Valterion: The Space/Arch? Mage

Location: Solar System; VS Stargazer

"Maja needs what?" Lucy asks in disbelief when I tell the rest of my crew.

"She needs help… They were attacked over there, and Maja's ship is the only one that didn't enter their respawn timer. From what she just told me, Prince Kai is even more of a menace than we expected. He wiped the floor with them, and Maja somehow managed to escape and strike back once the Prince left his ship. That's the only reason why he has retreated for now. Now everyone is on their death timer and can't talk to us…"

"Oh," is all Lucy replies.

"What are we waiting for? Let's go!" Lydia calls in after a short moment of silence. "If Maja is asking for help, it has to be serious."

I nod slowly and walk over to my console. She's right, of course. Maja wouldn't ask for help without a reason. Also, we can't lose access to the shipyard, that would be too embarrassing once my real name gets out.

"You're right, Lydia. Let's help them. Everyone, get ready for anything! The danger should be over, but we can't be sure until we see for ourselves."

With that, I initiate the process of deactivating the gravity anchor of the Stargazer, ensuring the ship is ready for a jump once everyone is suited up. After the initial steps are done with my personal authority, Clara can take over, and I quickly teleport to my room to get ready myself. Ten minutes later, the six of us all wear our Earth Adventure safety suits and are assembled back on the bridge.

Lydia takes her usual spot at the helm while Lucy and Alina cover the tactical console. Tim stays close to me as a backup Space Mage and handles communications. And lastly, Nick mans the sensor station.

Everyone signals their readiness, and Clara confirms that we are ready to jump. With a deep breath, I cast the Starship Jump spell and aim for the provided coordinates close to the ancient Valterion shipyard.

Location: Solar System; Above Venus; VS Stargazer

I look out of the window after the purple lights from the jump have cleared. It's strange… I know that a battle between multiple starships has taken place here, but there is not a single trace of it: no debris, no wreckage, nothing. I gulp and take a moment to collect myself.

If this hadn't been simulated, I would have lost more than half of my closest friends today…

With a deep breath, I avert my gaze and ask Tim to call Maja's ship. He nods and taps his console a few times. Our large front window darkens and splits in the middle. On the left, I can still make out the big shipyard and the Andala before it. The right part now shows the interior of Maja's bridge with Maja and Ellie standing in the middle.

"Hi, Maja, Ellie," I greet them and immediately ask them if they are alright.

Maja confirms with a nod. "Hi, Sara, thanks for joining us so quickly. Let me give you a quick update on the situation…"

She sends over a lot of video recordings that are already edited to show the important parts, and Ellie provides a live commentary while we watch the short clips. I have to gulp multiple times while watching Prince Kai singlehandedly wipe the floor with my team. Only Maja managed to dodge in the last second to avoid destruction. A feat that enabled this conversation to take place right now.

While Maja was talking, a heavy silence made itself known on the Stargazer's bridge. Everyone seems shocked at the Prince's power. Even Lucy, our strongest A&D Mage, shakes her head. "He's so much stronger than I am. I fear the rumors might be true and he is an Archmage already…"

Personally, I'm not so sure. I think he's close, but hasn't taken the final step yet. He just didn't feel like an Archmage back when I met him. But that's not something I can share… Sara Green doesn't surround herself with powerful Archmages to make comparisons, and she for sure isn't a pseudo Archmage herself.

I look back at Maja's projection. "So what do we do now? Everyone else is still on their respawn timers for the next few hours, and so we can't contact them."

She shrugs. "The best we could do is secure the space around here. I've got some training mines with me… Other than that, it's probably best to wait. We still have people within the shipyard, but they are all on their timers as well."

"Alright, you do so. I'll check if we're allowed to talk to Vic in the meantime. She's our supervisor and technically not part of our team."

"Good idea," Maja replies, and we end the call shortly after. Minutes later, the Andala starts moving to place some mines around us. I ask Lydia to fly the Stargazer a bit closer to the shipyard and then reactivate the gravitational anchor. This should affect Space slightly, making jumping ships here more challenging.

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Then I sit back down and spin up a Communication spell while aiming for Aria. She accepts quickly, as if she's been waiting for my call. "Ahh, Sara, funny to hear from you."

Now I wish I'd used the Video Call spell so I could have shown her my deadpan expression. "Really, Aria?"

She chuckles. "Sorry, I'm just trying to use every opportunity to get back at you and Chris. Anyway, I think I know why you're calling, and unfortunately, the answer is no. Victoria is on her death timer just like everyone else."

I swear under my breath. "Really? There's no chance?"

"No, sorry… Those are the rules. But there isn't that much left on their timers anyway."

Grumbling, I accept what she is saying. Not that I can do anything against it. "Alright, thanks anyway, Aria. I'll see you with our next major discovery."

"Oh, I'm counting on it! See you, Sara."

She ends the spell, and I focus back on my friends. Alina seems to be reading my expression perfectly, as she looks at me with a raised eyebrow. "No luck?"

"Nope, the death timer also includes Vic."

"A bummer… What now?"

I shrug. "It's probably best to prepare for a trip over to the shipyard… To talk with Dave and the others as soon as they are allowed to. I'm assuming they've got front row seats to what Prince Kai did on the shipyard. Perhaps we're lucky, and he had to leave before getting anything of value. Also, we need to prepare for his inevitable return."

"Good idea," she replies. "But what about the Stargazer?"

A smile appears on my face. "Oh, don't worry about the Stargazer. She's going to do what she does best."

Alina shoots me a questioning look, and I lift my finger, motioning her to wait a second. Then I lean forward and use the console before me. A few taps later, everything is prepared, and I finalize things by casting a Cloaking spell and anchoring it to the Magitech emitters around the hull.

"Now we're done. The ship is hidden and nothing unauthorized should he able to approach."

"What did you do?" Tim asks with wide eyes.

I shrug. "The Stargazer once was a stealthy scout ship, or that's what I think it was… Anyway, you've all seen the gravity anchor in action already, and now I just added in a strong Cloaking spell to hide us within the gravity field. No one can see us now, and anything that approaches gets guided around us by the field. So as I said, we don't have to worry about the Stargazer."

Tim shakes his head and mutters something under his breath. A minute later, he straightens and turns toward the bridge's exit. "Alright… Then we should probably get ready for a trip to the shipyard."

I chuckle slightly, and we all follow him. We're all suited up, and so we walk directly toward the hangar to our yacht. Clara has the engines already warmed up and the airlock stands wide open as everything is pressurized. We quickly enter, and the hatches close behind us. Lydia and Lucy take the two seats in the cockpit and initiate the starting sequence while Clara opens the hangar bay doors to open space.

Five minutes later, we exit the Stargazer and set course for the shipyard. Tim's eyes are glued to the screen, which shows the space behind us, and he constantly shakes his head. "It's really gone," he whispers.

I sit down next to him and put an arm on his shoulder. "It is. It's a cool function, but it requires a lot of magic to power it. That's why we have those gigantic batteries aboard." Yeah, I decided to use a slight lie because I don't think he would believe that those batteries could power the cloak around the ship for 20,000 years.

Location: Solar System; Above Venus; Valterion Shipyard

During our flight to the shipyard, I exchange a few words with Maja and share our plans with her. She approves, of course, and reports that she's almost done with the minefield and that she'll set course to where Lisa and Jack's ships are waiting for their respawn.

She also sends me a flight plan for where Shay and Dave's shuttles have flown the day before, which I immediately forward to Lydia in the cockpit. That causes a few grumbles, as she almost reached a different shuttle bay, but she still changes course.

Now, our yacht rests within the shipyard, right next to the other two shuttles. The six of us stand before it, and my friends all look at me, silently asking where to go as if I had the perfect plan already.

I shrug and point toward the single exit of the shuttle bay. It's our only option anyway. Lucy looks very amused and leads the way. Her Shield spell envelopes us seconds later. The rest of us follow, and we begin to trace Dave and Shay's steps. Thanks to Maja, we have a rough plan of where to go, as she forwarded the notes that one of Shay's squad has taken during their exploration.

That's why we completely ignore the mini command center, which functioned as an airspace control center back then, and immediately enter the long hallway that leads out of it and further into the shipyard.

We come across a big intersection a bit later and stop. The tunnel that runs from left to right could easily fit the entire Stargazer, and I can't even see the end of it. Wow.

Anyway, according to our notes, we have to travel straight ahead, and so we walk onward while ignoring the giant tunnel. The hallway continues for a while until we reach another open door, and then we enter a large, open space that resembles the interior of a space station. There are multiple levels, and surprisingly, there seems to be power, as some of the lights are turned on.

Nick lets out a low whistle and leans on the railings. "Now that's a statement…" I follow his gaze and notice a shuttle-sized Valterion Heavy Industries logo hanging on the far right wall.

"Maybe someone had to compensate for something," Lucy throws in, which has us all giggling like teenagers.

As the Peacekeeper notes, stop at this point, we start exploring the open hub level by level, constantly keeping an eye out for Dave and the others. It takes a while, but after a bit more than an hour and quite a few levels that we walked through, Tim calls out and points ahead. "There's Dave!"

My eyes open wide, and I look at where he points. He's right! Dave, one of the Twins, Fabio, and the whole Peacekeeper squad are straight ahead. They all sit on the floor and look bored as hell.

We rush forward and join them. Before I can say anything, a red warning appears on my interface, informing me that there are still two hours left on their death timers and that we are banned from interacting with them before that time.

With a heavy sigh, I cast my telekinetic bench for everyone and sit down to wait. It's an agonizing two hours, but the timer slowly ticks down. Shay's Peacekeeper group is the first to return from the death timer, and she quickly jumps up, ignores all military protocols, and rushes over to hug me. "Sara! You're here. Thank goodness! That respawn timer is so stupid, holy shi… smokes."

I hug her back with a laugh. "Welcome back to the land of the living, Shay! What happened?"

She shudders. "That guy… Prince Kai… He… He's a monster. He took us all out as if we were wearing Mage collars. Everything we threw at him wasn't even worth a reaction from him. He just smiled and took us out while saying that Lisa betrayed him or something."

Betrayal? What does she mean? Oh shoot, the challenge! He thought we tricked him. Well, we kinda did by not telling the whole truth, but we did explore the place we said to him… Not our fault that our team is bigger than his. Also, the challenge hasn't even started yet!

While Shay and I are talking, everyone else's timer runs out, and Dave comes rushing over. "Sara! You have to help us. He took Lena and Toby and locked them in the command center. It's locked now, and we can't get in! Please help us."

I look to the left at the big blast door that locks down the entrance to what must be the command center of the shipyard. "Of course, Dave. Don't worry, we'll get them out."