Chapter 3: Tools of Flight
Dawn was a grey smear over Marhaven when the first hunt arrived. Kael had not slept. In the damp, hidden cellar beneath an abandoned net-mender's shed—a bolt-hole he'd prepared years ago but never used—he had worked through the night in a state of cold, hyper-focused mania.
The contents of his emergency pack were laid out on a rough stone table: his infusion stylus, three fist-sized mana batteries, a spool of wyrm-gut wire, a block of sky-iron, a pouch of basic elemental powders, and his small, dormant spider automaton. Beside them lay the blood-price: the dead agent's data-crystal. It wasn't just information; it was a catalyst. The final, shattering proof that turned ten years of passive hiding into active, burning purpose.
His mind, unleashed from the constraints of repairing clocks, whirred like one of his own engines. Schematics unfolded behind his eyes, not as idle dreams, but as urgent blueprints for survival. The Tecnomancer class, starved for a decade, stirred hungrily.
First, the spider. Its polishing appendages were too delicate. He disassembled it with swift, sure movements, his hands remembering their royal precision. Using the sky-iron and a controlled burst of arcane heat from his stylus, he forged four new, needle-tipped legs. He filled the hollow cores with a concentrated soporific serum distilled from cellar fungi and sleep-root. A tiny pressure-plate mechanism, linked to a micro-mana pulse. It was no longer a cleaner. It was a Needler-Scout.
Next, the harmonic resonator he'd been perfecting for irrigation. The principle was sound, but its application needed… aggression. He wired the main crystal to two of the mana batteries in sequence, overriding the safety limiters. He calibrated the output frequency not to the gentle flow of water, but to the resonant pitch of the human inner ear and the standard incantation harmonics for low-level combat spells. It became a jagged, hand-held device—the Disruptor Array.
His masterpiece was born from despair and necessity. Using the remaining sky-iron, the thickest wire, and the third mana battery as a core, he built a weapon. It was crude, inelegant, a brutalist sculpture of necessity. A reinforced tube served as a barrel. A series of concentric runes, etched with shaking but determined hands, formed a kinetic acceleration matrix. The power source was a one-shot overcharge capacitor. He had no time for a proper stock, so he welded a makeshift brace to fit against his shoulder. He named it, with bleak humor, Cinder. For what it would reduce its targets to.
He was screwing the final housing plate onto Cinder when the sound of methodical boots on cobblestones stopped outside the shed above. Not the casual shuffle of fishermen. This was the synchronized tread of trained soldiers.
"Check the shed. The fugitive was last seen in this district. He's a tinkerer. He'll seek a workshop." The voice was clipped, authoritative.
Kael's breath stilled. He heard the shed door splinter open. A few moments of silence.
"Nothing. Just rust and rot."
"Check for a cellar. These old river-side sheds often have them."
Thud. Thud. A boot heel testing the floorboards. Directly above him.
There was no more time. Kael slung Cinder's heavy strap over his shoulder, pocketed the Needler-Scout and Disruptor, and grabbed his pack. He pressed himself against the cellar's rear wall, where the stone was oldest and most porous. He placed the Disruptor Array against it, took a deep breath, and activated it.
The device emitted no visible beam. Instead, a localized, teeth-jarring warbling filled the cellar. The ancient mortar between the stones turned to dust. With a groan, a section of the wall collapsed outward into the alley behind the shed, just as the cellar hatch was ripped open above.
"Down here!"
Kael scrambled through the hole into the chill morning air. He was in a narrow, refuse-clogged alley. Blocking the far end were two figures: a city guardsman looking nervous, and a man and woman in tailored grey tunics over light armor, bearing the silver hawk pin. Mage-Hunters. Their eyes glinted with professional interest.
"Prince Kaelen," the female hunter said, her voice smooth. "You're coming with us. The King is most eager for your… consultation."
Kael didn't speak. He dropped the Needler-Scout. It skittered across the wet stones with unsettling speed, leaping at the guardsman. The man yelped, batting at it. One needle-tipped leg pricked his ankle. He took two stumbling steps before his eyes rolled back and he collapsed.
The hunters reacted instantly. The man began a sharp, guttural incantation, fingers weaving. Chains of solidified shadow erupted from the ground at Kael's feet. The woman drew a slender wand, a spike of ice forming at its tip.
Kael raised the Disruptor Array and thumbed the activation rune.
The warbling hit them like a physical wave. The male hunter's incantation shattered in his throat, the half-formed shadow chains dissipating into smoke. He clutched his head, blood trickling from his nose. The female hunter's ice spike shattered harmlessly. She staggered, disoriented, her precise magical senses assaulted by the dissonant screech.
It was his opening. But the alley was too narrow, the hunters too close for Cinder. He needed distance.
He turned and ran deeper into the maze of alleys. Behind him, he heard a snarl of rage. "After him! He's just an artificer! Don't let him set up!"
Just an artificer. The old insult. It fueled his sprint.
He burst onto a slightly wider wharf-side lane. The river stretched grey and choppy to his left. The two hunters rounded the corner behind him, recovered and angry. The male hunter flung a fist-sized bolt of condensed darkness. Kael dodged, the bolt slamming into a brick wall and eating a pitted hole in it.
He had his distance.
He spun, dropping to one knee, the movement awkward under Cinder's weight. He brought the crude weapon to his shoulder, sighting down the uneven barrel. The male hunter was already beginning another, faster spell.
Kael poured his will into the activation matrix. Mana surged from the overcharge capacitor, screaming through the acceleration runes. The air in front of the barrel shimmered with heat haze. There was no gunpowder blast, only a deep, concussive THUMP that kicked into his shoulder like a mule.
A shimmering blur, a slug of superheated, magically-propelled sky-iron, tore across the space between them. The hunter's kinetic barrier—a standard defensive spell—flared bright violet for a microsecond before shattering like glass. The slug continued, tearing through the man's thigh with a spray of crimson and a sickening crunch of bone. He screamed, a high, shocked sound, and went down hard.
The female hunter froze, her wand half-raised, eyes wide with disbelief. She'd seen siege weapons. She'd seen battle magic. This… this was something else. Silent, sudden, brutally physical. It bypassed magical defenses through sheer, overwhelming kinetic force.
Kael didn't wait. He was already moving, the capacitor on Cinder spent, the barrel glowing cherry-red. He couldn't fire it again. He sprinted for the river's edge where a jumble of small, unattended dinghies were tied.
He heard the female hunter shout not in pursuit, but into a communication amulet. "Target encountered! He's armed with… unknown artifacts! Lethal! One hunter down! He's heading for the river! Seal the docks!"
As he leaped into a dinghy, slicing the rope with a monofilament wire from his kit, he risked a glance back. The female hunter was kneeling by her partner, applying a tourniquet, but her eyes were on him, filled with a new kind of wariness. He wasn't a fugitive prince. He was a hostile, unknown force.
He paddled frantically into the misty current, Marhaven receding. The physical exertion, the adrenaline crash, the visceral reality of what he'd just done—the shattered leg, the blood—hit him. He vomited over the side of the boat.
But beneath the shock and nausea, something else stirred. A fierce, terrible clarity. He had fought back. He had used the principles of his art not to nurture, but to break. And he had survived.
A notification, cool and objective, appeared in his mind's eye, untouched by the chaos.
Tecnomancer Rank Up: Expert(Rank 7, Level 5) -> Master (Rank 8, Level 1).
New Schematic Unlocked: Personal Kinetic Barrier (Basic).
New Schematic Unlocked: Mana-to-Kinetic Conversion Matrix (Improved Efficiency).
Attribute Increase: Physique +3, Mind +2, Arcane +3.
Knowledge, dense and practical, integrated into his consciousness. Formulas for personal shield emitters. Ways to make Cinder's successor 40% more efficient. His body felt stronger, his senses sharper, his mana reserves deeper.
He wasn't just a man on the run anymore. He was a Tecnomancer advancing under the pressure of combat. The class was awakening, and its path was being etched in fire and steel.
He guided the dinghy towards the far, wooded bank, his mind already analyzing the flaws in his devices, planning the next iterations. The harmless tinkerer was dead, buried in a Marhaven cellar. The fugitive heir was alive, armed, and evolving.