The dense greenery of the jungle suddenly stops and opens up to huge chasm. At the bottom runs a wide river. On the other side dozens of giant orange rock pillars a rise from the landscape, over a hundred meters high, their tops about level with the jungle edge where Nyla is standing. The height is dizzying. Some of the pillars are quite narrow, only a dozen or so meter in diameter. Others especially the ones farther away span hundreds of meters.
About a kilometer in the distance a city, appears to stretch over the pillars. Bridges, cable carts and buildings span the drops between the towering rock formations. Even the smallest structures appear to be larger than any Nyla has seen in Havenbrook or even in Polaris. Giant spires connected by walkways, echoing the very landscape that they are build on.
Tracking trough the jungle had felt like weeks, but in reality had only taken a couple of days. It had been hot and humid and for Nyla, who is used to a cold and arid climate, in a sense a sort of claustrophobic experience. Of course she had no problems with small rooms, the shared quarters on the ship had been no problems, her home wasn't really big, but she was used to to outsides being the freezing, wide, white open tundra's of the Snowdrift steps. Not this hot, dense and dark jungle.
It had taken everything from her to not end up in a panic attack. The constant constricting feeling almost overwhelming her. But mainly thanks to her traveling party she finally made it out.
"Finally!" She exclaimed "I feel like I can breathe! I thought that it would never end! This was the worst day of my life!"
"Yeah, it's my least favorite part of the trip as well" Corvus says.
"I hate plants, I hate trees, I hate bugs. Please. Please now we -have- to take an airship back, I am not doing that again!"
"We'll maybe not an airship, but we will have to travel around the jungle, trough the desert when we go home, no way we will be able to drag all the stuff we came to get trough there"
"Also fine, I just don't want to walk trough that awful place ever again. Why didn't we do that in the first place anyway?"
"Because it would have taken weeks longer, and now we are here are al ready" Anno points to the city in the distance. "We are done, you don't have to do it again, stop bickering."
Nyla focuses her attention to the metropole on the horizon, and the groups begins making their way towards it. A series of bridges, some made of rope others made of stone connect the pillars, some of the pillars have have nothing on them, but most have a couple of houses and fruit trees on top. A lot of the buildings are made of stone, something that Nylas had never seen before. In Havenbrook all buildings are made out of scrap metal, and in Polaris the majority seemed to be a combination of wood and scraps. On some of the bigger pillars they pass by people have cultivated land, where they grow wheats and vegetables.
After passing over a dozen or so bridges they come across a pillar with thirty buildings surrounding a small town square. One of the building has a sign of a cable cart. Inside they are greeted by a friendly woman in her fourties'.
"Hi there strangers! Welcome to Astrafall, are you guys new in town?"
"Sure are!" Curvus takes the lead.
"Where are you guys from?"
"Havenbrook, far far north, passed Polaris"
"Never heard of it, big place?"
"Not at all, maybe a hundred or so people or so, all nice folk tho so we can't complain"
"Sounds lovely"
"Bit could though"
"I can imagine if it is passed Polaris. What brings you all the way down here? And how long are you staying"
"Probably a week. We come to visit the tech mages, and buy some supplies"
"Oeh the tech mages, fancy. If you are staying a full week I would recommend the 7-day gondola pass, it's 10 cred per person. Otherwise it will be 1 cred per person per trip."
"I've been called many things in my live but fancy isn't one of them" Corvus laughs as he pays the woman the 60 creds, and she hands over six enchanted stones with a cable cart engraved on it.
"Just show these at any gondola station in the city and they will let you ride it for the next week"
They thank the woman and walk further inside, there they find a cabin already waiting for them. The six of them take place in the seats and with a shock the cabin starts comes to motion.
Nyla stares out of the window, below her in to the hundred meter drop. She gets a strange in easy feeling. Better focus on something else. She throws her attention to the city before her. The buildings have a very different architecture than those in Havenbrook. Everything is very round, smooth and tall. Circular beige towers ranging from four up to dozens of stories tall, with a wide variety in widths. They have arched windows and doors, with half round balconies. Blue doomed roofs top of the buildings.
The cable car enters trough a hole on the 3 floor of one of the smaller buildings. A feeling of excitement fills her stomach, and she practically shaking. Corvus notices, and smiles. "Ready?"
Nyla nods, she steps out of the cart, leaves the building and in to the streets of Astrafall.
Orion runs as fast as his legs can carry him over the misty tundras of the Snowdrift Steps. Snow crushes rythmicly as one foot lands, absorbing the impact, his weight shifting over it, trough the momentum, before using the stored energy to push off. Then doing it all over again with his other foot. Over and over.
If he keeps this pace there is a small change he'll reach Havenbrook in time to get a search party going before dusk.
It all happened so fast, one moment he and Gideon had been tracking a Frostwyrm, trough a snow storm, the next he disappeared. No foot steps, nothing.
A few minutes of effort later, and the rusty metal towers of the town starts peaking over the horizon. The relentless pace starting to creep in.
"Can't slowdown now, need to keep going" he says to him self.
Smoke from chimneys contrast against the sky. Slowly he can start making out more details, looks like at least old Silas has a fire going. Good. Probably means he is at his house.
As he runs into the town from the west side, the first house he passes is his own. The next is Nyla, she is probably still at work now.
Finally, he reaches Silas house. Out of breath he knocks on the old man's door.
After a few tense moments, the old man in brown worn leather boots, brown thick cotton pants, a dirty white shirt, and an old leather top hat, opens te door "Orion, what is it?"
Orion tells what happened, how Gideon was there one moment, and gone the next. How he searched but couldn't find him.
With a surprising vigor Silas jumps in to action. He grabs his long brown coat. "Follow me" he orders Orion as he starts making his way to the town square.
On his way, almost without stopping, he sticks is head in to Zena's window. "Zena. Bell. Now". Moments later Zena sprints passed them, presumably on his way to the tower.
The bell rings, echoing off the metal walls of the town. The towns folk start pouring out of the buildings and streets surrounding the central square. Seeing all the town come together, so quickly brings a strange sense of relief to Orion. For the past couple of hours he had felt so alone, the only one that knew Gideon was missing, the only one searching, at least now he has help."
"Silas, What is going on?" Asks one of them, Corvus, a middle aged man wearing oil stained overals.
"Gideon is missing, is the Omnibus good to go?"
"Yeah, checked her out this morning she was purring like a kitten"
"Good, start warming her up, we'll meet you at your shop"
"No problem" he shouts over is shoulder, already walking away with big strong paces.
What only feels like a few seconds later, for Orion, he is sitting on one of the benches of the Omnibus. It shakes and hobbles as it races over the endless white tundra of the Snowdrift Steps. A sinking feeling sets in to his stomach, he might not see Gideon anymore.
The man had always been somewhat of a father figure too him. Showing him the ropes of the adventuring business; how to track, which foot prints belong to which monstrosity. How to kill. what weak points to hit, how to skin them. How to survive, make a fire, find your way back, build shelter for a cold night. How to do business. what to charge for the various parts of the animals, and what bounties are worth pursuing.
Now he might have received his last lesson: don't wander off in a snow storm.
Corvus shouts over his shoulder, "we are getting close, where exactly did you last see him again?"
Orion climbs over to the passenger chair and start giving directions. The storm has passed, leaving the land scape covered in a blanket of soft white fluffy snow. As the omnibus plows trough the snow, shoving it to the side it leafs a deep track in the otherwise pristine landscape. Good, thinks Orion to himself, if we can't find him there is at least a chance he will find us.
The sun is about to touch the horizon when the Omnibus comes to a halt. We were here tracking eastbound when I last saw him.
"Allright, huddle up in a big circle everybody" Silas voice sounds full of authority.
The search party of twelve form a circle in front of the omnibus. "Good. Corvus, Nyla switch places. When I am done talking everybody turn around and take five hundred steps in your direction. Corvus you'll stay here. Everybody else keep your eyes pealed for any sign of Gideon and make sure the person left and right of you never leave your vision. If you find something let them know, so they can alert the others. No matter what everybody turns around after 500 steps. Allright keep save everybody."
Eleven evenly spaced lines radiate ou from the omnibus, like a clock, with the twelfth one already being there from the tracks of the bus it self. When the sun has already started touching the horizon, about thirty minutes later, they return.
"Did anybody find anything?" Nyla asks already knowing the answer. The tense silence and serious faces speak for them selves.
"Allright we have time for one more, people" Silas says. Everybody switch with the person opposite of you and go in between the track to your left. We'll go a thousand steps this time, which will probably mean you'll lose sight of your neighbors by the end. What ever happens you turn around at a thousand ok?"
961, 962, 963 Orion lost sight of Nyla to his left and Storm on his right about two hundred steps ago. The sun is almost under, the chance of finding Gideon is as good as null at this point. But then he notices it. An uneven patch of snow...
Yves puts one foot in front of his other. Again. And again. What is the point? He thinks to himself. Where am I going. What am I going to do there. What will be waiting for me.
It has been seven days since the van had been attacked by the Aubrough. Seven days since Mase...
...well best not to think about that.
Seven days of walking trough the hot rocky red desert that is the Koschei Valley. Yves thought he would have been out days ago. But there still seems to be no end to endless sand and Mesas.
Should he climb another one? The last one had taken half a day and a lot of effort, and he hadn't really seen anything. But this time surely there had to be a sign of the dessert ending. And if not he might as well give up there. Jump of the cliff or just lay on the plateau until he passes out.
He decides to walk up to one. It looks fairly climbable from this and at least he will be in the shade. Yves decides to go for it.
He takes of his backpack and leaves at the bottom. And starts walking up the steep incline, having to some times use his hands to climb up. It is a tiring tracks but after half an hour or so he reaches the top of the mesa.
The plateau is probably about half a kilometer in diameter and 300 meters high. From here he has a better few of the valley that he tracked trough.
He makes is way to the far edge of the mesa, in ghetto direction he has been tracking for the past weeks, even before he had encountered the Aubrough.
His heart starts racing as he sees it in the distance. Not the end of the desert, but something else. Kilometers away on the edge of the horizon, probably a days walk he sees a couple of buildings. It is hard to make out any details without any binoculars, but he sure he can see at least three distinct structures.
With renewed hope he climbs down. Having to pace him self, as to not to trip in his enthusiasm. High noon, hottest part of the day, is about to start so once he gets to his bag he decides to pace him self and nap in the shade until it gets cooler.
Around dusk he starts his journey. Full of hope of finding other people, after a week of isolation, a proper bed, water and food. It takes almost all night to reach the settlement.
Along the way his hopes start to dwindle as there are no signs of lights in the town. And when he reaches the destination it becomes clear to him the place had been abandoned for years.
A dozen or so buildings, made from rusted metal plates and wood, sit along a central road. A layer of sand on the boardwalks, and piles of it in front of doors, tells him he is most likely the first person to set foot in the little hallow in decades.
Hungry and thirsty, the first building Yves explores is the general store. Luckily the dry desert air has preserved most of the dry foods such as pasta's and beans. He also finds cans of tomatoes and other fruits. No bottles with water, only sodas, and while tasty and clenching his thirst for now, not the best to bring in to the desert.
He makes his way to the inn, hoping to find a place to cook a meal and stay the night. The stove in the inn is wood burning, a rush of relief goes trough him when he finds piles of logs in the back. He cooks his first real meal in over a week, even when he was still on the road with Mase, they didn't bother cooking every day.
Upstairs he finds a bed, more tomorrow he will have more time, and light to explore the abandoned town. Hopefully he can find some water, a good way to bring it with him, and an indication of how far he still has to go trough the desert.
It happened again, the whole subway is frozen in place. The cart stopped moving, the busker is standing there, mid song, with his guitar, the baby stopped crying. And the rest of the people? Well you wouldn't really know right? They are all still staring at their phones anyway.
But you know what is weird? I never really realized it until now, but when the time freezes, so does smell. It's actually the first thing I noticed this time. The typical subway smell that musky, dusty, urine soaked smell suddenly disappeared.
It is the twentieth time this happened to me, since it began about two weeks ago, and I don't know what is causing it. It must have something to do with me right? As far as I can tell I am the only one who can move when it happens. The only one who is conscious too.
I tried talking to other people about it, but as soon as I start I realize I am gonna sound like a wacko. Especially because I have no idea on how to invoke it. so I can't even try to prove it then and there, by moving things around while time stands still or something.
I have no idea what it means or what I should do in this situation. I could control it, I could at least try to help people, or have some fun with or something. But I have no idea when it will happen, and no idea for how long. Usually it is just a couple of minutes, but yesterday there was one that felt like over an hour.
Suddenly all the sounds, smells and lights come rushing back in. This time it was just about five minutes I think (there is no way to keep track of time). The baby start crying again and all seems normal.
I arrive at the house party a bit early. A friend from university, Jake, is turning twenty five next week, and he invited a bunch of people to celebrate at his apartment. I am one of the first to arrive, the guy who is DJ-ing the party is still setting up. Jake is figuring out how to connect a keg to the tap he hired and his roommate is frantically putting fragile belongings in crates and boxes.
"Yo Jake, what about my TV?"
"Don't worry man, if it breaks I will pay you back, just have some fun"
"That's exactly what you said last year! You still owe me two hundred bucks!"
"Oh yeah..."
Not long after more guest show up, and an hour later the whole apartment is packed. I know some people but most of them are new faces to me. The party is pretty fun, good music most people are cool, exactly what I needed to take my mind off the last few weeks.
Suddenly the music stops, everybody freezes, the smell of beer and sweat disappears. Not again! I look around, this has to be the worst one yet, it feels like I am trapped in some sort of storage room for manikins.
What am I supposed to do stand here and wait for it to be over again? Then I notice something. Something moving in the corner of my eye. Strange. I stand on my toes to look over the crowd of frozen party people.
I see her on the side of the room, a woman in a white dress. I shout at her.
"Hey, what's going on?"
Her eyes dart trough the room until she finds mine. She also freezes, but it is either shock or she is trying to fake it.
"I can see your eyeballs twitching" I try to make way trough the frozen crowd. "Are you doing this? Do you have control? Answer me!"
She jumps out of the window next to her, looks over her shoulder and climbs the fire escape. I follow her on to the roof of the apartment.
As I close in on her she finally replies. "I don't know. I mean yeah ,I believe I have control over starting time. But I don't know how or why!"
She looks scared, and I suddenly realize I must have looked crazy, screaming towards her. Especially if she expected everyone to be frozen.
I take a deep breath, trying to calm myself down, apologize, and introduce myself. "I am sorry I didn't mean to scare you, it's just that this has been happening to me for the past two weeks or so"
She finally replies. "Two weeks ago was the first time I was able to stop time. But I haven't met anyone, until now, who could do it too"
"You still haven't. It just happens to me. How do you control it?"
She shrugs "I don't know, I basically just think 'stop time' and 'continue time'"
For a moment the sounds and smells of the city come rushing back in. And a second later they stop again.
"You see? Just like that."
I try to think about time continuing with every fiber in my body. "It doesn't work for me" I say.
"Here maybe, you need to be the one that stops" she releases time.
We try to get me to stop or continue time for a good while before I give up. She freezes it effortlessly and we talk about it for what feels like hours.
I confirm with her every occurrence of time stopping.
"How about the one tree days ago, in the afternoon. A really short one"
"Ah that one was actually useful. Saved a falling glass at my grand parents"
She appears to have caused every one. I am a bit disappointed I have no control but I am relieved to know who does.
Suddenly we are interrupted, by what seems like a man flying with high speed trough the time frozen street below.
Deep in the hart of an untamed jungle, two adventures, Sparky and Guz finally lay eyes on an ancient temple.
They had tracked for days trough the hot dense jungle of Castrovel to find it. Foliage had closed around them like some sort of living maze. But Gus's resolve and Sparky's magic had made it so they could prevail trough the wilderness.
Now, here, in this open clearing they can finally see the pyramid shaped building, of which they had heard only rumors. Legend whispers of unimaginable treasure hidden within its walls.
The building is old and crumbly, over grown by moss, climbing plants and other greenery from the jungle. Maybe sixty meters high with chest high level steps. Within the middle of the front side a long stair presides where the steps are more reasonably sized.
After walking around it in awe, Guz breaks the silence: "Well the only way in seems to be at the top"
"Sure seems that way, doesn't it?" Sparky replies
The sense of anticipation grows with every step they take. "One hundred eighty two steps", Guz counted every one of them.
"That's the same number of days in a year on Castrovel, that can't be a coincidence" Sparky says.
At the top of the pyramid there is a small building, three walls and a roof, really. Three by three meters, with an opening in the front. There they find a series of hieroglyphs carved on the inside of the walls.
Sparky starts an attempt to decipher the writing, following the strokes in the stone with their fingers. Suddenly a noise comes from below them, clicking, stone moving over stone, a muffled thud.
Guz looks at questioning at Sparky "What did you doooooooooo" before he can finish his sentence the floor drops from underneath them. And they find them selves on some sort of smooth stone slide.
About a minute they twist and turn until the slide ends and they find themselves inside the dark interiors of the temple. They turn on their flashlights and look around. High walls on either side of them form a system of hallways.
"Looks like a maze" Guz says "better keep track of our route" as he gets out his data pad and starts drawing the hallways he can see from here.
"Be my guest, but I doubt we are gonna get up that slide to get out"
"Hey, at least we'll know where we have been"
They make their way trough the maze, with Guz all the while keeping track of the path they have taken.
"Wait" Sparky blocks him from moving any further with his arm.
"What's going on?"
Sparky takes his backpack off and throws a few meters in front of him. It lands with a puff of dust, and the floor shift a little bit. Suddenly the air in front of them is filled with arrows.
"Good call" Guz exclaims. "You think it is save now?"
"Only one way to find out" Sparky takes a steps forward and flinches... nothing happens "Phew, let's keep an eye out for other traps" he straps on his backpack.
They continue trough the maze, slowly, watching out for new dangers, but find none. A couple of times they reach dead ends and are forced to backtrack. Until they eventually reach a room.
Inside the room is a pedestal with a beautiful golden staf with a brilliant big red gem stone on top. This is what they came for. "Whoa" Sparky steps towards the pedestal and picks up the staff to inspect it.
Suddenly the room starts shaking, the roaring sound of stone scraping over stone fills the space, sand falling, the walls of the room start moving in. With a loud bang, the doorway, trough which they came is blocked by a stone.
"We're trapped!" Sparky clenches the staf, looks around, and sees their way out. "Up, there is no roof, it's our only way!" he shouts. He shoves the staf between the straps of his backpack, find his grip, and starts climbing the wall. About two thirds of the ways up, the walls have moved so close together that he can use the other wall to shimmy his way up.
Out of breath and exhausted he pulls himself over the edge. He turns around and looks down to see that Guz might not make it. The walls are starting to really close in. Sparky bends over, reaches down and grabs Guz's hand. But while doing so he feels something shift on his back. As he pulls Guz up, he hears a clang, as the staf falls on the ground and starts rolling towards the edge. He has to make a choice now, safe his friend or the treasure.
With one powerful tug he hoists most of Guz out of the chasm, and dives for the artifact. As his hands wrap around the cold gold, a sigh of relief goes trough him. It is short lived however, as a moment later Guz releases a shrieking yell.
He turns around and sees his friend, that has been with him on adventures since their time in the orphanage, looking at him with a panicked look in his eyes. The lower part of his left leg, and most of his right are stuck between the now almost closed walls.
With the staf still in one hand Sparky tries to free his mate, but it proves fruitless. The grating sounds of bones being grind to dust pierces trough Guz's yells of pain. Blood spurts out of the slit as the walls close, and pop his legs like over ripe tomatoes.
A year later Guz has cybernetic legs and is able to live a life again. But the the trauma prevents him from going on adventures again. Sparky overwhelmed by guilt visits him regularly, and although adventuring is his passion, the guilt prevents him from going out ever again.
Bzzt, Bzzt, the world glitches with a voxelated effect; cubes shake in to place and disappear, as a blue hue makes place for full color, while Logistic and Maintenance Droid 3 restarts.
LM3 begins a physical systems check. No areas of major damage detected. Limited movement in right arm and hand. Require basic maintenance.
They then try to access their data banks, bits and pieces of information are available but most of it seems to be corrupted or straight up missing.
The last recorded event is only a couple of seconds long. A woman screaming, a man yelling followed by an explosion.
LM3 tries to recollect who they where, their job, their purpose. This proofs uncharacteristically hard for the android, who usually have perfect recollection of events. However eventually they are able to piece together that they must have been part of some sort of mining outfit around the planet Triaxus.
They are currently in a an android resting pod, LM3 looks door the glass door, but it is to dirty to make out anything. They push against the glass and the door opens with a hiss.
Fragments of recollection tell them this must be the maintenance bay of their mining ship, although it looks like nobody has been here for... centuries? Everything is covered under a thick layer of dust.
Against their better judgment they try opening the automatic door to the main passageway. Nothing happens. They pry their fingers between the small slither of the heavy metal sliding doors and force the doors apart.
LM3 explorers his decrepit ship, a protocol of his "logistic and maintenance" programming springs in to place and starts making a list of everything that requires his up keep: basically everything.
They make their way to the bridge, after they pry open those doors, they are surprised by what they see. There is a huge whole, that stares right in to open space, where the mining and weapons officer used to sit.
This must have been where the explosion had taken place LM3 thinks to them selves. They take moment to take in the destroyed room, a bunch of the tinniest slivers of memories of a time long ago, when the bridge was still heavily used, come back to them. He must have been a part of the crew for a while. They try using the coms, but obviously they don't work.
They search the rest of the ship, trying to find out what happened to the crew, how long they have been out, or anything really, but after an hour or two they don't learn anything useful.
Over the next few days they scramble together a bunch of electronics, and build a device that should sent out a distress signal. But they have little hope of somebody coming to their rescue, an old android stuck on a ship.
The white egg shaped transport pod comes to a halt in front of Demi, the shiny glass front smoothly opens upward with a satisfying his of the hydrolic pistons. A friendly A.I. voice of CAM invites her to take a seat in one of comfortable looking chairs facing each other, two on each side. The door closes.
Demi drops in to one of the front facing chairs. The voice asks where she would like to go.
"Vern Block Appartement 26B, quickest route" she replies
"Expected Travel Time will be six minutes and twenty three seconds" the Artificial Intelligence confirms as the pod start moving out of the station. It smoothly accelerates trough the glass tube. Demi stares out of the window, as the white fittings that connect the tubes rush by every fifty or so meters.
She takes in the city as she peacefully glides between the high rise towers of the central business district, Giant glass structures with flowing shapes, most of over a hundred stories high, accentuated by a terraces with trees and other plants every four or five levels.
At the ground level the business district is a basically one big park where the building and public squares are connected by meandering paths.
Demi thinks back on her day, although not very eventful it had been pretty good so far. She had spend most of it in her office, working on the designs for a new office building. Like the buildings she is passing by and the one she works at, it will have numerous private offices, that anybody could request to use for free for any period of time, as well as open shared flex spaces where people could come and work together.
The building had been commissioned by CAM, or the City Artificial Manager. It is the AI that manages the city. Outsiders might think that CAM rules or controls the city. But this is far from the truth. CAM merely manages it, it people that decide what is needed, they make requests, CAM tries to comply autonomously, but any major decisions it has to make will be put in front of a board of qualified humans
In this case people requested places to work, CAM tried to finding workspaces, but realized the city was running out of empty offices, it proposed a location, a general shape, size and functions. A group of qualified city planners where asked to approve this plan. Before architects where commissioned to come up with a design. In this case Demi was the one to pick up the job.
After Demi finishes, her work will be checked by CAM as wel as other architects. CAM then will come up with a plan on how to build it which will be checked by a board of structural engineers.
Finally the structure will be build, mostly by robots, but a team of craftsman will take care of the finishing details.
After the office is completed, any citizens requesting a place to work might be assigned any of the offices for free like anything in the city.
As Demi requested the fastest route home the pod starts moving towards ground level. Eventually it goes underground completely and speeds up even more.
A few minutes later the pod surfaces again, but this time the tubes meander trough mid and low rise buildings of the housing district.
Buildings in organic flowing forms, with facades made of white bio-plastic, wood, and glass, accented by patches of greenery, effortlessly flow in to one and other and the surrounding landscapes. Eventually the pod goes inside a building and comes to a halt inside Demi's apartment. The glass domed door opens up wards and CAM announces that she has arrived.
Demi drops on her couch and start browsing for something to eat. "Already had a burger yesterday" she thinks to her self. Eventually she settles on veggie nacho's, her own recipe that she came up with a few months ago. She could make it her self, but she decides to be lazy and let CAM make it.
A few blocks a way an automated kitchen springs to life. Preparing the dish in the exact manor as it observed Demi do it. Once it is done it automatically get neatly packaged in to a bamboo box and send trough a pneumatic tube directly to Demi's apartment.
In the meantime Demi watches her favorite content creator on her holo screen. A guy named Josh who build useless inventions, this video he is creating a steam powered toothbrush, just as Josh is about to stick his shoddily build invention in his mouth the food arrives. Demi digs in as Josh screams when steaming hot copper, predictably, touches his thong, and his friends are all rolling on the floor laughing. Men, Demi thinks to her self, why do they want to hurt them selves so much. And why do they think that is funny?
After dinner she gets a message from her best friend, Sarah, they ask if she want to go out for drinks together. Demi was planning on doing some more work tomorrow morning, but that can also definitely wait until tomorrow afternoon.
A short pod ride back to the city, and Demi meets Sarah in a nice bar. The interior has dimmed lights, dark stone walls and modern wood accents. The many plants give it a jungle vibe.
"So, how is it going? I haven't seen you in like a week!" They ask.
The two of them catch up, talk about their jobs, while a robot keeps pouring them fancy cocktails.
Nyla hops out of her bed. It is just a few moments after sunrise, very uncharacteristically early for her. But there is a lot to be excited about! Today, is finally the day. The day she has been waiting for weeks, years really. Today she will finally embark on her journey to the big city on the main land; Astrafall.
The trading ship that will take her the first leg of her adventure, the Rust breaker, arrived here in Havenbrook a few days ago. Her self Curvus (the towns mechanic) and the strange folk that crash landed outside of town a couple of weeks ago, will sail along the crew, about a week or so south wards, crossing the northern sea, to the town of Polaris on the main continent.
There they will need to figure out the best mode of transport to get them to the capital. Nyla is hoping it will be an airship, that would be so cool. She has never seen one before, they tend to only fly above land. But Curvus already warned her it will be unlikely that they will have airships in Polaris. Apparently not enough people want to travel to and from there to justify running a route, at least that was the case a decade ago when last made the journey.
The strange folk apparently came from the stars and are hoping to find parts to repair their space ship in Astrafall. Curvus and their mechanic made a list of stuff they would need and he had made the journey before. When Nyla heard of the planned journey she insisted that she would come. It has been her dream to see the world outside Havenbrook.
While Nyla is throwing the last couple of things in her luggage. A enthusiastic rap on the door pulls her away from here thoughts.
"All packed up kiddo?" old Silas asks with a big grin, without greeting.
"Almost, just packing the last few things"
"Good, I want you to know that you have my full support, but you don't have to do this if you don't want to right"
"I know, but I want to, I want to see the mainland, I want to see the big city and I want to see an airship"
"Allright, just checking..." the old man drops a pause, his always jovial face turns serious for a moment.
"What's the matter, Silas?"
"It's just. I hope you come back. The world is a big place and I want for you to see it, of course, but I would also like for you to return. Brookhaven needs you, over the years the numbers have been dwindling, a lot of the citizens are getting older, and not many new ones are born. It would be a shame if you where to leave and find another place to live."
"Don't worry old man, I'll be back before you know it. It's just all the stories that I heard from the mainland. I have to see it for my self." She looks at the man, without the smile, his face looks twenty years older. When did that happen?
His face softens "Good, I always thought of you as becoming the leader of Havenbrook when I am gone. And it would be good for you to experience the outer world before you do. Very good indeed."
Nyla thinks to herself. Me? The leader of the town? I guess I have been helping Silas with a lot of his work lately, but I am not ready for that kind of responsibility! But she doesn't show it, she just smiles and acknowledge it with a small nod.
"I didn't want to spring these things on you like this, but it might be my last opportunity to do so. You'll be gone for a while and I am old man..."
"Your not that old. But thanks Silas that means a lot" she doesn't want to here it.
Together they walk to the harbor. Many of the towns people are already gathered around to the docks to say there farewell.
"I hope you have good journey Nyla!" Orion says as they approach the ship. "I am kinda jealous, tell me everything about the mainland creatures when you get back ok?"
The Rust breaker's little trading shop, that the crew ran from a side hatch in the hull of the ship, has been packed up and closed down for the journey.
The four new comers are already onboard too, standing on the deck, trying to not get in the way of the crew running around preparing for the departure.
After saying their goodbyes to the hundred or so people of Havenbrook Nyla and Curvus embark the ship via the gangway. On board they are greated by a big man with a gray mustache.
"Welcome aboard the Rust breaker, I believe we haven't been properly introduced yet, I am captain Swiftstrike, but you can call me Caelum, as long as things are going well" he says with a big friendly smile. "Let me show you your quarters"
They follow him as he continues. "We don't often have this many guest on board, we might have one or two on any given journey, but six, that's basically all she can handle! Normally I would offer separate rooms."
The captain shows them a small-ish room with a bunk bed, a desk and a round porthole window. "Thats Allright, I call top bed!" Exclaims Nyla.
"Sure, be my guests, when the ship wobbles and you roll out of bed it's a longer fall anyway." Curvus says.
"I'll try to keep her steady then and make sure that doesn't happen. Allright, you can leave your bags here, let's go to the top deck so you can see us leave port, we will do a proper tour once we are on our way." The captain interrupts.
The make their way to the top deck and find a good place to wave off the town.
Smash. Smash. Smash. Pass. Smash. Pass. Group photo Pass. Smash...
...
What the actual fuck? Who does that? Why would you put your self out into the world like that? Do you have no self respect? And as matter of fact, what is wrong with me? why haven't I pressed the Pass button yet? I should, but this is so intriguing. How much do I want to know the story? I don't really want to talk to a person like that in particular, but I have never seen anybody wearing that in here before and I public too. Shows real confidence. Fuck it. Smash.
"Hi, how you doing?"
The strange gigantic metal structure sticks out of the endless ice tundras of the Snowdrift Steppes. Bigger than anything man made that Nyla has ever seen for sure, she thinks to her self as she steps out of the tracked bus-like vehicle.
Last night the whole town of Havenbrook was woken violently by a roaring hum from the skies. Nyla, always the night owl, had yet to go to bed, and was one of the first townsfolk to get outside and witness the blue and orange light streak in the sky, followed moments later by the earth shaking sound of impact.
It did not take long for old Silas to drum up a group of a dozen or so people, including Nyla to investigate what happened. The mix of excitement and concern was almost palpable inside the people carrier on their way to impact site.
"What do you think it is" Nyla asks Orion as he steps out of his the bus.
"Don't know" he replies in his boyish enthousiast "definitely not an abomination. To much metal."
"No shit." Nyla says. "Of course that is where your mind goes first." Ever since Gideon disappeared, Orion, his apprentice, is considered the towns expert when it comes to finding and hunting down the horrendous creatures that roam Snowdrift Steps.
"Also not something natural." He continues, pretending he didn't hear her. "Again to much metal. So it has be something constructed. What do you think, Corvus?"
"Never seen anything like it either," Corvus start chiming in, as the group start slowly approaching the structure on foot "not even down south in Astrafall City. Although it has been a couple of years I visited them. Could be something the tech mages over their cooked up, certainly wouldn't put it past them. But this doesn't bare any of their markings."
As they come closer Nyla is able to take in more of the vista. The structure is over 10 stories tall, made of sleek white, black and orange painted metal panels. It's aerodynamic shape and clean aesthetic isn't like anything like the rusty, jury rigged structures that Nyla is familiar with. It must have slid for at least a hundred meters judging by the drag marks in the icy snow.
"Could it be living tech?" Nyla suggests to the group
"Doubt it" Corvus replies "To symmetrical and to cohesive."
"Hmm, if it is not something we made, natural, abomination or living tech, what could it be?" She thinks out loud
"It is ancient tech" old Silas chimes in with his ruffled voice. "From the before times. Never seen any of it this complete my self. But parts of it definitely correspond with the things I saw as a young boy."
"My daddy used tell tales of how machines like this were used to fly trough the skies." he continues "And not like the Astrfallian airships either, like properly, beyond the skies to the stars."
"Whoa, I thought that those where just legends" Orion let's out.
"Every legend has a source of truth" Silas replies "Where do you think all the junk we used to build our town and Corvus uses for his machines comes from?"
"Dunno, Astrafall?"
"Some of it yeah, but most of it we found here, in the Snowdrift from structures like these. Although it has been probably hundreds of years since one of these crashed."
Old Silas continues by pointing out things in the ship that resemble things in town.
"You see those cylindrical bits over there?" He says as he refers to the ships engines. "You see how they look like our water well and watch tower?"
"Wild, so that's where you think this one came from? The stars?" Nyla says
"Very possible, but like I said I've never seen one fly my self. The last time any one has seen one of these souring trough the skies, was way before my time"
Orion interrupts him with sense of realization in his voice "But wait, if what you are saying is true. There could be some one in there?"
At that moment a big loading door starts opening from the back of the ship revealing the back lit silhouettes of four figures...
