Marvel as you ascend in to your planar form
19th May 2014 – 5.26 pmI'm not really here yet, but it would be wise to check the state of the home system. It won't take long. I launch probes, perform a blanket scan, and see that all is fine. I'm very protective of our ore anomalies. I take care of a bit of business and return a handful of minutes later to be here proper, repeating the blanket scan to see no change. Good. I shall explore.
Resolving our static wormhole and jumping through sends me to a system I last visited a year earlier, when I podded a pilot not in his Imicus scanning frigate, then popped the frigate. That was a curious one. My notes also tell me that the static exit leads to null-sec, which will be amongst the nine anomalies and eight signatures.
Reconnoitring the class 3 w-space system finds the previously noted tower gone, and no ships and no activity to report. I call my probes in to see who else connects to this system. First hit is a wormhole, a chubby one too, but it's only an N968 outbound connection to another C3. I've probably just opened it too, starting the slim window of opportunity available before the discovery scanner kicks in on the other side. I'd best use it.
I recall my probes and jump to C3b. I only scanned one signature in C3a, I'm pretty sure I know where I left off. I may even go back, because there's little to see. Nothing on my directional scanner from the wormhole, a blanket scan reveals eleven anomalies and nine signatures, but no ships, and exploring finds no occupation. Still, I'm here, I may as well scan here.
The static exit to low-sec is expected, and a second wormhole looks good until I warp to it. Just a K162 from null-sec. Pure Blind, by the looks of it, the mix of the Malpais and Cloud Ring nebulae being quite distinctive. A third wormhole waits until last to be found, being a weak signature. That makes it an outbound connection. I'll leave that for the moment and check the exits.
The K162 does indeed take me to Pure Blind, where a ghost site in a system empty of pilots is tempting. Tempting enough to spur me in to action. I head home, change the fitting of my Loki strategic cruiser, and return to the null-sec system that remains empty of pilots. Align to the site, cloak, and enter warp. Decloak as I decelerate in to the site, lock on to each container, and scan their contents.
Mobile depot blueprints, ho-hum. I've seen them recently, and the ones I collected haven't sold yet. But, huh, that Ascendancy Alpha blueprint has got to be worth something. I move as quickly as my micro warp drive can push me towards that can, scanning the other two for completeness. An Ascendancy Epsilon blueprint too. This is quite the site.
I'm at the container with the Alpha BP, so it makes sense to hack in to this one first rather than be afflicted by indecision. Hack, hack, hack. Click, clickety click. Randomness and chance work in my favour! A couple of helpful nodes and an easily found core cracks open the can. I grab the Ascendancy Alpha BP and burn towards the one holding the Epsilon.
Rats! My combat instincts kick in and I reflexively activate my cloak. It even works. I've moved sufficiently far from the cracked can but not too close to the intervening rats, and my Loki submerges in space. I cut my speed and turn my ship around to head back to the wormhole, not wanting to stay for the fireworks.
No Ascendancy Epsilon blueprint for me, but Alpha has got to be better, right? 'Um... no', says Fin. I think it's all much of a muchness, examining the details, and at least I got one of them out of the site. The only problem now is getting the BP to market, as we have no convenient route at the moment. Never mind, it can wait for now.
I explore some more, after ditching the blueprint back at our tower and restoring my Loki's fit. There's not much out there. The weak wormhole in C3b is an I182 outbound link to a C2, which holds an active tower protected by less bubbles than an off-line tower in the same system, and wormholes to class 1 w-space and high-sec. High-sec Domain, in fact, but an exit that's seven hops from Amarr, after a few through w-space. It's not great.
The C1 connection from C2a also has occupation but no activity, and just one chubby signature amongst the fourteen present. What are the odds that it's the static wormhole? It's hard to tell when warping to the resolved signature lands me in empty space. Waiting for a minute doesn't change the emptiness of space, and no new signatures appear under my probes, so I must have resolved a dying K162. It happens sometimes, and I don't much care to dive in to weak signatures this late in the evening. Time to head home and rest, happy to have hacked my way in to an interesting container.
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