Thaum- derived from thaumaturgy and aum (the gold standard unit). Unit for measuring mana. Amount of mana that can sustain a basic fire spell, required to bring to boil an amount of water supplied from a basic water spell, enclosed within a dome sustained by air mana or otherwise form a basic [magic missile] or [mana shield]. Supplementary Notes from Edel Lalilab’s Appendix in ‘Experiments: The Extraction and Storage of Essence from Monster Cores.

The morning before work, Arthur passed by the guild to let the guild master know about the new developments but apparently he was out. The deputy guild master offered to take a message but he stated that it was confidential and would drop it off at a later date.

The rains had quietened down a while. Nonetheless, the street’s cobbled roads still had that hint of moisture after a drizzle. He pulled his cloak about him as he headed towards the town hall, the main seat of the council and the town Guard’s administrative building. He had a little office there whenever he was waiting on requests as per the council’s agreement. Just another excuse for them to watch over his activities.

‘Could’ve been worse; for all I know they might have thrown me out.’ he sighed as he walked up the stairs. Arthur paused at a landing to watch guardsmen doing a drill while others were readying for morning patrols and the graying overcast skies beyond the horizon. ‘A storm is coming’ he mused as he felt at the Psiphone's outline i his cloak's inside pockets

Arthur was waiting to see if something had changed with Arcis; he was not due for another hail until two days later. The synth girl had said she was conserving her mana for something big, but what? She didn’t say.

For all he knew they might as well spirit her away in the middle of the night and say she’d escaped. He couldn’t be privy to the politics between the members of the council; they were profit-seekers and some more so than most.

The Phylandir man seemed to have had it out for him. What were the odds that the response to his Eugene Phylandir was the turning point of those events? As a precaution, he and the two women at the estate had prepared for eventualities.

The hold of the Stormbreaker was already laden with things they would need to live on the go. And while it did not have interior insulation or wallpaper, the thick hull made of iron wood would be just enough to protect them from the elements.

Thanks to Nora’s stealth abilities, she’d been able to slip out undetected to scout tunnel they’d first encountered under the giant’s farm during their excursion as Red and Snow.

While was too deep and too dangerous for her to go it alone, the general direction of the river pointed out that it went on for leagues straight under Aldmoor but she didn’t know how far That was their escape route and it hinged on whatever Arcis was getting upto. Perhaps it was foolhardy to take their chances flying underneath, but he had to risk that or drawing the attention of the dwarve's aerships.

He’d found a way to give it an installation of strong headlights flanking the sides of its wedge-shaped bow. They were made of Lux crystals inset into silvered tubes that gave the front the visage of submarine torpedo tubes when they weren’t in use.

And for a good reason too; exposed Lux crystals were a source of vulnerability what with all the aggressive fliers in Eryth’s skies. Also, it helped concentrate the light into narrower and concentrated beams.

The first systems test was slated for that afternoon and he couldn’t contain his nerves. On and on the hours crawled until noon-day; requests for his intervention were surprisingly sparse that day…all the better for him.

As soon as the noon-bell went off, Arthur signed off from work. Got onto Bessie who’d become a constant companion of his commutes to and from work; a pity he’d have to leave her under the care of the Lalilabs. There was simply no space for a stable on a forty-two and a half mesurs long vessel even if its class could have been a superyatch.

Arthur wove through afternoon traffic, from the densely used main street to the sparse Founders Street and arrived at his estate…also a pity he’d be leaving it behind. Technically, he had the title of ownership that was valid for fifty years whether he used or vacated it. Thereafter the Merchants Bank was well within its rights to repossess it.

The sound of metal grinding like a rusty door nail rang out through the workshop; the first test of the hydraulics was underway. Arthur was standing beneath the gun metal gray hull of the Stormbreaker cupping one of his ears while he shouted instructions to Elena with the other in the cockpit. He was checking the slat joints for friction and oiling them with an improvised grease gun he had at hand. Most of his tools were just improvisations, custom made on order or self-made equipment.

The grating sound emanated from a quartet of apertures that were flush with the main and outrigger hulls as the slats covering them opened and closed. The four apertures would funnel thrust from the engine to expedite vertical liftoff.

Unlike its bigger counterparts, the Stormbreaker could land and take off vertically from any surface. It did not have to keep its Aer ballast tanks always topped up to stay aloft, that way they were guaranteed to save on aertherite crystals

Aer was actually the helium of this world but short of magical fire or spells, mundane fire could not set it alight otherwise the age of aerships would have been dead on arrival. There were also forward facing apertures having their own set of vent slats. They run through the core of the aership parallel to the keel to funnel mana to the engine like the intakes of a jet engine.

After confirming that those also worked and greasing them to reduce the screeching noise he went around and climbed onto the craft using a rope ladder.

“All good down there Elena,” Arthur announced as he ducked into the bridge deck. There was the sundeck above it, the main deck below and an engine deck that doubled up as storage space at the bottom of the hull.

“Is that so?” Elena’s eyes twinkled. “I am glad to help truly; never thought I would help build such a fascinating craft.”

“It’s no problem,” Arthur smiled. Elena got off the pilot's seat letting Arthur take over just then Nora entered.

“Anything?” Arthur asked.

“No, there’s no one skulking around and no one from the Mages Guild has gone to where Arcis is being held yet.”

“Oh, we’ll keep staking the area until Arcis reaches out to us,” voiced Arthur as he grasped the steering tiller that controlled the main rudders. The instrument panel was placed centre-right, in line with the main view window.

There were miniature Lux crystals that provided illumination in the cockpit. These were recessed into the niches providing a soft glow that bled out into the surroundings without the glare of direct lighting.

The main instrument panel contained a gyroscope inside a glass bubble, a compass made from verenite crystal for navigation, rune controls for light and a gauge for measuring mana using the movement of alchemist’s silver called the thaumometer. The thaumometer and its larger industrial cousin were Edel’s and Arthur’s invention.

The thaumometer had painstakingly taken a month to get the calibration’s right. For now the gauge which measured mana density in thaums had yet to be released publicly. Currently, the thaumometer needle was sitting on the leftmost extremity.

The instrument panel also had a key inset, a minute dagger with grooves and teeth as well as runes that incorporated into a slit on the instrument panel to make sure no one would steal the Stormbreaker.

Beneath the instrument panel were pedal shifters for the hydraulic systems controlling pseudo-ailerons to control lift. Another pedal was the one Elena had used divert thrust to and from the downward facing nozzles.

There was also a lever that would control ski-like landing struts from beneath the hull by using steam power and hydraulics to extend and retract them accordingly. And another lever functioned as a brake of sorts by opening reverse thrust buckets on the main engine nozzle.

In all, there were several barrels worth of lava wurm fluid that was used for the hydraulics in these systems. A pulley system lacked the sensitivity required for instantaneous changes.

Finally, the throttle that Arthur had finally managed to work into a manual limiter sat beside the chair. He had finally created a limiter that worked by switching out conduits of different thickness to make or break a connection. It worked like a gear shifter.

Arthur exhaled as the two women clenched their fists in anticipation of what was coming next. Preparing the vessel for its maiden voyage had to wait; in fact the name wasn’t even emblazoned on yet and the wood on the hull was still fresh with the heady scent of varnish.

He took the dagger-like key on a chain and inserted it into the keyhole. With anticipation he imbued little mana to start the connection between the two conduits to kick start the engine; he had since learnt how to do it without feeling like he was pushing against the rune matrices

There was silence in the workshop. The thaumometer needle steadily ticked on a clockwise rotation, it crossed several hundred thaums then suddenly the airframe rumbled before the engine sputtered. Then a deafening whirr rang out through the lab as the needle on the gauge picked up motion and swiveled towards the right.

“Now for the lift,” Arthur murmured as he eased into the pedals. Power was switched to the ventral thrusters. The slats opened slowly like fish gills venting water, as more and more thrust was funneled through.

There was a noticeable change as the Stormbreaker rocked on its berthing struts and the thruster whined like afterburners. Nora and Elena took that cue to run outside onto the promenade deck as the craft lifted off its perch. The lab ceiling was not that high but a cheer from the women spectating from the open side of the deck confirmed that the test was successful.

Arthur eased the vessel back into its berth as the engine’s whines cut off. It was a successful test. All he had to do afterwards was check that the cooling enchantments were doing their work and the Stormbreaker would be ready for the skies. That was not to be, however, as a hail came in through the Psiphone. [Farspeak].

“Erm Pa you know that tunnel you had Nora Scope out?”

“Yea...?”

Arthur feared time had run out but the news she brought was more dire—a dungeon had awoken.

“Say that again?” Arthur posed his query for the second time. Elena and Nora had gone off to get things ready in case they had to bail and the only other individual with him there was Umbra who was resting at the front of the cockpit like a black carpet rug.

“—It was part of an old dungeon; a big one. It just awoke...”

“Wait what? I thought the dungeon near Aldmoor was inert”

“That was only part of it... think of it as a branch of the main dungeon.”

“Is that what has gotten you all spooked?”

“Not at all, it’s—” the synth hesitated as if unsure. “Something just seems off about it but I can’t tell what. I think it might be a large monster but I’m not sure. But—I think we can use the chaos to steal away.”

“That's a good idea...though the ship is still stuck underground.” Arthur said, pacing around the bridge-like cockpit. “Do you have any idea what kind of monster it is?”

“No, I can only sense its threat level from afar. [Identify] and [Scan] can’t reach it—”

“Is that so? I’ll let the guild master know.”

“Also I might have heard the guards talking about a storm coming...They are being sortied over the walls to fight storm wyverns—which might mean you might be called in too.”

‘Feck it!’

“Ah, this is going to be hard...how long do we have?”

“Not long enough, I'm planning my escape ‘cause my watchers are going to be sparse in a few—”

“How are you going to move without being detected?”

“... I'll use the sewers hihi” she giggled at the end of the line. “I'll keep this connection open …hopefully.”

It seemed like Arthur’s luck was rotten there and then. It was going to be hard to pull off an escape, well technically they weren’t prisoners. There was no way the merchant council would do anything to them if they wanted to flee a dungeon awakening so close to the town.

True to Arcis’ words, a town guard was sent to the estate to fetch him for a new contract; putting down a weyr of storm wyverns that would precede the rolling in of a mana storm.

Before he left, he handed over the small dagger key to Elena with instructions if they thought he was late in coming back. Elena was not a pilot and would sooner crash the ship than get off the ground so the key was only for keeping the engines warm while they waited.

Should he have warned the town? Yes, but the guild master who would have taken the information at face value without asking where he’d gotten it from was not around. But he did tell Nora to warn the Lalilabs of what was going to happen.

It turned out he needn’t have worried. The guild master had returned that afternoon because of the incoming mana storm. All non-combatants hunkered down in the houses while those with the abilities to fight like the adventurers and guards were all around the town en-masse with their weapons primed for a fight.

Archers were already on the rooftops; in fact, there were ballistas on the crenellations, aimed towards the western wall like an arsenal of anti-air ordnance; which they were. With aerships and wyverns in the skies they had to have existed for that sole purpose.

When he met up with the guild master he gave him the news about the dungeon and the alleged discovery that someone was going to move Arcis. However, he left out the information about her escape—Orhill was a pragmatic opportunist, not a friend.

He’d barely finished his narration about an unknown monster when Orhill sent out an alert—according to him it explained why the monsters in Aldmoor’s tamed dungeon had grown aggressive.

That was the reason he’d been away from his office because he thought an occurrence like the Fetid Woods dungeon incident was bound to repeat itself. That the adventurers who were making use of Aldmoor’s dungeon were low rankers, Bronzes and Silvers had him personally spearhead their evacuation— a dungeon break was imminent. Two dungeons within three months was a worrying statistic despite different circumstances

Arthur found himself on the top of the town wall battlements with the [Guard Sergeant] poring over Aldmoor’s defenses in preparation of the inevitable. The wind had just picked up, blowing gales from the east heralding the coming of the storm. Clouds were gathering and the late afternoon sun had been obscured behind cumulonimbus floating in the sky like towering mountains of gray.

They would be fighting battles on two fronts, from the western walls and from the eastern skies. The eastern walls would be the bastion against the wyverns, a weyr numbering between fifty to seventy according to a [Griffin Scout].

“It is true then?” Grizzlythorn the guard sergeant voiced his thoughts. “We have a dungeon break in the west and a mana storm in the east?” he looked from the guild master to their resident mage. Except for Arthur, both men had aides behind them who were fidgeting. Both junior guard and a guild employee would serve as a runner for messages.

“I’m afraid so sergeant,” Orhill replied in monotone. “We have confirmed that the monsters in the town dungeon are agitated and though not many, they may overrun our defenses if not culled.”

“But where did they come from? That dungeon is relatively quiet,” Grizzlythorn scrunched his eyebrows as he gazed towards the west. “I would have thought the highest threats were Silver ranked.”

Orhill, with a one arched eyebrow, looked towards Arthur who’d remained nonchalant throughout the exchange. Arthur sighed, unfolding his arms. “I think that mana wave that happened about three months ago is responsible,” Arthur grimaced. “It might have awoken the main dungeon which is why you’ll be seeing more monsters than usual.”

It was mere speculation on his part. However, it was the only way to make the [Guard Sergeant] see sense to divert attention from Arcis’ who’d provided the information.

Currently, Arcis’ [Farspeak] had gone dark. Arthur could only hope that the girl knew what she was doing. In two and a half months, she’d grown into an interesting personality.

The [Guard Sergeant] grunted in annoyance. He stroked his squared jaw that sported a freshly trimmed beard before bringing the weight of his aura to bear. The aides behind the two older men blanched but Arthur didn’t flinch.

“Don’t blame the lad, Garyson.” The guild master said, giving his compatriot a pointed look. “Accidents happen.”

“You call this an accident?!” Grizzlythorn retorted, throwing up his bulky arms as his armor rattled. “We are going to be spread thin in this fight Orhill and this youngster’s—” he threw a pointed finger in Arthur’s direction. “—unsanctioned magical experiments are to blame; if any civilians die, their blood will be on his hands.”

“No,” Orhill shook his head. “I would think not. The dungeon was going to awaken at one time or another. He just gave a warning in advance.”

“You knew?!” Arthur balked; an act really. He was playing the ignoramus so that he wouldn’t take the flak from the irritated guard sergeant.

The guild master looked from the younger man to his fellow senior.

“Yes, we did. The guild has been mapping the tunnels underneath Aldmoor for a while now. It was mere speculation that the old sewer system of the town was part of the fringes of a dormant dungeon”

“Should we be worried about infiltration from the inside?” Grizzlythorn said as he retracted his aura which was smothering the less powerful aides.

“The walls cut through the tunnels beneath the city,” Orhill pointed to an old map of Aldmoor’s underground sewer system with his clawed index finger. “They shouldn’t be able to cross since the enchanted sewer grates are too narrow for Silver ranked monsters.”

Arthur’s [Eidetic Memory] zoned in on the sewer network. There was a connection between the guard barracks where Arcis’ had been under house arrest to the main sewer system underneath Aldmoor. The oldest sections also run all the way to Founders Street where his estate was. Arcis would make it by virtue of the fact that her ingenuity as a child was being underestimated.

“But we’ll have a slime infestation on our hands.” Grizzlythorn lips crinkled in disgust.

‘Slimes?’ Arthur frowned as he looked at the map. The wind was picking up as well, his mana sense tingled—a storm was brewing