Chapter 5

Callie groggily started to wake up in the bed in her room as Cassidy was climbing up the ladder.

“How do you guys do it?” Cassidy said as she got up the ladder, closing the hatch behind her. “Having to climb down a ladder every morning when you go pee. I barely made it.”

“Yeah,” Callie just groggily agreed as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “You feelin ok? That’s like the third time you’ve had to sprint off to the bathroom.”

“Just nerves I think,” Cassidy said as she popped open the box of cookies given to her by Marta and began to casually munch on one.

“Yeah,” Callie said not really buying the explanation. She decided not to press it any further. It wasn’t bothering Cassidy it seemed, and worst comes to worst they could just wait until they got back to have it looked at if it turned out to be something serious. Callie managed to get herself out of the bed. She had a busy day ahead of them. A lot of pre ceremony prep still had to be done notably getting all of the bridesmaids and the flower girl together to confirm that the dresses fit and make any minor adjustments needed.

The dresses were from Mark’s family, the one Brita was moving to. They were known for their high quality clothing so Callie was actually looking forward to trying them on. “All right well my turn to take a leak,” Callie said gruffly making her way down the hatch and to the bathroom on the floor below. It was uneventful but as Callie climbed back up she could hear Cassidy talking with someone.

“But she requested this time off months ago,” Cassidy complained. “What kind of emergency?”

“Hey what’s going on?” Callie asked closing the hatch behind her. Cassidy had placed a glowing crystal on a wardrobe and that’s what she was directing her voice toward. Communication crystals were a fairly common if complicated type of mana crystal that allowed people to talk over long distances. There were some that were strictly one to one where one crystal could only communicate with its pair these were pretty common, but others like the one Cassidy was currently using were made to communicate with any other crystal. These were a little bit more complicated to activate in addition to being rarer. The activation spell had to be cast with the receiving crystal’s unique signature in mind. Often one would have to find a mage whose job it was to cast these kind of spells, and they studied hard to be able to master the spell enough to allow them to contact any other communication crystal.

Both Callie and Cassidy’s jobs were big enough to have several of these mages employed and employees were often given these communication crystals so they could be called on if needed. They could also use the crystal themselves but it was rare for the average person to be able to contact any other communication crystal beyond those of their friends and family.

“It’s your boss.”

“I told him I was going to be off.”

“That’s what I said. Hold on he wants to scry.” Callie rolled her eyes. Scrying was always a bit of pain. It was more involved than just communicating, but it could be facilitated through communication crystals like the one they were currently using. Whereas with most communication crystals you simply heard the other person’s voice in your head as if they were standing next to you, scrying allowed one to literally see through the others eyes. Commonly people would do this in front of a mirror so to the other person it looked like they were talking to them face to face. This is what Callie did. With a sigh she situated herself in front of the small mirror on top of the wardrobe. She briefly checked what she was wearing. She was still in her pajamas, but if her boss wanted her to be professional it would have to be when she was getting paid. Satisfied that she at least wasn’t showing anything she didn’t want him to see she nodded to Cassidy who broke her connection with the crystal allowing Callie to take her place.

When Callie blinked her vision was suddenly filled with the vision of a corporate office. A dark haired human man with a business casual suit was staring into a dedicated scrying mirror. Callie’s boss.

“What’s the deal I thought I had off the whole week,” Callie said gruffly. She could tell from her boss’s shifting position that he could hear her and the communication crystal was working. “It’s my sisters collaring, it’s kind of a big deal.”

“I know. I wouldn’t call on you if it wasn’t an emergency,” His face remained serious and steady. “We’ve got a massive formation underneath a town called Driftvale, near the Sunrise coast.”

“And?” Callie asked pointedly. “Do you not have anyone else that can do it? Not to mention that’s a little out of our jurisdiction.”

“That doesn’t matter. It’s all hands on deck,” Callie’s view went dark as her boss blinked thoughtfully as he spoke. When her view came back her boss had a concerned look on his face. “Our initial scouting survey gave an area of effect of almost 20 miles.”

“20 miles!” Callie exclaimed. Her boss nodded seriously.

“We think this might be the emergence. We’ve already evacuated the whole town. We need every surveyor we can spare down there making sure this thing doesn’t cause any more damage than it needs to.”

“Yeah, yeah ok,” Callie said a little shaken.

“We’ve got several airships in Miqo than can swing by and drop you off. I’ll get someone to contact you to work out the pickup details.”

“Got it,” Callie said quickly.

“I’m sorry to cut this short, but as you can imagine we’ve got our hands full. Talk to you soon.” With that Callie’s boss waved his hand and the communication ceased, Callie’s vision returned to the room she was actually in.

"What is it?" Cassidy asked concerned.

"The emergence."

“Is it really? I thought that was just a theory.”

“Apparently not. It’s a 20 mile long mana crystal, what else could it be?”

*****

“So what’s this thing again?” Brita asked obviously annoyed at the whole situation. Cassidy had already fired three colorful fire balls into the air that were magically circling around and changing colors, a signal to the incoming airship telling it where to land.

“Well you know back at the end of the second era in the human elf war the humans blew up the air crystal the elves were living on?”

“Yeah. It turned Hyur island into the Hyur islands,” Brita emphasized the s on islands.

“Well we’ve thought for a while that another crystal just as big might try to form to take its place.”

“And they think that’s what’s happening?” Allyson asked with concern.

“Nothing else makes sense,” Callie shrugged. “The biggest mana crystals are like maybe a foot long, and this one is 20 miles. Even if the regular sized ones come up in the wrong place they can demolish a house, so you can imagine what one this big could do. It’s my job to keep these things from coming up in the wrong place and they need all of us there to keep this thing from making huge sinkhole or something.” Even Brita seemed unable to whine about Callie having to leave now.

“How long is it going to take?” Brita asked with disdain. Callie returned an apologetic look.

“I think that’s them coming down,” Cassidy shouted and as she did the three fireballs flew back into her staff.

Cassidy was right as a military small sized air ship started to come into view. Unlike the civilian public transports these military transports did not have the same boat like appearance. In fact if you plopped this thing into the water it would quickly sink. They were made to be compact, quick, efficient, and armored. This airship had a small circular passenger fuselage, big enough for three rows of three seats. With the first row being for the pilot. Extending past this was a tail and out from either side were two wings. At the tips of each of these were sets of engines, firing off the similar levitation rune that the public airships used. On the back of the main fuselage were engines that held the fire runes. Unlike civilian ships who used sails and winds to move, these quicker military versions moves exclusively using the power of its thrusting engines.

As the airship descended to the ground three landing gears , one at the front and two at the rear of the fuselage, extended outward with a flair of the anti-gravity engines and once they were out the craft slightly abruptly fell to the ground onto these landing gears. As soon as it did the door on the side of the craft slid open. A male Miqo with dark red hair peeked his head out.

“Callie Callgahorn?” Callie gave a brief nod to the affirmative. Cassidy quickly rushed to hug her.

“Be safe please.”

“I will sweetie,” Callie said kissing Cassidy on the forehead. “I’ll call you tonight and tell you about it yeah?” Cassidy nodded still hugging Callie. Callie turned her attention to Brita. “Sorry again about this sis.” Brita sighed.

“We’ll figure it out Callie. Go save the world or whatever.”

“I’ll do my best,” Callie said jokingly. With a final quickly kiss to Cassidy Callie stepped away and boarded the airship. The other Miqo shut the door and after a few seconds the anti-gravity engines flared to life and the ship starting slowly drifting upward. Once it was high enough the thrust engines kicked in and the ship began to fly off to the mainland.

As the ship flew off with Cassidy’s girlfriend she realized that she was very much stuck there without her guide in this unfamiliar land. Allyson seemed to pick up on this.

“Well we may not have Callie, but we do have the next best thing I think,” Allyson said cheerfully. “If you’re willing to help out a bride in a pinch.”

“Oh of course,” Cassidy said quickly. Despite the circumstances this did pose an opportunity for Cassidy. Helping out the bride to be in a crucial time would do more than enough to get her back in the good graces of the rest of the Callgahorn family. “I know this kind of throws a wrench in things, but I’m happy to help out to make things easier.” Brita looked at Allyson and Cassidy with a tired expression.

“Not like you can make it worse,” Brita said with a shrug. Brita walked off back toward the house. Allyson gave an approving glance to Cassidy.

“Come along sweetie.”

“Oh uh yeah sorry,” Cassidy shook her head still coming to terms with the position she had found herself in. She hurried off to catch up to Allyson who was also a few paces behind Brita who didn’t seem to be too horribly concerned that she was leaving the two behind somewhat.

“Don’t you worry dear. I’m sure Callie will be fine and I’ll make sure you don’t get in too much trouble without her.”

“Oh thanks,” Cassidy said with a blush. “I hope I can help some I feel so bad about what’s happened.”

“Any help is good help dear. We both appreciate it, even if Brita might not be showing it right now.”

“She’s right,” Brita said briskly. “I really do appreciate you stepping up Cassidy. Things are just a little stressful right now. I just lost one of my bridesmaids. So now we have to find a new one, and we’re probably going to need a new flower girl too.”

“A new flower girl?” Cassidy asked concerned.

“It was going to be Jayna,” Brita explained flatly. “But she’s grown about twice as big as she was last year. I doubt the dress will fit her any more, and no offense but you aren’t really going to be able to fill out Callie’s dress.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Allyson said hopefully. As the three of them got closer to the house they were approached by Midnight and Rosebud who chirped happily. Brita wordlessly hopped onto Midnight’s back. Before Cassidy had a chance to process what was going on, she found herself hoisted up onto Rosebud’s back by Allyson.

“There ya go,” Allyson said cheerfully as she hopped on the bird behind Cassidy. Cassidy could only stammer and blush at being picked up like that. She was a little shocked that Allyson could even manage the feat, but Cassidy was rather small and light. “Can you handle the two of us Rosie?” Rosebud chirped confidently and the two started a quick trot over to their destination. “It seems the others have gone ahead to the fitting without us.” Allyson said as the group moved on down the road.

“Already running behind,” Brita said annoyed. Cassidy grimaced feeling especially small as she was situated basically in Allyson’s lap on the back of Rosebud.

“We’ll catch up,” Allyson assured confidently.

“Yeah it’ll be fine,” Cassidy added through her blushing.