“Do you like Nanri more?” Nina couldn’t hear Cira’s question from such a distance, but she would never have gotten a reply anyway. “That’s not it…”
Cira grumbled, letting the witches advance through her gauntlet at their own paces. Fortunately, Estelle slowed her assistant down by a great deal, but Lyren was pulling out all kinds of spatial cheats that made the master of this lair frown. She’s not playing fair… I need to get creative.
Cira knew all her tricks but had to admit the girl was adept at them. Especially in the face of her lackadaisical prowess, the sorcerer didn’t have the heart to trap her in a space prison.
She had to line the walls, ceiling, and floor behind them with anti-space enchantments, stopping her apparent ultimate move of moving inside the salt then displacing herself into a high-speed kick to shatter the golems. This also made her draw projectiles exclusively from the path ahead. She played the obvious card of conjuring an invisible bridge in front of them, which Cira cut into square sections before adding time limits to each tile.
She had a good laugh at the witch’s befuddlement of her own magic not being dispelled, but altered to mimic a children’s game. She had an even bigger laugh when Lyren started floating. It had devolved into a gauntlet solely to make the Astral Witch’s life as hard as possible. She desperately jumped from one square to the next as the time limit seemingly varied with each tile.
Cira added a couple surprise squares with a zero second time limit and watched the witch fall through, smacking her chin on the way down and having to crawl back up with overgrown salt rats nipping at her heels. Lyren annoyingly cleared most of path, but Cira thought her gauntlet was really shaping up. She even noticed at a point Lyren seemed to be enjoying herself too, wearing a thin smile as she floated above carpet bombing the tunnel, smashing golems with gravity or salt, which also floated around in the form of thirty or so swords. You’re alright, I guess. But you…
“You brought this on yourself, Astral Witch.” Cira pouted and looked away, throwing a glance at Nina atop her new perch. “What’s the deal? Are you saying… I was really terrible to Nanri? I already know that.”
She sighed, watching the Titan Witch tear through her gauntlet wearing a fearless smile. She had already surpassed the third switchback and the bears, wolves, and miniature dragons all quickly fell before her. At this point she had begun disassembling them and it made Cira proud. Although, she was on easy mode, so a whole floor above the other witches was reasonable.
She would pick up pace if Cira wasn’t careful. If I throw any more obstacles her way, though… I’d feel really bad.
“Nina, do you truly have such deep thoughts? There’s no way you know what I’ve done, right?” The nymph hadn’t stopped staring at her the whole time, turning her head with each bend the Titan Witch surpassed. “Did you realize I was upset, and thought Nanri could fix it?”
The whims of a salt nymph were beyond Cira, as they had been since Nina first appeared atop her staff. She watched Nanri wave prima salt out of her face and sneeze, then returned her own glare to the little nymph before making a wind barrier around the witch’s brim. Such a thoughtless nymph.
“Okay, where am I?” Her rivers were nearing completion. They would be ready to push into Uren any minute now, not that they would yet. The world’s largest pipe had finished construction as well, but she had yet to activate the pump artifacts again. That would wait for her arrival and finishing touches.
Likewise, there was a lot of material waiting for Cira on the surface. The remainder of everything from below after finishing Zero Stratum and squeezing out any excess from her efforts in the rivers. A ring of countless spheres formed from salt, titanium, and brinstahl dotted the edge just below the surface of Fount Salt like blocks of silver waiting to be placed on her anvil.
By now the extra deritium had also begun making its way to the surface. All six were rounded off and she surrounded each one in a barrier of golden light to hide its nature. Unless we’re talking about the element itself, all light held within mana is static, bound to the mana. Thus, she couldn’t just block the light with titanium, instead masking it with pervasive holy mana, dimmed to be no brighter than moonlight so as not to cause not to wake everyone up.
Cira took a moment to watch her exorcists hard at work, hoping the witch’s trouble them no further. Delilah was also finishing two batches of soul remedy, leaving them with aetherium until evening came. Hang on, where did Lomp—oh… She had given him a special mission. Let me just speed up that elevator for you.
“H-hey, what’s going on?!” He hung onto the rail with a panicked look as the elevator reached astronomical speeds. Not enough to throw him to the ground, but Cira needed to expedite his mission. How far away is Port Gandeux anyway? There must be ways for them to get messages there quickly. If Earth Vein has outposts, I’m sure the rest of them do. Sounds like Lomp work to me. “Cira, I know this is you! Stop this at once.”
“Get your head in the game, Lomp! The witches are already here!” Cira threw her voice into the elevator as she did with the pirates, just not so loud.
“Bah!” He stumbled to his ass this time, “Cira, what the hell?! You could do that the whole time?”
“Of course, it’s basic wind sorcery. And sorry for earlier…” The disembodied voice spoke to Lomp, “but you need to get your ass in gear. Nanri and the witches have already surpassed you in their ascent, quickly approaching yours truly.”
“What?! Nanri’s helping the witches? And wait… how?”
“The same way I’ve sped you up. And no, she’s not… I don’t have time to explain. I’ll be increasing your speed now. I need you to get the messages out within the hour—”
“With what?!” Lomp raged, “solid mithril?! I need time, at least a couple hours. It’s the middle of the night!”
“No can do. The carriers of those messages need to be well out of sight after one hour. Use my reward money from Pappy, I’ll take you straight to him.”
“What?! No—don’t do that!” He slid further onto to the floor as the momentum increased by several degrees. His skin was starting to stretch while his jowls flapped until Cira put a barrier around him to negate the inertial forces bearing down the dependable agent of hope. Spatial sorcery was good for these times.
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Meanwhile as she rolled her eyes, they landed on a floating witch clad in purple. She was like a guardian angel, clearing her mentor’s way from above with her spatial tomfoolery that Cira had given up on. Instead, as they passed the second bend the sorcerer added magic circles inside rings of light that would follow set paths. Either straight down the hall, in spirals, or somewhat erratically. They approached the witches at a consistent speed, mainly hanging near the ceiling to make Lyren’s flight more hazardouse. If went through one it would increase her spatial drag, slowing the witch down for a few seconds, but she sprinkled in a couple Phase Locks too.
“What is this gods forsaken place?!” Estelle cried, swinging her staff through a salty jungle cat before stabbing the end into a frog as it hopped through a broken tile. Cira was loathe to admit it, but this witch was seriously badass. She didn’t even look tired, and her attacks were constant, flowing from one to the next as if her staff’s course had been plotted ahead of time in tandem with her tireless feet as she danced across the tiles, never using them for more than taking the next step.
She had to pick up more slack as the Dimension Witch fluttered around the oncoming rings like a salt nymph, weaving between them with an almost lazy grace. The resemblance was uncanny. She looked back at her mentor with a big smile on her face, “I don’t know, but it’s really fun, isn’t it?”
“Fun?!” Estelle was pelted in the chest by a white sparrow when her outrage split her attention for a moment, “Have you gone as mad as that whelp?!” Splash! “Ah! Wha… That bitch!”
“Hey Nina,” Cira heard a certain other witch’s voice which was far more pleasant to the ears, “Are we almost there?”
Two whole floors above the others, the real nymph hovered before Nanri’s face as there were no more dangers before them, and pointed the way in reply. The golems had begun crumbling upon creation at this point and eventually Cira gave up. Letting out a heavy sigh, she conjured some salt behind her and slumped against it. “What am I doing?” Clenching a fist, she watched Nanri close in on the last turn. “I’m only going make things worse, so why don’t I stop her? Why…”
Cira was not one to act irrationally. Even her whims were backed by a split second of hard calculations and thorough afterthought. Thus, she rarely felt that she was doing the wrong thing. Since she last woke up in the plague ward, that had all been turned on its head. Then, from the moment she awoke in the spring chamber, she had never been more confident that she took a wrong turn or two somewhere.
Alas, Cira was in far too deep in this moment. Now she was playing a constant game of ‘don’t let everything fall apart’. It wasn’t a fun game, and Cira was in the home stretch, yet her heart still wavered. She couldn’t bring herself to make the rational decision. There was no point in seeing Nanri when she was on her way out. She knew that. She wanted desperately not to make matters worse, but deep-down Cira knew that was an excuse.
While she was bitter with regret over how they left things, Cira knew she couldn’t make things worse for Nanri. That was denial in the works telling her that things weren’t already as bad as they could get for the witch. There wasn’t a single thing she could do about it. No… no there wasn’t.
“Don’t worry, Cira…” Her father’s weary words rang through her head. She could still feel his frail hand against her cheek as he wiped away the tears. “You still have so much life within you. After I’m gone you will meet all kinds of people across the distant skies, I promise you. You’ve always shined brighter than even the pathfinder’s star… One day, I know, you’ll make a friend. And you won’t have to feel alone anymore.”
Gazen was bedridden for months at this time, and this moment was one of his final days. For what felt like an eternity, Cira had to forage and hunt, plot their course, and even take on jobs all by herself, while he lay dying. She hated that he didn’t allow her to stay home all the time as his own time steadily ran out, but that was his way of getting Cira ready for the world, even if she was a little young to be on her own.
“Dad…” Cira focused back into the spring chamber and found herself reaching out into empty air, grasping at nothing. “Why now… I can’t just up and replace him. That’s impossible…” How many years have I been alone though…?
Sliding down the salt, she rested on the ground and sulked. I know that’s not what it would be. But… I don’t know if I’m ready for my home to change again. What if I forget the little time I had with him, like I’ve forgotten the land of my birth? I don’t want that. I don’t want to forget about my dad…
Besides, if Nanri came with me, wouldn’t it just make her life even more difficult? She’s a witch, from a whole land of witches. From what she says, I doubt they would take kindly to her disappearing into the sky. They would search for her, surely. Then what? Back to the empty skies to chance upon the next trade route?
Cira shook her head, frustrated at the onslaught of anxieties building up. If the witch joined her, they would need to fly far away from the Boreal. It would be a fresh new adventure to distant lands. Part of it was exciting, but there were so many problems with that fantasy in her head. She would be asking Nanri to throw away her entire life—whatever remained of it—and run away.
Would Nanri even want to come with me? Somebody like me…
She was shrouded in glimmering streams while the spring had become a cerulean sun. The chamber was so dense with mana that Cira could feel the strain on her body as she burned like her own sun from the aura out. Her head had started to feel like a dagger was lodged in it after hours of neglecting the dimnut tonic—she did not like the way it made her feel as her gaze shifted throughout the island, dispassionately performing great feats of sorcery with a tempered mind in a hundred places at once.
Even she would be scared of me now. I know it. And I… I don’t want to see her make that face.
At the very bottom of Cira’s heart, she had finally grasped the root of her worries. The reason she left such a pitiful letter. The reason she wanted to leave as fast as she did. The reason she didn’t want to face Nanri. She was scared. Plain and simple. Scared the witch would shun and reject her.
Cira felt ridiculous as countless titanium coated rivers finally met the surface of Fount Salt. Thousands of salt nymphs began flooding their new homes down below. Lomp flew over the Uren skyline in an elevator while the high priest held a sermon in her honor down in Uru. An infamous witch struggled helplessly in her grasp, yet Cira was terrified to see her friend who she lied to and stole from.
It was a pitiful position for a sorcerer to be in, and even more pitiful that she put herself there with a series of carefully placed steps.
“Everything’s ready…” There was nothing stopping her from going to Uren herself now. It was all in order. Her orbit’s deritium was a ball slightly smaller than she stood and there was plenty more to make a great escape. Her head pounded and she held out a hand to Aquon’s jewel. “Alright, pal. Time to—”
“Cira?” she froze, eyes forward. The gentle fluttering of wings could be heard, and she became hyper-focused on the lingering taste of blood in her mouth. “Cira, my gods…”
No… Don’t say it. Please don’t come any closer.
Cira saw a shimmer of silver out of the corner of her eye as footsteps approached, then a hand touched her cheek, “Are you alright?”
She timidly looked to the side and saw Nanri with teary eyes which sparkled in the violent light of her mana. When Cira couldn’t muster any words, the witch’s face creased in concern, “What… happened to your eyes?”
They still burned with the pure cerulean of the spring, trailing motes of light—the mana neither her body nor aura could contain. Cira saw Nanri squint her eyes from the strain and quickly turned away to shield her from it, “I’m sorry…” Was all she could manage.
Nanri didn’t say anything for a long while, at least it felt that way. “Look at me.” Cira slowly opened her eyes and paused. When the witch put a hand on her shoulder, she meekly looked over. Nanri lightly slapped her on the cheek. It hurt no worse than Nina’s, but with it, Cira was defeated.
"Why would you take all this on by yourself?" There was no fear in her visage, and she didn’t look at Cira like some kind of island devouring abomination. Her eyes were sad. Beyond worry. But her lips curved up in a grin ever so slight as she looked into Cira’s blinding gaze. Squinting from the pain, Nanri threw her arms around the frightened girl in a warm embrace. “You’re such a stupid sorcerer…”
“I know…”