Kyra sat with Shaniva as Charlie concentrated on his ankle, he used a long pin to poke deep into his skin. As he kept staring at the same spot, unflinching throughout the whole process Kyra sent a healing bolt into it. The process was a strange blend of meditation, training and self flagellation. They keep the brutality to a minimum, not wanting to cause metal scarring by forcing Charlie to mutilate himself regularly just to be healed by Kyra. Shaniva had brought the pin from her bag for him to use, Kyra neglected to mention that the priestess had almost severed Charlies foot to make a point. The priestess had even thought ahead and provided a pinwheel for when Charlie got feeling back in his legs to continue the rehabilitation further.
Kyra still felt an incredible amount of pressure to continue her work but felt a huge relief that she had the silver rank priestess of healing there to guide her. As the healing was a process and not a one stop shop for the silver rank woman she let Kyra continue to do the hands on healing and acted more of a coach. Kyra now understood why the progress had been so slow. Healing the silver rank man had been a tough challenge that she had put down to the incredible depths that silver rankers health reserves reached that she, as an iron ranker felt like a child with a water pistol trying to fill a swimming pool. The revelation that the healing was even slower due to the fact that her magic was having to provide not only the healing magic but the structure that would normally be provided by the body’s own natural magical matrix had both been a relief that there was a reason why it was taking so long and a mild panic that there was so far to go. She thought of it like boulder she was rolling up the hill, it was still just as heavy, but she could now see around it she could see how far she still had to push.
After a week of the new treatment they had repeated the ritual to see the magical matrix and had seen some tentative but marked improvement on the legs. The vehicle project was nearly done and James had stopped asking Shaniva to spar with him.
“It’s not right that a priestess of the healer should fight that well.”
“I have almost no offensive combat powers, so I have devoted a lot of my time to the open hand. And, you know, silver rank power.”
“Humph, seems like cheating.”
“No James.” Teddy said, coming down the stairs from outside. “Cheating is being iron rank with a silver rank item that you can use.”
“It’s not silver rank.” James said quickly, looking worried at Shaniva, the outsider to the group, he was very protective of his Vambrace. “It just appears to be like a small silver rank power that’s part of the item, definitely isn’t silver rank, it’s just a regular, soul-bound object.”
“I see.” Shaniva said, unconvinced. “I believe you, it’s not like I am two ranks above you and can clearly see the conflict in your aura.” She said sarcastically.
Teddy had been out hunting. Towards the end of the project he had been needed less and less. Charlie had been working closely with Lucy to teach her the finer points on control nodes and interlinking systems. He had taken to heading out just before dark and coming back sometime mid morning. Staying mostly just within interface range, and if he wasn’t then Lucy used Lechuza to the limit of her range to act as a go-between.
“Well I’ve absolutely got enough sand quintessence to power my boots to probably walk across the desert indefinitely.” Teddy said.
Reaching high he made an unzipping motion in the air making a rift, he reached inside and suddenly sand quintessence fell out in a torrent. It looked like magnified grains of sand falling through the portal. Faster than the eye could follow he sealed the rift leading to his personal storage and opened another at floor level, catching all the falling quintessence. James narrowed his eyes at him and crossed his massive arms over his barrel chest and leant back.
“And how long did it take you to think of that particular slight of hand trick?”
Teddy winced slightly.
“Yeh maybe I practiced a bit in the desert where no one could see me, cool trick though right?”
“Yeh not bad to be honest, how much time did you waste on that?”
“Oh lots, there’s not really enough monsters nearby to keep busy.”
He opened the rift at the top again and caught it at the bottom, moving back to the top he opened it again, the circular motion was almost too fast to track with the eye and it looked like a continuous fall of sand. By this point everyone was watching.
“You wasted hella lot of time on that then.”
“Well what did I miss here then?”
“Well yer almost missed the whole point in all eh yeh all bein here.” Charlie piped up.
“It’s finished?!” Teddy ran over to the workbench to look over the scattered crystal.
“Aye, we jus need to tidy up here and there and put it together. It gets a bit… delicate from here. Unfortunately seems I’ll need you an Ms Lucy to do the work while we are all outside.”
“Seems like you just don’t want to blow up again?”
Charlie laughed.
“It’s almost guaranteed to blow up if I stay down here, you’ll need to balance the ambient magic as best you can and my chair causes a wake in the magic. I’ll talk you through it and wait upstairs with the others, you’n Ms Luce take your time, It’s nothing you ain’t capable of.”
They filed out leaving Charlie, Teddy and Lucy downstairs.
Charlie met them up top and James took them through to the glade to wait for the others to complete their work. The silver rankers had seen such things before and were only mildly impressed. Kyra on the other hand was staggered by the effect, she ran in and out, seeing the bright, rocky, barren desert in one step and suddenly lush green grass and strong wide trees with a small stream trickling through the middle and small animals busying about. The trees at the sides of the small glade were strung with curtains of hanging moss and hammocks of vines between. The moss covered rocks were set in a circle in the middle like a seating area for a camp site, a beetle that looked much like a dung beetle from Earth but knee high and covered in thick grey plates was rolling the last boulder in place to finish the seating area. The group all just stood and stared as it finessed the position then leisurely scuttled away. They all turned to James.
“They’re not exactly palace staff but they get the job done.” He said and shrugged.
They settled in for a long wait, Charlie had warned them that it could take a day or more. Charlie had great delight in teaching Shaniva all the card games the Mitchells had taught him and the four of them spent hours wiling away the time. When the sky above the glade went to a dusky orange glow they took food from storage to eat, James had his delivered in a leaf wrapped bundle by a lama-looking creature with an elephant-like nose with patterns like a giraffe.
“I guess that makes sense.” Kyra said. “The nose gives it the reach to be like a giraffe.”
“What’s a giraffe?” Shaniva asked and Kyra changed the subject from talking about earth to talking about all the new animals they had seen since arriving.
Kyra, Shaniva and Charlie went to one of the larger areas to go through Charlie’s treatment, he was tired after so he stayed where he was. Shaniva sat with him to chat, she was going to be staying with him for a while to continue the treatment that Kyra had started. Kyra went over to sit with James joining him in meditation.
“This is pretty amazing what you have here. Out of every amazing thing we’ve seen and the places we’ve already been this is right up there with the best, and, it’s all yours.”
James was still cross legged with his eyes closed, completely relaxed. A small smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.
“I’ve got to say, when I saw that description of my storage power compared to yours I was disappointed. ‘Princess Power’, the interface; whatever it’s powered by has a weird sense of humour. But this, this is pretty damn nice.”
He leant back and put his hands behind his head as a large mole, twice the size of a normal one pushed the earth up from underneath, forming a mound behind his back for him to lean on, the mole then dove into the earth again. James opened his eyes, the small smile disappearing and stared into space.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“I do think though, the price I had to almost pay to get this privilege”
Kyra reached out and put a hand on his vambraced arm.
“Almost had to pay, you made it. Take the gift and the lessons and move on.”
“You think it’s that easy? I almost lost my life out there, this amazing place reminds me how close I came to really becoming one with nature.”
Kyra shocked him by punching the vambrace hard.
“Come on! You came close, you didn’t die. You’re not going to die, look how badass you’re becoming! You have everything going for you to not die, just continue not dying.”
James waited a beat, chewing the words over.
“You suck at this. I mean, weirdly it helps but didn’t you take a module on mental health at the academy?”
“Yeh I never think of those things when I talk to you guys. Dude, are you ok? Do you need to talk to someone seriously?”
“No, I think I’m just still in shock. I’ll be fine, Lucy and I thrashed it out.”
“Eww.”
“No, not like that, a little like that, no. We talked, a lot. Then sparring and meditation. I’m going to be fine, just feeling the mortality, it doesn’t have to be a bad thing.”
“A healthy outlook really. Just keep talking, keep moving, the team is doing really well and we’re here for you if you want me to stab something in the face or talk.”
She got up and moved over to one of the hammocks to turn in for the night. James sat and watched the birds dance in the twilight before heading to his own hammock, they had all talked about taking a slow long contract to relax on their new toy and he was looking forward to the peace of killing lots of monsters.
………
Teddy and Lucy were having a nightmare. Charlie had given them a speech rather than instructions about how to put it together. He’d talked crap about discovery learning and owning the future of their skills and truly understanding the craft they were going to own and would shelter them in the future. Both of them had agreed it was pure bull. All they wanted was to finish the project with his help, they understood how rare and expensive the materials were that they were working with and manipulating it on their limited experience was stressful.
“No the internal resonance module gets connected to that coupling, the external resonance module gets put over there by the main section.” Lucy said, stopping Teddy in his tracks as he was walking carrying a large section of crystal.
“But this is the coupling that leads to the external amenities?
“Yes it is, which is why this accessory section is attached, the external resonance module has to be in the main section then feeds through.”
Teddy looked at her in exasperation.
“No instructions, no blueprints, we have to build it in sections as it won’t fit all together down here. Fun, fun, fun.”
He carried the heavy section back over to the main collection of crystal pieces. Between them they put it together and shrunk it down before moving onto the next piece.
………
The next day James felt a presence outside the glade. Lucy knew where it was but could not see it or enter. He roused the others and they made their way out to see the others.
They both had a manic intensity, even through their essence user stamina they could see how tired they were. They had obviously spent all night working on it but their auras were sloppy with tiredness and they could feel the excited buzz in them.
“Finished?” James asked.
“Finished.” Teddy smiled back.
“How does it look?” Kyra asked.
“No idea, we had to put it together in sections, it’s too big to put together downstairs, we’ll all be seeing it for the first time together.”
Kyra nudged James and they moved to a suspiciously flat section of the desert. James used his wing sweep special attack and put a lot of power into it, the kaleidoscope of metallic hues that followed the ethereal wing shimmered in the air. The sand blasted away revealing a worked stone floor.
“A little stage for the exposition.” Kyra motioned with one arm.
Teddy walked forward and put a hand into a fold of his training gi that they all frequently wore, he pulled out a model of the vehicle that was the length of his forearm.
“Where the hell did you pull that from?” James asked.
“From my storage power obviously?
“The dimensional rift storage power, that tears apart the material of this world if it comes into contact?”
“Well I thought I could be less obvious about using it in the future?”
“Just how much time did you spend in the desert coming up with tricks with that power?”
Teddy ignored him and put the model down in the middle of the flat area, pressed a finger against the top of it and stepped back. The model was suddenly unrecognisable, crystal sheets unfolded from the middle, over and over again like an automatic origami model unfolding. The sections got larger and larger as they unfolded, ridiculously more material coming out than the model could hold. As it got big enough giant wheels started thumping out one after the other. The unfolding started to inflate and the structure took shape, it swelled to tower over the group.
“That’s, that’s huge. Much better than a campervan.” James looked shocked, trying to take it in. “How long is it? Tip to tail or is it bow to stern?”
Teddy walked up and tapped the wheels that were taller than he was, James could only just look over them into the lower windows.
“Do you know how hard it was to make a composite that was like rubber? The whole tyre and gearing concept was kind of a struggle for Charlie to wrap his head around.”
The tyres weren’t actually attached to the vehicle, they floated in place as if they were magnetic and as the transformation had finished the vehicle softly bounced on the magic suspension before settling.
The land pleasure yacht was two stories high, sleek dark windows completely blocked anyone seeing inside. The top deck had a covered driving area with a large seating area behind. The group walked down the length of the dark crystal to the back where it had a dropped back to allow access. A staircase was in front of double doors. Teddy walked forward, dramatically turned to the group before whipping around and theatrically throwing open both doors. Except they didn’t, he was clinging on to the doors when they budged sideways slightly.
“Err, they’re sliding doors then.”
“Didn’t you just build this?” James asked sceptically.
“In pieces, in a cave, be more impressed.”
They all stepped in to see the bottom deck. There were four spacious bedrooms, they opened one of the rooms up to look in. All the furniture was shades of crystal, they opened different cupboards to discover they were mostly dimensional storage. Each room had en suite storage and bathroom.
“So the whole boat, craft, vehicle, we need to work it out what we’re calling this. Anyway, its all based on aura access, so we can access and invite people to the majority of the ship, we have the two front rooms that are aura locked to each couple.” Lucy said, giving the finer points of the tour.
They made their way up a narrow internal staircase to the next floor into a large living area. Large windows gave a surprisingly clear view out to the desert around them, the tint on the outside had been so dark it looked black, inside the view was unobstructed. The front of the middle deck had seating areas to make best use of the views.
There was a large kitchenette with a bar to sit at and eat, at the end of the bar was a well appointed drinks cabinet that was currently empty. The rear of the living area had a large table in the centre and surrounded on the edges of the room with plush leather sofas. Everything was made to an incredibly high finish, they could smell the new leather and the different shades of crystal that made up the walls, floors, table and cabinets made everything look brand new and shiny.
They met Charlie at the back as the whole rear section opened and he had floated his chair up, not able to make it up the narrow staircase from the bedrooms. They made their way out over the back and up the two staircases on either side, Charlie simply floating his chair up to the top deck. There was another plush seating area that was at the back with plenty of room, in front of that was the drivers bridge that Teddy walked into, there was an overhanging roof that swept backwards, as he gently stroked the underneath towards the back it started to unfold as it had during the set up and the shade covering expanded to cover the entire back of the boat and made walls. When it was done he did the opposite and it opened up again to give a clear area. There was space around the drivers bridge to walk around and there was cushioned benches out front to sit on.
“So it’s locked to our auras, as long as all of us don’t go through a radical shift all at the same time then we can adjust who’s aura imprint it’ll recognise. Only we can drive or operate any of the systems unless we grant someone else access.” Teddy explained.
“Operate the systems? What kind of systems does it have?” Kyra asked.
“Oh you know, the usual, adaptive cruise control, air conditioning, media suite, active camouflage…”
“Active camouflage?” James interrupted.
Teddy hit a lever on the console and the top deck was suddenly covered in ripples of tiny squares flipping over to show the colour of the sand beneath the vehicle.
“One of many tricks. It has it’s drawbacks, it will dampen the aura of anyone on board but higher ranks are higher ranks, there’s no guarantee that it will hide us, and does nothing with the tracks we leave behind from the wheels.”
“About those, how long will we have to use them?” Kyra asked.
Lucy was the expert on the magical functions of the ship so she answered.
“We don’t have to use them now, the cost just becomes exorbitant if we decide not to, remember that Charlie’s clients aren’t the penny pinching type, they come to him knowing that they’re expensive to run and they don’t care. The wheels slash our costs by at least four fifths. When we rank up and make more money and go to higher magic density areas the cheaper it will be. I also get a bonus to using the systems on board due to my essence powers for using magical items.”
Teddy sat in the spinning captains chair and spun it from the controls to face the others standing on the back of the top deck.
“And it’s all ours, pretty sweet right?”
For once no one had any smart quips and decided to go about exploring the vehicle. Charlie shook hands with Lucy and Teddy and congratulated them on their job of putting it together, they talked about the differences that he would have made and how he would have done bits differently but he never put them down and said he could do it better.
“Well it’s a fine craft an I’ve not an issue with putting my stamp to it. With what yeh both learned here and the crystal you’ve won off’n me you should be able to tinker and adapt this for a long time.”
“Well about that.” Teddy put his arm around Charlie’s shoulders conspiratorially and he and Lucy led him to a quiet section of the top deck away from the others who were exploring the ship.
The fact that the vehicle was ready and Shaniva was here to take care of Charlie they all knew it was the right moment to take off. The two silver rankers disembarked after goodbyes and promises to keep in touch and to keep apprised of Charlie’s recovery from Kyra. Teddy sat back in the captains chair and smiled as they set off for the first time, there was no roar of and engine, there wasn’t even much sound from the tyres as they weren’t truly taking the full weight of the vehicle, what they did feel was the smooth power as it glided away at a rapid acceleration as they waved back at the pair.