Birds and other small animals became startled as the strangest sight any of them would ever be exposed to crashed through the brush.

A woman with blue skin paler than the sky nearly flew in between each step. Her melodic voice cried in alarm at every tree she dodged. A black book clung to her back with a quartet of white tendrils, desperately trying not to fall off.

Gem finally let the alacrity spell drop as she entered a large clearing. She leaned against a large rock, panting. The book used its tendrils to move to her front and to present its white inner surface.

I’m going to file that plan as ‘mostly a success’.

“‘Mostly a success’?” Gem questioned the book.

There’s only one person still chasing us, so yeah, ‘mostly a success’.

“Any more brilliant ideas?” Gem glared.

Hey! The bees would have worked if it wasn’t for your apparently abysmal nature affinity. This time will be much better. This time we’re just going to kill them.

“Really?! Just kill them!? That’s your grand plan? Didn’t we try that already?”

Yes, but with two major differences. This time, there’s only one of them, and I will be handling the aiming.

Gem scoffed. Something about that book was really starting to get on her nerves. In a sense she was thankful, as it was better for her to be annoyed at the book than worrying about the fates of everyone she knew. But before she could complain about how her aim wasn’t that bad, urgent red words appeared on Abigail’s surface.

Look alive! Here she comes!

Remember, wait for my signal.

A very, very complex and three dimensional spell formation rose from Abigail’s surface. Power flowed from Gem and Abigail through the input subformation and into the rest of the spell via the sprawl of distribution lines. First to receive power were the various control subformations, then the rest of the energy flowed into the central section. A tangled mess of sigils, every line and mark eventually led to the long, thin bolt in the center.

The control formations shifted on their own as Abigail manipulated them, causing the sphere at the center to swivel like a turret.

Gem kept her vision trained on the edge of the clearing where the little spear of light was pointing. She didn’t have to wait long for her pursuer to appear.

A woman in red and black leather armor slipped from the brush. Her outfit was immaculate, a stark contrast to Gem’s ripped and torn dress that barely managed to keep her decent. The woman’s black blade with crimson blood-runners hung from her hand in a relaxed grip.

“Quite the runner, aren’t you, hmm?” The woman cooed. “Oh, and what’s this? Some kind of spellbook? I’m sure the boss will like that.”

Gem was transfixed as the woman slowly stalked towards her. Only a sharp slap to her face from a white tendril broke her free.

Loose the damned spell!

Gem wasted no further time in pulling the trigger. The woman moved her blade into the path of the projectile. An edge of Ki split the projectile and shielded the woman from the worst of the spell, and her shroud of Ki did the rest.

“Is that all you’ve got? I’m actually disappointed-”

The woman was cut off as another spear of light slammed into her, her sword barely intercepting it. She dashed around, trying to avoid the fast moving projectiles by throwing off Gem’s aim. Unfortunately for her, the spells were being aimed by a book with top-tier aura sense and Aether sight.

Six bolts in the woman suddenly realized that her Ki was depleting faster than expected. The cause was the ghostly white flames that clung to her aura and slowly burned away her Ki. Sure they’d be easy to extinguish by retracting her aura, but doing so would leave her vulnerable to the barrage of bolts.

The woman realized that she had only one chance to get out of the situation. With the forest edge too far away, her only hope was to kill the young half-demoness before being killed herself.

She put her all into a sword-first dash at Abigail. Everyone was surprised as the spell formation practically exploded as Abigail pushed all the remaining energy into a single massive burst.

Gem was thrown back against the rock, adding yet more bruises and scrapes. Abigail was thrown to the ground, her white surface a cratered mess. The woman’s mouth gaped as all her remaining Ki was violently ripped away from her. No words came as her sword slipped from her grasp, her hands failing to obey her mind.

‘Oh.’ Was her last thought as she discovered the reason for her lack of voice: a dinner plate sized hole in her chest. Her heart and lungs were simply gone, vaporized by the raw power that had been unleashed.

The woman flopped to the ground, dead.

Gem just stared, completely exhausted. Her head soon slumped back against the rock at her back and her eyes closed.

Another slap brought her back.

| Hey! You’re hurt. Heal thyself.

A spell slowly and shakily formed. Gem and Abigail managed to push a trickle of power through it, enough to start knitting together Gem’s worst injuries, including a pair of broken ribs.

Ow. Remind me not to do something like that again. It really hurt.

You can rest your eyes for a bit, I’ll keep watch. Just keep channeling or I’ll slap you again.

“Deal.”

Gem leaned back, but kept her Aether trickling through the spell that was keeping her alive.

After an hour Abigail decided that Gem had been sufficiently healed, and stopped the spell to allow them to recover some Aether.

Gem just relaxed and let her aura do its thing, but Abigail was different. Her ultra-pure Aether meant that it took hundreds of times the ambient Aether to be able to purify it suffentiently to enter her aura.

Even Gem’s limited and untrained Aether senses were able to pick up the rush of Aether flowing towards the book.

“What in the infernal?” Gem wondered as her eyes fluttered open.

Oh, sorry. I’ll go do this over there.

Abigail gestured with a tendril at the other end of the clearing. She wasted no time in extending tendrils and unsteadily walking over to the indicated location. Gem just closed her eyes again. She’d figure out what she thought about the spider-book later. For the time being, she desperately needed rest.

Abigail set up shop, even going so far as to spread her tendrils out in a web, just to pull in as much Aether as she could. At the rate she was going, it was going to take her days to refill her aura. It could even take weeks if the local Aether couldn’t keep up.

Gem woke up cold, stiff, and really, really sore. She was confused for a few seconds before the events of the prior day hit her like a rockslide. She wasn’t sure whether to cry, laugh, or just try to crawl under the rock next to her.

Oh hey, you’re awake.

Quick question: what year is it?

“What year is it?” Gem read the question in confusion.

Yeah, I want to know just how out of date my maps are.

Gem blinked a few times.

“It’s the 432nd year of the third era.” Gem intoned the supposedly common knowledge.

Oh damn. That makes my newest map 154 years out of date. And that one won’t help us.

Gem watched as a map of the area appeared on Abigail’s surface. It was actually a pretty good map, except for the part where it was 175 years out of date.

Ok, I need you to take a look and tell me if any of the towns or villages sound familiar.

Gem studied the map for a while.

“There! Kilnar. That’s the biggest proper town to Violet Glade.”

Violet Glade wasn’t on the map, but that wasn’t too surprising given the age of the map.

Ok, now we just need to figure out where we are. I can’t actually see all that far, do you see anything.

Gem clambered up to the top of the rock and slowly turned around, taking a survey of the region.

“I see … trees. Lots and lots of trees.”

That’s … not very helpful. I guess we’ll just have to try a locating spell and hope that the ley lines haven’t shifted too much.

Another map overlaid itself, this one marked with long colored-coded cables. A ley line map. A protrusion formed from Abigail’s bottom edge to host the spell.

Gem hesitated before she blindly tried yet another new spell from Abigail’s pages.

“What happens if the ley lines have shifted?”

Abigail didn’t respond for a long moment.

Best case scenario? It just gives us a wildly inaccurate position. Worst case though … You know what Aether backlash is, right?

“Yeah…” Gem replied, apprehensive.

Oh good. That means I don’t have to try and explain it. But don’t worry! It’ll be fine!

Probably.

Gem scoffed, but brought her hands up. Following the instructions, she placed one near the spell formation, and the other on the map. Her Aether left her aura at a languid pace. She began to feel a slight tugging on her hand. She followed it, and soon found the spot on the map that drew her in the strongest. She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding.

“There.” She stated proudly.

Excellent! Now we just need orientation.

A line formed on the map, weaving around some large hills to link their current position to their goal. The ley lines disappeared, only to be replaced by a field on interlocking regions, each marked with an arrow. A new spell popped up. Gem went ahead and used it without complaint.

A shimmering arrow appeared in the formation. Abigail then drew a ring around the section of the map they were in. The ring had two arrows emblazoned on it, one white, and the other red.

Before you ask, yes, the red one shows which way we need to go, and the white one matches up with the Aethersphere compass map.

“Neat.”

Gem aligned herself with the red arrow and started walking. She stopped just a few steps later. Something was bothering her. Taking a closer look at the map, she found what it was. In the lower left corner was a fully functional Aethersphere compass.

“Is that… Did I even need to do any of that?”

I did need you to do the location spell.

After a few seconds of no further words, Gem spoke:

“What about the compass?”

Still more silence.

“Abigail, what about the compass?” Gem demanded.

Abigail finally responded:

Ok, you didn’t need to do that one.

“So why make me do it?”

Practice?

Gem couldn’t decide how to respond. She eventually settled letting out a huff before moving on. They had a dozen or so kilometers to walk. Luckily Gem’s flight the previous day had taken them mostly towards Kilnar, rather than away.

Gem was almost out of the clearing when she had a thought. She turned around and took the dead woman’s sword and scabbard. An exotic and barely modest young woman could attract all sorts of negative attention from those one might meet in the wilderness. A sinister looking blade on your hip did wonders to dissuade such persons.