Icarus Awakens

Hmm. He is resting. I don’t think I should wake him.

Alright, I’ll let her know. Despite the interesting and, at times, disgusting encounter with the Alchemist, Hunter had not yet recovered. One of the recovery potions on sale, distinct from healing potions, might have helped though at great cost. “Hunter’s out. Tak got him back to the tavern, somehow. He says he still doesn’t know about the bond though.”

“They’ll figure it out in time. I guess that means it’s just the two of us.” He would have wondered if she’d engineered this to happen if Daniel didn’t catch the slight disappointment in her voice. At least it didn’t seem to be directed at him.

“We’ve got two hours until dawn?” It was hard to tell without a clock, and not even his Focus provided one. “Should be plenty of time for, uh, whatever you want to do.”

“Hmm. Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

Evalyn looked up, craning her neck. She pointed to something hard to see in the darkness of the night. “It might take a while to get up there.”

“Up into the Spires?” He said that a little nervously. This world had given him a lot to be anxious about, Evalyn included. Also among that number were old women trying to stab out his eyes. Claret had been managed, he was assured. For some reason, he suspected that didn’t extend to imprisonment. She was probably still up there in the Sun Spire, though only stripped of her position.

“I want to see the sunrise. From up there.” She nodded her head up again as Daniel noticed they were walking towards the southernmost Spire. The Sun Spire, because of course that was the one they were closest to. “I’ve been talking with people about it idly. The tops of the Spires are spiked, essentially glorified watch towers, but there’s something special you can reach between them on the highest floors. I want to get there. You can come if you want to, but I’d understand if you didn’t.” She brushed some sand from her hair idly. “It’s not exactly something we’re supposed to be doing.”

“Then how are we supposed to-” Daniel shut up as one of the main entryways to the Spire appeared as they rounded a corner. It was kind of like Sarumon’s tower, with a staircase leading up to where two double doors reminiscent of the city’s gates stood. Another courtyard was ahead of these gates. During the day, they were open. At night, they were cracked just a little and ready to be closed at a moment's notice.

“To be honest, I was hoping to have Thomas for this part,” Evalyn whispered. “But his name works too.”

“You’re going to bluff your way up?”

“Yeah. And I’ve got plenty of mana for it.”

Daniel stared at her which hardly helped the point he was about to make. “They have to have defenses against that kind of thing.”

“You’d think, wouldn’t you? But I’ve heard practically any protective items the city buys go to officers and the nobility. That dusker guarding the gate doesn’t look important if I’m honest.”

“But how are you going to charm a dusker?” Daniel asked, mortified.

“I’ll play it by ear. Infatuation isn’t the only emotion Bards can toy with.” The gate guard was staring at them now. There was only one place this road went to. The Sun Spire was also predominately occupied by humans and, thus, this street had very little night traffic. “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to. I think I can get there just as easily either way, and worst case we ask Lograve to bail us out from prison.”

“I don’t want to go back there,” Daniel muttered. Evalyn winced, the exhaustion of the night getting to her enough to make her slip.

“You have your wings, right? Then just do what you did last time if we’re close to getting caught. I’ll stay back and deal with the consequences. I’m sure this will be fine anyway.” The magic was fading from the night, and yet Daniel still followed Evalyn towards the Spire entrance. Not for any physical reason and not because he’d suddenly lost his aversion. Maybe it was a bit of sunk cost fallacy or the fallacious sense that he was about to win a chocolate factory for being the last to survive the night, but he needed to see this through.

That almost ruined Evalyn’s approach to the gate. The guard was of a mind to tell the two that this wasn’t the Rose Spire but ultimately didn’t stop them. After all, the woman had the appearance of a Lady or, more likely, the still maturing daughter of one. Another might have called that beauty, but not the dusker, whose only ability to know Bards from beautiful was to look for the tell of instruments. That particular loophole had been abused for quite a few trysts in the past, foiled only when the spire guard stationed someone with levels on the inner gates. Even the weakest of seventh senses could detect a class, which prompted additional questioning. Evalyn would have been found out, if not for overwork yet again impacting the city’s defenses.

Daniel and Evalyn walked into the Spire without a second glance being thrown their way. If pressed, the guard had another reason not to stop the two. They had matching bags of holding. Who other than the nobility could afford that?

“These are escalators,” Daniel observed as Evalyn bypassed the security of the grand lobby they found themselves in by a similar manner. Just by walking. Even in the dead of night there was foot traffic, which now that he thought about it, was understandable. The skyscrapers of his world hosted a lot of businesses, whereas most of these floors were residential. Daniel and Evalyn weren’t the only people with things to do in the early pre-dawn hours.

“Yes. More convenient than stairs.”

“I guess that magic field thing Thomas mentioned powers them.” Daniel hadn’t stepped on them yet. Each step was made of just a metal frame, not solid like the ones in his world. The meshwork was tight enough that only a finger could slip through. While the design was fancy, you always heard horror stories of getting something caught in one of these. Magic did little to make this feel safer. “This goes all the way up?”

“Apparently.”

“How do the stairs get back down?” For a one story building it was easy, the steps traveled under the ones visible in a clean loop, but these traveled around corners and there was no underside to them. Even considering magic, there were only two ways this could be possible. “They don’t teleport back down, do they?”

“Probably.” Evalyn took in Daniel’s astonishment. “Why not? Spokes are the most powerful creations of our kind. Blessings of the gods and all that. I’ve heard a story about a Spoke in the Hand’s domain that gives everyone who levels in it one guaranteed healing ability. For every class.”

“What!?”

She shrugged. “Spokes can affect the powers people receive. They can do anything. I still wonder what the Thormundz Spoke would have done.” She then dragged him onto the escalator so that they could get moving and, more importantly, not draw attention.

“Ok, but what if someone travels to multiple regions with an effect like that? Would they stack?”

“I’m not sure. Something to ask Lograve about.” She leaned against the banister for a second before withdrawing with a frown. It didn’t move with the steps. “Ow.”

Daniel didn’t comment. He was counting, internally. The Bard turned to look out the occasional window that passed. When they came across the third landing, Daniel sighed. “It’s going to take half an hour to go all the way up.”

“How do you know?”

“A lot of assumption, something one of my powers helps with. If all the floors are the same height, and my guess of the total number of floors is right, it’ll be a while.” The speed of the stairs was decent, but the Spire was tall. To be fair, if it were any faster people would have trouble getting off.

Evalyn didn’t seem satisfied but didn’t move for the upcoming landing. “We have time. Boring, though.”

“There’s got to be some kind of elevator for the people on the higher floors. Or linked teleportation circles.” Evalyn raised an eyebrow. “What? Do you think some rich jerk’s going to spend an hour on a grocery run?”

“I doubt they get their own food. That is a good point though. You also have to wonder how they get water in, waste out. Pipes maybe?” She narrowed her eyes. “Your mantle is insidious.”

“What’s wrong with a little curiosity?”

She considered that. “Now, that is a sentiment I could get in line with.”

Daniel blushed, suddenly and for no real reason. He didn’t think Evalyn had used her charm ability, and yet- “Hey! You’re doing something.”

“Every class has a mantle. At least one.” Whatever effect she was producing faded. “You can be kind of oblivious sometimes, did you know that?”

“What does that mean?”

“You didn’t notice that Ranger checking you out when we first met Farthest Run, did you?”

“No,” Daniel said, troubled. “Wait, which one?”

…

It was scary how easily the two found themselves on the Eye of the Spires. It was guarded, but only at the last stage did Evalyn have to attempt a bluff. All that happened then was the receipt of a tired warning about the Shroud not covering the platform. They didn’t seem surprised at all that people would be up here at this time of night, and that was because they weren’t the first to have this idea.

“Damn,” Evalyn cursed, seeing a couple dozen had already taken positions at the eastern lip of the platform. There were still open spots, but that was hardly the point. Idle chatter filled the mostly empty, circular space. “I should have thought about this.”

“To be fair,” Daniel replied in a half-whisper, “If people didn’t normally do this, we’d have had a harder time getting up here.”

“It’s just not-” Evalyn sighed. “It’s fine.”

Daniel’s gaze shifted across the area. People staked out the fountain. “We could try climbing to the top of one of the Spires?” There were about twenty meters of structure above where each met the Eye, the Spires ending in a rounded section from which a spike projected from the center.

Evalyn glanced upwards appraisingly, but her countenance didn’t improve. “There’s nothing for it. I bet it’s like this every day. No duskers, but that goes without saying.”

“Want to talk to them? We still have around an hour.” Evalyn was good with people, and these were rich people. Richer than he was, rather. Daniel wasn’t close enough to be able to detect their magic items with his still weak seventh sense, but his eyes didn’t miss the gaudy jewelry and occasional bedazzled sword. If I got close enough with my phone, how many formulae could I copy? Wait, Arpan’s probably got a mark on them.

“Not really. That kind of person, someone who doesn’t know what things are worth, can get on my nerves sometimes. I’m not in the mood to deal with them.” She started walking towards the empty, western edge of the platform. You could still see the sun rising perfectly fine from that side since it appeared over the mountains instead of the horizon, but was that the best view?

“I, uh, don’t know what things are worth,” Daniel admitted flatly. Tonight had reminded him of that.

“What price would you put on Hunter’s life?”

The question offended Daniel, just a bit. “I wouldn’t.”

“Exactly.” She was irritated, and spreading that feeling to Daniel.

“So, you said you had a couple of things you wanted to talk about?”

They were leaning against the railing now and it was a long drop. Several hundred meters easily. It made Daniel want to pull out the wings, but that would draw attention and Evalyn clearly wanted to avoid that. She looked plainer than normal, like that day she’d missed her Beauty Sleep. Not bad, definitely not bad, but she lacked the social magnetism she normally displayed. He hadn’t noticed until now, but there’d been a definite change since they’d entered the Spire. “Yeah.” She was glaring at a group of five lazing on the ground with a blanket and basket like this was a park in the afternoon. “Team name. It’s not important, but it makes things easier.”

“I can imagine. What do they do if you don’t have one?”

“They’d go with the name of the captain. Me, in this instance.”

“So, ‘Team Evalyn’?”

She frowned. “No, it would be ‘Team Lasial’.”

“That’s your last name? Huh.”

Evalyn laughed softly and pushed at his shoulder. “All this time and you never asked?”

“I’ve seen it in your tag, it’s just the first time I’ve heard it. Besides, do you know what my last name is?” She opened and then closed her mouth before acknowledging the point.

“Brant.”

“Brant? Huh. ‘Team Brant’.” She stuck out her tongue in mock distaste. “We made the right choice of captain.”

“You’re basing that just off of our names?”

“Branding is important. Look at Farthest Run. Excellent. Not obnoxiously obvious, but it touches on what they excel at.”

Daniel followed the thread. “So, we need a name that tells people what we do?” He thought on that for a moment. “What do we do? I mean, kill monsters sure, but Gordon’s people were so specialized.”

“We have an Artificer on the team.” She nudged him. Whatever mood she’d gotten in from seeing the competition was bleeding off. “I’ve never heard of a team like that. And then there’s Hunter. And Khare. And… Khiat.”

“I don’t think we want a name that tells people about that.”

“I was thinking, ‘Golden Wing’.”

It took Daniel a second to form an opinion. “Wait, seriously?”

“It’s the most recognizable part of our team.”

“And we’re leaving for Threst soon. It feels like a lot of teams will be named something like that.”

“You’re not leaving the wings behind, are you? Tak will be on board because of ‘wing’, I’d bet on that. Between you and him, Hunter would go along with it. Khare wouldn’t care, at least,” she frowned, “I don’t think they would. Now that we can talk with them it’s something to consider. And you know how Khiat is. She’d go along with whatever we suggest.”

“And she might not come with us.”

“Yes,” Evalyn acknowledged. “So, what do you think?”

He looked at her expectant, vibrant face. “It’s not bad. I just, I think it sounds a little too rich. Maybe? Maybe just a little pretentious?” He didn’t want to shoot down her idea. At the same time, he didn’t want people who didn’t know to hear the name and think they were akin to the rest on the platform. “I do like the wing part.”

“Gold’s not too rich,” Evalyn defended. “Most people without a class would only earn a gold coin every month or so, but it’s not something like lapis or, gods, alabaster. We still need to ask Tak about that, don’t we?”

“Yeah. Look, where I, uh, come from, gold’s a pretty rich metal.”

Evalyn looked like she wanted to argue, but relented. “So what would you suggest?”

“I do like the wing part,” Daniel said encouragingly. “If I get good enough material I could make a set for everyone. It’s too bad we didn’t get enough of the leather for me to.” His attempts so far to duplicate his wings had failed. The heliorite had been a crutch, and the larger an item, the harder it was to make both in terms of absolute difficulty and the fact that he needed a single piece large enough for wings. Like everything else he’d previously cheated on he was getting better. “Anyways. If Hunter were here he’d probably suggest ‘Hunter Wing’ or something stupid like that. If I’d known that was what monster hunters were called I would have suggested he choose another name.”

“What did you think they were called?”

“I don’t know! I didn’t know people called adventurers Blessed.” He sighed, suddenly feeling tired. They weren’t yet at spending a full 24 hours up, but it was getting there. More importantly, they wouldn’t be regaining their mana today. He still had about half left, plenty for another city day so long as Rogues didn’t jump him again. “Wandering Wing?”

“Hmm. I don’t know. I liked the alliteration with my name.”

“My name has alliteration! Oh, wait. Damn it.”

“Another language thing?”

“Yeah.” Daniel kicked at the ground. “The structure of our two languages is similar, otherwise I might have ended up like Khare. But spelling, stuff like that, it’s different. Some words with multiple meanings aren’t the same. Idioms sometimes carry over though, and that’s weird. I also haven’t heard anything that clashes too heavily with concepts I understand. Just another strange thing about me.”

Evalyn eyed him. “And you think you’re the best person to pick the name?”

“I thought we were coming up with suggestions,” Daniel shot back.

“Oh, sure,” Evalyn said as if she just hadn’t walked him through her plan for selling the rest of the team on it. “Maybe something that references the fact that half of us have Regeneration?”

“What, like Healing Wing? That’d probably be misleading. Unless Thomas… no, he probably wouldn’t.”

“Fair.” She scratched her head. “Gtoll did mention how many bonds are between the team.”

“Bonded Wing? No, that sounds too much like innuendo.” He looked back up. “Is it that out of the ordinary? Farthest Run had one in their team.”

“I wouldn’t know. Bards, we can have trouble with them. I’m lucky to have the one I do have. I was never too attached to the previous teams I was with.” She pulled out her water flask from the bag of holding, needing just a moment to find it within the expanded space, before taking a drink. “I see the idea, though. Honestly if you, Hunter, and Tak somehow consolidated your bonds?” She took another drink, thinking. “Those grow in strength the more people are in them. The way you can share your telepathy is already on par with Lograve’s level 4 feature if only limited to you 3.”

“Oh yeah, it’s like chemistry.” He waved away Evalyn’s confused look. “Earth stuff. It does make me wonder if Lograve’s worked out that symbol, but, eh.”

“For the record, I still like Golden Wing.”

“We just need a better adjective. Like lightning! No, too mouthy. Light? No. Fallen?”

Evalyn shook her head. “Fallen Wing doesn’t make us sound good at our jobs. Why that word?”

Daniel shrugged. “I’m saying things at random. Argent? It’s a fancy word for silver. Or ardent which is something to do with confidence I think. Ooh, Dragon Wing. We’ve fought dragons, it works.”

“And none of us are draconoids,” Evalyn pointed out, partially just to reflect Daniel’s skepticism back at him.

“So, why should that matter?” The Bard’s pointed stare indicated that it did. “How sold are we on the wing part?”

“I’m still waiting to hear an idea that’s better than mine,” Evalyn grumbled.

“It just sounds gaudy. And I might lose the wings someday, considering those jerks took my crossbow. Not that I want to, but if I do then what’s that mean for our name? I’d rather we do something as a reminder of where we come from. The Thormundz, I mean.”

“Khiat isn’t from there.”

“Khiat may not come with us.” Daniel thought about that. He’d already tried lightning, but that was too wordy. “What about Storm Wing?”

Evalyn was a bit taken aback. “You want to name us after the Tyrant?”

“Well, no.” Daniel deflated, then put a hand to his chest. “Actually, yes. Fuck him he’s dead. Let’s take the name and make everyone forget Heldren Storm.”

“That’s so stupid,” Evalyn said, chuckling at that same time at the boldness of the idea. “Let’s bring it up with the others. I feel like we’re just talking in circles and I want to get through everything before the sun comes up.”

“What happens then?”

“We leave.” There was an ominous tone of finality there that Daniel couldn’t pierce. It left a break in the conversation that did nothing to help the time limit. By the conversations drifting across the mostly empty space, it seemed like everyone was just wasting time too.

He looked over as Evalyn took in a breath, though she kept him waiting for almost a minute as she considered whatever it was she wanted to say. “Do you want to go back to your world? If you could, would you?”

Daniel almost fell off the side of the banister. He would have, if not for several powers that made recovery easier. From where he’d dragged himself back up, he breathed heavily. “Did you do that on purpose?” Evalyn asked, bemused.

“No! How do you just ask that?”

“It’s important.” She helped him up and looked into his eyes, waiting for an answer.

“It’s-” Daniel rubbed at his head. He knew the answer and knew what Evalyn wanted to hear. Unfortunately, those two didn’t agree. “Yeah. If I could, right now? Maybe not. If I could wait a little, a few days? But I can’t.” He kept his voice down, despite the emotion budging into his voice. There were other people here. Maybe Evalyn had known it would come to this. She had been hoping for privacy, but if anything this proved she had her flaws too. “I’m never going to see my family again.” He said it like an accusation.

“Mine disappeared in an instant. So fast I didn’t know what had happened until I felt the shockwave.” Evalyn’s eyes were hard, as if he could have forgotten. “If it wasn’t for my bond, that faint hope, I might have given up in that moment.”

“At least you have hope.” The distant sky was slowly brightening, and yet the night had reached its darkest. Daniel fell again, collapsing against the railing. “Why are we talking about this?”

“Because the only one saying you can’t go back is you. And I’ve seen you be really stupid sometimes.” Still biting, but with slight remorse in the corner of her eyes.

“It’s impossible.”

“Says you,” she said, emphasis on the last word. “All I am saying is you can’t trust that. Even if he’s not lying to you, that doesn’t mean he knows the entire truth. There are great works of magic known to us, in our stories. Moving across the world in an instant isn’t out of the question. Between them might be possible. No one has known to try before.”

“Don’t do that. It’s hard enough without thinking there’s a chance.”

She was sitting next to him now, staring straight into his eyes. Casual observers would have gotten the exact wrong idea of the mood. “There is a chance. Always.”

He pushed himself away, her not reaching for him. “Why bring this up now?”

Evalyn didn’t move, or shift her gaze, but it did soften. “You’re too much of a friend for me to lose to the whims of fate, at least without talking about this first. It’s been eating away at me ever since Earth-Daniel entered the picture, and we were already worried to death when you were taken by Claret. Gods, but if that happens again I’m tearing this city apart rather than waiting for anyone’s permission.” She glared at the Sun Spire for a moment before continuing. “I’d hoped we could have a fun night out and end it here with everyone that cared about you. You can have a good life here. I wasn’t expecting it to be just the two of us, but that’s how it ended up.” She shrugged helplessly at the open space around them. “No one would want you to go, at least not without saying goodbye first.”

“Tlara would.” He couldn’t stop himself from saying the smart response.

“I haven’t seen her in a while.” Evalyn almost sounded worried, but there was a lot of emotion in her voice confusing things. “Even after the Thormundz, I don’t think any of us have been thinking enough about the future. Forming a team, traveling, it’s making me consider things I’d been putting off. I know it’s not fair for me to ask you to stay, but shouldn’t we at least know if you’d run headlong into a portal if one appeared?”

“You should know without having to ask.” Daniel took a breath, trying to calm himself. Evalyn couldn’t have surprised him with a more painful topic. “I wouldn’t just disappear, not if I have a choice. And if Hunter couldn’t come with me… We could game out a thousand scenarios and neither of us would be happy at the end. Is that what you want?”

Evalyn face fell as she realized there’d be no clean conclusion to the conversation. “I guess not.”

He looked ahead when she didn’t say anything else. Dawn was here, for all it mattered. You couldn’t see the sun, but they’d missed mana regeneration. Oh well. “I’m sorry you didn’t get a good wish.”

“Hunter didn’t get one at all.”

“He’ll deal with it.” Daniel rested his head on the bars that supported the handrail around the platform. Decorated over the ages, but the entire thing was made out of one piece and impossibly suspended. Builders, always and never here. “For the record, if I did leave, it would be the hardest thing I’d ever do because of you guys.”

”I guess I’ll take that,” Evalyn conceded, before grinning. “I mean, once you leave there’ll be nothing standing in the way of Golden Wing.”

“If that makes you feel better about it.” Daniel stood, shaking out his nerves and feeling the weight of lost sleep. “We should get going. I’m about to fall off of this place.”

“Why don’t we?” Daniel gave her an incredulous look until he got the point. “Even if we’re not going to use it as a name, we might as well use them.”

The Artificer slipped on his wings, drawing attention from the others on the Eye who hadn’t given much attention to the random two sitting on the western side until now. They were too slow to do anything as the Bard grabbed on and they both went over the edge.