The Mitchells were in full flight. They were regretting their check-in with the adventure society and wouldn’t be making the same mistake again. No one was resting, fully expecting another attack now that they had been caught by the first.
Teddy had inspected the mechanical parts attached to the monsters. He had surprised James when he went below decks to check on him to find three or four variants of the machines and parts of others.
He had deduced that the origin was all the same and either they had to be adapted per monster or there were design variations based on the makers, he now had enough variants from different areas. Firstly the attack on the cliff face in the desert on the way back from Charlie’s, then the attack on the adventure society dock in Greenstone and now from the terrifying bat monsters that were chasing them. He had small sample vials of the chemicals from each but lacked the alchemical knowledge to interrogate their properties. The interface unhelpfully labelled them very basically.
Blue reagent. Used in the manipulation of Monster behaviour.
Red reagent. Used in the manipulation of Monster behaviour.
He had tested the machines every which way he could think of to make sure they weren’t ‘transmitting’ so that they hadn’t made an error in picking them up. The room was very secure, the inbuilt protective properties of the fourth stage crystal blocking all but the most powerful senses from going through it and they contained anything originating from inside at a simple control input from Teddy.
James was leaning on the edge of the bench while Teddy worked on gently dismantling one of the boxes. He was idly turning over a tool inspecting it, it was a small ball-peen hammer which looked tiny in his massive hands. It was made of what looked like pressed chain mail, each link was a different metal and he could l sense the different magics in it.
“That there you’re holding is two months rent in the most expensive apartment in Greenstone.” Teddy said without looking up from his work.
James very gently put the hammer back on the shadowboard on the wall that had the outline of the hammer. It magically adhered so it wouldn’t be thrown off during hard driving manoeuvres.
James could see Teddy was struggling to get inside the box and up into a small latch that would release the panel, he tried a few tools but none had the right knack. James leant over and extended a finger towards the box, as he got near his nail elongated into a bird talon, the end slender and curved almost all the way round, he slipped it into the box and there was a click as he undid the latch.
“Handy.” Teddy said in thanks and pulled the piece off exposing a system of pumps and valves.
“So ‘missile silo protocol’?” James asked Teddy.
Teddy looked slightly abashed. “Yeah, we were thinking of different ways the Serenity would be adaptable while we were making it. We knew we would be taking it some dangerous places and thought about being caught with our pants down. The bedroom windows can fully retract at command and if you’re standing on the floor you can eject out the bottom, the exit out the top only works if there is no one above you.”
“Meeting each other halfway would be undesirable. What other tricks has the Serenity got that Kyra and I don’t know about?”
“Not many, the camouflage and the defences you’ve seen. It seems to be almost infinitely modular so we can add more defences to it as we go. Lucy and I haven’t been working on upgrades as much recently due to other interests.”
James looked at the pieces on the bench. “Are you getting anywhere with this stuff?”
“I don’t know, it’s definitely not my speciality but the amount of skill books I’ve eaten by now mean that I have a ridiculous breadth of knowledge of artifice. It’s strange looking at an item you know nothing about then knowledge that you didn’t know you had comes to the front of your mind. It appears to be like an insulin pump from Earth, there is a monitoring unit which assesses the level of chemical input, I assume this is what they use to control the monsters, if the level drops too low it adjusts the level. It’s far too complicated than I can figure out on a alchemical level.” He gestured at the dozen sample vials hung above the bench all different colours and consistency. “It works by pulling the blood from the monster into it to asses and I assume that the inherent magic of the monster powers the device.”
[Teddy, James, we’ve found that road.] Lucy said from the top deck.
The boys packed everything away so it wouldn’t roll with the vehicle movement then headed up. Taking the internal stairs so they went through the middle deck and the lounge area then the kitchen, picking up some fruit each so when they appeared on the top deck they were both munching away.
They met the girls in the wheelhouse and passed them some fruit. Looking out to the front they saw a wide highway. Completely empty it stretched in a dead straight line. They had discussed this as an option. On the one hand it was a fantastic opportunity for the enemy to ambush them but on the other it was ideal for putting speed on. It was on the original maps that Vincent had supplied for the contract. In the end they had agreed to give it a go. They were joining the road at a random point over halfway through its length. After a week of travel they were over a third of the way through the first objective. A day or two on this road would comfortably push them over halfway.
Teddy opened the map on the blank console next to the driving station so the others could see. Greenstone was based on the south west coast of the continent that was roughly the same as Africa from Earth. Their first objective was on the north east tip on the continent roughly where the Suez Canal went through Egypt. They had come north along the west coast quite far then cut across almost to the east coast, trying to set a random pattern so as not to be tracked. They were now just south of what they would recognise as Kenya.
The road was marked on the map and they saw it came to a giant lake before splitting off either side. The suggested route was marked on in see through colour like a highlighter. The lake that was marked was the size of a small country.
“So I suggest we head up this road, don’t stop anywhere along the length then head straight over the lake instead of around it. That will throw off any pursuers that don’t have an amphibious capability.” Teddy drew a different coloured line on the map with his finger.
The difficulty was that they didn’t know the capabilities of their pursuers and it was easy to dismiss achievable countermeasures by believing the enemy to be the boogy-man.
They were now almost on the road, it was a dark reddy-brown colour made of interlocking stones. It had no road markings on it that they could see and they had no idea if it had specific rules for use.
Lucy handed over the controls to Teddy and he took the Serenity over the low wall that bordered the road and turned to follow the highway. He pulled a few control levers and they felt the wheels smoothly unfold below them and they felt a small rise as they took the weight of the vehicle. There was a noticeable acceleration.
“Run this by me again, why are we now using wheels if we are in a higher magic density area?” Kyra said.
“The gearing and wheel system that Teddy and Charlie designed was due to the cost of using a highly magical vehicle in a low density area. It allows the vehicle to eke the most of its performance without being expensive. The same applies now, the wheels take a lot of the magical power out of the propulsion that was good when we didn’t want to leave groundsign, now on a hard road we can take that power used for hovering and turn it into even more speed.” Lucy explained.
Teddy locked the controls in, the steering would adapt within reason to keep them on the highway, not knowing which side of the road to take Teddy chose the right hand side. He had the normal throttle all the way forward, they had all taken turns at driving the Serenity and the controls were numerous but now second nature. There were levers for manipulating the bearing of the craft in relation to the floor, they could raise or lower the nose or tilt the craft this way and that while driving straight. There was a control panel for onboard accessories, basic things like opening the windows on the middle deck or tinting them. There were the active camouflage features, the canopy, basic autopilot and a few other tricks. Next to the normal throttle for speed was a second shorter lever, it was spring loaded but had gates that could be locked into place. This second lever was for burst speed, complete with a button on the side to direct damage causing energy to the bow of the vessel, turning it into a magically dangerous battering ram. All the controls were made of the same fourth stage crystal material as the rest of the ship but had wood or leather embellishments.
With the controls set Teddy spun the chair to face the team. “Ok guys, this is probably the most dangerous route we could be on, anyone we come across whether they mean to or not could give away who we are and where we are. We need a scout out at all times, James if you and Lechuza can switch out as airbourne scouts, we’ll have one person at the bow of the Serenity and one at the stern, last person is on rest. If we’re clever then we can keep going night and day, its too dangerous to stop on the road or find time to pull off at night.”
“Not a problem, I’ve got my shape change power ready to go and I’ve been trying to think creatively how I could do some more scouting from above. How’s Lechuza doing? She’s been airbourne for a while now?” James said, turning to Lucy.
“She’s ok, she’s been upset since we got hit by the Crebain. She hasn’t been herself, blames herself for not seeing them coming.”
“Well tell her to come in, no sense in burning out.”
There was a pause where there was obviously a mental back and forth between Lucy and Lechuza, Lucy’s eyebrows furrowed and then relaxed.
“She was resistant but she’s comi…” Lucy was hit in the back by a missile of feathers, her eyes developed the tell-tale tattoos around them as she staggered forward slightly with the impact. “Yeh, she’s not happy about it.” She said recovering.
“She’s not really someone I’d want to piss off.” James said.
“We’re going to need you up dude, call me paranoid but I’m sure there’s people out to get us.” James nodded at Teddy then got up and walked to the front of the Serenity. “Lucy if you want to take a break first we’ll take first watch then rotate in a few hours? K, do you want heads or tails?”
Lucy high fived Kyra on her way to the back of the deck.
“I’ll take the rear deck, no point throwing boulders or raising walls the way we’re headed. Really Ted, if you’re going to be ‘team leader’ then you should know your teams strengths.” She teased him.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
James was laughing at the exchange at the edge of the deck.
“Laugh it up fuzz ball. Get away and do your pigeon impression.”
Still chortling James transformed his legs, they looked like a scaled version of kangaroo legs that Teddy had never seen on an animal before but James did a lot more research into Pallimustus animals than the rest of them. He shot off the blue crystal deck forwards and upwards like a rocket. Far up in the sky ahead of the Serenity he transformed into the Thunder Bird again, the giant brown and white bird was even bigger than the time he had transformed into it at Charlie’s workshop. The air crackled with static and even from the distance that he was the fine hair that wasn’t tied back in a long braid on Kyra’s head stood on end, Teddy could feel his arm hair inside his sleeves react. The Thunder Bird had half a dozen tail feathers that were far longer than the bulk of the tail, five times as long they curled and waved in the air behind him as he soared in the air, the crackle of electricity hummed between them. They could see the tell-tale glint of the metal on the leading edge of the wing, reinforced by his vambrace power. While he had the materials to upgrade it his Vambrace was still only iron rank and so where the bulk of his powers for it, fortunately his eagle wing engraving was done by a silver-almost-gold rank artist and the power it could take was as much as James could pump into it.
James flapped, gaining an incredible amount of momentum from just one flap. He quickly rocketed up into the air becoming hard to spot and sped in front of the vehicle. Teddy and Kyra found that they were both staring up at James instead of being on lookout and gave each other an affectionate kiss before heading off. Teddy walked past the comfy chairs to sit right on the tip of the Serenity, dangling his legs either side of the bow and looking out ahead. Kyra went down the stairs to the drop deck, she pulled out one of the buggies from flat storage, making sure it was orientated facing backwards and pulling it out onto the short back drop deck she sat in the comfy passenger chair and looked out over the top of a heavy academic book on advanced healing techniques.
The Mitchells were lucky that they weren’t isolated while they were like this, multiple conversations were happening at all times. They were able to discuss tactics and group ideas on various scratch pads, there was a forum for tactics, one for upgrade ideas for Serenity, places to visit and even a good old fashioned shopping list. Teddy and Lucy were talking about side projects in the crafting room downstairs where Lucy was right now even though she was ‘resting’. Kyra and James were talking about trying to do some sparring on the top deck later, knowing that the rear lounge area flat-packed into the deck. Teddy and James were chatting about a book series they were both into, hoping the author was wide spread enough to find other than Greenstone, the lack of mass media and internet meant that it relied on a decent publisher to spread the novels wide.
A few hours later James’ Inner Beast went on cooldown, he smoothly shifted into his normal human shape then transformed both arms into eagle wings, again his vambrace boost helped him out, the magic of the boost magically enhanced the gliding effect, enabling him to stay airbourne for longer even though he wasn’t physically suited to it.
It took another hour for James to glide down to meet the Serenity. The height that he had achieved meant that he could work out a glide angle that allowed him enough forward speed to not be left behind. He alighted on the deck behind Teddy who watched him in the last twenty feet.
“You know, at some point I’d like to have a go with that Inner Beast power, none of us have yet because of the long cooldown but I’d love to see the world from the view of a bird, see the freedom.”
“It’s pretty special, but an odd mind-set. When we’re not on the run then go for it.”
They stayed on the front deck chatting for a while and James noticed Teddy kept glancing up into the sky above.
“Go on, what’re you thinking?” James asked after a while.
“I have an idea but it might not work, you can see much more from up there can’t you?”
“Yeah, you can see for miles, I’m pretty sure I could’ve gone higher and seen more but would have lost any chance of seeing detail.”
“I’m going to give my thing a go, do me a favour, hang around in the wheelhouse for a minute incase you need to turn to catch me?”
James smiled broadly at the idea of Teddy falling out of the sky and lounged in the big captains chair. Teddy had walked back with him, he now took a run towards the front, using every burst of speed and his Wraiths Dash to speed off the front of the Serenity. He opened a rift in front of him and shot through, the destination rift was high in the air, as high and as far forward as he could make it. James wondered what the plan was here.
“But the dude can’t fly…” he muttered to himself, wondering what his brothers next step would be.
Teddy shot into the air, slightly disoriented from the rapid change in perspective from altitude, luckily the road was an excellent marker to anchor his view. He used his Winged Feet power for everything it was worth, it allowed him slow fall which didn’t effect his forward speed only his downward rate. The power allowed him to step on mid-air which he used in conjunction with his Wraiths Dash again, he had effectively kept running from the deck even though he had changed altitude so his incredible speed from the Swift essence had allowed him to just about keep up with the Serenity.
James noticed that his brother was chaining together his mobility powers in an enviably successful way. But he still should have been falling faster than that. He looked closer, using his perception powers and noticed in the blur that was Teddy’s feet that his boots were a sky blue colour, the soles a slightly darker grey colour. The only time that he had seen his brothers boots turn blue was when he fed them water quintessence, enabling him to walk on water, he knew that the boots he had commissioned at the academy only allowed him to walk on water or sand so made a note to ask Teddy about these.
There came a point where Teddy couldn’t stay high enough, he was also losing speed. When the advantage of observation was lost he teleported back to the Serenity, it had taken a good half an hour. Instead of stopping he sprinted the length of the deck and started it all over again. He managed to last almost an hour this time, having finessed the technique a little. When he was low enough he had to rift jump onto the Serenity as his teleport was on cool-down. This time he jogged to a stop as he came out of the rift. He had pre-warned Lucy that she was up for scouting duties and she met them on the top deck.
“The boots dude?” James asked.
“Oh, well I maybe commissioned a new pair almost exactly the same.” Teddy replied a little embarrassed. “I was quite attached to the first pair and asked for the same at bronze rank, except these have extra quintessence abilities.”
“Like air quintessence?”
“Exactly, but it’s pretty expensive, compared to some other quintessence I mean.”
They rotated like this for the rest of the day, into the night and most of the next day. In the afternoon Lucy was just coming back on shift when they noticed what she had been working on. Her gift from Hero was a leather holster. It secured around her waist on a decorative leather belt but could be switched out for any other belt, it strapped around her upper thigh for security to stop it flapping about when she was fighting. The holster had slots for wands that enabled them to fan out, they had practiced sparring while she was wearing it and she had accidentally taken a hit directly to the holster, not only did the holster absorb the hit but none of the wands were dislodged, it took a deliberate move from Lucy to pull a wand. Standing proudly in a slot was a wand they didn’t recognise.
“Lu, I definitely would have seen you use that wand before, why do you have the elder wand, stroke death stick, stroke wand of destiny?!” Teddy said excitedly.
Lucy moved to finger the wand nervously, smiling.
“Well I was trying to make it look good and that was the only wand that I could think of.”
“So what does it do?” Kyra asked, having heard the conversation and coming up to the top deck to chat while keeping an eye out behind.
“Well I took a bit of inspiration from here and there if I’m honest, physical construction and a lot of the materials that went into it are from the dimension branch of magic, dimensional space theory and what Teddy’s wanna-be lightsaber does. Then I took a bit of construction magic.”
“Construction magic?!” James interrupted.
“Well we wanted to pick up skill book of every flavour so we weren’t picky. So there’s some demolition magic in there as well.”
“So what does it do?” Kyra asked again. Lucy shared the description:
Item: [Death Stick] (bronze rank, legendary)
A wand crafted with enthusiasm, the destructive properties imbued within cannot be contained by the construct materials and may not be used without impunity to both the user and the item. (Magical item, Weapon, Wand).
This item may not be used without the correct essence abilities to use magic items.
[WARNING] This item may cause damage to the user.
Effect: With the wand only exposed at the tip it causes a blast of percussive energy with disruptive force. (1/3 uses per blast)
Effect: With the first two modules exposed in addition to the first effect will cause a blast of magical damage with resonating force. (2/3 uses per blast)
Effect: With all three modules exposed; in addition to the first two effects will cause a blast of dimensional damage, with resistances weakened by both disruptive and resonating force damage the target will be susceptible to localised intense portal effects. (3/3 uses per blast)
(200/200 uses left)
“It kinda blows bloody great holes in things. Unfortunately it was my first attempt so I didn’t get it quite right and its a limited use item …I don’t know what’ll happen to it when it gets to zero charges, it’ll either be refillable or it’ll explode in my hand.”
“Is it safe for you to use this? That’s a fairly obvious warning.” James said with concern.
“I should be safe to use it, my Magical Artisan ability allows me to push items beyond their ability, in this case it means I can use it without having any backlash but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone else without my specific power-set. I’ll have to figure out where in the process I went wrong before I make my next wand.” Her brow furrowed in thought, already trying to figure it out.
“And what was that about localised intense portals? I thought there was a drama that you can’t force people through portals if they don’t want to go?” Teddy asked.
“Well how do you think your dimension blade works?”
“Well it… I’ve never really thought about it to be honest.”
“You’re not trying to send the soul through, this strays into soul theory which I think Kyra has been dabbling in for her advanced healing theory study.” Kyra nodded along. “Correct me if I’m wrong but the soul being inviolable means that it cannot be forced through a portal without acquiescence, the dimension effects produced by your dimension blade, rift powers and my new wand after studying your powers create a discongruity between body and soul. The resulting catastrophic deviation of physical material from the soul matrix model of the body causes a greater than usual impairment to the target. By no means irreversible but more devastating than the wound appears.”
“Err.” James said, looking puzzled.
“Same stab wound but more hit points dude.”
“Gotcha.”
Whilst they were talking Teddy moved over to the blank section next to the drivers station, as soon as he put the 3D map up they saw the lake much closer than they had thought. They all looked up and saw in the near distance the lake at the end of the wide road. The road split in a T junction at the water, with the road going around the lake. The plan was from here they would blast straight across the lake to the far side.
Teddy took the wheel, he manipulated the relevant levers and the Serenity slowed slightly and the wheels folded inwards, hovering under it’s own power.
They got to the end of the road and he pulled another lever, the bow angled up and the Serenity gracefully launched over the water.
They were all thrown forward as the Serenity was suddenly caught in the air. It went from well over a hundred miles an hour to stationary in a instant. The reflexes of the bronze rankers saved them from serious injury, everyone except Teddy who had the magical seatbelt effect on the drivers chair were thrown forward.
They had the time to look back and saw a rod that looked like gnarled wood rising out of the bank just outside the water, from there was a tether of vines that looked like they had suctioned to the back of the Serenity.
Almost immediately after they had turned around there was a surge of power in front of them. They all spun readying weapons, James had a snake wrapped round his right arm, Staff of the Everglades appearing in his left parallel to the ground. Kyra had a diamond spear ready to throw and a small diamond buckler on her left arm. Teddy released his lanterns and had a dimension blade whipped out. Lucy had gone a step further, while her rune portal ability was flowing a stream of runes from her eyes down her arm to form the circles that she would fire her magic missile through she had already drawn and fired her new wand with her other hand.
Only Teddy could appreciate the look of the blast, it was like a kinetic round from a tank. The blast looked like a clear bullet, causing shockwaves to smoothly ripple in front of it. It ripped through the air so fast only his Eyes of the Swift power could keep up. He was also the only one fast enough to see the expression change on the man hovering in the air in front of them. He went from non-plussed arrogance watching the blast with gold-rank speed to annoyed and angry as the blast took him in the shoulder. The benefit of Teddy’s speed and Lucy’s aura meant that he was first to realise Lucy had just shot a gold ranker.
“Oww, that actually stung.” The gold ranker said, blossoming his aura over them.