You double time it onto the ship, throwing off the mooring line as you go. Leon gets the other line, and with everyone on the ship it pulls away from the island.

About 100 feet from the island, the giant wolf leaps up from the basin and lands on the edge where you all were just minutes ago. It stares out across the sky directly at your ship leaving, but doesn't make any further moves. The wolf then begins pacing around the rim of the island, still watching you until it can't keep its head craned back any longer.

Everyone heaves a collective sigh, and you begin the flight back to Madosa.



Midway through the flight, you see Karina peering over the rail, watching the clouds pass by. No islands in sight, just the blue above and the white-grey of the clouds and abyss below.
Karina: "Wow... it's still amazing to see the wide open sky like this. It's just... bottomless."

Not a lot.
It's under all of the known sky. Below that is a mystery. Going down into it is a bad idea, there's no known cases of anyone ever coming back out. Rarely, there are storms in it and big bolts of lightning get spit out, magical and mundane. It disrupts any magic that gets cast into it, and blocks normal fog or haze penetrating magic or technology.
Way back when you were a kid, other children said that the abyss would eat their soul if they fell into it, but that also sounds like the kind of thing parents would tell their children to make sure they don't fall off an island to their death.

Karina: "Bottom? But, there's nothing, it's bottomless. You'd just, fall forever. Right?"

Creation of matter, no not really. Everything has to come from somewhere. You can't just create it from nowhere.
Well. You have heard that there are some high level earth and water spells that can form earth and water from thin air. But you didn't learn anything more in the academy about them.

Magic matter is a thing though, in a way. Magic can bind to normal matter and make it stronger, or have unusual properties. There's two kinds of magic material effects; bound and flow.
Bound effect is magic tied directly and tightly to the matter, and the magic gives the material strength beyond what it would normally have. A magic steel sword for instance can take strikes with no problem that normal steel would chip or break from. Almost all high end equipment is made from bound materials.
Flow effect is magic bound to the matter, but instead of providing structural integrity, they cause effects when magic flows through it. A metal that heats up when filled with mana, or stone that gets heavier, or fur that hardens. All sorts of things.

They can be in combination on the same substance too, usually with both effects weaker than if they were alone.

Oooold. Nobody really knows how old the sky and the world itself are. Records only reliably go back maybe 1000 years, and unreliably several thousand.


Creation stories... Not your field of expertise. The most common ones are around the Elemental Lords, saying that the original eight of them created the sky, the abyss, the islands, and all things that are here. They then turned into the great mana networks that flow through the sky, passing their title down to a worthy successor. You've heard more than one variant of that, but the core elements are the same. Sometimes there are claims of a ninth hidden lord, or that some of the lords came later when the true originals got lonely.

Other than that, there's the Atlas belief, who who say that all the islands were formed from the abyss by an all powerful deity called Atlas, and raised up on His arms where they currently reside. According to them, all things persist and exist with His blessing, and if he were displeased then all things could be returned to abyss.

The abyss itself tends to be contentious in these stories. Generally it's just agreed that it has always been there. The fact that it's so impermeable makes actual investigation difficult, so there isn't much consensus on it or what's below it, if anything IS below it.
It is known for a fact that sometimes islands descend down into the abyss, never to be seen again, and sometimes new ones rise up out of it. It's a rare occurrence though, only happens to maybe a few islands a year in the entire sky.
The Elemental Lords are as quiet and mysterious on this phenomenon as they are most subjects, which is to say very.

Karina: "Maybe, but... If there's something down there, below the abyss, then, what is below that? And, then below that? How many layers does it go? What is below all of the layers?
It seems simpler that it just, goes forever."

Karina: "Heheh. Just live in a falling house forever? Check the weather outside, yup still abyss!"

On the way back to Madosa you set into the wolfbeast and get disassembling. You have a lot of difficulty cutting through its flesh actually, you can definitely feel the body reinforcement in this thing's flesh. Despite that, you manage to get everything you go for with some effort. Probably need to care for your knife now, though.
The fangs are tough, but you did sort of explode them. A good number are chipped or broken, but the canines and the big ones near the back are all intact. You remember that the canines from the Dire were as long as your finger, but these go from finger to mid palm. A total of 4 fangs, 4 big big rear teeth, and 6 smaller intact assorted teeth.
Now that you see it up close, they're big enough that it can't even close its mouth fully. What a weird creature.
The claws are easy compared to the fangs, no skull to pry them out of. They also didn't take any blast damage, so you're able to salvage all of them, 4 per paw, 16 in total.
You remember the tail was also desirable, with a bit of slicing manage to cut that clean off. The fur is pretty stiff and bristly, but not abnormal for a big animal's fur.
Which just leaves the pelt. Tough to cut off, but you manage. You marvel at the size after fully skinning it, big enough to wrap you like a blanket twice over. You gag a bit at the idea of wrapping yourself in the pelt.


Soon after you finish skinning the wolfbeast, the ship makes it back to Madosa and you all disembark.
Frederic: "I hurt all over. Come on Gram, let's get healed up.
Karina, do you and Leon want to go cash in the parts while we visit the healers?"

Karina: "Okay. Leon's carrying them!"
Leon: "Aww, what? Come on, they're gross..."
Karina: "And I'm a lady. You're going to make a lady carry all those gross things?"