Kanin Fyre: Chapter 22 - Group Chat

We take a long, meandering route back to the others as we continue to talk. In the streets, it could be any other city I’ve visited. But then we come across a gaggle of kids playing a chaotic game which involves hurling a dozen floating rocks at each other—cloudstone, Echo tells me—and I’m reminded of where I am. When I look up, the familiar sight of the Drifting Isles’ floating stepping-stones coils ever higher. It’s hard to believe an entire city has taken up residence here in the two months we’ve been gone. 

“We’re still settling in,” Fyre admits when I ask her about it. “It’s been quite the adjustment. The plants have been the trickiest part, since the cloud wall blocks out direct sunlight at almost all hours of the day, but we’re finding arcana-based work-arounds.” 

“That’s been the trickiest part?” I tease. “Not transplanting an entire city onto a sky island? Not the magic-wielding wild animals?” 

She chuckles. “We did have some exciting run-ins, but Ollie has been a very effective deterrent. We’re now setting up daily patrols to keep an eye on the carnivorous populations and ensure we don’t have any unexpected run-ins. Longterm, I’ve got a plan in the works to start tracking them remotely.”

Sure would have been nice to have a dragon on our side when we were exploring the Drifting Isles. “Why not hunt them all?” I ask. “I’m sure you’ve got enough skilled fighters and resources to clear out the Isles completely, if you wanted to.” 

Fyre frowns slightly. “It’s been discussed. I’d prefer to understand the balance of the ecosystem before upending it. Besides, this was their home before it was ours. I don’t like the idea of killing a bunch of animals just because we aren’t willing to share the space. And Fyrethians are a practical people; they don’t like waste. For now we’ll likely only hunt what is needed for resources, or to keep populations in check. Besides,” she adds, “we have so many other things to worry about.” 

“Like the gods,” I sign. 

She inclines her head. 

I assume Blair has given Fyre the same warning she’s given me—but Fyre’s city is bound to draw attention. And Ollie especially would be difficult to hide from anyone able to Check if he’s a Traveler. 

“Do you have a plan?” I ask. “If anyone shows up?” 

“I do,” she admits, with more confidence than I would have expected. “Fyreneth’s dream was to provide a home to anyone who needed one; I hope to propagate that vision and provide a safe haven for all.” 

“Including other Travelers,” I surmise. That’s a bold statement, and it would definitely be putting a target on her back. But she seems to have a plan—and what she has is exactly what I need. 

I stick to signs, just in case. “I imagine Blair also told you about all the Travelers who the gods have taken into custody.” She again nods. “I want to free them. If I did, would you take them in? Would you be able to protect them?” 

She pauses to regard me, and I stop as well. “Understand that, though I will do my best, I can’t guarantee the protection of anyone.”

“I understand,” I assure her. “And I don’t want to create any trouble for you, either.” 

She smiles, a little sad and a little sardonic. “I’m far past that point, I’m afraid. I just want you to understand that, while our city will take those who we can, safety is not guaranteed. But I want the same as you. If you find any others, please send them my way.” Her brows purse faintly. “Do you have a way of retrieving others?”

“I’ve got a working theory,” I sign. Of course, I still need to finish reviewing the spell circle design to make sure all the modifications Siqi and I had been working on won’t blow anything up. But now that I’m in another Ruin, it occurs to me I have access to a mana source that might be able to power the spell. 

Though admittedly, I can already see a dozen issues with this plan: Can the storm arcana somehow be used to power a null arcana spell? I’d still need to find something related to the heavens that can be used for the Locate spell. And would Fyre even be okay with me doing all this on her back door?

Fyre’s eyes light up. “A theory? I’d love to hear it.” There’s a tone in her voice like what Trelisan from the Academy used when I explained my nature. Something that reminds me of Siqi, too. 

“You’re not some kind of scientist, are you?” I ask, suspicious. 

She laughs. “Guilty as charged. Though I suspect my aerospace degree won’t be too applicable to the sort of magic you have in mind. Granted, it was quite useful in getting this city off the ground. The crossover applications of advanced scientific theory and the arcane are fascinating. I just wish I had as much time to dabble in this world’s magic system as I would like. Sorry, I’m rambling,” she adds, her face bright with excitement. “Still, I’m more than happy to talk through ideas—and my scientific advisor would as well, I’m sure.” 

I’m abruptly struck by how transparently happy she seems, even though the origin of this conversation was about imprisonment. She really does seem to be thriving here. Determined to do as much good as she can. I’m still trying to accept what she said to me earlier—that what I did to all these souls wasn’t a bad thing. That I’ve given over a hundred people a second shot at life. 

But it’s hard to let go of the guilt when I think of Anika. The torture she must have endured—that she’s still enduring. Maybe once I find a way to save her, once I find a way to know all the Travelers are safe, I’ll be willing to forgive myself like Fyre suggested. 

Just another reason to complete my Celestial Jail Break mission. 

“We should talk it through,” I agree with her. “Along with anyone else you trust who you think could help. But it might be best to do so… privately.” 

Once Blair is gone, certainly. I know she said she believes some of the Travelers are wrongly imprisoned, but she was the one who took Yedzaquib—along with Anika’s soul—back to the heavens. Even she probably won’t support my goal of freeing all the prisoners. 

(Well, okay, almost all the prisoners. If there’s a way I can free Anika and leave Yedzaquib trapped permanently in his time bubble—so much the better.) 

“Of course,” Fyre agrees, her gaze flickering to my chest. She probably wants to do another mind-to-mind talk, which I agree would be the most secure way to do it. Though, I’m unsure how that would work with more people. “Ah! And you just reminded me. Speaking of private communications…”

Echo abruptly pops into my mind. [Fyre has requested to add you to her Contacts.]

Beneath that are two options: Accept, or Decline. 

“Oh!” I quickly select Accept, and when I mentally bring up my Contact list, I now see her name. “Thank you! I had been wondering what to do with that feature.” 

“You have access to it as well?” Fyre asks. 

“Blair unlocked it for me,” I say. “But I haven’t been able to get it to work yet.” 

“Interesting.” Fyre’s gaze traces up to the palace balcony where we’d last left Blair. “She didn’t grant that feature to me. But yes—it appears to only work with people who have System access, and individuals can only be added in-person.” 

“This is great,” I say, accessing Fyre’s name in my list. I’m provided a chat-like window where I have the option to message her. I hesitate before sending a test message, however. “Do you think it’s secure?”

“I can’t say for sure, but I suspect so,” Fyre says. “The feature was also unlocked for me by a god—I doubt she would have done so if she believed it would result in the pantheon being able to read our messages and surveil us.” 

“A different god?” I ask. “You’ve met someone other than Blair?” 

“Yes.” She returns her gaze to me, and there’s something in her eyes that indicates she wants to say more. Since she doesn’t, however, I let it drop. I’ll ask her about it later; there are so many other things we have to talk about, after all. 

But this functionality is great. I’ll have a way to contact Fyre—and other Travelers—no matter where I am. “We could create a network,” I realize. “A way for all of us to connect. A way to spread the word and send people your way.” 

The look of caution in her eyes fades into another easy smile. “Precicely what I was thinking. In fact, while you’re here, you should add Ollie and Sandro as well.”

Finally, after months of spinning my wheels, it seems like things are coming together. I have a spell to access the Heavens. I have a source of mana to power it. I have a place where the freed Travelers can find refuge. It’s not every piece I need, but it’s a damn good start.

We rejoin Zyneth, Blair, and Mirzayael in a giant, open-air hall, strangely pockmarked by shallow circular impressions. It takes me a minute to realize it’s a dining hall, though instead of the seating area being raised, it’s set down into the floor. The others are already seated in one such circle at the head of the room; behind them, between their meal circle and the open sky, Ollie is sprawled across a wide platform. I suspect the back wall was taken out specifically for him. His head is currently buried in a bowl the size of a car. Nearby, a strange heap of junk is piled up against the wall. 

I mentally focus on adding him to my Contact list, and even as Echo says [Request sent,] Ollie pauses, tipping his head. A moment later, she speaks up again. [Request accepted.]

Ollie lifts his head from his bowl and turns our way, soupy contents dribbling down his jaws as he grins. At least, I hope it’s soup. And I hope that’s a grin.

“HELLO, GLASS PERSON!”

“Hi, Ollie.” My attention turns toward the pile of nearby junk as we get closer. “What, is that a sword?”

“Ah.” Fyre grimaces. “Yes. It’s part of his ‘hoard’. Honestly I don’t know where he finds half of it.”

“DO YOU LIKE IT?” he asks when we reach the meal circle. “I JUST GOT THE SHIELD YESTERDAY!”

“From where?” Fyre asks. Her tone is kind, yet stern; definitely getting some Mom vibes from her.

Ollie’s head sinks. “I DUNNO, SOMEONE JUST GAVE IT TO ME.”

Fyre sighs, shaking her head. “You Checked it for any enchantments, right?”

“OF COURSE!” Ollie says, quickly glancing back over to the pile of junk and staring at it for a suspiciously long time. “NO ENCHANTMENTS!”

“Some visitors give Ollie gifts as an offering,” Fyre explains to me. “We’ve really tried to discourage it, but there’s only so much we can do.”

We step down into the meal circle with the others just as a felis shows up with plates of food. Zyneth and Mirzayael, I note, are seated at opposite ends of the circle. 

Zyneth looks relieved to see me returning in one piece. “Everything go alright?” he asks as I take a seat at his side. 

“It went great,” I tell him. “There’s so much I need to tell you. I don’t know where to start.” 

“We can start by breaking bread,” Fyre says, amused. She takes a seat by Mirzayael. The arachnoid doesn’t ask Fyre how everything went, I notice, but she does take Fyre’s hand—probably Fyre will mentally relay our conversation to her. 

“Perhaps you all will,” Blair says. She’s also seated in the meal circle, with Aquenno at her side. It’s strange to see Blair in such a casual setting, knowing what she is. Amidst the furs and pillows lining the floor, and simple metal bowls and plates splayed between us, she could have been any other felis in the city, save for her rigid posture. Aquenno, meanwhile, is failing to not stare at the mouthwatering display of food. 

“However,” Blair continues, “I will need to depart shortly. My window here is closing.” She gestures to Zyneth and I. “Do you require travel arrangements before I depart?”

Zyneth looks to me questioningly. 

“I want to stay,” I tell him. “There’s so much I still stand to learn here.” I switch to signs. Blair and Fyre will be able to understand it, but it doesn’t seem like Mirzayael speaks the language, and she seems to be the one Zyneth is worried about. “Unless you don’t think we should?” 

Zyneth manages to not glance at the arachnoid. He signs a few simple phrases back. “We can stay. Good opportunity. They’re not dangerous.” He pauses. “Most of them.” 

I laugh. “You’re being too protective. But if you’re comfortable with it, then I’d like to spend some more time here.” I don’t bother suggesting he doesn’t have to stay here with me; we both know what his response would be to that. 

Besides, I don’t want him to go. 

“We’ll stay,” I unnecessarily tell Blair. “And thank you again for this opportunity. This means… Well, you probably already know.” She’s got some of my memories, after all. She knows how I feel. 

“So be it.” Blair stands, and Aquenno begins to rise as well. She puts a hand on his shoulder to still him. “You will remain here.” 

He blinks up at Blair in surprise, but all he says is, “Of course, my lord.” 

Mirzayael frowns at this. Even without the ability to read minds, it’s not hard to know what she’s thinking; Blair is leaving her champion to keep an eye on us. I guess I should have expected that.

That’ll make it a little harder to keep our plans confidential, but we can work around him a lot easier than we could work around Blair, I’m pretty sure. 

“Good luck,” Blair says, stepping out of the meal circle. 

She looks down on the rest of us, and the glow of the fireplace catches on her fur, reminiscent of her celestial form. Doubt briefly flickers through me. This is the type of being I plan to stand up against? Maybe this mission really is as ill-fated as Emrox.

“I will attempt to contact you all again as soon as I am able,” she says. “In the meantime, please maintain a low profile and stay safe.” 

Yeah, because maintaining a low profile is my second strongest skillset, right after staying safe.

“You, too,” Fyre says, watching the god go. 

“BYE, BLAIR!” Ollie adds, his tail wagging as she acknowledges his goodbye with a parting wave.”

The god soon passes out of sight—and Ink feels the moment she’s gone, when that pinprick of a pull it feels to the speck of void she’s carrying vanishes from existence. 

We really were lucky that she was the one who ended up with the portion of the predator who had our most recent memories. What would we have done if some other god, less sympathetic to my freedom, realized they should be looking for a glass homunculus instead of a human? 

“Well,” Fyre says, cutting through the thick silence that followed Blair’s departure. “Please, help yourself to the meal. We can continue the tour this afternoon—and of course, find appropriate lodgings for all involved. Aquenno, was it? I don’t believe we’ve met…”

Fyre forces some life back into the conversation as most of us start to dig in. Zyneth and Mirzayael don’t particularly treat each other hostilely, but their interactions are terse. Fyre seems very amused by this, and to be honest, I am as well. It’s not jealousy, exactly—I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Zyneth jealous—but there does seem to be a sort of unspoken competitiveness between them. Like, who can be the better bodyguard, or something. 

I’ll be teasing Zyneth mercilessly about this later. 

After the others finish eating, Fyre once again takes us on a tour of the city, introducing us to arachnoid tailors, dwarf farmers, dracid researchers—and one extremely enthusiastic harpy named Dizzi, adorned with goggles on her forehead and chalk dust all over her feathers.

“Oh wow,” she says, leaning up to look at my head just about the second we step into her workshop. The room’s walls are covered in chalk diagrams, runes, and half-designed spell circles, while the work benches overflow with papers and artificing tools. “I’ve never seen a homunculus like this! Why is it wearing clothes? How did they get the head to float?”

She abruptly grabs it, which catches me so off guard that it takes me about three seconds to yank it back out of her grasp. 

I take a step back, floating it back over my neck. “What the fuck—!”

“Oh! It’s Attuned glass, isn’t it?” she says, completely oblivious to my tone and Zyneth abruptly looming into her personal space. “Yeah that would make sense. Is that a translator? Looks similar to what Ollie’s got. But how do—”

“Kanin is our guest,” Fyre abruptly cuts in. “He’s someone like me. Just… his body is less organic.” 

Dizzi’s eyes go as wide as her goggles. “Oh stars! I’m sorry. That was rude, wasn’t it? I just get so excited when I see master craftsmanship like this—” Okay, she’s winning some points back. “I have so many questions. Can I—” She happens to glance down, where Zyneth’s hand is resting on the hilt of his blade in obvious warning. She immediately crouches down beside it. “Wow! This is amazing! That’s some beautiful etchwork. Where did you get it?” 

“I made it,” Zyneth says shortly, though he relaxes a bit, and takes his hand off the hilt. She seems a bit young, and I think Zyneth can tell she hadn’t meant any harm. 

“You’re an artificer, too?” Dizzi pops back up to her feet. “Oh, this is great! Fyre, you brought the best guests! How long are you staying? We have to compare notes.” 

Dizzi drags Zyneth away, who allows it to happen with an amused glance back toward me as I wave him on. 

“That’s your Scientific Advisor, I take it?” I ask Fyre as she stops at my side.

She chuckles. “I don’t know how you guessed.” 

I’ll have to talk to Zyneth later about what he thinks of her expertise. It sounds like she knows about Fyre’s origin, so she must trust her. I wonder if she could help with the Planar Linkage spell circle?

Mirzayael is keeping close behind the two of us. I probably need to smooth things out with her, since Zyneth doesn’t appear to be taking the initiative. 

“Sorry about how we met,” I tell her. “Blair warned me what might happen, but I still wasn’t totally prepared.” 

Mirzayael glares at me for a moment. She’s half Yedzaquib’s level but appears far more toned and physically intimidating. Then she scoffs, glancing away, and her stance seems to soften.

“I don’t blame you for the antics of the gods,” she says. “I am glad that it was resolved without bloodshed in the end.” 

“That’s her way of apologizing," Fyre teases. “We were all a little caught off guard.” 

“It sounds like you’ve had your fair share of god antics,” I remark, watching Mirzayael. 

She smiles thinly. “You could say that.” 

“Not the biggest fan of them?” I gather. The look of disdain that crosses her face both surprises and amuses me. I’ve met people who worship gods, and people who have a healthy fear and respect for them, but she’s the first I’ve seen who appears to actively dislike them. “Well, you might enjoy the plan I’ve got in mind.” 

This catches Mirzayael’s attention, and when her gaze returns to me, her expression is no longer aloof, but thoughtful. “I’d be curious to hear more.” 

“All in good time,” Fyre says mildly, though she inclines her head subtly toward Aquenno, who is curiously glancing over Dizzi’s work on the other side of the room. 

After Dizzi, the afternoon passes in a flurry of more introductions and explorations. The city really is a marvel—both architecturally, and socially. Everyone seems to love Fyre and Mirzayael, lighting up whenever the women approach. I’m learning Mirzayael is a woman of few words, but she has her own subtle form of compassion, noting whenever something is amiss and arranging for resources to be delivered to anyone she observes wanting for anything. I think she and Zyneth would actually get along if they’re willing to get over themselves. 

As the daylight dims and lights flicker on in the streets, we begin to discuss accommodations for where Zyneth, Aquenno and I will be staying. I’m pleased to notice Fyre assigning me and Zyneth a room that’s two units down from where she’ll be placing Aquenno. There are other families in between us, so it appears as if Fyre tried to pick two rooms that were close together, but I’m sure the separation was intentional. It won’t provide complete privacy, but it will certainly make it harder for Aquenno to listen in. Subtle and clever. 

The rooms themselves are nothing like the taverns we’ve stayed at in other cities; in fact, it doesn’t seem Fyreneth’s Fortress has taverns or inns at all. Instead, we’re placed in a sparsely adorned house, no different from what the city inhabitants live in. It’s kind of nice to have space to spread out, for once. 

“Before we turn in,” I say to Fyre, “I’d like to send a letter, if possible. I’ve promised to update a friend about where to find me, and I’m certain she’d be delighted to learn where I’ve ended up.” 

“Of course,” Fyre agrees. “Actually, that’s a great idea. I was going to introduce you to our Wyvern Master tomorrow, since he’s a bit stranger-shy, but completing the introductions now before you have a chance to run into each other by chance is probably for the best.” 

I tip my head. “Why is that?”

“Sandro’s like us,” Fyre says. 

“Another Traveler?” I ask. Though I find it a bit odd that she’s waited this long to introduce us. 

“Yes,” she admits. “But more than that, he also has a remnant.”