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Lady Serera and Lady Dilorè immediately jumped into the air in response to the ear-splittin’ shriek while Ryuu Kowa moved to put himself in front of the tents, hoistin’ his greatsword to guard the folks inside with his eyes skyward. Right after, Matthias and Lady Chiara quickly joined him, holdin’ their magic focuses. Matthias brought out a grapefruit-sized orb while Chiara held a wand that was practically just a thin, twisted rowan branch.
I didn’t react at all, at first. I wasn’t paralyzed but I really couldn’t reckon my best move, not havin’ any clear idea where exactly the threat might be. I thought to see what the old hag… I mean, Fan Li… might say about it, but she wasn’t active. Then I realized nobody but me was active. The princess was quietly nappin’ in her bath and I was the only one awake. Technically, it was me, both here and sleepin’ at the castle.
The monstrous noise rang out again, and sounded even closer, and I reckoned I couldn’t stand here wafflin’ any longer.
The spiritual environment of Hade ain’t quite strong enough to allow my friends to support my weight in the air by themselves, the way they can do for brief times in my home world or in Sky Ocean. The old hag’s technique could do it though, and for a lot longer.
It would burn up more of the limited ‘expanded vessel’ time that we had for the day, but I expanded the vessel just enough that I could operate the old hag’s [Sky Lotus] technique. Actually, to pull this off, I only needed to expand it a bit more than the usual size, which meant I could use it for a good long while. Worked for me, so I started it up.
Too slow. I wished I could air step upward like on my old world. So, before I was a pace or so above the ground, I figured a new way to use her technique. I took a leap skyward and created a blossom just big enough for one foot in the spot where I needed to kick the air to take the next step upward.
Happy that it worked out like I expected, I kept stair-climbin’ in a hurry, creatin’ and dismissin’ the blossoms as I went, and in that fashion I ran skyward just like I could in the old days. My friends came in to help me keep my balance in the air as usual, so I was sorta usin’ the [Sky Lotus] and my old air step skill together.
As soon as I cleared the trees, I saw what was makin’ the racket. For a moment, I thought they were sky monsters from my old world, since they had a lot in common with ’em. If you can imagine a stork on the wing, one with a long beak o’ red, black and yellow, a body alternating black, white and some blue, and muscular legs with huge claws that were completely unlike a normal stork. Oh, and the important part: it’s twice the size o’ the hippalektryons that carried the recovery mission out here.
Three such were criss-crossin’ the forest canopy, searchin’ for somethin’.
For my final step, I created a bigger blossom so I had room for both feet, and made it wider than the little one that the old hag had left me on before. There I stopped and stood.
The two fairies were just circlin’ the camp, watchin’ the monsters. I guess they weren’t sure what to do either. They saw me and came over.
“A flying flower is bizarre no matter how many times I see it,” Dilorè commented as she arrived.
As if respondin’ to her, one of the creatures chose that moment to let out another of those horrific cries, and without the forest in the way, it was about three times louder than before. No wonder it sounded practically like it was overhead before.
Serera declared, “We should go back down, before they see us. Like this, we’re only advertising the camp’s location.”
“Do you know anything about these creatures, My Lady?” Dilorè asked.
“They’re hideously dangerous, and if not for a happy geographical accident, they would have overrun the continent by now. You two, get down to the ground, right now. I’m going to distract them for a bit.”
She said that to us as a command, then stealthed and went flyin’ off, in the direction of the bird monsters.
Dilorè obeyed immediately. I hesitated, wishin’ for the ‘flock of sparrows’ thing that the old hag did before, so I could rush over there and have a closer look. But I had the feelin’ Fan Li didn’t want me to wake her if it wasn’t vital, so I decided against it and descended in my normal fashion.
Meanin’, I dismissed the blossom and dropped like a rock or the normal non-flyer that I was.
I was just about to start creatin’ new blossoms to slow myself down when Dilorè suddenly caught me in her arms mid-drop, just above the treetops.
“Are you okay?” she fretted as she flew back to the ground.
“I’m fine!” I answered, tryin’ not to laugh. “Scared you, huh?”
She deposited me onto my feet at the camp. “Of course! You were suddenly plummeting out of the sky!”
“Fastest way to the ground, My Lady,” I answered, unable to keep the chuckles out o’ my voice. “I was about to slow myself for the landin’ when you grabbed me.”
“Are you out of your mind?” she demanded.
One o’ those monsters let out another shriek, but it sounded a bit more distant. Was it agreein’ with her?
I scratched the back of my head. “Well, it works, so… Get used to it, I guess. I might do it again.”
“How am I supposed to tell the difference between you doing it on purpose and you being in trouble?!”
“Hm…” I pondered it seriously for a moment, then shrugged. “If you get it wrong and I go splat, I’ll just vanish for a bit, until the princess can redo the effigy. It’s not like it’ll kill me.”
She stared at me, unable to come up with a retort.
“What’s happening up there?” Ryuu demanded.
“Ah, sorry,” Dilorè apologized, then explained, “There are some flying monsters. They appear to be searching for something. Master knows about them, but she took off to check closer in stealth.”
“Mm,” I scratched my cheek, then wondered, “You really don’t know about ’em, My Lady? Accordin’ to the princess memories, you studied all kinds o’ nature and stuff.”
Amana had come out of her tent by now, as had some of the other ‘patients’. She answered, “Dilorè did spend several decades studying natural science with Princess Somire. But they mostly traveled the Eastern Continent.”
But someone with us did know the beasties, and spoke now, while holding up his orb. An image appeared over the campfire hearth, one of the monster birds in a smaller scale. It was animated, so it’s fortunate it was kinda see-thru, and obviously not the real thing. It opened and closed its beak as it flew, showing a nasty maw full of shark-like teeth, like no bird I ever saw. Perhaps if it had been real, we woulda heard one of those nasty screeches again.
Matthias asked, “Is this the creature you saw?”
Dilorè nodded. “That’s the one. It’s considerably bigger than this, though.”
He let out a hmph that mighta been a laugh, but he had a grave look that didn’t fit a laugh. “I should say so. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is a kongamato. I wouldn’t recommend flying anymore. Not even for the fairies.”
“You’re telling us to hide from some oversized bird?” Amana scoffed, but Matthias shook his head.
“Oversized is an understatement. The adults have a wingspan of twenty paces.”
“That’s… bigger than a thunderbird, isn’t it?” Chiara asked.
“Something with a wingspan like that is bigger than almost anything, other than a dragon,” Dilorè replied. “Still, it’s just a monster.”
“The kongamato is one of the most dangerous monsters there is,” Matthias insisted. “Even for a fairy.”
“Ohohoho,” came a happy chortle, followed by Serera reappearing at the edge of the camp. She dismissed her wings and walked forward. “Let me guess. These children wanted to take them on?”
She sounded like she was jeerin’ them a bit.
“You understand, My Lady,” Matthias nodded.
“Quite,” she answered tautly while sheathin’ her sword. She looked back up from it to see the pair of younger fairies starin’ back at her with doubt.
She put the back of her hand to her mouth, grew a sardonic smile and let out a louder, “Ohohohoho. As your teacher, perhaps I should send you two out there after them? Is the lesson worth the risk?”
Her mockin’ tone left the two fairies lookin’ flabbergasted.
She shook her head at them. “You young girls always seem to think the only thing you need to fear is an older fairy. Dilorè, Princess Somire must have at least taught you better? You wouldn’t just take on a dragon by yourself, would you?”
They looked at each other, then Dilorè noted, “There’s a very large difference between a monster and a demonic beast on the level of a dragon, Master.”
“Between most monsters and a dragon, yes,” Matthias replied. “But not between all. A kraken would be difficult for a fairy to solo, although the two of you together might be able to best one. But you’d best steer clear of the leviathan, the charybdis, or anything else that size in the sea. The sandworms of the Southern Continent are also best to avoid.”
“And the kongamato is one to avoid in the air,” Serera completed. “As I said before, if it weren’t for a very fortunate circumstance, they would have overrun this entire continent by now.”
“Right,” Matthias nodded. “Or at least, it would have taken national scale armies or a united effort of Faerie to get rid of them. Maybe both.”
I know what the princess is like when she’s fightin’ all out, and I have her memories o’ Lâsin and the Fairy King doin’ battle, and Serera fightin’ ten on one. Even I had trouble believin’ this, and I could see that Amana and Dilorè were skeptics.
“Then what is this ‘fortunate circumstance’?” Dilorè asked. “If they’re so powerful, what’s going to stop them?”
Matthias lectured, “The juveniles can only survive in a region like the Oserian Highlands, having an abnormally high number of mana springs, and the adults need a dense population of mortal life to prey on, as well. There are places in the Dragonsbacks that might fit the bill, but fortunately, they could never make the flight between here and the nearest one. Relador is the only place that might be in range for the juveniles, just barely.”
And Serera added, “And my patrols know about them, so if any ever show up, we would destroy them immediately. Although they actually tend to avoid straying from their mana springs, which is why you don’t see them terrorizing Pendor or other surrounding lands.”
I frowned after hearin’ all this. “And that witch made you folks fly here, knowin’ those creatures were prowlin’ about?”
Matthias noted, “We didn’t see any on the way in. I was worried about them, so I was watching. Perhaps she could see that the coast was clear.”
Serera nodded. “I was, as well. It’s not like they are roosting in every tree. They are limited by the number of mana springs, after all. It does look now like they’ve caught the scent of something, because they were clearly searching for it. You mortals are quite an appetizing dish of mortal mana for their tastes, after all.”
Ryuu asked, “You think they have our scent?”
“Well, I’m not sure what sense they use to seek out prey,” Serera mused. “Nor whether it’s you they’re lookin for. But I appeared near them and taunted them, then let them follow me in the opposite direction before stealthing again. They went flying after me, so for the moment they’re looking in the wrong direction.”
“They mostly employ visual identification,” Matthias answered. “They possess a primitive equivalent of [Fairy Sight].”
“Then they knew I wasn’t a mortal,” Serera commented, puzzled. “Why’d they chase me?”
“Doesn’t matter. A fairy is a nice fat mana treat, in their eyes,” he answered with a grin. “They could digest you without a problem.”
Serera frowned, “Who are you calling ‘fat’, Sir?”
“Never mind that!” I snapped, gettin’ tired of banter. I felt like these two were takin’ it way too easy. “Didn’t you notice their direction when we saw ’em?”
Dilorè nodded. “I did. It was back along the path that we took to get here. “
“They caught wind of’ you folks while you were flyin’ here, and they’re crisscrossin’ the forest, lookin’ for you,” I stated with a nod. “And that’s why Áne doesn’t want you callin’ in aerial cavalry to pick you up.”
“Indeed,” Matthias confirmed. “And that’s why we can’t walk the shortest path back to inhabited territory.”
