We make it back to the landing area, where Kestrel is still keeping watch in front of the two skyboats. A few additional frozen bodies litter the ground, indicating more trouble must have come from another direction while we were inside.

As we move, I flex my astral tendrils, trying to reach out and touch the world. All this time I've been only able to manipulate my own vis, imprinting concepts from the world around me into my own soul. Now, at last, I can imprint concepts upon the world around me.

Starting with this boat. I know which sigil is the activator, but have not been able to do it myself yet. I press my hand against the init sigil and focus. Nothing happens.

"Blast it, how do I turn on my boat?" I mutter aloud.

"Just push your vis into it and keep the flow steady!" Kestrel calls over, noticing what I'm trying to do. "Congratulations, by the way!"

"Man, I can practice later. Mom! Let's get out of here before reinforcements show up."

Anise comes over and turns on the boat. "Right-o, let's go!"

Kestrel and Colt take the other skyboat and follow slowly behind us.

We make it down the tunnel to the half-open garage door, close enough to hear sounds of fighting and flashes of magic. A stray fireball splashes against the side of the opening. I telepathically tell Jade and Basalt to furl the sails and let us coast toward the entrance.

With an air-shuddering creak, the garage doors start closing. Because of course they do.

[Belay that!] I tell them. [Spread them fully and flatten the masts!]

This trope is so much more unnerving when the giant closing metal doors are hurtling toward you at kilometers per hour.

The other boat is barely keeping up, probably only because of Kestrel's skills. She and Colt scramble to get their boat set.

I push my skills to the limit, feeling the flow of aether around me and positioning us precisely. Feeling the flow of energy through my boat as if it were an extension of me.

We all duck beneath the closing metal doors, and the Celestial Duck ducks out through the closing doors and into the open sky and to be a sitting duck in a celestial battle.

Skills increased: Clairvoyance (Aether Sense, Telepathy), Enhanced Soul (Aether Sailing), Mechanics (Piloting) Skill acquired: Wizardry (Vehicle Control) Description: The ability to handle the energy flows of a sigil-controlled magic vehicle of any type.

The garage doors crunch closed around the other boat. Holding Colt around his midsection, Kestrel flies up to land on the deck beside me.

[You guys okay?] I ask them.

Kestrel gives a thumbs up. "Was worth a shot!"

"Totally," Colt agrees.

Something impacts Rowan's shield. That one was aimed for me. Of course they'd try to take out the pilot.

The Rabid Badger is flying in wobbly circles not far from the entrance to the garage, and three other small ships are harrying them with projectiles. As we get close, I analyze each one and relay the capabilities of the attackers to my raid members on both ships. Two Heroics and several Elites.

An hour ago, I would have been considerably more worried about this fight than I am now. Although I haven't had a chance to grind any new skills up yet, just being Elite confers a whole host of bonuses and damage reduction. I'm on even footing with those Elites now and their attacks will hurt no more than being hit by another Basic used to. And I have two Heroic magic-users on board.

Anise laughs madly as we pass beneath one of the enemy ships, holding her arms above her head and blanketing them in two fiery jets. "Your ship is very flammable!"

A tiny tornado twists around Kestrel and knocks into the enemy aether pinnace, sending it tumbling into a building at the edge of the domain. The building wins. Sigil-reinforced metal girders are completely unaffected while the flimsy flying toothpick boat shatters. Several crew members scramble onto the edge, some of them crawling up the walls like spiders and others practically bouncing from falls that should have killed them.

Cracking thunder shakes the air. The Heroic Wizard that had been on that boat shoots lightning bolts at us from the balcony he'd managed to land on.

The Celestial Duck swoops close to the final enemy boat, where its own crew are aiming muskets at us. Shots split the air, and Rowan stands between me and them. He keeps me covered with his shield and blade of defense, improbably blocking at least three shots with his sword.

With a sweep of a wand, Kestrel sends a hail of razor-sharp ice shards down upon the deck. The Heroic sleet storm immediately takes out some of the weaker crew members, including the pilot.

Swinging within telepathy range of the Rabid Badger again, I send to everyone, [Start heading back to Odell! We need to either pick up or back up the Daring Edgewalkers.]

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I keep my head down as the air still crackles with magic. A blast strikes the bottom of the ship and rips a small hole straight through the hull. Several more volleys of spells and projectiles are exchanged with the hostile ships before we pull out of range.

I check the boat's damage with [Vehicle Diagnosis]. We took a few hits and the hull integrity is down to 70%, but we're otherwise doing alright. I would be more concerned about the hole in the boat if we were sailing on water, but it didn't strike any important sigils.

Skills increased: Clairvoyance (Aspect Analysis, Aura Sight), Enhanced Senses (Vehicle Diagnosis)

The Rabid Badger sports four sails on two masts, and its new crew members are struggling to keep up with the ropework.

"You guys are really bad at this," criticizes a feminine voice from somewhere, drawing my eyes up. An aranea glides past on a balloon made of her own silk. "Hire an aranea! We're the best fliers!"

"We'll think about it!" Meadow calls back as the flying giant spider lifts away.

We make our way around the edge of Flux. Outside of Odell, not too far from Lance Tresco's flat, three skyships are engaged in a heated battle. I put Wonder's telescope to my eye to take a closer look as we approach.

Uncle Falcon stands on the deck of one of the ships, faint strains of music audible from here. Belladonna zips around on Bee's aether kayak, although judging by her poor control over it, it looks like she needs practice. Tosko stands on a box, gripping the wheel with both hands and slowly guiding it in our general direction.

The Daring Edgewalkers have claimed Bee Tresco's ship and boat. The problem with bringing along this many people, especially the ones higher level than me? It means I don't get the cool boat. Well, I'm sure they'll get plenty of use out of it flying to places higher level than they dare take me even as support crew. It's not like I was going defeat the Epic aethernaut myself, anyway.

As we swoop into range, Anise and Kestrel bombard the attacking ships with magic, and the people on the Rabid Badger do likewise. They break off and we circle around to fly in formation back toward Tempest.

I examine the auras of Uncle Falcon's crew to make sure everyone's alright. It looks like he, Belladonna, and Tosko all made Epic rank from that. I don't see any sign of Wonder. There's only three auras aboard the skyship.

Belladonna flips up next to the Celestial Duck in her flying kayak. "Glad to see you made it. It was touch and go there for a bit."

"Congratulations on reaching Epic," I say. "We all ranked up as well."

"I didn't, but that's okay," Kestrel says. "I do this sort of thing all the time."

"What happened to Wonder?" I ask.

"He didn't make it," Belladonna says. "Bee shot him with a blasted revolver. He only had a few months more to live, but he took his chances and the dice did not come up in his favor."

"My condolences," I say. "I didn't really have a chance to get to know him."

"Well, the telescope's yours now," Belladonna says. "Something to remember him by."

"Looks like no one's pursuing us," I say, peering behind us through the telescope.

"I'm going to check on the other ship and get back to my party," Belladonna says. "Flying a ship that big is tough with only three people."

"I can help pull ropes," Colt says.

"Sure, kid, hop on."

Colt climbs into the boat behind her, and they fly off.

"I've finally got choice of classes in front of me," Anise says. "It's been over a decade."

"I get class choices too!" Basalt says. "And it has been less than a year. Here I'd just gotten used to being a [Dwarven Handyman]. I thought I was a much further way away from Elite."

"We basically just blew up an experience factory," I say.

"And it was beautiful," Anise says. "I kind of regret choosing [Pyromaniac Sorcerer] at this point. It sounded like fun when I turned 21 but now it just feels so limited."

"The tighter the focus, the stronger the class, the greater the bonus experience," Kestrel says.

Every Deed shapes you. And this one rained chaos and madness down upon me as I reveled in it.

"What are your options?" I ask.

"Mine are [Inspiring Architect]… nah, too hands-off," Basalt says. "[Dwarven Aethernaut], and [Dwarven Dad]."

"That's… an odd class name," I say. "I'm not sure if Common even has a word for 'dad'."

"The folks in this world don't know what a dad is anymore," Basalt says. "Fine. I will be the father of the dwarves and be the best [Dwarven Dad] I can be."

His aura shifts as his class choice settles into it.

"As for me…" Anise says, licking her lips. "My choices are [Joyful Sorcerer], [Friendly Firebrand], and [Sorcerous Aethernaut]."

"Interesting options," Kestrel says. "What catches your fancy there?"

"This one's hard…" Anise laughs. "I'll have to think about it a bit more."

"How about you, Rowan?" I ask. "Get any cool skills from that?"

"I unlocked Enhanced Muscles (Uncanny Parry) and Sorcery (Protection)," Rowan says.

"Great!" Kestrel says. "Unlock those skills while you can, kid. It gets so much harder to get new skills once you hit Journeyman."

"And we're Elite now," Jade says. "I can hardly believe it. I never thought I'd reach Elite without quests."

"Now that you're all Elite, you'll need to think about what to focus on," Kestrel says. "Hopefully some of you have at least been daydreaming about things you wish you could do."

"Oh yeah, definitely," Rowan says.

"So, Drake," Kestrel says. "Do you want to be building or finding things? Seems like most of your success has come from finding things, though you've barely gotten started on building."

"You might have a point there," I say. "And I want to build things to explore with, not so much build buildings. Though I do still plan to help get the dwarves and goblins set up with forges for bronzeworking. We now have access to copper and tin, as well as whatever iron we might acquire from the city with our new tiny sky fleet. Although Tempest's upper layers have no accessible sources of iron ore or coal, I'm quite certain there must be iron sources in places with names like Rust, Flux, and Gleam."

Kestrel giggles. "I'm not much into crafting, so I never looked into it, but good luck with that. I suppose I'll be parting ways again once we get back home. You've got repairs to make, and I need to get back to wandering."

"Hmm, that reminds me," I say.

I pull my latest notebook out of my bag and open it up. This is where I've copied down all the sigils on the skyboat, as well as diagrams of it. I bring to mind what Meadow told me about Iconography and how she kept paintings of us in order to heal us if necessary, and the artist Valerian had paintings of the Wisteria Garden in different seasons.

Pouring my vis into the image, I watch as my Inspiration quickly drops. I'm not even sure if I'm getting anywhere, but I have nothing better to do on the flight, so I spend the next few hours cycling through my Inspiration-regeneration skills and trying the book. Finally, I get the notification I'd been hoping for.

Skills increased: Enhanced Senses (Celestial Inspiration), Enhanced Soul (Mystic Inspiration) Skill acquired: Iconography (Restoration) Description: Using an image of an unbroken object or unharmed being, you may restore the target to its prior state.

One splinter of wood reluctantly bends back into place, and I'm out of Inspiration again.

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