...And Grimoires

Britannia fell to her knees, gasping for breath. Her face got real red when she was angry about something. Her black hair fell across her face as her eyes looked menacingly at Null. Null jumped back.

"Jeez, why're you staring at me like that? You're the one who wanted this…" Null's attitude was too much for Britannia. Huffing, she raised herself with her sword.

"Always so mean… toying with me with your limitless stamina. Do you ever get tired?" Britannia said as she opened her mouth slightly to let her wind magic to let air cycle through the nose and mouth faster. The wind's vibrations made it all the way to Null's ears as a deep whistle. Britannia was ready for an all-out assault. A flurry of well-placed strikes and slashes had Null on her toes. Her sword's back had small indentations, as well as being shaped in a rather odd way, acting as a sail that catches the wind to deliver quick, maneuverable, and heavy-hitting blows. But this was not the only reason why Null was backing up intensely. Pollen magic, one of the combinations of earth and wind magic, both were types Britannia was very keen with. Nearly everyone could use all forms of basic elemental magic, but the real joy was combining two or more to create a new magic entirely. Though these forms of magic took a little bit more time to get the hang of, their payoff was easy to see. Pollen magic could apply a variety of ailments on its victims, from paralysis to parasitism. Knowing Britannia, it was a mix of both. She grows increasingly sour the more she feels like she's losing, what a pain. Time to get this over with. Null swung her spear, locking the weapons together. Forming a root by Britannia's heel, she heaved the girl over, sliding the spear past her sword and right down on her armored chest. She was lucky these were practice weapons, else she'd be impaled right through.

"Hey, that's dirty!" Britannia said coughing with a dumb smile across her face. Null rolled her eyes while helping her up

"There's no foul play in combat. Use whatever works, they sure will." Null spoke from her own experience as she covered her mouth with a cloth. If tripping was the worst someone could do to them, there'd be no worries for them. Britannia had the luxury of going to some academy before joining as a knight. Null only had on-the-job training since she was ten, and it's worked just fine for her. So far. Null's ears twitched at a distant sound. The head servant, Geof, was calling out to them.

"Null, Britannia, The Lady would like you to accompany her on a trip to the market."

"Why escort her there? It's not like she'll be robbed. She's pretty feisty, after all"

"No, it's not that. It's just, she wants someone to talk to, to occupy her time."

"Sure she does…" Null sighed. "I don't get paid enough for this."

"What was this about payment?" a deep womanly voice teased. Null nearly jumped out of her boots.

"Nothing my lady, the pay is great! Especially for someone like me."

"So you don't want a raise in your pay?"

"Well, honestly, my lady, who could say no to that?"

"Great, my child! I'll make sure to raise it sometime this decade."

Who knew jokes could hurt this much?

"Come, Null, Britannia! I've got some very special ingredients to pick up. They've been imported all the way from the Skyliner Islands, just east of Yurakai! Dragonhide!"

Null still did not seem too thrilled.

"Fine, If you come… I'll give you some free stuffffff!" The Lady larked. Fast as lightning, Null's eyes glittered with excitement. Lady Eleanora's gifts were no joke.

"Right away, M'lady! Hurry up, Britannia! Not a moment to lose."

As they walked to the road, Lady El cast her golem magic on the primitive car in the driveway. The beams creaked and sprouted many eye-like patterns around itself. The doors opened and the three climbed inside.

"Take us to the central town market, please." She said as she tapped the creature with memory magic to install the route. Lady El sighed.

"Hmph, I should really study up on my golem skills. My golems only hold out for a day. I've heard Lady Damascus can animate golems indefinitely. Then again, she is very fond of earth-related magic… That aside, how is your training going, my dears? Is Britannia keeping up?" To this, Britannia shifted around, ready to take some heat for her shortcomings.

"She's progressing… just slower than I had anticipated. She will become an excellent knight if she learns some level 3 magic…" There are four levels of magic, the first being primary elemental magic, the fourth being four or more combined elemental magic types. Pollen was level two, not good or bad. Pretty mediocre, for a knight supposed to defend nobility.

"So I'll need to find a different tutor?"

"HUH? What? My Lady, please-" Britannia broke out from her silence. She was only joking around with Null whenever they fought, she did not actually want to be torn away from her!

"I'm afraid so." Null laid down the truth. She could only refine techniques, not teach new ones, as she herself can oddly enough only use one technique.

"I suppose I'll have to find you a new one after my meeting with a special someone later today!"

"Who are you meeting?" Null's curiosity got the better of her as Britannia whimpered in the corner about being completely forgotten about already.

"A Grimoire user. Oh, I can't wait-I can't wait-I can't wait! I won't get into too much detail, though. It's a secret, for now!" Lady El teased as she squirmed energetically. A grimoire user? Null's face changed subtly, her face hard to read. Grimoire users were usually nobility, the top of human society, but their line between good and evil grayed beyond comparison. It only made sense, as level 4 magic never came without a price. Just to make one grimoire…

As they came in front of the great gates of the town, Null couldn't help but always be in awe of the structure. Many great hexagonal growths of iron pierced from the ground, towering overhead at a slant. They curved off out of view in a perfect circle, each growth bonded to the other like a tight fence, no gap left in between. Each metal crystal had to be several feet thick, hiding the treasures inside. As they crossed the threshold of the gates, large numbered pedestals with ramps upwards were placed at the end of each branched-out road. The elevation system. Cars and carts rolled onto the great pedestals to be encased in boxes of light that ascended the people with their vehicles. There was even a pedestal for pedestrians. But where were these pedestals taking them? To the real town, in the sky. As Null and friends watched as the lightboxes encased them, they jolted, drawn upwards unaided by any wires or cables of sorts. These boxes traveled at a slow, relaxed pace, with a great view. They looked up to be engulfed in a cloud, much thicker than any fog. When their view was unobstructed, they saw it.

Angel's Crown!

It was not a city of gold nor was it a village of dirt. It was a town of steel, formed on the first-ever artificially created floating island. The town's history went way back to when Lady Damascus, the primary wielder of the Grimoire of Steel, first summoned its gates of raw iron from the flat flowery Kilauea plains to the surface and raised her city of steel into the sky using her and her people's jet magic. This was to protect the people from the God of Monsters' reign before his fall to the God of Pain, back when the earth was untame and humans didn't conquer earth as peer adversaries to the other races. With this iron defense, the town's people were able to hurl down magic like rainstorms from the sky, bombarding the army monsters and creating pits and divots in the process, valleys and hills later forming over years of erosion at ground-level, a testament to the legacy of Damascus and her townspeople. Though this town doesn't have the vastness of the sky continents of the Skyliner Islands or the cloud-splitting skyscrapers of Yukai, Yurakai's capital, it was a place Null loved calling home. It was on these ever-shined path tiles that Inori came to the steps of the Iron Cathedral with a green-eyed baby in her hands, pleading for someone to identify or take care of the child. Now, as her adoptive mother, she had always reminded her that the grasses and flowers grow ever more proudly after even the wildest of storms, because storms, though harsh, can both destroy and sustain. It was the same with her. Tragedies don't always end so nicely, but when they do, you can only laugh and be thankful. And her mother was. Had she not picked baby Null up before people walked out at daybreak, who knows how things would've gone. She could've been sold into slavery, or made a cash cow for her gold hair.

The two reminisced at familiar sights as the car strolled along on this hexagonal-brick road. It has been a couple of months since Null had stopped living up here to go live on the ground. Truth be told, It was simply too expensive up here. Hence why her mother allowed her to sell some of that precious golden hair. However, the markets on the ground were pretty bland and didn't have on the topic of international trade. The car stopped suddenly, signaling its masters that it was parked with a quiet tap of its horn. As they when out onto the sidewalk, the market's walls hovered above them. Time to find out what goodies could be found within. As they approached the golden-lined steel door, The apparition of translucent chains came into sight. The chains locked onto the gate-like door, heaving it with mighty clanks. On the threshold of the newly-opened door, refraction waved and blurred the contents of the inner megastructure. This door was actually a portal to a pocket dimension, only accessible by way of gates of steel and living gold. This marketplace entrance was somewhat new, being only a decade old. Null wondered, was it her hair making up part of this golden lining? As they stepped through, they felt a slight compression on their bodies, and the room opened up to them. The black ironclad ceiling seemed to look like it touched the sky, steel beams running along it like a square grid, a major change to the relatively small wooden-beamed housing on the ground. Gargantuan pillars of hexagonal metal ore rose from the bottom to the top of the structure, no doubt much-needed structural support. Countless stands, illuminated by miniature suns hovering several feet above each one. The gaseous spheres came in many colors, red, yellow, white, blue, even low-light brown ones. On these stands, many mysteries of the world were brought down to this one location. They had the Angel's Crown's local specialties, of course. Many magical birds flock here, giving hunters and tamers a wide variety of selling materials. Phoenix feathers, wyvern hides, and, of course, an angel's crown. A halo was in auction every year, and sold for prices many could not afford even if they saved for five lifetimes. Angels were a species bonded to the sky, their long lifespans making them calm and wise. But when a young angel ventures too close to this town of steel, people will do what they've always done. Since the two races were once at war, there were no laws against this treatment. And since angels cannot take their own vengeance, they could only scorn humans even more.

"Come now, I've already gotten a halo. Hurry, while it's still in stock." The Lady said. Null wondered. What would Lady El need a halo for? They had a variety of uses, one of them being…

They happened upon what Lady El was searching for, as she sifted through the foriegn hides. Pit-trapper's, Mud Crocs. No, that's the wrong pile. There we go! Sun-snake, Quetzalcotl, DRAGON HIDE. Lady El could not contain her excitement as she asked the standsperson,

"This is the Greater Tribal Dragon, correct?"

"Yes, of course!"

"Amazing, how much for it?"

"Two-hundred thousand."

Two-hundred… THOUSAND? Null almost fainted. Lady El motioned for the shopkeeper to give her the contract. Banks in this world were automatic, and were based on combination magic bonding contract magic and teleportation magic. All of the world's money, reliant on one Grimoire user's power, someone who doesn't even involve herself in her bank that often, being busy with fixing all sorts of other issues. Without her, these processes would no doubt be a lot more stressful. With the dragonhide in her arms, Lady El turned herself and walked in another direction, the two following close behind.

"Now that I've gotten what I want, what about you two? Go ahead, search the place. Find something under five-thousand."

"F-Five thousand!?" Null raised her voice.

"A-Are you sure, My Lady?" Britannia said.

"Each." Lady El reassured. The two's ghosts floated right out of their mouths before they slurped them up again, running different ways. What to get, what to get! Ever-water goblets? No. Feather robe? No. Fire-rat kimono? Tempting, but no. Here it is. From the sea of sand itself, a blade unlike any she had seen before was on display. Their foreign name was unknown to Null, but the locals here referred to them as the "Bejeweled saber" of Sarahare. Bordering the ocean, Sarahare was a continent of barren sand at its surface, its real cities lying within. With a hilt and sheath of living gold and a blade of mercury-silver, its curve accented both royalty and ferocity. three emeralds lined the blade's sheath, the last emerald mounted on the handle. The price: five-thousand, two-hundred. Null could pay the extra two hundred. This sword was magically conductive, allowing her to possibly use another type of magic. Throughout her entire life, she could only use plant magic. A strange but not unheard of occurrence. What was unique about her, though, is that she could not use the magic types that combine to form magic. Doctors and witches of every kind were confused about this, but marked it off as an unknown defect. Perhaps it was from falling and scratching her head after birth, an incident that left a slight narrow scar on the left side of her head to this day. Null came back with the sword on her belt as Lady El and she looked for Britannia. She had her hair in a braided bun today, so it shouldn't be too hard to find. There she was, looking at necklaces and bracelets. With all of her combat needs tended to, she had the audacity for such a luxury. Ugh, rich people. As she snapped a silver lace with a small shimmering opal to her neck, she felt a tug on her hair. A small red monkey, with iddy biddy horns? It was trying to undo her bun?! Britannia screamed, and without thinking, flung the monkey to the ground. It bounced on its fluff, looking back with a betrayed look. This tugged at Britannia's heartstrings.

"Oh, I'm sorry little one!" She exclaimed, half in shock. The monk was not fooled. It sat there, pouting as if it were human. Suddenly, the monkey gravitated sideways. The monk jumped to cling to Britannia for life, but was sentenced to fall back in its cage.

"I'm SO sorry about that. This rascal always finds new ways out of his cage, the nasty little thing…" The creature's stand shopkeeper said as she began to walk away with the monkey behind bars. The monk looked back, reaching an arm out for Britannia. Now that she got a closer look, the monkey was in chains! No! Britannia could not let this happen!

"Uh, ma'am, How much for the monkey?" Britannia asked. The shopkeeper stopped, and like a creaky puppet turned her head to the girl.

"250 please and thank you! (Just get this thing off of me)" she said before going into a mumbling whisper. Britannia looked at the necklace. Four thousand. Lucky her! A necklace and a monk! As Lady El signed the contract, Britannia raised the monkey into the air with her arms.

"You better be a good boy, now that you've been freed!" She laughed with a smile that the monk found to be hiding something truly menacing.

As they made their way into the car, Null couldn't help but notice the dragon hide her lady was keeping very careful watch of.

"So, what are you going to do with that, my lady?"

"I guess I should tell you now." Lady El said with a hand brushing on her wide-brimmed white hat. Her glass-like clear hair shined a pearly white as the gaps between her snowy eyelashes closed with her eyes.

"Why, a Grimoire, of course!"