Further Adventures In No Man's Sky

extie-dasilva (67)in #story • 7 years ago

FURTHER ADVENTURES IN NO MAN'S SKY.

My spacecraft's thrusters propelled me past the poisonous yellow-tinged atmosphere of a moon and onward to its parent planet. From up here it looked a dark and foreboding place; a rocky world with deep ravines and banks of cloud that hung mist-like over the purple rocks.

My spacecraft made its way through the atmosphere toward whatever surface awaited my arrival. The local star cast a hot yellow glow, the dusty atmosphere enhancing the lighting effects. Even from this high up I could make out signs of life below me, for sprouting from the reddish rocks were tall plantlike forms of life.

I climbed out of the cockpit and surveyed my surroundings. The most eye-catching feature were the strange plants that grew here. They had a bulbous look about them, like two gigantic snooker balls one place on top of the other, only the top one looked as though it had been broken apart. Could this have been some kind of seed dispersal method, the fruit bursting open explosively to project its seed out into the surrounding environment?

Movement not far away caught my attention. I beheld a creature, predominantly yellow in colour, with black tiger stripes and a red horny crest atop its head. Its four legs looked extremely muscular, and they ended in four elephantine feet. On its back it carried an impressive-looking sail. Could this have evolved to make the animal seem more intimidating, like that neck frill some Australian lizards display?

Fearing I may be causing the animal stress, I journeyed on. There was a hilltop not far from my location, its summit painted pink in the eerie light of this dusty world. It seemed as good a location as any to head for, so I pushed my way through the red vegetation and set off for the top of the hill.

It was quite a climb up the hill. On my ascent I noticed that, far from being a trick of the light, the rocks here really were pink. Pink rock, how very strange! Could it have been some kind of chemical reaction that caused this colour? As I contemplated this puzzling feature I heard the sound of swift hooves. Galloping up the slope, obviously far more accustomed to its surroundings than I, there came a goat-like animal. That is to say, its head very much resembled a ram, but it had the slender limbs of a deer. Its long stride soon took it up the hill and out of my sight. I made my rather slower way up the hill also.

Onwards I journeyed, the Sun a vast burning orb in the sky. From this vantage point I could see those strange red-orb plants all the way out into the hazy distance. Black smoke poured from some of them, and it was this that was giving the atmosphere its permanent haze. I realised this black mist must be the plants spores. They obviously reproduced like fungi.

Running toward me, on even longer, sturdier limbs than the deergoat, there came a graceful, long necked quadruped with green, almost crocodile-like skin. As it approached it sprung from its shoulders appendages that quivered and made a rattling noise. As before, I wondered if this could be a warning gesture. The creature pawed at the ground, like a bull preparing to charge. But a rock or two hurled in its general direction was enough to persuade it to leave me in peace.

By the time I had made it to the summit, the sun was sinking below the distant hills. But my climb was worth the effort, for on standing at the crest of the hill I beheld a canyon below me. The low sun cast deep, dark shadows along the canyon walls. It looked like a difficult climb down, but I was determined to make my way to the canyon floor.

Gingerly, I made my way down the increasingly steep slope, loss rock and scree threatening to send me on an accident-prone slide and tumble to the bottom. Eventually, by the time day had turned into dusk and the sky had turned from its yellow glow to a cool blue light, I had reached the floor of the canyon. A sound above my caused me to look up, and there, far freer to move upwards and downwards as well as any other direction than I was outside of my spacecraft, was a flying animal. On large, green, bat-like wings, a V like tail trailing behind it, it soared through the skies above me. After my struggle up the hill and the hazardous descent down into the canyon, how I envied the effortless way this Lord of the skies navigated this alien world.