Drale

Drale of House Rurik looked up to see something heading towards his team. It wasn’t very high up in the sky and was approaching at unimaginable speeds. The creature — whatever it was — left rings of compressed air behind it as it zoomed toward them. He could hear muffled booms from his position as it neared. It was as though the sky was about to shatter into pieces.

His team of Sprouts all exclaimed in fright, huddling together when they felt a catastrophe upon them. House Rurik was the House of Wards. The leading house that produced powerful wards for many powerful nobles and personalities in Vorthe. Therefore, they were not without help.

They fished out tiny beads from their spatial rings, activated them, and threw the beads in the air around them. Over a dozen array beads shone in the air with two different colors: blue and orange. The blue beads were for camouflage, and the orange beads were meant to shield them from an overpowering outside force while keeping them grounded.

Drale nodded in satisfaction seeing how swiftly his team responded to dangerous situations now as opposed to when they first entered Terra Praeta. That had been a disaster — appearing in a land where the sun never rose and you didn’t know the creatures that inhabited it. Their fear and instinct for survival had made them forget their training. They had lost half their team as a result on the first night alone.

The creature was moving north. And fast. When it zoomed past his team, everything around them was thrown into a dance of chaos — the air shook violently and trees were uprooted by the force of the blast. Debris shot up into the sky after the creature, covering their view of it.

Drale almost emptied his bowels as fear took hold of his gut. Thank the heavens such a creature isn't going our way, he thought in relief. Throughout their stay in Terra Praeta, they had never witnessed anything like this. They had stayed away from dangerous places and avoided sacred artists from other clans altogether. There was no one to trust in such a place except your own.

He had been in the clutches of a powerful creature before — beautiful, sensuous, a woman of every man’s dream, and although it was fleetingly enjoyable, he never wished for such in his life again. This adventure to Terra Praeta was more than enough to last him ten lifetimes. He only wished he could see the young Sprout who saved him from an inescapable fate again so he could express his gratitude. Jerome. He would never forget that name.

I hope you're safe, boy. I hope you’re safe, he thought. Their world needed more sacred artists like him.

“I saw what they look like!” one of his teammates exclaimed.

The rest of them quickly deactivated the beads in the air, murmuring their doubts. The beads floated back to their hands and they stuffed them back into their storage rings. The plateau which they had been exploring was now stripped of its beauty. Every tree, shrub, and flower had been uprooted when the creature flew by.

“Anan, did you say ‘they’?” Drale asked. They had all obtained good fortunes since coming into Terra Praeta so who knew, perhaps Anan obtained something that helped him ‘see’ things moving too fast for the ordinary sacred artist to see. The creature was simply moving too fast.

“Yes, Young Lord Drale! There were two of them, holding onto each other as they flew past us!” Anan said, raising two fingers in the air excitedly. “A young man and a young woman!”

“What did they look like, Anan?” Drale asked, looking around just in case there was any immediate threat to their lives.

Anan brought out a blank memory crystal from his spatial ring. He closed his eyes and the rest of his teammates held bated breaths, patiently waiting for him to inscribe the memory into the memory crystal. Anan smiled, enjoying the attention from his fellow teammates. He couldn’t help himself.

“Be done with it, you stupid oaf!”

“Yes, show us already!”

“We want to see the memory, not you!” Anan’s teammates barked at him in impatience.

“Sod off, you imbeciles. This takes time!” he shot back.

“Let’s be patient with him,” Drale said, calming them down. As the leader, it was his duty to make sure his team was united.

“I’m done,” Anan said after a few breaths, handing the memory stone to Drale.

Drale took the stone and scanned it. The next moment though, he exclaimed in joy, “That’s him! That’s the Sprout I was talking about. Jerome and…” his voice wavered as he saw the second person. “Eh?”

~~~

“Crap!” Jerome turned back to look at the raised terrain he had just destroyed as he zoomed by. The plateau was like a slumbering giant that had been flayed. He was moving so fast that he was out of range of sight in less than a second. He didn’t see the team of Sprouts on the plateau.

How fast am I going, Achilles?

“1.6 miles per second, Xerae. Not as fast as the dragon that was captured by the Royals, but fast enough.”

Jerome chuckled. The fire dragon the Royals caught moved three miles in less than a second. That was like teleportation to a Sprout’s eyes. He was still a ways away from doing something like that. And this speed was hard enough as it was. He could go faster, but he would burn the essence he had gathered for this trip faster than he wanted to. That would mean trouble. Because he would need a lot of rest before he could do it again.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“You’d be able to use Godspeed at least one more time today…and then you’d pass out.”

Figures. It’s a powerful spell. It makes sense that it comes with drawbacks.

Csala grunted, causing him to take a glance at her. The succubus was barely holding on. She was doing everything to withstand the high pressure from the increased drag.

Achilles, can I use the shield defenses of my robe to cover both of us?

“Yes, Xerae. You just have to touch an exposed part of her body. The back of her neck should do, then maybe hold her tighter and kiss—”

Thank you for that unnecessary detail, he remarked. Achilles was definitely trying to put him in trouble. With the oath he had taken in place, any little slip up from him could mean his death.

“But surely you must wonder what might happen, don’t you, Xerae?”

No, I don’t, Achilles, Jerome deadpanned. He put his hand behind Csala’s neck and activated the shield in his robe. Which is the difference between me and you. I won’t let my curiosity get the better of me.

The moment the sphere-shaped shield appeared around them, their speed decreased rapidly as a result of the drag. The shield wasn’t meant to be used to resist drag and wasn’t shaped to do so. Jerome had to push to keep up with his previous speed or risk being pushed off course, burning more essence in the process.

“A moment, Xerae,” Achilles said, and a split second later, the sphere-shaped dome reshaped itself, elongating at the fore to become as thin as a point in front of them — an aerodynamically streamlined shape that helped them knife through the air.

Csala sighed in relief as the weight of the air pressure gave. She looked around and Jerome felt her relax, feeling safe inside the shield. “I can’t even feel how fast we’re moving anymore.”

Jerome nodded. The ride was smooth and without turbulence unlike it was a few moments ago. He smiled at her as he saw her studying the shockwaves forming around the shield as they flew by. It was like watching ripples of air form around them.

“Incredible!” she muttered.

“It is,” Jerome said. “As we move, the air is forced to give way, making it fold in on itself, compressing and forming these shockwaves.”

“But air isn’t like water. It isn’t…physical?” Csala said and frowned. It must’ve sounded stupid to her. Of course, the air was physical. She probably just never thought about it in that sense.

“Oh, it is physical,” Jerome responded. “It’s just a lot more loose than water. It just can’t hold itself together like a rock, or even more loosely like water. If it wasn’t physical, we wouldn’t even know it existed. We wouldn’t feel it on our skin when it moved, or see it bend trees and branches when the wind is strong.”

Csala kept quiet for a while, processing his words.

Achilles, does the word ‘fluid’ exist in faerie?... What about molecules and atoms?

Achilles chuckled nervously. “The word for fluid does exist. It is also the word for gaseous…or gas.”

Jerome rolled his eyes at that. Which also means air, which also means breath. You see where I’m going with that?

“It depends on the context in which it’s being used. Different societies focus on different things, Xerae. Depending on the limitations they have and their voracity for knowledge, and the unknown. Language is formed around what is established to said societies.”

I couldn’t agree more, Achilles. However, I won this round! Ah! Humanity trumps the Fae in Vocabulary!

“No, you didn’t. The Fae has more words and complex usage of words than any human race, extinct or extant,” Achilles declared proudly.

Well, in this context, humanity wins, Jerome declared.

“I didn’t realize we were having a competition, Xerae. Oh well, at least it’s vocabulary from your previous world and not your current one.”

Huh? Achilles throws in the towel? Is the world coming to an end?

“I live to play another day, Xerae.”

Interesting… For Achilles to say something like that meant he was going back to the drawing board, because Achilles didn’t like to lose. He’d rather lose an arm.

“If I had one, Xerae.”

Fucking mind-reading AI, Jerome cursed. It doesn’t matter what you say, Achilles. A win’s still a win. You should take one for team Fae.

“How come it can give way if it’s so loose?” Csala asked, breaking Jerome out of his little moment of celebration. “There shouldn't be anything holding it together, so…”

Jerome smiled, impressed at the direction her question was taking them. He had almost forgotten his conversation with her. She probably had no knowledge of atoms and molecules, and that every physical mass is formed from atoms. And it’ll be a pain to try explaining it to her.

“We normally move at speeds far less than this so we don’t notice it,” he said. “Now though, the air is trying to keep up with us because we’re simply moving too fast. That’s why we felt resistance from it.”

“And then you changed the shape of the shield to make it cut through the air. It’s weird picturing the air as…well…made of substance. I never really thought about it.”

Jerome smiled at the thoughtful look on her face. Was she opening up? Those were the most words he had heard her speak unguardedly.

“Jerome, your nose,” Csala said, looking up at his face with worry. “You’re bleeding.”

Jerome felt warm liquid trickle down his nose and the coppery smell of his blood assaulted his senses. He gulped.

“Perhaps you should stop and rest for a while, Xerae. You’re tasking your body too much by holding onto this much essence. Outside of it, nonetheless,” Achilles said, the concern in his voice didn’t go unnoticed by Jerome.

But just then, Jerome came alert to something.

“What is it?” Csala asked, feeling her gut tighten.

Jerome turned to look behind them. It was as if his eyes could pierce through space to see far into the distance. Csala also turned as best as she could in his arms to look but she saw nothing.

“Are you going to tell me what you’re seeing or do I have to get it out of you?” she snapped at him.

“We have company,” Jerome said with a sigh. “The old hag I rescued you from is tailing us.”