Rune

/ruːn/

noun, a magical symbol

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.

Aerskyre looked at the marvel that was her blur of movement heading towards the camera. On the other hand, Arthur was rubbing at his cheek that had sprouted a welt of a feminine handprint. He was lucky Aeskyre had retracted her claws. He prodded at the split lip that was stitching itself back to wholeness and wiped off the blood with the back of his hand.

“Did you have to hit so hard?”

“How was I to know Arthur Tyrell? You caught me by surprise; this body’s reactions are so impulsive,” so she said, as she tapped at the image of the action, playing with the zoom function while at it.

‘Since when did arms have knee-jerk reactions? And look at her, she’s being so smug about it. Women never change…’ Arthur shook his head as he looked at the sun that was climbing up the azure.

“You want to have a go properly this time? I didn’t know the sun would cause a glare… we can make another one of those pictures…” Arthur suggested.

The crash course in mobile photography barely took long. While Aeskyre could be a haughty brute…a haughty smart fierce woman, she was no boomer to adapting to Earth technology. It was a breeze; she was not a dragon for nothing. That done, Arthur and Aeskyre took a proper picture by angling the phone in the air using a bit of magic telekinesis as a glorified selfie stick. Of course they took a lot of them thanks to her insistence that, 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 finally remarked. “I need to go.”

To show he had cemented his decision, he retrieved the Azure Surfer from [Inventory].

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

“What might that be…?” smiling wryly, Arthur scratched at his cheek.

“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”

“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.”

‘Okaaay, mother’

Arthur decided that if he was going to do this, he would do it with a flourish because angering a woman who had the temperament of the weather and could slap the living daylights out of him was not an idea of how he wanted to spend his last moments.

He could still feel the soreness in his left cheek bone. He hemmed and hawed but eventually, with one hand atop his breast in his best impression of a knightly personage as he bowed his head.

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

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

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

“Shush now. What is a broken rib when you are of my blood? Go with my blessings Scion of mine; May Aeris hasten the winds at your back and calm the gales ahead of you. May Diane shower you with her boon that you shall find respite wherever your feet sojourn.” She released him and stepped back, smoothing the creases of her dress with her free hand and her keepsake in the other.

‘Good gods, even rewards feel like punishment’ Arthur winced as he massaged his sore ribs.

It was unspoken that any more words between them would be vacuous. Thus they passed what remained unsaid with their eyes. Arthur stepped up onto the Azure Surfer, and retrieved the mana sail from [Inventory] as he did with the hoverboard.

He secured his feet onto the harnesses and flared [Detect Flaw] just for a good measure. Then he plugged in the mana sail which lit up without a lag and the board’s Mark One powered up, and hovered above the ground.

With a nod to the draconic woman, Arthur secured his scarf and goggles and glided out of the cavern, moving into a free fall. Sturm’s Keep retreated further and further in his wake.

Down he went, surfing the thermals while he kept away from the clouds that would hinder his visibility from aerlands unseen. He found a fallstreak hole like a tunnel to the sky providing an unhindered view of the land.

In its virgin swathes of browns, yellows and greens that blended into each other, the scenery looked like a vast oil painting. And seeing as he had a straight shot out of the archipelago, he did not wait for something to go on the fritz from a mana spike.

Adding more power from his mana well, he magicked a shield of air against the buffeting drag and gunned the engine. The action sent the hoverboard screaming like a meteor from the empyrean. He levelled out once he’d cleared the clouds and emerged into a tranquil sky with the sun shining for him, unimpeded for the first time.

And yes, he did check it was a G-type star the colour of an egg-yolk. The heat was pleasant, lending an amenity to the warmth already permeating his person. With his eyes peeled toward the sky all around him he checked his compass. Arthur confirmed that it was getting less wonky the further away he was getting from the cauldron of storms.

Just to be safe, he matched the positions of the compass needle in relation to the rising sun and orientated towards the first of the way points. The first leg of his adventure into the wide world outside Sturm’s Keep was afoot.

Clouds, clouds and more clouds. Navigating the azure was unnerving; there were no landmarks for leagues around him. Unless he kept his course steady towards the first waypoint, Arthur was bound to meander in the blue for Thea knew how long.

It was like being in the middle of the ocean in a small paddle boat with no land in sight. But Arthur knew better than to let the monotony make him complacent; he was not the only flier in these skies.

Time and again, he could steal glances of small weyrs of wyverns from afar and knew that even fighting a few of them in the air was a fool’s gamble. He reserved his mana for when he really needed it, only maintaining the occasional bursts of acceleration.

His magical wind shield which was now elliptical to punch through the air, lessening drag. The mana sail was well and veritably picking up the slack as the control pedal was pressed down all the way.

The Erythean hours wore on as morning welcomed noon and the ageless, disinterested keeper of day settled onto its zenith. Though he’d been holding onto the mana sail’s boom for what seemed like hours, Arthur’s arms didn’t show any signs of tiring.

All the days spent in swordsmanship practice had paid off with unyielding muscles. Arthur was glad the practice was paying its due in more than one way.

At high noon, Arthur saw the first aerland that would serve as his waypoint emerge from the clouds ahead of him, like a giant shark fin. It was relatively smaller compared to the Sturm’s Keep main aerland but it had a mountain that was big for its size.

The mountain slopes were populated by a smattering of alpine heath. The short bristly plants clung to the unforgiving rocks near the summit; gradually they gave way to taller scrub and woodlands and then a rich green of a forest near the mountain’s base.

As he drifted into a slow approach, he saw a savannah on the periphery of the forest but surprisingly, no herbivores grazing on the thriving grasses. It was easy to see that, had such animals been there, they would have been easy marks for marauding wyverns.

Without further ado, scouted for an open clearing to land, looking to rest away from the sun beating on his brow. He found a bare patch of ground that seemed to have seen frequent use. Judging by a circle of rocks that had cracks and soot from exposure to fire and old ashes mixed with the soil around them, it had been a campsite.

But even then, it was too old. Some parts of the ground already had clumps of germinating grass; it might have seen use not less than a month past.

There was also a lean-to cobbled together from brushwood and twigs. While it looked like it could keel over anytime, 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.

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

Settling down, the youth used the inert Azure Surfer as a seat out of habit. He extracted his map and a flask of water to quench his thirst. Deciding it was becoming too hot , he also doffed his scarf bundling it in his magical knapsack.

Arthur however, retained the goggles which he pushed up to his hair. Arthur also retrieved some food from his [Inventory] storage still steaming hot as the time it was cooked and had a noontime meal.

‘Not bad for my first day,’ he thought as he munched on wyvern kebab. ‘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, he would take more or less the time he took to get to his first way-point.

‘If I push hard enough, I should be able to get enough time to find a place to hole up for the night. Heh, traveling is not a piece of cake. There’s no one to watch my back and this place is not defensible,’ he thought, looking at his temporary residence. I wouldn’t put it past a gust of wind knocking down the sticks right on top of me.’

‘I think I wrote somewhere in my notes that I should be able to find relay stations for [Message] spells from here on out. If they are this world’s equivalent of cell towers, then they must have a cell tower hut. But I’m not sensing any wards or dense concentrations of mana anywhere in my [Mana Sense]. Must be too far or a dead stele then. Hmm, maybe I should take a look around,’ he deliberated as he looked into the forest cloistering his camp.

‘I’ll just cast about and dip before I burn any more daylight. What I would give for a functioning watch.’ He frowned. He got up from his seat, stretched his arms and legs to work out the numbness that had settled in and grimaced when he felt pins and needles in his feet. He flared [Detect Flaw] on his hoverboard again, reasoning that if he had to nope it out of that place, he was not going to be doing it with a stalled engine.

[Detect Flaw] came back clean; the engine tolerance was at par for the course, even [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. However, he didn’t hold any delusion that this far out, that there were any aership routes from the way the camp had been abandoned for long.

He put the Azure Surfer to [Inventory] and while at it, retrieved his two handed training sword and stepped out from the shack. ‘got to have a long stick between me and whatever has teeth and claws in this forest. Using the Mithril sword is asking to lose some fingers.’ He ruminated.

‘Mmh, also, I might need something like straps for my board for when I’m carrying it around. Too cumbersome to lag around like some surfer dude.’

He looked around the clearing, searching for signs of a foot trail that might give him an idea of where to start from. He found none even with his sharp vision. ‘Shit’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.

‘Feck it! I should have just looked from the air; would have saved time that way. I really suck at this. With a flex of his will, he exchanged the sword for his vehicle and took to the air.