Torsten Hellefjord

Bolted deep into the keel of the wooden airship were the raw veins of the blue-streaked mineral called Lyfte-Stein, the same stone found miles beneath the sky islands of Flûitō. The windriders of Kalderheim had learned to mine and craft the ores into vessels that could carry them across the heavens. Torsten Hellefjord sat in the hold, checking the leather straps on the cargo. On a ship with a skeleton crew, everyone did the heavy lifting. He was simply a cargo-hand, not a pirate. He stood by the mainmast, ready to signal their passport papers. He looked up, and his blood went cold. Hovering over the checkpoint was the massive, stitched-leather war-balloon… but its gondola was armed and aiming. "Sjöfn’s Tears…" Torsten cursed under his breath. Before he could warn the others, a fire projectile struck the mainmast with a deafening crack. The sailcloth turned into a sheet of orange flame instantly. The concussive wave of the blast slapped Torsten backward. He hit the railing, which splintered, and then the deck was gone. Overboard. He plummeted past a crate of grain and the set ship’s dragon figurehead. The Jotun-Drift vanished above him in a bloom of fire. Raging storm clouds stretched across the abyss beneath him. The freezing air stinging his skin. Below him, he saw a jagged, pulsing fragment of the Lyfte-Stein ripped from the ship’s keel. Torsten twisted and lunged. His fingers clawed into the freezing, jagged veins of the stone. The jolt nearly dislocated his shoulder, but the stone’s natural repulsion slowed his descent. But the ore was alive with unstable kinetic tension; it shot upward like a loaded spring as it repelled away from the planet's gravity, nearly ripping his numb hand away…