i am stuck in this place. The tower is guarded from the elements outside, which i why I think cloak has been so comfortable in leaving me here. My mana vision has been constantly blinded by the way in which the mana in the region is moving about. It took me almost two days to get used to sensing the mana in the air, without my stomach heaving along. Once used to it looks quite beautiful though. The very ground is constantly blown away, forming dunes like mountains. If I noticed one today then it is likely not to exist by tomorrow.
I could have seen more clearly from the balcony, from which cloak had entered into this place through. The door is still open though not one bit of the wind outside is entering into it. stepping out on the balcony, I will be frozen directly into a ice statue directly at worst or be stuck in what is essentially seems to be a mana storm at best. I might not even need my dizziness to fall to the ground. For that the force of the mana moving about should be enough. I have heard that the force of pure mana once excited is enough to even effect physical matter and this is the purest single attribute mana that I have seen.
Anyway it would be stupid to leave the man if he is supposed to be my masters ally or friend. Granted, always having a method of escape is also something that i cannot ignore. My master is not exactly the most social of people too after all.
He wouldnt be able to differentiate a smooth talking backstabber and a friend. I find it surprising that my master had access to the tribes. One of the goals of the head office has been to try and establish as many bridges as possible with any of the tribes in the continent. if possible, one of my commands actually was to establish connection with the snowlords.
Well, calling them tribes would not be exactly correct. Some of them are tribes, some of them are kingdoms and some of them are even city states. They would be like any other forces in the continent occupying any other location in the continent if it were not for the fact that their language is completely different from any other person in the continent. That makes our entry into these places a very hard task to say the least.
Each of them is a local hegemony, all stuck in their own bubble, with their own politics and with their own armies. They have little to no interactions with the powers of the continent. Most do not have an idea what occurs in the continent and nobody in the continent have an idea what occurs in their lands.
The language barrier is not the problem for us, from the black mountain. We can manage communication with them quite easily because those bastards know our languages called as draconic in their languages. (I can go for hours on scholarly thesises discussing on the actual orgin of our language, but for now it is enough for you to know that it is the most common language in the continent and that it is originated from the dragons.)
Without strong knowledge of their languages though, the information we have on them is painfully little. The information we have is even lesser than the snowwind empire and The snowwind empire have to run an entire campaign of disinformation on us to keep it that way. With the tribes, even if we had acess to their villages we won't be able to gather any accurate information.
After all, how will we know their stories when we can't read their storybooks. How will we know their gods, their rituals when we can't read their holy texts. How will we understand their politics if we can't read their history. Thus even with the presence of entire might of the black mountain we have not found out much about the tribes. The sad part is the black mountain is creative enough to acquire most of these books too and they most likely have done so and will do so in the future. We just need a person with the correct skill with the language to open the many secrets that would hidden there.
While their culture and their rituals are a mystery to us, their will has been painfully clear to say the least. Most of the tribes that attack us have attacked the iron legion, with a promise of complete annhilation of our skills. This is one of the worst promises of destruction that exist in the continent only taken up with the worst of your blood enemies. I don't know the history that the legion has with these tribes( we are never given concrete information on these tribes for some reason.) with us but they satisfy their promise quite brutally. It doesn't matter where a person has learnt it from, but they won't be allowed to live. It has reached a point that the trainees of the iron legion are not allowed to leave the holy mountain without an escort.
If you have seen the trainees of the iron legions, especially those with access to the hidden arts, they are complete force onto themselves. There is a reason that the iron legion has a reputation, such bloody reputation too.
Something seriously messed up must have happened for such brutality to exist in our enemies though, to the point that even their exilees and criminals banished from their lands hunt us with such a blind dedication I have never seen anywhere else. (A majority of the attacks on iron legion soldiers are done by lonewolf soldiers that have not been to their homeland for a very long time. Most tend to have become soldiers of another country, leaving little trace of their heritage. That is why the soldiers of the iron legion have to be careful of anybody.)
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Well, it would be wise not to think of that too much right now. Me entering a blind panic will help nobody except my enemies. Regardless, i have protection anyways though the only problem is that at the moment i am having a very hard trusting the man supposed to be my guard. The man called as cloak is clearly a tribal, a man who speaks our language as second tongue.
It is hard for me to record it onto the log, but you can hear the way I'm which he pronounces a few words. Also, his magic is not something that i have an idea of. I barely have an idea what he is doing. This is very hard to do when a person of the black mountain is involved. While we might not have practiced a lot of magics, we have seen quite a few of them.
(After almost twelve hours.)
Well my work to find the method to escape from this place has been quite painfully limited. It is almost crazy the amount of time that one tends to lose when he enters into a overthinking spiral. regardless, every option that I have discovered until now has been quite painful to say the least. I would die atleast once regardless of which method i follow. I am sure that death is supposed to be painful isn't it. There I go babbling again.
My weird thoughts stop the second that my vision is attracted by something that i notice away in the distance. For a second I think it to be a airship, but the disturbances would have been quite clear if that were the case. As it gets closer, i see it is cloak who seems to be carrying a massive boat with him.
I can help but wonder again what this man's magic is. To be able to move such a massive object in that kind of weather. I can't help but wonder if my master could pull something like this. He certainly could but it wouldn't be so effortless. Then again, nothing we could do is.
It doesn't take long after that for the man to deposit the ship somewhere and appear in the room.
"Little wolf, your master has quite stringent requirements for the transportation of him and his kin.", cloak spoke, as soon as he landed into my room.
"Well, i would have thought that no airship would work in such a land. Such wild mana fluctuations in the air would have burnt through most formations in a second or the ship would fail to simply work.", I reply, my mind Finally entering a more focussed state. Hey formation are work, you can't stop learning just because you might die the next moment.
"Well, we from the snow tribe have heard that from your people quite a few times. It has the same origin but a sledder is nothing like a airship of yours except I guess in shape. Firstly, it is meant to move on the ground. Only men attempt to fly in the truelands, if objects could then your kind would have taken us long ago.", cloak speaks. "Anyways, the sledder is closer to a ship of yours. The sledder has to move on the truelands after all. The sledder is powered by the mana of the ground itself. There the fluctuations of mana is much more stable, atleast in most cases."
"So why do you need it. You brought me till here your own haven't you.", I ask cloak.
"Well, i have to take you to the council, kid. I can take you there but you have to understand that would make you an inferior relying on my power. The tribes won't deal with weaklings. Instead I will be coming with you on the ship with you as a guest. If you are able to do that those bastards will atleast act like you have a fair chance.", cloak speaks," on top of that if that bastard is calling in a favour for me, he will make sure to extract every penny from me. Anyways he has presented you with a challenge. you are supposed to be the person that is direct this sledder without any aid from me. Better you do that, you can never tell with the council what punishments they will throw on you. They have a pretty nasty one involving sledders."
"My masters, eh", I say quieting down.
My master likes to give me challenges you see, annoying painful challenges that has always required a pound of flesh. One such challenge was that reason that I am in my present predicament. After all if I had brought my kit with me, my life would have been way easier.
Focussing back to the sledder, i can see that it does have differences in a few locations from a normal airship. First the ship ends in two pointy stumps which I think will be dragged on the ground. next there are no ports, either for hook release or cannons. The wood is completely smooth, almost reflective If i have to say so.
This does not look anything like my travesty of an airship. I would say if put in the ocean this sledder would be able to sail.
"It's a piece of work my friend. This particular sledder has been almost constructed from druidic heartwood as a core. That tree is able to live and thrive in any place in the continent and in any shape. Most druidic weapons made from it and it were considered to be one of scariest in the continent." Cloak spoke. "The druids were one of the few people that would even bother trading with us. It is another reason that they do not like the iron legion."
"Well, so when are we leaving", I ask, quite curious now to play with this sledder.
"You have nothing to bring with you, so i would say at this very instant.", cloak says.
The instant that he says that I am in the air, the man having me thrown me into the ship. I fall on the ship with a crunch, feeling the pain originate like a wave in the back of my body. Thankfully as quickly as it appeared it disappeared. At this moment I have a sinking feeling that this trip is going to be quite painful for little me.