To Hell and Back (Hellworlder pirates)

Ch 62 Red Eye

Red Eye

Astarte didn't really get many chances to visit her mothers house, and rarely ever stayed the night. So she never really got the chance to visit her old room. She had thought that since her mom had renovated the brothel she would have packed away Aster's old stuff and made use of the space. Instead she had left everything exactly the way Aster left it. Some things were out of place from regular cleaning, and someone had definitely gone through her manga seeing as some of the volume where out of order. But beyond that everything was the same. Her dresser and closet still had some of the clothes she had left behind, her shelves were still packed with books and music. And the little white daisies her mom had painted on the wall when she was a kid were faded, but still recognizable.

And most importantly, the floor still creaked just a little whenever someone stood by her door. "Come in" she said as soon as she heard the floor creak and saw the small shadow peak out from under her door.

There was a slight pause before her visitor gently opened the door, and poked their violet head through. "How did you do that?" Alwen asked. She looked very groggy, and just barely managing to stand upright.

Astarte smiled mischievously "X-ray vision."

She looked stunned for a second "did the Toy Man make an eye that can see through walls?" she asked incredulously.

Astarte snorted "I wish, he said the radiation would fry my brain. Shame too, it would have made peeping a lot easier" she said hoping to get a rise out of Alwen

Alwen stared at her for a second before shaking her head in defeat "I'm far to hungover for this."

"If you need more time to recover then we can postpone this." Aster offered.

"No, its my own dumbass fault for going so overboard. I swear one of these days I'm going to swear off alcohol forever."

Aster made a face "Blegh, life without booze wouldn't be worth living."

Alwen glanced at her and pursed her lips, but held back whatever it was that she wanted to say. "Well alcoholism aside, are you ready to remove the bandages?"

"Already, didn't I just get brain surgery? Shouldn't we wait a little longer?"

"Ordinarily yes, but the Toy Man used the same filaments we used to operate on your eye to stitch your head back together. He perfectly healed the bit of skull we removed and stitched the two halves of skin back together on a cellular level. So while I'd recommend against anything too extraneous or stressful, it's perfectly safe to remove the bandages." She explained.

Aster blinked with her one eye in surprise. It appeared that the Toy Man's progress into advanced medical tech was further along than she had ever imagined. Just a few years ago something like this was thoroughly outside the realm of possibility. She would have to see if she could convince the Toy Man to sell some of his designs to Caduceus. "Then by all means, let's see what half a billion credits gets me."

"How much!" Alwen gasped.

"A little over half a billion. Costs were pretty high since this is the first ever synthetic human eye, and might have been a little cheaper if I just went for an exact replacement of what I had before"

"How rich are you?" Alwen gaped.

"Upper half of the one percent here in Sol, but close to the bottom when compared to some of the hundred billionaires in the core worlds, and I can't even hold a candle to the trillionaires. I usually just pump all of my profits back into the market, but I keep about a billion in savings just incase something goes catastrophically wrong."