Chapter 1263  1263 What’s that ticking noise?


    --- Nixilei ---


    With a hand around Nixilei''s ankle, Asteodia wasn''t able to properly fly the ne. The first issue herpse in attention caused was for her feet to slip off the pedals, which then started to smack into Asteodia''s shins causing her more pain and slowing the ne down. This wasn''t helped by the fact the ne itself was still twisting around.


    When the ne righted itself Nixilei mmed into the back of the ne, jarring her neck somewhat badly, even with the enchantments to protect it they only dampened the impact, the awful angle still hurt. For Asteodia, her arm was yanked further backward as Nixilei started to slide off to the side, which of course forced Asteodia to pull the controls causing yet more problems. "Let me go!" shouted Nixilei, realising that more problems were sure toe from this.


    "FUCK THAT!" retorted Asteodia. Instead of listening to Nixilei''s advice she wrapped her legs around the rest bar in the cockpit and turned around to grab onto Nixilei with both hands. The ne was spinning wildly out of control but Asteodia was able to keep focus on Nixilei, it was enough and a momentter she hauled the fae into the cockpit. They were tangled together rather awkwardly, the rtively bulky ''wings'' on the suit not giving them the greatest amount of space, especially not when they were positioned awkwardly and still spinning.


    Nixilei, not wanting things to get worse, epted her situation quite quickly and flipped herself and Asteodia around, so that the fae was the one underneath, letting Asteodia get ess to the controls again. Nixilei winced as she felt the ne starting to suck mana from her, and what she was certain had to be a higher-than-normal rate. It was only about one percent of her mana every two seconds, but if the ne was meant tost a single person two hours, that was way too quick.


    *Just put up with it for now. We can deal with thister.* Asteodia was quick on the uptake, pulling the ne back under control. First order of business was to stop all this spinning. The worst of it was mitigated quickly and then it was just a matter of settling the nepletely which took a further thirty seconds. Not too long in the grand scheme of things, but Nixilei was down to about thirty percent of her mana. Which was really not ideal.


    "I need to switch off with you, the damned thing is draining my mana too fast. I''m down to only thirty precent and I''ll be out of manapletely in perhaps a minute," said Nixilei.


    "What?! That can''t be right!" despite the yelling Asteodia was already starting to shuffle off to the side. It wasn''t superfortable but the pair of women managed to swap ces somewhat quickly. Nixilei leant off to the left, so that despite being on-top of Asteodia, the elf could still see. The fact Asteodia was the shorter of the two by a decent margin not helping things.


    When Nixilei was off the chair she took a look at her mana. It was regenerating… barely. In fact, she could be certain it was regenerating at all. It was more a sixth sense about her own mana pool then an urate reading. "I think I know what the problem is. My suit is still semi-active. It''s not draining much, not even enough to offset my regenerationpletely… but it''s still something. So either that small regeneration on top of manning the n is causing it to seem like a lot more… or when the ne starts to draw mana, both the suit and the ne draw it instead of just the ne,"


    "That''s not good…" mumbled Asteodia as the ne started to rise. Just as it did, Nixilei heard something from above them.


    "No fucking way,"ined Nixilei. "Can you hear that popping noise? That better not be Chartreuse and Midnighting for us again. I had to use so much mana just to power this damned thing for a minute. Know way they can maintain a shadow construct and fly the glider for so long,"


    Asteodia kept her ear out, barely managing to make out the sound over the wind and the gears on the ne. "I… I can sort of hear it but it doesn''t seem quite right. I don''t think that''s the glider,"


    Nixilei listened to the sound again to confirm Asteodia''s thoughts. It sounded fairly simr… but Asteodia did seem to be correct. It wasn''t the same noise. That didn''t necessarily mean it wasn''t the glider pair, but it did mean that something had changed. "You''re right, it isn''t the same. I still think it''s a bit too close forfort… but it''s not the same,"


    "Well what should we do then?" said Asteodia as she looked around them. They were currently a good deal below the cloudyer and while the ground was still quite far away, they werepletely in the open. If the pair on the glider caught up they''d be sitting ducks. Part of what had let Asteodia keep dodging was all the clouds to obfuscate things. Without that, she was worried that getting hit would only be a matter of time.


    On the other side of things, Nixilei had a different worry. *I''m not sure. Are we even heading the right way still? After all that flipping around it''s… a little hard to tell.* "I''m not sure, but I do want to know if we''re still heading the right way…" said Nixilei.


    Asteodia had to think about that for a few seconds. "I… I think so? I''ve dived from left to right and all around the area at least somewhat.... but I''ve always tried to get back to this line I''ve got in my head for ''away from the tform'' but… thatst bit where I had to catch you made me lose track of it a bit.


    "Now, we were just spinning around and downward for the most part, so I don''t think we''re too far off… but we might be heading more… diagonally away from the tform? Or well, it''s spherical but you get what I mean right?" exined Asteodia.


    "I think so. We might not be taking the best path from away from the tform, at least for a bit, but we''re hopefully close enough to line that it will quickly stop mattering over the distances we''re likely to cover," said Nixilei.


    "Yup," confirmed Asteodia. "I''m pretty sure we''re fine… but now you''ve brought it up I''m still a bit worried. If we keep losing little bits of time here and there we might not make the distance to beat Ellenell. Despite not fighting with him at all, he''s actually the biggest threat right now,"


    "We''ll just have to make sure that we manage it before time runs out in…" Nixilei trailed off as arge clock shot out of her chest, it was clearly counting down and showed that the round had only be going on for ten minutes. "Well that''s awfully convenient. Why didn''t Thyme mention this as a feature?"


    "Not sure," mumbled Asteodia. "I''m guessing that it''s actually tied to the harness instead of the wingsuit. What if I try… ''how much time left''?" As Asteodia expected another clock appeared in front of her and it showed the same time as Nixilei''s. "See, there we go. So it''s not part of the wingsuit. Though I agree it''s a bit weird Thyme didn''t mention it,"


    Nixilei let the silence stick around for a few moments, just to listen to the popping in the distance. It was still present, which was annoying, but it didn''t seem to be getting any closer. Eventually, Nixilei did have a question though, "So… what should I do with this wingsuit. I''m not going to be regenerating mana properly unless I take it off, but I don''t know if we have space for it here,"


    Asteodia frowned. "I''m really not sure. Clearly you need to take it off… but do you need to take it off all the way?" said Asteodia, thinking of the solution as she spoke.


    "Um… hmm…" Nixilei mumbled. "I guess that''s something we can test? Let me just…" Nixilei turned awkwardly and tried to reach back to unzip the suit only to smack Asteodia in the face. "I am so sorry. Um… er… maybe I should try driving for a bit while you unzip me?"


    Asteodia was trying to blink the tears from her eyes. That smack had hit her nose. "Sure thing," said Asteodia. A bit of shuffling ensued and soon Asteodia was unzipping Nixilei, while Nixilei was driving the ne. "Why is this so oddly erotic?"


    Nixilei flushed bright red. "What the heck are you talking about? I''m wearing clothes underneath the suit while we''re sitting squished together in a small space. How is this erotic?" asked Nixilei.


    "If it''s not erotic why is your face red?" shot back Asteodia, her face, also bright red.


    Nixilei had no response to that.