Act 1: Childhood

Chapter 10: Reach for the Sky

Party: Ryu, Bunyan, Luna, Jett

The party settled down for sleep. Jett helped Ryu and Bunyan unpack as Luna seemed to get quite sick suddenly. Bunyan didn't question her unmoving silence in the corner of the room. Ryu glared at her a bit, angry that she had gotten out of chores somehow for the evening. As there was nothing he could do about it without being a whiny little brat, he let it go. Even having to do part of Luna's work seemed okay this night because Jett was also doing work. Plus, it gave him a chance to examine the newcomer.

He had a very practiced way of moving; such that it was obvious that he had set up camp with Bunyan's supplies quite a few times. There was something else about the way he moved himself that Ryu couldn't put his finger on. It was both similar to the way that Bunyan moved and yet it was something else altogether. Because he didn't have enough information to identify the feeling he was getting from the older boy, Ryu didn't let his thoughts linger long on it.

Bunyan, Jett and Ryu finished setting up quite a bit faster than they had the night before when it was just Bunyan and Ryu with a little help from Wolf-Luna. This time however, Luna wasn't a wolf. She was still sitting in the corner refusing to do anything, including make a sound. Once the camp had been set up completely, Bunyan and Jett set up their bedrolls by the door of the chamber, while Ryu tossed Luna's by her stubborn form and set up his own nearby. He crawled onto his roll and faced the door as he settled down to sleep.

"I wasn't kidding." The soft voice was clipped and nearly impossible to hear, but it was easy to tell whose it was. "I don't like him at all."

Ryu rolled himself over, pretending as best he could that he was simply trying to get comfortable, though really he was turning so that Bunyan and Jett wouldn't be able to hear what he was saying. "Just from one conversation?" he asked, as low as he possibly could. He opened his eyes just enough to see her in the darkness. She was now sitting on her bedroll, though she had not changed her body position or language.

"Of course not." Now her voice was a harsh whisper. "I've met him before." This gave Ryu some pause and made him want to turn back over to take another look at Jett. Since he didn't have that option in order to still be pretending to sleep (and he'd have to roll right back over in order to continue this fascinating conversation that he was having), he simply frowned.

"When? How?"

There was silence from the other figure for so long that Ryu thought that she had managed to go to sleep in the seated position that she seemed to be loathe to leave. Finally: "It's not important." Then a little bit of rustling, and she was laying down, still facing away from Ryu and the others.

Ryu sighed. That certainly ended the conversation. He decided that it was a good time to go to sleep, as there was little else he could do that night, and he had plenty of things to think about.

"Morning" was signified by Bunyan's rough hand shaking Ryu's shoulder. Ryu sat up immediately, and Bunyan moved on to do the same to Luna. Ryu didn't wait for Bunyan to finish waking Luna up and got up and began to pack everything up, as per usual. He didn't, however, realize that Jett and Bunyan had apparently already taken care of most of what needed to be done. Ryu merely had to roll up his bedroll and put on what had been divvied out as his pack. He wondered idly about why he hadn't had to help break camp, but he wasn't about to complain.

Because the two younger children were awoken after most of the work had been done, it was only another five or so minutes before everyone, including the two still bleary-eyed children, were ready to continue climbing the mountain. "There're two entrances to the cave, Bunyan, though I imagine you knew that," Jett was saying as the four left the chamber in which they had slept. "One on the side of the mountain that has an easy pass down to the Wyndian Hills, and the other near the peak of a mountain just one set of peaks shy of Wyndia."

Bunyan made a sound of assent. "Yes, though I haven't taken the pathway through the mountains at all; you're going to have to lead us to the closer entrance to Wyndia, if you want to go the quick way."

Jett apparently nodded (Ryu wasn't looking at him at the time, so he didn't really know), and the four set off. Though they still met some monsters as they went through the rest of the cave, it was quite a bit easier to dispatch any monsters that got in their way due to having four members rather than three of their party. Jett's skills also came in handy, as he had quite a few nice abilities.

He had the ability to use magic, which was nice, as his lightening and earth spells tended to do pretty well against those monsters who were somehow affiliated with wind. He also had the ability to ascend at will, which was something that he tried to keep from the two children, but during a particularly testy battle against a monster that nearly gutted Luna. His ascended form, which he called Caballo, was basically just a fairly buff human-shaped body with a horse head. The Caballo had charged Luna and the enemy taking the enemy away from her and giving Ryu the space to heal.

After changing back to his original form, Jett found that Luna not only still hated him, but seemed to somehow treat him worse than she had when he had originally been found by Bunyan and his two younger charges. As an insult to add to this injury, Ryu was then not speaking to him. A quiet, though easily overheard conversation between Bunyan and Jett revealed to the young Caballo Clanner that his ability to transform at will had earned the ire of the younger set of his companions. After that Jett's bouncy attitude seemed to falter a bit, and he tried to step a little more softly around the younger ones.

Not that it did him any good.

Once out of the cave, the four companions, though two of them certainly weren't acting very companionably, found themselves within sight of the walls of Wyndia. The floating city was partially blocked from their view by the single mountain peak that remained in their way. From the other side of that peak they could reach the Wyndian City Access, and it wasn't all that far on the mountain trail before they would get there. Bunyan then took the lead of the party and led them down the path that led spiraling down the mountain that they were now at the peak of, and then across a fairly rickety rope bridge to the other mountain.

Once on that mountain, it was another simple climb until they were at the Wyndian City Access. The monsters on this side of the mountain passes were a lot tougher than the ones during the first climb, but with the addition of another fighter, the fights that the party faced weren't too hard for the party to handle. It was about noontime when they reached the station that would let them ascend into the floating city that was now somewhat above them.

"Now, it's too bad that we don't actually have a Wyndian Clanner with us," Bunyan said, punctuating his sentence with a grunt. The climb hadn't been all that hard on him, but the last bit of climbing was particularly steep. "They could fly up to the Access and bring it down to the ledge at the bottom of this ascent."

Ryu looked down. Not being able to see where he would land if he fell bothered him enough that he didn't even try looking for the ledge where they had begun this final climb, so he returned his eyes to the Access and swallowed heavily. Luna seemed to have a similar reaction, as Ryu could hear her swallow beside him. Jett, who was in front of Luna and Ryu, was still looking back at the ledge. "I hate this climb. It's so much easier with the…"

Bunyan cut him of with a gesture. "We're almost there, stop complaining."

At last, the four had reached the ledge where the Access was located. It wasn't all that much, just a metal outline of a box that happened to have a floor hanging from seemingly nothing other than an attachment to the rock of the peak that they were on. The peak itself was a smaller one in that section of the mountains, leaving the party very exposed and visible to everything within the cone of the highest mountains in the range that surrounded the floating city, which was visible above as an island in the sky.

Ryu was watching the island while Luna watched Jett and Bunyan set up the Access. Jett detached the gate from the box and opened it up while Bunyan was fiddling with the connection to the somehow bare of snow rock, apparently trying to disconnect the box from the mountain. Neither of the younger set in the party could really figure out how the box was going to manage when it wasn't actually attached to anything, but Bunyan seemed rather confident with it, so they figured it was alright. Not that it made them any less afraid when Jett motioned for them to get in the box.

Luna instantly took a step backward and shook her head violently. Ryu caught her wrist so that she wouldn't take any more steps backward as she had the chance to tumble if she went too far. He let go the instant he was sure she was steady, but she was apparently ignoring him. Jett beckoned again and Ryu gathered his courage and started walking toward the box. Luna then swallowed behind him and ventured in a much higher than normal voice, "what's going to keep it up when it isn't attached to the mountain anymore?"

"Magic," Bunyan said as he apparently succeeded with the mechanism, and suddenly the box was floating an inch or two away from the rock of the peak. "How else would an island float in the sky? Come on, get in." Luna shook her head again, though thankfully she didn't take anymore steps backward, as Ryu was now much closer to Jett and almost inside the box. Ryu turned back and looked at her with a face of concern, though all she did was shake her head again. "Right," Bunyan said, and walked over to Luna. She blinked, but did not move as he bent down to look her straight in the eye. There was a moment's pause before Jett pushed Ryu into the box and got in himself.

When Ryu turned around, Luna started screaming and flailing as Bunyan carried her fireman style over to the box. "No! Don't you dare! I don't want to! PUT ME DOWN!" Ryu couldn't help but smile as Bunyan got in the box and closed the gate with the hand that wasn't keeping Luna securely fastened to his shoulder. Then he brushed his hand on the little metal box that was in one corner of the box and suddenly the box was moving upward and away from the peak. Luna immediately stopped struggling. Bunyan then made to put her down, but she was holding onto him for dear life now.

"I thought you wanted to get down?" Bunyan remarked to her with a twinkle in his eyes.

"I'm good," was her response. Bunyan chuckled, but did not respond or continue to try to put her down.

Jett was leaning over the side of one of the railings, looking down into the abyss below. "Has anyone ever been down there, Bunyan?"

Bunyan took a moment to respond, though Ryu wasn't looking at him to tell what his facial expression was because he was leaning over with Jett now. "Not that I know of," Bunyan responded slowly, "though I imagine a Wyndian Clanner could pull it off, so they could have been down there at some point." Jett nodded slowly, while Ryu simply gawked and the sheer amount of space there was in this area between the mountains. I wonder what's down there, he thought, but I'm not sure I'd be willing to brave whatever I'd need to do to get there.

The box continued to travel for several minutes. The island in the sky grew larger and larger as the trip went by, and Ryu soon gave up looking at all the space and began watching the island as they approached. It formed an upside-down mountain, with a peak roughly in the center of the mass of land. The mountain was craggy and probably would be hard to climb were it right-side-up. Ryu was picking out the interesting details of contours and dips when suddenly they were level with the peak and Ryu realized that they were rising at a very fast pace.

It was only a few more seconds before Ryu felt himself slowing down gradually. By the time the box reached the crest, they were slow enough that the deceleration didn't change as they came to a stop. Once stopped, Bunyan opened the gate and placed Luna down on the ground of the island. Jett and Ryu followed him off.

"Welcome," Bunyan said, straightening, "to the city of Wyndia."