They must have been somewhere around five-sixths of the way through, almost within sight of the Pit from the air, when they hit the first piece of non-wildlife resistance.
Lu was speeding along, exulting in how far Desert Crossing Fist could fling his body forward, when there was a short but terrible sound, a brief pop that was interrupted by a vague whine somewhere inside his head. A moment later he realised he was being flung in an entirely different direction – up into the air. He tumbled, catching glimpses of dust and smoke as he cartwheeled through the sky, before hitting the ground a moment later.
“[Lu! You good bro?]”
Mildly dazed, he did a quick limb-check before replying. Legs are good, arms are good. Body’s good. Ears are bad, but otherwise head is good. “[Ah,]” he pulled himself tentatively to his feet, “[Whatever that was, the armour held.]” I think I'm deaf. Golden Benevolence! There was a strange sensation as his eardrums began working again, and the whine was replaced by a cavalcade of sound. Better. Now that that's taken care of… are we under attack? His eyes darted around, but besides the ten of them there was nothing.
“[Nobody move!]” Dreamfever’s voice was always hard, but there was an additional layer of authority running through that Lu had never heard before, even when he was giving orders. “[Landmines. You got all your toes, human?]”
“[Yes, I’m a bit discombobulated, but I’m not injured.]”
The speeder circled around, coming down low to hug the ground. “[Good. That armour must be something else – think you can take a few more of those?]” There was a glint in the Warboss’s eye that Lu didn’t like.
That’s a good question. Running his sense over both his boots, he didn’t find any cracks – but there was definitely some deformation to the outside. His left boot had the worst of it, with little pockmarks all along the outside edge of the piece, going halfway to the knee. That’s a lot more damage than I would have expected. “[I wouldn’t want to risk it, Sir Dreamfever. Maybe one of two more, but…]” There isn’t even much of a crater, but it sent me at least twenty metres into the air. Whatever that was, I’d put it somewhere around a sixth realm attack in terms of sheer force. Something concentrated, like a Pressure Finger or Ara'gu's White Whip.
He grunted. “[A shame. Alright,]” his eyes swept over the rest of the disciples, who were eying the ground suspiciously. “[I don’t suppose any of you buggers have a flying machine tucked away somewhere?]”
A moment of silence, before Tai Sho raised a finger. “[I can fly under my own power, well enough to accommodate some passengers. Not quickly, though.]”
And then Lady Scarlet also spoke up, her voice willed with distaste. “[I have a movement treasure. Not true flight, but you can tow me with a rope.]”
The Warboss clicked his tongue. “[There we are, then. Two of you can come on the speeder, and the rest with the flying guys. Hop to it.]”
Lu's face scrunched in thought. No, that can't be the fastest way to do this. I can think of a dozen spells that… ah… A dozen spells that would work well enough, but not any quicker than being carried.
Hu Kuon and Jiang immediately started bickering over who would have to endure Tai Sho's presence, but Ging shushed them. “[What exactly was that? An explosive trap?]” His spiritual sense was expanded out to a large radius around him, pressing down into the ground. Lu winced in sympathy at the amount of pain that must be causing, though his trainer’s face remained stoic.
“[Yeah. Triggers when you step near enough. Usually we’d clear it by blasting through or going under, but since we can just fly over that’s the better option.]”
Lu angled his head down, sweeping his eyes over the sand. “[And, ah, how many of these traps do you think there are?] Can we avoid them by having the higher realms sweep with their sense?
“[I’m feeling metal. Disks, spaced erratically.]” Ging’s face was grim. “[There are some behind us that we passed by chance – it was good luck that we only triggered one. Lu, don’t move at all; there are two near you.]”
Oh. He looked even harder at the desert, but couldn’t see a single grain out of place. Oh dear. With his own sense extended, he scanned around and saw what Ging was talking about; the disks of metal were sized like very thick formation flags, and not distributed with any pattern he could see. Won’t be able to pick our way through – not faster than a walking pace, anyway. “[They- they wouldn’t use so many resources trapping a random section of the desert, right? I’d assume there’s a thin ring going all the way around – maybe we can jump it?]” Dragging two thirds of the party would slow them immensely, and Lu was suddenly very worried about running into defenders drawn by the explosion.
Bone Softener refuted him. “[They would not put only a few down, not while they are actively at war. This is meant to deter an army; therefore, we must assume it will continue for a long span, perhaps most of the remaining distance.]” Bo nodded in agreement, shooting Lu an apologetic look. “[The Warboss’s plan it the best option. We will simply have to fly the rest of the way.]”
Jiang groaned, while the rest of the disciples adopted stoic expressions.
…Except for Lu. Wait a moment. Explosions, flying… I think there’s a solution here. His brows furrowed, and he opened his mouth hesitantly. “[Lady Scarlet, exactly what form does your movement treasure take?]”
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Only a few weeks ago, while concocting the last of the pills that were now sitting in his spacial treasures, Lu had decided to make an attempt on an original pill. It’s not much different than spellcrafting, really, he had thought. Put the effects in the correct order, and you can achieve the result you want.
But it turned out that no, alchemy was not quite as similar to spellcrafting as he had thought. A form interacted with other forms, yes, but those interactions were strictly linear; changing a form near the end could modify the effect of a form nearer the start, but that modification would only happen once the effect ran through that latter form. It would not change the way the preceding form interacted with the in-between forms.
Alchemy was not like that.
For an example, take the explosive pills that Lu was using in place of powder in his firearms. Exploding Snapdragon Pills contain three ingredients: orange snapdragons, six-flavoured spirit vinegar, and beeswax. The concocting process is long and complicated, but to boil it down to simple terms…
The snapdragons, which provide initial ignition in the completed pill, are added first. The vinegar, the actual bulk of the explosive force, then dissolves them. Then the pills are shaped and the wax forms a seal on the outside, protecting the other ingredients from the environment.
Now if one were to say, desire an equivalent explosive force in a smaller pill, one might think to replace the beeswax with flame-infused rice dough. On paper, it works perfectly; the dough is inert and stable in most situations, much like the wax, but adds an extra oomph to the explosion once the other ingredients are set off. And its properties while in the cauldron mean that very few modifications need to be made to produce the appropriately-sized pills.
But what Lu hadn’t thought to take into account was how the dough reacted to the emulsion of flower and vinegar, a reaction which was already complete by the time the third ingredient would be added. The dough caused the snapdragon to be repulsed from the vinegar, in a way that made the resulting pills very dangerous; they might sometimes detonate just from being handled casually, but other times refuse even when struck with a hammer, and they would go off at the slightest touch of flame or spark of static. He had decided to throw the whole batch out, after they proved themselves unusable for their intended purpose.
But he had learned something. Just because you know how every ingredient reacts in isolation, doesn’t mean you know how they react in practice. And he had never actually gotten around to throwing away the pills.
So he would need to be much more careful with this experiment. These were the ingredients he was concocting with today: three warriors of the salt, riding a flying treasure. Seven disciples, none of which could reach respectable airspeeds and so were essentially dead weight. One giant kite, which could float and glide but not propel itself.
And lastly, a spacial purse filled up with various explosives.
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It was the first time that Lu had ever seen Ging look nervous. “Disciple Lu, I cannot help but think that we are acting hastily. Surely it would not be too bad to take an extra day, and allow senior Tai Sho to carry us the rest of the way?]”
With each of them casting Weight Reduction, the treasure kite could just barely hold them up. Theoretically they could have all piled into a spacial treasure and flown that way, but when Lady No had brought up the possibility it had been unanimously shot down.
There were two reasons for this. First, while every part of their armour might have been a masterwork, few of them were willing to entrust their life to a single, relatively fragile enchantment. And second, they would have to get out of their armours to enter the space, since putting one expanded space into another tended to have a deleterious effect on both. That was why Lu was carrying his pouch on his person inside the armour, instead of inside the ar- instead of in the armour’s own spacial enchantments.
Lu used Space Ripper to transfer his pill-pouch into his hand, and started extracting the explosives. “No, I think this is a much better idea. If we go slowly, they’re bound to see us coming; we’d have to fight our way through a prepared group. This way, we come in fast – we can hit them before they know what’s happening.”
“Before we know what’s happening, either,” No muttered.
Tai Sho cleared his throat. “I must admit, I’m having some doubts as well.” His arms flexed – possibly some sort of nervous tic. Lu could feel it clearly, since they were all strapped together to the underside of the kite. “I know I objected before, but now that the moment has arrived I’m reconsidering my stance on miss No’s spacial treasure plan.”
“No,” Lady Scarlet said, “This is still better. If that plan fails, no more than a handful of us will survive in the absolute best case. If this plan fails, we will only lose my treasure – and perhaps be injured slightly.” Her jaw was set. “Compared to climbing into a pouch, even the original, slower plan is better.”
“But the chances of the enchantment failing are much lower than-“
Lu cut him off. “Elder brother, please trust me for now. It’s not as though these pills could damage you in any way, after all.” That looks to be the right amount. I’m very familiar with the exact yield, so eyeballing it should be fine. “[Sir Bone Softener, are you ready?]”
The driver gave him a thumbs-up from his seat on the front, not even turning around. Meanwhile Bo was hanging off the back, completely backwards in his seat, holding the rope with an eager look on his face. “[Come on, I wanna see the explosion!]” He was bouncing slightly in place, like an excited toddler.
Lu swallowed. This will work. It’s simple; the kite will catch the shockwave, while the speeder keeps us moving in the right direction. Keep throwing more pills, which detonate from the residual heat of the last explosion, while the higher realms shield the treasure from harm.
We don’t even need to worry about ourselves; the armour is more than sturdy enough to handle anything I can throw at it. The whole bag could go up and we’d be fine – ah, probably.
“[Alright,]” one last check inside the bag, to make sure there were enough pills to last the whole way, “[Forward on three. One! Two!]”
He threw a single Exploding Snapdragon at the pile of experimental pills lying lying at his feet. “[Thr-!]”
Boom. For the second time that day Lu was thrown upwards by an explosion, though this one was much more spread out. The rope went taut, then slackened as the speeder was dragged around by the kite, then taut a second time as the vehicle accelerated and took the reins properly.
Lu threw a handful of small pills, which were caught by the burning-hot wave and drew out the explosion. Above his head, a faint golden sheen rippled over the fragile fabric.
And belatedly, as a new wave of sound slammed into him, Lu thought to cast his anti-vibration spell. Then a second healing spell. Ow, ears. Knew I forgot something.