Lita Burke

What a clear, fine day here on deck. Those brass monkey contraptions are the clockwork automata that Bright created to tend the airship sails. Quite nimble, aren’t they? Looks like Bright is coming down now.

Lita: Greetings, Sir Bright. Do you have time to talk with us?

Bright: I always have time to talk with you, Lita. I would have met all of you earlier when you came on board, but I had to retire a malfunctioning rig monkey. Wizard Nob on Mevil Isle insisted we take the Meat-Man’s automata as a gift. Its inferior minor demon went a bit mad. It damaged some of the pulley mechanisms before our clockwork homunculi captured it.

Lita: Considering Wizard Nob conjured the demon, I’m not surprised it was inferior. I hope you can repair the damage to the airship.

Bright: I fixed the pulleys and adjusted the rope tension just before you came up on deck. Don’t worry about the defective rig monkey bothering us. I used a standard spell to release the minor demon back to the Nether Plains. Because it was a dead body, I tossed the remains overboard. There was nothing I wanted to salvage from the ill-made thing.

Lita: Thank you for throwing out the trash. We wanted to ask you about your elf magic, especially being the seventh son of a seventh son.

Bright: Seven children is a big family. In contrast, Kadmeion was an only child, which is a typical situation for a human wizard or sorceress. Not so for elf-born children. Since my father is also a seventh son plus a talented magician, everyone had high expectations that I would be a rare elf wizard. Because my magical talent didn’t develop as expected, my older brothers picked on me. I guess they blamed me for being inferior.

Lita: Well, we all found out what happened to your magical talent in the Forever Boy story. Your father is full-blood elf, and your mother is human?

Bright: Correct. It makes me and my brothers hybrid magicians called narfleets. We have a blend of human and elf magical abilities, but those talents are weaker than if we were full bloods. My mother’s heritage allows me to cast spells using sung words and magical props. Elves have glamour magic and talent with plants. My glamour is quite strong, but I have less talent with herbology. I enjoy puttering with my collection of miniature oak trees in the airship’s quercetum.

Lita: I understand you picked up some new shipmates who live in your onboard oak forest.

Bright: It was a near thing losing the fey-folk in the circumstances with Ephraim’s Curious Device. You might not see Izlyesende and the others today, since there’s a crowd of people with you. Fairies are shy and need quiet circumstances. Kadmeion and I are fortunate that the quercetum, and our magic, nurture them.

Lita: We might not have time to visit the fairies. Looks like we’re approaching Veldt Island. We must go below now and get ready for our onshore excursion.