“IF YOU NEED URGENT HELP, WAVE YOUR HANDS ABOVE YOUR HEADS!” a voice sounded from the airship. Definitely amplified, given it was loud from even so far away. But at least it did not sound hostile. A good sign. None of them gestured that they needed immediate care. “GOOD. WE WILL GET SOMEONE DOWN IN A FEW MINUTES.”

  “What do we do?” Alice asked, clearly unsure.

  “Just wait for them,” Elizabeth shrugged. “We are not in a hurry.”

  “They might freak out a bit at us,” Alice opined. “I would, if four mages like us just popped up near Steelmire unnoticed.”

  “We are no longer in the Federation,” Elizabeth shook her head. “They seemingly didn’t have people that could detect mages well even near our border at the City of Terraces. What are the odds they have them here.”

  “Exactly,” Irwyn agreed, thinking the same thing. “Forget what we are for a moment Alice, and just think about how we look from their perspective.”

  “Just four young people in the middle of a massive forest,” Elizabeth finished for him with a smile. “We don’t look dangerous.”

  “We are just innocent and lost wee lads and lasses,” Waylan laughed. “No threat at all, sir. Why don’t you just turn around so I can relieve you of them heavy coins. Brings back memories, eh?”

  “Except we are not robbing them,” Irwyn said but nodded.

  “For now,” Waylan had to have the last word.

  “So, we wait,” Elizabeth still stole it from him with a smile.

  The airship did not take overly long before a platform started to descend from its midsection. By then it had moved right overhead of them and the headlight had moved away from them to shine on the surrounding forest instead - as if looking for something. Instead, a much smaller light source from the middle parts kept the area around them illuminated enough to mostly see in the night. Irwyn even dismissed his own. After a brief discussion, they had decided to not overly showcase their magic for the moment - mostly because Elizabeth insisted it could be interesting to play at normalcy.

  The platform was a solid wooden slab from the look of it, hanging from four very thick ropes in each corner as well as timber railings to stop anyone from falling over. Small lights made it visible even in the middle of the night. It descended all the way to the ground, to the edge of the clearing. Four men quickly opened a small gate and stepped off. They each wore a strange uniform - it had reflective stripes and seemed to be made of black material that seemed a bit like fabric but was clearly no wool or cotton. Although the pecking order was indistinguishable at a glance, the apparent leader stepped forth.

  “Captain Tobba,” the man curtly introduced himself. Military from the title then, even though none of them were visibly armed. Neither did Irwyn feel any magic. “What are you kids doing out here in the middle of nowhere?”

  “Being interrogated, it seems,” Waylan said jokingly.

  “Where are you from?” the man frowned, clearly not in much a joking mood. “This place is dangerous. How did you even get here?”

  “We were in something of a… teleportation accident,” Elizabeth improvised. “We just appeared in this forest.”

  “Teleportation?” the man asked dubiously but did look them over. Despite being in the middle of a massive forest - possibly even jungle - they remained quite clean. He did also pause when looking at Elizabeth, likely noting the recent addition to her nose. Irwyn pretended to not notice her suppressing a glower. “Where are you from?”

  “The Duchy Federation,” Elizabeth said. That earned her more strange glances.

  “Anyone?” the captain looked back at the group.

  “Never heard of it,” one opined and the others shrugged. This did not lower Tobba’s suspicion.

  “It is far South, probably,” Irwyn tried. “Past the desert and the Barrier Mountains.”

  “The only desert I know of is North and has no mountain near it,” he said. “How would that even make sense geologically?”

  “Who knows? I don’t know about any written accounts on their forming,” Elizabeth shrugged.

  “Very funny,” the man rolled his eyes in annoyance, perhaps not realizing Elizabeth was being half serious. Then sighed “Fine, say I buy it. We cannot leave you out here anyways - a watch station detected a wild fire suddenly spreading somewhere around here. It seems it has very luckily gone out but it’s hard to tell. Sometimes the roots smolder for days and then start another one. It’s extra not save around this area for the foreseeable future.”

  “Was that the reason you came here?” Irwyn pointed at the airship, developing a strong suspicion. He knew of a certain forest fire. A very brief one. They even had the spot right, though the remnants of ash and trunks burned all the way to the roots were hard to see even in the headlights. He had been thorough with his incineration and hours of wind together with Alice's terraforming efforts had erased almost all of the evidence.

  “Yes, and lucky for you we did,” the man nodded. “The closest sign of civilization is a hundred miles away. And no offense but you don’t look equipped to make it that far through the thick woods.”

  “What is that in kilometers?” Alice asked curiously.

  “What is a kilometer?” the man frowned slightly.

  They were brought up onto the ship afterwards, lifted up on that same platform, followed by a short interrogation, if a polite one. They were not even split up. Instead, Tobba brought them to a communal cafeteria and sat them around a table, then began asking questions. It became quickly apparent that he had an easier time believing half-hearted lies than the truth.

  “So, if I am understanding this, you are some kind of nobility,” he managed to summarize Elizabeth's intentionally overcomplicated, misleading but technically accurate description of the mess that was the bloodline of Wrath. “And that makes the rest of you… what?”

  “Companions,” Irwyn chose as good-sounding word as possible. He caught the edge Tobba put upon ‘nobility’. Well, Irwyn might have been in the same camp a year or so ago. “We all chose to leave on this journey.”

  “People your age shouldn’t be going on any ‘journeys’,” Tobba shook his head. “The world is dangerous.”

  “We are not as helpless as we look,” Elizabeth insisted despite their story appearing to contradict that. Well, perhaps that worked to sell it too. Irrational beliefs and overconfidence were pretty common. A memory of a certain execution flashed through Irwyn’s mind briefly, leaving behind a bittersweet taste before he pivoted.

  “So, you have said. Some magic?” Tobba nodded, though clearly unconvinced. “I know we have an academy for wizards but the talent for it is too rare. Are you four all like that?”

  “Terminology may differ,” Alice spoke. “We use the word ‘mage’ but actual methods could be close or far apart. I have seen people from different countries have all kinds of ideas of what magic is and how it works - and those were all people from much closer to us geographically.”

  “And I am more of an emotional supporter,” Waylan chimed in, still sitting visibly in his chair - almost pointedly so.

  “Well, I am at a loss,” Tobba finally admitted with a sigh. “I will get someone to assign you rooms for tonight – it’s getting so late I would almost call it early. Just don’t cause trouble or mess with the machinery. I will leave it for someone more qualified to sort you out when we land.”

  And that was that. Just as Irwyn had guessed, they were being treated as benign young adults, teenagers with much benefit of doubt. Almost to an absurd degree. An airship like that had to be a military asset even if used differently in peacetime but the almost freedom with which the four of them were able to move… Irwyn was pretty sure someone with just human strength could do a lot of damage. Stab a few people, sabotage some control panels that he had spotted, and maybe do something with poison. He was obviously not going to do any of those but it would have been trivial.

  Perhaps something of that was explained by the crew. Scouting out who else was on board was obviously the first order of bussiness. They were basically divided into three groups. First were the Aeronauts as they called themselves. There were about twenty of them and they flew the ship. Not decide where it should go, but operate all the fine functions of it. Which was clearly no easy task given the apparent numbers needed.

  The second was the Forest watch. Apparently, the Laretine Forest - its name - had dedicated tenders. A mishmash group of scholars, enthusiasts, ‘preservationists’, and whatever other label one could imagine for people that loved trees. Irwyn understood from them that it was the biggest ‘mostly untouched’ area of nature and they wanted to keep it that way. The organization was in-between a government branch and a volunteer operation.

  Last were their Firefighters, which captain Tobba belonged to. It became apparent that while they had military ranks, they were not actually soldiers in almost any way besides organization. In fact, they were not even related to the actual military. The Firefighters just used a similar ranking system because of some nuances with being ‘servicemembers’ Irwyn didn’t quite get from the brief rundown. They were pleasant though. Good-natured large men, if a bit condescending.

  “Has someone caught the name of the country?” Elizabeth asked. They gathered in a corner of a cafeteria after an hour or so of wandering, Elizabeth subtly creating magical privacy.

  “I have heard ‘the Republic’ a lot,” Irwyn said. “Not a name though.”

  “And I don’t think they have any kind of nobility,” Alice added. “It caught my eye how Tobba looked at you weird and asked around a bit. But they do clearly know the word.”

  “And things are made of this strange stuff all around the place,” Waylan said, showing of a white fork he must have taken from nearby. It was not metallic nor ceramic from what Irwyn could see. “Don’t know what that’s about.”

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  “Plastics,” Elizabeth nodded with recognition. “It is strange to use it for forks though. In fact, I have noticed that they do use them for a lot of wasteful things.”

  “You know what it is?” Irwyn asked. Because he had no recollection of ever seeing anything like the material before.

  “They are a bunch of needlessly complicated mundane compounds derived from carbon,” Elizabeth nodded. “Simplistically said. They are unbelievably difficult to manufacture. I think the duchy of Purple has one major foundry which works with them extensively but they are not worth the trouble for the most part.”

  “They seem to be worth the rubble for these people,” Waylan pointed out, experimentally bending the fork. It had a surprising amount of give but then began to crack with minimal force when Waylan pushed too far.

  “For this republic, maybe,” Elizabeth shrugged. “Plastics do have varied properties. But they are not great conduits for magic while the raw materials are. Human Life is also based on carbon, if in vastly different compositions - any replenishing raw sources with extensive supply are better used by the Duchy of Green for more cost-efficient projects.”

  “If they are that hard to make, why do they seem all around the place,” Alice pointed out.

  “Probably because they don’t have magical alternatives,” Irwyn figured. That seemed to be the right answer quite often for things the Federation lacked. “You don’t need a spoon that is naturally bendable if you can enchant a metal one to be that way. Probably a bad example but it should apply broadly.”

  “Would be convenient for people who can’t,” Waylan grunted.

  “Those people are not the ones planning out industry,” Irwyn shook his head.

  “Looking around, has anyone actually seen any metal?” Elizabeth asked giving them a pause. The cafeteria they sat in was furnished with wood. The plates were ceramic, dishware plastic. Irwyn tried to think back but could not remember stumbling onto anything with a metallic sheen.

  “Maybe it’s their aesthetic?” Alice asked.

  “Could be,” Elizabeth nodded. “But keep looking and share if you spot anything. If they can make plastics, they can figure out steel and alloys. The absence is strange.”

  The rest of the evening was quite uneventful in the grand scheme of things. Waylan managed to buddy up with the crew quite nicely, mostly with the Firefighters. Alice had successfully earned the adoration of their Aeronaughts by the virtue of her supernatural spacial awareness - ‘guessing’ their exact flight speed left them quite impressed, even after they needed to first figure out unit conversions. According to ranting Alice ‘everyone always measures a mile differently’ followed by a lot of words about the virtue of standardized units based on natural laws.

  Irwyn tried to get along with the more scholarly Forest watch… and realized he actually knew very little about trees, leaving his audience unimpressed. That at least left him with more time to prepare for his own leap into Conception, something Elizabeth was more than happy to help him with, if sometimes only by providing tea as he sat deep in thought for hours – though not without complaining about the local ceramic kettle.

  He was indeed beging this step late… but the assumptions had been that he would have months more before attaining nine intentions. The progress was quick though. Irwyn chose to first carve the concept of Flame since that would let him compare notes with Elizabeth who intended to do the same next. After some contemplation about what was logically right and felt that way, he chose his nine:

  Burn, incinerate, melt, and conflagrate, for the fire part. Shape, control, and magic on Elizabeth’s suggestion to make the concept slightly more versatile when he was using it - very useful since his spells were not formulaic and usually had a lot of give for his input and micromanagement. Then lastly, he opted for strengthen and empower. His goal was to use the Flame in his spells offensively and the composition reflected that. It would burn away all it touched.

  Elizabeth on the other hand would choose Heat, warmth, and ignite. The same trio of shape, control, and magic, then add efficiency alongside the duo of strengthen and empower. This reflected her focus on mainly using her own body moving forward, ranged attacks being only a distraction against real foes. Her Flame was to be the spark that ignited her muscles and inner strength into an unstoppable frenzy. Not a foundation upon which to built artillery.

  The resulting Concepts would be close but not quite identical. Elizabeth estimated that they would be at most twenty percent better for the things the composition focused on - not a massive difference since magic was usually multiplicative, but large enough to be worth the extra effort. It was also very nice to have someone who knew all the answers as soon as he came up with the questions. Elizabeth had prepared extensively for her own leap into Conception years in advance and it showed.

  The next step then would be to imagine the exact shape. Elizabeth had been right that it would come to Irwyn almost naturally. He thought of the nine intentions as lines, and they began to align into those impossible shapes he had seen prior. It was not a fast process as Irwyn used his will and control over magic to prod them into twisting and moving further. They did not feel right. Imperfect. But step by step he was forcing them to encroach on that. Though he barely got started before they found out there was a curfew which they were apparently already breaking before one of the Aeronauts stumbled upon them.

  The airship had not stayed in the area long. It had been sent out to deal with a forest fire and spent a few hours looking for one, though eventually it was determined there was no sign of anything of the sort. Then the trip back began several hours past midnight – and the curfew went into effect the moment the fire hazard was dismissed. Their group had been assigned very small but individual rooms near each other which was decent lodgings all things considered. It was also promised they would arrive at the capital past noon the following day.

  Irwyn did not really sleep that night though. It was more of a mediation where he somewhat rested but much of his mind was still overexcited, focusing on the task before it. And once in a bed, there was nothing external to distract him. Bit by bit, the impossible shape grew more complicated yet also increasingly legible. The closer to perfection it became, the more Irwyn felt like it made perfect sense. A sum of impossible angles and unfeasible interconnections that paradoxically would make up a whole. By the time there was a banging on his door loud enough to distract him, he felt so tantalizingly close to finishing it.

  “What is it?” he asked somewhat grumpily, opening the door.

  “It’s past dawn,” Elizabeth said with a knowing smile. “You haven’t slept, have you?”

  “I am not tired,” he squinted at her.

  “Hours just fly by like that, don’t they?” she remained quite good-natured. “I was similar after leaving… that cave. How close are you to done?”

  “Almost there, I think,”

  “Probably even faster than me, though my sense of time was muddled for the first half of it,” she nodded. The Fae’s prank had kept her feeling like days had passed in hours. In hindsight, it became obvious what had distracted her enough to not notice. “Everyone is gathering for breakfast.”

  “I will be right there,” Irwyn nodded, looking down. He should probably change first.

  “Just keep the same clothes,” Elizabeth nodded. “We don’t necessarily want people knowing how big our bags are.”

  Or not change. Well, the traveling garbs so graciously provided by House Blackburg did not stain easily nor would they smell after just a day. Irwyn did not fancy Waylan who did not have even the mild kind of enchantments on his so that it wouldn’t disrupt his stealth. And he was not stupid enough to bring up in front of Alice where her unchaning clothes were from. Returning to the cafeteria, Irwyn saw that the rest of the quartet was already waiting for them. The fare was quite simple, somewhat fresh bread and butter. Well, Irwyn wouldn’t complain about free food even if it didn’t compare to the hospitality of House Blackburg. Someone else would.

  “I will need to find time to snack from my own stores,” Elizabeth shook her head, gulping down her portion - which were rationed quite exactly.

  “Do you always eat so much?” Alice pondered. “How does it not affect your figure?”

  “The Void is quite ravenous,” Elizabeth chuckled. “You should see some of our old nobles, they can swallow a whole feast's worth without feeling full. And now that I am in Conception my body will start to move further and further from pure biology. A good portion of Domain mages don’t even require food as sustenance anymore.”

  “But you do enjoy your Gluttony,” Waylan jabbed goodheartedly.

  “What good daughter of Umbra wouldn’t?”

  “Not like I haven’t been eating more too,” Irwyn shook his head. Johnson had once told him his body might need more nutrition than it actually asked for and he had been feeding himself more thoroughly, even if not as much as Elizabeth. He wondered if that need too would diminish or vanish for him throughout Conception and Domains.

  “Any discovery about metal?” Alice changed the topic, mostly looking at Waylan. Who else would have snooper around for a good look? “I haven’t found much. Didn’t come up in a conversation either.”

  “They have a lot of sealed doors I couldn’t get through,” their sneak sighed. “Didn’t quite dare sneak in with someone since I might get locked inside. But I did notice the locks used steel. Good steel at that. Door itself was just more plastic I think, but different than these knives,” he demonstrated by bending the one he had been applying butter with. "Much more solid."

  “Different plastics can have very different properties…” Elizabeth paused thinking about how to explain. “Think of it like different metals and alloys. Some are soft, some bent easily, or are easy to work with. Others are not. But instead of needing radically different ores for each, plastics have similar base materials but instead require very diverse manufacturing processes.”

  “And don’t have all the properties of metal,” Irwyn guessed.

  “That too,” Elizabeth nodded. “They can be hardened but I don’t think it is possible to make any as durable or heavy as tungsten for example. But it’s not realistic to get to every nuance in a short period of time - not to mention I don’t know all of them. What I know is mostly second-hand and half-remembered from my education.”

  “I also learned something,” Alice interjected with her own contribution. “So, apparently, after extinguishing that fire, this ship was supposed to head back to its original base - which we would have reached during the night easily. But because of certain mysterious youths, that captain decided it should fly to the capital instead - sending word ahead by radio. That’s why we will only be there after noon.”

  “How did you get that out of them?” Irwyn asked with wonder. Alice was not that much of a smooth talker. “That sounds like secrets you don’t spill to a person you have known for a few hours. Especially when it involves them.”

  “I don’t think they know about eavesdropping magic,” Alice grinned. “There are no precautions around to stop or even detect me. I just had to figure out which people are worth listening to.”

  “We should also get our story together proper…” Elizabeth began, then paused, dismissing the invisible barrier keeping their privacy. “Tobba is coming this way.”

  And indeed. The men had shed the strange suit he had been wearing before - firefighter’s standard gear, apparently - and was instead dressed in casual clothes. As were the other service members under him. The only people still in uniforms were the Aeronauts operating the airship itself since they were always on duty.

  “How was the night?”

  “Quite pleasant, captain,” Elizabeth nodded with a smile. The charm of it was undermined by the unappealing wart which still refused to disappear.

  “Beats the ground, I am sure,” Tobba half-joked. “Though not by much, the rooms need to be small. Me and my men sleep in barracks. The brass really ought to invest in better mattresses.”

  “It was nice having a proper pillow,” Alice agreed, shooting Waylan a hard stare. The sneak waved back playfully.

  “All right, we got word back from the capital,” the captain then opened the real topic. “They will be looking into where this Duchy Federation of yours is and if we can feasibly get you back there. Or at least get in touch with your families.”

  “That may be a bit more complicated than you think,” Elizabeth chuckled slightly, earning her a strange glance form the firefighter. “But I think someone will want a longer word with us anyway, right?”

  “Not my call who, but yes,” Tobba nodded. “Don’t let them treat you badly. If it comes to it, you can use my name. I might not be the biggest deal but I do have some friends in the military.”

  “We appreciate it,” Alice smiled.

  “Once they let you out, I will try to get back in touch if I am not on duty then,” Tobba nodded back. “I hope they at least provide you lodgings for a while. But if not, I can help figure something out. Set you up with some job if you don’t have much money. I don’t want the people I rescued being forced into crime.”

  “I assure you that we are above petty thievery,” said Irwyn, the once career thief, much to Waylan’s barely hidden amusement.

  “Theoretically, how much would gold be worth?” Elizabeth then said with a somewhat conspiratorial tone.

  “If you theoretically happened to have any…” Tobba shot her a concerned glance. “Don’t tell anyone - even soldiers get greedy. And exchange all of it at a bank as soon as you can. The main office in the capital takes security and fairness seriously. I can take you there afterward.”

  “Thank you,” she nodded.

  “Happy to help,” Tobba said then headed off again. The firefighters were all gathered around two adjacent table having several animated discussions.

  “Well then, now we just have to figure out what to do until noon,” Elizabeth noted.

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