Scientific Sorcery : Beware of Kittens!

As my torch and candle supply dwindled rapidly, I found myself facing a new challenge: navigating the pitch-black, damp basalt cavern without light. At first, I stumbled and fumbled, my hands outstretched, feeling my way along the damp, cold walls. But necessity, as they say, is the mother of invention.

Over the next few days, I forced myself to adapt. I listened intently to the echoes of my footsteps, the drip of water, the subtle changes in air currents. Slowly, painstakingly, I began to build a mental map of our underground sanctuary.

Stormy, of course, had no such difficulties. Her feline eyes were perfectly adapted to the darkness, and she moved about with an ease that I envied. I focused on keeping her fed, opening jars of preserved meats from our supplies.

When those began to run low, I knew I had to find another solution.

Taking a deep breath, I dove into the frigid cave water, feeling my way along the rocky bottom. It took several attempts, but eventually, I managed to catch a few slippery, blind cave fish with my bare hands, spotting the barely visible, soft glow they emitted in the Astralscope.

Stormy's appreciative purrs made the effort worthwhile.

As the days passed, I turned my attention to life cultivation.

Using the various remotes I had crafted earlier from my gemstones, particularly ones that seemed to optimise organic growth, I began to experiment by sleeping in various areas of the cave.

Soon, strange, luminescent fungi began to sprout, casting an eerie, pale glow throughout the cavern. Vines with leaves that shimmered like starlight crept along the walls and floors.

It seemed that wherever I was, my witchy domain was taking advantage of the location, optimising and improving upon the local plant life.

As I tended to my patches of various bioluminescent fungi and moss on the morning of our 6th day in the cavern, the Farcast orb lit up once more with flashing and bell sound.

As I abandoned my fungi cultivation and went inside of the sleigh, Moonalia's excited face appeared inside the Fastcast orb, her feathers ruffled with enthusiasm. It was bright day, wherever she was and the light of the orb lit up the sleigh’s interior pretty nicely.

I rubbed my chin. I had not considered using the Farcast orb itself as a source of light as I wasn’t sure how long its charge would last.

"Greetings, my noble feline!" Mooni chirped, spotting Stormy who was lounging next to the orb and chewing on a fresh fish. "I have the most excellent news! I've located the perfect, sunniest spot on all of Thornwild for your sunbathing pleasure!”

Stormy perked up.

“It's on a lovely, tropical, nameless island, tagged as Z-04-77-1 located south of the Fern Archipelago. A flying survey team of Lady Xashta spotted it from the air and briefly mapped it for future exploration that never happened as Lady Xashta was imprisoned for tax evasion.”

Stormy nodded along, seemingly satisfied with an offer of her own tropical island.

“According to all of my analyses, it is an exceptionally sunny paradise, meeting all of the requirements of my lady… uhh…”

"Her name is Stormy," I interjected.

Moonalia's beak clicked shut for a moment before she burst into another stream of words. "Yes! My Lady Stormy! A most fitting name! It suits your excellency perfectly. Oh, I can't wait to meet you in person and observe your unique truth-sensing skills and..."

I cleared my throat, trying to steer the conversation back on track. "Did you get the other quests done?”

"Oh yes, yes!" Moonalia nodded vigorously. "I've artificed a marvelous cold-water diving suit, complete with a crystal-powered air recycling system, magically reinforced waterproof leather skin, stardust lamps and deep-pressure equalizers…”

She continued on, far too rapidly delving into minute details about crystal lattices and stardust-controlled fluid dynamics that I could barely follow.

As Moonalia rotated, I noticed a very large, muscular, mustached, bald man with a scowl on his face in the background, his arms crossed as he leaned against a stone arch wall. The man had an enormous wicker basket strapped to his back featuring a simple red seat cushion.

"And who's that?" I asked, pointing to the man.

Moonalia glanced back. "Oh, that's Gregor, the flying Champion I've secured for my journey North. Juvamshi ushai, Gregor!"

The man grunted in response, his scowl deepening.

"He's not much for conversation," Moonalia explained. "Or flying fast. But, he can fly I was told, so there’s that! He only reached seven hundred stars a few months ago. He's quite cheap… the best I could get using all of my savings and three loans that I had to take out from three separate Selachix agencies.”

“Selachix?” I asked.

“Selachix Arcanicx,” Mooni nodded rapidly as she strapped a massive leather backpack with her things to Gregor’s front. “Loan sharks!”

Guess even the Arcanicx have banks, loans, taxes and other misc financial systems. I thought.

"Oh, the Selachix are fascinating creatures!” Moonalia interpreted my silence as an inquiry. “They hail from Aquariux, but they have plenty of Aquariux-Bank and Selachix Savings and Loan Agencies through Iridium. Aquariux city mints all of the stardust-infused coin and mage-chips, which they fish from the ocean. See, ordinarily I wouldn’t be able to afford a flying champion, on account of how poor I am, but the key to taking out three loans all at once lies in clever triangulation of distance between each agency, running really fast, and the time each would take to file each loan claim into the Aquariux accounting net. Technically that many loans at once is not supposed to be given out to a single Arcanicx. You know, I've always wanted to study a Selachix mind up close, but they're notoriously aggressive and..."

I noticed Gregor's scowl deepening as Moonalia's chatter continued unabated. The muscular man shifted uncomfortably as Mooni hung more bags on him.

"Mooni," I interrupted, "is Gregor listening to all of this? Should you be ranting about your bank loan machinations around him?”

She blinked, seeming to remember her surroundings. "Oh! No, no. You and I are speaking Nordstaii, see? Gregor is a simple boy who only knows enough Castian to follow basic commands from me or his Sky-Line Agency Mistresses. This is your new, temporary Master, Fly here, land there, that sort of thing. He can't understand a word we're saying. Also, we’re at one of the old, unmaintained takeoff towers, ain't nobody here. I sure as hell can’t afford the takeoff breakfast of Champions.”

The Corvix waved a feathered hand at the arched windows behind her. The top of the tower they were occupying was indeed looking a bit decrepit. I nodded, feeling relieved that our conversation wasn't being overheard.

"Speaking of communication, how long can this Farcast orb stay on? I've been worried about using it too much and draining its power,” I said.

“Ah, ah! That! Yes! Forever!" she exclaimed, gold eyes flashing with exuberant excitement. "Well, theoretically. I designed it myself for Cali with a super-stable matrix packed with stardust. It draws energy from the Astral itself, you see, chomps on any Astral fungi nearby. The crystalline structure is arranged in a dodecahedral pattern that maximizes energy absorption while minimizing..."

“Keep it on then,” I said in a tiny pause in her explanatory rant.

“Oh, oh!” Mooni clinked her steel-covered talons. “You like listening to me that much? My other friends don’t like listening to me. Cali purposefully optimized the calls between us to ‘once a month base report’, on the account that my talking sometimes gives her a migraine.”

Stormy squinted at Mooni.

“Sorry, sorry, that’s a lie!” Mooni backtracked. “Lies aren’t allowed. My bad! Not sometimes. Most times. All the time. Whenever we hang out she tends to smack me upside the head because I don’t shut up otherwise. Is it normal for best friends to smack each other while berating the lesser with harsh words? Now that I think about it, I probably don’t have any friends. This fact would be incredibly depressing if I hadn’t found the most valuable man-gem in the universe.”

The Corvix finished securing all of her things to Gregor and yelled something in his ear in Castian. The man nodded and spread his arms wide as Mooni jumped into the basket behind him. With a sudden burst of energy, blood-red wings erupted from his hands, unfurling to an impressive span.

Moonalia yelped in surprise as Gregor took off, the force of his ascent nearly knocking her off her red cushion. She clung to the wicker handholds with her talons, trembling as Gregor rose higher and higher into the sky.

“Eep,” Mooni whimpered, covering her face with her black and white feathers. “I’m sweating and shaking. Higher order Corvix, like some others, are permitted to glide freely across the skies. They make it look so easy, so effortless. But me?" She paused, her eyes darting to the vast, open sky and then quickly away, as if the very sight was enough to ignite her nerves. "I don’t get out enough, I suppose."

I watched through the orb as Mooni and Gregor soared away from the crumbling tower, Iridium's sprawling cityscape shrinking beneath, the view somewhat blocked by black and white feathers.

“Oh, sorry, sorry,” Mooni rapidly tapped her beak with her talons. “Just give me a moment. I am defining my… uhm, Aviophobia to cut it away from the forefront of my thoughts. Almost… almost… there.”

She suddenly straightened up and raised the orb up above the basket, still wincing and trembling ever so slightly.

"See how from the distance the city looks like a giant star? Corvix Architect Lidia Calvira, my great, great, great, great aunt was one of the Coven of Architects who designed the magical fortifications so that the walls could withstand even the strongest wildling Champion attacks. The raised star is actually a supermassive hexagram, being fed blood from the five Great Coliseums in each corner. This way, the strength of the walls and fortifications is perpetually reinforced with spilled blood of our Champions… Oh, isn’t it magnificent! Look at those spires! And there, at the edge of the Castian Sea, is the Aquariux district - see how the blue canals glitter? Those white dots down there are transit ships moving constantly between the Ring Cities! Oh, and over there, that's where I live - the Corvix Assembly Nest. Well, where I used to live, I suppose, since I've sort of bet everything on this trip…”

It was clear that she was still quite nervous, but was somehow mentally adjusting herself to fight the fear of being flown on a man’s back in a rickety basket filled with far too many holes. As she rambled on, I couldn't help but feel a touch of sympathy for the Corvix. Despite her incessant chatter and questionable ethics, there was something endearing about her unbridled enthusiasm of trying to tell me as much as possible about everything.

“But that doesn’t matter, right?” Mooni twinkled. “Cus I’m going to touch a shiny rock pe… err… er… shiny Builder Artifact! Yes.”

Her excitement at the prospect of meeting me seemed born out of a deep loneliness as much as scientific curiosity. I wondered how much allegiance this Corvix actually held to her Felix Arcanicx Masters.

"You know, Ioan," she continued, yellow eyes examining my expression, "I've never actually left Iridium before. Corvix aren't really supposed to, uh, leave… you see. We're meant to stay in our workshops nests, tinkering away at whatever we’re told to tinker with. But I've always wondered what's out there, beyond the city’s great towers and walls. Some nights, I used to sneak up to the highest towers just to catch a glimpse of the horizon, dreaming about what it would be like to fly. When Cali was in a good mood or had to file a report, she’d tell me stories of her grand adventures, of many shiny things she found and got to touch… and I'd imagine what it would be like to see those places for myself, to be just a bit more… like her and less like me.”