Greg's eyes flew open even as he shot up to his feet with a gasp. It took a few seconds of looking at the wooden walls around him and the intricate runes drawn on them for his mind to register that he was back inside the airship. This was the room where the stasis formation, as he'd come to call it, had been carved. The last time he'd been here, the runes had been glowing gently taking barely any mana from him after he'd activated the formation. Given how brightly they were glowing now, they had probably been drawing mana from him for the entirety of the three months that he'd been back in Ethavel. Greg hadn't been able to feel it when he was in Ethavel, now that he was here, a part of him realized that he'd never left the room. He had no idea if it was his mind or his soul that had been roaming the streets of Ethavel. Whatever the case, his body had remained behind acting as a battery for this formation. Greg could remember being shocked at how little mana the formation took from him

With the women, however, anything they said could be taken at face value. You didn't have to second guess yourself or question their intentions. They weren't trying to get anything up on her or gain some benefit by being associated with her. It was a case of not knowing you were missing something until you encountered it. The simplicity of their conversations, not to mention, the warmth with which they engaged, always made the time spent with them that much more enjoyable. Of course, while she did enjoy their company, Calyn never lost sight of her goal. From time to time she'd bring Roka up in both subtle and not-so-subtle ways. She didn't try to hide her interest in the young man. After all, if she could win over his family, she'd have them in her corner when she finally went for him. "You don't have to worry, I promise you won't be disappointed by what he has down there," his mother answered with a mischievous glint in her eyes, catching Calyn completely off guard. "Mother!" Tayan

Calyn calmly took out the two strange-looking gauntlets from her storage ring. Rather than gloves that covered the whole hand, the gauntlets in her hands looked like someone had carved a skeleton of the human hand out of metal and attached it to a thick metal ring. The metal skeleton hands hang down loosely even as Calyn sent her mana through the metal ring causing it to open up into two semicircles. Bringing the opened ring to her wrist she snapped it shut around it. Immediately, the skeleton hand which had been hanging loosely from the ring, shot up and attached itself to the back of her hand. Calyn clenched her hand into a tight fist, watching with satisfaction as the runes along the bones glowed from the mana flowing through them."Ardinium, that's a hard metal to come by," came the comment from Olivia's clone as she watched her put on the second skeleton gauntlet."It was a gift from my father after I was betrothed to Deriel," Calyn answered, looking lovingly at the gleaming meta

"Bombs or poison?" Bloodhound, his first mate, questioned. Standing beside him, the man was a summoner and one of the most sadistic people Scar had ever had the displeasure of knowing. He was the kind of person you wanted fighting beside you but never behind you. Ferocious almost to a fault, the man enjoyed making his victims bleed and if allowed would drag out the deaths of his victims for as long as possible. Even if he was an ally, you always had to ensure that you had one eye on him at all times, lest you find yourself on the wrong side of his blade. Whatever his eccentricities, however, Bloodhound was still a tier lower than himself, meaning he had to lower his head, lest he lose it. Scar was perfectly aware of the fact that the man would betray and kill him if he ever was in a weakened position. But meticulous planner that he was, Scar had contingencies upon contingencies prepared for any such eventuality. "Poison, there is no need to damage our new ship," Scar replied, both hi

Olivia had an extraordinary sense for battle that allowed her to exhibit an almost oracular ability to predict your next move even before you thought to make it. However, even more terrifying than her ability to stay two steps ahead of the battle, was her ability to render useless her opponent's sense for battle. In the heat of battle, there was no time to think. No time to come up with clever moves to dazzle your foe with. In a true life-and-death battle where one wrong move could mean your demise, you only had the instincts that you had honed for battle. And yet, in her wake, Olivia's clones were leaving corpses of those who had trusted their instincts. It was one thing to hide your next move from someone's sense for battle. It was another thing entirely to take someone's battle sense and use it to kill them. The worst part was that, even with the fragmentary insight into what the woman was doing, Calyn still couldn't break through the deception. It was a lot like knowing you had