Morgan Mackenzie sat on the side of a partially-constructed airship, propping herself up by her arms. She idly kicked her legs beneath her, then tipped her head back and closed her eyes. Without the sight of the Wildlands, the noises of construction from all around her wouldn’t have been too far out of place from her old life: no matter its power source, a saw still made that same buzzing rasp, and even the hum of enchantments and mana crystals weren’t far removed from the shrill whine of a small engine. What she was focusing on at the moment, however, made that awareness painfully clear.

Looking at her skill menu, she found most of her options unappealing, and more than once she’d dismissed the menu out of disgust. Given how close she was to leaving, she no longer needed anything related to wilderness survival, and many options she had had prior to selecting her class were simply no longer present. Over a hundred skill points to spend, she thought with a sigh, and nothing useful or interesting to be seen.

Her enhancement points had been easier to work with, albeit frustrating in their own right. She had wanted to spend some of them on one or more of her affinities, with [Mana Affinity] being her first choice. It turned out, however, that not all of her skills could be enhanced, even when mastered. Specifically, Affinities and Resistances did not seem to be affected by enhancement points. She knew her direct spells could be enhanced, as well as her learned enchantments and non-spell skills. She had decided to save her last two points for the future, hoping to raise [Soul Anchor] to the tenth level before trying to boost it. Her instincts said that she should be able to do so, but neither Biggles nor Chnarl had known anything about the anchor itself. Even Terisa had never heard of anything like it, and the Huntress was certainly one of the most well-travelled adventurers of the Expedition.

A chill breeze caused the enchanted bags to sway and ripple overhead, drawing Morgan’s gaze. The weird organic fabric she and Chnarl had fashioned out of the witchwood leaves seemed to shift through the entire rainbow, and even colors for which Morgan had no name. Too, the magic that allowed air to perfuse the spatial pocket caused strange ripples and vortices to appear in the air around the balloon. That achievement had led to a new skill and level for Dana instead of Morgan, but she couldn’t feel jealous; after all, she had her own unique advantages.

Morgan let her gaze drift down to the ship itself, which was a marvel of functional ugliness to Morgan’s eyes. Nothing had been spared for aesthetic; the engineer had enough on her plate simply getting it working in the first place. The parts of the design which incorporated parts of her cannibalized walker and workshop were nakedly obvious, and the whole ship crouched like a flattened rectangular apartment tenement: seven hundred feet of cubes, right angles, and bare structural timbers. The bulging lift bags extended past the vessel’s footprint, adding to its slapdash appearance. Spearing into the bags and extending across the deck to the engine room, metal coils and finned protrusions carried heat from the ship’s reactor into the bags. A huge, three-bladed propeller stuck out from the back near the engine room. At the moment, the blades were folded up against the prop shaft, but once airborne, they would deploy and provide some powered movement. For unpowered movement, massive sails had been and were being woven in similar fashion to the lift bags, designed to be hung from masts that would fold up alongside the ship. Dana made no secret of the fact that the design wasn’t optimal, but that it was probably the best they could do.

Where planks and timbers met, a strange resin had been applied that fused the wood as if it had grown that way. According to Biggles, witchwood underwent a restorative curing process that could be slowed down to permit this joining if enough mana were infused into it; for this reason, a project of this scale would never have been considered outside the Wildlands. Without the high levels of ambient mana, the expense and effort required to keep the wood in a workable state would have beggared entire nations.

In the Wildlands, such matters were of less concern; within the valley near the spire, it was hardly even an afterthought. Dana and her crew of workers had seized on their fortune and worked at breakneck pace, and the resultant speed remained deeply impressive.

Morgan dismissed her status window again as she heard someone approach. Looking over, she saw the huntress, Terisa, picking her way across the deck to sit down beside her.

“I still can’t believe it,” Morgan said. “Even on Earth, a ship this big would take years to complete.”

“There are definite advantages to being able to use magic to manipulate heavy materials,” Terisa agreed. “Dana tells me that building one out of steel will require something called ‘heavy industry,’” she continued, seeming confused by the term, “before it’s feasible, but I guarantee the Thuns will bend every effort to realizing it once they see this one.”

“What is built once can be built again,” nodded Morgan, looking up at the clouds as another gust of wind tugged at her hair and made her shiver. It was noticeably colder than the previous day, and her own instincts were restless and uneasy.

“You seem unusually morose this morning. I’ve seen that look,” mused the Huntress. “You and your father will be leaving today, I gather?”

“It will snow soon,” Morgan said in reply. “I’d like to get into the lowlands as soon as possible, even if I’m with dad. He’s been getting restless himself.”

The two looked out across the valley, to where the Titan was lumbering along the edge of the treeline, drawing in enough mana to the point where Morgan could feel the current he caused. It was more than he would usually draw, as though he were deliberately gorging himself. His increased activity had disturbed the panther kittens, who Foz had named Lily and Nyx. They had taken to ‘playing’ with Foz, the other beastkin, and a few of the tougher dwarven and human adventurers when they weren’t busy with the ship’s construction. Dana had combined two bunkrooms into a sort of lair, and Marjorie had only taken a little convincing to board the ship and travel with her new two-legged friends. Most of that convincing had taken the form of raw meat and snoot boops, both provided by Morgan. Once she got to her lair, she didn’t take any further convincing: Dana had modified the two bunkrooms closest to the airship’s reactor, keeping it nice and warm.

Several members of the group were significantly more excited about the presence of the cubs than the rest. Apparently, they were getting to be of proper age to bond with a tamer, and such a bond didn’t require a specific [Tamer] class. Morgan had little interest herself, but wished the others luck regardless.

“How will you find us after you finish your quest?” asked the Huntress.

“Well, I have the makeshift maps we cobbled together.” Morgan tapped a storage rune on her waist. “That gives me a general idea of where to go to find Thun’Kadrass if I can’t spot you from the air once I’ve got wings.”

“Flight will be impressive,” Terisa mused. “I’ve rarely seen anyone who could fly freely, although most magickers and adepts can manage to cushion a fall or glide a fair distance in the right circumstances…”

“But you have seen it?” Morgan pressed, fixing the huntress with an eager gaze. Flying had never completely left Morgan’s thoughts since she had first seen the wings on her other-self’s avatar.

Terisa nodded. “There’s a succubus who works with the Stormbreak Wardens...she can fly, but the only time I’ve ever seen it was from a distance.”

Morgan gaped. “A-A succubus?” she uttered. “As in...a succubus, a hellspawned demon slut who feeds on mens’ souls?”

Terisa nodded, unruffled. “Convicted criminals, mostly, and not all of them men.” She smiled faintly, seeing Morgan’s expression turn to confusion. “Like I said, she works for the city, likely bound by some magecraft. Demon summoning isn’t strictly illegal, but it is…frowned upon. If she were prone to going on a rampage, though, she’d have been put down long ago.” She frowned, tilting her head and sighing. “As for other fliers...angels from time to time -- or, at least, winged beings that may as well be. We see fewer and fewer of them now, though; the gods haven’t been seen for centuries, and their messengers only rarely in the time since Oasa.” She paused, then straightened. “Oh! The Drakengard, of course, but...they don’t have many drakes left, and rarely leave Drakenth now.”

“What is Oasa?” Morgan had been more focused on matters close at hand, and had picked up little of the actual history of the people around her.

“Oasa was an oasis with a city built around it, in the middle of the desert between the northern continent and the southern tribal lands. Before there was a Deskren Empire, everything south of Oasa was unsettled land, occupied by savages who were constantly migrating and warring with each other and the northeners. Oasa was their trade hub.” The Huntress shook her head. Althenea flared against her back, and Terisa shifted the weapon to her hip as she changed forms. “A lot of records were lost, of course, but when the fledgeling empire cut its first holdings out of the southern jungles, things weren’t actually looking too bad. Trade opened up, Oasa went from a trading post to a merchant’s mecca in a handful of years. It wasn’t until the Emperor started making those abominable collars that conflict broke out.”

Morgan shuddered with revulsion at the thought. She didn’t have words to describe the utter wrongness that roiled in her blood and mana at the memory of the collar’s touch. “So how’d that get started? The [Oracle] people have mentioned?”

“Ha, no,” replied the other woman. “At first Emperor Deskra could only make one collar at a time, and the threat was not so great. The [Oracle]’s power and authority are only as great as the need, and at first it was just rumors and small groups of adventurers sent to deal with singular problems. And then…”

“And then what?” asked the Sorceress, watching Terisa’s face turn sad.

“The elves, or what was left of them, flooded across the borders into the northlands. The Empire had begun invading their groves for the witchwood trees, and to take pretty elven slaves. Elves can’t be held captive, though; they either die fighting or simply cease living, according to the stories.”

“What happened to them? I don’t think anyone in your expedition is an elf…”

Terisa snorted. “No, they vanished. Only the [Oracle] knows where they went, but everyone agrees they went north, and then kept going. They were never numerous, and long lives and low birthrates meant they weren’t able to fight a prolonged war, especially without their groves to tie them to the nature magics.” She shrugged before continuing. “They just left. We know they used to be around, and you can still find some of their artifacts and enchantments in out of the way places, but nobody has seen an elf since the first Deskren war.”

“So what about Oasa?” asked Morgan. The history lesson was fascinating, but the restless winds spurred her instincts and she wanted to know before she left her new friends.

Terisa glanced downward. “Oasa marked the end of the war.” She fell silent a moment. “The Deskren had made it to the northern half of the continent, but had been pushed back beyond Oasa. The [Oracle] herself took to the field, to help fight against the overseers and the legions of the Shackled. She was the one the Emperor wanted most; he felt if he could take her, he could become as a god. Nobody knows exactly what happened, but the Emperor and the [Oracle] marched on Oasa, and whatever happened obliterated the oasis, both armies, and shook the earth as far north as Sprocket.” Terisa shook her head. “That was also the start of the Age of Quiet, when the gods first fell silent. Nobody is sure why, and nobody can get close enough to Oasa to investigate: nothing can survive the desert. They’re called the Dead Sands because they pull every scrap of mana out, and it gets worse the deeper you get.” The huntress fixed Morgan with an intense gaze. “It’s probably the worst place in the world for someone like you.”

Morgan nodded. “Yeah...when I run out of mana my body starts to starve itself to convert calories--” Terisa looked at her with confusion. “--uh, fat reserves if you don’t know that word. But yeah, I can burn fat for mana, but it could kill me if I’m not careful.”

“And here I was, so jealous of your youthful figure,” said Terisa, rolling her eyes. “Anyway, that’s how the whole Deskren situation began. After Oasa, both sides fell back, but the empire raids the north every few years. Piracy is a constant threat on the seas, of course, but most of the nations bordering the coasts have to deal with slavers, both Deskren and their own criminal elements seeking to make a profit selling to the Deskren. Every handful of decades there is a bigger campaign, but they’ve never threatened Fort Expedition even once, let alone Possibility. The [Oracle] and Expedition have always remained neutral, so this war may be bigger than the first Deskren war.”

“More than you realize,” murmured the Sorceress, looking down to where a team of dwarves were installing one of their cannons into an opening in the side of the skyship. “Dana was not exaggerating about war on Earth. We know terrible things. But I will have to be a part of it, at least where I have a chance to save people from the collars.”

“Every one that is destroyed is one less the Empire can use. War may be terrible, but there are worse things to endure,” said the Huntress. “Have you been considering your skills and abilities? Your method of mana recovery shows me one glaring weakness that you will eventually have to contend with.”

“Yeah, I’m not built for long fights. If something drags out, I’m done the moment I run out of food.”

Terisa shook her head. “I’m no mage, but I’ve been doing this for a long time. You’ve only been in the Wildlands, where the air is so rich with magic it can poison those too weak or unable to adapt. You don’t just gain mana from eating, you breathe it in the air, drink it in the water, soak it up from all around you.”

“What do you mean?” Morgan asked, blinking.

“Ambient mana outside of the Wildlands isn’t going to be a fraction of what you’re used to here. If you can, you should invest some of those skill points into mana conservation abilities, and try to learn to contain what you have. I may not cast spells, but a hunter uses all their senses, and I can tell you cycle mana with every heartbeat. You’ve never had to conserve; you give back to the environment as much as you receive. If you keep that up in the lowlands, you’ll constantly bleed mana.”

“That…”

“Could be problematic, yes?”

Morgan groaned, burying her head in her hands. “It’s bad enough when I’m actually casting spells! If it’s as bad as you say, I’ll be magically crippled outside the wilds?”

“Not crippled, but certainly more bound to your food than you are now,” Terisa agreed.

“Great, one more thing to worry about. What about cities? Are they going to try to arrest me for not wearing clothes?” Morgan asked, exasperation clear in her voice.

The Huntress burst into laughter. “I’d like to see them try. But no, most won’t care, though you may have to singe a few lecherous hands depending on where you go. Plus, I’ve seen you cover yourself in flames. Such measures should be sufficient.”

“I’ll be leaving once he finishes topping up on the local wildlife,” said Morgan, pointing off into the distance where the Titan was chewing on a large [Burrowspine Earthwyrm] that had had the misfortune of digging its way close enough to the surface to be detected. “Can you give me any advice at all on skills? I don’t have anything that might help right now, but it would be good to know what to look for or try to train on my own…”

“Well, it’s not just mages that use mana. Most classers do -- myself included -- we just don’t manipulate it for actual spellcasting. Endurance and meditation to keep from running dry when I need to be able to boost a shot or use my more powerful skills are something I am certainly familiar with.” The Huntress pulled a flask from a pouch on her hip and made a gesture of offering, and Morgan pulled a crystal out of her own storage rune and shaped two glasses as Terisa leaned in and continued speaking. “Now, first, I can tell you how it works for me, but I know mages and druids can also learn [Meditation]...”

====================================

Dana Pierce flipped the visor of her helmet back with a thought. The [Neural Link] between herself and the suit made it as simple as if she had done it with her own hand. It would have been easier to build the skyship’s systems to interface with her suit directly, in the same manner that the crawler had used. A ship was not a crawler, however, and she needed to be free to move around as needed. The crew would have to learn on the job, but the tech she had to work with wasn’t all that much more advanced than what the Dwarves or other artificers would already be familiar with. So far, all the flight control systems were purely manual, with cables, ropes, and springs running every which way across the ship. The sails would hopefully work once they were off the ground; the hinged masts at the front and sides of the ship were designed to flip outwards to give them some maneuverability.

That is, of course, assuming they could get airborne at all, which led to her current task of installing the heating systems for the lift bags. Using the rotating core of the crawler’s reactor to turn a dynamo and brushes for a generator had actually yielded impressive gains in electrical efficiency. This increase was mostly due to the enchanted bearings not requiring any exotic materials or lubrication. With friction reduced to nearly nothing, running her reactor in this fashion was an easy choice. She finished welding the last conduit into place, connecting the aft-most heating coil to the power junction. Securing the cover in place over the wiring, she turned and headed up the passageway towards the bridge.

Upon reaching the door, she stopped and leaned against the jamb. Kojeg was busy swearing, loudly and vociferously, at a pair of dwarven assistants who were dragging a crate along the upper deck.

“--if ye scratch the deck one more time, I’ll ‘ave ye scrubbin’ it from here all tha way back to Thun’Kadrass!” he bellowed. “Now pick that crate up!” The dwarves hastily lifted the crate off the deck and scampered away. Kojeg turned to face his employer, irritation melting away from his face. “Ah, lass. What ken I do for ye?”

Dana couldn’t keep an amused smile from playing across her face. “Bag number four’s online, ready for initial warmup and testing. How’re the other three?”

“Aye, one an’ three be steady on tha gauges, but number two be a wee bit slow to warm up.” He eyed the panel to one side of the wheel. “Number four is now on tha’ gauges, one-twenty-two on the coils and rising.”

“It’ll take a while to heat up as much air as we have in the bags, but they’ll start pulling on the rings long before we actually start generating appreciable lift.” Her prediction came true to the creaking of timber when the first bag at the front of the ship began to pull taut, finally resembling a balloon instead of a half-inflated sack. The ropes and vines woven into a net around all of the bags stretched and flexed naturally as the leafy material flexed within its bounds. “There’s a storm comin’, my suit’s reading a slight drop in barometric pressure. How fast can we get the wagons loaded, Kojeg?”

“‘Nother half day or so,” came the reply as he looked out through the open front of the bridge across the upper deck of the ship. Reinforced timbers and beams secured the rings to the ship, obscuring the view down the center, but the sides remained clear. “Since she’s no designed for water and just sits on the ground, ‘tis easy enough to just push the wagons aboard. The horses and mules will be tricky, although we’ve plenty of fodder. If they get too excited we can always use the extra meat.”

Dana nodded. “I’ve had worse than horse, although I’m not keen on it in particular. Prioritize the wagons and critical supplies first, then; we don’t want to get snowed in and may have to leave in a hurry.”

“And the Burnin’ Lass? Has yer little project finally borne fruit?”

“It did, and I sent one of my drones to find her,” she said, as a fuzzy image appeared over her forearm before resolving into finer clarity. Morgan and Terisa seemed deep in conversation over a drink, sitting on the edge of the upper deck just aft of the rearmost lift bag. “I’ll go see to that while you keep the warm-up test going. Don’t be afraid to pull the plug if they get too hot too fast; better safe than sorry.”

“Aye, Lassie,” Kojeg said, turning back to his duties.

“That’s Aye-aye, Cap’n!” she retorted as she left the bridge and clambered up the side of the ship with her suit’s extra legs. Morgan grinned at her as she climbed up to perch next to the Sorceress, opposite Terisa. Her grin grew even wider as Dana held out her latest project to the woman.

“Is that--!?” Morgan left the question hanging expectant in the air, looking at the metal and stone tablet with three knobs and an analog display that anyone from Earth would be familiar with, if they had ever listened to radio in a classic car.

“It’s a magically boosted, mana-powered frequency modulation transceiver! Basically a magic radio.”

Morgan reached out, and her magic caught the stone grips on either side to gently lift the tablet. “You even remembered to make it out of parts I can use with [Terrakinesis]!”

The engineer grinned broadly. “Yep! Since we couldn’t figure out a way to learn you a new living rune before you left, I tried to make it as simple as possible. You can power it up to transmit just by funneling mana into the crystals set on the back. Range is variable, but you should be able to hear us squawking from thousands of miles away if you can get high enough.”

“Is this some new manner of scrying?” interrupted Terisa with sudden wonder. “No scrying or divination magics work in the Wildlands, it’s why we aren’t able to contact home right now…”

“The only thing magic about it is the power source,” answered Dana. “And this is primitive compared to the stuff back home, but I don’t think you guys need or want the internet and smartphones any time soon.”

“Hah, they’d just post pictures of cats like we do,” tittered Morgan.

Dana scooted closer to the other two women, leaning in to explain the functions of the new toy, while the winds stirred restlessly around them.

============================

Later that evening, Biggles and Chnarl stood around a fire, warming themselves while watching the Titan lumber down the slope leading to a mountain pass to the lowlands. He could just barely make out a small, pale figure standing on his shoulder, and could barely feel the tremors in the ground beneath his massive feet. There had been no time for proper goodbyes; the Titan had simply started walking, leaving Morgan racing to catch up, shouting hasty thanks over her shoulder.

“Think we’ll see them again?” Biggles asked, not taking his eyes off the pair.

The old druid hacked and coughed, spitting a packet of phlegm into the wind -- thankfully, away from the necromancer. “I’d not gamble...but I think we might,” he said irritably.

“You’ve been on edge lately, badger-man,” Biggles noted. “What’s bothering you?”

“Ah, just old age, and all that comes with it,” the druid replied, holding out his cup as Biggles removed a steaming pot from over the fire. “I thank you,” he said, gratefully taking a sip. “A fine brew makes the cold easier to bear...doesn’t do spit for the dreams.”

“A bit of talent for dreams with your druidry?” he asked.

“Talent, pah.” Chnarl shook his head, growling. “More a curse. Dreams I can’t understand, no matter how I try. For example…” He gestured to the sky, where the wispy cloud cover was growing denser and more foreboding by the day.

“It’s going to snow, right? Don’t need dreams to tell us that.”

“Mm,” Biggles agreed, taking a sip of kaffen. “But…?”

Chnarl fixed Biggles with a hard, grim stare.

“But, if it’s going to snow…why do I dream of thunder?”