The Systemic Lands (Dark Progressive LITRPG)

Captain Francis

I looked at the letter addressed to me on top of Michael's desk in his private room on the Crystal Vortex. Of course, he had a plan of some kind. I opened it up, read it, closed my eyes, and then folded it back up. I put it in my pockets and considered the instructions he had left for me.

There was a huge choice in front of me right now. Michael had left my orders very open-ended based on what happened after he left so that I had the flexibility to react to whatever might happen. I exited his room and closed the door. Michelle looked at me as I walked over.

"I am guessing he left something behind?" she asked, and I nodded. I pulled out the letter and handed it to her. It took her a moment to read it before she let out a scoff and folded it back up.

"Classic. What are you thinking?" she asked me, and I shook my head.

"Waiting seems like the best option, but I am hesitant to do so, since there will probably be an attack without him present," I replied, and Michelle nodded. We had discussed multiple scenarios while we had been grinding out here in the wilderness. Michael leaving for more than half a day would expose us to a large attack.

"It was nice of him to basically just say, show up at this point at this time, the rest is up to you," Michelle replied. I could tell there was a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

"Well, you are the ranking individual on board," I told her, and she looked at me in surprise and resignation. There was a hierarchy aboard the airship and the people working under Michael. While it had never come up before, I knew it well.

Michael was at the top obviously, but then Michelle was second in command. She had the greatest vision and had to make split second decisions with her summons to provide defensive cover. I was third in command after her, managing the day-to-day affairs of the airship. My own meager skills and ability were no use in high level fights anymore.

That was something I had long resigned myself to. I was okay with it. I knew what I was good at and doubled down. Things had been tense on board for a while, but thankfully there had been no major incidents so far. The conditions were cramped and the hot bunking wasn't helping anyone's mood.

"We depart South, right over the Rift," Michelle finally said, and I looked at her in surprise. That would be dangerous and the stress on the Crystal Vortex quite high. We would also be burning quite a bit of our stored-up points to fly over those turbulent void zones.

"The turbulence is risky," I said, and she nodded. She knew that I was talking about the loss of points and the stress the airship would experience. There was a reason we avoided such trips if possible, preferring to fly over the land route instead.

"Exactly. We will avoid being intercepted and rendezvous at the coordinates listed. That is the best option," Michelle said.

"Alright. Sound the travel alarm," I called out. A bell rang out to let everyone know they needed to take down their washed clothing outside and get to some place secure once we started moving at speed. "At least we don't have to worry about flying monsters." I was glad Michael hadn't taken the Avatar.

Having no flying monsters attack us made this entire situation bearable. If it wasn't for that, this would have been a much greater struggle. She was still bundled up with that helmet on her head off to the side of the bridge. Michael had insisted multiple guards be next to her whenever she was moved to the bathroom for her sponge bath.

Even with the daily cleanings, she still had developed a rank odor. But he had insisted she remain in the bridge where she couldn't be easily misplaced. I thought that was silly with how small the airship was, but it wasn't my job to question Michael, just try and obey his orders as best as I could.

A soldier entered the bridge. "All stations report ready for travel Captain. Um, but what about the airboat and the men out grinding, sir?" he asked.

"They are with Michael. We should see them in the future. Go to your post," I told the soldier who saluted and rushed away. "Helm, take us South East, max speed."

We began to build up speed when the airship suddenly shook and I heard an explosion. "Report!" I yelled out. Michelle was already summoning monsters and having them exit the bridge.

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"Damage to the engines. We have lost thrust, limited maneuverability, and limited altitude control," the helmsman reported back.

"Battle stations," I called out and the bell was rung multiple times. "I want eyes out there. Can you bring us about in a circle?" I asked.

"Trying, but barely have any control," the helmsman said. I walked over to the rods and checked myself. The damage was quite bad. A soldier entered the bridge and quickly came over to me.

"Casualty reports. A bomb went off at the rear of the Crystal Vortex. Twelve confirmed killed or fell overboard, six heavily wounded, five with minor injuries." That was not good, but as much as I hated to admit it, we had more than enough people on board at the moment. The much bigger issue was the damage to the Crystal Vortex itself.

"Adjust heading South, hug the void zones to our East," I ordered the helmsman.

"Adjusting course. We are losing velocity, slowly," they reported. I winced at that. Soon we would be dead in the air, a sitting duck for whoever decided to show up. The fact that a bomb was placed on board meant it was a saboteur of some kind, but I needed to check.

"Anything out there?" I asked Michelle.

"Nothing that I can see, but once we exit this level 5 zone, we will be attacked by monsters from the ground," Michelle said. I considered ordering us to gain altitude, but if we did begin to crash, being too far from the ground was a death sentence. It also made it much harder to navigate by zone. With how close we were going to be to the Rift, if we maneuvered over one of the void zones, the airship had a high chance of taking more damage and possibly breaking apart.

"We need to get to a city to conduct repairs," I muttered, but there was only one known city with the ability to repair an airship the size of the Crystal Vortex, Purgatory. There was nothing to do but wait as the wounded were tended to and we continued to limp away. I tried to think of anything we could do to go faster, but airship engines were not something that could be repaired with guesswork.

They were incredibly complex pieces of engineering and energy. The most qualified person would have been Michael to work on one of them. After him, there was no one currently available. Jacob before he turned traitor and possibly Doctor Katz. The fact that the explosion came right after Michael had left, meant that an attack was imminent in my mind.

With no airboat we had no chance of escape either. Well, unless we escaped on one of Michelle's summons. "You have anything that can move us?" I asked her.

"Only at the slowest of speeds. We need to get ready for a large battle," Michelle said and I nodded.

"Nothing spotted?" I asked.

"No," she said and went back to focusing. The sabotage only happened when we had tried to leave. That meant that whoever had done this wanted us here. "I am going to check on my people, Michelle has command."

She didn't say anything as I left. The mess hall had been converted into a triage area. There were a lot of burns. Thankfully one of the soldiers had Sleep as one of their skills and it was upgraded. A good way to knock people out. The medics were handling the injuries, but they needed restorations and quickly. I made my way back to the rear of the Crystal Vortex, or what was left of it.

The entire rear, and all the engines were gone. It hadn't been one explosion, but multiple across two decks. Out of seven engines, only one was left on the upper deck. The staircases were exposed as well as the rear bedrooms. Thankfully one staircase was intact enough, I made it up to the flight deck.

I went to the rear and the cabin had shattered. The explosions had taken out several of the beds, and I saw burnt flesh and blood. "Sir, orders?" one of my lieutenants asked me.

"Hold steady for now. We expect an attack to come soon. I want eyes on the sky, every direction," I ordered.

"Yes sir," he saluted, and I made my way back to the bridge. The damage wasn't just bad, it was catastrophic. When I returned, I glanced at the Avatar. That was probably the reason the attack was so measured in scope. If the engines had truly exploded and not just been separated with an explosion, the airship would have gone crashing down in an exploding ball of death.

Airship crashes were not conducive to living. While Michelle and I would probably survive with our stats, everyone else would be killed. It would be too easy to accidentally kill the Avatar as well. No one wanted to risk being killed by the Almighty System for killing her. At least we had that going for us.

I reviewed the casualty list trying to spot who had been the traitor, but no one name leapt out at me. There was still the risk of more sabotage, but there was nothing that could be done. Everyone on board had been scanned and checked multiple times and nothing had been found. It could have been a remote attack.

"Michelle, could it have been a remote attack?" I asked her.

"Maybe? Hard to say," she replied. That answer wasn't helpful at all and I felt completely useless. There had been drills in the past and everyone was at their correct stations, there was nothing for me to do but wait and try and project confidence so people wouldn't panic and make mistakes.

We were just going slower and slower. Getting to the rendezvous with Michael was out of the question at this point. The real question was where should we try and head to if we weren't attacked? New Kochi was an option to the South, or we could try to limp back to the Eastern half of the Systemic Lands. Thankfully there was a lot of time until I had to make that decision at the speed we were traveling at.

Also, I would need to rotate people soon, if there was no attack. The lost sleeping areas would make things even more difficult. But people could sleep on the flight deck, since we weren't traveling fast. There was no risk of being swept off.