FWFW 3 - 69 (Patreon)

Morgan watched the little Yovashi sisters move together into the nest of blankets that Ykleedra had created for them. They hadn’t had to go far from where they’d been playing—their new “nest” was situated near the edge of the same meadow where they’d been playing all afternoon. As the atrium began to go dark, star-like flickering lights took over from the false sun that normally hung in the sky. Watching the children curl up under the dim stars, Morgan realized that now that he had full control of the tower, he could adjust the sun and other lighting effects to better suit them.

He thought about it for a minute, and, though he was tempted to dim the sun for Ykleedra’s comfort, he wondered if it was wise to get her and her sisters used to circumstances that were different from the world in which they lived. There were also the myriad plants and trees to consider—he didn’t want to initiate an inadvertent foliage die-off in the atrium.

“Sleep well, little ones,” Morgan said as the sisters nestled together, ferns surrounding part of their makeshift bed, with cushions and pillows making little walls around the rest of it. He wondered where Ykleedra had gotten the pillows, but he knew the answer without asking: Issa. She’d spent a lot of time with Ykleedra after Morgan had taken Tkron away, and the atmosphere in the atrium reflected it. Things just seemed happier, more idyllic.

The construction of the Yovashi home was well underway, and Morgan was impressed by Alicia Washington’s capabilities. The solid stone foundation was set, and the framing was all but complete. More than the efficiency of her crew, though, Morgan was impressed by the talent displayed. The beams that made up the frame for the walls curved up and seemed to become part of the ceiling without any sort of joints or nails—just long spans of timber that stretched up and then bent into rounded corners, meeting at the center of the dwelling, where he knew Alicia was planning to build the kitchen.

“Tiladia?” he called softly, knowing the spirit would hear him.

“Yes, Morgan?” her tinkling response echoed up the path as her misty form streaked into the atrium, moving much faster than her normal, sedately floating pace.

“How long has Ykleedra been absent from the tower?” Morgan had the itch of a worry starting to form in his gut.

“Two hours and seventeen minutes. Are you concerned about her?” Tiladia asked as she floated between him and the sleeping children.

“I am. I am, Tiladia. Will you please watch her sisters until I return with her? I’m going to go hurry her along.” Morgan turned and started walking as Tiladia replied.

“Yes, Morgan. I shall be sure to alert Lady Issa if the children need anything.”

“Hey,” Morgan said, turning back and watching as Tiladia took on her misty dragon form and curled up in the middle of the little Yovashi huddle. “How is Issa? Is everything going well with her project?”

“Yes! She was thrilled when she finished the alloy smelting—she created a named alloy and said it’ll be even more versatile than she’d hoped.” Tiladia’s response was soft, barely a whisper, but Morgan heard it like she was speaking into his ear. Part of the connection to the tower that he and Tiladia shared, he supposed.

“Named alloy?” He asked, walking away down the path, confident that he and Tiladia could keep speaking despite the increased distance.

“Yes! When she sang her song to increase the bonding efficiency of the disparate metals, her efforts bore wondrous fruit—a new alloy was created. The reward from the System helped her to gain a new level!”

“Wow!” Morgan said, striding toward the stairwell. “What was it called?”

“Luster Ore! Doesn’t it sound wonderful? It’s beautiful, Morgan, and Issa says it will make her enchantments more effective.”

“That’s great, Tiladia,” Morgan said as he strode off the staircase and into the entry hall. He walked to the tower door, touched the handle so it unlocked, and then pulled it open. “I’ll be back soon,” he said, then stepped out into the night air. Or he tried to step into the night air, but his foot encountered a rubbery resistance, and he almost fell on his ass from the strange sensation. “What the fuck?” he blurted.

“Is there something wrong, Morgan?”

“What’s going on with the door? I can’t walk through.” Morgan didn’t wait for an answer, he pushed a hand through the opening, but it felt like he was trying to push against a stiff, rubber membrane, though he couldn’t see anything there, just empty air. He drew Bloodfang and stabbed it into the opening, and the sword slipped out through the doorway as if nothing was there. He tried to follow the blade with his arm, but his knuckles hit the weird membrane again, and he growled, pulling his sword back in.

“I don’t see anything amiss, Morgan. Nothing is wrong with the tower.”

“Goddammit,” Morgan said and cast Void Step, aiming for the grass at the base of the tower’s steps. He felt the spell take form in his pathways and rush out of him as it always did, but nothing happened. Morgan felt his void-attuned Energy leave his body and dissipate, as though the air were absorbing it somehow. He cussed again, trying a more basic spell, Void Vision, but it also refused to take effect, though the Energy clearly left his pathways. “What the . . .” Morgan’s question died in his throat because an explosion suddenly lit up the night sky outside his tower.

#

Maria was having a wonderful time watching Ykleedra experience the party. The music, food, and courteous conversations with dozens of new people kept the Yovashi in a constant state of pleasure, as evidenced by the gentle clicking of the short, hard-tipped tentacles she kept under her robe. During one of their first lessons, Ykleedra had explained to her that Yovashi expressed emotions with the sounds they could make with those hidden appendages, and a rapid, quiet clicking denoted joy.

Ykleedra leaned close, swaying to the music coming from the front of the ship, and said, “Don’t you want to try one of these?” She held a little wooden plate with smoked sausages in a buttery, flaky batter, one of her dextrous tentacles gripping the plate.

“No, no! You go ahead, Ykleedra! I’ve been to many parties in my time, and I always get food in my teeth. No, I want to smile with confidence!” She laughed, looking around at all the interesting people, especially the smartly-dressed crew members. She sipped at her drink, nervous about overindulging. Maria hadn’t been lying; in fact, she’d been minimizing. She’d made a fool of herself at quite a few company parties over the years, nearly losing her catering company after one particularly bad incident involving a lawsuit for lewd conduct. No, she’d start this new life on the right foot.

“What kind of meat is it, anyway?” She asked, watching Ykleedra take another bite. The young Yovashi had just begun to chew when her gray eyelids closed, and she fell to the deck, her long, walking legs curling around her body. “Ykleedra!” Maria said in alarm, then a wave of fatigue hit her so hard that she stumbled forward and nearly fell, but she shook it off and stood up, looking around at the sounds of breaking glasses, clattering plates, and the thuds of bodies hitting the deck.

“Grab that one,” a harsh voice said from behind her, and she spun to see a crewmember rushing toward her with a black piece of metal in his hands. Baron Finneal stood behind her, surveying the chaos as more and more crewmembers came up from the lower decks and began snapping those metal bands around everyone’s necks.

“What . . .” was all Maria could get out before the Shadeni man with the black metal was on her, grabbing her arms and trying to snap the collar around her neck. Was that really what it was? Were they putting collars on everyone? Why had everyone fallen asleep at the same moment? “Let me go!” she screamed, jerking back and kicking at the man’s groin. She must have made contact because he grunted and stumbled back, and then Maria was running, sprinting toward the center of the deck where the stairs led down to the boarding corridor.

She ran past people she knew, people lying stupified on the deck. She wanted to stop, to shake them, get them to come with her, but she knew she had to get away. She had one thought in her mind: get Morgan. He could stop this. He would stop this. He wouldn’t let them hurt Ykleedra. She ran, jumped, and nearly made it to the door that led below when suddenly her legs stopped listening to her, and when she looked down, she saw why: a wide, glistening, silver blade was sticking out of her stomach.

Baron Finneal yanked his broadsword out of her spine and said, with very little emotion, “Should have taken the collar.” Maria gasped, still unable to make her legs do what she wanted. The ship lurched, then, and she stumbled and fell toward the port railing. Finneal didn’t strike her again or try to stop her, and though she couldn’t control her legs, something kept her from falling on her face as she slid toward the railing, and when it struck her midriff, she tumbled over the top of it and fell.

Maria flopped through the air for twenty or thirty feet, then smashed onto her back, the impact driving the air from her lungs. By some miracle, she’d landed on a canvas sack of something, and her head hadn’t hit, though she could see by the contorted nature of her legs that she was grievously wounded. She gazed around, her chest spasming as it tried to suck air in to fill her empty lungs. Stars swam in her eyes, most from lack of oxygen, but some were real. She saw stone parapets and great metal eye-hooks. She was on top of the northeast tower.

“Ma’am, are you all right? What happened?” a panicked voice asked. She rolled her head to the left, and there, dressed in a standard militia uniform, was a young man with one of the new Energy rifles.

Her mouth tried to form words, her lips moving in and out like a dying fish, but finally, she managed to grunt a coherent sound, “Stop them!” As the words came out, she finally managed to heave half a breath and said, with more clarity, “Stop that ship!” The effort had been enormous, and with the wind in her lungs, the pain of her broken ribs and the trauma to her body overcame her, and though Maria struggled, the blackness at the edge of her vision came closing in, and she fell into it.

#

“Get us aloft and moving east! Now!” Gella hollered to his helmsman. He stood in the high, glass-walled bridge of the massive ship and watched over the decks as his crew went among the insensate guests and slapped the control collars on their necks. After they finished that, they could take their time bringing them into the reinforced cabins, of which he had plenty. The ship could hold thousands, and, in his estimate, they’d captured four or five hundred of the humans. “Status?” he barked to Reeja as the big Vodkin came rolling into the bridge. “Why aren’t we aloft?” he shouted to the helmsman before Reeja could answer.

“We’re moving, sir. The deckhands are pulling in the ties, so she’s lifting slowly and listing to port.”

“Just get us moving!” he growled.

“Sir, nearly all of them went down when the potion was activated. I saw Finneal dealing with a few, rather brutally, I might add, that didn’t fall asleep, but I’d say it was just a handful.” Reeja said as he came puffing up beside him.

“I saw him in action a moment ago! Why is that animal killing them? Could he not just subdue them?” Gella grunted angrily, scratching savagely at the stubble of his beard. The blue flesh around the whiskers was irritated and raw, and he knew he was having some sort of outbreak due to stress. “And Tanna? Did her wards hold?”

“Aye! She says they’re doing the job.”

“Excellent,” Gella said, feeling tension start to bleed out of his shoulders. He’d been more than mildly apprehensive that something would go wrong. As the massive ship started to lift more noticeably and the prow turned to the east, he walked to the rear of the bridge and looked out the glass toward the colony. “I wonder what they’re thinking right now. Maybe they’re naive enough to assume we’re taking the party-goers for a tour.” He chuckled softly, still not quite believing they’d pulled it off.

“What are they doing, you reckon?” Reeja asked, pointing to a few now-distant figures pushing around some large black objects on the wall.

“I don’t know . . .” he said, but then a blinding light erupted from one of the black objects, and he had to squint against the glare. “Battle stations!” he roared, and then the ship lurched, and a fiery explosion erupted into the black night from the aft keel area.

“Sir! We’ve lost the main aft impeller!” a panicked Ardeni flight operator howled.

“Full ahead! Ancestors, damn it! Why didn’t we know about those weapons?” As he spoke, the ship lurched forward at much greater speed, though she listed badly, the other impellers having to make up for the blown one. They’d cleared another mile when a second brilliant light lit up the top of the human’s wall. “Brace!” he roared, and then a fiery explosion erupted from the starboard flight mast, and the outer third of it fell away, ripping the wind sail in half.

“Captain, we’ve lost . . . “ the Ardeni started, her voice quavering.

“I know it! Push everything to the lift rings! Keep us in the air and keep us moving! When we’ve put some mountains between us and that town, we’ll set down for repairs.”