An Unbound Soul

"Hey! Hurry up!" complained Chloe, bouncing from foot to foot in her excitement. "We're going to be laaaaate!"

"No we aren't. There are still two hours until the race starts," I pointed out.

"Yes, but the garages are already open! The other competitors will already be arriving!"

"Only because most competitors don't have a dad with [Dimensional Storage] and need some prep time to get set up once they arrive. I can just teleport your jet racer whole."

"That's not the point! Or... umm... I mean, that's the entire point! I need to see the other competitors preparing their racers. Maybe there are some ideas I can borrow, or maybe I'll spot a weakness I can exploit!"

"Just teleport her over before she explodes," giggled Cluma. "You can come back for me in an hour or so. I'll make sure Catherine is ready."

"Hah. Thanks for taking the hard jobs," I said, ruffling the hair of my wife with one hand while I scritched the ears of Catherine—who was firmly clamped to Cluma's tummy and still in her pyjamas—with the other.

"Hehe," giggled our toddler, still half asleep.

"Come on, then, Chloe. Let's get you and your box of bolts over to the Scar."

"Box of bolts?! Box. Of. Bolts?!"

"Your very fast moving box of bolts?" I tried as Cluma made her escape from our suddenly explosive daughter by the simple procedure of turning invisible.

"Daaaaad!" Chloe complained.

I grinned shamelessly. Wasn't it the prerogative of a parent to wind up their children? Of course, doing so also came with the downside of having to deal with wound up children, so the trick was to strike a careful balance.

"He's doing it on purpose," called Charles from his bedroom. "Just ignore him."

Despite how long ago my time on Earth had been, it was still a little jarring when people randomly joined in conversations from completely different parts of the house. Human hearing sucked compared to catkin, so in our home, physical proximity wasn't a conversational necessity.

"Do you want to come with us now, or will you come later?" I asked him, not even bothering to raise my voice, because I knew damn well he could hear me.

"Later. I have no desire to spend two hours listening to Chloe over-analyse every pipe and gear owned by the other racers, even the ones not actually attached to anything."

Chloe pouted, then poked her tongue out in the direction of Charles's bedroom, which seemed a little pointless to me. While I knew any of us could hear a normal volume conversation anywhere in the house, unless Charles had invented a way of fooling [Eye of Judgement], I knew he had no skills capable of peering around corners.

Nevertheless, [Mana Perspicacity] showed him poke his tongue out right back, because the siblings knew each other well enough that sight wasn't necessary to know what they were thinking.

"What are you laughing at?" complained Chloe when the thought made me snigger.

"Nothing. Come on, let's get you to the racetrack before you miss any juicy intelligence."

With her racer already in my storage, it took no more than an effort of will to invoke [Fabric Shift] on my daughter and myself. The pair of us blinked out of existence from our home outside Dawnhold, and reappeared outside a large, open gate. A sign on it declared this to be the 'Scar Automotive Racing Track', the locals not yet having come up with a catchy name for this new sport. Another, rather more colourful sign beneath, advertised the track's inaugural race, with today's date stamped on top.

I wasn't quite sure why. It wasn't as if the Scar had passing traffic, so the only people who'd ever see the advertisement were people who were already visiting the racetrack.

'Automotive' was a bit of a misnomer, anyway. As Charles had repeatedly pointed out, it was technically accurate, in that they raced things that moved under their own power, but 'automotive' to me invoked images of Earth cars. Internal combustion engines, four wheels, and sleek, aerodynamic designs. The devices that people raced here bore as much resemblance to a car as a car did to a turnip.

Calling Chloe's vehicle a jet racer was no exaggeration, but 'missile' might have actually been more accurate. It was certainly sleek and aerodynamic, but that's where the commonality ended with a conventional race car. The thing was bullet-shaped, a golden cylinder a few metres long, but only half a metre in diameter at its widest, with a curved nose and no wheels. The driver lay flat in the front half. The rear half was occupied by concentric rings of fire and air crystals, with complex mana circuitry keeping the thing aerodynamically stable and a fixed half-metre from the floor as it flew. And fly it did. Far, far faster than I could run without relying on skills, which on Earth wouldn't have been saying much, but back on Earth I hadn't had triple-digit dexterity. Had [Weft Walk] not evolved to [Timeless World], even that wouldn't have let me keep up.

There was no predefined method of propulsion required for the race, and other vehicles used magical motors of various designs. Vargalas had entered a few times with his lightning-crystal powered motor. Grover had entered every single year in a vehicle driven by his fire-crystal powered facsimile of an internal combustion engine. A demon mage from the Obsidian Spires had once entered with a big stone sphere engraved with a ridiculously complicated spatial enchantment that simply shifted the entire construct through space. That had caused some consternation among the judges, who had spent the entire afternoon arguing about its legality, since the 'vehicle' wasn't actually moving and was simply rearranging the universe around itself to give the appearance of movement. It was obvious that teleportation wasn't allowed, and a conventional engine was, but the cut-off point between the two remained a matter of some debate.

I had to admit, no-one was content simply relying on System enchantments anymore, and the results were awesome.

It was also bloody dangerous... The thought that a child of mine would soon be whizzing along at hundreds of miles an hour in a giant magical rocket was utterly terrifying, but Cluma had pointed out the hypocrisy that would be involved if I banned Chloe from participating, given what I'd got up to in my youth. I now had a far greater respect for what I put my own parents through, back when I first started dungeon delving.

"Okay, tell me where you want me to drop it," I said, then realised I was talking to myself because Chloe had already run off while I was busy reminiscing. "... Or not," I sighed. I spotted her over at another team, who were tinkering with something that looked like a small catamaran. A catamaran seemed like an odd choice in what was effectively a desert, but again, magic. For all I knew, the thing had a row of water crystals at the front and would sail its way around the track, the desert be damned.

"Oh, look who it is," came a gruff voice from beneath a vehicle that was vaguely car shaped, to the extent that it even had tires, a steering wheel and somewhere for the driver to sit while they steered. It did have a bonnet that was five times the length of the rest of the car, with over a hundred separate tubes poking out of it, though. [Mana Perspicacity] showed that each one was connected to an individual fire crystal. Pretty meaty ones, too, judging by the swirls of mana.

"Decided to try for more power?" I asked, recognising the thing for what it was, which was obvious even without its accompanying gruff voice; one of Grover's creations. Thankfully, he'd largely finished with the explosive phase he'd gone through when I'd first introduced him to Earth technology, and was now in a speed-fiend phase. Alas, there was more to these races than acceleration and speed.

"Yup. A hundred and twenty eight perfectly linked cylinders. She drives as smooth as butter."

"Does she? And what happens if you turn the steering wheel while running at top speed?"

"Absolutely nothing," declared Grover proudly. "It's a new safety feature; the steering column unlinks above a preset threshold velocity, so you can't accidentally tear the wheels off by turning the steering wheel while running above safe speeds."

"... There is so much wrong with that sentence that I don't even know where to begin," I sighed.

"Well, obviously she's not at her best on a course like this," agreed Grover, still beneath his dangerous construction.

"What, you mean a course with corners?"

"No, it's the ash surface. Even the best tires can't get a decent grip."

Deciding to end the conversation there, while I still had some grip remaining on my sanity, I wandered off to find Chloe's designated bay and deposit her racer. She was still busy collecting intelligence on her opponents by the cunning strategy of simply asking them all very nicely about their designs. It shouldn't have worked, Law or no Law, but she was just so genuinely interested that people couldn't seem to help themselves but brag about every last piece of innovation. The child had somehow picked up all the social skills of Cluma without any of the accompanying hugs.

By the time she returned, it was almost time for me to pick up the rest of the family.

"Well, what's the competition like?" I asked.

"Hmm... Most of them haven't accounted fully for the deep layer of ash all over the track. It's not just people with unsuitable wheels, but things like dust filters on the air intakes. I definitely don't want to be hanging around behind Dan's team; I'd bet a week's worth of chores that it overheats and explodes at some point in the first lap."

"So you think you have a good chance of winning?" I asked, having no idea who Dan was and which of the deadly constructs belonged to his team.

"Maybe?" answered Chloe, her face a mask of deadly seriousness. "The one over there that looks like two ships stuck together is an interesting design. Instead of floating, it has a pair of 'hulls' that cut through the ash. There are some really snazzy enchantments on it to reduce friction, so my flying design won't have much of a drag advantage, and with something solid to push against, theirs is going to corner far better than mine. It depends what their speed and acceleration are like. Even if they do beat me today, though, no way are they going to take the championship. That design would never work on a solid surface."

"I see you've put a lot of thought into this..."

"Of course," she pouted. "Just because it's my hobby doesn't mean I don't intend to win."

I could have sworn the local civilization had grown more competitive over the years of my life. Perhaps it was the result of improved research into the most efficient ways of levelling skills, but I couldn't help but suspect it had started before then. Maybe even before the delvers' guild tournaments, when I'd convinced the guild to keep a stock of board games for intelligence boosting purposes.

"Well, if you do, I'll pop to the great dungeon to bag you a high level monster core as a reward."

"I appreciate the gesture, but even a level one-hundred monster core is so massively limited in the rate of mana withdrawal that it would be inferior to the enchanted mana battery I currently use for power."

"... You're supposed to eat it, not plumb it into your jet racer."

Chloe blinked. "Oh. Right."

I giggled as I bestowed upon her the traditional head pats. "Just have fun out there, and stay safe."

"Yes, Dad," sighed my daughter, as if me worrying about her safety was some great hardship. "I've got my enchanted stat rings and my fire resistant racing suit, and an endurance potion ready for when we kick off, even though wisdom would be far more useful. You just need to cast [Endurance] on me and I'll be set. Now, don't you need to go pick up Mum?"

Because who needed safety helmets when you could just boost your endurance high enough to smash brick walls with your skull? Alas, stat enchantments and potions were limited by the rank of the user, but we could make up for that by combining multiple discreet sources. Getting outside help to boost endurance wasn't considered cheating, and I'd been asked to cast it on all the competitors, on account of having the spell at level twenty, giving a bigger boost and letting it last longer between refreshes.

Of course, crashing a rocket travelling at hundreds of miles an hour was somewhat harder on skulls than a simple headbutt of a brick wall, and Chloe was still rather low levelled, so I insisted she wear a helmet regardless of what everyone else was doing, much to her chagrin. She wasn't wearing it yet—it was waiting in the cockpit of her racer—but she was wearing an enchanted bodysuit she'd had specially made for these races. It bore many similarities to my old delver armour, except that it lacked any of the armour plating. Its job was to keep her alive in case the racer crashed or exploded, rather than defend against high-level monsters trying to carve her heart out.

Over the top of it, she wore a set of overalls. Unlike any Earth mechanic worth their salt, hers were almost completely clean. With grease and oil replaced by comfort enchantments, and fuel by magic crystals, sources of dirt and grime were remarkably few and far between. That left the primary job of the overalls as simple pocket space, rather than protection for her racing suit beneath.

"Yes, I do. Be right back," I declared, then invoked [Fabric Shift].

I blinked when a couple more faces than I expected warped into view. "Mum? Dad?" I asked, rather surprised. "You didn't say you were coming. I thought it was just Darren."

"Your father insisted," sighed Mum.

"I have no idea why you're so unenthusiastic," complained Darren, our family [Pyromaniac]. "Don't you want to see what happens when a carefully controlled fire crystal based mechanism gets clogged up with fine dust?"

"No," answered Mum. "Nor do most normal people. Why is no-one in this family normal?"

"Hey!" complained Charles.

"Oh, come on. It's your granddaughter," said Dad. "It's your duty to watch."

Mum sighed in exasperation. "We all know it's not your granddaughter you want to see."

"... You're hoping something explodes," I guessed. "Darren's supposed to be the [Pyromaniac], not you."

Dad shrugged. "Explosions, crashes, Vargalas accidentally electrocuting half the audience again. These races are never boring."

"Well, that last one certainly won't happen; Vargalas wasn't there."

"Pity," sighed Darren.

"I suppose he might just be running late. But, if it helps, Grover has built something containing over a hundred rank four or five fire crystals, and I didn't see any sort of air filters on it."

Darren's face visibly brightened. Despite long since reaching adulthood, sometimes I worried that my little brother had barely grown from the baby we'd needed to rush to Dawnhold to stop him burning down the village. Thankfully, Chloe's machine relied on air crystals and had no intakes at all. It wouldn't be suffering any ash-related mishaps. At least not directly. With the amount of ash that was going to get kicked up, I was worried about visibility.

"It seems that everyone's ready," stated Charles. "Since our transport has arrived, let's go watch a bunch of people go nowhere at very high speeds, potentially exploding in the process."

I resisted the urge to giggle again. Despite his choice of words and his monotone delivery, his rigid tail and perky ears meant that he wasn't fooling anyone. Unlike the others, I didn't feel the urge to tease him about it, not because he couldn't take it, but rather because he tended to give as good as he got. I didn't want him regaling stories of my latest mishaps to my parents.

I glanced at Cluma for confirmation, and she gave a nod. Catherine was still attached to her, in exactly the same position as I'd left her and still just as sleepy, and yet she'd changed from pyjamas to a light blue, one-piece dress with cute little sandals. I was never quite sure how Cluma managed the feat; I'd have needed to pry her off and employ force, which would leave the toddler grumpy for hours. Although, despite her expertise, I did note the outfit was rather low effort. It was the same sort of thing Clana used to dress Cluma up in as a child, when she woke in an energetic mood and wanted to get outdoors as quickly as possible.

... Admittedly, every day was a day in which Cluma woke up in an energetic mood, so simple one-piece dresses had been her usual style of clothing.

Charles was doing his usual edgy teenager impression, and the only reason he wasn't wearing ripped jeans was because no-one had got around to inventing denim. His black t-shirt displayed a full-colour image of some sort of demon metal band, yelling into enchanted voice projectors against a background of lightning and flames.

"Huh? Is something wrong?" asked Cluma as I realised what I'd just thought and my face twisted up in response to the age-related existential horror.

"Yes. I just realised how old I am. Charles? When we get back, I need to borrow some of the music of whoever that band is on your t-shirt. And then you need to tell me who they are."

Charles blinked. "Mum? I think Dad might be ill."

"Sheesh. If you think you're old, what does that make me?" asked my dad, as Mum suppressed a snort of laughter.

"Older," I answered simply. "Okay, let's get out of here before I get ganged up on. Teleport in three... two... one..."

The world shifted, and our party of seven joined Chloe in her designated bay.

"Granny! Gramps! Uncle Darren!" she shouted. "Did you all come to watch?"

Dad staggered backward, the 'gramps' label comboing with my own jab at him and dealing critical damage. He'd never quite admitted his age, despite having grandchildren who were nearly old enough to be having children of their own.

"Yes, we did," said Mum, smiling.

"Well, you did, but I'm not sure your use of 'we' is accurate," pointed out Charles, ever the [Pedant]. "Uncle Darren is hoping something explodes, and Grandad is hoping for some good crashes."

Chloe grinned. "I imagine all three of you will get what you came for, then, but now that everyone's here, Dad, can you move my racer to the starting grid?"

Some of the eddies of mana running through it had changed subtly since I'd left, so Chloe had obviously made a last-minute adjustment of some sort, although what she'd done in the time available I couldn't say. I tapped the machine, and it vanished into my [Dimensional Storage].

Chloe pulled off her overalls and tossed them to the side of the bay, leaving her in the white racing suit she'd had on underneath, then equipped her neck brace and helmet. "I hate this thing. I can barely turn my head," she complained. "No-one else wears them."

"Most of the other competitors are over rank two, and those that aren't have racers that are less... uh..."

"Ballistic," chimed in Cluma.

"Yes, that," I agreed.

"On the contrary," pointed out Charles. "A ballistic racer would have no means of steering, while Chloe's jet racer is actually quite manoeuvrable. In fact, it has a turning circle of under a hundred units even at top speed."

This time, it was Chloe's turn to express surprise. "How do you know that? You've never been interested."

"I'm not, but I do like to make sure that if I'm going to engage in a topic of conversation, I at least know what I'm talking about."

"Oh. So you aren't interested in taking it out for a spin?"

"... No," lied Charles, which was actually quite impressive. While lying wasn't strictly banned under the Law, it wasn't something that someone could do for no reason. That was some serious dedication he must have to his image.

"Pity."

"Me! I fly!" interrupted Catherine, detaching an entire arm from Cluma in order to wave it around and attract attention..

Cluma giggled. "Maybe when you're a little bigger."

"Hmm... I wonder if I can build a miniaturised model," pondered Chloe. "A lower power toy for children."

"Much lower power," I chided. "But think about that later. For now, shouldn't you be concentrating on this race?"

"Oh! Right! To the starting grid!"

Our entire group moved over to the box that delineated Chloe's starting position. Painting onto ash seemed like a silly idea to me, but here in the Scar, even the air was dead. There was no wind to stir the ash, and the painted white lines gleamed as brightly as when they'd been drawn.

Another invocation of [Dimensional Storage], and Chloe's missile popped back out, causing some dark muttering from our surrounding competitors, who were struggling to carry their own machines, or wheeling them on trolleys, or in some cases simply driving them very slowly. Chloe clicked a latch on the nose of hers, causing a long panel to spring upright and provide access. "Right. See you at the finish line," she beamed, graciously accepting her good luck hugs from Cluma before climbing in, lying flat with her head at the nose.

"This is the finish line," pointed out Charles, because of course he did.

"No, this is the starting line," argued back Chloe. "Can someone close the hatch, please?"

"They're both the same line!" complained Charles as I pulled the panel back down and locked it in place. Chloe grinned madly through the small windscreen, the competitive spirit she held for these races bubbling up to the point of overflowing now that it was about to start.

"Would all guests please move back behind the safety barriers," called one of the officials. "Green flag in ten minutes."

There came a series of clicks and bangs as the various racers powered up. Chloe's began humming dangerously, the rear exhaust taking on a dull red glow.

The guests—my family included—moved towards the barriers with an alacrity such that 'fled' might have been more appropriate. Being associated with one of the competitors, we had seats in the raised stands, commanding a decent view over the entire track. Alas, there was no stat that assisted with eyesight, so the action would be a little small at the more distant sections. No-one had got around to inventing television cameras yet, alas, but there were a number of illusionists spaced out, ready to magnify and project anything particularly interesting high into the air.

Watching the rest of the crowds milling around below—flowing out of portals and lining up at the edge of the track—made me wish portals weren't opaque, or I could just open a few and use them for remote viewing. If I really wanted, I could teleport around to track Chloe, but that didn't help the rest of the family.

"So, what are her chances?" asked Cluma.

"She seemed to think she'd end up near the top, but she thought that boat-like one had a good chance of winning," I explained, pointing at the catamaran, which had indeed sunk into the ash. Stupid cheating magic. You shouldn't be able to sail in ash. No, not sail, because it wasn't wind powered. Swim? What was the verb for a boat moving through water?

"There's no point in making predictions," said Charles. "These races are chaotic enough that anything could happen. The objectively 'best' racer is rarely the winner."

"Of course. That's most of the fun," agreed Darren.

"I disagree," sighed Charles. "Driving skill and ingenious design should be rewarded, not dumb luck."

"It's not as bad as you make out," I said. "When they're all bunched up, it's easy for one racer to have an accident that takes out others, but that only really happens at the start. After a few laps, they'll be spaced out a bit."

"Anyone want a sandwich?" asked Mum, skilfully interrupting the argument. "I made plenty."

We all peered at her as she held up a jam sandwich and waved it around. Unlike Dad and his fear of being a grandad, she'd taken to the role of grandma swimmingly.

"Yes!" exclaimed Catherine, and then she actually detached from Cluma, clambered over my lap and into Mum's, where she relimpeted.

"Wow. Those sandwiches are mighty indeed," I grinned, following up with a yelp when Cluma yanked my tail.

"Be nice," she chided.

"They should sort the starting positions by speed, rather than randomly," opined Charles, accidentally taking the first step towards reinventing formula one qualifying sessions. "It would make the first few laps far less chaotic. Less need to overtake, and they'd spread out quicker."

"No, they definitely should not do that," objected Darren. "It would make the first few laps far less chaotic."

"You're a bad influence on your little niece," sighed Mum.

"Urk... Don't remind me I'm an uncle..." moaned Darren, the latest to suffer an oh-damn-I'm-actually-old episode. "Nope. I refuse to believe it. I'm spiritually fourteen, and shall remain so forever."

Charles blinked. "That's so stupid I actually have no idea how to correct it, and so I am going to eat a sandwich instead. Granny?"

Mum grinned and handed one over.

"One minute!" called an announcer.

"And as for me... I'll be right back," I said, the one minute signal being my cue to put a bit of work in. A quick invocation of [Fabric Shift] to teleport myself back to the starting grid, a use of [Soul Perception] and [Mana Perspicacity] to lock onto every competitor, even those hiding inside shells of thick metal, and then rapid fire blasts of [Endurance] to hit them all. The entire process took a few seconds, after which I shifted neatly back into my seat, grinning smugly.

"Show off," sighed Charles.

"Oh? You think that was impressive?" asked Darren, holding up a hand.

"Dad being a show off does not preclude you being a bigger show off," quickly responded Charles, even though I was fairly sure Darren wouldn't do something insane like cast rank five fire magic in the middle of a crowded area.

Darren grinned even more smugly than me.

"You two aren't half brothers," Charles sighed.

""Wait, what?"" me and Darren both exclaimed in perfect synchronisation.

Everyone burst out laughing, with the sole exception of Catherine, who wasn't quite old enough to get the joke.

"Ten... Nine..." started the announcer, which we unanimously took as the sign to stop bantering and shut up.

The humming from the racers took on a more urgent tone. Reds brightened as a heat haze rose from the track. A few tongues of flame licked at the exhausts of some of the machines.

"Two... One..."