The Cloud Roost (Jekua Book 5), page 1
The Cloud Roost
Travis M. Riddle
Copyright © 2024 by Travis M. Riddle
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover illustration by Baj Singh.
Cover design by Deranged Doctor Design.
Bestiary illustrations by Tom Parker.
Also by Travis M. Riddle
JEKUA
On Lavender Tides
A Fracture in the Qwisdeep
Makanuele Rumble
Whispers from the Poisoned Isle
HOUNDSTOOTH
Flesh Eater
Mother Pig
Dirt King
USTLIAN TALES
Balam, Spring
Spit and Song
STANDALONES
Wondrous
The Narrows
For Piplup
Previously, in Whispers from the Poisoned Isle…
Yuluhu is an island plagued by a disease known as strihova. It affects everyone in different ways, but almost always leaves a mark. Some sort of physical deformity. In the worst cases, internal organs are affected as well.
Makénu was born and raised on Yuluhu, succumbing to the strihova outbreak many years ago, along with his husband Adam. Unfortunately, Adam died several years prior due to his illness, leaving Makénu behind to pick up the pieces. Part of that entailed joining a group known as the Facet, led by an enigmatic woman named Madelaine Bloom, whose intention is to use the Volukho Isles’ Veptilos to somehow forge a connection to the Vept and gain heretofore untapped power. Makénu hopes that power might be used to figure out a cure for strihova, but he suspects Madelaine might have other motives.
Meanwhile, Balt and the others have made their way to Yuluhu, following a trail left for them deep in the Lakahlo Labs servers. They are joined by Alani’s childhood friend, the tech-savvy Aeiko, as well as the coral golem Brine they are looking after for work. Supposedly someone is making use of the abandoned lab on the other side of the island, and they intend to go there to find out what is happening and how it might (or might not) be connected to the incident on Pakree Island eight years earlier that took Balt’s grandparents from him. Alani is still suffering from the soultear, a perpetual leak in her mana that threatens to throw her into soulsickness.
Right off the bat, they are attacked by a massive, malformed version of a Waillaby. The Jekua wreaks havoc on the seaside town, and it is only vanquished when the group is able to lure it near the coast, where it is snatched by a tentacled Jenu named Oroptu that calls the Yuluhu coast its home. As a townsperson explains to them after the scuffle, Oroptu is somehow able to sense when there is a disturbance near the island’s shores and always uses its Warp magic to teleport there and take care of it.
As the group makes their way across the island, they brainstorm ways in which to combat the Facet and their durable crystalline Jekuas. Balt and Niona figure out a solid method, which involves him caking the crystal Jekuas in mud using his Mudlad, Prince, followed by Niona using her Gantagora to rapidly heat the mud until the crystal combusts. They practice this technique over and over on rocks and crystal spires as they travel.
Meanwhile, Makénu and the Facet continue their experiments with the Veptilos they’ve stolen from Qwi and Na Tana. As it turns out, one such experiment went terribly wrong in the recent past, resulting in an explosion of crystals much like what happened to Pakree Island. Makénu and Adam’s ten-year-old son, Tano, was present for the experiment, and he was entirely encased in crystal. Now Makénu has even more motivation to access the Vept’s power: it might be the only thing that can save his son.
Eventually, Aeiko succeeds in crafting a makeshift solution for Alani’s mana leak. Using schematics based on the device that powers Brine, she is able to make something dubbed a soulstitcher that can attach to Alani and absorb mana into her body at a pace faster than she loses it. With this new piece of tech, she might just be okay.
While Alani’s problem is solved—for now—she wasn’t the only one who suffered at the hands of the Facet during the Rumble’s closing ceremony. Niona was injured in the fight, and the memory card holding her most precious Jekua, her Toolu named Pops, was damaged. She visits numerous Jekua shops throughout their travels, but no one is able to help her. She’s just about to give up when finally a clever person is able to salvage Pops’s memory card, flooding Niona with relief. She’s got her buddy back.
At the island’s Veptilo, Alani has a much different experience when performing her ritual than before. For some reason, she is able to feel that she is absorbing mana from the Veptilo itself. She realizes this was probably always the case, but now with the soulstitcher’s aid, she is able to feel it much more distinctly since she’s absorbing way more than is natural and at a faster pace. She also notices that, ever so slightly, the crystal is shrinking when she absorbs its mana.
Their journey takes them through an abandoned theme park, in which they encounter a lethal Jekua known as a Lightbloom Raptor. After an intense battle, Balt’s mana levels are too low to imprint the beast, but Niona grabs a copy for herself.
Soon after, they reach the Lakahlo facility that they suspect the Facet is using as a secret base of operations. They infiltrate the lab, beating down Facet Summoners whenever necessary with the mud + fire combo that Balt and Niona worked out. It ends up being more successful than they ever imagined; what they learn is that Facet Summoners have a much stronger connection to their soulclay, and obliterating their Jekuas in such a way causes them to lose consciousness.
In the lab, they stumble upon the room where the Facet’s previous experiment failed. They find a young boy trapped in crystal, and Alani decides to attempt saving him. She performs the same ritual she does when faced with a Veptilo, and she finds that she is able to absorb enough mana to completely dissolve the crystal encasing the boy. With her mana leak, she’s able to absorb way more mana than the average person, because she has no natural limit anymore.
The boy is saved, and for him, it is as if no time passed between being frozen and now. He wanders the lab with the group for a moment, but swiftly escapes. He runs back home to his father, Makénu, and they have a tearful reunion. Makénu can’t believe his boy is in his hands again. When Tano tells him that there are strangers in the lab, Makénu ponders whether he should rat on them or not. They did save his son, after all. In the end, he stays loyal to the Facet, and defensive measures are activated.
Back in the lab, the group scours Lakahlo’s servers and find files hidden away on the Yuluhu servers. They find an incident report that describes what exactly happened on Pakree Island. It wasn’t a teleporter malfunction after all, but rather yet another failed experiment by Lakahlo. Technicians were experimenting with creating Artificial Jekuas, and something went wrong, resulting in the crystal explosion that engulfed the entire island. They covered up the accident, blaming the teleporters and the government instead, since they knew the public already blamed them for the strihova outbreak—their company brand could not withstand another PR disaster.
Balt realizes that if that young boy was trapped in crystal and able to be rescued, it reasoned to believe that his grandparents—and many other people on Pakree—might actually still be alive too. He has to try saving them. He has no other choice.
But the Facet launches an attack, and the group makes a daring escape from the facility. Outside, they must square off with the organization’s primary defensive mechanism: a full-sized lighthouse fashioned into a golem intent on destruction. The battle is long and hard, but Balt and Niona are able to bring the lighthouse golem over to the shore, where it is subsequently swallowed into the depths by Oroptu. With the golem out of the way, the group is able to escape the Facet’s clutches. For now.
While waiting in the quarantine hotel to depart for the next island, You Tekkis, Balt decides to call his cousin Wasaaru to tell him what he’s learned about their grandparents. Wasaaru listens with rapt attention, and together they try to figure out how they can help. With all the teleporters decommissioned, it seems hopeless.
Wasaaru has a plan, though. An admittedly insane one, but a plan nonetheless. He reminds Balt of their grandmother’s stories about imprinting the legendary Jenu, Sawarestao, in the mountains of Kou Tekkis. Sawarestao, like every other Jenu, possesses Warp magic. With that power, they can teleport to Pakree and save their grandparents.
Balt tells his cousin that his idea is ridiculous, that it’ll never work. Wasaaru doesn’t necessarily disagree.
But it’s the best idea they’ve got.
They figure what the hell do they have to lose? Might as well try to imprint a Jenu.
Contents
1. Laying Out the Bad Idea
2. A Metaphorical Ghost
3. Means or Courage
4. Good for the Soul
5. S.S. Anu
6. Fishes Sneeze
7. Garden
8. Avalanche
9. Hands In Pockets
10. Tales of Bobbols
11. On the Swing
12. Burns
13. Work Lunch
14. Applying Pressure
15. The Plasma Beam
16. Bucket Boys at Low Tide
17. Playing Dress-Up
18. Short and Vague
19. Fun
20. A Yearning for Explosions
21. Change of Plans
22. The Spread
23. The Fifth Veptilo
24. Royal Ascension
25. An Utter Mess
26. Remisti Vana Time
27. The Whorl
28. Dignity
29. A Weshin and its Web
30. Her Stupid Heart
31. Jerk Bird
32. Rot-Wren
33. Falling
34. Sickening Crunch
35. Bastion of Maturity
36. Anything of Value
37. Hobbies
38. Next Year, We’ll Meet Again
39. Adam’s Wheelhouse
40. The Twisting Tree
41. Runaway Train
42. Tired Eyes
43. Some Dipshit Teen
44. Hi
45. A Somewhat Hasty Descent
46. Warp Magic
47. Impossible Dream
48. Thumbs Up
49. A Great Summoner
50. One Final Look
Excerpts from Remisti Vana’s Bestiary
Acknowledgments
About the Author
1
Laying Out the Bad Idea
To be completely honest, Balt didn’t give one iota of a shit about crunchy grains of sand being swept up into his bowl of kolé that he sat eating on the beach. After nearly two full weeks of slurping down slop, he was relishing every glorious bite of real food.
The fish was cubed perfectly, and every piece was tender and delicious. It was tangled in strands of bright green seaweed salad, with sesame seeds (or maybe more sand) stuck to the sides. Sweet and spicy marinade dripped from the little chunks of meat, staining his pants, but he didn’t care about that either. This was his first full meal after leaving Yuluhu Island, and nothing in the world could ruin it. Not even if the Facet flew down onto the shores of Fiqqarestwiq Beach and started blasting them with those insane crystal energy beams.
After completing their quarantine period on Yuluhu earlier that morning, the group rode the gondola over to Ya Fiq on the southern coast of Kou Tekkis Island. It had been a long time since Balt had been to Kou Tekkis, and he had never visited Ya Fiq before. It was a nice town, bigger than Tanepke but not a sprawling cityscape like Himony or Makanuele. A manageable size. He imagined that being thrust into a bustling city would have overwhelmed the senses after being confined to a single room for the past seven days.
As he chowed down on his refreshingly cool bowl of kolé, Balt was already planning what he wanted to eat next. Even before they touched down on the ground, he had been perusing the restaurants closest to the gondola station and had decided he wanted kolé. A fried chicken joint simply called Gus’s looked pretty appealing, but he’d wanted something lighter. That was where Niona had gone. Alani and Aeiko had opted for a place that specialized in fish tacos that was only a few buildings down from the kolé spot. There was also a cute little café nearby that sold ice cream and mekki, and the idea of chomping on those warm, sugary balls of dough made Balt’s mouth water.
While they had all split up to obtain the food they each wanted to be their first meal back in the real world, they got it to-go and met on Fiqqarestwiq Beach to eat together. There were only a couple tables that could accommodate their party (and Brine’s large coral golem body), and those were all occupied, so now they were seated in the sand, sinking into its fine white grains as they ate. A welcome change from the depressing—albeit somewhat beautiful—black sand beaches of Yuluhu. As the four of them sat in a circle, Brine stood sentry nearby. Come to think of it, Balt was unsure if he’d ever seen the coral golem fully sit cross-legged on the ground. Was he capable of such a thing?
There was a noticeable chunk missing from Brine’s upper chest where he’d been damaged in the fight at the abandoned lab last week. The injury didn’t seem to have slowed him down at all, but Balt had no idea if that chunk of coral would grow back or not. He didn’t have a clue how coral worked in general, let alone on a coral golem. Brine had been dismayed at first, but now it appeared as if he’d come to accept what had happened; he stared out at the ocean, as stoic as ever.
Niona was staring at a nearby wooden sign proclaiming the beach’s name and a set of rules its visitors were to follow, tearing the crispy brown skin off a fried chicken leg. She turned to the others and said, “This place’s name is a hell of a mouthful, huh?” The irony was lost on her that she was speaking with a literal mouth full of food.
“I actually looked it up while we were waiting for our food,” said Aeiko. “The name’s derived from an old Volukhan phrase that means something like…what was it exactly…?” They trailed off, holding one of their overstuffed tacos aloft. Bits of purple cabbage spilled out from the strained corn tortilla.
Alani jumped in to help. “‘The Shores of the Swift.’ There’s a folktale about a mythical creature, something that’s a cross between a fish and a rabbit, emerging from the sea at night during a full moon and running across the beach.”
“What for?” Niona asked.
Alani shrugged, turning her head to check if Aeiko had the answer.
“Don’t know,” they said. “Sorry. The page didn’t go into full detail about the story. I assume there must be some sort of moral at the end of it, though. Something to tell the kids before bedtime so they behave.”
“Or maybe not,” said Balt, stabbing another piece of fish with his plastic fork. “Maybe it’s supposed to be creepy and weird. Maybe it’s one of those weird Jekuas that doesn’t exist that people like Yud and Yi obsess over.” He and Alani shared a chuckle, thinking about the ridiculous twin brothers they’d met on Qwi. Niona and Aeiko were lost at the mention of the twins, but they did not seem to care.
Niona let out a deep sigh and said, “I feel guilty about not knowin’ shit like that sometimes.”
“About fake Jekuas?” said Balt.
“No, about our culture,” she said, tapping the end of the chicken leg on her plate, displacing some pieces of fried okra. “My mom was big into that sort of stuff. She choreographed those dances that’re performed at the resort, she knew a bunch of recipes, she spoke a ton of Volukhan…hell, I don’t know if I even know the swear words! How can I not even know the Volukhan swear words, at least?”
Balt laughed. “Hey, I don’t know any swear words either,” he said. He knew that Alani was not super in-tune with their shared heritage, but he wasn’t sure about Aeiko. “Nobody really speaks it anymore anyway, though,” he went on. “Only old people or people who live way out in the middle of nowhere.”
“Yo, take that back! My mom wasn’t old!” Niona barked, feigning offense. She popped a piece of okra into her mouth.
He chuckled, retracting his statement, but was also hit by a pang of sadness. Niona had mentioned before that her mom passed away, but he didn’t know the details, including how young she may have been. They’d been through a lot together, but he still didn’t feel comfortable prying about something so personal.
Niona said, “Ain’t that kinda the point, though? Don’t you think we should be, like, pickin’ up the mantle or whatever? If we don’t learn about this shit, it’ll just die off with the old people.”
The four of them remained silent, taking small bites of their respective foods. Balt didn’t have a rebuttal; in his heart, he knew Niona was right. For whatever reason, though, studying the old Volukhan ways had never really been a high priority for him.
Additionally, her words had brought something else to mind that was worrying him. Speaking of “old people,” he had yet to inform the others of the insane plan he and his cousin Wasaaru had concocted a few days prior, which began with meeting him at his grandparents’ house in Sonosoik, on the northern end of the island.
The insane part was that the plan ended with them imprinting a Jenu, which Balt was still not totally convinced would ever work. His mana reserves were already pretty large, especially for a Summoner as green as him, but he would need to do a lot of training between now and then if he wanted to stand a chance at having enough mana to imprint Sawarestao. A lot of training. Wasaaru had said it’d be a miracle if they could pull it off, and Balt thought even that was putting it lightly. He had considered summoning his Puffolin, Dipper, to stroll around the beach while he ate, but he was too wrapped up in his food to bother.
