“I’m Kyra, my empire has recently moved in close by. I was wanting to get to know my new neighbours, maybe discuss some trade and land rights. I wouldn’t want to accidentally start a war because we intruded on your lands and hunted in your farms.”

“You moved in?” Pao asks, not quite sure how to react to the sight of us. “Our land is our walls, get too close and we’ll stab you.”

“Well, easier to acknowledge than a line on a map,” I say, nodding my understanding. “Is there anything else we should know? Monsters that’ll kill us, friendly species that we shouldn’t cross?”

She squirms at the question, and the other ferrets start chittering and whispering to one another inside the stone defences. There are countless conversations taking place, many of them saying that we shouldn’t be trusted, others looking to try and scam us with bad trades.

I try not to take any of it seriously, letting Pao speak for her people.

“Be careful of the bandits that fly through the skies, and don’t aggravate the trees. They’re dangerous and I don’t want them stepping on us to get to you.” She crosses her arms and looks me up and down in thought.

“You want to trade?” she asks.

“I do,” I say. “I’m not sure what you need, but I’m sure you’ll find something good. What sort of wares can you offer?”

“Metal,” Pao says. “Refined steel, and metal weapons.”

“Could be useful for our manufacturers,” I say, letting slide the fact that this world seems rich in metal. It feels like selling seashells on the beachfront, but I’ll leave the details of trade to the experts.

“You seem like you make your own weapons, Pao says, glaring at my armour, and looking out past me to the others. “Why do you want to deal with us?”

“Why?”

“You don’t need trade. You don’t need metal or weapons,” Pao says. “How can we trust you, if I don’t understand why you’re really here?”

“Fair enough,” I admit, sitting down and turning my eyes to the sky. The dark clouds above seem as thick as ever but I see no sign that it’s about to rain. Instead, it feels as if it’s a ceiling preventing us from escaping this world.

“I’m going to take over this world,” I say, getting to the point. “I’m claiming the land in the dungeon below, the swamps around your island, the ocean wide and deep. Even the skies above will be mine when I am done here.”

Pao steps back, her hand on the door, ready to slam it on my face the moment I start going for her.

“I want to know your people,” I say. “I want to know if you can be a part of this world after I’ve taken it and reshaped it.”

“You want to take our island, our home?” She asks.

“No, I want a relationship with you and your people,” I say. “I want to earn your trust to such a point that you would allow me to defend your home as if it’s my own. Such that you’ll be free to travel any lands that I hold claim to and feel safe in the company of anyone that I call my own.

“I want to enfold you into a greater empire, under my rule,” I say. She’s still guarded, but not quite as ready to slam the door in my face. “I’m not intending to force you. As long as you don’t try to hurt me or mine, we can remain neighbours for as long as you like. For now, trade with us, talk with our people, send a few people as envoys if you like, and we’ll see where our relationship develops from there.”

Silence hangs in the air between us. I’m not sure what she’s thinking. There is much to consider in the long run, but for today the question is simple.

“Do you want me to send some traders up with wares?” I ask.

“That would be acceptable, but no one is coming in here,” Pao says, flustered and checking to make sure her armour is still in place.

“I’ll warn them of your policies,” I say, smiling over at her. Not everything needs to be a war, not everything needs to be centred around violence.

“The trees, you said that they were dangerous? Which ones?”

“The tall tree, its grey, blue leaves.”

“Would it be up for a conversation, do you think?” I ask, looking out into the distance where the massive tree stands high above the swamp waters. I don’t know what to think looking at it but if it’s truly an intelligent being then it could make for a wonderful ally or challenging foe.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Pao whispers, before continuing a little louder. “It’s dangerous. We know that the winged bandits live up there, the tree might have a deal with them or they could be minions.”

She shrugs, shivering slightly and making the armour clatter as she backs up a step.

“The bandits, the winged bandits. They’re dangerous,” Pao says. “They kill our people, raid our towns. We survive, but they keep coming back.”

“They’re all violent? You can’t make peace with them?” I ask.

“Some yes, some no,” Pao admits, shrugging again. “Be careful, show them you are strong and they might make peace, for a time.”

“Thanks for the advice,” I say, planning out the next step in this adventure of ours. I’d like to try and reach the tree, especially if it’s as much of a powerhouse as these ferrets would have me believe.

The problem is, I don’t know how to approach it. I can’t just talk to its roots, and there’s no face as far as I can see.

That leaves us with these winged bandits that the ferret was going on about, and it might even be possible that we can reach the tree through them.

“Above us!” Vii shouts, “Ten seconds!”

“Better close the doors, then,” I tell Pao, who doesn’t even wait for the advice. She calls for her people to stand ready at the walls, as I return to my team.

I touch at the spells that I’ve stored away in my bones, ready to face whatever comes our way.

Our combat team spreads out just enough that we won’t get in each other’s way. Our rifles are aimed at the sky as others ready their swords and spears, facing the churning clouds with conviction.

“Two seconds!” Vii shouts, just as we see the first of them diving through the clouds. Winged forms dive down from the sky, pointing spears down at us as they fall. They move fast, but my slowed perception of time lets me track them.

Before they’re even halfway down to us, the figures throw their spears and climb away from us.

A dozen spears rush down at us, fast as any bullet, before they can reach us, I cast my magic. I’ve trained well, stealing experience from warriors far better than me, even so, it’s a challenge to catch them in the short moment I have.

My magic pours out into the sky, intercepting half the spears. Eshya leaps up into the air, moving her sword around and deflecting another of the spears, while Vii and the others use all their abilities to deflect the attacks and dodge them.

Still, five of the massive metal spears, more like lances for their size, crash down around us. One spear missing Rare’s wing by less than a handsbreadth. It shatters the stone, instantly blasting us with a terrible shock.

Lighting blasts from the spears, burning and shocking us in turn. I destroy it with my defensive shields, but others aren’t so powerful.

Vii is flying just high enough to avoid most of it, but Rare is forced into bodily convulsions as the electricity spreads through her body. It’s over before I can cast another spell, but I count only wounds, no corpses.

The winged creatures in the sky float down through the clouds, swooping in to take advantage of our momentary weakness. Our scouts are already calling out locations, but I can see clearly through their eyes.

The lightning lances were nothing too powerful, and these people aren’t much either.

A show of power and mercy might well be in order.

“Defend!” I shout to my team, gathering myself to prepare to launch a powerful magic at these bandits. There’s no point in charging the magic this time, as I have no talent for it, and I’m essentially just brute-forcing my way through the art.

As the dozen bandits fly down toward us, they have only a moment to see my magic forming. Not enough time to turn tail and run.

“Enough!” I shout, wrapping them in barriers of pure force. The sudden stop causes them to scream, some of them breaking limbs from the impact of it.

The creatures are essentially angels in shape. Wings on their backs, but otherwise elvish in shape, their skin is pale blue, however, and their body hair seems closer to the down feathers of a bird.

The men and women both wear simple silk wraps around their waists, and the women don’t cover their chests in any way. There’s only one of them without any clothing. He shows himself to the world like a proud Ken doll, with musculature that would make a stone sculpture seem soft.

His piercing blue eyes, turn to me with a measure of surprise while the rest of his warriors shout out in fear and pain. He must be the leader of their little group.

“I think you’d prefer to stop fighting,” I say, pulling him closer with a flick of my wrist and a new burst of overwhelming force. “We’re not your enemy, else you’d already be dead. Are we understood?”

“You are stronger than we assumed,” he says, a proud smile rising on his lips. “Today is a good day!”

“You caught the killers!” Pao says, crawling out of the tunnel with a small spear in her hands as she glares at the bandits. “The murderers and bandits, you caught them?”

The spear she holds tightly, as she glares at the winged elf.

“I did,” I say, watching her carefully. “I’d like a chance to talk with them if you don’t mind lowering your weapon.”

She grumbles, looking between us and the monsters.

“Trade,” she says. “You have something we want. I wish to trade.”

“You want them?” I ask, rubbing my head through the veil of my armour. “I can’t say that I’m willing to trade them. Not yet at least.”

Pao glares up at the blue people, shifting her grip on the spear as she looks between me and them.

“Okay, first things first I’m going to let you all go,” I tell the bandits, speaking slowly and loudly to get the next part across clearly. “If any of you move, or even look like you’re about to attack anyone. I will kill you.”

“You have beaten us,” he says. “You have our respect and our ears. We will listen.”

“Good,” I loosen my grip on his warriors. My mana has already halved in the moments that I’ve held them, but if it’s given me a chance to start a discussion, it could be worth it.

Still, it’s so much more efficient to kill than to capture.

“I am Aegeus,” the flying ken doll proclaims. “We are the guardians of the skies, defending the honour of the great Blue-Crown.”

“Bandits is what you are,” Pao says, seething with rage.

“Blue-Crown?” I ask.

He simply waves over toward the massive tree to the side.

“Is there a reason you attacked us?” I ask.

“You crawl through the red muck,” Aegeus says, waving out over the swamps. “We hunt these lands and see that nothing here harms the great tree. If you wander these lands, that makes you our prey.”

“So, you were hunting us?”

“We were,” Aegeus says. “These lands are the lands of Blue-Crown, and she permits us to hunt here as long as we give her proper respect. What are you doing here, wandering around in our hunting area?”

“I’m here to claim lands for myself,” I say. “I’ll skip through the whole spiel, but I intend to speak with the local powers to find out where we stand with each other.”

“You want to meet Blue-Crown?” He asks. “I can take you, but you will want to bow low when meeting her.”

The men and women flying with him gasp or turn about in horror as they hear his words. He and I maintain eye contact for a time.

He’s too confident.

I’m sure that this tree is more powerful than I might’ve guessed. Either that, or he expects more from the tree than he can rightfully expect. I have enough tricks to have confidence in myself, and at this point, I’m not going back to hiding just because the monsters might be a little tough.

“You’re working with the bandits?” Pao asks, her beady little eyes glaring at me through the shadows of her helmet. “They kill our people, slaughter us. I’ve lost my friends, my brothers, and my parents, so many people have died because of them. Every home I’ve known before this one was shattered by their spears.”

“The prey is right, we are proud hunters,” Aegeus says, standing tall and pounding a fist to his chest. “Blue-crown favours us for our strength and our honour!”

A mess.

A complete mess, and for once I’m not the one that everyone wants dead.

The ferrets are bristling with justified rage, glaring at the creatures that would proudly hunt them. Finding peace between these two people would be challenging, and even maintaining relationships with both could be difficult.

“I can sympathise with your rage, but I’m not fighting your wars for you,” I tell Pao. “That said, I’d appreciate you leaving this island alone, Aegeus.”

“I am willing to listen, but not obey,” Aegeus says, his expression hardening. “We obey only Blue-Crown.”

“That’s fine, but understand that next time we fight, I won’t be so gentle in plucking you from the skies,” I warn him. “Now, you’re still agreeable to getting us a meeting with this tree, or what?”

“I will show you to Blue-Crown,” he says, nodding firmly to me. “She will be interested in you.”

“Great, that doesn’t sound ominous at all,” I say, rolling my shoulders.

“So, we’re just ignoring the fact that they tried to kill us?” Eshya asks, adjusting her stance and tightening her grip on her sword. “Should we really be trusting them?”

“We trust them for now, and if they betray us, I kill them all,” I say loudly enough for everyone to hear.

There are a great many risks in this endeavour, and it bothers me that I don’t know if peace can really be brokered. This could be a terrible trap.

It could end badly again.

Eshya could really die this time.

I don’t want to risk my lovers, or my people, but I can’t just kill everything that poses a risk. Partly because I don’t have the strength or time, and partly because there are plenty of good people who could become valuable members of my empire.

“We’re flying,” I say. “Lead the way Aegeus.”

I bite my tongue to hold back another threat, it’s tempting but from how the man has reacted so far, I don’t think threats would work. He’s been honest to a fault so far, to the point of goading the ferrets right to their faces.

Still, if this is a trap, I won’t let anyone die.

The deep red ocean washes against the swampy shore, and in the far-off distance more trees rise up over the horizon, some taller still than the one that we’re heading for.

“Kyra, I’m not sure I trust your choices so much,” Eshya says, holding onto me as we float into the sky. I need to use considerably more mana to move the both of us, but I feel safer with her close to me.

“Then get strong enough to protect me, that was our deal if you’d remember it. I lead, and you fight,” I say as we weave a path through the branches and leaves on the lower edges of the clouds.

“I just don’t know Kyra,” Eshya says, shaking her head. “Maybe we should slow down, take things more carefully?”

“And hand the initiative to our enemy?” I ask. “I don’t really like letting others take the first move. Whether we kill this tree or make friends with it, we get started today.

“I wasn’t talking about this,” Eshya says, squirming in my grasp. “I just mean… forget about it. It’s fine.”

Before I can press her on the topic, we fly through the blue canopy and reach a small floating town built in the branches of the great tree.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Stats and Skills

~Mana Form:

Current mana density: 30,912 / 60,892 units

Current mana volume: 15,367 / 30,271 shards

Mana volume at crystallisation density (Max. mana volume):

Kyra: 30,271 shards

Kyra’s armour: 20,777 shards

Kyra’s throne: 1,109,298 shards

~Forms

Mana Canon

-Annihilation Heart (Adapted)

-Blood Fuel (Adapted)

-Bone Magic Storage (Adapted)

-Nail Shifters (Adapted)

Dancer

-Flash Nerves (Adapted)

-Quick Perception Mind (Adapted)

-Burst Reflex Muscles (Adapted)

-Layered Space Muscles (Adapted)

Turtle

-Rebinding Tissue (Adapted)

-Catalyst Sweat Glands (Adapted)

-Repulsive Skin (Adapted)

-Prehensile hair (Adapted)

-Fatty Tissue Blood Storage (Adapted)

Investigator

-Wide eyes (Adapted)

-Wide ears (Adapted)

-Sharp nose (Adapted)

Misc.

-Clean bowels (Adapted)

-Mana Drive (Adapted)

~Favourited Skills:

Magic:

-Annihilation Magic (Customised)

-Fire Magic (Functional)

-Space magic (Broken)

-Force magic (Functional)

-Ice magic (Broken)

-Wind magic (Broken)

Movement:

-Hand-to-hand casting (Functional)

-Mana surge movement (Functional)

-Stealth (Functional)

Senses:

-Eyes of an Empire (Customised)

-Combat Awareness (Functional)

-Watchmen (Functional)

-Hidden bug (Mastered)

-De-tagging (Mastered)

-Anti-stealth sight (Mastered)

Special:

-Spirit Transformation (Broken)

-Conformity (Broken)

-Training mana form (Functional)