To Fly the Soaring Tides

I followed the trail, and it seemed that fiend had took her under the water. I could feel my barrier supplied from her aura, but it was weak and unfocused. Somehow, I could tell she could no longer see me, but the trail of aether unmistakably led beneath the waves.

What do I do… I can’t just go down there and look for her. I’m not like Eros and Lero, and I’m not a powerful enough sorcerer to ignore the need to breathe. Do I just have to wait here uselessly?

The storm above seemed to have lost its vigor, but I had already been waiting at least five minutes. Was she wounded and adrift? There wasn’t anything I could do, especially in this place, to help her.

I started to get truly scared. I wouldn’t even know where to begin with how to get out of here, and at this point, I have no idea where we started. If Cira were lost… I could spend the rest of my life in here. It would be painfully short if I could only fish for a mile of food at a time, and I would have to swim everywhere…

I noticed a wave of power and the water glowed bright cerulean even in the sun. Mana trembled as something approached. It gave me flashbacks of when Undina decided to speak with us, and then blonde hair poked through the waves.

“Phew.” She dramatically wiped sweat that didn’t exist off her face, “Glad I found you. If that thing hadn’t dragged me so deep, it would have been a much tougher fight.”

“You… you beat it?” Since she mentioned it, thunder seemed to have slowed down. No longer a constant firecracker, but a mere raging storm. “How?”

Cira gave me a thumbs up, black lightning swirling around her hand. “I call it void lightning. Think about it. Made of shadows, which are like a void of light, but I made it lightning, so it’s basically like a void of lightning now, right? I’m totally classifying it as an emergent element. Worked like a charm, but that thing was absurdly powerful. I had to rely on my undine powers to form a domain and just dump egregious amounts of mana into it. Luckily, my aura is egregiously abundant these days.”

Her… undine powers? I’ll never have those… but, “Why haven’t you taught me how to form a domain yet? I could have helped you fight the storm fiend if I knew how…”

Cira smirked, “Storm fiend huh? I was thinking the same thing. Perhaps you are a natural sorcerer.” A grin played on her face, “Okay. It will have to be wind unless you think you can avoid burning yourself without the scepter.”

“Oh…” Just like that? Because I came up with a good name, she thinks I’m worthy of advanced sorcery? “It will probably have to be wind, then…”

“Great. Consider the space around you the range of your reservoir. You have until we reach the shores of Paradise to extend your actual reservoir to entirely encompass yourself.” With a chuckle, she flew ahead of me.

Are we really… about to find Paradise? I could see the island sitting just above the horizon without even using my spyglass now. It glinted in the sun, and I held out my hand like I was grasping a gold nugget.

I realized Cira was not moving me with her but continued rather quickly regardless. It was up to me, apparently, to push myself along with my own wind and catch up, making it that much harder to focus on my supposed domain.

A violent breeze blew past my face as Cira surely let me catch up eventually. Lightning struck us from above, but it was much weaker. No match at all for her barrier. The thunder seemed almost timid. I still kept my eyes and ears open in case something new popped up.

“Do you think there’s another guardian?” I asked when we were close enough.

“I actually don’t think so. Not in front of us at least.” Cira wore a complicated expression. Like she was reminiscing about something. “That storm fiend felt like the last one.”

We weren’t going as fast as earlier, probably so as not to leave me behind, and the island was getting a little closer. The storm had broken enough that many more rays of light began to shine through, more so the closer we got to Paradise.

Cira let out a sigh in relief, staring at the sky, “Good old altostratus. We’re in the clear.”

“Huh…?”

I didn’t get it, but it almost looked like the storm was being torn apart by the wind.

“Were you not paying attention?” Cira pursed her lips in frustration, “The sky will soon return to normal. Can’t you feel the electricity dissipating as we speak? It’s safe to say we have overcome the challenge. Now all that awaits is to see the conclusion to this poor mage’s tragedy, which conveniently glimmers in the sunlight.”

Did I miss something…?

“Did you learn something new? I thought you were just fighting that creature beneath the waves.”

Cira chuckled, “I am missing all the details, but our mage was once quite prominent. Evidently, he does not come from an age where everyone was powerful enough to conjure their own realm, as I was worried would be the case. Despite this, he found himself in a position of utter, unrecoverable betrayal. Everything he once knew was shrouded in dark clouds not of his own making, but by design of those who wished to see him fall. I do not believe they were strong enough even together to destroy him, but like relentless strikes of lightning, this realm’s creator could not bear the wrath of the entire sky.

“I do not yet know how he died, but his soul was much more broken than mine. And I also do not know why he was betrayed. I suspect we’ll have much time to mull it over once we reach the shores, and unless there’s another island, that’s surely where we’ll find our answers.”

She was fighting the storm fiend deep underwater… right? How did all of this bring her to that conclusion? If I were alone, I would have thought I was teleported to the sea with a bunch of random monsters thrown at me. But she can practically tell me this mages life story? Do I even have what it takes to be a sorcerer?

No matter my ignorance, a monolithic hunk of solid gold only grew larger in my eyes.

“Well, I’m ready for some answers, and if they’re supposed to come in time… perhaps I’m thinking too hard.”

“I guarantee it.” My wise master said, “the key to sorcery is not thinking hard, but thinking decisively. In fact, thinking too hard is frowned upon and widely considered poor form.”

“Is… is that right?”

Thinking decisively? I guess that means, thinking and believing without doubt? It sounds simple when said like that, but… in practice, how am I supposed to not be concerned… about anything in my path? Nothing is ever easy. That’s life. But to think and act correctly first try every time… How does she speak of such a feat so casually? For one, doesn’t she make mistakes all the time?

“Indeed. Would you like to see an example?” Cira’s extravagant mithril sun disk that followed her as if she forgot about it again lit up as she waved her hand and thunder roared. It was more like a death rattle though, as the clouds dispersed, seeming to get sucked upward like the heavens pulled them away, leaving scarce spots of darkness across the brilliant azure sky. “Now, you who aims to establish a wind domain, tell me what I just did.”

“Wait…” Was I… supposed to learn something there? “I… what…?”

Cira looked to the sky, then exhaled… slowly… It took a few moments before she looked me in the eyes, “Okay… Perhaps you were merely training the last couple months, but consider that your skills will only go so far without comprehension. You should know a great deal about wind, and understand that it has an incredibly vital roll to play in the weather and flow of the sky. You should know by this point that wind is among the highest authorities of primary elements, right?”

“…right… Of course. Who doesn’t know that? I just don’t understand how you… destroyed the storm with a gesture like you were shooing a dog. Couldn’t you have done that earlier?” This better not all be for a lesson.

“I could attempt to destroy everything in my path in theory, drawing upon the mana within this place, but for what? It is only natural I should seek this realm’s meaning. Perhaps the storm would have been far more intense if I decided to burn up everything on the way here, but whatever will crafted this storm is now exhausted. The storm itself was just a trial—a taste of what he endured, but his building rage almost seemed to feed on it to create that fiend. Not sure what that’s about or what the fiend represented… but once I returned his grudge to the aether, the entire storm lost its strength. My point is, shooing away regular storm clouds is not difficult.”

“That’s your point…?” I narrowed my gaze as I desperately tried to remember what I was trying to figure out— “Wait. How did you do it, though?”

“Oh. I just created a zone of extraordinarily low pressure far above us by turning most of the air into mana. My aura grows while the wind does the work.” While I pondered the absurdity and undeniable effectiveness of her methods, she gasped and held up a finger as if she forgot something, “Don’t try copying it until you’re at least a sorcerer of intermediate caliber. That’s what I am. Suffocating someone would be the best case scenario, where you could drop a ship from the sky or even spur some kind of natural disaster a few islands away.”

She’s only an intermediate sorcerer…?

Cira pulled out her golden spyglass and seemed to be thinking about something.

“I think we’re close enough.” She turned to me with a grin, “Would you take my hand for a moment?”

“What—why?” I did as instructed because it didn’t sound like a trick and then heard the deafening crackle of lightning before my world turned black. Everything seemed to fall away, even my thoughts, but in a brief instant I had returned. It was like I was underwater, or the air was pushing in on me and my ears popped painfully. I let out an embarrassing cry as I hardly held back from stumbling to the ground, catching myself with my hand. It was warm, and the sun’s reflection hurt my eyes. “What… What did you do?”

I stood up on solid ground and turned around to see the open sky above. The sea couldn’t have been even a hundred feet below us. Such low islands were rare, but then again it must have been crafted with a deliberate hand—out of solid gold I might add.

When I swiveled my head around over the rolling hills of, ahem, solid gold, a breath caught in my chest. All of a sudden, my heart was beating wildly. We were really standing on an island of gold. There was a rock at my feet and I picked it up. Rather, I struggled to pick up a chunk of gold the size of a small melon while Cira giggled watching me.

Once it was hoisted to my chest I realized I couldn’t just put it in my pocket. I sort of just held it there straining myself for a second until Cira burst out laughing.

“You’re not just going to carry it around until we return are you?”

“So, what if I am?!” I turned so as to hide it from her, “You can’t stop me.”

We both laughed and I tossed it to the ground, which bore a small dent as my misshapen treasure rolled away.

“I can’t believe this place is real, though… They could turn a rock like that into hundreds of gold crowns, I bet, but it’s nothing compared to… to all this.” I marveled at the gold hills, golden plains before us, and cove of pure gold at our backs.

“It’s kind of weird how there’s no plants, though. I mean, it makes sense, but you know?” Cira’s eyes seemed more inquisitive than my own which were filled with wonder and maybe a little greed. “More importantly,” She nudged her head toward the nearby hillside, “Come with me.”

I was still reeling from apparently turning into… void lightning? It was a similar feeling to dropping altitudes rapidly, and my body was only just recovering from the disorientation. At least she didn’t ask me to take her hand this time.

My ears perked up to the sound of running water beyond the hill as I followed behind. On one hand I was surprised to see her walking after all the things she said about how stupid foot travel was, and then she opened her mouth.

“You know, cresting a hill has always been an important part of any journey.” … “Once we reach the peak, what do you think we will discover?”

This was typical Cira, really. “A river? I know you’re always one to stay hydrated… Are you simply thirsty?”

She gave me a smug grin, “I am indeed thirsty, but have you forgotten where we are?” My eyes went wide as I watched a river of golden froth pour through a valley cut through the shining landscape. “First one to the river is a rotten plum.”

Cira threw herself off the other side of hill, which could be considered a small cliff. I watched the wind boost her along and she glided deftly.

“No fair!” I threw myself off before thinking about how I hadn’t actually been levitating with my own power. In a panic I blasted myself from below with wind, but unlike when I was supported by Cira, it didn’t make me go the direction I wanted. First of all, I entered a violent front flip and trying to correct it only sent me hurling through the air aimlessly. Apparently, I had no control over the wind whatsoever.

“Calm yourself.” I heard her voice from far away, “Did you forget about the partial domain you conjured?”

She’s right!

A spark of realization and I felt my own wind all around me. So long as I could stay bound within it, I could stay aloft. It was difficult to rise, but I could tell my abilities were greatly diminished by my violent twirling. It took everything in me to slow down my rotation, but only using my false domain to orient myself made it possible. I finally slowed to a point where I could comfortably stop spinning and the first thing I saw ahead of me was the ground.

With only a short blast of wind to break my fall, I glanced against a golden boulder and rolled into another as gravity forced me down this rugged hillside. Gold was malleable, but apparently I wasn’t hard enough to leave any scuffs or dings in the stones as I bounced between.

The pain was some of the worst I’d ever felt in my life, and no amount of wind I could muster did anything aside from make my next fall that much worse. It was absolute hell born of my own idiocy and to say I learned a lesson would be an understatement, but I still partially blame Cira for goading me into a contest.

Around my fifth of sixth boulder, I felt myself safely enter Cira’s grasp—whatever sorcery she used to make me float.

“You almost made it. That was an incredible effort if I’m being honest. Well done.” I had been healed by a priest before, but somehow the golden light Cira bore felt far more potent and comforting. It was like basking in the morning sun after a cold night. Wait, did she praise me for that? “And I give you ten points for flair.”

“What…?” Her healing also worked monumentally faster than what I paid five gold crowns for after getting stabbed, and I was at the church for hours. She also took the courtesy to right me to my feet and place me on the ground, facing the same direction as her, towards the river of golden ale. I turned around and my jaw fell to the floor—the floor made of solid gold.

I had actually fallen from a great height, so that alone was a testament to my progress, that I was able to not die in doing so. That much made me proud. Then, I looked at the first rock where there was a splatter of blood, seeming to spiral into a mural across the ground. Isn’t that where I overcorrected?

I didn’t have to look hard for the second rock I hit, because there was a trail of blood like waves from my frail attempt to salvage my fall with feeble wind sorcery. Each rock looked similar, but towards the bottom I could tell my control had improved at least a little by how the spatter’s range had narrowed. My body was still shaking, but the pain only lingered in my mind like a ghost now. It was the strangest thing. Is this what life is for a sorcerer? You can just roll down a hill of solid metal and break your bones, then all is well in a flash of light? All of a sudden, I felt lightheaded.

“Am I… low on blood?” I turned to Cira who looked mildly concerned, having also admired my painting, but she could not really hide her cheeky smile.

“You certainly are. I am not skilled enough to conjure some more for you out of nothing, and all my supplemental potions are back home. So, why don’t you carve us a golden campfire and I’ll bust out the underworm… You still have my needle, right?” In an instant her eyes grew anxious.

And so did mine. I patted myself up and down and my soul nearly escaped in the sigh of relief when I felt it in the only pocket in my vest with a button. “Of course I do!”

“I’ll be needing that back soon but have at it.” It didn’t seem my reaction inspired confidence, but she didn’t seem unreasonably bothered. Cira took a few strides to the banks of the river and crystals formed from thin air in her hands. They pulsed with mana like an inscription would—but the entire thing. It soon formed the equivalent of a big glass at the Flying Dutchess. She knelt down and scooped it into the river. I had to admit, it was such a perfect golden tone I was taken aback.

Just a hint of amber, and the way it sparkled in the sunlight, I could tell at a glance that this ale was the finest I’d ever seen. Cira took a long, slow sip. When she took the glass away from her mouth, she let out a satisfied sigh.

“I don’t know about you,” She wore a contented smile, “But I think I’ve earned a drink.”