March 22, 2019. Mid day.

Flying with only Wyonna for company is different. I hesitate to say boring because Wyonna is rather animated. It can be a bit much, but she seems to know when that happens cause she suggests taking a break. But still... different.

The flight itself is different when I’m alone too. I’m the only one deciding where to fly. I find myself tempted to explore a lot more than when flying with the others. It doesn’t help that there are waterfalls that plummet for hundreds of metres scattered throughout the mountains I’m flying over. And hidden mountain valleys with abandoned ruins.

After nearly a twenty-four hours of nonstop flight, I’ve almost reached the eastern edge of the abyss. Despite the increasing frequency of mana-storms I was able to fly straight through. I’ve technically finished the second stage of the quest for being out in a mana-storm, but I can’t tell if the System has recognized my glorious achievement. Probably not. I’m starting to think my upgrade really did make things worse. I’ve noticed that the connections get more frayed every time I try to access any part of my Status other than Wyonna, so I’ve been leaving it alone with one exception.

I have the tether from Rufka’s nameplate held securely, sending pulses every minute or so. I’m getting closer. It feels like she’s still in the pit, but she could just be along the edge. I fly along the edge of the abyss, talking with Wyonna almost non-stop. According to her, it’s been thirty-three hours since I last slept.

But I don’t feel tired.

The air washing past me is suddenly full of the stench of unwashed bodies. Seconds later, I’m able to see a cluster of homes floating a short distance in from the rim. Rufka’s not in this cluster. But it seems like there are other occupants. I float inside, waiting for the rim defences to target me. But they remain offline. So, I float across and attach a clump of stone to the cluster, towing it with me. Soon, I come across another cluster. I secure it to the first. Then the next, and the next.

When I attempt to move to the front of the formation to add another, my connections that were only held in place by the strength of my aura break. A gust from below sends them scattering. This time, I reforge the bonds, infusing them with Twilight to give them more structure.

By the time I’m approaching the cluster I’m certain Rufka’s sheltering in, I have over a dozen other clusters daisy chained together. Even though I’ve added several more clusters since my little mishap, I’m reluctant to leave the centre.

Still, I’m not stopping until I have Rufka and Tipan, so I risk it. The flotilla mostly holds together this time. One of the smaller bundles of homes does break off, but I ignore it as I fly toward the tilted remains of the arena. I’ll retrieve them later. None of them seem to float too far or too low.

The arena looks worse than when I last saw it, drifting dozens of metres lower than it should be. Another pulse confirms that Rufka is somewhere inside.

I descend, moving beneath a shattered beam. The entire structure is like a run through one of the bonus training scenarios inside the first dungeon. Except at the heart of this scenario are my friends. It’s surprising they’re still here. The building isn’t locked down like the other…

Pushing a beam out of the way, I reach the centre of the arena where several bulb-homes are gathered. None of these homes are part of a cluster, but they’re all trapped within the arena’s stone dome. If I’m not mistaken, they’re the only thing keeping the rest of the building afloat. That’s not good.

Following the pulse, I’m able to locate the bulb-home that Rufka’s inside. I suspect Tipan is too. As I’m inspecting the top of the arena, preparing to carefully open it, Baska walks in, stretching her arms to the side as if she were warming up for another game with the Southern Tribunes. We stare at each other until Baska cringes, turning to the side with an audible ‘hurk’.

Pleasant reminder of my appearance, right there.

“Hi,” I say, looking around for Baska’s teammates while she recovers.

“Sorry. It’s just that… damn, we heard it was bad but…” She shrugs all four arms, her lips twitching into a smile. “But hey. You’re okay. Well, standing at least. That’s great!”

“Thanks. Are there others here?” I ask, pointedly waving around the arena with my sole hand.

Baska nods, stepping closer. She slows when she gets near, but deftly squeezes past without asking me to move. Following her, we move into the visiting team’s preparation room. Inside are several K’tharn I don’t recognize as well as Baska’s teammates.

“Another one Baska?” Advitha asks, the team leader barely glancing in our direction from where she’s cooking over a small fire.

“Advitha! Look!” Kythee admonishes. She’s in much better condition than when I last saw her.

Advitha looks over, whistling when she sees me. “Saw you take that hit, but that’s just plain nasty. Guessing you haven’t gotten to a proper healer yet?”

“No. Do you know why Rufka’s locked inside?” I ask, gesturing behind me at the bulb-homes.

Advitha’s eyes go wide at my question, “Rufka’s inside one of those? Kythee’s training with Levincore was enough for her to determine there were people inside, but I didn’t think your friends would let themselves get trapped.”

“The bulbs don’t open unless you’ve got the override key. Or you land em,” Baska notes.

“Speaking of stuck, why are you still here? Couldn’t you have left?”

Baska huffs, saying, “We could. But then we’d be abandoning all the people sheltering in the stands. The Levincore turned us back already. They’re only allowing inner city communities out of the rift.”

“What? But…” There were hundreds of broken homes in my vision with Beth. Were those only from the inner city? How many more are being left behind?

“Yeah. It’s scummy. Real scummy. But that’s the new fa’thoni for you. First they stop edgers from getting to the heart of Aethire and now they won’t let us out,” Advitha spits.

It takes me a second to piece together that fa’thoni implies dragon masters. Not a term I’ve heard for the dragon riders before.

“They’re just trying to keep things in order,” Kythee mumbles. “The fa’thoni are struggling now that the Flights are shattered.”

Baska raises a hand, as if she’s about to disagree, but Advitha silences her with a look. Baska’s hand drops, but she tenses, all her hands curling into fists as she turns away.

Into their silence, I speak, “They won’t keep me from leaving the rift. Even if I have to carve a path through the mountains themselves, I’m getting my friends out. No reason not to bring the rest of you with us.”

Kythee gasps as Baska sizes me up.

Advitha smirks, stirring the sizzling meats in her pan as she says, “I appreciate the sentiment. But the fa’thoni are peak iron-rank. Do you really think you can sneak a stadium this size past dozens of them?”

I smile back at Advitha. “I never said anything about sneaking.”

First thing I do is go to the globe that’s been enchanted to keep Rufka and Tipan locked away. Even with the System on the fritz, my enchanting lessons remain. And the most important part is knowing how to use the plates that Rufka designed to shunt extra mana from engines. Using the incredibly simple enchantment, I disable the wards sealing them inside by draining the mana.

When I punch through the much weaker wall, there are several screams to greet me. Probably not my best entrance.

“-it’s not Lexi, I’ll give my left paw,” Rufka says, her bow already crackling with electricity as the wall falls, the leather splitting now that its reinforcing mana is completely gone.

Tipan is right behind her, her arms crossed as she says, “I already agreed with you. Why do you believe I doubt her.”

Rufka glances back at a few other K’tharn, a family who I’m guessing are the source of the screams. “Never said you did. I just… Lex?”

“Alexis!” Tipan gasps, blasting through the gap so fast it’s like I’m having déjà vu of Atun attacking.

Which is why I attempt to bring up my chakram with my missing hand. A small part of my mind notes that the chakram responded to the instinct, even without my hand to wield it.

“Hey,” I greet them with a half smile, trying not to crack my face.

Rufka is only half-a-second behind Tipan, reaching out to hug me but stops herself, taking my intact hand instead. We all remain quiet for a few seconds until Rufka gets a giant grin on her face. “What took you so long?”

I stare at her. Then I take my hand out of hers, punching her reflexively in that same arm. “You… you jerk. What took me so long? What took you so long? Why didn’t you break yourself out? Your enchanting skills stop working?”

“She’s right, you know. If you hadn’t left your enchanting tools in the Southern Tribune’s room, we could’ve been out days ago,” Tipan notes helpfully.

Rufka’s face scrunches up as she frowns. “I was busy trying to help Lex.”

“I believe I’d already caught her by the time you followed.” Tipan points out. “You could've easily brought your tools.”

“I panicked, okay? When someone you love is in danger, I’d like to see how calm you are!” Rufka’s ears are flat against her head, and the parts of my face that are healthy enough feel like they’re positively glowing. I almost reach out to kiss her, but…

“Are you implying that I don’t love Alexis, simply because I have no desire to have intercourse with her?” Tipan arches her eyebrows at Rufka.

“Well, no,” Rufka grumbles while grabbing my hand in a tight grip.

“Uh, Tipan, what about your tools?” I ask, unable to help myself. It’s not like Rufka’s the only enchanter.

Tipan turns to the side, coughing, as Rufka glares at her. “I… uh, I left my tools behind too.”

With a savage grin, Rufka turns back to me, then her eyes drift to my side. “This can wait. Can you, you know, heal her?”

Nodding, Tipan withdraws her healing talisman from her pack, the tightly bound wires over a bowl twang softly when she brushes her hand against them. She’s about to put her hand on me when I interject. “Sorry. But I’ve already tried using healing items. My System is broken, so they’re not working properly.”

“We can at least try,” Tipan suggests.

“Kinda broke mine trying. But I guess we could,” I concede.

Tipan lays one hand over mine and Rufka’s then strums the bowl. Closing my eye, I can feel the mana as it enters me. But just like before, it’s dissipating throughout my body, not really healing anything. Tipan frowns, and the mana starts moving toward my injuries. Most of it still dissipates, but I feel my nose tingling and my scalp starts to itch. I feel the faintest tingle in my eye but then the sensation stops.

“Sorry. I’m out of mana.” Tipan is pouting when I open my eye. That’s the only way to describe her expression. But it’s gone so fast, I almost doubt myself. “I’ll try to do more later, but I’ve never seen healing need this much mana before.”

“Well, we’ll just have to find mum. Or Roberts. He’s around somewhere, right?”

“Uh, not really. He’s with Beth and Josh, outside Betheryne. And I could use your help getting these people out,” I say, stepping back to wave at the Desh’mersa players who’ve been quietly watching our reunion.

The flotilla stretches hundreds of clusters deep by the time we reach the northern edge of the Abyss. Hundreds more lie empty behind us, stripped of anything useful then discarded after Kythee confirmed they were empty. Several dragon-riders approach, with more fa’thoni scattered about for support, but the fa’thoni forces appear severely understaffed. I also can’t help but note that they’re patrolling the rim, even this far north. It seems their evacuation efforts have come to an end. Our flotilla floats inexorably closer, my throne now a permanent fixture at the front. Tipan and Rufka are both farther out, running troubleshooting of distant enchantments, making sure the flotilla remains stable. We considered breaking more people out, but any who might be able to help with enchanting have already broken themselves out. And most of those already left.

[Wyonna] “Not that I’m complaining, but I’m surprised you didn’t rest before attempting this.”

Wyonna kind of has a point. It’s been fifty-seven hours since I last slept and I’m still not tired. If anything, I feel more alive than ever. It’s the opposite of when I stayed awake to cleanse the Fallen.

[Alexis] “I’m fine. This isn’t even a real obstacle.”

[Wyonna] “Yeah. You’re like Davos Seaworthy! If he decided to smuggle an entire city past guards who could see him coming instead of onions.”

There’s an argument amongst the riders when they spot me on my throne. I can understand their hesitation. My throne is larger than any of the individual homes surrounding it. It needs to be. To pass over any shattered homes on the far side of the rim we’re going to need to fly far beyond the rim. Which means we needed a proper levitation engine, something the bulb-homes lack. So, with my improved understanding, a couple hundred mana essence and the assistance of every K’tharn capable of enchanting, we’ve assembled a prototype mana engine. The core of which is hidden within my new throne. To maintain my throne’s theme, the exterior of the engine has been shaped in Smoulder’s likeness, my throne forming a crown atop her head and massive wings of flame shooting out behind me.

A convenient convergence of form and function.

Without the mana engine, the bulb-homes would drop faster than an anvil this close to the rim. The enchantment shielding and confining the occupants is more complex than the basic levitation enchantment. The damn things are only in the air because the crude enchantments are able to feed on the insane levels of ambient wind mana emitted by the World Rift, though we've found not all the enchantments are equal, giving us some nodes of buoyancy.

Smoulder’s visage glares at the lone dragon rider as she approaches on the back of a dark burgundy dragon, its nose ridges trailing fire. It’s the largest of the dragons present. I’m a little surprised they’re sending a rep. Baska said they’d just been firing warning shots at them when they approached. Guess approaching with half of Aethire strapped to my back makes a difference.

“Halt.” She calls. Her voice seems familiar, but it’s not Talkith or any of the guards who escorted her north. It’s hard to focus on her, my sole functioning eye refusing to cooperate until I overlay it with Twilight.

Ah. It’s Mothey. Her orange fur is matted, her dotted pattern blended into uneven blobs. Looks like she hasn’t had time to shower lately.

I don’t stop the flotilla, of course. Instead, I urge it to go faster. Not by much, because it takes minutes to get the thing up to speed. But I can buy minutes.

“Hey Mothey,” I call out to her, “Don’t suppose we can do this the easy way? You just step to the side and let me pass?”

Mothey doesn’t respond at first, her and the dragon sitting in our path as we drift closer while she stares. “Outlander? I’d heard you were… but what are you doing here? What happened to you?”

“Long story. Listen. This thing isn’t as agile as your dragon. If you could get out of the way, that’d be great.” This time she responds right away, though not verbally. Instead, she coaxes her dragon around, flying back to join the still growing group of fa’thoni and their dragons. Strangely they don’t have any Fallen among their numbers. Has something happened to the rest of them? I hope nothing happened to their matrix. Pretty sure Thetilda is still running the cleansing array in Glimmering Sands, so hopefully they’re able to make their way to her now that the Aetherium’s…

Not the way Uthica would’ve wanted it to go out.

I can hear the fa’thoni continue to argue as we move closer. I use a single wind-empowered shout to warn them, but I don't worry about any attempts they might make to stop us. The flotilla is sturdier that it looks at this point. If they decide to attack, the damage should only be superficial. Hopefully. It’s not like we ran a stress test.

Glancing over my shoulder, I seek out the K’tharn who’ve been helping us for the last day. Baska’s giving me a thumbs up while Advitha stares at the gathered fa’thoni with a frown. No sign of Kythee. But that’s not too surprising. She’s probably with the other refugees in the shelter. Most of the arena is gone, salvaged to patch this monstrosity together.

Directing my attention forward when the arguments die down, I see half of the fa’thoni forming into ranks. Mothey’s not among them. Instead, she’s flying away from us as fast as she can. Well, she did see what happened when we fought Obelix. This won’t be as easy, but it shouldn’t be too hard either.

At this point we’re going at nearly twice the speed as when Mothey first approached me. And we’re not even close to the theoretical max. But again, that’s another thing I haven’t tested. Still, our speed continues to increase, the whistling of the wind rising in pitch before the anti-storm enchantments kick in. I never would’ve guessed that you could use anti-storm enchantments to counter wind resistance. That had been Baska’s idea.

The first of the lightning-based riders finally attack, throwing a lightning bolt directly at me. I don’t even have to Pause to unweave the spell before it strikes, redirecting the mana into increasing our speed. It’s negligible compared to the mana from the World Rift, but if things go as planned, we won’t have that mana for much longer.

Huh. Them attacking might help.

Nearly a full second after the first lightning bolt is thrown my way, the true assault begins. Even with dozens of projectiles thrown my way, I still don’t need Pause. It’s frighteningly easy to unweave their spells now that I understand how Twilight works. And each spell they cast only further empowers the flotilla.

I start cackling.

It takes them nearly a minute before they begin targeting the other parts of the flotilla. I’m still able to deflect or defuse most of their spells, but it’s not perfect. Tipan and Rufka are catching some of the furthest attacks, but not everything. We tried to make the flotilla as narrow as we could. But we had to balance my ability to defend with keeping the levitation engine within range of the furthest sections.

Our speed at this point is fast enough that even with the anti-storm enchantments active, I can still hear the rushing of wind over the flotilla. The fa’thoni's ranks have grown thin as their attacks continue to fail and the pure mass of the flotilla approaching finally dawns on them. There are still a few who don’t seem to understand the danger, or perhaps they believe they’re strong enough to withstand it?

“Get out of the way you Vaus-bound idiots!” I scream, enhancing my shout with Wind and Twilight.

A couple flee, but three remain. I grit my teeth. If they won’t run, I’ll have to push them out of our path. Weaving a pair of blunted wind-torrents, I unleash them simultaneously. My first torrent catches two of the remaining riders, thrusting them beneath us to safety. But the other rider dodges my second torrent bringing her directly into the path of Smoulder’s steel visage. The terror in her dark brown eyes sears itself into my eye as I lose sight of her, the sound of cracking bones carrying over the wind.

She might've survived, peak iron-rank is pretty superhuman. But I don’t believe it. The wail of her dragon makes me worried she's… gone. Part of me wants to check, to know if she’s… dead. But I need to remain rooted to my throne or risk the flotilla’s makeshift magic failing. Swallowing the bile, I clench my sole hand on the arm of my Throne as we clear the ridge. I tried to save her. I never even attacked. And now I have to live with her blood on my hands.

It’d be easy to brush it off. To say it was her own fault for staying in front of what’s effectively a speeding train. But I made the choice to charge over the wall knowing this might happen.

Am I becoming like Beth?

The thought causes the entire flotilla to shake, and I refocus, smoothing out the strands of Twilight I pulled on in my moment of panic. I can figure that out later. First, I need to get these people to safety. Rufka and Tipan are doing their part, and I need to do mine.

There are no more attacks as we speed over a few broken buildings scattered amongst the peaks of the northern World’s Teeth.

Baska shouts up at me, barely audible over the wind. “Aren’t we going to Bethyrene? I don’t recognize anything here.”

Blocking the wind, I respond in a level voice. “Didn’t Advitha tell you? We’re not going back to the Aetherium. We wouldn’t be welcome.”

“No, she failed to mention that,” Baska says, flying up beside me under the shelter of my Wind-shield.

“Must have slipped her mind,” I say, watching the ground fly by beneath us. “You know, I can't help but realize… We’ve built up a lot of momentum. And we didn’t build in anything resembling functional brakes. Just wasn’t a priority.”

“If we’re not going to Betheryne - which I’m not complaining about, to be clear - where are we going?” Baska asks, staring southwest in the general direction of Betheryne. Even now, Roberts is probably wandering through the makeshift shelters, healing people while Josh is feeding them or making sure people are warm.

Focusing on the upcoming end to the mountains, I answer, “North. To the abandoned Builder’s city of Pelwerd.”

“Pelwerd? Never heard of it.”

I don’t reply, instead trying to gauge the distance to the far-off city properly. I wasn’t lying about not having a way to reduce our momentum. Which means that I have to do this very carefully.

It’s only a giant flying raft cobbled together from hundreds of barely buoyant bulb-homes with tens of thousands of K’tharn lives soaring through the skies at near-Mach one. It’s not like landing is the hardest part of flying or anything.

“Damn it, Wyonna. You were right.”

I really should've gotten sleep before trying this. Maybe then I would’ve thought of brakes.