Chapter 555: Moonfall I

Chapter 555: Moonfall I

21 years after the events at the Phoenix Peaks.

I didn’t feel almost 60. Age and White Dove had their talons in some of my friends, those who’d deferred Immortality for now, and they looked a little older. Iona’s insane vitality meant she aged at an eighth of the speed a Systemless person would, and her changes were subtle. A few hairs had gone grey here and there from stress, but that was it.

For me? I’d stayed at the peak of youth and vitality the entire time, continuously rejuvenating myself to a biological age of approximately 25, keeping my organs from prematurely failing. It kept me fresh and energetic, and I had to wonder what it was doing to my thinking and thought processes.

I was still... vaguely human though.

I woke up a little groggy to a cold bed, mentally berating myself again for leaving ‘switch my sleep cycle’ to the last minute. All sorts of delicious smells filled the air, and a thousand and one sounds reached my ears and woke me up before I could check the time and see if I needed to be up now, or if I should be sleeping more.

With a sigh I [Teleported] out of bed, and a series of rapid [Teleports] later I was splashing face-first into our warm bath.

I blew bubbles into the water while I adjusted, then flipped over and floated on my back for a bit, letting the warm embrace slowly wake me up.

Tonight’s the night.

The thought, the reminder, jolted me to full awareness faster than getting hit by one of Artemis’s [Lightning Bolts].

Tonight was the night!

I had to look my best. I pushed my speed and dexterity to the maximum as I scrubbed and washed myself at absurd speeds, not really caring about all the water being flung everywhere. I was a bird in a birdbath, losing half the water in the gargantuan pool was to be expected. After, I zipped out, using a clever [Teleportation] trick to instantly dry myself, then hit my vanity a moment later, three rooms over.

My hand paused in the middle of applying foundation.

Hang on. Every single pound, every single gram was accounted for, with only the smallest of tolerances. Did I really, absolutely, need to be looking my absolute best in front of tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people?

My hand trembled as a vicious war erupted inside of me, the practical side at war with my vanity.

Forget White Dove’s curse on apples. The vanity I got from my companion bond with Auri was the true curse.

The vanity part of me won out when it pointed out that I could literally dip my face into [Event Horizon] to wash off and delete the makeup, and the survival part pointed out that pixie cuts were adorable and I’d look amazing with one.

The last second stuff was weird. We’d done our best to plan everything out, but we clearly hadn’t planned out every single last detail.

My outfit for the next three months was next, and it could only be put on with [Teleportation]. I’d been right back in the School. It took years of experience and leveling to get the skill high enough to be easily useful, but once I was there and critically, in the habit of using it, it was good. Spatial for the win! Shame it was so expensive, but the quality of life improvement couldn’t be beaten.

The outfit was one-of-a-kind, unique for my build, biology, and situation. It had a dozen different layers, each doing something unique. The ones I really cared about were a number near me designed to be luxuriously comfortable, and to feel like it practically didn’t exist at all. Like being wrapped in a warm, weighted blanket at all times, but designed by [Tailor] Classers so that I wouldn’t start to feel like it was ‘too much’, in the same way a shirt worn for days on end started to feel icky.

A layer of personal enchantments deeper in would be keeping everything clean, and where we were going... yeah. The less said about how my natural functions were handled, the better, and it was both terrifying and a little humiliating when I had to test it all out on the ground. All aspects of it.

Honestly, sunk-cost fallacy and how much this all meant to Iona had been the only thing keeping me going at that stage.

The last layer was made out of shimmering overlapping teal scales, and I had my suspicion what they were made out of. Harper refused to say what they were, ‘for my own protection’, and the final cost on the outfits was staggering. Each individual layer had been treated with a different set of alchemical solutions to improve them in one way, shape, or form - except the scale layer - and the technical specifications were thicker than some dictionaries. The only thing stopping it from being a marvelous suit of armor afterwards was how bulky it was - I wasn’t going to be doing any sprinting in this - and the utter lack of gloves. My bare hands were exposed, a sealant around them stopping anything from getting in, and the helmet looked like a fishbowl.

Harper had laughed her ass off when I asked, and Iona and I kept making fish-faces when we tested them out. Glub-glub, I’ma fish. Speaking of her...

I closed my eyes, letting my ears locate my beloved wife. A quick [Teleport] through a wall and a dash along the walls, running literally over the heads of bustling staff members, Valkyries, and only-Skye-knew-who running around, and I joined Iona in our great planning room. She looked frazzled.

“Hey!” I gave her cheek a quick peck, looking all over the room.

“Time to store it all.” I confirmed, swiping my hand over the wall and storing it all in [Repository of the Magus].

Wall after wall, pile after pile, I dumped all the papers in, mentally able to ‘see’ the tags and labels we put on each one. SPEC-11-v0.2.1843 was an early iteration of the space suits we were wearing, TRAJ-17-v6.44.204 was one of the plotted intercept courses. [Repository] let me ‘sort’ the files, and the TRAJ “finalized” sets - truly, only the latest iteration, we had learned wisdom about calling ANYTHING ‘final’ a long time ago - were near the ‘top’, metaphorically speaking. The SPELL set was a detailed list of everything we thought we needed, with endless tallymarks next to them as I wrote each one out in duplicates - along with a few blotches when I’d cast one of the spells. Iona’s eyes glimmered with unshed tears as the last of the paperwork vanished, and I found myself blinking rapidly as the unexpected emotions hit.

[*ding!* [Repository of the Magus] leveled up! 650 -> 651]

[*ding!* [Luminary Mind] leveled up! 791 -> 792]

I suppose decades of work for a project of this size did have some significant weight to it. Only one level was a bit of a disappointment, but I suppose with how high of a level it was, it made sense. Would’ve been dozens upon dozens of levels at sub-100, but over 600? I had to work for every level.

Just like that, it was all gone. Stored away. It was far better to bring the extra papers and not need them, than to realize we needed an old trajectory, calculation, or thought, and not have it. [Astral Archives] had a copy, but Iona didn’t have a perfect memory for this.

I hugged her. She needed it. I needed it.

The Valkyrie sighed, and brightened up.

“Alright! Let’s do the ceremony!”

I poked her ribs.

“Eat first.” I scolded her. “We’re going to be burning calories on this, you’ve been burning the entire candle, and we need to be at peak performance. Eat. Or else.” I threatened, not having any ideas what I’d actually do.

Iona nodded.

“Alright, I’ll eat something. Think Auri left us a pie?”

I snorted.

“Unless she’s changed her recipes recently, I think she’s left us 41 pies.”

“Such overkill.” Iona hurried over to our private kitchen, one of the few places in our villa that was just for us. “I think I can eat three now, and maybe stuff one more in during the parade.”

I found my appetite was being held hostage by the steadily increasing knot of tension in my stomach.

Holy Ciriel. We were actually doing this. Speaking of ceremonies and Ciriel, I should say hi to my friend. It was kinda weird that anytime, anywhere, I could say hello. Made me a little self-conscious at times and drained my introvert batteries whenever I was aware, and I was so thankful that Ciriel let me talk first before responding.

Hey! It’s the big day! We’re going soon! You going to watch the launch? I asked her.

Yes! It’s going to be super exciting! I don’t want to rain on your parade, I really don’t - also, Selene bribed Elarin, the Rain God NOT to mess with the parade, he was totally going to - but back in my day, I got the chance to heal some people who’d gone part of the way to the moon, and got quite a few nice levels out of it! Hopefully you’ll see some of them yourself! I’ll be watching most of it - unless you clearly don’t want me to! Just pop over and say hi if you ever need to chat and are bored. The goddess said.

Okay! I will!

I kept up two different conversations, one with Ciriel, one with Iona, as I forced myself to eat. The suit was big, bulky, and hard to move around in, but every bit of practice was good.

[*ding!* [Etheric Aegis] leveled up! 450 -> 451]

Then it was time for the ceremony, and the start of the end.