Sorcerer… Cyborg???

Chapter 107: Into the Unknown

The ship rose higher and higher, up into the air, and from this distance, and as the treetops grew further and further away, Kothar could almost pretend that he was on a normal sized plane.

The trees stretched on in every distance, and on one side he could see the lake that he landed in when he had first come to Atla. Far off, in the other direction, was the palisade of the giants' village.

[What now?] Silane asked Kothar, their most urgent objective had been completed, but the resources on Atla were far too abundant to so quickly abandon the plane.

[We'll have a quick roam around the plane, and see if we can identify any threats, if not, then we'll store the majority of the tools and Hoverbike here. Then we can designate this place as our Home Plane with the Pebble and try getting back to Eclat with the artifact.] Kothar replied, he had newfound confidence after figuring out the mysteries of the Spatial Artifact. Now that he was beginning to understand how the device worked, he realized how much of an advantage it would give him over other Spatial Mages.

Of course, even with the artifact he was no match for Krieg, but he knew that he didn't want his greedy old mentor to find this plane and pillage it, and risk him stumbling across all the things that Kothar had stored here.

[I can tell you've learned something about the artifact but I can't make sense of it. It's not clear to me, like it's more of a feeling than actual knowledge.] Silane's confusion was clear in her voice, and she ran what she could glean from Kothar's knowledge against her vast reserves of Spatial travel and teleporter related information that she had.

[The portal we made with Alliance technology were completely different to the ones that go between planes. Portals within the same plane are piercing through the void in the regular three dimensions, but those that go from one plane to another are going further. The best way I can describe it is that they're going 'sideways' and into the new plane.] Kothar struggled to articulate what he had learned from the artifact, it made sense to him, but if it didn't make sense to Silane then it would be one of the very few things that the pair of them didn't share even the slightest hint of understanding about.

[Hmm. I think I see, no wonder the coordinates that Sadnstrider gave us were so odd. Not only were they giving the location of the place in space, but also in the fourth, the void.] Silane's voice brightened as understanding dawned for her, and Kothar could feel the cheerfulness radiating from her.

Kothar soared over the relatively untouched surface of the plane, cruising over clearing that were filled with dots milling around that were giants, he was about to swoop down for a closer look before the light from the sun suddenly dimmed.

Kothar looked to the horizon, and an enormous shape had completely blocked out the light from the sun. Everything on Atla was already enormous, and the creature blocking out the very light from this region was massive even by the standards of this plane.

Kothar shrank deep into his seat, even though he would be less significant than a gnat to the twisting creature, the sheer power that radiated from the beast made him cower. 

This was, by far, one of the most powerful entities he had encountered, and the most massive by far.

Twisting across the clear blue sky, lit from behind by the shining sun giving it an angelic glow was an enormous dragon. This dragon lacked the enormous wings and heavy scales that Kothar traditionally associated with dragons, rather it climbed up on the very clouds itself by manipulating Water and Wind Mana.

The winding body was a faint purple color, and it had a glorious mane of flaming pink hair that mostly covered a pair of tall stag-like horns.

Its eyes were a shining yellow, and filled with intelligence, as it stared down at the milling giants in the village below. As soon as the creature had blocked the sky, they fled into their huts.

But this was nowhere near enough to deter the majestic creature, it wound itself down to the palisade, ignoring all obstructions in its way, and reached a long fingered claw tipped with sharp white nails that were mirrored by its polished fangs, into one of the huts, and pulled a kicking and screaming giant out.

Wails sounded out from the village, and Kothar stared on in horror, as the dragon twisted its way back into the sky at a ridiculous speed, soon disappearing completely from view.

[I guess that explains their fortifications, not that they did them any good.] Silane said after a long period of silence between the pair of them

[I think it's time we left this plane. Let's head back to the hollow and pick up any essentials and hide everything else as best we can.] Kothar responded, as eager to leave as she was.

The small ship sped back to the willow tree by the stream, landing in the central cavern, and Kothar quickly tossed tool after tool in the cramped storage space, adding in the remaining ingots of Titanite and a bar of gold after some thought.

[This'll do for now, and we can always return.] Kothar said with finality. Of course, they would return, massive dragon or not, this plane was far too resource rich to abandon.

Kothar took a deep breath, and pulled an enormous amount of mana from his Spatial Mana Core; he didn't want to deplete the artifact of its own mysterious reserves, since it was his last resort escape tool.

Kothar thrust his arm forward, clutching his right hand by the wrist as he threw the enormous ball of Spatial Mana outwards aiming for the thin spot in space, guided by the artifact, forming a portal three time his height in diameter, which, considering he had only recently been able to make portals big enough to fit through, was impressive to say the least.

Now that the portal was ready, Kothar hopped back in the ship, and took off, flying into the portal, into the unknown.