Monroe

Chapter Four Hundred and Twenty-Nine. Sightings.

Lilalyaslywain let out a quiet hiss of frustration as she felt her mana flow out of her body and into the spellform that would heal Captain Kharvic, her tail swishing in frustration.

She should have checked on him when she'd seen that he was on the list of those injured. None of the Lovar were really capable of taking care of themselves, but Captrain Kharvic was amongst the worst of them.

"Nose and eyes in the sky," she muttered, "not enough sense to realize he's hurt."

Her spell was working, albeit slowly. She was the only one who had reached level four, and had both Anima Blast and Regeneration.

Of the two spells, Regeneration was, frustratingly enough, both the most useful and the least powerful. While Anima Blast had to be used within seconds of being injured, Regeneration could be used at any time, although it healed for only a tenth of Anima Blast.

When the System arrived, the ship was in the process of being torn apart. While some of the Lovar insisted on treating her people like kittens, the Captain had been honest. He admitted to not knowing why or how the ship was being pulled apart, nor where they had suddenly found themselves when the System notifications had appeared.

The Shallihs, or as the Lovar called them, Dharlings, had adapted immediately. It was in their nature to react quickly to changes in their world. The hunter who didn't keep track of the herds perished after all.

Lilalyaslywain knew that the Lovar, even the Captain, considered them to be lesser. It was bizarre, but somehow they attributed size to worth. Despite having demonstrated their ability to take down prey four times the size of the Lovar themselves, they persisted in their self-delusion.

The arrival of the System hadn't helped. She pulled up her status.

Lilalyaslywain Shallihs 17 years old Tier 4 Level 4 Size 4 Strength 8 Coordination 8 Endurance 8 Intelligence 12 Wisdom 8 Mana 20 Health 48

When they had compared their status with the Lovar, they discovered that the Lovar were tier five, and started with attributes of five rather than four.

It was galling when she considered that despite their supposed superiority, they were terrible hunters. Never was this more evident than when the monsters had begun immediately appearing.

The monsters were definitely a threat, in both strength and numbers, but nothing that even the weakest of prides couldn't handle. The Lovar had long ago lost whatever hunting instincts they'd had, which had resulted in many injuries as well as deaths.

The System had explained that they needed to kill monsters at their tier and above their level in order to receive mana crystals, which they could use to increase their own levels and power.

Simple. At least to the Shallihs.

She winced as her spell ended, her mana drained.

Captain Kharvic's wound was now a long, puckered depression of angry red flesh. She had focused her spell on the internal damage, closing the slight rent in the vein that had been the cause of his blood loss, then knitting together the flesh around it, working her way out to the skin.

Lilalyaslywain took solace in the knowledge that none of the Lovar could have done so well. While they might have begun with an extra point in Intelligence and Wisdom, her people had something else.

Natural Affinity, Mana.

User's species possesses a Natural Affinity for Mana. Intelligence and Wisdom Attribute values are doubled for the purposes of determining the User's total Mana.

"Thank you, Lily," the Captain murmured as his eyes slowly opened.

Her tail swished.

"You," she said sternly, "are the worst sort of kitten. When will you learn that injuries must be treated, not ignored?"

"Apparently, I needed one last lesson," Kharvic said with a smile as he straightened up his chair.

She frowned in displeasure, her tail moving more rapidly as her ears flattened. "That's what you said the last time."

"Strewth, now this is a proper bridge, yeah?" Jessica's smile was brilliant as she looked around.

"It's half Star Trek, and half Firefly," Amanda whispered gleefully as she rushed to one of the consoles.

"I want to ask how the fuck, followed by what the fuck, finished by a general purpose fuck," Mike grumbled. "Do you know how many crystals we spent on the Freedom?"

"We wouldn't have made it to this point without it," Dave replied, moving to sit at the console next to Amanda.

"Summoner's Retreat," Bob shrugged. "I didn't know it could do this, but I guess it sort of tracks. The thing is, even though it's shaped like a ship, and designed like a ship, it doesn't actually have propulsion or anything."

"It does have life support," Amanda noted happily as she tapped away at the keyboard attached to the console. "Looks like you can control that to a surprising degree. We could convert the cargo bays to hydroponics pretty easily."

"Well, I thi-" Bob was cut off as a band of red light along the top of the wall began to flash.

"Warning, energy manifestation detected!" A robotic voice announced.

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"Neat, it switched to a view of the ship showing where the monster is," Amanda announced. "Looks like it's two levels down, fourth door on the right."

Bob summoned a Trebor piloted by Jake, the UtahRaptor honking its unbridled fury as it appeared before rushing to the door, impatiently waiting as it slid open, then continuing into the hallway.

"We don't have any idea what's going on, so let's have Jake take a look," Bob explained. "I can tell you that the environment outside the Retreat is not friendly."

"Why did a monster show up?" Mike asked. "I thought the System only pumped them out of Dungeons now. Is your Summoner's Retreat a Dungeon?"

"Definitely not," Bob shook his head, pausing as Trebor spoke in his mind. 'It was a level three tier four monster,' Trebor reported. 'Based on what you experienced outside and the monster appearing, I think I might know where we are.'

'We're in some sort of energy stream that separates the physical universe and the dimensional barrier between this universe and the others,' Bob mentally projected. 'The System explained that.'

'I know you were in a hurry when you appeared, but think about the way the mana looked and felt,' Trebor replied.

Bob closed his eyes for a moment, recalling the sensations at his moment of arrival. His eyes shot open.

'Is this where Dungeons are formed?' Bob asked.

'I believe it is,' Trebor replied.

"Well, I should be able to keep monsters from appearing in the Retreat with a mana shield," Bob muttered.

"Might want to file a bug report," Jessica suggested. "Seems a bit dodgy to have a retreat where monsters can just pop up in the loo, yeah?"

"I don't think that it would be an issue anywhere but here," Bob shook his head. "The good news is that the monster that showed up was tier four, level three, so not a threat, although I have no idea if the next one is going to be the same."

"Get to it then," Jessica nudged him with her shoulder. "We'll man the bridge, and Amanda can send Auruffra out to handle any more that pop-up."

Bob nodded as he activated his NASA provided environmental collar, and then portaled to the outside of the ship. It would take a number of rituals, but he had an idea.

Bob looked over the pattern he'd laid out on the hull of the ship. It would have been easier if it was a sphere, but he'd been able to link seven rituals together to cover the entire thing.

What he had put together was a mana shield, in the strictest sense of the word. It would block ambient mana from entering the ship, but it wouldn't simply rebuff it. It would, instead, channel some of the energy to a set of points, seven of them, where it could contact the hull directly.

His plan, or more accurately, his idea as he hadn't quite progressed to the point where it could really be called a plan, was that he could use a mana absorption circuit to take some of the mana the shield was blocking and use it to charge mana crystals, which in turn could be used to power the as of yet to be created engines.

Nodding to himself, he sat down in the center of the largest ritual, retrieving a bag of mana crystals from his inventory, and began to guide the mana as he pulled it from the crystals, through his matrix, and into the ritual patterns he'd created.

Energy pulsed through him, and he winced. It had been a while since he'd worked more than three rituals at once, and he'd never done seven. He was tier nine, and his theoretical limit was nine rituals at once, but he hadn't tested that. He'd worked six at tier six, and that had been brutal. This was less so, for which he was glad.

He was only peripherally aware of Jessica and Mike appearing outside the hull.

"I'm not one for art, but that is something," Mike said, his wristband carrying his words to Jessica's.

"Yeah, it really is," she agreed.

Bob was sitting on the hull, the blue-black of his mana tracing the lines of copper wire he'd laid out across the hull.

"Almost makes me miss giving up on magic," Mike sighed. "But I'm much better suited to being a tank."

"Better you than me," Jessica replied. "I'm not keen on getting hurt all the time."

"The goal is to not get hurt," Mike laughed. "But better me than you."

Jessica shook her head.

She'd gotten to know Mike after he'd reincarnated. She'd seen photographs of him before, and he really had embodied the image of the world-weary, hard-worn detective. But she really only saw the now twenty-one-year-old face and body that was so incongruous with the immense levels of dad energy that he emanated. He really did view them all as kids, or maybe young adults, who didn't need a bedtime but could use a bit of fatherly advice and guidance.

"There it goes," she breathed as the blue-black energy began to move faster as it spread across the entire hull of the ship, outlining the hull in geometric patterns in the eldritch light of Bob's energy, steady and strong, a stark contrast to the chaotic colors of the energies that surrounded both the ship, and them.

"Seven of them, you think?" Mike asked.

"Yeah," Jessica agreed.

"I tried to do three of them at once, back when I had just started before I reincarnated." It was his turn to shake his head. "Couldn't handle it. It wasn't the pain," he continued, "that I could deal with; it was the pressure of keeping all the mana flows in order. I guess I'm just not built for it, unlike him."

"He's something special, that's for sure," Jessica agreed. "I could do that, and I could probably do it a smidge better than he does. I can see a few places where a tiny adjustment would make it just a touch more efficient. But I'd be wrecked afterward," she sighed. "He's going to wrap that up and then get to work on the engines, I'd wager."

"No bet," Mike said. "When they built that man, they left out the part that knows how to quit."

Kharvic was saved from a good tongue lashing by Lily when Ensign Corrial approached his console.

"Captain," she began hesitantly, "the sensors, they've picked up something."

Kharvic's eyes widened.

They'd been here for over two years, and although they'd gone over the sensor arrays dozens of times, they'd continued to report that there was absolutely nothing around them despite the swirling energies clearly visible from any of the viewing stations.

He leaned forward and pulled up the sensor logs on his console.

He noted the array, and pulled the imaging onto the screen.

Lily, who was standing on the other side of his chair, let out a hiss of surprise.

It was a ship, that much was obvious. Likely made for atmospheric operation as well as orbital, it was sleek and aerodynamic, with an oblong saucer and a pair of nacelles connected by a sleek sloping bridge.

What truly caught the eye was the even purplish light that traced an intricate pattern along the hull.

Kharvic tapped his console, instructing the sensors to focus on the image and zoom in closer.

It was his turn to draw in a sharp breath as he spun the controls, zooming in even further.

There was a clearly Lovarian form seated on the hull, while two more were floating in the wild energies a short distance away.

The blue-black energy was somehow emanating from the man, and he watched in fascination as it grew stronger, the patterns becoming more distinct and complex.

"Ensign," Kharvic began, "set a course for that ship."

Ensign Corrial nodded, her pony tail bouncing, before she turned and rushed to her console.

Kharvic tapped his console, checking for the team closest to the engines that also had an engineer. Opening a communications channel, he spoke again. "Ensign Jibruil, secure the repairs on that relay and head to the central engine compartment. I need you to run a complete diagnostic on the primary propulsion unit, as well as the primary maneuvering thrusters. We need to get the Hurry moving as soon as possible."

"Who do you think they are?" Lily asked, her tail curled up with only the tip flicking from side to side.

"I have no idea," Kharvic admitted. "But being as the sensor logs show that ship just appearing, I'm hoping they know how to get out of here."

Lily nodded, her ears perked forward.

Kharvic successfully hid his smile.

There had been a lot of complaints over the past two years. From water rationing to favorite foods in short supply to a distaste for whatever incursion meat was on the menu on any given day, the nearly two million Lovar trapped aboard the Hustall'kalwin had made their displeasure and discomfort known.

In contrast, the Dharlings seemed to have only a single complaint, although it was unanimous. They missed the sun. While they had lived in caverns, and hunted nocturnally, they all shared a common love of taking afternoon naps in the sun. They preferred indirect sunlight, ideally filtered through the leaves of a dense forest, but they'd also accept cloud cover, brush, or even tall grass.

There wasn't a single person aboard the Hurry who wasn't eager to see the ship freed of this place, even if their motivations varied.

Kharvic was doing his best to restrain the hope that had soared in his chest, the first he had felt in a long, long time.

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