6 From New Horizons:

When she finally finished talking, Epsilon was more awake than ever.

"We have three priorities here. First, I need to get up without feeling like I'm going to throw up.

You've never tried the drink you gave me on anyone with magic, so I think that your list of side effects might be incomplete. Whatever the case, it is unlikely we will have the luxury for waiting out the seven day detoxification period. So after this conversation I need you to fly back to the mountain and get the cask before something happens to it.

Second, we need to know the ETA of the mages guild members for obvious reasons.

Third, I need to see the bell for myself. If it was at the heart of a mountain, then it is in all likelihood, an object of incredible power- and the reason for the pirates raiding party.

Now those five you spotted on that ship, you need to memorize how they looked. Pirate and brigand mages, magisters and the like shroud their appearance to hide their disciplines.

Guild mages show off the changes caused by their magic, rogue mages conceal them. It makes picking a fight with them chancy. You did well to scare them off though.

Also, I'm glad you stuck with that accountant woman Kaede long enough to learn about Falx. Bits of information like that can save your life in a pinch.

One last thing. As you can see, I'm still here. The reason is on my wrist." he raised his left arm, revealing a thick gold bracelet clamped around it.

"As long as I'm wearing this, I can't truly pass out or go to sleep, I will remain conscious. There's no way to stop the dream-walk, but I can stop myself from dreaming in the first place. Ironically enough, wearing this is the only way I can actually rest, without ending up a thousand miles away in a tree right next to a ravenous wyvern. That's why I didn't disappear from your inn, since it was the first time in more than a week that I'd been able to snooze in a real bed.

I'm telling you, so that you'll know… if it looks like we're going to get destroyed and I'm out for the count, take my hand and remove the bracelet and we can both escape. Now that's out of the way, get going!"

Lyra paused "Wait, I need the wings."

"You're already wearing them." Epsilon pointed out.

"Wait, what?" Lyra looked down "When did you, How, Who in tha what now?"

"You've seen what I can do," Epsilon commented dryly "and yet you're getting all worked up over a simple parlor trick?"

Lyra made as if to protest and stopped, unable to think of anything to say.

That had been happening an awful lot since she'd met Epsilon.

"I… I'm just going to be going now."

Lyra exited the room and attempted to navigate her way to the surface. She stopped and asked for directions only twice in the labyrinth… although that was mostly because the second household had a spare child to lead her out.

The girl trotted along in front of Lyra in her white cotton dress, eating a jam sandwich.

Lyra couldn't help but feel embarrassed, that a small jam-sandwitch toting tot could find her way through this place, while she could not.

Finally, she reached yet another surface trap-door. The small child gestured to it with the sandwitch and trotted back along the tunnel .

Lyra stepped up to the door and let herself out.

Even with the wings out, jumping off the edge of a floating island is something that normal, sensible people are more than just a little apprehensive about jumping off floating islands.

So she found the mountain, took three steps back, breathed deeply and jumped.

The sickening second of uncertainty spent in freefall was ended with the plumph of expanding wings.

Willing herself upwards, she was glad that the harness had been buckled tight, gravity still had a firm hold on her and it was only the constant upwards beating of the gigantic wings that kept her airborne and rising.

The wind whipped around Lyra, cold enough to chill her to the bone.

Shivering, she redoubled her efforts, moving into the wind shadow of the Island she was aiming at and hugging close to it.

The wings were incredible, they responded to her every thought with precision. She spiraled up past the forest border of the mountain and hovered a dozen meters above it to get her bearings.

After a moment, she spotted where Epsilon had left the dream world.

A tiny circular clearing in the forested area of the slope.

Movement in front of her caught her attention.

The horizon was no longer blue, but grey and getting closer by the second.

A rumbling boom and a muffled flash appeared in the greyness.

Lyra began to realize that what she was looking at wasn't a far off horizon, but an extremely nearby cloud, which the wind was blowing straight at her.

Cursing, Lyra swooped toward the clearing, just as the cloud engulfed the island.

Inside the cloud, darkness reigned. The grey, formless… cloud stuff, enveloped everything and even began soaking into her clothes.

She pulled her knees up to her chest and the wings seemed to know what to do, beginning their down-stroke.

The landing almost turned her ankle, but once she was down, the wings shrank and she could move about the slope as normal.

Unfortunately the cloud stuff, which someone really needed to invent a word for, made seeing anything a most difficult task indeed.

She couldn't see more than three feet in the air, the cold was really getting to her now and she still hadn't found that accursed cask.

She'd hardly changed course once the cloud rolled over her, so she should have been right on top of the clearing… unless she'd come down too far down the slope.

Lyra sighed and began trekking up the steep incline, glad that at least she wasn't likely to fall over the edge while heading for the middle of the skyland.

After almost five minutes of walking, she hit the sheer, grey rock of the mountain face itself.

Or she would have, if she hadn't been almost smack bang on center with a large cavity in the mountainside- it's depth made un-guessable by the cloud swirling around her and the darkness within the hollow.

Lyra was no fool. With almost every mention of this mountain's caves having been in the context of some dangerous creature or another, there was simply no way she'd just walk in there.

With the perfect timing of pure coincidence, the storm-cloud chose that moment to discharge the thunderbolt that had been charged by atmospheric forces for the last few minutes.

The deafening boom of the thunder-clap sent Lyra scurrying forward, taking cover behind a rock, not too far a-shy of the cave's entrance.

She place a hand on her chest and willed her breathing to slow down, attempting to calm herself and reassure her beating heart that there was no reason for its fight-or-flight response.

She felt the tingling sensation of pent up electricity before she smelled the burning ozone or heard the cacophony of crackles that signaled the creatures approach.

She opened one eye and the brilliance of the lightning Elemental's luminescent body, entirely composed of thick bolts of electricity and woven into a vaguely humanoid shape, burned itself into her retina.

Okay, What did she know about lightning?

1. It was fast. Very, very fast.

2. It was Dangerous.

3. Nothing.

She opened an eye tentatively. The elemental was still standing there.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she felt an inspiration begin to condense.

"Pardon me, but am I intruding? I'm afraid I got lost in the cloud, but if you want me to leave then I'll be going now then…"

Lyra trailed off as the creature shook its head.

It opened its fiery white mouth and "-=---=--==--===------==---==-=-=-----"

The noise that came out was a mixture of hisses and pop's, rather than speech, but it somehow Lyra also knew exactly what it meant.

The degree of certainty involved here was crucial, since, what it said was possibly the most ridiculous thing she could have ever expected to hear from an ethereal being, apparently composed of pure electricity.