Chapter Six - A Village on the Shore

51st Day of Spring - Year 1758 of the Golden Era

The Sapphire Ocean

Maldrak squinted at the shoreline. They'd approached it deep into the night, and he'd made the choice to order the sailors to work with as few lights as possible. The Gentle Tidings had approached without navigation lights and only the bare necessity on the main deck.

It had been a cloudless night with a waning gibbous moon, more than enough to see by.

The captain had obeyed, though he warned that their approach would be much slower. Stealth was one thing. Hitting the rocky shore of the western mainland due to lack of caution was another.

Still, now that the sun was starting to rise, Maldrak felt like the choice had been appropriate.

They were sailing past the estuary in the lower part of the Yellowfield plateaus. It was where a city called Viremontis sat. It was one of the two largest cities in the area, a large trading hub that had grown quite substantially in the last century as one of the largest ports in the world.

The city was aflame at the moment. Unnatural columns of green and blue smoke rose from behind the tall walls protecting it from the shore, and the myriad docks and piers jutting out into the ocean around the estuary had collapsed. The long skeletal masts of ships stuck out of the waters of the port.

It seemed as though several had been sunk by the mouth of the bay, and he suspected that if they tried to approach themselves their own vessel might join those in the depths.

And so they moved on past, continuing northbound for the first few hours of the morning. Shorefarm was their destination still. It was an hour's ride by fast ship from the town to the city, winds and waves willing.

"Magus?"

He blinked bleary eyes and turned to find a familiar sight. The young magus who had been assisting him with the puppets recently. "Magus Suffragus Nocthorn, I bid you good morning."

"And to you as well, Magus Arch-Magister Maldrak. Have you slept at all?" she asked.

It was an impertinent question to ask, and the sarcasm in her use of his full title wasn't missed, but Maldrak restrained himself from chastising the young woman. She had potential, else he wouldn't have brought her along. She was the most senior of the junior mages aboard the vessel at the moment. And... she was correct to question him in this case.

"I'm afraid not. I've cast a revitalization spell upon myself."

"I believe the magisters at my academy warned every mage not to use those as a replacement for sleep. Usually after the first student of the semester fainted from exhaustion mid-lesson when their cast ran dry," she said.

He smiled faintly. "I remember hearing that as a student myself, and saying it as a magister. Usually while under the effects of the same. Academic life is oft about long nights, isn't it?"

"Yes, but we're not in the hallowed halls of an academy, or in the safety of a wizard's tower," she said. "You need sleep, sir."

He sighed. "Soon. Once the puppets have gone ashore. They won't be able to report back for some time, so I'll have nothing better to do but rest. There are spells to induce sleep as well. Or perhaps I shall take a drop of fur lily tincture to aid me in sleeping."

"That was also something we were warned about, sir," she replied. The young woman shook her head, then crossed one arm over her chest as she looked out to the shore. "We're getting close. Are those puppets truly ready?"

"No, not yet. Would you mind bringing them here? I believe it's time to activate some of their more advanced features."

The young magus nodded, dropped her arm, and gave him a short bow before leaving. She swayed easily with the motions of the deck as he watched her depart.

"Ah, to be so youthful," he muttered. Though in his mind, he was glad that this sort of disaster had never occurred in his youth. There would be many young souls spent trying to recover the mainland while older, wiser souls remained behind and reaped the benefits.

He was, therefore, an oddity, an old soul so close to the centre of the disaster itself.

Well, perhaps not so old.

The young magus returned with the three puppets in tow. It had only been a few days, and they'd only consumed pure essence once, but already he could see that they moved with more fluidity.

More did not mean that they had even the slightest bit of grace. They were still awkward, tottering things the size of a large man with the clumsiness of a child. "Good," he said as he eyed all three. "Soon we will be parting ways for the first time."

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The three puppets eyed him unblinkingly. The green one's attention snapped to the shore for a moment before returning to him. Ah, the curious one of the bunch.

"Before you are sent ashore as our scouting party, I want to confer a few things to you. The equipment will come later. Sir Jorvin has a few short swords set aside for you and the like. For now... let me unlock some of your abilities that have thus far remained under lock and key."

He fished in the pockets of his robes until he removed a small keychain. It wasn't anything too special, truly, but one of them would be important to these three.

"Magus Nocthorn, if you would kindly assist me?" he asked.

The process was somewhat delicate, though not so much so that he would need it carried out in the safety of a laboratory.

The Magus Suffragus fetched a small lacquered box from within her robes and held it out to him. "Good, thank you," he replied before gesturing to the blue puppet. "Turn around. The access is through the rear hatch of your chest compartment."

The puppet did as he asked and turned. From there, he was able to finagle a small pin-and-socket clasp apart and opened the puppet's back plate. Its core was laid out before him, though without nearly as much access as was available at the front.

"If one of you is to fall, observe this device here. The core and soul sphere, as well as this artifice." He outlined what he spoke of after ensuring that the other two were observing with rapt attention. "It's designed to be somewhat easy to eject. It will leave the puppet blind and deaf to the world. A fate that is uncomfortable and cruel, but it will also allow us to place their core into a new chassis. Death, for you, is only permanent once your core is demolished, and it is not something so easily accomplished."

With the tiny key in hand, he slotted it into a boxy device next to and behind the core, then opened it, revealing a set of small brass cylinders and glass vials.

The Magus next to him opened the lacquered box, revealing three small disks.

He took one of these and slotted it into place. There was room for two more next to it, but he left these undisturbed for now and reclasped the mechanism closed.

A second key slid into another device, and he twisted it while holding the puppet steady.

It shuddered and twisted, its legs and arms trembling for a moment. Not so dissimilar to when it gained purified essence for the first time.

"Aahhh ah ah ah. Uh. Ah," the puppet said.

Its voice was tinny and echoey, the voice of someone with a blocked nose speaking through a long pipe, but it was a voice all the same.

"Welcome to the world of the speaking," he said. "The device I activated in you just now is what a magus would call their magical soul, or their aetherial resonator. There are a few names for it. It's essentially an organ that allows one to manipulate magic to some extent. What you three have is... simplified. Mechanical. It is also limited in many ways."

He turned the puppet over after closing the back up. It seemed well, though it was still muttering and making strange noises as it found its voice.

"This unlocks a few minor features for you. Two of them are of note. The first is the ability to use a spell disk. These are arcane spells that have been pre-rendered and scribed by a talented magus. Pushing your magic into these will activate it. Yours are all the same. The spell is called Guiding Light."

He raised his hand and cast the same spell. It was not complex, the sort of thing that a prospective mage ought to know before ever even stepping foot in an academy. It created a ball of pure white light that hovered next to him.

"It's harmless. Use these to alert us to your return on the shore, especially by night. The other feature is your voice. It may take some time to master this, and it does consume some amount of your magical essence to speak."

The blue puppet stopped immediately.

He chuckled. "Your reserves will be replenished as you... refuel on essence with the siphons you have. A small portion each time, but certainly enough to allow for such an easy spell to be cast on rare occasions. If you prove yourselves adept, and your souls are properly attuned for it, perhaps the learning of more and more complex magics will be possible. Though that will require a great deal of growth on your part first."

He glanced past the three. The green one seemed eager for him to unlock her voice, but his eye was caught by something in the distance. A lighthouse.

"Shorefarm," he said. "We've arrived, it seems. And so our time for preparation comes to an end."

***