“COME ON, FYRE!” Ollie calls. The white dragon vanishes in a swirl of mist as he plunges into a nearby cloudbank. “RACE YOU!”

  “I am slightly preoccupied at the moment,” I mentally reply. “We can play after I finish taking these measurements.”

  “BOOOO, MEASUREMENTS,” Ollie says. He reappears as he tears out the opposite side of the cloud, dispersing it entirely with a few flaps of his enormous wings. He does a couple of loop-de-loops after that, and his delight echoes down our mental connection as clearly as if he were the seven-year-old human child he’d been born as, giggling in my arms.

  “Fyre?” Dizzi prompts me. The harpy is hovering nearby, her wind affinity allowing her to stay levitating in place rather than needing to fly tight laps, as classical aerodynamics would require from such physiology. “I asked what distance we’re at now.”

  “Sorry,” I call back. “Ollie was asking to play. Let me check.”

  I myself am also hoving in place, using a Jet spell to gimbal five magical fires lit beneath my talons, wings, and one of my hands. In my other hand I’m holding a rock. It’s entirely unremarkable, except that it belongs to the Dungeon Core, a fact that the Dungeon Core won’t let me forget.

  Even though the Core is physically back in Fyreneth’s Fortress, securely attached to the throne, it shifts nervously in my mind as I access its interface.

  It urges me to be careful with its rock. Now that we are in the sky, there are no more nearby rocks—except for what’s already in its fortress—so it would be very sad if I dropped and lost this one.

  I won’t drop it, I assure the Dungeon Core. And even if I did, I’m sure Dizzi or Ollie would be delighted to plunge through the sky after it to try and catch it before it hit the ocean, thousands of meters below.

  The Dungeon Core catches this last thought and is extremely un-reassured!

  It’s been like this ever since we took to the sky. The air is very much not the Dungeon Core’s element, which has resulted in it acting protective of its dirt. I’ve assured it our flight is only a temporary state, since the wind arcana in the cloud stone won’t last forever. We’ll settle back on land again, when we find the right time and place.

  Unsurprisingly, these vague assurances do little to placate the Dungeon Core.

  In its interface, I Check several characteristics of the rock I’m currently holding.

  [Dolomite,] Echo reports. [Hardness: 3.6. Mass: 2.5 kilograms. Distance: 1481 meters.]

  “About a kilometer and a half,” I tell Dizzi.

  She frowns, looking back to Fyreneth’s Fortress. “That can’t be right. We’re way closer than that.”

  “The distance is measured from the city’s center of mass, not its outer walls,” I tell her. “So a lot of the range falls within the city.”

  Hesitantly, I drift a few more feet away from the city. It only takes Echo a couple seconds to speak up.

  [Role Requirement,] she says as the Sanity stat in the corner of my vision flips from 100% to 99%. [The Dark Lord must protect her kingdom.]

  And by this, what Echo really means is that I need to stay close enough to the city that it’s deemed “protected.” Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to get her to give me the specific parameters she uses to determine these metrics.

  Which is why I’ve decided to reverse engineer them.

  “FYRE,” Ollie abruptly speaks up, alarmed. “ARE YOU OKAY?”

  At the same time, Mirzayael mentally reaches out. “Something feels wrong. Are you injured?”

  “I’m fine,” I tell them both. I retreat a few meters back toward the Fortress until Echo’s warnings vanish and my Sanity returns to 100%. “It’s just the Role Requirement experiment I told you guys about. Sorry, I didn’t realize you’d also be able to sense its effect on me.”

  At 99% it was little more than a faint static, but I’m ashamed to admit even seeing the stat change induced a brief flicker of anxiety in me. The first time I broke the requirements, the pain had become so overwhelming I’d eventually lost consciousness.

  “Please do not attempt anything rash,” Mirzayael says sternly, though I can feel her relief.

  Ollie loops back toward me, and I have to gimbal my flames against the wind of his approach to keep from being blown back. “IS THERE ANYTHING I CAN DO TO HELP?”

  I frown. “Is this triggering your Role Requirement, Ollie?” His Role, The Dragon, requires that he protect me when I’m in danger. I’m not wild about this role requirement either, but I am hesitant to test its limits in search of a loophole, lest I cause any harm to Ollie.

  “NO,” he says to my relief. “I’M JUST BORED.”

  “Fyre?” Dizzi says.

  I shake my head. “Sorry. Mirzayael and Ollie were worried when the Role Requirement activated.”

  Dizzi’s eyes dance in amusement. “You’ve got a whole village in that head of yours.”

  With the Dungeon Core integrated into the entire city-castle of Fyreneth’s Fortress, that’s more accurate than she thinks.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “One-thousand, four-hundred, and eighty-two meters is the limit,” I tell Dizzi. “Let’s record that as our baseline.”

  “It’s a shame you didn’t record the distance the first time the Role Requirement kicked in,” Dizzi remarks. “We could have used that to determine if these Levels of yours influence your range at all.”

  It is a possible factor to consider, though Leveling up out here in the open air is proving a little difficult. The metrics which seem to affect my Level are dealing damage (not an option), taking damage (not a preferable option), and performing magic. This, of course, is the most viable route, however it only counts if I am doing my own magic, like this Jet spell. Using anything through the Dungeon Core’s interface tragically does not count.

  “It could certainly be a factor,” I agree. “Though I wonder if protecting the Kingdom is more dependent on the security of the Fortress than my individual powerset.”

  “I’m more than happy to dig into the Fortress’s weapons systems.” Dizzi rubs her hands together excitedly. “I haven’t fully deciphered the spell circuits in watch towers, but from what I can read, there’s some awesome spells still buried in the Fortress’s walls.”

  The suggestion leaves me feeling uneasy. It’s hard to forget the horns of Jorria blaring faintly in warning from below as we sailed over their city. There would have been nothing they could have done to stop us. If the Fortress is equipped with weapons, if it fell into the wrong hands…

  “Let’s continue to focus on the defensive spell circuits first,” I tell her.

  It wasn’t until we’d taken to the air that additional features of the Fortress had revealed themselves. During its initial ascension, one of the towers in the city’s outer wall was damaged, and it wasn’t until some teens happened to explore the abandoned structure that additional spell circles were discovered.

  Dizzi thinks some are defensive and some are offensive: I’ve only had a brief opportunity to investigate them myself, which led to me discovering even more sections of the castle that were disconnected from the throne room, which itself serves as a sort of magical central hub to the Fortress. These capabilities would have been invaluable when the Jorrians initially attacked. But I hadn’t had time to explore every inch of Fyreneth’s Fortress before, and I have even less time now, given I’ve been busy with, well. Everything.

  Which is why I’m currently leaving the investigation to Dizzi. Delegate, I can hear Mirzayael telling me. You can’t do everything yourself.

  “You’re thinking about me,” Mirzayael says. “I can feel it.”

  I smile. “They’re good thoughts, I promise.”

  “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

  I chuckle. Mirzayael’s humor is so dry, you’d think she’d grown up in a desert rather than the arctic. But since we established a Psionic Link, the amusement she feels, even when delivering a joke with an entirely straight face, has provided a useful tell for determining which remarks are made in jest.

  “You talking to Mirzayael again?” Dizzi asks, arcing a mischievous eyebrow.

  I look at her in surprise. “How did you know?”

  “You get this small smile when you do.” She grins herself, and despite the chill of the wind, I can feel heat raising up the back of my neck and cheeks.

  “IS IT TIME TO PLAY YET?” Ollie asks.

  I mentally check my agenda: Mirzayael and I aren’t scheduled for our daily report for another thirty minutes. “Alright,” I agree. “Just let me put the Dungeon Core’s rock away before it has a panic attack.”

  “OH, I CAN TAKE IT BACK,” Ollie volunteers, forgetting that I can simply add it to the Core’s Inventory.

  But the Dungeon Core hears Ollie’s suggestion and is relieved anyway. Yes, please! Finally! It cannot afford to lose any more rocks.

  “IF I SEEN ANY MORE ISLANDS I’LL GRAB YOU SOME MORE,” Ollie tells the Dungeon Core, which vibrates with excitement.

  The Core’s anxiety had ratcheted up the first few days we were in the air, until Ollie noticed a small rocky island not much larger than himself, and retrieved a few clawfuls of rocks to bring back to the Fortress. Ever since then, the Core has thought very highly of Ollie, and the boy is absolutely delighted to be the rock’s favorite. As far as I can tell, Ollie views the Dungeon Core like some kind of pet, and takes every opportunity available to make it happy.

  Ollie flips over mid-flight and heads to me. When he’s close, I toss the rock his way, and he catches it in his mouth. As he whips past us, on the way to the Fortress, the vortices of his wake fling Dizzi and I into a tumble. Dizzi shrieks in delight, and my stomach lurches into my throat, but we both recover without incident as the dragon disappears back within the Fortress.

  Above the city, the silhouettes of other harpies dot the sky. In the sunlight, from this distance, Fyreneth’s Fortress indeed looks like a city that spent several hundred years in a grimy cave. While the rooftops are made from stone the color of flames, the tiles are streaked and worn from a million drips of calcium enriched water. The white walls of buildings are stained with grey and black streaks. Cracks run up many of the walls, where water and ice had seeped in over hundreds of years.

  But everyday it looks more refined than the last. Every time I look back, it seems to have changed in some subtle way, like a flower slowly blooming. It’s only been a week since we left the arctic behind, but the enthusiasm which infects the city is palpable. Someone finds something that needs doing and starts the work before it’s even made it up the chain to Mirzayael and I. My heart aches for how much I love this city and its people.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Dizzi remarks, watching the Fortress beside me. “Those rudders were a stroke of genius.”

  I chuckle. I should have suspected it was the technological aspects she finds beautiful, not that I can blame her. “It wasn’t my genius,” I say. “I just implemented the findings of the scientists and inventors who came before me. Though I suspect they never anticipated an application quite like this.”

  Dizzi laughs. “I doubt even Fyreneth imagined something like this. But doesn’t that make it more exciting? We’re doing something the world has never seen! I can’t wait to see their reaction.”

  I’m somewhat more hesitant to encounter our first city that isn’t Jorria. Will they treat us the same as the Jorrians did? Will they be willing to keep open hearts and open minds? I know so little about this planet, and since the Fyrethians have spent hundreds of years in the arctic, disconnected from the rest of society, their knowledge is based on a world that existed hundreds of years ago. Anything might have changed in that time.

  At least we’re all in the dark together.

  “We’ve much to tidy up before we’re ready for any company,” I say.

  Dizzi grimaces. “Cleaning isn’t nearly as fun as inventing.”

  “Well luckily for you, I’m the one stuck on maintenance while you get to be on inventing duty,” I tease. As we chat, Ollie’s silhouette reappears over the Fortress. I’d caught flickers of the mental exchange between Ollie and the Dungeon Core in the back of my mind; Ollie had likely spit the rock out in the throne room, whereupon the Core had added it back to its Inventory. An entirely pointless exchange, given I could have simply added the stone back to its Inventory out here and avoided the inevitable pool of dragon saliva that will need to be cleaned up before (another) resident slips in it.

  But at least they’re having fun. In the midst of all this maintenance and repair, taking time for joy is equally important. I should talk to Mirzayael about that later. We’ve been in work mode ever since the Fortress lifted into the air; we could all use a break.

  A gust of wind hits Dizzi and I as Ollie whips past, giggling in my head. I correct my tumble with a laugh, then launch myself after him.

  “You won’t get away that easily,” I call.

  Ollie shrieks in delight—and lets out a significantly more menacing roar—as he dives into a cloudbank. I fly after, the wind rustling through my feathers and the sun warm against my back.

  Fyre Fly. I'll be posting 3 days a week, M W F, until the end of book 2.

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