"And I told you, it's not that easy!" Smith snapped.

"If the whole thing is backwards, then the answer is easy!" Ride shot back, "Just make the enchantment do the opposite thing, so swap out the shadow-thing for a light-thing, and then we can actually get some freaking good sleep!"

"If you can't sleep well in the dirt-tents, that's entirely on you. It was your job to make them, and from what I heard, you needed Clark to actually design them for you!"

"You try sleeping without stretching your arms out!" the Ranger retorted.

"I have! For the last three days. Same as you, and yet you're the one whining to me about me not doing my job. What about your job, huh?"

Veeran watched the entire back and forth with a mixture of resignation and amusement as he smoothly shifted his body through its paces. He hadn't realized how many aches and pains still had lingered in his old body until they were suddenly absent. Some scars never faded, it seemed, even with modern medicine. He'd just always assumed that those had been confined to his soul.

The Ranger and Artificer certainly seemed to enjoy their regular back and forths, he noted. For all that neither of them were willing to admit it, Jacob certainly was. But it could be tiresome when they got into a shouting match yet again over something which really ought not to have been a proper discussion in the first place.

"I do believe that Smith was intending to say something regarding the enchantment, were you not?" Veeran interjected, before Ride could rebut with how she had been doing her job — which she had been doing marvelously, in his opinion — in the hopes that keeping the discussion on-topic would be more fruitful. And, likely, educational for Veeran. Not that he could understand the most of what Smith said, but it was satisfying to simply undergo the pretense of understanding the deeper truths of reality.

"Thank you! Anyway, no, it doesn't work that way, because having a different primary element would require restructuring the entire dang thing, because Light and Dark function very differently in enchantments. Just because I've narrowed down that the issue has to come from lxyic doesn't mean I can just swap it and xynton and expect it to work."

Off to the side, Veeran noted that Commander Inq had finished her latest repairs to the Grog-mill's hopper and was walking over, dusting her hands clean as she approached. He gave his superior a nod of acknowledgement.

"Do we really need to go through this?" Inq asked, and both Ride and Smith started slightly as they realized she had arrived. "Ride, we don't give you unsolicited comments as to how best achieve your job."

"It wasn't unsolicited!" Ride protested.

"I did technically ask for help," Smith mumbled at the same time. He looked at Ride, who hadn't noticed the simultaneous comment, and glared slightly. "But it was in a 'do these two glyphs look the same' sense, not a design specification inquiry."

Inq sighed, "And you had to turn it into a fight?"

"We weren't fighting," Ride immediately said, and Smith simply shrugged.

"Regardless, if you get much louder you'll wake Haleford. The dirt-tents don't have soundproofing.

"Speaking of, Smith, is it likely to simply be more effective to... start over? When I asked you to repair the hut, I wasn't anticipating it being this involved. Rebuilding the hut won't take that long, and you'd be able to keep working on the tower in the meantime. Would that work for you... why not?"

Smith was already shaking his head, "I picked out this site for the hut because it supported all of the runes I needed to make a proper shelter. And, it's not like the enchantments are truly separate. They're all interconnected, so I'd need to redesign everything and it wouldn't be as good if we tried to make it somewhere else."

"Well, it still seems as though it would be faster than fixing this, wouldn't it? Or, if that wouldn't be sufficient, we could take out everything broken in this hut and replace it with a fresh slate."

"In a best case scenario maybe? But then even with that I'd-"

"Well," Inq stopped Smith before they could get off track, "Why don't you try recreating this specific enchantment in a smaller scale somewhere else. Maybe getting it working in a new form will be useful?"

"I doubt it, but alright."

"Excellent, try that then." Inq sounded less certain than she really ought to for someone in her position, though Veeran wasn't about to bring that up. "And you two?"

"Yeeeessss?" Ride slowly teased out.

The Commander seemed uncertain what to actually say for a moment, "Don't you have tasks to attend to?"

Ride splayed her fingers and began to count off her responsibilities, "We're stocked up on food, there really isn't more than one or two pallet-worths of bricks left to relocate to the tower site, we haven't needed firewood in weeks, the wall is completed, and we don't have any things that I'm really needed to hunt down. So... nope."

Veeran simply stated, "I am resting, and preparing to resummon my [Frostblade]."

His sword had been spent while cutting the wood into place for Inq's gearing system. He'd been capable of turning it into something of a saw, but at the expense of its structural integrity.

It was a little uncomfortable for him at the moment, as he considered himself inadequately armed for any reasonable confrontation and thereby incapable of fulfilling his role as Warrior. His [Frostblade] still existed, but it was pitted and jagged and stood a distinct chance of breaking after a scant few strikes against anything more durable than a baseline human. Even a single full-momentum ⟨Piercing Strike⟩, instead of the ones he'd carefully leveraged to cut through thick, solid wood would likely shatter it.

His mana was slowly recovering, and Veeran was currently plying nearly every trick he knew of to get it to generate any faster. Standing near another practicing magic, specialized breathing techniques, stretches that had been honed over years to keep his body in motion. [Frost Knight] was partially a Force class, and thereby exposure to motion and activity would be beneficial.

Alas, there were no particularly reliable source of Ice or Metal mana presently available to him. The scraps of copper they'd smelted together were metal, yes, but they were not sources of metal magic. He didn't entirely understand the distinction, but Battlemage Isegon had been very clear that there was one.

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If everything functioned as it ought to, he would be properly armed in but a few hours.

And, naturally, the wilderness chose that very time to strike.

With a piercing cry from the sky, a four-winged eagle dove down from where it had been circling far, far overhead, swooping onto the spire above.

The Commander cocked her head, raising an eyebrow at the sight. Smith merely sighed and went back to his work. Ride was looking up, mouth slightly ajar.

Veeran merely waited to catch Inq's gaze, and no sooner had he done so that the woman inclined her head towards the rocky spire, "Well. There's something for you to do."

Ride sighed, then turned her eyes towards Veeran. "Race you to the top?" she asked, her eyes nonetheless sparking with a bit of mischievousness.

Veeran merely regarded the girl with a measured look, "You merely wish to do so because you'll win."

"Is that a no?"

"Yes, because this should be something we approach with caution and together, not headlong charging into danger."

"You worry too much," Ride sprang up and ran off... in the opposite direction to the spire? Ah, she was retrieving her spear.

"Ride! Ride, get back... Alyssa!" Henrietta called out after the woman, but their Ranger simply ignored the command. "Veeran. Start moving, I'll join you once I have my wings."

The order was unneeded, as Veeran was already acting. He scooped up his sword from the ground and began running towards the ladders leading up top. The reed constructs creaked and swayed ominously under Veeran's rapid ascent, but even that proved to be insufficient as Ride bounded up the cliff. She quickly made up for the late start retrieving her spear had provided her, and moved with what Veeran felt was practically suicidal speed up the craggy rocks.

Veeran cursed under his breath and redoubled his speed — only to slow down a moment later after the ladder very nearly tipped over. Better to arrive at the top a few moments later than not at all, or several minutes late.

Fortunately, he only had a single ladder left before he reached the top, and when he finally crested the spire he was relieved to see that Ride hadn't immediately engaged the eagle. Instead, she was prowling closer, eyes fixed on the feathery beast as it attacked the tower's base.

Wings flapped to a furious beat and its beak — one rounder though far larger than most of the eagles Veeran had seen before. There was more going on, magically, but beyond a general cacophony of Air and Force, he wasn't able to pick out anything he couldn't all but see with his own two eyes.

Inq joined them a moment later, her wings flapping furiously, and Veeran quickly formulated a plan of attack. "Harry from above, drive away from the tower. Try to get it there," he pointed to a particular part of the spire, and Inq flew off to do her part.

Veeran made certain that Ride was looking directly at him when he gave her her orders, "Circle to the back, pincer and herd. Tag-team cliff skewer."

A flash of annoyance crossed Ride's face, for what purpose Veeran couldn't say, but then she became more accepting of the idea. "To me or to you?" She asked.

"To you."

That cheered her up, and then no more words were needed. Inq was the first to strike, her ink-flail cracking almost like a whip as it impacted the back of the eagle. The creature, which previously seemed to have been ignoring them, certainly noticed that, and it turned in a flash. Its lower wings crashed into the walls of the tower, sending some of the set bricks scattering across the stone or off the edge of the cliff.

That's unfortunate for Smith, Veeran thought, but could spare no more time for sentimentality as his feet pounded into the spire's stone. Ride was far ahead of him, of course, her every step taking her three of Veeran's strides.

Nonetheless, with Inq already attacking the four-winged-eagle, it naturally retreated away from the edge of the spire and closer to Veeran's position. So, he was the one to strike the first meaningful blow. Gale-force winds swept across the stone as the eagle flapped its wings in a ferocious rhythm, threatening to tear Veeran from his footing and send him skittering across the rocky ground.

[Frostblade] thrummed in anticipation for its usage, and bit deeply into the lower leg of the winged beast. It was massive, of course, and had all attendant biological and magical properties of megafauna, but that simply meant that Veeran was prepared for the talons nearly as large as he was to swipe him almost instantaneously.

It never stood a chance, with him already in a Wyvern Stance. His back foot anchored itself in the rock and hauled the rest of his body with it, and his sword was brought to parry the attack by deflecting it upwards.

A smack from Inq kept the beast from flying away, and encouraged it to follow Veeran as he slowly disengaged. Ride occasionally managed to get in a blow, but she mostly focused on striking any time it tried to fly off to one of the two sides. She was also far too relaxed for what was still an active battleground. Yes, they were decidedly winning, but any battle which carried with it the risk of death was no place to perform unneeded spins nor to jump with fully superfluous attacks that did nothing but bring Ride closer to the talons that she really ought to.

For all its size, the four-winged-eagle never truly stood a chance. Truly, its size was only a hindrance. Flying enemies could be aggravating when small, but something of this size, if it wasn't as tough as a dragon or as nimble as a garuda, stood no chance.

Every time it tried to fly away, Inq beat its wings. Every time it tried to land, Veeran cut into its lower body and trimmed plumage, bleeding it with every attack. Every time it tried to seriously attack, Ride struck it right in its blind spot. It couldn't escape, it couldn't rest, and it couldn't even truly attack.

All that was left was to finish it.

The entire time they'd been fighting, the three of them had slowly been herding it towards a portion of the spire that had previously undergone some form of catastrophic failure. A fairly large 'V'-shaped crevasse gave way to a large amount of rubble on the spire's gentlest slope. It was perhaps a fifteen or twenty foot drop before you'd inevitably land on boulders, with one side of the 'V' being five, ten feet higher than the other side.

Though the fighting had lasted only a few minutes of them slowly wearing down the eagle, they'd finally gotten it to where they had wanted it. The four-winged-eagle was very obviously in rough shape. Its plumage was a bloody mess, its cries had changed from ferocious and triumphant to tired and warbling, and the four wings no longer carried with them the same gusts of wind Veeran had needed to fight at the start.

Inq once again cracked at the bird's wings, and Veeran moved to strike. However, as he struck, a final spurt of spirit bellowed forth from deep within the beast and it struck at Veeran simultaneously. Sword met claw, and the sword gave way.

With a screeching burst of magic, [Frostblade] broke off halfway down the blade, and the talon carried on with its attack. The skill thus fractured, what was left in Veeran's hands quickly began to unravel. But, he held the skill in place long enough to throw what power he had available to him in a final ⟨Piercing Strike⟩. Power flowed, erratic and chaotic without the full construct to guide it, but it turned a minor retributive strike into an outright explosion of Ice and Force. The four-winged-eagle's claws were mangled beyond all threat, turned into a spray of flesh and bone before it could gut Veeran.

Though Veeran was spared the worst of the talon rending through his flesh, he was not spared from the magical detonation, nor the biological shrapnel carried with it. The smooth side of a jagged chunk of talon impacted his chest and fragments of bone peppered his arms, while the force knocked him wholly off his feet.

The four-winged-eagle let loose a bellowing cry of pain and rage, and Veeran heard a sudden chime as the beast called on some previously-unknown pool of magic from deep within it. An explosion of gale-force winds blasted out in every direction, knocking Veeran's hands out from under him as he attempted to stand and sending him bouncing across the rocky surface.

Inq had it far worse, the winds catching her and catapulting her out of sight.

It began to flee, and a flood of emotions flooded Veeran. After all that effort, it was getting away. Objectively, them driving the creature off would likely suffice, but without understanding why it had attacked the tower it may yet return. It would have been far better to kill it now and remove that chance, but it seemed it was not to be.

"Oh don't you even dare!" Ride's voice came as a surprise, considering Veeran had assumed she'd been knocked down by the gust of wind, but the Ranger was bounding across the rocks on the far side of the spire's ravine.

The four-winged-eagle was barely above the ground, and its wings were flapping madly to get it to the edge of the cliff. It spread its wings to swoop down, but the huntress clearly wasn't interested in letting it retreat. With a gravity-defying leap, she jumped off the spire and arced through the air. At the midpoint of her jump, she twisted her entire body, putting her entire weight into throwing the spear down at the four-winged-eagle like a javelin. It struck it in the upper wing and stuck, making it fly even heavier, but still airborne.

Then she landed on the creature's back.

The beast fell, and Ride with it.

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