8 pm.
It was the start of nightlife for the less-than-desirables in the hot jazzy city of Topaz. Two dwarves slinked around until they found a hot happening place on the east side of town.
It was brightly lit, not with dolmia but with electricity.
The bar was a surfer's joint with a weather-beaten board hung out front that proudly said Surf Shack. There were people milling about chatting and drinking up a storm. Many were still hovering two feet off the ground on their hoverboards.
The two dwarves were hidden in a recessed corner some distance away, watching the hotspot.
Ziggy pointed to the boards. "You want one?"
Daran nodded. "I've never been on one before, but how hard can it be?"
Ziggy laughed and pulled two small wedges out of his pocket.
"I snagged two from the shop a few blocks down."
"What do you mean snag? Did you steal it?"
Ziggy threw him a disgusted look. "No. I bought them off a street vendor. These things are not that expensive, why would I need to steal them?"
He threw one of the wedges out in front of him and muttered a Power Command.
"Mashangjokai!"
Instantly, it morphed into a full-sized hoverboard hanging two feet off the ground.
Daran's eyes grew big. "Ooooh. That is one sweet mutha. I mean, aside from the sports team at the Academy, we never really use it to the extent that the southerners have adapted it to daily use."
"Yeah. For us, it's just something kids use as a sport or a hobby for fun. It's a way of life here in Topaz. Almost everyone uses it."
"Yeah and meanwhile, we are so damned conservative that we still use horse-drawn carriages like it's some ultra luxurious extravagance that only privileged people get to use."
Ziggy laughed. "It could also be the weather. It's too cold to fly this thing up in the blue yonder except in the summer for the Northern Realm. Here in the Southern Realm, it never really gets all that cold."
He stood there looking at the hoverboard. "It's been awhile since I've been on this thing, but let me see if I can still remember how to surf the blast."
He leaped onto the hoverboard, landing with both feet on its flat surface. Immediately, the board wobbled and keeled over, dumping the dwarf onto the ground.
"Oooof!!!" Ziggy groaned and rolled into a seated position. "It's harder than it looks."
"Obviously," Daran laughed. "Gimme the other one and let me try."
Ziggy threw him the second wedge and power-commanded it to full-size.
Daran approached the board with his hands outstretched. He felt the board all around and then nodded.
"I see where the center of gravity is located, so all I have to do is…" he levitated himself and slowly placed his feet in the area where he had identified as the center-of-gravity.
For a few minutes, Daran stood there with his hands out, balancing himself as best he could. There was a fat grin on his face showing how much fun it was to stand on a hovering board.
"Okay, I'm gonna move a couple of feet forward." He lowered himself in the direction he wanted to move.
Nothing happened.
"Wait a minute. How do you move this thing?"
Ziggy laughed. "It's not like a horse where you tell it to move and it moves on its own. You have to provide blast."
"What the hell's blast?" Daran scrunched down even further, willing with his mind for the board to move.
The board refused to mind-meld with him.
"Blast is energy that comes from atmospheric density. You have to use your mage power to blast density against something to make it move."
"But that takes up quite a bit of mage energy."
"Don't worry. You'll get it back once you're surfing the blast, instead of having to blast the surf to get moving."
"Okay," Daran looked unconvinced. "Here goes nothing."
He tentatively held out his finger and shot an energy stream into the air between him and the ground.
Immediately, the board bucked upward, shooting him ten feet upwards.
"AAAAAAHHHHH!!!" Daran screamed like a little girl.
His feet slid off and he grabbed onto the board for dear life.
Ziggy doubled over laughing. "Let go of the board you silly goose and levitate yourself back on. You can still levitate you know. It's not like you're gonna fall to the ground."
"Oh yeah…" Daran muttered, feeling highly embarrassed. "He let go of the board and levitated himself and the board back to the ground.
"This is gonna take more time than we have to figure out how to blast the surf."
"Yeah, let's see if we can infiltrate that bar and just listen in on what's going on."
They shrank their boards to palm-sized wedges and stuck them into their back pockets. Then they made their way to the surf bar, mingling with the rest of the crowd that was hanging around.
"Maybe if we go buy a drink, we can get a little closer to the action," Ziggy beckoned with his finger for Daran to move closer to the bar area.
They were about to call the bartender for a couple of beers when a couple of men approached them.
"Excuse me, gentlemen." One chunky man with a rough countenance spoke up. "I couldn't help but notice you were trying to windsurf outside a little while ago."
Daran blushed. It was an embarrassing display of klutz that a battle-hardened warrior like him would have not wanted any spectators to have witnessed let alone two men he'd never even met.
"Well...I thought it looked--you know--fun, so I was just trying it out for the first time."
The second man laughed. His bright lavender eyes were warm and kind. "Surfing the blast is harder than it looks, but once you get the hang of it, it's really addicting.
Ziggy grinned. "Do you two surf?"
"Well I certainly hope so," Lavender Eyes grinned. "You're looking at the coach for the boys' windsurfing team at Topaz Academy," he indicated with a jabbing thumb at Chunky Man.
Ziggy's jaw dropped. "Professor Farley??? Oh my gosh! It's been fifteen years since I was there and you're still teaching the boys' windsurfing team?"
Professor Farley laughed. "So you're one of our kids. How is it possible that you can't even get on the board without falling flat on your face?"
Ziggy grinned bashfully. "It's been a long time since I've been back on. But I will practice until I get my mojo back. My name is Ezekiel Astrid, but please call me Ziggy."
Professor Farley nodded. "This is Edward Jonesbarry. He runs the Astrology department at the school, and I am Jim Farley. I teach kids how to surf the blast."
"And I am Daran Duluth." Daran held out a hand.
As the men shook hands, a round of beer appeared for everyone and the chatting began in earnest. It was mostly general chatter, but even the general chatter held nuggets of information that was useful.
The dwarves found out that the anomalies happening around Topaz were mostly of the elemental sort. Either the weather was too hot or it was too cold. It was something that a group of high level thaumaturges could do if they were so inclined to be that destructive to the people and the environment.
In short, there were no moaning demons wandering about, nor were there huge clouds of insects swarming down to devastate their crops.
The dwarves also gleaned some useful information about the Mage Elites.
The mages in black suits were covertly gathering data on the Overlords for some reason. The professors had no idea why the Overlords were targets of interest. The only thing Ziggy knew about the Overlords was that they were the keepers and or trainers for the Primate Workers.
After an hour of chatter, Professor Farley said something that made Daran and Ziggy clamor with excitement.
He would teach them the basics of windsurfing if they could keep him in the loop on what they were able to find in regards to the Mage Elites.
They happily accepted and within a short time had parted company with Professor Jonesbarry. The dwarves followed Professor Farley to a small clearing nearby to begin their lesson on windsurfing.
"Okay the first thing you do, and I always tell my first years this, is don't get fancy. Put the board directly on the ground and stand on it first." Professor Farley lowered his board all the way to the ground and stood on it.
Daran and Ziggy followed his lead. It looked a bit funny to see three full-grown men standing on a hoverboard that wasn't even hovering.
"Okay, now that you're comfortable standing on it, let's lift it just a little. And I mean A LITTLE." He lifted the board three inches off the ground.
Even the blades of grass that were taller than three inches were scraping the bottom of the board.
Daran and Ziggy levitated their boards up three inches. Instantly, the two started fighting the lifting of forces in combination with the maintenance of stability.
The board began wobbling almost uncontrollably.
Since they were only a few inches off the ground, there was no panic factor. Professor Farley had them practice stabilizing the boards until they were able to maintain a steady hover.
"Alright. Lift the board up one foot off the ground." He raised his board up one foot. The two dwarves lifted theirs one foot off the ground.
"At this level, you have to use your own power to keep the board levitated, so it's a bit exhausting, but once you're up a little higher, you can surf the blast and you'll get all that power back."
"Do you get enough to replace the expended energy?"
"Oh yeah. You get so much that it will radiate off you if you don't have enough capacity to contain it all."
He eyed the dwarves. "You two are pretty stable. Want to go a bit higher?"
Ziggy and Daran nodded.
Professor Farley raised his board three feet off the ground. "Okay, here's the basic hover height for all my boys. They stay in formation at three feet from the ground."
Daran cracked a grin. As long as they were just standing still, he was rock solid. He was slowly figuring out the amount of force needed to maintain this board in one spot.
"How long do the boys have to stay aloft at three feet?" Ziggy stood on the board, a little bored.
"I usually make them stand like that every day for a couple of hours the first week they're in my class."
"One week of this?"
"Sure. They're boys. They need the discipline of patience. Since you are both full-grown men, I'm sure you have all the patience in the world so we don't need to keep you doing this for a week." Professor Farley laughed.
"We can raise the board at head height if you wish." At the dwarves' nods, he increased the height to ten feet.
"You're probably wondering why I'm at ten feet even though I just told you we were going to be at head height."
At their nods, he continued. "That's because at ten feet, you don't run the risk of beheading anyone."
He made the gesture of chopping someone's head off. "At five or six feet, if you run into someone and accidentally slam your board into their throats, you've just beheaded them. So either go super low or go super high."
At ten feet, the board was pretty high off the ground, but Daran and Ziggy had figured out how to stand still in one spot at lower altitude so this was not a difficult feat.
"Now, let's go for a VERY SLOW joyride, shall we?