glowfic | Start of a New Adventure

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Start of a New Adventure

Snap. Cross another thing off my companions can't do.

"Whoops. In we go!" and in that half-cat runs. Sure, i know i can't be silent in heavier armor, but that quickly she gives up?

"Shouldn't we follow her in?" the third member, a half-fox, states while he already is running to catch up.

Halta sighs, for the fifth time about her companions today. Being part of the three that managed to brave the southern wild lands, scour the beasts that lay in the forests, and defeat the entrenched bandits was proof of her and their combat skill. Leading and supplying enough men down here to construct and maintain a town for a year where nobody could remain a season was all in part to distracting the other two long enough. A 'Queen' title out of independence means little so far when you control a sole frontier town and the other two important members can't do anything but fight harder than everything else.

A quick self check. Her sword is instinctively drawn, shield at the ready. Holy symbol grasped for a quick prayer around her neck, then put back under her armor with decals of her Holy Order. Copper hair still tied back, silly 'crown' let at the fort.

The issue at hand shouldn't be very difficult, but it became complicated. A small cult may be in the warehouse they've ran towards, a group of spurned women doing petty revenge. The problem lies that after a fiasco earlier, Milah the half-cat 'spymaster' made herself look more imcompetent by acusing various people, and Vox the half-fox 'Minister' has been doing his job from the bar as of late. Hopefully everybody is still alive when i get down there.

Halta starts running. The main door broken open, a trapdoor left ajar, and through a small tunnel dug through the rock. She catches up to them, right as they run into the room, a hidden shrine to a dark goddess. A second too late, as the only one of the three with magic, they wouldn't notice the trap laid out.

A sermon that contains a spell. Cultists hiding in secret as the open listeners are illusionary.

Halta had barely enough time to cross the room to take the majority of the hit. Hasty spells couldn't protect them, it had to work this way.

Let them fight, i can heal myself. Heres hoping this time they listened stick together instead of-- a bad situation. Milah chose to drive forward at the leader, Vox choosing to back up and attack the cultists.

A quick step up, a strike towards the three that jumped at her, striking the first across the chest. The second swing a miss, the cultist may be empowered, but something is wrong. Feint from the third, strike from the first barely blocked. They can't be trained, pushing too far so i can't get back up, but this sluggishness!

The three quickly step back, as from the altar rockets another blast. The second was enough. Head spinning, body feeling detached, a scream for a moment's talk increases the ringing in her head as the room gets surveyed. Halta on her backed, their leader stands atop the altar at swordpoint of Milah, with a cultist holding a knife to Halta. Vox, nearer the door, seems to have beaten his attackers but stands wounded. Halta's Holy Symbol, the tool needed to cast spells, kicked into the corner, that leaves her defenseless right now.

"I've gotten your leader! Release our prophet or she dies!" How did this happen? How are they able to use this much magic in secret?!

A shrill cry pierces the haze. Milah called the bluff. The Cult Leader's head flies upward and Vox dives towards Halta, but arrives too late. The knife plunges down.

Pain? Calm. Sorrow? Regret. Anger? Nowhere.

Where was the light? Or is there even one? To my god?

. . . A breeze? What?

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A breeze. That quickly becomes a stiff wind.

She is, as far as she can tell, falling through clouds.

"Wh-what?" Quickly the options are laid out. If this is after death, why would this happen? Her magic is gone without the symbol to focus it, and her sword can't enable flight.

Symbol or not, prayers are made. This is about the second oddest way i thought i'd wake up to!

She's no longer falling through cloud, but instead empty sky. There's land breaking up the alien landscape of endless sky and clouds, and one piece of it directly below her.

She's going to miss it. She can't aim herself well enough to hit it. The armor isn't helping. But as she's almost past it, a large net launches out from the side. She hits it, hard. Parts of it wrap themselves around her, but she'd better hold on unless she wants to keep falling.

Edited 2016-01-25 03:42 (UTC)

A Cloistered Cleric might be out cold from such a fall, but as a member fit for combat after a good warm up from the earlier blasts, grabbing and hanging on is an easy task to fully devote oneself toward.

Armor or not, falling is the LAST thing on Halta's mind as she detaches her cheap buckler to use the hand to catch the net, thrusting her sword through a part to hopefully tangle and get a good grip to something she won't let go of.

Worries begin to set in, but survival is first.

The net is kind enough to not stop her all at once! It falls with her for a moment, slowing her down over several seconds until she's swinging wildly through the air. She's well-entangled, at least. There's some kind of machinery crafted from stone and wood, wheels and gears, up where the net attaches to the floating land.

"Hey! You alive down there? Damn lucky I was close enough to intercept!"

Edited 2016-01-25 03:56 (UTC)

"Judging by that response i'm most likely alive! Thank you for the timely rescue! May i be pulled up, i mean no harm!"

Imminent danger past, ideas begin falling. Am i just high up? I don't think a divine would not realize the dead... Are Milah and Vox alright? I'll need some sort of way back soon, but i don't have any coins on me. Hmm. What is this thing i'm in?

Edited 2016-01-25 04:04 (UTC)

"You're tangled up pretty good and that impact de-wheeled some of the ropes. Cargo rigging isn't designed for catching things. Might be better to set down somewhere, if you can hold on for a few minutes."

De-wheeled ropes?

"I should be fine! Go ahead!"

"Going!" The floating land- floating ship, has a rudder. And little wings, that would be comically small if it was a bird. It uses these to aim itself, turning a slow left towards another piece of floating land. This one is bigger, and not a ship. It's like someone took a big scoop out of a rocky hill and put it in the air - the top is grassy scrub, with a couple of trees, and the rest of it is mostly rocks. A few plants grow up the sides.

As it gets close, the ship slows down. She should be within arms' reach of the land, so now would be a good time to disentangle from the ropes.

"I can touch the ground now, should i try to get off?" Disentanglement begins regardless for a few moments, before shouting up "May i cut a part of the net? I'll make sure it's small or i'll make sure i replace it!" Actions proceed unless interrupted, with no cutting until a response. Halta is not the most dexterous of people, and staying entangled for long is not on her mind.

"Try not to cut the mainlines, the ones with big knots, otherwise go ahead!"

It should be relatively easy to get disentangled. The other piece of land moves under her a little - it turns out that keeping two floating rocks next to each other is tricky. But the ship stays over the land.

She is out of the net and on the floating island in short order. "I'm going to set it down on that rock. Can you tie the ropes to a tree?"

Edited 2016-01-25 04:31 (UTC)

"A simple knot, sure." A nearby tree gets connected to a rope from the net, and she waits next to the tree for now for him to land and come over.

It only takes a minute for it to set down. The whole floating rock shifts slightly as the ship's weight settles on it.

The man descends a ladder onto the floating island, and ties ropes to a couple more plants.

"There. Now that nothing's about to fall to the deeps, we can have a proper conversation. I'm Nick."

She stands back and lets him work. Let him do any approaching.

"I'm..." Trails off for a moment, thinking. "Halta. Once again, thank you for the timely rescue." She nods with a slight bow forward.

"I'm not sure quite where i am or how i got here yet, may i ask that you bring me somewhere people gather?" She speaks very politely and without wasting much time. Doesn't seem like she's very comfortable staying on this floating rock at the moment.

"I'm heading to the lower band towns. Trade run. It'll be another day's journey. I'll need to harvest some floatgrass here first, to account for the extra weight. Or I could find a village to drop you at instead, but there's not much at this altitude. Too low for good farming, too high for much building. I'll have rules, though, I've had experience with bad passengers. I'm not gonna leave you here, but is it too much to hope for that you can pay passage?"

"A lower 'band' town is fine, but unfortunately, i had little on me even before ending up in the air. I have no coin. I'm not sure what 'floatgrass' harvesting requires, but if it's simple i am willing to assist. "

She shifts in place, tilting the scabbard holding her sword further forward while she moves her hands behind her to not be able to draw it quickly. "I'm trained in direct combat, though i can not cast spells at the moment, my symbol likely fell past the net or never followed me here. I can work as protection for now if that would help." She shifts back.

"I will ensure you get paid for the rescue, but how that happens i am not sure right now."

He notices the motion and what it means. But: "...Spells? Symbol? I think you are from further away than either of us thought."

Halta cocks an eyebrow upward. "I could understand not knowing about a symbol, but not knowing about spells or magic? We're standing on a floating rock right now, how would you explain that?"

"Physics! The rock is lighter than air because it's mostly hydrogen inside. And we do have magic - but it's just one 'spell' per person. Mine is knowing how heavy things are."

"Hydrogen? I could get a rock being so light it floats, but, hold one moment, you have but one spell and all it does is tell how heavy something is? Is it possible you learn more?"

"No, we don't learn more. We just - get one thing, automatically, when we're teenagers. Tell me, what's the name of your planet? This one is Cloudbank."

"Planet? There's a need to have a name to tell apart more than one? I think your earlier statement of being farther away than we thought was correct, i have not heard of any of this."

Shrug. "Do you want a history lesson? I suspect you've been pulled to an alternate universe. Somehow. Which is kind of alarming to think about, but if you don't understand why or how what are you gonna do? As to collecting floatgrass: You pull it from the ground and stick it in a sack so it doesn't float away. And you don't make any sparks. Easy."

"An alternate universe... Could be right, but then without a 'Plane Shift' spell... Sorry. I'll learn a bit more when we can set off and i can have a moment to collect myself. Point the plant out, you can talk while we work." She looks around for a moment. "Or as i work. I don't mean to order you around."

"Oh, I'll be collecting the stuff too, don't worry. Here's a sack. This is a stalk of floatgrass, try not to burst the seeds, they're what we need really." It looks like wheat... If wheat had seeds the size of grapes that don't seem to weigh it down at all. He flicks one and it floats free, blowing somewhere in the wind.

"Okay, history. Humans didn't start out on Cloudbank. Originally we were on a planet called Earth. They had lots of very powerful, totally incomprehensible technology. One of the things they had was spacecraft - ships that can travel between the stars. They send one of those ships here with a stargate, which can teleport things instantly across the vast empty black sea that is outer space. They mined this place for helium and hydrogen. Then, the stargate broke. People forgot how to make all this powerful ancient technology, or didn't have the materials for it, or something. This is all ancient history, nobody knows the details. The point is, we can't fix the stargate. We can't even get into space to visit it. And we're all stuck on a world that was never meant to have humans. We've made do."

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