As I blitzed deeper into the network of tunnels that had been created by my magical devices, I began to feel extremely isolated and somewhat trapped. There was no one coming to help me if things went awry. I had my full stealth skill running for the entire expedition as a precaution against ambush attacks and fast strikes. There was very little variation in the tunnels out this far, but after about four hours the monotony gave way and the tunnel entered a chamber.
The room was a perfect sphere as near as I could figure and looked to be about one hundred meters in diameter. Growing up from the lowest point of the chamber was a large tree made of shimmering deep blue crystal that glowed from within. The tree was complete with branches and leaves reminiscent of a walnut and it bore small walnut-like fruits. The tree was perfectly still, but many of the fruits had fallen to the ground and filled up the bottom of the depression formed by the walls of the open sphere.
There was nothing else in that space, so after climbing down with a rope to collect the fallen crystal walnuts, I returned to my tunnel crawler and backtracked to the nearest branch point and pushed out to the next magical compass hit. At the next location I found another spherical chamber, but this time instead of a walnut tree it contained a replica of the Treefort from my first visit. It was life sized and was again formed completely from the glowing blue crystal. The books couldn’t be opened and the weapons and devices weren’t truly articulated, but the detail was stunning.
I explored the facsimile of the Treefort and noticed an interesting detail. There was a strong glow behind one of the bookcases that was concealing a hidden door. The door led to a small flight of steps leading down to a room with some documents and several treasure chests. One of the chests contained many gems made out of the same translucent crystal as everything else. The more interesting chest contained a crystal gun and what appeared to be crystal shotgun shells. I took the contents of the chests with me when I headed back to the tunnel crawler.
I didn’t find anything like the treasure room in the real Treefort, but I hadn’t specifically looked. I guess I had another location for my treasure hunt when I got back to civilization. I definitely had to check that out, but not before I had exhausted my options in my Giantspire tunnel network. As I moved from location to location, I kept finding the same thing, spherical chambers that contained objects created from the deep blue glowing crystal. More puzzling was that each of these objects had some connection to my experience since the chiming woke me up at my campsite back in the hills.
Ghostlight Falls, the Aenorin estate, the first board game cafe in the Emerald Sea, my bookstore on its first exploration, the battlefield with the rabbits, the workshop that I used with Tayln, the dark forest of the hell antelopes, the sandstone titans, the library and lounge of the tutorial hotel, my apartment after the brownies rearranged it, the obelisks, a forest clearing full of ducks and the Aerodrome valley were all familiar to me. There were also a couple of locations that I couldn’t place. One was an open floor with a one meter by one meter grid, a desk, an office chair, a pad of paper and a pen. The other was some kind of tangled jungle of tiny plants.
These chambers were massive hits on the magic compass for good reason. When I tested the crystals that I harvested from these locations back in my workshop in the Aerodrome, I found that they held exponentially more stored power than a normal magic crystal. They would open up new possibilities as a power source for magical devices, but they also made spectacular ammunition. I was all for building magical devices and I had been pretty gung ho about how far I could push the limit there, but I needed more of a balance in my life. I missed being on the hunt and developing my other skills, so after the airship was constructed I was going to take a little time off of all this productivity and have some fun.
For now I couldn’t ignore the strange scenes that I had found in the hearts of the Giantspire Mountains themselves. It was tough to understand what it was that I had found. It seemed personal to me, but why? Did what I had uncovered have something to do with the mechanism by which dreams were collected and transmitted in the mountains? I thought of myself as a rational and logical person, but I had no idea how to go about testing that hypothesis. My mind kept going back to what Galan had said before he offered to teach me to make the magic compass, “I have pushed many boundaries and stared into the beyond, but now when I look the beyond is blurry. This is not how things should be.” Was what I found related to what Galan meant? I certainly would have never found those places without the magic compass.
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The homogeneity of the underbelly of the mountains was also shocking. Beyond the spherical pockets, I ran across no caverns or geological features. It was as if the rock had simply been dropped there fully formed and complete. I was not sure that it really mattered, but it highlighted how little I really understood of Region Eleven and its history. Hopefully a tour of the mountains from above would yield some additional perspective.
***
As long as I can remember, I have dreamed of living in a huge airship hovering high in the sky. The kind of ship that can house smaller planes with ease and sustain itself in the sky indefinitely if needed. I was sure that there was a way to generate or collect helium using magic particle based technology, but I didn’t have a clue how to make that happen at that point. The lack of helium, or even hydrogen, meant that a large, rigid lighter-than-air aircraft was out of the question for me. Instead, I was going to have to settle for a thermal airship, at least for now. The addition of magic gave me many options that expanded the possibilities, but housing smaller planes and operating indefinitely in the sky would not be possible.
Even if it wasn’t my full dream come true, I was pretty chuffed to watch the first test flight of my new craft. It was a frame suspended between two long, roughly cylindrical air envelopes and a number of ancillary envelopes, propellers and fans. It had quite a few elements to control and it took a significant amount of my bandwidth to do so, but in exchange it was relatively fast, maneuverable and adaptable. It was not spacious, but it was a good compromise, as it had living quarters for me, could accommodate a guest and could carry a small payload, but was still small enough to be able to be collapsed for overland transport in pieces.
Of course, I had no intention of collapsing this thing. After a week’s worth of testing and the addition of a number of potentially lifesaving measures using my existing disc and energy armor technology, it was time to take the next step. I left the sloths free range with access to the shelter and powered down all but a select group of devices with specific images to prepare what I might need for the future.
With my equipment and supplies loaded, I boarded the airship and engaged the massive magic particle lattice that would safely launch the ship without concern for the mountain winds. The energy density of the blue crystals made this type of launch technology and many other enhancements to the airship’s operational capabilities possible. I took off on an elliptical flight path that would take me deep into the Giantspire Mountains, through Eastern Tear and circle around to approach the Emerald Sea from the plains to its south. Harris was coming home.
***
Karen led her team out of Eastern Tear to the mountains to the north. They had spent months preparing to undertake this very journey. Upgrading your class wasn’t an exact science, but it wasn’t a total mystery either. There were some experiences that were simultaneously expressions of profound spiritual strength and engines to evolve the spirit of those that participate. These experiences could provide the fuel to upgrade almost any class. The successful completion of the rite of passage at Ghostlight Falls is one such experience.
There are also those that are so focused and attuned with their class, that they are able to upgrade it almost by inspiration. Queakers’ ability to intuit and move along her own path with little outside assistance is an example of this type of upgrade. It is limited to those rare geniuses who could forge their path anew if need be and awakened that can advance this way often push the boundaries of a path forward given enough time and opportunity.
For the rest, advancing one’s class is typically about mastering an existing path, the development of skills and abilities complimentary to a new path and proof of spiritual growth achieved through an ordeal. Jim, Karen, Kelly and Sarah had been given a quest by the elders of Eastern Tear that the elves were confident would prove an appropriate ordeal for all of the human members of the team. The party would scale the peaks of the Giantspire Mountains, subdue the guardians of a sacred spring and bring some of the eternal ice that developed there back to the elven elders of Eastern Tear.
It would be a brutal climb and a battle against the elements and the inhabitants of the mountains. The eternal ice that formed near the spring wasn’t truly eternal, but it wouldn’t melt before being combined with other materials. Unfortunately, the eternal ice would shed magic particles over time once removed from its source, diminishing its potency. Harvesting this special ice would put the team on the clock to return to Eastern Tear as quickly as possible.
They had thoughtfully selected their provisions and equipment to balance their need for versatility and combat strength with their need to operate effectively in the harsh alpine conditions and terrain. Their energy shields and relatively balanced builds were an excellent foundation for the mission, but they would need to lean heavily on their new training and skills. The party knew that it was going to be a challenge, likely one that they expected would push them to their limits, but they were excited to finally take this step forward.