Centaurs, beastkin and their variations, dwarves and sylvani might have called Alkerd their cradle but, there are other races which do not come to the forefront of people’s conscious until one day, you’re walking on the streets and suddenly run into a feathered fellow with a hawkish gaze. Meet the Avensi, or if you want to get literal, the birdkin though I’d rather you stick to the latter if you do not want to ruffle someone’s feathers. Even before the coming of aerships, the Avensi had already built their civilizations on numerous aerlands but not to worry, there are more aerlands to go around, some even unexplored. Excerpt from Saelethil Greatstrider’s Wanderlusts: Peoples and Places.

The stomach lurching motion of lesser teleport deposited Eatrude and her cohorts onto the deck. One of the dwarves swore as he stumbled from inertia. It was not that the promenade deck had no runes of grounding like typical dwarven aerships but the fact that it had been moving so fast. Were it not for activating [Grounding Anchor] on their armacus, they would have pinballed across the deck like a group of unsecured ale barrels more so with the wind moving against their backs.

“Stay close, and don’t do something stupid,” Eatrude spoke to her armacus as she felt the magic take under her feet. Aside from that, their special obsiderite goggles helped them see in the night fog which was still stubbornly clinging to the aership, even as it moved but only up to a point. They were specially enchanted for use with night fog unlike the plain obsiderite that encapsulated the Stormbreaker’s windshield, yes but only up to a distance.

It was however strange still that there were no erratic movements. In fact, the aership began to climb up; a wise choice given the nearby terrain—that too they’d been counting on happening. Eatrude assessed that whoever was helming had the presence of mind to remain calm despite the fact.

The group plodded across the deck towards the bridge looking for a hatch into the ship’s main deck. Eatrude didn’t need goggles nonetheless, she had her arcane eye for that. It was the eye of a crystal gazer, a magical creature that lurked in the Underneath that sat in her eye's other socket. Said eye was hidden behind the eyepatch because it was unnerving to look at—it had two pupils. Finding the right size had been an onerous task but hoping it would take to her body was something else altogether. She could never forget the pain of acclimating to it. And now, that same eye helped her see through the fog and straight through the bridge.

“Hoh?” she grinned. “Seems to me like we'll have a challenge lads.”

“Our little young'un’s a mageling like her father…” Eatrude chortled. Her crystal eye showed her the magical maelstrom that was Arcis, ever shifting from one color to another but the predominant hue was a white so blinding it hurt to look at. Then she frowned when other aura’s entered the deck. ‘ Eh? Were they expecting us?’

“—and we seem to have company too. Adventurers…”

“Rustin’ slags!” Someone swore a blue streak.

“Mission remains as is,” Eatrude snapped as she held up her hand. She was not an [Extractor] just for show; her job and class was specialized towards extraction of high value targets regardless of what changed in the situation. She was always adapting on the fly, and that also made a good [Mage-Hunter].

“Recalibrate your armacus,” she prompted. “They look like a tough bunch,” she added. Disjointed and disgruntled, Ayes responded as she continued scanning the ship. There was a limit to how far she could see, and some of the auras were mingling into one another, she couldn’t get a good headcount so she told them to expect to go up against a dozen adventurers.

Despite the odds, none of the dwarves as much as much as flinched—Adventurers were tame sorts compared to blood thirsty air pirates who could still look you in the eye while driving a dagger through your gut.

Then Eatrude finally found what she’d been looking for; a hatch.

Everything seemed to have been going well; as well as having a canyon dropped on top of you then shot at with the arcane equivalent of heat seekers anyway. They’d shaken off the Mana Seekers in the end, two more ended their flight in a burst of arcane fire and earth as they slammed onto the features of a water scouring that left stubborn pillars in its wake. It had been a gamble to traverse that stretch and hope for the best, the last time they’d barely noticed it flying over instead of through it. But Arcis could not have been sure if they sent more spells after them and added to that, she didn’t know from where they came from and how many they were.

When they’d finally cleared the impromptu obstacle course however, things literally went to the pits. A cloud, darker than the moonless night suddenly burst ahead of them and descended on the aership. An ordinary helmsperson would've panicked even when the obsiderite wind screen failed to pierce the inky fog but not Arcis. Arcis’ [Scan] had caught the ripples atop the deck as the dwarves teleported onboard the ship. It didn’t look like they’d detected her pulses of [Scan], which might have given away the fact that their entrance wasn’t exactly stealthy.

‘Wait is that gravity magic?’ Arcis as she felt another ripple of mana underneath their feet. It seemed to move with them as they trudged towards the bridge, no doubt looking for the entry hatch. She’d tagged six individuals. Identify couldn’t have worked without line of sight either so she wasn’t very sure. However, the feedback she got from [Scan] was enough to tell her they were armed to the teeth in arcane artifacts. One seemed more dangerous than the other from the aura around her. She had a strange eye which seemed to peer straight through the wind screen—it wasn’t even her eye!

Arcis did all she could not to reveal that she was aware of being observed even as she took the aership into a climb. She was hoping against her better judgment that whoever was onboard was part of the same entity and wouldn’t dare shoot with their own people on board. She also took the chance to tell Brunhilde what she’d seen under the guise that the ship had a ward to detect intruders.

“ Six dwarves armed with arcane gear, crossbows, wands and those sleeves on their arms. One looks more dangerous than the other huh?” Brunhilde stated, demeanor cold as a Samorian winter. “We’ll be ready for them,” Brunhilde said pointedly, motioning towards the open hatchway. There, one of her party members was dressed to kill in their adventurer gear—and no, that was not figuratively speaking.

Annika threw her a pair of wicked axes and she knew that they meant business. Brunhilde was an [Axe Maiden], and Annika had a greatbow, white as bone and a shortsword on her hip.

The rest of the women in the passenger’s compartment had arms as exotic as any like a staff that split into sections and had two maces on either side. Despite its blunted flanges, more nubs rather than spikes in Signe's hands it was no less dangerous. Signe was an [Arms Maiden] and was proficient in many weapons.

“Elena,” Arcis turned to the sylvani holding out her ear cuff. She’d come running as soon as the first explosion had rattled through the stormbreaker. Her spat with the synth had been momentarily forgotten. Her jaw was set as she met her eyes and picked the artifact from her palm; there was perhaps a little remorse in her gaze as if she wanted to apologize and start blaming herself for what was happening to them. Arcis wanted to pat her wrist and tell her it was going to be okay but she couldn’t get the words out.

“I have a plan,” she said instead. “But, I’m going to have you take the helm for a while; stay in touch with me please?” Elena nodded and Arcis passed her the seat. “ Keep heading north by north east, that's where Pa and Auntie Nora are,” she added as she let the sylvani take the controls.

The Stormbreaker had been on an upward trajectory and by then, it seemed that the inky fog had dissipated into a haze and best of all, they’d cleared the canyon. However, an open hatch on the promenade deck spoke of the inevitability of an altercation with the intruders; Arcis could feel her synth gut churn.

“What plan is that young’un?” Brunhilde asked, raising a brow.

“Keeping us alive,” Arcis said and she was confident about it. “ I might not look like much, but trust me, I am my father’s daughter…and a father never leaves their daughter unprotected do they?” she said. As if on cue, a skittering sound on the bridge deck had Brunhilde yelping in surprise as Scuttle, one of the ARACHNE nudged Arcis’ foot.

“ Now listen to young'un,” Brunhilde said. She crouched until she was eye level with Arcis all the while looking askance and shaking her head at the small golem. “ You don’t have to be goin’ all hero and all. People tend to lose their heads in moments like this,” Brunhilde started in a motherly tone.

“ Brodd and his Ursine will hold the line downside,” the woman said, referring to the beastkin who had remained in the main deck to hold off the intruders. Their speculation was that they were there to hijack the ship and to do that they would have to take control of the bridge. Along with them went Annika and one of the twin foreigners who was also an Archer of some kind. His twin sister the mage remained on the bridge deck, it seemed he was rather protective of her. They’d barely spoken. Along with them were Remus and Nevine who were unfortunately not the type for combat.

“ You can trust me to fly a ship but not enough to protect myself?” Arcis furrowed her brow, as she stroked Scuttle. The little ARACHNE golem nudged her with pincers and pivoted around to point to a nondescript deck panel on the cockpit as if in urgency. Arcis knew it was anything but unassuming.

Brunhilde hemmed and hawed until Nevine stepped in.

“ Miss Hilde, you can trust Arcis to do the necessary, has she let us down thus far?” Nevine put across with an unflinching gaze . His voice was nonetheless shaky; the bravado that the alcohol had given him had all but evaporated and he was regressing to the bookish Nevine that Arcis was used to. Despite that, there was resolve burning in his eyes; he had faith in Arcis. The automaton in Arcis’ hand suddenly vibrated as if in annoyance.

“ Alright alright, I’m moving,” Arcis said. She left before the half giantess could get another word in. Simply, she was stunned to utter anything else apart from ‘strange fille’ . And that was the last thing Arcis heard before she, not surprisingly descended into one of Numen’s secret projects scattered about the ship

‘A service hatch,’ who would’ve thought?” Arcis mused as she descended the rungs. ‘ So this is how the ARACHNE have been moving around the ship undetected, I can’t even sense where the rest of them are.’ The service was as far as things went, built around her size she realized and the rungs, recessed into the walls had been equidistantly noted with a mechanical efficiency.

The space inside the service hatch was about the size of a dumb waiter’s shaft. There was one connecting the main deck to the engine deck, no doubt used to move supplies up and down but the conveyance mechanism had yet to be installed; her father wanted to use steam to power it.

“ Where are we going?” Arcis asked the little golem in a whisper; the golem didn't respond instead it scuttled along with a one track mind. Arcis sighed in defeat, and almost let out an unintelligible sound of indignation. Her soul sister was so tight fisted with her toys. The synth nonetheless bit back her protestations; she didn't want to have the intruder’s hear her if she could help it. Besides that one dwarf with the eye could see through walls. However, tension bled from her shoulders when they finally reached a horizontal tunnel.

It was in the space below the main deck that she noted the null-steel insulating the pathways. Mana conduits also run alongside, and Arcis knew the reason had been the first activation of the tellusphere; the ARACHNE were fixing it, slowly replacing it with material from the gods knew where. The tunnel was actually a crawl space which was again, just spacious so that she wouldn’t bump her head and she wondered if she’d ever grow up.

It was not long before the crab-like golem came to a stop below another hatch with a spring loaded release. The little things really scavenged everything to make it possible; if Arthur lost a spring somewhere, it had to have been them that took it. She made a note to make sure her father was warned to keep his gold locked otherwise their ilk would make short work of it just so they could etch their runework.

Opening the hatch, she emerged into a small compartment that was to the aft of the ship.It was her father’s workshop. She could almost hear the hum of the ship’s arcane driver from the furthest end of the bulkhead. The workspace was still disorganized as he had yet to get a chance to use it. Most of the tools that they’d made off with were still in their crates awaiting their shelving. As expected, enchanting reagents had been unsurprisingly used up by the ARACHNE moving around the ship and the results of that, were sitting on the work desk.

Two artifacts lay. Arrayed against one another they gave the appearance of the arms of a pair of shears, detached at the pivot. More than anything, they resembled a pair of italian long flintlock pistols with an absurdly large trigger guard that started from the stock and ended in the middle where a convoluted assembly of etchings and conduits wrapped around an emerald gem―correction it was an emerald, in the shape of sphere about the size of her fist. She didn't know they could grow that large!

Hesitatingly, Arcis took a step forward to the desktop that reached her chin and gingerly took hold of the cold, almost electric metal. The first thing she noticed was the weight. They were heavy for their size and were she a normal girl, she would’ve toppled forwards from the heft.

The barrels or in this case, shafts since they were wands, were more edged than rounded, taking the shape of an upside down trapezoid. They were flat at the focus, the place where the flintlock would have a muzzle. Along the length of the shaft, slanted grooves like a heat sink run alongside intricate etchings of runecraft pulsing a hue of turquoise.

The stock was leather on iron wood, embossed for grip with the shape of tiny A’s. And it was then that Arcis almost felt her stomach drop―there was no trigger mechanism. Given the absurdly large trigger guard, it would have stood out. Then it hit her, they were wands, not a pair of 18th century Earth muzzleloaders. She chuckled deprecatingly as she realized that her guess was right as she could not see any separate munition anywhere.

And that cemented it―they used pure magic and from the feel of the mana flowing into the arcane weaponry, it was of the Aer affinity. Scuttle tried to get her attention from atop the table once more. The golem had a piece of parchment letters pyrographed into it. She held one of the weapons with the crook of her arm and took the note which read;

A stitch in time; Meet Venti and Sylfi, two of a pair like you and me. They’re no Arcane rail cannons alright, but hey they work better together. You’re smart enough, figure it out yourself. Ah, before I leave, I’ve already named them― I’d like to call these the Luftkaster Mark I Runewands but bah, that’s a mouthful. Don’t reply to this, I can’t hear you. I'm sleeping.

Ps. Get a dress with pockets that have holding enchantments. Also, take it outside please!

‘Insufferable,’ Arcis gritted her teeth as a pained smile crinkled at the edges of her lip. ‘I wanted that arcane rail cannon, but eh, I could work with these for a while,’ she thought, weighing the grip on the runewands. They were definitely not guns and neither were they completely pure wands either. It was not the design that was the outlier, but the way they deviated from ordinary wands. Wands did not use runes to power their spellcraft, and if they stored spells, the spells were stored in the foci.

Foci were made from unattuned gems like diamond which could take any type of spell, amethyst for Ter spells, emeralds for Aer spells, aquamarine for Aqer and so on. Monster cores could also be used to make wands but those would degrade over time depending on the type of monster they were obtained from; which meant that if one wanted a durable one, they’d have to slay something powerful. Compared to crystals however, gems and monster cores were more stable as foci. Try that with a crystal and rearranging the lattice might just be asking to have them blow in your face.

However, her complaints would’ve had to wait as at that time, an exchange had already begun on the main deck.

‘Oops, that’s my cue’ Arcis yelped. She cast around for something to hold the runewands and found the remains of what used to be the Azure Surfer’s carrying hoist. She stared at it wistfully, mourning that she’d never gotten to fly it before strapping it across her body. It was too long to loop once. With the arcane guns on her back, she delved into the tunnels―It was time.

Using the crystal gazer’s eye hurt if she drew on it for long; it was a hell of a mana sink that leeched on her mana well every casion she had that eye open. It felt like someone was constantly blowing furnace air into her eye socket. Nonetheless, she didn’t have to use it long since they’d made their way inside the bowels of the ship.

It had strange architecture and the aership they’d boarded. Not that she’d ever been one for ships but, she’d flown in many over the tenure of her work as a Triad operative. At a cursory glance, she could tell that the ship had been deployed while it was still incomplete. There was no varnish on the ironwood bulkheads, the mana conduits were out in the open but she bet they were nothing important.

Before she’d closed the eyepatch on her gazer’s eye, she’d seen how richly suffused the material of the ship was in mana. It was not that strange but, keeping a lot of wood like that inundated with mana had to have been some extraordinary craft even for an enchanter.

But her employer did not need the aership, just the heart that powered it. An arcane driver that used direct thaumic reactions was a departure from what she was used to during her missions. She could get the allure of having to get their hands on it before the Triad intervened; the mercenary faction of the dwarves was really just a bunch of privateers looking for the next edge over their competition. Added to that, they were not really beholden to the Triad’s way of doing things and neither were they subordinate to that entity.

The bounty was just a formality for areas where salvageable artifacts might bring them into conflict, they were not really that ironbound at least as far as she knew. A lot of shady business often flew right under the Triad’s nose; not even dwarves were that benevolent of a species when a lot of gold was involved. Maybe that was exaggerating; a few dwarves operated outside the purview of the Mercenary Charter and that was that.

It was as they passed what was most obviously, crew berth quarters, that she called a stop to the group of five following her. Her preternatural sense for danger had started nagging at the back of her skull, it was more intuition than Danger Sense. For the best of times, Danger Sense would only have started screaming at her when the danger was right on top of them.

“There has been movement,” she said, frowning. “It’s too quiet,” she added. The group shifted their feet uneasily. “Are you sure of that [Extractor]? Nobody would have been able to see through the night fog, at least not with ordinary obsiderite.” One dwarf called Reimmel muttered as he looked around. He had two strange looking wands rigged onto his armacus, some dwarves liked to get liberal with them despite their being expensive to craft. Only the best tinkers would have dared to try such a thing. From the looks of things, the two wands just amplified the spell matrices he already had, giving him more shots.

“I would have expected the Mage to come confront us if they detected us,” Eatrude said, sighing. She would have to be forced to use her eye again, “Either they’re confident of letting us come to them…or,”

“They’re not even here,” said another dwarf, Vadir, with an arbalest his own height strapped through his back. It looked like it could punch straight through an unenchanted ship hull. He carried the bolts in his satchel with holding enchantments strapped to his thighs.

“Mmh,” Eatrude hummed.

“What’s stopping us from blasting our way to the arcane driver?” another grumbled tiredly. His compatriot snapped, smacking him upside the head saying, “Idiot Thomgur, not everything is about blowing stuff up.”

“This changes nothing,” Eatrude said, focusing their attention on her before they devolved into further tangents. “Mage or no mage, we get what we came for.”

“ And the leverage?” Reimmel enquired.

“ We still capture the girl; I doubt the adventurers will move if we have her.”

“ But how do we get to her?” Thomgur protested. “ She’s practically surrounded.”

“ You worry about the arcane driver,” Eatrude said pointedly, looking at the [Aercrafter] with them. Yognac had been quiet all the while, fiddling with his mage slate and noting down things while humming to himself. The more temperamental of the group who’d snapped at Thomgur, named Gar elbowed him in the ribs to get his attention. The dwarf cleared his throat behind his palm, he seemed like the soft spoken type, “ Arcane driver is on the aft of the ship; one deck below this one,” he said, putting away his mage slate into his bag of holding. He palmed the two hammers on his hips.

“ This is where I leave you,” Eatrude said, opening her eyepatch again. “However, I’ll tell you what to expect,” She focused on the door ascending to the main deck with her gazer’s eye and saw the auras beyond the door. Crouched not far from the hatch was a group of adventurers with the smoky purple tones of Ter mana roiling about them.

“ Ter augments, three on the front, two archers in the back,” Eatrude said. A rustle of chain coiffs and ring of metal answered her as the boarding party un-holstered their main weapons. The armacus were only second fiddle, especially the civilian issue ones with limited capabilities.

“ Aye, we’ll take it from here, “ Reimmel said. “ Vadir, you’re up—take down that hatch.

Vadir grunted, hefting his arbalest. He was one of two on the Sturmjager, his older brother was the one who’d delivered the Orb of Waymarking to its target, and Vadir was none the worse for the weapon. However, he specialized in taking punching through things instead of precision arbalestry which meant the bolts he carried were smaller pyrtherite runeheads which he could detonate one way. And that is why he carried them in holding enchantments, and didn't want them to bang up and take off his hips.

He crouched down, arbalest on his shoulder; larger than his brother’s too. Were he to get a mobile cannon, he’d have gotten that instead.

“[Seeker Shot], [Delayed Detonation: Blowback]” and the arbalest cracked like thunder.

Eatrude was already walking back to the promenade deck when the hatch to the living compartment was blown into splinters. A bit overkill yes, but with adventurers who would sooner put an arrow through your neck, it was warranted. But as she stepped on deck and turned towards the bridge, she found someone on the sundeck. A girl in a dress, with a belt crossing her body sat swinging her legs to and fro as if enjoying the night breeze.

“I’ve been waiting for you, “she grinned. “Let’s play…”