“See we don’t need Kliss!” Delta winked at me from her leather-bound seat.

The hovercraft we built last year had been cleaned and improved to carry more weight and was now gliding over the delta of the Cascadia river. Large ice chunks were floating downstream, heading to their final destination in the Valley of Death.

I glanced over at my overly cheerful sister. "Yeah, I suppose we don't need Kliss to gather the parts we need. But it would have been easier with an extra set of capable hands."

"We have ants now! That's like a bazillion tiny hands that can make one big hand," Delta insisted. "Stop sulking ‘bout our ex-Overseer already!"

I sighed wistfully.

We passed by the alien-looking crystalline structures at the edge of the Dead Zone and dove into the mists of the swampy area of the Silent Glade.

In another minute, a swarm of glowing, silver Silent moths engulfed us, trying to get us to jump overboard and drown in the muck.

Mesmy puffed up on my shoulder, glaring at the moths.

The adorable gray mesmerbane fox projected an anti-charisma field that repelled the mind-controlling bugs, reduced their influence to a gentle whisper, a pull in the back of my head. Delta winced and slid over closer to us.

"Jeez, this feels weird," she murmured. "Shoo, stupid moths."

She waved a hand, making the glowing bugs flutter away from her.

"Remember why we're here," I said.

"Ah... right," Delta nodded. "Damn moths are making my thoughts all weird. Let's get as many as we can!"

She closed her eyes, diverting her mind to controlling the colony of Fire-Bees within her backpack. I reached out and opened the buzzing leather flap for her. A swarm of bees emerged from within, staying within the bubble projected by Mesmy. The bees began to strike Silent Moths from the air with flashing stingers. A brigade of ants moved around the base of the craft, bringing the fallen moths into a cage one by one.

I watched with satisfaction as Delta's fire bees and my ants worked efficiently to harvest the Silent Moths.

"Go team!" I said giving my twin a high-five and petting Mesmy.

We moved slowly across the swamp, collecting more moths along our way until we reached the rocky island where we found the crashed glider a year ago.

Once the hovercraft stopped at the shore I began to assemble the ant mech. It took a while for the ants to lock together into the shape of a large, tall human wrapped in a gray cloak. The fake human slowly lifted up our bags and we began our ascent.

Soon enough, we reached the glider wreck site. Shattered crystal windows glinted in the rays of sunlight breaking through the fog. Rusting shards of metal bits were halfway buried in the mossy ground all around us.

The ant mech placed the bags on the ground and slowly broke up, the ants spreading out across the old wreck like a red wave of tiny, glittering gemstones. Delta's swarm of bees went into the top parts of the ship, crawling into every nook and cranny up above.

The ants rapidly formed river-like chains that carried little crystalline bits and anything else they found of value out of the wreck.

I pulled out a Blood-elk sandwich as I watched them work at it with inhuman diligence. Having my own army of ants was highly amusing.

My sister joined my picnic. I kept my Infoscopes and lymphagons moving around the ship, sniping down any Silent Moths that could disrupt our scavenging efforts with [Sectus-Anima].

I chuckled as Delta enthusiastically chomped on her sandwich, getting jelly and crumbs all over her face. It looked like she had the appetite of a cave bear waking up from hibernation. When she was done, she burped noisily and climbed atop of the ship, claiming it as her dominion.

Then, she slid inside one of the shattered windows and started to help the insects tear apart bulkheads with a crowbar we pilfered from our dad's workshop.

I mentally jotted down every uncovered rune, sliding various found crystals into a pouch as the ants brought them to me.

"Hey Dante, check this out!" Delta called from inside the wreck.

I climbed up the tilted hull to the broken window. Inside I found Delta in what was left of the cockpit. She was wiping dust off a large, egg-shaped crystal that she pried out of the main console.

"What do you think this is for?" she asked excitedly. "Some kind of navigation device?"

I examined the gold runework within the crystal with one of my Infoscopes.

"It’s a control core,” I explained. “From what I can see, it allows a mage to split their mental pattern into a thousand, to sense all of the separate parts of the ship. Oh! This could be very handy for controlling your bees better. For example it would allow you to print a hundred pages at once instead of a single page with the bee printer… or we could make something completely new with it.”

I rubbed my chin imagining other creative uses of bees.

“Woo… greater bee powers!” Delta grinned and resumed her dismantling of the cockpit.

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I dove through the ship with the Infoscope and directed the ants to rip apart the magisteel casing that secured the massive, shattered dragonheart engine beneath the ship.

It took us and the ants nearly all day to demolish a section of the crashed ship, but eventually we were able to pull the crystalline remnants of the dragonheart core out.

"That looks soooper busted up," Delta commented, examining the crystalline core that was cracked in three sections.

"It is indeed completely inoperable," I nodded. "But it's still very powerful."

"Powerful in what sense?" my twin asked. "Can you make me a glider with it or no?"

"Eventually," I nodded. "But... I think that I should make a weapon with this semi-intact bit... first."

"What kind of a weapon?" she asked.

"I don't know yet," I mulled. "A bomb, perhaps? No... a rocket! From what I can see, this crystalline matrix propagates, magnifies specific magical waveforms such as Gravity. I think I could get it to function akin to a small nuke..."

"A nuke?" Delta blinked.

"An inverted one," I said. "Something that rips all energy and magic out of a wide area... like an anti-magical explosion."

"Hold up, who are you planning to anti-nuke here?" she asked, raising an eyebrow at me. "I thought you don't want to blow things up on the account that the local Astral is already hella shredded?"

"I don't want to blow things up," I nodded. "What I'm planning to make with this... would suck all magic out of a wide area."

"Why?"

"Thirteen years ago, before either of us was born... a machine of flying death appeared above the valley. A monster, courtesy of Archpriestess Giovashi who nearly destroyed Skyisle. I have been thinking how to stop a level 200 abomination like that for thirteen years now. If Aradria, the dragon, returns... this should be able to handle her... permanently."

Delta opened and closed her mouth.

"Right," she shuddered. "Let's hope that doesn't happen though."

"Yeah," I said. "With any luck, Giovashi won't stir the dragon. But it pays to be prepared, just in case. Now, let's gather up these crystal fragments and dragonheart pieces. I believe that there's enough materials here to make something really potent."

I directed the ants to carefully transport the dragonheart shards back to our bags and the hovercraft. Delta helped, even though a look of concern was painted on her face.

"I don't like thinking about a dragon setting our valley on fire," she muttered. "But you're right, better safe than sorry. If anyone can build something to fight Aradria, it's you, Slava. Um... if this thing sucks magic out of an area... would it suck magic out from us too?" She asked.

"That's where the guided rocket part comes in," I said. "It would have to be a long distance surface-to-air weapon. Last time Aradria was here she didn't come close to the ground."

"How would a rocket like that know what to target?" Delta asked.

"It would target magic itself," I explained. "Dragons are extremely magically potent, they can form entire supercell storms around themselves when they fly."

"What would prevent it from flying into another magical thing?" Delta asked.

"This is a dragonheart engine. It could target a living dragonheart, like a mana signature lock," I explained. "I can build the rocket frame and firing mechanism from a magisteel pipe salvaged from this wreck. Something really basic, like a Katyusha rocket launcher should send it flying upwards and then the magical lock will hopefully do the rest."

"I see," Delta said, looking sullen.

"Don't worry," I consoled her. "There's enough materials to make a glider for you later too... I just think that an anti-dragon solution would be more important to make. Protecting Skyisle comes first. Aradria is a menace as whatever her fire touches is permanently irradiated."

Delta sighed. "Yeah, I know. The cursed section of the forest where nothing grows thanks to dragonfire is very creeptastic."

"I've yet to figure out how to cancel the radiance of decay," I said. "At the very least, if we take down a dragon, it'll put a big spike in Giovashi's plans of using her to milk Vows out of the locals. Now let's get all this loot back home so I can start working on a launcher mechanism!"

We gathered up the rest of the useful debris from the crashed skyship. Then we boarded our hovercraft again, our bags full to bursting with gathered treasures, and set off back through the mists toward home.

My mind buzzed with plans for crafting new tools with things we've uncovered.

----------------------------------------

[Cassandra Alana Skyisle]

Great-Aunt Delta walked into the living room, readjusting her goggles. Her large cloak buzzed with bees.

The lanky woman was extremely odd and unnerving, but I wanted to talk with her, even if the conversation between us was rather slow and had to rely on magic notes that she produced from her pocket.

It was late evening and the sun was setting, casting orange light across the long, coat-covered figure. I gathered up my courage and approached the woman.

"Elder… Delta?" I inquired.

"Afraid not," an incredibly fuzzy, male voice suddenly replied from the figure.

"W-what?!" I nearly fell over in shock.

Surely, this wasn't Great-Aunt Delta! Our Elder could not speak!

“So then who are we speaking with?” Georgi walked into the living room and stood next to me.

"Allow me to introduce myself," the fuzzy voice continued. "My name is professor Vladislav Alexandrovich Kerenski."

"What?!" I blinked.

"I am using the bees owned by… my lovely colleague, Delta Alana Skyisle, to speak to you using a very special, long-distance, sound-transfer skill. It’s kind of similar to the Voicecast rune matrix that the Equality Overseers use to communicate with each other.”

"Oh!" I relaxed. "You are Great-Aunt Delta's colleague from Oz Academia, of course! Forgive me, professor, your voice... really surprised me." I recomposed myself and curtsied to the professor. I wasn't sure if he could see me.

"Indeed!" The professor laughed. "Archmage Delta and I have worked on many projects together in... Oz. She has told me so much about you, mo… my dear Cassandra!"

"What kind of things?" I blushed slightly, feeling out of place suddenly talking to a new person, who was a distinguished, high-level Wizard from Oz.

"All excellent, believe me!" The professor replied. "You are a hard working, talented Agromancer. Do have a seat, Cassandra and Georgi. Our conversation will be quite… long and revealing."

I sat down on an armchair and faced Elder Delta who crossed her arms and relaxed in the wide armchair.

So... Archmage Vladislav could see me? Damn it! I didn't even put on makeup today! I wasn't ready for this conversation! I blushed even deeper.

"Please don't fret," Vladislav continued. "I know this call was a bit unplanned, but I simply couldn't resist. In fact, I wanted to talk to both of you for a very long time…"

"Oh?" I blinked. "How can we be of assistance to a distinguished Oz professor?"

"Ah, well… It has everything to do with your children, Dante and Destiny, my dear Cassandra. You see, their future is essentially of great interest to me."