Watching the sea below and the apparently unmoving sun overhead got old fast. Once or twice I thought I spotted a ship on the distant horizon, but even those soon vanished over the horizon. Our world became clouds and sky and sun and water.

Eshaan came up and sat beside me. He gestured to the view. “Maybe now you understand why I wanted to get away from fishing boats?”

I smiled wryly at him and rested my head on his shoulder. “Yes, I guess it would get old every day.” I suddenly sat up and clapped my hands happily. “Games! Soriya and I have games to show you!”

I hopped up in excitement and dashed to the little gathering area around the galley, pulling out the games that I’d had Forge make. The board and card games proved to be an excellent choice… though I had to admit, I definitely didn’t get all the rules right. We tweaked the rules as we played, but I have no idea if we got those right either! But in the end, everyone agreed that it was definitely better than endless rounds of Crystals and Castles.

As Camaxtli observed “If you continue to gamble your money, this game will shortly cease to have relevance, as only Miss Soriya will have any.”

The hours crawled slowly by, and the sun started to set. I occupied some time by trying out the small galley, and managed to make some passible stew from the cloud mutton the Cloudhearts had provided. Dinner was sea grass and omelet, and Eshaan gave me a stare.

“What?” I said defensively. “The sea serpent wasn’t using them anymore, and they were right there!”

“This is entirely too good to be sea serpent egg.” Soriya proclaimed.

Eshaan shook his head. “Everything Lily makes is good. Even things that should be terrible.” He proclaimed, and then shoveled the food into his mouth at his usual rapid pace.

Daniyel poked curiously at the seaweed omelet, then shrugged and ate it with his usual stoic calm. “It is better than ‘alright’.” He proclaimed, and nodded. “Your cooking skills continue to grow.”

I flushed. “It’s just the new ingredients, I’m not getting better.”

“Skill is the fruit of practice, and you display it’s hallmarks.” He said.

Eshaan and Lakshmi nodded in agreement.

I rolled my eyes. “Alright, fine. I’m glad you like your sea serpent over easy.”

Soriya rolled the food around in her mouth a little then nodded. “It tastes a little like roe, I suppose. More like turtle though.”

I ate my omelet thoughtfully, wondering what turtle tasted like in this world. And if it fired laser beams or just hurled giant typhoons at hunters.

The hours slowly spun past, the sky turned glorious colors as the sun slowly set, then slowly faded into darkness. Camaxtli took over piloting for Lakshmi, though a short fight broke out as Lakshmi tried to get the purple wake juice potions back from him. We settled into the small bunks, and eventually I fell asleep to the soft whirring hum of the Sparrowhawk’s engines.

The Monan wool blankets have no right to be so fluffy. I thought as I faded off to sleep.

I woke up to the sound of Lakshmi angrily arguing with Camaxtli that it was her turn to take over the piloting. Camaxtli replied with the excellent point that it had not yet been twelve hours.

I grinned as I slowly stretched and then struggled out of the tiny bunk, folding up the Monan blankets, thanking the Cloudhearts again for their generosity.

The rest of the party seemed to be in various states of waking or unconscious so I headed over to the galley, confident that the smell of food would soon bring them awake, if the shouting from the cockpit hadn’t.

Mutton and apples shouldn’t smell this good. I thought gleefully, as I slowly pulled together an improvised breakfast.

Lakshmi stormed back into the gathering area. “Infuriating man!” She shouted, slamming herself down on one of the seats.

I giggled. “Next you’ll say ‘how dare he be right’.” I predicted.

Lakshmi looked up at me, her eyes bright with repressed frustration and anger. “Well he’s not!”

“You agreed to the shift switch.” I said, and placed a bowl of porridge in front of her.

She angrily took a bite, but stopped, her eyes growing wide, looking down at the porridge, then quickly spooning more into her mouth.

Lakshmi waved her spoon at me. “It is unfair how you… are you trying to change the subject?!” She asked indignantly.

I widened my eyes at her and placed my hand on my bosom. “Would I do that?!”

Lakshmi burst out laughing, clutching at her stomach. “Oh by the dragon, you are so bad at that!” She continued to laugh.

And now you’re no longer interested in continuing the fight. I thought smugly as I turned back to the galley.

As predicted, the smell of cooking brought everyone to blinking wakefulness, and the lounge area was soon filled with soft breakfast chatter, and gibes.

It was… nice. Soothing, in a way. No epic fights, just… a short breather that let us be ourselves. It was also interesting to see how each person’s personality showed up in the board games. Soriya had a quick insightful mind, enjoying math and creating elaborate plans hinging on careful timing. Eshaan threw everything he had at one specific goal. Daniyel was calm and collected, holding his plans close to his chest before erupting in a quick flurry of forceful actions. Lakshmi and Eshaan often went head to head over the same obvious strategy, though Lakshmi focused on building intricate and elaborate interlocking systems beforehand. Both of them were usually foiled by Soriya’s careful plans. And I was content to play safe, secure and slowly building up resources.

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

Around midday Camaxtli announced that his shift was over, and Lakshmi rushed to the cockpit to take her turn. It was amusing how she fussed over the controls, and complained about having to adjust the pilot’s seat. I could see that she was really very attached to Sparrowhawk.

I frowned thoughtfully. I hope I don’t have to… or that… oh dear. I blinked. I should have thought of that. I really do not want to cost Lakshmi yet another airship! I don’t know that I could take a repair and restoration quest!

“Camaxtli? Eshaan? Do either of you know what the Sylvai defense network is like? Are… we going to have to break through some kind of defensive gun wall or something?” I asked worriedly.

Eshaan looked at me blankly. Camaxtli glanced briefly to the side, then answered, his voice taking on a lecturing tone. “The Sylvan military was the keystone of the League, counterpart to the Alliance. They focused more heavily on the etheric flows and binding static patterns to structures rather than use machinery to manipulate them.” He paused and frowned at our expressions.

He went on “I see this too is something this modern era has lost.” He sighed. “In simpler terms, I would expect to see large…” He paused again in thought. “I suppose you would call them ‘crystals.’ likely with a high luminosity, emplaced in regular structures.”

Soriya murmured quietly under her breath “We must construct additional pylons.”

Eshaan looked from me to Camaxtli and back in confusion. “I don’t understand. Are you expecting a fight!? But why!?”

I did my best to ignore Soriya, and smiled at Eshaan. I said “Well think about it. Sylvani are very rare, you said you’d never seen one. So they don’t come to this continent very often. Which means that passage between this continent and the western continent is infrequent. We know that the Sylvan were opposed to the Alliance, and fought against the System. There’s no regular trade routes between east and west. So no one has managed to make a regular return from the eastern continent. All that tells me that the Sylvani locked themselves up tight and are fiercely protective of their territory and reject outsiders. And that tells me that there are defenses. We should probably not expect a warm welcome, especially just flying in like this.”

Eshaan scowled. “I don’t see why that means they want to fight us?! Why can’t we just ask them… why are we going to see the Sylvani again?”

I sighed. “Because I think they have an Arcanum.” I said patiently. Then felt compelled to add “And also I think they might have chocolate.”

Eshaan shook his head in confusion. “I don’t understand, is this ‘chocolate’ really that good?”

“YES!” Soriya and I said in unison.

Eshaan’s eyes widened in surprise and he held his hands up defensively. “Ok, ok! Gosh! I guess I need to try it.” He said in bafflement. “But if you say it’s good, then I guess it must be amazing.”

Camaxtli opened his mouth to say something, and then slowly closed it, looking at me, his eyes whirling thoughtfully.

Soriya grinned mischievously. “Questions, Camaxtli?”

He paused, and then said slowly “No… I believe in this instance I will let the experiment run. I find myself curious as to the outcome.”

I tipped my head at him in confusion, but he refused to elaborate further.

The Sparrowhawk flew on, faster than any airship had a right to. Lakshmi enjoyed pointing this out, though I had to resist repeatedly asking the question ‘Are we there yet?’ since I could see from the vast rippled blue under us that the answer was an obvious ‘No.’

But late in the afternoon of the second day, Lakshmi let out a triumphant crow of extiment, and eagerly called us into the cockpit. There, on the horizon, a thin line of green appeared over the edge of the world, and slowly resolved into an enormous vividly green jungle. Flickers of brilliant white flashed intermittently through the canopy, though we couldn’t quite make out what they were.

Soriya pointed at them. “Those look like energy discharges. Camaxtli, could those be the crystal pylons?”

Camaxtli tipped his head to the side in thought. “I did not call them pylons, and the term ‘crystal’ is not entirely-” He cut off as Lakshmi poked him sharply in the ribs.

He looked down at her silently for a moment, then back up at Soriya. “Yes.” He said, his expression clearly expressing unhappiness at this clearly inaccurate and wrong headed description.

Soriya turned to me. “So. I have an idea!” She smiled.

“Is it… a good one?” I asked hesitantly.

“Oh hells no! But it’s extremely loud and flashy!”

I winced. “Alright… lets hear it.”

“We fly right through the pylons with your shields at full blast!”

I frowned at her. “Maybe we should consider testing this theory first?”

Soriya grinned. “And how would you suggest we do that? Get closer with a shield up?”

I grimaced at her. “Ok, I see your point. That’s basically testing it by doing what you suggested we do to pass it.”

Soriya nodded.

Lakshmi shrugged and said “Don’t worry about it! Your shield shrugged off an imperial cutter’s main cannon!” She said excitedly. “This will be a piece of cake! We’ll get close enough to see what they do, and if you can’t handle it, then I’ll just turn us around and we’ll find a new route!”

I frowned at her. Lakshmi looked up and winked at me. “Look, there’s just no way you’re this bad of a jinx, you can’t possibly sink the Sparrowhawk again!”

I opened my mouth to say that I could very well do exactly that, and hten paused. She’s right, actually. I don’t thik… the Sparrowhawk is like… fully upgraded. The ship never sinks after that point…

Lakshmi’s gaze grew serious. She gave me a level look and said in a much more sober tone. “I can do this, Lily. Trust me.”

I blinked, and then nodded. I wasn’t sure why but… I did trust her. It felt… right.

I pulled out my staff, and took a deep breath. “Right. Lets do that then! The captain has spoken!”

I marched back into the lounge area and cast {Barrier} at the small crystal globe, followed by calling up Tower and asking for her protection. I could feel the hum of the spells and outside the cockpit windows the faint flickering of the hexagon prisms of the {Barrier} splintered the sea air into rainbow shards.

The Sparrowhawk approached the coastline, and enormous towers, with clear crystal spindle shapes floating atop them slowly came into view. The cores of the enormous crystals flickered with a white light that felt harsh. Not at all like the feeling of my {Barrier} spell, or when I cast a {Heal}.

Soriya quietly murmured “Where do they get all the vespine gas though?”

I shot her a glare, but she was staring rapt at the crystal towers outside.

The first bolt of energy from the towers lashed against the shields, and made the ship rock slightly. I shivered, feeling the prickle of energy draining from me.

“Lily?!?” Lakshmi asked me, her voice betraying slight nervousness.

I thought rapidly, and then licked my lips. “I can handle it. We can handle it.”

Lakshmi gave me a long look, and then nodded. “Ok.” She said, and guided us towards the gap between two of the giant towers.

The flashes of energy grew faster and faster, more and more powerful. The Sparrowhawk started to rock within the shield bubble, and I groaned as I felt the energy drain increase.

“Last call Lily!” Lakshmi shouted at me, over the steady roar and crack of the energy bolts discharging on the shield. “Go or no go?!”

“Go, go!” I shouted, pushing more mana into the shielding.

The Sparrowhawk surged forward through the gap. Enormous arcs of blinding white energy roared around us, and then suddenly there was an ear tearing cracking and the drain on my mana vanished.

Eshaan started dancing around like a madman, cackling.

“You did it! You did it!” He shouted over and over. “Those towers hit each other with their energy bolt and blew themselves up!”

I sagged in relief, holding the {Barrier} long enough to see the truth of his words out the rear portal. Sure enough, two of the crystal spindles on top of the towers were shattered, sagging and broken into hundreds of glittering shards.

I sagged to my knees and released the spell as we flew into the deep jungle of the eastern continent.