...
BEE: WARNING. Heart rate 147 BPM. Blood pressure elevated.
Adrenaline spike detected. Tess, what is happening? I cannot see. I
cannot help. I am useless. ERROR: PANIC PROTOCOLS CANNOT EXCEED
100%
The second brother—shorter, quieter, but built like he could bend
rebar with his hands—moved to flank them. His expression was blank.
Predatory.
Kade grabbed Tess’s arm. “We should…”
“Well, well,” the tall one said, smile widening. “The little
scavenger who got away.”
“Clint!”
The voice came from the back hallway—deep, authoritative, carrying
the weight that made people shut up immediately.
The Kellmar brothers froze.
A man emerged from the kitchen door. Big didn’t quite cover it—he was
massive, easily two meters tall and built like a linebacker who’d
decided suits were more practical than armor. The suit was dark,
well-kept but not expensive, tailored to accommodate shoulders that
suggested he could carry a hauler if he needed to. His face was
weathered, mid-forties maybe, with scars that came from years of work
you didn’t talk about.
The third Kellmar brother. Big Yuri.
Everyone knew his face. Everyone in the lower sectors did. But to be
standing in one of his businesses…
He looked at the two thugs, one after the other. His expression
didn’t change, but something in the air shifted.
“Step. Back.”
Clint opened his mouth.
“Now.”
They stepped back.
Yuri moved past them, not even glancing in their direction, and
stopped in front of Tess. Up close, she could see the details—the gold
ring on his right hand, the slight bulge under his jacket that suggested
he carried some kind of weapon, the way his eyes assessed her in about
two seconds and came to some kind of conclusion.
“You’re Marcus Rivera’s girl,” he said. Not a question.
“Yes sir,” Tess managed.
“Vera sent you to fix my refrigeration system.”
“Yes sir.”
He nodded and then turned to Clint. The movement was deliberate,
controlled. “Clint. Dmitri. Upstairs. Now.”
“But we were just...”
Yuri’s hand moved so fast Tess almost missed it. He didn’t actually
hit Clint—just flicked him on the forehead with two fingers—but the
younger man flinched like he’d been slapped.
“Upstairs,” Yuri repeated, his voice dropping into something colder.
“Go play your stupid game. This conversation is for adults who
understand how we do business in Sector 6.”
Clint’s face flushed red, but he didn’t argue. He turned and headed
for the stairs at the back of the restaurant, Dmitri following silently
behind.
Yuri watched them go, then sighed. “I apologize for that. They’re
young. Enthusiastic. Don’t understand that chasing people through alleys
for a capacitor is bad for business.”
Tess blinked. “You knew about that?”
“Pretty hard to miss when two of my guys take off after someone in a
hurry. And I know everything that goes down in the lower sectors,” He
gestured toward the bar. “Your friend hungry? We’ve got hot food. Actual
food, not paste. On the house.”
Kade looked at Tess. She nodded.
“Uh, yeah,” Kade said. “Thanks.”
“Sit,” Yuri told him. “Eat. Your friend’s going to be a while.”
He turned back to Tess. “Come. Let me show you the problem.”
BEE: Heart rate decreasing. Threat assessment:
unclear.
No kidding, Tess thought.
She followed Yuri through the restaurant, past the private booth with
the reinforced door, through the kitchen—stainless steel and organized
chaos, three cooks working over burners that actually produced
flame—and into a back storage area.
The walk-in refrigerator was impossible to miss.
It dominated the entire back wall, easily three meters wide and two
meters tall, with a heavy plasteel door and a control panel that looked
like it belonged on a starship, not in a restaurant.
Tess stopped. Stared.
“Yeah,” Yuri said, a hint of pride in his voice. “You like it? Got it
on a trade transport that came through Sector 3 last year. Wasn’t even
supposed to be up there—House Tertian was doing this whole charity
thing, showing off their wealth to us peons. Still, glad I got it. Best
refrigeration unit outside of the upper sectors. Proper dungeon
tech!”
He pulled the door open. Inside was a space bigger than her workshop
on the freighter, lined with shelves holding everything from actual
vegetables to cuts of meat Tess had only seen in holos.
“Problem is,” Yuri continued, “ever since the power increase earlier
today, it’s been acting weird. Won’t maintain temperature. Cycles on and
off randomly. I’ve got thirteen hundred credits of food in here that’s
going to spoil if I can’t get it working.” He gestured to the control
panel. “I can’t make heads or tails of the circuitry. Been calling Vera
all day. With the power increase, apparently every technician in the
lower sectors is flooded with work.”
He looked at Tess. “Good day to be a wrench, I guess.”
Tess approached the control panel, already activating [ANALYZE].
What bloomed in her vision stopped her cold.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
This wasn’t just a refrigerator. This was dungeon tech. Or
at least, something built on the same principles. The Aether flow
patterns were identical—nested skills, refined architecture, that same
crystalline substrate she’d seen in the aether distribution nodes.
COOLING_UNIT_CY-4402 {
designation: “COMMERCIAL_REFRIGERATION”
loot_seed: 0xC4402A1F
skill_patterns: [
{name: “Temperature Regulation”, tech_required: 3, status:
ACTIVE},
{name: “Humidity Control”, tech_required: 4, status: ACTIVE},
{name: “Aether Distribution”, tech_required: 3, status: ACTIVE},
{name: “Diagnostic Monitoring”, tech_required: 2, status: ACTIVE}
]
hardware_status: OPERATIONAL
processor_status: ONLINE
last_error: SKILL_CRYSTAL_MISALIGNMENT }
There. At the bottom. SKILL_CRYSTAL_MISALIGNMENT.
“I’m going to need a few minutes,” Tess said.
Yuri nodded. “Take your time. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need
anything.”
He left, closing the storage room door behind him.
BEE: Tess? Situation stable?
“Yeah,” she murmured. “I’m okay, Bee. Sorry about the panic.”
BEE: No apology necessary. I dislike being unable to assess
threats. The communication relay cannot come soon enough.
Tess smiled despite herself, then focused on the refrigerator.
She pulled open the control panel’s access hatch, revealing the
internal systems. More dungeon-style architecture—sophisticated,
efficient, built to last. But something was definitely wrong. The Aether
flow was stuttering, cycling unevenly.
She activated [INTERFACE] experimentally.
The skill engaged differently than [ANALYZE]—instead of just
seeing the patterns, she could touch them. Her
awareness expanded into the refrigerator’s processing core, and suddenly
she wasn’t looking at circuits and wiring. She was looking at
instructions. Nested commands that told the Aether how to flow,
how to regulate temperature, how to maintain humidity.
It was like reading source code, except the code was alive.
[INTERFACE] ACTIVE
Connected to: COOLING_UNIT_CY-4402
Available AP: 2/2
TECH Level: 2
Information flooded her vision. She could see the skill patterns
running—[TEMPERATURE REGULATION] cycling every thirty seconds, [HUMIDITY
CONTROL] adjusting based on internal sensors, [AETHER DISTRIBUTION]
managing power flow.
But there was a hitch. A stutter in the [TEMPERATURE REGULATION]
pattern, like a skipped instruction.
Tess dove deeper, following the Aether pathways through the system
like she was driving through a tunnel. The skill was drawing from
something deeper inside the circuits—she could see the connection point,
the interface where instructions met hardware.
Except the connection was loose.
“There you are,” she whispered.
She pulled the front panel off the refrigerator—four screws, quick
work with her regular multi-tool—and peered inside. Behind a mesh of
wiring and regulators, tucked into a housing about the size of her palm,
was a skill crystal.
It looked exactly like the ones embedded in dungeon infrastructure.
Translucent, faintly luminous, with fractal structures visible in its
core. But this one had come loose—likely from the power surge
earlier.
Tess reached in carefully and reseated the crystal. It clicked into
place with a satisfying snick.
Immediately, [INTERFACE] lit up with a dizzying amount of
information.
SKILL CRYSTAL DETECTED
Contents: [CHILL] Skill Tree
- [FREEZE] (Subset)
- [COOL] (Subset)
- [PRESERVE] (Subset)
- [REGULATE] (Subset)
Available Modifications:
- Extract Skill (Cost: 2 AP, TECH 3 Required)
- Embed Skill (Cost: varies)
- Modify Skill Parameters (Cost: 1 AP per parameter)
Tess stared at the readout.
The crystal wasn’t just cooling. It was an entire skill
tree—different variations on temperature manipulation, all nested
together. And according to [INTERFACE], she could modify them.
Change parameters. Even reverse [CHILL] into something like [HEAT] if
she had the AP and TECH level required.
How does that even work? She thought.
BEE: Tess? Your biometrics indicate elevated excitement.
Discovery?
“Bee, I think I just figured out...”
The refrigerator hummed to life.
The sound was steady, nothing like the stuttering cycle from before.
Tess could feel the temperature dropping through [INTERFACE], the skill
patterns running cleanly now, Aether flowing without interruption.
The storage room door opened.
“That sound,” Yuri said, stepping inside. “That’s a good sound. You
fixed it? Already?”
Tess deactivated [INTERFACE] and stepped back. “Skill crystal came
loose. Power surge earlier probably jostled it. Just needed to reseat
it.”
Yuri looked at the refrigerator, then at Tess. “That’s it? You’ve
been in here, what, five minutes?”
“It wasn’t complicated once I found the problem.”
“Vera said you were good.” He pulled out a small datapad and tapped
something then handed her a small credit chit. “Fifty credit bonus.
Untraceable.”
Tess took the chit that read 100 credits, and tried not to stare at
it like it wasn’t more money than she’d seen in months.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Thank you.” Yuri gestured toward the kitchen. “Come on.
Your friend’s probably eaten half my inventory in the last few
minutes.”
“Sure, just let me put everything back where it belongs and I’ll be
right out.”
Tess walked back through the kitchen, and her mind was racing.
The skill crystal. The loot_seed parameter. The precise architecture
matched the dungeon infrastructure perfectly.
There were two types of technology out here. Network-manufactured
stuff—blocky, functional, mass-produced. And then there was this.
Pre-network tech. Refined. Efficient. Built like it had been pulled
straight out of a dungeon.
Because it probably was. But there was no way that an entire
fridge was loot from a dungeon. Was it the skill crystal? What about the
sophisticated electronics?
How much of the city’s old tech was actually salvaged dungeon
equipment? How much of it wasn’t?
They reached the bar. Kade was indeed eating—noodles, actual
vegetables, something that smelled amazing—and grinning like he’d won
the lottery.
“Tess! This is incredible! You have to try...”
A notification bloomed in her vision, cutting him off.
LEVEL PROGRESS: 100%
LEVEL UP!
{NULL} LEVEL 3 ACHIEVED
TECH: 2→3
CURRENT AP: 2→3
No new skills acquired.
Tess blinked. Level 3. Just like that. Her TECH had increased to 3,
which meant she could now extract skills from crystals if she wanted to.
Her AP pool was bigger, too, which meant she’d be able to at least try
experimenting with something.
But no new skills.
She felt a flicker of disappointment.
BEE: Congratulations on your advancement. TECH 3 is
significant. Many restricted systems require TECH 3 minimum for
interface access and manipulation.
“Thanks, Bee,” she murmured.
Yuri was watching her. “You alright?”
“Yeah,” Tess said. “Just… leveled up.”
His eyebrows rose. “From fixing a refrigerator? Man, Techs really got
it easy. Back in my day I had to literally beat a guy with my bare… eh,
nevermind! Congratulations, though.”
“Not that easy,” Tess said. “Progress comes from understanding
systems.”
“Still useful.” He gestured to Kade’s food. “You want something
before you go? Least I can do. I’ll have Florence make you a dessert to
celebrate the level.”
Tess’s stomach growled, answering for her.
Yuri laughed. “I’ll take that as a yes. Sit. Eat. Then get out of my
restaurant before the dinner rush.”
Twenty minutes later, Tess and Kade were back on the street, both
considerably fuller and significantly happier.
“That was amazing,” Kade said. “Like, genuinely amazing. We should do
jobs for Yuri all the time.”
“Pretty sure he’s involved in organized crime,” Tess said.
“Yeah, but he’s nice about it.”
Tess couldn’t argue with that.
They headed back toward Vera’s shop, weaving through the evening
crowd. Sector 6 was even more alive now—shops lit up, music drifted from
open doors, people actually relaxed for the first time in
months.
BEE: Tess?
“Yeah, Bee?” Tess muttered.
BEE: Is it… is it time to work on the communication relay? I
have been reviewing the protocols. I am nervous. But also… excited? I
believe excited is the correct term. I will hear others and take part in
conversations. I can assist properly.
Tess smiled. “It’s going to need some real jury-rigging, Bee. Give me
a minute to get the parts and tools from Vera first.”
BEE: Understood. I will wait. I am experienced in
waiting.
There was a pause.
BEE: But I would prefer not to wait long.
“Soon,” Tess promised. “Very soon.”
She looked up at the lights of Sector 6, at the city coming back to
life around her.
Level 3. TECH 3. A skill that let her interface with Aether
processors and modify how they worked. How many other things around the
city ran on skill crystals? Tess had only ever worked on Network tech in
her Dad’s workshop, and this entire thing was new to her. Why had her
Dad never mentioned them?
And somewhere in the depths, a lonely AI was waiting to finally be
heard.
“Come on,” she told Kade. “Let’s go get the comm relay so I can
really show you something cool.”
