Emir pushed his hand into the image of the palace, which started to glow as the light in the ship faded. After a few moments, the cloud images streamed back into the bottle and Emir put it away.
The sheer magic power of the ship gave it a potent, gold-rank aura, and Jason felt that aura start undergoing a shift.
“I need to go back to my welcoming party,” Emir said, “but I think you might enjoy staying to watch. The transformation is something to see.”
Emir held out his elbow for Gabrielle. “Care to join me, young lady?”
“Certainly,” she said, and they departed.
Left behind with Emir’s staff, they watched as the huge ship morphed into a palace of clouds, floating on the water. It took around ten minutes, which was, as promised, quite something to see. It was even more so to Clive, who could see some of the magic as it transformed.
“This is crazy,” Clive said. “I can barely understand what's happening with these gold-rank processes, but just that little is amazing. Mostly I'm just seeing the structural changes, with the external security measures stopping me from looking deeper, but even that much is incredible.”
“Security measures?” Jason asked.
“Oh yes,” Clive said. “I would very much advise against trying to get in uninvited. It’d be harder to break into than…”
Jason looked at Clive after he trailed off. Clive was no longer focused on the transforming ship, instead taking up what Jason recognised as his thinking pose. His eyes were closed, his expression stern. His hands were held loosely in front of him, fingers waggling. Jason watched, waiting quietly until the fingers stopped moving and Clive opened his eyes, nodding.
“That adds up,” he said absently to himself, then turned to Jason. “I know what the thief is after.”
102
You Fight Like Me
In Old City, the wealthiest area was the canal district. Once the home of aristocratic power, migration to the Island left it open for those who ruled Old City with money and power. It was strictly neutral territory for the Big Three, due to a preponderance of Island interests based around the canals and water trade flowing in from the delta.
In a less-used area of the canal docks was a cluster of buildings, not well-placed and too small to service the water traffic that had built up in the years since their construction. Mostly the buildings were used to store items that were rarely, if ever used. One housed small watercraft awaiting repairs that never came, the cluttered space untouched for years, or so it seemed.
Sophie had judiciously placed some of the clutter and quietly moved the rest to the other buildings. Add in some rituals by Belinda to muffle noise and display some simple, static illusions and the seemingly abandoned building had become a well-hidden lair. Belinda quietly made her way inside, where Sophie was already waiting.
“The last item on our shopping list just came up,” Belinda said without preamble. “We need to move fast, though.”
“Good,” Sophie said. “It was getting about time to do another distraction job, or Ventress would call open season on us.”
“Now we don’t have to. Once we have the tilting stones, we’ll have everything we need for the last job.”
“And we'll finally get out of the city,” Sophie said, shoulders slumping wearily.
“How’s the preparation for that?”
“I’ve got maps and supplies enough to get us through the delta, into the Veldt and then south to Hornis,” Sophie said. “After hitting the spirit coin vault we’ll have enough money to buy our way past any influence the Big Three have there and leave this whole continent behind.”
“Let’s not go making assumptions until we’re on open ocean,” Belinda cautioned. “We have two jobs and a long journey between us and there. We have to move fast on this next one.”
“Tell me.”
“There's some big project out in the delta, some ancient ruin or something. The Magic Society was crawling all over it, until some out-of-towners showed up and took over.”
“Out-of-towners?”
“They arrived on a ship made of clouds, if you can believe that.”
“A ship made of clouds?”
“Sounds incredible, right?”
“Sounds made up.”
“Nope,” Belinda said. “The ship turned into a cloud palace and is floating off the north end of the Island. I’ve seen it for myself. It's so big you can spot it from any rooftop on the north side of the city.”
“Please tell me you don’t want us to rob it.”
“No,” Belinda said with a laugh. “That ruin they’re excavating; it was originally a Magic Society project, but these people took over.”
“That’s some serious clout.”
“Yes, it is. The important part is that the Magic Society is still providing supplies and support. One of the things on the supply list is the tilting stones we need. I’ll be getting a head’s up when they’re scheduled to move, but it’ll be sometime this week. We grab the stones during transit.”
“That’s not a lot of time to prepare,” Sophie said.
“We shouldn’t need it. The supply shipments move out from the supply complex at the Magic Society campus with minimal protection. The shipment isn’t high value, so they don’t have a heavy guard until the duke’s guards meet them at the bridge to Old City.”
“If it’s not high value, then couldn’t we just have bought these tilting stones we need?”
“They’re restricted,” Belinda explained. “Not dangerous, but they have some specific uses in certain activities.”
“Like the one we want them for?”
“Exactly.”
“So we hit it on the Island.”
“Exactly. All the supplies will be in dimensional-storage crates. You just need to grab the right crate and get out.”
“You have the route?”
“Yeah.”
“Alright, then,” Sophie said. “Let’s go scout some locations.”
One of the largest and busiest areas of the Magic Society campus was the magical supply complex. In addition to the space requirements, operations were complicated by the sometimes volatile nature of magical materials. Care had to be taken to store various goods correctly while keeping apart materials that would affect one another in proximity. This caused a number of fundamental problems for the smooth running of the supply complex.
The first problem was structural. Purpose-designed, the complex was a nest of interconnected buildings, linked by secured walkways at ground level and above. There were warehouse structures, towers, domes, and, in one case, a spherical building secured by a cubic frame of support struts.
Storage and record-keeping were even more of a mess. Because of the nature of the stored materials, magical requirements took precedence over the practical requirements of space efficiency. This, in turn, made inventory management and supply a nightmare.
In the central loading and distribution centre, the supply manager was named Thel and the distribution manager, Drew. They were having several busy weeks at a run. First, the Magic Society started up some operation out in the middle of a swamp, which was already a logistical nightmare. Then the whole thing was taken over by some out-of-town group. The society was still giving logistical support and supply, which meant meeting the different needs of the new group while adding a whole extra layer to supply management because they weren’t Magic Society. Amid a busy day, Thel brought out a new supply order to give to Drew.
“This just came in from the big building,” she told Drew. The big building was what they called central administration, out of which the Magic Society officials operated.
“Great,” Drew said as he unenthusiastically took the paper with the supply order and read it over. “One more idiot who doesn’t think twice about messing up our schedules.”
He glanced at the authorising officer box on the order to see who dumped it on him.