(20 Days Left)

The Phantamarauder took off into the sky faster than I could take another breath. The rapid change in air pressure and elevation made me feel giddy and then terrified as I looked down at the city quickly vanishing behind us.

“So, you want to see the ocean?” Aconite asked, her unnaturally blue eyes flashing at me. “Straight south then?”

I nodded as I clung to the black rust-covered rails, sweating profusely. My heart was beating like mad. Arrays of clouds were flashing past us. This was my first time in the sky. I didn’t like it. The ship was vibrating like mad too, like it was about to fall apart.

“Head to Castiglia, please,” I finally uttered, recalling the recommendation of the old witch.

Castiglia is a den of Sea mages, and it has a large market of adventurers and dungeon divers. Perhaps I can find a healer there.

“No problem.” Aconite grinned with sharp chompers, her orange tail swishing. “Castiglia it is.”

My breath lurched as the sky-yacht evened out in the air, momentarily reducing gravity and making me feel weightless.

“H-how are you controlling this thing?” I asked, trying not to tremble.

“It’s a ghost ship bound to me.” The vexen tapped a collar on her neck made from the same dark metal covered in rust barnacles.

“An artifact ship?” I blinked. No wonder Aconite’s ship looked so strange. It wasn’t manufactured by the Basq Empire.

“I’m an artificer too.” Aconite smirked. “I make verrry lovely artifacts.”

“A privateer and an artificer,” I said, mulling the situation. “That’s a potent combination. Artificers are prized by the Empire. Why aren’t you rolling in gold?”

“I prefer being independent,” she said.

“Seems like a dangerous way to live,” I muttered.

The girl raised an eyebrow at me.

“Magogenic-born are frowned upon by mundane humans,” Aconite said with a shrug.

I thought of Master Milgrim’s books, trying to distract myself from the rapidly increasing distance between my feet and the ground.

I recalled words that I’d read long ago. “Arcanamorphs, while unwelcome in Illatius, are highly prized for their bestial strength, speed, or endurance, and make excellent war legionnaires. As humans born in a magogenic fault, they are naturally immune to high magical radia, which warps both inorganic and organic materia. This makes them exceptionally useful as they can work in areas contaminated with magrad and assist in long-term projects dealing with high concentrations of magic.”

I noticed that the rust beneath my fingers formed odd rust barnacles. An eye stared at me from one of them. It was blood-red, filled with iron flakes. Organic-inorganic. My eyes trailed across the deck of the ship, stopping at a massive, pulsating blue crystal wrapped in black chains which were covered in what looked like rust algae. The chains were practically covered in rust-barnacles too. Strange rust flowers bloomed beneath the crystal, featuring brown and red petals.

Wherever water settled within the iron hollows, it formed inorganic life.

Magrad. This entire ship was contaminated with it. The exposed core leaked it like mad.

“That’s not a standard ship core,” I muttered, squinting at the pulsating crystal wrapped in bewildering organic-inorganic iron-flesh chains, barnacles, and algae.

“You’re not a standard passenger,” Aconite purred.

I determined that the farthest distance away from the core was at the front of the ship and slowly began moving there, clinging to the warped railing. I was correct in my assessment. While the railing at the front was pitted with organic-inorganic rust, it also wasn’t as twisted on the molecular level.

Having settled into a spot that I considered safe-ish, I glared at the privateer.

“If you’re an artificer, why don’t you shield that core properly? Why isn’t it inside the deck surrounded by hex-warded magisteel?” I asked. “It’s clearly screwing with the ship, leaking magrad all over the place.”

“Why didn’t you want to leave from Skyway Central?” the vexen shot back.

I frowned.

“You like asking questions but not answering them?” The redhead arcanamorph tilted her head.

“Just get me to Castiglia,” I sighed.

My trust in Captain Aconite was rapidly dropping, just like my health as it was exposed to the magrad-leaking crystalline reactor that powered the skyship I was currently stuck in.

“Exposure to magrad generally leads to rapid cellular degeneration.” Words from the pages of Alaric’s library read in Mila’s soft voice gnawed at the back of my mind. “For this reason, all dragonheart reactors must be shielded deep underground or surrounded by several layers of magisteel wards. High-level magrad tears at the fabric of reality, warps and twists all that it touches in exceptionally unexpected ways.

“Standing next to an exposed reactor core is a deadly endeavor, as one can become changed, integrated with a completely random concept. Low levels of magrad are beneficial to magi, but once a certain threshold is crossed, the human soul becomes unable to cope with the magical radia, and the flesh of the mage begins to change and warp. Mage Klop Adriuss, the artificer working on the first dragonheart reactors, learned this the hard way by aging ten years in a flash and growing bird-like feathers all over his hands.”

“You know, you should really warn your passengers about the fact that you have an open reactor,” I commented. “Just because you are immune to magrad doesn’t mean that other humans are.”

“My passengers usually don’t ask questions or have concerns about ship cores,” Aconite commented. “Because they’re generally too dull, too stupid to know about magrad, or too full of themselves. But you are a clever cookie, aren’t you, Merv?”

I crossed my arms. “It’s not my place to chide you, but that core should really be under the deck at the very least.”

“By Acadia law all passengers should leave from Skyway Central.” Aconite shrugged. “Where they are verrrry thoroughly frisked by the authorities.”

My eye twitched. We were clearly at an impasse.

“How far is Castiglia?” I asked.

“The Shattered Isle Citadel is a four hour flight,” she said. “If we keep going at this speed.”

“You can go faster?” I asked.

“I am going to go faster, yes.” Aconite smirked.

“Is the reactor going to spew even more magrad if we go faster?” I asked, already knowing the answer to my question.

“Oh, yes,” Aconite purred. “The advantage of this particular uncovered reactor is that it cannot overheat or detonate. The Phantamarauder can go faster than your average Basq Watch cruiser. It can even outrun a top of the line Imperial ship if you’re willing to give up some of your life for it.”

“Do you do that a lot?” I asked. “Have to outrun the Watch?”

“Oh, yes.” She nodded with a proud look.

“Don’t they keep tabs on what your ship looks like?” I arched an eyebrow. “Why do they let you dock in the city to begin with?”

“The Phantamarauder is a shape-shifting vessel,” Aconite purred. “When it goes fast enough, the reactor slowly rearranges the yacht’s overall structure. It never looks the same when it arrives in port.”

I felt the skyship pick up speed. Were we really going to the ocean, or was the privateer messing with me? I peered at the distant mountains, trying to define my spatial position. My head was pulsating, not merely from the elevation and the air slapping at my face, but also likely from the magrad pouring across my body.

Space. I’m a Space mage now. I felt Space pulsing in my heart, moving all around me.

My mind suddenly clicked.

We were not heading to Castiglia. The Phantamarauder was circling around Acadia, picking up speed, going higher with each circle.

Aconite is lying to me. She isn’t taking me where I want to go!

My head pulsed as the reactor bathed the deck with brilliant blue light. I saw it happen then. Pyramidal lines made from organic-inorganic metal warped and twisted, slowly converging towards the maw of the reactor. The ship was rearranging itself, shifting incrementally.

Fuck.

Aconite touched a wall of her skyship, and a grotesque spider-like thing formed from organic rust danced up her arm, up her neck, and settled on her head, covering her eyes. Hundreds of blood-red orbs stared at me, blinking at random intervals.

I felt my skin crawling.

“Mervinii Polliix, human, sixteen years old, no affinity, level zero mage,” Aconite spoke.

She had [Identified] me! The spider-thing covering her head was some kind of a soul-scanning artifact!

“Curious. A pity that I’m going to have to eliminate such a cutie pie,” the privateer uttered with a soft, dangerous smile.

The Phantamarauder accelerated even more. I felt the pulse of the reactor deep in my bones, saw it flashing even brighter with blinding blues that left unnerving violet imprints in my eyes. The center of the ship looked like a beating heart, a monstrous maw that violated, warped reality all around itself.

“Eliminate me... why? What have I done to you?!” I sputtered, backing away. My back was now against the railing. There wasn’t anywhere for me to run. The wind pushed against me as if it was trying to draw me into the maw of the reactor. I would not survive the fall if I jumped. I was trapped.

“Agent Bolsh Koper paid fifty gold for you to disappear forever.” Aconite shrugged, her eyes cold like the distant glaciers. “I’m quite good at making people disappear. Don’t be afraid, darling. Just close your eyes and let the reactor do its business. Embrace your new, beautiful self. Whatever you become... you’ll be much happier than a human.”

“What?!” I barked, clinging to the railing behind me.

“Don’t look so sullen! You’ll be reborn like a pretty butterfly! Some of you will become dust in the wind, be attuned to the greater universe,” Aconite spoke. “Most of you will serve a new purpose, become part of the ship. The Phantamarauder won’t take your life. It’ll simply rearrange what you are, make you into something else entirely.”

Aconite tapped the spider-goggles thing on her head. “Just like this cutie. Her name was Elezabeth Sheels. She was a level 11 perceptomancer. Look how adorable and useful she is now!”