Chapter 184 - 185: The Sky Dome — Part 1

Chapter 184: Chapter 185: The Sky Dome — Part 1

Daniel woke up because the bed was shaking.

Not a little. The whole room was trembling, the cup on the nightstand was walking toward the edge, and somewhere outside a deep, steady hum was climbing up through the floorboards like a very large animal clearing its throat.

"Earthquake," he mumbled into the pillow.

"It is not an earthquake," said Lyra from the doorway. She was fully dressed, gun belt buckled, hair in a tight braid, with the expression of a woman who had been awake for an hour and had seen something she didn’t want to explain. "Come and look."

He went to the window.

The Colossus Ring was gone.

Not destroyed. Gone from the ground. Where the great sunken amphitheater had sat for six hundred years there was a perfect circular crater, and above it, rising slowly into the dawn on four pillars of blue light, hung the entire arena, tiers and pillars and black sand and all, turning gently like a lazy coin.

"Huh," said Daniel.

"It’s flying."

"I can see that."

"Did you know it could fly?"

"I assumed it was bolted down."

"It is not bolted down!"

"I understand that now."

Something small and orange shot past the window at head height, screaming with joy. It was Fluffy, clinging to the back of a hoverbike that a very pale guild porter was trying to keep level. Her ears streamed behind her like banners. Chasing her through the courtyard, trailing gold sparks, ran a glowing fox the size of a dog, completely see-through.

"MASTER! THE GROUND IS FALLING AWAY! THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF FLUFFY’S LIFE!"

"BE CAREFUL!"

"FLUFFY IS CAREFUL!"

The hoverbike clipped a lantern post and spun twice. The fox laughed, a bright, tinkling sound.

"What is that?" said Daniel.

"A mascot. It’s called Domi." Lyra rubbed her forehead. "Paul says it’s a thinking machine. It has been explaining the guild to everyone since sunrise, and it will not stop."

---

The fox found him at breakfast.

It appeared on the table between the porridge and the teapot, wagging a transparent tail, and said in a cheerful voice, "Good morning, Napper! Welcome to the Seam!"

"Hello," said Daniel. "Why do I keep getting nicknames?"

"Because you are famous! You have four million followers!"

"I don’t know what that means."

"Neither does anyone over forty. Would you like a tour?" Domi’s eyes were two small gold stars. "Heaven’s Domain is the oldest guild in the Seam, the place where six worlds overlap. Three hundred years ago the Convergence folded the Kingdom Lands, the Iron Reaches, the Orbital Houses, the Dust Clans, the Spirit Isles and the Deep Beneath into one tangled map. Magic met machines. Dragons met drones. Everyone argued about the borders, and we have been mediating ever since."

Daniel looked at it for a long moment.

"So that’s why the arena flies."

"The Ring is a dock-ship! It lands once every twenty years for the exam, because tradition is expensive. Also, we have a gachapon."

"A what?"

"A gachapon! In the lobby! It is golden!" Domi did a little backflip in the air. "Fluffy has already spent eleven coins."

"What did she win?"

"A rubber duck, a sticker, and a very rare hoverboard."

From somewhere beyond the dining hall, faint and ecstatic, came a scream: "FLUFFY WON A FLYING PLANK!"

Daniel looked at his porridge, then at the fox, then at Lyra, who had put her face in her hands.

"I’m starting to like this world," he said.

---

The skybridge to the arena was the only way up that did not involve a queue.

The VIP dock at the rim of the Sky Dome was a ring of glass and brushed steel that had unfolded overnight. A dozen ships were moored along it, sleek and silent, some with sails of light, some with folded wings. The newest was a black teardrop with a silver crest on its side, a V wrapped around a star.

A ramp slid out. A man walked down it.

He was tall and pale, with silver hair swept back from a long, handsome face and a white coat that looked as though it had never met a speck of dirt. Four floating spheres the size of oranges hovered at his shoulders, each with a small red lens. Behind him walked six bodyguards in grey armor and a woman with a tablet and the weary face of someone who read contracts for a living.

Above his head floated a hologram, a rolling counter. VIEWERS: 41,208,333.

"Napper!" said the man, spreading his arms. His voice was warm and smooth, and it carried perfectly. "I have been looking forward to this."

"I don’t think we’ve met."

"Kaelen Vance the Third. Vance Dynamics. The Orbital Houses." He said it the way other men announced kings. "My family has sponsored this exam for nine years. You have been very amusing."

"Thank you?"

"Don’t mention it. I put four thousand credits on you to lose in the first round. You cost me four thousand credits. I wanted to meet the man who did it."

"Sorry about your credits."

"I’m not." Vance’s smile widened. His gaze slid over Daniel’s shoulder, to Lyra, to Fluffy clinging to her new hoverboard, to Mittens trembling behind Cheeky. "Is this the family? How charming. A null, a slave, a freed pet..."

"Excuse me?" said Lyra, very quietly.

"... and a rabbit that bites." He tilted his head. "The odds on your little team clearing the Grand Bracket are forty-one to one against. The Houses offer better odds on a goldfish."

"Are you done?" said Daniel.

"Almost. I would like to make an offer." Vance snapped his fingers. The woman with the tablet stepped forward. "Sell me the dumpling girl. Her talent is sealed, which means it is valuable. Name your price. You walk away from the bracket with a million credits and a very quiet life."

Silence.

[ Hi my beloved reader’s....sorry for the short Chapter,but I have been busy. I promise to continue longer Chapter’s in the Future]