Discretion > Valour

Day 4 - Enroute to Curse

I set off on my epic journey to Curse, a mere 90-odd jumps away, with a light heart. So far, my travels had taken me on a tour of the old Soviet countries, and after a brief stop sunning myself in Italian Syndicate, I was off once more. I had met some friendly pilots, and only been killed once, and so was feeling optimistic.

I happily greeted everyone in local, only to discover I had found what I thought at first must be EVE's Dr Who:

Satisfied that I had managed to spread some patriotism to this errant Aussie time-traveller, I hastened onwards. As the number of jumps ticked slowly downwards, my mind turned to my finances. In setting out with 1m ISK, I had somewhat underfunded myself if I wanted to be able to actually make a life out here.

As much as anonymous, and indeed nonymous, donations are gratefully accepted, I would rather not make it my MO to rely on charity. That, and so far I'd only been given 10 ISK, so one must be realistic. As such, I needed a plan if I wanted to be able to keep a steady supply of defenceless space craft.

Not long after I began musing on a plan, I was approached by what at first seemed to be a friendly entrepreneur, who had mistaken me for a trader (or tradder, apparently):

Hooray! Someone had finally attempted to lure me to my unsuspecting death via the old jetcan flip. As soon as I 'look' at his items, by which I mean he expected me to cop a feel of them in my own cargo bay, the bizarre laws of the universe would suddenly make me fair game! Then I thought again... I was in a system with 0.2 security... there would be no repercussions for shooting me on sight. So he probably would just vaporise me when I arrived. Deciding that in this case discretion > valour, I fled to the next gate in the intention of swiftly fleeing. However, I was stopped short by a grisly discovery...

A corpse was floating in space, near the wreck of a frigate. Being the inquisitive soul that I am, I approached cautiously, wary that this might be some sort of ambush. I'd heard that people can get cloaks for their ships, and I was not wanting to experience this first hand unless it was me doing the cloaking. Even so, I got close enough to scoop the poor dead man to my cargo bay. I was also quite excited by this find, as it must mean that I had missed a recent battle. Not only that but it was the corpse of that famous space wanderer DavidBoweh!

I announced my discovery, and was surprised when it transformed into a lucrative opportunity:

Perhaps I had discovered a new, if morbid, source of funding! Asina told me to inform her if I found any more corpses in my travels, and I diligently made a note:

Now a little richer, and more secure about my financial future, I continued on my way. I was nearing my destination now, though I was somewhat disappointed that my route couldn't incorporate the system of Rancer due to a highsec system on the path. Despite rumours of an invasion by Sansha forces elsewhere in the galaxy, the map continued to tell me that the majority of pod-deaths had occurred in and around Curse, and I was itching to see some action.

My itch was soon scratched. Whilst travelling through the Offikatlin system, 24 jumps from my destination, I was greeted by a clairvoyant stranger:

Soon I got chatting to the rather intimidating xxxAlloxxx (not his name, obviously), and he began to taunt another pilot, Niarta, in local. Clearly a fight was brewing, and I wanted to watch. Popcorn in the microwave, I headed to the action, despite my reservations that I might become collateral damage:

Fortunately, by this time they were too busy to follow up on this tantalising red herring, as they were merrily shooting three shades of shit out of each other. I quickly swooped in on the scene, orbiting the combatants, Allo flying a Hurricane and Niarta at the controls of a Stabber, at close range. Rounds and missiles screamed past my portholes as I snapped a few pictures to send to the folks:

They hammered away at each other for an agonizing few minutes, using all the tricks at their disposal. Allo's shields failed quite soon into the fight, but his armour held long enough to break through Niarta's heavily reinforced shields. With her shields gone, and armour plating boiling off her hull under Allo's onslaught, she managed to break through her opponent's warp scrambler and fled. Allo quickly fired up his engines and followed on her last known heading, leaving me alone in the shadow of the seventh planet. My only companions were some inactive drones, abandoned by Niarta in her desperation to escape. Disappointed at the anticlimax, but still pleased at my first taste of combat, I headed to the next jump gate on my itinerary.

Soon, I would be in Curse, center of explodey death as far as the map and my friend Cadrega back in Syndicate were concerned. Would I get a glimpse of the violent and cruel nature of the region? Would I remember to upgrade my clone before I ended up back in Italy? Would I be able to further my burgeoning corpse-hunting career? Find out not too long after patch day!