66 Anti-magic

At that point, Mindy scored a direct hit on Spike's tail-root.

[YEOW!] Spike spun, roaring at her airship, but of course, Mindy's Foresight was much higher, and much farther from Spike than Charlie's Roving Albatross.

"Cease fire!" Remian shouted at her, waving. "Cease fire! Stop shooting!" [Mindy, STOP!]

[R-Remian…?!] Mindy's confusion floated back to Remian in an inkling of a thought before disappearing entirely.

[Spike, calm down…] Remian tried.

[It bit me in the tail!] Spike spluttered. [My poor tail!!]

[You attacked us first. Smack the hive and you have to expect hornets to sting.]

[Hornets? Hive? What are you talking about?] Spike groaned, shaking his head groggily. [Ugh. What happened?]

[You got baited by a magic crystal and came rampaging again.] Remian summarized.

[Again?! Where's that blasted crystal, I'm gonna… I'm gonna…] Spike hesitated. [What's the worst thing you could do to a magic crystal?]

[Ignore it?] Remian suggested, hopefully.

[I'm gonna boycott it for ten years!] Spike declared righteously.

[I only wish…] Remian shook his head wistfully.

Meanwhile, a brave little Lynxmouse crept out of the ruins of the western settlement and started scolding Spike. "Mikweeeaak, swik, miikiik!"

"Hmm?" Spike peered at it, confused. He grunted. "Hurmnh…"

"Mikiik, kwiik, miiik!"

"Hruuhmuumpfh?"

"Kiiik!"

Putting aside the earnest conversation between the melon-sized Mikai and the supermarket-sized Spike, Remian went to find Charlie and held a conversation entirely made out of shouts because neither of them could really hear the other over the buzzing in their ears.

Eventually, as the buzzing faded and they regained their hearing, a search operation was begun in earnest. Every bit of cargo and every cow and passenger on board Charlie's airship was examined in detail.

At last, just as Remian was thinking about cutting all the cows open and figuring out what to do with all the beef later, Charlie's crew found the crystal.

"It was in the post." Charlie said grimly. He shook his head. "I never thought I'd see the day when I violated postal privacy rights, but it had to be done."

"The post? You mean… someone sent it to us in the mail?" Remian gaped.

"I know, right?" Charlie exclaimed, distraught. "Who would do such a thing? How could they do that to the postal service?!"

Remian paused. "Uh… no, that's not the problem…"

But apparently, to Charlie, it was. Maybe it was an Ashdale thing, but he felt their actions to be horrible violation of a sacred institution. The crewman who had to sacrifice his cultural ethics and very respectfully investigated the postal delivery bag and discovered the crystal was shivering and shaking at the very horror of it all.

"How did you not discover it before? How many letters does Frontier Town get in the post?" Remian asked.

"Three, today. One for Markus, one for Kairos, and one for Epper."

"Who is Epper?"

"Uh… it says… Fishing House on the East Side."

Epper, then, was probably the Fisherman, the leader of the Secret Waves.

"Epper's dead. That letter shouldn't even be here." Remian said shortly.

"It wasn't a letter. It was a package."

"I'm guessing that's the one the crystal was in?"

"How did you know?"

Remian rapped Charlie on the head sharply. "Very funny. I'm serious. Next time, don't bring it."

"Right. Mail sent to deceased persons and destroyed addresses should be returned to sender…" Charlie nodded sagely.

Remian gave him a sideways look. Charlie still seemed rather dazed after getting hit by Spike's roars. "Dude, are you serious…?"

"So what happened? How did we survive the attack? Did the crystal run out of power so quickly? Last time it lasted for much longer."

"That…" Charlie scratched his head, his eyes widened and then he turned half-red. "YOU! You did this!"

"Did what?" Remian blinked.

"You destroyed everything!" Charlie yelled. "My engines! My cannons! The new mana flow modulator! My newly refurbished elemental channeling lines! All of it! It's all been fried!"

"What?" Remian blinked.

"Even my Heat Water Wand is busted! Do you know what it cost me to have hot water showers on the airship?!"

"Wait, what do you mean, busted?"

"It means, everything is toast! Kaput! Destroyed utterly!" Charlie barked. "Every magic item I have on the airship is done for! And it's your fault!"

"Me? What did I do? It's Spike who was roaring at us!" Remian protested.

"Spike's roars can't do this kind of damage! I should know; I've been through them before!" Charlie shot back. "Do you see these wires? This sort of melting looks like we've been hit by a lightning bolt! And we CAN'T have been hit by a lightning bolt, because my storm wards would have triggered if we were! That means, the power that fried all the magic on my airship was already INSIDE the ship! There's only two people with that kind of power on board and it certainly wasn't me!"

"So… I did that?" Remian gaped. "I fried all the magic on the airship?"

"What did you do?!"

"Uh… I shouted 'no'?" Remian winced.

Charlie gave him a very cold, unfriendly look, with arms folded.

"I'm sorry… but… if that's true… then didn't I just save our lives?" Remian pointed out. "I mean… that's why the magic crystal stopped, right? Would you rather have the airship sunk like last time?"

"That would have been cheaper. At least we could have salvaged the engines and the parts." Charlie grouched.

"You can take it out of my share." Remian sighed with resignation. There goes his take of the profits for the next ten years or something…

"Fine." Charlie subsided. "But do me a favor; next time you do anti-magic, don't do it on my airship."

***

Mindy couldn't stop giggling when she heard about it. "If that's what happens when you shout 'no'… goodness, what would happen if you shouted 'yes'?!"

Remian shook his head, sniffing the air as he did so. "That smell… Mindy, what are you drinking?"

"I don't know. It's a Desert Moon drink… some cactus… nectar… thingie…" Mindy's face was red, and she was giggling incessantly. "My crew… my nice, dear crew… we're celebrating… shooting Spike in the… bleurgh!" she threw up.

It was evening that very Fryday. Spike had grumpily made his way back to Craggy Falls, Charlie had grumpily brought his engine to Arnold and Andros for a fix, and Remian had grumpily reverted the entire evacuation of the High Rock clan to land-based carts and wolfcats. They thus migrated to the mines of Kara-Goth in much less style and far more effort than anticipated. The settling of the High Rock clan was going to take a lot of time and effort, and Remian was not likely to see any production from the mines for the next few days, at least.

Still, he looked toward the mines, frowning, scratching his head, wondering, pondering, hoping.

"Woof." Carrie stopped by and nudged him. [What's wrong?]

"Nothing, just… this is… hard." Remian admitted. "Maybe I'm going about this all wrong."

[So what? At least you're going about it. Nobody else is.] Carrie pointed out.

Remian turned to her, then, and asked her straight out of the blue. "How do we stop a Tier 5 Wild?"

[Use a leash?] Carrie didn't skip a beat.

Remian burst out laughing. "And who's going to hold it?"

Carrie glanced about. [No wolfcat is as strong as a whole pack.]

Remian's laughter stilled. "Can we really do that? Tie something around Spike and have the entire pack of wolfcats dragging their feet the whole way?]

If one pack of wolfcats wasn't enough, what about three packs? Three packs and a Tier 4 bear? That might even work.

"Why didn't I think of it?" Remian asked softly. "Why didn't I think of asking the Wilds to help deal with the Beast Waves?"

Because when they first started out, he didn't want to reveal his 'trump card' to the regular townsfolk… but now all the gangs were gone and everyone in town was on his side and they worked with the wolfcats on a daily basis. There was no point, no need to keep cooperation with some Wilds a secret from them.

"Put a leash on Spike…" Remian muttered to himself. The crazy idea had a total hold on Remian now and refused to let go.

[Well?]

"Well, then." Remian cleared his throat. "Where is Craggy Falls?"