Ash 33, 122
Imogen's trip by air to the border of what the landing party was now pretty certain was the Atraxian Expanse had left her drained and spent, but it took her virtually no time at all to bounce back and become restless anew.
”Basically,” Imogen explained to Carina, sitting in the hammock she'd fashioned between two palm trees, ”I saw three creatures. Flashes of others, of course, from the air, but only three up close. Serpents with indistinct profiles, practically translucent, who could poison spells rather than flesh. The beetles with shells of metal-” Imogen instinctively reached for the beetle shell she'd held for two days to display, before remembering she'd been forced to absorb it, ”-and the butterflies, which I think were actually made of dragonshards. Just think how valuable something like that could be if it's nearby, right? And anyway, we ought to survey around the landing site, to make sure there's nothing too dangerous.”
The Sunsinger's arguments were meritorious in their own right, and necessary only because sending Imogen off to scout was a recipe for disaster. If she went out, she was going to get lost, and Carina would need to go find her, and then she still wouldn't be able to describe where anything she'd seen was, respective to the campsite. No, far more sensible for the two to go out together.
(This of course, was Imogen's real object. She thought herself quite the master of deception and negotiation for it, too.)
Thankfully, as it turned out, her friend was perfectly ready to get away from the shore for a while. While Imogen had flown forth in the body of a bird, Carina had been forced to attend to the dozens of little requirements of manual labor demanded by camping, and evidently was prepared to drop them for a time.
The two set out in the early light, making for the hills beyond the beach's northeastern border, and the jungle beyond.
To keep the journey interesting, Imogen made a point of scouring the brush for various creatures- small insects and worms, flies with shining, dappled armor, tiny hopping mice. The Orkhan woman wasn't especially good at capturing them without use of her magic weapons, and they had both agreed to keep the violence to a minimum until they could be certain that nothing too dangerous was lurking nearby.
Still, examination of the specimens they could catch revealed a startling pattern; every single creature seemed to bear some form of discrete elemental charge. It was largely inconsequential with the insects, generally requiring Carina's magic to confirm, but it indicated an exciting trend. If this land truly contained nothing at all but magical animals, who could say what wonderous creatures they might encounter further in?
”It's a queer state of affairs, isn't it?” Imogen reflected as they took a short break in a short vale between hills, sitting on the sunny side of a flat rock. ”As though all the magic bound up in the Primals in northern Ecith instead got... spread out, here. Scattered.” She'd heard that the desert to the north also bore no Primals. Passing strange, that; how could the ley energies be so rich to the north and dissipated here? Perhaps she would ask Avamande when they returned. The elf seemed to be quite the professional mage.
It didn't take long for the two witches to reach the entry to the jungle. After a few days of seeing these jungles to the west, Imogen no longer felt bothered by their short canopies; instead, her heart fluttered in excitement as she thought about the strange things they might find further in. Although Carina was a reliable navigator in Imogen's experience, she advised that they enter following a small stream, and see if they could find a spring or headwater.
(Not for drinking- Carina had, mercifully, solved that issue immediately for the beach-goers. Rather, the Ork suggested, any larger creatures were likely to make their territories near water sources.)
They made slow progress, mostly due to the Ork. She could have assumed lemur-form and gone faster, or even clung to Carina's shoulder while she blinked, but frankly her primary object was in strolling next to Carina, not covering optimal ground.
Thus, it wasn't until the late afternoon that the Zaichaeri witches came across the sudden rise, a series of small ridges. There was a pool underneath, not from a spring but from the waterfall above it. It wasn't a spectacular fall, not like a great river plummeting into the land below, but it was beautiful all the same.
”Well here's something!” the Ork marveled, ”Not as tall as the Gihah, but look at how it splits above and comes together below, like a rune upon the cliff itself! ”
The mist spraying from the gentle waterfall was surprisingly thick for such a small waterfall, and it meant that the otherwise-shady cliffside was dappled with rainbows, gleaming with phantasmal colors in the afternoon sun. Imogen sidled up to Carina as they examined the geological marvel, standing as close to her friend as she could muster.
Imogen's trip by air to the border of what the landing party was now pretty certain was the Atraxian Expanse had left her drained and spent, but it took her virtually no time at all to bounce back and become restless anew.
”Basically,” Imogen explained to Carina, sitting in the hammock she'd fashioned between two palm trees, ”I saw three creatures. Flashes of others, of course, from the air, but only three up close. Serpents with indistinct profiles, practically translucent, who could poison spells rather than flesh. The beetles with shells of metal-” Imogen instinctively reached for the beetle shell she'd held for two days to display, before remembering she'd been forced to absorb it, ”-and the butterflies, which I think were actually made of dragonshards. Just think how valuable something like that could be if it's nearby, right? And anyway, we ought to survey around the landing site, to make sure there's nothing too dangerous.”
The Sunsinger's arguments were meritorious in their own right, and necessary only because sending Imogen off to scout was a recipe for disaster. If she went out, she was going to get lost, and Carina would need to go find her, and then she still wouldn't be able to describe where anything she'd seen was, respective to the campsite. No, far more sensible for the two to go out together.
(This of course, was Imogen's real object. She thought herself quite the master of deception and negotiation for it, too.)
Thankfully, as it turned out, her friend was perfectly ready to get away from the shore for a while. While Imogen had flown forth in the body of a bird, Carina had been forced to attend to the dozens of little requirements of manual labor demanded by camping, and evidently was prepared to drop them for a time.
~~~
The two set out in the early light, making for the hills beyond the beach's northeastern border, and the jungle beyond.
To keep the journey interesting, Imogen made a point of scouring the brush for various creatures- small insects and worms, flies with shining, dappled armor, tiny hopping mice. The Orkhan woman wasn't especially good at capturing them without use of her magic weapons, and they had both agreed to keep the violence to a minimum until they could be certain that nothing too dangerous was lurking nearby.
Still, examination of the specimens they could catch revealed a startling pattern; every single creature seemed to bear some form of discrete elemental charge. It was largely inconsequential with the insects, generally requiring Carina's magic to confirm, but it indicated an exciting trend. If this land truly contained nothing at all but magical animals, who could say what wonderous creatures they might encounter further in?
”It's a queer state of affairs, isn't it?” Imogen reflected as they took a short break in a short vale between hills, sitting on the sunny side of a flat rock. ”As though all the magic bound up in the Primals in northern Ecith instead got... spread out, here. Scattered.” She'd heard that the desert to the north also bore no Primals. Passing strange, that; how could the ley energies be so rich to the north and dissipated here? Perhaps she would ask Avamande when they returned. The elf seemed to be quite the professional mage.
~~~
It didn't take long for the two witches to reach the entry to the jungle. After a few days of seeing these jungles to the west, Imogen no longer felt bothered by their short canopies; instead, her heart fluttered in excitement as she thought about the strange things they might find further in. Although Carina was a reliable navigator in Imogen's experience, she advised that they enter following a small stream, and see if they could find a spring or headwater.
(Not for drinking- Carina had, mercifully, solved that issue immediately for the beach-goers. Rather, the Ork suggested, any larger creatures were likely to make their territories near water sources.)
They made slow progress, mostly due to the Ork. She could have assumed lemur-form and gone faster, or even clung to Carina's shoulder while she blinked, but frankly her primary object was in strolling next to Carina, not covering optimal ground.
Thus, it wasn't until the late afternoon that the Zaichaeri witches came across the sudden rise, a series of small ridges. There was a pool underneath, not from a spring but from the waterfall above it. It wasn't a spectacular fall, not like a great river plummeting into the land below, but it was beautiful all the same.
”Well here's something!” the Ork marveled, ”Not as tall as the Gihah, but look at how it splits above and comes together below, like a rune upon the cliff itself! ”
The mist spraying from the gentle waterfall was surprisingly thick for such a small waterfall, and it meant that the otherwise-shady cliffside was dappled with rainbows, gleaming with phantasmal colors in the afternoon sun. Imogen sidled up to Carina as they examined the geological marvel, standing as close to her friend as she could muster.
