It turned out four wings were decidedly not better than two. My poor crow was struggling to stay aloft in the slipstream of the great roc, every motion of the beast making the air churn and warp, its wings generating a snarling river of turbulence that threatened to drown us as we raced alongside the beast. The pure force with which it moved churned out thin trails of vapor that unfolded from the tips of its wings, leaving ribbons of scar-white cloud behind as it carved its way through the sky.

Actually, the incredible force of the winds seemed unnatural. If we’d been inside my domain I could’ve used Observe to confirm my suspicions; the goliath was using storm magic to defy the laws of gravity and take flight.

It gripped a snail the size of a cottage in its claws, and swept for the far mountains. Mountains I’d seen in a dream.

Somehow a girl - a tiny, tiny goblin - was trying to climb her way up to the beast. It seemed impossible for her to hang on as the rope she hung from swung violently through the air, a serpent that almost wanted to throw her down to the earth below.

Somehow she was still climbing.

I watched - my crow watched - with our shared heart in our throat. Waiting, fearing, wanting to believe but knowing the fatal slip would happen. Had to happen.

She came so close it was heartbreaking, and did the strangest thing. She reached up for empty air just before she fell.

I’d already said my little prayer when I realized where she was falling.

No. That was impossible. The sheer coincidence-

Moment by moment it became impossible to deny, as that tiny, thin creature tumbled through the empty sky down towards an eye of blue and green hidden in the shadows of the ruins below.

She was going to fall right on top of me.

The odds of this being in any way pure luck were laughable. This was meddling. Fate was making a ballistic delivery of one very unhappy goblin to my doorstep. Down and down and down, the wind rolling her like a leaf, snatching the screams away as she ragdolled. It was slowing her down, I realized, the wind constantly shifting to bend her momentum and keep her from reaching terminal velocity.

Mind you - terminal velocity was a bit of a lie. You could die from much, much less.

I made a decision. My crow would follow the roc towards the mountains, but I would remain. My mind broke away from the bird and fell back down into my core, my domain. The girl was moments behind, plummeting down into my sight.

Ramses raised his head and watched with those calm, peaceful eyes.

She hit the water with a sickening thud, impact turning the minute tension on the surface to a solid wall. She bounced up, and came back down, crashing through this time. The water closed over in a frothing surge, and Ramses dipped below to fish her out.

I’d had plans for my Mana stores. Big, scaly plans, with lots of teeth.

Instead I poured it into her. I was noting a change in my Mana’s behavior. When I’d saved the fox cub it had been nothing but droplets of light. Now it looked almost like luminous fish, swimming under the water in a spiral that rose to meet the girl as she sank.

One by one they entered her body, restoring the bones that had shattered to a million fragments inside, healing the absolute bruised ruin of her muscles, sealing shut broken skin. Ramses grasped her hand in his jaws and pulled her up, and she emerged onto the shore unconscious and unharmed.

'Shine-Catch'

Sand-Tribe Goblin

[ Silver ]

Kingdom Animalia

Age - 16 Years

Physique - Unranked

Arcana - Silver Psyche - Silver

Diet - Omnivore

Biome - Caverns

Cycle - Nocturnal

Small and weak compared to many of the other Mortal Races, goblins possess unrivaled abilities of adaptation spurred by their weak shared consciousness called the ancestral mind. A goblin tribe shares thoughts and desires in moments of extreme stress, allowing them to function as a pack and creating close-knit social bonds. This consciousness also affects embryonic growth, shaping the child to better suit the environment.

This particular specimen is uniquely attuned to the ancestral mind, but also shows signs of low level disorder.

Notable Features - Radiation-tainted, malnourishment.

Unfortunate thing. Even besides the bit where I had to piece her back together from near-death, her Notable Features suggested a short and unpleasant life. I was curious about her tribe, and even more curious how she'd achieved Silver in Arcana - but these things could wait until she was awake.

For now I drew a blanket of soft moss over her body, and spared a little more Mana to try and compensate for her stunted growth. Even for a goblin she was thin.

I almost turned back towards my original task of trying to create a new and better breed of worm, but Ramses snorted, nudging at the girl with his nose. A green ring tumbled free of her ragged shirt, slumping to hang around her neck by a leather cord. The rough-cut jade gleamed and I felt an unpleasant, violent kind of energy clinging to it like a foul odor.

There were runes inscribed along both sides.

Skill Plate - Windrunner

Jade Ring. Middling-Grade Craftsmanship.

Middling-Rank Enchantment.

Mana Capacity

0 / 2

Durability

4 / 10

A common trinket of the Dusk Age, this skill plate has been made of pressed jade and inscribed with a basic skill for scouts and messengers. Fed with Mana, it will slowly impart the ability to use the skill within over a few days of training.

Perhaps more interesting than its usage is the fact this item was forged on a distant continent. It has traveled far by unknown means, and is tainted with wild energy from a spatial rift.

Interesting. The foul energy wasn’t the ring itself, then. Just lingering impurities from passing through some kind of spatial distortion. Possibly the radiation was simply lingering because the ring's magical nature made it 'porous' to those energies. Very curious.

The girl herself still wasn’t getting up, but I slowly drew away the unstable Mana and fed in a supply of my own energy. One by one the little runes lit up, and a brief gust of wind swirled through her hair before settling.

Hmm. When she wakes up, she’ll want food. And while my diving lizard makes a nice substitute for fish it’ll hardly cook up so nicely. Lazarus would but- he’s not for eating.

A nice rabbit? A turtle stew? It doesn’t seem right. I’d be roasting up one visitor for another.

Instead I poured Mana into forming a sturdy seedpod beneath the earth, and sculpted as it grews upwards. The specimen used is a kind of hardy, spine-leafed aloe plant that grows in the desert, and can produce a small bright-fleshed fruit. A very ugly, pimply fruit, to be sure.

But a damn sight better than asking her to eat bugs.

I made the bounty a little more generous. I thinned the seeds out to make more room for rich, juicy inner flesh, divided into slices by membranes of waxy cuticle. For flair I made those inner segments fade from pale yellow through to green and then a vibrant orange, a small rainbow within.

Something else came to mind. I’d been successful in using crystals to store small quantities of Mana, and I’d seen the insects in the fissure do the same. While the fruit alone would probably pass enough Mana to the eater to slowly build them healthier and stronger over a sustained diet, why not make the process more efficient?

I turned the seeds within to tiny pips of crystal, and fed each with Mana till they shone like treasures within. It was shockingly expensive. I had to pause and wait for my depleted reserves to fill up again, slowly feeling strength pour into me from the Pale, but by the end I could look upon my creation with pride.

Succulent Aloe

[ Bronze ]

Kingdom Plantae

Age - 0 Days

Physique - Null

Arcana - Bronze

Psyche - Null

Diet - Photosynthesis

Biome - Arid Desert

Cycle - Diurnal An alchemical wonder, this plant's waxy fruit is filled with tiny crystalline seeds that act as primitive Mana Stones. While it cannot grow outside of Mana-rich soil, its unique and arcane nature makes it a natural remedy. Undefended it would quickly be consumed to extinction. Born of the Oasis Dungeon.

Notable Features - Mana-sensitive, mana-dependant.

In the distance, my crow chased the roc out towards the mountains. With a last glance to make sure the girl was still sound asleep, I left my domain, melding my mind into the crow's and seeing the world from its dark gaze.