Universe's End

Chapter 254: Foreign Cities and Loud Phlegm

Of all the things that Rory had forgotten, it was exploring a city he was entirely unfamiliar with that was probably near the top of the list, given Aelia wasn’t exactly a bustling metropolitan planet.

Now, to call Zoey’s ‘place’ a city was perhaps doing it a bit too much service; it was more like a large village with only a few hundred, maybe three or four thousand people tops. It even reminded him somewhat of the pictures he’d seen of small Norwegian fishing communities.

I think they were Norwegian at least.

Unlike those quant villages, the big discrepancy was that this village was broken up amongst varying elevations as the buildings and sprawling community jumped between sky-locked asteroids and small mountains without any concern for things like ‘safety.’ When traveling to lower-elevation asteroids, members of the community would leap off, a wingsuit flaring from the packs on their backs. When traveling upward, ropes and hooks were found in abundance; even small children seemed unbothered, though they required adult assistance to travel to anything too high up.

Finally, there were the gliders.

“These are technically my realm of specialty,” LaRoy, the current leader of the ‘Air Riders,’ had explained as the three current leaders of Zoey’s hamlet followed them around like an entourage. “Though pretty much every adult has some experience with the gliders.”

“I’m impressed they stay afloat so well.”

“It’s actually a property of some of the materials in this area,” Zoey explained. “Ya’know, bunch of floating islands, asteroids, and shit. When the gliders use some of those materials, poof, they can basically fly themselves, though they still require some skill to pilot.”

“And I’m assuming that’s what’s special about the Air Riders. You all are the best around with those gliders?” Rory asked, turning to LaRoy.

“Correct,” The man nodded. “Would you like to give one a try?”

“I’m not sure of the worth, since he can fly,” Zoey said offhandedly, earning Rory a look somewhere between awe and surprise from their entourage.

“Alright, she’s purposely being vague. No, I cannot fly like you’re imagining.” Rory clarified. “Now, I’m not going to explain the details because if you take anything after your Lady here, then none of you will actually care that much. Instead, sure, I’d love to give one of those gliders a try. You don’t have to worry about safety briefings or anything.”

“Wonderful,” LaRoy grinned.

“Show off,” the woman, LeRissa, said, rolling her eyes at her peer. Rory stifled a snort, amused at the attitude. If there was one thing he liked about Zoey’s people, it was that they were far more relaxed around him than even some of his own people.

“So, we’re going to need to grab an extra glider from up there,” LaRoy pointed toward a tall peak floating nearly six ‘stacks’ of floating asteroids higher. “It might take us a minute to-”

“Got it,” Rory said, focusing for a moment on the spot as he locked on, flickering away and popping into existence in front of a shack filled with gliders.

Wonder why they put it so far out of the way.

Snatching one, Rory was back in a moment, the three leaders staring at him in shock as it was Zoey’s turn to stifle a snort.

“Back,” Rory said. “Out of curiosity, what’s the point of putting that so far out of the way?”

“I, uh,” LaRoy rumbled with his words, as LeRissa took the chance to take the lead.

“It’s a bit of a test for the young ones. They have to make their way up there themselves, claim their glider, and fly it down themselves. Of course, we have people around to catch them if they were to stumble or anything.”

“Which doesn’t really matter with this guy,” Zoey chuckled.

“What about you?” Rory asked, facing his friends.

“Oh, you mean one of these?” Zoey said as a glider suddenly appeared, having been stashed inside her inventory.

“That reminds me, do any of you have inventories here?” Rory asked, turning back to the three leaders.

“Sort of,” LiJuanto answered. “Lady Trailblazer-”

“Lady Trailblazer?” Rory suddenly interrupted.

“A name they sometimes call me,” Zoey sighed. “Continue, LiJuanto.”

“Lady Trailblazer has explained inventories to us when she first returned, and with some innovation, we managed a version of sorts, albeit nowhere to the level that the Grand Architect can. Given our regular interactions with delves, we have some understanding of ‘pocket space’ and have, in turn, managed to bind them to physical containers such as satchels or packs. Unfortunately, they degrade quite quickly and are rather small in containment compared to what your own inventories can manage.”

“Interesting, I’ll have to take a look at them later,” Rory said, genuinely intrigued they’d managed even some approximation of a recreation.

“Race you?” Zoey asked, raising her eyebrows at Rory.

“I’ve literally never used one before,” Rory shot back.

“Sounds like a bitch way to admit defeat,” Zoey retorted, sticking her tongue out childishly at Rory. The entire time, the three leaders silently watched, their expressions making it clear they were seeing a somewhat different side to their ‘Lady Trailblazer.’

“Fuck you, it’s on,” Rory said as the two of them sprinted toward the edge, throwing themselves off. With a hoot, Zoey let herself fall for several seconds, a silly grin plastered across her face, before her glider flared out as she took off like a bird through the air.

Well, not that Bird.

Enjoying the rush a moment longer, Rory’s own glider popped its wings out, his arms looped through ‘holsters’ like the skeletal structure of a bird’s wing, his feet tucked into the ‘tailbone’ of the glider.

Now, how exactly do I do this?

If one expected Rory to flounder for long, they would have been sorely disappointed as, unfurling his cognition to the max, within moments, he’d gotten a feel for the contraption as he reined his cognition back in.

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Zoey, meanwhile, had already shot out almost a mile ahead of him.

Oh, that bitch. Fine, two can play that game.

Eyes glowing, Rory partially unsealed his ocular release as he angled his glider, perfectly slicing through the points of least resistance, even as he latched onto points ahead of him and behind him, yanking himself forward and shoving himself off.

When Rory caught up to Zoey, she didn’t look the least bit surprised as he slowed himself, now flying even with her.

“Fun, right?”

Taking a moment, Rory let himself indulge in the experience. From the wind clawing in his face, the whipping breeze, like barbs from the speed of their flight, was unable to so much as scratch his tier eight skin. To the way the twin suns shone down, their shadows cast below like two majestic birds of prey who owned the skies above. Even the crisp scent of the air, a slightly electric tingle in his nose, as if everything carried a slight bit of static here.

“Yeah,” Rory finally answered as he hoped his eyes and a smile danced on his face. “So, what is it you wanted to talk about?”

“Saw through me that easily?”

“Of course,”

“Hah,” Zoey snorted. “Don’t worry, you’ll find out shortly.”

Curious, Rory continued to follow her through the sky filled with floating rocks and small mountains, a far more friendly version of the Reverse Mountains, covered in lush green jungles and snow that seemed not to care how warm it was. Flying for nearly twenty minutes, simply enjoying the experience, Rory felt something as his lips tucked downward.

“Is that a-?”

“Yep,” Zoey confirmed before he could even get the word out.

“It’s approaching fast,”

“Yup,” Zoey said.

Flying for roughly twenty more seconds was all it took before something crashed between them, huge and angry.

Having sensed its approach, Rory dodged out of the way as if he’d been flying the glider his entire life, examining the monster as it swerved midair, turning back toward them.

Thunderous Lord of the Floating Skies

Level: 80**

“Territory Alpha, really?” Rory asked, as Zoey laughed.

“Yep, say hello to the boogeyman of my people. Apparently, they’ve been telling stories and legends about this thing the entire time I was gone. Did you know it’s my fated enemy to battle at the end of days?”

“Oh, cripes,” Rory rolled his eyes as the pissed-off monster turned back toward them. Looking like a sea lamprey and a pterodactyl had gotten the freak on, it opened its cavernous mouth as orange orbs formed, then fired them out like a baseball from a launcher.

As casual as they were behaving, they were by no means underestimating the power of the monster. A territory alpha, even a base tier eight territory alpha, would be a foe capable of beating either one of them.

But they weren’t alone, which was what Rory suspected the point of this all was.

“Are we doing this right now?” Rory asked as he arched an eyebrow at Zoey, who had just rolled out of the way of one of the orange balls of energy.

“Nah,” Zoey said, surprising Rory. “I wanted you to see it first.”

“Count it as seen,” Rory hollered as he dodged out of the way of another attack. “So now what?”

“We get the fuck out of dodge!” Zoey laughed, only to be struck by one of the orange globes of energy and caught in a small explosion of sound and pulsing orange goo.

If it were anyone else, Rory might have been extremely concerned they’d just been killed in one hit.

As for Zoey?

Only a moment later, she was diving out of the explosion, orange goo clinging to her body and releasing vibrational waves like a lingering, damaging effect, but unfortunately for the goo, Zoey was far too sturdy for that.

Her glider was gone, but a glance toward Rory was all he needed to swoop down and snatch her.

“Time to go?” Rory asked.

“Time to go,” Zoey confirmed as Rory turned on the metaphorical jets, pushing and pulling points in front of them and behind them.

For several tense minutes, the Thunderous Lord chased after them, launching its weird sonic boom-exploding-goo-globs—

Now that’s a sentence you don’t ever expect to say with a straight face.

—but ultimately their secret weapon came down to size. So much smaller than the Thunderous Lord, they were able to roll, whirl, and dive through spaces the Thunderous Lord couldn’t, forcing it to fly the long way after them.

Rather than wasting energy on attacking back, Rory focused on their escape, hoping that it would grow bored of chasing prey as fast as they were.

Finally growing tired of the chase, the Thunderous Lord turned its oversized cookie-cutter mouth upward, shrieking once, and flying off.

Rory and Zoey, meanwhile, watched from an asteroid that they’d flown behind and latched onto, sharing a look.

“Well… that was fun,” Zoey said as she offered her closed fist to Rory.

“You’re an idiot,” Rory sighed, but not without bumping fists. “So, details?”

“Territory alpha, as you obviously saw,” Zoey commented. “Moved into the area shortly after I left, as I’m told. Fly too far out from the main village area, and you risk it showing up and munching on your bones.”

“That sounds a bit like editorializing.”

“But it’s not wrong,” Zoey winked at Rory. “Anyway, my best guess is that after I left, it left a perfect vacuum for a territory alpha to show up. Given time and plenty of prey, it managed to climb up to tier eight as well. It already tried to eat me once.”

“And what happened?”

“It shot me out of the sky and forced me to walk all the way back,” Zoey sighed. “I mean, it tried to swallow me up, but a seismic impact to the face tends to disorient even a territory alpha, after which I crashed back down.”

“Quick question, what’s with all the tier eights down there?” Rory asked, pointing to the forest far below.

“Oh, it wasn’t like that when I first set my settlement up here so many years ago,” Zoey said, shaking her head. “Just like you and I reached tier eight, so did some monsters. It’s why my people tend to stay in the asteroid field, the tier eights prefer to stay on the forest floor.”

“Uh-huh,” Rory acknowledged. “So, none have ever made their way up here?”

“Oh sure,” Zoey answered. “But we’ve got enough tier sevens within the village that a lone tier eight of the more average variety didn’t want to pick a fight. Plus, you know how monsters tend to avoid getting too close to settlement boundaries.”

“Sure,” Rory confirmed. “Waves?”

“Here and there they mess with them,” Zoey nodded. “Though they never initiated any Siege Waves.”

“I could guess that much,” Rory answered. The reality was that, based on what he’d seen of the village, sporadically sprawling between elevations and floating land masses, it would be a horrid place to defend from swarms of monsters.

“Anything else?”

“Yeah,” Zoey answered. “Aside from the Thunderous Lord, recently we found an interesting location. Waterfall Pond, a location on the forest floor with, you guessed it, a waterfall emptying into a pond. Within the center of the pond is a small island, and when I say small, I mean around the size of the average living room. That isn’t the interesting point I should mention. Anyway, an earthquake or something must have torn open the island, revealing a crack in the earth that-”

“That leads to a delve,” Rory answered, catching on.

“Bingo. It pretty much fit the description of your story of uncovering the Maw to a T, so I realized it might be another super delve, or something interesting to say the least. Except, one problem.”

“Yeah?”

“It specifically requires at least a team of three tier eights to enter.”

“Oh?” Rory was genuinely curious now, having never heard of something like that. “So, you, me, and Eia?”

The oversized serpent had remained in the village; the last time they’d seen it was a bunch of children playing with it after they’d grown comfortable, like a living slide or jungle gym.

“Originally, I’d intended to wait for some of my people to break through into tier eight, but Eia being here fixes that problem,” Zoey said. “Plus, Eia is truthfully a much better pick than even LeRissa.”

“Oh, is she the strongest one around?”

“The three leaders are fairly comparable, but otherwise yes,” Zoey answered. “Not really the point, though.”

“So, are we thinking of tackling the territory alpha, or this new delve?”

“A good question,” Zoey said. “I was thinking the territory alpha, a properly huge delve could take a long ass time.”

“My thoughts as well,” Rory agreed. “And need to be ready in a few years when the others come a-knockin'.”

“Hopefully, fewer homicidal birds,” Zoey pointed out.

“Agreed,” Rory said.

“Anything in particular you think we need?” Zoey asked.

“I should be asking you, I’ve only seen this Thunderous Lord once now.”

“Fair enough,” Zoey nodded. “It uses sound-based attacks that typically form from physical phenomena.”

“Like the goop that exploded over you?”

“Phrasing,” Zoey grumbled. “But yes.”

“Hmm,” Rory muttered. “Well, I’ll be honest, I don’t have anything off the top of my head this very moment. So why don’t we head back for the time being?”

“Works for me,” Zoey said before sighing.

“What?” Rory asked.

“Oh, nothing really,” Zoey stared off into the distance as another sigh escaped her. “Just going to get another talking to for losing another glider is all.”