I'm back bitches!
There is a poll at the end to discuss some things about chapter updates.
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--- Orion ---
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I anxiously waited on the ground while Sally was up in the misty air, the conversation we’d just had running through my head again and again. Sally’s words, they were confusing and worrying.
Everything that’d happened since the village was such a mess, I was mess. I failed, in every possible way, I couldn’t be a warrior, I couldn’t stop the Wendigo, I couldn’t bring myself to kill it the first chance I got.
I couldn’t protect anyone, I couldn’t even bring myself to tell Sally that I’d let him get eaten.
Aylin’s alone… I’d let everyone she knows die.
Gods above I’m path-
“M-mister O-Orion” Aylin timidly muttered, breaking me out of my thoughts as I realised that she was standing next to me, staring up at me.
“Yes?”
“W-why is Sally gone?” She nervously asked, leaving me confused.
“Why? To look at the sun.”
“B-but it’s been a while…” she pointed out, leaving me wondering how long I’d been thinking for.
“I’m sure he’s fine, he just gets distracted sometimes.” I explained as I squatted down next to her, trying to think of a way to get that expression off her face, she looked so alone.
“Would you like to hear a story while we wait?” I asked, relying on the only thing I knew that could at least calm her down, not like I could stuff it up.
And luckily she nodded as I sat down and began to continue telling my story about Lord of the rings, regaling the tales about Frodo and his friends travelling through the shire and how they relied on each other whenever the wraiths appeared.
But before I could get very far into the story, Aylin just burst out crying and left me completely lost as to whether I should do something or continue the story.
“D-Does Frod ev-v-ver f-fail?” she mumbled, and while I ignored her habit of getting Frodo’s name wrong, I wondered why she was asking.
“No, he always has his friends to help him through it, even when he can’t go on, his friends carry him to the end.” I happily told her, and then something strange happened, she started crying harder and latched onto midsection, wrapping her arms around me.
She was hugging me?
Why would she do that?
I just awkwardly sat there while she cried… a lot. Eventually, out of just wanting to do something to escape the awkwardness, I started patting her on her head, it usually helped with Sally, even if it was a fifty-fifty if it worked.
We were sitting there for a while, long enough that I also started to worry about Sally. It shouldn’t take this long just to go have a look at the sun. Did he finally leave? I wouldn’t blame him, I failed didn’t I? like with the first group, I failed to do my job and they stabbed me in the front.
Did he finally figure out that I lied to him? O-or that the bond might be permanent?
I don’t get what was scaring him so badly about it, I think it affects both of us-
No, I can’t complain about him being upset, I’m the one who forced the bond on him, I’m the one at fault. I’m the problem, I’m pathetic.
Why does everyth-
“HAHAHAHA” A familiar chittering laugh rang out as a streak of silver crashed through the mist and my thoughts, hitting the ground with a rough thud as two creatures wrestled on the ground. One of them was surprisingly Sally, who had his mouth around an ibis-like bird. It wasn’t anything I’d remembered seeing before, a long, curved beak that look metallic, tinged a yellow-orange bronze colour. It had a bald head with a long neck, and its body was covered in plain bronze feathers, like artisans had forged each feather and replaced all the originals ones this bird might’ve had. But these feathers had rusted, the bird was covered in splotches of green.
[Using ]
[Stymphalian bird – Level 5
A god of war’s devious bird of prey
Stymphalian birds are one of the most troublesome pests in the Divian forest, they circle above while flinging projectiles down onto whoever gets close. Their faeces poison any water supply they get close to, but worse of all, killing them makes things worse.
A single dead Stymphalian bird will work up the whole flock into a murderous rage, killing everything within sight and capable of reducing a whole area into a wasteland.
]
A loud snap distracted me from reading the appraisal as i turned to look at the noise, and Sally looked back at me with the Stymphalian bird’s neck in his mouth, clearly snapped as he stared at me like an excited housecat.
Uh oh.
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--- Sally ---
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“Hgihgbsh” I tried to say, before spitting out the bird and some of the gore still in my mouth.
“Guess who just caught lunch!” I happily exclaimed, pushing the strange metallic towards Orion so he could take care of it, and as I did I noticed them hugging. Aww, its nice that they’re getting closer and that she trusts him.
“Sally, did you ever Appraise that bird?” Orion said, raising a hand from Aylin’s head to poke the clearly dead bird, and I shook my head in denial, wondering what I could’ve missed.
[Using ]
[Corpse of a stymphalian Bird
An accursed corpse
The stinking corpse of a Stymphalian Bird, a dangerous omen for all those within a large radius of it. The Stymphalian Bird is the ultimate pest, and is almost impossible to get rid of, because these birds always travel in flocks and relentlessly protect their roosting spots.
But the worst part about them is that killing one of them incites the whole flock into a murderous rage, attacking any living things in their sights.]
Oh, that sucks, does that mean we can’t eat it?
“Don’t worry Orion, these birds aren’t that hard to kill, even I could take this one out.” I proclaimed, even when I was having fun up in the sky, this one only took a few minutes to take down, it couldn’t be that hard to face a dozen of them.
“W-w-what Appraisal?” Aylin muttered from Orion’s lap, the chubby little girl was clearly confused by our conversation, but I couldn’t blame her.
“Do you remember when you got angry at me?” I calmly explained, her face slowly growing more and more twisted with fear as she processed my words.
“Aylin, the system isn’t dangerous, it can help with things.”
“The sys-tam?”
“System, it allows Orion and I to do many things, like look at something and get an explanation about it!” I explained, but it didn’t look like Aylin had even heard the word system before, so why was she so scared of it?
“Aylin, can I ask you something?” I asked, to which she timidly nodded.
“Why were you… worried when you saw me use it?”
“I-it might not b-be…”
“Be?”
“y-y-you k-know t-tha-t-t b-b-big w-w-wo-lf-f t-t-tha-”
“Aylin”
“i-i-i-it-t d-d-di-i-d t-t-t-”
“AYLIN!” I almost shouted, finally breaking her out of her manic state of muttering and sweating and crying. I ran over to her and placed a claw on her shoulder while Orion resumed patting her head.
“Shh, Aylin, don’t worry I’m here.” I reassured her.
“I’m also here.” Orion chipped in, which made me chuckle a little.
“We’re here” I added, but it didn’t really look like she heard me, she just sobbed into Orion’s shirt. But what she did manage to squeeze out from that traumatising memory was something about a wolf… Oh, the Wendigo, it had a wolf skull for a head.
So, the Wendigo looked like it the same thing I did when I used the system?
That’s worrying, even if Aylin mistook it, its scary that anyone can just get it, look what happened to the Wendigo, it used to be a kid, then it ate half a town and turned the rest into cannibals.
But how did the Wendigo get it? I was born with it and I’m pretty sure Orion had it magically appearing arrows aren’t subtle, and he was from earth as well. Ahhh, it feels like the answer is right here, like I could know what’s going on if I just thought about it a bit harder. Oh well.
After a bit she eventually calmed down enough that we should be able to start moving, finally!
We started wandering off into the forest based off of my memory of the sun, and hiking was just making me feel…
Sore.
I was missing my ride, walking sucked. My feet hurt, Which reminded me shoes were a thing and I didn’t have any, unlike Orion and Aylin. For a bit I wondered if I could find some other bit of Orion to hang off of, but I felt a bit guilty about it with him already carrying all that camping gear.
But walking suuuucked so much. So after a bit of silent walking through the trees in the forest I eventually just decided to use the excuse of checking the sun’s position to fly again, even if the mist was clearing up now with midday approaching.
“I’m going to go check the sun again, ta-ta!” I briefly announced before jumping up into the air again, flying up through the branches as I glanced back at Orion, he squinted a bit before nodding.
For a moment twigs and leaves smacked against my wings as I broke through top layer of branches and leaves and into the open sky, the clear blue above and with the sun beating down flying had never felt more inviting.
I let out a little laugh as I looked at the land below, the sprawling forest of towering trees occupying everything I could see, but curiously in the distance there was a faint trail of smoke on the horizon.
I think it was manmade, it was thin and light trail of grey, not the black swathe of smoke you’d expect from a forest fire. At least I know that the map was accurate now, and now that the city is in sight, it should be easy to get to it.
And while I’m up here, might as well try out some of the other new things I got from evolving into a cloud dragon.
[:
This kind of magic allows for the creation of basic weather phenomena on a tiny scale. The creations of clouds only a big as your head and the ability to alter those clouds to produce a bit of water or static.
:
You can physically touch and shape claws with your hands, allowing them to be remade from bits of condensation into a touchable material]
I didn’t really try them before because flying seemed so much more interesting, but these also looked like there were full of possibility.
[Activating ]
This time the magic felt… different, that angry surge of buzzing energy for the reinforcing spells wasn’t there. It felt like a cold surge, a refreshing chilled beverage on a hot day. It was nice, unlike the other magic which felt forced out, this felt natural, like I was made to do it.
Which would make sense, I’m a cloud dragon now.
But I eventually felt the magic flow all the way from my heart to my front paws, and thick white mist poured from them. Admittedly underwhelming, it’s just a fog machine, but magic.
I looked back a I flew around in a circle, leaving behind a trail of smoke that marked my flight path.
Though I suppose that’s what clouds are, just big clumps of mist floating in the sky. But there is one more thing to try.
While I flew around back to the little trail of clouds I let my claws trail through it and when I lifted it back out strands of the cloud stuck to them like candy floss. I fiddled with them in my talons, and curiously the more I touched them, the more solid they grew, from weak fairy floss to thicker cotton.
I then experimented by adding more clouds to it with , and the clump I had in my hands slowly grew until it was almost as big as me, a big clump of thickening white cotton that reminded me of what children’s books would describe clouds as.
Though as it got bigger and bigger, I got curious about something that I thought reaaally shouldn’t work. But, then again, what’s the worst that could happen?
I folded my wings back into their resting position on my back and let the cloud I was holding take all of my weight. And surprisingly I didn’t immediately fall out of the sky, I just hung there, the mysterious ball of white somehow held most of my weight.
I grinned with glee as I realised the potential of this magic as I slowly drifted downwards.
But before I could experiment more I heard agitated screeching in the distance, and from what I remembered, the direction that we’d walked from. I thought about what could possibly causing such a racket from kilometres away, but then I remembered something a bit important, my companions who I’d left on the forest floor, for at least ten minutes now.
I’ve really got to stop getting distracted whenever i got an opportunity to fly, I always ended up on a tangent that ended up with me being up here far longer than necessary. But hey, its gotten me a few levels in flying.
I descended back down to earth, leaving my weird little cloud to float off as I went to go find my crew. Another perk of being a dragon was the eyesight, I could see almost everything on the ground with astonishing detail.
In moments I spotted Orion, even through the fading mist his figure was as clear as day.
I quickly flew towards them, debating to myself wether or not I should surprise Orion by jumping on his back. But he’d been a bit off today with how he was acting, so I wouldn’t do that to him again.
Yet.
“Heeeellooo!” I shouted as I swooped the two like an angry magpie.
“Keep going in the same direction, I think I can see the top of the city from up there, so I think were close? Maybe?” I started to say confidently, which slowly trailed off into confusion, how much does height effect the distance from object on the horizon, I feel like you need a degree or an addiction to Wikipedia to know that.
“That’s good.” Orion just plainly acknowledged, before he kept on walking. I just shrugged as I started flowing behind again on the ground.
I really didn’t know feet could get this sore.
…
…
Eventually we reached the edge of the forest, and it was strange how abrupt the change was. It went straight from dense forests to open grassy plains that were constantly waving in a strong wind. It felt like a place that should be on a cliff overlooking a salty ocean that constantly sloughed waves onto jagged rocks.
Even the wind didn’t act like it should, it was extremely gusty just outside the forests borders, but the moment you stepped back inside, the wind stopped, like it didn’t exist inside the forest.
“Strange…” Orion usefully noted.
“This normal Aylin?”
“Yeah, the forest isn’t windy, but the windy place always is.”
“Wow, really?”
“Yup! Sometimes it blows a different way though.”
I noted that useful bit of information for later and peered down the side of the boundary line that the smoke was coming from, and beheld a settlement. It was strange towering place, made of wood and stone like a castle that’d been mashed together with a hunting cottage. The centre of the structure was a massive stone spike that rose the ground on the plains side, and it was sheared perfectly in half, the boundary line between the forest and the windy plains marking the cut.
All over and around the base of the jutting rocky hill was wooden houses and buildings that looked like viking homes, simple and yet enough to resist the constant gale.
“Now that’s a city!” I exclaimed, pointing out the obvious structure to the other two, to which the both just blearily nodded. Wordlessly they both just started walking again, which made me a little bit annoyed. I know why Aylin’s lacking energy, but Orion doesn’t have an excuse to be this miserable. Well, I hope he doesn’t.
…
We were walking towards the strange city, getting closer as that rocky spire began to loom and I could see a tall wooden wall surrounding the city. It consisted of thick logs planted into the ground upright, packed tightly enough together that you couldn’t see in-between them and there were covered in giant ashy symbols that’d been painted onto the wood, they were flowing into each other like a long cursive piece of writing. It created a rather beautiful scene with the people walking along the top of the wall and it didn’t look like they’d spotted us yet.
“It looks like a nice place, better protected too!” I happily said, hoping to get something of a conversation going so I didn’t have nothing but silence to distract me from my sore feet.
“Good walls.” Orion noted, while Aylin just stayed silent which worried me. She’d been slowly loosing energy and had been bothering to talk less and less. I sped up my walking speed a bit to catch up with her and took a quick glance at her face, which seemed vacant and sad.
I sighed silently as I realised that she was barely even listening to me before.
“Hey Aylin, do you want to see a trick?” I playfully asked, and a little bit of my enthusiasm seemed to reach her as she looked at me.
[Activating ]
a small trail of clouds leaked from my front talons and I quickly grabbed it and started shaping it, forcing the mist into a tangible material.
I squished it into a ball and tossed it to Aylin who caught it in surprise as she felt the impossibly touchable ball of fluff.
“Its like fairy floss right?” I jokingly said to Aylin, who just gave me a look of confused excitement while she squished it. Right, wouldn’t know what fairy floss is.
“It does?” Orion piped up, joining the conversation with a bit of uncharacteristic curiosity.
“Yeah! Try it out.” I said with glee as I tossed him another fluff ball that I’d just made. He caught it in one hand and squished it a bit, like a stress ball.
“Is this what fairy floss feels like?” Orion innocently asked, leaving me a bit surprised at just how little he knew about general objects.
“Fun!” Aylin announced as she pulled it apart and then smushed it back together like playdoh.
I just smiled at their antics while we kept on walking for a while longer, until even the people on the walls were more visible than the unshapely blobs they were before.
And that spire was bigger than I thought it was, it must be at least a hundred metres tall, inspiring that same sense of scale as sitting at the bottom of a skyscraper.
“look, they’re waving!” Aylin pointed out and I looked at the faint figures and saw the same thing. There was a group of them clumped up on the nearest part of the wall to us and the were jumping and waving their arms in the air.
“Why are they so excited?” Orion asked, his words reminding me that it’s weird. Why were they so excited, they should get more than enough travellers for it to be normal. It was strange…
“Hey Orion? Can you read lips at all?” I asked, while we might not be close, I could faintly see that they were shouting something, but the wind stopped me from hearing anything. And I’m horrible at reading lips, don’t @ me.
“It’s hard to tell, but it looks like they’re shouting the same word over and over again.” Orion explained.
“You can’t tell?”
“I can understand what sounds are words because of the system, but I’m not familiar enough with the language to recognise the lip’s movement.” Orion explained, and while his words were painfully clear, why did he have to make so much sense in a situation like this.
“c’mooon, don’t you have super hearing or something?” I begged again, and he shrugged and turned his head towards the city and closed his eyes in concentration.
“Sounds like… ru? Something starting with r?”
“That’s weird… I don’t remember any greetings like that?” I said as a sense of unease crept over me, I’m starting to wonder if their jumping around isn’t happiness.
“Maybe they want some clouds!” Aylin chimed in as she held up her little ball.
“Not right now Aylin.” I dismissively said, my head whirling around as I started to get worried.
“Maybe we should start walking a bit faster.” I decided, Orion hesitating for a moment before grabbing Aylin’s hand and pulling her along.
*SCREEEEECH*
That sounds familiar, I realised as I turned towards the noise, spotting a hoard of glinting birds in the sky. It wasn’t just a couple of them, it was a shifting flock of hundreds, enough that you couldn’t single out a single one as the amorphous flowing blob of green started moving towards us.
[Activating ]
[Flock of Stymphalian birds – Level 3-8
Stubborn retribution incarnate
A force of nature, a trial of heracules, a living calamity.
Killing one attracts a group, killing them summons a horde, and a horde will poison the water, block out the sky and slaughter everything they see.
Happy now?]
Wow, didn’t know the system could be this snappy. But I maybe, possibly, deserved a bit of criticism.
“Let’s run now” I shouted as I jumped into the air to fly, while Orion picked up Aylin in his hands and started running as fast as he could.
While I could probably make it because both I and the birds are flying, Orion and Aylin wouldn’t. I decided to fly closer to the swarm to see if I could distract them for a bit.
The city was still a good distance away, at least a couple minutes of full sprinting. But while I tried to get up into the air, the strong winds were a problem.
But as I got closer to the swarm, the wind kept blowing back into the forest and I struggled. I learned how to fly yesterday, sue me.
But within half a minute I got close enough to each individual bronze bird and I prepared to make some sort of distraction or attack, maybe another fireball.
Then a bronze feather flew into my face, bouncing off my scales. And another scratched my wing, the razor sharp metal easily leaving a nick on my more vulnerable wing.
Nope.
Not fighting birds with throwing knives, nuh-uh.
I turned around immediately and started fleeing, my survival instincts kicking as I tried to perform evasive maneuvers.
[Activating ]
Even as my magic guided me around and through the growing downpour of feathers, I couldn’t dodge all of them, even my skills had limits as the number of projectiles grew.
I glanced back, my goal of distracting the hoard complete as Orion ran unimpaired.
But now I’m in trouble.
Because I got so slowed down by dodging their feathers, the Stymphalian birds were starting to catch up. I needed a way to get rid of these feathers that doesn’t involve them getting lodged in me.
I glanced downwards, spotting the cluttered forest with all its trees, that’d work nicely as cover. I’m not that confident on flying at high speed through a forest, but there’s no time like the present to practice it.
I folded my wings in and dived downwards, quickly breaching the top layer as I threw open my wings before I got too close to the forest floor.
I groaned in pain as I forced my wings to take the strain of such an abrupt stop as I tried to gain some forward momentum before the birds found me.
Just as I started to get some speed while trying to dodge tree after tree, the first few birds started to drop between the trees and flung their feathers at me. Which I used to avoid, but doing it at such a standstill made my wings feel like they were trying to tear themselves off my back.
F@ck, what am I going to do now?
Right, sh!t, I’ve got other skills dumbass.
[Activating ]
My wings filled with buzzing itchy energy as I used my newfound power to fling myself forward as the couple of birds near me started to turn into dozens. I took a quick glance at my mana to make sure I had enough to make it to the city.
| Health: | 23/28 |
| MP: | 32/60 |
Wow, really drains my mana.
I kept powering onwards, using both skills in tandem to gain speed through the trees that the Stymphalian birds struggled in.
But the fact I was faster didn’t matter that much, the birds kept falling through the foliage from above and throwing their feathers at me, which I managed to dodge with the extra power.
But...
| MP: | 24/60 |
Could I keep this up?
I pushed myself harder, going faster, harder as I pushed my magics to their limits, even using to give my wings extra power to go even faster.
The trees quickly became a blur as accelerated to speed I hadn’t dared to before, I entirely relied on to keep up this pace.
| MP: | 13/60 |
F@ck.
I couldn’t slow down now, the birds might be falling behind but a moment of rest would end up with me getting skewered.
I kept going.
| MP: | 5/60 |
Through the trees! I could finally see the wall!
| MP: | 3/60 |
Fifty metres!
| MP: | 2/60 |
Thirty!
| MP: | 1/60 |
Ten and a bit!
| MP: | 0/60 |
Damn it, I instantly felt the magic stop flowing as I fell out of the sky, my abused wings instantly giving out as they were no longer supported. I hit the floor hard, skipping like a stone across water as I bounced off the dirt.
I hit the wall with thud as I finally came to a stop. I desperately wanted to just get up and fly over this stupid wall. But I was spent.
I watched as the flock of birds emerged from the forest and the ones that were still above got even closer.
I managed to get up and start hobbling towards what I thought was an entrance, but before I could even get a couple steps in, feathers started flying again. They hit my scales and bounced off, the impact sending aches all the way through my body, fortunately with my wings tucked in they got hit less, I could still feel painful slices every few seconds.
But even though they mostly bounce off, I just couldn’t keep walking, and I fell over again.
I curled up on the floor in a desperate attempt to protect myself from the feathers.
It h-hurt.
Why won’t it stop.
Everything felt so dark.
My ability to hold on started to fade, and I could swear there was someone shouting in the distance.
Cherrys_chapters
So, I've been trying get get back on track with writing to get some chapters stored up, but these holidays were busier than I thought they would be, so I didn't get much time to write. So going into the coming semester the schedule I'm probably going to have to slow down a bit, feel free to use the poll to show what you prefer.
I'm back bitches!
There is a poll at the end to discuss some things about chapter updates.
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--- Orion ---
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I anxiously waited on the ground while Sally was up in the misty air, the conversation we’d just had running through my head again and again. Sally’s words, they were confusing and worrying.
Everything that’d happened since the village was such a mess, I was mess. I failed, in every possible way, I couldn’t be a warrior, I couldn’t stop the Wendigo, I couldn’t bring myself to kill it the first chance I got.
I couldn’t protect anyone, I couldn’t even bring myself to tell Sally that I’d let him get eaten.
Aylin’s alone… I’d let everyone she knows die.
Gods above I’m path-
“M-mister O-Orion” Aylin timidly muttered, breaking me out of my thoughts as I realised that she was standing next to me, staring up at me.
“Yes?”
“W-why is Sally gone?” She nervously asked, leaving me confused.
“Why? To look at the sun.”
“B-but it’s been a while…” she pointed out, leaving me wondering how long I’d been thinking for.
“I’m sure he’s fine, he just gets distracted sometimes.” I explained as I squatted down next to her, trying to think of a way to get that expression off her face, she looked so alone.
“Would you like to hear a story while we wait?” I asked, relying on the only thing I knew that could at least calm her down, not like I could stuff it up.
And luckily she nodded as I sat down and began to continue telling my story about Lord of the rings, regaling the tales about Frodo and his friends travelling through the shire and how they relied on each other whenever the wraiths appeared.
But before I could get very far into the story, Aylin just burst out crying and left me completely lost as to whether I should do something or continue the story.
“D-Does Frod ev-v-ver f-fail?” she mumbled, and while I ignored her habit of getting Frodo’s name wrong, I wondered why she was asking.
“No, he always has his friends to help him through it, even when he can’t go on, his friends carry him to the end.” I happily told her, and then something strange happened, she started crying harder and latched onto midsection, wrapping her arms around me.
She was hugging me?
Why would she do that?
I just awkwardly sat there while she cried… a lot. Eventually, out of just wanting to do something to escape the awkwardness, I started patting her on her head, it usually helped with Sally, even if it was a fifty-fifty if it worked.
We were sitting there for a while, long enough that I also started to worry about Sally. It shouldn’t take this long just to go have a look at the sun. Did he finally leave? I wouldn’t blame him, I failed didn’t I? like with the first group, I failed to do my job and they stabbed me in the front.
Did he finally figure out that I lied to him? O-or that the bond might be permanent?
I don’t get what was scaring him so badly about it, I think it affects both of us-
No, I can’t complain about him being upset, I’m the one who forced the bond on him, I’m the one at fault. I’m the problem, I’m pathetic.
Why does everyth-
“HAHAHAHA” A familiar chittering laugh rang out as a streak of silver crashed through the mist and my thoughts, hitting the ground with a rough thud as two creatures wrestled on the ground. One of them was surprisingly Sally, who had his mouth around an ibis-like bird. It wasn’t anything I’d remembered seeing before, a long, curved beak that look metallic, tinged a yellow-orange bronze colour. It had a bald head with a long neck, and its body was covered in plain bronze feathers, like artisans had forged each feather and replaced all the originals ones this bird might’ve had. But these feathers had rusted, the bird was covered in splotches of green.
[Using ]
[Stymphalian bird – Level 5
A god of war’s devious bird of prey
Stymphalian birds are one of the most troublesome pests in the Divian forest, they circle above while flinging projectiles down onto whoever gets close. Their faeces poison any water supply they get close to, but worse of all, killing them makes things worse.
A single dead Stymphalian bird will work up the whole flock into a murderous rage, killing everything within sight and capable of reducing a whole area into a wasteland.
]
A loud snap distracted me from reading the appraisal as i turned to look at the noise, and Sally looked back at me with the Stymphalian bird’s neck in his mouth, clearly snapped as he stared at me like an excited housecat.
Uh oh.
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--- Sally ---
-------------------------------------------------
“Hgihgbsh” I tried to say, before spitting out the bird and some of the gore still in my mouth.
“Guess who just caught lunch!” I happily exclaimed, pushing the strange metallic towards Orion so he could take care of it, and as I did I noticed them hugging. Aww, its nice that they’re getting closer and that she trusts him.
“Sally, did you ever Appraise that bird?” Orion said, raising a hand from Aylin’s head to poke the clearly dead bird, and I shook my head in denial, wondering what I could’ve missed.
[Using ]
[Corpse of a stymphalian Bird
An accursed corpse
The stinking corpse of a Stymphalian Bird, a dangerous omen for all those within a large radius of it. The Stymphalian Bird is the ultimate pest, and is almost impossible to get rid of, because these birds always travel in flocks and relentlessly protect their roosting spots.
But the worst part about them is that killing one of them incites the whole flock into a murderous rage, attacking any living things in their sights.]
Oh, that sucks, does that mean we can’t eat it?
“Don’t worry Orion, these birds aren’t that hard to kill, even I could take this one out.” I proclaimed, even when I was having fun up in the sky, this one only took a few minutes to take down, it couldn’t be that hard to face a dozen of them.
“W-w-what Appraisal?” Aylin muttered from Orion’s lap, the chubby little girl was clearly confused by our conversation, but I couldn’t blame her.
“Do you remember when you got angry at me?” I calmly explained, her face slowly growing more and more twisted with fear as she processed my words.
“Aylin, the system isn’t dangerous, it can help with things.”
“The sys-tam?”
“System, it allows Orion and I to do many things, like look at something and get an explanation about it!” I explained, but it didn’t look like Aylin had even heard the word system before, so why was she so scared of it?
“Aylin, can I ask you something?” I asked, to which she timidly nodded.
“Why were you… worried when you saw me use it?”
“I-it might not b-be…”
“Be?”
“y-y-you k-know t-tha-t-t b-b-big w-w-wo-lf-f t-t-tha-”
“Aylin”
“i-i-i-it-t d-d-di-i-d t-t-t-”
“AYLIN!” I almost shouted, finally breaking her out of her manic state of muttering and sweating and crying. I ran over to her and placed a claw on her shoulder while Orion resumed patting her head.
“Shh, Aylin, don’t worry I’m here.” I reassured her.
“I’m also here.” Orion chipped in, which made me chuckle a little.
“We’re here” I added, but it didn’t really look like she heard me, she just sobbed into Orion’s shirt. But what she did manage to squeeze out from that traumatising memory was something about a wolf… Oh, the Wendigo, it had a wolf skull for a head.
So, the Wendigo looked like it the same thing I did when I used the system?
That’s worrying, even if Aylin mistook it, its scary that anyone can just get it, look what happened to the Wendigo, it used to be a kid, then it ate half a town and turned the rest into cannibals.
But how did the Wendigo get it? I was born with it and I’m pretty sure Orion had it magically appearing arrows aren’t subtle, and he was from earth as well. Ahhh, it feels like the answer is right here, like I could know what’s going on if I just thought about it a bit harder. Oh well.
After a bit she eventually calmed down enough that we should be able to start moving, finally!
We started wandering off into the forest based off of my memory of the sun, and hiking was just making me feel…
Sore.
I was missing my ride, walking sucked. My feet hurt, Which reminded me shoes were a thing and I didn’t have any, unlike Orion and Aylin. For a bit I wondered if I could find some other bit of Orion to hang off of, but I felt a bit guilty about it with him already carrying all that camping gear.
But walking suuuucked so much. So after a bit of silent walking through the trees in the forest I eventually just decided to use the excuse of checking the sun’s position to fly again, even if the mist was clearing up now with midday approaching.
“I’m going to go check the sun again, ta-ta!” I briefly announced before jumping up into the air again, flying up through the branches as I glanced back at Orion, he squinted a bit before nodding.
For a moment twigs and leaves smacked against my wings as I broke through top layer of branches and leaves and into the open sky, the clear blue above and with the sun beating down flying had never felt more inviting.
I let out a little laugh as I looked at the land below, the sprawling forest of towering trees occupying everything I could see, but curiously in the distance there was a faint trail of smoke on the horizon.
I think it was manmade, it was thin and light trail of grey, not the black swathe of smoke you’d expect from a forest fire. At least I know that the map was accurate now, and now that the city is in sight, it should be easy to get to it.
And while I’m up here, might as well try out some of the other new things I got from evolving into a cloud dragon.
[:
This kind of magic allows for the creation of basic weather phenomena on a tiny scale. The creations of clouds only a big as your head and the ability to alter those clouds to produce a bit of water or static.
:
You can physically touch and shape claws with your hands, allowing them to be remade from bits of condensation into a touchable material]
I didn’t really try them before because flying seemed so much more interesting, but these also looked like there were full of possibility.
[Activating ]
This time the magic felt… different, that angry surge of buzzing energy for the reinforcing spells wasn’t there. It felt like a cold surge, a refreshing chilled beverage on a hot day. It was nice, unlike the other magic which felt forced out, this felt natural, like I was made to do it.
Which would make sense, I’m a cloud dragon now.
But I eventually felt the magic flow all the way from my heart to my front paws, and thick white mist poured from them. Admittedly underwhelming, it’s just a fog machine, but magic.
I looked back a I flew around in a circle, leaving behind a trail of smoke that marked my flight path.
Though I suppose that’s what clouds are, just big clumps of mist floating in the sky. But there is one more thing to try.
While I flew around back to the little trail of clouds I let my claws trail through it and when I lifted it back out strands of the cloud stuck to them like candy floss. I fiddled with them in my talons, and curiously the more I touched them, the more solid they grew, from weak fairy floss to thicker cotton.
I then experimented by adding more clouds to it with , and the clump I had in my hands slowly grew until it was almost as big as me, a big clump of thickening white cotton that reminded me of what children’s books would describe clouds as.
Though as it got bigger and bigger, I got curious about something that I thought reaaally shouldn’t work. But, then again, what’s the worst that could happen?
I folded my wings back into their resting position on my back and let the cloud I was holding take all of my weight. And surprisingly I didn’t immediately fall out of the sky, I just hung there, the mysterious ball of white somehow held most of my weight.
I grinned with glee as I realised the potential of this magic as I slowly drifted downwards.
But before I could experiment more I heard agitated screeching in the distance, and from what I remembered, the direction that we’d walked from. I thought about what could possibly causing such a racket from kilometres away, but then I remembered something a bit important, my companions who I’d left on the forest floor, for at least ten minutes now.
I’ve really got to stop getting distracted whenever i got an opportunity to fly, I always ended up on a tangent that ended up with me being up here far longer than necessary. But hey, its gotten me a few levels in flying.
I descended back down to earth, leaving my weird little cloud to float off as I went to go find my crew. Another perk of being a dragon was the eyesight, I could see almost everything on the ground with astonishing detail.
In moments I spotted Orion, even through the fading mist his figure was as clear as day.
I quickly flew towards them, debating to myself wether or not I should surprise Orion by jumping on his back. But he’d been a bit off today with how he was acting, so I wouldn’t do that to him again.
Yet.
“Heeeellooo!” I shouted as I swooped the two like an angry magpie.
“Keep going in the same direction, I think I can see the top of the city from up there, so I think were close? Maybe?” I started to say confidently, which slowly trailed off into confusion, how much does height effect the distance from object on the horizon, I feel like you need a degree or an addiction to Wikipedia to know that.
“That’s good.” Orion just plainly acknowledged, before he kept on walking. I just shrugged as I started flowing behind again on the ground.
I really didn’t know feet could get this sore.
…
…
Eventually we reached the edge of the forest, and it was strange how abrupt the change was. It went straight from dense forests to open grassy plains that were constantly waving in a strong wind. It felt like a place that should be on a cliff overlooking a salty ocean that constantly sloughed waves onto jagged rocks.
Even the wind didn’t act like it should, it was extremely gusty just outside the forests borders, but the moment you stepped back inside, the wind stopped, like it didn’t exist inside the forest.
“Strange…” Orion usefully noted.
“This normal Aylin?”
“Yeah, the forest isn’t windy, but the windy place always is.”
“Wow, really?”
“Yup! Sometimes it blows a different way though.”
I noted that useful bit of information for later and peered down the side of the boundary line that the smoke was coming from, and beheld a settlement. It was strange towering place, made of wood and stone like a castle that’d been mashed together with a hunting cottage. The centre of the structure was a massive stone spike that rose the ground on the plains side, and it was sheared perfectly in half, the boundary line between the forest and the windy plains marking the cut.
All over and around the base of the jutting rocky hill was wooden houses and buildings that looked like viking homes, simple and yet enough to resist the constant gale.
“Now that’s a city!” I exclaimed, pointing out the obvious structure to the other two, to which the both just blearily nodded. Wordlessly they both just started walking again, which made me a little bit annoyed. I know why Aylin’s lacking energy, but Orion doesn’t have an excuse to be this miserable. Well, I hope he doesn’t.
…
We were walking towards the strange city, getting closer as that rocky spire began to loom and I could see a tall wooden wall surrounding the city. It consisted of thick logs planted into the ground upright, packed tightly enough together that you couldn’t see in-between them and there were covered in giant ashy symbols that’d been painted onto the wood, they were flowing into each other like a long cursive piece of writing. It created a rather beautiful scene with the people walking along the top of the wall and it didn’t look like they’d spotted us yet.
“It looks like a nice place, better protected too!” I happily said, hoping to get something of a conversation going so I didn’t have nothing but silence to distract me from my sore feet.
“Good walls.” Orion noted, while Aylin just stayed silent which worried me. She’d been slowly loosing energy and had been bothering to talk less and less. I sped up my walking speed a bit to catch up with her and took a quick glance at her face, which seemed vacant and sad.
I sighed silently as I realised that she was barely even listening to me before.
“Hey Aylin, do you want to see a trick?” I playfully asked, and a little bit of my enthusiasm seemed to reach her as she looked at me.
[Activating ]
a small trail of clouds leaked from my front talons and I quickly grabbed it and started shaping it, forcing the mist into a tangible material.
I squished it into a ball and tossed it to Aylin who caught it in surprise as she felt the impossibly touchable ball of fluff.
“Its like fairy floss right?” I jokingly said to Aylin, who just gave me a look of confused excitement while she squished it. Right, wouldn’t know what fairy floss is.
“It does?” Orion piped up, joining the conversation with a bit of uncharacteristic curiosity.
“Yeah! Try it out.” I said with glee as I tossed him another fluff ball that I’d just made. He caught it in one hand and squished it a bit, like a stress ball.
“Is this what fairy floss feels like?” Orion innocently asked, leaving me a bit surprised at just how little he knew about general objects.
“Fun!” Aylin announced as she pulled it apart and then smushed it back together like playdoh.
I just smiled at their antics while we kept on walking for a while longer, until even the people on the walls were more visible than the unshapely blobs they were before.
And that spire was bigger than I thought it was, it must be at least a hundred metres tall, inspiring that same sense of scale as sitting at the bottom of a skyscraper.
“look, they’re waving!” Aylin pointed out and I looked at the faint figures and saw the same thing. There was a group of them clumped up on the nearest part of the wall to us and the were jumping and waving their arms in the air.
“Why are they so excited?” Orion asked, his words reminding me that it’s weird. Why were they so excited, they should get more than enough travellers for it to be normal. It was strange…
“Hey Orion? Can you read lips at all?” I asked, while we might not be close, I could faintly see that they were shouting something, but the wind stopped me from hearing anything. And I’m horrible at reading lips, don’t @ me.
“It’s hard to tell, but it looks like they’re shouting the same word over and over again.” Orion explained.
“You can’t tell?”
“I can understand what sounds are words because of the system, but I’m not familiar enough with the language to recognise the lip’s movement.” Orion explained, and while his words were painfully clear, why did he have to make so much sense in a situation like this.
“c’mooon, don’t you have super hearing or something?” I begged again, and he shrugged and turned his head towards the city and closed his eyes in concentration.
“Sounds like… ru? Something starting with r?”
“That’s weird… I don’t remember any greetings like that?” I said as a sense of unease crept over me, I’m starting to wonder if their jumping around isn’t happiness.
“Maybe they want some clouds!” Aylin chimed in as she held up her little ball.
“Not right now Aylin.” I dismissively said, my head whirling around as I started to get worried.
“Maybe we should start walking a bit faster.” I decided, Orion hesitating for a moment before grabbing Aylin’s hand and pulling her along.
*SCREEEEECH*
That sounds familiar, I realised as I turned towards the noise, spotting a hoard of glinting birds in the sky. It wasn’t just a couple of them, it was a shifting flock of hundreds, enough that you couldn’t single out a single one as the amorphous flowing blob of green started moving towards us.
[Activating ]
[Flock of Stymphalian birds – Level 3-8
Stubborn retribution incarnate
A force of nature, a trial of heracules, a living calamity.
Killing one attracts a group, killing them summons a horde, and a horde will poison the water, block out the sky and slaughter everything they see.
Happy now?]
Wow, didn’t know the system could be this snappy. But I maybe, possibly, deserved a bit of criticism.
“Let’s run now” I shouted as I jumped into the air to fly, while Orion picked up Aylin in his hands and started running as fast as he could.
While I could probably make it because both I and the birds are flying, Orion and Aylin wouldn’t. I decided to fly closer to the swarm to see if I could distract them for a bit.
The city was still a good distance away, at least a couple minutes of full sprinting. But while I tried to get up into the air, the strong winds were a problem.
But as I got closer to the swarm, the wind kept blowing back into the forest and I struggled. I learned how to fly yesterday, sue me.
But within half a minute I got close enough to each individual bronze bird and I prepared to make some sort of distraction or attack, maybe another fireball.
Then a bronze feather flew into my face, bouncing off my scales. And another scratched my wing, the razor sharp metal easily leaving a nick on my more vulnerable wing.
Nope.
Not fighting birds with throwing knives, nuh-uh.
I turned around immediately and started fleeing, my survival instincts kicking as I tried to perform evasive maneuvers.
[Activating ]
Even as my magic guided me around and through the growing downpour of feathers, I couldn’t dodge all of them, even my skills had limits as the number of projectiles grew.
I glanced back, my goal of distracting the hoard complete as Orion ran unimpaired.
But now I’m in trouble.
Because I got so slowed down by dodging their feathers, the Stymphalian birds were starting to catch up. I needed a way to get rid of these feathers that doesn’t involve them getting lodged in me.
I glanced downwards, spotting the cluttered forest with all its trees, that’d work nicely as cover. I’m not that confident on flying at high speed through a forest, but there’s no time like the present to practice it.
I folded my wings in and dived downwards, quickly breaching the top layer as I threw open my wings before I got too close to the forest floor.
I groaned in pain as I forced my wings to take the strain of such an abrupt stop as I tried to gain some forward momentum before the birds found me.
Just as I started to get some speed while trying to dodge tree after tree, the first few birds started to drop between the trees and flung their feathers at me. Which I used to avoid, but doing it at such a standstill made my wings feel like they were trying to tear themselves off my back.
F@ck, what am I going to do now?
Right, sh!t, I’ve got other skills dumbass.
[Activating ]
My wings filled with buzzing itchy energy as I used my newfound power to fling myself forward as the couple of birds near me started to turn into dozens. I took a quick glance at my mana to make sure I had enough to make it to the city.
| Health: | 23/28 |
| MP: | 32/60 |
Wow, really drains my mana.
I kept powering onwards, using both skills in tandem to gain speed through the trees that the Stymphalian birds struggled in.
But the fact I was faster didn’t matter that much, the birds kept falling through the foliage from above and throwing their feathers at me, which I managed to dodge with the extra power.
But...
| MP: | 24/60 |
Could I keep this up?
I pushed myself harder, going faster, harder as I pushed my magics to their limits, even using to give my wings extra power to go even faster.
The trees quickly became a blur as accelerated to speed I hadn’t dared to before, I entirely relied on to keep up this pace.
| MP: | 13/60 |
F@ck.
I couldn’t slow down now, the birds might be falling behind but a moment of rest would end up with me getting skewered.
I kept going.
| MP: | 5/60 |
Through the trees! I could finally see the wall!
| MP: | 3/60 |
Fifty metres!
| MP: | 2/60 |
Thirty!
| MP: | 1/60 |
Ten and a bit!
| MP: | 0/60 |
Damn it, I instantly felt the magic stop flowing as I fell out of the sky, my abused wings instantly giving out as they were no longer supported. I hit the floor hard, skipping like a stone across water as I bounced off the dirt.
I hit the wall with thud as I finally came to a stop. I desperately wanted to just get up and fly over this stupid wall. But I was spent.
I watched as the flock of birds emerged from the forest and the ones that were still above got even closer.
I managed to get up and start hobbling towards what I thought was an entrance, but before I could even get a couple steps in, feathers started flying again. They hit my scales and bounced off, the impact sending aches all the way through my body, fortunately with my wings tucked in they got hit less, I could still feel painful slices every few seconds.
But even though they mostly bounce off, I just couldn’t keep walking, and I fell over again.
I curled up on the floor in a desperate attempt to protect myself from the feathers.
It h-hurt.
Why won’t it stop.
Everything felt so dark.
My ability to hold on started to fade, and I could swear there was someone shouting in the distance.
Cherrys_chapters
So, I've been trying get get back on track with writing to get some chapters stored up, but these holidays were busier than I thought they would be, so I didn't get much time to write. So going into the coming semester the schedule I'm probably going to have to slow down a bit, feel free to use the poll to show what you prefer.
