Armed With Wings, Armed With Lightning: Storm's End

AT LONG LAST!! Words cannot describe the joy in my heart I feel as the great complex of the Floating City appears before me on the horizon. After trials, tribulations, tests of faith, tests of resolve, new friends, old enemies, new threats, and countless rich lessons, I have completed my formidable mission and lived to return home with the spoils in tow. The Draconian Imperial Republic will yet prosper.
 
As we made our way from the burning shadows of the mine, we came across a wounded Flynn who had not yet breathed his last. It was unexpected, but not surprising, to learn he was in fact familiar with Orlando—who he called Oren, it should be said. I learned something of Orlando’s history and lineage during our encounter with Mai Lin, but each new secret piques my curiosity further still. Especially where Orlando referred to this bloodied old pirate as “the closest thing he ever had to a father.” It would do us no good for him to die here, not for us or for Orlando’s state of mind—an application of nirnroot did the trick to stabilize him. I could see the relief in my friend’s eyes when the pulse of this “Markhorn” steadied (nilwort is a potent coagulant, and it also helps regulate the beating of one’s heart when applied properly by a trained individual). Apparently, he had helped Orlando’s father recover Mai Lin, so I’ve him to thank for my success as well. Another note in the Harmony of the Great Spirits.
 
Once he was coughing up less of his own blood, he had more to say about the current state of affairs. The Crossbone Council had convened early in response to the Imperium’s invasion—the Maycomb pirates, coordinating with the invaders, now sought to steal the Flynn’s secret project and wipe out the Council while they assembled, their efforts sponsored by the infamous Meiser, a powerful and secretive fence who had worked his way into Del’Ortan society like a parasite. The Flynns had named their new ship The Ebon Storm, and it was powered by the technology I had been sent to retrieve—dangerous, in the hands of pirates who had consorted with dark spirits and the Imperium. Markhorn mentioned as well that he had been constructing another project in secret, an aircraft he called The Storm Chaser. Fittingly named, and potentially a great boon to us if we could not catch The Ebon Storm before it took off.
 
And so, it seemed a choice was presented to us: we go after The Ebon Storm, or save the Council. The choice was laughably easy—I care nothing for the council of scoundrels—and as a further blessing, no matter the choice we made, Del’Orta was finished. Orlando was initially resistant to abandoning the scum’s hierarchy, but Nobler’s goals aligned with mine, and we set out to chase the Storm. The bard would come around—or so I thought.
 
Outside the Flynn’s mansion, we were met with the sight of Armitage coordinating relief efforts—bizarre altruism, from a pirate. Still, he lifted our wanted notice from the rest of Del’Orta’s crews, and he had healing supplies to offer us. I left my comrades to manage that, though, as there was one more familiar face I saw there: Ariel.
 
The tiefling woman was, remarkably, recovering, enough where her wits were once again her own and she had the energy to refer to me as “sailor boy.” I don’t know where the title came from; she had never seen me sail in her life, unless she had glimpsed us in our dinghy making our way to the stack ships while she was still seized by the trance. I was just… relieved to see her well. The question of why she helped us so readily still burns in my mind, as do the memories of what she suffered as a result. I hated to deliver more bad news to her, tell her that her home was close to being overrun, but she seemed as if she had come to terms with the necessity of moving on—she did not despair at the news.
I asked her in some way to meet in Doylin. Someday. It seems a better environment for someone of her sensibilities than Del’Orta, though I am hardly one to say what is best for her. All I could do was see her off. I made sure she did not leave empty-handed: Nar’Shen’s jewelry, which I kept when I defeated him ages ago, looked far better on her than they ever had on that cur.
 
And then we said goodbye, and the notes of her song slipped beneath louder chords.
 
We made our way with haste through the forest, unmolested by guards. The trees opened onto a massive swath of paved earth, as if a great creature had stomped through in a rage. The sounds of combat seemed oh so very far away compared to the roar of engines—The Ebon Storm was taking off!
 
The three of us ran, charging across the open ground as a large craft emerged from a hangar, about the size of an ironclad frigate, its hull the shape of a plunging bird. I could tell just by witnessing it here that it was considerably more advanced than anything which existed currently—its incomplete frame allowed glimpses at its inner workings, a beast of steel and floatstone and something else entirely. And it was about to get away.
 
I had no desire to commandeer The Storm Chaser when we could cut straight to the source, and bolted for the ascending craft. Making good use of my old rope and grapple, Orlando had already hooked onto the aircraft, but Nobler and I had yet to secure a means. I fired my magitech grapple once and it skittered off the side of the craft, its hull deflecting the anchor. The Ebon Storm was gathering speed now, rising as it went. A low roar filled the air, and the sky reverberated under its engines. another grapple shot fell off again, as Orlando began to make his way up alone. The Storm, my objective all along, was beginning to climb out of my reach, and panic began to set into my limbs. It could all be in vain. Orlando might have to go it alone. All of my efforts to this point may have been for nothing.
 
In that moment, my sister’s words echoed in my mind. It was a response she’d had for me when I questioned just how she could possibly manage all the pressure, all the stress, of her meteoric rise to prominence, staring down duelists with decades’ more experience than her. “I don’t succeed because I don’t feel those pressures,” she said. “I succeed because I never feel they are enough to defeat me.”
 
I muttered a prayer to the Great Spirits with my sister’s word in my heart, and fired my grapple one last time, and watched as it coiled around The Ebon Storm’s landing gear. Grabbing Nobler, I reeled us in as our quarry took off, carrying us with it.
 
It was no easy feat getting aboard simply because we had gotten our hooks in the craft. My magitech strained under the weight of my companion and I (Nobler’s sheer muscle mass was quite the challenge for the mechanism, in addition to my wiry frame). As it reeled us slowly in, the skies began to darken—a swarm of crows fell upon us to harry our passage.
 
We were practically helpless in midair, as we were—their claws and beaks scoured my flesh, a beating cloud which filled my vision with darkness. The light of the sky was blotted out almost entirely, my vision blacking out. Nobler and Orlando were similarly beset, Orlando slipping down his rope and almost falling. Would we be minced to pieces by these unholy pests before we even entered the ship??
 
NO! There was one element of their foes the crows could not quench, and that was the breath of lightning in my lungs as I opened upon them with a roar and sent the shadows spiraling from the sky. My last firecracker rang through the air in quick succession, scattering the fiends.
 
We hoisted our way aboard the ship. A healing elixir barely dulled the aching in my body. I would be returning home with countless new scars—no matter. The better I bear them for my people.
 
Clambering our of the cargo hold we had found ourselves in, we were met with three Maycombs who barely had time to react before we cut most of them down. The one which remained, though, kept a zealous surprise for us: a bomb that he gleefully detonated before we could finish him.
 
The blast was point-blank, and it set my ears ringing as it tore through the unfinished hull. A howl filled the cavern and we found ourselves being torn out of the compartment. Orlando and I managed to hang on before we were sucked out entirely, but Nobler began to tumble out into the open air. He was hanging on for dear life, the yells of all three of us swallowed by the wind. Orlando tossed him a rope, and he grabbed for it once, twice, as it whipped through the air—to no avail. He was about to fall, with nothing but an open plummet for hundreds and hundreds of feet if he let go. A wild look was in his eyes, Orlando’s eyes—mine too, probably. Orlando and I had the same thought in the same moment, and he moved like a bolt, bringing his arm back and hurling his chain spear, that gift from Gaku, and Nobler, harpooning him in the meat of his leg. Frankly, I was relieved and amazed that he didn’t hit an artery, but I certainly wasn’t about to complain. As we hauled the writhing nobler inside, I opened us a door and we clambered into a pressurized space.
 
This empty mess hall we found ourselves in allowed us a moment to breathe. It was funny, I thought, how even hulking machines of war require a place for their crews to eat. I couldn’t say my appetite was on my mind, though. We didn’t stay long before we were pushing forward to our next objective: take the ship. The longer we waited, the closer this new weapon got to innocents and the farther it got from where I saw fit to take it.
 
Orlando took point—wise, in relation to how each of us was managing in terms of our wounds, but unwise in that the crewmate in the next room was quickly alerted to his presence. I didn’t give him much time to call for help; he was, unfortunately for him, strapped into the harness for a massive weapon in the ship, which left him rather helpless to resist my rash’tam silencing him. A call came from above—Tusk—and the hapless Maycomb pirate who crawled down in response was butchered just as quickly. In this hall, there was a shaft leading up, where the man had come from, as well as the massive aforementioned weapon. It was a formidable sight, if this is the engine that Mai Lin’s schematics had spoken of: lightning arced between two massive coils, the air sharp with the scent of ozone. I was seized by the desire to reach out and touch it, embrace the energy of my heritage, see what sort of charge might power my veins if I channeled its power, but I would not risk damaging the machine or myself when victory was so close.
 
There was just a long climb up the ladder, and Tusk at the top.
 
There was only one point of access we had without compromising the hull and risking the grasp of the rushing air again, and my wounds were severe enough as they were. Tusk might have had to be certain he piloted The Ebon Storm along its trajectory, but a ladder with such narrow access gave him a position he could have held for days, had he needed to. My body was stretched to its limits, and Nobler’s leg was still oozing blood (although he was healing remarkably quickly, as well). There were no grenades for us to toss his way.
 
Orlando’s audacity won the day, as he agreed to lead the charge up the ladder. He hurled himself up the rungs, springing far ahead of me and launching himself up in what seemed to be a perfect spiral. I heard the roar of a pistol reverberating in a closed chamber, saw thick smoke flood the chamber, above, a flash of fire… and then I saw Tusk hurtling down the shaft. I pressed my body to the side, waited for the rush of displaced air and the crunch of him hitting the ground, and then I leapt after him, seeking to finish him with a Whistling Fang.
 
Tusk, for all his might, could not resist the three of us as we cornered him—and he knew it, because in that moment, he regarded us cooly, spoke a praise to the Lord of Crows, and slit his own throat.
 
I butchered his remains. There would be no rise from the dead for him.
 
We took the controls of The Ebon Storm—FINALLY!—and I called for my friends to set a course for Drakkon. They would welcome us with open arms.
 
Orlando had other plans. He must have been taken by the same love of captivity which enraptured Nobler and Nema, because he insisted we turn course and make our way back to Del’Orta. I cannot begin to understand why he might wish to do such a thing—we had nearly everything we needed, the Imperium forces would attempt to bring us down, The Storm Chaser, as we had learned from Tusk, was patrolling the skies, eager to seek us out… and he wanted to go back? To rescue some number of pirates. Scoundrels. Worthless thieves, swindlers, and murderer, a cityful of them. We were this close. We needed only to leave. And as I looked into Orlando’s eyes, some ridiculous stubbornness was yet set in them. His words rang empty in my ears—civilians don’t live in Del’Orta unless they choose such a life. It’s not as if one can simply wander in. Foolish! Del’Orta was doomed, praise the Great Spirits, and he still wanted to return and risk our goals—damn it, my goals—to help them.
 
Katsuhito and Morikage perched upon my shoulders. Nobler, the other fighter among us, seemed to lean more towards my views. He would tip the scales in either direction. And yet, Nema waited below, and he would be loathe to leave her. I could not rely upon his joining my cause. I had the most training in close-quarters fighting. Orlando had run dry his reserve of sorcery. In single combat in an enclosed space, a fight against him would be laughably easy to win—only I was severely wounded, and we might not be the only combatants. Not to mention he can be counted upon to always have a trick up his sleeve. And could I bring myself to strike a seemingly-fated comrade? I could not risk attempting to render him unconscious—too much could go wrong, and then it would be all over. I would have to strike to kill.
 
My hand wandered towards the hilt of my kesh’tam.
 
We were high in the air, no support nearby in the slightest, save for Nobler. There was no telling what Baltos might do if Orlando’s life was threatened, whether he could find him, or whether the loss of his life would unleash some hellish fury in the little imp. And if he died, there would only be myself and Nobler to steer our course, a dangerous lack of personnel to fly an advanced warship. Still. A Blade is an agent of the Sun and the Moon. The moon shines where the sun may not. And I had a duty to my country, a duty to my name.
 
My wounds throbbed. Hairline fractures ran through the windshield of the cockpit; a struggle could damage my prize further. Not to mention, the will of the Great Spirits seemed to have brought us together. His father had been instrumental in saving Mai Lin, and Orlando had saved my life but a few hours ago. He had led the charge up the ladder. Duty to the will of the Great Spirits must be my guide always, beyond even the call of duty to my country, and the loss of Orlando’s tune would sour the harmony of their music.
 
As if that weren’t enough, my goddamn cat was still down there.
 
I took the lightning lance, and was rewarded, as we turned around, with the sight of the absolute destruction we were able to wreak upon the enemy. The Imperium ships’ few deck guns could not manage to penetrate our hull, and when I opened up this superweapon upon them, it was like the breath of a hundred dragons, a bolt from the heavens. We carved a swath through their fleet as their shots pinged off our hull—they hadn’t prepared for an aerial threat. Even The Storm Chaser dared not engage us. I switched places with Nobler to get a better view, let him try dragon’s breath out for size. Below, I saw a line of Del’Ortan ships punch through the Imperium lines, taking a pummeling as they went but fleeing nonetheless. Just as the battle seemed turned in our favor, though, I caught an ominous bubbling in the water, and in a few moments, a massive beast burst through, what could only be a horrible Imperium chimera the likes I had never seen or studied before. Its thick tendrils churned the air, ravaging the Del’Ortan ships, and from its body, arcs of energy lanced forth. That would be our cue to leave.
 
Even as I said this, though, I saw a distant, tiny shape upon the shore, barely in view. As I squinted, the realization stunned me: it was the dwarf we had so carefully kept safe and hidden all along! That mysterious inhabitant of the karsts! As I watched, she reached out, and the very bones of the earth shot through the ground and impaled the great beast… and then the dwarf woman sank to the ground again, no doubt in another coma. The Imperium forces had been cleared for the time being, and we took the opportunity to land and retrieve her. Who was there waiting but Baltos, Nema, and Bastet, having tailed us from the ground. The six of us reunited with our seventh ward, we lifted off again and got out of there.
 
Away from Del’Orta, aboard our prize, towards the center of my homeland, alive and victorious, away from a detested city forever destroyed, onwards, in triumph. I felt a swelling in my chest as we set off towards the horizon. We made it. I was homeward bound, at long last—I would see my family again, after a long separation. Perhaps Amiri had made it home, as well; maybe Hikari had recovered further! It would be grand to see he and my father again, one of the best feelings I could imagine. Not to mention, I was eager for the opportunity to share with my new companions the splendor of Draconia. Who knows—I might even show them my room. And then I could reflect on my journey.
 
How I’d learned trusting capable companions can pay dividends—especially if they have magic songs and beastly fangs.
 
How the harmony of the Great Spirits may even be found in the most seemingly-unworthy places.
 
How evil will just as soon find kindred evil as it will destroy itself.
 
How what has been killed may not truly die.
 
How, even in my darkest moments, even when I am battered and scarred, even when my will ebbs—I have the capabilities I need to enact the will of my gods, of my people. I am my own armor. I am my own sword.
 
I am a Blade.
 
May the Great Spirits watch me through the gleam of my sword, enlighten me in the hidden places of the world, guide me in the words of the strangers I've yet to make familiar, and bless me in the light of sun and moon. May they walk in the stride of those I walk amongst, and touch the world through the hands of my companions. May their deeds echo in my actions and their will echo in my wishes. May I honor them in the paths I follow and the waters I tread and the mountains I climb. I am but a transient pilgrim walking the tracks of this past and future world, my blood the blood of my lord and my father and my people.