Flight Journals Day 20-24

I can't stop this humming in my brain. It sounds like a softly plucked guitar twanging and the notes just... hang in the air. I can hear their voice too, low and deep and rumbling. It's not exactly words... it's more emotions than anything... it's just...

I don't really have the words, I can't stop humming along.

It took a few days to find a clue towards the people who had poisoned the school. I hung around in taverns and in the few towns that weren't fully abandoned. Eventually someone raised a toast to the downfall of the Queen, and I had a lead. I followed them to where they dropped off some documents, Gadget grabbed those from the dead drop, and it led me to another huge cave.

Outside were two horses... two of Pyro's horses. There was a small scrap of white fabric attached to one of the saddles, and I recognized it from Maddy's armor. They had been here before me, and from the look around the area, there had been a fight.

Inside, the whole cave was glowing with shimmering moss and sparkling water. It was... beautiful, genuinely beautiful. Further back though, deep within, were a few tents, a burnt out fire, and barrels of applies sitting next to a small sealed box of poison rot. Before I could even process it, a shadow jumped out and cut at my arm. I panicked right away, knives up, throwing them back...

They kept coming, relentlessly. They moved so fast, even when I was able to grab onto their armor they could fight against it more than anyone else I had seen. I was so scared, I held them against the wall and cast the blades.

The sparks and the blood, the silent scream...

I've never had to

I didn't mea

I had to make a choice.

I've never had to do that before.

I went right back to the screams from home, the ringing in my ears, the heat on my face.

...

...

the pages here are filled with wet ink, smudges, and a few water stains.

...

...

They had a teleporter of some kind near the back of the cave, near where that Lavender was. I grabbed a few blooms of it and stepped inside, ending up back where we found the others taken so long ago... only a month ago... gods it feels like so much longer. But from there I thought I had an idea. Old magic, old blessings, old dragons...

I can't stop this humming in my brain. It sounds like a softly plucked guitar twanging and the notes just... hang in the air. I can hear their voice too, low and deep and rumbling. It's not exactly words... it's more emotions than anything... it's just...

I stopped the wheel, slowed it, just for a few seconds. It took everything I had, it HURT. Felt like ever fiber of my body was going to collapse in on itself. I shaved off a mere moment of magic from everything sleeping there to save everyone. It worked, I had the iron dust that was literally glowing with mana... and I ran back towards home with the old Iron dragon yelling behind me...

I can't stop this humming in my brain.

They seemed happy in their rest, and I'm sorry for stealing a moment of their time for the lifetimes of so many others, but I don't regret it. The professor was mad at my too, at least it felt like that for a while, but we've talked since. They call me a Keeper - I have no idea what that even means. Apparently the person who can control the Wheel answers to no one, well... that would have been good to know.

That feels like another way of being used though, and I don't want to be someone else's puppet or someone else's weapon ever again.

I messed up though, I did something wrong. Clara's mana isn't the same as Graecie's. Different blessings, apparently. Who knew?

There were two different blessing mages, sisters, and in trying to find a source of old mana I mixed both, and now she's hurting, because of me. You know, when I first started reading all of the books I was so worried about hurting everyone. I was worried about...

... when I first came here, she was the first person to be kind to me. Maybe not just when I came here, maybe ever. I'd be lying if she didn't feel special. I've been so afraid to lose that, to lose her, and we went off to the lavender fields to talk about it. She cast her spells, I cast the wheel, and I think we were able to settle a few things, to take a moment and just sit there, just talk.

I saw how it hurt her, having me be too close. How my mistakes caused her pain. I've also see how much these shadows that keep attacking us hate my magic, and run whenever I make the Iron spin. They hate it, they're afraid of it, and I'm going to keep using it to keep my friends safe.

Iron sat alone, cold and distance, but necessary.

I'm going to fix this, to un-mix the mana I messed up. It's going to take a lot of research, a lot of time, and a place to work safely.

It's going to take me doing something I've been afraid of every time I read one of the books about the last Iron Soul.

I need to make another wheel.