Chương 55: Chapter 54 - Map of The Worlds.

Ancient roots had fought, possibly for thousands of years, to carve cracks in the stonework. Stonework she had thought to be invincible. Apparently it is a lot less invincible.

"Rowen, get your ass over here with that sword, we got roots to cut" Nythera said, her dagger doing next to nothing against the tree. Wait! I've got.

"Actually Rowen, keep your ass over there, I don't need you right now" she said, just as he reached the door.

"Make up your mind" he muttered, sheathing his sword "my sword is not some common jungle machete". She backed up three paces and held her arm up. Your time to shine buddy! Grinning, she pulled on a new skill [Cannon Arm]. Warmth spread through her arm as flux concentrated in her palm. The heat building until it became painful. She backed up three more paces. Her arm was stiff, the elbow joint hardened by intense flux flows, and the energy at her palm felt volatile, as if it was constantly trying to jump away.

If someone walks up and slaps my arm away while I'm using this, I think I might die. The heat kept building and building, she used her wisdom to pull the flux into obedience. But it could only last so long. The flux rocketed forth, sending her flying backwards as it exploded point-blank into the doorway. Wood bits went flying as the oak at the door began to topple, centuries of growth destroyed in an instant, by a twenty year old girl. The mechanical doors slid open, the last of the roots still on fire.

The smell of burnt wood and scorched stone replaced the idyllic smell of a well-kept meadow. Going to need to brace myself or get more Strength. Hel, I need more Strength for the Culverin anyways. Nythera led the way in, taking on the role of leader valiantly. The tunnel led straight to the cliffside at a gentle downward slope. The tunnel opened to a gargantuan chamber, three hangar doors, each double the size of The Racing Rat lay before them. Well and three ships.

The ships laid on tracks above pits, allowing the keel to dangle above the ground. The vessel's were all plated in a dull-grey metal, though one had huge person-sized holes blown straight through the hull.

"These ships are incredible, is this Steel-plating?" Rowen stroked the side of one of the ships.

"It'd have to be slow, too slow, what makes them go?" he started muttering to himself. Alright, I'll leave the lunatic to his ships. Time to do what I do best and loot the place. The only other thing in the shiproom were crates full of sheet metal, odd bits and ends, and random chunks of shaped aetherium. She stood before a panel littered with Aurendorian runes. This is probably the door controls.

"Operate Hanger Door #1""Operate Hanger Door #2""Operate Hanger Door #3" Yup, we don't want to do this now. Can't have my brand new fleet getting smashed on cliff rocks.

"Nythera, how do we get these out? With no way to get water in the dock and a sheer drop out of the doors how do you expect to move these? We didn't bring any water mages or Stonemancers" Rowen dropped all sense of propriety. The ships were simply too alluring.

"I don't know, don't ask me" she shrugged. Halt merely stood at the entrance, staring at the ships. She could swear he was basking in some old memories behind that stoney-mask.

"Let's mess with the hanger controls later, I want to see if there's anything else here" She said, tagging Rowen on the shoulder to pull him out of his trance. Two doors lay on either end of the Hanger. Ripping open the door on the northside, found a small room with a low ceiling. Great, a closet. Dust and assortments of metal tools, some sensible, some completely beyond their understanding lay in open shelves around the room. Well that and a corpse. Imagine dying in a supply closet.

All of the clothes had long since decayed, the bones were mostly gone as well. But a shiny, black-lined steel medallion sat in the center of the chest cavity. Not bad, something worthwhile maybe. It read "Ship technician Assistant Aurex Drusus""Poor soul, died in a tool closet" Rowen said, sifting through the shelves for anything valuable.

"Shall we proceed to the opposite chamber?" he asked, pretending not to be too interested.

"I suppose we shall" Nythera replied mockingly. The opposing room was far large, with a ceiling half the height of the hanger itself. On the wall opposite the door lay a gigantic map, covering the entire surface.

"Nythera, what…" Rowen trailed off, transfixed. But she was too. Eleven full islands were detailed on the map.

"Rowen, aren't there only four known islands or something?" She muttered.

"Technically there are six, you probably forgot to count Virelion since it was only discovered recently and Volthera, since it's hard to see" he said, approaching the map. Aurendorian runes labeled each location as well as a scattering of other points across the map. Wait, just wait a second. If each island is a Domain, and this whole region is the same Domain region, with Myrraval as the crown domain. Does this mean it's an eleven domain region? I thought the max was eight or nine.

Rowen pried his eyes off the map "Can you read the runes? What are the names of the other islands?" he pleaded. She pointed from one to the other "Myrraval, Mistland, Rockland…" her eyes squinted as she tried to make out words she didn't know. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Wow they did a horrible job naming these.

"That one's Lavaland and Lightningland respectively, and the one above it is Greenland, the three in the bottom right are Lightland, Darkland, and Heavyland" Rowen's jaw was slack with disbelief. She continued "to the right of Greenland we have Windyland and to the right of that we have Iceland" She tiptoed to get a better look at the small text.

"And between the two we have "deadly reef""You're kidding right? Are those the actual names of the islands?" Rowen asked.

"Translated directly into Greymereian, yes they are" Rowen shook his head "I can't believe we finally found a map of the entire Flux-seas and they name the islands Greenland and Iceland, how could ancient precursors choose such dumb names?" he asked incredulously. Nythera snorted "As if Greymere is any better, half the towns are just named "big hill" or "rocky river" but the language shifted so you can't tell anymore."

"Yeah but lava and lightning land? Really? Still, what is heavyland supposed to be? And dark and light? I understand ice and windy land but those three…" On the map, one island lay shrouded in darkness, the opposite one was almost blindingly bright, as if coated in snow, and the one in between, Heavyland, appeared sparse of vegetation and rather bland. Does the flux congregate in each island then based on type? But where is it all coming from?

Myrraval was a Mythic core and Mistvale was an epic core, either one could be the crowning domain of continental empire… Where is all the flux coming from? And why is it sorting by type?

"What's this?" Rowen pointed straight at a tiny islet in the southwest with an equally small label attached. She squinted "F-o-r-b-i-d-d-e-n I-s-l-e" She shrugged "it just says forbidden, no idea what that means". Halt's heavy steps echoed off the floor "Ah yes, finally found a full map of the Flux-seas" he laughed like gravel. Rowen smacked her shoulder "Nythera, Nythera what is this thing over here? It's not an island, it appears to be a river?" Could he be any more annoying? Go learn the language yourself!

"What is it? Some irrelevant island on the edge of civilization?" she muttered, leaning in close. A little river of ocean water appeared to disappear into the mist, one on each side of the map, totaling four.

"It says Aelthyr, whatever that means" she said.

"And that one? Over there" Rowen hurried her along.

"Thornfall""And the one on this side?"

"It's got no name, the text is best translated as "not yet ventured" or "unexplored" which might have to do with the "extreme danger" label right under it" she said. If he makes me translate one more of these fucking labels… Rowen I am dumping you off the side of the ship on the way back. In front of your father.

"This one too Nythera! It's the last of these little river thing" he pointed and hounded her. Got it, it's the plank for you, Rowen.

"This one reads Vathrial, stop asking me shit Rowen or I am going to throw you out the hanger doors" She huffed.

"What. Did. You. Say?" Rowen turned towards her, put his hands on her shoulders and started shaking "VATHRIAL?"

"Vathrial? Did I say Vathrial?" she said, head whipping back to the map "it says Vathrial!" Vathrial? Seriously? We can go back? There's a route? But I am not ready to go back yet, Myrraval is just getting started.

"This goes back? We can go back?" Rowen vigorously shook her.

"YES WE CAN GO BACK" Nythera pried his arms off her shoulders and tried to knock out his legs with a sweep of her foot. It didn't work. Ow Ow OW I hate these melee builds, so much constitution and strength I can't do shit to them without my cannons.

"Why the Hel would I ever want to go back to Greymere? Especially now? Do you know what they would do to us if they found this place?" Nythera said. Rowen shrugged "I suppose that's a point worthy of consideration" and found some of his lost noble dignity.

"Besides, it's not like we can just fly across the gap between the river and The Edge, you realize these rivers never fully reach the continent right? Otherwise everyone would have found this place" she said, looking at Rowen expectantly. He snorted "We'll find a way to bridge the gap, when we're ready""This map needs to stay quiet, very quiet, if people know there's a viable connection to Vathrial and… wherever these other places are, there will be panic.

I expect you to tell this to your father, but if it goes any further I'm holding you responsible" Nythera said with a leveled glare.

"Understood" he gave a curt nod. Halt and Talvik stood by the door looking entirely unphased "That map is missing a considerable amount of details, they must not have bothered updating this depot." Halt casually remarked. Just how much do they know? Could Talvik actually be from when Aurendor was alive? That'd be… five thousand years ago? Give or take a few thousand… Nythera brushed her worries aside, there was more on the map and she wanted to know what it said. These squiggles aren't little mountains and waves.

These are Aurendorian facilities.

"Mythral Dreadnaught Shipyard" "Myrraval Southern Battery" "Volkion Artillery Forge" "Naval Research Center" "Voltherra Aetherium Charger" dozens of other labels across the map called to her. Way above her head, the title read "Aurendorian Industrial & Defense Facilities Map". Yup this map is coming with me. But it seems like it doesn't have everything, I don't see any depots on here, or that weird facility by Oswin.

"Hey Rowen, is that a tower or something on Everice?" She asked nonchalantly as she tried to find a way to pry the map off the wall. If I can roll it up I can shove it in Boxy by stuffing it bit by bit in. He tiptoed to get closer to the white island in the top righthand corner, well above his head.

"Yeah I think so? Wait no, it looks more like a city, but there is a tower-looking-thing up on Windyisland" Rowen said.

"What the Hel is going on with these isles? First there were Aurendorians, then we have Kravin and then some fucking clock man, and now this?" She voiced her thoughts outloud. Rowen shrugged "These islands are old, my father told me that there were actually myths of floating islands in the fog in Greymere about two hundred years ago, but they faded out of mind." Myths? Could they be leftover from when Aurendor ventured to these isles?

Regardless, the path to taking revenge for what those bastards did has never been more clear to me. If I can deal with Ren first, I can take my time, they'll never see it coming. For Father, For Will. Nythera finally got her fingers under the map, carefully prying the millenia-old map of the wall, the adhesive coming off gingerly.

"Rowen get your ass over here and help me take this thing" Nythera whined. Rowen worked from the opposite side, but the map further up the wall was nearly impossible for them to work on. Two stools and a lot of cursing later, they had the map rolled up into a four meter high tube. The map room lay nearly empty, a great circular and perfectly curved table made up the center, but nothing adorned the other walls.

"I am going to figure out how the ships work, have fun with your map" Rowen said, heading back into the hangar. Nythera greedily fed the tube's much smaller profile through the lid of Boxy inch by inch.

"Hey Talvik, when this thing pops out again, is it going to get stuck in the ground or ceiling or something?" Talvik's voice came echoing "Best open it outside and far from the sight of others". Rowen stood on the poopdeck of the caravel-sized ship, messing with the steering controls "Nythera! I can't read a damn thing and the controls don't respond to my touch" he called out in frustration, noble decorum fading.

"Figure it out yourself!" she called back, moving up to the other ship. The hull was plated with overlapping grey metal. Long … things ran from the prow to the stern, but she could not identify their purpose. Or why there were several holes in the ship, jutting out of the hull and facing toward the stern. Who the Hel puts holes in their own ship? Maybe its from cannon fire? But it looks intentional, not blown open. She glanced towards the wrecked ship. Definitely intentional.

But why would all your cannons face towards the back of the ship? Did they sail backwards? She hopped up on deck to examine the controls that had stupified Rowen.

"What an idiot, I'm sure even a child could manage this, how hard could controls for a boat be?" she muttered under her breath. Very hard as it turned out. A metal panel mounted to a pillar was all it had for a wheel. Covered in runic script and crystal indicators, the entire ship's control, from sail to rudder lay before her.

"Ok ok, I've sailed ships before, I've got this, lets see" She read through one after another"Flux Battery" Ok yup definitely know what this"Ambient Flux Intake" This I'm not really sure.

"Selva Sail Deployment Position" The sail deploys?

"Drift Fin Deployment Position" Nope, lost me…

"Rudder State""Rudder Orientation""Ship Preset Positioning: Drydock""Light Cannonry Deployment Position""Flux-Jet Thrust Force" And a whole slew of additional controls lay before her. Lights flickered on and off, the rudder rotated, and the sail dropped open before snapping back up. And she still had no idea how to operate the ship. Rowen pulled himself over her gunwale "You appear to have a modicum of knowledge of the operation of these vessels, so I will observe" he said, brushing non-existent dust off his shirt.

Her [Flux-sight] picked up a glimmer of energy on the ship, just for a faint second. She pressed the "Deploy Sails" button. Rowen jumped back, nearly tripping off the side. Flux raced along the floor and walls, bolting straight for the mast. There's tubes in the metal. She lowered herself to the deck. Aetherian? What is even capable of channeling flux? Going below deck through the only hatch on deck, she immediately came face to face with a glowing blue gemstone the size of a small apple.

Inlaid into the deck itself, with a tangle of vein-like metal tubing coming off of it. Aetherium, this is refined Aetherite. So this is the center of the ship, without this it probably wouldn't function. Nythera clambered back up to the control console and slammed the key for "Activate Core Engine" The ship jerked beneath her, nearly throwing her off her feet.

"What did you do?" Rowen said, clutching the railing. The ship levitated off the drydock.