Aether Engineering

Chapter 70

Garax

The Voidlands near Hydrabridge

Myles moved from bed to bath to chair in a tired haze. The inn they had chosen had its share of comforts, and when their whole group had fallen into chairs—still half-asleep—the innkeeper had laid down plates stacked high with eggs, toast, and even a few strips of bacon.

The group dug in, relishing the meal, and knowing they would soon be moving again. Dresden finished his plate well before anyone else, and with a charming smile to the innkeeper to deflate any bad feelings, he started laying out weapons on the table.

At least Myles assumed they were weapons. They were certainly constructs though he didn’t recognize the runes on them. His hand stopped midway to his mouth, leaving eggs hanging from his fork as he leaned over in interest, nearly butting heads with Jane as she did the same.

Dresden laid his hands on one of the constructs. “This is a combat flare, intended for communication across the voidlands for certain operations. The provincial army uses them fairly regularly, especially around the capital where they’re manufactured.”

Ahh. That made sense. That was why he hadn’t recognized the runes. They weren’t in the Verrith style. Now that he looked closer, he could tell there was nothing that looked like a proper sub-rune. Without those, you needed wholly different runes to adjust the rune’s box of influence—or in this case probably something more akin to random shape of influence. If Myles had to guess, the…

A tap on his shoulder came accompanied by Mercy’s voice. “You better keep eating if you want to finish.” With a blush, Myles turned back to his food, and his fork which was still poised midair. He would have time to look at the flares on the road, but right now, he really wanted to finish his breakfast.

Dresden continued describing the flares even as Myles returned the majority of his focus back to his food. He described how each of the four flares produced a different color, yellow for caution, used to warn another group that a monster—or other target—was coming in their direction. The flare which was a cylinder with three fins was supposed to be placed on the ground before you folded in the fins such that they were touching the cylinder. After a few seconds, it would launch into the air, its direction determined by which fins you folded in. In the case of the yellow flare, you were supposed to launch it in the direction the target had left in.

The other three flares would produce red, blue, and green light respectively. The red flare was reserved for more dangerous threats, and was a warning used to inform other groups to avoid a dangerous threat. The blue flare was used to request reinforcements. The green flare was used to indicate a completed objective, or the start of an operation.

By the time the explanation was finished, Myles had finished his breakfast and was busying himself strapping on his equipment. The leather harnesses he and Jane were using to carry the shuriken construct, and the batteries it needed had been made by Silas and Mercy working together. Silas’ family had come from a family of artisans, and he knew his way around leather. Mercy may not have had the same training, but Silas had claimed she had somehow accomplished more than he had.

Either way, for having put them together in a week, they were impressively comfortable to wear. They were not, however, the easiest things to get on. They required quite a bit of loosening and tightening of straps.

As he worked, Myles shot a few last looks at the constructs. The fins were each marked with two runes that resembled evocation runes, and the cylinder itself seemed to be marked with a hybrid between a containment rune and a conversion rune. If Myles had to guess, the rune on the cylinder would convert pure mana into light and force mana which would then be used to launch the construct and produce the color needed.

All too soon, the whole group was ready and moving again. Garax quickly fell out of sight behind them, and not long after, the walls of Hydrabridge came into view. The group gave it a wide berth. The last thing they wanted to do was spend time there answering awkward questions about what happened a month ago.

After Hydrabridge passed them by, the road they followed became more rugged, the hope lamps they had become used to became far more uncommon. As they reached the top of an especially large ridge, a line of impossibly large rock stared them down.

The group, with the exception of Dresden, stopped in their tracks, just staring in awe at the structure that stretched into the clouds and ran the width of the horizon. “The scar.” Silas whispered as the rest of them stared wordlessly.

Myles had learned about the scar of course, he had even seen it on maps, but seeing it in person, even at a distance was something words or scratches on a map could do no justice to. It was twin mountain chains that cut an uninhabited lane across the entire province, and according to legend, extended across the entire continent, further than even the reach of the entire Perralin empire.

Myles looked at it, and remembered the image Reah had shown him all those months ago, a flickering tree made of light mana, and burning with eternal black and red flames. He remembered the roots he had seen in the depths of Hydrabridge that had given birth to monsters, and he knew that tree had to be nestled away from the world, hidden from view in the scar.

A chill wind blew across the top of the ridge, and the group hastened down its other side. The terrain here was worse than anything they had seen before, and their pace slowed considerably. Loose rock, sometimes the size of boulders, but usually much smaller than Myles’ feet covered the ridges that pressed in around them. The ground beneath their feet was better, but not by much.

Twice, the group had to take detours where the road had been covered by an avalanche of shale. Around them, they could hear the occasional unnerving growl or call that the whole group assumed to be distant monsters. Despite that, none approached them for some time.

It was Kate who gave the shout of alarm. Unlike yesterday when every time a monster had intruded on them, a signal had been given that it was a minor threat, today that signal did not come, instead a different signal came. Kate twisted her hand upwards, revealing her whole palm, the signal for all hands prepare.

Myles nervously prepared himself, thickening the flow of his commuted armor, and moving the tiny amount of lightning mana he had been able to delve around in his new aether well, making sure he was prepared to evoke it. As he did that, the shuriken construct shot off the harness, and into his hand. A battery from his bandolier made its way into the construct, and a moment later, pure mana poured out around it. Another battery found its way in as Myles squeezed down on the handle, rotating into a neutral space.

With himself, and his weapon primed, Myles began evoking wind mana in the direction Kate had indicated. He felt his wind mana impact on four separate forms. The first three were relatively small, a little bigger than ogren, but not by too much. Whatever his wind mana was hitting on them didn’t feel like fur, or any kind of hair. It felt much harder, firmer. The three monsters were moving at speed behind the ridge, clambering over stone with ease, heading behind the group.

The fourth form was much larger and headed to flank their group from the opposite side of the other three. For most of the beast’s body, Myles felt that same hard sensation. Around the creature’s stout tail though, he felt something else, a strong source of mana of a type he was familiar with. Ice.

“One Tobu-Sudaven and three lesser Sudaven!” Kate called out. From the center of the formation, Seth nodded his agreement.

Kate pulled to a stop, turning to the group, sending a few stones around her feet skittering off in the process. “Tobu-Sudaven are dangerous hunters. Expect their claws and teeth to have ice mana commuting around them. Their tail is the real danger though. Get hit by that, and you’re done for.”

The group nodded, already moving into position. From their position in the center of the group, Seth led Jane and Mercy on a charge backwards, aiming to cut off the three lesser beasts—or rather raptors. As the lesser sudaven crested the ridge, Myles realized the hard substance his wind mana had hit was scales, and the monsters ran on two legs with another two being used for balance and tipped with sharp claws.

His attention was pulled away as a high-pitched clicking came from in front of the group. And Myles moved into formation with Kate and Silas. “When you get a chance, stun it, but don’t expect it to be as effective, the Tobu-Sudaven is naturally resistant to the cold.”

Myles nodded, acknowledging Kate’s advice. Their goal here was going to have to be slowing the monster down. They needed to give Kate enough time to use the spear she was carrying. It only had one shot, and while all three of them had delved out the start of a new aether well with offensive mana, the amount they could actually evoke was pitiable—maybe enough to wound but not much more.

The clicking grew in pace as they finally caught sight of their opponent. The lesser Sudaven may have been raptors, but this monster was far too large for that term to feel fitting. Its huge tail alone was longer than Myles was tall. An icy vein ran through the center, ending in a spike of ice that Myles felt could be flying at them with a twitch of its tail.

Kate turned toward the threat, calling one last piece of advice. “It can use wind mana, so don’t expect any attacks from behind to catch it by surprise.”

Myles cursed, and moved forwards beside Silas, picking out a path along the most stable rocks he could find. The Tobu-Sudaven started the fight by smacking its tail into the ground. The vein in its tail glowed brightly with ice mana, and when it hit the loose rock in front of it, that ice mana exploded outward, launching a wave of stone and ice.

Myles and Silas responded by evoking a thick wall of pure mana that stopped the attack in mid-air but drained a huge portion of their aether wells. Silas peeled off to one side and used a particularly large and stable stone to leap high into the air, coming down on the monstrosity’s tail with a well-executed falling javelin. As he did, Silas also evoked a ball of water mana at the point of impact. The result was a blow that knocked its tail downward, setting the Sudaven off-balance. The ball of water mana froze in place, wrapping the tail with a trail of ice.

A claw swept towards Silas, but he moved into the iron turtle right as he landed, accepting the blow with a sizeable shell of pure mana. It was barely enough to hold, and Silas’ tenuous footing gave way beneath him.

The creature’s balance was already recovering, and its tail arched over its head, preparing to launch that ice spike at Silas’ prone form. Before it could though, Kate jabbed forward with her spear. With an astonishing feat of agility, the monster stepped out of the way, and Kate was forced to abort her thrust, barely avoiding unleashing the fireball she had been about to launch.

As a result of the dodge, the beast’s tail rapidly moved back down, spinning. Myles shouldn’t have been visible to the monster at the time, but he felt wind mana hitting him, and even as the giant raptor turned to dodge, it turned the movement of its tail into an attack.

It was muscle memory that saved Myles. Before his mind had time to react, he fell to the ground, falling under the tail, and landing with his palms against the rough rock. He used those palms, twisting the strength of his whole body to push himself back up and clinch his legs around his opponent’s tail. Normally, he was intended to throw whatever he clung to in order to finish the twister counter, but this monster was too big for that. Instead, Myles twisted sideways, using his whole body to wrench the tail in a painful direction.

The beast gave a pained clicking, and Myles recognized he was about to be thrown. Ice mana from the tail rampaged, digging into the commuted armor around his legs. Myles let go quickly, but not before evoking the entire contents of his lightning mana well at the base of the tail. The Tobu-Sudaven cried out again. Myles didn’t have much lightning mana, and it barely even breached the creature’s scales, but the base of the tail was not a comfortable place to be given a sudden shock.

The monster reeled, and Kate took advantage, thrusting at its head with her spear. It again dodged away, but this time, Kate’s speed let her keep up, drawing her thrust short, pivoting, and sending her foot moving in trajectory to catch the fleeing head. With that kick came a plethora of force mana, and it all crashed into the beast’s skull with a hefty thud.

The monster, clearly swaying on its feet, bent its powerful legs. Before Myles could properly react, stone shards burst from the ground. If Myles hadn’t been commuting pure mana armor, he would’ve been skewered a dozen times over. As it was, the fragments stopped at his skin, none of them leaving so much as a scratch.

The great monster landed a dozen paces away, its distance allowing it to shake off their attacks and regain some composure. Myles didn’t give it much time, evoking a trail of pure mana, and squeezing the handle of his construct. With a shout, he threw the shuriken with as much strength as he could muster.

At the same time, the beast twitched its tail, the massive spike releasing and flying towards Silas. Myles and Kate both contributed their pure mana, and together with Silas, they built a wedge of pure mana in what could only be described as a tactic inspired by Reah’s unconventional fighting they had all suffered from over the last month.

The wedge wasn’t enough to stop the spike in its tracks, but because of the shape, by the time it punched through, it was out of alignment, tearing through the commuted mana around Silas’ arm and leaving a bloody, freezing streak instead of impaling him through the chest.

A cloud of sound mana exploded from the shuriken, consuming much of the beast’s head. The ice mana didn’t do much, but the sound mana was still able to stun the beast, its claws automatically swiping at the sides of its head. It was enough because an instant later, a massive fireball, fueled by a whole month of spare pure mana, barreled into the creature, decimating it in an instant.

Kate ran over to help Silas, grabbing a pack and pulling out various medicines and bandages they had purchased in Maston. Myles turned to the other fight that was unfolding behind him.

Two of the lesser Sudaven were on the ground, brutal spear wounds indicating their cause of death. The last was pressing Mercy who was snake stepping backwards, struggling with her opponent’s speed, and dodging flashing teeth and sharp claws all accompanied by the glint of ice mana.

Myles stepped forward to assist, but it was Jane who arrived first, crouching into a palm thrust that the lesser sudaven somehow dodged. A claw swung out at Jane, but it was redirected to the side by a bit of pure mana. The monster which had put its full body behind the strike whipped past jane who shot her elbow back, smacking into the back of the thing’s head with a burst of a very specific subtype of earth mana, basium mana.

The raptor fell to the ground, the back of its head a mess of blood. Seth quickly stepped in, putting the monster out of its misery with a thrust from the spear he carried.

The group took some time to recover, allowing Dresden to step in and scout their surroundings for more monsters using his wind mana. Silas had been given the only injury of the fight, and Kate continued his treatment. Seth and Mercy worked on extracting the cores while Myles and Jane went over the damage to their resources.

The two batteries Myles had expended from his bandolier were able to be refilled by the ogren cores they had picked up yesterday, and Kate’s spear got everything that was left over. Even using every core they had picked up, the amount of mana in the spear was a big loss. It would still have enough mana in it to do some damage, but if they wanted an attack like what had killed the Tobu-Sudaven, they would need to rely on Seth’s spear.

Unfortunately, all the cores they gathered from their downed foes were ice mana, useless for refilling the reserves of the flame spear, and because of the way they had built the shuriken construct, useless to that as well. Still, they loaded those cores in a pack. You never knew when excess mana might come in handy.

Once everyone was ready, and Silas was properly bandaged, the group left again, pushing forward towards what they knew would be a tense night.