Draith
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Chapter 80 - Talons
🕑 Added 2025-04-19 14:00:16 +0000 UTCWith Sarpit's death, the cloud that had hung over us for the past few days started to dissolve. It wasn't instant. It wasn't even quick. But by the time Calbern leapt Fang over the final gap leading up to Tetherfall, some spots had thinned enough to cast a few scattered rays of evening sunlight over the village.
Vaserra and her clan had started the long process of scaling the mountains. It would take them several days, since not all their wolves were as agile as hers. Our farewells had been subdued. While Vaserra had won the day, it had come at the cost of one of her dearest companions as well as having to take her father's life. Something that clearly affected her more than she’d been prepared for.
Despite his treatment of the vale dwellers, he’d loved her.
Vaserra had waved aside any offers of shelter or sustenance, wanting to set things right as soon as she could make her way home.
The cliff that now sealed us off from the Frost Riven was less than ideal, as was the fact the Waygate had been buried during the fighting. Next time a proper storm rolled through, I intended to unbury the gate then carve a tunnel through the wall. Once that was in place, it would effectively mean we'd have control over anything coming in from the west. Which would help protect against other clans and monsters both. The Frost Riven might be under new leadership, but that didn't mean their neighbors were.
As I disembarked Fang, I noticed an unusual commotion coming from the nearby chasm.
Peering over the edge, I found a small group of Tethered and refugees arguing with each other. Xoth and Selvi were among them.
Grabbing a rope, I moved over the edge, their words gaining clarity as I descended.
"- doesn't change the truth," Xoth said, his tone carrying an extra layer of over-exaggerated patience. "We had nothing to do with it."
"So you keep saying. But you can't deny it's awfully convenient timing, while the Magus and all his allies are out fighting, the Waygates go down," Selvi said, poking her finger in his face.
"It's not inactive," Xoth said calmly as I landed on a bit of platform not far from the edge. "The Spellkey has been changed."
"And how would you know that if-" Selvi cut herself off when her gaze landed on me. "Magus Dominus."
"Problem with the Waygates?" I asked, my eyes flicking to the doorway in question.
"They stopped working about an hour ago," Xoth answered, stepping to the side. "I was attempting to diagnose what happened when your guards started harassing me."
"That's not… I was saying it was planned. And that one of the refugees was behind it. A Tethered would never shut down the Magus's Waygates," Selvi said, her scarred cheek twitching.
"Where's Bevel?" I asked, glancing towards the nearby galleon that still served as our home. I'd certainly explained the mechanisms well enough for her to have modified the Spellkeys. It would be annoying if she'd decided to shut people out, but I could understand why she'd done so. I’d certainly taught her enough for her to know how.
Xoth's eyes narrowed as Selvi shrugged.
"I shall inspect her preferred resting places, master Perth," Calbern said, already moving towards the galleon.
When he didn't find her there, we split up, checking the rest of Tetherfall. Instead of Bevel, we found the pair of sentries who'd been posted at the Waygate. They were tied up and shoved into the cold room, both near the point of freezing by the time I stumbled across them.
While Minor Heal took the worst of the edge off, neither remembered what happened. The minor scorch marks on their clothes indicated someone had used one of their shock rods or a spell like them.
"That… probably wasn't Bevel," I said to Calbern after we'd seen to the sentries.
"It would be quite aberrant behavior for the young lady," Calbern agreed.
"Which means someone else decided to hijack the Waygates," I said, rubbing my head. When I'd made the extra Spellkeys, I hadn't bothered to make them better, because that would've taken more time and would've required modifying the Waygates to match. It seemed someone else had decided upgrading the security was worth the effort. And hey, while they were at it, why not take control too?
"Was one of the refugees," Selvi said, her arms crossed as she glared at Xoth. "Shaper Kallum was here just before the Waygates stopped working."
"I told you, he's not my responsibility," Xoth replied, his demeanor calm despite the implied accusation.
"We don't know what happened," I said, cutting that conversation off. "And until we get through, we won't."
"It is not a simple spellcode," Xoth said, nodding towards the Waygate. "Whoever has trapped us here understands recursive rune theory."
A quick inspection of the change confirmed his statement. Which meant I needed to find another way into the mountain.
"Would've taken time to reset the Waygate. What do you think the odds are they've finished Mistvale's?" I asked, looking towards Xoth.
"With a key this complex? And assuming they did it immediately after finishing here an hour ago? They could have all three Waygates changed to the new spell locks," Xoth replied with a small shrug. “It would be surprising if they haven’t.”
“Which only leaves scaling the mountain,” I muttered. “Okay, Selvi, can you make sure everyone has a place to stay. I don't think we're going to get this resolved in time for them to sleep in their beds tonight.”
"I… Dethi was on watch in the mountain," Selvi replied, her gaze shifting back to the door. "Do you…"
"They left the sentries here alive," I said, clasping her on the shoulder. I didn't remind her how easily they could've died if we hadn't found them when we did. Calbern really had a lot of things to teach the new guards if looking for their missing comrades hadn't even occurred to Selvi.
Leaving Selvi to organize the others, I made my way up to Inertia and Tresla.
Inertia was sitting next to Tresla's still prone form, her fingers surprisingly gentle as they stroked Tresla's head.
"How is she?" I asked, stepping closer. Even now, there was no sign of what she looked like beneath the cloak. If she looked like anything.
"Thin," Inertia hissed out, the word barely discernible through the low volume exhale of steam.
Tresla's form did look thinner than it had before. "Will she be alright?"
"Time," Inertia said, the word echoing softly even as she continued stroking the hood of the cloak.
"Well, if there's anything I can do, let me know," I said. Minor Heal had stopped doing anything for Tresla even before we'd brought her back.
Inertia just shook her head.
I left her to it, moving over to the gliders. If I wanted to get into the mountain, I needed a way to the top. And the only real option I had was a powered glider. Even Inertia couldn’t fly up to the top with the thin air there.
The only thing that had was the wyvern who'd stolen our meat. The thought crossed my mind, to attempt to somehow use it to ascend.
But I shook my head, chasing away the fool notion. I didn't know how to train a wyvern. Maybe Vaserra might take up the challenge someday, but it wouldn't be anytime soon.
And I needed the Waygates open. We'd done a lot of the initial setup for the refugee valley, but most of the food was still in Tetherfall. Not to mention the resources that needed to be moved about. Ships weren't going to stop arriving with more refugees just because I was trapped in Tetherfall.
So I returned my attention to the latest designs. And what it would take to enchant them. That had been one of the first things Inertia had insisted on after I first brought the designs to her. That if we were going to have gliders, they needed basic enchantments.
She'd worked the enchanting materials into the prototypes in such a way that they were intact and could be removed. But only if the entire glider was disassembled. Made it a lot harder for someone to walk past and steal the materials.
Pulling out my scribing pen, I prepared to start scribing the modified air shield they required. Inertia had already helped me map out the design, though she'd requested some extra nodes for linking in other enchantments later.
Silver dust, check. Provided by Nexxa.
Air affinity material, check. Bone taken from the wyvern that attacked us shortly after arriving, then refined by Neta.
Air mana, check. Provided by me.
As I set to work, time slipped away. The enchantment wasn't especially tricky, not compared to the Waygate or cold room, but it still took longer than I liked. Several hours had passed by the time I'd finished enchanting both gliders.
Because there was no way I was going alone. Or sending Calbern by himself.
When I finished the last line of the shield enchantment, I sat back, wiping at my forehead.
"Thrust," Inertia said, the sudden noise causing me to nearly fall off the crate I'd been using as a seat.
"Great, now even you're sneaking up on me," I said, shaking my head. "What's your idea?"
Inertia unfolded her hand. Within lay a set of four Forgehearts. Each was smaller than Fang's, by a considerable amount, but I could still feel the heat wafting off them, still see the steam.
"Too complicated," I said, shaking my head. If we'd had time to build and design an entire assembly, then maybe we could use them to gain thrust, but there was nothing to harness them. It’d be faster to complete another set of Gust enchantments, tying them into the work I’d just finished.
Inertia shook her head then waved at me to follow her. Her steps were halting, and if she was humanoid, I might’ve thought she was in pain. But I figured she just needed time to fix up her frame. When I asked her about it, she waved me off. In the back of the workshop, she pulled out a series of enchanted tubes. It seemed I wasn't the only one putting the new Shapers to work.
They were a clear crystal I didn't recognize with a light blue sheen. They were also clearly designed to clip onto the gliders. It only took her a couple minutes to attach four of the enchanted tubes to the first of the gliders. Then she placed a Forgeheart inside each tube. And finally, she spun the tubes to line up with the enchantment I'd just completed.
"Ah… it's not going to have much control, is it?" I asked.
Inertia gestured to the leather wrapped handles. And I realized there was more enchanting work she'd had Xoth complete on the gliders. I remembered her telling me they'd been almost ready for their test flight, but I hadn't realized the only enchantment she'd been waiting on was the air shield.
With all the components in place, I stepped back, inspecting the glider. It was a lot larger than I'd initially imagined, being longer than I was tall. The crystal tubes’s blue luster had changed to a soft orange with the Forgehearts beating at their front tips. The entire thing felt a lot more alive than I'd originally imagined. Even the once rigid wings now shifted back and forth in time to the beat of the hearts.
Calbern was the first to strap in as we ran tests while still inside the workshop. We needed to get inside, but if this failed, it would be much worse than simply taking the five minutes needed to confirm everything worked the way it should.
Only after Inertia gave her nod, did we take the gliders outside.
Though gliders wasn't really the right word for them anymore.
"Talons, Master Perth," Calbern said when I mentioned needing a new name for them.
"I'm detecting a theme, Calbern," I replied even as I tested the controls again. It felt weird to float a few inches above the surface, but that's what happened after just a small twist of the leather grips. Wasn't sure what it'd be like once they were fully unleashed.
"Just so, master Perth, just so," Calbern said just before Inertia grabbed ahold of his harness and started spinning. When she let go, Calbern went soaring into the night sky. A few seconds later, he let the full power of the Forgehearts burst free and he moved across the sky in a streak of crimson.
By that point, Inertia had already shifted her grip to me, spinning me around with enough force to send me free of Ro'an's gravity, if only for a moment.
Just like Calbern, I twisted my grip ever so slightly. For a second, nothing seemed to happen. But then the Forgehearts thudded heavily, and I was thrown against my harness as I followed Calbern's crimson streak ever higher.
It was time to reclaim Mount Aeternia.
Comments
Dennis
What happened to his paper cat? Last check it was wrapped around the arm of Red Beard 2 just before he burst into flame.
Christopher
I felt he was too trusting with the way gates, especially with the arrival of new people.
Jason Hardman
TYFTC! Typo and a possible word choice change: "Ah… it's not going to have much control, it it?" I asked. -> is it? And I realized there was more enchanting work she'd had down on the gliders. -> 'had drawn on the gliders'? It feels unclear if she did the enchanting, or she'd designed it to be done? With it saying "she'd had", it makes it sound like she'd required it to be done, rather than do it directly? Just some thoughts.
