Draith
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Chapter 90 - Lucky Wood Rat
🕑 Added 2025-05-01 14:00:16 +0000 UTCWith Tresla upon her back, Inertia and I returned to Tetherfall, her wings glinting in the morning light.
Tamrie and Bevel were waiting.
I went through everything Tamrie needed, already thankful for her presence. So many last minute things were handled just by having her run around and talk to people on my behalf. Once I’d confirmed there weren’t any emergencies that would disrupt my plans for the day, I moved into the workshop. Bevel had gotten bored and wandered inside, and I found her watching Inertia make the final adjustments on her glider.
Now that the Tethered and I had flown, keeping her grounded would be impossible. Even as Inertia worked Bevel was clutching her hands open and closed while rising up on her toes. We were going up together. The plan was to spend most of the day hanging out.
Not only would it reward her for her patience, it’d also make up for not being around for her lessons the night before. It’d been an easy enough promise to keep, thanks to Tamrie, who’d insisted that I needed to take time off.
Finally, Inertia nodded, turning towards Bevel.
Bevel looked between Inertia, her glider and me, still rocking in place. Only once I gave her a nod did she dart forward with a squee. Not a sound I'd ever heard from her before. She ran her hand over the fine work of the wings, tracing each feather. "It's beautiful," she said before leaning forward and awkwardly hugging it.
After a minute, she leaned back and turned towards me. "Thank you."
"Thank Inertia, she did most of the work. I just did the enchanting," I replied, giving a nod to the Forgeborn.
"Thank you, Inertia," Bevel said, stepping back and giving the Forgeborn a small bow. Then she turned back towards me. "Can we go flying now?"
"That's the plan," I said, moving up to help her carry it.
"I can do it," Bevel said, tugging at the straps.
I stepped back, holding both hands out to the side as Bevel wrestled the glider out of the workshop, only slightly dragging the one side.
Glad Inertia had made it tough.
Inertia and I followed her out. Considering her much smaller size, Bevel's glider was much lighter, which had allowed Inertia to use only two Forgehearts. It meant they were more tightly incorporated in the design, to ensure Bevel still had the full four thrusters.
After Bevel secured her straps, I moved to check them.
"I did it right," Bevel said, waving me away.
"I'm sure you did, but I still need to check. Remember, I still get someone to check mine," I said, ignoring her protests. Then I paused as I tugged at a loose strap she'd only partially secured. "You missed one, guess we'll have to call off the flight."
"No!" Bevel practically screamed as she grabbed the strap from my hand, securing it properly. Then she went over the rest of her straps again, making sure they were perfect before glaring up at me. "We're going. Mr Kandle is ready."
"We are," I agreed, my gaze shifting to where the doll was strapped into place beside her. "Did you double check his straps?"
She nodded, with a lot more seriousness than when she'd been doing her own straps.
Then I went and got strapped into Soar, making sure Bevel saw Tresla doing my inspection.
"You know, you missed one too," Tresla said, tugging at one of the straps.
"What? I did not, I-" I cut off at the musical trill of laughter that issued from Tresla's cloaked hood. "Very funny."
"Bevel certainly thought so," Tresla said, gesturing towards the girl in question. Sure enough, Bevel was giggling, though she stopped as soon as my gaze fell on her.
I rolled my eyes, then got Bevel to repeat how to control the glider.
She focused, and repeated my instructions perfectly. So I gave her the go ahead.
Even before she pressed the controls, her glider was vibrating from her excitement. Then she started floating off the ground. Again, Bevel let out a pleased squeal. Then, before I could follow her example, she put on even more thrust, rocketing up into the sky with a happy scream.
"Really should've seen that coming," I said as I followed her up.
Thankfully, Bevel's glider was slower than Soar's top speed. The reduced number of Forgehearts meant that, even with her smaller size, Bevel could only go about two-thirds as fast as I could.
Still, that would only be until she figured out how to use her magic to augment her flight. Even as I caught up, I could see her testing exactly that.
"Bevel," I yelled out over the rushing air.
She flinched away, then glanced towards me.
I grinned back. "Race ya to the top!" I called, nodding towards the bluff to the west.
Bevel's mouth dropped open for a second, before she nodded, her face growing serious as she put on a burst of speed, shooting forward.
Couldn't let her think I was going easy on her, so I caught up again once her speed burst wore off, drifting alongside her, slowly sneaking past. Then she shot forward again. I continued this until she seemed to figure out a way to continually boost her speed.
I could've caught up to her, but figured she'd earned her victory. There were Tethered climbing and throwing themselves off the bluff when we arrived. I was pretty sure they weren't supposed to be doing that. Then I realized none of these Tethered were the ones from the testing the day before. For one, they were all bundled up much more tightly. Most of the gliders were new too, with unique patterns woven into the wings.
"Where are they getting the materials?" I muttered as Bevel landed at the top of the bluff, screaming in triumph.
I shook off the question. We'd opened up Mistvale, Verdant Point and now the west bluff to Tetherfall. And they'd grabbed anything even remotely valuable and brought it home. They might have a bit of a hoarder problem, but considering how much Balthum and Grivis had kept them locked away, that wasn't that surprising.
Besides, they were clearly using their resources to figure out their own ways to fly. Was just hoping no one got themselves hurt.
I landed almost half a minute after Bevel, but she was still celebrating by the time I touched down. She'd freed herself from her straps, and the second my feet met stone, she ran over and tackled my leg. "Thank you."
Ruffling her hair, I smiled. "Glad you're enjoying it."
"I wish I could show Keria," Bevel said, her voice growing tight. Then her body started shaking softly. "Sorry," she muttered as she wiped at her eyes.
With the glider still strapped in place, it was more than a little awkward, but I still leaned forward to give her a hug. "Hey, it's okay. I'm… I think I'm getting closer to figuring out what was done to her. Really close. Would help if I had the rest of Balthum’s research, but I might just need to do some more reading."
Which was true enough. Keeper owed me a lot of knowledge, and I’d be shocked if it didn’t have something that could help.
Bevel nodded, simply laying her head against me for a while. Long enough that Soar's weight started to feel heavy against my back.
"Hey, at least now we'll have an easier time looking for his other hideouts," I said, trying to ignore the way my back was starting to ache, channeling Minor Heal into it.
"That's right! The ocean!" Bevel exclaimed, pushing away so suddenly, it pushed me off balance.
I wrestled with the glider, attempting to keep from flipping onto my back. I only thought to use my controls after I'd gone down on my knee hard enough I heard a crack. Wincing, I swapped to Bestow Health, knowing that Minor Heal wasn’t going to cut it for something that strong.
Unfortunately, the stiffness imposed by the spell caused the straps on my leg to get twisted out of place, which required me to spend a minute fixing them.
By the time I stood, Bevel was already halfway into her glider, most of the straps in place. This time, she double checked them all herself before asking me to inspect them. Soon as I confirmed they were in place, she lifted into the air, though she waited for me to join her before rocketing towards the ocean.
Laughing, I followed, flying up alongside her, before doing a barrel roll next to her. A very wide and unsteady barrel roll. I’d seen Calbern pull them off, so I’d known they were possible, but as with most things, he made it look a lot easier than it actually was.
Her eyes lit up, and, as I should've predicted, immediately copied me. She was giggling as she recovered from her own sloppy roll. We continued towards the ocean that way, with her trying to do a barrel roll every minute or so.
I suspected she was torn between testing her new glider and getting to our destination.
The edge of my domain where it bordered the ocean was pretty much all cliff. From what I'd seen on the maps, that was true of most of the Storm Coast. The only exception was far to the south, near the south edge of Terra Vista, where it bordered the Howling Wastes. A short stretch of that coast had actual beaches. There were three cities in that fifty mile stretch, though I didn't remember their names at the moment.
As I was wondering how Bevel could've possibly made it up from the ocean, she soared out over the edge. She was looking back as she flew along, and I followed her. After nearly ten minutes of scrutinizing the cliff face, she turned in a wide sweep, yelling.
I couldn't make out her words, but I suspected she'd found whatever she'd been looking for.
The cliff loomed closer as we both bled off our speed. Neither of us felt comfortable enough to simply hover next to the windswept cliff. We’d already been subjected to numerous unexpected updrafts along the way, including a couple over seemingly ordinary patches of ocean, so we set down further in.
Bevel led me inland a few hundred feet, hovering over the rough ground instead of getting unstrapped. Finally, she found what she was looking for. "Here. This is where I made it up!" she cried, her voice barely audible over the loud hissing of her Forgeheart thrusters.
The cave's entrance was an unremarkable hole, and if not for the wide overhang, I doubted she would've found it. I could just barely see light deep inside the cave. There was slight dampness along the center, glistening in the low light.
"So… what do you think? Should we check it out?" I asked, landing in front of it then undoing my straps.
"Yeah!" Bevel said, quickly undoing her own straps. She hesitated when she was done, before deciding to undo Mr Kandle's straps as well. Once she had him tied to her chest with several strands of thin line, she gave a serious nod. "Ready."
I nodded back, pulling the staff out of my ring. I had no intention of letting the cave come down on our heads as we explored. Ensuring the cave was secure slowed our descent, as did my need to crouch and creep forward at several points. We were further slowed when we reached a jagged stretch of cliff. There were plenty of handholds, though few that looked secure enough to hold my weight.
All told, it took us two hours to descend to the bottom of the cave system. Halfway down, it became more of a narrow chasm, open to the nearby ocean. Near the ocean was a flat area where we took a break for lunch. A simple Sculpt Stone let me make a slotted surface that made it easy to trap a fish unfortunate enough to get knocked against the nearby cliff.
"This is quite the climb," I said, gesturing up at the cliff with one hand, though my attention remained on our lunch. I was grilling the fish on an enchanted heat stone we'd gotten from one of Kallum’s dead goons. It was much more efficient than the torch spell, though still not enough we could use it for regular heating. "You climbed this all by yourself? Years ago?"
Bevel nodded, her gaze distant as she tore at some jerkied mist-rex, not having wanted to wait for the fish to be done. "Wasn't hard. Easier than swimming."
My gaze shifted to the nearby ocean. The waves swept up to lap at a barely visible beach. It couldn't have been more than ten feet across, and probably spent half the day underwater. This spot had been unlikely. Bevel had been lucky.
"Look, there it is!" Bevel cried, her jerky going flying as she stood up, pointing.
I followed her arm, squinting. Even with Eagle Eyes, it took me a minute to locate the Waygate. It was almost completely submerged, its reflective surface nearly obscured by the surrounding ocean. Even after I spotted it, it took several seconds of staring for the waves to recede enough to see the distinctive runework along the top.
It was at least a thousand feet out into the open ocean. I looked at Bevel who was staring up at me with a wide grin. Unable to help myself, I ruffled her hair again as I looked back out.
Bevel had been very lucky.
Comments
Stephen Pearson
beech -> beach, more than once:-)
