121 To the east and south-eas

By the way, some time ago, at Libertaria, a certain letter was received, read, and pondered over day after day by an elderly gentleman.

At length, he called, "Jim."

"Yes, father?"

"I need you to go to the Wildlands."

"The WILDLANDS?!" all posh and decorum fizzled out like vapor.

"You've been chafing around at home, wanting to prove your capabilities and independence. So go prove yourself."

"I thought I'd join one of the caravans headed westwards, maybe the Orestomp Trail…"

"Bah, there's no challenge in this frontier any more. Everything's been tamed since the railroads were built. No, no, your frontier is in another continent entirely, my boy. You should do as I did when I was young and challenge the absolute unknown! Only then can you be called a real man!"

"I don't think the requirements are actually that high for that label…"

"Go forth! Bring my inventions to my friend Arnold! And bring your own inventions too! And never stop inventing! Science is the key to everything!!"

"You just want me out of the house so you can have privacy with my new young stepmom!"

"JUST GO!"

***

It was just one day's flight from Libertaria to Ashdale on Lucky Company's new Great Eagle Cruisers. It was rated as High-grade internationally, not quite Military-grade, but a whole grade beyond the regular Commercial-grade airships. It was fully runic-drive, and had its envelope built into the shape of a large boomerang, as if it were wings.

He arrived there and immediately asked about his connecting flight to the Wildlands aboard something called a 'Sky Barge'.

He was told, "Boarding begins in two hours. You're still early."

So Jim went looking for a bite to eat and a place to settle down and wait for his next flight. He found the cafeteria and bumped into a ditzy blonde girl who didn't see where she was going and she spilled ice-cream all over his jeans.

"Hey!" Jim yelped.

"Whoa! Nice jeans!" she gasped. "Where did you buy them?"

This, incidentally, was how Jim and Jane met, both of them due on board the Sky Barge bound for the airport of Fort Spoas.

The conversation went downhill from there.

"Where are you from?"

"I'm from Libertaria. Now it seems I'm moving to the Wildlands Frontier. You?"

"The Wildlands Frontier, actually. Then I moved here."

"But you're going back?"

"It's just for a short visit. My friends might be going through something, so I'm going to check on them."

"That's very nice of you."

"Really? Thank you! By the way, what do you do? Your stuff seems… expensive."

"Me? Oh, I'm an electrical engineer."

"A what?"

"I'm… uh… I handle machines that use electricity."

"What is electricity?"

"It's a sort of energy. Like mana."

"Why not just use mana?"

"Because mana is unfair. It's biased toward certain places, certain creatures, to the talented and to special bloodlines. Electricity is fair to everybody, and everyone can use and control it equally if you know how, not just magi."

"But I've never heard of it, though?"

"Oh, that's because it's new. It's a Libertaria thing."

"So how do you use it? Some special sort of training?"

"You use devices."

"Isn't that the same for mana? Everyone can use magic devices equally."

"Not equally. And whoever has the bad luck to be unable to control mana or use magic is just doomed to suffering, no matter how much they train or study."

"That sounds like me. I could never control mana as well as Mindy, no matter how much I studied."

"Did you actually even try to study, though…?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

There was a short pause.

"So… you're a sort of mage?" Jane asked, eventually.

"No. Far from it." Jim sighed, trying not to get frustrated. "I'm just a normal human. I don't use magic at all."

"But isn't electricity some sort of energy, you said? Like mana?"

"It's energy, yes, and mana is energy too, but they're different kinds of energy." Jim tried to explain. "Like… life force, for example. That's energy too. But it's not the same as mana, although people can convert life force to mana or martial energy…"

After that, Jane kind of zoned out. She heard his voice as if from a distance, seeing only the movement of his lips, the quality of his strange new fashion of clothes, the accent in his voice. What he was actually saying went right over her head, in one ear and out the next, words making absolutely no sense whatsoever.

This went on for a remarkably long time. In fact, they were called to board the airship and they'd taken off, and he was still going on about electricity and chemistry and static and lightning and all sorts of queer stuff that sounded very intellectual and very sophisticated and was completely beyond Jane's understanding or comprehension or interest.

She just thought; this guy seems to be really smart and well-educated. He might be rich. Handsome, too, and not much older than me…

Jim was on a total roll, very excited and happy to have such a captive audience, to have a pretty girl listening to him for so long. He went on and on until he was thirsty and bought a drink at their first stop, a place in Itarim where they were joined by a bunch of Iron Legion boys, and of course, he bought her a drink too, and she smiled at him with a smile like sunshine.

That of course, only made him talk more and more, and somewhere along the line, he fainted.

"What happened to him?!" Jane gasped.

The trainee field medic from the Iron Legion took one look and guessed, "Probably lack of oxygen. Self-asphyxiation."

"What?"

"He talked too much."

***

Also joining them on their flight was a representative from Deutero. They picked him up along one of the stops on their way, but by that time, Jim was already out cold and Jane was preoccupied taking care of him, and neither of them ever knew when he got on board.

Unknown to all of them, these two men were going to make huge changes on the Frontier... eventually.