Chapter 119 – The Call

Chapter 119 – The Call

Emily decides not to return to her room immediately, instead taking a stroll around the ship to calm down. She wanders around, lost in thought and listening to the light hum of the engine, ever-present while the ship is in motion.

She isn’t surprised when she looks up after a while and realises she has made her way to the engine room unconsciously. Feeling that no one is close, Emily approaches the door and opens it before stepping into the warmth and noise of the ship’s beating heart. She shuts the door behind herself, walking to the centre of the room and appreciating the suspended mass of metal pumping out steam.

“I wonder if I can scan the whole ship now,” she mutters to herself absentmindedly.

Emily sits down in front of the giant engine, cross-legged with her eyes shut. She releases a slow stream of machina into the floor, first flooding the engine room before guiding her energy to spread throughout the rest of the ship. Her cortex processes the vast quantity of information flowing in as her reach spreads, creeping out to encompass the whole ship and showing her every nook and cranny of the giant machine.

Emily’s focus drifts around the ship, watching the fine workings of the complicated craft as her tension slowly dissipates, the process relaxing her immensely. After a few hours of watching the ship work and analysing everything from the pipes to the rotors, she opens her eyes and lets out a breath of satisfaction.

“It’s incredible,” she says with admiration, looking at the system window floating before her.

̄ ̄ ̄ ̄ ̄

Machina scan complete!

Blueprint created: Calypso

[Calypso]

[Type:] Steam Airship

[Tier:] 1

[Rank:] E

[Description:] A medium-sized cargo airship built for the Mandrago family’s private transport needs. Designed for speed and stability while carrying a heavy load.

_____

“And yet it’s only E rank,” she says, standing up with a confident grin. “I can definitely improve it.”

With a new goal in mind, Emily stands up and leaves the engine room. She returns to her room, detaching the metal scrap that would activate the Screamer’s Surprise through the door before opening it and stepping in, not bothering to reset her trap behind her.

Settling down on her bed, she pulls up a new page in her system notebook and pulls in the blueprint of Calypso. However, as she starts to pull apart the propellers in order to tweak their design, she feels a light pulse of mana coming from her belt.

What’s that?

Uncertainly, Emily reaches into the belt, feeling about for the source and quickly pulling it out. Her heart drops when she sees the communication crystals sat on her palm, the very same one she first saw on this ship on the way to Chroni.

“Why are they trying to contact me now?” she hisses. “Did Anton tell them I was returning?”

Taking a single, deep breath, Emily regains her mask of absolute calm and sends a stream of mana into the crystal.

“Hello, girl,” Diego’s familiar voice flows from the crystal, igniting a spark of rage in Emily’s chest that she quickly suppresses. “Introduce yourself.”

“Emily Coldstone of house Mandrago,” she responds, narrowing her eyes in suspicion.

Why is he getting me to introduce myself?

“Report on your progress in The Covenant. How far have you progressed?”

Do they know I’m third circle? Did someone tell them? Have they been watching me?

Without hesitation, not even a quiver in her voice to betray her suspicion, Emily begins a falsified report.

“I’ve completed the basic etiquette, geopolitics, and English courses. I’ve also completed intermediate maths, and I’m the top student taking intermediate magic combat and theory,” she says, pausing for a moment to see if he reacts to her falsehoods before continuing. “I’ve reached second circle, and I feel my progress growing with each day. I believe I’ll make third circle before the deadline.”

“Good,” Diego responds, a pleased note in his tone. “We have heard great things about you. We’ve also heard you joined an expedition with house Salvia. Why did you not feel the need to ask us if you were allowed?”

He didn’t question me missing out all the extra courses I’ve been taking, but they have heard about my first expedition. They must not be watching me closely at all.

Relaxing a little, Emily quickly spins a reasonable excuse.

“I was never told to report to the family to ask for permission for anything. You told me to attain honour for the family and advance as much as possible. I thought entering The Glade to gather resources and experience there would help to that end.”

She hears a tongue click, and a quietly muttered complaint that mixes together into an unintelligible buzz through the crystal. A small vindictive grin creeps onto her face, satisfaction bubbling in her chest at his irritation.

“Fair point,” Ash concedes with a nod. “I’ll never say no to free help. This belt here’s sticking. I’m not quite sure why though.”

“Hmm,” Emily hums with a thoughtful nod, stepping forward and inspecting the belt.

The bearings in the upper rollers are worn down. I saw it with my scan earlier.

She moves along the belt, pretending to look for issues at the bottom before grabbing a few sturdy pipes and pulling herself up to the hole a few metres off the ground where the belt enters the room.

“Here’s your problem. The rollers up here aren’t turning properly. The bearings are probably finished.”

“Really?” Ash asks, clambering up to join Emily with less grace and looking closely at where she’s pointing. “Damn, you’re right. That was fast. Kid, come take a look at this.”

Ash lets go of the wall, dropping to the floor with a thud, making way for Podrick to climb up. Emily does the same, landing without a sound and looking at Ash’s scattered tools.

“I’m assuming you don’t have any spare bearings in there.”

“Not for these belts,” Ash says with a nod. “We’ll disable this one for now and have a look at the bearings still there to see if we can get away with just some oil. If not, I’ll go grab some spares from storage. Wanna help?”

“Sure. I was looking for a distraction.”

With a nod, Ash turns and moves to a panel on the wall, grabbing a wrench on the way past. While they’re creating access to the valves to turn off the spinning belt, Podrick nimbly drops down from above and looks at Emily with curiosity.

“Are you a mechanic?” he asks, looking down at her armour. “I thought you were a soldier or something.”

“I’m certainly not a normal mechanic, but yes,” Emily says with a grin. “I made all of my gear.”

“Woah,” he exclaims, his gaze drifting to the pistol on display on her leg. “What’s that? I don’t think I’ve seen anything like it before.”

“It’s a gun,” Emily explains, proudly pulling the sleek black and grey pistol from its holster and pulling out the magazine to show the bullets within. “I call it the Spitter. It uses a magazine system to hold bullets instead of a cylinder like most other pistols. They allow for much higher capacities in a small form, and they’re very quick to reload.”

“That’s so cool! What’s that crystal for?”

“Decoration,” Emily lies, not feeling the need to explain the truths of magic to the boy.

“Oh,” Podrick responds with a bit of disappointment, quickly moving on to something else. “What are those arm guards? Do they do something?”

Emily drops the Spitter back into its holster and pats him on the shoulder as the belt beside them grinds to a halt and Ash starts walking back over to them.

“Maybe I’ll show you later.”

***

After fixing the faulty belt, and replacing the old bearings that had worn too much to be salvageable, Emily heads to lunch with Ash and Podrick. They enter the mess hall, a small room with a few tables to seat ten or so people, and see Anton and Angela already sitting with Eva, the daytime cook, a short, plump woman with wiry, brown hair.

“Hey,” Anton says, waving them over to join them at the table with a large steaming pot in the middle. “Didn’t expect to see you guys together. You planning to be more social on this trip, Emily?”

“Maybe,” Emily responds with a shrug, sitting down and grabbing a bowl to serve some stew into. “I went by the engine room and found these two doing some repairs, so I decided to help.”

“She’s good,” Ash cuts in, noticing the surprised look on Anton’s face. “She spotted the issue with one of the coal belts within seconds. She’d be a big help if she joined me for the rest of my repairs: she has better eyes than me.”

Anton nods, looking at Emily with a mixture of respect and a teasing grin.

“Have the Mandrago’s been teaching you to be a mechanic in Chroni?” Anton asks sceptically. “Last time you were onboard, you were excited to just look at the engine. You definitely weren’t up to repairing it.”

Emily looks back at him with a playful glint in her eye, pressing down the simmering rage threatening to rise at the mention of that name.

“Well, I am now, but if you’d rather not have an amateur working on your ship, I understand,” she says, reaching over to pat Ash’s shoulder. “I’ll just sit back and leave the work to the professionals. Sorry, Ash. I wish I could help.”

Anton chuckles, as Ash looks towards him, unamused. He holds up his hands in mock defeat.

“Sorry, sorry. Please do us the honour of helping to fix our puny ship,” he says, bowing his head in an exaggerated manner.

“Ha,” Emily laughs, joined by the others at the table, enjoying the show. “Fine. Since you asked so nicely, I guess I’ll have to.”

They continue eating and joking around, but Emily slowly withdraws from the conversation, the playful banter reminding her of mealtimes with her friends in The Dome.

Damn. I miss them already.