By the time that warmth began reaching the plateau where Veneri and Elyonari had camped the night before, the two of them were already airborne again.
From my vantage point, the flight itself was uneventful, which in Veneri's case was honestly suspicious. Normally something catastrophic happened every time he decided to travel somewhere because of his Bane but for once, the skies remained peaceful.
The forests stretched endlessly beneath them. Rivers wound through the land in glittering lines, reflecting the sunlight in brief flashes as the two Divines soared overhead. Then eventually, after a few hours of flight, the forest suddenly ended.
What replaced it was a vast meadow stretching for kilometers in every direction. In the center of that meadow stood the thing they had come to see. Even from kilometers away, it was impossible to miss.
As Veneri and Elyonari approached, the spaceship's sheer scale became increasingly difficult to comprehend. By the time they were close enough to see it clearly, the structure had grown so enormous in their field of vision that it quite literally blocked out the sun behind it.
Now let me be very clear here, because describing this thing as "big" would be an understatement. I'm talking about a structure so large that if you stood close enough to its base and looked up, your brain would genuinely struggle to process the geometry of what you were seeing. It resembled a colossal cuboid container.
Vines had grown along its lower surfaces. Moss clung to sections of its exterior, particularly near the base where millennia of moisture had gathered. And yet despite the plant life wrapped around it, the structure itself looked pristine.
A small river flowed quietly along the front of the ship. Veneri slowed his descent as he approached it. He hovered briefly above the stream before landing softly near the bank. Elyonari touched down beside him as she stared up at the colossal structure looming above them.
Veneri glanced toward the river. His expression softened slightly.
"In the vision I saw when the ship first landed here, the people inside ran out and jumped into this river. They were celebrating having found a planet to stay in."
At that moment I decided to stop being a voice in their heads and actually show up properly. With a brief flicker of blue light, I materialized beside them in my visible projection form.
Now, for those unfamiliar with my aesthetic preferences, my projection usually looks like a digital ghost composed of softly glowing holographic particles. My figure flickers slightly around the edges. Oh, and I have a glitch in my eyes so no one can see them. It's for aesthetics.
Anyway, the moment I appeared, I immediately began scanning the ship. Streams of holographic data flickered across my vision as my sensors analyzed the structure from top to bottom.
"Huh..."
They both looked at me.
"This is… unexpected."
They both waited. I continued scanning the vessel for another few seconds before turning toward them again.
"The ship is intact."
"Completely intact?"
"Yes, Darling. All functions are still normal. It's been sitting here for roughly five hundred millennia."
Even Veneri was amazed at that.
"The outer hull is made of a metallic compound I can't fully identify. Whatever it is, it's extremely resistant to corrosion and structural degradation. Time basically doesn't affect it."
Ely slowly turned her head toward the ship again.
"So you're telling me this thing has been here for half a million years and it still works?"
I shrugged.
"Apparently."
We began walking closer to the structure.
The nearer we moved, the more imposing it became. Up close the smooth black surface stretched endlessly upward like the wall of a dark fortress. The entrance eventually came into view along one side of the cuboid structure. The rectangular opening is currently sealed by a thick metallic gate. As we approached it, I attempted to scan the interior. My sensors abruptly stopped receiving data.
"That's odd."
Veneri glanced at me.
"What?"
"I can't scan the inside. It's like some kind of defense system is blocking my sensors."
"So there's something inside."
"Most likely."
And that was when Veneri suddenly stopped walking. He crouched slightly near the ground and gestured for us to come closer.
"Come look at this."
Ely and I walked over.
Hundreds of skeletons lay scattered across the ground in front of the ship's entrance. The bones were ancient judging by their degradation. Many had partially sunk into the soil over time. Moss had grown between some of the ribs and several skulls were cracked or partially buried beneath the grass. But one detail immediately caught Elyonari's attention.
Small plants had grown through some of the bones. Tiny roots and stems had literally pierced the skeletons, emerging through gaps in the ribcages or skulls. I knelt down and scanned them.
"These remains are several millennia old. Some of them are newer. A few died only decades ago."
Ely frowned.
"Who were they?"
Veneri answered without hesitation.
"Humans. Transmigrators from Ledatic Siliportem probably tried exploring this area. They must have reached the entrance and then something killed them."
Ely's eyes moved slowly toward the sealed gate. Her bow materialized in her grasp. Without saying anything, she pulled an emerald arrow from thin air and drew the string back. The arrowhead glowed with concentrated Nature Energy as she aimed it directly at the ship's entrance.
"Let's test it."
She released the arrow. For a fraction of a second nothing happened. Almost before we thought nothing was going to happen, dozens of invisible spheres materialized out of thin air around the entrance. I didn't even detect them until they appeared.
Each sphere glowed faintly with pale white light as they activated simultaneously. Thin beams of pure energy shot out from every sphere at once. The beams collided with each other where the arrow had been, creating a massive explosion of energy.
The shockwave slammed into us like a wall.
Veneri grabbed Elyonari's arm as both of them were thrown backward several meters across the grass. The ground trembled beneath the blast.
When the light finally faded, the meadow had gone completely silent again. I stared at the entrance in disbelief.
"I didn't see those spheres in my scan."
Elyonari slowly stood up, brushing dirt off her clothes.
"What was that?"
I looked at the hovering spheres now fading back into invisibility.
"That defense system has enough power to kill a Deity."