EG Book 7 Chapter 8 (Patreon)

*** AUTHOR’S NOTE ***

Well, I was hoping to have two posts last week, but I’ve not been in a great headspace. I’ll be putting two posts up this week, though. Looking like I’m definitely not getting through the entirety of the outline, as my personal backlog just hit chapter 15, and we still haven’t met the Minokawa. I’m almost leaning towards calling this book “The Journey Home”, adding in some conflict with the Harpies, and expanding on the fight in the ruined city. Let the Naga take the scepter and use it to create the portal, then Aiden et. al. Have to figure out how to close it after defeating the Naga outriders. We’ll see.

*** AUTHOR’S NOTE ***

A few hours later, I was sitting with Vaya and Jamila looking at my right arm and left leg respectively. Jon was bragging about the Dungeon run, “And then he went with a ‘pah’ and the Rhinoceros split in half!” Xiao laughed goodnaturedly, while the others listened in rapt attention.

“So, if we go into a lower difficulty, we might be able to earn significant rewards alone?” Ming asked.

“Seems like it,” I said.

Librarian Narwan appeared next to us. “I want you to get prepared to leave. There is a merchant ship heading back to Craesti tomorrow mid-morning. Unfortunately, I will not be able to join you, as I must go back to the King as soon as I can. Knight Kaminski will be joining you, along with Miss Samantha.”

“Uh, Master Narwan, could we take the Skysurfer home? I’m sure it’d be faster,” I asked.

“Skysurfer?” He asked.

“Oh, uh, can I stand?” I asked Vaya.

“Yes,” she said, “you will be fine.”

I started to stand up, and Jamila helped me to my feet. I reached into my bag and then faked pulling out the two-meter long surfboard from it. Instantly it was taken from me.

Librarian Narwan was running his hands over it, a tiny streamer of Aether flowing into the device from his fingertips. “Hmm, yes,” he said, and it floated over our heads and expanded to its full size of six meters wide and twelve high. Instantly, everyone else in the dining room was looking up at it. It shrank back down and he caught it again. “This will hold you all and let you travel much quicker. Unfortunately, it is designed for increased weight bearing capability and Aether efficiency. My own flying device is significantly faster, so I will not be joining you still. I will let Captain Martin know that his services are not needed.” He handed me the surfboard, which was remarkably light for something made of metal.

“I have an idea I need to test,” I said, after looking at the full size. “But this is something I really don’t want anyone else to see.”

“Come,” Librarian Narwan gestured, and walked out to the rear courtyard.

I injected a tiny bit of Aether into the Skysurfer, and it floated half-a-meter off the ground. I sat down on it and sighed, my leg still hurting. Apparently advancing to Seed Core, especially with the Tribulation I underwent, made it much harder to heal, and I would have to use my natural regeneration to get the rest of the way better. Of course, I would be fully healed by tomorrow, but still, not pleasant. Riding the surfboard down the hallway was so much cooler, anyway.

Jon held the door open, and I floated into the courtyard. Everyone followed, missing only Aleks as she was still in negotiations with the Weltreich trade ambassador, and Sam, who was in a lesson with Knight Kaminski as she had been since we rescued her. The area around us quickly grew hazy, and the noise from the square outside the inn vanished. “We are secure,” Librarian Narwan said, “Not even Sultah Aleahil can sense what happens inside here.”

“Cool,” I said, slowly getting off the Skysurfer. I bade it to lie flat on the ground, and then injected Aether to expand its size. “Neat.” I then summoned the Portable Home from my ring, letting it appear at the full size on top of the surfboard. The Portable Home took up nearly half of the area. Still got some room on the Skysurfer, I thought. I doubt we’ll be able to control the Surfer from inside, so having some space will be useful. Now, for the all important test. I told the Skysurfer to rise, and it did, though I needed to triple the amount of Aether I was giving it. “Hah! It works! So, we can travel in style on the way home.”

“What is that?” Librarian Narwan asked.

“Uh, Spirit called it the Portable Home,” I said.

“I have never felt anything of its power, besides the Primordials,” he said. “Tell me about it.”

“Uh, it’s supposed to be a collapsible, storable home, hence the name,” I answered. “Spirit said it had sixteen bedrooms, a kitchen, an Alchemy lab, an Inscription lab, and a Forge. I have not been inside yet.”

“Then you should be first,” Librarian Narwan said.

I grinned, then tugged at Jamila, who had her hand on my arm. “Come on,” I said, echoing Librarian Narwan. I limped the six steps it took to get to the door. With an effort of will, I dimmed my Aether Sight enough to admire the outside of the Portable Home. Its siding was a pale wood with green striations in it. The windows, one on either side of the door, didn’t show anything through them. Each was a circular pane of glass with a crimson wood trim. The trim on the door was Auric Gold, as was the door handle. I pulled and it opened.

The main room was six meters long and wide. The left wall had four doors, each a different color. The closest to the front was silver, though I could tell it was still wood. The second door was the same crimson as the window trim, while the third was the pale green of the siding’s striations, while the door closest to the back wall was a bright, cheery yellow.

There were three doors on the far wall, a bright red, a dark green, and a pale blue in color. On the right wall were three more doors, a dark blue, a pale purple, and one without any paint on it, the same color as the walls. Other than the doors, the room was barren, leaving me to furnish and decorate it.

We walked in, with Jamila pausing at the doorway to look at the side, where it seemed to extend only a meter and a half to the side of the door, then inside the main room. She went back and forth a few times, then just shook her head and said, “This is amazing! Is this what you won in the Tower of Trials?”

“Yup,” I said, “and a couple more things. Once we’re on our way I’ll hand out presents.”

“I like presents,” she said with a wry grin. “Which door first?”

“You pick,” I said, as the others filed into the main room.

“Um, we should go left to right, so the silvery one,” she said, and I nodded. We strolled over to it, and I pulled the door open. A wave of heat rolled out of it, and I saw an Aether Forge, an anvil, a workbench, and a large set of tools hanging on hooks on the wall.

“Can I work in here?!” Xiao exclaimed, peaking over my shoulder. “That is the strongest Aether Forge I have ever seen.”

“Sure,” I said, chuckling to myself.

“Next room,” Jamila said.

The crimson room was the Alchemy room, with a vent hood, several mortar and pestle sets, a workbench, an Aether Bunsen burner equivalent, and a large pill furnace. The pale green room was for Inscriptions, with two workbenches, empty ink pots, another Aether Bunsen burner, and a small cauldron. The yellow room was the kitchen, with two ovens, a preparation table, a large pantry, an Inscribed storage box to keep perishable items cold, and a six-burner stovetop to put a fancy house to shame.

“So, the left side is all of the production rooms,” I said. “So the rest must be the bedrooms, but there were supposed to be sixteen.”

“Then let us go see,” Jamila said.

I heard a clang from the Forge, but when the door shut a moment later all noise cut off. “Well, that’s useful,” I said.

“Yes. I can just shove him in there when he is talking too much,” Ming said.

I looked at him askance, then laughed, “Yeah, he can be a chatterbox.” A few steps later, I opened the bright red doorway to find a small sitting room, only three meters on each side. Each of the other three walls had a door, and there was just enough space between them that a nice chair fit in each corner. The chairs were the same color as the door, plusher than anything I’d seen yet. Each door had a number on it, one through three.

Opening door one I found a bedroom. It was fairly small, only four meters by three and a half or so, with a simple double bed, a dresser, and a desk with a chair in it. Next to the bed there was a doorway that opened into a nice bathroom, with a toilet, a tub, and a sink. “Well, that’s nice,” I said. “I wonder how much water is stored, or if it uses Aether?”

“If Aether, how does the Portable Home even work?” Jamila asked. “There are so many Aether-fueled functions that seem to be working, but I could not sense the hut pulling in the ambient Aether.”

“No idea,” I said, “Maybe it has a special storage and we’ll have to keep it filled up? I hope not, though, as I’m sure that will be extremely difficult.”

The other two rooms had similar furniture in them. “Huh,” I said, “I wonder why the main room didn’t have any furniture, but these rooms do?”

“Maybe Spirit wanted you to be free to put your personality in the main room, but still wanted you to be able to use the rest immediately?” Vaya suggested from behind me as I looked into crimson room three.

I shrugged, “That’s as good an idea as any will be. Come on, let’s see the rest.” The next four doors mimicked the red one, with each having the same sitting room, color matched to the door, and bedrooms in it. The difference came when I opened the pale wood with green striations door into what could only be the owner’s suite.

The room was easily the size of three other bedrooms put together. The massive bed in the center had an ornate headboard, three large white pillows, and a pale green comforter with gold stripes. There were two desks with chairs, one empty and the other with a clear crystal ball set into an Auric Gold insert. The ball glowed with Aether bright enough to make me squint. Two night stands and a dresser completed the furniture in the room. The door into the bathroom was open, and I could see that it was similarly huge, with a tub big enough for four people and a fancy shower as well.

“Well, someone is going to be living fancy,” Jamila said.

“Yup, and I’ll enjoy every minute of it,” I said. “I’ll probably let Knight Kaminski have this room, at least for the trip back.”

“Why? It is yours,” Xiao asked.

“Politics,” I said, “So I’ll let Knight Kaminski have it as the strongest of us, or Princess Aleksandra as, well, the Princess. The other rooms are fine for me, and we have plenty.”

“Aiden, inspect the crystal ball,” Librarian Narwan said, not acknowledging what I’d said at all.

“Yes, sir,” I said, then stepped around Xiao and Lilianna, who were looking into the bathroom and remarking on the Inscriptions decorating the outside. I pulled the chair out and slowly let myself into the seat. The cushions seemed to adapt to my body, a tiny stream of Aether leaving me to power the function. “Ooh, that’s nice.”

“Do not become distracted,” Librarian Narwan chided me.

“Sorry, Librarian Narwan,” I said with a grimace, then leaned forward. Two spaces on either side of the ball seemed to be highlighted in my vision, so I reached out and put my hands on them both. This time, instead of Aether flowing out, Aether surged into me, and then I knew what the orb was and how to use it. “Wow, this is the control orb for the entire facility. I can reshape it, though the total area and volume must remain the same. It is upgradeable, but I, uh, don’t believe that it is reasonable to do so.”

“How much?” Jon asked.

“The first ingredient needed is the core of a level ten or higher Primordial,” I said flatly. Choking sounds came from the others, as by itself that was a priceless item, and it was merely the first of ten items. “Yeah, that’s not happening for, well, probably ever. One thing that is available is I can change the color of each bedroom triplet. Probably won’t now, though. I can also grant access to all of you to specific rooms, since the only reason the doors are opening right now is my presence. That won’t work during the entire flight home.”

“Be careful who you show this item to,” Librarian Narwan said. “It is most likely the most valuable single thing I have ever seen.”

“Of course, Master Narwan,” I said, standing up to bow to him.

“Good, get some furniture for the main room and stock up the kitchen. I will prepare a few items for your journey,” he said, then vanished.

“All right, uh, let’s all pick our room, and then go shopping afterward!”

I grabbed room number three in the dark blue region, ignoring the other’s cajoling me to take the master bedroom. Once everyone had their rooms picked out, I gave them access to their room, the kitchen, the workrooms, and the main door. Librarian Narwan had left the privacy field up, so I didn’t store or shrink the Portable Home. “Who wants to go shopping?” I asked as we stepped out of the shrouded area.