Hisui stared at the puzzling image that filled the small ship's forward view for a long moment. The deck beneath him vibrated as though the ship were flying, but the view really didn't match that sensation.

Feet, he realized finally, he was looking at many moving feet. Augusmin feet, presumably. To his relief, the exit was surprisingly clear given the waves of bodies traveling over the little ship energetically enough to cause the whole thing to vibrate.

When he turned around he realized why the Augusmin were trampling his small ship. This time, Sky and Apella had left the little airship parked near the base of the great tree, where the roots turned into its trunk. From here it looked like the tree was holding up the sky, although he knew that it actually stretched beyond the moon's atmosphere.

Apella appeared beside Hisui with no fanfare, as Eric logged in a moment later.

"Good, you're still here! You haven't seen it yet have you?" Apella exclaimed questioningly.

"I don't think so?" Jade replied uncertainly.

Apella's head swiveled back and forth, and then she asked, "Sky isn't back yet?"

Jade checked Hisui's friend list, and looked up again to meet Apella's scowl. "That expression looks more natural on your own face."

Apella blinked, and her scowl faded into confusion, as Sky appeared beside her, looking oddly excited until she caught sight of Hisui. "Am I too late?"

"I don't think so," Apella assured her.

Both of them gazed at Hisui's shorter form expectantly. Jade gave up and asked, "What am I supposed to be seeing that I needed both of you here to witness it?"

Apella rolled her eyes, but Sky laughed and explained excitedly, "The tree!"

Jade looked up and examined the Moon's tree through the shielded layer overhead. It looked - a little strange actually. It was hard to tell because everything about it was so large and yet so distant, but after a moment he asked, "Is it growing new leaves in the highest branches?"

Both Apella and Sky looked rather startled, and joined him in gazing upwards.

Sky, who could see the best with her enhanced elven vision, laughed again and agreed, "It is!"

"That's cool too, but that's not it," Apella informed him.

She grabbed Hisui's hand and pulled him out of the ship, into the edge of the Augusmin. The rabbit-like people were streaming over a hill that was created by a root, where it adjoined the vast trunk that rose impossibly high overhead. From here it was obvious that the little airship was being treated more like a stepping stone than an obstacle. It was easy to forget how high the rabbit folk leapt with each step.

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Sky crowded into the small space created by the ship's wing, and pointed at the trunk while exclaiming, "There!"

It took a moment for Jade to identify her target, but when he did an uneasy feeling infused him as he finally read the word that was deeply scratched into that vast tree trunk high overhead. Hisui's name was quite prominent, but it looked hastily scratched. If there was one place that it felt like the font mattered, it was when you saw your name carved into a world tree.

The sea of Augusmin flowed to the tree, and away again. The crowding was intense, and yet, the space from the entrance of the small ship to the enormous root that stretched to the east was being left clear. The root in front of the ship stretched toward the south, and it was jam packed with Augusmin trailing over its more gentle slope.

Jade couldn't see very far in that direction because the waves of traveling creatures seemed so turbulent.

"I thought they ate those leaves to gain energy," Sky commented.

The Augusmin were shedding literal clouds of glowing leaves, Jade realized as his character squinted into the crowd's light. His gaze dropped to the surface beneath his own feet. The white sand swirled a little, as though from the same vibrations that shook the little airship, but the ground was covered in more than sand beneath that shimmering swirl.

Leaves covered the ground. Not enormous leaves like the ones on the branches high overhead. Small leaves, like the ones carried by the branches that rode on Augusmin shoulders. Dead leaves. Rotting leaves. Calculations whirled across his systems, and Jade was held frozen by finding too many negative numbers in those results.

He wanted to see the Augusmin who were leaving the tree behind them. He turned back to his friends and announced, "We need to get higher."

Apella turned toward the small airship, at the same time that Sky pulled a bow out of her inventory and shot an arrow straight up.

The arrow rose, and then rose farther, and Jade wondered if the elven arrow was moving fast enough that it would have simply escaped their orbit, if the branch overhead hadn't been in its way.

Apella stopped and looked up at the sound of the distant thunk. "You want us to climb that?" she asked incredulously as Sky took hold of the wispy thread that trailed down to her. "We can just fly!" she objected.

"Did you get more power stones?" Sky asked hopefully.

Jade looked at the little airship again, and realized that it was probably sitting where it had landed. The gem stones he had traded his promise to the Jade Emperor for were gone. Traces of colorful dust were all that remained in the brackets.

He wanted to protest that it wasn't fair, but... it was, wasn't it? They had powered the little ship to its goal, and no farther.

His character Hisui couldn't make out the details of the branch far overhead, the way he could see the tiny silver flowers growing from the dust and decayed leaves beneath his feet. But he remembered how far below the surface of the moon had seemed as they'd flown past on their way down.

"Give me a few minutes and I'll craft a winch," he announced.

Sky gave him a very dubious look, but then nodded. "While you do that, I'll climb up and secure it better."

Apella's gaze flicked back and forth between them, and then she shrugged and suggested, "I'll stand watch in case the tide comes in?"

Sky and Hisui paused, gazed at the traveling Augusmin, and then nodded in unison.

Sky began to climb, and Jade began to dismantle one of the tiny inbuilt cabinets of his airship to collect enough material. Apella's joking offer to stand watch became something more serious, as the Augusmin in front of her began to collide once in a while. Their curious faces turned toward the elf rising into the air above the little ship.

The worries and cares that each of them faced in the world outside were swallowed by the rhythms of the game that lay before their eyes.