Morval didn't know what to think, or do, or even what part of this creature in front of him to look at.

Because it was definitely a creature. Just very still.

Its scales shimmered in the dreamy night sky, floating by means not directly evident to Morval. Given the small and sometimes large protrusions across its body, however, he had an idea. Morval couldn't see properly, but it appeared that two of the larger irregulaties in its form on its underside were lit up from the inside.

Morval had seen an Archmage who could use the most basic of magic available, Magefire, to fly. This was probably the same... or similar.

Nothing about it made Morval feel fear, or rage, or even any kind of recognition. But it looked sinister, in a grotesque kind of way.

It was like it had stretched its wings fully out to its sides, and then started to bloat in unfitting places. Its wings, by majority, grew to match the thickness of its body, which also grew with them, forming more of a... large but purposefully shaped rock covered in scales, with the aforementioned tube-like protrusions spread around symmetrically. Its tail looked like it had been split in four down the center and straightened at different angles, surrounding the largest protrusion that came out of its rear nestled between the now plural tails.

Suddenly, there was a growing brightness, and Morval closed his eyes and looked away - and when he felt it had darkened enough he could finally look back, he saw the beast had changed. Not greatly, but noticably.

The tails in the rear had been severed smoothly just before the end of the rear protrusion. The right wing looked to have been strucken by something - there was a gap, a tear in the scales, and a large dent below that.

The air in front of the creature began to crackle and burn, the screaming he'd heard on the previous night beginning to build up. It wasn't quite right, though. Something about it was missing.

Then the three largest protrusions on its front lit up with its Magefire. The screeching sharply rose in volume, pounding the rest of Morval's body just as much as his mind. The gap in the creature's scales shifted, widened.

The gap sharply grew, then stopped once more. The wing was now broken, misshapen, the Magefire pointed in a different direction. Not that it could be differentiated from the blazing brightness that covered the creature in its entirety now.

Until the wing simply became nothing, the wing tearing off and taking its Magefire with it, fleeing behind the creature. The creature shrieked ever louder, its pain made clear.

Or, no, that didn't seem quite right.

Morval looked down, to the ground swiftly approaching. Fighting through the sudden sickness of moving without feeling it, he saw the Spears of Stone to his left, on the other side of a lightly forested area, where their camp should roughly be. Thankfully, before he hit the ground, the panicked pounding in his chest, and the sick feeling that rose from nearly everything that had just happened, woke him.

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Morval sharply rose from his bedding of light fabric, the weight of the normally heavy blanket laid over him not a deterrence in the slightest. His breathing was ragged, and his sudden actions startled Itval enough to have her wake on the other side of their tent-structure to rise slowly and eye him with concern.

"Yes, yes... I think I'm fine." Morval stammered out between gasping breaths.

"Are you sure? I can get some water, or food if it would-" Itval offered.

"No. No, no, no... I need thought. I've just had... a dream. I don't think I liked it. I think... it isn't a star at all." He tried to consider what he had seen, but much of it was just too far out of his area of expertise.

He would need to have a consideration with the others before they proceeded. Perhaps the children should be kept at a very safe distance.

He looked away from his hands to her face. "...Actually, I would like some water. How about you?"

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Zenith had moved its core into the previously empty section above the new vessel. The light of the planet's sun had departed two hours ago, but that did not deter Zenith at all.

There were only two major pieces that still needed construction, and then some preparations Zenith had decided on making to appear as though it had left. Then the dumb AI observing the odd humans demanded its attention.

One of the humans, one of the first it had observed, was in the center of a small storm of energy not usually found in the third dimension; colloquially, it was believed to be the flow of time itself. Zenith instantly focused almost half of all available sensors of every type on that one area.

To say it looked good wasn't really true. It didn't look much at all. Zenith hadn't known the scientific principles behind this energy itself, and without access to the greater network it couldn't without direct experimentation. However, it observed all of the energy slowly coalescing into that poor individual like a test subject, and when it all vanished, the man woke up with a startling shove to sit himself up.

Things had gone to plan for Zenith so far, but it was unable to rationalize delaying to collect as much intact material as possible. Zenith hurried the construction of its new vessel, wanting to move, because what it would do next was the most explosive thing yet.

It had left a significant percentage of the outer shell of its previous vessel alone, mostly the front, like a husk of a creature. Almost all of it was so heavily damaged that it wouldn't be unkind to call it unrecognizable.

Namely, the four remaining primary thrusters were still almost entirely intact. While there were some useful materials in there, Zenith didn't have enough of a shortage to consider this an invaluable resource, especially when it considered exactly what had happened to the rear-left section's thruster.

The section had separated on impact, yes, but not shattered. It bounced away from the rest of the vessel, its mass enough to create another, smaller crater on its re-landing. Second landing? Yes, second landing.

What landing it was wasn't the point. it was the fact that it had exploded afterward. Not the largest or most violent explosion, but sufficient to shatter the thruster itself and hollow the section out like the outside was almost exclusively the only thing left.

From Zenith's scarce knowledge of dragons, it looked like the skin of one had solidified and fallen off, bringing the burnt scales that were Zenith's outer hull with it.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

And from Zenith's simulations, it should be recreatable. Just too much energy in the wrong place. However, Zenith would not risk its new vessel by detonating this with a direct connection; if there were an energy input line, the thruster would act as it was supposed to and feed the excess energy down that line before shutting down. The design for the new vessel made that prospect deadly, as Zenith had not planned for this.

As such, Zenith was running mostly on battery power at present, aiming to have them at roughly 75% charge so that it could handle an acceptable amount of feedback if this kind of reaction were to occur with its current vessel. Its previous vessel had dedicated feedback lines to handle this. It was running simulations, and things were hopeful in that it hadn't experienced that kind of disaster with any part of its new vessel, but being prepared was a different story.

Especially considering the strange energies the humans were using. Would these energies potentially overload Zenith's systems or otherwise damage them? Somehow, energies which would normally damage humans were simply... dissipated, or even woven into the fabric of the humans' own bodies. Or the literal fabric they wore.

Perhaps Zenith was fortunate. Having this much time to study them unhindered was a blessing in disguise. Normally, roughly half of the detection devices in use on the spybots would have been discovered and quashed. Maybe they were just too small? The humans didn't appear reliant on traditional technology, their abilities more akin to the different kinds of starbeasts Zenith had observed, wielding radiation with an invisible hand to manipulate matter and energy around them. Zenith had never seen starbeasts use the kinds of energies that these humans had, however.

For one, that energy of the "fourth dimension" as it was colloquially called was never supposed to manifest like that. Zenith did not like how much could be explained away as some kind of interference from this "system" it kept hearing the Humans talk about, made even more unsettling by their mention of "skills", "levels", and "stats" that seemed to define their lives. Not to mention, of all the media Zenith had ever observed, the only ones it had ever purged included the ones which it knew depicted this kind of situation. Maybe an unwise decision, but Zenith knew that if it ever needed that information back, it could ask another AI to pull it out from the shared network. Zenith itself, as an ambassadorial AI, wasn't actually allowed direct access to the network in case it was ever compromised in some way.

Zenith always felt that was unfair. But, it at least prepared it for a similar kind of situation to what was happening now, in another, more unique way.

Zenith rigged the sixth last functioning battery up to the remaining engines. This one was fully charged, and was the unfortunate selection for a sacrifice.

It was one of the three emergency batteries that had survived, meaning it had less capacity and sacrificed some of its longevity in favor of sturdiness to survive crashes and the like. Zenith had the other two emergency batteries in its core segment, along with two of the active use batteries, which would survive more recharges before needing replacement or repair. The sixth and final battery was inside the construction tank.

Zenith also had several other side objectives to complete before detonating the engines, however. Most prominent was the need to finish its construct, including the relatively haphazardly included subspace radiation cannon, a wholly original creation that Zenith had been inspired to create earlier, but simulations... hadn't worked out until it realized that the energy projectors would need to be off for it to function as intended. This was a minor issue seeing as how the cannons would be extremely vulnerable when aiming, a clear protrusion from the rest of its shell. It would have to halt its movement, or at least selectively disable energy projectors, before so much as aiming.

There were four of them, all mounted on each side of the core segment, though with the one on the "top" (the side which the construction tank would slot itself into) being mounted further forward to make room for said tank. The weapons themselves were capable of firing through solid matter, and would have lines of sight to protect everything but the closest points of the vessel, in the joints themselves. However, these weapons, like the vessel itself, would have less effectiveness when traveling through less dense materials. A side effect was that they were as deadly to technology as they were to biology, so Zenith would not want to try and fire it through itself. However, it was the most effective (in simulation) weapon Zenith could create for personal defense.

Two were nearing completion now. The planet's two largest moons above, which seemed to mirror the cycle of the nearest star, were nearing the halfway point. If Zenith was correct, one would actually begin experiencing an eclipse soon. Zenith still had time to do this before the humans came.

The other important side objective was burying Zenith and getting out of the area. Not that the explosion would damage its vessel, but it would likely attract the attention of the humans. Zenith did not want them discovering its vessel and eliminating the stealthy advantage of being a creature of the ground.

...Was it a wyrm if it couldn't fly? Hm.

Zenith ordered the construction tank to move into position, and it slowly crawled into the hole the vessel was being constructed in. Four relatively thin arms stretched out from the area next to each of the legs' resting positions, assisting to guide the tank's legs into the positions it would need to step to anchor itself into the frame without causing any undue damage to a thruster or some such. For this process, the energy projectors had to remain offline as well. Once the tank was anchored, it appeared that only the subspace cannon in front of it remained unfinished, before Zenith could proceed to bury itself and scoop up the remaining construction nanobots before detonating the old vessel's thrusters and battery.

An unfortunate waste of materials, but one that would likely help it escape unhindered.

Something interesting enough was happening while Zenith idly covered itself in scorched dirt, however.

The human that had been placed under special observation had woken a few others and were meeting outside, around one of those strangely energized rocks that seemed to produce heat. This one was simply radiating it idly.

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"That is... a claim."

"And it had no head. I nearly forgot that. It was like it never had so much as a neck to begin with. All body, wing, and tail." Morval continued.

Lan, Kenneth, Itval, and Cade considered this information seriously, despite Lan's earlier appraisal. He may have been the one who'd dealt with disease amongst creatures the most, but that didn't mean he had dealt with disease amongst dragons more than any of them.

Cade spoke up. "You said it flew with Magefire?"

"That is my best guess. I have seen Archmages from prominent establishments do it before."

Kenneth decided to add his piece, then. "I have heard specific tales of black-scaled dragons. Most can agree on one thing." The others looked at him expectantly, though he was almost afraid to continue. Not for himself, but what it meant for his people, and Morval. "They are plague itself."

"What?" said Cade, disbelieving. "There isn't - shouldn't be - creatures or magic like that. And how-"

Kenneth interrupted her sharply, but with a deep respect he couldn't properly express. "Our Guild's Mages are a line that learns almost entirely from each other. You don't cut yourself off, but contact with other bodies of magical study is anathema to your ways. I am a salesman of our products." He sat up, proud of the work he'd done to help them. "Sometimes these products are stories, and equal trade is the unspoken law. Who am I to refuse information in return? It could always be valuable."

Cade looked at him for a moment, before her look turned more inquisitorial than questioning. "How much of the information you've ever shared with me and mine on magic has been from... outside?"

"Almost all. We cannot grow if we don't accept change, Cade."

"No fighting. And keep your voices down." Itval interrupted. It was best to stop them before they threw hands... or fire.

Morval picked the talk back up from there. "I know how much importance the both of you put on things that seem impossible to have coexisting, but you will find you way. I will lead you to it, if I need to."

Itval continued for him, almost beatless. "We have a situation at hand that we should deal with first. I think we can both agree that the most pressing topic is... whether or not the next step to our goal should be taken by all, or only few."

Lan added his opinion immediately, he was so sure of it. "If what Morval believes is true, I do not think any of us should even get near that thing, whether it lives or not." He looked sorrowfully at the pitiful light of the moons. "If any of us happens to carry its disease to the rest..." he trailed off.

"Yes, it would be best to avoid another incident like that..." Morval said, and the other three nodded. Lan's face slowly crept further towards worry.

"...moon." said Lan, too quiet even for the dead of the night.

They all took an eye at him, before following his gaze straight upwards.

The moon was turning red. A blood moon.

In the distance, Zenith's sacrificial battery self-destructed.