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  Chapter Sixty-Four - Physical Manakinesis

  “Pull little ss!” Abraham shouted from the other side of the ship.

  I pnted my two feet on the railing, ed my upper arm around the rope and pushed off as hard as I could until my entire body was horizontal. The rope came with me, but only with some effort and I had to grit my teeth against the strain on my arm.

  The sail whose line I ulling finally deployed, and with a ‘’ its vas caught the wind and expanded.

  In moments Abraham was by my side and he caught me before I fell onto the deck. Then, with deft hands, he grabbed the rope and tied it into a quiot on a nearby metal hook. “Haha! We almost died there!” he cheered.

  I was grinning like a loon as I tried to keep my feet as the Shady Lady shifted and began to turn, the sail I had deployed allowing the airship to twist around a little and ge course. That was handy, because right in the dire he had been heading in was aire flock of whales.

  A pod of whales?

  I wasn’t sure which word was the right oo describe gigantic flying fish the size of semi-trailers. They were big, grey, and moved through the air in much the same way as whales moved through the o. “Insight.”

  Aern Skim Murgh, level 9.

  “Whaa,” I said as I leaned against the rails to take iire group of gigantic flying creatures. They were majesti their own way. Like fat people in a supermarket.

  “You’re easily impressed,” Amaryllis said. She was looking a little dishevelled, with her hair tossed this way and that and her clothes already covered in stains from beihe big blubbering e the back of the ship for too long.

  “How you not be, this is great!” I cheered.

  “Oh-hoh, a dy after my ow. My, if I was forty years younger I’d be smitten on the spot,” Abraham said before he moved to the back of the ship, pulled a bottle of something from a rack, took a swig of it, theied the rest into a hole above the engine. “Raynald! Remio get the engine checked again.”

  The dapper grenoil, who was currently behind the wheel, shook his head. A head that looked rather strah a pair of elongated aviatgles tied to it. “I reminded you at Port Royal, you insufferable oaf!” the grenoil said. “You said you had it in hand.”

  “I did! I even issioned a repairman to look at the old monster.”

  “Did zey?” Raynald screamed right back.

  “They’re supposed to show up this afternoon,” Abraham shouted back. “Haha! They’ll be surprised that we’ve left already.”

  “World save us all,” Raynald said.

  Amaryllis stared at the two entlemen, the me. “This is all your fault, somehow,” she said.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “If we die, it’ll be while having tons of fun.”

  “Haha! That’s the spirit!” Abraham said. “Why, you remind me of that time Raynald and I were sent to escort a diplomat from the Pyrowalk Empire all the way to Mattergrove! Easy trip, and the ss they sent was a niough dy, but the Shady Lady had a bit of a buoyancy problem.”

  “A buoyancy problem?” Amaryllis repeated.

  “Yup! We lost our balloon when we flew through a flight of saber sparrows!”

  “You... you lost your.” Amaryllis looked up to the balloon above us, the thing that was currently keeping us afloat. “That’s unbelievable.”

  “Oh? Saber sparrows are a well-known threat. And they taste great roasted over a campfire,” Abraham said.

  Grinning, I hopped over to one of the metal doodads on the ded sat down to listen, the whales flowing past us to one side serving as a backdrop and the rushing winds as music to atuate the tale.

  “What’s unbelievable is you surviving that kind of crash.”

  “No worries! I have the jumping skill! I merely hopped off the Shady Lady before we crashed. Raynald here had some newfangled idea with a tarp and some rope--”

  “It’s called a parachute, and it’s safer zan jumping off ze ship a league in ze air.”

  “And I carried the envoy. We all made it safely to nd. Of course, we nded in the desert, and the Shady Lady’s own nding was a little harsh. But Abraham Bristlee never leaves a friend behind! So Raynald and I carried the Lady halfway across the Ostri desert until we ran across a few of the desert folk. When they heard our story, why, they were so impressed they helped pull the Shady Lady across the rest of the desert wastes until we reached Pisshole.”

  “Pisshole?” I asked, then spped a hand over my mouth.

  “It’s the name of an oasis to the Northeast of the desert,” Amaryllis said. “The Ostri have... unique naming ventions.”

  “Haha! They truly do. Nice folk though. Always good for a bit of manly sparring. Why, when I reached Pisshole one of their bigger chaps challenged me to a wrestle! I lost an arm!”

  I blihen looked at his arms, both exposed because of the pocket-lined vest he was wearing, and both looking rather whole.

  “I got better,” Abraham expined.

  “So cool,” I said. “Hey, you have the Jumping skill too?” I asked.

  “I do! Quite useful that one. I hear that at Master rank you teleport shes, but I never got it past Expert myself. Other things to ihe time in, you know?”

  “That’s wonderful. I’m trying to learn a bunch of new skills too. Oh, and I really want to learn how to use magic, but I'm terrible at it, and I haven’t practiced at all in a few days,” I said.

  “Oh-hoh! I ’t help you there, I’m afraid. I’ve always been more keen on pung things into submission before lighting them on fire,” Abraham said.

  Amaryllis sighed. “I suppose I ought to keep up my end of the bargain on that one and actually teach you a thing or two. How far along are you with that Fireball spell of yours?”

  “I’ll leave you dies to it,” Abraham said. “The engine’s making a clig noise, usually it's more of a rattle, and I think we’ve dropped a quarter league i few minutes. I’ll call you if I think we’re going to crash.”

  “Okay, thanks Abraham!” I said.

  Amaryllis stared at me for a long while. “How are you less ed about crashing than I am?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “I don’t stress easily. Stress is bad for you, so I try to just... not stress. If we’re going to crash there’s not much I do about it.”

  Amaryllis massages her temples, theured to the fore of the ship. “It must be nice, being so daft that no problem sticks to you. e on, ractice over there. I don’t want you lighting the ship on fire.”

  The Shady Lady had a figurehead shaped like a pretty dy earing far too little clothing, but I guess that ar for the course with ships. I sat o the figurehead, then, because the Lady was a nice ship, I gave its figurehead a pat.

  I didn’t like getting pats myself, but this was a ship, which I figured was kind of like a pet, so it was okay. Maybe? I’d have to ask a sailor ter.

  “So, magic!” I said.

  “Yes, magic,” Amaryllis said. “Show me what you do.”

  I nodded and brought my hand up. I had been practig a little, but not nearly as much as I would have wao. It was magic after all, and that alone made it deserve my full attention. My mana gathered in my palm, then spread out to cover my entire hand until it was like I was wearing a translut, glowing glove. I focused a little and brought it all to a hover over my hand and started to make it take the basic shape of the Fireball spell.

  It was tricky to get the rotating shape just right while also keeping the e-shaped tail in pce, but, after a solid minute I almost mahen Amaryllis hummed, I looked up, and the entire spell broke apart and did little more than release a bit of hot air.

  “Well... you’re terrible,” Amaryllis said. “But I suppose it makes sense if you never came into tact with ic system before. I was trained since I was... holy I ’t remember. I had toys that required maniputing mana to make them work, and my early csses on reading and writing were broken up by exercises with mana. You’ll find that’s the case with most noble families and plenty of wiser non-oo.”

  “Ah, darn, so I have years of catg up to do?” I asked.

  “Essentially, yes. Don’t despair too much. When I went to the Farseeing Academy some of the students in my first year were just as bad as you are now, and by the end of their first year they had done much te the gap between their skill level and that of the students like myself who had practiced their entire life.”

  “Oh, , so I learn Fireball.”

  Amaryllis huffed and took my hand in hers. Far from being romantic, she moved my arm up and poi off the side of the ship. “Push mana out,” she said.

  I did as she asked until I had a rough ball of my mana in my hand.

  “Good, now shift its aspect.”

  I did that too, frowning as I thought hot thoughts and the mana warmed up in my hand and started to flicker and dance like a fme.

  “Not bad. A bit slow, but that is Fire-aspect mana if I’ve ever seen it. You were using Grigori’s Fireball, right?”

  “I was?” I asked. “I got it from a scroll. It’s in my bag still.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I think I reize the spell, not that it’s terribly plex. Start f it again,” she instructed.

  I focused and started to form the ball part of the fireball, then I noticed little tendrils of mana snaking around my own, these charged with an almost hummiric quality. Wheendrils touched my skin it was like I ressing my hand against a transformer.

  “Are you doing something?”

  “I told you to make the spell, not ask foolish questions,” she said.

  I decided to trust that Amaryllis knew what she was doing and tio form the Fireball. The tendrils of Amaryllis’ magic pushed and prodded the magito slightly different shapes.

  “Look at the new form, pay attention to it,” she said.

  “R-right,” I said.

  Soon I had what definitely looked like a translut Fireball floating in the air just above the surfay hand.

  “Good. Cast it.”

  “Um. How?”

  Amaryllis sighed so hard it ruffled the hair by my neck. “The trigger on this spell is he e. Pull on that and push it out with your mana at the same time. Some people like to push their hand forwards too.”

  “Got it,” I said.

  I found the thing I thought was the trigger in the spell, then at the same time as I yanked on it, I closed my hand into a fist and punched forwards.

  The spell unched.

  A trail of heated air followed after the fist-sized ball of fire. I ughed as the Fireball rushed ahead, screaming through the air. Then it started to spin out of trol like a defting balloon. For a moment I was worried it would e back, but it exploded a dozeers away into a ball of fire with tirical sparks fshing throughout.

  “I did it!” I cheered as I got up.

  “gra--” Amaryllis began, but she was cut off as I hugged the air out of her lungs.

  “Thank you! Thank you!” I said.

  Ding! For repeating a Special A a suffit number of times you have unlocked the general skill: Physical Manakinesis!