Unbound

It was morning, and the sun had barely crested the horizon when Felix, Zara, and the rest crowded aboard Vilas Tern's personal skiff, headed for the Violet Tower. At first, Felix had been nervous. They had spent the night strategizing on the best way to approach the Tower and achieve their objectives. The preparation, however, was not as soothing as Felix had hoped.

Now, he drummed his fingers within the confines of the skiff, a relatively small Manaship, designed for only a handful of people. The five of them were seated in a cabin with only a few benches. Felix sat next to Zara and Vilas, while Alister and Atar occupied their own bench. The two of them were huddled next to each other, engaged in quiet conversation that Felix had no desire to eavesdrop on. If Vess were there, he'd want his privacy, too.

The trip proved boring and far longer than he expected. Much to Zara's credit, the traffic in the skies above Levantier was awful, worse than even the worst rush hour back home. The skies were packed with ships, most of which had large hulls, no doubt bulging with passengers and items to trade. At many points they came to a standstill, but even when they were advancing across the sky, the skiff itself was quite slow, owing in part to construction but also its weight. Though it was a small ship, its hold was packed with all of the items Tern had taken away from the Tower months prior.

In the distance, unavoidable and obvious, was the beam that rose up from the very center of the city. The color of the beam was hard to pin down, shifting between hues and yet not. The best descriptor Felix could come up with was “colorless,” though even that fell short. It rose up from the heavy fortress down below, rising through its center to impact the series of floating islands far above. Those islands housed the Violet Tower and its many outbuildings. It was still small with distance, but Felix’s gaze kept returning to it as the sun slowly lit up the city below.

"It is quite majestic, is it not?"

Felix sat back from the window. "It is. Do we know why the Vent is releasing undifferentiated Mana?”

“Instead of a specific type like fire or air?” Tern’s expression faltered for a second before he shook his head, as if shaking off a chill. “It has been studied, but no. We’ve never learned why.”

“Hmm.”

“What do you think of the Tower?”