January 17, 2019, 11:55am. Time to get a wee bit tipsy. It’s 4’o clock somewhere.

“So. How are we going to get to them?” I can’t help but ask. I’m kind of wishing that all these Fallen had quests. So far, I’ve personally taken down more than thirty with no, 'Slay them all,' quest appearing. Doesn't look like I'm going to be farming easy integration points here.

At least there’s plenty of essence, if we only had time to gather it.

"Don't know. If the others are coming to us, it would be a waste of time going to them," Rufka says, leaning against me as she closes all four of her eyes.

"Yeah, I guess," I reply, leaning back with her while Smoulder purr-rumbles in our ears.

"But I need to get to Dhanni. If she's not going to come to us…" Rufka starts, her eyes still closed.

"Then we need to go to her. Yeah," I finish for her before adding, "so, uhm. You want to talk about her?"

"No," Rufka replies, resting an arm over her head which she bops on mine with a mumbled, "Sorry."

"Okay. Well, if you-"

"She wasn't just my friend. She was my thiani," Rufka interjects, apparently changing her mind.

Oh. Ohhhh.

Thiani is another of those words that doesn't have a proper translation into English. It's kind of like a mix between a girlfriend and a battle-bonded soldier you'd fought and bled beside. Intimate to say the least. It didn't necessarily mean a future together, but it was an acknowledgement of shared affection and trust.

"We were supposed to meet not far from here, about a year ago. But there'd been a fierce mana-storm the night before. And as tends to happen in the wake of a mana-storm, especially in the reaches, strange users showed up. Not outlanders like you, but K'tharn. At least that year."

"Wait. You have strangers show up all the time? Then why'd you drag me into your cabin like you did?"

"We have users show up. We don't have any-user stumble over our isolated, and off the beaten path, cabin. I still can't believe you found it. Though I'm glad you did."

"Aww. Thanks. You were saying?"

"Right. We were supposed to meet. But I was late. Had to sort out the users. When I finally got my tail to our rondezvous spot, she was already dying. I tried to help her. To put her back together. But none of the system's Vaus damned magic…. nothing worked."

"Nothing."

I don't say anything as Rufka chokes up, just reaching over, holding her hand. Picking up on my vibe from our bond, Smoulder hops onto Rufka's lap, purring gently. Rufka pets Smoulder for a minute before continuing.

"She mentioned a K'tharn had been there. A strange one. She'd done something to Dhanni that had hurt her. Hurt her worse than she'd ever been hurt in her life.

"She'd broken bones and lost an arm once, so I could only imagine what she'd gone through. And at the end of it, her system…. it was gone. She told me…… She told me she was glad I was the one there at the end."

"How do you respond to a statement like that?" Rufka asks me with a strained voice.

I still don't respond, just giving her hand a squeeze. I don't know the answer any better than she does.

We sit in silence for a minute before Rufka speaks again.

"Mum told me a lot about the Fallen that night. We went back out to hunt for her, but we couldn't find a trace. Since we couldn't find her, Mum was convinced she hadn't become a Fallen. Mum's the expert, so I thought the same. We never imagined she'd be here," she says, shrugging against me as we go quiet again.

"Uhm. Thanks for listening. I don't usually get like this," Rufka says, still covering her eyes with her arm.

"Anytime. That's what friends are for, right?" I reply, elbowing her gently.

"Huh, yeah. You understand why I need to lay her to rest though?"

"Uh, hell yeah. But how are we going to get to her if they attack us a hundred at a time like they did? Plus, they've got air superiority."

"Yes. If only we had an incredibly skilled Elementalist of our own. Perhaps one who could control wind well enough to fly," Rufka says, finally lifting her arm. She opens both eyes on her left, slanting her head to the side a fraction to look in my direction.

"See, you say that, but I have no idea where to start with a flight spell," I reply, shrugging.

Satisfied that we're no longer distressed, Smoulder hops clear of Rufka, deciding to investigate the nearby building.

"I think you start with flying."

"Ha. Okay, I bite. How exactly do I start with flying?" I ask, smiling at her.

"Oh, I was thinking something like this," Rufka says as she suddenly leaps into the air, pulling me up off the rock with her.

She doesn't stop there, however.

Of course she doesn't.

Once we’re near her apex, she tosses me overhead where I flail for a second before pausing time.

Only Rufka could go from 'confessing intimate details with' to 'unwarranted tossing of' her friend in under a minute. I'd be glaring at her right now, but I'm currently staring at the sky, so that wouldn't be particularly effective. I still channel my best glare, just in case.

Over my right shoulder, I notice I'm almost halfway to the top of the cliff. How freaking strong is she that she can throw me nearly fifty metres in the air?

Oh, now I'm falling.

I wonder if she's right. Can I figure out how to fly?

I mean I just saw three different examples of flight. Plus, Rufka implied that I could fly using manipulation or abilities. I wonder if flight is possible with every element. Considering one of them appeared to be flying through the application of earth magic, I hope the answer is yes. That would be super cool.

Let's see. How can I do this? Metal for wings? Just try to blast myself up using wind. Maybe I should try to use lightning to…. Okay, yeah, I've got nothing there. How the hell was she doing that?

As I'm thinking, I'm also twisting my body around so I can glare at Rufka. She's watching me with a giant grin on her face. But also, with intense focus.

My glare is not having the desired effect.

While I'm glaring at her I can't help thinking about my spell. If I want to be able to fly long term, I'm going to need a rune of some form.

Otherwise, I'll need to concentrate on the effect continuously. Which will drain my focus, just like with my early attempts at creating my umbrella spell. But I'm not sure which rune to use and I'm kind of falling back towards Rufka's waiting arms, even now.

It's handy that my clock can let me know exactly when my pause is going to end. It makes it easy to start a second one immediately after the first. I notice the decrease in the dilation of the second pause is more extreme when I do it back to back, only getting two minutes per real-time second. I wonder if it keeps halving with every pause.

Facing downwards, I decide I should use wind magic to figure out my flight spell. It feels like the most directly linked to flight, since wind is flying all the time.

Kinda.

Whatever.

It's surprisingly easy to slow my fall just by packing a bunch of wind mana into a pocket beneath me. That's not to say that I'm flying yet, but I've already learned slow-fall. That's three-quarters of the way to being a monk, all by itself.

I continue messing with air mana trying to pack it or direct it away from myself right up until the moment Rufka catches me in her arms. It's a gentle landing, especially since I stretch my effect to slow her landing too.

"Ha, see. What did I say? A single toss and you're already discovering new magic. My mum would have loved to have you as… Ow. Owowow," Rufka whines in response to me smacking her ear when she shifts me into a princess carry again. I was going to pause time again, but since the opportunity to express my displeasure arose, I couldn't help myself.

"What the hell? You don't just toss people in the air Rufka. Don't you know anything about consent? You need to ask before you do crazy stuff," I say arms crossed while I look up at her.

"But that wouldn't be nearly as fun, Lexi," Rufka says, grinning at me as she sets me down.

"Yeah, well...." I say noncommittally as I realize I'm going to ask her to toss me again.

Am I crazy?

….

Probably.

Does it matter?

"Throw me again. Please?"

"Haha. I knew you were my kind of crazy," Rufka says as she tosses me with a mighty leap while Smoulder watches us from below. This time I'm prepared for it, freezing time from the second she lets go.

I immediately start forming air around me to serve as wings, which lets me direct my upwards travel. I'm able to push myself even higher by forcing air against my feet as I spiral upwards. Looking down, I discover I've managed at least sixty meters this time. But I'm still not flying. I can feel the loss of acceleration as I near the peak.

Okay. Flight requires what? Lift? Thrust? Doesn't thrust just give me more lift? I bet Sab would know.

What do I have that I can get thrust from? Obvious answer, old lightning torrent. I guess I could use a series of lightning torrents to fly, though at best it would be falling with style, like we did earlier. Well, Rufka was totally styling. I was being carried like a doll. Not that stylish.

Just one more reason for me to figure out how to fly.

Bringing up the rune for my old lightning torrent, I inspect it. It's the nozzles that point back towards me that provide most of the thrust. There are two of them, which I can't imagine would provide stable thrust. Especially with how roughly I've always been tossed. Altering the design, I attempt to place four spirals in a single rune, but I'm not able to keep all four linked using the same helix structure.

Probably a good thing. That would be an immensely crazy spell.

As I start to descend, I create a new cushion of air while I consider my other complicated rune. Well, the other complicated rune I kind of understand at least. Umbrella. I take the basic design, but wrap it around my legs, basically creating two umbrella structures along my legs. Then I imbue it with wind mana.

As I float down to land in Rufka's arms one more time, (I might be getting a little spoiled with the soft landings here,) I'm not able to notice a difference using just the double wind umbrella shape. Plus, I have to cast it twice. Still not a workable spell, but it feels closer.

"See, I didn't even throw you as hard that time, but you still went farther. You'll have this figured out in five minutes, I'd bet ten copper," Rufka says as she sets me down again.

"You have ten copper grade essence?" I ask her while inspecting my still present umbrella wind shorts. Actually, that might be the solution.

Maybe I can make them into shorts.

“Nah, easier to keep em as iron,” Rufka replies as I continue my experiments. Trying to reweave the umbrella doesn't really work. When I move the triangles too far out of shape, they lose their flexibility. So, I just leave slightly squished umbrellas.

Deciding I should test them to see if there's any effect, I hop in place. Which allows me to observe that they're kind of working. It's similar to the cushion of air, slowing my descent. Now I just need to modify them to have thrust. Pausing time, because I've seen what happened when Ironman tried experimenting with his jet pack, I create thrust points on each leg. Then I try again.

It's slightly successful. I'm not able to fly, but hovering is now a reality. Giving it a minute, to ensure I'm not about to blast into the air due to a delayed effect, I start increasing the size of my foot umbrellas. Which is where I run into a new problem. The umbrellas are starting to overlap, but I'm not able to link them.

Instead of trying to solve it, I discard the idea of wind shorts, moving on to the simpler idea of a wind hoverboard. Because hoverboard. Should have started here.

This moves me up higher. I'm now a full metre off the ground. More importantly, the hoverboard lets me direct myself forwards and backwards. Considering how quickly I can feel the feedback, even when paused, I decide to let it disperse as the pause ends.

"What's wrong? It looked like it was working?" Rufka asks while I think back on the lessons of Ironman.

"Control," I reply, as I think.

"Okay?" Rufka replies, watching me closely.

The problem is control. Hands for control? But why limit myself to hands? I could probably create spells at my shoulders just as easily. The key is to figure out how to link it from my feet to my hands or shoulders though. It's easy enough to create small links between the core runes I've discovered but running a link all the way from my feet to my shoulders would be a longer stretch than any single line in any of my runes so far.

But still, I might as well try it.

As I expected, it doesn't work. The rune forms easily enough, but it costs me fifteen mana and quickly destabilizes. I could use more connections to stabilize it further, but that will just drive the mana cost even higher. The fact that the system didn't give me an option to add a new spell means I can't rely on it to simply improve the spell either. Shame.

If the effect lasts for a while it still might be worth it.

But the casual way the Triplets were floating implies there's an easier way.

Before I can think about it more, Rufka interrupts, "I'd love to wait for you to figure this out, but we have company."

"Huh," I eloquently reply as a rumble shakes through me. Down the street, only a couple hundred metres away, a gigantic, metallic spider is stepping across the street, moving from the top of one building to the next without stepping down. For reference, the buildings are roughly fifty meters apart.

Kind of feeling like I'm in one of those giant monster movies. Things get so big here.

Unlike most spiders, who have all those compound eyes, this metallic monstrosity only has one smooth eye set in the middle of its head. The eye glows with a familiar red light, which glints off its silver cladding.

I almost analyze it, but I'm distracted by the horde of smaller spiders that appear, clambering around its feet, pouring into the street beneath it. They follow it for over a minute before the last one crawls out of sight. Huh, I guess they didn't notice us.

Okay, giant spiders with glowing red eyes. Pretty sure I should be freaking out right now. Guess it's a good thing I've got Muthica's finest fortifying my resolve.

Rufka and I stand there watching for another half a minute, but the spiders don't return.

"I think we scared them off," Rufka says, nudging me with her elbow.

"Oh definitely. It's all my mighty muscles," I reply, flexing my arms before returning my attention to my spell while Rufka chortles.

Now, about my spell. Maybe a different configuration. I could try having more controls near the main disk, but it doesn't solve the problem of my adjustments being bottom heavy. Hoping for inspiration, I open my skills, reviewing them.

Skills

Matrix

Skill Level

Temporal Manipulation

35

Spatial Manipulation

33

Mana Manipulation

85

Runic Channelling

5

Combat

Skill Level

Throwing

12

Elemental

Skill Level

Fire Manipulation

43

Water Manipulation

55

Wind Manipulation

54

Lightning Manipulation

49

Stone Manipulation

58

Earth Manipulation

55

Metal Manipulation

37

Ice Manipulation

30

Twilight Manipulation

25

Knowledge

Skill Level

Gaming

2

Engineering

29

Survival - Temperate Forest

12

Support

Skill Level

Cooking

0

Cleaning

48

Crafting

Skill Level

Woodworking

1

Stone Shaping

35

Metal Shaping

35

Tailoring

2

Ceramics

4

Movement

Skill Level

Swimming

1

Running

5

Climbing

2

Riding

8

Huh, Runic channelling. I haven't experimented with that for a few days. But it might be the answer to my problem. It is the key to manipulating my mana externally after all.

Storing my jacket and boots, in case of Runic slicing and dicing, I prepare to stop time. Then I decide to store my bra as well, just to be safe.

With all my valuable possessions tucked away, I pause time. I start by creating my wind-based hoverboard. Which the system called adaptive wind-shield when it offered to add it to my spells, but I convinced it otherwise. Not that I accepted the spell.

This time I create a link to the board that leads under my skin. Learning from my previous experience with Runic channelling, I have the mana channel connect to my bare ankle just above my socks. Then I create another two smaller wind hoverboards around the wrist of each hand.

When the prompt comes up, I can't help but smile.

"Spell discovered: Hoverboard (Lesser Flight). Would you like to add this spell to your preferred spells?"

"Skill unlocked: Flight (1 to 4)"

Boo-ya McFly. It's a little late but I've got your hoverboard right here.

Considering how rarely I've used flame-arrow since I unlocked my full time-stopping potential, it's an easy choice which spell is going bye-bye. But then I confirm yet there's no selection, making me realize I've raised my wind manipulation over fifty.

"Hell yes," I think to the system shortly before my pause completes.

Then, to demonstrate my flying prowess to Rufka, I proceed to Moonwalk past her. And since I'm cheating with my flight spell, I'm able to do it. Despite the number of times that my cousin Thomas tried to teach me to Moonwalk, I'd never been able to. It was too counterintuitive.

Now, I can just pretend to walk forwards while smoothly floating backwards.

Rufka doesn't seem too impressed though, just raising an eyebrow as I float past her. I swear, you just can't please some users.

"I think I've got it," I tell her,

"As expected. I'm surprised you hadn't figured it out already," Rufka replies, clearly unimpressed. I wish Josh was here. He'd think it was cool.

"Yeah, well, flight has a history of being dangerous to experiment with," I say defensively as I start redressing, turning away from Rufka as I resecure my bra. Metal manipulation makes it so simple.

"In a world without a system, I suppose I could see how that could be true," Rufka says, pushing me gently, causing me to float a couple feet backwards.

"Hey," I say, pushing her back, not even budging her.

"Hmm, decent control. How's the strength? Will you be able to carry me?" Rufka asks, stepping around me.

"Well, I guess we'll have to test it, won't we?" I reply, holding out my arms.

Rufka just laughs.

"I don't think you can carry me. But we can try," she says hopping into my arms.

Despite the fact I had them open, I'm still caught by surprise. I didn't expect her to actually jump. We're sent back into the building across the street as she knocks me over, but the spell seems to have some safety built into it, as it slows us before we smack into the building.

Rufka laughs all the way across the street.

"It looks like you can carry me," Rufka chuckles while settling in my lap, her head next to mine. Smoulder hops up into her lap leaving me well and truly stuck beneath them.

"Traitor," I whisper at Smoulder as I attempt to manipulate the hoverboard. Even though I'm on my back it's still responsive. I'm able to get us five metres in the air before Smoulder lets me know that she's uncomfortable being this high without branches around.

So, because I'm a considerate partner, I start experimenting with my new spell's ability to maneuver instead of going higher.

"Is this all you've got Lex?" Rufka asks, poking me in the side, earning herself a mild headbutt from Smoulder.

"Oh, you want to see what I've got?" I ask, holding Smoulder tight.

Time to discover how fast this spell can go.