The rest of Connor’s journey through the Black Birch Forest was uneventful—mostly because he willingly avoided every opportunity to engage with anything remotely looking like a quest, monster, or adventure.

“No, Sir’ee, not today, thank you very much!” Connor laughed at the spot in the woods where the trail had branched off, one fork heading upward, deeper into the foothills, with a sign reading ‘Olde Mines’ on it.

“There is no way that I am stopping to get my head chopped off by a Hill Troll!” he grumbled to himself, only increasing his speed as he kept on his path.

As the afternoon light started to fade, Connor heard the distant, muffled howls of some forest beast. He left the trail—in a bit of a panic, he had to admit—and traveled amongst the trees, picking his way carefully through the undergrowth to avoid being seen.

“Connor the Coward, great,” he grumbled to himself after the sounds of the presumed monster had faded away. He cautiously crept back to the path and continued his descent through the wooded hills once more.

It was hardly the stuff of legends, but then again, he knew that he was trecking through territory that no newly arrived character would this early in their adventure. That became even more apparent when the woods thinned out, and he could see his destination before him.

“They weren’t joking, were they?” Connor breathed, pausing where the path left the woods.

The Skybridge was aptly named, it turned out. Ahead of him, the Black Birch Forest thinned and ended before a tangle of broken rocks and plateaus. The main road continued, swooping up across the gentler hillside to the edge of the giant plateau of rocks. It ended in a small cluster of buildings, perched right on the edge of a massive canyon.

It looked as though the Mountains of Mourn ended here, on the edge of a vast, airy precipice that stretched almost as far as the eye could see. When he concentrated, Connor thought he could see a distant line of darkness—presumably the other side of the canyon.

“And I guess over there is where I will find Union City,” Connor murmured, although he was more interested in the Oupost before him, at the moment.

Skybridge was a collection of wood and stone buildings, attached to the rocks by stilts and jutting straight out over the edge of the cliffs. At the far end, there were longer supports, jutting outward to support long wooden piers.

And airships.

Connor was dazzled by the number and the size of the strange airships. From this distance they looked like child’s toys, but he could see tiny people swarming on and around the ships. Given the comparison, he could clearly see how they were the size of actual boats, galleons, and schooners, much larger than the ramshackle houses.

The airships were boats, Connor realized. Only a few were held aloft by balloons. Most, in fact, were simply open wooden boats with traditional sails atop their decks, plus what appeared to be side sails reefed against their hulls. These ships had large steel and metal rings at the back where motors might be on a modern motor boat.

“WOOOOSH!”

There was a churning of the air above Connor, as a silhouette eclipsed him, and he looked up to see the giant hull of one such boat. It sailed through the air, heading for the Skybridge port, with the steel ring at its back glowing with a purple and blue, eldritch light.

Connor’s mouth hung open for a moment in awe at what he had just seen. He stared, unmoving, as he watched the boat grow smaller and lower, until it finally joined others at one of the smaller piers.

The half-elf, shook his head then checked his belongings, tightening the straps of the pack on his shoulders and prayed that his 13 silver pieces and 8 copper pieces would be enough to get him across to his destination, Union City—and the Ring of Tantor.

***

There was no gate to bar his entry, but Connor saw that there were tough-looking guards in red cloaks and chainmail shirts on either side of the open roadway into Skybridge Outpost.

It was certainly a step up from the Ranger-Marshal and Woodville, Connor thought as he saw how the wooden buildings all had magical, green or orange glowing gems held in crystal cages hanging over their porches.

Even though it was late in the day, it was still busy in Skybridge, the people to be a tougher, sturdier sort of people than he had so far seen in the game.

Connor noted a band of dwarves in part-armor that gleamed a ruddy bronze, marching purposefully about their business, and chanting some dirge about fire, and rock, and gold…

While on the other side of the street, the half-elf got the chance to see his first actual piece of sorcery, as a bald, dark-skinned man in purple and orange robes was conjuring brilliant shapes out of burning light for the amusement of passersby.

“Let me craft your fantasies! Show you your dreams. Or your nightmares! Just one silver a creation!” the man called in a haunting, baritone voice.

Connor might have been tempted to stop and ask the man to create something just to see how good he was—maybe a dragon, or a phoenix—but he knew that time was of the essence.

Many of the people in Skybridge appeared to be rogues, adventurers, or merchants of some kind or another, Connor noted. There were carriages of ore and iron-bound boxes traveling through the streets, led by tough-looking men and women in dark aprons. Skybridge Outpost was clearly an important exporter of ores and precious things dug out of the Mourn Mountains.

Not every character appeared to be involved in legitimate activities, though. Connor spotted a group of three figures in the shadows between buildings, wearing drab and dark cloaks, their hoods pulled up. As he watched, he saw their heads nod as they whispered to each other, before turning to make small gestures at passing pedestrians.

Thieves, I bet, Connor thought, keeping one hand on the head of his small ax as he strode forward.

“Penny for the gods?” a voice rasped suddenly, out of the shadows between barrels, startling Connor. He turned to see a slim figure in deep green robes sitting on the ground. Her hair was a tumble of purest white, and her eyes were brilliant pools that seemed to capture starlight. She was an elf.

“Half-elf,” the priestess said, cocking her head to one side in a curiously bird-like gesture as she regarded him coldly.

“I, I can’t spare any change,” Connor said, suddenly unsure of himself. “I’m trying to get to Union City. I need to get there tonight.”

“Hsst!” Suddenly, the elvish woman hissed like a cat, darting forward and reaching up, surprisingly quickly, and snatched Connor’s wrist. He tried to pull away, but her grip was incredibly strong, far stronger than he had thought.

“I should have guessed one of your kind seeks the ruin of the Worlds!” she whispered fiercely, clearly irate.

I really am an outcast in this world. Connor was really beginning to think that he should have assigned more points to his Charisma attribute to maybe overcome some of the resentment people seemed to have toward him.

“Or maybe you, so lost from your ancestors, don’t even know how that human atrocity is built on the blood of our people?!” The elvish priestess pulled him a little closer, her eyes burning bright.

“I . . . I have to go . . .” Connor stammered, now panicked, acutely aware that he was just a Level 1 in a scenario that was clearly designed for someone likely to be Level 4 or 5, maybe higher. If this elf woman decided to curse him, or whatever it is that the elves did, it was unlikely he could do anything about it. Then it would be back to the clearing, and a whole day lost that he’d have to do all over again.

“Union City sits atop the Gate!” the elvish cleric hissed again. “The route to the Third Realm, our home,” she spat. “Occupied and blocked by the humans, who then have the audacity to call their insult Union City!? City of Union! When we elves cannot even freely return home!”

Ah… Connor seemed to remember something about this at the start of the game, when he had chosen to be half-elf. Hadn’t his guidebook said something about a fractured world?

He wished that he had spent more time—or any time—reading up on the lore of this place.

The cleric’s face suddenly dropped, distraught at the memory of something like a great, great loss.

“What does it matter? You are only a half-elf, after all. And our gods are dying anyway…” A terrible fear clutched at the elf sitting before him, and, she appeared to freeze for a moment.

“Hey...hello?” Connor whispered, as a wheeze of a voice escaped the elvish cleric’s mouth. It didn’t sound the same voice that he had heard a second ago. Instead, it was fine and whispery, and echoing, like her mouth was a tunnel, and at the far end of it was the voice trying to get out.

“They are here. They are here. They killed our gods and took over!”

Connor was starting to get freaked out. He somehow found the strength to rip his hand back from the elvish priestess as she fell backward, her eyes now a blank white as she stared upwards.

What the . . .

He stumbled away, almost running into a group of merchants in his panicked, desperation to get away from the crazy cleric. Connor was shook up more than he wanted to let on, and there was some part of him that was screaming that something was truly wrong.

He turned and fled through the main thoroughfare.

“Look at the half-elf run!” He heard cruel jibes and taunts as he continued to flee, dodging the carriages and the staggering drunkards. The half-elf finally found his way to the wooden boardwalks, and hustled down to the dock area.

On his right and at his back were the tall shapes of wooden warehouses, while ahead and on his left were the small houses at the edge of the piers themselves. More magical lanterns swayed in the constant breeze, casting the wisping fogs in strange, eerie greens and reds.

“Hey, hey!” A voice caught his attention, this time coming from one of the red-cloaked guards who stepped out in front of him as he ran. She held up her hand to stop him.

“Hey, you can’t run about down here! One slip and you’ll go clear over the edge!” the SkyBridge guard said, as Connor slowed to a sudden, skidding halt. He looked at the edge of the walkway and the insubstantial rail that he would likely plough right through or flip over.

“Union City,” Connor gasped. “Next boat to Union City!”

He had been half expecting the guard to interrogate him, stop him from going where he wanted to go, but to his surprise the she just fixed him with a hardened look, and shrugged.

“You’ve missed the regular passenger boats, but there’s a night flight that carries the mail across. Central Pier, Bay 5,” she nodded, turning him around and pointing him back the way he had come.

“On you go, but no running!” she commanded.

Connor thanked her profusely and managed to keep to a brisk walk as he turned back and made for the Central Pier, suddenly leaving the wooden buildings behind, and walked toward the large, bobbing shapes of the magical airships.

The half-elf felt the back of his teeth itch with all of the concentrated magic nearby. The wind here was fast and strong, and he was thoroughly chilled by the time his boots finally brought him to Bay 5, and a tub-bellied airship made of two decks, her twin sails already being raised. The words Merry Piper were painted on the side, proclaiming the airship’s name.

“One for Union City?” He called out to a man on the gangplank, a human with an impressive salt and pepper moustache and dark, midnight blue clothes.

“We’re not what you call comfortable, no cabins for passengers, you’d have to bed down amongst all the mail bags?” the boatswain grumbled.

“That’ll be fine,” Connor replied gratefully. Better than sleeping in Black Birch Forest!

“Two silvers, then,” the man said.

Connor happily pulled two coins from his inventory as he stepped onto the gangplank and handed them to the boatswain.

“Good enough,” the older man said, pocketing Connor’s money before showing him on board.

It was sometime after that, as the ship sailed over the seemingly bottomless chasm, when Connor finally worked out why that elvish priestess had freaked him out so much. Her voice had reminded him of the glitch in that other game after he defeated the Demon Lord Dar’thuk of BattleWorlds.