Cyber Mortality

Chapter 56:

"Wear this," Zephyr tosses a pair of black clothes my way.

"What is it?" I shake out the fabric and stare at the one piece suit.

"It'll help regulate the pressure around your body so you don't have to worry about it as much," he explains while equipping his own. It hugs his body like a scuba suit and shows off his toned lithe body.

"You look like a burglar..." I mutter as he pulls on a pair of visor-like goggles.

"You'll thank me," Zephyr sighs and tosses a pair of goggles my way as well. "You can go as fast as you want while wearing this stuff."

"How fast?" my eyes go wide.

"I've topped out at four-hundred and fifty kilometers per hour," he shrugs.

"What?" my jaw drops and I look up at the sky. "I thought I was going pretty fast earlier, but that was partially due to terminal velocity."

"I doubt you even topped two hundred," Zephyr smirks after adjusting his suit. "Are you going to get ready, or what?"

"Oh yeah," I equip the suit and instantly feel naked due to the weightless feeling of the cloth against my skin. "How on earth does this protect you from pressure? It's hardly there."

"It's magic, duh," he rolls his eyes. "It's been enchanted. The goggles too."

"What about these goggles is enchanted?" I pull them on and glance around. "Whoa!" It seems as if I am looking with my naked eyes. There is no light distortion and I can hardly remember they are still resting across my nose and cheek bones.

"Pretty cool, right? When you get up there in speed the goggles used to smash really hard into my face, but after some tinkering, they're enchanted to perfection," Zephyr raises his chin proudly.

"How did you find an enchanter who could do this kind of enchanting?" I question and take a few steps in my suit. The ground doesn't hurt my feet, so the soles of the suit must be padded.

"I enchanted them," he replies after checking through the last of his gear.

"Whoa," for being a jerk most of the time, he was pretty amazing. A wind mage like no other and an amazing enchanter. He's a good teacher too, I suppose.

"Shall we?" Zephyr steps into the air and turns back to look at me.

"We shall," I nod, double check the quarter sized beacon tied around my neck, and then leap into the sky.

Zephyr smirks when he sees I have caught up to him. He pushes himself faster until he is simply a dot in the sky ahead of me. Memories of training with him surface and spur me on. This time I would catch him.

With the goggles and suit to protect my body, I draw on my magic like never before. It wells up inside me like a volcano before I thrust it out through my hands and feet. The dot in the distance grows larger by the second until I can nearly catch his ankle. Zephyr dips, slows, and then presses on the side of his goggles. A shiny metallic armor seeps out until it encompasses his whole head, similar to the neural gear to use the gaming system.

"Good luck," Zephyr's voice crackles in my ear before he rockets away.

Remembering what he did, I feel around the side of my head until my finger finds a button. I press it in. The winds stop thrashing at my face and all is still. A rather odd sensation since my eyes still register my speeding form in the sky.

"So you figured out how to turn it on," Zephyr chuckles from beside me. I whip in the air and look, but he is not there. "It's a speaker, dummy. You should notice information at the edges of your vision as well."

I glance down to the right and see a number steadily increasing with KPH written next to it. 290 flashes for a second before continuing higher. A cross-hair flashes before my eyes for a moment to draw my attention to Zephyr lazily flying several hundred meters ahead of me.

"We should be nearing the castle if its location is fixed," Zephyr's voice filters into my ear again. "If you noticed, the first time you look at something you will see a cross-hair and a number beside it."

I didn't notice the number.

"This is to tell you the distance away an object is. There is also a setting that will leave the cross-hair and distance on, but I found it rather distracting when flying." He explains. "

A cross-hair suddenly flashes and draws my attention up and to the right. In the distance a small dot hovers sixteen thousand meters away.

Zephyr slows upon noticing the object as well.

"Whoa," we fly side by side as we approach the growing dot. "That must be it," Zephyr deduces.

At our speed it only takes a moment to approach the castle. The tall spires glimmer in the sunlight.

"It's massive," Zephyr sucks in a breath. "How do you even know where to go in that thing?"

"I'm sure we will get herded in by whatever challenge there is," I purse my lips, remembering the last dungeon."I'm sure theres one way in."

"I don't know," Zephyr replies. "Perhaps into the stronghold, but there are walls and gates everywhere just inside the outer-walls. You said you saw those Pteros when you got close to the castle?"

Before I can reply, the air shudders and a high pitched whistle sounds.

"Oh, that can't be good," Zephyr says just as five cross-hairs blink across the right side of my vision.