Chapter 1272 1272 A Bumpier Ride
--- Nixilei ---
As they got further and further away from the jungle the clearer the skies became… until abruptly dark clouds gathered on the horizon. It wasn't raining yet, and the pair were happy to keep going. The skies were mostly clear of monsters and the ones they did see were keeping well away from the plane.
Eventually, Nixilei and Asteodia swapped positions again, with Asteodia taking the role of the driver for the second time. Her mana was close enough to full and Nixilei's legs were starting to get sore. Not to the point she needed to stop, but as Asteodia pointed out, if Nixilei needed to jump out and fight it was better for her to be in as close to top position as possible so as to avoid Nixilei falling out of the sky or getting taken out by whatever monster attacks they had to fend off.
Then the thunder started. It was all the louder now they were up in the air with nothing to shield them from the sound. It vibrated all the way through the plane and their bones, rattling teeth. At least it prepared Asteodia for the sudden increase in turbulence. Things didn't get better when off in the distance Nixilei could see the beginnings of a cyclone. "Ah shit, Asteodia what are we going to do? There's a cyclone ahead and we're heading straight for it,"
"We can power through with the one minute of 'just go forward' though right?" said Asteodia.
"That takes a lot of mana… and we're nearing the end. Sure we've got a bit more than half an hour left of flying, but that's not all that long in the grand scheme of things. I'm just wondering if it would be better to go around it and accept the slight distance penalty to ensure that we're still in the sky come the end," explained Nixilei.
Asteodia shook her head and explained, "We'll probably need to use the button regardless of what we do. The cyclone will be pulling us in, probably is already, and try to get further away will mean use of the button. Trying to stay away will mean use of the button. If we just charge forward, we'll only need to use the button on our way out…"
"Yeah but that won't save us from the trees and other debris if we get picked up by the storm, not to mention the rain and thunder we're probably going to deal with," said Nixilei.
"The rain shouldn't be an issue, Thyme said the whole plane is waterproof, so I'm not worried about. The lightning… well that's a bit more of a concern. I think we'll be fine? The lightning will probably hit the propellor because it's metal… maybe. This cyclone seems to have come out of nowhere so it has to be at least partially magically induced, either just by the environment or perhaps a monster or a group of them," said Asteodia.
"I doubt Thyme would've intentionally made things weak to magical wind and rain. I'm more worried about…" just as Nixilei was about to make a point rain started crashing down on top of them. The wings shielded them from some of it… but the cockpit was open to the elements. It didn't take long for the water to start pooling at the bottom of the cockpit. It wasn't a problem, but Nixilei could see it becoming one. "That. The water is going to make pedalling a lot harder,"
Asteodia grimaced as the water level slowly started to rise. Sure it was just a small puddle right now, but they had quite a lot of rain to travel through. "Um… ok this is going to be awkward, but I can flip the plane and it should all just get dumped out right?" said Asteodia.
Nixilei shook her head, "Have you ever spun a bucket of water around in a circle?"
"What? No? Why would I do that and what does it have to do with our situation right now?" asked Asteodia.
"Ah, well you see, if you spin a bucket full of water… it stays full of water. So if you spin the plane, you'll have to stop upside down for a bit to let all the water fall out. We'll need to hold onto something to make sure we don't go the same way. It'd be very embarrassing for us to lose just because we fell out of the plane now that we've made it through the giant forest and past the cloud-bird," said Nixilei.
"That feels like a major design flaw," said Asteodia as she glanced at her feet. "Surely there is a way to get rid of the water…"
Nixilei shrugged and said, "They might've only tested this in clear weather. If not, they might consider the fact the cockpit fills with water to be an intentional flaw. None of the other vehicles have this problem. The glider doesn't have anywhere for it to pool and neither does the wingsuit. The balloon probably just lets the water seep through the basket with no trouble, so it's a problem unique to the plane. One we didn't spot,"
"Well that presents us with a bit of a problem… if the cockpit fills up with water and we're pressing the button that forces us to remain going forward we can't flip the plane to get the water out. Sure we won't need to pedal if we're pressing the button, but it takes enough mana to use that maybe we should be trying to stretch that grace period after the one minute by pedalling. Dammit, now I'm not sure what the plane should be here," said Asteodia.
lightsnοvεl.cοm "Could we get high enough to fly above the cyclone?" asked Nixilei.
Asteodia looked up at the clouds then down tot the rapidly forming vortex that was some distance out. "Maybe. The problem with that is we'd end up in the thick of the clouds, and we're already hearing thunder. Getting hit by lightning once or twice might not be an issue… getting attacked multiple times by lightning would eventually be an issue. I think. To get above the storm completely… we might need to go higher then the plane can fly, and even if it can fly that high we'd be struggling to breathe," puzzle out Asteodia.
"So what we've worked out is that we need to go through the storm, and that we might have to deal with a whole bunch of water limiting our speed and increasing the mana consumption. Dammit, is it time to ditch this suit then? Lighten the load as much as possible and then… I dunno use the helmet as a bucket to try and get the water out?" suggested Nixilei.
"No, best to stay safe and keep it," said Asteodia. "If you fall I don't want you to be knocked out of the contest. Heck, if I fall I'll need you to catch me with the wingsuit, or, even worse potentially, the plane gets destroyed somehow and then you'd need to carry us both with the wingsuit as far as possible,"
"I don't have the mana to last half an hour in the suit Asteodia. If we go down… I think that would be it," said Nixilei.
"We could… I dunno switch out maybe? Changing in the air would be hard, especially because we'd need to change before slamming into the ground, possibly while in a cyclone… but could it be done?" asked Asteodia.
Nixilei grimaced and said, "Well the wingsuit doesn't really have anything to help it escape the cyclone so we might just get sucked back inside. If you can accept that and we focus on making sure we just don't hit the ground… then I think it would be possible. We'd need to work together but stripping out of the wingsuit isn't hard. You'd just need to get it on quickly then take the helmet,"
Asteodia went to respond when they hit a particularly rough patch. Her teeth slammed together as the plane jerked upwards. Asteodia had to loosen her grip on the steering wheel to ensure that the rapid shaking of the plane didn't force her to steer the plane wrong and make things even worse. In the end, she had to stop pedalling and brace herself against the sides of the plane with her legs so that she moved with the vehicle. Once that was done she was able to fight back a bit against the wind.
It wasn't perfect, and Nixilei wrapping her arms around Asteodia wasn't exactly helping the elf stay stable, but eventually Asteodia managed to fly them higher and out of the roughest of the winds. For now. "Hooo, that's harder then it looks," exhaled Asteodia.
"I don't doubt it. I'm not sure I have the same finesse with the controls you did. Glad we swapped over again, I might've sent us way off course," said Nixilei.
"Don't sell yourself short. Though… admittedly this could be a problem. I can fight the winds off for now, especially if I'm ready for it… but I'm going to have to hit that button sooner or later and once I do we're on a time limit. One that seems too short for my liking," stated Asteodia.
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