Swiftly Flying, Northward Bound [Solo]
Posted: Sat Sep 17, 2022 11:11 pm
Ash 30, 122
The fastest bird is the peregrine falcon, which is famous for its lightning-speed dives. The falcon may achieve speeds of over two hundred miles an hour, snatching lesser birds out of the sky like a shaft shot from the quiver of god. It can also soar at over 30 miles an hour.
Other large raptors, like eagles, reach speeds only slightly lower, and augment this raw hunting power with the ability to glide even more quickly and with eyes designed to observe the smallest movement from a mile distant. There is a reason that regimes throughout history have sought to identify themselves with such majestic creatures- they are awe-inspiring in motion, and noble of bearing.
But all of these birds are adapted largely to patrol in circles. They have hunting grounds, and they prefer not to leave them.
The albatross does not perform many impressive dives; even when hunting, the birds prefer to skim fish off the top of the sea. They prefer to eat garbage to making any great effort, and are known to gorge themselves so thoroughly that they cannot get back into the air. When they glide, they are no faster than the birds of prey, and at times move even more sluggishly, unless they catch a strong tailwind.
So why should any witch, presented with all the bounty of Aedrin’s treasury, choose to assume the form of an albatross over a falcon or eagle?
There is only a single reason- the albatross can travel for hundreds of miles without flapping its wings even a single time. They exploit the air currents, and can lock their wings in place and soar on autopilot, entering a resting state akin to sleep while making the minute adjustments needed to continue their journey. As such, they can cover more distance in a day than any other bird, and can go for days on end without needing to land.
This was the reason Imogen Ward had taken the bird’s form in the first place, and she might have cursed herself for it. After all, acquiring such capabilities meant, as night follows day, she would be asked to use them.
And so began her three days of flight.
The Sunsinger bird took off from camp and cut across the cliffs towards the western shore, flying over the ocean. She’d recently had practice soaring overland on her trip from Zaichaer to Kalzasi, but that had been for only a single day, and the instincts she’d acquired with this form much preferred sea thermals. Plus, she didn’t want to get turned around; by following the shoreline, she had a constant point of reference in case she got blown around in a storm.
Beautiful shoreline, though. Imogen thought to herself idly as she began. The sand was white and pillowy, and fine enough that the particles in the spray pleasantly exfoliated the skin as they washed over it. I wonder if you could sell trips down here from Karnor?
Probably not. Not unless Avamande and Carina could fix up a permanent portal, and Imogen shuddered to think how much aether it would take to transport en masse if this was, as Aardwalden had predicted, Southern Ecith.
Imogen had just spent several months in northern Ecith, and she had her doubts. She knew the southlands were reputed to be different from the towering cloud-jungles of the north, but the canopy here was so much lower to the ground, the mountains so differently shaped... what if this was a wholly new continent, known only to the Duck and its capricious master? Avamande seemed confident that it wouldn’t take long to devise transportation, but she doubted that confidence was the result of any specific experience.
Only an hour into her flight, Imogen’s idle thoughts about the near future were interrupted by an unusual sight. The beach to her left was underneath a large row of cliffs, and littered with large rocks- and on those rocks were hundreds and hundreds of petrified eggs, each one the size of a large dog. It was as though a great, macabre graveyard were laid out beneath her, only the headstones were themselves the bodies.
The albatross witch drifted over the shoreline, letting herself lose altitude in order to get a better look. An eagle might have made out every detail from the vault of the sky, but Imogen had, as yet, no form in her repertoire which possessed such fine sight.
This was nearly her undoing. By the time she noticed the first Un-snake, it was striking at her.
As Imogen would later describe them, they were like creatures made of rainbow smoke, solidly serpentine across the body, but fractal and strange at the head. This might have made it harder to evade (after all, where exactly was the bite?), but dumb luck caused the winds to catch the albatross as she flew, yanking her away from the creatures.
Almost instinctively, Imogen summoned forth her zweihander. The enormous sword, alive with silver fire, burst into being at the albatross’ side and shot towards the nest of serpents, cutting one in half and spraying the rocks with blood-like-smoke. Several of the strange vipers struck at the sudden motion, and while most of them were blasted away by the gleaming Nova, one managed to get its strange un-teeth into Imogen’s sword.
At once, the witch felt something terribly wrong. She dematerialized her sword, gaining altitude, hardly even wincing as the spiritual weapon rejoined her soul.
Imogen grew increasingly sluggish over the next hour, and finally opted to stop on an empty stretch of beach. She returned to Orkhan form (quite nude), and fell to her knees on the sands, gasping with pain. After a moment’s rest, twinges of agony still shooting through her, Imogen resummoned her blade.
As soon as the sword exited her aura, the pain left too- and the reason was both obvious and mysterious. Her pact weapon was… swollen, somehow, the steel turned red and angry, and the silver fire emanated only sluggishly.
Evidently, the viper had… poisoned her sword.
This left the witch with a lot of questions, both mechanical and philosophical in nature, but most of all with a problem. If her sword was poisoned, then keeping it dematerialized was only going to let the poison continue to spread within her aura. If she kept it materialized, however, she would have to spend a lot of energy transporting it, which she could not spare.
The Sunsinger paced around the beach for a time, trying to clear her head. One of the little-known powers of the Cardinal Rune of Reaving was that it established a sort of… internal separation, between weapon and wielder. True, it was primarily a force of unification, but it did not permit the actual damage suffered by the pact weapon to merge with the mage.
No, only the pain crossed that barrier.
And yet, while the Sunsingers were well-prepared and trained to meet such agony, there was such a thing as too much. Pain could kill you, either on its own or by driving the sufferer to acts of self-harm in seeking release. Long before that, it could incapacitate her; and she had a schedule to keep.
Thankfully, as she pondered, the outline of a solution came to her. The Sunsinger magic which infused her sword was naturally inclined to burn away poisons, mundane and magic both, but she supposed if it were burning the very material which comprised it, she wouldn’t have a sword long. All that she had to do, then…
Imogen (still naked) made for the edge of the trees, her feet swelling into claws as she went, the skin thickening until the painful annoyance of the sharp rocks became muted. Once she reached an appropriately large, thick tree, Imogen dematerialized the sword once more, but kept it suspended outside of her own soul.
The witch laid a hand against the tree, closing her eyes, and focused on the complex magic she had in mind. Slowly, she drove the immaterial blade into the tree, then began to rematerialize it, pulling the living wood into the matrix of steel. The tree flamed, burning with argent light, as the Orkhan woman worked the green wood into her weapon.
After some minutes, Imogen began to withdraw the sword, leaving behind a long bore in the trunk of the unfortunate plant. She weighed the green-wood sword, eyeing the red veins beginning to creep across it, and then laid it carefully in the air. In her left hand, Imogen summoned her staff, focusing the silver flames into its tip, then touching the tip to the ailing weapon in front of her.
Though the sword burned furiously, it was not consumed by the very magic which animated it, and the red welt began to regress, the magic poison evaporating beneath the Spellbreaker fire. After a number of agonizingly tedious minutes, Imogen judged the poison relegated enough to attempt reintegration. For the sake of safety, she began to feed the weapon her memories of the entire process, attempting to resynchronize herself.
Even with Sanctuary established, however, Imogen Ward’s cry of agony could be heard for miles along the shore once the sword and swordswoman were whole once more.
The fastest bird is the peregrine falcon, which is famous for its lightning-speed dives. The falcon may achieve speeds of over two hundred miles an hour, snatching lesser birds out of the sky like a shaft shot from the quiver of god. It can also soar at over 30 miles an hour.
Other large raptors, like eagles, reach speeds only slightly lower, and augment this raw hunting power with the ability to glide even more quickly and with eyes designed to observe the smallest movement from a mile distant. There is a reason that regimes throughout history have sought to identify themselves with such majestic creatures- they are awe-inspiring in motion, and noble of bearing.
But all of these birds are adapted largely to patrol in circles. They have hunting grounds, and they prefer not to leave them.
The albatross does not perform many impressive dives; even when hunting, the birds prefer to skim fish off the top of the sea. They prefer to eat garbage to making any great effort, and are known to gorge themselves so thoroughly that they cannot get back into the air. When they glide, they are no faster than the birds of prey, and at times move even more sluggishly, unless they catch a strong tailwind.
So why should any witch, presented with all the bounty of Aedrin’s treasury, choose to assume the form of an albatross over a falcon or eagle?
There is only a single reason- the albatross can travel for hundreds of miles without flapping its wings even a single time. They exploit the air currents, and can lock their wings in place and soar on autopilot, entering a resting state akin to sleep while making the minute adjustments needed to continue their journey. As such, they can cover more distance in a day than any other bird, and can go for days on end without needing to land.
This was the reason Imogen Ward had taken the bird’s form in the first place, and she might have cursed herself for it. After all, acquiring such capabilities meant, as night follows day, she would be asked to use them.
And so began her three days of flight.
~~~ Day One ~~~
The Sunsinger bird took off from camp and cut across the cliffs towards the western shore, flying over the ocean. She’d recently had practice soaring overland on her trip from Zaichaer to Kalzasi, but that had been for only a single day, and the instincts she’d acquired with this form much preferred sea thermals. Plus, she didn’t want to get turned around; by following the shoreline, she had a constant point of reference in case she got blown around in a storm.
Beautiful shoreline, though. Imogen thought to herself idly as she began. The sand was white and pillowy, and fine enough that the particles in the spray pleasantly exfoliated the skin as they washed over it. I wonder if you could sell trips down here from Karnor?
Probably not. Not unless Avamande and Carina could fix up a permanent portal, and Imogen shuddered to think how much aether it would take to transport en masse if this was, as Aardwalden had predicted, Southern Ecith.
Imogen had just spent several months in northern Ecith, and she had her doubts. She knew the southlands were reputed to be different from the towering cloud-jungles of the north, but the canopy here was so much lower to the ground, the mountains so differently shaped... what if this was a wholly new continent, known only to the Duck and its capricious master? Avamande seemed confident that it wouldn’t take long to devise transportation, but she doubted that confidence was the result of any specific experience.
Only an hour into her flight, Imogen’s idle thoughts about the near future were interrupted by an unusual sight. The beach to her left was underneath a large row of cliffs, and littered with large rocks- and on those rocks were hundreds and hundreds of petrified eggs, each one the size of a large dog. It was as though a great, macabre graveyard were laid out beneath her, only the headstones were themselves the bodies.
The albatross witch drifted over the shoreline, letting herself lose altitude in order to get a better look. An eagle might have made out every detail from the vault of the sky, but Imogen had, as yet, no form in her repertoire which possessed such fine sight.
This was nearly her undoing. By the time she noticed the first Un-snake, it was striking at her.
As Imogen would later describe them, they were like creatures made of rainbow smoke, solidly serpentine across the body, but fractal and strange at the head. This might have made it harder to evade (after all, where exactly was the bite?), but dumb luck caused the winds to catch the albatross as she flew, yanking her away from the creatures.
Almost instinctively, Imogen summoned forth her zweihander. The enormous sword, alive with silver fire, burst into being at the albatross’ side and shot towards the nest of serpents, cutting one in half and spraying the rocks with blood-like-smoke. Several of the strange vipers struck at the sudden motion, and while most of them were blasted away by the gleaming Nova, one managed to get its strange un-teeth into Imogen’s sword.
At once, the witch felt something terribly wrong. She dematerialized her sword, gaining altitude, hardly even wincing as the spiritual weapon rejoined her soul.
~~~
Imogen grew increasingly sluggish over the next hour, and finally opted to stop on an empty stretch of beach. She returned to Orkhan form (quite nude), and fell to her knees on the sands, gasping with pain. After a moment’s rest, twinges of agony still shooting through her, Imogen resummoned her blade.
As soon as the sword exited her aura, the pain left too- and the reason was both obvious and mysterious. Her pact weapon was… swollen, somehow, the steel turned red and angry, and the silver fire emanated only sluggishly.
Evidently, the viper had… poisoned her sword.
This left the witch with a lot of questions, both mechanical and philosophical in nature, but most of all with a problem. If her sword was poisoned, then keeping it dematerialized was only going to let the poison continue to spread within her aura. If she kept it materialized, however, she would have to spend a lot of energy transporting it, which she could not spare.
The Sunsinger paced around the beach for a time, trying to clear her head. One of the little-known powers of the Cardinal Rune of Reaving was that it established a sort of… internal separation, between weapon and wielder. True, it was primarily a force of unification, but it did not permit the actual damage suffered by the pact weapon to merge with the mage.
No, only the pain crossed that barrier.
And yet, while the Sunsingers were well-prepared and trained to meet such agony, there was such a thing as too much. Pain could kill you, either on its own or by driving the sufferer to acts of self-harm in seeking release. Long before that, it could incapacitate her; and she had a schedule to keep.
Thankfully, as she pondered, the outline of a solution came to her. The Sunsinger magic which infused her sword was naturally inclined to burn away poisons, mundane and magic both, but she supposed if it were burning the very material which comprised it, she wouldn’t have a sword long. All that she had to do, then…
Imogen (still naked) made for the edge of the trees, her feet swelling into claws as she went, the skin thickening until the painful annoyance of the sharp rocks became muted. Once she reached an appropriately large, thick tree, Imogen dematerialized the sword once more, but kept it suspended outside of her own soul.
The witch laid a hand against the tree, closing her eyes, and focused on the complex magic she had in mind. Slowly, she drove the immaterial blade into the tree, then began to rematerialize it, pulling the living wood into the matrix of steel. The tree flamed, burning with argent light, as the Orkhan woman worked the green wood into her weapon.
After some minutes, Imogen began to withdraw the sword, leaving behind a long bore in the trunk of the unfortunate plant. She weighed the green-wood sword, eyeing the red veins beginning to creep across it, and then laid it carefully in the air. In her left hand, Imogen summoned her staff, focusing the silver flames into its tip, then touching the tip to the ailing weapon in front of her.
Though the sword burned furiously, it was not consumed by the very magic which animated it, and the red welt began to regress, the magic poison evaporating beneath the Spellbreaker fire. After a number of agonizingly tedious minutes, Imogen judged the poison relegated enough to attempt reintegration. For the sake of safety, she began to feed the weapon her memories of the entire process, attempting to resynchronize herself.
Even with Sanctuary established, however, Imogen Ward’s cry of agony could be heard for miles along the shore once the sword and swordswoman were whole once more.