Legend of Ransera

The past several weeks had been… unique to say the least. Kira and Jesse had set off on an adventure to travel to the land where rumors had it the eternal winter hadn’t touched. They’d headed east to the coast, then followed the coast south and logic dictated they ought to continue south across the vast ocean.

The travel was rough, especially for people who were new to this sort of thing. It’d also taken a lot longer than expected. Basic math told them that it only ought to have taken thirty days or so to reach the southern continent but their trip was plagued with issues. Injuries, getting lost, dangers in the road and in the sky, extremely cold weather… it didn’t make for a particularly peaceful time. The most pressing of issues was Kira’s limited aether supply. Not only did she need to use negation against the cold, but she was simultaneously flying hundreds of pounds at once. They often used her powers sparingly throughout the day, opting to take shortcuts if flight was favorable to them and simply hiking when the path was clear.

They had gotten into a certain rhythm before they set across the ocean. They’d spend several days on the road then take a portal back to the imperium where they would rest and resupply. It was good training for Jesse, who was an excellent traversion mage though he’d never travelled the world. He liked being able to point at places on the map and know that he could travel back there at a moment’s notice if he so chose.

They were thrown for a loop when they started flying across the ocean, however. Kira could only fly so far in one stretch and that really hampered their progress because they couldn’t very well land in the water. It was at this point that Jesse had to help out by creating portals out into the distance that they could travel through. It was risky, because Jesse also had to keep an eye on his reserves. He was their only shot at an expedient escape if things went wrong. They ultimately had to buy a Greater Aetheryte to help supplement their aether to make sure they didn’t overstep.

On occasion they would find islands to land on. These were godsends as they allowed the two to get acquainted with approximately where they were on the map as well as commit the exact location to Jesse’s memory so that they could easily go back home and return refreshed.


It’d been a while since they’d last seen an island. Kira and Jesse currently flew at a lazy pace above the ocean, eyes peeled for anything of interest to keep them from dying of boredom. The shard in Kira’s hand was doing most of the work, simply fueling spells that Kira had already cast to keep them somewhat protected from the elements and moving. If they didn’t find ‘something’ within the next few hours or so they’d probably call it a day.

The Crystal Sea was a vast sea and is a treacherous place for even the most experienced of sailors. The pirates of Zythura, some of the best captains in the world, rarely ever dare to venture this far south. Much of the sea is largely sailed by the Commonwealth's navy, on patrol for the next invasion from the Imperium. Or at least, it had been until the effects of the permanent winter grew worse and worse. Now there was not a ship to be found anywhere along the route, as all naval travel had been suspended and the ships utilized to fish in order to shore up the nation's dwindling food supplies.

However, for Kira and Jesse, they were largely unbothered on this day. That is, until a sudden change in the winds came, shifting from a lazy southerly to a stiff easterly. And with the wind came a burgeoning warmth and increase in humidity. Continuing to push south against these winds would add to the difficulty of the journey but was certainly doable for the pair. Shortly after the winds began, soon came green streamers racing along it. One slapped Kira in the face with very wet schmack.

It was seaweed, or something akin to it. It was much lighter than any Kira would've seen before, and almost entirely transparent. All around them fluttered these many meters long strands of this flying seaweed. And the amount continued to increase, and the plants were lightly latching onto anything impeding their path. There was no pain, no damage appeared to be inflicted by them, but they would surely be both distracting, and with enough of them, heavy.

And shortly after the skyweed appeared, then came the flying shrimp. Much like underwater shrimp, they raced backwards, carried on the winds without any form of wings or flying appendages. One smacked into the side of Kira's head and nearly disintegrated with how fragile it was, a delicate goo stickying up her hair.

And there were more shrimp coming through this garden of floating seaweed.

Kira glanced at Jesse, amusement initially playing on her face as the wind shifted and brought forth a cascade of slimy slaps. She reached for the one that’d smacked her face and tugged on it in an attempt to pull it free.

“Is this… seaweed?” Kira asked, more to herself than to Jesse as she realized the piece she’d grabbed was annoyingly stuck to her hand.

“Looks like it,” Jesse said with his forearm outstretched to keep his face protected. “But what’s it doing in the sky?” His tone was more annoyed than Kira’s. Every instinct told him to simply phase through the seaweed but if he did that he was almost certain that he would plummet to the ocean since he doubted Kira could keep him suspended in that state.

“Can’t you just portal us away?” Kira asked as she too became annoyed. Seaweed was one thing but she felt the gooeyness of the shrimp was a bit too much to simply put up with.

Jesse blew out his cheeks, “it’ll be easier if I can see some open space for us to maneuver towards. Can you clear a path?”

Kira frowned as she activated every sensory ability available to her. Her irises turned red as her bloodline activated, giving her heightened visual acuity. Coupled with her ability to see the flux and lines of probability, she was able to surmise that things were just getting started.

“I think we’re surrounded by the stuff,” she said with increasing worry in her voice. She tried to push out to manipulate the flux, attempting to create a small sphere of rotating aether that would surround the two of them and stop any more sea life from hitting them by simply rotating obstacles around them. In doing so her focus on the barrier protecting them from the cold began to wane. Multitasking magical feats was still fairly tough for her and at present the cold air was the least of her worries.

“So what now?” Jesse asked as he struggled to keep his arm in front of his face. It was dawning on him just how heavy the seaweed was and he worried about Kira’s ability to keep them in the air if this - whatever it was they were in - lasted for too long. He saw what she was trying to do, and while he did think it was clever, water was heavy and there’d only be so much weight that she could manage at once.

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

The skyweed and the flying shrimp only continued to appear in heavier and heavier amounts. They were a curious pairings of species, part of the vastly understudied aerial biomes of Ecith. The continent was certainly known for its unusual, to the northern foreigns, fauna and flora, but the species that live among the clouds, the air and humidity currents, are vast and diverse, much like their ocean counter parts.

And so traversing them with limited knowledge, much like the sea, could often be dangerous and unforgiving, as Kira and Jesse were quickly figuring out as the seaweed and the shrimp were weighing them down more and more heavily, adding more and more strain on Kira's magic reserves.

MUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Deep, guttural sound filled the air around Kira and Jesse. It was soon joined by a song of high pitched squeals, low moans and groans, and the occasional clicks. A large body passed directly in front of Kira and Jesse's path, one that was the same deep grey of a storm cloud, and was a hundred meters long. As it finished passing, a large tail gave a slap, sending confusing and powerful currents through the air around the pair.

A quick look around would show that there wasn't simply one of these large, flying creatures, but hundreds. To the locals, they were a well known fixture that migrated all over the continent; the Sky Whales. As they flew through the skyweed and the shrimp, they were feasting upon the storm plankton, tiny little creatures leaving in the clouds and air, and they paid no mind at all to the two foreigners that appeared to have crossed their path. The seaweed began to lessen and many other schools of brightly colored flying fish began to race by. Soaring tangs, Raxen's Spears, cloud jellies, and hundreds of other species living in a complex biome that traveled around.

None were attacking Jesse and Kira, but they were not helping either. Some can down to nibble on exposed skin, take bites out of the seaweed, looking for prey that was normal to them. However, a hundred yards out, something did take an interest in them. Angular and pointed fins, fast, streamlined body, skin that seemed to blend into the color of the background sky.

The Wind Raider, a species of shark known for eating anything from which it could take a bite. It was doing a circular motion, far out from the two, keeping one eye on them as it flew.

Kira’s eyes widened as the sounds hit her, even more so after she took in just how fascinating the scene before her was. This was the first truly breathtaking experience she’d had since leaving the imperium. It was so much to take in that she hardly knew what she should focus on.

“Ahhhhh!” shouted Jesse from beside her. Her lapse in focus had shrunk their ‘safe area’ even further. So much so that Jesse was getting spun around along with the seaweed. Moments later there was a rush of air from the flick of the tail; this tore his body away from his friend’s protection altogether, forcing him into the mass of swirling seaweed. He’d try to phase through it all, his plan being to fall away from the danger and portal to safety but how this would fare with all the living creatures around him would have to be seen.

Kira hadn’t the metal bandwidth to worry about Jesse. Her every instinct told her to try blasting her way out of the mess they’d gotten in. That’d been her Plan B if the seaweed hadn’t gone away on its own. After becoming aware of all the creatures around her, however, her confidence waned.

“Do I try to force myself out? Or would causing a commotion make this worse?”

“I’m going to regret this,” she muttered as she stopped focusing on propelling herself through the air, instead drawing on the remaining energy of her dragon shard and focusing it into her hand before zipping the shard into her jacket for safekeeping. “But I don't see any better options. If I just stay here it's only a matter of time before the seaweed suffocates me.”

There was a moment of calm, the last moment that Kira maintained the swirl of aether around her. Then, there was a loud BANG as she drew her katana. As she slashed out in front of her, she tore a hole open in the flux and widened it until the dragonshard’s aether had been all but spent.

Not wasting a moment, Kira sheathed her blade and propelled herself through the opening she’d made, making her way as quickly as she could towards what she perceived was freedom from this floating ecosystem.

And just like that, Kira's plan worked. She managed to free herself, making her way out of this sky current, now on stable air. She could see the miles long migration now, from nose to tail, way off in the distance. She could float there, comfortably, all day, for this ecosystem tended to stay within its ecosystem.

That is except for the Wind Raider shark that had left the airstream in pursuit of the falling Jesse, having phased through everything and let gravity take him. The shark closed the gap between them terribly fast, so far out of reach of Kira that she could only watch as the jaws opened and snapped shut just as the shark crashed into Jesse.

And then it passed through the man and out the other stand, for he was still phasing. The shark, confused, realizing it hadn't managed to capture any prey, flew back up to the airstream and disappeared. It wasn't long until the man's screams rang out as he was still a victim to gravity and a fall from this height would explode his body like a balloon filled with blood.

However, Kira's use of magic didn't go entirely unnoticed. Near the back of the pod of Sky Whales was one that dwarfed all the others. Where the others were a hundred meters or so in length, this one was thrice that. And he broke from the slipstream, unleashing a "MWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR" before casting a single flip of his tail at the being that dared to threaten the pod of whales under his protection. He then dipped back into the airstream and continued to fly lazily there.

The air currents from his tail sped toward Kira's location with the speed and ferocity of hurricane winds. And they did not blow in straight lines, these were curls and whorls, forming twisters and whirlpools as they went. They pulled at the moisture in the air, forming deep and dark clouds, and in the two instants they reached Kira's location, a miniature hurricane had formed. Jesse was a hundred meters away and the very edge of the micro hurricane sent him sprawling.

And the ecosystem continued to flow, entirely unaware and unbothered by the situation out in the doldrums air.

!	Message from: Aegis
	This is my final post in this thread unless Jesse or Kira threaten the Sky Whales or the Sky King again. Feel free to see this thread to conclusion, and ding me when ready for review. Enjoy!