Skybound - Chapter 22: Free Fallin'

Morgan Mackenzie was falling. Not just falling. She was tumbling through the air, thrashing in undeniable panic as the wind tore at her feathers. All semblance of control vanished as she flapped her wings frantically. Black sky filled her vision for a brief moment as she spun head over heels, a brief glimpse of blue horizon as the turn brought the clouds below back into view. The sudden cold tore through her resistances, chilling her skin despite her magically enhanced protections. For the first few moments she fell, the sorceress even forgot her fire abilities.

Clarity suddenly returned as an adrenaline-fueled Morgan slammed a hefty chunk of her mana into [Accelerate]. Time seemed to slow to her perception as the skill sped up her cognition and reflexes to an extreme degree. She knew she couldn't maintain the skill for very long, lest she run her mana dangerously low. A moment was all she needed, however, to collect her thoughts and focus her mind.

[Furl] snapped her wings out of existence, withdrawing them to whatever ethereal state kept them stored out of the way in her tattoos. Her heartbeat pulsed in her eardrums as gravity pulled her down at a glacial pace, her wavy locks of hair sliding out of her vision in slow-motion. Her altered perception of time left her mind struggling to stay focused, her attention drifting between the clouds and the horizon. A small part of her noticed lavender purple flecks in the strands of her hair, a curious change she hadn't paid much attention to as her magic had changed so much about her body.

The panic receded within the effects of [Accelerate], and Morgan struggled somewhat successfully to force herself to relax and ignore the acrobatics her stomach was trying to perform in the midst of freefall. When she finally had turned to face the cloud layer below, she let the skill fade as she spread her arms and legs to catch the wind and keep from resuming the spin.

The rush of the wind returned, and only the instinctive weaving of air magic in front of her eyes allowed her to see. A thrilled shiver went down Morgan's spine now that the panic had receded. She had managed to glide with limited success after all, and now she was high enough to actually take advantage of her new appendages to possibly learn something.

If worse comes to worst I'll just have to tank the ground with my face, she thought with a determined grin. Terminal velocity should be the same, and I've taken worse damage from rockmaws and earthwyrms. She didn't think it would come to that, however, as she wasn't lacking in other magical ways to slow down if necessary. She picked up speed as she fell, the ground still obscured by the clouds that zoomed closer every second.

Lulu gave an exuberant trill from her shoulder as wind whipped the scrubby's fronds and Morgan's hair. The Sorceress released [Furl], her wings snapping back into existence with a whoosh!  She immediately gasped from the sensory overload, and only barely managed to suppress the resurging panic. While the wind rushing across her naked skin was an intense sensation, it was no longer unfamiliar or strange after so many months spent getting used to her unique class. Her magical senses were more muted with the Air than when she touched the ground, the nearly invisibly thin lines of her tattoos on her hands and feet more suited to providing her information through touch. As her wings spread out, Morgan's mind was inundated with a flood of new sensation.

Morgan had gained intimate knowledge of the types of magic she had experienced so far. The elements all had different flavors and emotions she could sense to varying degrees depending on her affinities. Fire raged, and while it was her most instinctive power and the easiest for her to control it was also extremely unstable and almost single-minded. To burn was a function of energy as heat consumed fuel, and her mana made for an excellent source of both. Earth was as solid as the stones underfoot, content to exist lazily and rarely moving. Except when it wasn't, at which time it could flow and crash with awesome destructive power, especially when infused with enough mana and heat. Water was patient, flowing gently or rushing in a torrent, and while she lacked much in the way on instinctive water magic she could still sense deep shadows of inevitable mass in the echoes of the magic. Things she could never put into words.

Air and always been the most difficult of her magics. She could use it, of course, but skills relying on it were slow to level because her understanding was so limited. Her wings expanded her senses now. Where the tattoos on her hands and feet let her sense things through the ground, the lace-like traces threaded around and through her feathers in a way that let her feel the wind. Still in a dive, her wings drew in close like a raptor, the leading edges cutting through the turbulence of her fall and keeping her steady. The sensation of air slipping between and through her feathers was curious and intimate, although not in a sense of arousal. There was freedom, and whimsy, in the taste of the wind.

The wind did not sit still like the earth, or flow like water, or blaze like fire. It could not be controlled or commanded. Morgan knew instinctively that to try to fight the wind would send her crashing to the ground. The wind could not be tamed.

The wind danced as it willed.

So Morgan danced with it. The slightest twitch of her wings shifted her course, curving around faint wisps of clouds as she dropped towards the thicker layer below. She knew, without completely understanding how, just when to bank to the right to avoid the gust of a crosswind to slip between the swirls without being battered off-course. The longer pinion feathers at her wingtips splayed out gently, and the sorceress laughed as she picked up speed.

There! She thought, feeling changes in the air currents ahead of and below her.

Her wings snapped out almost of their own accord, instinct driving her as much as thought. Her joyous "Whoop!" was accompanied by Lulu's triumphant wurble as Morgan, with wings fully extended, rode the updraft to level out and glide. Muscles she still wasn't used to exerting kept her body almost prone with her feet behind her, but the strain on her Stamina lessened as a familiar sensation rang through her mind.

You have gained the skill [Soar]!

Morgan laughed again, before diving once more for the clouds. She could spare a little while for practice. Then it would be time to find her friends.

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Terisa Aras carefully shifted her feet and hips, thankful for her resistances that made the cold bearable as she adjusted her position slightly so that an unfortunately placed shard of rock no longer jabbed into her side. The terrain outside the city ruins was a marksman's dream, in many ways, but a nightmare for her friends making their way up the valley towards the crumbling and half-melted gate. Torn earth, shattered stone, and massive fallen trees in various stages of rot were scattered across gullies and ridges of burnt obsidian ruin now coated in treacherous ice and drifts of wind-whipped snow. The ambient mana was twisted, flavors of restless death and regret that had seeped into the ground preventing new growth. It certainly fit the landscape, in her opinion.

"How much farther to the center? Biggles looks like he's about to pass out, and Raminez will never let us hear the end of it if he has to carry him."

Dana's voice was tinny and distant, but clear to Terisa's senses. The engineer had iterated upon her so-called mana radio design, and now the huntress could hear the other woman through a pair of crystals. One of which was now clipped to her ear with a curved piece of hammered bronze. She had no idea what the Worldwalker meant by wishing for plastics or polly-mers, but Kojeg's skill with fine hammerwork meant it wasn't unbearable to use as it was.

"Another hundred paces," responded the Huntress, quietly enough that the cold breeze and snow would muffle the sound and not give away her position. The Worldwalker and a shirtless warrior covered in glowing painted runes were escorting a tormented necromancer across the ruin of the old battleground. Terisa had the resistances of her high levels, and Dana had insulation in her armor to protect her while the other man's painted sigils offered protection. Biggles, on the other hand, had more than resistances. Attuned to death energies due to his necromantic class and abilities, the young man could feel the emotions of the dead. Or their echoes at least, she wasn't quite sure. Either way, the end result as he described it was a maddening psychic pressure.

Her keen eyesight brought her attention to a ripple of movement a few dozen paces from where Dana was picking her way across scattered bones that protruded from the snow. A slow exhalation, a squeeze of her finger, and a brief pulse of dim light danced along Althenea's barrel. The suppression runes did their job and reduced the sound of Terisa's attack to a whispery puff.

At least, until a bonewraith exploded into slivers of calcified shards covered in gore, followed by a crack! According to Dana's explanation, the supersonic rounds travelled faster than sound and could not be muffled in the same way as slower projectiles. Magical methods for dampening the sound were surely possible, both Terisa and the engineer knew, but neither of the two women were experts in magical theories of high arcana.

Dana had barely registered surprise at the results of the shot. "That's three in the past hour," she muttered, just barely loud enough to be audible over the link. The huntress was already moving, her high levels and experience allowing her to cross the dips in the terrain with silent ease. The Worldwalker had called it overwatch, and the term certainly fit her current job. The group was making good time since abandoning the airship, and Terisa actually felt useful again as she ghosted through the field of the bones of long-dead drakes and partially melted and broken machines. She paid as much attention to the sky as she did her own footsteps.

Chimaera were rare, even in the Wildlands, but the Expedition's luck had turned and the storm must have pushed the airship into the territory of a mated pair. [Celestial Shot] had proven more than enough to deal with the first and smaller of the two monsters, but even with a few extra levels and Althenea's upgraded form she was still unable to use the skill for several days. As her most powerful ability it drew upon both her mana and stamina, focused with her will combined with Althenea's. It was a strain upon them both, and using it again too soon could result in the skill simply failing, or worse,  risking permanently reducing her core attributes such as Strength and Vitality.

Using her most powerful ability on the first monster had been a mistake, as the other had become enraged and had pursued the airship far beyond the territory of its home mountain range. Of well over a hundred beings that had made it out of the valley the Sorceress had claimed, they were now down to a handful over three score. After leaving the airship with all they could carry, they had continued towards the signal Dana had been following for weeks. The ruined city in the distance would have provided cover with walls of stone to give the huntress time to recuperate and recharge her skill, but they would never cross the clearing to get there.

Not because of the chimaera.

Because of the dead.

"Have I told you how terrible an idea this is?" whined Biggles, clutching his head as he stumbled after Dana. The painted human warrior hooked one hand under the necromancer's arm, preventing the man from sprawling across the icy stones underfoot. "This is where the crusade ended! They have been here for over two centuries, stewing in regret and the overcharged magic of the Wildlands!"

"You said it yourself," snapped Dana, her voice clearer to Terisa's ear thanks to the crystals. Biggles sounded farther away and distant, as if talking from a tunnel. The engineer didn't break stride, skittering forwards on four eerily quiet legs of gleaming metal as she spoke. "We'd never make it across without their permission. Well tough luck, you're the only one who can talk to them."

"You don't talk to shades this old. You bind, you bargain, or you bow. It would take a demi-lich or a full cabal to bind things as old and powerful as what I'm sensing, even if anyone were stupid enough to get on the Oracle's bad side." His voice rose in pitch with every word, nearing a screech as he continued. "Surrendering to them means being consumed, and we have no idea what they might want for a bargain!" Terisa could actually hear the tail end of it over the moaning of the frozen winds as she slid to a stop next to a jagged protrusion of obsidian that thrust its way out of the snow to curve towards the overcast sky.

Even as she stopped moving Althenea returned to rifle form, and another muffled shot destroyed yet another bonewraith as it attempted to sneak up on the trio. The remnants of the ghostly reptilian skeleton had not even dissipated into the ether before Dana blurred to the side, spinning blades of crackling plasma reducing another into pieces.

"They're getting bigger," said the Worldwalker. "How much longer til these guys are awake enough to sense we're here?"

"Oh they already know we're here," snapped the necromancer. "But they've been asleep a long time. I'm more amazed you can't feel them stirring. They won't really get to moving until they realize the wraiths aren't enough to take us down for their next meal."

"I can feel my sigils pushing the death magic away," noted Raminez, the dark paints on his skin giving off motes of protective energies as they conflicted with the ambient mana. "There's certainly something more than just the bonewraiths here. I know you need another to channel mana but the runes will only hold a short time."

Biggles gave an exasperated sigh, closing his eyes with his head tilted to the side. "We're far enough from the others they should be safe, if we're really doing this." He pulled a handful of carved sticks from somewhere inside of his robes. One end of each was sharpened and partially charred by fire, the other ends all sporting a small twine and bone fetish with intricate scrimshaw etching carved into the material. He walked in a circle as Dana and the warrior stood guard, placing them point first into the ground every three or so paces. Greyish black shadows swirled around the sticks, the tips piercing into the frozen and stony ground with the same ease as if they stood on sand or mud. "You don't want to be outside the circle, Terisa. Once I knock on the door it'll get quite uncomfortable for the living, even at your levels."

Terisa hurried towards the group, keeping an eye out for more wraiths and other threats.

"What makes these shades so powerful?" Dana asked. "Just being in the wildlands?"

"Purpose unfulfilled, or extreme anger or other emotions when they die are the cause of any shade," said Biggles, his voice much like an exasperated professor giving lecture at any magical academy. "This many drakes, it can only be the Storm Legion, Drakenth's army of legend that never returned from the Steel Crusade. If you weren't demanding I call them forth to talk to them, I'd be ecstatic to take notes about the ruins here."

"The skies are clearing up," interrupted Terisa as she stepped over the line of sticks to join them in the circle. "If you don't hurry, the Chimaera will kill us before you have time to negotiate with them at all."

"You can't rush a ritual of this magnit-"

The ground shook, cutting off the necromancer mid-sentence.

"Quickly! Charge the circle!" he half-shouted, necromantic power burgeoning around his hands as his eyes darkened with shadow. Raminez followed suit, pouring his own mana into the spell, though his magic gave off wisps of green more akin to nature spells that Terisa was familiar with. Death was a natural part of the cycle after all. The fetish-sticks began to glow, grey-black ethereal chains writhing around the top of each before reaching out to link one after the other, slowly closing the area in which they stood.

The shaking immediately calmed, at least within the bounds of the ritual. Biggles seemed to relax slightly, and the painted man seemed unaffected entirely by the drain on his mana. "Not long now," said the necromancer wearily as the giant bones around them started to shake and shift. "They seem more curious than angry. Almost hopeful."

"That's a good thing, right?" asked Dana, her many metal legs and arms fidgeting slightly as she stood in place. The engineer always did better with an enemy she could actually hit, and the rising currents of mana outside the circle were not a problem she could solve.

"Unless what they want is our lives to sate their hunger, maybe," answered Biggles. "They want something, for sure. Getting them to tell us instead of killing us is the hard part."

"So how much longer did you say this would take?" asked Terisa as the wind died, and the ground outside the circle stilled with it. Biggles and the warrior were both looking in her direction, but the huntress had eyes only for Dana, who had frozen completely still while staring at a shadowy form just outside spell.

"Once they calm down a bit more, I still need to open a door so one of them can manifest. Hopefully a rider instead of a drake. Better chance of a human spirit actually talking instead of skipping right to the devouring."

"That will not be necessary," said a softly echoing voice that left even Althenea radiating fear in the huntress' hands. "We do not require your doors."

Biggles turned slowly, the shadow becoming more detailed with every heartbeat. It resolved into translucent outlines of a man in leather and drake-scale armor, with eyes that burned in black flame. Across the blasted section of once-forest around them, skeletons burst from the ground in rumbling cascades of ice and snow and cracking stone. Grim wingbeats made no sound as the calcified obsidian bodies shook free of the torpor of the grave. Biggles stared open-mouthed at the figure for a hand a heartbeats before finally managing a semblance of speech.

"Godshit."

"Not quite," said the figure, looking the necromancer in the eyes. And then he laughed with his oily, echoing voice.

Terisa wished she'd never heard that.