The funeral rites of Weywyrd include, apparently, casting the grave you’ve prepared of the recently deceased into the void. In Brufo’s case just a memorial with his dog-sword. We lashed a couple lines to Brufo’s memorial, and took in the [Floating Anchor], and then drove westward.

  I sat on the memorial itself. My job was to untie the ropes when we wanted to deploy it. Lancie knelt beside me. The pale man Luneth emerged discretely from the wall like a ghost and sat on the boulder as well. We were low in the sky here and everything way dim and gray and dark, with the sun like a meager light bulb way far up. The [Lithic Apex Mimic] had taken us way down it seemed.

  “If they see you here they will not be pleased,” I warned.

  “Want me to try to kick him again?” Lancie asked.

  “Only if he tries to run.”

  Lancie grinned menacingly. “Shoo.”

  “Don’t mind her Luneth. What brings you here though?”

  “As a [Moon Prophet] I have a [Ghost Benefit] feature that should trigger. It is best I accompany you for this portion.”

  “Okay. So Luneth where are you from? What’s that Moonsea place you were talking about?”

  “Moonsea is the place where moonfolk, aelar, are from. It is out there--” he pointed straight ahead westward “far past the edge of the Great Abalone Sea.”

  “So are you going to like make sure his memorial lands in a particular place? Do you guys have graveyards?”

  Luneth smiled wanly. “Not at all. I do not often meddle with Fate. Well, I did with you, you had a strong thread about you, but I liked my life back in Stonestomach. It wasn’t bad. I wanted to keep it.”

  “Did you like raid people and stuff?”

  “I was more of the town fitness instructor and life coach.”

  “[Storiographer], right? What’s that anyway?”

  “We collect stories and knowledge. Whatever we can. Whatever people tell us or we find. Not just to collect, but also to share.”

  I scratched my chin. The intercom crackled.

  “Time for Blackbird to fly,” Lorlux said dimly.

  I untied the knots. My eyes flushed suddenly. Lancie transformed back into a lance as I finished and hopped away. Luneth glided beside me. He had [Wind Rider] too!

  “I’m surprised they didn’t use you in the raids Luneth.”

  “I am a pacifist. Opposed to violence. In the Moonsea we follow a more gentle way.”

  [Ghost Benefit obtained: All allies present at Brufo’s funeral receive +1 to all Stats]

  We slowly settled back into a routine as we turned back northward. More of these sky-high plumes of clouds appeared before us, similar to what the Crab Crew emerged out of.

  I spent mornings in the library with a despondent Val, reading as much as I could on Skills, Feats, Traits, Perks, Capstones, Classes, Items, and any other references I could get my hands on. The problem was the ship’s library was pretty small, and I’d already gone through all the super-relevant stuff. Afternoons I spent fishing, still thinking that if I just practiced enough I may gain the proficiency. Which would then let [Adaptive] come into play.

  I got to know Tanzan, who I fished alongside with Tamiro’s old rod. Try as both of us might, we could get nary a bite out here, either from sinuous sky fish or from the bivalve abalones that propelled themselves with chemical jets like nautiluses of the sky.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  I took the [Ship Upgrade] I had gotten from the Area Boss and turned it over in my hand. I could give it to Lorlux, but why bother almost? I resolved to give it to Sleipnir. Maybe he could just install it directly.

  When I gave it to him, the chrome dragon’s eyes blazed blue. “Comprehending: in process. Completed. This is a substantially rare [Ship Upgrade] component, Daniel. A Crystal Matrix Room. Finding these as well as having access to [Crystal Matrix Compiler] is a rare occurrence. It happens we have one as the Fool’s Errand’s engines are crystal-based.”

  Sleipnir went to the technobabble panel and typed some swirling words and a silver box emerged from the wall. Opening it flows of light came forth in prisms.

  “May I?”

  I handed it over, reading with wonder as [Tech Appraiser] filled me in on the [Crystal Matrix Compiler]. It had 8 slots, and could use them to generate 8 simulated rooms or components. So the Ship Upgrade thing was as probably as simple as Sleip putting it in the Matrix.

  He did so and the ship jumped and hummed. A brief and shifting mirage in reality. For a second that became a heartline minute I was between things.

  There was a purple pigeon on a sparkling rail of pure quantum. It transformed into the angel Maea.

  “You’re doing very well Daniel.”

  “I don’t feel like that. My friend just died. I maybe could have saved him.”

  “You’re doing exactly what you should do, making the hard choices. It’s not going to get any easier.”

  “Letting a friend die is never the right choice.”

  She patted my head. “That’s what I love about you Daniel. Your purity. It will serve you well in what’s to come…”

  I opened my mouth to ask What’s coming?!? or scream it, but she just looked on me pityingly as realities slammed back together. In the distance a purple bird flapped away through the porthole.

  “Daniel? Daniel?” Sleipnir was asking worriedly.

  “I’m here. Sorry. Something really weird happened. I like slipped into another world for a bit.”

  “Theory: quantum tunneling. Conclusion: curious. Suggestion: check out the laboratory. The ship’s blueprints have been altered.”

  “Already? Like no construction?”

  “The simulated materials have already been assembled.”

  I climbed the ladder out of the engine room and wandered around upstairs until I found the laboratory, which had displaced the break room and the sauna but was neatly integrated and even had a little down-step into its chamber like it had also secretly intruded into the engine room when reality was altered. Or whatever that was.

  There were big tubes here filled with liquid like test tubes, and tables with vials and beakers. Once on Earth I had seen my brother Arthur’s classrooms. He had been studying at university for chemistry before I died. I went to visit him one semester. They had setups like this in their labs. Being here just made me miss him, and my old life. How we’d laughed and talked about the future, not knowing the future was…Weywyrd.

  Someone croaked behind me. In the doorway Lorlux leaned. He hopped over one of the bubbling test tubes.

  “Daniel. Up for some scavenging?”

  “Sure, is it dangerous though?”

  “Probably not, but maybe. You know how it is. These cloudspires we’ve been seeing--as you know they can have stuff in them. I believe they are caused by upheaval events deeper, in the lowsky or even from the Shadowsea itself.”

  I nodded sagely, though I had little idea about the low ecologies of Weywyrd. I flew in and looked, activating [Scavenger’s Eye] as I went. There could be more monsters, and even more Area Bosses. I knew that from the books I’d read. The larger biomes can get multiple Area Bosses. Just like how the [Heartwood Tyrant] was likely not the only thing lurking in Aeven. Just the only thing we found.

  I went topdeck and looked over surprised as Luneth had apparated through the floor to join us. He shrugged.

  “If you don’t mind I’d just as soon go with you, Daniel.”

  “I’d love backup.”

  We dove through the cloudspires and the day wore on. We found surprisingly little. Once I interrupted a family of svarks that very crossly charged me with crackling lightning and I had to hightail it. But in the evening I dove through one last cloudspire before heading back for Wilia’s dumplings and out the other side.

  There, strange trees grew. These were different than the sky jungle trees. For one thing they were potentially deciduous, but the leaves were crystalline rather than green. And for another thing each of them was wrapped around a nexus of energy.

  The air crackled with electric current around here. I landed heavily in a field of diffuse static that felt scratchy on my face like grass.

  “Ugh,” I muttered, flying up as Luneth caught up to me.

  “Whoa, what’s this!?”

  “I don’t know. Some kind of forest?” I flew closer to one of the trees. The energy nexus was like a little star or black hole or something like that. It bore fruit, an apple-looking thing the color of midnight. I picked it and a strange crackling pulse ran up my arm.

  “Hey!” someone said behind me.

  I whirled. A svark flew at me. Well, them and a jolt of ball lightning. The svark jumped over me. The ball lightning hit me squarely and I jerked around then fell down spasming.