I went to bed late, understandably. I had normal dreams of Earth, normal-ish with my parents and Arthur, and no lobsters or anything weird. Until I awakened being lifted out of my bed toward the window, levitating. The bedroom was filled with green light. I tried to fly using [Wind Rider], but nothing happened and I still hung suspended. The moss kitten was rising too beside me.

  “Aaaah!” I screamed (Mossy mewed).

  Val was first through the door, she just gritted her teeth determinedly then stepped into the green light which shone from a large mote outside the window, pulsing slightly. She began to rise and twisted.

  “Aaaaagh!”

  But she was not alone. Behind her was Wilia, and behind her Tanzan who I scowled at then realized Val told me to keep it quiet. They formed a human chain and Val was able to grab me then Tanzan/Wilia pulled us all out of the light. I grabbed the moss kitten too.

  The green light zipped away. I scrambled up and looked out the window watching it recede into one of those cloudspires. It was more like a flying saucer. A whirring green bulb lit warmly.

  After some discussion, including Lorlux checking in on what all the ruckus was about, everybody went back to bed. This time I deployed Lancie and tried to sleep.

  “UFOs,” I muttered. “Do you guys have those?”

  “What are Ufos?”

  “Unidentified Flying--oh I see. I mean, aliens, like space people you know?”

  She nodded eagerly. “A long, long time ago, back when I was King Arthur’s before he gave me away--” she scowled at that “--he was sending messages back and forth with aliens, like little notes. He called them Those Beyond. There was one in particular, Morgana…I saw me some of the messages, hehehe.”

  She looked down, steel hair covering face, blushing a little. I was honestly not sure she could blush. Those messages must have been pretty spicy.

  I looked out the window, stars and storms sprent across midnight canvas.

  “Ever see a flying saucer? Like something strange in the sky?”

  She looked up and locked eyes with me her eyes sparkling coldly.

  “Nothing like your milk cups. But many things in the sky are strange Daniel, even me!”

  “Especially you Lancie.”

  I slept poorly, my dreams restless and feverish, though lobster-free (every night without him a relief). I awakening to red skies, heard footsteps pacing, in the hall found Val and she told me I’d better hurry and go eat breakfast so I did that. While I was eating with a few others Kola Junior came in screeching and pointing toward the front of the ship. We went topdeck to behold an approaching stormwall towering high up into the sky.

  “Muck,” Lorlux cursed. “We had made such good progress…No matter. Prepare to dive, crew. We’ll have to return to the lowsky. Five minutes until maneuvers. Be on your guards!”

  He hopped away. I stuffed the rest of the omelet into my mouth and glided back downstairs to clean my room before we dove. Val, Wilia, Tanzan, Luneth and I sat in our doorframes braced (though I wondered if Luneth did it just for fun since he could go through walls) against a potential maneuver.

  I told them about when I first met Val and the maneuver spilled soup all over myself, and the group got a kick out of that story.

  “When I met Clorandine,” Luneth said, “it was night and moondren, the Moonsea flowing all about us, with lighted jellyfish in all the colors of the rainbow. Of course, that just meant we had attracted the attention of the Area Boss, a really big squid...”

  He chuckled. Wilia laughed too.

  “Daniel and I had a similar thing happen when we first met! We fought the [Heartwood Tyrant] right after he brought me a note father left me before he passed. I guess he was like a courier or something,” Wilia reflected.

  Val scowled at me, but said nothing as I’d already cleared the moonlight romp matter. The floor tilted as the Fool’s Errand began to descend. The sky darkened, and then darkened again, until it seemed we were in complete darkness with only a dusky blush at the edges of the sky where the sunlight filtered below the storm’s edge.

  Val rummaged in her room and returned with a box of hard candies and gave one to each of us. We ate them quietly.

  “They make these in a factory in Melpompne,” she explained. “There’s a real tree that grows on the Skymount that smells just like this. Doesn’t taste good though.”

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  And deeper darkness still, lit by jags of lightning. The air became afire with the sound of thunder. I could see around us pillaring cloudspires rising into the storm. Whatever moved in the depths down there, moved often apparently. I saw flashing lights in one of them. I stared at it closely to see if it was lightning or…something like a flying saucer, but nothing further.

  Fish and self-propelled abalone weaved between the cloudspires and lightning strikes in vast multitudes here. I rose suddenly.

  “Hey Tanzan, come fish with me?”

  “In this weather Daniel? Are you crazy!?”

  “I gotta train up my proficiency. How long does it take to get a fishing proficiency anyway? It does work like that right?”

  Tanzan hesitated. “...Yes. I don’t know exactly how you’ve been at it, but keep working. Come on, let’s go.”

  “Have fun boys!” Val called.

  We went above deck in the squalling weather with our rods. Due to how a ship’s designed, all the lightning strikes either one of the masts or the rudder beneath, so being outside during electrical storms was fine.

  I casted the rod out and the hovering sinker whirred to life. “You ever met a svark?”

  “No, I heard stories though. They’re jumpy little fellas.”

  “They love fishing though? What class are you Tanzan? I thought you said you were a fisherman?”

  I was giving him a hard time because of the dirt Val had given me on him. Tanzan hesitated. “Well you see, that’s a pretty private question Daniel. What class are you, hmm?”

  I grinned ruefully, as it was a touchy subject. I could lie or just tell him that I was the legendary class Driften Waker.

  “I am a Driften Waker!” I proclaimed.

  Tanzan rolled his eyes and cast his rod out. “Yeah, me too, haha.”

  “Seriously though. I knew a guy--svark, Tamiro, with the Stormfoot class.”

  “Never heard of that.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “Cavas. Little mining town in Melpompne on the high side of the Skymount. It’s not bad.”

  “What’s it like in Melpompne? I’ve never been.”

  Tanzan sucked in his breath. “There’s a luster in the wind that you don’t get out here. The spice of land. It’s nice to feel firmament and stillness. Imagine a place where nothing’s moving around all the time. Like Aeven, right!”

  “Yeah, Aeven was pretty nice,” I considered.

  Both our lines passed through a cloudspire, and then drew taut. We exchanged looks before starting to pull.

  “Whoa!!!!”

  In the fog green lights began to twinkle from below.

  “Oh no!!!” I shouted.

  A cold fear came over me. They just would not quit! Well fine. There was no window stopping me this time? I handed my rod to Tanzan.

  “What are you doing!?!” he shouted, dual-wielding the rods trying to reel both in.

  “I’m tired of these aether vaper flying saucers chasing me!! Enough is enough, Tanzan. Cover my rod for a minute, I’m going to show these guys what’s what!”

  I flew to the rail and leapt into the cloudspire, propelling myself through the wind. I had not thought this through. Before I reached the saucer to grapple and punch it a green light froze upon me and I felt rigid in space, and time. I could not move, and [Wind Rider] didn’t do anything. My muscles felt frozen. I glanced around aimlessly. I tried to shout for help, but couldn’t even do that.

  The flying saucer, still what it looked like, with me locked in its green tractor beam and flew downward in the cloudspire. My stomach dropped. It felt like a roller coaster. I blacked out.

  When I came to the saucer had emerged from the cloudspire somewhere in a bank of deep darkness and rumbling thunderheads. A leviathan golden airship soared there, proportioned like a great passenger liner but long like a snake and segmented, with wings trundling slowly as it streamed across the sky.

  “Whoa,” I gasped.

  The saucer did not react. It whirred lightly and seemed to be spinning very fast, whatever it was, modulating the tractor beam thing perfectly. I still could not move. It took me toward the golden dragon ship. I looked around for the Fool’s Errand, or even Luneth, or any trace of my friends, but could see nothing at all.

  As we approached the dragon ship, a bay door opened in its side and the UFO hovered in there as a hole opened in the floor. It dropped me with the beam still on. I tried to use [Wind Rider] but still fell hard. Thump.

  “Wait!” I tried to call raising my hand but the ceiling slurped shut. “Damn. I mean aether.”

  I flew around my cell, pacing. Then I looked up and down the corridor here. There were other cells. “Hello?” I called.

  My voice echoed.

  “H-Hello?” someone said.

  “Oh, whew, I thought I was the only one. Did you like get caught by these aliens too?”

  “Our village fell out of the sky, and me and another guy are the only survivors!”

  Oh, aether! I thought. “What was your village’s name?” I asked meekly.

  “Stonestomach!” another voice said, one that I recognized, filled with enmity.

  It was the voice of the dark dragon man Drajan. I groaned.

  “What was that? Are you hurt sir?”

  “No. What are your names?”

  “I’m Clorandine and my friend is Drajan.”

  Clorandine…I knew Drajan, but Clorandine was ringing a bell, too.

  “I’m Daniel!” I called which caused Drajan to began to rage out.

  “How dare you show yourself to us again!! As soon as I’m free of these bars I shall put you into the ground!”

  Honestly it hadn’t even been my decision, but I supposed that was besides the point for now. An argument for another day. After a while I called, “Clorandine?”

  “Yes Daniel?”

  “What Drajan is saying is unfortunately true.”

  “True!? Of course it’s true, I watched this guy punch out Stevek back there before the meteor cataclysm!!”

  “About that, though. There’s two other people that lived.”

  “Your--I think it’s fiance--is one of them. Luneth, right? The other is a dude named Tanzan.”

  I heard Clorandine take in her breath. “By the glimmer. This is beloved news!!”