The rest of the flight across the o is uful, without a siack from any of the dangerous sea creatures known to inhabit the waters below. After a couple of hours, Emily opens her eyes in the engine room to a welessage.
ˉˉˉˉˉ
Quest pleted: Traitor’s Escape
[Traitor’s Escape]
[Rank:] C
[Description:] You ended a noble family alone, now you must survive the sequences.
Requirements:
-Leave the try alive (plete)
-Leave the try without killing any of your pursuers (plete) {Optional}
Rewards:
-Spell: Blink
-Meiowledge: Basiputer Systems
-{Quest: Path of the Righteous}
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
[Path of the Righteous]
[Rank:] B
[Description:] Crimes were itted against you, and you retaliated only to end up forced to flee your birth try. Were yed? Were you in the right? Who cares! The strong decide the truth!
Requirements:
-Return to the Modo Kingdom after reag the fourth circle (Not plete)
-Get publicly pardoned of your crimes (Not plete)
-Publicly expose the Mandrago family for their crimes (Not plete)
Rewards:
-Low Grade Lightning Essence
_____
The familiar cold flood of information from a new knowledge enters her cortex, and Emily barely even processes the words floating on the s before her eyes as the knowledge pletely shatters her perspective of meics.
I’ve barely even scratched the surface. I’m so behind for a third circle meic!
The knowledge doesn’t give her any crete blueprints to work with, however, it holds vital information ohing from transistors and logic gates to the basics of binary logid digital information processing, giving Emily a solid base to work from.
“No wohe universal transmitter seems like a half-pleted blueprint,” she mutters to herself, raising a hand to rub her brow. “I’ll o create a powerful linked puter system to trol it.”
Emily goes to dismiss the quest notifications and pull up her blueprints to get to work processing and utilising her profound new knowledge, but she pauses and reins in her excitement before dismissing the s.
Iing this new knowledge is going to take me a long time. Eveing the most basic chip systems will take a lot of material experimentation and new maery. I should process my gains and neroperly first.
She takes a deep breath and narrows her focus on the new quest she earned, sing through it.
“B grade?” she mutters, bitihumb and narrowing her eyes at the requirements. “Wait till I’m fourth circle then expose the Mandragos? This quest puts a lot of importany public image, but does that really matter?”
The reward offered below sparks her curiosity, quickly drawitention away from the requirements.
Lightning essence? What’s that? Is it an item? I don’t think the system has ever given me a physical reward before so maybe not.
Emily dismisses the quest window with more questions than before. She opens her Spellbook , quickly log blink and opening it to read the details, her excitement building again as she already has an inkling of what it will do from the magic circle itself that was carved into her mind along with the new knowledge.
ˉˉˉˉˉ
[Blink]
[Circle:] Third
[Cost:] 2400 Mana/cast
[Description:] Transports the caster to a random point within teres of the cast.
_____
“Yes!” she shouts in momentary glee, her eyes lighting up as she ss the words on the s. “Full-body teleportation! I finally have some real space magic to sink my teeth into.”
Emily siders testing the spell immediately but quickly dismisses it, choosing to wait till she has an open, stable space to perform her tests, or she uands the spell’s built-in safeguards better. A knock at the door draws her attention, and she looks up to see Podrick peeking into the room.
“Anton has requested your advi the bridge,” he decres, staring at Emily expetly.
“Okay,” she agrees with a nod, getting up and stepping past him into the corridor, heading straight to the ship’s and room.
He probably has no clue where to go now that we’re in New Denntimo.
She walks into the bridge and gnces out of the window, seeing more rolli spreading out before them, the golden sands lit in bzing e hues by the sun sinking low on the horizon.
“Hey, Emily,” Antos cheerfully, turning in his chair to face her. “We’ve successfully crossed the sea, but where should we be heading now? Surely, we’ll ister the ship or something. Right? It ’t be this easy to cross the border.”
“You will definitely ister this ship somehow, but I don’t think we’ll o worry about that for now. So, you head straight for the capital,” Emily responds. “It’s not that far from us, we should be able to make it there within a day. Hopefully, they’ll have a shipyard we borrow for a bit.”
“Are you sure? Won’t it be a problem if we arrive unmarked?”
“Yes. There’s no way they don’t have outposts guarding their bainst invading mages, and I’m betting they’ll send a ship to intercept us the sed they notice me, so we won’t make it to the capital unnoticed.”
“Okay.” Anton nods. “Do you have a map, or do you already know the correct heading to the capital?”
“I’ll draw you a map quickly.”
Emily pulls some paper from her belt and quickly sketches Dennari from the map in her notes, adding the details of their current position, New Denntimo’s capital, Liberte, and a few outpost cities. She hands the finished map to Anton, leaving it to him, Ange, and Tony to work out their heading as she turns to head back to the engine room.
Podrick tries to follow her, but Emily stops him as they step out into the hallway.
“Wait here,” she instructs him, watg as his back straightens aands at attention. “I want you to e get me when another ship approaches us.”
“Got it!” he responds with an eager nod before turning around and stepping bato the bridge.
Emily returns to the engine room alone again and drops down before the ship’s beati with her legs crossed and her hands id gently in her p. She shuts her eyes and delves into the Spellweave, beginning the process of pulling apart blink’s magic circle to note down all the runes f it, adding to her colle while trying to further uand the intricacies of the delicately woven spell.
***
Calypso peacefully flies innd and, as the evening light fades and the sun finally dips below the horizon, Podries running through the ship to call on Emily again.
“They’re here!” he shouts, bursting through the door with frantiergy, boung in pce as he hurries to report. “A ship is heading straight for us and fshing lights!”
Emily’s eyes snap open, and a subdued smile curls the er of her lips.
“Good job,” she says, rising on the spot as she unfurls her legs.
They head to the bridge, and the moment they enter, Emily pauses as her eyes are drawn to the approag ship. It’s cutting through the air a few hundred metres ahead of them with its sleek, dark-grey hull illuminated by thin lines of glowing white running along its body, the froion blinking in a slow, downward wave.
Curious. What are those? They don’t seem like ented engravings, they’re far tht for that.
Her gaze traces the well-lit ship, spotting several gun barrels and a few silvery-white metal rods poking out in several pces, aowards the front. She looks above and he small differen the shape of the ship’s balloon from what she’s used to. It’s slightly rger towards the front, with a slick metallic sheen curling around the entire front half and several rge, faint ruched onto its surface, barely visible if it weren’t for Emily’s vastly improved eyesight.
“What should we do?” Ange calls, notig Emily standing quietly in the doorway.
“It looks like they want us to nd, so go ahead,” Emily responds with a shrug. “We’ll go along with whatever they want for now. We’re not criminals here, so there shouldn’t be any problems.”
Her fidence calms the flight crew’s nerves, and Anton sends Podrick out to gather the few scattered members of the crew w elsewhere as Emily leaves the room. She heads for the droch, dropping it open and stepping out in a practised routine, ing her legs in air walk and moving to sit above the bridge.
I might as well make sure my capabilities are clear.
She dismisses her spell ales down as she waits for Calypso to lower to the ground. The other ship arrives directly before them, dropping down in sync with them towards a ft gap between twe dunes. Emily takes the time as they float to the ground to take in the opposing ship’s design with i, probing it with her magical senses and feeling several entments woven into it.
They seem a lot more liberal with their use of ented items. I ’t wait to see what they’ve transformed the capital into.
The two ships set down, sending out shuddering vibrations that shake the nearby dunes, and both drop extendis of stairs so their crews meet. Emily pushes herself up and weaves a spell inside her circles, juring a powerful gust of wind to slowly lower herself to the ground as she steps off the side of the ship.
She nds as Anton and Aep off the stairs onto the sand. Aops at the bottom, and Anton keeps walking alone, catg up to Emily so they both walk towards the gap between their ships together.
“Just you?” Emily asks.
“I’ll signal A them all down if they’re needed,” Anton responds without looking at her, his eyes locked on the four people desding the steps of the other ship.
Emily silently nods, iing the people before them as well, feeling fical signatures of varying strengths from them. All four of them are wearing robust-looking blue uniforms with silver pting over their vitals, simir to Emily’s body armour but less fitted. They have silver runes woven into the blue fabric of their jackets, but there are no visible runes on the silver ptes even though Emily feel the same entments spreading to them.
The two following have matg, closely fitted trousers and long-sleeved jackets with an emblem embzoned on their right biceps showing a blue droplet in the tre with a single white liically biseg it. However, the man and woman leading them have slightly different emblems and uniforms. The man still has the same trousers, but his jacket has short sleeves that show off his deattooed arms, and his emblem has a sed line horizontally cutting through the droplet. Oher hand, instead of trousers, the woman wears a long, pleated blue skirt down to her ankles, covered in hard-to-see, blue embroidered runes. Her emblem includes a third line going diagonally through the tre.
Emily’s eyes s the man’s tattoos as she and Anton e to a halt, waiting for the group to approach them. She spots several obvious runes along with several that the tattooist tried to hide withiwistiric shapes c the man’s arms in imposing patterns.
They look like ented tattoos, but I think they’ve ble with normal tattoos to stop people deciphering it easily… clever.
The two people in matg uniforms stop and stand to attention oher side of the stairs as the two with mismatched uniforms tihe st few metres to meet Emily and Anton uhe light being projected by their ship.
Looks like they’re soldiers.
The two leading soldiers halt in front of them, standing straight and staring directly into their eyes. The woman, who has long, frizzy hazel hair and deep, sunken bags beh her eyes, stands opposite Emily, while the man, who has short-cropped bck fluff c his head along with soft blue eyes in trast to his imposing tattoos, faces Anton.
“I’m third circle, Colette B, captain of the NDDF’s eighteenth squadron and this is my vice-captain, sed circle, Louis Mo,” Colette greets, pg her open hand against her heart and bowing her head lightly before standing back at attention with her tired eyes fixed on Emily. “I assume you are the captain of this vessel?”
“No, that would be him,” Emily says, gesturing towards Anton with her thumb before crossing her right hand across her chest in a fist and her left behind her back, dipping her head in a small bow. “I’m Emily Coldstohird circle, and a travelling mage.”
“I’m Antht, captain of Calypso,” Anton says, gng unfortably between the different greetings unsure of what to do.
“I see,” Colette says, narrowing her eyes for a moment. “ I assume this means your purpose for entering our try is different from that of this ship then?”
“Yes.” Emily nods calmly. “They’re here looking to trade, and I’m here to escape Modo while I develop my magic.”
Colette nods in uanding. A cautious glint fshes through her eyes at the mention of Emily fleeing the try, but she masks her rea and turns to Anton with a small, polite smile.
“We wele friendly traders, especially those bringing their own ships. Please gather your crew and follow the instrus of my vice-captain here,” she says, gng at Louis and giving him a sile of instrus with a few subtle haures that Anto even notice, though Emily watches her hands with intrigue. “After a brief questioning about the circumstances of your trip here, he’ll get yistered and direct you towards the Mert’s Association so you inform yourself about the trading rules here.”
Anton g Emily for firmation, then follows Colette’s instrus and signals fe t the crew over. Louis turns to give a set of instrus to the soldiers waiting by their ship with more haures befuiding Anton off to the side, leaving Emily and Colette alone.
Colette reaches into the folds of her skirt, her hand seeming to vanish into the fabric before she draws it back out with a notepad in hand.
Her skirt’s a spatial item? Why are the runes blue? Is it somehoatial item using a water-based entment? Or have they found a way to dye embroidered runes? It would expin the silver runes on their uniforms too. I doubt they are usial-based entments on all of them, and they’re definitely active right now.
“Right, Miss Coldstone,” Colette says, snapping Emily out of her thoughts. “I don’t have the power to make any decisions here myself, but I assure you that as long as you’re not w for Denros, you’ll be weled here with open arms. So, do you mind if I ask you some questions?”
KeroKeron
