Traveling across the rooftops of Tragnil was a lot more complex than the group had been expecting. Mark, Omet, Quet and Xiao had decided to go through the larger half of the city to get to their destination, since they were traveling more or less to the other side of the city and there was far too much open space between the castle and the nearest civilian building.
Such a route was definitely interesting to traverse. Roofs in this part of town were covered in steep slopes and rows of metal spikes, as opposed to the flat-topped buildings the group were more familiar with. As such, the four mostly had to leap between balconies, climb across oversized clothing lines and shimmy along windowsills. But when entering specifics, ‘the four’ could probably just be narrowed down to ‘Xiao’.
Quet had a set of ‘jetpack glyphs’ as she called them, which were enough to send her and Omet flying across particularly wide gaps when placed on their feet. But even at this height, the Ley Lines weren’t entirely absent, and the glyphs were used sparingly in order to minimize jams and misfires. Meanwhile, Mark had figured out that he could configure his gun into a grappling hook gun, which he found shockingly fun to use. Mostly because he didn’t need to look down as much when traversing gaps between buildings. Xiao, however, just had to rely on his natural athleticism. It was enough.
After twenty minutes or so of very harrowing parkour, they eventually managed to hitch a ride on one of the walking houses that they had seen around the city a few times, which unwittingly carried them across the rooftops with no issue. They had even found a section of roof above a window that they could sit on without being skewered, so the lucky breaks seemed to have no end in sight. None of them voiced this statement, of course, but they were all grateful.
Eventually, the group’s destination came into view, bathed in the light of the Pillar in its position atop an entire complex: The docks containing Salamin’s Potirangi.
“This seems unethical,” muttered Xiao as the four slid off of the walking house, back down to the stationary skyline.
“We need to get high up somehow,” said Mark, “and Millie’s the only thing in the docks whose owner has a position that we’re familiar with, as well as a piloting mechanism any of us are familiar with. Speaking of, Quet, what’s our window?”
Quet pulled out a glyph and squeezed it, resulting in a dim 24-hour display manifesting around her hand, which read ‘07:23’. “Twenty-two minutes, but that’s if Salamin really pushes her time.”
“You should just buy a watch at this point,” said Omet.
“Watches are boring, magic is awesome.”
Mark gauged the distance between them and the docks. He believed he could pick out Millie among the two other docked Potirangi. “Could’ve been better, but it should be enough. Move out.”
-
Security for the docks also accounted for flying monsters, but the guards recognized Xiao from the day before and gave the group passage. Mark had to hide his face in his hoodie and Quet and Omet had to shift into their human forms, but making it to Millie was fairly straightforward.
Mark followed Omet into the command room. “You sure you know how to get this thing moving?”
Omet shrugged as they stood in front of the hairy pad. “I got the gist of it. Let’s hope that’s not the Dunning-Kruger effect talking.”
Mark leaned outside and looked at the dock. Nobody appeared to have noticed them boarding the monster. “For what it’s worth, you don’t seem like the type to fall for that kind of thing. You’ve got this.”
“Thanks, man.” Omet cracked their knuckles. “Alright, Millie. Let’s get to work.”
They traced a line from the center of the pad up to the top. Millie let out a low drone that reverberated throughout the command room, then slowly began to move forwards.
Quet leaned over the side of the ‘deck’ and saw that the ropes tethering the Potirangi to the dock were beginning to strain and fray. “We’re moving, guys!”
A Carnlac rushed up to the dock and tried to wave the people onboard the Potirangi down. “Mmm, h-hey! You need to get innnspected before leavinnng!”
Quet waved the Carnlac away. “Sorry, we’re a little past that point! Maybe next time?”
Xiao had to duck to avoid getting whipped in the face when one of the ropes snapped, hurling itself up the side of the monster. “Whoa, what kind of ropes do these people use?!” He looked over the side and saw several Carnlacs stream out onto the dock and shout after the Potirangi and its new crew as they took off. “Sorry about the rope! It’s really cool!”
The docks were in a fairly wide open part of the city with plenty of space for takeoffs and landings, but the Potirangi was getting concerningly close to slamming face-first into a building. Mark gripped Omet’s shoulder. “You wouldn’t happen to know how to make this thing go up, would you?”
“Uh… Maybe it’s an autopilot thing?” Omet hurriedly drew a trail off to the left, which made their ride swerve to the side. Its fins, however, still got close enough to end up scraping off a good chunk of the building, sending debris raining down on the street below.
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Xiao clung to the inside of one of the buildings on the monster’s back. “Everything went right for us, but that can’t save us from our own stupidity…”
Even after redirecting the Potirangi, the group was still on track to smash into the buildings dead ahead. Mark began checking the sides of the pad. “Unless your plan is to keep making left turns until something fixes this for us, you should probably figure out how to make this thing go up!”
“I’m working on it!” Omet stared at the pad for a moment, shrugged, then pinched a patch of hair on the drawn trail and pulled up. The entire line beyond that point was raised up with the part that Omet had pulled, and the Potirangi tilted upward.
The collision with the roof of the nearest building was much more pronounced than the last impact. Quet was knocked off her feet, rolled all the way to the back of the deck, then caught herself and looked over the edge. A few monsters on top of the Ley Lines had put magical shields over themselves to shield themselves from falling debris, but most were just running around and trying not to get hit in the head by a brick. Quet winced. “Sorry about that, we’re new to this!”
Omet pushed the raised fur back down, and the Potirangi leveled out, cruising about twenty feet above the skyline. “Okay. Bit of a bumpy start, but I’d say that I’ve got this thing more or less under control. We might even be able to return it to Salamin once we’re done.”
Mark decided not to mention the fact that he was pretty sure that one of the fins had been torn off during the first collision. “...Maybe.”
-
Salamin and her crew approached the docks on the back of a massive, flat-topped building. They had heard that just visiting Sinkhole was grounds for electrocution, so above-ground travel across the city had to be done using these platforms. They weren’t normally as popular as just taking the flagstones, but had recently exploded in popularity since they avoided coming too close to the Ley Lines. At least Salamin’s trading stock had been snatched up in the last few hours, so business here had been good.
The crew hopped off the side onto the docks, only to find the whole facility in disarray. Carnlacs were flying all over, guards had been posted around the other rides, and one of Salamin’s crewmates tripped over a loose rope.
Salamin noticed a Carnlac approaching her, wringing its hands. “Hey. Hey, you! What in tarn-” She stopped herself. That was too much. “What happened here?”
“Mmm, a-heh…” The Carnlac’s eyestalks swiveled between the members of the crew before coming to rest on Salamin. “Carnnnlac Docks apologizes for recennnt innnconnn… We lost your ride. Somebody stole it, like, five minnnutes ago. Customer service sennnt me, go talk to them.” It hurried off. “Later, bye.”
“Wha-?!” Salamin ran to where Millie had been docked, saw all of the loose ropes and the trail of smashed brickwork. Then she looked down and saw a fin trapped between two metal poles that used to act as scaffolding. “Oh, you are kidding me!”
-
“You’re kidding me. You’ve got to be.” Salazar looked out at the empty expanse beyond his apartment building’s porch. “Y-you just flew here. No ride or anything.”
Horan shrugged. “Had to get past the inspections somehow.”
“So, what? Are you gonna carry both me and her with those tiny praying mantis arms you’ve got there?” Salazar threw his hands up. “I should’ve seen this coming, honestly.”
Horan pulled his arms up to his chest. “Excuse me, the correct term for all this-” he waved up and down his chest, “-is svelte, thank you. By the way, Waia, what’s the time looking like?”
Waia checked her phone again. “Three minutes behind. Oh, you’re gonna do the thing, aren’t you?”
“Heh, yeah.” Horan shifted into a falcon and shut his eye, standing regally and listening to the wind with his unseen ears. As regally as a two-foot bird could stand, at least.
Salazar looked down at the bird now standing by his feet, then stared blankly out at the barrier around Tragnil in front of him. “By the Lady, you’ve all lost your minds.”
After a moment, Horan opened his eye and shifted back. “Yup.” He walked forward, straight off of the edge of the porch.
Salazar watched Horan plummet out of sight, then looked over at Waia. “So, he’s just leaving us behind? Also, did he agree with what I said, or…?”
Waia shushed him. “He planned this on the way up. Give him a sec.”
A moment later, Omet’s Potirangi rose up from where Horan had fallen, the Primus himself perched on the rim of the deck. “Get in, loser. We’re staging a coup.”
Waia rolled her eyes and pushed Salazar onto the Potirangi. “Good to see you guys did your part. We’ve got Salazar on board, what’s next?”
Omet let out a sigh of relief and took their hands off the pad. “You know, Mark, this would be a lot less worrying if you just told us what the plan is.”
Mark waved them away. “I find that my plans work more often when I don’t explain any more than I need to, not sure why. Plus, I was waiting for Salazar to come aboard and pitch in before I fully developed things. Speaking of, nice to have you on board.”
Salazar nodded. “You stole this Potirangi, didn’t you?”
Waia chuckled. “They totally did.”
Salazar just sighed. “Go figure. Fine, then. What’s your big plan, Mark?”
“Good question.” Mark sat down on the floor of the deck. “Any notable intel you might have on the castle’s layout would be appreciated right now, because we’re firing blind.”
Another sigh. “If you wanted me to do all the work for y’all, you should’ve told me. I’ve got some rough schematics of the castle back in my apartment, for security purposes. I was planning on selling it to burglars once law and order collapsed completely, but I guess it’s come to that, huh?”
“Perfect, go bring that down.” Mark glanced over his shoulder at the city. “Our exit wasn’t the quietest, but I don’t think there are many cops left over to come after us. We can probably wait.”
Salazar looked down at Mark, then between the other five people present. “If all this gets me killed, my soul’s next incarnation is hunting you all down personally.” He turned around to get the schematics, then looked back at Xiao. “Hey, aren’t you the other guy who was with Yang?”
“You know, I get that a lot.”