“Julian, when we cross that drawbridge I’m going back home and I’m not bringing you with me.” I told the handsome fiend riding beside me. Berry Berry’s gentle pace was the only thing keeping me on her back after two solid days of riding.
I sent a silent apology to fiends everywhere for cursing him in their name, but I needed something to grumble about when I felt this sore.
The sun was setting on the Black Fortress in the distance, our not-so-final destination. And since it was the height of summer that meant we’d gotten up at six in the morning and travelled with an unreasonable number of stops for fifteen hours not straight.
Every hour for two days, give or take three minutes, Julian would sound the alert and everyone would fly into action. To get us used to working as a team yesterday, Julian had taken it upon himself to act as our attacker. His new armor made him an outright menace and everyone had to scramble to get into action every time. The battle ended when I successfully escaped, or when Julian reached me.
The first time he’d slipped through our defences he’d flicked me in the forehead. The second time he’d kissed my cheek. The third time he’d wrapped his arms around me from behind and whispered ‘Got you’ so low and seductive that I’d wanted to melt.
That was when my companions realized we could teleport everyone back to Fell in time for meals and a warm bed.
Sir Tully had almost cried.
After an entire day of being chased and teased, I'd dropped everyone else off in Fell and then dragged Julian back to my cottage to have a turn driving him wild.
Today we’d added extra hurdles. Pram created icy terrain that we had to navigate, and John lent Julian two shadow’s so he could attack in groups.
The whole time, my job was to jump off Berry Berry, pull out my makeshift bridge and then find somewhere the system would allow me to put it down as a functioning bridge. And I'd had to fully capture the bridge every time, because I couldn’t just teleport that many people and horses with my own personal [world bridge] power unless I was touching all of them and wanted to chance mana burn.
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Too risky.
Even now, it still took about four minutes, and then we had to get everyone onto the bridge for me to teleport us away... all before Julian reached me. His smug smile was starting to get to me and I had a strong desire to tug his cheeks.
“How long are you stepping away for?” He asked innocently.
“I’m not coming back until tomorrow.” I told him.
“Alright.” There was the barest hint of a pout from my impressively outfit half-elf; gods that Valarian Royal set looked spectacular. It was a dusky silver orichalcum finish with moon and sun engravings on the chest plate and dragon head pauldrons on the shoulders. The matching ornate dragon’s face helm was straight up stunning, and the deep purple mantle looked obnoxiously regal.
Julian glanced at the Fortress. “I’ll be busy settling in and checking over things as it is.”
“Have fun.” I said dryly.
We were ten minutes from the Fortress when the sun finally set; the night sky awash with stars the like of which I’d never seen in my old world. Even still, looking up was a rare opportunity to connect with my old world— since we shared the same constellations.
Tonight there were two new things that stood out in the sky. The first was a delicate ribbon of green light. It was my first time seeing an aurora borealis, and I held my breath while admiring the natural phenomenon.
“What is that?” Sir Tully pointed at the eastern horizon, where the second thing had captured everyone's attention. A too-large star shone unnaturally bright in the dark. With my Perception, I could even make out the beginnings of a comet tail.
“Nothing for us to worry about, though I should probably let everyone know anyway.” I juggled my reins so that I had a free hand to summon the Master Crystal out of my storage ring. To my travel companions I said, “Give me a second.”
Everyone stared at the large awkward crystal I was holding in my hand.
We were on a stretch of rocky hill that made for limited visibility, blocking the path.
“If we are stopping, let's clear the road.” Visha ordered, guiding her own horse off the path. There was a scramble to follow her.
“Didn't you just get fined for illegal use of the Crystal Cast System?” Julian asked, sounding concerned but intrigued.
“Yes, which is why I'm only telling North Sumbria, Peldeep and Nilheim. Everyone else can hear it the old fashioned way.” I closed my eyes, not because I needed to in order to activate the Crystal, but because I was thinking about all of the things I might want to add to this particular Cast.
My first since being discovered.