Metal fell from the sky like a thousand heavy debris stones, glittering in the holy light. Each drop hit the ground and surged outward, coating the buildings and streets in continuous rainfall—completely covering the new city and sealing away the hardened salt beneath.
Cira lined the rivers running through town and took the chance to add a little artistic flare to the architecture with this final layer that would stand against the elements. It wouldn’t be depressing like the lower districts, nor would it be extravagant like Nymphus. Uru was a little bare-bones for her tastes too and she didn’t want to make it look like faux-wood or some freaky sorcerer’s laboratory.
Brinstahl was darker than steel and didn’t have quite the sheen, so Cira didn’t need to worry about it blinding people from underneath as sometimes happened in Uren. From her observations it resisted heat rather well, too. The streets and walkways were paved with wide, dark planks of formed metal with a texture to make sure it wasn’t slippery. They locked together and surrounded the buildings, crossing the rivers to form numerous bridges.
Her goal with the architecture here was to not make it look like one solid piece of metal. The railings and rooftops of the city all had a sharp, squared off look with gentle curves and round edges. There were a lot of thin, overlapping sheets that formed together to almost look like an old temple, but sleek and modern. To withstand against corrosion for hopefully a few millennia, Cira sent deep anchors into the ground like the ancients had done with the reservoirs before, but beneath the entire city.
This all took the better part of an hour along with filling out the rest of the residential zones, but in the end, it could house more than Uren comfortably. The agricultural district stretched halfway into Uren, looming over the city between where most of the buildings were and ending above the entrance to the mines. It had staircases down from multiple points and a platform along the length with some more buildings for whatever farmers needed them for.
Now spreading out the clean dirt again, their farm sprawled across both cities and had over ten times the growing space of their original four farms. Cira partitioned them into ten different plots just in case they needed to separate crops for whatever reason.
“Okay, everyone’s cowering in their homes.” Cira observed from far above, “Perfect.”
That meant they were safe and not many people would get mixed up. To reconstruct Uren would be a delicate process. She didn’t plan on enlarging anyone’s home and the residents of the lower districts could move towns—Cira was certain Lomp would get the message. She even left him an office in the new city which towered above the skyline.
Her plans for Uren were more functional. She had to make way for rivers and replace the most rusted areas with leftover titanium. This was her lowest material, of course, as it ran throughout the entire island, but from her time as Fount Cira, she also managed to scavenge some scrap. Most of it was garbage and quickly destroyed, but some of it was the same alloy Earth Vein seemed to have built Uren’s upper merchant’s deck with.
Now she took any unrustable piece of Uren and hollowed it out with her practical geomancing prowess, retrieving roughly forty percent of the base materials and reallocating them to replace the shoddy steel and tin. Her substitute metals slowly melted into the existing structures in place, replacing any old material she wanted to get rid of which dripped up into the sky and disappeared into light to make way for the new. Anything half-decent, she vaporized the rust off of and stacked into neat little ingots on Pappy’s balcony, taking the time to delicately burn reinforcement glyphs into it.
Before long Uren would be rust free like its far more beautiful sister city, but here she built a plain old reservoir nestled between a couple hilltops on the outskirts. It was larger than their last two put together, and she spent a while meticulously hooking it back up to each and every pipe or aqueduct in the city. This was grueling work, but her Spatial Sight was still strong up here.
During this time Cira also worked tirelessly on the new city’s waterways and piping. “I hope Uren doesn’t fall apart… This place is so much nicer.” It had running water like her alchemists’ and exorcists’ homes down below, with light glyphs engraved directly into the structures with longevity in mind and little depressions to push in the wall to activate them. Likewise, lamp posts rose from the streets but were also one piece with the street, the city, and its foundation. So, nobody could think to move them. They would activate when it becomes dark and had extra controls in Lomp’s office.
It was shaping up to be the perfect ghost town, and she could see Lomp firmly gripping his head on the walls of Uren, nearly jumping out of his skin while winds whipped his face.
“He must be filled with anticipation to fill his new city.” Cira gave him a wry grin that he would never see. “Lomp work where Lomp is due, right?”
Many of the stilted structures of Uren would now have to split apart from each other, as she’d be running water between them. Why? Because everyone in Uren had horribly dry skin and pallid complexions. Not to mention, the place was depressing. It needed a little spice of life. This was done slowly with each platform, literally stretching them out with extra materials or sliding them apart from each other.
This got difficult when there were pipes in the way, of which Uren had some for communal and industrial use, but Cira took her time and reformatted the city a little more to her liking. There were also planters prepared in the streets now, but the people would have to find dirt and flowers to make use of them—hopefully not fill them with trash or use them as streetside latrines.
I wonder where Nina’s gone. Back to Zero Stratum? I can’t even see it anymore… Cira stared at the large open space she cleared inside the new city. Once she built it out, water would again flow to the surface again. The brunt of her work would be done. She gazed listlessly at Breeze Haven and noticed something unsavory appear on the surface.
“Astral Witch…” Cira glared at her with a fierce look in her eyes. This witch was the thorn in her side. A total loose cannon. She couldn’t stop her below, lest the witch explode as soon as soon as Cira turned to the clouds, causing leaks in her intricate system of rivers or storm down to Uru giving Nanri trouble.
She would have days to wreak havoc while Cira turned a blind eye. She was trying to think of a reasonable way to avoid it, but there was a sinking feeling that the issue would have to be addressed.
For now, she stood next to Breeze Haven gawking at the city around her bathed in morning daylight and shimmering cerulean as brinstahl fell from the sky a city away. It drew the witch’s attention, but she didn’t do anything yet, only observing with a furrowed brow.
Piling the ancient metal into the city center, Cira didn’t think brinstahl was pretty enough to make the cut for its imminent namesake, so she mixed in the last few orbs of titanium. The gargantuan lump of metal momentarily glowed white hot, bubbling and distorting the air before swirling around like a typhoon.
It bathed the city in even more light, because why not? If she could create an alloy at room temperature, she would. Unfortunately, this completely depleted the resource. She didn’t even have enough to make a titanium belt buckle. This resulted in a brinstahl alloy that was many shades brighter and a few times shinier when it cooled down, so she was satisfied.
The new metal piled into the city center to form a towering mound before flaring out in three tiers and a hundred feet across. It sat in the middle of a large, misshapen basin lined with more of the same silver brinstahl. There were dips, valleys, and a couple islands sprinkled about to emulate a lakebed.
Once the third tier of the fountain was complete, she carved simple designs in it with lines to match the city’s style and scallops for the water to fall down placed around each tier’s rim with the same curved, squared off look that the skyline had if you look across the rooftops. A pillar stretched up from the center like a budding sprout before she was rudely interrupted.
A flash of light assailed Cira as she hovered high above the cities before fizzling out against her barrier. Turning her gaze downward, she saw Estelle and a very nervous Lyren. Ignoring them, Cira finished designing her new structure and finally let the dams burst.
Water shot up from the top of the fountain to form a thin curtain that sprinkled onto the highest level before filling it and slowly trickling down. At the same time, Uren’s reservoir started filling up and the rivers filled from a few different locations among the spiderwebbing network of channels. Among her waterways on the surface, there were various wells where it rose up from below, fed by the pump artifacts—both of which had been moved to the renovated spring chamber, because why wouldn’t they be there?
This saved her a ton of material along the way while building the surface’s supply, but they were far too powerful with that little distance to cover. That problem was solved by supplying the island between the spring and Uren with spillways just below the surface fed from the same pipe.
Defending against another few irritating rays of light, Cira watched the water finally fall over the lowest tier of her fountain and start filling the basin. The rays of light got more frequent, and she could see the witch’s face contorting in anger.
Now Aquon’s ring of water had begun to fall like rain, topping off the reservoirs, all the rivers, and filling the fountain’s lake which stretched for half a mile in each direction, surrounded by indents in the ground ready for Lomp to fill with dirt, grass, and maybe some trees. It would be a park for everyone in the city to enjoy. Lights flashed against her face without relent as she added the finishing touch. The cherry on top of the cake—the mustard on her salted egg, if you will.
A few paces in from the shore, a short embankment of brinstahl rose from the ground with solid letters raised across its width: “SILVER LAKE”
And a pathway straight to it paved in golden mana led to the lower districts of Uren, where all the displaced residents from below lived. She couldn’t offer them their former lakeside cave at the bottom of Fount Salt, but she could offer them a spot under the sun and a new city molded from their island’s history.
The water’s pure blue effulgence was even visible in the daylight and there were nymphs popping out of the fountain, bobbing around the waters until spilling into the next tier—sometimes flying up to do it again. Is this a game to you? I didn’t know you guys liked the outside world.
Enough of that. Cira shook her head, looking away. I need to hurry this up. Let’s see… The farms still need seeds. She planned for this. There was a tin sitting on her garden table that she left out the morning they descended to the New Shores District. About the size of a breadbox. It held nothing so extravagant as Moonberry plums, but within it lay the answer to one of Fount Salt’s remaining problems.
Of course, the underworms were healthy now. Well, relatively. Some still had physical conditions, but any trace of deritium stored within their bodies had been expended for one sorcery or another. Every little itch she felt from the spring chamber had been thoroughly burned up. As far as eating them now goes, one could compare it to butchering a pig with a bum leg. Kind of weird if you think about it, but it’s basically the same thing.
The worms had nothing to do with Cira’s tin of secrets, naturally. The lid popped open and thousands of little yellow seeds flew into the air like a swarm. They clacked around gently, but in such great numbers, it was like migrating locusts. They all found their way to the farm, stretching out along its length and finding their own places to dig in, just like down below.
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Aquon let out a light rain and each drop burst with a little tinge of mana the color of grass in spring upon hitting the soil. Soon sprouts grew up before growing into tall stalks, immediately bearing their first crop.
“Sorry, guys.” Cira felt the need to apologize, “It’s all corn.”
I was never going to plant that anyway. It’s time to face reality. A girl doesn’t need that much corn.
“Hm… did she give up? That doesn’t sound like her.” Estelle hadn’t attacked Cira in a couple minutes, leading her to wonder what she was up to. She found her casually walking across the salt towards the infirmary.
She approached and held her staff aloft, burning with the pure light of her mana as droves of helpless plague victims out front of the clinic cowered in terror. The people said their prayers and held their children tight, preparing for the end. “You wouldn’t…” Cira growled as she witnessed the Astral Witch wield magic against the innocent with a smile on her face.
With no clouds in the sky, thunder roared.
A bolt of golden lightning fell from the heavens and scorched the salt in front of the plague ward without a moment to spare as a raging spear of light threatened to blot out the whole of Uren. The flock cried as if their life were ending, many of them blinded from the clashing mana, but when it died down, they saw another figure had appeared between them and the murderous witch.
“It’s the Saintess!” They cried.
“She’s come to save us again!” Mothers held their daughters with reverent smiles of relief and their faces stained with tears, while strangers embraced each other and wept.
“Praise be the saint who will show us the new dawn!”
Ugh… What a pain. I’ll be hearing about this again.
“So, you’ve finally shown yourself, coward.” Estelle spat while her doe-eyed assistant stood stock still. Everything behind Cira was shielded from the cataclysmic waves of pressurized mana, while Estelle and Lyren were feeling the full weight of all the mana in Fount Salt and the six suns which condensed into a ring far above Cira like a celestial halo—a crown far too large to wear on her head, topped with a seventh sun at high noon above a brilliant blue gem.
Cira’s orbit was in full force as the mithril disk at her back, orichalcum on the left and a radiant prism which outshined Estelle ten-fold to the right all settled around her. The Staff of Springs wove itself in an intricate, snaking river behind her back, protecting the infirmary and everyone outside it.
Each of her four actual staves burned with the searing heat of pure mana. They were the end of the line of all which existed on the island and the suns above. An outlet that had been building up, waiting to burst. The pressure bore down on anywhere within a hundred yards that wasn’t directly under Cira’s protection as cracks could be heard beneath the witch’s feet and pebbles of salt inexplicably separated from the ground. Lyren was gripping onto the edge of a Phase Shift while Estelle’s face was visibly strained just to keep herself standing up straight, as if she were being crushed by the gravity of seven suns.
“How unfortunate,” Cira looked at her with cold eyes. “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to tend to you personally…” The sorcerer’s eyes burned bright as she took slow steps toward the witches, each pace cracking the salt at her feet. “I don’t know if you’re truly an idiot or you look your age, but you’ve crossed the line.”
“Wh-what did you just say?!” Estelle struggled to keep her composure as the pressure only increased. She was at the bottom of a deep sea. Never in her long life had a creature made her endure such aethereal force—it was unnatural. Even the deepest chamber of Nightwing Isle’s aether well wasn’t enough to compare. “Just what the hell are you?!”
Cira frowned, “Next time we meet, maybe we can have a proper fight, but that doesn’t seem to be possible today.” She could already see the edges of her consciousness going dark. Fount Salt flickered in and out, yet she couldn’t stop seeing it overlayed hundreds of times over. She talked big, but it was hard telling if there were two or four witches in front of her.
“What the hell are you babbling about?” The witch probably noticed Cira’s unsteady gait and somehow grasped a leg to stand on in her mind. “Do you even know what you’ve done? Calling yourself the ‘Hidden Witch’ and whatever the hell you did to the silver-headed Whelp.” Her face twisted at the end—a blatant display of scorn.
“You would do well not to speak of Nanri.” The Astral Witch had a talent for getting under people’s skin. Saying the words that would upset them most. This must have served her well over centuries of lording herself over others, but it was a habit that she did without thinking of the consequences. It was second nature.
The salt flashed like ivory as a thin string of light appeared between Prismagora and Estelle. If anyone blinked, they would have missed it because it was gone just as quick. Faster than anyone, even the recipient, could see, Cira had unleased a ray of light straight into the Astral Witch’s left kneecap. It shattered her barrier in another splash of light. Her kneecap was also shattered which made the witch crumble to the ground, trying to hold herself up with just one. It did more than that, burning a hole in the salt behind her too, but it was just small enough to leave her leg intact.
“You… you bitch.” She snarled, trying to sneak glances at her mangled knee and not let the shock show on her face. “How are you doing this?! I’m the goddamn Astral Witch, do you hear me?! None surpass my prowess in the light!”
“You’re pathetic.” Cira stole the light wrapping around the witch and used it to shatter the still-forming barrier, speaking on the wind above her complaints. “Weak-minded and woefully nearsighted. I’ve solved every problem on this island so the people here can live healthy and happy lives, yet you would destroy it out of spite.
“You don’t even spare a thought to think how all I’ve done will benefit your masters. Your workforce will double, death rates will plummet. You can stop dumping people into the sky in Uru. Mountains of prima. But no, you only wish to destroy. You’ve followed me all the way up here and even tried to massacre the innocent just to draw my attention. You’re no better than a child throwing a tantrum, but far more dangerous…”
She watched Lyren’s face twist in pain as the pressure became too great and held out a palm, raising it. Suddenly the young witch was able to stand up, blinking in confusion and looking at Cira with great apprehension. She was jittering and tried to hide behind her own robes, unable to go even the least bit transparent.
“Just who do you think you are?” Estelle was hunched over the ground, panting and bleeding profusely, but her eyes were somehow trained on Cira like a predator. “Earth Vein owns this island. You can’t just do what you want with it. We will find you no matter where you try to escape to!”
“If this Adjutant I heard about is only a step above you, then I’m sure I could take her on a good day. I don’t act out of fear, and I deliver justice where justice is due.” She closed the distance as they were helpless to stop her or even move on their own. The two witches were completely locked in place and at Cira’s mercy. The suns circled above them now, forming a focal point of golden light like the heavens came down to mark the accused.
“Idiot!” Estelle spat up blood with burns forming on her face like Lomp had at the spring. Her hair started to char, “Do you even know who the Adjutant is?!”
“Of course not, but if she can’t keep you in line then she deserves a slap or two.” Rushing water and shattering earth brought the unbearable mana down on her and she was nearly kissing the salt. “Just know that you’ve left me no choice here.”
The air whipped around as mana rippled. Cira’s robes waved violently as her weary eyes bore down on the witch. Lyren fell to her knees and clasped her hands together, “Please, don’t kill me, Lady Hidden Witch!” There were tears falling down her face.
“Get up.” Cira ordered, “You won’t be harmed, but complicity will only protect you from blame for so long. Remember that. And you still have a job to do.”
“Okay…” She looked like she was about to cry. “I… I do?”
“Go on, kill me then!” Estelle had a crazed look in her eyes, like a wounded beast. “Just get it over with, but just know—”
Cira kicked her in the face, scattering teeth and blood across the salt. “Your fate won’t be so simple. You will know what it means to be a mere whelp.”
Holding out her hand, the blanched mana light around Conduit and in Cira’s eyes flickered. A wisping gray light which nothing reflected fell from it slowly like dense smoke. It crawled across the ground, roiling and turning over as the witches’ eyes went wide. Lyren shuddered and Estelle tried to back away to no avail.
“What… What the blazes is that?!” She cried, teeth chattering. The smoke had an altogether different pressure from the ocean of mana. Instead, it pulled—at your body, your mind, your aura. It induced the feeling one stood at the edge of a bottomless abyss, stepping closer as the smoke unfolded. Soon it enveloped Estelle alone as she writhed on the ground pleading, “No! Don’t let it touch me! Gyahhh!!”
Her cries were drowned out as the smoke unfurled around her, slowly thinning while pure mana burned off above her, dispersing into the sky. This continued until the smoke became a light haze and revealed the frail and bloodied Astral Witch on the ground gasping for air. Bloody claw marks dissolved into the salt before her as she stared at Cira with pure hate. “What… what did you do…? Something… feels wrong.” Her eyes had a glint of desperation and her chest heaved frantically with each breath.
“I have replaced your aura with a fragment of my own.” Cira looked down on her like a bug beneath her boot. “Naturally, it will only heed my call. There is only one way to regain your aura without my assistance, and somehow, I doubt you will figure it out anytime soon. Now I think it’s time you take a long-deserved nap.”
The realization was dawning on Estelle’s face in the form of terror and disbelief, “You—you bitch! I’ll kill y—" With another kick across the face and no mana to protect herself, she was sprawled out on the ground at Lyren’s feet, who reeled back at Cira’s gaze, reflexively going transparent again then stumbling in surprise when it worked.
“Your job.” Cira said curtly.
“Y-yes?! What is it?!” Lyren was distraught.
“Take this pitiful woman and fly away. Feel free to report whatever you want. I don’t care.”
“Oh… Okay, uh, I can do that!” She started grabbing at Estelle, unable to even lift her upper body off the ground. “I’ll just, uh, take the elevator.” She started slowly dragging her away.
Cira let out a long sigh, “You can use your magic now…”
“Oh, uh, right!” Lyren fidgeted nervously, undecided over whether to put her mentor down, eventually lifting her off the ground with a spell. “It will take me a while, but I’ll be gone tomorrow, I swear it!”
Her eyes betrayed the fact that she still thought she walked a razor’s edge. “Hold on…” Cira stopped her and the orichalcum staff lit up. “Salty Songstress, come forth and return these witches to their boat!”
A pirate ship made of salt rose from the ground as the witch backed up uneasily.
“Get on.” Lyren complied, floating herself and Estelle up and timidly finding a seat.
“Uh, okay… what now—whoa!” The boat started moving as pristine waves splashed around it, sending them off into one of the many sunrises.
“Hey, one last thing!” Cira shouted.
“Wh-what is it?!”
“Make sure you’re nice to Nanri next time you see her!”
The Dimension Witch made a frightened face as she nodded desperately and vanished beyond the salt.
Finally, Cira was able to let out a long, heavy breath. All the stress and tension was in the past now. On one hand, that wasn’t entirely true. There was still a sore spot in her heart that stung every time she stopped moving. Cira felt emptier than she should after finishing such a massive job. There was no sense of accomplishment or happy faces to grow smaller as she disappeared. Just an undeniable sense of loss and doubt.
It had come to Cira’s attention that the foundations she built through her years travelling empty skies were flawed. She had built a shell around herself. Cira was a separate entity from the rest of the world, and her heart was closed off. Somebody saw a light through the keyhole and wormed their way in, and now Cira was skybound again with a bleeding tear in her chest, lonelier than ever. No father, no friends, just Breeze Haven and the unchanging sky.
There was a horizon to chase that never got any closer, and it was in Cira’s nature to reach for it. The time had come. Fount Salt took a lot from the melancholy sorcerer, and she left pieces of herself behind. But just like the shape of one’s soul, the heart never forgets. In turn, each heart it touched, and every wound left on it would form the foundation of the sorcerer Cira will one day become. That was Gazen’s wish, anyway.
She spared a glance behind her to the plague victims of Uren. They gazed at her with awe, crying tears of joy and whispering words of hope to their loved ones. It wasn’t perfect, but Cira knew they would bounce back. One day Fount Salt would no longer be a dying land swept under the Boreal’s rug, and these people would thrive like their ancestors once did.
Now it was truly out of her hands. Cira rose above the city, fixing the broken surface and taking her suns with her, gliding away back to Breeze Haven. In the heat of the confrontation, Cira had sent orders for it to rise, so now it was before her as she gave Fount Salt one last look from above.
This vista was bittersweet, and her heart churned again. While part of her didn’t want to leave, this wasn’t where she belonged. The people would prosper, and there was no place for her here. There was nothing for her here. Not one thing.
Well… Cira caught one last grainy sight of the silver-haired witch who sat against the elevator wall sleeping peacefully before she finally turned to the sky.
The deritium needed to be destroyed and it was time for Cira’s grand exit. It had been purged throughout the island. Whether the salt, worms, or water held trace amounts, it had all been burned up. Meaning the only deritum left now orbited Cira as she ascended, but her suns would all stay. In fact, she needed far more.
“Prismagora, burn it all away.” The crystalline ornament on top flared to life at her voice, “Symphony of Dawn’s Light.”
Thousands of Lamplights appeared above the surface of Fount Salt—countless. Doubling the cost, they all burned with the same golden radiance she’d bathed the city in, completely washing out the sky. They would shine until the deritium no longer existed, and then all would be well on this island.
“Until we meet again…” Cira’s blazing eyes grew soft now as she gazed wistfully somewhere far below, finally feeling grass crunch beneath her feet for the first time in days. She looked around to take stock of her alchemy instruments from the clinic. They had found their way home and were strewn across the yard.
“I’m home… Let’s get out of here.” Breeze Haven hummed at her command from the garden and fell into motion as she tilted up to find the center of the Noose. “Spring Sense. Dispel.”
When the river trailing behind her cut off, the last thing she heard was her staves thump against the grass before her consciousness finally gave out and the world of light turned black.