Chapter Sixty-Four - Physical Manakinesis

“Pull little lass!” Abraham shouted from the other side of the ship.

I planted my two feet on the railing, wrapped my upper arm around the rope and pushed off as hard as I could until my entire body was horizontal. The rope came with me, but only with some effort and I had to grit my teeth against the strain on my arm.

The sail whose line I was pulling finally deployed, and with a ‘whap’ its canvas caught the wind and expanded.

In moments Abraham was by my side and he caught me before I fell onto the deck. Then, with deft hands, he grabbed the rope and tied it into a quick knot on a nearby metal hook. “Haha! We almost died there!” he cheered.

I was grinning like a loon as I tried to keep my feet as the Shady Lady shifted and began to turn, the sail I had deployed allowing the airship to twist around a little and change course. That was handy, because right in the direction he had been heading in was an entire flock of whales.

A pod of whales?

I wasn’t sure which word was the right one to describe gigantic flying fish the size of semi-trailers. They were big, grey, and moved through the air in much the same way as whales moved through the ocean. “Insight.”

An Eastern Skim Murgh, level 9.

“Whaa,” I said as I leaned against the rails to take in the entire group of gigantic flying creatures. They were majestic, in their own way. Like fat people in a supermarket.

“You’re easily impressed,” Amaryllis said. She was looking a little dishevelled, with her hair tossed this way and that and her clothes already covered in stains from being near the big blubbering engine at the back of the ship for too long.

“How can you not be, this is great!” I cheered.

“Oh-hoh, a lady after my own heart. My, if I was forty years younger I’d be smitten on the spot,” Abraham said before he moved to the back of the ship, pulled a bottle of something from a rack, took a swig of it, then emptied the rest into a hole above the engine. “Raynald! Remind me to get the engine checked again.”

The dapper grenoil, who was currently behind the wheel, shook his head. A head that looked rather strange with a pair of elongated aviator goggles tied to it. “I reminded you at Port Royal, you insufferable oaf!” the grenoil said. “You said you had it in hand.”

“I did! I even commissioned a repairman to look at the old monster.”

“Did zey?” Raynald screamed right back.

“They’re supposed to show up this afternoon,” Abraham shouted back. “Haha! They’ll be surprised that we’ve left already.”

“World save us all,” Raynald said.

Amaryllis stared at the two older gentlemen, then glared at me. “This is all your fault, somehow,” she said.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “If we die, it’ll be while having tons of fun.”

“Haha! That’s the spirit!” Abraham said. “Why, you remind me of that time Raynald and I were sent to escort a diplomat from the Pyrowalk Empire all the way to Mattergrove! Easy trip, and the lass they sent was a nice enough lady, but the Shady Lady had a bit of a buoyancy problem.”

“A buoyancy problem?” Amaryllis repeated.

“Yup! We lost our balloon when we flew through a flight of saber sparrows!”

“You... you lost your.” Amaryllis looked up to the balloon above us, the thing that was currently keeping us afloat. “That’s unbelievable.”

“Oh? Saber sparrows are a well-known threat. And they taste great roasted over a campfire,” Abraham said.

Grinning, I hopped over to one of the metal doodads on the deck and sat down to listen, the whales flowing past us to one side serving as a backdrop and the rushing winds as music to accentuate the tale.

“What’s unbelievable is you surviving that kind of crash.”

“No worries! I have the jumping skill! I merely hopped off the Shady Lady before we crashed. Raynald here had some newfangled idea with a tarp and some rope--”

“It’s called a parachute, and it’s safer zan jumping off ze ship a league in ze air.”

“And I carried the envoy. We all made it safely to land. Of course, we landed in the desert, and the Shady Lady’s own landing was a little harsh. But Abraham Bristlecone never leaves a friend behind! So Raynald and I carried the Lady halfway across the Ostri desert until we ran across a few of the desert folk. When they heard our story, why, they were so impressed they helped pull the Shady Lady across the rest of the desert wastes until we reached Pisshole.”

“Pisshole?” I asked, then slapped a hand over my mouth.

“It’s the name of an oasis to the Northeast of the desert,” Amaryllis said. “The Ostri have... unique naming conventions.”

“Haha! They truly do. Nice folk though. Always good for a bit of manly sparring. Why, when I reached Pisshole one of their bigger chaps challenged me to a wrestle! I lost an arm!”

I blinked, then looked at his arms, both exposed because of the pocket-lined vest he was wearing, and both looking rather whole.

“I got better,” Abraham explained.

“So cool,” I said. “Hey, you have the Jumping skill too?” I asked.

“I do! Quite useful that one. I hear that at Master rank you can teleport short ranges, but I never got it past Expert myself. Other things to invest the time in, you know?”

“That’s wonderful. I’m trying to learn a bunch of new skills too. Oh, and I really want to learn how to use magic, but I'm terrible at it, and I haven’t practiced at all in a few days,” I said.

“Oh-hoh! I can’t help you there, I’m afraid. I’ve always been more keen on punching things into submission before lighting them on fire,” Abraham said.

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Amaryllis sighed. “I suppose I ought to keep up my end of the bargain on that one and actually teach you a thing or two. How far along are you with that Fireball spell of yours?”

“I’ll leave you ladies to it,” Abraham said. “The engine’s making a clicking noise, usually it's more of a rattle, and I think we’ve dropped a quarter league in the last few minutes. I’ll call you if I think we’re going to crash.”

“Okay, thanks Abraham!” I said.

Amaryllis stared at me for a long while. “How are you less concerned about crashing than I am?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t stress easily. Stress is bad for you, so I try to just... not stress. If we’re going to crash there’s not much I can do about it.”

Amaryllis massages her temples, then gestured to the fore of the ship. “It must be nice, being so daft that no problem sticks to you. Come on, we can practice over there. I don’t want you lighting the ship on fire.”

The Shady Lady had a figurehead shaped like a pretty lady who was wearing far too little clothing, but I guess that was par for the course with ships. I sat next to the figurehead, then, because the Lady was a nice ship, I gave its figurehead a pat.

I didn’t like getting pats myself, but this was a ship, which I figured was kind of like a pet, so it was okay. Maybe? I’d have to ask a sailor later.

“So, magic!” I said.

“Yes, magic,” Amaryllis said. “Show me what you can do.”

I nodded and brought my hand up. I had been practicing a little, but not nearly as much as I would have wanted to. It was magic after all, and that alone made it deserve my full attention. My mana gathered in my palm, then spread out to cover my entire hand until it was like I was wearing a translucent, glowing glove. I focused a little and brought it all to a hover over my hand and started to make it take the basic shape of the Fireball spell.

It was tricky to get the rotating shape just right while also keeping the cone-shaped tail in place, but, after a solid minute I almost managed. Then Amaryllis hummed, I looked up, and the entire spell broke apart and did little more than release a bit of hot air.

“Well... you’re terrible,” Amaryllis said. “But I suppose it makes sense if you never came into contact with our magic system before. I was trained since I was... honestly I can’t remember. I had toys that required manipulating mana to make them work, and my early classes on reading and writing were broken up by exercises with mana. You’ll find that’s the case with most noble families and plenty of wiser non-nobles too.”

“Ah, darn, so I have years of catching up to do?” I asked.

“Essentially, yes. Don’t despair too much. When I went to the Farseeing Academy some of the students in my first year were just as bad as you are now, and by the end of their first year they had done much to bridge the gap between their skill level and that of the students like myself who had practiced their entire life.”

“Oh, neat, so I can learn Fireball.”

Amaryllis huffed and took my hand in hers. Far from being romantic, she moved my arm up and pointed it off the side of the ship. “Push mana out,” she said.

I did as she asked until I had a rough ball of my mana in my hand.

“Good, now shift its aspect.”

I did that too, frowning as I thought hot thoughts and the mana warmed up in my hand and started to flicker and dance like a flame.

“Not bad. A bit slow, but that is Fire-aspect mana if I’ve ever seen it. You were using Grigori’s Fireball, right?”

“I was?” I asked. “I got it from a scroll. It’s in my bag still.”

“It doesn’t matter. I think I recognize the spell, not that it’s terribly complex. Start forming it again,” she instructed.

I focused and started to form the ball part of the fireball, then I noticed little tendrils of mana snaking around my own, these charged with an almost humming, electric quality. When the tendrils touched my skin it was like I was pressing my hand against a transformer.

“Are you doing something?”

“I told you to make the spell, not ask foolish questions,” she said.

I decided to trust that Amaryllis knew what she was doing and continued to form the Fireball. The tendrils of Amaryllis’ magic pushed and prodded the magic into slightly different shapes.

“Look at the new form, pay attention to it,” she said.

“R-right,” I said.

Soon I had what definitely looked like a translucent Fireball floating in the air just above the surface of my hand.

“Good. Cast it.”

“Um. How?”

Amaryllis sighed so hard it ruffled the hair by my neck. “The trigger on this spell is near the cone. Pull on that and push it out with your mana at the same time. Some people like to push their hand forwards too.”

“Got it,” I said.

I found the thing I thought was the trigger in the spell, then at the same time as I yanked on it, I closed my hand into a fist and punched forwards.

The spell launched.

A trail of heated air followed after the fist-sized ball of fire. I laughed as the Fireball rushed ahead, screaming through the air. Then it started to spin out of control like a deflating balloon. For a moment I was worried it would come back, but it exploded a dozen meters away into a ball of fire with tiny electrical sparks flashing throughout.

“I did it!” I cheered as I got up.

“Congra--” Amaryllis began, but she was cut off as I hugged the air out of her lungs.

“Thank you! Thank you!” I said.

Ding! For repeating a Special Action a sufficient number of times you have unlocked the general skill: Physical Manakinesis!

***