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The Viper's massive head, its jaws wide with fangs out, shot forward…and rebounded. Mira was no dummy. She always included a short-duration Akasic force shell script in her teleports. The mage named Ramussen, the author of the sigil book she had used, must have felt the same way. Mira had noted when reading his book of the Empire’s Sigils that he had the same safety measures written into his glyph constructions as well.
Mira had hoped that Tiamat would have been startled by the surprise Viper attack, but the little dragon was yawning from her perch on Mira’s shoulder. Mira clucked once in disappointment and summoned her Rod of Binding from the Conjuring Talisman’s magical storage.
“[Greater Immobilization]!” she yelled, her activation phrase for the power of the wand. Mira thought the activation phrase sucked, but its power was too potent to discard. The giant snake was frozen in place before it could attempt another strike.
“Since we are apparently in a rush, I haven’t had the time to arrange for transport. The Smuggler’s Floating Barge is very likely on the other side of the Sea of Grass.” Mira said aloud.
“Big Bessie here might be our only option for a quick ride to wherever this Cloud Bridge will appear. We shouldn’t let the big girl hurt herself if we want to cover some distance tonight.”
Mira expanded her glow spell further, showing the full enclosure, a buried cathedral-like space of the old fort. The Great Viper had created a nest here and the ground was littered with corpses; travelers attempting to cross the Sea of Grass, other beasts, and probably the odd adventurer or ten seeking to fight a Greater Beast. A clutch of eggs was in a nearby alcove…with a pile of storage chests.
Mira had explored this stronghold before, but the Viper’s lair was new to her. The buried fort went deep and was filled with snakes and monstrous insects. The Fort was situated on another mana well, much of which was being absorbed by local creatures. Mira could see slight traces of Faen magic in the air, thicker around one of the iron chests. Her eyes sparkled with an adventurer’s greed for loot.
“Plunder later,” she said to herself and Tiamat. “First, I need to make sure this beast will assist us.”
“Greater Charm or Domination?” Tiamat asked.
“I think Greater Charm. We need to move and the domination spell, while more certain, also restricts free will and can make a beast clumsier.” Mira responded, thinking aloud. Mira summoned her Aether Nexus Staff from her magical storage. She would need the Akasic energy stored in the staff for this spell.
Mira had performed this type of spellwork many times. If she could, she tried to avoid killing beasts; even though it was just a game. She could do it easily enough when it needed to be done, but if there was another way, Mira preferred it.
Mira investigated her storage space and pulled out three items. The first was a huge slab of pork, a favorite food for the Vipers of the plains, as she knew from personal experience. The second was a Healing Potion and the third was an Elixir of Endurance. She laid the pork meat on the ground and poured the potions out on top of it.
The Greater Charm spell always worked well, but Mira thought that finishing the spell with a gift of food and some feel-good potions always made things go much smoother. The potions would also clear up any lingering injuries and boost the snake’s endurance for the upcoming trek.
Mira began her complex work with a [Trace] spell to create a series of complex glyphs needed to charm the beast. She customized the runic scripts to include the animal type and power levels. The more detailed the spell was, the more powerful it would be. When her glyph was complete, she pushed all her power and that of her staff through the first sigil of the glyph, the standard Aether spiral rune.
She watched as the energy split and traced the other runes; the Apex crest, the Bind icon, the Harmonic Cascade, and the Faen Focus. The spell formed and combined, pulling her energy and the surrounding energy, including the Faen threads in the air. The spell circled and tightened on the bound Viper and sunk into it with a silent pulse letting Mira know it had worked.
Mira released the [Greater Immobilization] spell and offered the food gift to “seal the deal”. The giant reptile must have been hungry. It didn’t hesitate for even a second. It swallowed the prized meat and settled back with watchful eyes on the pair.
“Excellent! But before we go, I want to look over in that corner. If my mage sight is correct, we should find something nice over there, and a proper adventurer never turns down loot.” Mira said. Tiamat perked up and flew over to the corner to inspect the eggs and the piles of boxes.
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Mira carefully pulled one specific chest, that glowed with mana, away from the nest. Even a charmed animal would protect its young, and Mira didn’t want her new ally to have a reason to fight the magic bond. She had gotten used to Tiamat playing a thief character in their character farming expeditions, she had almost asked her to check for traps and to pick the lock. She could tell Tiamat was thinking the same. She had used her new magic ring to transform into the shape of a little girl and was tapping the box and looking into the keyhole.
“I’ll handle this one T. No need to brave any traps, I’ve got a simpler solution,” Mira said, as she unsheathed the Vorpal Knife on her belt. Her blade was no sword, only a foot in length, but it was enchanted to be able to cut through almost anything that wasn’t strengthened by magic with ease.
Absolutely no shaving my legs with this though, as any slip would cut to the bone if not take the limb off completely, she thought, as she sliced the hinges off the chest and then ran the blade through the space between the lid and body. The simple action of kicking the lid off and the treasure chest was open. Mira sheathed the deadly Vorpal Blade with care.
“Hmm, unless there was a poison needle in the lock, it seems like there weren’t any traps. And no enchantments either. I almost feel insulted at how easy that was.” Mira commented. The chest interior had a loose pile of coins on the bottom, a sack of small gemstones, and a plain obsidian box with sliver joinery and clasp. In her special sight, what was in the box glowed. The hidden power within leaking from the joints of the container.
With no trap sigils in sight, Mira opened the black box. Inside was a darkly lit crystal, covered in runes that sucked at the mana in the room. Mira was quickly intrigued and excited by the find.
“Necromantic runes! I still haven’t gotten the knack of them, T. It's like trying to write with the wrong hand, it’s just all backward and doesn’t feel right. Let's see what this can do.” Mira narrated to Tiamat. Despite being a magical beast, Tiamat did not have the benefit of mage sight.
“[Identify]” Mira said, for Tiamat’s benefit, as she traced and executed a simple divination glyph.
The details of the device bloomed in Mira’s mind. Necromancer's Intellect Shard. The shard has a custom spell form to restore rationality and intelligence to undead creatures without granting them true life, repairing damage to their soulless mind.
“Oh my. Faen luck at its finest. See Tiamat, riding the Faen tides can sometimes be a good thing. This gem is exactly what I need to fix up Reggie. Superior karma for the win!” Mira laughed. With a wave of her hand, she pulled all the treasure into her magical storage.
All the Faen threads of fate in the room were now shifting and circulating between the duo and the snake and coaxing them towards the large open passageway. Mira knew that direction led to the exit upwards and the Sea of Grass.
“Excellent. We should hit the road. The Volshur mythos didn’t specify where this Cloud Bridge will appear. We may have a distance to travel, and the night is getting long.” Mira said as she ushered the monstrous snake and her familiar to the exit.
The giant snake with its riders slithered swiftly through the grassy plains. An hour into their trek, a thick blanket of fog rolled over the plains, muffling all sounds except for the scraping of the large grass stalks along the beast’s hardened scales. The Sea of Grass looked like its name, but the Grass stalks were 10 feet tall, hard as steel, and deadly as razors. Mira had fashioned a crude rope harness to securely sit atop the beast’s head. Thankfully the Viper was large enough that her perch was above the sharp blades of Razor Grass that filled the plains.
Mira only occasionally had to tug with her rope leads to steer the beast toward the converging Fae threads. This quest was powerful and the faen mana was bright in her sight. It felt like a cheat, guiding her directly to where she needed to go, but Mira wasn’t about to ignore it. Disregarding the game's direction would cause no end to grief. It wasn’t a full Geas, but ignoring or defying the fates was not a fight she needed right now. She’d done it before and regretted it.
She pulled up on the reins as the faen tides finally began to collect and now swirled not more than ten paces away. She patted the snake to be let down and she dismounted carefully, pulling the ropes free from the beast’s head.
“Not a moment too soon. I believe the sky is beginning to brighten. Alright! Off you go, Big Betty! Go back to your nest. The charm will wear off soon enough. Thank you!” Mira said. She still wasn’t certain if this monster was intelligent or not, but she always erred on the safe side.
Mira stored the rope in her storage and pulled her staff out again. There could be monsters on the climb up and she might need the staff's extra power. Tiamat flew about her stretching her wings. Her Qi core was well developed and provided more than human levels of strength, speed, and stamina; but it was nowhere near the levels of most of the Mythic Realm’s Warrior classers.
Her Qi and her magic boots together would help her “running climb” up the cloud bridge. She didn't know how long the bridge would last, but she didn't want to be like those Volshuri who fell to their deaths. The wind was picking up as the sky continued to get lighter. The wind blew the fog bank across the plain, exposing a slightly more solid structure. The fog was building into a vision of stairs, the Cloud Bridge mentioned in the Tales of the Volshuri.
“Better jump on and hold tight, buttercup! I’m not sure how the bridge works, but flying might separate us. I’ll run and you hold on to me. You can watch out for trouble.” Mira said. Tiamat settled on her shoulder and dug in tight to Mira’s cloak shoulder pads.
Mira tested the first step of the wispy stairs and stepped up on the solidified fog. Two more steps and she looked up and up at the stairs stretching miles upward. With a huge grin, she activated her boots’ enchantments and dashed upwards.
“We’re going on an ADVENTURE! Wheeeeeeeeeeee!” she yelled at the top of her lungs sprinting at incredible speeds.
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