Chapter 1277 - Test Drive (Part 1)
"A silver stagecoach?" Raaz was dumbfounded. "We already have a wooden one. Why did you waste your money on something like that?"
"Where are horses going to be attached and where the coachman is supposed to sit?" Elina asked, doing her best to feign interest in the strange contraption.
"Get in. It's easier to show than to tell." Lith took the driver seat, opening all the doors at the same time with the pressure of a button.
Due to the absence of the engine and of the trunk, the DoLorean could comfortably accommodate eleven people by adding two more backseats. Raaz rode shotgun at Lith's insistence while, Tista, Rena, Elina, Aran, Leria, Friya, and Senton sat behind.
"Fasten your seatbelts." Lith said.
"Our what?"
A snap of Lith's fingers and a spark of Spirit Magic secured everyone to their respective position.
"Okay, since I want you and Mom to share it, I couldn't make the imprint permanent. You just have to put your hand had here…" Lith pointed at a handprint on the dashboard, right between the driver and the passenger seat.
"…and imprint it with your mana. If you do it a second time, the imprint is lost and someone else can use it."
"Where did you learn to do such a thing?" Tista's eyes opened wide in surprise.
"I learned the basics while studying the Ballots back at the academy. If you remember, the Headmaster can remove their imprint. Then, I practiced it with the Camellia. I simply had to use less chea- I mean to perfect the method." Lith replied.
"I still can't believe your relationship is built on avarice." Raaz sighed in disappointment again. "The spell is beautiful, but did you have to use scrap metal painted green as a vessel? Please, at least tell me that you didn't pick it from Zekell's trash."
"Once you imprint the vehicle, you just need to press this button." Lith rushed to say, not willing to let Raaz know how close to home he had gotten.
A low hum accompanied the wheels moving below the DoLorean as the Warp Drive reduced its weight and that of its occupants so that a simple tier one Float spell could keep the vehicle in mid-air.
The spell conjured not just a single strong updraft, but hundreds of them at the same time, each one pushing upwards with the same force to keep the balance in check.
Bringing the DoLorean to zero gravity would have meant that even a sneeze would topple it and that the slightest wing would make its flying path highly unstable. The reduced weight coupled with Float, instead, made the interior of the car as if it was gyrostabilized, preventing any kind of motion sickness.
The spell was so silent that Raaz noticed they were moving only because the vehicle slowly turned towards the Trawn woods.
'Well, at least this thing doesn't require horses. Just by avoiding to feed, water, and make them rest, I can save a bit of time.' He thought.
"Hey, son. You'd better turn around, the road to Lutia is that way." Raaz pointed over his own shoulder.
"Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads." Lith said with the smirk of a man who had waited three lives to say that line.
'By my Mom, you really tricked him into giving you the cue!' Solus laughed her a.s.s off.
"Hold tight!" As the only one who had been to Kolga, Tista knew what was about to happen.
"This sets the speed…" Lith lowered what looked like a gear lever by one notch, bringing it from zero to one and making the DoLorean move forward. "…and then you pull the steering wheel towards you to set the altitude."
Panic ensued among the a.d.u.l.ts the moment they realized that they were leaving the ground. The kids, instead, couldn't take their eyes off the windows, screaming with joy as they reached for the sky.
The DoLorean flew above the treetops without making a noise and moving with the grace of a ballerina. Alas, what happened on the outside couldn't differ more from what took place inside.
Only the seatbelts and the locked doors kept Lith's passengers from harming themselves. The moment they realized to be trapped, they froze in place like a deer in headlights.
Rena and Elina prayed to the gods to have mercy on their children while Friya weaved one spell after another. Neither a single Float nor Flight could lift the weight of the DoLorean and of so many people at the same time.
Even Blinking was off the table since the dimensional spell would cut along a lot of the vehicle to take her away, potentially compromising the power core that kept it afloat.
She trusted Lith, yet she was scared. On Mogar, people weren't used to sitting inside a sealed metal box and even though the DoLorean was quite spacious, the feeling of helplessness struck fear even in the heart of a seasoned warrior like Friya.
"Would you please calm down?" Lith had stopped the car in mid-air to reassure them that nothing bad was going to happen. "This thing has more safety measures than transportation spells. I would never put your lives in danger."
"Can't we go faster this time please?" Unlike his parents, Aran was getting bored.
Lith would often take him out for a flight and, compared to the feeling of the wind flowing through his hair, sitting in the DoLorean with a bunch of screaming a.d.u.l.ts felt more like being stuck in the henhouse than like an adventure.
"Can I open the window, Uncle? I want to see the birds." Leria too searched the car for something interesting to do. Her parents screaming and making a fuss over silly things like Leria using fire magic inside the house were hardly a novelty.
"No, they are closed for safety reasons and because once we start moving, the wind would become troublesome." He replied.
"But I'm hot! Mom and Dad are sweating like crazy." Leria w.h.i.n.ed about the pungent smell of fear surrounding her that made her parents blush in embarrassment.
"Dad, turn on the air conditioning. It works like that of our home." Lith pointed at a knob whose left side was painted blue and the right red. Right beside it there was a small lever with knots numbered from zero to five.
Raaz was so nervous that he turned the knob to the extreme left before moving the lever to five. A slightly chill breeze came at the passengers from every direction with the violence of a storm.
Gowns flew up as Elina and Rena had to fight to keep their privates from showing while all those sitting next to someone with long hair had their faces beaten like a drum by hair strands that seemed to have come to life.
"Dad!" Lith turned it down to one and everything went back to normal. "I said that it works like that at home. What did I tell you about the five?"
"To never use it. I'm sorry but that thing is so little and I'm still shaken." Raaz couldn't wait for that nightmare to end.
And he wasn't the only one.
From his vantage point atop one of the trees, Locrias, the Captain of the Queen's Corps in charge of the security detail of Lith's family, stared in horror at the DoLorean.
