Draith
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Chapter 71 - Flying Pests
🕑 Added 2025-04-10 14:00:08 +0000 UTCAfter Bevel's lessons, I sought out Inertia. I hadn't just created a small library for future classes, there were several design theories I'd wanted to show her from Earth I’d printed out as well. Middle of the night wasn’t a great time to set up classes anyway. I'd sketched out some designs before, but that had been relying on the incredibly slow method of me recalling them with Memory Palace, then using my less than amazing sketching skill.
I found Inertia and Tresla in the refugee valley. Despite the late hour, Tresla was still handing out food with Inertia leaning against a nearby tree.
"You look like you could use something to read," I said, sitting down next to her and handing her the first of the books.
"Duty," Inertia hissed out with a puff of steam as she accepted the oversized book. She didn't look at it at first, her eyes remaining on Tresla, whose musical laugh filled the hall. Inertia tilted her head to the side, inching it forward slowly for several seconds. Then she shook it off, turning to regard the book in her hands.
After reading the cover, she flipped it open. Her eyes audibly clinked as she blinked, then started focusing and refocusing.
She ran a hand over the schematic, her eyes flicking over the formulas and their explanations.
"Hydraulic pressure," I replied, leaning back. "Got a few more for you. Stuff I barely understood, back in the day. It's not Forge Theory, and I'm pretty sure things work a bit different here, but I bet it'll give you ideas."
"Many," Inertia replied, her word sounding almost like a bag of dropped hammers. "Many."
"I'll just leave these here for you," I said, pulling several more books out of the ring and setting them beside her. "Let me know if you need more."
I made it halfway to the exit when a hand closed on my sleeve. I was so shocked, I simply stood and stared at the small hand for a moment.
"Scuse me, mister mage," The young boy said. "Can you show us some magic?"
Turning, I found the boy wasn't alone. He had half a dozen other children with him, none of whom could've been over the age of seven. A harried looking teenager ran over, tucking a strand of hair into a rather ragged looking bundle of cloth. "Devon, apologize. I'm sorry, Magus Dominus, sir," she said as she ran up, her voice quivering.
"It's alright," I said, kneeling down in front of the boy. "I'd love to show you some magic. How about…"
I started with the very first magic I'd figured out on my own. Unlike when I'd first summoned it, the light was bright enough to light up our faces, the myriad colors dancing across our skin.
"Wow. That's way better than grumpy old Xoth's magic," Devon said, earning some mumbled agreement from the other kids as they gathered closer, much to the dismay of their teenage guardian, who continued to alternate between chastising them and apologizing to me.
"Why don't you help me with this next trick?" I suggested to her.
She paused in the middle of grabbing one of the younger kids' hand, looking around for a second as if sure I couldn't be talking to her.
"Yes, you," I said with a bit of a grin. "Here, hold this." I said, handing her a ball of packed dirt. She looked at it sceptically, but her eyes widened as it started to shrink. Her eyes got even wider when it turned from seeming dirt into a ruby encased in stone.
Mages really did have a lot of paths to riches. Amusingly, creating non-magical gemstones was probably one of the least mana-efficient ways to make money. It'd cost me nearly half my mana-reserves to make that one tiny gem. The same amount of mana would be enough to cast Bloom for the entire hall we were currently standing in.
I stopped using Solidify, and targeted the bits of loose stone with Crumble, causing them to fleck away, leaving the girl holding a ruby the length of her pinky.
"Lame," Devon said, rolling his eyes at the gem. "Show us a fireball!"
The other kids soon joined in with his cheer, and I chuckled.
"Afraid I don't have that in my grimoire," I said, hefting my staff. "But I do have a new spell I wanted to try out that might be almost as good."
"I… I can't keep this," the girl said as I turned to go. I paused, and I saw her looking even more nervous than before I'd invited her to help with the magic.
"Tell you what. Why don't I hold on to that. You can come find me if you want to sell it, how's that sound?"
"Yes," she said, thrusting the ruby towards me like it was on fire.
Devon snatched it from her hand, bringing it the last couple steps. "There, there's Tamrie's stupid rock. Can we go now?"
"Oh, you think rocks are stupid, do you?" I asked, slipping the ruby into my storage ring.
"Duh. Nothing's as awesome as a Fireball," Devon replied practically tripping over his own feet to keep up.
"Hmm," I said, stopping at the lip of the village. It was a bright night, and I looked up into the sky. I'd never given it as much thought as Calbern, but now I couldn't help but wonder… Were those other three planets out there? How different were they to Ro'an?
The sound of laughter reminded me of the children who'd followed along to see a show. Keying the staff, I aimed at a distant boulder at least half a mile away on a whole other ridge. A tiny fleck of stone shot forward from the tip of the staff.
"Aw, lame," Devon said. Then, before anyone could respond, the Earth Star struck the boulder. The entire boulder exploded in a brilliant flash of light, sending brilliant streaks of super-heated rock soaring into the sky. The pressure washed over us, strong enough to have Devon taking a step back to keep his balance.
"Whoa," he muttered, along with the excited mumbling of the other children.
"So… who wants sweet wraps?" I asked, turning back towards the tent. The kids all whined about wanting to see more magic. And I might've shown them more.
If I hadn't seen a wyvern circling in the bright flash caused by the Earth Star.
Inertia joined me in an instant as Tresla distracted the children with Tetherfall's surprisingly sweet root wraps.
Once we were outside, Inertia deployed her wings before launching herself into the air. Considering how low on mana I'd let myself get, I didn't begrudge her the backblast that almost pushed me off my feet. I was just glad she was willing to help.
When I regained my footing, I searched the sky for any sign of either Inertia or the wyvern. My first hint came when a clang rang out above and behind me. Spinning, I caught sight of Inertia ascending. The wyvern was just above the refugee valley, easy to pick out, its hide reflecting the numerous fires below as it struggled to regain its balance.
While I didn't have much mana left, I did have a fully charged Petal Wand. Spinning it over my head, I unleashed several shots in the wyvern's direction. To my surprise, one of the three hit. To my further surprise, it was enough to knock the wyvern to the ground.
A second later, Inertia descended on it like a comet.
Yet a roar from above revealed it hadn't come alone.
Even as I spun around, seeking out the newest wyvern’s shadowed form, a golden streak crossed the sky. It wasn't until later that I'd realize it was Egreta's golden sword. In the moment, I simply appreciated that another wyvern was falling from the sky.
As if that wasn’t enough for her, Egerta bellowed out, “Drowned flying pests!” challenging a second wyvern. It’s roar met her own as it attempted to snatch her and retreat. It failed, the woman somehow managing to pull it to the ground instead where she proceeded, to wrestle it to the ground.
There were more roars, but they were already growing distant. Seemed the wyverns had been looking for easy prey.
Unfortunately, those roars weren't heading towards their nests in the east. They were flying in the direction of Tetherfall. While Inertia flew after them, I sprinted towards the Waygate. Despite the late hour several Tethered were hanging above the gate. They waved as I ran past, one them muttering under their breath about me always being in a hurry.
Didn't have time to stop and correct them.
As I popped out the other side of the Waygate, I took a second to appreciate that it didn't leave me feeling queasy anymore. Not that I stopped moving, running across the chamber to the Tetherfall Waygate. A moment later, I was outside, appreciating the cleared entry. Not so much the climb I had to make up the nets.
I glanced at one of the ropes hanging to the side, contemplating trying to swing myself up like some of the locals but immediately discarded the idea, simply hauling myself up instead. Huffing, I pulled myself over the edge, looking around. There was no sign of the wyverns, but I should've gotten there earlier than they did.
Just as I caught my breath, I heard a crash to the west of the village. Another came shortly after, moving away.
Letting out a sigh of relief, I gazed towards the dark shape of Mount Aeternia for a minute before remembering the meat we'd strapped to the sides of the peak. The wyverns wouldn't be going that high… would they?
With a grunt, I threw myself over the edge. After my experience going down the cliffs by the refugee camp, I was a little more comfortable about using a rope to descend into the madness of Tetherfall. A few minutes later, I arrived at the peak of Mount Aeternia, spinning around to stare out into the darkness. Sure enough, a wyvern was approaching.
It was visible more as a shadow than anything else against the backlight of where Tetherfall sat, the ever present vines making the village glow with a warm orange hue. As the wyvern got closer, it blotted out that hue. It was bigger than I was expecting.
Much bigger.
It wasn't as big as the mist-rex had been, but it had to have at least double Inertia's wingspan, which already rivaled a regular wyvern's. At least forty feet across. The fact it continued approaching despite how thin the air was implied it also had magic assisting its flight. An awakened wyvern. Instead of committing suicide via wyvern, I kneeled down near the edge and waited.
When it reached the peak, it attempted to land, only to be thrown away by the invisible shield. It opened its mouth in what I was sure would’ve been a mighty roar, yet nothing happened. The lack of air denied it.
I remained kneeled near the edge, lining up the petal rod and releasing seven separate petals at the mighty beast. None of them so much as darkened its hide. The massive wyvern slammed into the shield once more, attempting to tear at me with claws the size of my arm. I simply took the time to aim a petal for its eyes.
Not being Calbern, I missed. I barely even managed to hit its head.
It clearly wasn’t happy about that. I braced to shoot it once more, but instead of me, it went for the mountain instead. I used the last of the petals shooting at its head, and one even struck its eye.
Sure enough, it crashed into the side of the mountain a few moments later. It attempted to grab the mountain with its claws, but they slid off. For a second, I thought that was going to be the end of its attempts. But then it snagged a single claw around one of the bundles of meat we'd hung over the edge.
Blinking its eye, it noticed the prize in its grasp.
It freed the bundle with that single claw and was soon tumbling down the side of the mountain, though it almost immediately corrected its flight and soared away towards the peaks in the east. Didn't have time to worry about a wyvern smart enough to take a sack of meat and run. Or the fact it was basically immune to the Petal rod. If I didn't want the rest of the meat to go sliding off the mountain, I had to get the net balanced again. Already it was sliding to the far side, the sudden shift more than enough to undo Myris's efforts.
Might not've been a netmaster, but I understood balance well enough. You spin enough wheels through a tire machine, and the concept seeps in. I didn't have little metal weights, but I did have a knife in my ring.
Moving to the far side of the platform, I looked over the edge. Sure enough, the rope was still sliding. So I started sawing. The wyvern had taken a significant haul, but it wasn't even a tenth of the meat we'd harvested.
Cutting the line was painful, though mostly for the food I was basically throwing away. I was only halfway through when the rope I was sawing at started twisting itself loose. The second half of the rope went much quicker, and then suddenly it snapped, letting most of the contents within the cloth tarp fall free.
It was enough. The ropes had stopped shifting.
I fell back, staring up at the dark sky, simply breathing for a solid minute. Then I checked to make sure the wyverns had left us alone. There didn't seem to be any more dark shadows in the night, but I was regretting that Eagle Eyes didn't grant proper night vision.
My gaze drifted down to the ropes leading all over the top of the peak, then to the tarps full of mist-rex hanging from the side.
"We really need a better place for our meat."
Comments
Christopher
Bringing the Wyverns was always a terrible idea
ThoMiCroN
Inertia shouldn’t be able to read Earth’s mathematical notation. Even on Earth there a slight cultural differences: in France, the tangent of an angle is written tg and not tan.
Jason Hardman
Well duh! 😉 On a more serious note, he's gotten into a bad habit of knee jerking and reflexive solutions, not that he's had much choice. It's not sustainable, so he's going to have to plan out his needs, figure out what can be done already and what requires other developments and resources first, and then work out what he can get started, along with whether they need his direct attention or if he has subordinates who can make progress. Start with a list.
