A moment after I landed upon the deck, the pressure supporting my descent vanished completely.
I looked up. Augustus and Defender Aurora were already gone. As though they had never been there to begin with. That left me standing alone in the middle of a ship large enough to qualify as a floating city.
The deck beneath my feet was made from a strange dark material that looked like black wood at first glance, yet when I focused on it with Insight, I immediately realized it was neither wood nor metal. Countless layers of condensed matter had been compressed together and reinforced through runes that stretched throughout the entire vessel. Streams of pale silver energy flowed beneath the surface.
The realization barely settled before I noticed that the entire deck had gone silent. Dozens of figures had stopped whatever they were doing and were staring directly at me.
A few seconds later, dozens became hundreds.
Workers paused.
Sailors froze.
Guards stopped moving.
