Chapter - 186 - World Walker

Chapter 186 World Walker

As the Maelstrom raced across the inner Sphere, I pulled out Remy’s latest accounting of our enterprises in Skyholme. I did some mental math on the lost income from Progenitor Dungeon. The results were not good. I had to hope Talia’s foray into the lowland dungeon could offset the loss. Everything could be made easier if I could bag a whale on this hunting trip.

The real headache was the promises I had made on the Dungeon Academy. The construction, renovations, and salaries for the new instructors were going to be a burden. I had too much hubris in my ability to hunt pirate skyships. Adrial lay snoozing at the forward viewing window, hissing and growling in her sleep. She was probably chasing something in her dreams. Kiara was sitting and watching the land pass below. I could feel her ever-present connection to my mind.

“Why do you like looking out the viewport?” I said, putting down the paperwork.

She cocked her head, considering, “High. Fly. Better. Than. Walkers.” I nodded as I understood her viewpoint on the connection. She liked being above others and in control.

“Why did you growl in the kitchens the other day?” I asked, remembering her unusual behavior.

She tilted her head the other way, not understanding the question. I sorted my thoughts and replayed the scene in my head for her. She seemed to understand. “Smell. Like. Enemy.”

“What does enemy smell like?” I asked, leaning forward. Did I miss something in the interaction?

Kiara seemed to be considering very carefully before answering. “Enemy. Smell. Like. Enemy.” She finally said as if that explained it.

“Why didn’t Adrial smell it?” I asked.

She looked at her sister, whose six legs were slowly mimicking her running as she chased something in her dream. “Adrial. Not. Smart. Smell. But. Not. Understand. Enemy. Smell. Like. Danger.”

“Who? The tailor? The waitress?” I asked, sending flashes of the people.

“No. Child. Not. Human. Enemy.” Kiara stated through the link.

My mind turned fast. Was the child not human? There were lots of creatures that could change their shape. Kiara didn’t understand as I sent her images of the various shape changers through our link. She always just came back to calling it the enemy. She didn’t understand, and it came down to her thinking it was natural—it was her instinct.

I took out all the books on phantom cats from my storage and started paging them. Blink dogs were the number one enemy of phantom cats.

Phantom cats were created by powerful magic eons ago and had diverged from their true purpose—guarding the mages that had created them. Since then, they had gone wild, been aborded into dungeons and altered, and then released again as different variants. I couldn’t find any common thread that would make me think they had an instinctual enemy.

I looked into Kiara’s red eyes, considering turning the Maelstrom around and investigating. There was something there that made me uncomfortable. I went to the maps and sighed as I calculated how far we had traveled in six hours, over ten thousand miles. We were halfway to the region where we were going to search.

I looked at the map, and there was a large city we could divert to. I could send a message back to Sana to investigate the tailor’s girl. Even if there was nothing I could do, I could at least make sure the tailor didn’t return to the Shiny Platinum. I called Leda up to help plot the course to the city on the way. We should be there in less than an hour.

The city was called Noreia. It was a lizard-man city that was mostly underground, but the map noted it was friendly and a free-trade city. There was a large number of skyships in the landing field we were directed to, and I could see dozens of different races. The most unusual was a gargantuan skyship that appeared to be crewed by giants with fiery red beards.

The lizardmen were odd-looking, as were, with reptilian elongated heads and long tails trailing behind them. Their fine scales came in three colors from what I could see as I entered the main city with Bleiz. Emerald green seemed the most prevalent, followed by sapphire blue and then a rare siting of white-scaled lizardmen. The buildings were all dome-shaped and made of brick but served as ramps down into the true structure below. It reminded me of an ant mound.

A few queries later, we were directed to the entrance of the local Adventurer’s Guild. The lizard folk spoke the common tongue clearly for their elongated and reptilian appearance. The ramp down into the structure was circular and ended in a large dome. Off-white aether lights lit the large room, but the setting would have fit in an Adventurer’s Hall common room where I had been. A sapphire-scaled lizard woman helped me prepare and send my message back to Skyholme.

I paid extra for immediate delivery to Sana Velin at the Dungeon Academy. It read: “Sana. Please explore the possibility that a malicious agent may have infiltrated Skyholme in the disguise of the tailor’s daughter, who was a Shiny Platinum a few days ago. I have it on good authority that the danger is significant, so please take precautions.”

I read it again and paid my gold. I spent some time comparing my pirate bounties with their compendiums. One pirate had been captured and their ship seized, but all other bounties were still active. I was about to leave but instead asked if the city had an archive. The lizard woman directed me through the underground tunnels connecting the structures. The tunnels were well-lit and coated in a glossy-blue coating. Our feet tapped on the ground with the press of other people traversing the undercity.

I accidentally stepped on a tail while I was distracted as an ethereal man passed us. I apologized and was more careful afterward. Seeing strange things was becoming more and more common the more I visited other places away from Skyholme.

Like all other underground structures, the interior of Noreia was round. Circular pillars with shelves wrapping around them and going far into the ceiling dominated the space. A white-scaled lizard man came to direct me to register. After I paid the ten gold fee for a day’s access to the archives, he asked, “How can I assist you?”

“I am looking for everything you have on the enemies of the ghost elves.” I replied. My hunch was that maybe the enemy that Kiara had smelled was not for the phantom cats but for the ghost elves. Keothi was certain the soul of a ghost elf resided in Kiara, and maybe that soul recalled something from its past life.

“Which enemy in particular?” The lizard man said patiently. “The ghost elves have many in the Endless Dark.” Of course, they did. I had studied creatures from the dungeons and common on the surface of the Sphere around Skyholme’s orbit, but the Endless Dark was a mystery to me. The Endless Dark was the layer of the Sphere that was thousands of miles thick and had its own ecosystem. The let lines that hosted the dungeons also ran through the Endless Dark.

“Start with any that capable of shifter their forms, possessing others or have powerful illusion magic.” I requested and he nodded. It was an hour before he returned with a number of books on a cart.

“Here are the books you requested,” he bowed but paused. A placed a large gold in the top of the stacks and he slid it into his pocket before leaving. The cart was stacked with over twenty book. I looked at my guards and Neoma and Tibault looked away, not eager to help.

Over the next few hours I did a lot of reading. Parasitic wraiths drained a persons soul over time and were difficult to defend against. The problem with this undeath creature was it was destroyed in the light of sun so it never left the Endless Dark. Puppet worms invaded a persons body through fruit grown in the Endless Dark. They burrowed into the brain and eventually took over the body. There was a race of powerful wizards that could use high tier illusion magic. The race was a sub species of deep gnome called the Sven. They competed for resources with the ghost elves, among others.

The number of enemies that could shift to a human form were numerous. Sentient mimics, doppelgängers, slaad, vampires, were beasts and dragons. Then I got to a book about a race simply called shifters. Shifters consumed their prey and took on their form but they were also immensely strong and could morph parts of their body into other creatures they had consumed in the past. Their limiting factor was their mass. A young child shifter could look small but weigh over three hundred pounds.

The shifters used to live in the Endless Dark and even delve dungeons. One interesting fact was that whatever ancient race built the portal network in the Sphere had embedded runes that would force shifters into their true form if they used them. In their true form, they were tall, dense, muscular humanoids. The race also preferred the cold, making Skyholme an unlikely place to settle down.

Of all the options, I couldn’t decide if any of them were what Kiara identified. I took pages of notes and prepared to have them sent back to Skyholme as I planned to be gone for at least a few days. I returned to the Adventurer’s Hall and paid to have my notes sent. I might be wildly off, in my guess, but Sana could sort it out, and I will be back in a few days.

I returned to the Maelstrom, and we were back in the air with Leda taking the helm. I fed the cats and spent hours artificing simple objects for our future magic shop at the Dungeon Academy.

I was getting efficient and could make a simple enchantment runic dagger in less than fifteen minutes. Durability enchantment was my go-to enchantment. It not only made the blade last lifetimes but also kept a good edge. The sharpness enchantment only allowed the blade to cut with an aetheric edge. Adding durability and sharpness enchantments on such a small weapon was not worth the time.

After twenty various short blades, I switched to long swords, sabers, and short swords. These blades received both of the basic enchantments. My time investment was twofold at just over an hour for each blade, but they should sell for easily one thousand gold.

The cats were bored and Kiara was testing her new communication ability and my patience as well. Enchanting took a lot of my focus, and having the phantom cast ask, “Food. Now?” “Are. We. There. Yet?” and “Adrial. Butt. Stink.” The last was Adrial’s penchant for farting after a large meal of raw meat and squash.

The ship bell sounded, and I rushed to the bridge, but Leda was calling for relief. I had been locked in my cabin for almost fourteen hours. “Your turn at the helm. Let me get eight hours of sleep, and call me back. We passed eleven skyships, but none of them matched. We are about three hours away from the first region on the bounties. The Crackling Sparrow and Dragon’s Descent both operate in the area.”

She handed the bounty sheets as she left. Both pirate ships were quite small—about the size of Skyholme Wasp Scout. This lesser mass meant they probably didn’t have impressive aether crystal cores. The bounties on the captains were both in the 5,000 gold range, so the real prize would be the ships themselves. I did need a ship to run trade routes.

I settled into the padded chair and pulled out a book to read with the proximity radar just above my book. On every page, I could look up changes. Kiara took her stead in the window while Adrial lounged by the door to the bridge, blocking the entrance—or maybe she was guarding it.

A few hours later Kiara’s voice rang in my head. “Big. Fight. Littles.” My eyes snapped to the radar and I didn’t see anything. “Far. Down. Behind. Now.”

Trusting the cat, I turned the Maelstrom around, and she was right. We were over two miles up, and on a large plain; flashes of magical lightning and fire targeted a monstrous quadruped creature. I sounded the bell for everyone as I circled high above the battle.

The Wolfsguard arrived first, stepping over Adrial, who was stretching and crowding the forward viewport. Leda came next, blurry-eyed from just a few hours of sleep. “What is it?” Bleiz asked of the massive creature.

Leda moved to the glass as I didn’t have an answer. She studied it. “I think it is World Walker. There is a part of the Sphere where monstrous creatures are common. But that is far, far from here. Something may have teleported it here or it may have walked here over hundreds of years.”

“Why are they attacking it? It seems like it is not able to fight back.” Neoma questioned.

I looked at the path the creature had made and followed it, thinking maybe it was headed somewhere they didn’t want. I didn’t see any cities on the path, but our view only extended a few miles. I raced the Maelstrom on the vector, and about forty miles away, there was a city sprawl. The World Walker was larger than the city itself, explaining their reason for attacking the creature. I raced back to the battle.

“Their attacks are not having effect,” Tibault noted. “It looks like it has some type of aetheric shielding.”

“They are just fleas to that creature. What race are the attackers?” Leda asked.

I didn’t want to get closer, so I hovered the Maelstrom and used my telescopic eye. “Mostly human. A few dwarves mixed in.”

The Maelstrom shook, and the controls went wild for a moment as a wave from the World Walker disrupted the aether flows. As I gained control of the skyship, I handed over the controls and raced to the control room to assess the damage.

Relief flooded me as much of the gold insulation over the mithril was gone. I yelled back to the bridge, “Hold position! The runic lines are exposed!” I pulled out gold from storage and got to work on a repair job. Without the insulator, the aether flow could jump the lines of the runes. Did I need to coat every rune on the board in adamantine? Just what kind of chaotic attack was that?

As I worked, Bleiz appeared in the doorway. “Leda raised our altitude to four miles. The wave raced across the surface as well. Much of the army that was attacking has been decimated. That creature had to be a mile long. Are we going to help?”

I was sweating as I worked. A few thousand golds had just been evaporated from that attack, and checking on the few platinum runes I hadn’t converted to mithril; I saw that the wave affected them as well. “I don’t think we can risk it. Have Leda gain more altitude but slowly. When I finish here, I will decide.” I didn’t want to draw heavy aether from the synched aether crystals until I checked everything.

It took four hours as I finished the control room and traced and repaired the runes through the Maelstrom. Runes that had not been active were not affected by the wave. My best guess was the attack reacted with the aether in the runes. I didn’t know why it didn’t affect the aether in our bodies.

Exhausted, I returned to the bridge. The Maelstrom was angled to give a view of the combat far below. The defending army looked depleted, and bodies were strewn across the landscape.

“I think they are trying to divert it,” Tibault said. Studying the battle below, it was clear they were attacking just one side, maybe in hopes it would acknowledge them and move in the direction or away from that direction.

I felt a little guilt for the people I didn’t know but shook my head in the negative. “We can’t help. I could send my lightning elemental down, but I do not think it would do anything. They should evacuate their city and rebuild after it passes. It moves slowly enough. That is what they should have done in the first place. You can rebuild buildings but not bring back the dead.” I let them watch the morbidly fascinating scene below for a while before ordering Leda to continue.

The primary Maelstrom runes were repaired, but I still had a lot of work to do on secondary and backup runes. Until that was complete, we would not be intercepting any pirates. It took me nearly a day and half my aether pool to complete the work to my satisfaction. A regular skyship artificer would have taken two or more weeks to finish all the repairs.

I was exhausted as I rested in my cabin. Leda had been permitted to start a patrol of our target area while I slept. It felt like I had just laid my head down when the alert rang. I woke with a heavy Adrial draped over my legs, standing guard. I had forgotten to set my alarm spells and privacy screens. Scolding myself, I made my way to the bridge.

Bleiz had been on watch as Leda, Tibault, and Neoma arrived. Bleiz looked back at us, holding Leda’s artificed spyglass. I think it is one of the targets. The silhouette matches the Crackling Sparrow, and they are angling to intercept us. It was good to face an enemy we had a chance against. “I will take the controls,” I said, nodding to Bleiz.

I let the pirate ship close on us, thinking we were running before looping and accelerating toward it. It was time to make some gold.