After stretching his arms overhead, Ryuk walks down to the water and sits on a flat rock with some Thulean writing etched into it. There’s a sweet scent to the air, and while the chill is there, it shows clear signs of disappearing in the next hour or so.
As he stares out over the misty water at the herders on the other side of the lake, he runs his finger along the etching. A deep breath in and he notices the smell of the lake, and with it, a sweet smell that reminds him of watermelons.
Ryuk takes his slingshot off his belt and pouches one of his new gravity marbles. He was so distracted last night that he forgot to give the marble a test. With everyone sleeping, he now has the time and quiet to see what it is the marble actually does.
The gravity marble is clear with a cream swirl running through it. It is slightly warm to the touch, and even as he holds it in the pouch of his Magic Slingshot, he notices that it adds an odd weight to his wrist. He aims at the water, pulls back and …
“Hi.”
He hops off his rock at Zaena’s voice and nearly lets the marble fly. The Thulean takes a few steps in front of him, her orange hair disheveled.
“You scared me,” he says, a bit too late.
She shrugs. “I figured squeezing your shoulder with my konoshlo would have scared you even more. Let’s see it.”
“My new marble?”
“Please, you said it was a gravity marble, did you not?”
“Yep.”
“Fire it.”
Ryuk aims at the water and zings the marble away. As soon as it touches the surface, a large scoop of water lifts several feet into the air and hovers there.
“Whoa,” Zaena says. “How long will it last?”
Ryuk palms another marble. “No idea; that’s the first one I’ve shot.” He glances around for a moving object. “I need to test something in motion.”
“Test me,” Zaena volunteers.
He hesitates. “You sure?”
“I’m sure. Let’s see what it does.”
They both watch as the floating scoop of water loses its shape. Droplets form on its underbelly and plink onto the surface of Lake Klattenhoff.
“I don’t want it to hurt you.”
“Come on.” Zaena leads Ryuk to a clearing. The Thulean runs a few paces away from him and drops to a battle stance. “Do it.”
“Um … ” Ryuk aims his magic slingshot at her. He doesn’t like the idea of firing on Zaena and is in the process of lowering his weapon when she shouts out to him.
“Do it, Ryuk! Don’t be a little bitch!”
Fwwhip!
The gravity marble strikes her in the sternum and sends her flying backwards, not by explosion, but by something that reminds Ryuk of a clear bubble.
“Shit, Zaena!”
The Thulean zips backwards until she smacks into a tree.
“Damn!” she shouts out, baring her teeth as she laughs. “That was crazy!” Zaena tries to squirm out of her pinned position. The tree branches above shake as she attempts to use her ghost limbs to pull herself up. “It’s like glue!” she says, once she realizes she’s unable to move.
Ryuk looks down at the gravity marble in his hand. He turns to see that the scoop of water hovering over the lake has dissipated.
It doesn’t last very long …
He approaches Zaena, and as he does, she starts to shake her shoulders loose. “It’s freeing up!”
So like thirty seconds?
She drops and quickly moves over to him. “Wow! Your new marble is very, very interesting. Just think of what you will be able to do!”
“Do you think … ?” Ryuk places the marble in his mouth and feels gravity tug at his stomach.
“Amazing!”
New skill learned!
Skilclass="underline" Levitate
Level One: By placing a marble in your mouth, you can levitate for thirty seconds. Higher levels allow for longer levitation.
Requirements: Level 15 Mage, LUCK > 12.
Ryuk now floats about a meter off the ground. He looks down at Zaena with a huge grin on his face.
“Do something!” she calls up to him.
“What do you mean?” he asks, the marble still in his mouth. He notices that it has started to dissolve. It fizzles on the back of his tongue and is completely flavorless.
“Um, fly or something!”
“I’m not flying, I’m floating!”
“Then float.” She moves her hand in a swimming gesture. “Like this.”
“It’s not like that, it’s like … ” He thinks of the best way to describe it. “It’s like I’m on solid ground.” He takes a step forward to demonstrate. “An invisible plane.”
“Can you go higher?”
Ryuk falls back to the ground. “No idea,” he says as he pops another marble in his mouth. He resumes his floating position and places his hands before him. As he does, he feels what seems to be an invisible ledge. He scrambles up onto it, and now he’s about two meters up. “Apparently, I can!”
“Let me try!”
Once he’s back on the ground, he hands Zaena a gravity marble. She places it in her mouth, holds it there and ... nothing happens.
“Well, it was worth a try.” She spits the marble into her hand, and rather than give it back to Ryuk, she uses her ghost limb to pop open the pouch on his belt.
“That’s the wrong one.” He says as a tingling sensation comes over him.
“Well, which is the right one?”
“This one,” he says, pointing at the new pouch on the left. He awkwardly waits for Zaena to finish putting the marble in. Once she’s done, they turn back to the water.
“It really is a pretty lake,” he says. Secretly, he’d like to test out a few more gravity marbles, but now that Zaena’s around, he feels a bit self-conscious about it.
Why? he asks himself in his head. Humans have the weirdest emotions. He’s pretty sure she wouldn’t mind watching him lift things into the air and play with gravity for the next hour, but to be polite, he lets her take control of the conversation.
As if on cue, Zaena sighs, her eyes transfixed by the water. “This reminds me of a small pond near my home in Athos, back in Ultima Thule,” she finally says, her mood suddenly the polar opposite of what it was just moments ago.
“Oh?”
“My tutor, Clemon, would instruct me along the shoreline during the warm months. We’d start with Thulean texts, then mathematics, then combat, then lunch, and we’d usually dedicate the afternoons to studying your world.”
“He taught you all that?” Ryuk tries to remember if he’s ever had a professor who taught such a wide variety of subjects. He comes up flat.
“He was an RPC who held several doctorate degrees and studied at all the great universities across the three floating continents. He’d won awards, given lectures, had been asked to run for various offices but always declined, and in retirement, he taught me. My siblings too.”
“In combat?” Ryuk imagines an old man teaching Zaena how to swing her blades.
“Can the elderly kill just as easily as the young?” she asks.
“It sounds like it.”
Zaena’s face hardens. “But that was then, and this is now.”
“Okay?” Ryuk looks up at her, not sure of what she means by her statement.
“But he did teach me a lot about your world. Still, there are many things I don’t understand. It is odd to think we were created by your kind, yet your kind comes here to escape there. I’d love to see it, though, your world.” The smile returns to her face. “I can only imagine what it’d be like driving in an aeros, shopping, visiting other countries, using crazy technology that most of you seem to barely understand … ”
“It is definitely something else.”
Silence grows between them for the next few minutes, and Ryuk, rather than try to awkwardly force a conversation, allows the moment to happen.