EVE Fiction

Pryce Caesar contemplated the beginnings of his journey.

How many times had he lost his starships, their crews, before his journey into Null-Sec? He recalled his encounters with pirate Capsuleers. A number of them had killed his ships, while also showing him charity and advising him on what to do in the future? Showed him charity, but what of the crews he lost due to his own recklessness? He supposed that many Capsuleers did not care about such things. He supposed that immortality's price was apathy towards those who were mortal. For an immortal, life was fun and games without a care of consequences towards others.

How many times had he himself been killed, his pod ruthlessly blown apart for sport? He had to check his combat log, since his memory was blurry on the subject. Five times. Five times he had been killed since becoming a Capsuleer, and five times since he had been transferred to a new clone body. He wondered if his mother would have wept if she were still among the living. The body of the boy she had given birth to was now a cold corpse in the vacuum of space, the body he now inhabited nothing more than a copy, even if his mind and soul (so he hoped) was still the same.

He recalled his last physical death. In the depths of wormhole space, he had recklessly aspired to explore the unknown, the untamed...the unkind. Out of the depths of space, a Wormhole Capsuleer came at him when he had aspired to scan ancient ruins in the depths of unknown space. There was nothing to be seen in local channels. He never saw his aggressor coming. With the death of that body came the loss of valuable implants, which in hindsight he concluded he should have sold. They were a gift alongside his full license. He prized their attributes over the ISK they would have given him, a fact he mulls over still.

He still lost ships after that. One of them was a gift from a member of the Evil Young Flesh. The one who destroyed it did so during a mission, and he gave him ISK as recompense and completed his mission for him (such was the strangeness of Pirate Capsuleers, he thought to himself), but the event was still a mark of shame for him. He was entrusted with a ship by one he came to consider a friend, and he let them down by venturing into Low-Sec, a world where he was warned against venturing into.

He recalled the strangest event. When running a mission in a Myrmidon, his ship's controls locked up, leaving him hopeless to defend himself or retreat as the enemies he was assigned to destroy for a mission tore into his ship. He did not see anyone else who jumped from his ship after that. In his complaint filed to CONCORD, they reimbursed his ship. He still puzzles over the experience, as he had it happen twice again afterwards (without losing his ship, thankfully). He wondered what kind of bugs or gremlins could cripple a Capsuleer's ship as such.

Having experienced the dangers of Security missions, he defaulted to the relatively safer Distribution missions of the Sisters of Eve. He shudders when he recalls certain missions - he was asked to carry trash to other facilities, but he had suspected that the "trash" was actually excess refugees that the Sisters "trashed" because their facilities were strained. Even the most benevolent of factions, he realized then, had their darkest of secrets.

He thought of when he purchased his first battleship. He was proud of himself, having finally gathered the ISK to buy himself one of the majestic battleships. He had a bunch of important missions to run for the Sisters that required immense fire-power, and he used his new Megathron to deal with them. He found repairing to be a taxing job, so he opted to place an Armor Repairer on his ship to save on the ISK. He completed all four missions, and his pride was great back then. Then he volunteered for a Level 4 Agent's security mission.

His Megathron did not survived. Arrogant and sure of himself, he did not stock his Megathron with enough Drones to counteract the smaller vessels he would be up against. He wonders still if things would be different if he did. Regardless, his pride cost him dearly. Webbed and warp scrambled, he was helpless as his opponents pounded on the Megathron with reckless abandon.

He lost her.

What brought him to the decision to become a Capsuleer? Was it the promise of immortality? The desire to shed blood in battle with other Capsuleers and against pirates? The power he could one day accumulate in the darkness of the stars?

It was tales from Null-Sec space.

The Battle of Asakai. The Bloodbath of B-R5RB.

The tales of those battles reached all across New Eden. Over the most trivial of things (a jump button accidentally pressed by a pilot of a Titan, a sovereignty bill left unpaid), New Eden witness two of the largest battles it would ever witness in its history. Tens of Titan, hundreds of Dreadnoughts and dozens of Supercarriers, the mightiest warships ever seen in New Eden, were struck down in battles between Capsuleers deep in Null-Sec space between mighty alliances.

While he was not one to enjoy the thrill of killing other Capsuleers indiscriminately (though he has wished for vengeance upon certain individuals) one of his ambitions was to one day participate in such a battle. To be there when history was made in Null-Sec space by yet another great confrontation.

Until then, he would train his skills and build up his wealth. He imagined it would take a long time - close to a year at most - until he felt he would be skilled enough to run in actual combat with other Capsuleers - his more experienced and ruthless brethren who struck him down many times before.

His new Corporation would be his home in Null-Sec as he prepared; its members his mentors as he learned what best to do and what to avoid in the new world he stepped into.

He paid many prices in his beginnings.

He learnt from his mistakes.

He will continue to learn from his allies and comrades in Cloak and Daggers.

Much will change over time, but ambition remains the same.

One day, he will be part of history.

Pryce didn't know the meaning of bliss until a chance encounter with a Dread Guristas Commander in a Hub.

As he had finished what he had assumed was the last of the ships he would encounter in the Hub, he was planning to start looting the wrecks for anything of value when someone locked onto him. Quickly, he checked local, and realized that the rare occurrence of a Site Commander coming out to fight had just occurred. He knew their Bounties were worth as much as the sum total of the lower-worth Hubs, so he considered it a bonus. Turning his Drones and guns on the Dread Guristas, he made short work of the site commander, and went to see what valuables were in this commander's wreck. The first one he came across had a High-Grade Crystal Alpha implant, if he recalled correctly. The second one did not have that, instead having the standard Faction ammunition and rare modules.

When he looted this one, he nearly died of shock.

He found a High-Grade Crystal Omega implant worth over a billion ISK.

It was one of the Holy Grails of Implants and, to his luck, there was a buyer for it in a nearby system. He decided to loot the rest of the site later, as he booked it for his home station, and sold the implant.

With just one lucky drop, Pryce Caesar had more than doubled his ISK amount.

His anticipation rose. He did not know just how rare this kind of drop was, but he knew that he was lucky enough to get it. It was rare for Site Commanders to come out at all.

He smiled to himself wryly.

Guristas Hubs be warned. Hunting season is open.

The hunter is Pryce Caesar.

Although he had already left the University of Caille on an official basis, unofficially he still had much to learn from the University. When he became a Capsuleer in the vacation months, he reached an agreement with the University - on the condition that he continues his studies through FTL communications and was successful, he could manage his time as a Capsuleer and as a student. One currently in Null-Sec, but a student of the University nonetheless.

He knew that dividing his time was going to be trouble. He began planning out what he might do in the future. If he did not yet have the PLEX saved up for the necessary extensions to his license by the solstice of Winter, he may have to remain in-station for periods of time without a license (one he now shared with a family friend and fellow Capsuleer named Xennos Octavian). As a result, he would need to have a PLEX on hand just in case. He was not yet in the kind of ship that would allow him to accumulate ISK via pirate bounties at the speed he desired.

That might change, but he knew he would still have to divide his time wisely.

Being a Capsuleer was one thing, but a successful student was an entirely different challenge.

Pryce felt he had come to the end of his journey.

He had lost too much to his own negligence to feel he was able to continue any longer.

Desperation, self-loathing, an encroaching feeling of despair all wrapped tightly around his heart and constricted it until he could hardly even speak.

He was in Gicodel now, tears on the verge of pouring down his face as he contemplates what he had done.

The people who took them in. The ones who gave him a home in the perilous world of Null-Sec...With bitter words coming from self-hate, he could not contain his anger, retreated to High-Sec.

And he left them. He sent the CEO an embittered letter detailing his losses, and then he left. He urged his benefactor, Xennos, to do the same.

He became a Capsuleer to experience a life of adventure and accomplishment, to make his name in history as a participant in the legendary battles of Capsuleers.

All he suffered, in the end, was repeated death, destruction and humiliation at the hands of Capsuleers. All because of his own idiocy.

He stared at the clock, thinking of the time when his license would expire. It was only a matter of weeks.

He closed his eyes, thinking of when he would say his final goodbyes to space-ways of New Eden...

Pryce wringed the hair on his head.

He really had to stop taking unnecessary risks.

First, taking on the final wave of a Haven AFTER the carrier ratter left (probably didn't get the Dread Commander he was looking for). Then, taking a shot at a Ghost Site in just an Astero, and over-shooting the Mainframe with a MWD.

Both were unnecessary and outside of his league (he realized he forgot to turn on the shield hardeners initially with his Vexor), and he paid quite the price.

After letting his emotions boil over, his thoughts finally calmed down, he came to a decision: he would have to re-think how he approached his life as a Capsuleer quite differently. He couldn't afford to have the crews of his ships die because of his continued recklessness (they were not immortals like him), and he had become more concerned about his future. Once adamant about only using the funds he gained from bounties or selling materials to finance his career, he realized that he needed to spend less time in space, and more time connected to home, using the finances of his family to extend his career until he was confident enough and skilled enough to make the ISK to fund his career without perpetually drawing on the family coffers, and to avoid the unnecessary losses he so often suffered, upon reflection.

Ships were expendable. Lives were not.

Was it the fortunes of war, or just plain bad luck on his part?

He had abstained from participating in the war because he had things to wrap up with the University, and the next thing he knew, the members of the MBC had stormed his home space and his alliance moved out of their former home region not long after he himself had evacuated to High-Sec to recuperate.

Now he was finally done what he needed to do at the University, but was also in between a rock and a hard place. Virtually everything he possessed was now trapped in his former home region under the hands of a rival alliance, which meant that he likely would have to start anew.

But he had been hearing whispers of the Upwell Consortium's new Citadel project. A new type of structure that would soon phase out the currently existing outposts over time. It presented him with a glimmer of hope. He did not know how or when, but he heard rumors that any personal or corporation items that were stored in the Outposts would be transferred to the nearest empire-aligned station in Low-Security Space once the Outposts started being "removed" from space.

He did not know how or when but, perhaps, this meant that his assets would remain safe and reclaimable.