1 Chirreb 4385: Flying!

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Flying

Flying was wonderful. It was a lot like swimming, or so it felt to me: I undulated forward like I would in water, and swam though air. Swimming through air was easier than through water, because the air didn't offer much resistance. That also meant nothing to push against, but since the spell propelled me it didn't matter that I couldn't propel myself.

And the view! Seven staring gods, now I know why they hang in the sky above us! It's one thing to stand on the deck of a skyship and look down -- one impressive thing! -- but it's another entirely to have nothing -- literally nothing between you and the long wide branch below you. I soared out past the great woven wings of our skyship-charger, and gazed amazed upon the World Tree below us. We were high enough above Choinxeia that we could see clear down to the Verticals, and past them to the branches below us. Down and down to the murky dark depths of the sky, where the higher branches cast their shadows and Flokin's light does not reach.

The Choinxeia farms and orchards directly below were familiarity made alien by height: fields of ripening hosh grain in different varieties painted images for the gods, crafted by Herethroy who seldom rose high enough to witness the glory of the art they had created. But I saw it: the outlines of a Herethroy triad kneeling before a spreading tree that was the goddess Lenhirrik, bowing her limbs to grant the fruits of her labor. Virid stretched out her four arms to embrace several fields, the winding paths between them making the outlines of her carapace. In the fields rose Herethroy heroes: Hrikkak the Mighty with her spear, and Greenthorn with her three-hander, and Harvest Moon with her Great Plow. So beautiful! So transitory, soon to be gone with this harvest! But they'll plant something new in the spring, won't they? Maybe they understand more of the Orren way than we think.

I did an aerial backflip to look up at the open sky and the new-growth branches above, the ones that will someday, in a Zi Ri's lifetime, put Ketheria in their shade. I waved to the Creator Gods above, the ones I could see, even Reluu because even if he is a prick he is still one of my gods. And flipped down again and spun around and asked Purrzhon, "Where's Remorshka Woods? Can we see it from here?" Purrzhon didn't answer me at once, so I looked around to see how the others were doing.

They weren't having quite as much fun as I was. All of them were paying some attention to keeping up with the moving airship, so they'd gotten a few hundred feet ahead of me. I zipped forward to catch up -- just like Purrzhon had said, the spell let me fly about twice as fast as the airship's present modest speed, so it didn't take me long. Nightbloom was hanging onto the airship's tail with one midhand and one truehand so I got to her first. "Are you well did you miss attending to the spell and you need another cast?" I asked, worried.

"No. The spell is yet in effect," Nightbloom answered.

"Then why are you hanging on to the airship is the flight spell too slow for you for some reason?" I flew a half-circle around her to peer at her face. The ship was going too slowly now for its tail to whip back; the long ropes of it hung down, drifting a little when stirred by the breeze from occasional flaps of its wings.

"I am. Becoming accustomed to flying. I will be fine. In a moment."

"All right I'm gonna ask Purrzhon a few questions have fun!" I waved to her and flew on ahead.

Trust was dog-paddling through the air with his tongue lolling out. He was passing the airship's neck. Mirhandrax was trotting alongside the airship just as if he were jogging and moving no faster: he was pacing it exactly, and staying well out of range of its wings. Purrzhon was trying to dodge wingbeats from the airship, and doing a mediocre job of it: one of the downsweeps caught him. He grabbed the underside with all four sets of claws and scrabbled his way out from underneath as I pulled alongside. Purrzhon hung onto the wing while I rose just above its leisurely flapping and asked him, "Where's Remorshka Woods can we see it from here?"

"It is the too far off yet." Purrzhon waited until the wing reached the crest of its beat and then he released it to hang in the air. He oriented himself, and gestured with a paw outwards and a little to the roll'gainst, where the branch was attenuating in the distance. "That spot of dark green and blue on the roll'gainst side maybe is it. Maybe not."

"Ooooh."

We played around for a while in the air or at least I played around. The others seemed pretty focused on whatever it was they were doing which seemed to me mostly just keeping up with the airship which was hardly a challenge. Terrycloth was right! As long as you're actually flying -- moving through the air, just hovering doesn't count -- the spell thinks you're attending to it and doesn't bother you to make you pay special attention in addition. Which is way better than using Levitation which does keep asking you if you want to levitate even if you currently are.

After a while everyone had gotten used to flying and weren't quite so worried about just keeping up with the airship. It turned out Purrzhon hadn't ever flown before either. The Little Bird of Many Wings wasn't his talisman but one that he'd borrowed from the Adventurer's Guild. He must have a pretty high grade of membership in the guild to borrow an enchantment so expensive!

Anyway after that we practiced aerial fighting.

Comments

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

If it's like swimming it makes sense that the orren was best at it! It looks like you can make it like walking instead like Mirhandrix did, though. Which is probably a better choice for people who don't swim so much.

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

I think you can make it like whatever you're comfortable with making it like walking or climbing or jumping seemed like a lot more work to me. Although maybe not because Mirhandrax never did wear out and all the rest of us did even me.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Could you fly while holding still? It doesn't really seem like any of the motions are, strictly speaking, necessary!

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Yesssss kind of but it felt wrong? Harder somehow. I could float in one place holding still but if I didn't move my body at all and just tried to will myself forward it seemed really awkward and clumsy.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Fair enough! I figure it might come in handy as a skill to be able to fight while flying circles (figuratively and possibly literally) about one's opponents.

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Ohhhh yes it might be useful to be able to kick and stuff I didn't think about that I'll have to remember it for tomorrow Mirhandrax wants to do MOAR PRACTICE then. x.x

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Don't forget about being able to attack from above and below, when flying! Maybe you should see if you can freely rotate so that rather than trying to strike under your feet or over your head when attacking vertically, you can orient your whole body to face their head or feet so you can better defend yourself.

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Ohhhh that's a good idea! I'll have to try that one tomorrow the orientation one I mean. We practiced watching above and below lots and lots today.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Sounds sooo much fun! But try waterform too, see if it helps with HIGH SPEED, LOTS OF EVASION manoeuvring?

Also, how are you with slings / bows / big heavy balls of a dense hard material / war darts / throwing spears / throwing devices with which to throw flexible spears / shaped throwing sticks / crossbows / etc.? Can you aim and let loose THOSE against ground targets well while flying? How well?

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Raspberry says:

Bows kind of suck, but not as much as throwing logs or whatever.

They're good for sticking bits of wood where people would rather not have bits of wood sticking, like through their tendons or in their eyes and stuff. It takes a lot of arrows to convince someone they should be dead though. Fewer arrows to convince them they should be surrendering because they can't really fight back. Heh.

Logs aren't even good for that. Too easy to dodge.

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Hallo Raspberry I saw you answer one of Sythyry's polls I think you're a Herethroy right nice to meet you!

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

I'll try it I'm okay with a sling evn in the air but Raspberry is right anything you can't use in melee is just not that effective at stopping anyone. Slings even less so than bows. Targeting things that it's inconvenient to lose like eyes and tendons does make your opponent less good at fighting back though which is useful. If you can actually hit them. Like she said!

[terrana.livejournal.com]

Heehee, I think someone's got a new boxed spell to buy when she can afford it...

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Ohhhh I would LOVE to! But it's complexity 20 and those are sooooo expensive I'll never be able to afford it. v.v I couldn't even cast it right now my Ruloc Corpador's not that good yet. Someday it will be though!

[terrana.livejournal.com]

Well, at least I know what to get you if I'm ever in the position to give you a gift for some occasion.

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

That'd be AWESOME boxed spells make great gifts! Really expensive gifts except for the cantrips but still GREAT!

[terrana.livejournal.com]

Not so expensive if the giver already has the spell grafted. That said, I don't think I even HAVE a magerium...

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

It takes ages and ages to box a spell though I hate scribing. But what would you use to cast spells if you don't have a magerium?

[terrana.livejournal.com]

Long story, m'dear. But suffice to say I've nonetheless studied cley-based magic in some depth.

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Oooh all right huh I've heard of nonprimes who could cast without cley like nendrai but not ones who cast without mageriums that's very interesting!

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Well, what is a magic system but being able to use one's will to arbitrarily influence reality?

The World Tree has some limitations on this -- magic works because the gods created a system where they say it works, and the Magerium is the universal mechanism where those effects, which ultimately come from your gods, are achieved.

Consider: if DIFFERENT gods didn't want a universal mechanic for magic for a world they run, than magic users in that world might not have mageriums. OR, if gods have different competing systems in a world they make, there might be a few different ways to do magic, OR if magic is, in some world, interacting with and shaping a (mostly) all pervading force, which simply requires a particular set of skills, teachings, or abilities to manipulate?

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

"t was a lot like swimming, or so it felt to me: I undulated forward like I would in water, and swam though air. Swimming through air was easier than through water, because the air didn't offer much resistance. That also meant nothing to push against, but since the spell propelled me it didn't matter that I couldn't propel myself."

Ahhh, mighty Orren, you have an intuitive understanding of "Thrust" and "Drag", which I mentioned earlier! :) :)

Now think, if you were light enough, and you had the right type of wings, could you push against air in a way that is strong enough to lift off of the ground without a spell letting you fly?

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Oh! Another thing! Since orren waterform is made to be 'good at moving through things that flow around you', and both AIR and WATER are things that flow around you .... try flying in waterform and see if you can do better manoeuvrings, or go faster, or whatever that way?

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

I can try but air and water are two totally different Nouns and the elementals that control them are different too I don't think they're THAT similar at all!

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

I heard a story once, about some non-primes who found a plant that when you burned it, pushed you very fast in the direction that the top of the log was facing. So they got a whoooole bunch of logs and piled them up in a big cylinder and put themselves in a glass bubble on top, and lit the whole thing on fire going straight up, because they wanted to get to the top of the tree where they heard you could see Flokin and the other gods instead of just sort of hearing about them.

But they didn't realize just how fast all those logs would make them go, and about halfway up they were going so fast that they were passing a branch every minute or so, and they started to worry that they were going to miss the top of the tree altogether and smash into the sky.

But then Reluu noticed that they were going too fast, and told Hresh-Huu to make air act like water and push back on things that fly through it automatically, and that's why when you stand on the deck of an airship that's going fast enough you can feel the wind blowing back in your face.

And the rocket got suddenly hit by all the wind at once and exploded and killed everyone on board. But Hresh-Huu felt bad and resurrected them with wings or something? And that's why everywhere you go, you can find giant rabbits with wings.

...I'm not sure this story is entirely truthful.

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you think I understand them intuitively because I don't think I understand them extuitively I'm not even sure they're right for my world at all! @.@

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Well, they might not be! But your writing seems to imply that at least SOME of the time, SOME of these rules are the same? Still, you can test things, like see if you can smoosh and mutoc herbador a meng nut into a shape to be able to float, for example, and the waterform while flying, and stuff like that.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I couldn't have said it better myself. (Indeed, I haven't. I don't talk about flying all that much; it's faintly ostentatious, and I prefer to save my ostentation for other topics.)

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

I guess when you've been able to do it since you were a little baby you get to take it for granted too!

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Like you and swimming, shapeshifting, and chattering!

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

I looooove swimming and shapeshifting is WONDERFUL but chattering is just something I do I think I don't even notice it happening ...

... I'm chattering now aren't I?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Always, Delight. Always.