Skybound

Morgan Mackenzie was relaxing in a pool of water so hot it was nearly boiling, and thoroughly enjoying the experience. Lulu purbled with contentment, working through her scalp and hair while producing an amount of sudsy bubbles any sane person would have considered obscene -- or which a toddler may have declared almost enough. Terisa lounged in the water several paces away, her resistances not quite enough for her to be totally comfortable at the hottest end of the hot springs where the Sorceress sat. The Huntress still endured far more heat than Dana, who sighed with contentment from much farther away, in a shallower section of the waters that was merely warm to Morgan. The earthborn engineer had focused much more heavily on her own craft than on her ability to endure the elements.

Several of Lulu’s brood-descendants were tending to the other women’s equipment as well. Terisa’s wyvern-hide leggings and tunic gleamed in the morning sunlight, and Dana’s armor lay on a nearby ledge giving off a shine impossible to match with mere oil and polish. Even separated from it for a bath, the spinal graft allowing the woman to control it afforded her limited armor of its own. The curved edges of articulated plating just peeked over the engineer’s shoulders; metal meeting flesh with no seam or transition that Morgan could detect even with her enhanced vision.

“When you said you had a hot spring, I wasn’t expecting anything as nice as this,” said Dana, relishing the unexpected luxury. “Especially with custom seating and privacy fences.” The pool they now occupied sat some distance away from the construction site of the skyship, and even farther up the mountain from the makeshift camp of the survivors of the expedition. Morgan had raised baffled stone walls around the already secluded glade to protect it from sight and the sounds of construction, more as a courtesy to her new friends than any sort of modesty on her part.

“The benefits of [Terrakinesis] and a valley full of mana,” replied the sorceress. “Things are much easier when I don’t have to stop and eat every few minutes.”

“You have a lot of raw power. More than I have ever seen, even from accomplished Arch-Mages or the greater Wizards I have known.” The Huntress sat with a poise and grace Morgan envied. Even sitting bare in a bath, the other woman was almost regal, carefully undoing her braided hair. “But aside from your natural skill with moving stone or fire near your own body, you hemorrhage raw, primal mana with almost no thought to control. It’s no wonder you have to eat so much to maintain yourself when you waste so much of your magic that way.”

“I don’t really know how not to!” exclaimed the once-waitress. “Biggles showed me some mana exercises he said all novices learn for their first spells, but they are boring! If I need light I just let out my own fire.” She held her hand above the water, palm facing upwards as a flickering violet flame sprouted there as an example. “I don’t even have to think to do it. It’s actually difficult to make the basic circle he showed me. That doesn’t even use my fire, just a trickle of mana without any, uh…” she trailed off, unsure of the words.

“Elements?” Terisa smiled knowingly. “I’m not a mage, but I’ve known many.”

“It’s more like flavors the way I sense them. It’s like I can taste the magic.”

“Everyone’s different with that,” added Dana. “For me and my golems or my armor it’s like that buzzing sensation when you lick a nine-volt battery, but in a good way.”

“What is a--” the Huntress started to ask before stopping herself. “One of your otherworld things, I presume.”

“Yeah,” said Morgan. “There’s no magic back home, although I think there used to be. We had to figure out other ways to do things.”

Terisa gave her an inquisitive glance. “Like the skyship?” 

“A lot like it. Blimps and dirigibles are a bit different, but similar principles,” answered Dana, breaking in before Morgan could respond. “Turns out there’s actually a bunch of different ways to fly, but big bags of hot air are the best we can do before the weather traps us here…”

“Are you sure you cannot travel with us, Morgan?”

The sorceress shook her head as the huntress dipped under the water, finally having finished undoing her braid and letting the water do its work before sitting up again.

“The winds have already shifted and it will be snowing soon.” The spring and the surrounding air were luxuriously warm, but the steam and vapor rising over their impromptu bath-house evidenced the frigid temperatures falling upon the valley. “Another two days, I think. Dad’s dragged up enough of the big witchwood timbers that you should have more than enough to finish the ship, and we should be able to get the bags melded to the enchanted spheres tomorrow.”

“The keel is solid,” said Dana. “It ain’t pretty, but it’ll hold together. Five full decks, and we save some weight going with open bunks and hammocks except for the lady’s quarters, which is just partitioned from the rest and not individual rooms. Sorry, Terisa,” she grinned. “There’s not much room for privacy on a ship, especially one like this. I know you’re used to bunking down with Foz.”

Terisa shrugged, unoffended. “We haven’t always had a room to ourselves, or even a tent. Those of the Tribes view such things as simply a matter of living, Worldwalker.”

Dana and Morgan both stared, nearly slack-jawed. “B-but what if you--” Morgan stammered.

“Get frisky?” the Huntress asked, smirking. “Your airship may be strong, but there are limits. We wouldn’t want to damage something important, so don’t worry.”

“I--” Dana started, then choked back the words. “Honestly not the answer I was expecting, and you seem totally serious!”

Terisa smiled ruefully. “You always make jokes without the rest of us understanding. Don’t deny me such simple pleasures. Although when you sent Jakenna to fetch some ‘updog’ from the Luparan tents, the look on their faces was quite enjoyable.”

“Dana!” exclaimed Morgan in shock. “You didn’t!”

The engineer grinned broadly at Morgan, almost vibrating in place. Suddenly, she burst into long peals of less-than-ladylike laughter. “Y-You can’t understand--” She shook her head. “--how funny it was! A-A catkin, asking a wolf--” 

She lost her balance, then choked and sputtered, having accidentally inhaled quite a bit of sudsy water. Above the heated volcanic spring, steam and water vapor drifted lazily towards a sky that grew steadily colder as three women laughed. Farther down the valley, three figures stood next to several magically sculpted stone structures, arguing amongst themselves.

==========================

“Are you gonna tell her?”

Chnarl flicked one ear at the necromancer. “Someone has to. Ship’s gonna be heavy enough without all this stone puttin’ more weight at the top.” The old druid hacked up a packet of spittle, grunting and wiping his nose before taking another sip of the steaming kaffen Biggles had brought, flexing his fingers against the cup. I may not understand his obsession with plants and alchemy, the man thought, but he makes a mean cup of kaffen.

“I don’t understand it,” the necromancer said, laying a hand on the smooth, elegant-seeming spars and joints. “How can she have made something as elegant as those weapons she anchored Althenea to, and then make something as wasteful as this…?”

“Anchors are easy,” replied the badger. “If you aren’t trying to bind a spirit -- if the soul in question is willing -- all the fiddly bits are left to their preference. All you have to do is open the pathway and keep it open, while the spirit does all the work.”

“Even that’s baffling,” Biggles responded, shaking his head. “Enough magical power to open the pathway, yet she barely grasps the basics of spellcraft; things that any student at the Magisterium would know. Not that I’m debating its effect,” he hastened to add. “She saved us from the Skitterling attack, but...she has so many blind spots, and doesn’t even know the basic exercises for mana control--”

“Sorcery is different,” interrupted Chnarl. “You know this, Necromancer. She will never lack for raw power, but she’ll always struggle with the finer control. She is likely to suffer greatly once she leaves the mana-rich air of the Wildlands. Have you never met a sorcerer before? It is as different from the other magics as you can get. They’re more akin to priests or those blessed by various deities or powerful beings, but without the need to pray or bargain.”

Biggles shook his head. “Never had the pleasure. I was trained by my family, not sent to Meadowspire or Stormbreak.”

“We will need to teach her as much as we can,” growled Chnarl, flicking his ears at the third person standing next to the constructs. “You and your shade are probably the closest to a sorcery-based classer we have, Mister Kels.”

“I’m not sure what I can teach her,” he answered, drawing his coat closer as the wind gusted suddenly. “I don’t use spell forms to call up Miros, I simply let him draw on my mana.”

“Druidry would be useless to the girl,” added the badger. “She doesn’t have an iota of ability with the life and nature magics. She’s all fire and stone and storm, that one. The most suitable teacher would actually be the engineer, if she weren’t absolutely insane…” The druid shuddered, remembering the explosion that had been even worse than the attacking swarm of bugs. “Annihilating a shard... Elders save us from her ‘science,’ skyship or no.”

“Miss Dana certainly has her fair share of skill and precision,” Miros agreed. “All of the magical builder classes do, but her suit is a masterpiece. Miros can sense the mana traces through its construction when he is close, and we’ve never encountered anything as dense or complex as those patterns, not even the runes etched into the Sorceress’ skin.”

“Well, both Dana and Morgan have a severe lack of a lot of the basics of magic. I understand it doesn’t exist on their world, so that makes a good deal of sense,” said Biggles.

“It is one thing to understand,” growled Chnarl. His voice was raspy not from anger but from his mis-healed jawbone. The scar across his snout still ached in the cold weather. “To understand a failing is acceptable. To excuse it, or refuse to even attempt to correct such ignorance? Sheer folly.” He turned to the [Shadecaller], Kels. “Has your wraith-self found them yet? The Huntress left the camp this morning with both the Sorceress and the Engineer, and we’ll need to get started on fixing this--” he waved a paw at the geometric sphere in exasperation, “--before we waste too much of the day.”

“I believe he was close,” answered Kels, cocking his head to the side as if listening intently. “They had trekked further up the valley than he origina-- oh…”

“Oh?” Biggles gave him an inquisitive look.

Kels appeared suddenly panicked, his face turning hitherto unknown shades of red. “It’s not-- oh no!”

Thunder rumbled in the distance as the morning sky flashed.

“Gods, that’s gonna be a splitting headache!” exclaimed the shadecaller. “Don’t tell Foz, please…”

“Start makin’ sense or I’ll drag him from the cookfire myself,” growled Chnarl.

“Miros walked in on them taking a bath!” Kels said in a breathless rush.

Chnarl looked from the Necromancer to the Shadecaller, then back. “All three of them?”

Kels was suddenly wreathed in mana as Miros returned to his physical half, the Shadecaller stumbling sideways and struggling to keep his feet. “Yes,” he gasped, holding his head in both hands. “All three of them.”

“Not a word,” said the druid.

“Agreed,” said the necromancer.

================

Morgan was in such a good mood she couldn’t help herself, and barely realized she was skipping along the path as she headed down towards the site of the Expedition camp. Lulu wurbled from her shoulder as she flounced down the mountainside. The skyship’s hull was taking shape: a boxy wooden structure that, while not quite pretty, had a solid and functional appearance and appeal. Utilitarian, she thought. Maybe we can build pretty ones later…

Terisa and Dana had continued talking as they walked, the chilly breeze giving their words an eerie cast. “I hope he’s not hurt too bad,” said the engineer. “Sentry mode can’t discriminate, and my suit recognizes friendlies through biological signatures. Miros doesn’t have biology as my suit understands it, though -- no heartbeat or body heat to track and identify!”

“He’ll be fine, Dana,” the Huntress assured her. “He’s merely a projection, even if he does have a great deal of autonomy. Disrupting the sending just returns him to Kels. It’s not the first time it’s happened and it certainly won’t be the last.”

Content in the knowledge that no permanent harm had been done to anyone, Morgan put the event out of her mind. Her current destination was a cave excavated the night before for one exhausted panther and two rather energetic cubs. Her father had been on the opposite side of the valley when the hunting party had encountered the big cats. No one else could drag entire witchwood trees in pairs the way the Titan could, and so the hunters had gone in the opposite direction. Prey was scarce for miles around the giant form that had once been Max Mackenzie.

That giant form was now sitting outside the cave, with Marjorie the giant panther resting just inside the secluded opening, but close enough to keep her cubs in sight. “Cub” was a light way of putting it, however; though barely a third of their mother’s size, they already rivalled Earth tigers for bulk. Instead of stripes, their fur was dappled with silver and charcoal grey that shifted with every movement. Dana had taken to calling the darker one Nyx, and Morgan called the lighter one Lily because of a splash of white between its ears. The others in the Expedition had worried the Titan might have been a danger to the cubs or the mother, but Morgan knew better. Thousands of years via displacement in time notwithstanding, some things would never change.

Nyx lay on her side up against the Titan, who was chewing on the ribcage of what had once been a rockmaw. Her sibling Lily pounced back and forth trying to catch several writhing fronds of vines, only to miss when her father danced them out of reach at the last moment.

“I wonder who adopted who?” she asked, looking up at the Titan’s resting form. “I know you’re gettin’ impatient to move on, and I need to talk to Moghren again. You think the kittens will follow us?”

“Too young.”

The rumbling reverberations of his voice startled the cats as much as when he ponderously shook his head, looking down at their overly fluffy forms. 

“Stay with skyship.”

“I won’t argue with that. I think Dana’s been drawing up some room modifications to keep them, if they can store enough food.” A sudden gust of wind whipped Morgan’s hair out to the side, Lulu wurbling in protest.

“Two days. Must go.”

“Two days and then you’ll have to leave before winter sets in?”

He nodded slowly.

“I’m helping work on the skyship some more today then, but I’ll be ready when it’s time to go.”

The giant didn’t respond, already returned to playing with the kittens. Overly massive size aside, it reminded her of how he was back home with his own dogs and cats. She grinned to herself as she headed back to the worksite with her mood vastly improved, wondering why Biggles and Dana suddenly looked so glum…

==============

Dana watched with trepidation as the Sorceress approached. This was counterbalanced by the glee she felt as an engineer. Improvement in design was always welcome, every new iteration better than the previous. Finding out there was a better way to form spatial enchantments for the skyship to fly was a boon. The only hitch was not knowing how the woman who would need to make those enchantments would take it. Morgan had not seemed prideful before, but she had also not been predictable or level-headed for the entirety of the short time they had known her.

“Y’all act like frightened cubs,” said Chnarl, joining her and Biggles. “It’s not like she had any way to know. This way we can teach her.”

“Most students can’t incinerate everything for leagues if they get upset,” Biggles pointed out.

“Upset over what?” asked a curious sorceress, her keen hearing more sensitive than any of them had realized.

“Shouldn’t be upset, they’re just skittish fools,” said the badger, waving Morgan closer. “Tell me, how did you learn your holding magics, the stretching of distance and dimensions?”

“Oh! With clay pots!” Morgan waved her hand to the side and a clump of rocky earth broke free from the ground to flow up in a swirl. Levitating it between her hands, a smooth brown bowl soon formed, deepening in shape to a round hollow ball with an opening on one end. “I can make the space bigger on the inside, by anchoring the runes to the strengthened walls.”

“Hmm,” mused Chnarl. “Adequate. Impressive, even, for someone self-taught.” He jabbed a claw at the outermost storage rune etched into her waist on one side. “But those don’t use a solid substance as an anchor.”

“What do you mean? They’re an entirely different enchantment, one that comes from skills…”

“Incorrect. It is a manipulated pocket of space the same as that jar you just made, or your oversized and extremely heavy frames here,” he said as he turned to point at the assembly of stone ribs arranged into a sphere.

“I dunno, it feels different…” 

“The only difference is in the aperture that allows you to put things inside the enclosed space and retrieve them. Your tattoos seem to handle that naturally, so you wouldn’t have been able to sense the difference without someone to point it out.”

Realization dawned on Morgan’s face just before her palm met her forehead. “I was worried about something like this! I don’t have a guidebook or anything! So this means we can-”

“It means we can ditch nearly a fifth of the weight of the skyship,” interrupted Dana with a sheepish grin. “It looks like the dwarves get to bring their cannons along after all…”