Over the course of the next few days, Jack and Lyna visited every single Slavetrader on the black market. Still, they did not find the person Jack was looking for. As Lyna was still analyzing the data they stole at the same time, Jack had some time to think about his future goals.
He could somewhat predict what would happen in the immediate future, or at least he hoped so. That being the case he was still conflicted. To get the best outcome for himself and the region, he had to deceive House Vallian and bait them into the war against House Steel Song. The Problem was, starting a war in a game was whatever, but starting a war here.
The encounter with the pirates had made it absolutely and undeniably clear to him, that this was real and dangerous. Nevertheless, it was extremely valuable to have a safe place he could rely on and where he had many contacts.
He wanted to discuss this dilemma with someone, but even after living with them for a few weeks, he didn't feel comfortable talking to his crew, nor did he trust them completely. It was not that they had done something wrong, it was just the type of person he was. This did not mean he would not rely on them or trust them to do their jobs, he just didn't trust opinions when he could not assess someone's character fully.
Maya was the exception to that rule as he had spent more time with her than with anyone else and she had a very open and straightforward personality making it unlikely she would hide something from him.
But alas, Maya was at the palace, getting educated.
His communicator started flashing and snapped him out of his thoughts.
"Yea, Captain speaking?"
"Lyna here, I just finished sorting out all the data. Looks like our target is not on the planet. I will send you the results so you can take a look yourself. Honestly, I still have no clue what we are looking for."
"We are looking for someone with black eyes, but not just the pupils or the iris, but completely black. Eyes that look as if they are the void itself. Eyes that send a cold shiver down the spine of any voidfarer."
There was a moment of silence on the other end.
"Why exactly would we need someone like that?"
"It's not like we need them, it's just I don't trust other people to handle them. These eyes can make you feel the call of the void and depending on the person that has them that's a really powerful weapon."
He could hear her gulping through the line as she imagined the consequences.
"I see why you would not want someone like this going free on a planet full of people that like us. But if your description is accurate, should we not also look for dangerous and blinded people? You can just blind them right?"
"You can and you can't really. They will go blind, but even if you remove their eyes, the effect will prevail. The eyes are just the physical manifestation of the effect the person has. It's hard to describe."
"How did you even learn of them? ... You know what, never mind I don't think I want to know. I will send you the list with the changed parameters soon."
After she hung up, Jack looked at the communicator with a strange expression. He had no evidence to back up any of his claims. He couldn't really tell anybody that this reality they were in was just a game to him a few weeks prior.
Another thing was he still could not gauge how his crew saw him. Maya for example seemed to trust his every word and Lyna had gone along with his plans without much need for explanations or justification. In the same way, nobody had questioned his decision to visit Mykena or Vallia. While this pretty much represented the freedom a captain had in-game, Jack still thought it would be good to somehow gauge the crew's mood from time to time. Again Maya came to mind.
He really needed to think of something he could do for her, so she would not feel like he was using her for his dirty work. Not like she had ever complained to him, but there was no need to have a situation arise if he could prevent it beforehand.
The first thing that came to mind was talking to her when she came back.
He shoved the issue to the back of his mind and tackled the next problem. Of the multitude of possible disasters, he could only influence two directly, that being the noble war and the awakening of the Void and for the latter, he wasn't even sure if it actually was a possibility in this universe. The problem here was, the more he searched in that direction and the more people he would involve, the more likely became the event to happen. So he decided it was best to do nothing and wait for more clues to appear on their own.
As in any good space game, there was of course a Xeno invasion as an end-game crisis as well. Xeno was the broad term for every non-humanoid sentient species in the Galaxy. As for the crises, there were two options first, there was a Swarm type Hivemind Xeno that had evolved from the various feral beasts on a planet on the outer fringes of the galaxy.
The other Xeno-crisis was the return of an ancient race, that had ruled this galaxy a long time ago, but left for unknown reasons.
Technically there was a third option, where the arrogance and racism of the humans would lead to an alliance of Xeon and other humanoid races to dethrone humans as the dominant species. But most players regarded it as a minor even as all you had to do to prevent it is not be a dick to people. Also with Maya as one of his officers it was very unlikely he would ever become a target of that particular event.
To Prevent the first type of Xeno crisis, one had to find the planet and blow it up or find a way to stop the hivemind from coming into existence. The planet, if it had spawned at the galaxy's creation was randomly placed on the outer fringes. So locating it would take an astronomical amount of recourses or sheer blind luck and then again there was the problem, that nobody but him would know what to look for. In the end, all he could do was keep his eyes open and make sure his allies were prepared.
The second Xeno crisis was less of a thread in his mind. There were safety mechanisms in place to prevent the ancient Xenos from returning. He would check up on them, just to be on the safe side, but if nothing changed during the transition at least that crisis should not occur.
Having made plans for all the disasters he knew gave him some peace of mind and let him focus back on the tasks at hand. A quick glance at the time told him, that Maya would be back in about two local hours. That was enough time to mentally prepare and maybe visit Lyna to see how she was progressing. He was still not sure if he wanted her to succeed or not. He shook his head with some force. Worrying about the future too much would only distract him from what was happening in the present. He had made some decisions and the rest would follow swift. He could feel his heartbeat speed up when he thought about involving Maya and the tips of his fingers got cold. He knew it was a stress reaction and it was dumb to have it, but all he could do was shake his hand in annoyance. He took a deep breath, then he got up to act on his plans.