Keron
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Chapter 136 - The Birds
🕑 Added 2024-12-09 18:01:55 +0000 UTCEmily settles down in her temporary workshop with Podrick for the duration of the storm. She tirelessly works on fabricating armour panels while watching through her spider scout for anything approaching the ship.
A few times, she notices distinct clusters of motion passing them by, but nothing approaches Calypso, so she happily ignores them and keeps working. Mid-afternoon on the second day grounded, however, Emily pauses her hands midway through engraving a rune and looks straight down.
Deep below the sands, she spots a powerful vibration coming towards the ship at the very edge of the scout’s vertical range. She waits with bated breath, her eyes locked on the floor as her perception spreads beneath it. After a few seconds, a faint rumble passes up through the ship, reaching them from far below. Podrick looks over at the sound, noticing Emily staring at the floor with concern.
“What’s that?” he asks, receiving no answer as Emily doesn’t even hear him.
The slight shaking of the ship continues for a dozen seconds before fading, and Emily watches as the movement below the sands fades away into the distance, completely ignoring them.
“I don’t know,” she finally responds, looking up as she continues moving her engraving tool. “Probably a sandworm, and a huge one at that.”
Podrick’s face blanches at the mention of the sometimes-city-sized worms, a noticeable shiver running down his spine.
“I fucking hope not.”
***
The next day, as most of the crew are gathered in the mess hall eating breakfast, the storm finally passes.
Emily is the first to notice, seeing the cluttered feedback from her scout gradually reduce as a wave of calm slowly approaches them. By the time she steps out of her workshop to look through a window to confirm, the thick curtain of violent winds that once surrounded the ship is gone, and she has a clear view out over the undulating sandy expanse around them. Seeing this, she immediately heads towards the ship’s main entrance.
“Hey,” Emily calls out as she turns a corner and steps into view of Anton, Angela, and Ash, all gathered in front of the hatch with rifles in hand.
“Hey, Emily,” Anton greets her, gesturing for her to join them as he turns and pulls the lever to let them out. “Ready to get back in the air again?”
“Of course,” she replies with a calm nod, stepping past them and out of the door first, raising her scarf to protect herself from the light haze of sand still swirling around, not yet completely settled. “The sooner we get moving, the sooner we can get away from my bounty.”
“Ha,” Angela barks, following close behind her. “I almost forgot about that. How much are you even worth, anyway?”
“Five thousand gold.”
“Fucking hell!” she hisses in shock, Anton and Ash both taking sharp breaths behind her as well. “Five thousand gold? You could buy an airship and still live the rest of your life off that kind of money!”
“Haha,” Emily chuckles, looking back over her shoulder with a daring glint in her eye. “Feeling tempted?”
“To die?” Angela fires back immediately with an unimpressed stare through her goggles. “Because that’s the only way I see that going.”
Emily shrugs, turning back around as her foot hits the sand below.
They split up once again to deal with an anchor each. As Emily walks under the belly of Calypso to reach the one at the far end, she glances at the landing gears around her, all of them partially submerged in sand.
That’ll make taking off annoying. Hopefully wind current will be able to deal with it quickly.
Placing her hopes in the second circle water spell she modified, Emily ignores the ship’s feet for now and approaches her target anchor, finding only a cable extending out of the sand.
“Haaa. Thought so,” she sighs at the sight, raising a hand and casting her spell.
Pale green runes flow from her arm, twisting together to form a large magic circle pointed towards the buried anchor. The circle almost instantly forms, and the spell activates with a pulse of mana. At first, nothing seems to happen. However, very slowly, the winds passing by start to redirect themselves, twisting and turning until they join together to flow through the magic circle, creating a straight tunnel of strong winds that blows away all of the sand covering her target.
“Thank Goddess,” Emily mutters, bending down to start twisting the anchor out of the ground. “It’s not as fast acting as the original spell is, but it does the job at least.”
In less than a minute she finishes extracting the large spike from the ground and leaves it lying on its side, ready to be pulled back in by Calypso’s winches, before turning back to face the ship. A quick glance tells her that the other three are still in the midst of trying to dig their targets up, so Emily turns her full attention to clearing off the landing gears.
She raises both arms and pours out glistening green mana, forming six identical magic circles. She spreads the spells out, placing them slightly behind the ship in a large circle, all of them pointed inwards at slight angles. As they gather the nearby air currents and push them forward, the slowly building streams of wind clash, forming a twisting force that speeds up even more as it’s forced under the ship.
Emily maintains the spells, pouring in mana for almost a full minute as she watches the sand covering the landing gears being swept away. She cancels the spells the moment the last of Calypso’s feet are uncovered, and the vortex of wind quickly disperses.
Another quick glance tells her that the others are still extracting their anchors, though she receives an appreciative nod from Anton whose anchor was partially uncovered by her wind, so she leaves them be for now and walks back under the ship to dig up her scout from under the drone hatch.
After placing the slightly battered scout back into her belt, Emily makes her way back into the ship to wait for the others to finish.
“Need help with anything else?” she asks as the other three file into the ship.
“No,” Anton replies with a light shake of his head. “Tony was dealing with releasing the internal ties holding in the balloon, so all that’s left now is checking for damage and then getting in the air.”
“Okay,” Emily says, turning and heading back towards her workshop. “I’ll leave that to you.”
***
Twenty minutes later, as the ship’s balloon fully inflates again and Calypso begins to rise from the sand, Emily pauses in the middle of bending a sheet of metal and looks up at the ceiling with an irritated glare as the bird she left on the balloon fails to engage its talons and starts to slowly slide towards the back of the ship.
Damn it. Did the balloon crush it?
She immediately runs out of the room, casting lightning step and rocketing through the corridors with inhuman speed and control. She tries to get the bird to fold its wings as she moves, but it also fails to do that, as something keeps the one on the right extended, causing the scout to catch the wind, pushing it off the ship.
Emily arrives at the drone hatch within a few seconds and opens it with a spark of machina as she approaches. She drops out of the hatch without hesitation, the green magic circle of air walk joining the sky blue of lightning step around her legs as she leverages the air and shoots towards where she can feel her bird now falling. She reaches it just as it falls below the bottom of the ship and catches it, pausing mid-air to stare at her mangled creation.
Several of the small metal feathers making up the right wing are warped, interrupting the smooth interlocking mechanism they use to fold away, and both of its legs are bent in the middle, pinching the internal cables that allow the talons to flex.
“One of the binding cables,” Emily mutters in realisation as she looks at the damage, her earlier irritation already replaced by cold indifference.
Gently cradling the bird in her arms, she returns to the ship again.
***
Their flight through the day is uneventful. The ship travels slowly north-north-east into a strong headwind, occasionally changing altitude and heading to try and avoid the worst of it. They cover less distance at night as Emily just maintains a constant altitude and heading, her lack of experience in piloting an airship becoming increasingly obvious as the conditions they travel through worsen.
The next day they continue their flight through unstable winds and hit a second, far smaller sandstorm around mid-day. This time, they simply pass over it, dealing with the added instability and trusting Emily to handle any possible beast attacks that they’d normally ground themselves to avoid. As expected, there are several flocks of birds following above the storm, however, most of them ignore the ship completely, choosing to keep a wide berth instead.
The only flock that decides otherwise is a large group of thrashers, a weak first circle desert bird, led by a single second circle variant. They spot the repaired scout Emily has placed back on top of the balloon and surround it, their leader landing and attempting to communicate something to it. Having failed to make itself understood, the bird turns hostile, hopping forward to stab the scout with its beak. It’s rewarded with the shock of its life.
A harsh thunder crack sounds as a torrent of lightning forms from a rising stream of mana and knocks the flock from the sky in an instant. The lead thrasher barely has time to process the loss before a spinning blade of charge splits it in half, ending its life as well. Angela shivers in her seat as she stares into her periscope, making a mental note to never damage one of Emily’s metal birds after watching the mage rip the helpless flock to shreds without even leaving the ship.
Early in the evening, after the light has begun to fade and a frigid chill overtakes the desert, a sprawling expanse of buildings comes into view. Emily watches through her scout’s eyes, having expected their arrival after Angela didn’t pass over control to her for the night.
The compound is wrapped in a low wall, only a few metres tall, and filled with buildings ranging from a few sizeable homes to dozens of expansive warehouses. Emily spots a few people patrolling the perimeter with rifles and oil lamps, whilst the inside of the compound is filled with artificial light as people scurry to and fro, still working despite the late hour.
A knock on her workshop door pulls Emily’s attention away from the scout’s view. She continues fastening down a spring inside the delicate metal gearbox she’s working on, having finished fabricating armour plating for the ship earlier in the day, and gestures with her head for Podrick to get it. He springs up from his seat beside her and runs to the door to open it.
“Hey,” Emily says, not looking up from her work as Anton walks in.
“Hey,” Anton greets back. Walking over to peer over her shoulder, he continues. “I’d like to ask for your help if possible.”
“Shoot.”
“Could you take Pod over to the shipyard ahead of us please?”
Emily finally looks up at the odd request, though her hands keep working regardless.
“I could,” she responds. “Why though?”
“I want to get a message to his dad to ask them to open a warehouse for us, and I’d rather not rely on giving a letter to the guards.”
“Are they untrustworthy?”
Anton’s expression twists as he gives an unsure shrug. He glances over to Podrick for an answer
“I’d normally say yes,” the boy says, raising a hand to scratch the back of his head. “But only for a normal docking request. They all live in our compound and don’t travel much, but they’re still supplied by the Myrtle family, so I guess there’s a chance they’ll pass on anything they consider key information. Oh, and there’s also a chance they won’t pass the message to Dad, and they’ll just tell us to land nearby till morning. They can get kinda lazy sometimes.”
Emily snorts and nods, finally placing down the screwdriver and gearbox in her hands.
“Fine,” she says, pushing up from her seat and starting towards the door. “I’ll take him.”
They slowly walk through the ship towards the drone room while Anton explains to Podrick what he should say. He finishes his instructions as Emily pops the hatch and gestures for the boy to climb onto her back.
“See you on the ground,” she says to Anton before stepping out onto nothing and plummeting towards the desert.
Podrick’s grip around her neck tightens, his legs clasped around her waist, but he impressively manages to keep from making a noise as they free-fall. Emily uses air walk to cut their momentum a few times before they land softly on the sand below. The moment her foot hits the ground, Emily breaks into a sprint towards the shipyard, internally casting wind rush and forming an invisible, swirling gust around her legs to drive her forward.
They quickly overtake Calypso, reaching the low wall around the compound within a few minutes without being spotted. The guards on the wall are spaced far enough apart that Emily easily finds a dark spot without anyone watching and leaps over. As they land on the lightly packed ground on the other side with a small thud, Emily whispers to the boy on her back.
“Where will your dad be?” she asks.
“There,” Podrick answers, extending one arm to point to the largest of the homes.
Emily nods and sets off towards it along the narrow streets of the shipyard. She sticks to the shadows, occasionally ducking between warehouses to let workers pass her by. They reach the indicated building without any issues, where Emily drops the boy to the ground and stands aside, leaving him to deal with his family himself.
He reaches up and knocks firmly against the thick wooden door before stepping back and excitedly bouncing from side to side. Emily hears movement within the building, and after a minute of waiting she hears the familiar metallic grating of bolts being pulled free before the door swings open. Standing in the doorway before them is a short, hefty man with muscles visibly bursting from the well-worn dressing gown wrapped around him, and a messy mop of familiar blonde hair that sits a little too far back on his head.
“What’s-“ he starts as he opens the door before his eyes shoot open wide in recognition. “Pod?”
“Hey, Dad,” Podrick responds with an excited chirp as his father steps forward and wraps him in a tight hug.
