The Dragon, the Hawk, the Hero - [NaNoWriMo]

[Rockeye]

A NaNoWriMo attempt. I only have vague ideas where this is going.

---

They stand in the throne room, a towering cathedral of dark stone, red light suffusing it from the bloody stained-glass windows, a broken throne and the shattered bodies of monsters strewn about the floor. Henri the rabbit-kin in front, her orange hair shining and enormous sword gleaming with embers. Darius, a towering bull-kin beside her, clad in shining steel plate and carrying a shield that looks as large as a dinner table, an unbreakable wall. Claire, the deer-kin's white outfit seeming to shine against the backdrop of the dark castle, her scepter held at the ready to channel powerful magic. And me. Archie, a hawk-kin circling in flight above, glad for the cavernous room we find ourselves in for the final battle, where my speed and grace will let me swoop down on the evil master...

He stands from his throne. A monstrously large dragon-kin, that legendary and half-forgotten race. Snorting a tuft of flame, he strides forward, carrying no weapon, wearing no armor.

"You fools. You absolute idiots. Wretched things, not seeing the chains that bind you. There is only one way this can possibly end..."

"You can't trick us, Lord Drake!" Henri shouts out, sword raised. "We're going to stop you, and save Lancor from your schemes!"

Darius growls in agreement. "Yes, your reckoning has come. You will pay for your evil deeds, for the monsters ransacking the kingdom and killing so many."

"Haven't you been here before? Do you remember the last time we fought?" Lord Drake asks, an odd note in his voice. Not disdain or malice. What? His arms are lowered. He kneels on the ground. Kneels. "Heroes. We've fought before. Every time, no matter what I do, four heroes come to slay me. It's all the same. We have been here before. Do you not wish to escape Fate's prison?" He makes an expansive gesture pointing to the roiling ball of magic seated high above even as we all stare suspiciously.

Where are the guards? Why isn't he calling in more monsters to slay us? Something isn't right...

Lord Drake continues, speaking in a bored near-monotone. "Henri, the young heroine, saves Darius's herd from a witch poisoning the river. And so one becomes two. Henri and Darius fight off a horde of undead besieging a sacred grove, and are healed by Claire. Two becomes three. The three of you find a village of avians seeking a new home, and negotiate to find a place for them to settle together with Archie. Three turn to four. Three tasks, four heroes, and one purpose. And then you come here, and kill me. No matter what I do, you come to the castle and I die. Every. Time. Don't you remember? Aren't you tired of it?"

I land beside my friends, staring suspiciously and feeling... Strange. "Dragons are said to have mysterious powers," I say, wracking my brain for more detail but coming up blank. "Maybe he's some kinda seer."

Claire speaks up, "Oh Lord Drake, if you truly are a seer... You know how this will end, don't you? Please, I beg of you. Surrender. Stop the violence. We have to end the plague of corruption, for everyone's sake!"

"Yes. Yes, I do know how this will end." The titanic dragon-man lets out a deeply tired sigh. "I beg of you, heroes, and I do not beg lightly. Please, think. Henri, you left your home in search of adventure. What was your home like?"

Henri, earnest and brave, looks startled for a moment. "It's a lovely place. Hoppington is a peaceful and beautiful village by the river, full of happy rabbits and healthy fields. And then your monsters came around, and now I have to save it!"

"Hoppington, is it? When was it founded? What do you really know about your neighbors?"

...I think of the new village, of Featherdale. My friends helped me find it, because we were running away and needed a place to stay. Running away. From what? From where? What was the old village called? Where was it? Was it by a river? Were there cliffs? What was my house like?

I remember flying around the Dead Woods, looking for something, anything to eat, and attacking her in hopes of stealing some food... I remember the heartfelt conversations, the struggles and laughs and the monsters we defeated together... And how, after Darius beat me up, Henri just gave me enough food to feed everyone, for at least a few days.

I remember everything else much better. The last few weeks are crystal clear. Practicing fighting with Henri and Darius, working together to scout out monsters' lairs and protect people, Claire tending to me after I took a nasty crash... Cooking dinners together and joking, learning about Claire's crush on Darius and encouraging them to talk to each other, meeting the Princess and finding a place for the village... Laughing with Henri when a skeleton monster lost its head and wandered around bumping into walls, until we killed it...

Before that, I can't remember. It's a hazy nothingness, a vague suggestion rather than an actual idea. We had to abandon the old village, something whispers in my head. A series of words, with no more detail than that. A chill runs down my spine and my feathers stand on end. Is Lord Drake right? What is he right about? Why is he asking about our past, anyway?

"...Enough of this!" Henri shouts out suddenly, interrupting my thoughts. "If you are truly repentant... I'm sorry. But this is the only way to stop the corruption. Everyone, prepare for battle!"

I take to the air, feeling oddly disconnected. Claire jumps back and casts the boon of protection on Darius, then the boon of fury on Henri as she dashes forward. She ducks under the dragonkin's ferocious claw-swipe, cutting at his leg but failing to penetrate, sparks flying from his hardened scales. Then Darius smashes straight into the draconic lord, grappling and trying to pin him down even as those vicious claws open rents in the armor and draw blood. Even Darius's huge frame looks small compared to the dragon. How are you supposed to beat that? A bird, a rabbit, a cow, and a deer, versus a dragon. Why does that sound so familiar?

"Archie, go for the eyes!" Henri shouts out, rolling to the side to avoid a cone of flames. Right! This is a battle, no time for distractions!

"Got it, boss!" I fold my wings and dive with a screeched battle cry, talons outstretched. I'm forced to veer off, claws skittering on arm-scales rather than sinking into the nicely vulnerable eyes, and the rest of the battle is a blur.

It's a hard fight. Lord Drake is phenomenally tough, his scales resisting almost everything except Henri's blessed sword. Even when he's bleeding and battered, he keeps lashing out with crushing force. I take one hit, just one! The scaled fist hits me like a cliff wall, breaking my wing with a sickening snap. It hurts like I've never imagined was possible, leaving me a broken wreck on the stone floor until Claire's magic wrenches me back into shape. Fine, except for the memory of the pain.

Magic is amazing.

But for all his absurd power and fury, Lord Drake cannot defeat us. Not all at once. We work together as a team, Darius taking the blows, Henri and I striking while he's vulnerable, and Claire healing us and casting tons of magic I don't understand into the battlefield. The dragonkin ends up kneeling on the floor, coughing blood.

"It's over," Darius calls. "Henri, he is tied to the corruption. He is the core. End it, and the corruption will be finished, once and for all."

"Wait!" I call out, not knowing why. "I... Have a question for him first."

They all look at me oddly, slightly confused. "He'll just lie, you know?" Henri says. "You can't believe anything an evil lord says to try and save his skin."

I shake my head. "I want to ask anyway."

I take a deep breath, walking forward to cover my thoughts. "...Lord Drake. What is your name? Where were you born? What was it like?"

The party's faces fall at the line of questions. Claire's eyes well up with sympathetic tears, Henri looks away, and even Darius's stoic face hardens.

Lord Drake, however, has lost his resigned posture. He's... Intent. Staring directly at me.

"I don't know. All I remember is... This castle. The monsters. The Chaos Heart that sustains me." He laughs, then chokes and coughs. "Archie the hawk, fleeing from some nameless disaster, from some nameless village... You see it. Something is terribly wrong here."

"Yes," I agree, "Something is terribly wrong here."

"Until next time, heroes."

With that line, Lord Drake keels over, the last breath leaving his body. Blood stains the floor, and a sudden silence feels oppressive as I contemplate it. Did he truly have to die? The Chaos Heart is ruining the whole world and he was dependent on it, sustained by it, but perhaps there could have been a way to separate them... Or something. Not this. It's just so sad, that it ends this way.

The blood red light cast down on the room suddenly intensifies as the Chaos Heart writhes and fragments, screaming and fading. Claire is saying something about purity and cleansing. I don't look up from the broken body of a dragon.

---

There are flashes. Fragments. I go back to Featherdale, and spend time hunting and building. I meet Henri's family and help her hunt down the last remaining monsters. I have parties with my friends, and meet Claire and Darius's children. They at least have names and faces, the cute little things.

It's a timeless existence, a space of forever compressed into a few brief flashes and impressions. Peace. Love. Triumph.

---

I shake myself out of an oddly insistent daydream. Of a castle of black stone and blood-red light, of something called the Chaos Heart. Idle fancies. I can't get caught up in daydreams when my flock is on the line! I need to find some food today, or it's likely some of the children will be too weak to keep going...

This place is utterly barren. Most everything moving around down there as I glide on the currents of air, is just a monster, inedible at best. Either that, or small game like squirrels, not sufficient to feed myself, let alone everyone else.

Suddenly I spot a group of travelers. I don't want to hurt other people, but...

...My stomach growls. I already feel guilty about it, but... Surely they have food, right? I can swoop down on them and take it back to the flock, then let them go. I have to, even if it makes me a bandit...

So I fly above them, positioning myself so I'm in front of the sun from their perspective. I can swoop down, grab a pack, and be gone before they can react.

...No, wait, if I do that they beat me. I remember that. I ... Remember that?

I'm ready to swoop down on the trio from above, aiming for the big backpack worn by the bull guy, but...

A brief fight. A long conversation. A generous gift.

The rabbit-woman. She's special. I remember talking to her, and yet it's the first time I've seen her in my life.

I dive. Not in an attack glide, but to come down in front of them. She's kind. It's terrifying to think she might say 'no', but I somehow know she won't. If I ask for food to feed my flock, she'll give it.

If only I knew how I knew that.

 

[Rockeye]

A lot of ground-bound kin wonder what it's like to fly. It must be so freeing, right? The wind carrying you aloft, high above the weight of the mundane world... And, sure, it's pretty great. Pure joy and freedom completely unbound by any drawbacks, just the most beautiful thing in the world. And it is like that. Pure joy and utter freedom.

For about a minute. Then you realize how much work staying in the air high above is. You can look for thermals, sure, nice rising columns to take some of the work off. You get a feel for how the air moves, take advantage of the wind. But fundamentally, staying in the air is effortful. Even when you're gliding, you're holding your muscles tense to keep things balanced. It's still great, of course, but it really works up an appetite.

Why are my thoughts going in this direction as I spiral down to land in a bunch of creepy, barren, monster-infested woods? Well, grumbling about how hard flying is, is better than worrying I'm making the wrong decision.

They spot me as I come down, and immediately shift into some sort of battle formation. Rabbit unsheathes a surprisingly big sword, holy shit! While the bull glares at me and readies a shield and the deer raises some sort of staff. Magic staff. I don't understand magic, but she's good at it.

I blink. Yeah, she's definitely good at magic, why else would she have a magic staff? Right.

"Uh, hi!" I call out across the clearing. "Hello there, travelers. I'm afraid... I'm here to ask for some help. I'll pay you back any way I can, of course!"

"Of course we'll help!" The bunny-girl calls out with a grin. "There's no way we can ignore someone in need, right?"

The bull-man is more skeptical. "Careful, Henri. We don't know anything about this person. It could be some sort of trick."

"Let's hear what they have to say, Darius." the deer-kin replies back, and I nod.

"I'm not here to hurt anyone! My village... We had to leave our home because of all the monsters, and now we're looking for a new one. There's dozens of us, avian-kin of all kinds. But we're out of food... I was looking for something to hunt, but there's nothing out here at all. So... I need some food. Please. Maybe I can help you in return somehow. I wouldn't want to let a debt go unpaid."

"The dead woods have always been harsh, and with the spread of the corruption, it's even worse these days," the deer-woman comments. "I'm not surprised you're not finding enough food."

"Wow, is it really that bad? We're always glad to help people in need!" Henri says brightly. "And we could use a hawk-kin to help us scout so we can-"

"Hold on," Darius interrupts, holding a massive hoof out. "We've just met this person. We don't know who they are. What if they're working for Lord Drake?"

I frown, bristling at the accusation, and open my mouth to retort. But Henri beats me to it. "I don't think so! I've got a good feeling about him. Oh! We should introduce ourselves! Hello, I'm Henri Carrots of Hoppington."

The bullkin sighs. "I am Darius Smith from Winding Pastures. Henri helped us deal with a troubling witch, so I owe her, and I won't let anyone trick her. Including you."

"And, um, I'm Claire Mossberg," the deer-woman waves a bit shyly. "They saved, um. I mean, they... Needed help and I'm okay at magic, so..."

I nod at this, shaking my head to chase away dark thoughts. "Hello, everyone. I'm Archie. Archibald Pinion. And I swear, I'm not here to trick you. It burns to ask for help when I should be able to handle things on my own! But. I do need help. I can't fight off hordes of monsters all on my own, and I'm the best flyer in the flock, so they don't have a chance either. If you help us, we'll owe you all a great debt."

Henri steps forward with a smile, but Darius stops her again.

"Hold on. Claire, you can sense dark magic and corruption, correct?"

"Er, right! Yes, I can, but if it's latent it can be really hard to tell... And there's a lot of background energy here. He doesn't seem corrupted but I can't be sure."

"Archie. Fight me. I'm sure you'll go down easy, but it'll show you mean it. If you truly need help, it's got to hurt first."

"What?" "What?" "What?" I flinch back in surprise, as do the other two, three voices echoing the same shock.

"Fighting spirit brings things to the fore. You can't hide your nature in a true battle. If he's corrupt, it will show."

My blood feels hot and I scowl. What's his problem?!? I'm asking for help here, but he's so suspicious and now he insults me. "I'm not corrupt. And I'll prove it."

"Surely there's another way!" Claire huffs, annoyed. "Not everything has to be solved with fists, you meathead."

But I can't let an insult like that stand. Who does he think he is? I've trained hard, honed my talons and wings. 'Go down easy'? Pah!

"...No, I'll fight you," I growl out. "You don't get to insult me like that and get away with it. And if it helps you believe me? Even better."

"Hmph. Come on, then." With a dismissive snort, Darius strides forward.

Henri frowns at us, but steps aside. "I'm not sure this is a good idea, but you two seem really set on it. Claire, be ready to heal them afterwards! There's no need for this to go too far, right?"

Something tickles at my mind, behind the anger, at the dismissiveness, the suspicion. Like I'm supposed to fight him, like it can only be this way. He was the one carrying the pack of food - now safely set aside - so he's the one I would have swooped down on...

I can practically see the fight play out in my head. I dive in and aim for the eyes. He's going to open with a swing of that massive hammer, and I flutter above it, but my talons won't be able to break his armor... I circle and harry, until he somehow changes his weapon from hammer to polearm, hitting me with a suddenly longer and more nimble weapon.

I take to the air, ignoring Henri and Claire's commentary. As I circle and swoop, occasionally drawing a small line of blood along the neck, I try not to let the flow of combat come over me. It feels right to go left? I duck right. The perfect moment to strike - I hesitate for a fraction of a moment more.

"You fly like a drunk crow!" Comes the bellowed insult.

"Oi, some of my best friends are crows! You fight like a troll!"

"At least a troll actually hurts what it hits!"

Snorting, I push the banter out of my mind. It's about time for him to-

-THERE! I flare my wings, pulling up and over his head as the big hammer melts into a long spear type thing halfway through a motion, barely dodging the blow. That would have ended the fight.

I feel an odd moment of dissonance and confusion. I'm not sure what to do next. I can't get a good blow in without being fatally exposed myself, so I ascend and circle.

"What's wrong, are you giving up?"

After thinking for a moment, I nod. "Yeah. I'm not going to be stupid enough to charge into an obvious trap just because you're goading me. I can't get past that halberd... You win."

Darius smirks in triumph, and lets it reform into a hammer, turning towards his friends. "Victory was never in any doubt."

-And that's when I dive, talons outstretched. His eyes widen in shock and he raises the weapon once more, but before he can, my claws close on their target. Not his flesh, no, but the wooden haft of that shape-shifting weapon. I may be small, but with furious flapping and accumulated speed, I manage to tear away the implement, flying off with it for a hundred feet before dropping it.

There's gasps all around. "That was a dirty trick!" Darius accuses.

"It ain't over until it's over," I retort. "You let your guard down! Monsters will do the same thing! I disarmed you, and I could have come back and struck again. I won't, though. I figure I've proved myself. By the gods, that weapon is heavy, though."

Henri claps and bounces excitedly. "Good fight! That was amazing, Archie, flying around so quickly! You dodged things I never could have!"

"Damn right I did," I say, feeling a bit embarrassed. "Best hunter and flier in the whole flock, right here. So, Claire was it? Did I pass?"

"Oh! Yes, there's absolutely no sign of corruption in you. There's no way you have anything to do with Lord Drake, or work for monsters."

Darius stomps off to go pick up his weapon, and I land again. "Well, glad that's over with. Say, why are you three out here, anyway?"

Claire looks at Henri, who shrugs. "We can tell him, he just proved himself. And I like him."

Claire nods firmly. "I don't know what you know about the corruption already... How much should I explain?"

I mull it over quickly. "It makes monsters, maybe from nothing. It's coming from... Somewhere, and spreading over the land. Turns it sickly and barren."

"The monsters are fascinating, aren't they?" Claire asks brightly. "Horrible, but interesting. From what I can tell they don't actually have minds, just a set of routines they follow. But if they do that, where do they get their personalities? What makes them say things like 'I'll suck the marrow from your bones'? Did Lord Drake teach them threatening lines? Or do they just seem like the right thing to say for a soulless automaton? How do they even know how to speak? I think there's a sort of echo affect carried through mana, magic likes to emulate patterns you see and-"

My head's spinning at the rapid-fire explanation. I interrupt. "Wait wait wait, too fast. Lord Drake? Corruption?"

Henri laughs as Claire blushes and hides her face in her robes, antlers ducking down. "Yeah, Claire's a genius when it comes to magic stuff. But... We think we've found the source of the corruption. Most monsters are just brutes, but there are a few demi-monsters too. Actual people, filled with corruption. We've fought some of them... And they all mention their master, Lord Drake, and his Chaos Heart. Now that the Princess of Lancor has called up her knights and sent them out to protect people we have a bit more time. But it's getting stronger, and if we don't stop him soon... The corruption could take over everything. There's actually supposedly an ancient library somewhere in the Dead Woods that can tell us more. It's very important that we find it."

"...I feel like I've heard of that before," I mutter. "In fact, a lot of this seems oddly familiar. Like I recognize you all. Do you know what I mean?"

The two shake their heads, and Darius, having retrieved his hammer, says, "No. This is the first time we have met, and I've never seen a hawk-kin in person before now."

"...Maybe It's nothing, then. Still, if you can give my flock some food, I'll be more than happy to help you find this old library. I can scout from the air, if you have any idea what it's supposed to look like."

Libraries are a place to learn things. And with a creeping sense of wrongness in the back of my head, learning things sounds like a pretty good idea.

"Of course!" Henri shouts, giving me a thumbs up and bouncing on her feet. "Your flock first! It sounds like they're in trouble. Why don't you lead the way?"

"I know the way back by air, not by foot. Think you can follow me if I go up and point the way?"

"Branches and thorns are no match for me," Darius grumbles. "Or Henri's flames. Or Claire's nature magic."

"Oh, the Dead Wood isn't really... Alive enough for me to manipulate it," Claire says apologetically. "I'll have to leave it up to you two."

"Yeah, we can handle it," Henri nods. "Just make sure to keep us in sight so we can follow you, Archie, and we'll be right behind you with the food!"

I let out a sigh of relief and give a sharp nod. Okay, time to focus on the now. Things to do, flock to save. "Thanks a bunch. You have no idea how grateful I am. I'll be off then."

After taking to the sky, I make sure to stay relatively low, and fly over the trio to point the way. I also pay close attention to the Dead Wood. It all seems so monotonous. Broken trees and rocky ground, thorns and brambles and pits. What an unfriendly place.

Good thing, too, because I spot a band of monsters approaching just in time. Two giant spiders and a Skeleton Wolf, rapidly approaching from the right.

I turn and dive. "Everyone, lookout!" The monsters charge, and things get messy for a bit.

 

[Rockeye]

The fight goes... Pretty smooth, all things considered? The skeleton wolf is the biggest threat, and I'm more than happy to let Darius smash its skull in in just two quick hammer blows. My claws pierce and rake through one giant spider's carapace, tearing a gash that oozes smoke and darkness and sending it reeling, while Henri blasts the other with a ball of fire from her sword that I instinctively know to dodge, barrel rolling out of the way as my flight takes me back up in the air. And that's that, over in just one round of attacks. Claire barely even got to finish off my target, bopping it with some sort of ice spell that made it burst into black smoke like the others.

After that, it's compliments and looting all around. I accept mine with a quiet "hmph", landing near the others.

See, that's the thing about monsters. They can kill you pretty easily, but they just burst into dark magic when you kill them. Sometimes they leave behind some stuff, like Obols, convenient magic-charged coins. Or bits of magically resonant bone or leather or something, to make gear out of. In this case, there's a glass vial of poison that goes into Darius's pack. You can't eat a monster corpse because there's nothing there. It'd probably taste like ash anyway.

...Okay, something is seriously wrong here, though. I keep reacting to these three like I've known them forever. Those daydreams? Might not just be daydreams. What was it that the maybe-a-dream Lord Drake said? 'Fate's chains'? He seemed so relieved that I seemed to get it. Blast and damn. If "fate" is screwing with my head, I'm going to find a way to screw back.

Unless, of course, this is all some sort of elaborate plot to break my morale.

"I just don't know enough. Watch and think..."

"Huh, what's that?" Henri asks, suddenly way too close. I jump.

"Ah?! No, nothing. I was just... Wondering what the library will be like."

"Do you like reading?" Claire asks.

I nod. "Sure. I mean, it's not like I've read lots of books, but I definitely want to learn more things. Who wouldn't, right?"

"I learn by doing!" Henri fires back. "Never been very good at thinky stuff, but I don't have to be. That's the best part of having friends, you can help each other where one is strong and one is weak."

"...I hear ya," I say reluctantly. "Nobody can do it all, much as I wish I could. Sometimes I just want to go off on my own forever, but that isn't the world we live in. I wanna hear more about magic... When we have the time. Right now, let's keep going."

After that, I'm back in the air again, watching them find paths or cut through dead wood as needed to follow. It's hard to tell if they're going fast or slow, by grounder standards. I could've gotten back to the flock five times by now. Still, flying is great for turning something over in my head. There's a beautiful moment where you're comfortable in the motions, enough that they become completely automatic. The motion of your wings and tailfeather, the feeling of the wind, it all dissolves into nothing. Like breathing. It's a flow state. You can think while also relaxing.

So I'm thinking... I gotta talk to this Lord Drake. And maybe read up on dragons, and magic, and monsters, and... Everything, really. 'Cause both options here aren't very good. Either the dragon is messing with my head even though I've never even seen the guy, to try and sabotage the hunt for him... Or there's something prophesy-ish going on, and I got a glimpse of how everything turns out. Somehow.

Everyone knows prophecies are Serious Business. There's one about the corruption, even! The heart of chaos, bound to scale and flame, it wakes again and the bells shall proclaim, the doom of peace-loving Lancor and all within, if not stopped no more shall be the lines of kin. Ancient dragon's rage, smoke and ash arising. The doom can be stopped only by four heroes most surprising.

There's supposed to be more, but I don't know it. And the part I do know, I just Know. The same unhelpful way I Know we're fleeing from monsters. Am I a Seer? How do Seers work, anyways? Claire probably knows...

Thoughts bounce around my head, cackling and cawing, until we get back to the flock. I don't figure anything out, aside from a lot of whining and griping about how confusing it all is. 'Something is very wrong here' indeed. A couple more monsters try to mess with us, but they're easy prey.

I make a nice showy entrance when we get close, diving with a spin and landing hard, wings outstretched. I land just before the others walk into the little clearing and shout, "I found friends and food!"

I chuckle as the morose little crowd cheers itself up. Chicks unhuddle from their piles of floof, the Crow Brothers run towards me and start yammering on even as Elder Owl toddles towards me.

"Never doubted you for a second, Arch!" "No way, he doubted you for a whole minute! Hek-hek-hek." "Did not, I was just making alternate plans." "Yeah, in case he got eaten by a monster." "Yeah, in case- No! I was brainstorming, that's all. That's what smart people do." "I dunno, a brainstorm sounds more like someone being stupid to me!" "Well, somebody's gotta do the thinking around here and it obviously isn't you given your last idea." "I'm just saying, with a wig and some mud we can totally-"

"Guys, guys! I'm glad everyone's still okay, they are okay aren't they?"

"Yeah." "Yep!"

"Great. Hey guys, these two are the Crow Brothers - Covi and Cavi. Covi, Cavi, that's Henri, there's Darius, and the deer-girl's Claire. She's smarter than you."

"A likely story!" They both singsong, eerily synchronized and focused on her.

"Don't mess with her though. I'm warning you."

"Hi, Crow Brothers!" Henri bounces up and grabs them both for a very energetic handshake. "I'm Henri Carrots, and wow I've never seen so many avian-kin at once before! This is so exciting, can you all fly? How do you keep your feathers clean? Do you like trees-"

With the two troublemakers thoroughly distracted, I chuckle and cross my wings, nodding at Elder Owl. "Ho, Elder. Like I said, I found some new friends, and they generously offered to give us some food."

"Hoo. Thank you from the base of my feathers, young ones," Owl says, bowing at Darius and Claire.

"It's common courtesy to help those in need if you can manage it without undue risks," Darius nods coolly. "I imagine you would have done the same for us, were the situation reversed."

"Indeed I would have. Even Archibald here would have, for all he likes to play up the prickly attitude."

"Oi. I'm not prickly, Old Owl. I'm dignified."

"See? Prickly." Claire giggles, and even Darius smiles slightly. I just cross my arms again, grumbling.

"I did offer to do 'em a favor, though, Elder. They're lookin' for something, and some eyes in the sky could really help. I need to do something to give back, or it wouldn't be fair. No way am I ungrateful."

"Ah, I see. With enough food, we should regain the strength to continue on without you for a little while. At least long enough to get out of the Dead Woods."

"It isn't too much further," Claire says, "We're only... About ten miles from the edge. That's not very far if you can fly, but the Dead Woods is very confusing. The mana is tangled and intertwined here, it can be hard to get out unless you know the way. Can you read mana trails?"

"I can," Elder Owl says with a nod. "I take it you've left trails to find your way out?" Claire nods.

"That sounds mighty useful," I say. "Any chance I can learn to do something like that?"

"Oh, you're interested in magic? You never seemed to want magic lessons before!"

I frown slightly at the worryingly vague 'before'. "I've seen how useful and interesting it can be, I guess. Never let it be said I can't change my mind."

"Wise words," Elder Owl compliments. "If you wish to reach for new horizons, I wish you the best of luck. I would offer to teach you if you weren't leaving the flock for a bit."

"I can try to teach you!" Claire says, smiling. "Um, it's pretty complicated, though. We might have to wait until things are settled down a bit."

"Maybe you can tell me more about mana and magic in the meantime? Oh, hold on, it looks like they're setting up for a party."

I nod towards where Darius is practically being swarmed by fuzzy chicks, everywhere from knee-high to waist-high, some landing on his shoulders and chirping enthusiastically about the fresh food he's handing out from his huge pack. Almost as soon as it leaves his hands, it's gone. Everyone else watches indulgently, patiently waiting their turn.

Claire mutters something in response but I lose track of her as soon as Covi and Cavi drag me over to Henri. They loop me into the chicks' games. Tag, guessing games, and having us compete to see who can throw the little ones higher into the air, with them gliding gently down, laughing like mad.

It's fun. In small doses. I only notice a bit later, but Claire doesn't really participate in the party. She just kind of lurks at the edge of it. I sympathize. Hanging out on the edge of the temporary camp, just sitting there and resting... Big introvert energy. Too bad I can't really join her, I'm the hero of the hour. Telling exaggerated stories about monsters is fun enough too.

In the end, the group decides to camp out next to the flock for the night and look for the lost library in the morning.

Is there a word for nostalgia for something that never was? If so, I feel it. The four of us, sitting around a small campfire, with four little tents and plates of food in front of us. There'll be some conversation against the light crackling of the fire, and then we'll all go to sleep, in a pattern that's entirely new and also almost as familiar as the pull of air on my wings.

Darius: "Well, we've survived another day. This time deep in one of the most hostile places in Lancor..."

Henri: "Good thing we came here when we did - those avian-kin would have been in real trouble without our help."

Darius: "We can't be everywhere and fix everything... But yes. I'm glad."

Claire: "Hopefully we can find the library tomorrow with Archie's help, and get out of here. I really don't like this place. The air feels dead, and there's monsters around every corner."

Darius: "I think Archie will be up to the task. He's brave, if impulsive. We'll just have to endure."

Henri: "Someone has to do it! But seriously... The Dead Wood are just as creepy as you said they were, Claire."

Claire: "Technically I never said it was creepy. Just that nothing really grows there, and there were monsters even before the corruption, and you can get lost if you're not careful..."

Henri: "Yeah like I said, you told me it's creepy!"

Claire: "Hmph. The mana really is stagnant here, though..."

"About that," I interrupt. "What is mana, anyway? Seems like important stuff."

"Oh! I forgot you were there. And I never got to explain earlier. Sorry..."

"Don't worry about that," I wave her off. "Parties aren't your thing. I get it, no worries."

"Ah-heh... Thanks. Yes, I just wouldn't have known what to say or do... What is mana? Well, that's a question scholars have been trying to answer since the very discovery of magic! There's a few different ways to think about it. In some ways, mana is just the thing that magic senses observe. But mana is involved in every act of magic, and it's found in all living things as well - not to mention in the environment. Places with magical properties are especially rich in mana. And, of course, monsters are made almost completely out of condensed fouled mana."

"So mana is magic stuff that's basically everywhere? There must be lots of different kinds, right?"

"Right! There are dozens of aspects of mana, maybe even hundreds or thousands. Each kind of mana behaves slightly differently, and just like living things affect mana, it can have effects on us as well. That's what magic is, mana that's dense enough to have real effects. There are echoes and patterns it tends to form, but we don't know why. It comes from the world and from living things, but we don't know why! The first step to learning magic is learning to influence mana with your will. But what mana is... I don't have much of a better answer than 'part of the foundational principles of the world, like the ground or air or sun'."

"And 'corrupt' mana is a particular kind? One that's taking over everything? Does it... Make regular mana into more corrupt mana?"

"Yes! Like a disease. Mana conversions are so poorly understood, and corrupt mana is hostile to any real study... Nothing I've tried can turn it back, and it hurts you if you're not corrupt and try to use it."

"Unless you're a demi-monster," Darius speaks up. "They can use it just fine."

"Right. I don't understand the nature of monsters or demi-monsters either. I'm really just an apprentice, not some learned old scholar... Master Whittaker would know more, but he left months ago to who-knows-where, and hasn't come back. Sorry if I don't have a proper explanation for you."

Lots to chew over. I need to find a book about mana. Maybe it's the key to understanding the 'dreams'. With a sigh, I look to the sky. "No worries, Claire. It's a start. Thank you... I want to know more, but it's late. Goodnight everyone."

After a round of 'goodnight's and Henri putting out the fire, I get in the tent and do my best to properly rest. Put it all off to later. Can't unravel mysteries without sleep.

 

[Rockeye]

I wake up early and poke around the flock's camp again. Check in with the night guards, make sure all the little ones are good. Say some goodbyes. Elder Owl is still deep asleep. He's probably the smartest one out of all of us, but nobody can keep going forever.

Seriously though, waiting for others to finish their morning routines is a whole different and much more frustrating thing than slowly working yourself up for the day alone. Claire's writing in her book, the same one she's always holding. Henri's cooking, a big metal pan over the fire. Smells nice. Darius is sharpening and polishing the group's metal weapons and armor.

I tap my feet, feeling useless. Soon I find myself taking apart the tents and packing them up, and what is this?!? The canvas is fraying at the edge, and the thread's coming out. Who doesn't properly maintain their tents? It's a lot easier to fix a loose thread than patch a giant tear that happened 'cause you ignored it! I mutter and set to fixing it, using a needle and thread from my own pack, held lightly in claw-fingers.

I'm interrupted on the third tent by Henri setting a plate of food in front of me.

"Hey! Thanks for working on the tents, we keep needing to go get them fixed, but you seem to know what you're doing."

"Yeah, it ain't even that hard. I can't let things just go unmaintained while I wait for you all to get ready, anyway."

"Haha. Right. I noticed you ate meat and bread last night, so I got you sausage, some seasoned pork slices, and fresh pancakes for breakfast. I hope you enjoy it!"

"Oh, sure. Thanks," I rub the back of my head. "I can eat pretty much anything despite being all hawk-y. Except milk. And light on the veggies. Just lucky that way, I guess."

"I know, right? I would be so miserable if I had to stick to vegetables only! I can't have meat very often, myself. But food is one of the best things in life… No reason not to make it as good as possible!"

"It's a solid way to start the day," Darius comments as he finishes putting up his things. "Food is fuel, but the morale effects cannot be ignored."

"That means he likes it," Henri stage-whispers and winks.

"Hmph. We should eat quickly, and look for the library. Every day the corruption grows stronger."

"I dunno," I say, picking at the plate, "I kind of want to make sure my buddies get out of here safely first. Even following Claire's mana trail, well, we got attacked by monsters a few times on the way here, right? They seem attracted to movement."

"We need the information about the Chaos Heart from the library. The fate of all Lancor is at stake. Is another detour really necessary?" Darius gestures frustratedly.

"I think he's got a point," Henri muses. "It's his flock. And more importantly, they're people in need. I helped save your herd instead of rushing off to save the world, you know. What's the point if we don't help people along the way?"

"The point is preventing everything we've worked for from going to waste."

"Look," I interrupt. "Get my flock out of the Dead Wood, and I'll help you find your library. I'm a scout, right? I can do that thing, the thing where the most important part of you comes to the fore and you feel it in the back of your head, a buzz in the brain."

"That's what we call Archetype," Claire surprises me by speaking up. "One's Archetype is a kind of action or a sort of luck that they can find in the world around them. Like a lot of things about magic, we don't understand why, but do you have a Scout archetype, Archie?"

"I think so, yeah. People can just do a thing. Elder Owl can make us sneaky and quiet. Claire's obviously got the whole cute magic nerd thing going on," I wave vaguely, not noticing the sudden blush. "For me it's finding things. I'm great at that, it's who I am, right? Right. So you can go look for the library on your own, or you can help me just a tiny bit more first and shave days off the schedule."

I cross my arms and glare at Darius again. It's not like he doesn't have a tiny part of a point, but sheesh. Does he have to be so abrasive about it?

"Fine," Darius snorts. "Let's get everyone out of the dead wood first, and the rest will be easier."

"Fine."

Henri looks between us and sighs. That sets the tone for the next little while, as we get the flock moving, following those "trails" that apparently can actually get everyone out of this place. The Dead Wood didn't want to let us go, huh? No wonder we were stuck here for so long.

Killin' monsters is a great way to let off frustration, though. They obligingly come straight to us instead of the flock, as long as we can kill 'em fast enough. We barely have time to pick up the Obols before we head off again. It's pretty obvious I'm - kind of the weak link here, though. Henri's absurdly fast, bounding and leaping all around, Darius is a wall of destruction, and Claire unleashes waves of magic in all directions. I just fly around and occasionally rake something with my claws. I can hit carefully, hit a skeleton right as it's lunging and make it fall over for example, but I kinda lack the killing power everyone else has.

Either way, soon enough we reach the edge of the Dead Wood, and rocky hills spread out in all directions, covered in brownish grass and the occasional bush as chilly wind blows. Nice place, right? Still better than the Dead Wood, and everyone relaxes once they get more than a mile or two away from that place.

Henri arranges a place for the flock to wait, then says, "Great work! Let's take a quick break, everyone."

I land near Claire and catch my breath.

"Hey Darius, do you think you could whip up a weapon for Archie? I noticed he's not as well-equipped as the rest of us."

"I've got a pair of old claw extensions that wore out a while ago," I say, opening my pack and pulling them out. "And yeah, I gotta agree on the gear front."

Darius makes a 'give it here' motion and I gently toss 'em over, feeling an odd sense of familiarity with the action.

"Darius has the smith archetype," Henri explains, "He makes all our equipment."

Darius smiles as he peers over the claw extensions. "Mana bound to objects is the best kind of mana. Obols are a close second. Axiomatic power, contained in the convenient form of a small gold coin."

"Archetypes sure are handy," I muse. "What's yours, Henri? Claire?"

Claire speaks up, "Well, it's not always totally clear or easily labelled. Mine is something like 'scholar' I think…"

"I don't really know mine. Hyperactive? Bunny?" Henri shrugs. "So whaddaya think, Darius?"

"Some nice steel on my claws would be really welcome," I mutter.

"Two hundred Obols, five Metal Nodules, and one Steel Pinion. But the result will be iron, not steel. It'll be a magic item, of course. Gear like that has power well beyond the actual materials."

"Sounds pretty good."

"Are you're sure it's worth it, Henri? Archie here might leave us after we find the library, and we'll need the materials for our own advancement."

"No, no, I definitely think you should fix those up for him. Even if he leaves, armaments in the hands of good are good for everyone, right? Plus it gives me a chance to go forage, and for Archie to get that magic lesson he wanted while you do it."

Darius sighs. I restrain the urge to roll my eyes. "Very well. Claire?"

"Right, one Portable Forge coming right up! Where should I put it?"

Darius gestures, and claire waves her wand in angular patterns in that direction, speaking nonsense words. They don't mean anything to me anyway. But a weirdly flat grey outline appears and slowly thickens, becoming more solid and real by the second.

I let out a low whistle, impressed, when it's done. "Okay, if that's the kind of thing a master can do I dunno why more people don't try to learn magic."

"Oh, that's not very impressive," Claire prevaricates, waving and shaking her head. "It's a stencil spell. It's… Save into my rod as an engram. I only had to do it the hard way once. I can't use engrams in combat though, they take a long time."

"Still, that's wicked cool. So, uh-" I hear a loud CLANG as Darius hits my old claw guards with a hammer. Hell if I know how that improves it, but he seems to know what he's doing? "Let's go a bit away. And can you tell me how you actually learn magic?"

"Of course. So, the study of magic is all about manipulating the patterns of mana into the spells you want to use. For higher level spells you have to visualize and plan the motion in addition to feeling and manipulating mana. But the first step is sensing mana, then manipulating it. And you have to do it yourself. If you can't feel mana, it's orders of magnitude harder to perform magic. Not strictly impossible, but…" She shrugs.

"But not happening unless you're a genius. Okay. Feeling mana, huh… Is it anything like scout-senses? That buzzing I get when I'm about to find something?"

"No, that's more of an archetype thing. Not mana itself. Internal, not external. Keep in mind that everyone senses mana a bit differently. For me it's like sight, mana has color and shape. It's pretty. Hmm… The way I learned to sense mana was patient meditation."

"Dunno if we have time for that. I don't know how meditation even works, honestly."

"There are breathing and focus exercises you can try… I don't know how to teach this. I can tell you things I've read about awakening manasense but…"

"It's alright, don't worry about it. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work."

"Sorry."

"You say sorry a lot, huh?"

Claire makes an 'eep' noise and doesn't reply.

"Heh. This time I'm sorry. Okay. Sensing mana… Any particular kind of mana?"

"Oh, right! Affinities. Some kin subtypes have known affinities for certain kinds of mana. For example, rabbits sometimes have a connection to Moon mana, despite not being nocturnal, and avian-kin very often have an easier time with Air mana than any other kind. So you can try… Feeling the air?"

"...Huh." It's starting to sound like I'm gonna figure this out while flying. That flow state where it's just motion without thought is meditation, right? I'm not sure. "...Tell me what air mana's like?"

"Very well! Ahem-" At that, she launches into a fast, eager explanation with a fair few words I don't really understand. But it sounds like air mana mostly acts like… Air? It'll blow things over, or be blown by the actual wind. It's 'lighter' than other kinds of mana. Though the idea of compression and vacuum is weird and fascinating… I listen and ask questions, and even get her to try a bunch of wind magic right over me, but I still feel nothing but the actual wind when Darius finishes his work and Henri comes back, ears twitching happily, with a basket full of berries… And a small rabbit, which I boggle at.

"What?" She answers my look. "Animals are animals, kin are kin. This guy's about as smart as a rock, and now he's lunch."

"…Okay, sure. Oh and… Thanks, big guy," I make myself tell Darius as he carefully hands over the new-and-improved-much-less-rusty claw extensions. I immediately try them on, of course.

"The iron claws will make your attacks a good bit stronger and also suffuse your body with a bit of defensive magic, but they do also slow you down slightly. It wasn't really avoidable."

"That's fine. Well worth the tradeoff. Gotta say, I'm liking these a lot." I flex my claws and grin as the extensions dig into the dirt smoothly, like they're just as much a part of my body as the rest of me.

"I'm glad. They'll also last for a long time, though I need to maintain them occasionally, like all the magic items I make. To my shame, I'm not good enough to make things that will truly last… Yet."

"I'm sure you'll get there." I remember something like that, honestly. A piece of metal called Adamant, or something?

Whatever. "Okay, so same plan as before? I fly up and look for the library by leaning on the scout thing, once I find it, I lead you to it?"

"That's the plan I think most likely to succeed, yes," Claire nods. Nobody else raises any objections.

"Off I go, then!" With a jaunty wave, I take to the air once more.

Flying is always peaceful. Always clears my head, no matter what happens before or after. Yeah. Meditative. I'm definitely gonna start feeling mana while flying one day. I try to reach for it now, but either actively trying isn't the right tack or it'll take a bit more time.

I'm not really worried. Spellcasting would be cool and very useful, but the real priority is figuring out what the heck is up with that vision or memory or… Whatever it is that's giving me a sense of the future. I let my mind wander, pushing the niggling twist in the back of my head out front and letting it do the steering while I pore over everything I've noticed so far in the vain hope of figuring it all out.

And just like that, like blinking I see the library below - old curved stone structures, just like Claire described. Kinda tempted to go in myself, but nah. The whole point is to lead Henri there, not poke my head in myself.

Thankfully, the trip is pretty simple. Not even very many monsters to fight on the way. Just enough to really let it sink in how lovely the new iron claws are at smashing monster face.

Everyone's quiet as we walk into the big open stone doorway, and down a tan stone hall. There's worn carvings of all sorts of different kinds of kin, reading and writing and wandering around tall shelves full of books.

And then, at the end of the long hall, there's a big open stone chamber, lit by two blue-glowing flames in shiny glass spheres hanging from the ceiling. The place is real fancy, the stone cleaner, more murals and carvings on the wall. And right in front of us, on the 'pages' of a giant carving of a book, some words are visible…

Oh seekers of knowledge, here lies the lore of yore
A library long buried, stories forgotten
They can become known once more.
But first you must face trials four.
The first one is simple as can be
Though not friends with nine or eight,
What have in common these:
Two, nineteen, five, eleven, three?

I look around. Claire is paging through her notebook again, while Darius frowns sternly at the words. Henri is poking along the edges of the stone chamber for some reason. I frown.

"...Seriously?" I ask aloud. "The answer's obvious. Those are all prime numbers."

Everyone looks at me. Then the ground starts shaking.

 

[R Besque]

yo, this is so cute? generic rpg is generic as can be, but the animal-kin & their youthful heroism give me fluffy feelings.

particularly liked the bits where the party reacted to archie asking lord drake's name, & when archie realized he could just ask henri for food because she's kind like that. ooh, & his obvious fondness for kids, in the first chapter & the second to last one.

 

[Rockeye]

The rumbling of the ground, thankfully, is just the pillars holding those glowy glass balls receding into the ground, and a little pedestal with two dents rising up.

"I would've thought Claire would get that one," Henri comments cheerfully as she goes and picks up one of the spheres. She tosses it overhand towards the pedestal and runs after it.

"Oi, I'm not stupid- Oi! Aren't you gonna be careful with that? Does this sort of thing happen a lot?"

"I was taking notes..." Claire mutters. "Would've figured it out once I was done..."

Darius picks up the other sphere and heads for the pedestal as well.

"This doesn't make any sense, though. Isn't it weird how there's some strange puzzle here? It's a ruin. Abandoned. Who put this here?"

"Not that strange, puzzles are kinda everywhere," Henri says, tossing the glass ball full of magical fire again with a clank. I wince, fearing they'll break.

"But why?"

"Mana likes puzzles. Or well, it might be inaccurate to say mana 'likes' anything, but I tried to do a sort of study on this, and empty chests locked behind puzzles in magic-rich areas accumulated more Obols than empty chests that were undisturbed but not behind obstacles."

That... Doesn't feel right. It feels like someone's making fun of me. Someone or something designed this, and knew what prime numbers are. Whoever built the old library, maybe? ...Hmph. I cross my wings and glower. As the two spheres sink into the perfectly-sized divots, the whole room lights up and the big riddle door opens with a rumble and a crash.

The next 'trial' is a big series of moving platforms with more glass balls standing on them, all floating over a deep, dark hole. I try to fly right across, but gusts of wind pick me up and shove me back. Luckily, when Darius falls the wind picks him up too, and deposits him at the start. It ends up taking all four of us hitting different switches at the same time, and the platforms assemble themselves into a bridge.

The third one takes some thinking, using moving platforms activated by putting the fire-spheres down to move other fire-spheres around. I ignore the weird puzzle and quiz Claire on what ancient ruins are supposed to be like. Apparently puzzles like this are really common? And the best explanation anyone has is that puzzles last longer than more straightforward protections like keys. Because mana. Or something.

It's enough to make ya want to tear your feathers out.

When the last 'test' is some weird complicated logic thing with a long list of rules - If the Foxkin lives in Berryburg and studies Geology, that means the Bearkin can't live in Berryburg or Riverton and studies either Magic or Farming- I try to help figure it all out, but I get pretty sick of it almost immediately, and end up pacing even as Claire and Henri scratch notes and argue some more.

After a while, I have an idea. All these puzzles just make the stone doors fold away once they're complete. But stone is not invulnerable.

"...Hey Darius, what if you just... Smashed the door?"

He blinks, and looks at the door blocking our way thoughtfully. "...I don't think I could get through."

"If you give it a try, that's what, a minute's effort? Way less than we've spent trying to figure this nonsense out." I gesture emphatically.

He stares at the wall in silence for a bit. "Eh, nevermind." I sigh and go back to pacing.

"Very well," I hear, and then thundering footsteps as he charges at the stone wall in the back of the room. With a mighty swing of his hammer, he lashes out- And makes a big dent in the wall, throwing up dust and debris!

"What are you doing?!" Comes from the two puzzle-solvers.

"Taking the easy way out!"

"That's- That's not how you're supposed to do it! Don't you have any respect for history? Just up and smashing when you get bored? Gods!" Claire raises her hands. "Yes, let's just hit it until it breaks! No way that could cause any problems whatsoever!"

Darius swings his huge hammer again. "Seems to be working."

"I can't believe you right now. Henri! Solving puzzles and overcoming challenges leads to better results, almost always. But not if you just skip them."

"...Well, they've already gone and done it now. And brute force is a way of overcoming challenges." She pats Claire on the shoulder. "Too late, I'm sorry. Why didn't you ask first, though?"

"Hey, all I did was suggest it!" I raise my hands defensively. "Darius is the one that just hauled off and did it."

"Because this is a waste of time." He raises his hammer for a third swing.

Claire raises her staff in Darius's direction, and he hesitates. Then she lets out a scream of frustrated rage and stomps out of the room, back to the previous trial.

"Deer wizards are kinda scary when they're mad," I comment absently.

"Oh boy," Henri says. "I think we gotta give her a little space to vent. I'll talk to her in a minute. Darius, didn't we talk about discussing things as a team, though?"

"...Yes." Darius sighs. "Okay, yes. I was too impatient. That was a mistake. I'll make sure to apologize."

"Maybe we oughta take a break and have a snack anyway. I just hope the books are worth all this trouble..." I mutter.

Henri sighs and shakes her head, then forces herself back to bouncy cheer. "Well, you don't learn if you never make mistakes!"

Lunch is pretty subdued. Darius apologizes. Claire snipes at him about how apologies are supposed to come with not doing it again, and he apologized last time, and still did it again. Darius clearly thinks about saying something else, and then sullenly remains silent, instead. I try to stay out of it and Henri tries to play peacemaker.

The sausage is yummy, at least.

When we get back to it after cleaning up, the rest of the door yields easy enough to several more hammer swings, and we cautiously step through, past what should have been the final challenge.

The room beyond- Now that's what I expected when I heard the word 'library'! It's a huge open atrium type space, with two upper levels of walkways and railings, with shelves and shelves and shelves of shelves, all holding all manner of colorful book spines. There's even dusty furniture scattered around the place, for reading, and a big stone platform in the middle. Claire carefully pulls out and opens a book, only to gasp in dismay and cough as she opens it to reveal scraps and dust.

"No books?" I scowl. "What a ripoff!"

"This place must be very old," Darius comments. "Even the works of the ancients are not completely immune to the ravages of time..."

Henri nudges each one of us. "Hey, we've come this far, let's keep exploring. Maybe there's something we can use?"

Trying a book every couple of shelves, they're all the same as the first one. Completely ruined. The chairs collapse when you try to sit on 'em, too. We walk up to the big stone pedestal after a bit, and to our surprise a transparent figure appears on it. It's some sort of... Some sort of kin. Sort of like a cross between a fish-kin and a pig-kin, smooth and moist-looking flesh, big eyes spaced widely, hairless, three-toed feet, mottled green coloring, a huge mouth that stretches all across the front of his head...

"Wwwwwelcome to the Deepwoods Library." He talks slowly, with a low rumble to his voice. "I'm Ribbit, the librarian spirit. Note to visitors. I am not a person. I am a magical construct designed to assist library visitors. I am capable of helping you find the books you are looking for."

"We need information about corrupted mana, and the Chaos Heart," Henri says emphatically to the spirit. "It's of vital importance. It might save all of Lancor."

"Lancor. A region to the northwest, sparsely populated and largely unexplored... Thinking..."

"Lancor is a thriving kingdom now, Ribbit."

The spirit ignores Claire's correction. "Thinking... Thinking... A-ha!"

He vanishes for a moment, then reappears in a different pose. "Physical records have deteriorated over time and even the crystal codex is missing some entries. I can recover and re-assemble these entries. However, the Deepwoods Library is critically low on mana. One search can be performed without supplemental mana. After that, you will have to provide Obols in order to power the restoration processes and recover more knowledge."

"We've got Obols a'plenty!" Henri gives the see-through librarian a thumbs up.

"Previous search was for keywords 'Chaos Heart', linked to keyword 'corruption'. One recoverable result. Display result?"

"Yes!" Claire practically shouts.

A glowy blue book appears in front of the spirit construct thing, who just stands there expressionlessly. Claire positively devours the book, muttering as she goes. I can only catch about half of each page before she turns it.

Chaos Heart, a collective egregore of destructive mana patterns... Grabbing the useful mana and throwing away the bad mana was fine at first... People did it way too much and the bad mana kept adding up... There was some sort of critical mass where it turned to corruption... The dragons were hit worst by the corruption since they're so magical... Runaway feedback loop... Integration with flesh and blood... Something about destructive interference waves... And it got really technical from there, but Claire seemed to understand. There's a spell she can do if she sees the Chaos Heart, to cut it down to size, apparently.

"I think Lord Drake is bound to the Chaos Heart and actively using it. That must be where demi-monsters come from. But even if the counterspell works and destroys the Chaos Heart, some corruption will remain, and the Chaos Heart might eventually reform elsewhere, but it may be our only hope to save Lancor."

"Great work, Claire," Henri compliments. "We knew Lord Drake was responsible for the corruption, but until now we didn't have a way to stop him."

"Do we have to kill him?" I wonder. "The book said... Dragons got dependent on corrupted mana, right? So we might have to kill Lord Drake."

"He's creating monsters and sending them to attack people," Darius says. "We have to kill him anyway, to stop that."

"What if there's a way to... De-power him. Get rid of the Chaos. Maybe make a Life Heart instead or something?"

"That's not... How it works." Claire mutters. "I mean, theoretically there are other possible arrangements that generate a stable feedback loop, enough to sustain a being dependent on exterior mana... And the Deepwoods Library archives might have some information on that... But that still leaves doing some sort of conversion and I don't even know were to begin on that. It would take years of research, I think."

"And the corruption is a major problem now." Henri says with a sigh. "There's not a point of no return, I think, but it's just going to keep getting worse for everyone if we delay. The simplest solution is to get rid of the bad guy, and counterspell the Chaos Heart."

"Why are you suggesting this, anyway?" Darius wonders.

"Oh, I was just thinkin' that... It would kind of suck to be stuck doing monstrous things if you didn't want to be evil."

"Oh. Yeah..." Henri shakes her head. "There might be a better way. We should at least check."

"Ribbit, do you have information on stable mana structures?"

"Processing... No results found. The crystal codex is badly damaged. Please provide Obols to power restoration attempts."

"How many d'you think we can spare?" Henri asks the party. I shrug. I don't know how many they even have. Henri laughs, takes out a leather bag from Darius's pack, and upends it onto the stone pedestal, golden coins glittering and clinking as they spill out. More and more and more coins. How many are in there?!?

"Three thousand six hundred twelve Obols absorbed," Ribbit intones when the bag is finally empty. "Beginning restoration."

 

[Rockeye]

So the restoration is apparently gonna take all night. That's alright. Means we get another campfire scene, this time building the fire out of wood Henri goes to gather, in a nightly ritual that seems like one of those patterns mana likes so much.

Claire: I'm so excited for what we might discover! Think of all the lost knowledge the ancients must have... They probably understood magic a lot better than we do now.

Henri: What were the ancients even like? If they're not here anymore, something must have gone wrong... Someone ought to remember them. This place is amazing.

Darius: Who knows how long that crystal matrix and the library spirit have been here? And yet they're still intact! It's inspiring.

Claire: There's only a few ways to leave a legacy that lasts forever. Discovering knowledge and writing it down... Building something so powerful or useful that it's preserved for eons...

Henri: Or having tons of kids and a huge family!

Archie: Or becoming so famous people remember you forever, like the White Dragon.

Darius: We've forgotten the White Dragon's name. All we really know is that they severed Chaos from the world... And that it didn't last forever, or resist other dragons' corruption.

Archie: Hopefully there's something about dragons in those books too... Well, we're here now and they're not. Seems like time washes away all things...

Henri: You've just got to enjoy the here and now.

And the night passes peacefully, the library apparently not harmed at all by us setting a fire and tents indoors.

It turns out that books are kind of hard to read and understand. We camp out in the library overnight, Darius learning about this so-called crystal matrix, Claire and I trying to study magic. With much more success in her case than mine, really... And Henri gets bored pretty quick, it's kind of obvious. She doesn't say anything, though, plodding through the few history books that three thousand Obols of magic power managed to re-assemble.

Poking at mana structures with Claire is surprisingly engrossing, though. Even if it's tons and tons of math. Or not math but like... Shapes and circles and lines. Geometry. We've used up a good chunk of the group's writing supplies by midday.

"So the strings repel each other right? But they also have tension. So it's almost a weaving thing. Stick 'em inside each other, they get pushed out, but they also hold themselves in. Like rope."

"...I don't really get it," Claire scratches her antlers. "I think that would be really unstable?"

"I - it's like knots, right? Rope is floppy, but a knot is stiff, because it's locked in on itself with friction!" I gesture emphatically as I try to explain. "From what your diagrams here are telling me, a lot of it looks like ropecraft. We had... All sorts of pulleys and stuff." Did we? I know how to do that sort of thing, but it hits the weird lack-of-memory again.

"No, if you push the strands right up against each other they touch and fuse. It'll reverse the flow and-" she traces her finger along the paper. "Gather up here. And explode."

"Okay, so maybe not that exact layout. Why does life mana behave like that anyway?"

"A futile question," Claire says frustratedly. "It just does. And nobody has good solid numbers on exactly how much you can put in one strand, or what the forces are like for some reason!"

"Yeah, I was wondering. A lot of the equations here are kinda, um, low precision."

"I know! It's so bad! I've worked out a superior version for some of my most commonly used spells, ice mana is actually the most amenable to being measured and characterized since it's pretty placid... Here, look."

I peer at the paper I've been handed. "Propogation speed of ten thaum in... Oh, there's the start. Define one thaum as the amount of Ice mana needed to cool one ounce of water one tenth of the way from boiling to freezing? Why not use Obols?"

"They don't release it into, uh, 'free' mana that I can sense. It just sits there and it's really hard to see. Also I think Obols have slightly different amounts in them sometimes."

"...Huh. Okay, this is... Impressive."

"It's also wrong. Imprecise. And only for ice mana, besides! I do the measurements at different times of day, or with different water, or my scales for the water aren't quite accurate, or I can't keep the amount of mana the same..."

"Yeah, I can see that. Sounds frustrating, if you want to get all this down pat like that."

"It's so infuriating! Especially because nobody seems to understand why! I mean, the old wizards and archmages mastered their spells and wrote books about magic sometimes, but they talk about it like an old friend and not... Not like a tool. You know, Darius knows exactly how many Obols something will take because lots of smiths did a lot of work making different things and wrote it down, and did math to the results! But magic? It's maaaaaagic. It seems like I'm the first one to try this."

Consider my eyebrows raised at the sudden burst of emotion, there. "I mean... I don't really get it get it, but I think I get it a little bit. If it's not written down, nobody can ever learn it later, right? But even the intricate diagrams the library's giving us are all 'feel how the upper left node tugs on the structure and account for it when learning this spell'. Or 'once the second mana stream is stable it will settle into this pattern' without saying why."

"Yeah." Claire sighs. "It's just all so frustrating how the strongest magic in the world tends to be... Unique. Only one person can do it, or there's only one of it, and nobody knows why. I want to make it so people do know why. Knowledge is power."

...I wanna give her a hug. I don't, though. Instead I just nod and go back to the book on life mana we were looking at earlier. Regeneration Stones seem like a good place to start on a maybe-it's-not-possible Life Heart to replace the Chaos one.

But we can only tolerate the books for so long. Henri gets more and more bored, and Darius seems to get impatient too after the first book on ancient smithing techniques. They start pushing for us to leave.

"And go where?" I wonder. "I gather there's nothing stopping us from marching up to Lord Drake tomorrow and... Taking him out, but... I want to give it a good try at least to find another way."

"Actually, there's a few things we should take care of before the final battle anyway," Henri 'hmm's, fidgeting. "Your flock. They need somewhere to rebuild, instead of just wandering around the Copper Hills. Princess Elodie has called forth the knights of Lancor to defend it, but there were some issues. A Demi-Monster thief stealing Obols and equipment that they can't catch, some sort of infestation in the Fatewell Mines that's stopped the supply of metal for armor, and something in the Skystones blocking the Princess's long-range communication magic. The monsters are going to go crazy when the Chaos Heart breaks- If we go that route. So the Knights need to be as ready as possible before we do it. We at least have to take care of those issues."

I nod. "Great. Something to work towards, then." Somehow I don't expect it to take all that long. "...I gotta say, I am feeling really. Something. Definitely something."

"Nervous?" Henri suggests.

"Nah. Well kinda. More... Impatient. Anxious, not nervous."

"Well, the only cure for that is action, I always say! Besides, there's likely Obols to be had in any of these things we have to go help with. Claire, do you have what you need from here?"

"For now. I can keep working on it later."

"Great! Then let's go! First stop, back out of the Dead Woods to Geode Fort Hill. That's where I told Elder Owl we'd meet them."

...Hmph. I take to the air once we get out. Stretch the brain. Get rid of some of that buzzing, itchy energy.

Maybe I oughta go talk to Lord Drake. Not fight. Just talk. Dunno if I can fight my way through the keep, though...

Well. I can always decide to do that later. First thing's first, helping the flock.

 

[Rockeye]

I can't really focus on the adventure stuff. Dribs and drabs of it come back to me in flashes, and I keep givin' little hints to the others. "Huh, it kind of looks like they went that way?" or "Maybe it has something to do with the echoes..." Nobody seems to really notice my preoccupation. Darius is obsessed with making ever better magic gear, Claire constantly has her nose buried into a book, and Henri is always chatting up and making friends with whoever we've met most recently. I'm sure they think I'm always moodily staring off into the distance instead of anything useful. Which is... Kinda true.

So it's been... Some time. Few weeks, few months, what's the difference? Magic ain't coming to me very easily. Every time I fly for a long time, I feel like I got a little bit closer, and Claire tries to cheer me up when I complain about it, but it's just... Frustrating, not being able to tell if I'm making progress, or how close I am. Maybe it'll happen tomorrow. Maybe in a year. Maybe never.

We cleared out some other bit of forest for the flock to build new homes in, spent a while helping 'em get along with the new neighbors, finding a Lancor teacher to give all the cute little chicks proper lessons since Elder Owl's too tired for it most of the time, building up hunting and forestry grounds and even a little stone quarry. We're poking along the Knights' problems- Got the demi-monster who was stealing stuff, and destroyed some but not all of the interference emitters in the floating mountains called the Skystones.

I feel sick, though. Badgering Claire every day and even trying to drag Darius and Henri into the academic shuffle - Darius said it seems like trying to build a house out of live worms, heh - but there hasn't really been any progress on the whole Life Heart front. Claire tried a few spells that should have worked - not done anything useful except sit there, mind, but should have been nice and stable - but they disintegrated immediately instead. It's a hard problem, and I get angry whenever I think about it lately. It's damned unfair. Who made things this way? The gods? The world? Neither of 'em care about my tantrums, though.

And why should they? I'm just an angry punk with more violence than sense. Any real change probably only comes from hard work and violence.

...Damn. It's probably time. I gotta go talk to Lord Drake, see if we can figure something out. I have no idea how everyone would react to that. So I just leave a note in the middle of the night and go. 'There's something I have to do.
Don't worry about me. Be back as soon as I can. -Archie'.



Air's cold tonight.



It's a long flight. South, east, east, and east some more. I stop near the edge of the Dead Woods and rest a bit, sleeping as well as I can. And in the morning I press on, past the Dead Woods, into what used to be Svasba - according to Ribbit the librarian. Everything is brown or red, bleak, lifeless. I can hardly land without being swarmed, and even in the air some of the rarer flying monsters try to come at me.

It all stops when I get close to the keep, though. Maybe part of that's how I shouted, "Lord Drake! As you once said- Something is terribly wrong here! Let's have a chat!"

It's incredibly nerve-wracking to land and walk in the big old castle, with its ominous stonework and torches, twitching at every noise 'cause most of me expects this to be a brutal battle. But nothing stops me. The few Skeleton Knights I catch sight of duck down side halls and avoid me.

It's still really creepy. Not helped by the fact that most of the place is a bit too narrow to really fly in.

Lord Drake is waiting for me in the cavernous, cathedralic throne room. He stands, the very vision of unstoppable power, that could crush me like a bug. The Chaos Heart beats overhead, and I can practically feel the weight of it. How it's a keystone of the world, driving everything else. I land and scowl, fear twisting up inside me... Don't know what to say.

He obliges, though. "So, one of the foretold heroes has presented himself to me, alone and vulnerable... What a foolish creature. Do you think I will show you mercy?"

Cripes, was this all some huge mistake? ...No. This thing's important. Fate's all twisted up, and I want a way out. I fight against the impulse to fly away, restraining myself to a scowl.

I take a deep breath. "...Oi. Cut the hay, we both know why I'm here."

"Do we? I will indulge your oddities. Explain, then."

"I remember the last time we fought. And so do you. We agreed that something is terribly wrong."

"You are of course referring to the fact that we keep playing out the same story."

I give a tight nod. "Yeah. And it's not a very satisfying one."

"I wait here, alone save for a rare few who can tolerate my presence. They are slain one by one by you and your... Friends. And then you come for me, and you kill me. Or, sometimes... I kill you instead. The world falls to its knees before my might, and all becomes ruin..."

My feathers stand on end in shock. Yeah, I suppose that's the other option here, but-! Lord Drake grins sadistically... Then yawns.

"I agree. I would rather that not happen. Even my victory rings hollow. There are still few, very few, to talk to. They know me either as an unthinkably cruel overlord, and proving them correct brings only brief flashes of satisfaction- Or as the very ideal of malice, which means they agree with everything I say and are too scared to speak. This is honestly somewhat refreshing."

His booming, deep laugh chills me to my bones.

"...So..." I drawl slowly, flexing my claws, "We just start over. Either way it goes. Suddenly we're back at the beginning. And always those two ways? Either you die, or we do?"

"Always. There's only one end to the story. Two, technically, but the end always comes back to the beginning."

"How many..." I trail off in horror. This is... The second time for me. The second that I remember. I could have forgotten it.

Maybe I shouldn't believe this. But I've been trying to figure out ways it can't be true, because it's so horrible. So futile, and so infuriating to be trapped. A puppet on fate's strings, always coming back to the same. Rescue the flock, again and again. Meet the crew, again and again. Find the library, beat up monsters, again, again, again, again, again, forever.

I feel it in my bones. This isn't just a plot to mess with my head. The utter sincerity in his voice, the undeniable truth of the 'dreams' having so much detail, so much I later found out to be true, how everything we do feels so scruffing familiar-

"How-" I choke on my voice a bit. After a sip from the canteen, I clear my throat. "How many times have we had this kind of conversation? I only remember once before..."

"This is the first time we are having this conversation." I see a smile again, and... Eagerness. Excitement. "This has not happened before. It was only me. You- Perhaps whatever has affected you will fade. If so, my hopes to escape this cruel cycle will be dashed. But for now I am choosing to hope. If you remember yourself again, we will have as many chances as we desire to understand why. I think we can both agree on the utter annihilation of w̴͔̌ͅh̷̙͚͖̿͐͛ã̷͇̲̟t̷̤̭̀͆͠e̷̢͚̅̈́̊v̷͉̲̑̕͝e̵̩̊͝r̸̨̭̋́̂ ̵͔͉̚c̴̭̮̜̊r̷͎̊̂̆ȗ̴ͅe̸̘͙̍̊l̶̠̺̆͝ ̵̞̜̽b̴̠̖͙̎ẹ̴̿̈́i̴̮͉̿ǹ̴̢̙̭̚ǵ̶̲̹͒ has trapped us this way, yes?"

"Ack! Gods, your voice is painful when you're that mad. Cripes." Deep breath. Let the ear-ringing subside. "Okay. Well, yeah. I hope so too. I had an idea about replacing the Chaos Heart, with a Life Heart, so we don't have to kill you- Er, that is, so there's a third option-"

"Doesn't work," Lord Drake says with utter finality. "You try that perhaps one time in ten. It never works. It often backfires, killing Claire. A minor variation as far as I'm concerned."

Ugh. My head hurts. All the anger and doom and gross feelings of this place and re-evaluating my whole place in the world is really getting to me. I can only endure so many earth-shattering revelations at once, c'mon! "Ooooohkay. Well. There goes that plan. Unless we can... Try it in different ways, if I'm going around with you."

"Perhaps. There is plenty of time, after all."

"What makes you say 'beings'? What makes you think someone trapped us? As opposed to this just being how the world is."

"A simple logical argument. Why does the world exist at all? Why do none understand the deep underpinnings of the worlds, or the mysterious reasons and actions of the gods? There are many reasons one might wish for this story to play out. Perhaps we are toys for the gods' amusement. Perhaps they hope we will find the answer to some great question of theirs in our struggles. Perhaps the interplay of corruption and order and the generation of Obols thereby serves their purposes somehow, like insects feed on, but also pollinate, flowers. There are reasons for some other being to arrange this; There are no reasons for it to simply happen."

"...Dunno if I believe that." I turn it over in my head. "What's to say any of your random guesses are actually right? 'It just happened' sounds about as valid to me!"

"Believe what you will, so long as you help me escape this trap."

I sigh. "Okay, so. What now."

Lord Drake turns, cloak billowing dramatically as he stomps back to the throne. "I have little faith in you for now and little patience for wasted effort. You retain memories of one iteration- When you remember twice, then I will know it is not false hope. Then, we can plan seriously. Go back to your little friends and save villages and eat nice food. Enjoy the time between now and the final battle."

I look up at the Chaos Heart and grimace. "Can you at least tell me how to learn magic or something?"

"No. Go away."

"What about-" I barely react in time, dodging into the air and feeling my feathers singe as the massive explosive fireball Lord Drake flings at me lets out a concussive blast that throws me high into the air, grunting in pain.

He hunches over the throne, tense and angry.

"...I'm goin', I'm goin'."

And I do, limping a bit but not all that seriously hurt.

Cripes.

Okay, so Lord Drake? Obviously a pretty miserable dude. And not super stable either. Nothing I can really do about it right now I think. I'm not very welcome.

What a mess.

I'm full of gut-wrenching uncertainty the whole way back. Hardly even know what I feel or where I'm going, except for 'bad', and 'somewhere'. It's the 'somewhere' that gets me, though, because I end up back in the Dead Woods... And not a part of it I recognize.

It's some nameless tangle of brambles deep in the maze, a lot like any other nameless tangle, except... There's something here. My archetype is positively screaming at me. But I can't tell what. It's like... A knot. I pace back and forth and manage to dowse it down to a specific spot, floating in the air. About head height.

Is this... Mana sense? Some kind of magic? It doesn't feel like I expected. I guess I sorta expected to see it, like Claire, though. Pretty good sign if I've unlocked mana sense, though!

My celebratory dance is interrupted by a rustling in the thorns. I freeze, then get into a combat-ready stance. I keep my head on a swivel, trying to trace down where the rustling is coming from as it gets louder...

And that's when Claire stumbles out of the thorns into the clearing, bleeding and screaming. I rush over without thinking.

"Claire! Are you okay?!"

"Archie! I was- We were- But there's- Look out!"

I yank her out of the way as something slams that looks like an entire tree down where we were just standing. Oh gods, the smell! Now that I'm aware of it, this is a monster! A really powerful one!

"I thought I told you not to look for me! I was coming right back!"

"Henri insisted! GREAT AEGIS!"

There's a resounding GONG noise as the tree bounces off a glittering silver dome.

"And then we got separated by this troll! And now we're cornered here, and I don't know where they are!"

Another thunderous GONG.

"I'm not strong enough to carry you! Think there's any other way out?"

"I- I- I don't know! I don't know how long I can keep Great Aegis up either!"

Blast and ruin. How did things turn bad so quickly? I've never seen this "troll" before! And it's pretty memorable!

I glance towards the weird knot I can sense. It's not magic. Or not the same kind of magic. 'Cause I can feel it very distinctly, with all the adrenaline of a fight, but I can't sense what Claire's doing at all.

I have to use it. To do something with it. It's literally the only thing that might work. Welp. Try or die.

"Claire, I've got an idea! Just hold on!"

I run up to the knot. It's a matter of instinct more than thought as I just - PUSH. C'mon, c'mon. It's stuck, a hopeless tangle turned in on itself, but with enough force a little loop can open up... It just tightens the rest worse, but- THERE.

I come out of some sort of fugue and see a wobbling blue oval in the air, with knee-high amber grass on the other side.

Another thunderous GONG, and Claire screams in pain.

"Cripes! Out of time!"

And so I grab her and charge through the portal - what else could it be? - Just as it closes behind us. We end up flat on the ground, stalks of grain from someone's farm flattened all around us, breathing hard under a quiet night sky.

"You okay, Claire?"

I hear sniffles and a murmur.

"Claire?"

"...M'fine. Overlimit. Headache."

"Okay, okay. Just take it easy. We're safe for now I think."

More mumbling. She shifts slightly.

I flop onto my back, panting, and boggle at the sight above me. "...What...?"

The night sky is streaked with glittering lights. Hundreds of twinkling stars moving slowly across the heavens in all directions, framed by a moon. A lot like the usual one, but...

This moon has a giant, glowing hole in it.

 

[Questwolf]

Cool story! I like the slow discovery that things aren't right and the magic system seems cool. I hope they can figure out how to use it.

 

[Transreal Cloud]

... what?

Well that's a twist.

 

[Rockeye]

"You thought it was time loop, but it was me, Isekai!"

 

[MangoFlan]

The characters have strong NPC vibes. The story is written like the world is a whimsical RPG. Strange races. Classes/Archetypes. Timeloops aka Playthroughs. It stinks of multiple playthroughs. However, I'm not completely confident that this is what the author is intending.

That thing could be a Bonus Level.

 

[Rockeye]

Retconned. This never happened.

---

The ugly scar in the moon looks like nothing more than the aftermath some sort of titanic, cataclysmic explosion spell. The kind of thing Claire can do once and then be out for the rest of the fight, and accordingly almost never does, scaled up to the size of however big the moon is. Streaks of char, the sullen glow of heat seared into stone...

We're not in Lancor anymore. No sense freaking out over it, denying it, whatever. Waste of time. My archetype is bein' crystal clear here. That was a portal, not to a distant part of the world, but to a different one entirely.

Cripes.

I look back at the portal, just behind the flattened grass, and wince. Yeah, it's still there. But... And I'm just gonna keep using ropework metaphors here even though they don't quite fit, it's a whole sense almost, like sight or hearing, there just ain't words for it... The portal's still there, a tangled mess in the thread, but it's not gonna open again if I do the same thing. I can just tell, I need to get better at working with these at minimum.

"Claire? I think... You're not gonna like this."

"...Ugh." She shifts slightly in the grass. "What am I not going to like, exactly?"

"I saved us from the troll by leaning into my archetype, and pushing us through... Some sort of portal. But I'm lookin' at this thing and we can't go back."

"Why not?"

"I kinda... Forced it? And now it's worse than before. And I don't really know what I'm doing."

"Okay. That's... Bad. How do you even open a portal?!? Don't answer that. I know... Archtype thing."

"Yeah."

"Think you can get us back?"

"Not right now, I can't. Maybe later."

"So we'll have to go find Henri and Darius the long way... I hope Lancor can hold out long enough..."

"Urk. So, the thing is..." I trail off and chuckle nervously.

Claire rolls over to level a glare at me, then sees the moon. "What."

"I don't think we're in the same world anymore."

"WHAT? How- Interdimensional travel is only mentioned a handful of times as theoretically possible by the best archmages in history. And you just did it?!?"

"Either that or I blew up the moon by mistake saving us from that troll."

"Aughhhhhhh." Claire rubs her temples.

"Archetypes," I say with a sigh.

"Archetypes aren't supposed to be this powerful," Claire grumbles.

"We're here now, though. We're gonna have to make the most of it, like it or not."

"I do appreciate not being troll food."

"Troll food?"

"Oh yeah, it definitely wanted to eat us, not just kill us like most monsters. Herbivorekin are especially sensitive to that."

"Learn something new every day."

Claire's finger follows one of the moving points of light. "What do you think those are?"

"Tiny moons?" I guess. "No way to know. We can ask someone when we find them."

"Right. Darius usually carries most of the supplies..."

"And no time like the present to get started. I think I'll go flying for a bit and scout the area. This grass might even be a farm."

"Good luck."

"Thanks. And sorry."

"We'd be dead otherwise. Go on and scout, scout." Claire huffs.

I just give a jaunty salute and take to the air.

The place doesn't look that unusual at first, as I climb higher and higher. The farm field - and it does look like that's what it is, the wheatgrass planted in neat rows - is surprisingly large, broken up by a dirt path and bounded by a water ditch on the other side. The farmhouse at the end is funny-looking, bigger and... Cleaner? Than most houses tend to be, white paint gleaming in the twilight.

I also see a trail of smoke in the distance, and the sullen glow of fire. There are figures moving around in the area, but I can't tell in much detail. I think about getting closer, but this is definitely a 'bite off more than you can chew' type of scenario.

And more importantly. Will I go back to the start if I die out here? Like Lord Drake says happens if we lose to him back home?

Yeah, not eager to test that. Not one bit. Instead, I dive down and land near Claire again, who's standing now and cleaning herself off with water magic.

"I spotted what looks like trouble that way. A fire and maybe one of those moving stars that hit the ground."

"And you want to go stick your beak in it?"

"Well, yeah? If it's a fire, we gotta help put it out if we can, right?"

"You mean I have to, since I'm the one who'd be using water magic."

"I'm tryin', I'm tryin'... I think I almost have it..."

Claire sighs. "You're right though."

"And helping with whatever's going on is a better introduction than 'sorry we stomped around your field'."

"Let's go then. Guard me, okay? I don't do well in a straight fight."

"I'll be the eye in the sky."

That settled, we immediately head straight for the Obvious Trouble. What could possibly go wrong with that plan?

The noises we hear as we get closer aren't that reassuring. Faint shouting, an odd rumbling noise, and cracks of thunder or impacts of some sort. Plus bestial roars and growls.

"Monsters!" We both call out simultaneously. Claire breaks into a run, and I flap furiously to accelerate in the right direction.

The scene unfolds before me. I see a round, silver lumpy thing, with a trail of destruction just behind it. All curves and bulges, like some titanic insect. And all around it is chaos. There's ugly purple insect-looking things holding staffs that shoot off thunder spells, huddling behind doorways and rocks and fallen trees nearby, and kin in black and grey armor in flanking positions all around using the same kind of staffs back at them. Every few seconds someone peeks out or runs from cover to cover and a storm of cracks tries to punish the mistake.

But the centerpiece to the chaos, and one that both sides are avoiding, is where two titans are brawling in the middle of the burned out field. One a fleshy monster much like the troll, some enormous fish thing with tentacles and claws and a vicious-looking circular mouth. It spits acidic green projectiles and lashes out with gripping limbs. The other is some titanic kin in armor, as large as Lord Drake - perhaps fifteen feet tall, and moving with grace despite the obvious challenges of fighting while so large, the incredible forces waiting to unbalance or slow the unwary. A giant sword twirls and flashes, cutting off the most aggressive limbs even as he practically dances from one foot to the other.

I spend a bit too long hesitating and watching the majestic battle unfold, as overwhelming flesh fights unyielding steel, and the steel comes out worse for it. The fish thing is regenerating - not fast, but I can see cut-off limbs slowly lengthening out. And it's obvious to me that the surrounding battle, while currently a cautious stalemate, will be rather decisively settled by whoever wins. Only one side here is the obvious monster. Not just from how it looks, but... There's a feeling to monsters, you know? Or maybe it's another archetype thing. Trust me, you can just tell, and the purple bugs are the monsters here.

So I do something incredibly stupid. I dive down and rake my claws across the fleshy monstrosity's ""head"", tearing blue blood and gored eyes out as I pass. I go up again as quick as I can- I'm not stupid, hanging out in attack range is the most idiotic thing I could do after that- And while I see the big knight rear back in surprise with the sound of metal on metal, it ignores my jaunty wave, going for a vicious full-body sword blow against the reeling tentacle thing instead.

Its head comes off, in an impressive and honestly pretty shocking shower of blood and gore. The armored soldiers cheer and jeer as it falls, and the big knight spends a few seconds on a victory pose before moving forward to take on the remaining small monsters. He sheathes the big sword and strives for the fallen star, casting some sort of fire magic, huge gouts of clinging orange flame spitting forth from his gauntlets. The monsters have two choices: Stay where they are and die, or move out of cover and die.

To their credit, the monsters are disciplined. They keep their nerve and give it their best shot. Practically as one, they charge, trying to cut down the foe... But those vicious thunder staffs cut them all down with invisible projectiles in a storm of violence. The kin move forward towards the fallen star, methodically and carefully. These guys are knight types, obviously trained fighters, if lacking in panache. Guards.

...Better not spook them by going up and saying hi while they're still doing things. Cutting into one of the baddies is one thing, but something's telling me to leave them alone until they've cooled off now.

I loop back and land near Claire. She's a lot slower than me.

"Some knights were fighting some monsters around a silver house thing. Including a really big knight, with impressive fire magic and a cool sword. I tore some eyes out and they won, no more emergency I think."

"Any, hah, any injured?" Claire pants, peering ahead but taking the excuse for a break from running.

"Probably," I grimace. I definitely saw a couple of black-armored bodies on the ground instead of standing up. "Their buddies were looking after 'em though."

I 'tch' and scowl.

"You don't make that face unless something's bothering you," Claire says with a frown. "What are you thinking?"

"...Something about this is rubbing me the wrong way here. The monsters were obviously monsters, but the knights don't feel very... Knightly. Except for the big guy, he felt sort of like Darius."

"Well, if we've crossed into another dimension I'd be more surprised at what's familiar than what's different. The plants are mostly the same, the air is the same."

"I guess so. I think we can go say hi, but..."

"You don't trust them. I wouldn't either, you literally just met."

"Yeah."

"But we can't just hide and watch, that's not very friendly either, and we do need to know more about where we are."

"Took the words right out of my mouth."

"Hmm..." Claire holds one hand under her chin. Ah yes, the classic Thoughtful #2. A good pose. I smile as she taps her foot.

"Oh, just so you're aware, they had ranged weapons of some kind. Probably magic. Really loud. That was the cracking noise we heard."

"So noted. The mana is strange here. Very different, hard to say how it's different, but it's different. Like the difference between smoke and mist. I think I'll keep a passive shield up if we go talk to them though. I don't want to be too suspicious, these knights are the locals and we're the visitors, but..."

"The stakes are pretty high here," I say and shake my head.

"They're not getting any lower the longer we wait. Let's go, lead the way."

"Aye aye, miss cap-i-tan." I salute and walk forward, pushing through the trees to the edge of the trail of destruction.

Claire gasps in shock. I don't gasp, but it's a near thing.

"The bodies..." She trails off.

"Yeah. They're not dissipating and dropping loot. They're... Acting like kin bodies. Just sitting there."

The soldiers are taking the blood-blooded, burned, mangled, and broken bodies and lining them up in front of the silver house - egg? ship? They're laughing and joking as they do it, too. I see two 'friendly' bodies as well, and a few more black-armor figures who seem to be in various states of injury, but not actually dead.

Right at that moment, the slight glow coming from the monsters' source cuts out, and there's a sudden silence over everything, a noise you've long since gotten used to being suddenly cut off. Then, the tall metal knight walks out of the thing carrying a glowy sphere covered in traceries, which is obviously some form of Loot.

Good for him, I guess. I brush my wings a bit, just an idle fidget, then confidently stride forward.

"Hello, strangers!" I call out. "If you've got a minute to talk I'd appreciate it!"

They seem to confer with each other for a moment, then the big knight and one of the slightly-more-decorate black-armor guys head towards us. Claire frowns in concentration as they approach.

"...Hey, Archie... Did you see what kind of kin these people are?"

"No? The armor's pretty concealing. They must wear a lot of it to defend against the thunderstaffs."

I peer closer at the one approaching us. All that's really visible is his face and overall body shape. No tail, no wings, no digitigrade stride, and nothing but smooth skin on the face - blue eyes and white teeth without a hint of scales or antlers or beak or snout or anything else that would really identify his species.

"...No, I see what you mean, it's kind of uncanny," I tell Claire. "Uh... Let's not bring it up at first, might be a touchy subject."

"And how do you think the weapons work? I don't see any bound mana in them, how exciting! The, uh, knight is positively brimming with it, though."

"Hopefully we'll find out," I say, and then wave again. "Heya!" I call out. "Glad I could help with that big ugly guy! I know a monster when I see one but I didn't want to spook you, so here we are."

"I thank the Emperor for your assistance," the unidentifiable kin says, smiling and stopping a good fifteen feet from us. "I'm Lieutenant Brooks, of the Imperial Guard. Taking down the aliens whenever they invade is all too often a thankless task, but we've won today, in no small part from your aid. You must surely be good people if your first instinct was to aid us in battle. I'm sure several more Guardsmen would be dead if you hadn't distracted the Beast."

"Does anybody need healing?" Claire asks. "I have plenty of mana."

I can see the smile become strained. Brooks is tensing up. "That won't be necessary. We have medical equipment to take care of the injuries. What brings you to the Empire of Steel?"

"We're lost," I flatly admit. "I don't really know how, some sort of portal."

"Ahhhh." He sighs. "Okay. I've heard of that happening. It's always messy when the portals start opening up. We'll be happy to escort you back to our base once we have the site secured, so you can rest and recover."

"You know about the portals?" I ask.

"It's not really my area of expertise, but I'm sure someone back at base can answer your questions."

"Great! We don't want to impose too much, so we appreciate the help."

"No, no, you've served the Emperor today with that strike! If anything we're happy to take care of anyone who hunts the enemy. What are your names?"

"Call me Archie."

"I'm Claire," she nods, frowning. "Pardon me if this is a bit of a rude question, but... What sort of kin are you?"

"I... Don't understand the question, madam sorceress."

"I'm obviously deer-kin, and Archie is hawk-kin. What about you?"

"...I'm entirely human, I assure you."

"I've never heard of 'human' before, what are they like?"

"-Sir, ma'am." He frowns and looks over towards the battle site. "I need to see to the state of my men. Transport is on the way, so please just wait here for a few minutes, alright? I'm sure someone will be able to answer all your questions soon."

"Sure thing, Lieutenant," I give my signature jaunty salute.

As he's walking away, my feathers stand on end. I must have better hearing than whatever a 'human' has, 'cause I hear him mutter into something on his wrist, "...Move into position to the north and east and be ready to fire on any sign of resistance. Be careful, the antler mutant is a sorceress of some sort and the bird one is deceptively fast. Yes. Yes. I know, but they came through a portal, it can't be risked. Yes, praise the Emperor."

"Claire," I whisper urgently. "Act natural. We have to go. They're going to try to kill us."

"What?!" She startles.

"Shhshshshs!" I manage to stand still, at least. "I overhead him talking. He thinks we're some sort of monsters, I think. He's telling his guys to surround us and be ready to attack. So what we have to do, is get some spells ready, and then go."

"I can't, I can't move nearly as fast as you. They'll catch me."

"I'm not so sure," I consider. "Look at how those guys are moving. They're... Kind of weak and slow, right? You're not as strong as the rest of us, but it takes two of them to carry one body there, and even you could do that alone."

She turns a bit green. "Stop reminding me about the bodies, ugh."

"Okay. Sorry. But look... My instincts are telling me the only real threat here is staying out in the open without a shield, and the big guy. We've got to run and hide, and we've got to do it before their backup gets here."

"...Okay. Okay," Claire takes a deep breath. "This is all horrible, but okay."

"Right, so let's make a plan. It'll probably all go wrong, but we gotta try..."

 

[Transreal Cloud]

The Empire of steel has made Imperium of Man vibes.