Chapter 3 - A Different Kind of Tower
Captain Aedra's PoV
We were in combat, this was a small group of monsters, but they are oddly coordinated. They came here knowingly or by some direction or instinct. After most of the monsters had been taken down a small orange orb seemed to fall from up behind me in the sky. It landed just in front of me and I had enough time to watch it explode.
The wave of heat passed right over the three of us without as much as a singed hair, yet the few monsters that were caught in it seemed to burn alive instantly. We backed out of it anyways.
The small wave following the just burned up bear-looking abominations was lead by two larger looking versions of the hulking bear monsters that have been assaulting this clearing. In what felt like slow motion, a streak of white went through the first charging monsters head from a similar angle where the fire orb came from. An Amazing shot.
*Thunk*
To my right stands what could only be described as some holy shining warrior of light. Her elegant white longbow that released a perfect shot, and shining dress of blue and silver makes her look other worldly.
I knew it was the woman I pulled from the ship, but her armor was in perfect condition once again, the scortch marks and damage from the crash is gone.
She glanced at us, fired a shot that peirced through the eye of the first monster in the pack and traveled through anothers hind quarters seeming to go on forever.
The bow in her left hand, she sprints foward to meet the remaining 4 beasts. Another leaps at her but before it can connect a powerful wave of force blasts from her right hand causing the creature to fly backwards as fire consumed it. The second it died, it exploded killing another 3 and ending our fight definitively.
Aethena walks next to me and whispers, "Shouldn't she be dead?"
"I don't know, maybe Shiri was able to heal her?"
"Her spell didnt hurt us, but it landed right next to us roasting those monsters." My sister says.
Dreads deep grinding voice says she killed faster than us "little elves," everyone is little compared to you Draed...
Well, obviously she doesn't mean us harm, and she can handle herself in a fight. I cautiously step forward to greet her, I hope she speaks common.
I feel like I should just talk about her fighting and not the fact that she should be dead....I don't have anyclue what her reactions could be.
"Hey, nice fighting back there, what do you call that spell?"
She stows her bow on her back where it seemed to hang from something, she is without a doubt a veteran warrior.
She moves her left hand out with her palm up as if to offer us something, and the strangest shaped object I have ever seen forms out of light above her hand. I recognize the colors and weird shapes as the objects that Aethena pulled out of her ship.
It was looking at her and as she moved her hand forward as if to give the object to us, it turned and floated out towards us a bit.
"It is a Solar Grenade actually. She is a Dawnblade Warlock." The strange thing says in a metallic male voice. The warrior nods as if proud of the answer.
I have so many questions, but not one can manifest in my blank mind. This is the strangest thing I have ever seen. Whatever, I might as well introduce myself. If what Aliana says is true, then she could be a great ally of mine, and maybe join the squad. We could use another archer who also has some strange fire magic.
"Sooo...I am Captain Aedra Mathias, of the Lunar Pact Guild, this is my sister Aethena, and my Sargent Draed Scarren." They respond with the kurt nod I expect out of them, they do not like to do the talking. Dorr was far enough away that I didn't bother with it right now.
"What is your name?" I say while looking at the warrior. But once again the floating object answers.
"I am Ghost, and this.....is....Guardian, I guess we don't really have names, but that what most people call her. It is good to meet you Captain Aedra, are you the leader of the Vanguard on this planet?"
This time all the questions that I couldn't grasp earlier were flung out at once. "She doesn't have a name? Why does she not speak? Are you her voice? What is The Vanguard?"
I can feel the two behind me stiffen, I know Taezed is probably out there with his bow locked on her just in case.
My flow of questions isn't quite finished. "And how is she alive? Shirina is not usually wrong with her medical diagnosis, and she said you should be dead?"
They exchange glances and a shrug, the "Ghost's" pieces seem to move around in a fashion I interpreted as confusion, I have no idea how that is though.
The Ghost turns back to me to explain more but we are interrupted.
Helmsman Smith starts in, "Captain we need to get going, there are at least two other ships closing in, if we leave now we can get around them, but we gotta go."
I don't hesitate to get everyone out of there, if more guilds want this warrior then they will have to get her from the air. Our ship doesn't lose in the air. Since the founding of The Gift only one Covenant Frigate class ship has gone down, and it was from the gravitation stone beind destroyed by a traitor in the crew. It was of a different Covenant Guild that is now on the outs.
Anyways, we will be safe in the air. "Alright, everyone get on the ship." I declare in my commanding tone. "Will you come with me and my squad? There are monsters and other people here trying to figure out what happened when you crashed and they will be here soon. I don't know why you are here, but my seer has predicted that I would meet you and work with you to some degree, I hope we can go into more detail after we get out of here."
Her head tilts slightly to away from the ghost that is now at her left shoulder, and it says, "That sounds good."
Her bow then seems to just disappear in a cloud of light motes that just seems to wink out, some different kind of enchantment I guess.
I have heard of shrinking weapons to store on a belt or something, but they are not the best enchantments and the weapons are usually weaker from it. I have never heard or seen a weapon disappearing into thin air though...
We walk back to the ship and I can't help but watch as she gracefully moves along the ground, her ghost seems to have disappeared again.
The second she notices that out ship is above us she almost seems to do a double take and then stares up at it while walking for a wile. I let her take in the view, if someone hasn't seen a guild airship before they would definitely be surprised.
The drop pad is floating about 6 inches from the ground and we all get onto its stone like surface. I see no hesitation or fear, but just curiousity in her posture as she examines it.
"It will hold us all, I promise." I can't hold back a smile, to see the body language means she has to be real under there, even if the machine speaks for her. Curiousity is always an attractive type of body language to me.
Shirina, our emotionally distraught Priestess of the Unbroken God asks, "Are you feeling okay?" Her red cheeks spoke of the tears she had from nearly losing her. She just nodded, I wonder if she is able to speak.
As soon as all of us step on the drop pad, Taezed included I activate the command mentally through my guild ring on my right hand to raise up to the ship again.
I see the warrior, or I guess "Guardian" looking up at the bay doors that are open and I make contact with Helmsman Smith.
"Get us out of here as soon as the doors shut Smith."
"Aye, Captain."
After going through her heartbreatking story in the conference room, we make it to the top of my ship, we are quickly approaching The Gift.
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Kira's PoV
The ship seems to part the air as it glides over the fertile farm lands on the approach this city with a white mountain. That is an actual structure, A cone shaped structure the size of a mountain. It was made of white marble stone and blue crystal windows and accents. There seemed to be balconies at random intervals, different bay openings, and small open parks.
The walls of the city called The Gift are massive, but they don't intimidate, rather the walls have an aura of pride and protection, like that of a coat of arms that a Knight would wear.
The walls have a lot of large gates that must retract inside because they look like open archways leading into tunnels. There is a steady stream of people coming in and out in the beautiful sunny afternoon.
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I feel the ship slow down and we lower our altitude a bit as we cross over the surprisingly thick walls, they had to be 50ft wide!
As we entered from the northeast, I notice that while there are a lot of other air ships, only a few match the size and grandeur of the Blue Flame that we are standing on. Most seem to be merchant flat ships with goods stored all over them. not one ship is a single degree out of level to the ground. This technology is amazing!
Directly below us there seems to be a sprawling residential community that takes almost this entire quadrant of the city. There were parks, larger buildings, and small markets for food and other general goods. We were still very high up and this part of the city had to be the shortest.
While the different buildings all had their own styles of architecture, some where still matching the basic color scheme of the city. Others had the same matierals but built with a different style in mind.
"Our guild hall is right over there. the northern most one of the six." Captain Aedra says to my left, while pointing at the 6 different looking buildings that stand out amongst the shorter buildings of the city. They weren't the tallest, but definitely besides the White stone mountain they were the largest.
The guild halls were comparable to a modern day sports arena in terms of size. There were 3 large towers that went to the same height, the one closest to the mountain palace was the largest, being twice as wide as the other two.
About 3/4 of the way up the building there was four white doors that had different symbols on each. The first door had a full moon on it, with a black square of space behind it. The next bay had seemed to be the Shadow of a dragon eclipsing a sun. The shadow was the most vibrant part, having lots of blues in it.
The third bay door was just a field of blue fire, it seemed to fall from the top right as if it was a liquid. The final door was just a blue and gold specked reptilian eye.
The guild hall, like the mountain was accented in the odd blue crystal color close to a sky blue. This is my new tower, inside this city instead of on the edge looking into it.
The ship gracefully lowered in height and lined up with the third bay door as it opened. We slid into the bay with what couldn't have been more than an inch or so of space on either side of the ship, it never actually touch the building.
We were disembarking when the Captain says, "I will show you your room, but first we should go meet the guild masters, they were really worried about the star fall...well they will be very interested in meeting you."
With an inclination of my head we began walking through corridors, they matched the grandeur of the ship we just left, but were wider with much more going on.
Down a few flights of stairs, we end up at a large set of carved doors. This time is an image of the mountain at the center of the city. The split down the center spreads as the doors open and in walk myself, the Captain, and Aliana.
This beautiful room has a massive desk that dominates the space. Behind it sits two older looking elves with deep and wise eyes.
Their heads raised up and their eyes instantly locked onto me as we entered the room. It gave me a slight blush. Even the 2 receptionists were staring at me.
"Grandmasters, I have brought the fallen star back, and her name is Kira." Captain Aedra states.
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The kindly woman got up from the desk and walked around to greet me. "This is Liadri Longren, Elven Druid of The Eternal, and Grandmaster of the guild." The Captain introduces.
I smile and when she slightly bows her head forward I do so lower to show respect. I don't know the exact greeting customs are, so I just reflect what she is doing.
"It is a pleasure to meet you Kira, it is interesting as Aliana was sure you were a weapon to be wielded by our dear Aedra here." I make eye contact with dear Aedra and he is definitely flushing.
Liadri grabs my hands and comes closer to inspect my gauntlets, then feels the material of my armor up my arms before looking down directly into my eyes with a kind smile.
"You are beautiful, I see no evil in your eyes, yet you choose to not speak. It seems there is a storm in your mind held behind a glass wall. I imagine you need some time to yourself to gather your thoughts." Liadri seems terrifyingly intuitive, and I cannot maintain eye contact with her soul searching eyes.
I gestured for my ghost to come forth and Liadri did not move away, but rather looked very intrigued by his appearance.
"Hello, I am Ghost....and this is Kira." He still is having a slight amount of trouble making it through the four letters of my name, but I am sure he will get there.
The tall elven man behind the desk had already come up beside us listening to Liadri's musings.
"Good afternoon Kira," he says in a strong yet assured voice, as if he has already had this conversation with an alien. "I am Korbias Longren, Guildmaster of the Lunar Pact Guild. It is an honor to meet you, and your ghost."
I noticed Aliana was leaning on a desk to the left in front of the maps, she had a small smile on her face for me. It is so interesting that she knows when I am looking at her, I want to learn more about her. She lets the conversation play out again.
Ghost ends up going through the events leading until now, and the offer of joining the 3rd squad under Captain Aedra Mathias. The moment I mentioned joining Korbias broke out into a wide grin and put his hand on the Captains shoulder.
"See that wasn't so hard was it?" Referring to recruiting more squadmates.
A deadpan expression is the response and I am warmly welcomed to the guild.
Liadri had the one of the receptionists hand me a couple books for reading at my leisure. The top one was definitely about the guild with the same Guild name and emblem on it.
Aliana moved off into the corner where a small cabinet is and Liadri pulls me over there.
"This is a guild ring, it is essentially how we operate everything in the hall. It also lets you enter your room here and on your squad ship, The Blue Fire." Aliana calmly explains. I slip the ring onto my right hand after dissolving my gloves into light and it shrinks to fit my finger perfectly.
"You are the only person capable of removing the ring unless you are removed from the guild. We will get you a stipend with little extra so you may get clothes and supplies for everyday living." She continues, "We do have a lot of basic needs things already, soaps and such, but it is always nice to have what you need to be comfortable."
She says some words under her breath and the ring lights up and she says it is now bound to me. My ghost commented that about how its just as easy to transmute a magical item as a regular one, I am not ready to go down the learning of magic wormhole, so I just ignored the comment.
Captain Aedra, after finishing a conversation with Korbias walks up and starts to describe how our squad's section of the guild hall has everything that we need....baths, dining room, kitchen, common room, meeting room, training area and more.
I hope those baths are not unisex...thats gonna be embarrassing. After this Aliana grabs my arm and says that she will show me to my room. Our meeting breaks up and I am dragged through a confusing set of turns and stairs that are all equally beautiful until we get to a wing of the building where there is decorations of blue fire all over the walls. It is moving...and also is the light source in these halls, creating an irie glowing blue hallway. She shows me to room number 7 and says that she will be in the baths if I want to join her. It is at the end of the hall.
I nod and smile and watch the door close behind her.
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This room is very beautiful with a large blue flame above a king size bed in the center ofthe room. There was no window, but what appeared to be a view screen from the top tower of the guild hall looking at the mountain palace at city center. It really was a gorgeous day. Opposite of the window was my closet with full mirror doors that vanished when my hand was on them and I sent the desire through the ring to open the door. That at least was how Aliana explained it, as if there was another pathway for thoughts to leave the brain, I could feel the ring on my finger with my mind, and using it to interact with the guilds environment is surprisingly intuitive.
It must have been 15 minutes I sat at the vanity staring into the mirrors at myself. It was unreal, just touching my face to make sure I am real. I held my breath to see what color my face flushed and it was definitely a darker blue, pretty cute.
I started going through my memories of things, and I had to make a few decisions on how I am going to interact with this world.
This overwhelming urge to not talk is something I need to overcome. I think Aliana is the best for helping with that. Maybe if I can talk with her about how these memories affect me and it could help my shy feelings.
If I hurry I can still make it to the baths to meet with her, but I need to make sure that I am comfortable first....with myself. It has been less than 24 hours and I went from being a man, to being a female awoken, to being dragged into yet another world. This has been quite a journeyand it's only just starting.
I remember the way I felt before my destiny memories came, and it feels like another life time. It feels as though, I was never truly alive or awake until the joining of those memories. That alone might be the most grounding thing that is keeping me from losing my mind to nerves.
As far as how I intend to interact with this world, I am going to embrace my female memories, and not discuss coming from earth first. If anything I will pretend my earth memories were from my first life that I do not want to discuss. I honestly feel more comfortable in this body than I have ever felt, that might be an effect of the Light though. Speaking of the Light, this has got to be a mission of the Traveler. I can keep generating light from killing monsters and it also passively is generated. I have a full super right now ready to go.
It is time for the big reveal, I unequip all my armor and before me stands a beautiful light blue woman with those marvelous awoken light patterns along her toned body. MY athletic body. I still feel lithe and ready to attack at a seconds notice, then I realize that I am wearing a very comfortable sports bra and booty shorts equivalent with the pattern matching the banner of a masterworked legendary weapon.
The base color of both was purple and had a yellow background showing interesting triangular patterns in purple. They were super cute, and matched very well. I then new it was time to drop the rest, I had to be the first to see me naked. I have no memory of being naked before. So I called my ghost forward before I actually finished stripping.
He obviously knows what I look like naked, he literally pieces me together from the atomic level up everytime I jump in a ship.
"Yes, Kira?" He says, I smiled at that, my name is Kira. That is incredible, and probably just as surreal as the beautiful woman infront of this mirror.
"Why have I never showered, changed clothes or cleaned myself, yet am always clean? And why don't I ever have to go to the bathroom?"
"Well, I clean you completely every day when you are asleep in the ship, and during transmats. Also all your cloths are cleaned, and all hair below your neck is removed. I also, decided on a slight clean lavender smell that I infuse into your skin and clothes to enhance the clean smell. As for the bathroom, lets just say it disappears before you need to deal with it." He replies.
I am oddly enough, not at all weirded out, maybe it's like being around a doctor, I mean hes a machine, but I feel comfortable enough to be in my underwear.
I unequip the last line of defense and am not weirded out at all. I grabbed a towel and walked to the baths. I didn't see anyone on the way and am very thankful for that.
The elegant Aliana, was standing putting her robe on a hanger in a locker that is almost its own little room worth of stuff. After removing her wrap around her chest, she dons a town and turns to smile wide at me. She was wearing her blindfold....and that was it. The lengthy elegant beauty and waist long hair is only complemented by her beautiful ears standing out.
"Kira! I am so glad you decided to join me. Come, come time for a good soak."
"Sure." I quietly respond and my blush only deepens as I remove everything.
Armored in only our towels we walk through a wall of mist that seems to hold back the comfortable heat of the next room. The bath was roughly a half moon that looked like a clam shell, each alcove housing a deep comfortable chair. The farthest spot on the right housed Aethena Mathias, who might be asleep so neither of us said antyhing.
We quietly hung our towels on the wall and I follow Aliana down some marble stairs into the water, they are smooth and not slippery somehow. The bath was scented with a beautiful floral scent that smelled....fresh if I could call it anything.
"Wow not a hair on your body, you are gorgeous." She whispers to me. I probably look like a blue berry at this point.
When she guides me to sit next to her almost opposite of Aethenas relaxing figure. I sink into what could only be describe as heaven. The hot water engulfed me as soon as I sat down and I immediatey started to relax. I needed this more than I realized. Something about the hot water, relaxing smells, and the quiet music that is only there if you try to listen for it puts me into a very comfortable sleepy trance.