A Work in Regress

"Aye, made 'em float like a bloody cloud," Cidolphus Rumsley announced with a self-satisfied grunt.

Sana-Lynn followed the burly old engineer as he led her, Valor and Gantz through a winding maze of debris heaps strewn all about the northern edge of the estate.

Valor, his nose still wrinkling at the alcoholic reek of the old man, strode beside Cidolphus, as Sana followed behind. Gantz was on the other side of the engineer.

The white mage still hadn't said much in the last three days since the four Light Warriors had made their way north of the City of Dreams to come here to the Rumsley estate. She was still feeling her failure keenly since the dark elf assault on Castle Cornelia, doubly so, since her purpose as a white mage was to protect and heal and she had failed to do just that for so many innocent people at the castle. Certainly, the blame for such devastation lay at the feet of Sumpter Baigan for being a treacherous cur and a monster besides, but he was dead now, slain by the combined efforts of the Light Warriors…

Yet that had held almost no consolation for Sana-Lynn, especially after seeing all the dead bodies of guards and servants in the castle halls.

So she had remained silent, trying with all her being to dispel the despair that was threatening to choke her resolve. The only thing that had kept her going was Valor's vow that what had happened at the castle would never happen again. She knew he had been right; the Light Warriors could never again afford to lower their guard.

Still, the current task set before them seemed less than hopeless. Legendary or not, Sana and the other Light Warriors could not possibly stop an entire army of rampaging goblins and trolls by themselves. This, however, was why they had come here in the first place, to seek out a means of reliable travel to the north to head off a massive goblin invasion. With airships falling out of the sky for no apparent reason, it seemed only the new vehicle this Cidolphus Rumsley was working on would be able to get them northward in time to confront the enemy.

"No, boy, it was definitely a bloody stone. Magical beyond all get-out, but a stone to be sure, a stone that hovered perfectly level above the ground."

Gantz snorted. "Sounds like a bunch of bloody bunk if you ask me."

On Cid's other flank, Valor nodded. "So this stone provides the majority of lift for all the airships ever built by the Skyborne Guild. Still, how did one stone provide lift for hundreds of ships?"

The old engineer scratched his nearly bald head. "Oh it didn't, boy, not all by its bloody self. You see, the first guildmasters managed to find an alchemical means to split the initial Sky Stone into numerous Sky Slivers. They then commissioned shipwrights and engineers to bring to life the ancient schematics they had found in the ruins where the Sky Stone was first discovered. This process is called reverse engineering. The founders didn't actually create any of this stuff on their own, they just discovered advanced technology and did what they could to duplicate it."

Valor frowned. "That strikes me as almost criminally dishonest."

Cid shot the young warrior a look. "You don't know much about how guilds work in this day and age do you, boy?"

Gantz barked a laugh. "He doesn't know much about anything except being a cluttered bung-chute."

Cid laughed raucously at that and Sana noticed Valor's jaw clenching tightly, but the Chosen of Earth let the comment slide. "So, why didn't the guild just create other Sky Stones instead of breaking the original into splinters?"

The engineer stroked his bearded chin. "Another facet of reverse engineering. They didn't fully understand how any of it worked. Breaking the stone up into slivers was the best they could do to fulfill their ambitions. Still worked like a bloody charm though. Even with the weaker slivers, airships still made a powerful impact on the kingdom."

Valor put a hand to his chin. "Yes, the King told me that airships were instrumental in winning the Second Goblin War years ago."

"Aye, that they were, still, the slivers only have a tiny fraction of the power of the full Sky Stone. A ship fitted with that would be able to fly higher, go farther and would be leagues faster than any of the flimsy craft we've ever built. Of course, it would have to be fitted in an advanced ship, one able to handle the stresses of such incredible flight."

Sana suddenly spoke up, curiosity overcoming her melancholy. "Is there such a ship, Master Rumsley?"

The old man lifted the goggles from his dark eyes and gave her a quick glance over his shoulder. "Ah, so the pretty lass finally speaks up, eh. If you ask me, there has to be. The schematics that were found were ancient and incomplete, but what they implied was a magnificent craft that the guild could only ever make shoddy copies of."

Gantz waved that away. "Yeah, but why are airships sinking outta the sky all of the sudden?"

Cid shrugged his thick shoulders. "Eh, my best guess is that whatever is going on in this blasted world has triggered something in the Stone, and its decided to have a big family reunion."

Valor looked shocked. "You think the Stone is reforming! That means the slivers are just vanishing, going to reconstitute the full Sky Stone wherever it is! That is the reason why airships are crashing…" He suddenly looked over at the old man. "Do you know where the Sky Stone is?"

Cid laughed gruffly. "You want to find it and build a ship to reach the stars, boy, fat chance. If the slivers went back to their origin, it ain't anywhere on this landmass."

"Damn it!" Valor swore, rather uncharacteristically. It startled Sana a bit to hear such an emphatic oath coming from him, but he wasn't done. "With the Sky Stone and an advanced ship, we could go anywhere we needed to in little time. No one would be beyond our aid!"

Cid clapped him on the shoulder. "Well, I gotta say, it is nice to meet a knight who actually gives half a damn about helping people. Most the ones I met were nothing but haughty, self-righteous pricks with only enough regard for others to kick mud in their face."

Gantz folded both his arms behind his head as he walked, leaning back on them. "Oh don't worry, old man, Valor 'Bung Cork' Loftland has haughty self-righteousness down to an art."

But Sana knew Valor wasn't listening, his blue eyes focused inward. She decided to forge ahead in his stead. "So, Master Cid, what kind of ship is it that you've built?"

The old man looked back, giving her a big toothy grin. "Well, to be brutal honest, it's a work in regress." He belched a laugh. "With some help, I managed to create an artificial Sky Sliver to give my airskiff some stabilizing lift, but the knock-off sliver won't last more than a week before shattering. The rest o' the beast is pure mechanical, but I won't be able to get it bloody anywhere without a constant source of intense heat."

"Intense heat?" Sana repeated.

"Constant intense heat," the old engineer added.

Gantz smacked a gloved hand to his forehead. "Ah great, does this mean what I don't want it to mean?"

Valor suddenly looked up from his thoughts. "We have to find her."

IIIIIIIIIIII

Her runes of fire burned about her like baleful little suns, as she wrung her charred black rod in both hands, her knuckles nearly white with the grip.

It had been three days wasted to come to this blasted junk heap! The drunken old fool snoring in his cot would prove no more useful than the three idiots she had finally broken paths with.

Robin Magus's eldritch eyes glowed furiously under the brim of her wide peaked hat, the article singed and ragged ever since her explosive encounter in Cornelia with the ghoul. Her concealing black robes were the same; the cloth singed in places and tattered at the hem, one of the bilious sleeves burned up a bit so that the two were no longer quite the same length.

She didn't need the fools. She had never needed anyone's help to complete the trials that life had set before her. The wretches were wasting her time and slowing her down!

Rage shuddered within her, and Robin had to stop for a second to lean against a section of ruined masonry. She worked on her breathing, trying to calm the fury that was threatening to explode within her.

Misplaced feelings of failure were also still invading her thoughts since the dark elf assault on the castle days ago. And misplaced they were, for Robin had owed the foppish city-dwellers nothing, had made no vow to save them, and yet their deaths had caused her to balk.

Robin hated it when she doubted herself; it made her angry. Also becoming lost in this damned junk maze had helped to stoke her rage to a fine white broil.

"Ah, there you are, you shrouded scruff. You ready to come help us again?" the black-clad thief suddenly announced, perched upon a ridge of debris above her.

In response, Robin roared and flung a writhing ball of flame at him. Gantz dodged it easily, however, jumping far back into a long twisting flip to land on the ground a ways in front of her, the grin on his monkey face as insolent as ever. "You know that won't work."

Pure fury stole the black mage's response and she screamed wordlessly, flinging another larger ball of flame at the thief. Burning a trail of smoke toward its target, Gantz still managed to dodge it by a good margin, even rolling away from the explosion as the fireball blasted into a heap of debris. A dusty rockslide rumbled down filling the narrow path between them with bunches of twisted metal and splintered wood. When the dust cleared minutes later, Robin saw that some of it was burning.

With the insolent rodent no longer in sight, Robin knew she couldn't keep on like this. She was as close to losing control as she had ever been.

Suddenly dizzy, the shrouded girl went to one knee trying to force her breathing to calm. The blazing energies within her writhed and strained against her confining will. She was panting when she looked behind her and saw the armored fool, the lesser mage, and the fat old man.

"What do you want!" Robin roared, one hand to her shuddering chest. "We have parted ways!"

Valor spoke sternly. "Even on opposite sides of the world we cannot have parted ways, Robin Magus. The chains of fate have inevitably bound us. You know this is so."

Still breathing heavily, Robin shook her head. "Bound or unbound, it makes no matter! You wretches have slowed me down for the last time!" And she shot out a hand to summon a cone of flame that roared down the narrow corridor.

The girl almost laughed, but shrieked in frustration instead when the smoke cleared and Sana-Lynn Atha stood next to Valor, the hood of her white cloak finally down after three days, ashen staff raised. The protective field of her Shell had stopped Robin's fire from doing any damage.

The black mage lurched forward as pain mounted in her chest, her will unraveling as the raging power within her soul tried fervently to gnaw its way passed her defenses. She was trembling now, her feral fury starting to manifest as a heat haze all around her…

But then she saw them, blazing deep in a shadowy recess beneath the debris next to her, two glowing eyes of epitomizing flame that bored into her very being…

Have you broken your vow to me, little girl?

The voice was a deep shuddering growl seeming to form words only by roughest happenstance. Sweating and shaking, Robin forced her eyes into the depths of the recess to meet that horrid flaming gaze.

I had thought the Crystal had chosen wisely once. Was I a fool to think so, little girl?

The black mage could only stare, her glowing eyes wide as fiery pain lanced through her.

Was I not clear when I said that the Blessing of Fire was rage incarnate? That only a will of adamantium could contain its primal force?

"N-no, my Lord," Robin managed shakily, suddenly gritting her teeth.

Are you truly only the fragile little waif that you seem to be?

"Never," Robin growled, her voice stronger.

Then stand, Robin Magus, and do not let this weakness happen again.

With a roar, Robin stood, flinging her free hand straight up into the sky. All the heat suddenly seemed to be swallowed into her being before an enormous ball of blazing fire formed above the girl's raised hand. As big as Robin itself, the writhing incandescent mass blazed like a miniature sun, causing the others present to shield their eyes from its power. Then with a final furious scream, the black mage launched it into the air. It burned a smoking trail high into the sky, when nearly a hundred feet overhead, it suddenly burst and the resulting explosion was powerful enough to cause the ground below to shudder.

After the shockwave subsided, the black mage dusted off her hat, straightened her tattered black robes and marched up to stand before the other four, since Gantz had finally joined them.

The thief's wary look made Robin smile wickedly, though none of the others could see it under her concealing high collar.

Valor seemed to force his shock away quickly, made of sterner stuff than the thief or the lesser mage. Sana still looked like she was ready to battle a demon then and there.

That display of anxiety made Robin's smile deepen.

Though Valor looked poised to speak, it was the old bearded, barrel of man that spoke first. "So you're the other bloody Chosen, eh? Can you always make fire on a whim?"

The girl didn't bother to respond, gripping her rod.

Valor spoke next. "We need your help Robin Magus."

She laughed wickedly. "Of course you do, fool," and she brushed past him to head down the corridor between heaps of debris.