For quite a while now, Mindy had speculated about what it would be like when she finally explored the deep Wildlands. She imagined a great expedition, hundreds of adventurers, Remian and Tim and George at her side, and a whole fleet of airships at her command… Well, since seeing the Roc King, Mindy began to realize that bringing an airship or ten would have been a very bad idea. That one bird alone could easily have wiped out her entire fleet before breakfast and still need more exercise to work up a sweat. Roc aside, just the dragons at Dragon Lake were enough to ensure a fleet of airships never got past them. Har’es-dras proved that easily enough. But even so…! Compared with her dreams and expectations, this reality was just... Mindy shook her head and shook off that train of thoughts before she rode it right into the pits of despair. With a fluffy red chick in one hand and a compass in the other, she sneaked her way through every bit of tree cover she coul

“This…” Alexei stared in disbelief. “How are we supposed to take this back with us?!” Mindy barked a low laugh. “You can’t. There’s no taking it away.” Father Petrov eyed her. “You don’t seem surprised.” “I made friends with a bird who told me about it. I just had to see it for myself. And so did you.” Mindy admitted. “So… what do we do?” Sir Ivan asked. Alexei was inspecting it. “This crack… it seems to be a leak in some sort of seal. The mana we have now is just what’s leaking out from the seal.” “Or its what came out before the seal was put in place.” Father Petrov mused. “Well, you can’t do anything with it.” Mindy shrugged. “I guess this brings our trip to its conclusion.” “Not exactly. If mana is what it takes to stop the war, then…” Father Petrov hesitated. “Then if there were a way to remove the seal, mana would pour into the world undeterred and everyone would have so much mana, we wouldn’t need to fight for crystals.” Sir Ivan said. “Something like that?” “That soun

Twelve days had passed after the expedition began. George was looking over some new design drawings for Kara-Goth, designs for shafts sporting mirrors and windows capped by glass domes for streaming sunlight in from the top of the hill, proper airship docking facilities atop Kara-02 rather than barebones mooring atop the clear space of Kara-01, massive balconies with glass sliding door access to the outside of the higher floors of the hill... Those designs came from a professional architect based in Ecclesia who had been called upon by Sir Ivan’s wife. Using them would certainly improve the quality of life in Kara-Goth. They looked downright luxurious. The problem was security. A fierce Beast Wave from flying Wilds, like the Eagle Lord’s, and they’d be hard pressed to defend the place. “I like the sunlight shafts idea, but those clear domes on top have to be made with some tough transparent material, like hardened decaquartz.” George told Sir Ivan’s wife. “We can cer

Remian and Phoebe couldn’t help noticing. They hadn’t realized anyone was watching them earlier; there were Lydia and Sabriane sipping tea at their table on the café balcony, but they hadn’t thought much of it at first… But when a little red chick went gallivanting around the waterfront green on a wolfcat cub, chirping imperatively all the way, they just had to notice the four kids skulking around the corner. “Where did that bird come from?” Remian asked, frowning. “I sense… a lot of things weird with it.” “Sense later.” Phoebe prodded him. “Picnic first.” It was an idyllic scene, with children and elders at leisure, friends and family spying on the couple, and a red chick charging about on the back of a yipping wolfcat cub… Remian almost couldn’t believe this peaceful place was really the dangerous Frontier or that he was able to set out a picnic on the waterfront without worrying about getting eaten alive from one minute to the next. The old man fis

Two hours after being captured, the camp was attacked by troops using magical weapons from Auria. “Get down!” Talia told her crew, and the lot of them crouched low, their hands over their heads. There was a lot of screaming and yelling and shooting on all sides, and then all of a sudden, a total silence. It was punctuated by a groan, and then the Aurian troops marched into what was left of the camp… “Can we go now?” Talia asked. Seeing the group of prisoners without uniforms, they asked, “Where are you from?” “We were working for Itarim…” Talia tried to explain. “Itarim?! They just switched sides this morning!” the Aurians growled. “You’re not going anywhere!” Switched sides? Was that even possible?! And why, of all times, did it have to happen this morning!? Couldn’t they wait just another day… just one more day…?! But no. Talia and her crew were brought into an Aurian bunker hastily set up in a rocky area... Actually none of that mattered. Fifteen minutes after arriving at