Not (Just) A Mage Lord Isekai-Chapter 60 - Tourists

"Nexxa!" I practically screamed as I dove forward, my feet struggling for traction on the wet surface. Her arm slapped my in the face as I grabbed at her, regretting not taking the time to close off the sides properly. Still, I snagged her by the back of her travel robe before she could slide off between the branches.

When I pulled her up, I was shocked to realize the arm she’d slapped me with was bent the total wrong direction. I immediately hit her with Minor Heal, though the spell wasn't particularly effective at broken limbs.

"Good-" Nexxa started, but her words were broken up as she coughed several times, then she gave me a weak smile. "Good to see you too."

I continued to channel Minor Heal even as I looked around for something I could use as a splint. "What are you doing here? What happened?"

"Little mishap. Ran into… something," Nexxa said, waving her right hand vaguely back and forth as she took a deep breath. "I'll be fine, just gimme…"

She closed her eyes for a second, and I shook her, hard. "Don't go to sleep on me." I hadn't seen her hit her head when she fell, but that didn't mean anything. For all I knew, she'd gotten a concussion doing whatever had broke her arm. “Heal yourself already!”

"Not sleeping, just needed to… Ahhh, there it is," Nexxa said, her words becoming more crisp as her arm snapped back into place with a series of disturbing pops. Once they finished, she let out a long sigh before a grin slid onto her face. "Awww. Were you worried little brother?"

"Damn straight," I said, pulling her into a tight hug before I could think better of it.

"Ha, I should run into a dragon more often," Nexxa said, squeezing back hard enough to make me wheeze.

"Did you say dragon? Giant blue and gold one by any chance?" I asked once I leveraged an arm up to break free of her now fully intact limbs. "Also, how the heck are you still so much stronger than me?"

"Uh… I do remember a lot of blue and gold. Didn't actually get a good look," Nexxa said with a shrug as she leaned back, looking to the side. "Felt like one when I smacked into it though. Turns out I wasn't the only one crazy enough to use the storm to travel."

"Speaking of which… why?" I asked as I pushed to my feet, inspecting her more closely.

Nexxa waved a finger under my nose. "What? You don't want to see your big sis?"

"That's not-"

"Chill, Perry," Nexxa cut me off while pushing at my shoulder. "Was taking advantage of the weather. The Captain warned me she wouldn't be able to deliver this week cause of the mana-storm rolling in from the east. So, I thought to myself, just what could I do with all that extra mana. And then I thought about how I'd have to wait for it while you'd get it early. And how it’d basically be a free trip."

"I… you used the mana from the storm to get here faster? It's that big?"

"I mean, it won't reach my domain for a couple days, but that's not a big deal," Nexxa said. Then her smile faded. "Especially cause I needed to talk to you."

It was at that moment that Calbern arrived with a pair of hot meals. Crispy mat tubers with soft bits of Inferno Drake, all rolled up in the green leaf that definitely wasn't lettuce. "Ah, Lady Nexxa. Delightful to have you join us."

"Hey Calbern," Nexxa said, her smile returning for a second as her gaze flicked to the food. "I'd love to catch up, but I'm afraid I can't stay for long."

"Surely, you can afford to stay for a single meal," Calbern said, holding one of the bowls in her direction. "You have traveled a rather long way to leave so soon."

"I… yeah, alright. Not like an hour or two's gonna change things," Nexxa agreed, glancing towards the storm before accepting the bowl from him. After accepting the second bowl from Calbern, I led her over to my favorite spot to hang my legs and watch Tetherfall from above.

As we sat down, Nexxa's gaze swept over the village. She shifted, picking up her fork without really using it. Then she set it back down. "This is a peak Dragon roost. Got a lot more people to look after than I expected though."

I had to think for a second before I realized Nexxa was using slang and that the village wasn't an actual peak dragon roost. At least, I thought it was unlikely that was what she meant. "Yeah. A few less than when I got here. Wasn't the smoothest handoff."

"What'd you do, try to impress them with your dance moves? Would've scared me too."

I snorted, then shook my head. "Bunch of the local guards'd been abusing their positions. They weren't very welcoming."

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"Ah, Rift," Nexxa said, looking down at her bowl again, poking at it with her fork. "That bad?"

"Bad enough to deserve death," I said. I hadn't thought too much about them since. That'd been partially deliberate. I'd been throwing myself into my work to keep myself from thinking about it. Calbern and I still weren't back to where we'd been. I'd been avoiding thinking about that too.

"Good thing you did something about them then," Nexxa said, clapping my shoulder.

"Yeah, I 'spose… so, what did you need to tell me?"

"Ah, right," Nexxa said, finally spearing her breakfast and taking a bite. Her eyes lit up as she stabbed another mouthful. "This is *hmph* really good."

"Yeah, Tresla's decided to try her hand at cooking. Turns out she has a talent for it," I said, forking a mouthful of my own. I figured that Nexxa was working up to whatever she had to tell me.

Which meant it was bad news. I just didn't know if it was bad news for me, bad for her, or just a rough time all round.

Nexxa finished off the last bite, and gazed longingly at her empty bowl before staring at the last few bites in mine. Then she set her bowl to the side and pushed to her feet. "Why don't you give me a tour?"

"Are you sure? Didn't you-"

"Calbern was right. I can afford to take time to… what is that?" Nexxa asked, her gaze drifting in the direction of the workshop. And Inertia.

Next to the Forgeborn was the mostly rebuilt Fang. It was a bit longer than it'd been before, with a larger rear wheel and better piping for the heat to vent out the sides. It looked like a proper motorcycle now, instead of the rigid monstrosity it'd been when we first assembled it.

"Right. You haven't seen Fang," I said, quickly finishing off the last of my own bowl before Nexxa could steal it from me. "It's a fun little side project we've been working on."

"Is that how you got here so Rifting fast? Was sure I'd catch up to you halfway along the high road," Nexxa said, waving a hand to the west. "Figured I'd be warning you about the storm, not catching you on the far side of it."

"Fang saved us lots of time, for sure," I replied, gesturing her closer. "You should see the way Calbern gets whenever he drives. Total madman."

She followed along quietly as I showed her the new and improved Fang. Inertia had really gone all out. While the original Fang had used a relatively simple system to handle… well, pretty much everything, Inertia had used the last week to rebuild it from the ground up. It still wasn’t equivalent to a motorcycle from Earth, at least in complexity. But there was actual suspension now, the brakes shouldn’t require someone of Calbern’s level to use without flipping it end over end, and the passengers should be able to adjust the heat levels themselves.

All solid upgrades.

Nexxa listened patiently as I explained the new compression system Inertia had installed, though her gaze kept drifting to the retreating storm in the distance.

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"That bad, huh?" I asked as I wrapped up the demonstration, allowing Inertia to return to work.

"Maybe. You remember that little performance those elves held?"

"The one where they attempted to kill half the bar? Yeah, hard to forget," I said with a snort. "Guessing they're making trouble back home?"

"Not just back home. They're attacking everyone. Althon had them invade just south of the city. Not just invaders, either."

"They drive monsters ahead of them with their music?"

"Worse, refugees. Refugees fleeing from Terra Vista, for Front's sake. The most stable country on the continent. The Captain figures they're at war with themselves," Nexxa said, shaking her head. "It's all part of that stupid Final Refrain. Apparently the entire Edge came under attack. Some of Althon’s Magus Domini are even fighting with each other. And someone’s started doing air raids."

"You think I'm gonna have to worry about raids here?" I asked, glancing over at the sole storehouse that served that purpose."Not much for them to take."

"Probably not. But then, it sounds like they're rifting zealots. That's not what I was warning you about though. Refugees, remember? Not everyone went to the City on the Water. Turns out word of us new Magus Domini got spread around down south. About how we have lots of space. Captain said she'd already had people trickling in, asking for passage before I decided to pop over. There were a lot more escaping along the Storm Coast. You'll have them too, soon."

"I have elves coming here?" I asked, trying to picture incorporating elves into Tetherfall. If they were like the forest loving elves I'd read about back when I still went to school, they'd fit right in.

None of my understanding of Ro'an implied that'd be the case though.

"Not just elves. Turns out Terra Vista isn't as… oh, what's the word… starts with an H, I think, means all-the-same but…" Nexxa screwed up her face, tilting her head back before shaking it. "Bah, whatever. Point is, they're not all elves. Maybe half, at most. The elves are the ones doing the fighting, and most of them aren't hauling tail like a hydra's trying to bite it off."

"Huh. And they're coming here?"

"Like I said, someone decided they'd spread the word about the new Magus Domini. And you're right on the ocean, the only Magus this direction for hundreds of miles."

I raised an eyebrow at that, looking around.

"Eh, close enough," Nexxa said, waving in the general direction of the coast to the east.

"I don't think you appreciate how hard it is for most folk to scale cliffs, miss prodigy," I said as I waved for her to follow me to the edge of the chasm where Tetherfall lay. "Do you see how many ropes and nets they need? And these are folk used to living on one."

"Guess you're gonna need to build some stairs or something," Nexxa said, clapping me on the shoulder. "Or a lot more ladders."

"Speaking of stairs," I said, my gaze sliding towards the entrance to the Ways Between. "There's some things I need to show you before you go."

"Yes! Tour! Definitely need a tour of my little brother's domain," Nexxa said, clapping her hands together as she looked around. "Speaking of which, where's your beacon?"

"Soon as I find it, I'll let you know," I said, shaking my head. "Come on."

Nexxa followed behind me as we traversed along the nets of Tetherfall to Bevel's hiding entrance. She let out a laugh at the crude hiding method that concealed the Waygate. She wasn't laughing so much once we stepped through.

"You have a rifting Gate in your domain? And it's working?" Nexxa asked as she squatted down next to the frame we'd just passed through, running her fingers over the runes.

"They don't go far, but we've actually got more than one," I said, tapping her shoulder and getting her to turn around.

"An entire Rifting network?" Nexxa asked, taking a single step forward into the cleared chamber. Then she turned back to me, a sharp glint in her eyes. “Oh Per per. This is absolutely… per-fect.”