Be sure you have all your things
Here we are back home.
Copernicus has docked Wizard Kadmeion’s airship at the aerodrome, and it’s time to go. Be sure you have everything out of your stateroom. Watch your step on the gangplank.
I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s adventure to Veldt Island and learning more about the Clockpunk Wizard world, and Ephraim’s Curious Device.
Safe travels to you, until we fly again with the wizard and his friends in Old Bony Blue Eyes. Goodnight.
For Furgo, time does fly
What a sweaty ride we had through Veldt Island’s hot savanna. Go ahead to your staterooms and freshen up–I’ll be along after a while. It looks like Furgo has a new treasure he wants to show me. Curious? Come along, then. We’ll follow the cyanthrope to his room.
Lita: You keep your room so tidy, Furgo. I thought lads and dogs were messy.
Furgo: Madam Lita, this is the first time I had a place of my very own. I love everything about my room. I can arrange it however I please, put my treasures in here, and no one will touch them.
Lita: You deserve the very best after your terrible adventures in Ephraim’s Curious Device. Your new treasure is a clock that flies. Did your friend Bright make the clockworks?
Furgo: He did, and Kadmeion gave it wings like a butterfly. It purrs when it flies, just like our fey-folk. Fairy Izlyesende wants to tell you something when we’re settled for treats in the dining room.
Lita: I’d better hurry and wash off Veldt’s dust, then get along to the galley. Izlyesende usually tells us silly or naughty things.
We have a few hours with this onshore excursion to rent horses and ride out to the edge of Veldt’s savanna. Follow your native guide, stay on the path, and drink your water–this place is an oven beyond the mountains.
Veldt Island Beach Rhinoceros
Veldt is one of the largest floating islands in the Clockpunk Wizard world. There is just one large inland lake (called the Veldt Sea), but it has no outlet and is now a salty mineral bath.
Saltwater rhinos live on the Rim-ward side of the Veldt Sea. Some of the rhinoceros migrate to the edge of the Brandon Stretch, where the dragon has her treasure-filled lair. Are any of you wizards? No? Then be polite if you meet up with Lady Dragon Betrayal. She doesn’t like the taste of wizards, but you could be dinner if you’re rude.
The island’s unique ring of mountains along the edge catch rain clouds, turning the heights in to lush rainforests, but leaving the flat interior a sere world dotted with spring-fed oases. Wildebeest and Gibson Buffalo live on the savanna. If you get lost out here, watch out for the grasslands fauns or you’ll end up getting bewitched and dancing your life away–literally.
Time to head back to Wizard Kadmeion’s airship to freshen up and get something to eat. Perhaps we can talk a bit with Furgo, the wizard’s cyanthrope familiar, and coax fairy Izlyesende to show himself despite Bright’s words to the contrary.
Malfunctioning Rig Monkey
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.
Seven Sons
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?
Fey Izlyesende’s home on the airship
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.
An airship in the Clockpunk Wizard world
Splendid to see you today! Welcome aboard Wizard Kadmeion’s airship for today’s book launch party for the newest Clockpunk Wizard story, Ephraim’s Curious Device.
Our pilot Copernicus has set course for Veldt Island, the huge floating home of Dragon Betrayal. We have beautiful weather today, so we should make good time and have smooth sailing.
Wizard Kadmeion waits for us in one of his onboard magical workrooms. Let’s get settled, then join him in a few minutes. He will discuss the differences between magical thingummys, dodads, and whatnots.
The guest staterooms are down this hallway, at the end. Pick any empty berth, then meet me back here at the galley door. I’ll walk you to Kadmeion’s workshop.
Lita Burke 