Jonit opened his eyes to the sounds of birdsong. It was bright outside. He was lying on his side and his vision was partially obscured by cinnamon smelling reddish brown hair. It appears the bed was a bit too small for the both of them. He hadn’t experienced physical intercourse in a long time. When he was asleep in the Dreamscape there was definitely sex, but even when it was with other real people as opposed to pornography programs, it felt very flowery, sparkling, and light like cotton candy. It was all very “perfect”. The previous night in contrast was more sloppy, physical, and pungent. Even now he could smell it in the air, the smell of sweat, skin, saliva and other stronger scents. It somehow felt more grounded; the clumsiness of it gave it depth. He could feel Leyna’s soft smaller form in his embrace, but also her elbow slightly jabbing into his ribs, and her head cutting off sensation to his upper arm. He leaned in and kissed her on her exposed right shoulder and then her neck. She stirred.
“Why is it so bright?” She murmured.
He blinked his eyes a bit. It was pretty bright. Maybe a little too bright.
She pulled the covers over to cover face. “What time is it?” She asked.
Jonit sat up and squinted around the room. On the desk was a clock with the numbers 0908 on it.
“I think, around nine?” He responded.
“Nine?” She asked, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. She squinted and looked around the room before seeing the clock. “Oh dear it’s already 0900, did I miss the morning crackle?”
At his perplexed expression she said, “The sky crackles three times a day, you saw two of them I believe yesterday? It’s supposed to crackle at 0730 each morning.” As she said this, there was a hearty knock on the door of the room.
“Good morning, Jonit!” came Sarith’s voice. “I just wanted to let you know breakfast is ready… despite recent events.”
“Thanks for letting me know!” Jonit said as Leyna snuck out of bed, briefly flashing him as she bent over to pick up her previously discarded night slip and throw it over her head. Then he asked. “Recent events?”
“Yes… well, I’m not sure you would understand being a Journeyman, but something’s up with the sky.” she then added in a rather snide tone. “I’m sure Leyna would be glad to explain it to you.”
“I’ll see you both downstairs!” Sarith shouted as she began moving down the hall, “The kids are already halfway through breakfast, you should hurry up.”
“Well.” Leyna said, turning back to him. She looked gorgeous. “I’ve gotta go change, meet you down there?”
“Absolutely.” Jonit replied. He got out of bed and gave her a light kiss on the cheek. Caught by surprise, she blushed lightly and her eyes lit up. She gave him a quick smile before hurrying out the door.
***
The sky was a glaring gray-white as if lit up by a massive fluorescent light. There were scattered clouds floating across, but Jonit had a hard time looking at it for long. There was a nagging feeling something else was different and he was about to pull up his video-log to cross reference when…
“The blue lines are missing.” Paern piped up. He was squinting at the sky with his blue eyes.
“Huh, you’re right. The blue hexes are gone.” Leyna said, squinting at the sky as well. At that moment, Jonnit couldn’t help but think to himself that they definitely were mother and child. “Actually there’s almost no blue at all in the sky.”
They were making their way to the shipyard, just the three of them, in search of Lerot. They had originally planned to stop by the enforcer’s station but the enforcers appeared to be much too busy with the amount of questions and accidents involving the sky and the officers from the previous night were nowhere to be found. The stone paved streets were busy, but not as much as the day before. The town did not appear as vibrant either. There was an air of disorganization and unease as people started the day late and haphazardly. To them, something they had lived with their whole lives was now missing and it made them nervous. Although some of the denizens, mostly the younger ones, found it curious and exciting. They almost collided with a few other pedestrians because people couldn’t help but look up to stare slack-jawed at the sky every now and again.
They entered a different part of town, this one felt more industrious with much wider roads, larger buildings, and various locomotives moving up and down the lanes. There appeared to have been an accident involving a large truck, most likely a combination of a late delivery being rushed and inattentiveness of the other driver. Luckily Leyna knew another way around so they were able to move past without much trouble. Jonit glanced back to look at the enforcers and helpers as they lifted the truck to an upright position using magic. A team of people dressed in red with white heart logos were helping the injured parties.
Suddenly there was a massive rumbling overhead, like the air was vibrating. A large shadow cast itself over them causing Jonit to look up. There was what appeared to be a large steel ship attached to an orange balloon flying over them. It was about the size of the inn they had stayed at the night previously.
“Look mum! An airship!” Paern craned his head upward as the ship moved past them. “What do you think they’re here for?”
There was a whooshing sound as its engines fired up, shooting flames out the sides. The ship turned, pointing its nose in the direction they were headed and moved off toward the sea.
“It looked like a smaller one.” Leyna said, following it with her gaze as it moved farther away. “Most likely a survey ship. Maybe they’re trying to see if something’s happened along the Edges.”
They continued down the street picking up various conversations and theories from other passersby. Maybe the plane they were in had a ceiling “Edge” too that was shrinking or expanding. Others said they were being invaded by off-planers or perhaps the White Tower (the structure not the country) had something to do with this. At this point they were moving down a rather steep part of the street and could see many boats and ships moving in and out of an open docking area. Some were getting moved onto dockyard platforms for maintenance. Smaller ones were simply lifted by magic whereas larger ones required pulleys.
As they entered the shipyard, they walked past many workers carrying oversized stacks of steel or lumber. Leyna pulled Paern close to her for safety. Other workers were using machines to measure and cut the construction materials into organized stacks. Those were then moved onto various boats and vehicles to be sent to the proper drydocks. They entered a small office near the main shipyard where materials for construction were being unloaded. A rather muscular, steely eyed man with red hair peppered with gray was smoking a pipe and poring over various spreadsheets through a pair of wire rimmed glasses.
“Visitors aren’t allowed–” He looked up at them, whisking off his wire rimmed glasses before his bearded face cracked into a wide grin. “LEYNA! How are you doing, dear girl?”
“I’m doing quite well, Rourke. How are you?”
“You haven’t come by in at least half a tricycle at this point! How’s it been since you started that Mite business in Range Central?”
“Well you know me, I’ve been quite busy with this and that.” Leyna responded with a bit of an embarrassed smile.
“Oh I’m sure you have.” He gave Jonit a look before asking. “And who’s this here? That’s quite the outfit you have there.”
“Hello, my name is Jonit, I’m new here. A Journeyman I believe you call it?” Jonit reached out his hand for a handshake.
“Well glad to meet you, Jonit.” He reached out a large hairy arm and gave him a firm shake. “I’m Rourke Wittelston, I’m head shipwright around these parts.”
Rourke looked down at Paern, “And what about you young man? Helping your mum out?”
“Yes sir.” responded Paern standing up straight.
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“I knew your mum from when she was around your age. You be good to her you hear? Don’t be making trouble for her.”
“Yes sir.” came the response again.
“There’s a good kid!” Rourke shifted his attention back to Leyna. “So what brings you in today of all days? We’re rather busy since half the workers arrived late. Just because the sky didn’t buzz! That’s no excuse I say! I wake up at 0700 on the dot everyday, crackle or no crackle!”
“Well actually we were looking for Lerot. We were hoping to learn something from him that might help out Jonit here.” Leyna said. “We heard he was meeting with you yesterday?”
The head shipwright rubbed his hairy chin. “Why yes he was here just now, in fact! Quite an eccentric fellow isn’t he? He wanted to go see the Edge. He kept saying ‘new occurrences mean new opportunities’!”
“He may have taken his boat out already, but let me check.” Rourke reached over his desk and picked up a wired device, dialing numbers into it. Jonit thought it appeared to be a rudimentary communication device. “Lilia? Is Lerot still around?”
A woman’s voice crackled on from the speaker. “Lerot? Yes, but he’s getting ready to take off. Says he can’t wait.”
“Tell him Leyna wants to speak with him, something about a Journeyman?”
The device went quiet for a bit before: “...jo-neyman?! Why didn’t you say so, my dear? Hello! HALLO?” Lerot’s voice came on over the speaker.
Leyna responded. “Lerot? It’s me, I’ve got Jonit here with me. We had some questions for you?”
“Well what are you doing up there then? COME on down! We’re on dock… What dock are we on? … DOCK 004! I repeat ZERO ZERO FOUR! Quickly now, don’t dilly dally!” And with that there was a click and a dead tone.
“Do you need me to show you there?” Rourke asked with an amused expression on his face.
“If it isn’t too much trouble.” replied Leyna.
“Nonsense”, he said with a wave of his hand. He got up from his chair, towering over them. He grabbed his cap from a coat hanger nearby and, with a gesture, led them out the door.
***
Lerot’s boat, the Antelarke, was less of a boat and more of a small ship. It was a sleek gray vessel that looked to be around 30 meters in length and was run by a crew of five. It was explained to Jonit that the technology was Ironcast so it ran largely on power cells rather than magic. Its controls and components enabled it to run with minimal magic involvement so his crew did not need to be as large, however, it required much more maintenance so it often spent a lot of time in the dockyard for servicing. The crew themselves, due to being relatively small, had to have many specialized abilities and so were all very capable in various things. Each one was adept at both steel manipulation magic and fluid manipulation magic, both very opposite spectrums of manipulation, as well as technical knowledge on the inner workings of the ship.
“Journeyman, you wouldn’t happen to know anything about what’s causing this phenomenon would you?” Lerot asked as he peered through a pair of binoculars into the horizon.
“I did not even realize there was anything wrong with the sky until someone told me.” replied Jonit.
Jonit, Leyna, Paern, and Lerot were standing at the helm of the boat as it sped over the unusually calm seas toward one of the Edges. The vessel made a foamy ripple behind, but the water otherwise was still enough and clear enough to occasionally catch glimpses of fish under the surface. There was a warm breeze blowing at them from the direction they were headed. One of the crew was navigating the ship behind them while another steered. The other three were below deck, though occasionally one would surface to attend to something or other.
“Bah well nevermind that then.” Lerot said. “I’ve got a bit of an inkling though. A flash of inspiration I guess you’d say. See this morning during breakfast I was pondering this conundrum when I remembered a certain detail a friend of mine told me about when he was studying the Edges.”
He pulled down the binoculars for a second and squinted. Then raised them again, muttering to himself.
“Well don’t keep us all in suspense, what did you remember?” asked Leyna.
“Well you see, the color of the Edge is actually blue.” He looked at them and gestured with his right hand. “Y’know the border where we can’t cross. It expands and shrinks, but it’s like a wall of blue. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to the Edge before; you don’t really want to touch it because it can burn your skin right off… and…well
“But anyways, so it made me think. Why is the sky so bright now? It was blue before!” Lerot raised his eyebrows expressively. “Perhaps the sky was only blue because of the Edge! Perhaps the Edge is not just around the sides of our world, but creates a sort of dome over it too. Eureka! The Edge has disappeared! At least those are my thoughts on the matter anyways.”
Jonit remarked, “Why can’t you just trace the wall up in an airship and see if it makes a dome?”
“Well, our ships can’t go that high you see? At a certain point the air grows thin and we can't go up any further.”
“I mean it makes sense sort of,” said Leyna. “But it still feels like a bit of a stretch doesn’t it?”
Their navigator, a slim muscular dark skinned man with kindly hazel eyes, named Hatch joined in, “He’s right about as much of the time as he’s wrong. So 50/50, I guess we can’t really rule it out then, eh?”
“I guess we’ll see when we get there.” replied Leyna. “Have you ever been to the Edge before?”
“Yes but, there’s not much to see. I wouldn’t call it quite blue either, I think it looks more like a purple. Certainly not the color of the sky.” He looked back down to the map and marked something. “Sometimes you see a shadow or two shifting past it, but can’t really tell what they are.”
“YES! It looks purple in person, that’s why no one’s ever figured it out!” Lerot exclaimed. “You see near the bottom of the barrier, the color mixes with whatever clouds or shadows are behind it making it purple, but above it’s a primarily white light so it appears blue when filtered through the Edge barrier.”
“Oi cap, we got an airship comin’ in port-side.” The steersman suddenly announced. His name was Worther, and he was a bald man with long lanky arms and a crab tattoo on his left shoulder. “Looks like they’re flagging us for something.”
An airship appeared from the distance to their left. The ship had an orange colored balloon above it approximately the size of the Antelarke. The main part of the ship, however, was only about two-thirds that size and appeared to be made of reinforced wood with two engines on either side. The side of the balloon was emblazoned with a worn logo of black concentric semicircles with sun rays coming out of the right side. Next to it was the word “Survey”.
“Bah! Keep going, they’re Exploration. It’s a survey ship, they can’t do anything to stop us.” Lerot barked out.
As the ship got closer, Jonit could see it had what appeared to be a long range artillery weapon mounted on the front with various harpoons along the sides. Ropes and sacks (full of supplies?) dangled off the sides and bottom of the ship. The radio crackled on.
“...anger… da-ger… not proceed to the Edge. Do not approach the orange mist. I repeat: Danger, Danger do not proceed to the Edge. Do not approach the orange mist.”
“I’m opening coms” said the navigator, flicking a switch on the communicator. “This is the –”
“This is the Antelarke’s captain speaking! What in the blazes are you on about?” interjected Lerot.
There was a bit of a pause from the other side, then: “This is Survey Ship Paela’s Captain Henlon speaking.” came a female voice. “We strongly advise you change course.”
“Captain Henlon, this is Captain Lerot Wellington, might I ask why we should change course?”
“There appears to be some sort of orange mist leaking in from the Edge. We have already lost three airships to it, we strongly advise you turn back.”
“What orange mi-”
“Oi cap.” the helmsman interjected again, “There's something approaching us head on. Should I slow down?”
Lerot whipped out his binocular sand peered into them. “I see it, I see it. Hmph… well I suppose we ought to. At least until we figure out what this is.” He gestured to the helmsman. “Shut the engines down.”
“So what exactly is this orange mist?” asked Hatch. “What’s wrong with it?”
The radio sputtered on, “Our first report was at around 0400 this morning when one of the night crew reported the Edge appeared to have disappeared. It was like night had suddenly flicked a switch and turned to day.
“We were part of the dawn crew but it was already bright when we woke up. We read the report and headed out to investigate. Us and another dawn crew ship. The night crew had since gone silent. When we approached the border we found a thick orange mist pouring in several kilometers from the previously measured Edge.”
“So this means the mist has been moving pretty fast inward,” said Hatch.
Captain Henlon continued, “There was no trace of the night crew so the other ship decided to venture into the mist a bit to see what it was. Everything seemed ok until we started losing radio contact with them. And then we heard screaming and… sounds over the radio. We’re not sure what happened but we didn’t see that ship again.”
“Couldn’t you scan their magic signatures?” Lerot asked.
“Now the orange mist is… very strange. It seems to radiate constant energy-signatures that interfere with magic detection.”
They could now see an encroaching wall of orange approaching rapidly about 10 kilometers away with their naked eyes.
Henlon said. “Exploration is currently calling all survey vessels in the area to form a blockade until Military comes and figures out what’s happening.”
“That’s going to take a while. Most Military vessels, at least the airships, are still in an airbase near the capital.” Lerot said. “That’s going to take a week at least.”
“We have to work with what we have, so we advise you turn back now” came the response, “We can’t really make you, but please understand it’s probably in your best interest.”
“I can feel it.” Worther said, “Somethin’s heavy in the air.” He put his hands on the steering wheel. “We turnin’ back cap?”
“Alright fine, let’s get out of here.” said Lerot. “Starboard turn, relay it down to the others.” The ship started up again and began turning to the right.
“We’re going to go back to patrol. Please relay the message to any other vessel you might meet. We can’t reach everyone, and it would help out greatly.” The airship began firing up its engine. “Best of luck. Captain Henlon, ou–”
Suddenly there was a whooshing noise. Jonit turned just in time to glimpse something crashing into the side of the airship knocking it into a tailspin.