Book 1 Recap

On the anniversary of the day he was found on the Thistlethorn estate's doorstep, Rylan Cloudgift's greatest wish came true: he unlocked his first Skill, thus becoming an Emerald-Grade Quinthar.

Unfortunately, this did not prove the end of his life as an indentured servant like he'd imagined. Instead—as he'd gained his Skill by throwing a knife through a busy kitchen to nail a fly to the wall—he woke up in the cooler, still wearing the deepmetal anklet that bound him to the estate. In that dimly lit cell, he received a strange letter, belatedly warning him to lay low. A word that looked an awful lot like 'dad' was crossed out at the bottom.

Coincidentally—or perhaps not—Vidric Talon had arrived earlier that day. Rylan's best friend Zahra was serving tea when she overheard the Thistlethorn family's matriarch discuss something terrible with the visiting noble. Countess Beatrice Thistlethorn wanted to make use of the Talon family's signature Skill, Contract, to bind Rylan in her service for at least a decade more!

Upon being informed of this, Rylan asked her and the young guard she was courting to help him escape into the cloudsea.

Right when they managed to unlock the deepmetal runegear bound to Rylan's ankle, however, the captain of the guard loudly announced his disappearance and ordered his capture.

Thus, his escape became a mad dash to freedom through the tunnels leading to the various fog condensers on the estate, followed by a chase down into the cloudsea. There, he, Soren Thistlethorn, and Tamina Braveshield—Vidric's bodyguard—fell off a cliff. As luck would have it, however, they landed on top of a passing whale, their momentum ripping its blubbery skin and landing them inside one of its gasbladders.

They survived the subsequent crash, but were hopelessly lost, deep in the cloudsea. Thus started a journey of several weeks through the dense, floaty fog, where Rylan got a crash course at being a Quinthar.

One night, Rylan dreamt of a feminine voice calling out to him, pleading for help. And when he woke, a tingle went up his spine, pulling him towards a distant place.

Despite valid concerns, the trio decided to risk following it. After a long trek—which culminated into being chased by a massive Ruby-Grade Malequint shark known as Dreadmaw—they reached a mysterious bubble underneath the fog containing a city in ruins, where the tingles disappeared.

There, they met the stranded former pirate crew of the crashed Soggy Shepherd, who took them in.

While out on a hunt in the fog, the mysterious tingles led Rylan to the basement of an ancient Hermean ruin, where they found a threesome of still-functional Dungeon portals.

The tingles led him to the Equipment Dungeon, and when he entered it, Ethereon seemed to malfunction, informing him that he had to succeed. When he did, he received a remarkable prize: a C-grade spiritgear. The sentient throwing knife—which he named Arphin—was made of 100% weightless Aetherium, and had a single runework: Recall.

From his new buddy, he learned that the mysterious being that had been reaching out to him was a spirit called Maris, who had left a message for him with Arphin.

The message took the shape of a dream in which he accidentally discovered a staircase down into some ruins within the bubble.

They didn't know the exact location, so Soren promised to look for it during his outings with the captain of the Black Sheep pirate mercenary crew.

After training together for a while, Rylan and Arphin took on the Challenge Dungeon, where Rylan won and promptly consumed a Strength Enhancer.

As he waited for Tamina to finish the Dungeon as well, however, he caught Soren in a lie, and realised that his friend and the captain had long discovered the location of the staircase from his dream vision.

He and Tamina hashed a plan to follow them, and thus found the staircase. Down in the ruins, they discovered a mysterious chamber housing a machine that repelled the fog, and the trapped spirit Maris, who was slowly being drained to power it.

As if in a trance, Rylan entered the pool below her, and was given another vision, this time of the ancient Hermean Empire, when the seas were still made of water rather than fog. There, he witnessed the aftermath of a cataclysmic event that started with the rising of a massive plume of fog, and ended with the gradual deterioration and downfall of the entire city.

He came to and immediately accessed the console, whereupon Ethereon granted him administrator privileges due to his ancient bloodline, which apparently dated back to a Hermean noble family. Using these, he set Maris free at last.

In reward, she granted him a Blessing, which allowed him to see the spirits of beings like Quinthar, Malequints, and spiritgear.

However, with Maris free, the ancient dehumidifier started suffering from a severe mana shortage, and threatened to quickly shut down as more Cubes disintegrated from the rapid draining of mana.

With help of the console, Rylan and the professor shrank the bubble to just past the ship, slowing down the inevitable decay. However, the search for the Aetherium the professor needed to get the Soggy Shepherd fogborne again remained fruitless, so out of guilt and a sense of duty, Rylan came up with a desperate plan.

He entered the Champion's Dungeon, and faced a Sapphire-Grade Ramtusk Malequint for the chance to obtain an Aetherium Affinity, and the canister of gasified Aetherium it came with.

However, his successful completion of the Dungeon was rewarded by Ethereon with nothing but an apology, and the claim that the 'external modifications' to his spirit made him unfit to receive an Affinity. Desperate, Rylan used his administrator privileges to overrule the safety measures, and had Ethereon do it anyway.

He returned with the canister, and the crew was able to get the ship fogborne. After a gruesome battle with Dreadmaw, they finally made it up to the driftline, and saw the sky.

However, when Rylan asked Ethereon about an update regarding his Affinity that evening, he was met with a nasty surprise...

System Recap

Ethereon's Chosen are referred to as Quinthar. To become a Quinthar, you have to first unlock a Skill.

Emerald-Grade Skills These are active Skills that enable the Quinthar to improve something they can already do with Mana.

To gain an Emerald-Grade Skill, you need to meet its three Attribute requirements, which always total 6, and perform an appropriate feat.

Ethereon awards 3 Attribute Points for the first Emerald-Grade Skill, 2 for the second, and 1 for each Skill after that. In addition, for each new Emerald-Grade Skill or Augmentation, the Quinthar furthermore receives 100 Standard Quintessence Credits, to spend on accelerated healing or Quintessence Structures like the Mana Shell.

Sapphire-Grade Skills These are auxiliary Skills that apply textured mana either directly, or in concert with another Skill.

To gain one, a Quinthar has to produce its associated mana texture, and meet its three Attribute Requirements which always total 10, and invariably feature a Mind Requirement of at least 3.

Just like with Emerald-Grade Skills, Ethereon awards 3 Attribute Points for the first Sapphire-Grade Skill, and one less for each additional Skill after that, to a minimum of 1. In addition, for each new Sapphire-Grade Skill or Augmentation, the Quinthar furthermore receives 200 Quintessence Credits.

Upon gaining their first Sapphire-Grade Skill, a Quinthar will be elevated to the Sapphire-Grade, which improves the effects of all their Quint Structures, effectively doubling their Mana Pool, generation, and Mana Shell capacity.

Ruby-Grade Skills These are powerful Skills that rely on tinted mana—mana that's been transformed through a Divine Element stored in the Quinthar's bones—to create otherwise impossible effects.

To gain one, a Quinthar has to first obtain an Affinity for one of the Divine Elements, by beating a Champion's Dungeon.

The Dungeons Various types of Dungeons have been left behind by the Hermeans. Equipment Dungeons test the use of an Emerald-Grade Skill and reward Runegear—when available. Challenge Dungeons test a Quinthar's ability to fight their way past stone guardians, and reward either an Attribute-increasing Enhancer or a Skill-inducing Pearl of Inspiration. Finally, Champion's Dungeons pit a Quinthar against a Malequint that's one grade higher, for the chance to obtain an Affinity.

Runegear Runegear comes in three different grades. C-grade runegear have a single runework, B-grade runegear have two, A-grade have three. Spiritgear are runegear that were either made to be sentient, or have gained sentience over the years.

Rylan's Status at the start of this book:

Status

Mana Pool: 7.9/14

Mana Shell: 6/6

Attributes

Strength 3

Dexterity 3

Endurance 2

Mind 4

Perception 3

Presence -1

Skills

Knife-Throwing, Rank 3

Jumping, Rank 3

Cooking, Rank 1

Quint Structures

Mana Core, Tier I

Mana Pool, Tier I

Mana Shell, Tier VI

Quintessence Credits: 148

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The rays of the setting sun painted the sea of clouds a burning orange, while three moons hung over the distant skyline of Cliffport. To Rylan, who hadn't seen the sky in weeks, the sight should have been extra moving. And yet, he paid it no heed.

The creak of ropes leading from the top deck of the rebuilt Soggy Shepherd down around the floater and up to the huge kitesail similarly barely filtered through. Even the feeling of the cool evening breeze whipping his flaxen locks—which he'd really been enjoying just a few seconds ago—was now lost to him. Instead, his attention was fully occupied by the glowing letters floating in front of him.

Affinity

UNKNOWN – UNABLE TO PARSE

Progress: 0.1/100%

"Ehm, Ethereon? Aren't I supposed to have the Aetherium Affinity?"

《Analysis failed, unknown Affinity detected,》Ethereon replied in its customary cool voice.

"Fog!" Rylan muttered under his breath, his brows furrowing. Did something go wrong with the affixation process after all? Did Maris's Blessing screw everything up? "Well, can you... run the analysis again, please?"

《Analysis failed,》Ethereon said once more.《Resource allocation insufficient. For a better analysis, please access your local console.》

Rylan closed his eyes with a groan. He had accessed the console of Aeloria Wald just that morning, in order to shut down the Dehumidifier, but it was now miles behind him in the depths of the cloudsea. Where the fog was he supposed to find another one? But, wait...

"Ethereon, did my progress start at zero? Did it go up?"

《Affirmative. Progress towards completing your unknown Affinity has been made. Progress at 0.1%.》

That gave Rylan a bit of hope. Perhaps he simply had the Aetherium Affinity he had chosen as his reward in the Champion's Dungeon. In that case, the Aetherium gas leaking from the floater he was standing on could account for the slight progress he'd made.

Of course, that still begged the question of why Ethereon wasn't able to recognise his Affinity...

[Hey Boss, everything all right?] Arphin asked through the tether connecting them.

Rylan's hand reflexively went to the spiritblade's handle at his waist, as if laying a comforting hand atop the head of a small child. 'I'm not sure, Arphin,' he sent back honestly. 'But we'll figure something out.'

[Oh good, I'm glad,] Arphin replied with an accompanying sense of relief, clearly believing Rylan at his word. [Anyway, just wanted to let you know that we've got company incoming!]

For a moment, Rylan tensed up, thinking Arphin meant there was some creature approaching them. But as he glanced around, he spotted the blue glow of a Sapphire-Grade spirit steadily moving up the side of the floater.

He quickly straightened his posture, right as Captain Hammermore emerged from the fog at the top of the rigging. Shooting him a shark-like grin, she hauled herself over the railing like the deepmetal hammer on her back weighed nothing.

The acid burns she had suffered inside Dreadmaw's stomach had gone from an angry red to a much softer pinkish hue which already looked a lot less painful. She must've paid Ethereon for accelerated recovery... Rylan supposed she could afford it, being a Baroness and all.

"At ease, lad," the captain chuckled. "Anything on the horizon?"

"Nothing new, captain," Rylan replied, consciously relaxing his posture a little.

She nodded, leaning over the railing next to him to look out over the roiling clouds. He turned to do the same.

For a moment, it remained quiet but for the call of some passing gulls. One of them dove down into the clouds and came back up a moment later with a wriggling fish half its size. In three big gulps, the catch disappeared down its gullet.

"You know," the captain started. "I have to say... your rescue of me was very impressive."

Rylan's brow twitched as he tried to give nothing away. "Ehm, thanks, captain."

"I mean, you somehow managed to hit me with your runegear inside Dreadmaw," she continued. "What's more, you got your blade to pulse its glow and—unless I'm sorely mistaken—vibrate somehow, so that I would reach for it. And then you somehow knew I'd grabbed onto it, and were able to selectively pull only me out of the belly of the beast..."

[Ehm, Boss, I don't mean to alarm you, but... I think she's onto me!]

Rylan swallowed. This was more or less what he'd feared might happen when he set out to rescue her. But he'd chosen to do it anyway. "Are you... trying to ask me something, captain?"

She turned to face him, and smiled. "No. In fact, consider this me not asking you anything. You've got a mighty fine tool there, Thar. Best take good care of it. And try not to let anyone else find out what it's capable of, not until you're a bit stronger."

[Oh, phew,] Arphin said. [Seems like it was a false alarm, Boss; she clearly hasn't got a clue!]

Rylan didn't bother to correct the chatty blade. He would explain later. "Thank you, captain," he said instead, meeting her smile with a grateful one of his own.

She waved him off. "Least I can do, kid. Anyway, you should head on down, try to grab some shut-eye. I'll take it from here."

Rylan brought his hand up to the side of his eye for the traditional Quinthar salute Soren had taught him. He did it only briefly, however, and the captain merely nodded in response. Exchanging the salutes was how Quinthar could see one another's spirits, through Ethereon's assistance. Of course, since receiving Maris' blessing, Rylan had no need for that anymore.

Rylan swung his leg over the railing at the side of the top deck, grabbing firmly onto the rigging that stretched down over the side of the floater. Then, he started to climb down to the deck

Having a deck below the driftline was, of course, not a very usual design for cloudfaring vessels, but the Soggy Shepherd was not a very usual ship. It had been extraordinary to begin with, with its ability to dive down into the cloudsea, but it hadn't gotten any more normal from being rebuilt.

One of its two floaters had been damaged irreparably in the crash, all of the whale-bone ribs snapped, so the double-floater, catamaran-style ship had to be transformed into a rare, single-floater vessel.

However, with ten passengers to lift, even the slimmed-down vessel would've been too heavy to ride the fog on a single floater. Therefore, the professor was keeping said floater filled with gasified Aetherium—the weightless Divine Metal also known as skymetal—from the canister Rylan had brought back from the Champion's Dungeon.

It had been supposed to help him complete his Affinity, but he'd given it up for the sake of their escape. Of course, he now wasn't certain if he would've been able to absorb it in the first place...

Either way, the gasified Aetherium itself wouldn't have been enough either without the mana emitter the professor had built, which was suffusing the gasified Aetherium with mana, causing it to spread its weightlessness to the entirety of the floater and its contents.

The fog had a similar—if weaker—effect, causing Rylan's limbs to grow lighter as he climbed down along the side of the floater, the warmth of the sun disappearing and sounds growing dampened as he lowered himself into the cold, floaty fog.

Surprisingly, Rylan found he didn't mind too much. Nice as it had been up top, there was something refreshing about breathing in the cool fog, and he didn't hate it as much as he'd used to back when he regularly performed fog-condenser maintenance.

Maybe it just smelled better here on the open cloudsea.

Down below the floater, he swung himself around the rigging, and touched down on the bamboo deck, attached to the floater by ropes in many places.

In front of the captain's cabin, First Mate Halloth lifted a dark, heavily tattooed arm from the helm in greeting.

Rylan returned the gesture, craning his neck back a little to look up at the gentle giant. "You're on your own? Where are Nazyr and Yuel?" he asked, a little surprised to find the ropes leading up to the floater on either side of Halloth unattended.

"The flaps are only for sharp turns," Halloth said calmly. "There should be no need for them up here."

That was a fair point.

[Did you want me to describe what they're up to, Boss?] Arphin asked eagerly. [Because, I've got to tell you, I don't quite understand either, and—]

'That's all right, Arphin,' Rylan hurriedly replied. 'Privacy is important, remember?'

[Oh! My bad, Boss, totally forgot about that.]

Rylan suppressed the urge to shake his head, nodding at Halloth in thanks instead. A green glow from the prow of the ship caught his attention. His heart skipped a beat as he spotted Tamina standing there, leaning coolly against the railing, right hand idly readjusting her dark braid, while her metallic left one kept a firm grip on a nearby rope.

How he'd ever mistaken the metal sprouting from her left shoulder as armour was beyond him.

Either way, seeing her gave him pause. With everything that had happened, they hadn't really talked about... it, yet.

'It' being the fact that she'd kissed him right before he entered the Champion's Dungeon, while only a day earlier she'd basically told him that while she'd enjoyed the fantasy of having a courtship or fling or whatever with Rylan, it wasn't realistic that they could have something in the real world.

The many black talons decorating her yellow surcoat reminded Rylan of why that may be the case. Tamina was serving as Vidric Talon's bodyguard under Contract, and there was no telling for how much longer that agreement would run.

Literally, as it was quite obvious by now that Tamina could not discuss the details of her Contract.

While Rylan dithered about whether or not this would be a good time to approach her, the choice was taken out of his hands when a hatch leading below deck popped open, and a head of blue hair appeared.

"Ryles! Great timing!" Soren exclaimed. "Yuel, Naz and I were looking for a fourth. You coming?"

"A... a fourth?" Rylan asked, wide-eyed. Frankly, he wasn't entirely clear on what two people might get up to, let alone three or four! I had my suspicions about Soren, but I never thought—

"For sharks," Soren clarified, a bemused expression on his face. "You know, the card game?"

[Ah, so that's what it was,] Arphin mused.

Soren narrowed his eyes at Rylan. "What exactly did you think I—"

"Right!" Rylan replied, feeling the blood rush to his cheeks. "Sharks! Sure, I'll play. Ehm, I'm not sure what I can wager right now though; I did bring some coin when I left, but I'd rather not put any up at the moment..."

Soren grinned. "That's no problem at all. We're playing for teeth!"

The teeth they were playing for thankfully turned out to be sharkteeth. Specifically, the dozen or so teeth from Dreadmaw that had landed on deck after the captain's 'final' blow.

Those were the grand prizes for each round, Yuel and Soren had decided, and Rylan was set on winning at least one. He'd failed to do so in the first three rounds, but he had a pretty good feeling about this one.

Sharks was a fast-paced game, half tactics, half reaction speed. Players had only a fraction of a second to determine if there was a 'shark' on the table, which was any combination of three cards with the same number—or consecutive numbers—all of the same or different suits. Though with six suits in the deck, going for the latter was obviously the more common strategy.

Soren, who was 'riding the shark' at the moment, laid down a five of stars. Licking his lips, Rylan selected a four of clouds and placed it face-down in front of him.

Next to him, Nazyr placed down a card as well, glaring suspiciously at Yuel on his other side. The blonde pirate smiled broadly as he placed down his own card.

"All right," Soren said. "Everybody flip in three, two, one... now!"

Rylan flipped his card over without looking, his eyes darting from Nazyr's revealed five of moons to Yuel's three of soils.

"Shark!" several voices cried out at once.

A hand slapped down in the middle. Yuel's. Just a fraction too slow, Rylan's hand came down on top. With a sigh, he pulled it back.

I can still win, I just need—

"Wait a second..." Nazyr grunted, his eye narrowing as he picked up his own pile of won hands and started rifling through it. "Hah! I knew it!" he bellowed, slapping down a second three of soils.

"Oh my," Yuel said, blinking innocuously. "How did that—"

"Because yer a bloody cheat, that's how! Soren, help me shake out his clothes!"

Yuel made a show of protesting as he was grabbed from both sides, but his protestations quickly dissolved into laughter as cards started to tumble out of his wide sleeves.

Rylan just looked on, shaking his head. 'Arphin,' he sent through their connection, a little irked. 'Why didn't you tell me what Yuel was up to?'

[Sorry Boss; I didn't want to violate his privacy!]

Fighting the urge to sigh, Rylan decided to call that a step in the right direction.

[Also, I didn't know he was breaking the rules,] Arphin admitted. [In hindsight, he was taking the cards out rather sneakily... are you mad, Boss?]

'I'm not mad, Arphin,' Rylan sent back fondly. 'Privacy is important, but in the future, if people seem to be up to sneaky stuff around me, please do inform me, all right?'

[You got it, Boss!]

"Well, I guess that means Ryles won this hand," Soren said once Yuel had been properly shaken out.

Grinning, Rylan reached out and gathered the played cards. One more hand, and the round would be his!

Lying in his hammock, Rylan studied the massive shark tooth in the light coming off the glowband—Soren's—hanging from a peg on the wall. His trophy was easily seven inches long, and veined with aquamarine metal. Despite this, the tooth was surprisingly lightweight.

Of course, that's because it was cloudmetal. The strange metal was literally harvested from the fog that made up the cloudsea—though Rylan was unclear about the specifics of how. Apart from attracting fog, the metal was a little like Aetherium in that it seemed to have more mass than weight, though it certainly wasn't weightless.

Either way, it looked quite pretty, especially with the way the fog which filled the room seemed to slowly swirl around it.

"It's a good thing we've got proof, eh?" Soren said from the hammock next to him, interrupting his thought process. "Otherwise people would never believe our story! Man, I can't wait to see my... everyone's faces."

Rylan glanced over. "It's fine. You can say it. I know you miss your family."

Soren grimaced, shifting onto his side. "So... are you still planning to pay off your debt through mediation? You know I wouldn't let them put you under Contract, right?"

Rylan let out a sigh, taking a moment to respond. While his conversations with Soren down in the cloudsea had sown some doubts in him about the reasoning and motivation of the Thistlethorns, the simple fact remained that they'd kept him as an indentured servant for years.

Truth be told, after all they'd done for him, he didn't actually disagree that he owed them a debt. He'd been dropped on their doorstep, a gift from the clouds, and they hadn't owed it to anyone to take him in. What he resented, was that they had insisted he pay them back by working chores while chained to their island with a deepmetal runegear anklet.

The family that had taken him in hadn't treated him like family, and it hurt.

Perhaps there would be a reconciliation someday, a conversation about why they'd done what they'd done. But it wouldn't happen until he was free of his debt, and strong enough that they couldn't keep him there even if they tried.

For now, Rylan was planning to enjoy the free city life he'd always dreamed of. Well, that, and look for answers, of course.

"It's not that I don't trust you," Rylan finally answered. "Because I do. I just don't want to go back to Thistlebloom right now, not after I finally got away from it. Plus, there's some... stuff that I want to look into."

Soren nodded slowly. "Right. It's fine, you don't have to tell me."

Rylan bit his lip, then made up his mind. If he was going to say his goodbyes to Soren in the morning, this might actually be his last chance to share. "Actually, there's something I'd like to ask you about... and something I'd like you to take a look at, if you don't mind."

As he said so, Rylan's fist clenched around the small, rolled-up letter in his pocket. It was the letter he'd received all the way back on Thistlebloom, before the whole crazy ordeal they'd gone through.

The one that hinted at the existence of something Rylan had spent many restless nights wondering about: his real family.

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