Skybound - Chapter 1: If You Build It

Morgan Mackenzie was having a fairly good day, by her own reckoning. Several good days, in fact. There were people in her valley! It had been bothering her more than she could admit to herself, being alone in the wilderness. She still felt awkward around so many strangers, although she was constantly --and pleasantly-- surprised by how little of an issue her lack of clothing had been. The beastkin weren’t phased in the slightest, themselves only wearing what material they needed for armor or utility. The dwarves, Dana had informed her, weren’t really interested in a tall and pale surfacer and the gnomes saw everything and everyone as a potential science experiment anyway. Even her fellow humans had not been an issue, although Terisa had admitted many of the women were a bit envious of her metabolism and ability to eat all of the things and stay fit. They just haven’t seen the downsides to starving yourself through spellcasting, she thought ruefully.

Thankfully her need for calories to maintain her magic was greatly alleviated within the mana-suffused region around her spire. Dana’s skyship was proving to be quite an endeavor from the magical side of things, and Morgan had been helping the engineer assemble a geodesic structural frame for several days. Steel would have been better than stone, but [Terrakinesis] to shape the rods and joins and various enchantments to reinforce and stabilize the spherical construct made a more than fair attempt at closing the gap for material strength. What they had made so far reminded her most of the skeletal spheres they used to shroud satellite dishes from the weather back on Earth.

“So explain to me again,” said Morgan, slotting the last slender stone rod into place and melding it to the others at the joints at either end. “We’ve basically built a buckyball here.” She climbed up the inside of the nearly-complete sphere to where Dana hung spider-like upside down with her suit’s legs hooked over a stone span, measuring the angles where several other spans met at a node. 

“This is the test prototype for our lift mechanics. Your spatial magic and runes gave me the idea, and if we can get it to work it’ll solve a major problem for building a functional flying ship.”

“I don’t see how you can stay upside down so much! It’s like up and down don’t matter to you…”

Dana shrugged in response, her measuring tools folding back into her gauntlets as her mechanized legs clicked and whirred to bring her back closer to upright. “I always know what up and down are, and my brain just fixes everything automatically. But to answer your other question…

“If we had less people, and less supplies, basically less mass to lift?” Dana gestured through the stone bars to the Expedition encampment farther down the valley, where a large scaffolding had already been assembled and a vague shape that may have at some point thought about possibly being a ship was beginning to form. “If we didn’t need so much lift, we could use a regular round balloon or one of those big sausage-shaped blimps. But we’ve got over five hundred people, hundreds of tons of supplies, pack animals, and mounts. Any traditional dirigible style vessel would put the Hindenburg to shame for sheer size, and be stupidly slow. We’d never make it out of the Wildlands this year, let alone before the worst of winter.”

Dana turned in place to wave an arm at the geometrically spherical structure around them, a framed out shape nearly two hundred feet across. “A lift bag that big would have us completely at the mercy of the wind, no matter what kind of engines we cobbled together. This sphere, though, is only two hundred feet in outer diameter. With your spatial enchantments for the inside I’m hoping we can triple that-”

“Triple is doable,” interrupted Morgan, finally seeing what the other woman meant. “But sevens are easier and more stable for my enchantments. Three times the diameter would need a constant mana source to draw on, but my spatial storage works on a seven pointed array that collapses in to lock itself.”

Dana blinked at her, then with a huff started scribbling furiously on a small parchment pad that flipped out of the armor covering one forearm. “That changes my math, everything I’d worked out said threes are how enchantments work best. I knew seven points made it more stable, but not that the expansion gradient would be that extreme. Seven times the diameter means-” She trailed off, scratching more notes and figures. “Seven times as wide will be a hell of a lot more than seven times the volume. We’ll have more than enough lift, as long as we can heat the mass of the air inside. It also means we only need four lift bags instead of six.”

It was Morgan’s turn to shrug. “Threes would use less power to make, but need constant power to stay up. A seven point reinforcement lattice anchored to seven points at the bottom of the sphere.” She pointed down where the structure sat on a ring instead of finishing a perfect ball shape. “A seven pointed circle there, then six more spaced evenly up the walls. Seven Circles of Seven Points.” She remembered a day of rain and broken clay pots. “But that’s not enough by itself, we need to offset the spatial expansion array with spatial reinforcement or the whole framework will implode. Another set of sevens, but those ones are easier.”

Dana had been writing and sketching the entire time as Morgan spoke. She made a few more quick lines with her pencil, looking back up at the [Skyclad Sorceress]. “If my figuring is right, it would be extremely unstable to hold together until it was finished, and then it all snaps together around itself like shrink wrap or a spatial bubble? And what about heat?”

Morgan raised an eyebrow. “That’s almost exactly what happens. I busted hundreds of clay pots trying to get it to work before I figured out I needed to reinforce the space itself, and not just the clay. Thankfully I’ve got all the juice I need for this as long as we’re in the valley. For heating, I can weave conductive enchantments into the inner scaffolding here. There may be more effective or efficient ways of doing it, but that’s what I know how to do right now.”

“Hah!” laughed Dana. “It took some getting used to for the rest of us. Biggles is amazed you didn’t lock down your spire so that only you can use it. Apparently ley line nodes like this are a big deal, and all the known ones in the lowlands are controlled by Guilds or by agreements between nations. Meadowspire is the largest Mage Tower I’ve read about on the mainland, although there’s supposedly an island province with the largest one in the world built into it.”

“I’m not sure how I would even go about doing that,” replied the Sorceress. “I built it more like a magical radar or echolocation sort of thing. I didn’t realize at first just how much extra magic bubbles up from the ley lines. But being able to eat like a normal person is really nice. You have no idea how hungry I can get…”

Dana grinned. “I haven’t forgotten seeing you eat more than a dwarf and two full grown bear-men in one sitting. I have a pretty good idea.”

A cool breeze trailed through the valley, causing Morgan to shiver and bringing with it a wurbled greeting as Lulu floated near the dome. More scrubbies had shown up as they had travelled from Castra Pristis to her valley. The rest of the Expedition had taken to simply calling it the Spire, which was certainly fitting, given the stark profile of the stone protruding nearly a thousand paces up from the middle of a lake. Many Expeditioners had adopted the poofy offspring of the Matriarch, a fact which brought Morgan more than a little amusement and satisfaction.

“Hey pretty thing,” cooed Morgan as the scrubby descended with a pop of its soapy bubble to land on her shoulder. “I thought you were hanging out with Wuffle and Biggles, while they work on the air bags.”

“I actually need to go check on them, now,” said Dana, picking her way down the inner side of the dome. “They think they’re making a bag only twice the size of this sphere, but if your spatial magics can make the inside bigger, then we can use an even bigger bag and get much more efficient lift…”

Morgan followed, swinging down from span to span as she revelled in the simple satisfaction of having something to do. Something besides fight for survival or scrounging enough food to power her voracious need for calories. As happy as she was to have company, however, she still felt the pressing urge to move on with her own goals before winter arrived. I’ve wanted wings since I got here, and the old witch said I wasn’t strong enough then, she thought to herself. Not that she couldn’t help me get them!

“Have you thought about how you’re gonna deal with the whole naked shtick when we get back to civilization?” asked Dana as they picked their way across the short walk to where the scaffolding had been erected to facilitate framing out the skyship. “We’re roughing it out here so there’s bigger things to worry about, and nobody who saw you flame out is brave enough to make a scene. That won’t last forever though.”

“Does fire bikini armor count?” asked the Sorceress, her [Runic Armor] gently flaring to project her inner fire into a contoured layer less than a hair’s width away from her skin. “I can’t keep it up forever, at least not outside the valley, and it’ll be hell on any furniture that’s not fireproof…”

Dana gaped for a moment, nearly stumbling as they walked. “You really take that whole idea of skimpy armor being better to the absolute extreme! And you can still see through it, just blurry.”

“Yeah, I’m no good with illusions though. The fire I can control without even thinking, bending light is a whole different ball game.” She stopped, weaving Mana around a small shrub. It blurred, but didn’t quite vanish completely. “If it’s not moving, I can sorta cloak it. My [Fade Presence] skill does something similar for me, and I’ve just been more focused on more direct magics myself.”

Dana had stopped as well, a thin visor folding down from within her helmet as she observed Morgan’s partially effectual illusion spell. “I don’t think I’ll be able to put something like stealth systems into the skyship, but the idea tickles my fancy. Shields would be more useful for the Mark One,” she said as they resumed their trek.

“The Mark One?”

“That’s the designation for the original design, yes,” grinned Dana. “You’ll have to wait for the actual christening before I announce its name.”

“Shields are actually pretty simple in concept,” continued the Sorceress. “I learned mine from a centipede monster.” She ignored Dana’s shocked and curious stare. “Your own barrier emitted by the Crawler isn’t weak in any way that I could tell, but you won’t be able to power it continuously will you?”

Dana stepped across a muddy rut where wagons had been used to haul supplies repeatedly from the lower valley encampment to the construction site of the future skyship. “Not even close to continuous. We’ll have the Mana-Bolters for defense from smaller flying critters, and Terisa and the big guns for everything else. Shields will be more for emergencies because the drain on the Crawler’s core is immense. What happened to the centipede?”

“Shellipede, actually, and I ate it.”

The engineer made a hurrk sound, miming dry heaving in pantomimed disgust.

“Tasted a lot like shrimp or lobster, wasn’t bad at all,” Morgan continued with a grin.

Their conversation was halted by a rumble and a thud, followed by indistinct shouts of several dwarves as a massive timber was leveraged into place by means of block and tackle and raw muscle. The slowly growing skyship didn’t look very ship-like to Morgan, but having never seen an actual skyship she didn’t feel she had much to judge by. The primary section of Dana’s mobile workshop had been detached from the other two units, and a framework of timbers and pulleys was being assembled around it. Witchwood, as those from the Expedition named it, was the predominant tree species of the Wildlands, and with a bit of magical assistance from Biggles --and several others Morgan was sure were Shamans of some sort-- the wood took extremely well to construction.

“This will be the most expensive thing ever built in the history of Anfealt, or close to it,” quipped Dana as they approached. “The witchwood alone would empty national treasuries. It takes special storage precautions in order to preserve the enchantment properties; otherwise it would lose its ability to take in magic and just be regular wood like any other tree. Add in the crystals we’ll be using to power it, and the wealth we’re just throwing into one pot here is mind-boggling.”

“I’m sorry you have to give up your crawler for parts,” Morgan said, looking at the now-stilled and partially dismantled machine. “It looked so badass-”

“Hold! Shim that support timber, Targan, yer off level on this end!” Kojeg’s shout was loud enough to interrupt the women even through the continuous cacophony of construction work. Grumbles ensued, loud but as amicable and good-natured as any experienced crew of workers Morgan had ever seen on Earth. The boisterous dwarves certainly knew teamwork, and shims were soon hammered into place with heavy thuds of wooden mallets to the beaming approval of the foreman. 

Morgan wasn’t exactly sure how, but the dwarf in charge seemed to work for Dana. He’d certainly been a boon for getting the construction of the skyship started, and the Cannoneers had set aside their gunpowder and picked up tools and set to work along with him. According to the schematics the engineer had drawn out, it didn’t look much like a ship at all to her eyes. Her studies in architecture had not been without a heavy serving of structural engineering, however, and she could tell Dana had opted for function supreme with no regard to form.

“She’ll come in at just over seven hundred feet long. The lift bags will overhang that by a bit both fore and aft,” said the armored woman, handing a few sheets of parchment with the new scribbles on them to a passing dwarf and pointing at Kojeg with a nod. “We’re gonna run into one big problem though…” She trailed off as the pair made their way past the construction site to a low clearing where Biggles and several beastkin were stretching out the vibrant green witchwood leaves on the ground.

“I can’t help with the Life magic stuff,” replied Morgan sullenly. “I’ve tried several times, I just don’t have the knack for working with living tissues, either plants or animals. I couldn’t grow house plants back on Earth either.”

Biggles dusted off his hands and stood at their approach, having heard the last bit of their conversation. “We should have the bags worked out without your help, or rather your Spire’s Mana field is all the help we need.” He nodded at two Ma’akan Badger-men. “Gamar and Chnarl here are Druids. Chnarl isn’t actually his name, but it’s the closest I can come to making the sound-”

“Better’n most of the clawless,” growled Chnarl without looking up as he sewed two leafy segments together into one larger piece. Morgan could sense the magics weaving between his claw-tipped fingers, and as he stitched the two leaves together the seam glowed green briefly before fading to leave one contiguous piece. “We ken coax the leaves together, Witchwood has no better for this purpose ‘sides mebbe a few of the magical forms of spider silk. That not the problem…”

“We can’t use steel cables to keep the bags from lifting away from the vessel,” finished Biggles. “Even if Miss Dana had enough on hand, the worked steel would slowly absorb the magic from the leaves, fraying their natural magical properties and eventually separating the leaves.”

“We think we have a solution,” said Dana, hesitantly. “But none of them are brave enough to ask the Titan. He’s already helping by dragging up the giant timbers from lower down the mountains for us. But his vines would be perfect, if he can weave us a net for each lift bag once they’re done.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem, but you’ll need to get the bags woven and sewn around the sphere-frames soon if you want his help with that.” She looked at the northern mountain ridge, where wispy clouds had grown to ominous autumn storms on the heights. “He’s drawn to follow the ley lines, and we’ll both be heading east within another couple of weeks. I have to get to First Raven’s Roost before winter really takes off, and he’ll be with me for most of that trip.”

“Will you be able to find us? Terisa told me about the winter storms. If we don’t leave before they get here we’ll be stuck in the valley till spring…”

“I honestly don’t know. I’m pretty fast on the ground, so flying should be way faster. If this thing is as slow as you think it will be, catching up shouldn’t be a big deal. Especially if you’re heading for the pass you guys used to get here.”

Dana shook her head. “Not the pass. The winds this time of year all blow down from the peaks, we’ll have to head east and then south. Either Thun’Kadras, or Eastharbor in Far Kosala.” The engineer gave a soft laugh. “I bet Andi would freak out if I flew a skyship right into my shop!”

“We’ll have to figure something out for staying in contact and finding each other once I finish up with the old witch,” said Morgan. “Maybe Terisa will have some ideas…”

“I’ve been working on a simple form of radio that uses a mana field as a receiver, but that won’t help you since you can’t equip anything.”

“We can work on that then, there might be a way to adapt my sight rune-” --Morgan tapped her temple for punctuation-- “-to help with hearing something like that, or even make a new rune. I don’t have any more freebies that I can see when I dig into my skill points, so I’m betting I’ll have to design my own from now on…”

The two women continued their walk, leaving Biggles and the druids to their work. Morgan had built several stone bunk-houses to accomodate all of her new guests, and the fire pit in the center of that loose ring of buildings was their destination. Delectable scents had begun wafting on the wind, spurring her appetite as Foz applied his talents with cooking to feed the rest of the Expedition as they worked on the ship.

“I’m actually getting a little nervous,” Morgan told Dana as they threaded their way through the sparse bushes and small trees dotting the slope of the valley. “Things have been going so smoothly for the past week…”

“You’re used to one crisis after the other, aren’t you?”

“You could say that!”

“Well, hopefully the next one will keep until after lunch,” said Dana with a grin, waving at Terisa’s husband as they came in sight of the cookfire.

As if to taunt Morgan, a flare went up on the south end of the valley, briefly overtaking the midday sun with its bright glare. A signal from Terisa and the hunting party!?

“And I think I spoke too soon,” Dana voiced with a sigh, as a shadowy form stepped forward from the brush to one side. Almost like a visual echo of a man, only partially visible, that faded if she looked directly at him. It spoke in a hushed voice barely on the edge of human hearing, but Morgan heard the words well enough.

“Lady Sorceress, Miss Dana,” said the form with a respectful nod that was almost a bow. “Lady Huntress requests your assistance, the hunting party encountered a large cat of some kind, and there are wounded.”

“We’re on the way!” answered Dana at the same time Morgan voiced her own exclamation.

“What kind of cat!? They better not have hurt my kitty!”