James, Lucy and Ragnar were on the top deck of the Serenity, they had ‘parked’ it off the river now the water traffic was moving and were hosting the gold ranker that had arrived with some of the other fighters. James was beginning to think they were making a bit of a habit of engaging with gold rank adventurers.
The gold ranker had flown superman-style to the river and had blasted the Hydra with beams from both of their hands. The monster had been pounded into the earth unable to withstand the force. Their saviour was a priest of the lesser church of hope. A fitting individual to come and save the beleaguered fighters in their battle but James was cynical that it was the perfect recruitment drive. They had introduced themselves as Aishe and they had an androgynous appearance with short, spiky blonde hair and plain robes and polished armour which lead the team to be unsure how to gender them. It turned out not to be a problem, the gold ranker merely wanted to say well done for holding out as they had and to check on the bronze ranker that had passed out.
When the light had shone out of Kyra and she passed out hitting the deck, Lucy had run round to the front of the ship. She saw her sister-in-law on the floor and immediately tried to use one of her life essence abilities from the interface to be told that they were temporarily unavailable. She had used a few rituals from books to determine what was going on with Kyra and seen that she wasn’t in any danger. Her tab on the family interface had greyed out while she was passed out and Teddy had taken her downstairs to their room until she woke up.
“This is a wonderful vessel you have here, did you inherent it?” Aishe asked in a friendly voice.
“No we got very lucky, right place at the right time and managed to get it ourselves. We were even involved in the building process.”Lucy said.
“Well done to you then, I know some of my peers would be jealous of this vessel, the design is intriguing. I’ve seen very few Fourth-Stage Crystal vehicles as they are rare but none like this, the layout is almost understated but with a smooth elegance.”
“Thankyou, we understood what we had but also our station. As bronze rankers we stand out for having it but didn’t want to flaunt it too much.”
“Flaunt away, if you’ve earn’t it as you say. You can obviously handle yourselves, the damage I saw you deal from afar and the boys handled it up close plenty well enough. It was very impressive they managed to get everyone organised so quickly, I’d like to talk to the young man who was coordinating to see how his mind works.”
Just then the interface tab that Lucy had open to keep an eye on came un-grayed. There were a flood of messages and Aishe recognised the distracted look of an essence user being busy and didn’t prod Lucy.
Kyra Mitchell has used racial ability: Pocket Mirror
Error: Pocket Mirror power is insufficient to store [Barge]
Racial ability: Pocket mirror has been xxx xxxx xxx xxxxxx
Error.
Outworlder racial ability [Pocket Mirror] has evolved to [Mirror Kingdom].
Momentary boost on evolution has allowed [Kyra Mitchel] to store [Barge]
Ability: [Mirror Kingdom]
Transfigured from [Outworlder] ability [Pocket Mirror]
Reflective surfaces provide a gateway to a personal dimension.
Items stored in [Mirror Kingdom] may be extracted from any mirrored surface. [Outworlder] may enter the [Mirror Kingdom] and exit from different mirrored surfaces.
“Racial gift evolution…” Lucy said under her breath as she read the notifications.
Aishe nodded knowingly. “I was sure I felt something nearby when I arrived. Is she ok?”
Lucy looked over Kyra’s page, communication was shut off due to them being sequestered in their room. “She seems to be perfectly healthy, a little exhausted but she’ll be right as rain.” Aishe looked inquisitive at Lucy’s assertions without talking to her sister-in-law.
They made small talk for a while, Aishe was a local to Arngo and Lucy was asking her about the city as they expected to spend a few days to a week staying there. All around the top deck there were groups of people chatting. James and Ragnar were chatting to a group of the fighters who were talking about the fight, they were jealous of James’s pauldron and one of the members just wasn’t getting the fact it was soul-bound and was offering ever more increasing amounts for it. They had made eye contact with Lucy when they too saw the notifications and they all felt relieved. Another group was the highly mobile group that Teddy had been directly commanding whilst overseeing the battle, they were hanging around to talk to him when he came back above decks.
Teddy and Kyra made their way out. Coming onto the top deck she was greeted by a big hug by Lucy with Aishe standing behind her.
“I’m glad you’re not broken K. That was very impressive. How’re you feeling?”
“Oh nothing a coffee and a cruise won’t fix.” She said with a tired smile.
James and Ragnar extracted themselves from their conversation and made their way over to come check on Kyra. James swiped a mug off the table en-route and pressed it gently into Kyras hands that she had held out like a toddler for ice cream.
“Hmm, what this coffee then?” Aishe asked James quietly as he stepped back.
“I’ll go grab one for you from downstairs.” James whispered back and went to go and get a gold rank strength coffee from downstairs.
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“Shieldmaiden! It is good to see you upon your feet. Such power moving through your body has caused you a mischief!” Ragnar said, also coming forward after Lucy and lifting Kyra off the floor in a huge hug.
“It’s. Good. To. See you too.” She choked out as he picked her up and put her down. Concentrating on not spilling her coffee.
“She’s just woken up, she knew you guys would be worried and insisted on coming straight up. Any problems up here?”
“Got a couple of guys up here wanting to talk to you, think they either want to thank you or see if you’re someone special, either way they want to keep in touch to work together again some time.” James said motioning to the loose groups of fighters.
Teddy nodded and pecked his wife on the cheek before heading off to speak to the groups.
“Mrs Mitchell.” Aishe said stepping forward. “I am glad to see you well.”
“Kyra, this is Aishe, they are the one who killed the monster.” Lucy introduced and Aishe gave a head nod bow.
Kyra returned the gesture. “How do you do? Thankyou for coming in time before we lost a lot of people.”
“Not soon enough it seems, you had to take rather drastic action. There is a very concerned barge captain and his crew waiting for you to give them back their vessel.” Aishe motioned to a much poorer looking group to one side looking out of place on the crystal decking.
“Oh, yeh I suppose thats a problem.” Kyra said, suddenly remembering that she had stored an entire boat. “Couldn’t you guys take it back out of my storage?”
“No, it just comes up with an error, its not even a permission issue, its like the interface doesn’t recognise the boat as an item because its too ridiculous to have in personal storage.” Lucy explained.
Kyra looked a little embarrassed and made a little wave to the woman who stood out as the captain by the body language of the group. She awkwardly waved back with a mixed expression. The blonde adventurer had obviously saved her barge from damage by the silver rank monster and she and her crew had been in the group of people standing on the far bank that was in the path of the monsters retreat. But she had also taken her barge with all the goods on board which made her uneasy.
“I suppose we had better see what we can do about that then?” Kyra said, motioning for the woman to follow her and the barge crew followed her off the back of the Serenity.
She made her way towards the river and checked out the item description.
Item: [Transport Barge] (bronze rank, common)
A cargo vessel designed to travel long distances inexpensively.
Effect: lesser and iron rank monsters are repelled by the hull. Weak bronze rank monsters are damaged on contact with the hull.
Would you like to see a listing of cargo on board?
Y/N
Kyra declined to see the list of cargo as it was none of her business. The item icon in the inventory slot looked like a toy boat. She looked around and saw there was almost a lay-by in the river that would be a good place to put the barge back without disturbing the traffic. She pulled out her hand mirror and turned it to show the lay-by and concentrated on releasing the barge from storage. She frowned when there was a problem.
Error
[Transport Barge] cannot be released by these means.
“Err, is there a problem ma’am?” The barge captain walked over and asked. She was looking slightly worried.
“No, no problem. Just got to figure this out.” She replied, biting her lip and thinking what she could do.
As she turned to the captain to answer she saw the shining crystal of the Serenity. In its reflection she could see the river flowing past and the lay-by behind her. Something clicked in her mind and it just felt right. She ‘pushed’ on the item in her interface again and felt a huge relief like being released from a tight wetsuit as the barge appeared behind her. There was a cheer from behind her as the crew dashed over the water as it rocked in the disturbance of the newly appeared barge. She knew that she wouldn’t be able to store anything nearly that size again, the way it had reappeared had left her drained. She swayed, giving her head a wobble to clear it.
“Thankyou ma’am!” The captain said slightly in awe. “I ain’t never seen nothing like that! You’ve saved me a fair spot of bother.”
“No problem. You just take care and stay away from anymore silver rank monsters.”
“I’ll be sure to do that! I err, should probably be going now, we’re going to be late as it is and I need to explain how we got stuck in the first place. How can I thank you?”
“No need, just take care of yourself and the crew. We’ll say hi next time we’re this way.”
The captain came over and shook Kyra’s hand then she jumped into the water then dissolved into mist, a slightly darker cloud of water that made its way to the barge then up the side before transforming back into the captain. Kyra waved them off as they headed downriver towards the city and she turned around to eat back to the Serenity. The entire rail was taken up by people watching. Even in a magical world the instant appearance of a barge from storage was a very rare sight.
Back on the top deck she crossed paths with the exodus of the fighters at the top stairs, they all gave her a respectful nod, acknowledging the power they had seen on display. Around the rear table was her team and Aishe, who was keenly chatting to Ragnar about the temple district in Arngo and where each temple was.
“So, Mirror Kingdom eh?” James asked. Kyra didn’t miss Aishe’s taking an interest.
“Yeah, that was a surprise. Glad it worked though, but it was a one off.”
“So what is your interest in the Mirror Kingdom?” AIshe asked.
“Not ‘the’ Mirror Kingdom, my own mirror kingdom. It’s a racial gift evolution of my storage power where I used a hand mirror to store items.”
“Oh? How does this one work then?” The gold ranker asked, obviously not familiar with it.
Kyra looked at the smooth polished breastplate over the cream robes and saw her own reflection, she bent her arm up and cupped her hand like she was holding a drink and a bottle of ale appeared in her hand from her storage.
“Well it seems that any reflective surface is now a doorway to my storage power.”
Aishe could see that Kyra was wary of giving any more detail and didn’t press further. They had been around long enough and recognised the Mitchells were outworlders and would be careful with any racial gift information.
“It is amazing to see a new power I am not familiar with, I wish you all the best with it and hope it serves you well. I am glad you are well, the barge is back and the river is back to normal I will bid you farewell but I would look forward to seeing you in the city during your stay there.”
They thanked the Mitchells for the coffee as well, asking for the recipe and was gently surprised when the family refused, stating that they didn’t even know the recipe and it was a secret in any case. Aishe then jumped off the deck, at the top of the arc of the jump they kicked off the air into the superman pose and shot off back towards the city.
“Well, that was all very exciting. Bet you don’t regret the water journey now Ragnar?” James joked.
Later that night they were trundling down the road, James Lucy and Ragnar were up top while Kyra and Teddy had gone below as she said she was still tired.
Teddy was lounging on the bed watching as Kyra was brushing her hair in the floor length mirror in front of her. She was still getting used to her eyes, the iris was the same vibrant blue it had been since she came to this world, an improvement she felt from her common brown she had grown up with. The pupils of her eyes were new, perfectly mirrored silver, glinting in the lights of the room.
“You ok blondie?” Teddy asked, knowing that she felt that she had been through a lot.
“I am, just trying to work it all out.”
“You held something back from the gold ranker? Something you’ve already figured out?”
“I think so, I haven’t tried it yet, but you know how the racial gifts, essence powers. They’re all so instinctual?”
“Yeh sure?”
She paused in her brushing, looking at Teddy in the mirror, she blew him a kiss then looked at herself. Then Kyra vanished.