Falling with Folded Wings 3: A LitRPG Progression Fantasy, page 49
“You can understand what’s going on?” Morgan wanted to look with his Void Vision and again cursed when he remembered he couldn’t cast the spell. Azure Sight didn’t show him much at all, just a sheen of Energy around the doorway.
“Yes. This is the work of an Artificer. It’s thorough, Morgan. I don’t think anyone without a very strong will and a lot of Energy will be able even to approach the tower, and I can see the barrier keeping us inside is designed to block you and me entirely. Cast a void spell. I want to see something,” she said.
“All right.” Morgan cast Void Vision, not surprised when the Energy left his pathways but did nothing for his sight.
“Ahh, yes! I see it now! Morgan, whoever made this trap is stealing your Energy to reinforce it! Each time you cast a spell, it gets stronger.”
“Oh, great!”
“We need to get someone to go out, between the tower and the barrier keeping people away, and find the wards. They have to be physical runes with large Energy stones. I don’t think they could have carved them into the tower, so there are probably stones, crystals, or something like that placed around it.”
“There’s just us,” Morgan said, but then he snapped his fingers. “Ykleedra’s sisters!”
“Morgan, they can’t even speak yet. I think it would be dangerous to send the equivalent of toddlers out there to try to mess with the wards. The runes might have dangerous defensive mechanisms …” Her eyes unfocused, staring into the distance, then she frowned and looked Morgan in the eyes. “What about Tkron?”
“No fucking way,” Morgan replied. “You haven’t spoken to him, Issa. If we let him loose, I can promise he’d just leave. We’d still be stuck, and I’d be worried about what kind of evil shit he was doing out there.”
“Right.” Issa paced in a small circle, thinking.
“I have an idea,” Morgan continued. “What about the portal? I could take it to the academy, then use my talisman to recall to First Landing!” He started running for the stairs, but Issa called for him to stop.
“Morgan, I’m sure the wards will block regular teleportation. The portal doesn’t connect two points in space like your void magic does; it just sends you, very quickly, along a magical … river, for lack of a better word. I’m sure the wards will prevent that.”
“I’ll still try it. Won’t hurt, will it?”
“No, it won’t, but I have another idea. I’ll be in the workshop. Come let me know how it goes.” Issa surprised him by hurrying past him and going up the steps before he could reply.
Morgan started to follow her, but something caught his attention—movement outside the tower door. Turning to head back to the open doorway, he realized someone was approaching over the grass.
A soldier, a militia member, was running toward them, her blonde hair flying out behind her in the wind, and Morgan knew she was running to him for help with whatever was going on out there. He stood in the doorway, willing her to make it, willing her to charge up those steps and help them out of their predicament. She saw him standing in the doorway, and she started to yell something, but as she came within a few feet of the base of the steps, she simply collapsed.
She fell like a rag doll, flopping and bouncing along the grass to lie, unmoving, at the bottom of the tower steps.
“Fuck!” Morgan hissed. He thought—hoped—she was still breathing. The wards wouldn’t be lethal, would they? What kind of madman would kill random people like that?
Morgan turned and ran up the steps to the portal level, stalking directly to the one connected to Olivia’s academy. He trickled some Energy into the archway, knowing exactly how to activate and control the portal now that he had full mastery of the tower. He felt his Energy go into the arch and saw the portal stone start to glow, but as the swirling gateway started to form, it sputtered and stopped. “I wish you weren’t right so often, Issa.”
“Morgan?” Tiladia’s chime caught him by surprise. He turned to see the spirit floating near the stairway.
“Tiladia, we’ve got a problem!”
“I sensed as much from your words earlier. The children are sleeping soundly. Is there aught else I can do?”
“Yeah, follow me to Issa’s workshop. She said she had an idea.”
Morgan hit the stairs, and when he walked out, striding to where he’d last seen Issa working, Tiladia was right behind him. He found Issa not by the smelter, which was cold, but working at a long workbench covered with dozens of thin, bronze-colored rods of various lengths. She held an etching tool in one hand and her special lens in the other, and appeared to be carving tiny runes into one of the rods.
“The portal didn’t work?” Issa asked without looking up.
“No, you were right. What are these?”
“These are the rods that go inside the cast body parts I made for Tiladia. They’ll act as bones and muscles, and also the pathways for her new Core.”
“Oh shit,” Morgan said. “I think I can guess your idea!”
That got Issa to look up, and she grinned at him. “Yes! I can finish her body in a couple of days if I work really hard and if you help me. I still need to craft her some organs, but if I show you how to etch these rods, you can do it, can’t you? I’ve seen your notebook—you have excellent fine motor skills. You don’t need to understand any of it—just copy my designs.” She pointed to a sheaf of papers next to her.
“Yeah, I can do that. I can sure as hell try, anyway.”
“Here.” Issa pushed the top page to him. “See? I wrote the length of each rod and the rune pattern next to it. You can measure them with this”—she held up a metal stick that looked very much like a ruler—“to ensure you etch the right pattern on the right rods.” She set down her etching tool and stood up. “I’m going to start working on Tiladia’s heart and the housing for her Core. I’ll check on you when I’m finished. Tiladia, come with me; I have some questions to ask you before I make your heart!”
“Um …” Morgan stopped talking because Issa had already rushed away, back to one of the workbenches near the forge. He sat down, picked up the etching tool, and looked at Issa’s notes. There were nearly a hundred rods, some as long as his forearm and some shorter than his pinky. He flipped through the pages and saw that each rod needed somewhere between three and several dozen runes inscribed. “This is going to take a while,” he breathed.
A hissing, whooshing noise signaled the forge being brought online, and Morgan picked up the first rod, settling in for some serious busywork. He tried to take heart, though—if they finished Tiladia’s body, she could, in theory, go out and disable the wards. Still, there was always the hope that someone outside would manage to figure something out. Maybe Olivia would come back to the tower. Would the portal work in the opposite direction?
“Well, whatever the method, I need to get out there and figure out what’s going on,” he grumbled, carefully etching his first rune.
“Report,” Maria said, coughing as the word came out.
“We struck the ship twice; it looked like we broke off one of those masts that stick out from the side with one of them. The first shot blew up one of those big rings at the rear, too. We almost brought it down,” the young man informed, doffing his militia helmet and standing rather smartly at attention next to her bed. He must have served in a military back on Earth.
“Do you think they’ll have to stop?” she asked, shifting uncomfortably. Dr. Gibraltar had given her meds for the pain and stopped her bleeding but wanted to wait until Dr. Cho could be found to attempt a true healing.
“We really don’t know, ma’am. When she started to dive after we broke off that mast, the other rings all over her keel lit up brightly and lifted her up. Then she was out of range.”
“Funny how people refer to ships as she. You weren’t even a sailor back on Earth, were you?”
“No, ma’am. I have no idea why I did that. Must be from watching a lot of VRs.” He grinned, a bit chagrined, perhaps, and continued, “We can’t get any news from the tower. We’ve sent two more people to attempt entry, and they both passed out when they got close. We can’t even get anyone close enough to pull them away—four people are now sleeping in the grass near those steps.”
“All right. Clearly, those assholes didn’t want Morgan getting involved. Hopefully, he can figure a way out. In the meantime, we need to get a force together and start marching. We have to hope that ship will need to set down for repairs. Any sign of Bronwyn?”
Of the First Landing council, five were captive on that ship, Morgan was trapped in his tower, Olivia was a thousand miles away, and Bronwyn was missing. Maria was all on her own, and she was bedridden.
“No sign, ma’am. We have reports of her leaving out the north gate a week ago. I’ll get together our fastest, highest-leveled people and see if I can get a squad moving out ASAP.” He saluted again, and Maria held out her hand.
“What’s your name?”
“Corporal Tran, ma’am.”
“Good, Corporal Tran. Good. You’re doing damn good work. Keep me posted.” Maria smiled, not easily because of the dark thoughts running through her mind, but she managed it.
“Thank you, ma’am. May I?” He gestured toward the door.
“Yes, good luck. If you see Alice … I forget her last name, the lady who owns that new restaurant, um, Purple Grass, will you tell her where I am? She’s trying to get an idea of how many people we had taken tonight.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll see that everyone in town knows where you are before we leave.”
He started toward the door, and Maria opened her mouth to speak, to ask him if he had to go with the rescue squad, but she stopped. It was nice having a reliable person in town, but he should go where the most people needed him. Hopefully, that Alice lady would show up soon.
Olivia
Olivia held a little mirror behind her back, looking at Barnt’s handiwork in his larger bathroom mirror. The big Vodkin had been surprisingly gentle and dexterous with his little Energy-driven needle. He’d sketched the tattoos on her flesh before applying the permanent ink to be sure she approved, and Olivia had been quite impressed by the exact, perfectly copied lines. The final tattoos were just as good—no, better than the sketches had promised.
Barnt’s ink seemed alive, shimmering under her skin, and though the tattoos were just symbols and runes in an interlocking pattern, they were done with clever shading, and transitioned from black to pale blue in a way that gave them depth and vibrance. They were more than she’d bargained for. The one around her waist curved under her belly button and over her hip bones, almost like a fabric belt hanging on her flesh, and she thought it was beautiful.
The band around her throat was low, just above her collarbones, and not easily seen when she wore her robes. Olivia traced her fingers along it, amazed her skin wasn’t stinging or raw in any way; Barnt had applied an ointment with a mild healing effect, speeding up a process that might normally take several days or even a week.
Olivia buttoned up her blouse, slipped into her robes, and walked back to where the gigantic ex-legionnaire waited. He’d acted absurdly nervous that she wouldn’t like his work, despite Olivia practically falling over herself exclaiming how beautiful the ones she could see were. Barnt hadn’t liked it when she’d had to pull up her robes, either, when it came time for the tattoo at her waist. Olivia had asked him if he’d act that way with one of his legion comrades, which had settled him down—he just imagined he was going to war with her.
“I love them, Barnt. Shall we see if they work?”
“Work?” he asked, his voice rising into a squeak.
“Oh, relax, they look right. If something goes wrong with the spell, it will be my fault.”
“Spell?” Barnt backed up a foot.
“Watch,” Olivia said, building the pattern for her new defensive spell in her pathways; she’d practiced it a hundred times while Barnt was doing his work. Once it pulsed in completion, she channeled a braid of her four elemental affinities into it. The finished spell rushed through her pathways and out through her new tattoos, causing them to flare with the Energy’s passage.
As it flowed out, the Energy spread around Olivia’s body, snapping into a shimmering bubble which seemed to reverberate and shake for a moment as it flickered through a rainbow of colors before it subsided, falling transparently to her flesh.
***Congratulations! You have learned the spell: Chromatic Personal Barrier—Advanced.***
***Chromatic Personal Barrier—Advanced: Prerequisite: Four or more elemental affinities. You channel a barrier of elementally-attuned Energies which is maintained by a static runic structure and fueled by the Energies in your Core. This barrier will stop various types of damage, defined by the runic structure and dependent upon your Energy reserves. Energy cost: Varied. Passive maintenance: 5 Energy per second. Cooldown: Minimal.***
“Five per second—” Olivia started, but Barnt cut her off.
“Wha’ was tha’?” His eyes bulged out. “Did my tatts do that?”
“Well, you certainly got them right, but no, it’s the design combined with my spell. Thank you so much, Barnt!”
Olivia offered the dazed man a handful of quad-attuned beads she’d made, usually in the hours before bed each night when she would normally have read to fall asleep. She found the process almost as relaxing and much more rewarding—her beads had a value among the populace that greatly exceeded the standard System Stone rate. “Will this cover it? They’re quad-attuned.”
“Oh?” Barnt held one of the beads up to the light and marveled at the interplay of the different elements for a moment. “Yes, ma’am, they’ll be quite enough. I’d have done it for free if I knew I’d be part of such a work of amazing magic!”
“Oh, really?” Olivia pulled back her hand with the beads and giggled when he stammered for a response. “Just kidding! Here.” She poured them into his big palm. “Listen, Barnt. I have a lot more to do, so I’m going to head back to the academy. I’ll always remember how you dropped everything to help me.”
“My pleasure, Miss. Thanks for the conversations we had. I feel like I got as much out of this as you did.” Barnt moved to the door of his little apartment studio. He didn’t have an official business, but it was clear he had clients on the academy grounds. Half his apartment was filled with objects having to do with his craft—a custom-built reclining wooden chair, a stool, a desk for his ink mixing, and even a little alchemy set. When Olivia had asked about the latter, he’d said he was dabbling with making his own inks.
“See you around, Barnt,” Olivia said, smiling as she passed through his open door, ducking beneath his arm as he held it from closing.
She strode purposefully back toward the academy. It was early evening, and people were still about; she was sure she could go back to her dorm and find her cohort there, waiting and worrying and ready to read her the riot act for disappearing on her own all day.
They’d have to wait, though. Olivia felt like she was up against a clock, and there was more for her to learn. She felt better walking around with her new defense, but she needed more utility. Thinking of her spell, she thought back to the description—five Energy per second.
“So three hundred a minute.” Olivia pulled up her attributes as she walked up the main road toward the academy.
Energy Affinity: 9.1, Fire 9.6, Earth 9.6, Water 9.6, Air 9.6 Energy: 10,322/11,070
Strength: 20 Vitality: 72
Dexterity: 50 Agility: 20
Intelligence: 206 Will: 192
“So with zero regeneration, I could keep this shield active for nearly forty minutes …” She mulled things over, looking at her Energy attribute several more times as she walked. It became clear that she was losing Energy much more slowly than three hundred a minute. Less than half that, it seemed. She figured she could keep the spell ready for nearly two hours if she didn’t mind draining herself.
The more she thought about it, the more Olivia figured it would be a clever idea to create a mana battery of sorts which she could wear or carry attached to a weapon or staff to fuel her shield. “In fact, I could create a recharging mana battery!”
She smiled at the student who looked at her with wide eyes, perhaps not used to crown-wearing, tall, slightly shimmering humans striding around talking to themselves.
Olivia walked right past the stairs which would take her to her dorm, continuing on directly to the library. She had plans to dig through the stacks for some more spells before figuring out her next step. She hoped that, with a little luck, she might find a spell which would help her with that. More than anything, she hoped to figure out a way to set a trap for the killer. Obviously, he had an interest in her—she just had to think of the best way to use that.
“Olivia!” Professor Oylla-dak called sharply, jerking Olivia out of her thoughts and startling her back to the present. She’d walked, without paying attention, into the library and had already begun to steer herself toward the rear stacks, nearly brushing past Oylla, Carlu, and another professor she didn’t know.
“Oh! Oh, Professor, you startled me!” Olivia said, stopping and turning toward the trio.
“You shouldn’t be startled! You should have been quietly resting in the library when I came to talk to you! I’m afraid that wasn’t the case, though, was it? You’ve been gone for hours, and we’ve been scouring the campus looking for you!”
“I’m sorry, Professor, I had to get something done at the market—”
“I’m sorry, Olivia, but this simply illustrates that I can’t deal with you on campus at the moment. It’s too dangerous, and it’s too difficult to treat you with dignity and still maintain control of all the variables!” Oylla shook her two hands around her head as though to illustrate how many things she had going on in there.
“What are you saying, Professor?” Olivia asked.
“I’m saying that you’ll need to go home for a while … until this killer is apprehended.”
“I’d like to be a part of your investigations, not sent packing!” Olivia exclaimed, her lackadaisical demeanor suddenly stripped away as her anger and frustration surged forth out of the corner where she’d pressed those feelings down.
