by Jakob Tanner
I turned to Jackson. “Is this it? Is this crystallized mana not working?”
He rubbed his chin and looked at the furnace despondently. “Looks like we’re stuck here, kid.”
Damn. The whole fight with the crystal golem was for nothing then.
The Rorn slapped me on the back and then grinned. “Nah. I’m messing with you. The engine’s completely off so it won’t absorb any new fuel until we completely restart it.”
“And how do we do that?”
Jackson walked over to a lever beside the furnace. “Easy, pull this. Wanna do the honors, captain?”
I moved towards the lever and grabbed the handle. This was it. If the mana engine worked we’d be back on course towards Ariellum, towards saving Land’s Shield and all of Illyria. I didn’t want to think about what it meant if this lever didn't work right here and now. I sighed, closed my eyes, and pulled the lever down.
Silence.
I opened my eyes, awaiting a prompt saying something like, “engine restart failed,” but thankfully that wasn’t the case. Behind the closed door of the furnace was a bright pink glow of burning mana. The ship rumbled as new energy coursed through it.
I checked in on the stats. Everything had been restored.
Horizon’s Dream
Type: Air Frigate
Size: Large
Turning Radius: Wide
Classification: Warship
Min. Crew: 16
Crew: 18/200
Cannon(s): 14/32
Cargo: 45/80 (tonnage)
Speed: Fast
Crystal Mana Fuel: 105%
Food Supply: Medium
Health: 85% (Good)
Crew Morale: Neutral
Gold: 10,000
The fuel levels, ship health, and crew morale were all up. I smiled and closed my HUD.
“Well done kid,” said Jackson. “Looks like we’re going to be getting out of here.”
I leaned back against a wall and sighed. “Phew. It wasn’t all for nothing then.”
“What wasn’t?” said Jackson, lifting his eyebrows in curiosity again. “Does this have anything to do with the tension I witnessed upstairs?”
I sighed and quickly told him what happened. How the rest of the party didn’t want to fight the crystal golem but I insisted and almost got us all killed because of it.
“The thing is,” I said. “The crystal golem was worth the risk.”
Jackson nodded along with my story. He didn’t say anything for a full minute afterwards. We stood there in the rumbling engine room as he thought. He was contemplating something. Picking his words, wondering what he should say, and what he shouldn’t.
“I was a boxer,” said Jackson. “You know, before entering this game. It’s why I naturally found myself playing this brawler class. Anyways, I had a wife and two kids. One boy who was six, a girl who was four. My wife was a nurse and I did a few shifts a week in construction. On my days off I was making a go at working as a semi-professional fighter. Then, one day, my wife got hit by a car. She became paralyzed from the waist down. She was in a wheelchair for life. Our insurance went through the roof. Even as I took more shifts building bridges or whatever the hell needed building—we weren’t making enough anymore to take care of all of us. So I made a choice. An executive decision. I reached out to some bad people and we came to an arrangement and I took a dive on a big match.”
“You did the right thing, though,” I said. “You needed to help your kids and your wife. What else were you supposed to do?”
“I guess,” Jackson said, staring at the wall behind me, unable to look me in the eye. He was telling me a small portion of a much larger story. This was just one episode. Where it all ultimately led, he was holding back and he didn’t want me to ask further.
“Here’s the thing,” said Jackson, continuing with his train of thought. “Each time you rationalize a bad decision, you walk one step closer to the edge.”
“The edge of where.”
“The abyss.”
19
I spent the next part of the journey holed up in my captain’s quarters. Jackson occasionally visited to let me know about any updates to our current flight path, changes to the wind or turbulence ahead. I nodded and told him to handle it however he saw fit. I didn’t want to go outside and face the torment of my party’s silent treatment so I inflicted myself to my own self-imposed exile in my room, away from the rest of my party and crew.
A few hours passed, most of which, I spent either going over my stats, looking over my skill abilities, or contemplating where I wanted to go next with my class. After this quest, Theobold said we would discuss where I’d go next with my build. Currently, I had fulfilled the requirements necessary to unlock the Mage quest trial, but with six class skill points still available for me to spend, I could easily learn the required abilities for whichever class I wanted. At first I thought that made things easy, but when I looked over my skills I realized yes, I could learn any six spells instantly right now, but it would lock me out from seven other possible spells at my disposal. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to keep investing class skill points into abilities once upgrading to a tier-2 class. These concerns kept me from spending all my points in an unconstrained shopping spree.
I also wasn’t sure where I wanted to go next. Mage would be more of the same but with even cooler moves; but I was curious to unlock one of the more idiosyncratic classes like Summoner or Illusionist. The impatient gamer in me spotted a new button at the bottom of the class menu. “Initiate Mage Quest Trial.” I wanted to press it so badly to see what happened, but I resisted the urge.
I leaned my head against the walls of the ship as I sat on my bed. I better check-in with Theobold to let him know how our mission was going. I jotted a quick message and sent it over to him. I was about to close my eyes and take a nap when there was a knock on my door.
“Come in,” I said.
I expected Jackson but in came Serena.
“Well, this is going to be awkward—what with you not talking to me,” I said.
Serena gestured back towards the door and I reached my hands out towards her. “No, wait. What is it? I’m sorry for being a dickhead. It’s hard sometimes because it comes so easily and natural to me I don’t even realize I’m doing it.”
She smirked. “Tell me about it.”
I got off the bed and walked towards her. “Look: I know you think I was an idiot for fighting the crystal golem back there, but it all worked out, didn’t it? And wasn’t it you who said I was the one who had to make the hard decisions?”
She nodded her head and I felt like I was both right and wrong at the same time.
“I’m scared,” she said. “We’re already different from the people we were before entering this game. I’m worried—with all this fighting, killing, and questing—what will we eventually become, you know?”
I pulled off my gloves and raised my hands. My palms were full of lines and marks. Were they the same palms I had prior to entering this world? I had no way of knowing.
“The people we were outside this game, weren’t equipped to live here,” I said. “Weren’t ready to fight for survival. Yet that’s the position we’ve been placed in and why we have to keep on fighting. We’re fighting for the sake of the people we once were and everyone who’s come into this game and was unable to step up to the task. Stopping Arethkar, freeing the enslaved Chosen, getting to the bottom of all of these glitches—solving all these problems will help us turn Illyria into more than just a game in which we’re fighting to survive, but a place where we can truly live.”
Serena’s blue eyes widened as I spoke. They even sparkled for a second, gleaming with hope. “You really think we can truly make this place a home?”
“Hell if I know. I don’t even know what class I want to take next, but we’re gonna bloody try,” I said.
She stepped closer to me so our bodies touched. She looked up and I down at her. I bent over to kiss her when there wa
s a knock on the door.
“Oi! Lovebirds,” shouted Shade. “You’re gonna wanna come see this.”
Serena fluttered her eyelashes. “Rain check on that kiss?”
I smiled and nodded as she took me by the hand and led me back up to the top deck.
The sky was the faint orange of dusk. Pink clouds rolled through the air. The hum of nearby airship engines echoed across the way and in the distance was a majestic airborne city. A floating spire in the sky. Different docking stations with long runways stretched out from the silver tower, rotating around it in the air. It was a sublime sight: the gears, the propellers, the engines, everything involved in keeping this city afloat. Airships floated around it, a few smaller ones did laps around the structure, racing in the sky. Bright glowing signs of shops on the lower levels of the tower, flickered in the shadows beneath the rotating docks. Rusting pipes near the bottom occasionally released sludge of murky sewage into the endless sea of clouds. Black smoke billowed out from different chimneys and engines from the bottom to the top of the floating city. Everyone on deck stood still, looking out to the place in wonder and amazement.
La-Archanum.
The halfway point in our journey. A lighthouse in the clouds. A beacon of hope. The waypoint to the next leg of our quest.
I eyed the rotating docks, looking at the in and outgoing ships, whether or not any of them sported the red and purple Arethkarian colors. All the ships had their own banners, sailed into the skies for no one but themselves. They were the ships of free agents. Sky pirates.
Two specks glowed out from the dock. The specks grew bigger and bigger until it was clear they were ships heading towards us. They were small silver cruisers. One approached our ship, slowing down at the side of our deck, close enough to chat. The other cruiser hovered back, ready for any surprises from us. On the ship closest to us, stood a tall Lirana man with gray fur and a matching tail. He had a red bandana tied across his head. He wore run-down rags and had a scabbard and pistol hanging from his waist. He turned to us. “Who is the captain of this vessel?”
Everyone looked to me. I nodded my head in assent.
“What business do you have at La-Archanum?”
“We’re passing through on a mission for the King of Laergard.”
The Lirana pilot glanced at our green banners. “If you wish to dock at La-Archanum, those colors will be an issue. Our home is a free city, belonging to no king or queen. The titles of groundlings mean nothing here. La-Archanum is diplomatically neutral in all Illyrian affairs. You may wear your colors, but you enter as neutral actors.”
I ordered a crew member to untie the green Laergardian banners from the ship. I had a quick pang of guilt for the lack of loyalty I was displaying, but these so-called security guards needed to be appeased before they’d let us enter the city.
The Lirana guard nodded at the removed banners. “You may proceed to docking point-b.”
The cruiser spun in the air and headed towards the floating sky city as we followed behind.
20
We landed the Horizon’s Dream onto one of the floating city’s docking stations. Muumuu dockworkers waved glowing light sticks to signal where they wanted us to land. Once parked, two Lirana pirate guards approached us. They had red bandanas tied to their heads, their black furry ears poking out from the knotted cloth. Sabers were sheathed to their waist, resting alongside their shaggy breeches.
“Welcome to La-Archanum,” said one pirate. “Before you can depart and enter the city’s center, you must pay the crystal mana tax.”
A message came up on my HUD.
Welcome to La-Archanum
To enter the city, the Horizon’s Dream must donate 5% of its total crystallized mana to the ship. Will you donate 5% of your crystal mana: Y/N?
“What? No one told me about this,” I said.
“We’re telling you now,” said the other pirate.
“But we came here to stock up on crystal mana, not give it away,” I said.
“And you’ll be able to purchase such fuel upon gaining entry to the city,” said the original pirate. “The tax is levied on all entrants of La-Archanum to keep our way station of safety and hospitality afloat in this otherwise troubling cloud ocean.”
“Pay it,” said Jackson, standing behind me. “This city was founded by pirates for this very reason. A toll station across the skies.”
The two pirates blinked with disbelief. “Such slander is far from the truth good sir. La-Archanum was founded on the principles of safety and friendly co-operation in this troubling world. Our goal has always been to minimize shipwrecks, disappearances, and deaths across Argon’s Rage. Since the city’s founding hundreds of years ago—when it was merely a collection of ship’s tied together in the air—such horrifying incidents have diminished greatly.”
“And you have profited immensely from it,” grumbled Shade, joining the conversation.
“Oh, how I wish everyone profited from good deeds,” mused the original pirate. “In an ideal world, good deeds are rewarded and bad ones punished, no?”
Kari and Serena laughed.
“What’s so funny?” asked the pirate.
“You remind us of another Lirana we know,” said Serena, cheeks bright red.
Shade shook his head in disappointment. “We Lirana are natural wordsmiths, yes, but honestly Serena—I thought you held me in higher esteem than these pirates.”
“You’re a thief,” said Kari. “Aren’t they the same thing?”
Both Shade and the pirates both spat at the floor with disgust. “Of course not—a thief is—”
I interjected. “Okay, okay. I get it. Pirates and thieves two very different categories of people. Regardless, we’ll pay your tax.”
I clicked “yes” on the prompt in my HUD and the fuel meter diminished along with the crew morale in the ship’s stats.
The two Lirana pirates thanked us and continued on their way to the next ship, docking behind us.
With the tax paid, we let the crew off board to have free time. They drew straws for who would stay behind and guard the ship first.
We stepped off the ship onto the landing bay. We were about to head up the passage towards the center of the city but then I remembered something.
“Our skycrab pots!”
I hurried back up onto the deck and checked behind the quarterdeck and pulled up the rope where the special cages hung. I opened up the cages to find a whole assortment of sky creatures waiting for me. The most prominent were glowing crabs with yellow transparent shells. A message popped up in my HUD as I focused on them.
Congratulations! You caught a yellow skycrab (x20)! Size: 10 cm. Rating: B-class.
Your skyfishing skill increased by 1.8!
You’ve leveled up Skyfishing (skill) to Level 3
Beyond the crabs, there were other sky creatures in the cages. There were small green spheres with cute little black eyes like watermelon seeds. A purple skysnake was wedged into the cage as well.
Congratulations! You caught a bubblebee (x4)! Size: 5 cm. Rating: A-Class.
Congratulations! You caught a skysnake! Size: 30 cm. Rating: C-Class.
Your skyfishing skill increased by 0.3
Your skyfishing skill increased by 0.2
Awesome. Beneath all the information on what we’d caught was a message.
Would you like to sell your haul to the fisheries of La-Archanum: Yes/No?
I selected “yes” and a list of panels came up. There were around five different sky-fisheries interested in our offer. The current default offer was everything caught while aboard the Horizon’s Dream, including my leftover catches from the cloud reef. The highest bidder was actually a high-class restaurant on La-Archanum, offering 750 gold coins for the lot. They were offering double compared to the other fisheries. I didn’t think twice about selling it to the restaurant. I had to get the crew morale back into the positives before flying out again; that meant making as much cash as possible and dividing it up for
those aboard. I clicked sell and the gold coins stacked up in the ship’s money stat.
“All done?” asked Serena, looking at me while the others stood behind her, impatient and ready to go explore La-Archanum.
We walked up the passage of the landing bay. We passed by other ships, all of which were very unique and bizarre compared to ours. They were mongrel hybrids, pieced together by scraps and junk to create completely unique airships.
At the end of the dock, we entered the city. We were in a circular corridor, one of the rings wrapping around the floating spire. A message came up in my HUD.
You have discovered La-Archanum +100 EXP!
A glowing blue sign said: “Welcome to La-Archanum. Floor-0.”
Beneath it was a map showing the city spire. We were in the middle, the landing zone, known as floor-0. The floors were determined by the ringed hallways looping the whole spire. The floors above us went in numerical order, “Floor +1, Floor +2, Floor +3,” and below us they were ordered similarly except in the negative, “Floor -1, Floor -2, Floor -3.” A glass window wrapped around the ring, showing the final moments of dusk as the sky slowly dimmed. Pink manalamps flickered to give light to the hallways.
The foyer in front of us led to a bustling market full of food stalls and benches. A dark ceiling hung above the area, a metallic black sky. The bleak rooftop was obscured by the smoke from the food stalls. A barbeque station grilled sky-salmon skewers while the stall beside it boiled a yellow curry sauce with sky-prawns and crispy vegetables.
The market was cramped with stalls and people. Rugged Haeren and Rorn soldiers bartered with haggling La-Archanum locals: scraggly gap-toothed merchants selling the usual fare of weapons, armor, and potions with the added selection of rare antiques and treasures from all over the cloud ocean. The different soldiers wore different colors. There was green Laergardian cloth, turquoise for Solmini, and purple for Renzar. There were no soldiers clad with the deep burgundy colors of Arethkar. I sighed with relief.
