“So we are stuck in messed up part of the planet with something here with us.” Wolf said while still processing it himself. “What on earth are we gonna do?”

“M-mabye we could fly the ship off into the distance. L-leave this place behind?” Frey cautiously asked.

“Well we gotta do something.” John replied. “Clearly whatever was up there knows what it is doing cause there is no way the cup just fell by itself.”

“Considering our situation, running might be our best bet.” Jake added. “We not only don’t know where we are, or what we’re up against, we still don’t know why we are alive and here.”

“Well, lets take it to a vote.” Frey quietly added. “All in favor of leaving raise your hand.”

Everyones hand rose. “Guess we’re leaving.” She added.

The crew of the ship went to their various stations and set a course to go in a straight line out over the black desert.

**********

After an hour of travel, the Valkyrie suddenly stopped.

“Does the ship need gas?” Jake sarcastically said aloud. This gained him the slightly angry and worried stares from his fellow survivors.

In a worried tone, John spoke. “Um, my map isn’t updating.” Everyone shuffled over to see the screen which had a straight line from the ruins to their current location but as he said, the map looked like it hit a wall.

“Hey Jake, try backing the ship up.” Glaze suggested. Upon attempting to move the vessel backwards, the ship glided across the sky as it normally did. John hopped from his seat and left the bridge. He slowly flew towards the front of the ship and after going a few meters ahead of the vessel, he suddenly stopped and a large blue pulse shot out from where he was. It extended towards the left and right horizon slammed into the desert below and as it rose above them, curved inward.

“Well shit.” Wolf said and broke the silence.

“So we cant go home.” Lilly said, almost in complete tears.

“There, there has to be a way we can leave.” Glaze said as he ran out onto the deck and fired magic bolts into the invisible dome. Each time the various spells hit; shockwaves spread out across their whole vision.

John joined in from where he was hovering and started pounding the wall only to get the same effect.

Wolf left the bridge to bring the two of them inside so they could calm down and discuss what they should do.

“S-so, we cant go home, th-there is something here with us, and we don’t k-know where in the world we are.” Frey said while trying to comfort Lilly.

The group all sat there, unsure what to do. As far as they all knew, they were trapped until they die, if they even could due to the entity that started all of this. As the minutes ticked by, night approached and as the dusk became night, the ground shock.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!” Lilly shouted from her seat. On the cameras, was a black scorpion and silver worm fighting. Except they were both easily over 50 meters long and the worm was still buried in the sand so it could be a lot longer.

Everyone rushed to their stations and Jake moved the ship away from the fighting behemoths as fast as the thing would move.

“MOVE INTO THE SKY!” Wolf yelled from his station. After yelling this, he bumped a switch which activated his and Glaze’s stations

“Activating defensive and offensive capabilities.” Said a female robotic voice.

“Wolf, what did you fucking do?!” Glaze said in a loud worried tone.

“HOW WOULD I KNOW?!” Wolf yelled back.

“Well it the voice said offensive and defensive.” Jake reminded them “The ship must have weapons and such then.”

At this, Wolf and Glaze tried to figure out what those were when Lilly spoke up again. “There is more of them.” A unanimous what was yelled in response to this. On the various screens for each camera Lilly controlled, other large desert creatures that should be tiny were appearing. Across the black desert the first of the two moons was lighting. Off in the distance to their far left was a brown lizard that was probably 300 meters long. Infront of them, two scorpions were sitting still together.

Lilly in her frantic state hit a button which activated another round screen. It was radar and as it circled, almost the entire thing was dotted with various sized red spots with the Valkyrie being a tiny dot in the centre.

“HA HA.” Came from the left side of the ship as Wolf grabbed two sticks that had buttons ontop and on his screen was an image with a crosshair. Each corner had a weird shape in green which Jake guessed were the weapons. “I got the guns working, now then.” He went to press the button ontop of the joysticks but a no was yelled at him from Frey.

“If you sh-shoot them, they might see us as a thr-threat.” She said now she had everyone’s attention. “We should just run. Glaze, di-did you get your station to work yet?”

“No I haven’t.” Glaze said in an annoyed voice. “This thing needs lables.” He said slaming his hand down onto an empty part of the consol. To his surprise, his hand sunk and looking where he hit, a hand print appeared below his fist and another on the other side of the console. “I guess lets try this then.” He quietly said to himself. Placing his hands on the indents, the lights on his body started to glow more brightly .

As the ship sailed across the sky high in the air, it was surrounded by a blue sphere with a hexagonal pattern and unbeknownst to the people inside the ship, the Valkyrie and the shield went invisible.

The crew watched as they sailed through the night sky for about 40 mins when they could see the boundaries of the other weird biomes. They also no longer saw any giant animals near them for the last 20 or so minutes of their trip. Jake stopped the ship once the ruins were in sight before the group all collapsed from the stress of possibly being eaten whole by the giant creatures.

**********

The entire time the ship was in motion, the figure had stayed in the ships shadow. Flying along without a care. She was sitting a blind spot in the cameras and even if they activated the radar, her signature would be hidden below the ships own marker. She found it quite entertaining watching the two individuals attack the border.

But the best part of her day was when the residents of the black desert showed up. She cloaked herself so she wouldn’t be seen and as she flew around, she was alerted the Valkyrie’s weapons activating. This was disappointing but they simply stayed active. “Good for them.” She said to no one. “They would have been killed in seconds if they attacked.” But to her surprise, they activated the shield and then moments later, the cloaking activated. “Well shit, how am I gonna find them now?”

She followed at the same pace as the ship hoping it was still going in a straight line towards the ruins This paid off as once the ruins were in sight, the ship became visible and the shield was down.

As she sat on top of the vessel, she decided sleep would be nice and slept there for the night.