World Sphere - 2 - Growing Up in Skyholme

Chapter 2: Growing up in Skyholme

After I was born, I was frustrated. My thoughts were slow and cloudy, and my past knowledge was hard to grasp and form coherent thoughts. It was like remembering the plot of a book you read years ago but did not like very much. I also had to work hard at acting as baby-like as possible. Let me say I was not a fan of soiling my diaper and crying when I was hungry. 

When my eyes developed enough, I was able to see my family. My father, Caleb, was a solid man of above-average height and musculature, and I figured out he was a town or city guard by his dark gray uniform. He wore his black hair in a short ponytail, and his blue eyes seemed hard to me. I did not see the lively, loving nature I saw in my mother’s eyes.

My mother, Alurha, looked average but had amazing blue-green eyes that sparkled. Her dark blonde hair was worn as a long braid, and her brilliant white smile was always there when she looked at me. She worked as a leather engraver, specializing in cutting images into leather pieces. I also had an older brother, Pascal, who was about three years my senior.

I quickly grasped the language as my older brother was building his vocabulary. I listened to his inquiries with intensity. I grew up soaking in everything I could. I quickly gained movement, crawling, then walking. I learned to speak early. I started talking around six months, and by six years old, I had a good handle on my new existence, and everyone commented what a bright boy I was. 

I was named Storme. I was born during a lightning storm while a flight of lightning drakes attacked the island. I heard the story of my birth every time my mother introduced me. I learned many things in my early years. Skyholme was comprised mainly of eight large floating islands. The largest was the Capital Island, where most of the wealthy and ruling families lived. The other seven islands each had their regional specialty as well.

Our island, Titan’s Shield, trained soldiers, supplied armor and arms, and had a minor agricultural development focused on grains that produced bread and beer. Large, magnificent airships and skyships transported people and goods between the islands.

Our small town was named Hen’s Hollow. It was about three miles outside one of the cities and had a single skyship dock where my father worked. My father was a guard for skyship transports but usually spent his day at our platform dock checking passengers and goods—not that we saw many skyships. 

The history of the Skyholme empire was mostly told through stories. About 3000 years ago, the floating islands were once a single large island ruled by an arrogant avian race called the Haikarum. The large island moved in a massive circular orbit over the lowlands, tracing a prominent aether ley line buried deep within the Sphere. 

An archmagis from the Haikarum tried to draw the power of the ley line into the island, which caused the catastrophic shattering of the massive island. The remains of the Haikarum civilization were rocked into disarray, and a group of adventuring humans in an old airship conquered the islands. They killed the Haikarum without mercy. Of course, the songs we sang about their deeds made their genocide sound heroic.

The various islands still follow the same path today, but no magic could pull them back together. They were locked in their new orbits. The conquering adventurers soon started a settlement that grew into the nation of Skyholme over a few hundred years. Nowadays, Skyholme controls the eight largest islands and a few smaller, fractured ones. 

The Triumvirate, the heads of the three prominent noble families, ruled Skyholme. Each family had dozens of members, but a maximum of 23 was recognized in each actual line of succession. Based on the adults’ conversations in my presence, the internal politics were supposedly brutal. 

Each family of the Triumvirate was in charge of one aspect of life in Skyholme: commerce, military, and citizenship. The commerce faction was involved in all aspects of harvesting, dungeon delving, manufacturing, and trade. But it was the citizenship faction that had the true power. They controlled the people through laws, education, and immigration. The military faction was focused on training the city guard, navy, and battle mages. They were responsible for raiding the lowlands, defending, and guarding Skyholme. 

Even though the Skyholme Empire was apparently human-centric, they still had an interesting military unit that was surrounded by mystique. They were a wolfkin half-breed that looked more human than wolfkin.

The academies were where every child went in their 17th year. You first completed a local one-year Academy and then entered a four or seven-year specialized Academy. You could also forgo entering the Academy and enter an apprenticeship with a master in a trade, as my mother had done. After you complete your academy training, you would have completed various internships and gotten an education to contribute to society.

I began playing regularly with children in my neighborhood at the age of six. My best friend lived two houses down and was named Gareth. He was a few months younger than me but looked two years older. It was easy to tell he would be a huge man. I took advantage of my time with Gareth, forging a lifelong friendship.

Gareth and I delivered food, messages, and items in town to earn a few coins. We made good money for kids and quickly became known in town for our speed and reliability. I also learned the currency. Steel, copper, silver, gold, platinum, mithril, and adamantine coins existed. Each coin was the size of a penny, and 10 steel equaled 1 copper, 100 copper to 1 silver, 100 silver to 1 gold, 100 gold to 1 platinum, 100 platinum to 1 mithril, and 10 mithril to 1 adamantine.

Copper, silver, gold, and platinum also had a large ten-piece coin. A ten-piece was also called a ‘large coin’ for short. Also, steel was only used in small towns outside cities. No one in the city accepted them.

For our delivery work, we started making 4 to 5 steel coins per delivery and, on good days, could pull in a few coppers each. When Gareth and I reached our 10th birthday, we had more freedom, and we sometimes even had a delivery to the city, which was just a thirty-minute walk away. We earned a few coppers for the extra effort on those treks. 

We usually would spend half our income on food and drink to replenish our energy. Our one luxury item was a pair of fishing poles. The wide stream that was outside of town had a fair number of small fish, and on a good afternoon, we could catch enough for our family with extra to sell at the local pub in Hen’s Hollow.

Gareth became a loyal companion, following my lead. We spent our mornings studying with a few local kids under Gareth’s mother’s care, who was a scribe. We learned letters and numbers to help prepare us for entering the Academy. Then, we spent most of our day running errands. 

It was a happy time for me, a second childhood—not that I could recall much of my first. My older brother had his own crew, and they played at being soldiers, getting ready for the Academy. I also had a younger sister now, Freya. She was five years my junior and tried to tag along with Gareth and me. We allowed her to follow along on our deliveries and adventures as long as we were not going to the city.

The Sphere was very different from what I remembered about Earth. The first odd thing was the day-night cycle. Every day was identical; days, as close as I could tell, were just over 24 hours long. We had 13 hours of daylight, 9 hours of twilight split between morning and dusk, and two hours of semi-darkness. The central sun had some dark zones, accounting for the lighting changes based on its rotation.

There were also 23 planets that rotated around the sun within the Sphere. When a planet eclipsed the sun, it usually marked a special event. There were 12 months, each with 30 days and a five-day holiday ‘week’ not included in the months to celebrate the past year and the coming year. So, one year in the Sphere was slightly longer than a year on Earth.

Another thing about the World Sphere was the sky itself. It looked like a pastel painting of greens, blues, whites, browns, and yellows. It was definitely pretty amazing to gaze on, and I never got sick of looking at it, wondering about all the civilizations, dungeons and happenings in that marvelous prismatic sky stretching infinitely. 

The only respite I had from my childhood was the city’s bookstore. Every sixth or seventh day, I would make it to the city on delivery with Gareth and borrow a book on magic theory for a week for a few hard-earned coppers. Developing a trusting relationship with the bookstore owner, Wigand, took me a while.  

Without access to aether, I just read the theory and tried to puzzle out basic spell forms. Magic itself was fairly rare. Only one in nine people had enough aptitude and a large enough aether core to imprint and cast spells. I knew I would have a large aether reservoir in the future, so I was not wasting my time. Magic-like abilities were much more common.

In my readings, I found abilities were documented up to tier 3. Tier 4 abilities were considered rare, and tier 5 was considered a generational talent in Skyholme. Well, tier 6 had no recorded instances in the Skyholme Empire that I could find. Personally, I planned to keep all my abilities secret.

One problem I faced was that spell books were very expensive, and I had my sights set on three tier 1 spells after I awakened my aether core.

Cleanliness, remove all dirt from clothes, skin, and hair

Mend Flesh, repair damaged tissue

Obfuscate Abilities, shield abilities from inspection abilities and spells

The first spell, cleanliness, was cheap at seven gold and was considered a tier 1 spell, but it was extremely complicated. It was a channeled spell, meaning the amount of dirt removed and cleaning determined the total aether cost.

The second spell, mend flesh, was also a tier 1, but the spell book was an astonishing 30 gold. I only found references to the final spell, obfuscate abilities, in my readings, and I figured I would have to obtain it on the capital island. It was a passive spell that required a constant minor expense of aether. There was no cost listed for the spell, but I guessed it would be over 100 gold. I assumed this was because of Triumvirate control rather than the spell being rare.

A few days after my 15th birthday, my aether core manifested, arriving slightly later than it typically does for most. It coincided with the conclusion of a growth spurt. I awoke in a haze, drenched in sweat and trembling with fever. A wave of nausea washed over me, and I doubled over, emptying my stomach of its contents, which felt like the remnants of a whole week’s worth of meals.

I longed to keep this transformation a secret, so I isolated myself in my cramped room, enduring the ordeal alone for hours. Inside me, the core pulsed quietly, and as my body adjusted, I began to perceive it like a second heart. Instead of pumping blood, it circulated aether—the very essence of magic. With this awakening, I felt as though I was on the brink of unlocking incredible powers.