Searing 2, 122
Three days into the jungle, things weren’t going quite as perfectly as Imogen might have hoped.
Imogen had relied heavily on the suggestions of the people at the trading post for a list of necessities, and so had wisely procured:
Of those items, the lantern, canoe, water and food were still holding out (though the canoe was as yet untested). Every other item had proven either insufficient to the tasks she needed them for, or had been stolen.
Dear Carina,
Though I have left the dark jungle behind, it has grown more treacherous and fearsome in turn. When I first entered the jungles, I confess that my fears centered primarily on the great beasts of this land, such as the primal beasts or thunder lizards. In the last two days, I have come to understand that the worst fiends are those smaller phages which fill every dark corner of this place.
From my time in the forest bunker, I thought I was familiar with every tiny scourge which walked, crawled, buzzed or flew. Ticks, and mosquitos, and deerfly- they’re nothing. They’re Raella’s gentle kiss. They’re the jubilant embrace of a kind and bountiful nature for her children, whom she loves absolutely. But Ecith- it is the elder child, the repository of every mistake and cruelty which kind Nature eventually shed.
.
Today I ran into a hive of mosquitoes the size of cats. I cannot overemphasize this; I exaggerate their size not a whit, and their horrible sharp mouth parts called to mind nothing so much as rapiers. I can only assume that if the trauma from getting bitten by one of those doesn’t knock you flat out, exsanguination would be fatal in seconds.
The smaller bugs are here too, of course, and this is where I have little choice but to venture upon customer complaint. This insect repellant, as it turns out, is effective against some of the insects here. But half of a thousand glittering bites is still five hundred attacks, and I’m doing the makers a great kindness by assessing its efficacy so highly.
In truth, my method of dealing with this has been… unsustainable.
Imogen continued down the path, puffing gently from exertion.
It wasn’t her load; or, at least, not just her load. Moving quickly was one reasonably effective way of deterring a large number of the phages- although most of these insects could fly quickly, the swarms tended to fall behind after any amount of sustained movement. The pace and the gear, combined, were a respectable reason to be tired, but that wasn’t really it either.
It was the shield strapped to her back, radiating a thin wave of argent fire.
The nova-flame of Ysadrin was the one power available to Imogen Ward which none of Ecith’s predators or insects were likely to have encountered in their evolution, and it had proven extremely effective in warding off the larger, more persistent creatures like the mosquitoes, or the hand-sized jumping ticks.
Effective, but it presented its own set of problems. First, the nova-flame emitted heat just like ordinary fire; not enough to burn the Sunsinger’s skin through the opal scales glittering against her neck and the back of her arms, but enough to raise the already-oppressive heat to truly dangerous levels. Through focus and force of will, Imogen had lowered the Pact weapon’s output to minimal effective levels, but it wasn’t exactly comfortable. It was quite possible that a human, with their more intensive metabolism, would have fainted dead away.
Second, of course, it drained her aether and will at a steady clip. Imogen much preferred short, intense bursts of aether use; she knew she could recover from that quickly. This long, low-level use of a pact weapon was begging for a disproportionate cost when at last she was forced to dematerialize it.
But until she found a place with insects small enough to be foiled by her treated mosquito nets, she had little choice but to soldier on. Being drained was dangerous, but much to be preferred to contracting any of the deadly fevers buzzing angrily behind her.
It was likely that keeping the shield on her back saved Imogen’s life from the bugs. It was certain that it saved her life from what came next.
One moment, Imogen was trudging through the jungle, mildly disoriented from the heat and broken light from the canopy and constant chattering and chirping above. The next moment, the jungle fell silent, and only the squelching of her boots and the low crackle of the silver fire behind her seemed to exist.
The young Sunsinger had only a moment to notice and wonder at the silence before the entire world changed.
First, came a great roar which seemed to originate inside her own eardrum. It started low, distant, and then the pitch rocketed upwards, and it felt as though gravity had simply stopped. She felt herself floating, for the briefest of seconds, a mild breeze at her back.
Then the breeze resolved into a sledgehammer, striking her shield with more force than any other blow she’d ever felt. Her Pact shield blazed with angry silver light as the force of the blast blew the nova-flame sideways for dozens of feet in every direction, but even the mystic symbol of Imogen’s will could only soften the blow. The shock picked her up and sent her tumbling wildly down the road, rolling over with such force that she hit the ground at least three times.
Imogen laid there, sprawled on the road, ears whining. She wasn’t sure how long she laid there, but when at last she came to her senses and opened her eyes, it took several more seconds for her vision to finish cohereing. And then she saw it.
Three days into the jungle, things weren’t going quite as perfectly as Imogen might have hoped.
Imogen had relied heavily on the suggestions of the people at the trading post for a list of necessities, and so had wisely procured:
- Water
- Food
- A canoe
- A lantern
- A tent
- A compass
- A guidebook
- Firestarters
- Rope
- Water Trap
- First aid
- Bug repellant
Of those items, the lantern, canoe, water and food were still holding out (though the canoe was as yet untested). Every other item had proven either insufficient to the tasks she needed them for, or had been stolen.
Searing 2, 122
Dear Carina,
Though I have left the dark jungle behind, it has grown more treacherous and fearsome in turn. When I first entered the jungles, I confess that my fears centered primarily on the great beasts of this land, such as the primal beasts or thunder lizards. In the last two days, I have come to understand that the worst fiends are those smaller phages which fill every dark corner of this place.
From my time in the forest bunker, I thought I was familiar with every tiny scourge which walked, crawled, buzzed or flew. Ticks, and mosquitos, and deerfly- they’re nothing. They’re Raella’s gentle kiss. They’re the jubilant embrace of a kind and bountiful nature for her children, whom she loves absolutely. But Ecith- it is the elder child, the repository of every mistake and cruelty which kind Nature eventually shed.
.
Today I ran into a hive of mosquitoes the size of cats. I cannot overemphasize this; I exaggerate their size not a whit, and their horrible sharp mouth parts called to mind nothing so much as rapiers. I can only assume that if the trauma from getting bitten by one of those doesn’t knock you flat out, exsanguination would be fatal in seconds.
The smaller bugs are here too, of course, and this is where I have little choice but to venture upon customer complaint. This insect repellant, as it turns out, is effective against some of the insects here. But half of a thousand glittering bites is still five hundred attacks, and I’m doing the makers a great kindness by assessing its efficacy so highly.
In truth, my method of dealing with this has been… unsustainable.
Imogen continued down the path, puffing gently from exertion.
It wasn’t her load; or, at least, not just her load. Moving quickly was one reasonably effective way of deterring a large number of the phages- although most of these insects could fly quickly, the swarms tended to fall behind after any amount of sustained movement. The pace and the gear, combined, were a respectable reason to be tired, but that wasn’t really it either.
It was the shield strapped to her back, radiating a thin wave of argent fire.
The nova-flame of Ysadrin was the one power available to Imogen Ward which none of Ecith’s predators or insects were likely to have encountered in their evolution, and it had proven extremely effective in warding off the larger, more persistent creatures like the mosquitoes, or the hand-sized jumping ticks.
Effective, but it presented its own set of problems. First, the nova-flame emitted heat just like ordinary fire; not enough to burn the Sunsinger’s skin through the opal scales glittering against her neck and the back of her arms, but enough to raise the already-oppressive heat to truly dangerous levels. Through focus and force of will, Imogen had lowered the Pact weapon’s output to minimal effective levels, but it wasn’t exactly comfortable. It was quite possible that a human, with their more intensive metabolism, would have fainted dead away.
Second, of course, it drained her aether and will at a steady clip. Imogen much preferred short, intense bursts of aether use; she knew she could recover from that quickly. This long, low-level use of a pact weapon was begging for a disproportionate cost when at last she was forced to dematerialize it.
But until she found a place with insects small enough to be foiled by her treated mosquito nets, she had little choice but to soldier on. Being drained was dangerous, but much to be preferred to contracting any of the deadly fevers buzzing angrily behind her.
~~~
It was likely that keeping the shield on her back saved Imogen’s life from the bugs. It was certain that it saved her life from what came next.
One moment, Imogen was trudging through the jungle, mildly disoriented from the heat and broken light from the canopy and constant chattering and chirping above. The next moment, the jungle fell silent, and only the squelching of her boots and the low crackle of the silver fire behind her seemed to exist.
The young Sunsinger had only a moment to notice and wonder at the silence before the entire world changed.
First, came a great roar which seemed to originate inside her own eardrum. It started low, distant, and then the pitch rocketed upwards, and it felt as though gravity had simply stopped. She felt herself floating, for the briefest of seconds, a mild breeze at her back.
Then the breeze resolved into a sledgehammer, striking her shield with more force than any other blow she’d ever felt. Her Pact shield blazed with angry silver light as the force of the blast blew the nova-flame sideways for dozens of feet in every direction, but even the mystic symbol of Imogen’s will could only soften the blow. The shock picked her up and sent her tumbling wildly down the road, rolling over with such force that she hit the ground at least three times.
Imogen laid there, sprawled on the road, ears whining. She wasn’t sure how long she laid there, but when at last she came to her senses and opened her eyes, it took several more seconds for her vision to finish cohereing. And then she saw it.