As soon as the glowing orbs containing the goddesses and the child left, the hull of the shuttle stitched itself back together as if it had never been torn apart. Whatever artificial gravity had been active when the goddesses were around turned off and all the crew members returned to floating around. The shuttle crew breathed out in relief as the three goddesses left. The lone elf who had stood up to the three went limp and drifted into the awaiting embrace of her sister.
“You did great Lia. Right Sir.”
A rare look of demand appeared on the face of the lieutenant as she gazed at her crew members and friends expectantly.
“Erm uh, yeah! Good Job Lia.”
The odd and somewhat awkward praise from the captain was followed by a wave for the others to do the same.
“Well Done Little miss,” the beastman said.
“Great job...But could you please not endanger us like that again!”
The Dwarven engineer begrudgingly said his thanks with an added bit at the end. Despite this, the timid scientist knew they were sincere.
“Ronny, I doubt if Lemina had interfered and said something we would still be breathing right now. A thank you is the least we can do.”
The disgruntled dwarf went “hmmp” and went to go inspect the shuttle.
Everyone returned to their duties with the captain barking orders. The ethereal chains outside the shuttle continued to pull the ship towards the red-tinted moon. Previously, command had requested them to land on the blue moon of Selene because it had the highest chances of having liquid water and organic life. The red and gray moons of Mora and Antenna had been 2ndary priorities. Now they were being dragged towards th red moon.
The elf scientist got up and went over to her workstation, retrieving a toolkit full of scientific devices she was supposed to use to on the moon to gather specimens if she ever got the chance.
“Sis?”
The scientist continued to gather supplies and prepare microscopes, taking out a slide and as she went.
“Based on my analysis, those 3 appeared to possess the same names as the ones that the Tri-faced Moon Religion worships. I speculate that they are indeed the owners of the moons and are sacred territory to them just as the Infinite Forest is sacred to the elves.”
Sacred Zones or Territories are places that a god has claimed with their power and held total dominance over. Some gods only allow certain individuals, tribes, or groups on their territory as a privilege. In exchange, they are expected to serve their god with obedience and reverence, with some exceptions of course. A believer of another god setting foot on their territory can sometimes be considered an act of war.
The elven scientist floated over to the spot where the child had hit her head. She took a small test tube from her coat pocket and took out a cotton-tipped stick and began to swab the surface. After she was done, she brushed the slide with the bloody residue and collected some more into the test tube.
“I am curious about that girl. I know of no races that bleed red except for a few races of fire blooded in the east, and their blood possesses distinct burning or corrosive aspects, unlike this girls. Hmmm...there is more to her than meets the eye.” she said, examining the red liquid inside the tube.
__________________________________
The three orbs of light descended out of the atmosphere into a land of gray. While humans might see this as a lifeless moon, it was actually quite the opposite. True, its atmosphere was actually full of deadly gasses and toxins, but underneath the surface was another story. Hundreds of thousands of miles of caverns and tunnels stretched all the way around the moon and back.
Inhabiting these tunnels were a variety of strange, alien life with crystals of all sorts of hues decorating their bodies. Everything from wolves with crystal horns to tiny birds with wings that were made of the stuff.
On the surface, a massive crystal spire jutted out from the surface like the crystal atop a magic wand. It radiated power and dominated its dull gray and rocky surroundings. Inside of it was a fully functioning palace/fortress. Hundreds of beautiful rooms were carved out inside the giant spire. There were dining rooms made of diamond, bath halls of emerald, and ballrooms of bismuth.
Retreating into the spire, Immediately upon landing, Selene excused herself a moment to go take Lunabelle to her room while the others convened in the conference room.
Inside, an enormous slab of pure, Titanium Quartz stretching as long as a fashion runway to form a polished table, with black leather seats on either side and tasteful lighting fixtures along midnight black walls.
The lighting along the walls was built to shine onto the table, drawing the attention of all present and bring out every color whenever the light touched it. When Lunabelle had seen it for the first time, she had been enchanted with the pretty lights and ask where they came from.
Of course, Mommy Astenna had been more than happy to indulge the little girl's question and explain the different spectrums of light and how they interacted with the reflected surface. Somehow the topic had ended up on lasers, one thing lead to another, and before she knew it, they were having a laser light show at the table and watching as they bounced off the table and hit a disco globe, spattering the room in red, green and blue lasers.
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When Selene and Mora had found them dancing on the table to music and laughed till their sides hurt. Who knew their silent and calm bookworm sister had such a side to her.
Now devoid of any partying mood, the two sat facing each other, silently looking at each other.
“I think an explanation is in order Asta,” said the armored figure.
Her sister would never do anything without a good reason. Stopping Selene from venting on the intruders had been unexpected, but not out of the unreasonable. However, keeping them alive and only taking them prisoner after the stunt they pulled kidnapping Lunabelle was totally unlike her.
“I suppose I should hurry and explain before Selene returns or I will never get two words out of my mouth. The mortal, as foolish as she was to say such a thing in front of Selene, had a point. We have pampered her too much. As a consequence, we have also been neglecting our duties for almost 2000 years now, with only an occasional bit of work done. When I went to investigate things on the planet's surface, I discovered things have changed quite a bit.”
The crimson armored goddess listened to her sister's recount of the situation on the mortal planet. As she went on, the red goddess could only shake her head at the situation they had brought on. The goddess in gray reached out her hand and a scroll appeared in it.
“...the mortals have been applying the remnants of our sisters in the most interesting ways. The aftermath of the moon fall and our subsequent retreat to raise Little Luna was not taken well too. I have compiled the data and here is the chart of the estimates of how much our follower unit has decreased. The initial skyrocket of followers after the moon fall has reverted and decreased even further than before the event.”
Before the moon fall, the humans had used their moons as a source of material and relied on them quite a bit. Despite the barbaric nature of it, them taking the material from them had raised their follower count exponentially. Humans, after all, had relied on them to create mining jobs, regulate the ocean tides, and were the center in many theatrical performances and movies. When the moon fall came around, they all thought they were condemned to oblivion, but hope had come when that old man had used remains from their sisters to start a religious order, pushing their follower unit back into a healthy state.
After opening the charts and examining them for quite a few minutes she frowned.
She hadn’t expected the little humans to leave their goddesses so quickly. Maybe after 2000 years their standing might have begun to crumble, but wasn’t this too quickly?
“I thought your initial prediction indicated a decay rate of 2500 years till high-class miracles were needed to restore?” she said.
“I had thought so too. There are too many variables to know what exactly sped up the decay, but I have a hypothesis that it has something to do with them coming into contact with some of that wretched Scarlet Artifacts.”
Just before the destruction of the moon's, Russia had successfully annexed 86.3% of the world. Their slogans and insignias could be seen everywhere. After the downfall of the moons, after all these years, people had just begun now to excavate old pieces of technology from before the downfall, many of them being marked with a scarlet Insignia of the Grand Council Socialists Republics. Of course, it had been hundreds of years and no one knew what such markings meant, only that they were red, hence the naming.
Mysterious weaponry that could kill thousands in seconds, strange liquids inside of vials, metal armor suits 10 meters tall, all had been unearthed from strange underground places and metal houses. No one knew where they had come from, but what they did know was that they were deadly.
There was an incident involving the unearthing, research, and subsequent accidental activation of a nuclear bomb had caused a small country to be turned into a fiery hell. There were many more incidents like it, a strange metal golem going berserk and destroying a small town, a whole village being wiped out after a vial of strange blue liquid thought to be a healing potion was broken open.
Much of the time, the effects of the destruction wrought about these devices had lasting effects and spilled over into other countries. Nuclear radiation being swept by the wind into a neighboring empire, an entire area becoming plagued with sickness. A reputation of death and destruction had quickly accumulated.
Thus an unspoken agreement was made between nations. With a few exceptions, no nation would use Scarlet Artefacts unless the destruction of their country was at stake.
“From what I was able to extract from the minds of the mortals and my investigation, a small band of leaders has formed a coalition to study the artifacts and understand their usage. They apparently have been studying these objects for the last 100 years and have made enough progress to improve their livelihoods and adventure into the celestial lands, or what they call Outer Space apparently. ”
“Why the secrecy from Selene sister? I fail to see the reason you wish to keep a few mere mortals digging up trinkets from our sister.”
“You make it sound so simple. *Sigh* It is important because while we have been raising Lunabelle, our followers are turning to new sources, such as this "Science" in search of hope. Now, here are my predictions of the further decay of our follower unit.”
She handed the armored goddess another scroll. Unfurling it, her expression turned grim. The rate of decay continued to plummet until it reached a low, red part of the graph which had been labeled “Demote Point”.
“This…”
“Our Demotion from celestial goddesses to nature goddesses is on the line. If this trend continues, our moons will cease to exist within the next 200 years.”
“Then why are we not talking with Selene right now!”
A method of raising their follower unit while counteracting the effects of the Scarlet Artifacts on their follower unit was needed. Each of them had a stockpile of prayers and faith to work with. However, if they just threw a bunch of miracles at the planet and hoped for success, it would likely only lead to their definite demise.
If they made a budget for their faith and prayer spending, then over the next 1000 years or so the should be able to recover. But they didn’t have time, with only 200 years to work with a long term plan was out of the question.
Faith and prayers of any sort were the lifeblood of all gods. Of course, there were exceptions, but for small celestial gods like them, it was a matter of literal life and death. If they spent too many prayers and faith performing miracles, then they wouldn’t have enough to sustain themselves causing their immortal souls to fade.
Truly the definition of being stuck between a rock and a hard place.
“I propose we send Lunabelle to the planet alone and have her act as-.”
*SMASH*
The two whipped around weapons draw to see a glass orb shatter and scatter across the dark obsidian floor. The figure of Selene standing in the doorway in disbelief and betrayal at the words of her sister came out of her mouth.