Chapter 559: Moonfall V

Chapter 559: Moonfall V

My healing snapped me back to the picture of health, but that was the only thing that looked good about the situation.

[*ding!* [The Arbiter of Life and Death] has leveled up! 910-> 911. +400 Strength, +400 Dexterity, +800 Speed, +800 Vitality, +1600 Magic Power, +1600 Magic Control, +1000 Mana, +9000 Mana Regeneration from your Class per level! +1 Strength, +1 Dexterity, +1 Speed, +1 Vitality, +1 Mana, +1 Mana Regeneration, +1 Magic Power, +1 Magic Control for being Chimera (Elvenoid) per level! +1 Mana, +1 Mana Regeneration from your Element per level!]

Not now.

It was like the hand of a god had descended and smacked me like a fly, and there’d been so little ‘me’ left that the healing had explosively scattered the remains of my body all over the shuttle, painting the entire inside in gore. It was almost entirely red, but dozens of tiny bone shards stuck up from everywhere, and the occasional rainbow serpent scale shimmered in the light. My old hands were still dangling from the gauntlets, my radius poking out like an accusing finger. Iona blinked, the white of her eyes in comical relief against the rest of her red face, and she spoke urgently. One hand was up and shielding the candle, the protective casing on it entirely broken.

“Elaine? Elaine! Speak to me, what’s wrong, what’s going on?” She was at the edge of her seat, brimming with the primal need to get up and rush over to me, to tend and care for me. Only our drilled discipline kept her in her seat - we needed her skill running to preserve the hull, especially if this was going to happen again.

“I’m alright.” I automatically said as I scanned around, [Luminary Mind] splitting into a number of different thought processes. I slowly replayed the scene in my mind, trying to work out what had happened.

I’d been flying along one moment, then violently jerked away the next. None of my senses had picked up anything, [The World Around Me] didn’t have anything unusual in the picture.

I went cold as the part replaying my injuries and cataloging them started to roll in with the complete damage report. I’d been entirely pasted, from head to toe. My brains were scattered in a 300 degree cone.

I shouldn’t have survived that. This was exactly the type of injury that should’ve done me in entirely. The only thing I could imagine was the complex interplay between my vitality, healing, and biology, combined with ‘only’ getting squashed on one side, not both. I’d been hit by a hammer, not a hammer and anvil. I shivered and unsteadily pushed myself off the wall, letting me slowly float across the shuttle.

There was a me-sized and shaped dent in the wall where I’d ended up that deformed the skill-reinforced steel. My spacesuit was ruined. The weakest seam had come undone, unzipping me from head to crotch, giving an avenue for everything to escape through. My helmet had shattered, and there were shards of bloody glass embedded in the ceiling. A piece fell out of Iona’s cheek, my permanent healing throwing it out.

“Good thing we didn’t make the whole thing out of glass.” I joked poorly, trying to bleed off some of the tension.

“Elaine.” Iona said more urgently. I wriggled out of the ruined remains of my spacesuit, one part of my parallel thoughts noting that biological functions were about to become so much harder, then pushed away. I held up my hand, letting it slowly flip me through the shuttle, then pushed away an eyeball that was getting a little too close.

“I know, I know, I’m sorry, I’m still trying to work out what happened. I’m coming up with nothing.” Technically, I wasn’t coming up with nothing, but my brain was coming up with wildly outlandish theories. Like attack by an invisible dragon - we wouldn’t be alive if that was the case, plus it made no sense. The list only got more absurd from there. The biggest part I worried over was it looked like I was the only one impacted. Vitality defense excluded an external attacker, so the problem was me. Somehow. I worried over the problem more, continuing to scan everything.

Our current set of supplies were ruined, but I had more in my [Tower]. They looked like they’d had blood and bone explosively sprayed all over them, but not like they’d been pasted by massive forces. It had only been me.

“We’ve been thrown quite a bit off course, and we’re currently in a deep spin.” Iona said. “The sooner we can work this all out, the better.”

I nodded. This deep in space, the risk wasn’t returning to Pallos and burning up in the atmosphere, it was the harshness of space itself. Speaking of, one of Iona’s big concerns was her candle. I cast a quick spell to resecure it. I’d cast a better set of spells later.

“Going to get some cleaning done before we resume. Maybe refresh our supplies.” I said. I opened my wings to-

I was alert, I was aware, and feeling myself suddenly jerked the wrong way had me stopping my flight. Didn’t stop me from getting pasted a second time, this time from the legs-up, but it wasn’t as bad. I ‘stopped’ about halfway up my body before I reformed. I pulled myself up and out of the large dent I’d made in the ship, only for everything not strapped down suddenly trying to escape.

[*ding!* [The Arbiter of Life and Death] has leveled up! 911-> 912. +400 Strength, +400 Dexterity, +800 Speed, +800 Vitality, +1600 Magic Power, +1600 Magic Control, +1000 Mana, +9000 Mana Regeneration from your Class per level! +1 Strength, +1 Dexterity, +1 Speed, +1 Vitality, +1 Mana, +1 Mana Regeneration, +1 Magic Power, +1 Magic Control for being Chimera (Elvenoid) per level! +1 Mana, +1 Mana Regeneration from your Element per level!]

“Breach!” I yelled, lowering myself back into the hole. Iona swore, and moved like she was going to get up.

“Stay! Still!” I yelled, reminding her. “Whatever’s going on, the last thing we need is to lose the armor on the shuttle!”

“Fuck!” She swore again, her knuckles going white on her seat. My body was still plugging the hole, and my mind raced as I tried to figure out a solution. We had gems to handle breaches, but most of them assumed small ‘punch in’ breaches, not an Elaine-sized hole. Fortunately our redundancies had redundancies, because I’d knocked out one of our repair gems in my hurtling around.

“Should I teleport to-” My teeth clicked together as Night’s letter slammed back into my mind.

...only read it in case everything should go wrong. With that being said, and this is of critical importance - READ BEFORE YOU TELEPORT.

“Night knew this was going to happen.” I whispered. Iona took one hand and wiped her face off, nodding at me.

“The letter he sent. Should we read it now?” She asked.

Our ship was coated in gore, we were spinning out of control, my flight was fucked up, and my body was physically plugging a hole. My breathing was getting heavier in the thin air, like I’d been launched from sea level to the top of a mountain in a single go.

My training and practicality demanded I pull the letter out now, weight and levels be damned. There was no sense in trying to solo the monster as a Ranger when we had an entire team to back us up. I felt it was time to tag Night in.

“We could try to see if we can solve this ourselves.” I hazarded. “It’d be more levels, and possibly more weight?” I was trying to make some concessions to Iona and her goals.

Iona shook her head.

“No, let’s get the letter now.” She insisted, worry etched in her face.

I cautiously teleported it out of [Repository], breathing a little mental sigh of relief as it stayed still. I read it outloud.

Elaine,

I hope you’re reading this due to your eternal curiosity getting the better of you, rather than encountering a problem in deep space.

Skills are interesting things, and as you know, no two skills work exactly the same. From what I have seen and observed of your flight skill, it is a RELATIVE skill, and not an absolute skill. That is to say, your flight depends on Pallos itself, not upon your body. This has a number of advantages and disadvantages, one of which you are encountering now.

As you are flying towards the moon, your skill’s frame of reference has abruptly shifted from Pallos-local to Moon-local. Your current velocity is far, far faster in Moon-local than it is on Pallos-local, and I suspect at this point that you have been violently shoved into the side of your craft, possibly repeatedly as I hope you’ve tried a number of things before reading this letter. The experience is good for you.

If you teleport, your relative velocity will be set to Moon-local, and the shuttle will be barreling away from you too quickly for you to ever catch up, barring a literal miracle. Selene and Lunaris may deign to intervene, given the nature of the mission, but gods can be fickle. I would not rely on them to bail you out, a paladin of theirs onboard or not.

The solution is relatively simple, and I’m a bit disappointed that you were not able to solve it yourself, as other pioneers who’ve visited the moons before and returned to tell me their tales have. At the same time, your classes are not [Explorer] or [Celestnaut], but a [Healer] and a [Paladin], so you can be forgiven the shortcut. Iona must use her skills to slow the Argo II down to a Moon-local speed. Then you should brace your legs against the hull, and fly at top speed as hard as you can away from the direction you’re trying to push. This will cause you to attempt to match the speed of the Argo II, making the relative speed difference one that your body and the grand ship you are upon small enough to effect a change. From there, you can regain control, and continue on your journey.

Do note the same thing will happen on the way back. Forewarned, you should not have nearly as many problems.

I hope we are able to laugh over this missive in approximately four weeks, when I expect you back.

All the best,

Night

The letter was soothing, and I felt a calm come over me.

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“Okay, okay, this is all fixable.” I said. “Night even made it sound easy!”

It was no good.

“I think we’re ready for you again.” Iona announced.

“Point to where I should go.” I said. Iona tapped two spots right over her shoulders, and I lifted an eyebrow. That was a lot of faith in me and my abilities - if something went wrong, her head would be between a hard place and a rock quite quickly. I didn’t offend her by asking if she was sure, instead grabbing and floating into position. I was basically squatting over her face, but not in a fun way. Iona let go of her candle, and grabbed my rear. I could see all of her muscles flexing under her suit.

“Ready?” She asked.

“Just confirming, because this still feels a bit weird to me - I’m flying away from you, right? As fast as I can?”

I took out Night’s letter again and we both reread it.

“It makes sense to me.” Iona said. It took me a few moments later for the picture to click once again.

“Alright, yeah.” I agreed. “It makes sense to me as well. Just confirming, I doubt we have any planned TRAJs for where we’re going to end up, yeah?”

“Ish?” Iona agreed. “We’re not so far off that existing TRAJs won’t work. We’re well within the margin of error. Or... fuck, no we’re not. Our velocity’s completely changed. Yeah, we’re completely off. Let’s get into position, then discuss how we’re getting there.”

“Alright. Countdown from three?” I proposed.

“Three. Two. One. GO!” We counted in unison, then I spread my wings and tried to fly as fast as I could forwards.

My knees bent at the sheer force, protesting the amount of effort and complaining that my joints weren’t made for this. Iona’s hands pushed up, helping support all the forces rumbling through my body and spreading out the impact on the Argo II. My mana dropped hard as I pushed it into the skill, getting myself just a little bit more speed. I cut it off with only a sliver of mana left in my pool, and quickly returned back to ‘normal’ speeds. Thank dexterity I didn’t overdo it and shoot across the Argo II again. That would’ve been awkward.

I almost wanted to complain about the lack of [Seraph] levels for the stunt, but I’d gotten a little spoiled recently with how easily levels came.

We had a few minutes of calm while my mana regenerated. My stomach rumbled and my mouth was dry. While I was in a blessed position to normally not worry about the physical demands of extensive spellcasting on the body, we were on a bit of a crunch. I couldn’t go into [Tower] and retrieve any of my supplies before ‘syncing’ my speed with Iona’s. Or in other words, getting the Argo II’s local speed close to Moon-local.

“Are you as hungry as I am?” I asked Iona. She licked her dry lips.

“I’m fairly certain that talking about anything else is a smarter decision.” The blonde said.

“Good point.”

We drifted for a bit, then I circled back to position.

“Ready to push?” I asked, getting back into the over communication cadence.

“Aye, confirm ready to push.” Iona said.

“Three, two, ones, go!” We shouted in unison, and I flung myself forward again.

The hardest part of the move was when the relative speed was the greatest, and our first efforts had blunted the bulk of the edge. I gritted my teeth as my knees bent again, but slowly, surely, was able to bring the Argo II back under control.

“I think I’ve got it.” I said as I flew forward, almost hovering in the middle as I flew at top speed. Iona snorted and pulled a hair with [Telekinesis], and I twisted slightly to slot myself into the gauntlets again.

It felt like I was getting ripped apart again, but gentler. The difference in velocities between what I could ‘push’ the Argo II at and what I was currently going wasn’t that large, the only difference being what I was trying to push. My muscles screamed at me, then were soothed by a combination of [Universal Cure] and [Zenith Everlasting], and we were soon flying along at a good speed.

[*ding!* [Zenith Everlasting] leveled up! 888 -> 889]

I almost wanted to see how long I could stay awake under the skill’s influence to level it up as hard as I could, but it was a bad idea.

“Supply run in eight minutes, then let’s recalculate the course.” I suggested.

“Agreed.” My wife said.

I spent an immortal moment looking outside, once again reveling in the sheer beauty of the vast cosmos. For all that we were on a mission, there was no sense in missing out on this once in a lifetime opportunity to stare at the stars.

Goddess, they were beautiful. They didn’t twinkle out here. They burned brightly and defiantly, sending their light for untold billions of miles before it reached my eyes.

I was Immortal. I had all of eternity. Would I someday board another ship like the Argo II, and go deeper into the vastness of space? Were there new worlds to explore?

Suddenly I didn’t feel like I was forever confined to the surface of a single planet. I rotated around, and took a look at Pallos.

It was a tiny blue marble in the vastness of space. Everyone I’d ever known, every single man, woman and child, every monster, beast, and dinosaur, was on that tiny dot. I felt my mind expand at the sheer profoundness of it all, words utterly failing to describe how tiny and insignificant it all was. From the smallest ant to Jormungandr, from level 1 to level 4096, that was it. That tiny fleck of blue, only a little larger than the boundless expanse of stars all around it.

I don’t know how long I stared for before Iona coughed, and I was reminded about Earth as well. There were even more people on their own blue marbles.

“About that supply run?” She suggested, and I snapped back to reality, the here and the now.

“Oh! Right!” I said, looking around and evaluating, then shrugging.

We needed everything.

I vanished into [Tower of Knowledge] and zipped to the third floor, thankful I didn’t need to drop off anything on this run. I grabbed more air canisters, a picnic basket, and a small barrel of water, before grabbing two victory mangos. I then teleported back into reality, my scales and healing fending off the harsh vacuum of space. It felt like thousands of pinpricks under my skin, in my eyeballs. Pressure trying to escape, but being healed just as quickly as it was damaged. My scales were doing good work, helping keep everything inside, but I didn’t want to see what happened when it failed on me. I sped towards the Argo II, [Teleporting] back in and shivering as the sensation dropped.

[*ding!* [Teleportation] leveled up! 411-> 412]

“Victory mangos!” I told Iona as I bit into mine, skin and all, like a totally normal and civilized person.

“I thought those were for after the mission.” She started to peel hers like a... well, I loved her very much, mango-waste or not.

Eh, who was I kidding, we both knew I was going to eat it.

“We have lots of victory mangos.” I primly told her. “For situations just like this.”

Iona smiled, and we ate the mangos together, made all the sweeter by floating through space, drifting through the void.

Three days later, we gently landed on the blue moon.