Krovukk was helping Xar patch up the ship somewhat. Maya was doing something none of them even thought was possible. She was navigating safely between the currents. Safely was used as a relative term here as a few of the currents had chipped away or straight up ripped something out, but the ship was still miraculously in one piece. So was the last ship after them.

There had been more than one pursuer they hadn’t seen at first. Now? Only one remained as it was close enough that the currents didn’t shift too much, allowing it to follow them in the same relative safety. At least that one had its shields up, even if it hadn’t seemed like it changed anything. The magic had ripped through it with ease when they had gone too close to a dangerous current.

But alas, their ship wasn’t going to hold much longer. They had flown for so long Kruvukk had had the time to panic with Xar at what she was doing, pause in awe that they were still in one piece and finally accept that she somehow knew what she was doing. Now they were patching up what they could to make it fly just a bit further, but the ship was honestly falling apart. And he didn’t feel great either, some of the magical current had been… strange. It hadn’t harmed them, sure, but he wasn’t sure he had liked the feeling in his stomach at the time.

Not much he could do about it now, so he put it out of his mind. He had other things to worry about, like that huge ugly brown Piece they were probably ‘landing’ on, to put it gently. It looked like the kind to crawl with some kind of monster, unlike the green and pretty ones they had seen. They had even passed by a sort of village on the way, but they had spotted it too late to turn and land. Plus, they didn’t know if the locals were, uh, nice.

Xar was furiously clicking and beeping on the emergency patch machine or whatever the true name was and Krovukk was helping him feeding more mana crystal. They had set up so many barriers on every hole in the hull the ship looked like cheese. One part was more magical shields than ship and they knew they were pushing the machine far past what it was normally supposed to do, but they didn’t really have a choice, and they didn’t expect to use the thing ever again as they both knew it was about to fail critically. They just needed it to hold until they landed, away from the vacuum of space.

The amount of mana it took was far superior to the mana intake the thing normally had, so he was busy feeding it mana crystals manual that rapidly depleted and shoveled in new ones almost constantly. This module wasn’t supposed to replace the hull, but patch a hole or two. With the wild magic in the air they were going through, it helped alleviate the problem somewhat but it didn’t help to make it stable. In fact it was one of the reasons they feared the thing just might implode at any moment.

Krovukk heard Maya and Philip in the cockpit exclaim over something and he worried for a second if they were done for. Instead he prayed that whatever it was wasn’t going to be their end and continued to replace crystals over and over again. They were almost out, but it didn’t matter. They were very close to their ‘landing area’ he suspected. He just waited for for her to tell them to brace and he would quickly strap up. Matt and Kali ran past him and dumped some crystals right there before they ran to strap themselves up.

“Strap up in about 30.” She told them as they went wobbling down the trembling hall and started to secure themselves for a rough landing. Not even ten seconds later he heard Maya yell to brace for impact. He swore as he grabbed Xar and ran to a large seat fit for his size. He tucked the smaller Skraa in his space suit in front of him. He let him dangle there like a newborn, but the proud ratman didn’t complain. He wasn’t sure he would have had the time to strap himself down properly. Just as he clicked in his belt he saw ground rapidly approaching through one of the holes and thought that the angle didn’t look very promising.

The ship touched ground and they were all violently shaken. One of the straps snapped as the whole section it was fastened to got ripped out. The ship almost instantly broke into pieces as it collided with the unmoving earth. All the magical systems stopped working and all the patchwork disappeared as the more than ripped up ship became scrap, with them in it.

—

“– up.” A voice told him.

“–ke up.” This time it came with a small slap.

“Krovukk, wake up you big ball of muscle.” Xar yelled at him with a tear in his eye as he slowly opened his eyes.

He was hurting all over. He felt like the ship had looked before it had crashed, or maybe after. He tried to move but immediately stopped at the pain. Krovukk was on his side, curled around Xar and protecting him, but he wasn’t in the spaceship, but on freshly moved earth. Right, the strap had broken. He was lucky it had still managed to slow him down or he would probably have been paste. As the images of what had happened before he had gone unconscious assaulted him with flashes, he started to feel exactly how broken his body felt.

“No, don’t move, you idiot.” Xar told him as he slowly got out from under his space suit. Krovukk released a breath as he saw his small friend was completely fine. His friend looked very worried however as he went around him.

“Well you don’t have a random bone poking out at least.” He said from behind him as he looked around.

“Do you feel that you have a broken bone or something?” Xar asked to make sure.

“Just use a drop or two so the skin repairs itself at least. I can’t feel much detail with all the pain. Everything hurts.” Krovukk responded.

He felt the drop of healing potion fall on him like a thirsty man in a desert feels a drop on his tongue. His body greedily ate up the healing and started knitting the broken skin. The issue is that bones sometimes grew back wrong with healing potions, and you couldn’t just pour them. It was harder to fix them after and you needed a specialized healer, something he knew they wouldn’t find for a while out here.

A few drops later, Krovukk almost cried out in pain. The nerves had been too damaged in the worst areas and now they were screaming that he was hurt. He grit his teeth as he held in the loud cry of pain he wanted to scream. They hadn’t survived the crash to get rushed by some monsters roaming around. Xar clearly noticed and grimaced as he let some more drops fall on his body. They went about it slowly to make sure they didn’t heal something wrong.

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It took a while as they went about it slowly, making sure to fix him properly. Krovukk was well enough to move from his somewhat fetal position and Xar slowly helped him sit up so they could assess the damage. It didn’t look like he had taken a huge shock that might have broken a bone, but rather been grinded against the earth. His skin was almost completely gone and there was traces of it being regrown slowly with the healing he had received. But there was still dirt everywhere. They couldn’t just pour the healing on. Xar looked around for some water in the wreckage and soon came back. He didn’t have much but it should be enough.

The process was slow and painful as Xar would clean the flesh with water, scraping off the earth before applying a drop of healing potion to the area. It didn’t mend the skin completely, but it was mostly so Krovukk wouldn’t die from the pain. The cleaning already hurt enough, and the exposed and bleeding flesh was too much. Krovukk’s eyes rolled more than once and he almost fainted, but a well placed slap from Xar was enough to keep him awake. It took them almost thirty minutes before Krovukk was somewhat back in one piece. His skin was back but looking fresh and fragile compared to the rest of his body where it was a deep and sturdy grayish blue.

“Let me check on the others, wait here.” Xar told him as he left him sitting there. Krovukk was mostly healed but didn’t move. His muscles and body still generally hurt all over. They had already used a lot of healing potion, and it had undoubtedly saved his life, but too much of anything was bad. They would probably wait for a day or two before he used any more.

He couldn’t wait until then. He just hoped there was no fighting to be done before then. Looking around he saw the wreckage of what had been a rather large ship. It felt like it was a miracle he was even alive when he saw all the pieces all over the place. It didn’t seem like any one room had survived in a somewhat whole piece. He also hoped the others were alright. He hoped the reason they hadn’t found them first was simply because no one had slapped them awake.

He spotted something moving behind the strange and thorny vegetation in front of him. Groaning he slowly moved one hand to his back only to find no weapon there. Oh. He would have to find it in the wreckage somewhere and hope it was in one piece. Broken and tired, he resigned himself to whatever it was. Maybe Xar would make it back in time or something, but honestly, if it was a monster, he wasn’t sure he felt like fighting back right now. He just felt so damn tired, he just wanted to close his eyes and sleep.

The thing jumped out of the bush and stood in front of him and he sighed in relief.

“You scared me.” He said with a smile.

“Sorry. I had to wait until Xar was gone.” Maya told him and he could understand why. She was… broken again. He wasn’t completely sure it was an important secret right now, considering where they were and everything, but he couldn’t fault her for it.

“Are the others fine?” He asked her as she tried to hide a nasty cut on her face, showing a strange material underneath. It was slowly knitting itself together, he knew, but it wasn’t clear how long that would take.

“I’m not sure. I didn’t try to wake them up. But they looked fine considering the landing.” She told him and that sounded like music to his ears. Probably just the shock of the landing then.

“You saved our lives many times today.” He told her with a grin before he remembered that hurt.

“I barely… you… it wasn’t…” She hesitated, clearly not knowing how to respond.

“You just nod your head and take in the compliment, young pilot. I’ve never even heard of anyone trying to fly in old world. It’s just something people doesn’t do.” He grinned at her. She nodded this time, embarrassed.

“I did level quite a bit despite the rocky landing.” She admitted.

“Anything… nice?” He asked without prodding too much, classes and levels was something very personal after all.

“I’m a level twenty one [Ace Daredevil Pilot].” She told him and he couldn’t help but laugh.

“Already an Ace huh?” He continued laughing at the absurdity.

“Is it anything special?” She asked, truly curious.

“Ace classes for pilots are like Archmages classes for mages, albeit slightly easier to obtain as magic is… hard. But most people get their Ace pilot class at around level forty. Some even at level fifty. Of course there have been some rare cases of people having an Ace class at level thirty, but I have never heard of someone getting it at level twenty.” He told her honestly and she seemed to beam with pride.

“What about you?” She asked him full of innocence.

“What about me?” He asked even if he knew what she meant.

“Did you level or get a rare class?” She asked.

“No, I didn’t really do any fighting now did I? So I didn’t level. I could maybe have picked up a [Crystal Feeder] class or something but I guess it’s not something I truly want or the system would have given me the class. So no leveling for me.” He said with a sad smile. He suspected Xar might have gained a level, maybe, as his class did have to do with technomagic somewhat, but he hadn’t made anything explode so maybe not.

Xar came back with the others as if summoned by his thoughts. Everyone seemed fine but then Philip, Kali and Xar looked in horror at Maya who had forgotten about her face. She looked back at them, turned her head slightly as if questioning why they were staring at her. Xar pointed at her but didn’t say anything. He saw Krovukk grin at him and turned to point accusingly at him.

“You knew?” Was all he told him.

“What is that?” Kali asked as she pointed at Maya’s face and more specifically her strange ‘skin’. Maya suddenly seemed to realize what they were staring at and quickly hid it with her hand. Philip was strangely silent as he just stood there and gaped. Matt looked around worried by the others reactions but stayed silent.

“Maya, care to explain?” Xar said while turning his head to glare at Krovukk before turning back. She froze like she was devoting all of her attention to thinking and after a long pause she opened her mouth.

“It seems the vegetation here can cause the strangest of wounds.” She lied badly. Xar turned to Krovukk disbelievingly.

“You knew?” He repeated and Kali looked confused.

“Knew what? Guys, what is going on?” Kali asked them.

“She’s a sentient grade?” Philip whispered and Xar seemed to nod.

“I suspect she is more.” Xar added while trying to pierce all of Maya’s secrets with his stare.

“It is exactly what you think it is Xar.” Krovukk told him.

“Can somebody tell me what is going on?” Kali interrupted them and everyone turned to look at her. There was a brief pause as if to see who would answer that, Xar finally turned to Kro and the rest followed suit.

“I think it would be best if she told you herself.” Krovukk said as he looked at Maya. She looked like a wild animal caught in a car’s headlights on Dust. She slowly relaxed and recomposed herself before speaking.

“Yes, I am a leveling golem, and I got a brand new class. [Ace Daredevil Pilot].” The others gasped at her statements.