January 17, 2019, 2:32 pm. Shortly after deciding to let the experienced people do the planning.

I might not know how we're going to deal with Dhanni for Rufka's quest, but I don't have to. I'm part of a team. I'm sure Roberts or Beth will have an idea.

"This is amazing. Thank you so much Rufka," Josh calls as he inspects his glider.

"It's nothing Rose," Rufka shouts back though I notice she seems pleased.

"I disagree. Your skill in enchanting is far beyond mine. These are impressive improvements," Tipan states from where she's watching Roberts as he launches himself once more. As he flies away, he nearly smacks into a nearby building, but Tipan uses her staff to direct him away.

Meanwhile, Beth is circling above, twisting and turning her glider with grace. It's a shame she can't use her rifle while she's flying like that. The gliders are designed to be used two-handed, which leaves two hands free for your average K’tharn. Clearly, we humans don’t have the same option.

"It is sufficient. Now, I believe it's time for lunch, I'm rather hungry," Rufka declares while pulling out a large haunch of meat which she holds out towards me.

"Uhm. I know I've been eating a lot lately, but that seems a little excessive," I reply, taking the unwieldy mass in both hands, barely holding it up.

Rufka chuckles, "it's not all for you. But you can reheat it for us."

"Right," I answer as I start cycling fire mana through the haunch.

"Whoa. That's enough," Rufka exclaims as she plucks the haunch out of my hands, flipping it onto a plate where it steams.

"Oops. It didn't feel that hot," I offer sheepishly.

"New resistances. Takes time to get used to the change in feedback," Rufka explains while cutting into our grub.

"Yeah. Makes sense," I reply, accepting the plate she offers me, "Does that mean I'm not going to sweat on hot summer days or feel cold when it rains?"

"Probably. You'll still get wet though," she replies while wolfing down her meal.

Turning back to my own, I add a small dash of salt which turns the cuts of meat into an amazing two-minute meal. I'm faster than a microwave.

Cutting it into smaller pieces with a liberal application of metal manipulation, I direct my attention to my attributes. I'm going to continue holding onto a few points, seeing as there seems to be a lot of things you can spend integration points on. Even so, I feel like I can spend a few now that I've finished another quest.

Hmm, I have twelve points. I can probably spend four no problem, maybe even six. Obviously, I'm putting a point into Intellect and Spirit. I also decide to put a point into Perception, as well as one into Resolve. They’re the other primary stats for my class, so it feels appropriate. It’s tempting to push my Intellect and Spirit to 90 but I convince myself to hold onto the rest of my points instead of spending them.

Tearing into the conveniently available meal, I indulge my system-augmented hunger while I review my adjusted stats.

Class

Cataclysm Seed

Level

Iron

1

ATTRIBUTE

VALUE

ADJUST

STRENGTH

-9

(+/-)

CONSTITUTION

11

(+/-)

AGILITY

12

(+/-)

ENDURANCE

5

(+/-)

INTELLECT

86

(+/-)

SPIRIT

86

(+/-)

PERCEPTION

33

(+/-)

RESOLVE

12

(+/-)

Integration Points

8

RESOURCE

CURRENT/MAX

[EDGE]

(REGEN)

Health

89/89

[6.3] [16.3]

(45)/d

Stamina

94/94

[7.4]

(50)/d

Mana

456/510

[47.6]

(395)/d

Focus

351/382

[29.8]

(251)/d

Matrix

Facet

133/134

[11.0]

(97)/h

Not much of a change, but every bit helps. Love seeing my health edge in double digits. As I chew the warm meat, reflecting on how I couldn’t feel the heat, I wonder if there’s something that shows my current resistances. Hmm, Resistance I mentally project.

Resistance

[EDGE]

Raw Mana

38.5

Elemental

38.5

Temporal

59.0

Spatial

59.0

Oh, sweet. That’s a pretty huge increase to my defences.

I've only eaten about three times my usual before I feel full. Considering how much I eat now, I’m glad I decided to stock up on rations. I wasn't expecting to get stuck out here, I just wanted to make sure I had snacks.

Rufka and I are almost finished eating when the others decide they've gotten enough practice, at which point Rufka pulls out another leg. I obligingly 'microwave' it for the others. Without any random cold or hot spots and without setting it steaming as I did with ours. I'm improving already.

"So, what's the plan now? How're we taking these Fallen down?" I quiz Beth. She likes to be in charge, which is great.

The only person I want to be in charge of is myself. Which is probably a good thing, since even my pet doesn't listen to me, isn't that right you little head scritches fiend.

I almost miss Beth's answer, I'm so busy playing with Smoulder as she playfully bats at my hand while I scratch her belly.

"I’d prefer to hit them hard, take out their leaders, then retreat. But they're all too effective at shielding. I haven't been able to get a clean hit," Beth complains. “But whatever we do, we need more intel first.”

“Now, that’s something I can help with,” Tipan offers, lighting up while producing an illusionary map of the city. Most parts are obscured but the general shape is there, along with greater details in certain areas.

"Cool," Josh and I utter, practically in sync.

"This is the rest area," Tipan explains in her lecturing voice, pointing at a little, blue, glowing tent. "And the red x is where we ran into their army. The glowing green K'tharn head is us."

There are also several flags on the map. Before I can ask, Tipan continues, "the flags are every location where we encountered the Fallen. The white flags are from when we retreated, the blue where we won and the half black, half white flags are from where we retreated, and we saw the awakened Fallen."

"Why didn't you show us this before?" I wonder, inspecting her map more closely. It's no google maps, and it has a fog-of-war effect wherever Tipan can't currently see.

"It doesn't show much until you've explored an area. It was just a blank circle when we first arrived," Tipan replies defensively while glancing at Rufka.

"Is this an ability from the explorer subclass?" Beth asks excitedly.

"Yes. It's one of the higher tier abilities available," Tipan proclaims proudly when Rufka doesn't mock her.

"Huh. I take it back skyborne. If your explorer class is this advanced, it would be foolish to leave home without it," Rufka admits. It's not quite an apology, but Tipan seems very pleased, nonetheless.

"Indeed. Are you able to enhance the areas we've explored?" Roberts inquires, setting his plate on the roof as he moves closer.

"Yes, though it’s blurry. I've only unlocked the basic version. I won't be able to upgrade it more until I advance to copper."

"Could you inspect this for a moment?" he requests, pointing at a round building that doesn't have flags or any other symbols on it.

"Sure," Tipan replies as the aforementioned building comes into focus. Kind of. It's a little grainy, but it's clear that it's a round silver building without windows or doors on it. In fact, it resembles the building from the army's camp.

"Isn't that-" I start at the same time Josh blurts out, "A silver bullet."

"What?" Roberts, Beth and I all respond as we turn towards Josh.

"It looks like a silver bullet," Josh repeats defensively.

"How is that helpful Josh?" Beth wonders while I assess the building again. I guess it does kind of resemble a bullet, rounded on top and everything.

"I don't know. I just thought…" he trails off, shrugging, "it does, doesn't it?"

"Yeah. It does," Beth replies with a gentle smile, before turning back to the floating image.

"It also resembles the building at their base camp," I offer, "can you bring that up too?"

"Of course," she replies as the other 'silver bullet' appears floating next to the original, though this one is tilted. In neither image can we see the bottom of the building. When I think about it, the destruction near the one at their camp had been as if a giant finger had dragged itself across the area. Maybe that was what happened.

I mean, not an actual giant.

But maybe the building, including its foundation, had been forcibly dragged through the rest of the city.

"They definitely look similar. Do either of you know what they're for?" Beth inquires, turning to Rufka then Tipan.

"No. The only active Builder city left is Bethreyne. And not many venture within its walls. There's been little point since the founding of the Aetherium," Tipan replies.

"That's true. Mum always said the one good thing about the Aetherium was it freed our people from the Builders. She never mentioned these silver towers with no entrances, but then she avoided Builders."

"Never mentioned 'silver bullets' either," Rufka adds after a second's pause, giving Josh a grin.

"It's interesting but I don't see that it helps us," Beth states. I don't voice it, but I'm not so certain. There's a reason they were camped out in its shadow. We just don't know what.

"Agreed. But we seem to be reasonably safe from attack here. At least for the moment. It appears that we can get close to their base camp from the inner city," Beth comments, pointing to where I'm pretty sure Rufka and I first entered the inner city.

"Yeah. It couldn't have been more than a couple hundred meters," I confirm, reviewing the map.

"Then I think we should see about setting up here," she suggests, indicating a building inside the inner city with a clear line of sight to the Fallen camp.

When no one disagrees, we finish our lunch then set into the air. As we rise, I'm able to see the system boss crawling over buildings further in. There doesn't seem to be a pattern to its movements that I'm able to observe by the time we've landed on the roof near the Fallen base. We don't head there directly. Instead, we set up so Beth can scope them out. The building we've chosen is higher than the camp itself but still lower than the buildings in the outer city.

While she's observing, I wonder if I can use twilight to achieve a similar effect. I've already used it to provide myself with night vision. Creating magnification shouldn't be much harder, right?

A quick application of twilight later, and I'm within the yellow tinted world once more. Shifting the shape of the barrier covering my eyes does allow me to zoom instead. However, when I do so, I make the mistake of moving my head. The nausea is so intense I almost throw-up.

Once I've recovered, I unzoom, turning my head towards the camp. Then, pausing to ensure I don't move my head, I zoom in again.

The Fallen aren't just standing around like last time. Now, they're hauling dirt out of the hole we found them in. Specifically, Dhanni is lifting it out in chunks forming walls along the edge. The lesser Fallen aren't standing around either, hauling dirt on poorly formed metal sheets, dumping it at the edges of their camp. Even as they work, they still have that glazed look in their eyes.

I inspect the camp for another couple minutes, but I can't find either of the other Triplets. So, I let my magnification end as the pause fades.

"I'm not sure what I'm seeing here," Beth says, "but I think they're making fortifications."

"Yeah. Dhanni seems to be making rammed earth walls," I add from beside her.

"I take it Dhanni is the name of that Fallen who's lifting large cubes of earth?" Beth queries, shifting in place next to me.

"Uh. Yeah, sorry. I don't see either of the other Triplets, do you?" I redirect, still gazing in the general direction though I can't see any detail.

"Triplets?" I hear Josh question from behind us.

"I believe Alexis is referring to the awakened Fallen," Roberts answers. When I glance back, I see he's still playing with the little ball of water, standing a few steps back.

"Try doing the alphabet," I tell him when I notice he's still doing the same exercise.

"Oh? Oh my, that's challenging," Roberts exclaims as he starts forming a rough letter 'a'.

"Try using focus when you're having difficulties," I add, watching as his 'a' snaps into shape in response. Then he creates a capital 'A' before continuing with the alphabet.

"Thank you, Alexis," Roberts responds appreciatively, continuing his practice while I turn back to Beth who's reviewing Tipan's map. Her map is currently displaying the camp’s set-up from when we were last here, in all its blurry glory.

"They've added walls here and here," Beth states, pointing along the street Rufka and I recently escaped down.

"So, do we have a plan?" I ask, to which Beth smiles, turning to me.

"I think we might. But we need more intel first. Tell me. How high do you think you can fly?"

"I have no idea. I haven't properly tested it," I answer, tilting my head back while I think about it.

"Feel up to testing it?" Beth suggests, gesturing upwards.

"Hell yeah," I declare as I summon my hoverboard. As it forms Rufka nudges my elbow before conjuring her own hoverboard.

"We're going to race, aren't we?" I ask her with a smile. There's a part of me that says now is hardly the time, but it's not very loud, so it's easy to shove it down.

"Does Vaus like her pu'shaha hard?" Rufka responds.

"Uhm, I'm guessing that's a yes?"

"Ugh. Outlanders. Yes, that's a yes," Rufka sighs while waving Tipan to come closer.

"Yes?" Tipan queries as she approaches.

"You're full Aether, right? Can you set us an Aetherium Challenge Race?" Rufka requests while rocking side to side in the air.

"Of course," Tipan accepts, smiling as a gentle wind starts blowing against my face. Letting Smoulder know I’m about to go flying, she hops over to Josh, headbutting him until he picks her up.

"This is getting rather official," Beth comments with a raised brow.

"You don't know the half of it," I mutter as notifications pop up.

"User Tipan has initiated the official subsystem - Aetherium Challenge Race."

"Subsystem Terms-

No use of magic that isn't required for flight. This is a test of skill, not combat. No use of special resources unless used to power flight. All flight spells for this event will be based on the iron rank lesser flight spell, using base power levels only. Completion of the course must be achieved within five minutes of the race’s start. You must grant the subsystem - Aetherium Challenge Race temporary access to your visual interface.”

"Do you agree to be bound by the terms, forfeiting any prize if you do not abide by the aforementioned terms? Y/N?"

Wow, this is impressive. And it's based on the Aetherium, I wonder what the requirements are to be able to create your own subsystem. Oh, there's a quest too.

"Quest received: Hell yeah! We're going to race! Description: Faster. Faster! FASTER!!! Requirements: Win an Aetherium Challenge Race using nothing but your flight spell and skill, 0/1 races won*. Rewards: One iron rank integration point. Time: unlimited."

"Good luck Alexis. These subsystems are one of the most beloved parts of the System. This is one of the more basic ones. There’s a similar race on Rylax. The Grand Marathon subsystem ties into their power grid and transport network creating races that run across their entire planet."

"Thanks, Wyonna," I say as I mentally confirm my consent. The moment I give my mental assent a series of rings appear in the air, overlaid on my interface. I don't have much time to inspect them because Tipan is already standing between us, holding her hands up as the gentle wind turns into a constant pressure pushing against me.

"Ready."

"Set."

"Fly!" Tipan exclaims, waving all four hands.

As the pressure holding us back releases, we blast off, racing over the buildings, Rufka close behind me. I barely catch Beth sighing out, "I wanted them to go up," before we're out of range.

But then we're away.

I tilt forward, going nearly superman, cutting down the amount of air I need to shape around me. On the very first turn, I barely avoid smashing into Rufka as we both cut the corner tight.

Zooming through the next ring, we climb higher.

Neither of us is gaining a significant advantage. I've got more speed, so I pull ahead between rings, but Rufka makes it up every time we have to turn.

Higher and higher we go, through ring after ring.

We're closing in on a circle that's a checkered blue and green when I realize Rufka and I must be over a kilometre up.

Well, I guess Beth got her wish. We went up, that's for sure. I let myself get distracted for a second as we reach the peak, looking at the city below. I can make out the system boss crawling over buildings with care, leaving no sign of its passing. I can also make out several 'silver bullet' buildings. I count six total, including the one the Fallen are camped near.

While it's a beautiful view, and it might even be important intel, my distraction costs me.

Because as we pass through the checkered ring at the apex, Rufka hip checks me, sending me wide with a loud laugh.

When I recover, I find her swinging back down towards the next ring. I immediately set out after her. She's got a decent lead, but luckily the course continues in a wide looping circle.

I'm able to catch up, and even gain a small lead on Rufka, dodging her attempted hip check with a barrel roll while blowing her a raspberry.

Then, as we draw near to the others, the course switches to what I can only call a slalom, quickly eating into my narrow lead. She's right behind me when I notice her trying to cut me off. Since physical contact appears to be legal, I decide to step on her face, giving myself a needed boost, Rufka calling me names.

Then I see the next ring is a checkered red and blue hanging at the edge of the building where we started.

It's a straight blast to the finish.

Laughing madly, I lean into the spell, throwing myself forward at full non-boosted speed.

I blast through the final ring, still laughing while letting my speed dwindle, only to be tackled by Rufka shortly afterwards. We go rolling across the roof into the parapet along the edge where we finally come to a stop. Thanks to Muthica's moonshine it doesn't hurt at all.

We're both laughing excitedly when Beth comes over to us.

"Good job, slick," Beth congratulates me, reaching her hand down to each of us as I bask in my victory.

"Quest objective completed: Hell yeah! We're going to race! Rewards: 1 iron rank integration point.

"Quest updated: Hell yeah! We're going to race! Requirements: Win three Aetherium Challenge Races using nothing but your own spells and skills, 0/3 races won. Rewards: Three iron rank integration points. Time: unlimited.

"Now, are you two ready to put those skills to work?"

Looking to Rufka, still feeling a little giddy, we both shrug. Then I reply, "Sure. Just tell us what you need."