Shadows swirled like a vortex from the sky and funneled into the onyx as it pulsed with mana. Shining runes lit up along the haft and flared to life with each stroke as Cira dragged it across the ground like a giant paint brush. The end of her staff opposite the gem now ended in a fine mithril point and would glide over the stone effortlessly.
“This might be my new favorite needle,” Unlike her others, this one had all the components of a staff too, so layering glyphs was no harder than imagining them. “At this rate, I may as well have my aura back.”
She had been at it for hours and there was a pleased grin on her face as another stone disc rose from the ground and put itself into a pile of like artifacts.
“Do those all explode too?” The creak of her gate opening drew Cira’s attention and Jimbo walked up with James and Kuja in tow.
“Not these ones,” she replied, “These glyphs will form an array to reinforce my control over an area and mitigate my opponents’, but in truth they’re more of a relay.”
Her plans would include turning certain key landforms across the island into artifacts, as bigger was better when it came to spatial arrays, no matter how small the focal point.
“Child, are you poking holes in my mountain?” Kuja shot her a glare.
“Very shallow holes. I promise I’ll fix them.” The graveyard began in front of Breeze Haven, so Cira walked around the side until she found where the cliff fell off. Or it could just be a five-foot drop—it was unclear through all the darkness. Either way, she spent most of the morning near the edge of the mountain top carving artifacts out of the raw stone.
“I am going to hold you to that.” Kuja’s eyes narrowed for a second and then relaxed, “Everything is going well, I take it?”
“Better than well,” Cira rested against her new toy as she would any staff. “I’ll need to properly express my gratitude; those guys really cooked the stew on this one. Seriously, check this out.”
Cira waved the needle’s point through the air to form a simple rune and before everyone’s eyes it left a trail of vibrant crimson. With a flash, it disappeared and left behind a small fireball that burned bright but slowly dwindled as it hung in the air.
“Nice!” Jimbo was excited and rubbed his hands together—he was antsy to cast his own spell but worried he would pass out and miss the heist. “I’ll show those guys. I’m gonna be the strongest pirate sorcerer of them all.”
A conversation Cira was not privy to had evidently occurred, but her father once said competition fostered success. Not that I ever had any classmates… What the hell, Dad?
“It’s not perfect… I still have to do this to throw it.” Cira left new brushstrokes in the air and when they flared up, the fireball was sent hurling into the darkness, never to be seen again. It was difficult determining her effective range in these conditions, but the power was scalable if she had the time and mana. Using it in combat outside the dark sea would prove troublesome, though.
The night before, Cira had scrounged through the gems she didn’t need for her soul issues and pieced together a decent string of catalysts to both absorb and store more mana. Then to bring it all together, fixed them to the needle with the last bit of adamantine she could muster—it had excellent mana retention qualities and was often used to bond catalysts. Now she’d be cleaned out once the soul thresher was complete.
“Well, I’m impressed.” Kuja shrugged before staring off into the distance, “I think Captain Shores has returned.”
“Took him long enough.” Jimbo said.
Cira had the materials she wanted and was in no rush to meet the new guy, so it had nearly slipped her mind. Nonetheless, they waited for a black ship to emerge from the darkness and descend before them.
Shores looked relieved to have found his destination again, but the other passenger timidly approached the ramp. He was significantly older than any of the crew, and if Cira didn’t know any better, she would place him above Kuja’s age. His hair was so gray it was almost white, and he unfolded a pair of glasses to put on his face before finding the handrail.
When he took the first step down the ramp, he met eyes with Cira and a breath caught in his chest. He gasped and placed a hand over his heart before his eyes softened.
Come on, how does he know it’s me?
“M-my Lady Saint!” Once he reached the ground, he seemed to be in great pain as he attempted to kneel with his weary bones. She heard a crack in his knee and the old man suppressed a groan.
Seriously, why would they think I want them to break themselves to show me their faith, or whatever this is? Is the Lord of Skies Afar so cruel? Cira hooked the end of her staff under the geriatric merchant’s armpit and pulled him back to his feet, “That’s enough of that. Please don’t kneel.”
His eyes went wide, and he bowed his head, “I see Reverend didn’t exaggerate your benevolence.”
Like grief, exasperation had many stages. Anger came and went, but Cira found herself somewhere between denial and acceptance. In other words, she awkwardly laughed and headed for the stairs, “By the way, what time is it anyway?” She glanced at James and thew him the subject stick.
“Almost two.” His watch snapped closed, “Your guys downstairs said they finished that frame and wanted you to look it over.”
“Ahh, wonderful.” Their timing couldn’t have been better, and Cira led everyone back inside to take a break from full body artificing. Her muscles burned like she spent all morning mopping the mountainside.
“And your name is?” James looked at the newcomer suspiciously.
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“Ah, my apologies!” He straightened up his vest and bowed his head to Cira again, “Please call me Yotan. I bear no family name. Just a simple merchant.”
“A merchant of stolen goods, from what I gather.” Cira added. Yotan gasped in worry for a moment, and she chuckled, “How much do I owe you for the stellar quartz?”
They had reached the garden and he struggled not to gawk at his surroundings, “Please, j-just pay me whatever you wish, Lady Saint.” And he bowed yet again.
“Hm…” Cira couldn’t help but grin, “A fine response. I will pay you once my aura returns then, but easy on the Saint stuff. My name is Cira.”
“Hey, I heard you tell that mage lady the same earlier,” Jimbo said, “Is that like a nickname for Cirina?”
“Well, no… It’s short for Cirrus actually, because my dad was an eccentric or something. Didn’t I tell you I made everything up before? For all intents and purposes, my name is Cira.”
She dauntlessly led them into the house with her eyes ahead and heard Yotan stumble over his words behind her, “Um, Lady Cira, I have heard about your affliction…”
On one hand, Shores was being perhaps a little too open about some things, but he managed to get the ingredients on loan and in hand within a matter of days. “I’m sure.” She replied.
“You see, I am a craftsman as well as a merchant!” His old and not-so-silvery voice was getting worked up, “I want to help! Please, anything to serve the—er, well anything to help!”
“I appreciate your support,” Cira gave Skipper a beckoning glance as she passed the kitchen—it was around lunchtime. “We have a great many artifacts to craft in the next few days.”
Inside the forge her artificers in training were hard at work trying to copy some defensive glyphs onto a pile of slates she made Rocky conjure that morning. They would last just over a week before dispersing—just long enough to come in handy for the exchange. Everyone was exhausted after finishing the new needle the night prior, so Cira decided to offer them a break on training for a day which they refused.
Cira ended up having to let them spend the night in the training hall and said to hold their spells as long as they felt like before going to bed. She was eager to wake up early and try out her new creation and hadn’t eaten more than what her hands could hold from the orchard in passing as the sun probably rose somewhere above.
“Why don’t you start helping them?” Cira pointed Yotan to the others and had him work on the same artifacts. She would compare his glyphs against those of her students when the time came to see what he could really do.
The old man was, of course, ever so grateful for the task, allowing Cira to inspect the main attraction. Rocky and his new partner Rictor gazed at the workbench with uncertainty in their eyes. Before them was a truly strange looking object. Like an oblong basket about as long as Cira could spread her arms and maybe half as wide.
While the bottom was more of a sealed basin, it was open at the top and segmented points like ribs rose up from a central spine almost forming a cage, but each point branched out like a blooming flower.
“The proportions are all right and the spacing should do fine,” Cira scrutinized their work, even measuring it in a couple places, “This is perfect. We can start building the rest immediately.”
The essence loom was what took all the catalysts. No other artifact she had ever made called for so many in its base design, and she had to substitute a couple here or there. The soul thresher function was to unleash a barrage of various mana waves into her melted essence and naturally separate it, breaking down the components into independent and unbound particles which could only be put back together as the essence loom wove it back into her corporeal soup.
It wouldn’t be done in an afternoon, but Cira spent the next few hours helping them make progress. They needed to fasten a catalyst onto each point and a whole array of them down the center where her soup would go.
At one point, she had the artificers switch over to flame artifacts and checked up on Yotan’s work. He was quite skilled, and Cira thought his only rival in technique would turn out to be Tawny, though she had no doubt the man’s knowledge of glyphs was far greater.
This wound down as evening approached and it was time to pull away her strike team again. The roster was chosen to keep things moving in the forge, so her members were the same with the addition of Joe, much to everyone left behind’s disappointment. There was a small dispute among the paladins, and after a heated game of rock, paper, scissors, Oliver was switched out for Marko.
They rose just above the shroud and sat on the roiling darkness below to wait for the sun to set, and once it fell beyond Lost Clouds horizon, they set sail for the palace. This time, they took advantage of Shores’ stealth ship—he was along for the operation too, but would be staying on the ship for a hasty retreat once the heist was complete—much to his own disappointment.
With Captain Shores at the wheel and Cira lounging in back, they traveled slowly on the wind, letting the moon rise and scanning the forest for any onlookers on their way.
Soon they approached a lush mountain that Cira recognized as the backside of Hangman’s Cove. If they headed toward the coast, they would find a burned down hideout potentially crawling with the enemy, but there was no palace in sight.
“Where is it?” She asked.
“Shhhh.” James held up a hand, “Sound carries up here. The palace is just over those hills.”
She didn’t think her voice would carry that far but didn’t feel like complaining. Shores continued to bring them down and a hill was hidden in the shadow of the mountain. Cira saw a white spire poke up above the treeline and started mentally preparing to infiltrate it.
They spent a few hours planning it the night before and now it was time to put that into action. As they reached the crest of the hill, the castle was in full view. It bore three towers each interconnected and supported with buttresses all round. A watch tower stood before each point and Cira could see archers in them below.
“That third tower…” Joe, who worked for Wick once upon a time, guided them this evening, “See the balcony to the side of where that staircase ends? Just above that should take us to the right floor.”
The watch towers were remarkably low, but Cira worried someone inside the palace would see them. The moon didn’t shine so bright through the fog tonight, but a boat flying up to the palace was a boat flying up to the palace. This was partially remedied with a few enchantments from her shadow needle, but the effect was nothing like if she tried it through standard sorcery.
Light was obscured in a wide area around the ship, but anyone looking right at it would notice something was wrong. Shores’ heavy breath could be heard as he brought the ship in closer, his eyes flitting around to each window and between the watch towers.
Somewhere on the other side, possibly in the courtyard, loud and festive voices could be heard. Cira took that to mean Wick’s crew was mostly busy drinking. The palace was sizable so she couldn’t expect everyone to be occupied, but she doubted the communal imbibement was a special occurrence.
Shores was careful not to go too far over as to be in sight of the rest of the compound, but he was able to skirt around the balcony in case someone was in that room and brought them around to the spot Joe pointed out.
“Can you really get us in though?” He whispered.
“Of course,” Cira gave them a smirk and painted a design onto the wall with her staff. It resembled a door but comprised of runes and various magic circles. When she drew the last line, it lit up briefly and there was the sound of grinding stone before it started to swing open.
“Hey, what the hell—” Cira was already drawing her next glyph as light from the room poured out, revealing a baffled and very drunk pirate. Cira’s airborne enchantment came to life and a thin stream of light like a blade of grass shot through the room like a dart.
It stuck in his arm and burst as he looked on in horror and fell to the ground. Within seconds he was snoring.
“Very nice.” The door finished opening as the unassuming pirate settled unmoving on the wooden floor. Cira put one leg up in the palace and looked back to issue orders to Captain Shores, “If we don’t return in ten minutes, we’re already dead.”