Hoisted up to the thick glass dome in a harness, legs dangling down from the leather and brass contraption, I regret my cavalier promise to the [Queen] of the Yathawn. The cracks are far more extensive than I was led to believe. Water is held at bay by their mana barrier system, and not much else. The compromised integrity of the dome is only just bearing up under the pressure. Bitter cold seeps through the mana barrier, though I shunt it away with a mere thought, since I can afford the extra mana costs with my new cores.
Huge steel winches work overtime, lifting up prepared batches of glass to the dome. In the center of each resides a mana crystal the size of my head, empowering the mechanical lifts. The city is full of such wonders, which tells me that mana crystals are in ready supply. Taken in conjunction with the density of mana released into the area, I’m almost certain that there’s a Rift nearby. Perhaps even underneath the city itself? Densmore rose to power on the strength of just such an arrangement of Rift-empowered cities.
I stretch out my neck and shoulders, groaning with the accumulated pain and stiffness of finding myself stuck in a bad position for too long. Craning to look up all the time is getting very uncomfortable. I wish it were simpler to patch the cracks in the dome, but I have to be up close and personal. Casting through my Domain is still difficult and costly; the mana requirements are too much to handle for long even with my upgraded cores.
Filling in the cracks isn’t a perfect process, either. I have to melt the edges of the broken glass, bring the replacement up to temp, and plug up the gaps as best I can while trying to avoid thermal shock. Otherwise, the entire thing is useless, which means I’m constantly tiptoeing on a tightrope. The balancing act is exhausting, and we’re way behind schedule.
Our spare glass is stored on swaying platforms next to us, and an assistant hands me the next batch each time I ask. Compounding my frustration is how much we’ve already used; we’re not only behind on time, but also on resources. I may have to dip into [Vitrification] if we want to finish the job right.
Shaping the glass on my own is slow once it’s at working heat, but no one else can touch the molten glass directly unless I’m permanently running [Greater Heat Manipulation]. Aside from me, only Melina has a manipulation Skill that lets her work without tools.
Unfortunately, Melina nearly threw up when she first tried using the harness to survey the dome. She’s taken to all the other challenges in our journey without any trouble, so seeing her suddenly struggle is unsettling. Apparently, swinging back and forth at such heights made her deathly ill. I had no idea she found the odd motion nauseating, but she refused to return to the air. She was not impressed when I teased her about wanting to learn flight spells, either. Of course, she reminded me that it was her future children that she hopes will learn to fly, not her, which neatly sidesteps her fear and nausea when airborne.
Avelina finds the harness and lift system fun, thankfully. She helps me maintain working temperatures and also casts [Strong As Stone] as needed—and the rest of the time, she pushes off from the dome, shrieking and laughing as she spins and careens through the air high above the chamber floor. It’s good to see her laughing again.
“Hey! Nuri! Do you think that serpent’s related to my little Yuuni?” Avelina asks when she spins back my way, waving to get my attention.
I turn and squint against the glare of the mana lamps, trying to track her wide swings as she picks up speed. “Which serpent?”
Avelina spins back to the dome. She taps on the glass and points to an immense shape slithering by in the darkness. “Think it can break in? I hope we don’t look like food.”
I shudder, suppressing my instinctual desire to flee. The monster looks almost as big as the Oletheros, although it swims placidly. “Probably a distant relation to the one in the picture, yeah. I hope they’re not attracted to light. Or mana. Or anything about us.”
Avelina leans back in the harness, yawning and stretching until her shoulders and arms pop. “Relax, Nuri. You worry too much. Do you really think this city would still be here if they got attacked all the time?”
I squint at the ominous serpents cavorting in the deep, and turn toward my fire-touched friend. “Uhhh. What do you think broke the dome in the first place?”
“I’d rather not think about it,” she replies airily. “Seriously. You worry enough for all of us put together. This is the first fun time I’ve had in months! Don’t ruin it.”
I can’t very well argue that, so I shrug and get back to work. Progress is slow, since the gaps are enormous and joining fresh glass to old is never as easy as it sounds. Without Avelina to strengthen the glass, I’m not sure we could do it at all, even with [Greater Heat Manipulation] to assist the process. I wonder what they were planning to do before we came along, given their isolationist policies. Maybe they would simply abandon the facility.
Who made it originally?
That thought brings me up short. If the Yawthan built all of this, then why can’t they fix it? And if they didn’t build it, then who did? Everything is remarkably uniform from what I’ve seen so far in Natan. Someone put an incredible level of work into this place. It must have been terribly expensive to construct. Nothing about this place adds up.
Three days after our audience with the [Queen], we’re not even half the way through the repair job in the hydroponics facility. Their glass stockpile, once so extensive, is beginning to dwindle, and it doesn’t take an [Accountant] to see that we’ll fall short. I can always supplement their supplies with [Vitrification] if necessary, but I’m not sure that I want to reveal all my secrets just yet. It hasn't worked out so well the last few times I took jobs in a new city, although Azariah assures me that we stand to gain from sticking out this course of action.
The entire Leeward hydroponics facility is empty while we work, despite the severe hit to their agricultural production. Presumably, they can sustain themselves during the downtime by supplementing their diet with fish. All of that assumes that the crops grown in the Windward hydroponics facility will prove insufficient for their nutritional needs. I don’t particularly want to find out more about their feeding and bait tactics, since I don’t want to end up as a snack, so I urge Avelina to pick up the pace. Working here is profitable, since we have access to such dense mana in the ambient environment. It makes my progress toward ranking up my Skills feel a lot more tangible.
“You know, you could team up with Lionel if you want to go faster. He’s great at cranking out glass prototypes quickly,” Avelina says suddenly.
“What happened to having fun?”
Avelina stares out the window, her lips pursed. Her eyes are soft and wistful. “I found out the Yathawn have breathing packs for surface-dwellers. We could take a craft up to the shallows and go swimming under the surface. Imagine watching a storm from underneath the waves! We could feed the fish, too. Some of them like to receive pats on the back, like puppies. Working all day is no fun, Nuri.”
I scrunch up my face. “[Outrider] One has been filling your head with more nonsense, I see.”
Avelina scrunches up her face at me. “Aw, c’mon. It’s not nonsense! You’d have fun if you stopped being so sour. Yuuni would have fun, too.”
That makes me laugh. “I’d be happy to pass the bond to you if I knew how. I’m glad you like the little sea serpent. Seriously, though, I made some mistakes. I planned on giving you an upgraded version later, once I had more practice”
Avelina scowls. “Don’t speak about my Yuuni that way. You did a great job making her. Your sculpting has come a long way. But, Nuri, we really gotta talk about her poor face.”
“Oh, hey! Looks like it’s lunch time,” I say, leaning on the release lever connected to my harness to lower myself back down to the cross-hatched metal walkway far below. My obvious attempt to escape Avelina makes her cackles in glee. I’m too slow to avoid the teasing about the poorly-finished details on Yuuni's face.
Wait. I’m calling the snake “Yuuni” already? No! I can't give up that easily!
I sigh dramatically. In my heart of hearts, I know it’s too late. We’ve all already conceded and named the dumb thing. Avelina won that battle without a fight. I shrug. I might as well move on to making a new glass golem, since I'm never getting Yuuni back. A different type of animal could carry the glass cores more easily, anyway. Maybe I'll make a spider that can skitter up any wall or across the ceiling.
Avelina joins me on the walkways for a quick lunch. When we're done eating, we stretch out on our backs for a while and stare up at the dark water. Neither of us talk. We watch schools of deep-water fish swim by the dome far overhead, caught up in the mesmerizing patterns and undulating shapes. There’s something spellbinding about the way the creatures dart about so effortlessly.
Alas, our relaxation does not last.
We return to work, hauled up by the winch system to keep repairing cracks. If not for the mana barrier holding back the rush of dark water, we’d have been swept away by the incredible pressure of the deep. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before, pushing on me with so much force it seems to transcend the physical and manifest as psychic oppression.
I know it’s just fear making me nervous, but looking up at only a layer of glass between me and certain death is tough to swallow. Knowing how strong enchanted materials can be is little comfort. All it takes is one disruption to the mana barrier, and the damage would spread, growing from small cracks to gaping wounds in the dome overhead. I can’t fix that failure.
“Do you really wanna switch with Lionel? I don’t mean to keep you,” I say quietly, hoping that Avelina won’t mind if I pick back up the dropped thread of our earlier conversation. It’s a risk to bring it up. Sometimes, she gets irritated if she thinks a matter is closed. She hates wasting time rehashing things that are already settled in her mind.
“Nah. It’s kinda nice working with you, since you can appreciate fire more than anyone else. Besides, if I go back to our chambers, I’m just gonna want to swim off somewhere, and we aren’t exactly free to leave yet. All this waiting around is just making me anxious.”
“I do like heat,” I say. Then I give her a sly look. “Must run in the family.”
Avelina blushes. “Shut up!”
“Speaking of fire, could you melt another batch? I’m saving mana for [Vitrification] right now. I need to transmute some more chunks of rocks soon. We’re running low on glass stores already—no surprise given the size of the dome.”
“No problem,” Avelina mutters, studiously avoiding my gaze. She shuts down my line of inquiry about Mikko, but the blush on her cheeks is proof enough that I’m not imagining things.
An irrepressible grin splits my face. About time! I’m gonna have so much fun with this development. Just wait until Mom finds out.
=+=
When we finally call it a day and return to our chambers, the others are deep in a discussion about who gets the next glass animal I make with [Glass Animation]. Lionel seems to bear a deep-seated grudge about my stuffed animal comment, and he’s determined to be next in line, but Rakesh is making a strong argument that a bird would complement his paper friends. Maybe a glass bird would become the ringleader of the group.
“I think Melina should get the next animal,” I say, putting forward the last person who wants to get involved. “It’s not fair that her twin got one and she didn’t, after all.”
“Hey! Leave me out of this,” Melina laughs. Then she winks at Lionel. “But I won’t say no if you want to be generous, Nuri.”
“You’re both traitors,” Lionel grumbles.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
“Is it really traitorous to want my own little creature?” Melina demands, hands on her hips now. “I was only going to tease you about it, right up until you decided to make it personal. Now I insist on going to the top of the list. Nuri, make me a phoenix!”
“Nooo,” Lionel groans. He turns on me, scowling. “This is your fault. If you’d just told the truth back when we were kids, I wouldn’t have developed a complex.”
“I can make two animals,” I say, chuckling nervously. The last thing I want is to get stuck between the two of them. As nice as they are most of the time, they each know how to nurse a grudge. “I’ll just need to borrow the extra set of glass cores. I’m out after all the work on the dome today. Trying to patch in glass that thick is a nightmare. I’m constantly bottoming out and getting a headache.”
“It’s all right,” Lionel says, throwing an arm over my shoulders and giving me an overly warm smile. “Poor friend I’d be if I made you get a headache or start bleeding out of your eyes and nose just because I’m still salty about giving up my poor Mister Xkarner.”
I laugh and throw his arm off my shoulders. “You’re incorrigible. Fine. What do you want? I hate to break it to you, but I don’t remember what Mister Xkarner was.”
“Ha, that’s because I made him up,” Lionel says. “But I’d be happy with any form you know how to make. I’m not sure if you have much range or versatility. Based on the way poor Yuuni looks, you might need some help with faces, though.”
“Not you too!”
Avelina smacks Lionel, but not very hard. “Shut it, Lio. Only I can make fun of Yuuni. Get your own snake if you wanna tease Nuri.”
Lionel shudders. “No thanks. I saw that sea serpent outside the dome earlier. That was the most terrifying thing I never knew I should be afraid of before now. Are those things always swimming around beneath the water? Never getting on a boat again.”
“Don’t be a baby,” Avelina taunts.
“Pfft. I’m the only sane one. Who lives in a city surrounded by monsters? You heard how [Outrider] One had to lead away a serpent. That’s how he got extra credits. But I was with him while he did his rounds, since I was helping heal some of the injured from his last scouting trip into the water. He was showing off how the city worked, and you know what he did when I saw that massive thing outside the window?”
I shake my head, although I’m intrigued by anything that makes Lionel look queasy. He’s usually the brave one.
“That crazy man waved! Waved! Like he was greeting a passing farming lass on her way to milk the cows. Casual. Unconcerned.”
“I can see how that unsettles you, Lio,” Mikko begins gravely. “Working up the courage to talk with a milk maid is terrifying.”
“Not the point!” Lionel fairly shouts back. “Pretend it’s one of those little messengers in Mack-Town. Y’know, the guides all over the place that lead us around the labyrinthine streets? That place was nuts.”
“Good fit for you,” Rakesh mutters.
I suppress a snicker at the unexpected comments from our usually diplomatic and cool [Researcher]. “Sounds like they’ve got you figured out. But what’s your point? You don’t get spooked this easily most of the time. Something really shook you, huh?”
“Nuri. He waved. Didn’t even mention the big ole snake until I asked him if we were safe. Then he looked at me with his weird googly eyes and said that if I found that snake impressive, I should see one of the big ones sometime. That thing was almost the size of the Oletheros. I don’t want to see a monster bigger than that. Nuh uh. Not for all the gold in Gilead.”
“Presumably, the Yawthan have a way to deal with it. They’ve survived this long. I can’t imagine they’d get very far if they were in constant mortal danger from passing sea monsters,” I say, searching for a reasonable explanation.
“That’s an awful lot of conjecture!” Lionel squeaks. “I want to be on dry ground again.”
“I’ll drink to that.” Azariah’s voice echoes through the room. He shuffles into the chamber suites we’ve been given for the duration of our stay, Orav in tow. Both look grim.
Azariah declares, “Strange place. Their [Outriders] had some good tips for how to track in the water, though. That’s not something I’ve done much of before, so it was a good opportunity to learn. I don’t wanna stagnate.”
“You see that snake?” Lionel asks.
“Chin up, lad,” Azariah replies. “Look like you’ve seen a ghost. Things like that swim the depths. Worse things, too. That’s why I didn’t wanna come down here in the first place if we could help it. But they’ve got it covered. That’s why their squads lead the monsters away, y’know?”
“I’d move to the shallows if I were them,” Lionel says, refusing to be placated. “More sunlight, no monsters. What's not to like?”
“Got it. No snake for Lio. How about a cute sea turtle instead? Or maybe a lion, like your namesake. Or maybe an owl, or a—”
Knocking at the chamber door cuts me off. Lionel winks and dashes over to open the door before I can continue.
“Oh, hey, [Outrider] One. How’s it going?” Lionel asks, rubbing the back of his neck in an overflow of nervous energy. “That enormous snake still out there?”
“The baby returned to her mother,” [Outrider] One says, grinning when Lionel groans and steps back with his hand over his forehead.
“You earth-dwellers have no sense of adventure,” [Outrider] One says, baring his sharp teeth and fluttering his fingers in a manner that I now associate with amusement. “If you have never snatched your own death out of the jaws of an otherworldly beast, have you truly lived?”
“We’ve killed bigger monsters before,” Lionel scoffs. He folds his arms across his chest.
[Outrider] One laughs softly. “Yet your hands shook with fear at the thought of watching it through the dome. How would you kill something like that with your abject fear? You won’t even go into the depths with me. How could you possibly kill such a thing?”
“Yeah, uh, we can breathe above water. Makes it a lot easier on us when we can move and breathe freely,” Lionel points out.
“Ah. An unfortunate limitation.”
“Were you looking for us?” I prompt.
“Yes. The [Queen] desires to speak with you further. Come with me to discuss the dome repairs. The rest of the team may wait here,” [Outrider] One tells me.
While we walk down the hallways, which are ribbed with mana-steel for reinforcement, he keeps giving me sideways glances. Finally I grow tired of it and put my fist on my hip as I turn to stare him down. “All right, out with it. What’s eating at you?”
[Outrider] One licks his lips with his long, pale tongue. “Nothing is eating at me, Master Nuri. I am simply perplexed and amused at the thought of your friends hunting monsters. You do not seem particularly ruthless to me.”
I throw my Dominion against [Outrider] One, slamming him to his knees as the weight of my presence grows too much for him to handle. Thermal energy gathers in my hand, and I step forward, opening the bloom of heat in front of his face—just enough to make him uncomfortable, but not enough to burn his skin. Well. Not too badly.
Abruptly, I release him from the thrall of my mana, and he skitters backward, his hand going to his sword. I smile as mildly as I can. “Don’t mistake friendliness for weakness.”
Again, his throaty, raspy laugh echoes through the tunnel. [Outrider] One springs to his feet and shakes himself loose. “You would make a great Yathawn.”
“Thank you. I think,” I say, suddenly embarrassed by my behavior. I shuffle in place, and shrug one shoulder with an apologetic smile. “I’d rather not do that again. I like your people, [Outrider] One. Remember this, though: my teammates are better fighters than I am. And we don’t take kindly to threats.”
He returns my smile. “Noted, Master Nuri. Are you really hunters on the surface?”
I nod. “We really are. Well, among other things. We make things, as you’ve seen with the glass work. We explore and investigate the world of magic. We also sometimes delve into Rifts. I’ve cleared a few with teams, and even closed one solo.”
At that last pronouncement, [Outrider] One goes utterly still. Only his veins pump blood, throbbing across his face as though he’s under great duress. The rest of him is unmoving as the grave. Then he leans forward and hisses, with his lips curled back from his sharp teeth. “The [Queen] is bored. She will ask you about your work. You must speak to her of Rifts, instead. Swear to me.”
“I thought the mana density here seemed unusual,” I say, watching for signs of reaction from [Outrider] One. His fingers flutter, but I’ve seen the Yathawn do that all the time. Perhaps I should ask Raskesh if he understands their body language better than I do. Relying on shock and surprise doesn’t work very well with such an unknown audience.
“Save it for the [Queen].”
With that final pronouncement, [Outrider] One strides away toward the throne room as quickly as he can, forcing me to jog to keep up with his long legs. We pass by clusters of other [Outriders], if their uniforms are any indication. All of them give my escort a nod of deference. Few civilians seem to populate the area through which we’re passing, but even so, I’m surprised that everyone seems to know an unnamed Yathawn.
“Are you a celebrity?” I ask just before we enter the palace. “Everyone seems to have a word or nod for you. It’s impressive.”
[Outrider] One turns toward me, a hand on the handle of the ornate doorway, and gives me his trademark toothy grin. “I am known. You’re not the only hunter, young worker of glass.”
I roll my eyes at his melodramatic pronouncement and follow him inside. Twin rows of [Honor Guards] stand at attention, their enchanted glaives forming an archway over our heads as we proceed toward the elevated pool that serves as both throne and spawning point. When we pass through the center of the room and emerge from the glaives, [Outrider] One falls down to the deck and presses his forehead into the floor, genuflecting before his monarch.
Grumbling internally, I follow his lead, kneeling down and bowing so that the guards don’t get all bent out of shape. They’re entirely too concerned about any perceived slights.
“Rise, [Glassworker]. Approach the sacred pool,” the [Queen] intones. “Reports from the [Quartermaster] say that you’ve burned through our supply more quickly than projected. What do you have to say to these accusations?”
I shuffle forward, wary of a trap. After the last few towns, I’m on high alert any time I have to deal with authority. “That’s true, your majesty. The cracks are more numerous and more severe than feared. Already, our supplies dwindle. We’ll need to come up with an alternate plan if we’re going to complete the repairs.”
“We cannot ship in more glass,” the [Queen] says, her broad face somehow displaying her displeasure without a frown or furrowed brow. Several of her tendrils drift closer to me. They seem to float on an unseen wind, and for the first time I see the stingers hidden within their tips.
“I can make glass if required,” I say, although I’m not happy at revealing all my tricks. It’s not worked out in my interest the last few times. I have no desire to end up on the run again; this time, there’s nowhere to go. The water will kill us faster than the guards can, I’ll wager.
“Does that not require sand and ash? We do not burn much underwater. Nowhere for the smoke to go, as I’m sure your [Pathfinder] friend has discovered. Without offense meant, we find his distress most amusing.”
I grin. “So do I.”
“We like that about you,” the [Queen] says. Her tendrils start fluttering again. “Not all of the surface-dwellers and dirt-lovers share your humor. We are disposed to overlook your slow work in favor of your other qualities. What will you need to complete the work?”
“I’d like to hear more about those humorless humans you know sometime,” I say.
“Perhaps. For now, we must hear the plan to fix the dome. Losing Leeward Hydroponics for a greater length of time is not part of our projections.”
“All I need is rocks. I will do the rest, as long as I have sufficient mana to work with.” I tilt my head to the side and stroke my beard, considering how far I want to take things. “That may be a problem, though. As dense as the mana is in Natan, not all is well. I can tell it’s shifting. Disappearing. Something’s wrong with your Rift.”
It’s a statement, not a question. Unease ripples through the Yathawn. The guards who let me pass shift their stances, lowering their glaives. If I’m wrong, I suspect that I’ll meet a bitter and abrupt end.
The [Queen] shifts her enormous body. Fins and tendrils flutter, and the guards withdraw, although I can sense their reticence through my Domain. She stares down at me and swishes her appendages in an annoyed pattern—her emotion obvious even to me. “No point hiding the truth from this surface-dweller now.”
“How long do we have?” I demand.
“The Rift below Natan is drying up,” the [Queen] says, confirming my suspicions. “Our defenses weaken. The domes overhead rupture. We can no longer pay the mana costs to maintain the barriers. Destruction is at hand unless we reinforce the glass. You see why your coming was fortuitous; we believe you are favored by the heavens.”
That catches my attention. I want to ask more about the failing mana barriers, but the [Queen] is not finished with her monologue.
“We stabilized the Rift and closed off the portal after we migrated out here seventy years ago. We’ve tried to maintain the mana density, and for decades it hardly shifted. Something has shifted. The mana is waning. We fear ancient enemies have sabotaged our measures to keep safe. Thus, we prepare for a fight.”
“Since you migrated—wait, you’re Rift creatures?” I blurt out, connecting the dots at last. “Like the Wraiths?” Although, it hardly seems relevant anymore. We’re all about to die here if the barriers give way. Wait, I wonder if the Wraiths are the ancient enemies she mentioned?
“We’re from a different realm. No love lost between us and the denizens of the abyss,” the [Queen] hedges. Her tendrils flutter again. “Not important right now. If we die, then so do you. Please, you must help stabilize the dome. You must finish the job.”
[Outrider] One steps forward to join me. A dozen shouts echo through the room, and as one, the guards bring their weapons to bear, pointing at my friend. He stands tall despite the risk and looks the [Queen] in the eyes. “Our unexpected savior has delved into Rifts before. Perhaps he can work a miracle now.”
“Uh, no promises,” I say haltingly.
“Can you do anything about the Rift?” the [Queen] demands, insistence adding a dozen tonal overtones to her voice, making her sound like a devouring creature from the abyss. Rough and terrifying, she growls out more questions in rapid fire, asking if I can stem the mana drain.
“Repair the damage? Hm. Not likely,” I say, shaking my head as I consider my options. I don’t have an easy answer for them. “I could redirect some of the mana from the Rift core and use it to empower the barrier while we work. Or I could siphon some off and transmute enough glass to finish up the dome. Which is preferable?”
The [Queen] regains her regal dignity. Tendrils trace shapes in the air, and some of her guardians flutter their hands back. She waves me away. “We shall consider your words. Summons will be presented to you when we forge a plan of action. You are dismissed, [Glassworker]. Be prepared for anything.”