There was no way we were ferrying thousands of people back to the City on the Water.
“So, what’re we doing to help them?” Starbreaker asked, hand still on my shoulder.
“We?” I asked, turning to stare at the man.
He stared back, expression not shifting. “Best get it over with so we can get back to my great-grandkids before something goes wrong. Heard my sister was sending Katanel up. That is one wolf you don’t want prowling your territory on his own.”
“She did,” I admitted, realizing that hiding the truth from him… probably wasn’t the brightest thing I’d done, especially if he was still in contact with his sister. “And… I’m afraid things did go wrong.”
The hand on my shoulder clenched tighter. It wasn’t nearly as painful as it likely should’ve been. For all his power, his strength wasn’t nearly enough to get through my resilience. “What did you keep from me, boy?”
Calbern had shifted, and even Tresla looked like she was ready to intercede. But I felt I’d gotten a good enough read on Starbreaker to know he wasn’t one to kill the messenger. Not that he could. “Bolly attempted to blow himself up. My daughter stopped him. It didn’t end well. I’m sorry.”
Starbreaker’s gaze remained locked on my own for several long seconds. Then he closed his eyes, cursing softly. “It’s not your fault, boy. It’s mine. I shall deal with this.”
Those were the last words he uttered before he disappeared in a fold of starlight.
I called Ari, informing her he was on the way.
“Of course he is,” Ari said, her voice even, though I could tell she wasn’t happy. “How long until you return?”
“Uh… we just found a few thousand more refugees. We need to get them to the City on the Water first,” I said, expecting to upset her further.
Instead, her lip twitched into a smile, the silvery image freezing in place as she spoke. “Always something, isn’t there? Best I get ahead of this best I can. Stay safe.”
“You too,” I replied even as the mirror’s magic collapsed. It was terribly tempting to zip away, just for a bit, to ensure things didn’t explode. But… I trusted Ari. If she thought she needed help, she would’ve said so.
Instead, I turned my attention to the refugees outside.
To their surprise, the Magus Domini didn’t receive a bunch of slaps. Mostly they were met with disdain or ignored.
The mages who’d taken up the defense in their place were mostly earth mages who’d done infrastructure work. They’d been on their way to help out Nexxa, then got caught in an anomoly that’d taken them monthes to find their way out of. A worlds mana-well, most likely, from the description.
One that had spat them out five hundred feet in the air over Nexxa’s domain.
Plus side to the massive Gate near the City. It worked as a perfect downhill, much like Aeternia. Which meant that instead of ferrying these people, I had a much more efficient way to get them home. Even if we’d packed the Iron Curtain to the gills, and stacked them up on Inertia’s accompanying war form, it would’ve taken us dozens of trips.
Instead, I pulled several of Althon’s materials and set to work building a platform. It was a floating platform because the most efficient spot to slip through to the Gate was where the earth mages had appeared. Since it was located roughly five hundred feet above Nexxa’s old compound, the amount of mana needed to make the platform float was a lot cheaper than building a tower to support it. Using it to power the gate more than made up for the cost of teleportation compared to the ground.
If Bevel’d been there, it would’ve been even cheaper.
The fact such a platform would’ve been a perfect project to work on with her only twisted my guts harder. Almost enough to make me regret not simply carrying people back, using Secrets of Telthen to teleport a couple at a time.
The feeling was a lie. I knew building a Waygate would be faster in the long run.
I attempted to put the Magus Domini to work, only to realize that… enchanting really wasn’t their field. Bevel’d been better at it when she first started. The infrastructure mages on the other hand were much more adept.
It only took four hours to create a functional Waygate, which the earth mages were ecstatic about. I decided not to mention how incredibly crude the Waygate was. It could only activate in a single direction, to a single target, and it would likely be worn out after a week’s worth of use.
Xoth would’ve been apoplectic if he’d seen it. Probably would’ve demanded I relinquish all rights to calling myself a shaper.
Still, the delay already felt bad enough. This would do the job, and it was good enough I could come back and rebuild it properly later, if I decided it was worth it.
Getting the Waygate built was where the need for my assistance ended, as I was reminded after teleporting the first batch of refugees up to the platform that teleportation was a rough experience for the unensouled. Even with Secrets of Telthen. Nor did they want me flying everyone.
Apparently it wasn’t just the one woman’s daughter I made uncomfortable. It was pretty much every non-ensouled. Unfortunately there wasn’t anything in my status that pointed to the reason why. Annoyingly, I finally had a question I wanted to ask Starbreaker about, and the man had ran off.
As the earth mages created steps for the refugees, I went to investigate Nexxa’s former compound. The earth mages had really bulked up the walls around it, expanding it outwards.
That wasn’t all they’d bulked up. The greenhouses had been copied, though the copies were crudely down. Still, the earth mages had sustained a population of thousands with little more than the produce they grew within their walls.
Since I felt compelled to stay until the refugees were all through the portal, I decided to check out the dam I helped Nexxa build. My poor rock construction had given way. Most of the dam had been washed away by the simple power of water and gravity. I felt there was a parallel there that could be drawn between the hastily erected dam and the barrier over Aeternia holding back the monsters.
It wasn't one that sat comfortably with me.
By the time I got back to the compound, the last of the refugees were making their way the spiral staircase. Despite offering to have the earth mages a spot in Aeternia, they all turned me down. They felt they had a duty to see the people they’d saved home.
A comment that had the former Magus Domini shuffling in place.
Once the last of them winked out of existence, we boarded the Iron Curtain and set off along the high road.
The first section of the high road passed fairly quickly as I finished scribing World Strider. Inertia insisted we slow down when we got over the lake where we fought the serpent.
“Fang,” she hissed out, nodding her chin towards the water from where we were standing outside on her war form.
“Looks like we didn’t clean up our mess well enough,” I said, gesturing down slope of the lake where we’d buried the body under the rock slide.
“Good,” Inerita said, flexing her wings. “Race.”
I chuckled, beating her to the surface with my new spell.
She ignored me, slamming into one of the nearby monsters instead. Then the fight was on. Not that it was much of one. The strongest of the monsters was a tier-3 fire lizard of some type.
Tougher than an inferno drake, but not by much.
“Twenty-two to twenty-two,” I said, chuckling as I took it down.
“Better,” Inertia hissed out in response, gesturing to the bodies. “Source.”
“You sure you want to base it off which of us got the better materials?” I asked, kicking the body of the tier-3 lizard. It was mine.
Inertia nodded, and that was that. However, as we were gathering the materials, I felt something brush up against my aura.
After a moment of looking around in confusion, Eagle Eyes helped me spot it. There was a wolf atop a distant peak, staring down at me.
It met my eyes and then it disappeared a moment later, phasing out of existence. It howled, and was joined by several other howls before fading out of existence. The howls continued for a short time, moving not towards us but into the distance.
Something about its brush compelled me to drop my work. “Going after it.”
“Good hunt.” She launched into the air with the remains of the lizard in her talons, moving towards the Iron Curtain.
Meanwhile, I used World Strider to chase it down.
It was good to stretch my legs. The first use of World Strider had been simple, no different from a basic Dimension Step. Now I was able to push it as I followed the sounds of the howling, each step limited only by how quickly I could process the destination.
The wolf led me on a bit of a chase as I adjusted to navigating the local seven dimension. As we went, I found myself thinking of it as more than one dimension. It was closer to a full three dimensional landscape, complete with peaks and valleys of its own. Those peaks and valleys, I quickly realized, translated into the interference I’d been struggling with.
Amusingly, the wolf I was chasing was dancing along those same paths, never taking the ‘hard’ route. It made it easy to track. As I did so, I quickly realized those howls had all come from the same creature. A pack of one.
Something I realized might have been the point, when I arrived in a distant valley.
When I emerged and found the wolf waiting for me, my first thought was ambush. Even if it had been an ambush, with my affinity and high mana regen, it’d been a simple matter to ‘scale’ several of the hills to come out in a completely unexpected spot.
But before that thought could fully form, I noticed the wounded forms nearby. Human and wolf both.
Neither were in great shape, though they all flinched away when I appeared. Towards each other. Had I found another group of bonded, like the Frost Riven?
Instinctively, I took a step towards them, ready to heal.
Despite being the one to lead me there, the wolf growled at me.
“Whoa,” I said, holding up my hands. I understood. The wolf only had one power: the power to move. It didn't have the power to heal. If it had, it never would’ve brought me here. “I was just going to heal them.”
The wolf growled and a nearby woman coughed, clearing her throat. She looked old enough to be my great-grandmother. And her voice managed to sound worse, each word pushed past broken teeth. “Ol’ Whitefall just wants you to know he’ll be watching you as you work.”
“Fair enough,” I said, moving to her first. The age wasn’t something I could help with, but her voice cleared up a bit as I used Restore Form on her.
“Ah, my back hasn’t felt this good in years,” the woman said as she pushed to her feet. Despite her words, she was still bent forward.
I moved to the wolf at her side next. As Restore Form did its work, it let out a pained gasp.
Which apparently wasn’t an approved part of the process, as Ol’ Whitefall snapped at my arm, tearing out a nasty chunk as he tried to pull me away. Only to stop when the other wolf pushed to its feet and snapped at him.
Was amusing seeing him dip his head in embarrassment. Made up for the fact he had my blood dripping from his fangs as he did so.
At least a little.
Despite further grunts and complaints as I continued, Ol’ Whitefall managed to keep himself from extracting further flesh as I worked.
Halfway through, I was distracted by a set of surprisingly insistent notifications from my System. I only glanced at them as I continued my work, though when I did, it almost stopped me.
Integration complete.
Class-1 Citizen.
Head of maintenance position ratified.
Achievement tally compiled.
Warning: Citizen outside safe zone.
Warning: Citizen is below combat theater threshold.
Warning: Citizen retrieval mode has been activated.
Warning: Emergency teleportation systems offline. Dispatching emergency aid. Time to arrival, unknown.
I paused, hand over one of the wolfs, staring blankly at the interface. A pained whimper drew my attention away from them.
By the time I’d finished, I could see the Iron Curtain approaching in the distance. I waved up to them, my eyes narrowing when I saw one of the little silver drones dart underneath Inertia’s wing.
I was distracted by a wet nose suddenly pressing against my neck. Turning, I found Ol’ Whitefall staring into my eyes. Only once he was sure he had my attention did he raise his head and howl.
The rest of his pack joined him, and I don’t just mean the wolves. The humans howled right alongside him.
For the first time in a long time I was reminded that not all of the magical beasts in the world were monsters. Some of them were just creatures with power, much like us.
As it and its family howled in thanks, I decided I wouldn't be traveling without my pack again.
It was as I made that decision that the silver drone flew overhead. The same golden rays that had torn through the monster horde swept over me and, with zero fanfare, removed me from existence.
My last thought as my gaze met Ol’ Whitefall’s was how yet another thing was getting between me and my pack.