Draith
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Chapter 139 - Interdimensional Chop
🕑 Added 2025-06-22 14:00:10 +0000 UTCThe next morning, life continued.
As did the storm.
It had been a constant presence through the last several months. Sometimes it whispered, and others it howled, yet always it was there, outside.
I'd thought I understood how bad the storm could get. The constant lightning, the perpetual rain, and the unending booming of thunder.
It had all been on the level of a storm I might've seen on Earth, though I was pretty sure no storm on Earth would've lasted so long.
That was no longer the case. As we moved the parts from the workshops, I could hear the walls creaking around us. Despite being nearly a foot thick in most places the stone walls were creaking from the rage of the storm. Hadn't known stone could creak.
I was glad I'd built the underground passages, cause with a storm that strong, going outside was… well, Calbern was out there, cause he said it was good for his path.
But that proved how insane the weather was, if anything.
Inertia was stomping around, directing workers as we scrambled to fit everything through the tight halls. It only took three hours to strip the workshops clean, though a lot of it remained in the halls.
Amazingly, the nets held. Several fields of mats were ripped away. I only hoped the greenhouses were okay. We'd built tunnels connecting them, but both the greenhouses and the tunnels had been built with the assumption that foot-thick walls would be enough.
Something heavy crashed into one of the walls as I was sealing off the passage. The sound reverberated through my teeth, and in the aftermath, I could hear the howl of the wind more clearly.
"Howl of the century," Selvi called with far too much enthusiasm as I jogged down the steps, the weather finally shut out.
"It's definitely a howl," I agreed, weaving my way down the crowded passage. Inertia was ahead of me, whistle-hissing along as Tresla directed people on what to take with them. It was all out of order, cause most of the big stuff was supposed to have come later.
Nature didn't give two oil-soaked rags about what was supposed to happen.
Wasn't too surprising that we ended up trapped in the back passage as people on the bottom slowly cleared the lower corridors, making room for Inertia. It took more than an hour, and by the time I got to the bottom, I found Tamrie there, directing traffic.
We gave each other quick nods and both continued with our work.
With all the chaos, I figured the best place for me was pretty much anywhere else. While I knew the airship’s design, I'd also made it a habit not to instruct people directly unless it was an emergency. Especially not Inertia's helpers.
So, I went to Keeper and traded for another couple spells and sat down to scribe them. Out of the way. Up top next to the beacon, where I could watch people carry up components.
There were only Tethered, I realized, and my gaze shifted towards Verdant Point. The buildings there were built into the walls, and were thicker than the warehouses besides, but how were they faring?
They had Xoth and Egerta, but neither of them were especially good at construction. Which pretty much left Vetrov. Then my gaze shifted down to the vale. What was the weather like there? Most of the time, the storm went over rather than through the valley, with only a few lighting strikes reaching the trees. And those were either ignored or outright absorbed by the behemoth trees that towered over the east end.
It still got a lot of rain though. And as I'd seen when the mist-rex had died, there were things that could take out those trees.
Pushing to my feet, I made my way down to the Waygate for Verdant Point. If I wanted to check on them, it was easy enough. Except when I put my hand on it, the Waygate didn't want to open.
"It's not working, Magus ser," one of the nearby workers called as I stood there. "Hasn't been working all morning. Gate to the bluff's down too."
“And no one thought to tell me?” I replied, turning to find him and another Tethered carrying one of the panels I’d made up the stairs.
The worker just shrugged, causing him to have to readjust his grip and earning a sharp reprimand from his partner. Then they were gone up the stairs and I was left to diagnose the problem.
I'd been worried about us overusing the Waygates, but this didn’t seem to be a problem of power. Even as I checked the Waygate to the greenhouses near the west bluff, and it failed to activate, a pair of workers arrived via the Tetherfall Waygate. So it was clearly working fine.
It was possible they’d been destroyed on the far ends. Though losing both at once seemed weird.
Moving to test the one to Mistvale, I was whisked straight through, out into the torrential downpour.
The knee-high water rushing past the Waygate knocked me off my feet, nearly sweeping me away. I caught onto the stone frame then activated it and brought myself back.
I lay on the ground, water dripping off me. Then I chuckled softly to myself. That'd been unexpected. But the Waygate had worked. I considered taking Soaring Wolf to Verdant Point instead of using the Waygates but it’d been moved outside to be out of the way for moving the airship parts.
Sure enough, when I went to check, it wasn’t where I’d left it.
With how strong the winds were whipping around me, I didn't know if even Fang would still be wherever Calbern parked it.
Which meant, focus on the Waygates.
Making my way back inside, I took out my journal as I tried to activate the Waygate to Verdant Point again. Once more it didn’t activate, so I sat down next to it as I thought through the problem.
What did the Waygates that worked have in common? And what did the ones that didn't?
It was possible Verdant Point's Waygate had been destroyed or buried. After all, it was inside a cave with walls dozens of feet thick. Totally a weak point.
Chuckling to myself, I shook my head as I crossed out damage from storm as a possible cause at Verdant Point.
Just wasn't likely.
Neither was it likely the bluff Waygate had been destroyed. Sure, it was inside an old ruin, but that ruin had been reinforced. It was our only way to get to that side of Cape Aeternia. After how easily I could drop mountains and the Waygate’s proximity to said mountains, I’d figured it was best to protect the route to our breadbasket.
Amusingly, the only unprotected Waygate was Mistvale. And as the still wet spot on the nearby stone could attest, it was working fine.
It could be distance.
I tapped my pencil on my journal as I drew out a rough map.
Mistvale, Tetherfall and Mount Aeternia were, relatively speaking, stacked on top of each other. Less than a dozen miles between each of them.
Neither Verdant Point or the Bluff were very close. Both were over a hundred miles away.
As to why distance would matter…
Well, most of my Worlds spells did seem to have distance limits. Considering the cost of the Gate that brought us from the far side of the Front, it was surprising the local Waygates worked so well.
Even as I considered whether we might be running low on power, I watched a team of a half-dozen Tethered teleport in, recover from the disorientation, then haul the half-assembled frame pieces they were carrying up the public stairs to the peak. Then another, right behind them. And another.
Yeah. Doubted it was power that was keeping the Waygates from working. Which meant… interference?
Deciding this was a mystery that could use assistance, I tracked down Bevel, who was hanging over Calbern and Myris going over history lessons. Local history, which Myris seemed to be reading off of a woven curtain that had special patterns worn into the edges.
“These threads tell the story of Ansel, the quiet,” Myris said, showing Bevel the intricate threading. For a minute, I simply stood there listening as she told Ansel’s story. A man who’d saved people from the mad mage by hiding them. It was maybe two square feet of cloth, and none of it had the pictures I would’ve expected.
Interesting as it was, when Myris glanced towards me, I remembered why I was there. “Some of the Waygates are down. Calbern, any chance you could check on Verdant Point?”
“Of course, master Percival,” Calbern said, pushing to his feet and inclining his head in my direction. Then he strode past me as my attention moved to Bevel.
“Could use your help too, if you’re up for it. Need to figure out what’s wrong with the Waygates,” I said, nodding towards Bevel.
Before I’d finished speaking, she was already moving along the nets above, dropping down beside me and holding out her hand.
“Guess we’re done for today,” Myris grumped out, though I caught her smile before she smothered it behind her usual frown.
“Sorry bout that,” I said, giving her a nod.
“Bah. Child was losing focus anyway.”
“Was not!” Bevel said, turning back to stare at Myris with an open mouth. “Pa… Perry just needs me.”
“I do,” I agreed with my apprentice, reaching down and ruffling her hair.
Myris snorted, then we parted ways. Bevel and I set up near the Verdant Point Waygate once more, and started diagnosing the runes.
There were several I was used to simply working that seemed to almost be oversaturated anytime one of us attempted to use them.
After a few hours of studying both the working Waygates and the others, we could confirm that the runes were only being overwhelmed on the ones that weren’t working.
After consulting my grimoire, we confirmed that the runes had something to do with some sort of interference.
“Could it be like stormy waves?” Bevel asked, holding her hand up and weaving it up and down. “Hard to cross in rough weather.”
“Hmm. It’s definitely possible the storm outside’s so intense it’s somehow creating some interdimensional chop,” I agreed. “Surprised the Waygates aren’t shorting out on us, though I guess mana isn’t really electricity.”
Which meant the Waygates would function fine as soon as the storm calmed down.
And that meant I just had to hope everyone would be okay.
Just.
Hopefully Calbern wouldn’t be gone too long. If there was anyone I wasn’t worried about navigating the storm safely, it was him.
We spent another few minutes looking over the Waygates, checking to see if there was anything we'd missed, maybe a way to override the interference.
“It’s not complete, is it?” Bevel asked, squinting down at my grimoire. “Shouldn’t there be more control runes?”
“There should,” I agreed, glancing down at the grimoire which was open to Secrets of Telthen. Even after the temporary pockets were formed, there were a lot of active control runes involved. When I worked my way through the runes on the Waygate itself, I confirmed that there weren’t any on it. Not that I recognized, anyway.
So, I decided to check on the crystal in the center of the room. The crystal I hadn't thought to check since coming back from the Golden Halls of Ascension.
As it turned out, my little visit under the sea had changed something. It wasn't much, but the words that flashed along the top of my vision hinted that there was a lot more waiting for me.
"Warning! Tertiary Transfer Nexus has suffered catastrophic damage! Emergency access only! Utility Access* required for full functionality."
To my surprise, I was able to work the crystal much like I had the interfaces in the Ascension Assistance sub-level, by pushing mana into it. Doing so brought up a new message.
"Utility Access Progress: Fires of the Infinite Furnace 2/4 alignments successfully completed. Depths of the Final Rest zero 0/4 alignments successfully completed."
Huh. Seemed I’d need to bump up the priority of visiting Final Rest.
Preferably once I had Nexxa to keep me company. Something about the name felt a bit ominous.
