Luckily, the farming goes fairly well, and by the time the sun’s setting, I’ve got my extra Stone of Rapid Transference, as well as four more. Just eight to go! The Demonscale Pangolin seems to be… changing, though. After we killed it three more times, it started acting a lot more to defend itself instead of attacking on sight.

  We managed to acquire a fair number of hides and cws, too. “Ulged’s gonna have a field day with all this!” I say happily, stashing my share away in my inventory. Then, I use the contact magic to reach Professor Jerome Templeton, waiting for him to answer.

  “Hello? This method of communication…. Ah, the Skyborne girl, yes? How may this old fossil help you?”

  His voice comes through clearly, and I smile. “Yes, Professor, it’s me. I need to get in touch with some of your colleagues in the Department of Aeromancy. I need to check the time, date, and location of the next meteor shower for something very important.”

  “You always come to me with the most fascinating requests, young dy. Give me a few minutes, I’ll have to see who’s avaible. If you’ll excuse me, won’t be a tick.”

  I wait, until I hear a familiar voice. “Miss… Kettrin? It’s Jerome. I’ve brought the head of the Aeromancy Department, Wyndrose Kalumnai.”

  A second voice, bright, cheery, and female, enters the contact spell’s radius by invitation.

  “Hellooooo? Ooh, this magic is quite remarkable, I’ll have to remember to inquire about its uses ter. However, you had something important to ask regarding meteorological occurrences?”

  I nod, repeating the question I’d asked Professor Jerome. Wyndrose hums and haws thoughtfully. “I cooouulllddd, but I’d have to cast an Auspice in order to get the moooost up-to-the-minute information, and that would taaaaake about an hour. It’s veeeery precise magic, you know? I’ll start nooooow, if you want?”

  I nod. “Please do. It’s important I have the best info I can get.”

  Wyndrose’s voice tails off for a few moments, and she starts muttering things that I haven’t a hope in all the hells of understanding. Stuff about ‘celestial alignments’ and ‘Arcanospheric distiltion’. I simply listen, not wanting to distract the Aeromancer from her focus.

  However, she asks, “Soooo… why do you need meteorological data sooooo badly?”

  I smile. “Well, I’m going to need a meteor storm, so I can use a special ability of mine to bring one of the meteors down so a friend can make swords out of it.”

  There’s dead silence at the end of the line, before Wyndrose starts cackling with delighted amusement. “Ooooohhhhh, you Argonauts are just DEEEE-LIGHTFUL! I’m so gd I asked! This opens up a whoooooole new host of possibilities, I can’t waaaaaiiiit to start hypothesizing!”

  I giggle sheepishly. I guess no-one’s tried that before, then. Ulged, what have you gotten me into now?!

  The rest of the hour drags, but Wyndrose finally gives me what I need. “Okay, the Auspice is finished! It loooooooks like the next meteor shower will be in… threeeeeee weeks, at 11:15PM on the niiiiiight of the Festival of Holyfme.”

  I make exact notes of that, asking her to repeat it three times, until I’m sure I have the time and date. “And the location?”

  “There are three pces where meteors will be easily visible. Near the Darkwood Heights, theeeeeere’s one that’s happening in the region around the Bck Peaks, and oooooone that’ll be on the Eastern continent. I’d recommend the Baaaaaack Peaks, if you want my advice, though the Darkwood Heights isn’t a total impossibility.”

  I copy that down too, and smile. “Thank you both so much, you have no idea how much this means to me. I’ll be in touch again if I find more books, Professor Jerome. It was a pleasure to meet you, Professor Wyndrose.”

  “Noooooo problem, crazy meteor dy! Drop by sometime and shoooooow me this sword you’re having made, I wanna see if this whole madcap idea woooooorks! Buh-byyyyye!”

  I smile as the magical link breaks apart, and Asteria, who’s been hanging on my every word, unable to hear the other people in the ‘call’. I fill her in, and she smiles. “I think we can get some other really awesome bits of crafting material for Ulged to make other bdes with. In fact, we kinda bullied that field boss today, maybe we should let it have a break and we can go find this one item I think isn’t too far from here?”

  I shrug. “Sure, I’m cool with that. Where is this mystery crafting reagent, then?”

  Asteria grins. “Oh, nowhere special. Only… at the bottom of the sea!”

  I stare at her, and then flex my wings. “Are you a little bit loopy, love? If I’m going down there, there are a few problems. First, I’ll be unable to fight at my full power since the resistance will limit me to thrusting attacks and I can’t breathe underwater! Second, fire and wind magic will be kinda utterly useless! And thirdly, my wings will get waterlogged and I’ll flounder like a sinking ship!”

  Asteria gives me ‘the Dana Smile’. The one where I almost can see my girlfriend’s meatspace face grinning mischievously. “I know, that’s why I got on the line with Trinity and had them craft us a couple of accessories that’ll help with our little problem. You’ll see the effect tomorrow!”

  I pout and plead, but Dana absolutely refuses to tell me anything more. She even resists the power of my puppy-dog eyes, which is not fair at all!

  When the morning comes, we take off, heading for the coastline several hours’ travel from Tilbury, the sun glowing as it pokes over the horizon. Asteria’s giggling at my huffy expression, as she starts descending towards the pale sand of the beach below, the azure water pping zily at the shore.

  Crunching over the sand, I pause as Asteria begins unequipping ALL of her armour, leaving her in a frankly unreasonably-skimpy bikini!

  “Uwaaah?!”

  She smirks. “Well, we can’t wear armour where we’re going; it’ll weigh us down and won’t help against the pressure differential. Besides, you know you like the view!”

  I huff. “W-well, nice view notwithstanding, I don’t have a bathing suit- oh… wait, I actually DO. I was hoping we’d go on a date to the beach, but things got all out of hand and I never mentioned it. But still…”

  Asteria giggles, “Put it on, then I’ll expin how we’ll get down to find the item I’ve been so cagey about!”

  I huff, using my wing-hiding passive to make me look human, before equipping my own swimsuit, a sleek bck one that I’m beginning to wish showed a little less of my cleavage. Dana runs her eyes approvingly up and down my body, before handing me a choker. “Wait till you’re deep in the water to put this on. It’ll make sense, trust me.”

  She wades out, deeper, first hips, then waist, then chest-height. Once she’s up to her neck, Dana puts her own choker on, the aquamarine gem at its centre starting to glow. She takes a deep breath, and then submerges. I wait for a while, before I start to get nervous.

  “She can’t hold her breath for THAT long… can she?”

  Finally, I plunge into the sea, feeling the cold water flowing around my feet, then my thighs, then my hips, waist, until I’m mid-chest. I pause just long enough to put the choker on and feel it snap into pce. Taking a deep breath, I submerge, and then my eyes widen.

  My legs don’t seem to be under my control right now. They feel… stiff, somehow, like my muscles are cramping and tensing in unusual ways. Looking down, I scream, as a slight twinge of pain pricks at the sides of my ribcage. Looking down, I can see my… tail?!

  I flex it, as if trying to bend my knees, and the glittering, snow-scaled fishtail obeys, beads of light winking off my new appendage.

  Then I run my hands down the sides of my ribs. I have gills now, too! And webbing between my fingers?!

  I let out the breath I’d been holding, and cautiously inhale. I can feel the water flowing over my gills, which is weird, but… I can breathe, so that’s good. A tail sps me on the back of my lower-back, and I can hear Asteria’s voice, clear as day.

  “So, you finally decided to join me, hmmm?”

  I spin awkwardly, and my girlfriend’s hands reach out, stabilizing me in the cerulean world we now (at least temporarily-)inhabit.

  Her scales are a deep orange, with streaks of white and green, and I bite my lip. Getting used to the feeling of breathing water and not needing to paddle like a dog in order to stay where I want, I rex a little.

  Asteria smirks. “Looking good, mermaid! Now, we’ll need to head away from the shore, out until we find a drop that goes down deep. It’s called the Sea Wall, and acts as a barrier between the surface and the underwater areas.”

  I nod. “So… what are we even looking for?”

  Dana’s smile widens. “A city of mermaids. There’s a mine there that, if we’re smart and a little lucky, we’ll be able to get into and acquire the material we’ll need to make something special for Mor!”

  I smile. “Ulged asked you to find some material, too? He wants me to knock a comet out of the sky with Thunder Cannon so it’ll refine the metal and charge it with lightning when it nds!”

  Asteria cackles, bubbles drifting from her mouth, as she almost doubles over, her shoulder-length hair swaying zily in the water, as we undute our way towards the Sea Wall.

  “Ohhh, that sounds insane, I wanna watch!”

  I blush, as Asteria points a webbed hand in front of us. “look! See how the water suddenly seems to darken, just over there? That’s the Sea Wall. No ordinary race can cut through the currents of water that form it, so we’d have to be aquatic in order to manage it. But, thanks to these chokers, we count as aquatic for all intents and purposes. Meaning…”

  She starts speeding up, her tail flicking through the water like a knife. In seconds, she’s arrowing right for the Sea Wall. I boost forward as well, starting to get the hang of using my new tail and not having legs, as Asteria plunges into the wall of raging, near-invisible water currents ahead. I can see her speed sharply drop, but with a series of wriggling, twisting ‘kicks’, she makes it through. I raise my arms, bringing them to a point above my head, and enter the vortex.

  The water feels like it’s going to tear me apart, tugging every which way. I fight, starting to panic as the world flips and spins, wildly filing, before I feel a hand grasping my wrist. Blindly, I grab on with my other hand, and Asteria pulls me through, the two of us spinning and twirling. She smiles, and my eyes widen as I see her hand.

  “Oh fuck! Y-your…”

  All the skin on her right hand has been shredded, in some pces I can see pale white bone. Ribbons of dark crimson whorl and dissipate in the calm blue around us. She smirks, and pulls her hand gently free of mine. “No problem. Light Grandhealing!”

  The wounds close, her skin regrowing as her flesh restores itself. In a few moments, there’s no sign that she was ever injured. I sag, and my girlfriend pulls me into a subaquatic embrace.

  “It’s fine, see? But you were having trouble in there, weren’t you? You got caught in the Wall and it started dragging you to the depths. A little pain to save my little flying-fish is nothing to me!”

  I blush, then frown. “Wait… flying-fish?! Is that a crack at me being a Skyborne???”

  Tweaking my nose, Dana grins. “Yep!”

  I pout, but I can’t help but be relieved that she’s okay. I love her so much…!