Chapter 471: 21: A Tree

Jade laughed as Appella’s panic distracted him from the impact’s cloud still rising from the moon.

Appella and Skyheart Snowsong both gazed at him rather nervously for a moment and then Sky relaxed. 

“The ship has plenty of feathers,” Jade assured Appella.

“Feathers?” she asked incredulously.

Jade knew that Hisui’s face probably looked unbearably smug, but it was all he could do to repress another burst of laughter. 

“You jumped off the edge of Sky City with a single feather,” Sky pointed out laughingly.

Jade found himself trying to repress another flicker of jealousy as Skyheart’s quick deduction instantly soothed Appella’s frantic mood. 

“Oh. Yeah! Sweet!” Appella enthused.

Hisui’s hands moved the controls with precision and the small ship began decelerating with all of its might anyway. Jade wasn’t completely willing to bet that the reliable wizard spell, that worked to prevent any enchanted object from falling out of the sky under gravity’s rules within the Empire, would work on the Moon.

The surface that now lay ‘below’ them still shone brightly, as though the light originated there. Jade wished that he had access to the libraries from which ‘Living Jade Empire’ drew its legends. The wider net beyond the game held legends that ran from pearls to cheese, from overgrown fairy lands to tractless empty dust, from rabbits to aliens. His expectations were already being cast aside by the dragon that covered the void beyond the sky.

Appella pointed away from the mushrooming cloud that showed no sign of blowing away yet. That lack of movement lowered Jade’s expectations of finding a breathable atmosphere. “Is that a tree? Or another crash site?” she asked urgently.

Jade’s expectations rotated again as his dwarven eyesight struggled to catch sight of whatever she was looking at. His eyes could see levels of fine detail that a human would struggle with, but distances were fuzzier.

“That is definitely a tree,” Sky declared confidently.

Elven eyesight was legendary, the level of detail she should be able to see made her confidence justified. An enormous tree on the moon even made sense, given that another tree held the Empire within the grasp of its roots, although it took the right quest to catch sight of its heights after you left the beginner’s Vale.

“Point toward it as we turn,” he ordered.

Appella’s arm swung like a compass needle as the ship’s path curved improbably. Hisui’s lips curved wider as Jade grinned. Centrifugal forces pushed their feet more firmly against the deck. THIS was flying.

“Don’t hit it,” Sky warned. “It’s getting closer faster than I expected!”

Hisui’s eyes could now see the tree that glowed as brightly as the rest of the moon. Jade promised “We won’t hit it.”

His deft dwarven fingers guided the little ship skillfully. The glowing branches of the tree grew larger, and larger, as they sped toward it. Their speed seemed to slow more than his gauges measured that it actually was, as though they were caught in one of those vast spells that could slow the movement of armies, or even mountains.

Magic detection was useless, the ship’s readout had been pinned at maximum for a long time now. Jade looked at Sky. The elf gazed toward the glowing tree as though the sight enchanted her. He glanced at Appella. Her familiar and fierce expression warmed his heart. She really was back.

The figures of both women responded instantly when Jade asked, “Is it reaching for us?”

“It hasn’t moved at all!” Sky assured him.

At the same time, Appella demanded, “Why are we getting so close to it if you think it might!?”

Jade struggled to tear Hisui’s gaze away from the tree, but as soon as the branches began to lose his focus, all he could see was light. “I wasn’t prepared for everything to glow! I brought lights but nothing to dim light! I can’t see anything but the tree?”

“I can barely make out the tree now that we're this close and the ground is behind it,” Appella admitted anxiously.

“I can see the tree clearly and… I think I can see the ground beyond the tree,” Sky assured him quietly.

“You think?” Jade questioned.

If the featherweight enchantment didn’t work here, and he couldn’t see the ground, the earlier ship’s impact made more sense. They hadn't seen dozens of clouds rise from the surface of the moon yet, but the one that had caught their attention had come from where the largest of the ships ahead of them had been. It was hard to guess if the others ahead of them might also have crashed or not.

“I can’t tell if we’re dangerously close to some kind of strange meadow, or far away from a tangled forest,” Sky admitted finally.

The first branch whipped overhead fast enough to alarm Jade and he deployed the feathers. If they worked… they would have nothing to worry about. The feathers popped out of their containers across the surface of the ship, but no wind seemed to catch them. 

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Jade cursed.

If there was no air, a feather would probably not have any effect on a fall.

Both of his friends hit the deck as though they expected the next branch of the enormous tree to scrape them off. Jade frantically searched for dragons or some kind of large visible danger, and Hisui’s hands trembled for the first time in years. There was nothing visible to his dwarven eyes but the vast tree and a sea of light.

The ship vibrated in response to the tremble of the fingers that guided it.

Appella hissed a different curse in response. Hers was older, or at least used across a world where a thousand tongues were spoken.

The clear shield’s view hadn’t changed much. The trunk of this tree was so wide that they hadn’t yet cleared its span.

Sky laughed and shifted closer to the edge of the deck so she could see better. Her arm rose and she pointed. “There’s an oddly straight branch that tips gently toward the ground over there.”

The ship tilted smoothly to follow the line that Sky pointed toward, despite his tremble, and Jade caught sight of the branch a moment later. Hisui’s dwarven grip steadied as Jade’s heart calmed. You weren’t supposed to speak ill of the dead for some reason, but Jade privately thought several curses toward Lin Hao.

There was certainly no logical reason that an artificial heart should respond so violently to an artificial brain, especially since his brain was currently linked into the feedback of a game instead of his body. His thoughts calmed further as he realized that it meant he was feeling the virtual racing of Hisui's heart through a system designed for a completely human interface. That might not change the artificial nature of this body, but it meant that this was actually a perfectly normal reaction.

The glowing branch in front of them became the little ship's runway as they zoomed far too quickly toward the surface. Jade calculated their odds and seriously considered simply pointing the little ship's nose towards the endless night overhead. The twinkle of a brighter star, that was actually a gleaming spot on a vast scale, brought the idea crashing down.

He didn't think he was ready to try landing on the dragon that encircled an entire world.

Every jet on the little ship was firing full blast, and warning notices began to pop up as the gems that sustained the enchantments began to burn away. Jade still couldn't see the ground, but Sky's expression was growing decidedly nervous.

"Can we shoot the tree?" Appella shouted.

Jade and Sky both spared a moment to glance at their friend.

"I could, but…" Sky began.

"That sounds like a really bad idea," Jade interrupted rather flatly.

Appella spoke quickly, "I just thought it might…"

The branch narrowed and branched ahead, and Jade gazed in dismay at the far too quickly approaching shimmer of… leaves. The ship smacked into the unexpected layer of air a second later with a physical thump. They all bounced as the impact violently tossed the contents of the vessel around. 

The feathers that dangled from dozens of clasps across the vessel turned, and began to cut the sudden wind into something softer. None of them were physically large enough to have an effect, but their magic was working after all.

"It's still a long way down!" Sky shouted with more certainty as she pulled herself back up far enough to see.

Jade allowed the ship to slide off the path that had been laid by the branch as it continued to spread into hundreds of dazzling leafy boughs.

It felt like mere seconds passed before they were no longer zipping, but just softly floating toward the surface below. Appella crawled over to where Sky was leaning against the barrier and gazed down.

"Is the ground moving?" she questioned worriedly.

"I think so," Sky agreed softly. Harmony's voice seemed filled with delight rather than apprehension. "No wonder I couldn't tell what it was."

"So…" Jade prompted rather sharply. "What is it"

"An army of… shrubs?" Appella suggested.

"I think maybe they are rabbits dressed in leafy outfits," Sky said doubtfully.

… "Do you see a landing spot?" Jade asked finally.

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