Chapter 482: True Elites (1/2)

On the island of Livaros, the sky port was the busiest part of the skyline. Looming towers had skyships docked up and down their exteriors while more ships drifted in and out of the port air space. It was busy enough that Jason wondered how air traffic control was managed.

The ships came in a startling array of designs. Some looked like ordinary ships, complete with sails, although Jason doubted they were propelled by anything so mundane as ordinary wind. Others were almost spaceship-like with sleek hulls of dark metal, but most fell somewhere in-between the sailing ship and UFO designs. The most common type of skyship looked like an ordinary sailing vessel but, instead of sails, had glowing crystals suspended from scaffolding outside of the hull. The crystals were the size of a small car and each ship using them had as few as three or as many as eight, depending on the size of the vessel.

Jason happily gawped like a tourist as he wandered through the port at ground level. He was also dressed like a tourist, once again in shorts and a very pink floral shirt. He relied on his magical senses to avoid bumping into anyone as he craned his neck around, watching all the activity above. Unsurprisingly, even the low-altitude air traffic present in the rest of the city was heavily restricted here. The only flying vehicles, aside from the skyships themselves, were magical wagons moving up and down the outsides of the towers to load the airships.

Dimensional storage was expensive, and people with personal storage spaces even more so. This was why some didn’t even bother with adventuring and became professional porters. Most airships still used both, however, filling their holds with dimensional storage crates.

Jason arrived at the tower he was looking for, a circular edifice of steel and glass that was the closest Jason had seen to contemporary architecture from his own world. The main difference was the massive freight doors through which wagonloads of goods were being hauled in and out. Not all of the wagons moving goods could fly and the interior of the building, as Jason discovered going in, was an array of large elevating platforms ringing the interior of the tower.

In the centre of the busy room was a series of reception desks, all rushing through the queues assembled in front of them as quickly as they could. Jason spotted Autumn, the elf he had met the other day, in one of the queues as he joined. She was a few spaces ahead of him but after she was done, stopped to wait. Jason reached the desk, showed his delivery contracts and was given a boarding document. He then went over to talk to Autumn. Her frog, Neil, was sitting on her shoulder again.

“I thought you had a portal power,” she said.

“I'm a new boy,” Jason said. “Unless they want me to portal around town, I need to do some travelling, first. I'm only shipping out, though. I'm getting dropped in the outer reaches and making my way alone from there. It's all very scary.”

“You're a stealth specialist?”

“A friend of mine told me that the powers you awaken reflect who you are.”

“I've heard that. It's a common theory.”

“Well, it's cowardice all the way for me, so, stealth powers.”

“Just be careful and I'm sure you'll be fine. They wouldn't send you out if they thought you'd die.”

“Don't worry; I have special skills. Did you know there's a high-pitched shriek you can make that tricks monsters into thinking you're a mewling infant and many of them leave you alone?”

She gave him a sceptical look.

“It's not even a power,” he continued. “It's just something I discovered by accident.”

“We're probably on the same ship since we picked up our supplies together,” she said, ignoring his ongoing nonsense. “Which ship do they have you on?”

“It's called, hang on…”

Jason checked his boarding paper and then frowned, his expression thoughtful.

“…Zila’s Promise. Hmm.”

“Same here,” Autumn said. “Is something wrong?”

“It’s nothing,” Jason said, looking around and then pointing. “Elevating platform six, that’s us.”

They went over to the platform and waited for it to come back down, all the platforms being in heavy use. They rode up, crowded in with wagons and carts. These were all magically propelled, even if they didn't fly. From what Jason had seen, animal-drawn vehicles were a minority in Rimaros. In Arnote, around the town market, he'd seen wagons drawn by heidels. He still didn't care for the creepy, two-headed lizard-horses.

In Livaros, animal-drawn vehicles seemed to be a point of prestige and he'd occasionally spotted wealthy carriages, flying or otherwise, drawn by exotic animals or magical beasts. The rich seemed to share Jason's aversion to heidels, but probably because poor people used them.

“You’re not human, are you?” Autumn asked him as the platform ascended through the inside of the tower. They were close to the glass and got a good view of the city. The platform made regular stops for wagons, carts and people to unload onto the airships docked to the exterior of the tower.

“No,” Jason said, pulling out a sandwich. “Want one?”

“I brought my own snacks,” she said, tapping Neil on the back. The frog opened his mouth and a bag larger than the frog himself emerged. Jason smiled as the bag warped to its full size. Watching larger items come out of small storage spaces was almost cartoon-like in how the object seemed so pliable only to spring into its normal shape and size, wholly unaffected by the process.

“What?” she asked him, then popped a glazed nut from the bag into her mouth.

“You don’t want to know what I was thinking.”

“Now I really want to know.”

“I was just wondering about tying a giant firework to a cart so I could ride it and chase down a flightless bird.”

Autumn blinked, nonplussed.

“That’s really what you were thinking?”

“It probably wouldn’t work. I’d fly off the edge of a desert gorge, hover in the air briefly with a put-upon expression and then fall, kicking up a dirt cloud as I hit the ground.”

“A desert?”

“Yep.”

“In the famously wet and humid sea of storms.”

“I don't make the rules.”

“Is this some kind of ruse to make people underestimate you?”

“You asked.”

“What about your eyes? Is that something to do with not being human?”

“No, that’s just the side effect of a power.”

“A perception power?”

“Partly. It helps me sense dimensional anomalies. Astral space apertures, that kind of thing.”

“Why do I get the impression that you’re never quite telling the truth, even when you aren’t lying?”

“Because I’m clearly a man of mystery. I lead a life of danger, excitement and baked goods.”

“I can tell by the way you’re dressed.”

“How good is this shirt? I found it in one of the smaller market districts near supply depot seven.”

“Is it designed to repel any princesses that try to marry you?”

“You don’t think they’d like it?”