[i]They say that thousands of years ago, the moon started to fall.[/i]

[i]There’s no-one alive today who would remember it, but some people think it really happened.[/i]

[i]But they say the people who came before us put it back in the sky, even though it cost them everything.[/i]

[i]It’s just an old legend though.[/i]

[i]…[/i]

[i]When you look at the moon, what do you see?[/i]

[hr]

The sunlight filtered through the clouds to illuminate the world below.

It was the remains of a city. The fragments, the shattered remnants of old buildings. Vehicles, machinery, war machines, rusted out and left to degrade due to being too damaged to bother recovering. Vegetation having begun to reclaim land that no-one had even begun to consider retaking, vines crawling up the sides of aged buildings and grass overtaking streets.

Signs of the destructive warfare that had rendered the city a shadow of its former self, craters in the earth, buildings collapsed and blown apart...

Sights like these weren’t uncommon in the scarred lands between Embria and Alvad. In some places, nothing grew. In others, nature had begun to reclaim what was left behind.

Regardless of what the future held, it was certain these wartorn places would remain as a monument to the vicious battles that occurred there for years to come.

But that which was left behind by battle was not the only thing that remained in the lands riddled with ashes.

There was valuable technology, old research facilities, military hardware, monsters, all sorts of things designated for extermination or for recovery.

That was what they were here for.

A shadow fell over the ruins below, a few distant creatures startled by the sudden darkness darting into their dens.

The airship was small, but large enough to contain a squad or two of soldiers quite comfortably, the overall shape something like a bird with a flattened upper body and a long, narrow balloon helping to keep it in the air, the lumium-powered magitek engine beneath. The cockpit was towards the front, and on its port side was emblazoned the name ‘[i]Blue Lily[/i]’.

Wild Rose had been hired for a new job.

The employer was anonymous. They wanted an item recovered from a wartime Alvadian research laboratory and brought to Embrian territory, so it could be assumed they were probably Embrian themselves, but beyond that very little known about them.

Some mercenaries may not have liked that anonymity. Others cared more about the payout than anything else.

Doubtless, their thoughts were likely on the mission ahead, as they were ferried to their destination on-board the [i]Blue Lily[/i]…

“Hey, thought I’d let you know we’re just a few minutes from our destination!” came the voice of a young woman, the Blue Lily’s pilot, over the ship’s communications system. “If I were you, I’d get ready. There must be some reason you were hired to take this on, right?”

It was a valid point.

If there was no threat here, why would someone hire mercenaries to do recovery when they could do it themselves?

[@Pyromania99][@thecatinaction][@Wayward][@PKMNB0Y]