Chapter 70 - Zombie Attack!

Rose walked the sea’s edge, alone, where the gulls cry and foam dances. The great sea-wards, laid by the wise of Dublin, lay dormant - cracked like old shields and under repair.

From the mists came Skorri Blood-eye, breaker of oaths and scourge of the west isles, his dragon-ships knifing through fog like sharks through seal-flesh.

Steel sang, flames rose, and thralls were taken.

The Saga of Bjorn, Verse 2

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Sora lived to fly. She lived for the thrill of it, and took any excuse to take to the air. Stravolux? Racing? For the heck of it?

Yes, yes, and YES.

Any excuse to feel the wind in her hair, any reason to see the ground shrinking far beneath her. It was relieving. A way to blow off stress.

Sora wasn’t very smart, and she knew it. She also wasn’t an idiot, and kept her ears open. She knew what was going on.

Sora had the core of a bluejay, and knew her core was creeping into her thoughts a little more than most people’s did. Nothing stupidly overt, but if the gods had seen fit to give her a different core, would she still like flying as much as she did?

Would she even still be Sora Park?

Her mind was already subtly fucked from the moment she was born, and it was part of what made Hazel and other Light mages so pants-wettingly terrifying. Winslow didn’t even need to glance at Sora to permanently fuck with her mind and forever change everything. Like war.

Sora couldn’t be entirely sure that Hazel being accepted into the group wasn’t a mind-whammy of its own. Only how shy and skittish the girl seemed to be was stopping Sora from worrying more, and insisting she be thrown out. Then again… she was still paranoid about it, would she still be paranoid if Hazel had mind-whammied them all?

Or was that what she wanted Sora to think? Not being worried about a Light mage would be reason to fail an ego check all on its own…

Sora did a triple aileron roll while circling the sails in lieu of shaking her head. All the tricky mind games shit… why couldn’t things be simple for once? Like it was when they were kids.

Then again, that had never been simple either. Needing to wrap her head around why her parents were gone. Why they shouldn’t bring up the Duchess. Why she looked so different from everyone else.

Sora sighed, casually high-fiving one of the other fliers going back in the other direction.

She was flying, gods damnit, why so morose?

She attempted to clear her head by diving down to the waves. Down, down, down she dove, the wind screaming in her ears and her heart thudding in her chest as adrenaline cleared away everything but the knife’s edge that she danced on. Sora pulled up, her feet going through the waves as the spray gently splashed over her robes. She flipped upside down, and dragged her hands through the water.

Better. Much better.

Sora zipped up, narrowly brushing past other fliers - and they narrowly brushed her, it was just one of those understood hazards of being in the sky - and skimmed along the bottom of the clouds.

She wasn’t so dumb as to fly through the clouds. Like the banks of mist that surrounded The Prydwen, the clouds were an optical boundary. She could pass through them, but then she’d be on her own to navigate back to the Port of Dreams, or Avalon. 

Probably Avalon. Sora wasn’t quite sure if the magic worked out so she could go to the Port on her own. 

She let all her thoughts and worries vanish beneath her, and simply flew. Up, down, around. Spiraling up and diving down, there was a complete freedom to flight. An energy that made her heart pump, a joy that crushed all worries.

Sora wasn’t quite sure how long she had been flying before everything went wrong, but it wasn’t nearly long enough. Gigantic tentacles emerged from the waves, moving to wrap themselves around The Prydwen.

“Oooh, a kraken!” Sora grinned manically. This looked like fun!

Slightly less fun were the legions of undead crawling along the kraken’s tentacles. The human zombies were to be expected, but that was a lot of octopus. Octopi? Undead octopuses?

Eh, whatever. Sora would let Felix figure out the plural. She had much better things to do.

The people on the deck were running around and screaming, spells flashing here and there. Sora rolled her eyes.

“Use fire, idiots.” She said, like anyone could hear her… or like she could even cast a fire spell herself.

It wasn’t like they’d been taught any good spells, and she was still a first circle mage to boot. Still, there was more than one way to finish off an undead. That was the whole point behind Erik’s trusty mace. With a wild cry, Sora dove down, picking up an unwise amount of speed and aiming for where a zombie would be. She zipped right above it, punting its head off as she zipped past. It exploded like a melon, showering the zombies behind it and ripping a hole in her boot. Stupid bone shard.

“Woo!” Sora whooped, not feeling a hint of pain from her broken foot.

Then the world exploded in fire. The force of the explosion managed to throw the low-flying Sora off her broom. With lightning-fast reflexes born from countless midair misadventures, Sora twisted and grabbed her broom before it flew off, and reseated herself before she could tumble into the zombie-infested waters. She braked hard and banked on her broom, just barely avoiding tumbling into the ever-present wall of mist that surrounded The Prydwen on its journey.

Then a tiny image of Professor Paracelsus appeared in front of her. Oooh, reverse scrying! Sending an image! The mutton-chopped man was pulling on a pair of obsidian-black gloves with a ritual circle sewn on the back of each one in red. The threads were tiny, and the symbols so small Sora couldn’t hope to make them out.

“I am often asked if it is possible to use alchemy offensively, or if it is a discipline solely for the laboratory. Observe.” He snapped his fingers, and flames erupted all around the image. A moment later, more explosions rocked all around The Prydwen.

Sora quickly concluded that the image was on a short delay, and she was going to see her professor snap his fingers a few more times. She drifted higher up, avoiding the zombies, explosions, and walls that would see her lost to the great inbetween. 

“Alchemy can be used on a battlefield in a way that traditional spells can not, but even as a master of the field, I find it quite difficult.”

He snapped his fingers again.

Then The Prydwen was covered with multiple explosions, chaining one after another. When the smoke cleared, there were only charred smudges of zombies left, and a number of students staring with wide eyes. Sora decided to stay far away.

“It requires focus, discipline, and far too much knowledge of factors that are constantly shifting. And that is simply to cast, let alone delicately aim the flames in such a way as to not hit your allies. Then you need to learn medicine and explosives, so you’ll know how close your flames can get to your friends before killing them. Even then, accidents can happen. But, as you can see, the rewards can be vast. No spell can be cast as quickly, and cause as much devastation as alchemy can. Not at the same circle. I cast that at the third circle of magic, and this next cast will be at the fourth circle.”

Paracelsus ended his explanation by snapping his fingers a number of times, disappearing in a flurry of explosions. Sora stared, wide-eyed.

You could do that with alchemy? Maybe she should listen to Erik, and pay more attention in their rituals class. Wow. The image cleared a moment later.

“It takes approximately a decade to master alchemy to the point where you can start thinking of performing live transmutations like this. A djinn on your rituals and natural world Cauldron is a requirement to join the class, where you’ll gain an introductory knowledge to the field. This trick is not taught in class. Now, please return to your cabins while the professors sweep The Prydwen for any remaining issues. Thank you, and have a good break.”

Sora thought briefly about listening to Paracelsus, but she was one of the only people up, out, and on a broom. Instead, she swept around the churning waves, trying to spot any students that had gotten thrown into the water or off their broom like she almost had.

Sora failed to find anything other than broken and charred body parts, floating on the waves before sinking to their depths.

She was pretty sure they were zombie parts.

Pretty sure.

===============

Felix had frozen when the zombie hit the porthole face first.

He’d intellectually known that there were undead, but so many months in Camelot had led him to believe they weren’t really a problem.

Vivian screamed and clutched at Alexandria. Felix felt himself getting shoved off the bench.

“Move! Sorry!” Erik shouted, as the boy vaulted over him. The move jarred Felix into action, and he scrambled to his feet, then grabbed his wand.

His shitty, poorly-matched, never-casts-well wand. God, at this rate he should just grab a chair or something, it’d be more useful. At the same time… it was his wand. His first wand. He loved the thing, it did match him, and perhaps it was simply sour grapes over his slow and sluggish magic. Maybe he was just blaming his wand, when it was actually him. Like how some of his friends blamed their controllers when they got wrecked playing video games.

His thoughts seemed to be mirrored by Erik, who reached into his bag and grabbed his morningstar. Felix hovered next to him. Metaphorically, not magically.

“Got a spare? Can I help?” He babbled. 

“No, hold this.” Erik said, pulling a mirrored shield out of his bag, then thrust it into Felix’s hands. 

“What do I-” Felix half got out before Erik repositioned himself, then slipped his arm through the shield. With two expert movements, Erik tightened the shield to his arm.

Erik bringing a weapon to Camelot had seemed humorous at the time. A little absurd. Like, what was the point?

With zombies smacking against the side of the ship, Felix was cursing Dragon house for not giving out mundane weapons to everyone, and wishing that he had insisted on getting his own staff to practice with. He couldn’t cast anything with it yet, but he could’ve swung it like a baseball bat. 

Those were supposed to be good against zombies, right?

Oh wait, his luggage was hard-cased. That would do.

Erik took a guard position by the closed door.

“This is why we stay out of the bag!” He shouted to the door, but clear enough for the others to hear. Felix nodded in agreement. Alexandria and Vivian were finally untangling themselves when an explosion rocked The Prydwen. Felix stumbled, but managed to catch himself, mentally thanking all the early morning training sessions Dragon house insisted on.

He was never going to complain about them again.

“What was that?” Vivian managed to shout, right before an image of Paracelsus appeared on the table. He was partly transparent, and began talking a moment later.

Felix snapped out of his entrancement after the first second, and started to furiously pat his robes.

“Pen!” He shouted. “I need a pen!”

The professors were clearly going to handle the problem, and Felix was left with a new problem of his own. One thing that his advisor always insisted on.

Felix had to take notes.