The Heavenly Host

It had taken him longer to get here than one might have hoped. He had not yet properly unpacked his baggage and so had been forced to scramble through his trunks and wardrobe to get everything together. Fortunately, he kept his combat robe stocked and mostly ready to go. He’d swapped out a few of his wands for ones he thought be more appropriate, and had a few seconds of debate on the choice of rings. Several of them did not get along with each other, given elemental affiliations and such. However, he had felt that some additional lightning protection would be worthwhile.

He also had to load up on the most relevant potions. He grabbed several vials of plain water as well. One could not store potions in a combat robe; most potions had to be relatively fresh. He had swapped out his boots and belt and finally grabbed his primary combat staff. He took only one staff, since he would need the other hand for wands.

He noted the pressure spell keeping a barrier between the ship and the ladders leading topside. He stepped through and felt the air pressure drop and temperature decrease quickly. Fortunately, the com circlet was doing its job. He would need to study these units, if he survived.

Elrose awkwardly climbed the ladder; the staff and his long robe made it tricky. He finally made it to the roof of the cloudship. There was Maelen near the front of the ship, looking towards the newest arrivals. As he headed toward the seer, a carpet rose through the roof of the cloud to his left and then quickly spun and headed aft of the ship and down towards the majority of attackers.

“What do we have ahead?” Elrose asked the seer.

“These four liches and dragons are further out, so the carpets have been going aft. We now have two carpets headed to the forward targets, and a third is nearing launch,” Maelen responded.

Elrose nodded. “Trevin?”

Trevin came in over the command channel. “Go ahead, Elrose.”

“Alright if I take one or more of the forward attackers?” Elrose asked.

“By yourself?” Trevin sounded uncertain.

“It’s been a while, but I think I should be able to manage at least one, and do damage to a few of the others,” the wizard responded. Maelen raised an eyebrow, impressed.

“Go for it,” Trevin came back.

Elrose smiled at Maelen. “Never fought a lich, but I wrote a paper on ice dragons once. Have a pretty good idea how to deal with them.”

“Then have fun turning theory to practice,” Maelen chuckled.

Elrose grinned and concentrated on his boots, reciting the keyword to activate his link to them. His robe began to billow as the boots brought up air pressure underneath and around them, allowing Elrose to rise above the ground. He nodded to Maelen with a grin and said, “Gotta run!” Maelen nodded as Elrose took off running very quickly towards the forward dragons.

∼

Jenn gulped as the very large carpet they were on began surging downward. It felt like her stomach was going to come up through her mouth. She gritted her teeth and hung on tighter.

The catcher carpets were larger and more complex than the combat carpets. The main carpet was good sized and could, in theory, seat eight. However, some space was reserved for those who were caught, so the crew was only five people: the pilot, a backup pilot, Jenn, an aeromaster named Paulinas who could also do some healing, and a large fellow about whom she knew nothing. The most obvious thing for him to do was probably to reel people in.

The carpet was odd in that the “carpet” part of it, while good sized, was not out of line for a large room carpet. However, around the edges of the carpet, including the corners, were large nets extending another fifteen feet from the carpet. Magical buoys at the inner and outer corners of the netting supported the nets in the air. Apparently, these carpets actually caught falling people.

Their pilot, Talinea, had told her they were fortunate today in that there would be no aetós in the air due to insufficient air to provide lift for their wings. Therefore, they would be concentrating on spotting and catching people knocked off carpets. That and coming alongside carpets to try to heal people.

Jenn took a deep breath. If she had thought healing people on the sailing ship was a task, this was insane! As they plummeted to get below the rear attackers, she noted that the large fellow was paying very close attention to the carpets that were approaching the dragons. She suddenly realized that he must have some form of magical vision to spot people.

That gave her an idea. She had not been sure what she as a thaumaturge could bring to the table, but she could enhance her eyesight with a spell she knew. That would allow her to spot people in trouble. She grabbed the necessary components and began the spell.