To Fly the Soaring Tides

In case you were wondering, enchanting dishes like poor Cira’s teapot with resistance to velocity was indeed possible with spatial sorcery. Why did she not take these precautions? Well, she tried once. Then, when she decided to get Breeze Haven moving again the dishes remained, smashing into the side of their cupboards until they were finely ground shards no larger than your pinky nail.

Her sorcery wasn’t quite there yet to pull off such a feat of magical convenience, but if she had to spend any more of her life repairing the same dishes, she was destined to pull her hair out.

All the furniture was bolted down and most other things wouldn’t break, though reorganizing got annoying, it always slipped her mind when she moved onto broken porcelain. That’s why she’d been making an effort to fly carefully until she figured it out.

Breeze Haven leisurely ascended along the salt monument, making slight adjustments around its curvature from out in the garden. Numerous caves dotted the walls, some pouring water into the open sky. Many of them held decrepit scaffolding around the entrance or broken railways from work done in years past. As she watched the scenery go by her eyes were drawn to one flooded cave with a rope dangling out, something swaying in the wind attached at the end.

“Hm? No, it couldn’t be…” Nevertheless, Cira got closer to and pulled out her spyglass. “That’s a person!”

It was times like these she wished she hadn’t lost her boat a few islands ago. That is to say, her other boat—the dinghy. Breeze Haven had a small alcove that could be accessed downstairs that fit a small personal vessel. It was sacrificed to escape some particularly scary birds. They were reptilian, really. Cira didn’t know what to call them.

Alas, she would have been exploring caves this whole time if she had it. Nothing beat a good cave to explore. More importantly, it would have helped her rescue this fellow. Instead, she had to approach with utmost care until she could yell at the guy. Depending on his situation, she could lift him over easy enough.

“Ho there! Need a hand?” She called out.

“Bah! Debris?! An island?! What in the blazes?” She had approached silently after all—not on purpose. The man was of short stature, sunburnt with dry, cracked skin. His eyes were red and unfocused. “Have I found the final sky already?”

“Not yet, old man.” She affirmed he was still living, “I can give you a lift, but you’re not a pirate or a bad guy are you?”

“O-of course not! I’m a miner, dammit, look at me! Please, I have a wife and child, you have to help me! I’ll give you everything I have!”

“No need to go that far. Here.” The rope severed and the man floated towards Cira, screaming in terror.

“GYAHHH! Whyyy?! Wha- Oh… What is this?!” The man slowly collected himself but still wasn’t too keen on levitating over a dead drop through the entire sky.

The man got close enough and Cira floated a boarding pass over to him, “Take this.”

Waving his arms around like a man who couldn’t swim, he finally grabbed hold of the pendant and she brought him in, only for him to collapse on the lawn weeping with joy.

“Ground! Solid ground! Thank you! Oh, thank you! How can I ever repay you?” The man wiped his snot and tried to hold out his hand to shake, but Cira pretended not to notice the gesture.

“Food, money, treasure… Doesn’t matter which. I can’t stiff you since we didn’t agree on a price.” This was drilled into her as a kid. Never help somebody only to turn around and charge exorbitant sums. That wasn’t really helping to begin with.

“Sure is kind of you miss, but I’ll be sure to pay you back. Ain’t nothin’ free on this rock.”

“Is that right?”

“Never been? Ain’t missin’ much. Place has seen better days. ‘Lotta folk just stay away unless they’re here to pick up or drop off.” The man recalled his home with less than praise.

Fount Salt, known simply by locals as ‘the rock’, was a giant floating mine. As the only populated island along the Dead Chain, it hosted a sizable town for both residents and travelers. It used to be common for merchants to go out of their way to pick up goods here before heading back up from Hawker’s Pact, though even smaller companies rarely stopped on their way down anymore.

“Things sure changed when Earth Vein took over twelve years ago. City turned to shit. Nothin’ good to eat. People die in the streets. There ain’t much left up here but salt ‘n’ despair. Yeah, the years ain’t been good on this ol’ rock.”

She had to agree. This sounded exactly like the type of place she’d fly right past. Unfortunately for her, she had to make a delivery. Well, where there’s trouble there’s work.

“How’d you end up on the end of that rope anyhow? Quite the compromising position.” Cira asked about the white elephant in the garden.

“Another mine flooded out yesterday. If you didn’t find me when you did I dunno how much more I coulda taken.”

“Yikes. You were there for a whole day? There weren’t more people in there I should have helped, were there…?”

“Not the way I came.” The man shuddered, “Who knows how long I was slidin’ through the dark down there. Won’t find nothin’ that way. I’m sure they have search parties goin’ now anyway.”

“Well, glad I could help. If you show me the way I can take you back home, too.”

“Tch.” The man laughed, “I would hope so. Name’s Chip.”

It took the rest of the day to ascend the island at their pace. Much to Chip’s delight, Cira fed him some of her surplus steak and made tea. By the time they reached the top he was joking about how they could just skip the island if she wanted.

At such high altitudes, it could often seem as if the very night sky was beneath you. Clear skies were more common this high up, but below, miles of clouds formed a blanket of darkness over the earth, while countless stars lit up the sky beyond. Cira felt as if she were among them when she was up here.

Adding to that effect was the mining city, Uren, with a shining cluster of its own stars, was the only land in sight. When she looked up, she thought she could just barely make out the silhouette of an island. She’d be passing by it soon enough. It still filled her eyes with wonder to think of how much of the sky above was still within reach.

“I thought you said it was run down,” Cira commented, “It’s lit with magic tools, isn’t it”

“The artifacts you mean? Haven’t been maintained in twelve years.” Artifacts were made by artificers. Different birds, different words, as they say. The mana they draw in and put out wears them down slowly, but regular maintenance was critical for tools like city lights that ran constantly for much of the day. Cira set a day aside each month to maintain the various ‘artifacts’ that made up Breeze Haven. “Lot of ‘em burned up and they keep having to space ‘em out, or take ‘em from people’s homes. I tell ya’ this place ain’t got long. I been savin’ to move my family up to the Port.”

Chip was nothing if not a good conversation partner. He had a lot of stories that ultimately amounted to mining salt with his friends, but somehow the way he told them kept Cira entertained enough. As they got closer she could really see the decrepit aspect to this place. It was more of a tin shanty town, complete with holes in the walls and caved in roofs. There were people sleeping around a campfire just outside the walls, next to a fallen over watchtower and right on the salt.

You know, maybe I’ll just drop him off. I don’t want to get roped into building stuff again.

Soon enough they were landing outside the city next to where other ships moored, and when they walked down the steps a sight woefully commonplace was waiting just outside her gate.

Three confused men caught their breath as she cocked her head. It was best if they spoke first so she didn’t say anything rude. They wore gray overalls and thick wool undershirts, with shoddy pistols strapped to their belts. They were made from crude pipes and repurposed wood.

Just as some guards may hold swords, Cira didn’t bat an eye that these ones happened to have guns, though she did mentally prepare herself to activate a shield. Finally, the younger man in the middle spoke.

“Good evening traveler, would you be the owner of this vessel?”

“Uh, yeah. That’s me.”

“The overseer has summoned the owner of this vessel to his quarters. Would you mind coming with us?”

Ugh. Here we go again.

She tensed up and asked them to explain why, but they didn’t know. Just that the overseer wanted her help. They were elated when they heard Chip’s story and agreed to escort him home to his family, leaving her with the option of denying them to their face and flying away, or seeing what this so-called overseer had to say. After hearing them talk with Chip, they seemed like decent people who didn’t pose much threat, so she obliged.

The first thing Cira noticed was the air. It was like walking into an oven without the heat. She could feel the moisture being sapped out of every pore. This can’t be healthy.

They led her through the city’s gate which hung wrong on its hinge and didn’t close right, and into a bustling city paved in rusted steel. Every structure was built on metal piers rising out of the salt, beneath them channels were eroded into the salt from infrequent weather.

Chip made her promise to come find her when she had a spare moment to repay her kindness, then gave her general directions and disappeared.

This island is massive, but won’t it just dissolve away one day? She had heard they’d been mining there for hundreds of years, so she didn’t know how many more centuries it would take, but she knew salt dissolved in water. The signs were quite evident her whole way up and even on the surface. The question was whether they’d mine all the salt before it all washed away in the rain. I guess they’d have a few decades heads up at least.

The surface was strip mined and the city built upon many different levels, with walkways and common areas with storefronts set up along them. Now inside, she could see the deteriorating quality to all the light artifacts up close. They all shone at a different brightness, while some flickered and others were shining on overdrive—a sign that the tool was at the end of its life. Much of the inscription will have worn away and it can no longer operate as designed, expending its life exponentially faster.

Still, the city buzzed with life. Most of them dressed like miners, some with white powder streaking down their overalls. The aroma of cooked meat wafted from every direction as stands lined the boardwalk. They were strewn together with sheet metal and scrap, but plenty walked the streets stopping for a bite and chatting about their day.

Even with meager conditions and those tales of woe, many still wore smiles, their toils just a part of daily life. This seemed like another close-knit community, and a city rife with things to do and people to meet. A welcome sight after so long at sea, jumping from one Podunk isle to the next. Nothing here that can burn, either.

The overseer awaited their arrival in a large facility with two massive silos flanking it. It had automatic doors that opened when a guard placed a card atop a stand mounted to the railing. Cira marveled at the massive ship touching down at the top of one of the silos. It was completely round and had to be hundreds of feet across.

“They call ‘em dropships,” The guard noticed her starstruck gaze, “All they do is go up and down the noose.”

Once inside they used an artifact called an elevator to reach the top floor. Why would they convert mana into electricity to pull it up a track with turning gears? At least use a pulley, talk about dangerous. They really hired a hack to put this place together… what, fifty years ago? A hundred?

Age could explain the outdated method but that begged the question of how it hadn’t fallen apart yet. It didn’t look that old and strangely enough bore the best craftsmanship of any artifact she’d seen in the city thus far with hardly any wear. Yes, she was using more of her detection magic to check it out in detail. Spatial magic could be used to observe your surroundings or, say, build elevators.

This one was held by gears facing out against an open track on either side. If it dislodged, the payload would smash mercilessly into the depths below. So, if he wasn’t a hack, was he just the world’s most talented moron?

“Excuse me, miss…” Cira realized they were stopped, “We’re here.”

A shiny hallway and a set of double doors later and they were inside a large office with panoramic windows looking over the whole city. Much more pleasant strings of light connected the buildings together and lit up the walkways. Cira loved the ways cities got to decide when the day truly ended.

The rest of the room had shelves with antique mining tools on them and bookcases. Filing cabinets flanked a large desk with a plump old man sitting behind it. Now, Cira had said Chip was old, but this man was truly old. You couldn’t tell where his eyes were set from the multitude of wrinkles, but somehow she could tell he was looking at her.

The old man hacked up a lung and a half then spent a solid minute clearing his throat.

“Who the hell’re you?”