- Writing Levels
- Adaptable
- Genres
- I'm wary of magic with lots of rules.
Twenty thousand by four thousand steps, that was the length of Cadia. Within its depths Vanaya rarely left her farm, and focused her time and magic on encouraging green, leafy vegetables to sprout from her plot of tilled soil. Day after day, in the muted glow of the sunlight through the translucent skin stretched above, she clutched her amulet and whispered prayers of growth, watching her crop grow up as if sped through time.
She might not have noticed the change if she had not kept records of her harvest that spanned many years. But as she sent off the latest shipment to the town market, she tallied up the harvest over a cup of tea and leaned back in her chair, quill pinched on top of her lips. The changes were tiny, miniscule ... but undeniable. Less and less every year.
So she decided to walk to visit her friends at the edge of Cadia.
It wasn't a long journey, within a day, but she packed to bivouac and set off at dawn. Outside the town center, where bone was reinforced with iron to create rickety towers that scraped the top of Cadia, amenities rapidly decayed, and nights could get uncomfortably cold away from the veins where Cadia's warm blood circulated.
She took an ambling journey, and scouted out a vein to sleep for the night. Under a light blanket, she studied the faint night sky through the dome, and enjoyed the ringing in her ears that signaled the absence of the town bustle. On a whim she peered through a pothole, a place along the walls of Cadia where the skin was stretched rigidly transparent.
Outside Cadia sprawled a desert covered in bioluminescent fungus. She knew the stories told by the Long Range Patrol - spend five minutes in the cloud and your lungs would rot beyond the help of magic and medicine, and even with a gill-mask, nothing out there was edible. The beauty of the scenery laid before her buttressed her wonder that Cadia could provide shelter, food, and safety, breathing in the air and purifying it, a hard chitinous shell thousands of paces long, and veins beating with heat and magic, as if Cadians and Cadia were meant to be together.
At dawn and she broke fast on some meat sliced off a nearby outgrowth, boiled into a stew with the vegetables from her pack. By noon she arrived at her friends place, it was strangely quiet. The homestead looked abandoned, and the field was fallow. She squatted at the edge of the plowed field and stuck her hands into the soil, feeling for life. Not much.
She walked down the field towards the house, and bent down again at the sight of a wilted leaf. Between her fingers it was limp, and the edges were yellow and black. She sliced the stem open and the innards dripped out. For some reason anxiety seized her, and she cupped the dying plant in her hands, reciting her prayer of growth.
The response was weak. She shook her head, tried to clear her thoughts. She was flustered, of course. Her prayers wouldn't be answered if her heart was not empty and pure, so instead she set out to try and find her friend.
She might not have noticed the change if she had not kept records of her harvest that spanned many years. But as she sent off the latest shipment to the town market, she tallied up the harvest over a cup of tea and leaned back in her chair, quill pinched on top of her lips. The changes were tiny, miniscule ... but undeniable. Less and less every year.
So she decided to walk to visit her friends at the edge of Cadia.
It wasn't a long journey, within a day, but she packed to bivouac and set off at dawn. Outside the town center, where bone was reinforced with iron to create rickety towers that scraped the top of Cadia, amenities rapidly decayed, and nights could get uncomfortably cold away from the veins where Cadia's warm blood circulated.
She took an ambling journey, and scouted out a vein to sleep for the night. Under a light blanket, she studied the faint night sky through the dome, and enjoyed the ringing in her ears that signaled the absence of the town bustle. On a whim she peered through a pothole, a place along the walls of Cadia where the skin was stretched rigidly transparent.
Outside Cadia sprawled a desert covered in bioluminescent fungus. She knew the stories told by the Long Range Patrol - spend five minutes in the cloud and your lungs would rot beyond the help of magic and medicine, and even with a gill-mask, nothing out there was edible. The beauty of the scenery laid before her buttressed her wonder that Cadia could provide shelter, food, and safety, breathing in the air and purifying it, a hard chitinous shell thousands of paces long, and veins beating with heat and magic, as if Cadians and Cadia were meant to be together.
At dawn and she broke fast on some meat sliced off a nearby outgrowth, boiled into a stew with the vegetables from her pack. By noon she arrived at her friends place, it was strangely quiet. The homestead looked abandoned, and the field was fallow. She squatted at the edge of the plowed field and stuck her hands into the soil, feeling for life. Not much.
She walked down the field towards the house, and bent down again at the sight of a wilted leaf. Between her fingers it was limp, and the edges were yellow and black. She sliced the stem open and the innards dripped out. For some reason anxiety seized her, and she cupped the dying plant in her hands, reciting her prayer of growth.
The response was weak. She shook her head, tried to clear her thoughts. She was flustered, of course. Her prayers wouldn't be answered if her heart was not empty and pure, so instead she set out to try and find her friend.
Last edited:
