Chapter 20: Ch.16: Descent Part I

Rune             

/ruːn/             

noun, a magical character 

Enchantment

/ɪnˈtʃɑːntm(ə)nt/  

noun,an arrangement or runes designed to imbue or bring about magical effects on an article, may be metal, cloth, leather,paper or any material that can serve as a temporary reservoir for magic.

---

“I…I want you to leave you with something,” Arthur suggested. He took out his dead smartphone.

“Your artefact?” Aeskyre inquiringly furrowed her brow. There was nothing of her condescending scowl, almost like she’d mellowed out in the span of a few heartbeats. “Hmph, there’s naught but the tiniest sliver of gold in that thing, ” she folded her arms under her bosom.

“Eh, not at all?”

“Then why?”

“ I think I’d rather you experience it yourself.”

“ Hmm?”

“ Do you remember the way you duplicated my socks?”

“A [Replicate] spell. However, things that have been universally accepted as a form of currency or status like Gold or Mithril are not easily copied. And that goes doubly so for arcane materials. I think the World is being judicious in that aspect.”

“Can you at least try it? Maybe it might work because it is made of ordinary matter.”

“Hmm, I will do as you say,” the woman acquiesced without further argument.

Aeskyre received the phone and motioned for Arthur to move a little ways off. Closing her eyes, she held out the phone in a closed fist and the other, palm-out. Pacing herself, she muttered, “Rᛖᛈᛚᛁᚲᚨᛏᛖ !”.

Her voice took on an otherworldly echo as her eyes lit up through her closed eyelids like miniature stars. Torrents of mana ripped out of the ground, out of the air, and from the walls of the cave. Arthur had to step back, shying away from the maelstrom of energy swirling in front of Aeskyre. Aeskyre’s face was scrunched in concentration.

The phone was complex, intricate, and its internals finely crafted in miniature such that it could rival a relic-class artefact. Grunting in effort, she tapped into the well of power from her main body.

Reality groaned and bucked at the density of mana being concentrated in a space as small as the palm of her hands. Ultimately, the laws of the World acquiesced to Aeskyre’s will.

An identical phone materialised out of thin air, copied atom for atom down to the corner of the screen, spider-webbed by cracks and the rainbow effect of water damage.

Then it was done. Though her cheeks were flushed from overextending herself, her triumphant grin more than made up for it. Two similar phones were now on Eryth.

“May I?” Arthur asked. Seeing it done in front of him was enchanting, to say the least. Like gazing at the birth of a star in real-time. The amount of magic had to have been staggering to build a replica from the atomic level. Still bedazzled and blinking out the stars from his eyes, he received the gadgets, pocketing one. The other he held in his hand.

“Let’s hope this works—[Diagnostics]!”He activated the skill. In his mind’s eye, Arthur saw everything that was wrong and within his ability to fix, laid bare before him.

Arthur had gotten a better understanding of what his two skills [Diagnostics] and [ Basic Repair] could do as well as their limits. He found out that if he already had foreknowledge of how something worked, well, anything was possible to fix with reason.

“Did it work?” Aeskyre peered at him curiously when she noticed he’d zoned out.

“Huh? Oh yeah, of course,” Arthur replied, mulling over what he was about to do. He felt stupid for not having considered doing it earlier.

“If [Basic Repair] does more than what I think it does… here goes— [Basic Repair]!”

There was a flash of light that appeared to shine from within the cracked screen before it mended itself at a speed visible to the naked eye. The moisture trapped in the screen was erased from within. The gadget became good as new. The light faded, then the blank screen lit up. Arthur was all smiles while Aeskyre stared at it in fascination.

At 0%, 12%....36%...72 %, the battery indicator blinked, becoming red, orange, and then green. Of all the things, that was the easiest part. The hardest, was knowing that he was only one click away from getting back what he had lost. Stubbornly however, he kept it off like that one appointment to the dentist.

Leery of disclosing the content to himself, Arthur went the long way. He did a factory wipe straight out of the power up and when he was done, his palm was a phone that was as untouched as the day it rolled out of the factory.

As Aeskyre watched on, face impassive as ever but no doubt curious against her simulacran facade, Arthur booted it up. He scrolled past the welcome screen and skipped all the new user customization prompts.

Aeskyre furrowed her brow, oblivious to his plans. Subtly, when Arthur landed on the home screen, he opened the camera app. Arthur flipped the main camera towards the woman and shamelessly shouted the catchall phrase for photos. As so it was, that, the first digital image on Eryth came to be.

---

Aerskyre looked at the blur captured by the phone camera. Arthur was rubbing at his cheek that had sprouted a welt of a feminine handprint. He was lucky Aeskyre had retracted her claws before slapping him else he’d be sporting new scars. He prodded at the split lip knitting itself back to wholeness, and wiped off the blood with the back of his hand. No matter how he cut it, the sensation of [Regeneration] working was unnerving.

“Did you have to hit so hard?”

“How was I supposed to know ?” She harrumphed. “ You caught me by surprise; this body’s reactions are so impulsive,” she said, as she tapped at the phone screen.

‘Since when did arm-jerk reactions exist? And look at her, she’s being so smug about it. Women never change…’ Arthur shook his head.

“You want to have a go properly this time?” Arthur suggested. Besides the unfocused blur, the sun climbing the azure had caused a glare in the picture .

The crash course in mobile photography barely took long. While Aeskyre could be a haughty brute… she was no less sharp at assimilating Earth technology. That done, Arthur and Aeskyre took a proper picture by angling the phone in the air using a bit of magic telekinesis. A lot of pictures were taken at the draconic woman’s insistence. For pictures captured at that level of clarity and ease, enough was never enough.

“If I stay any longer, I might lose my resolve. I think I have overstayed my welcome,” Arthur remarked. “I need to go.” He cemented his determination by retrieving the the Azure Surfer from his [Inventory Chest].

Meeting his eyes, she voiced her thoughts, “I will not keep you overlong Arthur O’Reilly. No, now Arthur Sturmdrache. But grant me a favor just this once—”

“What might that be…?”Arthur asked, smiling wryly.

“Since I have adopted you before the world,” she said. “ As your progenitor, no…as your foster, it behooves you to have my name on your lips. "

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“Huh?” Arthur blinked owlishly

“Not once have you called me by name. Only betimes when you sought to try to mollify me. Not once have I heard it when we were in good standing. Say it.”

“Er right—” Arthur rubbed the back of his neck. “Ae—”

“With decorum Arthur Sturmdrache. I shall not stand for half efforts.” Aekyre sniffed.

‘Okaaay,’

Arthur decided that if he was going to do this, he would do it with a flourish. Angering a woman who had the temperament of the weather and could slap the living daylights out of him how he wanted to spend his parting moments. He could still feel the soreness in his left cheek bone.

He bowed his head with one hand atop his breast in his best impression of a Titled personage.

“How do you do Milady? Aeskyre Stormdragon.” He raised his head.

Aeskyre was pacified. She didn't rebut him, if anything,a smug look passed her face so fast Arthur almost missed it. Before he reverted his posture Aeskyre took that opportunity to barrel into him in a hug that had the strength of a dragon squeezed into a petite body.

“Can’t…breath,” Arthur squirmed as his ribs creaked in protest.

“Hmph! What is a broken rib when you are of my blood? Go with my blessings Scion of mine; Aeris hasten the winds at your back and calm the gales ahead of you, ” so saying she released him and stepped back. She smoothed the creases of her dress with her free hand and her keepsake in the other.

‘Good gods, woman!’ Arthur winced as he massaged his sore ribs.

It was unspoken that any more words between them would be vacuous. And so Arthur stepped up onto the Azure Surfer, and retrieved the mana sail from [Inventory Chest] as he did with the hoverboard.

He secured a harness to the mana sail and flared [Detect Flaw] just for good measure before he secured it to the hoverboard. The Mark I powered up with a hum as the the artefact levitated.

With a nod to his benefactor , Arthur pulled up his scarf and made sure his goggles fit snugly before gliding out of the cavern. As soon as he cleared the lip of the cave, he dropped into a free fall. Sturm’s Keep retreated further and further in his wake.

---

Down Arthur went, surfing the thermals. He found a fallstreak hole in the clouds in the sky, providing an unhindered view of the land as he moved away from aerlands unseen.

Like a vast oil painting, there were virgin swathes of browns, yellows, and greens that blended into each other along the Vanishing River, the landmark he’d chosen to navigate by.

Satisfied he had the feature in his sights, Arthur added his own power from his mana pool and gunned the engine. The action sent the hoverboard screaming like a meteor from the empyrean. As soon as he cleared the periphery of the Archipelago of Storms he levelled out, emerging into a tranquil sky. The sun was shining for him, unimpeded for the first time.

The sun appeared in the soft colour of egg-yolk. And the heat was pleasant as well, lending an amenity to the warmth already permeating his person. With his eyes peeled toward the sky all around him, he checked his compass. He confirmed that it was getting less wonky the further away he was getting from the cauldron of storms.

On his hoverboard, the wide open skies felt like a whole other ocean with no land in sight. The novelty of freedom wore off, and the monotony of staring at faraway clouds was enough to bore him, but he kept his wits about him. Arthur knew better than to let the ennui make him complacent. He was not the only flyer in the skies.

Time and again, he caught glimpses of small weyrs of wyverns from afar. Much to his chagrin, he’d never fought a monster before and knew that even fighting a few of them in the air was a fool’s gamble. Therefore, he cycled between occasional bursts of acceleration and letting his mana pool sit for the time he would need it. The mana sail picked up the slack in between those bursts of motion.

Morning crawled into noon as the ageless, disinterested keeper of day settled onto its zenith. For several quartz, Arthur tirelessly held onto the boom that let him control the mana sail. The days spent training his swordcraft were paying off with unyielding stamina.

At noon, Arthur saw his first waypoint. Ahead of him lay an aerland, lush and green with trees. A steep mountain emerged from the sea of green like a giant shark fin. A smattering of alpine heath and short bristly plants clung to the unforgiving rocks near the summit while wispy lenticular clouds orbited its peak.

Spotting a savannah on the periphery of the forest, he drifted into a slow approach. No herbivores grazed on the thriving grass. Such animals would have been easy targets for marauding wyverns, so the only place he’d find them was within the forest cover. He was looking forward to seeing the creatures he’d read about in Philiarz Oonswarner’s Bestiary for Adventurers. Hopefully not the monstrous types.

Finding a bare patch of ground that seemed to have seen frequent use, he came in for a landing.

---

His landing site was an old campsite. There was an old fire pit, and ash was mixed with the soil from being rained upon. Despite its frequent use, it looked to be a while since anyone had ever visited, as parts of the ground already had clumps of new growth.

A domed lean-to, woven from brushwood and twigs, lay against a lone tree. The wood was rotting, and it looked like it could keel over at any time. Arthur wasn’t worried about finding shelter, though it would have to do for his rest stop. Gliding across the ground, he stopped in front of the hovel and cautiously peered into the darkness. ‘[Light]’ he murmured. A bobbing mage light the size of a tennis ball floated ahead of him.

His hand was already at his dagger, just in case something had the idea to jump in his face. He needn’t have worried because there was nothing in the small shack; not even droppings from animals, nor footprints or other signs of recent inhabitation. He released a breath he didn’t know he was holding and stood at ease.

Out of habit, he settled down on the levitating Azure Surfer as a seat before retrieving his map and mageflask to quench his thirst. It was getting too hot during the day, and he was grateful that the ramshackle kept out the sun over his head. Deciding he might as well sate his gnawing hunger, he retrieved a light snack from his [Inventory Chest].

A cob loaf sandwich with kelp lettuce and ground steak patties. He’d really worked hard on those. There were a couple of bottles of Dragonbreath liqueur and Sylvani Vyssini wine he’d gotten as a going away gift. However, both had some kick and but he was not looking to flying under influence.

‘Not bad for my first day,’ he sighed as he dusted the crumbs from his cheeks. ‘The compass needle is steady. Confirms my hypothesis that dense regions of mana have their own magnetic fields... maybe. Whatever, I am no scientist. Either way, I am set for the rest of my journey. Now, for the next leg.’

Looking over the map, he plotted his next course and estimated that if he left now, it would take more or less the time it took to get to his first waypoint.

‘If I push hard enough, I should be able to get enough time to find a place to hole up for the night. Heh, travelling is not a piece of cake. While he had nobody to watch his back if and when he settled to sleep for the night, he had his alarm wardstones, which could spark and disorient any intruder. Looking at his rest stop, he thought, 'I wouldn't put it past a gust of wind to knock down the sticks right on top of me.’

Arthur gave his itinerary a once-over, noting that each stop would have a relay tower for communication spells. Unfortunately, he hadn’t learned a [Message] spell yet. It was tier 3 but it was no less hard to learn its spell matrixes. Like Eryth’s version of cell towers, Arthur could find permanent structures created to serve as waystations. The aerland he’d stopped at had to have one as well―

“Hmm, maybe I should take a look around,’ he thought, looking into the forest surrounding the camp from the left of his shelter.

‘I’ll just cast about and dip before I burn any more daylight. What I would give for a functioning watch.’ Arthur frowned. Of course, Erythean timepieces existed, dwarven chronikers being the most prominent among aership masters and sailors. There were also sylvani horodials. Both cost a pretty crown apiece, but he was not hurting for money; he’d buy one if and when he got to it.

Well rested, Arthur got up, stretching his arms and legs to coax out the numbness that had settled in. He grimaced when he felt pins and needles in his feet. Flaring [Detect Flaw] on his hoverboard it came back clean. The Mark I was in good health and its tolerance was at par for the course. [Diagnostics] corroborated that there was nothing that needed fixing.

Hopefully it would hold out for a few more leagues until he reached civilization or got onto a ship. From the way the camp had been abandoned for so long, however, he did not hold out hope for the latter.

Spiriting away the Azure Surfer into [Inventory Chest ] he retrieved his longsword, slinging its scabbard over his back. He dispelled the magelight and stepped out of the shack, squinting against the sun as his eyes adjusted.

“ Hmm, should have seen critters by now,” he muttered to nobody in particular. Arthur looked around the clearing, searching for signs of a foot trail. He found none even with his sharp vision. ‘Scat’s creek, I don’t have scouting skills or whatever people use to find their way around these parts,’ he scratched his chin in indignation.

‘Duh of course, use the air,’ he facepalmed before he retrieved his hoverboard. A few moments later, he was flying over the aerland forest.

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