World Sphere - 174 - Lightning Elemental

Chapter 174 Lightning Elemental

“You have fallen into the trap most mages do, Storme.  There is always a more powerful spell out there.  Privacy, for all its usefulness, is just a tier 1 spell,” Sana said with a smile.

”So you were spying on me?” I countered with an arched eyebrow.

Sana soured a little, “Just curious, as your Wolfsguard said, you two were having a lovers’ spat.”

Sana was being matronly in tone, and I trusted her.  “So, how did you listen in?”

A mischievous smile formed on Sana, “A tier three illusion spell.  It recreates what I see and fills in the acoustics.   It has a decent range, but I don’t suggest you imprint it.”

“Are you a spy, Sana?”  I asked jokingly.

“Spy is too strong a word, especially since the only person I work for is myself,” she replied.

I heard Aelyn boarding the ship with Maerlyn and Captain Delilah, the voices clear from the hold as they talked with Thibault.  “I think we are ready to head to the Ice Pick Mountains?  Where is that?”

Sana looked at the wall maps on the bridge.  She then paged through the epoxied sheets of other maps, looking for the location.  “Your collection of maps is impressive but I don’t think it is on any of your maps.  The nearest city is probably Farin,” she pulled out one of the maps.  “The Ice Pick mountains are a few thousand miles north.  Or we could get there in just one of two portals.”

“No, we will take the Maelstrom.  It will give us a base to operate from and allow us to leave whenever we want.”  I said, knowing portals tended to take time to wait on scheduled connections.

“We can get directions in Farin.  It is a safe port,” Sana said and left me on the bridge.  I spent the next hour plotting the direction to Farin using the map key codes on the borders of the sheets.  It was not the easiest process, and if you were off by a few degrees, you could miss your target by hundreds of miles.

Remy came to the bridge and double-checked my calculations, and we were lifting off.  Once we cleared the colorful city of brightly colored stone buildings, I set altitude, speed, and course.  “Remy, you have the bridge.  Call me to relieve you in ten hours.”

“Did you get a chance to work on the runes for the Bolt?” He asked hopefully.

“No, but I will before we return to Skyholme.  I actually thought of something.  Your little craft would be useful in large dungeons for getting around.”

“Dungeons typically don’t like you doing that,” Remy said doubtfully.

“No, dungeons don’t like you bringing in machinery to large-scale harvest or powerful weapons like aether cannons,” I said.  “Using a small ship to get around should draw its ire.”  A few children’s stories told of Delvers bringing in machinery in dimensional spaces.  The tale never ended well for the delvers.  Usually, when they left the dungeon, they suddenly found everything they harvested was gone, or worse, they ended up exiting somewhere else in the Sphere.  I didn’t know how the dungeons did it, but they were aware and could become angry with Delvers.

“What did you have in mind?” Remy asked, now extremely interested.

“Something that could fit in my dimensional closet and carry three people plus Kiara and Adrial,” even before I finished speaking, I could see the gears turning in his head.

“Budget?”  He asked excitedly.

“Three hundred thousand, not including the aether crystals.  No weapons, obviously, just a transport.”  Remy’s jaw dropped as little as three hundred thousand was enough to construct a combat skyship.

Remy was too eager and already drawing out paper to start making sketches.  I left him on the bridge to work on a new passion project.  Aelyn was not in our quarters, and I fed the cats, did some artificing, and studied before falling asleep.  Aelyn came in later, drunk.

“You should have joined us in the hold.  It took us forever to get Captain Delilah to loosen up.  You can’t pull a needle out her ass with a dragon,” Aelyn tossed her dirty clothes in a pile and scooted into bed.  As soon as her head hit the pillow, she was asleep.  Kiara’s red eyes seemed to roll in annoyance at Aelyn before she also went to sleep.  I really needed to get the cats their own space.  My captain’s cabin on the Maelstrom was just not big enough for four of us.

It was a four-day trip to Farin, and now that I had Sana close by again, I got her help in learning Lightning Elemental.  “Storme, this is a ridiculous spell to learn. I don’t care how many slots you have. Sixteen slots on a summon spell?”

“My affinity with the lightning sphere reduces the imprinting to just eight slots, and I am already fairly close,” I said, exasperated at her admonishment.

Sana smirked, “I knew you had a high affinity after you learned lightning reflexes so young; now I know just how high. Keep your secrets close, Storme. You are venturing further and further from Skyholme. The Sphere is not a kind place.”

I was getting a little tired of everyone warning me. Exasperated, I asked, “Are you going to help me learn it?”

“Oh, I know more than a few tricks for learning summon elemental spells,” Sana said with a wink.

“Do you know your own summon elemental spell? How many spell slots do you have?” I asked curiously. I had seen Sana cast over twenty different spells since I had known her, many were tier 2 or tier 3.

A confident Sana held out her palm, and her aether pressed into it as a small tornado of blue wind formed, “Air Elemental Messenger,” she said as my surprise was evident on my face.

“What? Is that a tier one summon elemental spell?” I was flabbergasted because tier three was the lowest summon elemental spell to my knowledge. The glowing red eyes appeared in the whirlwind of blue smoke, focused on me.

“It is a tier one spell that I picked up in a dungeon on one of the moons. It was extremely rare, but this spell has saved my delve team more than once in a dungeon as a scout and a distraction.” The blue swirling smoke dissipated as the aether she invested in the elemental expired. “Now, let’s see about getting your lightning elemental spell imprinted.”

Over the next three days, Aelyn, Maerlyn, and Captain Delilah formed their own women’s circle. Drinking away the alcohol stored on the Maelstrom and then from my dimensional closet. I was usually on the bridge with Sana, focusing on different exercises for imprinting the spell.

When I finally succeeded, the spellbook crumbled as it was a dungeon-created spellbook. The evolution of the spell for tier one I had prepared for was to define the elemental’s shape rather than be an amorphous blob. I had given this a lot of thought. My final three choices were either humanoid, cat, or dragon. I was not going to waste another evolution of the spell to give it a different shape, so it was important I gave it something I would be happy with.

I had thought about fighting beside a figure in my image or adding a third cat to my protectorate. But in the end, I went for the aesthetic appearance of a dragon.

After the imprint succeeded, I cast my first tier-five spell and created my first lightning elemental. The modest hatchling that stood between Sana and me was pure white, with arcs of lightning passing over its skin. Its body was the size of a person and had a wing span of fifteen feet—not that it would need the wings to fly.  The wings were folded on its back as the white eyes turned eerily around the bridge.

Sana asked, “How much aether did you invest?”

“Basic casting, sixteen units for fifteen seconds,” as the fifteen seconds expired, the lightning creature evaporated.

“You going to invest some aether and level the spell?” She asked. Spells leveled one of three ways: investing aether in casting them, using them for their intended purpose, or in battle.

“Yes, I am hoping to reach level eleven by the time we reach the city of Farin,” I said a little smugly. “I was considering finding a dungeon and landing to try it out there.”

“Almost every city of any size has a dungeon of two nearby. The one in Farin,” she tapped her chin, thinking, “I don’t ever recall delving it, but there is one there.”

“What about the dungeon your associate is delving in the Ice Pick Mountains?” I asked, thinking that was the best option.

“It is a new dungeon. It was recently discovered and only has two floors. The creatures are probably mostly harmless,” she returned. “I think he is collecting some unique sap from one of the trees.”

“I will probably take Bleiz and the cats in then, I am just going to cast this a few more times and get some evolutions. You are welcome to stay,” I told Sana. We had spent hours reviewing good evolutions, so she already knew what I was going to choose.

“Enjoy. Not every mage has the ability to burn to force-level spells like you.” Sana exited the bridge to return to her studies. Maybe one day, she would let me in on what she was working on. The one time I asked her, she said I was not ready for it.

My next casting was to invest one hundred and sixty aether to make the draconic lightning elemental appear for one hundred and fifty seconds. The spell leveled to two, and I gave enhanced its thought process. Now, when I cast the created the elemental, it would have a reasonable thought template to perform actions. My next casting was the same and drove the level to three. The lightning dragon’s white eyes locked onto mine this time. It was clearly awaiting direction, eager to serve.

Level three evolution was adding flight to the creature at a modest ten feet per second. The dragon form did not need the wings to move in the air, but they did look amazing, and I had the creature spread them. The tip of a wing grazed me, and a black scorch mark appeared on my flesh. I winced at the unexpected pain. The attack had bypassed my aetheric shield. I hadn’t expected it to be that powerful, but this was a tier-five spell.

Thirty minutes later and four castings, the spell had reached level five for another evolution. This was one that Sana had suggested in her research. The white hatchling now had scales outlined with blue lighting. I wasn’t sure this scale cosmetic effect would work off if it would just be entirely blue. It made the creature look strangely ethereal. The blue lightning was a stun effect of elementals. Now, strikes from this creature would both burn and stun.

Remy and Aelyn walked onto the bridge, and the blue-scaled version was active. “Storme! That is amazing!” Aelyn yelled.

Remy was also impressed, walking around it as its head on its long neck followed him, “It looks dangerous and beautiful at the same time!” He touched it and withdrew his hand after receiving a strong shock. “My arm is numb!”

“It discharged into you. You are lucky you didn’t touch it for longer. It would have paralyzed, and your aether shield would not have stopped it,” I said proudly.

Aelyn was curious, “What else can it do? Can you ride it?”

“It can fly, but I am not going to waste any evolutions on allowing it to carry passengers. My next evolution is to give it a ranged attack, but reaching level seven is going to take a few hours,” I noted caseully.

“It is already level six!” Aelyn said, jokingly upset. “Your abilities are just too unfair! When are we going to see it in action?”

“I will take it into the dungeon in the Ice Pick Mountains when we get there. Not before.” I told them as the creature vanished. “Remy, I am fine staying on watch.”

Aelyn shook her finger at me, “No, you are not. Come and eat with the rest of us! You always forget to eat when you get focused.” Remy looked away, not wanting to get involved.

I followed Aelyn to the hold and ate with Aelyn, Bleiz, Tibault, Neoma, Deliliah, Sana and Maerlyn. The group appeared to be getting along well, and even without alcohol, Delilah was opening up a little.  Well, at least she wasn’t wearing her armor at the moment. I noticed the adamantine communication ring on her finger.

“You shouldn’t wear that in public, Captain. Black metal marks it as adamantine, and people would kill for that,” I advised her nicely.

“Let them try and take it,” she replied back in a challenge.

Aelyn moderated, “Perhaps you could wear some leather gloves?”

I didn’t spend much more time at the table after dinner in the hold as I was eager to work on my lightning elemental spell. Bleiz tried to get me to get in some combat practice, but I promised him time in the dungeon where we reached the village in the Ice Pick Mountains.

I went up to the top deck of the Maelstrom. It was encased in a protective bubble, so there was no wind shear up here. I cast the elemental and ordered it out of the Sphere. As soon as it left the protective area, it quickly disappeared behind the speeding skyship. My comm stone buzzed a few moments later. Remy’s voice was panicky, “Something just violated the outer sensor bubble. All hands prepare to repel boarders!”

I waited for just a few moments. It was a good drill for the crew to react to. After a minute, Bleiz barked over the stone, “Where is Storme?! I can’t find him.” I was chuckling as the panic started to spread over the stones as they searched the ship.

Minutes passed before I finally let them know what happened, “Sorry about that. I am on the top observation deck. One of my elementals passed out of the bubble.” Bleiz’s head popped out of the access door a few seconds later, locked eyes with me, and then he slammed it closed and locked it from the inside.

I just chuckled and continued to work on casting the elemental. When the spell reached level seven, it could send a blue bolt of lightning out to fifty feet. The problem was this attack drained its aether by three and reduced the time the elemental could exist. Now, it was a long road to reach level eleven for the next evolution. I used up about seventy percent of my aether before knocking on the door for them to let me back it. Captain Delilah’s face met me as the access hatch opened. “I was told to tell you, ‘Not funny’.”

I couldn’t help but smile as I climbed down. Adrial and Kiara were looking at me pitifully in the hallway by the ladder. “Did no one feed you? Well, next time, you can just take a bite out of one of them.”

Delilah said neutrally, “Once they knew you were up there, they wouldn’t leave the hallway. There was a lot of panic on the ship when we couldn’t find you.”

“I am surprised Sana didn’t find me,” I said offhandedly.

“I would have if I had more time, but I didn’t know we were playing hide in seek,” Sana stepped into the corridor, not looking amused either. “I burnt half my aether looking for a threat on the ship.” She shook her head. “How high?”

“Level nine,” I said smugly, and she smiled.

“Power is wasted on the young.” She retreated to her room.

Adrial mewed, and her stomach made a loud rumbling sound. “It was a good joke,” I said to no one in the corridor. Delilah had already left, and only the cats were in the corridor. Kiara hissed which I decided meant she thought it was funny. “Let’s get you two fed. We are almost to Farin.”