Beneath the Dragoneye Moons

585 Years after Elaine became a professor at the School of Sorcery and Spellcraft

Sara’s notes on how to identify when people were combatants versus civilians using models was brilliant, and the inspiration for the next set of Heal rune headaches. Namely, how much bacteria was too much? I didn’t want to purge everything, that was stupid. There was a good amount of bacteria that helped us and getting rid of all of it would just make people sick and digest poorly. At the same time, I didn’t want too much. Everything in moderation.

What was fine for an adult human male was terrible for a female naga child. The mix that worked for elves was lethal to kobolds. Gnolls had enough bacteria in their mouth to nearly qualify as a venomous bite, I didn’t want to delete that portion from them.

That was before I got into the white blood cell mixes. Was a virus familiar to a body or not? The degree of familiarity influenced how much I could, should leave behind. If this rune was to become popular, I didn’t want to leave people utterly defenseless in the end, only to get sick time and time again as their body was left undefended. No, it was best to leave enough bacteria that 99.99% of the population exposed to each individual pathogen would be able to fight it off, which led to endless statistical modeling to figure out the right amount for each species in the first place, before I even got into the headache of starting to inscribe it!

There was a reason a Heal rune didn’t exist yet. Rather, a good, effective Heal rune didn’t. Amber had kept an eye out over the years, and she’d gotten me a few scattered notes and old tomes from prior [Runesmiths]. There were Heal runes out there, poor all-in-one attempts that never properly took off because they just weren’t that good in the end.

Kunchenjab had ascended to become the patron deity of his monastery, so I couldn’t easily learn from him anymore. Knowledge was tricky for a god to transmit, although praying for a week now and then to get advice on a particularly thorny issue was worth the price. I was paying it less and less as the advice often boiled down to the fundamentals.

All this was rattling around in the back of my mind as Iona and I slowly walked around the lake together, arm in arm. The soft moonlight lit our path, the stars were our blanket. The only thing ruining the night sky were two skyships docked by the island and a third flying near the horizon, all running lights flashing. Our hands were entwined, our fingers playing a game whose rules were known only to us. Thumb circle and index hook, a press with the palm and a brush of nails.

“If only this moment could never end.” I romantically sighed as I leaned on Iona’s arm.

“You never want the moment to end.” She teased. I nodded.

“Ayup. Hence the whole Immortal thing.” I paused. “Do you ever regret it?” I asked. “The only thing I regret is signing up for Professor Arachne’s [Shipwright] course.” Iona theatrically groaned. “I thought building a ship was the hard part, not the design!”

“I have material facts bouncing around my head like Auri high on sugar.” I good-naturedly grumbled my agreement. “Plus, I thought skyships would be a different class, not this one.”

“Where did they all come from?” Iona demanded. “One day, clear skies. The next, everyone and his brother has a flying ship. Like. What!?”

“Get out of my sky!” I did my best old man impression, shaking a fist up in the air.

“And out of our classes!” Iona added her fist to mine.

“Should we do a skyship instead?” I asked a moment later. “Like, people with the skillset and expertise aren’t going to come around for ages, this is our chance at it.”

“Mmmm.” Iona hummed non-committal agreement. “But we’d be reliant on a large number of other people’s skills instead. Why don’t we take a pleasure cruise for a year or so on one of them, then carry on? For all we know, the world’s going to catch a serious case of the stupid in a few years and scuttle our plans.”

“That pun was terrible.” I groaned.

“Thank you.” Iona mocked a bow, as well as she could while walking and holding my hand. Which was to say perfectly.

“Are we still building a ship?” I asked.

“Be a shame to waste all the work we’ve already put into the design.” Iona said.

587 Years after Elaine became a professor at the School of Sorcery and Spellcraft

Iona eyed the ancient oak in the heart of the forest, then snorted to herself.

‘Ancient’, sure, right. She was older than this oak tree. It probably wasn’t even from the [Lifebringers], being the great-grand tree of their revitalizing wave. She shook her head, her long blonde braid whipping back and forth.

How time flew, how the years went by.

Iona measured up the tree, a woodcutter’s axe in her hands - and a dozen more hovering around her. Not what her skills were usually used for, but the practice and imagination were good. Yes, yes! This tree would work perfectly for the keel of their ship, assuming there was no flaw in the wood.

With a single slash, thirteen blades of light shot out of Iona’s weapons. Twelve of them went up the tree, slicing off branches as they went. The last one cut the tree down, going through it in a single blow.

Iona caught the ‘ancient’ giant as it fell, hoisted it over one shoulder, then stomped her way over to the sawmill, knocking over lesser trees in her path. Future planks.

This “Do all the jobs” thing was GREAT! Who knew there was so much involved in cutting down trees!? Like, sure, we’d done it ourselves back during the last Cataclysm, but it had always felt a bit slapdash. We sorta knew what we were doing, but we’d undeniably built a log cabin, nothing quite as elegant as what we knew was possible.

Iona walked in through the large entrance - doors were pointless in the main operating barn - and started to slowly lower most of a tree onto the supports. They creaked as they took on the weight. Auri supervised from the rafters, wanting more ‘management’ experience. Which consisted of watching over us and complaining when something wasn’t right, along with long breaks to the local flowers for ‘field research’.

I loved the birdbrain.

“This could be the keel.” My wife panted out after a quick breather, wiping away a sheen of sweat. Flannel was a good look on her.

“No metal in it! It’s promising.” I agreed. It was unbelievable how many trees lost in the deepest, darkest woods had nails, wire fences, or other random metal bits that they just grew over and kept going. “Want to stick around for the process?”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Iona hesitated, then nodded.

“If it’s for our keel, yes. Debarking?”

I would’ve rolled up my sleeves if they weren’t already up.

“Yup, let’s get to it.”

Debarking, canting, edging, grading, drying, then treating. A dozen steps I never knew existed before getting my hands dirty - and we were skipping more because we wanted a giant piece! Taking a single step was worth reading a dozen books.

We placed it off in a special storage shed, along with hundreds of beams and thousands of planks, all prepared for our grand sea adventure.

At the end, Iona eyed it critically.

“This is definitely a Fenrir masthead.” She said.

“Carpentry’s next year.” I reminded her.

595 Years after Elaine became a professor at the School of Sorcery and Spellcraft

All hands were on… I wanted to say all hands were on deck for building our ship, but we were literally trying to build said deck. The dry dock had taken longer to build than I first thought, and to this day I yo-yoed if we should’ve just rented one out.

Eh, only get to build a dry dock once, right? Just part of exploring everything life had to offer. Along with making our own sails, our own barrels, our own rope… the entire ship was handmade.

“Everyone ready?” Iona asked.

“Aye aye, captain!” I threw her a Remus-era salute, nothing like a [Sailor] salute. I got the stink-eye from her.

“Brrpt!”

“Yes.” Fenrir growled.

“Popcorn! Popcorn! Get your popcorn!” Amber shouted to the crowd, waving bags around.

“When did this become an event?” Nina groused, flipping through the ship’s plans again. And profile. And sections. Because, like everything nautical, they had to be special instead of using terms everyone else used. What was wrong with blueprint!?

“When Amber’s money sense went off.” Sara flippantly replied.

“When mom decided to make it a family reunion.” One of her kids snarked. “Three bags over here please!” She called out to Amber a moment later.

Artemis snagged a bag for herself as Amber passed by, then lifted an eyebrow as if to dare Amber to complain.

“Oooh, you know I can make you pay up and feel terrible about it with just one sentence.” Amber threatened the [Professor].

Artemis promptly overpaid a grinning Amber.

A glowing frame popped into existence in the dock. There were a few shocked gasps at the open display of Mirage, and I rolled my eyes. 600 years, and ‘Mirage is bad’ had sunk into most of the cultural consciousness. Us… no, I wasn’t an Old Folk! NO! Say it wasn’t so! Us Old Folks knew it was complete bullshit, although the number of rich and powerful people getting bumped off by Mirage-wielding assassins had me reluctantly agreeing they might have a point trying to restrict it.

Honestly, they should just put a higher bounty on Nina and be done with it, stop annoying the rest of us. Not that I’d ever let anyone collect on said bounty.

The four of us - Me, Iona, Fenrir, and Auri - slowly and carefully picked up the keel, the spine of the ship, and gently lowered it into place. The beams lit up next, the four of us split apart, and the hours went by in a frantic crush of wood and nails, rope and sail, sweat and water, skills and stats, Mirages and experience.

Once the first deck of the ship was complete, I went below and started the painstaking process of carving all the runes.

Three weeks later, The Triceratops set sail for the first time, named in honor of Alruna’s bond, the first dinosaur Iona rode.

We christened the ship with a bottle of wine grown from our vineyards.

“Oi! There’s no time for lazing around!” Iona yelled at one of the [Sailors]. “Go patch the sails!”

“Brrrpt!” Auri shouted from her perch on Iona’s shoulder. Pirates had parrots, and merchant ships had hummingbirds I supposed.

“Oil the rigging!” Iona translated for another [Sailor].

By Ciriel, I was glad I wasn’t a people person. Iona could have the captaincy any day of the week, I was happy to be in our cabin, doing the books. At this stage in our trip, that translated to reading the books.

“Batten down the hatches!”

“We did batten ‘em down!”

“Well, batten them down again, we’ll teach those hatches!”

“Pirates sighted starboard!” A half panicked cry came from the crow’s nest. The kid - they were all kids, even the grizzled veterans with forty years of experience - must be new. I snorted into my book.

Oh, pirates. Pretty please? I was a little bored.

“Turn to port!” Iona shouted her directions clearly. “Make it look like we’re trying to run for it!”

Dark chuckles came from the rest of the sailors as they moved with brisk efficiency. I turned the page of my book, supremely unconcerned.

“Brrrpt?” Auri quietly asked.

“Check with Elaine.” Iona whispered back.

“Brrpt!” Auri fluttered into the cabin a moment later and went through an elaborate set of salutes. One for the ship’s doctor, one for the ship’s accountant, first mate, wife of the captain, mage, enchanter, and a couple more I was pretty sure she was making up to be silly.

My phoenix friend was, naturally, wearing a tricorn.

“Let me rob them blind before you do anything.” I licked my finger before turning the page of the book. “You know I can’t say anything more than that.”

“Brrrpt!” I knew exactly what was going to happen with the evil glint in Auri’s eyes.

The pirate ship rapidly approached, given wings by powerful skills on their side, along with the sleek build of their raider versus our sluggish transport.

I could see the moment they were in range to [Identify] Iona. The Wind immediately left their sails, their rudder went right over, and bloodthirsty looks turned into panicked scrambling.

“Cowards! Booo! Come over here and fight!” One of our [Sailors] taunted.

“Yeah, you’re big, bad, scary pirates! Come over here!” Another one jeered at them.

I closed my book with a sigh.

“Come on then.” I encouraged Auri, opening up [Manor]. With an evil brrrpt she flew in. I went invisible, [Teleported] out of the ship, then soared across the water to the fleeing pirate ship. One more [Teleport] had me inside and I decided to grab their aft cargo. The boxes were more valuable.

I opened [Manor] in a quiet corner. I didn’t need to say anything - not that I could, with the runes - but a swarm of [Auri’s Little Helpers] boiled out of the entrance, and we started to steal everything not nailed down.

“Hey! Thief! Stowaway!” The shout came just a few seconds into our stealing spree. Which, yeah - dozens of flaming hands weren’t exactly subtle. I dropped my invisibility.

“Hey! Pirate!” I shouted back with a cheeky grin as Auri continued to loot the place. More pirates started to come down, drawn by the first one’s cry. It only took a moment for one to swear.

“IMMORTAL!” He shouted.

“Abandon ship!” I cheerfully agreed, then raised my voice to my best ‘Sentinel Dawn is In Command’ tone. Didn’t need any spells to make sure everyone heard me, and most of them would immediately jump to.

“Abandon ship! Fire down below! All hands, abandon ship! This is NOT a drill!”

There were a number of satisfying splashes. That was why discipline was important. It was possible, almost too easy sometimes, to simply order the other side to do what you wanted. Said with enough force and panache, and it would be followed.

A few of the pirates tried to attack.

Kids, all of them. I could stand here and let them smack me around for hours, and my shirt might get a little stained, perhaps ripped if they had some nice skills. It made me feel a little bad for what was going to happen… but at the same time, they were still under my healing aegis. They were having fun kicking over other kid’s sandcastles, and it was time to stop.

“Brrrpt.” Auri said.

“She’s about to blow the place to smithereens.” I translated. More people tried to attack us, and a moment later the world was awash in flames as Auri unleashed her full Inferno on people. She went with classic style, forming the flames into burning pigs and sending hundreds of them scattering everywhere. The pirates screamed in agony as the flames licked at their skin, and the detestable scent of pork filled the air again as Auri cooked them alive.

In a way, I wasn’t helping by continuing to heal them. At the same time, I wanted them all to live, and live they would.

“Give them some flotsam.” I suggested to Auri.

“Brrpt.” The flames cut out, but burning everything to a crisp hadn’t been her goal. She pointed up with her beak.

“Brrrpt!”

I shaded my eyes and looked up, spotting the burning mast spinning in the sky.

“Oooh, that’s why you didn’t use [Meteor Storm].” I said. “Yes, that is a new record.”

I could hear the cheering from our ship already, and I waved to them.

“Come on, let’s head back. I was at the best part of the book.” I nudged a few pieces of flotsam closer to some struggling pirates and handed out a few floats. Auri buzzed down and made a couple of internationally recognized gestures with her mage hands. A few pirates cursed back, and she waved her tail feathers at them, accompanied by rude noises.

We laughed the whole way back.

598 Years after Elaine became a professor at the School of Sorcery and Spellcraft

We sailed across the Sea of Stars to Orthus, one of the largest thriving ports around. Docking was a pain, but the biggest blow was yet to come.

“That’s our house!” I tried to explain to the [Guard]. She shook her head.

“No ma’am, I can’t let you in. That’s the holy temple.”

I threw up my hands and stomped over to a laughing Iona.

“Can you believe this? We don’t show up for a measly seventy years, and suddenly it’s all ‘untouchable shrine this’ and ‘holy temple that!’ Where’s Skye, she’ll sort this out.” I grumbled.

“It's been nearly 600 since we left the first time.” Iona pointed out. I dismissively waved that off.

“Details!”

Auri, Iona, and Fenrir laughed at me all the way over, and I couldn’t resist smiling.