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311. Main Event
🕑 Added 2025-02-21 15:00:07 +0000 UTCUnderground, there was no day-night cycle. The sky remained lit at all times by an enormous crystal set into the ceiling. Since everyone inside was a mage, that caused no trouble; none of them needed to sleep, anyways.
A mage… or a puppet, Ike noted. Either way, they didn’t need to sleep or eat. Glancing up, he took in the young students just learning how to fly on a broom. They probably still needed to eat…
Ike froze. He stiffened.
“What?” Wisp asked.
He pointed up. “Those kids! They’re weaker than us, but they’re flying!”
“Yeah?”
“How?”
Wisp tilted her head. “You’ve heard of them, right? Flying vehicles that have their own power source. With those, all you need is a decent sense of balance and enough mana batteries to keep them in the sky. The only reason non-mages can’t use ‘em is because their reflexes aren’t fast enough and their balance isn’t good enough to stay on top.” She paused. “Or, well, I guess some non-mages can use ‘em. Most spiders wouldn’t have a problem with any of that. It’s just that failure is fatal. And that most spiders are kinda dumb.”
“Thank you, Professor Wisp,” Ike snarked. He put a hand on his chin. “How hard do you think it is to snatch one of those?”
A grin spread over Wisp’s face. “You’re speaking my language.”
Mag looked down on them. He scoffed. “Needing tools to fly, how pathetic. Can you imagine, being such a lesser being that you’d need some enchanted stick to take to the skies?”
“Mag, look, a pile of seeds!” Wisp said, pointing.
Mag perked up. He whirled in the direction she’d pointed, then scowled. “Trying to trick a superior being?”
“Would a superior being be so easily tricked? I don’t think so,” Wisp relied, shaking her head in disappointment.
“Look, Wisp! Delicious bugs!” Ike joked, pointing.
She kicked his shins. “Nice try, smart guy.”
“Yeah, yeah. I should’ve said people meat.”
“That might’ve got me,” Wisp allowed.
Ike led the way away from the work site, tracking the progress of the flying students with his eyes. He jogged after the students and their teacher, guessing where they’d launched from. As he jogged, he pulled up the image of the city as seen from above, running through what he’d seen to try to pick a landing space. The students would need at least a small open field to launch from and land in, since they wouldn’t be good at controlling their brooms and wouldn’t be able to fly up from just anywhere without endangering themselves. If there was also a place that looked like a school nearby, that was bonus points. He narrowed the map down to the spaces that laid in a line or near where the students were flying, then nodded to himself.
“I think I know where they came from. This way!”
“I could fly up,” Mag offered.
Ike shook his head. “We aren’t trying to draw attention to ourselves.”
“Right. That’s why we’re committing larceny,” Wisp replied, nodding.
Ike gave her a look.
She spread her hands. “What? It’s what we’re doing.”
“Yeah, but then it makes me sound stupid.”
Wisp clapped a hand to her chest and looked him in the eye. “Me? Make you sound stupid? I’d never do that, Ike. Never.”
“Uh huh. You want a broom, too, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. Come on. Let’s go commit larceny!” she cheered.
“That’s what I’m talking about.” Ike jogged off, keeping his pace slow enough that Mag could keep up on foot. Of the three of them, he was the slowest on the ground, and since he couldn’t fly right now, they were restricted to his ground pace. That, and he didn’t want to cause any trouble by moving too quickly through the streets. It’d be annoying if they got caught because they were running too fast. One of the stupidest ways to get caught, really.
Even keeping his pace down, he still reached the area of town where he figured it was most likely the students had launched to in a few minutes. Ike slowed. “Split up. Everyone take a park, and meet back here in five minutes. If you see some brooms and there’s no one around, snatch ‘em. Otherwise, come back and we’ll come up with a plan first.”
Mag nodded. Wisp saluted. The three of them ran off into the three nearby open green spaces.
Ike pushed open a creaky wrought iron gate and found himself in a small field. The grass was recently trimmed, and the scent of fresh-cut grass filled the air, along with piles of cuttings in lines along the length of the field. The grass wasn’t trampled, though, nor was there any sign of any brooms. In fact, the cuttings being left behind suggested there was an active lack of brooms.
Ike walked the whole park just to be sure, but when he found no sign of recent human occupation save the cut grass, he returned to the road to wait for the other two to return.
Mag hopped over the fence a few moments later. He shook his head. “Nothing.”
“Me either. Let’s go check on Wisp.”
Mag nodded.
Before they could get started, Wisp’s voice sounded from the far side of a hedge row. “I’m just looking. Can’t anyone enter the park?”
“No, I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” a male voice insisted.
Uh oh. Ike ran to the park’s entrance. Whatever was happening, he needed to go intervene in that before things went too sideways.
