The next half-hour of my life was simultaneously—and in no particular order—disappointing, enjoyable, frustrating, amusing, and exhausting. It turned out that flying by means of a levitation spell, while technically possible, was far from ideal.
Go figure.
For one thing, maintaining the effect long enough to get anywhere was its own can of holy-shit-this-sucks. But for another, even with no set top speed, the spell’s acceleration factor was so limited that wind resistance put an effective ‘terminal velocity’ on the thing. I had no idea how to calculate that, but from what I could tell while zipping over the waves, it was somewhere close to a horse’s gallop.
At least, until I assumed ‘the pose.’ You know the one. And despite not having read many Superman comics, I was too much of a fan of the old Christopher Reeves films to resist. To my delight, flattening out my body was the key ingredient for more speed.
Which was terrific fun, but once I drew nearer to the door, I had to figure out how to slow down again before I blacked out. I did not want to experience a completely uncontrolled splash-down if I could help it.
I had also seen quite a few Mythbusters episodes, and I had no plans on acting out the part of Buster that particular day.
Fortunately, spreading my body out for the wind to catch combined with a quick about-face burned off speed sufficiently enough that I was soon able to work my way over to the door and tiredly perch on the frame.
Lynnria’s flight was a little less… successful.
Targeting the girl, even from way out on my perch, had been as easy as pointing my finger, but once the spell had taken hold… Well, the best I could describe her flight would be by reference to an old Russian video I had once seen on the internet called ‘cats in zero gravity.’
They do not take it well.
“Will you stop screaming and listen to me?” I yelled up at her once she finally got close enough to hear. “You keep flailing around like that’s going to help. Down is wherever you’re looking!”
“What in the—hurk! Oh, Mercy! Donum, get me… get me d—urragh!”
I winced as a substance best left undescribed was forcibly ejected from the girl and splashed into the water below. Coincidentally, that was the day I discovered that even acid rain can make a rainbow.
“I guess some people just can’t handle weightlessness,” I muttered with a decided green-about-the-gills grunt.
Closing my eyes for a moment to settle myself, I swallowed back my gorge. The 400-pound gorilla on my back had decided to start sympathetically kicking at my gut, but I had long experience in dealing with that. It was a waste of calories.
“Lynnria, just look at me!” I shouted again, and when she shifted about, I called out encouragingly. “That’s right. Keep focusing on me.”
Slowly, her flight-path began to stabilize. And eventually, she was again headed in the right direction.
“Good girl…” I said, coaxing her along. “You’re doing fine. Just a little bit more.”
“Donum… Donum, I think I’m getting it!” she shouted, breathless. Excited now, she stretched out her hand to join with mine.
That was when I dropped the spell.
“How dare you!” she squealed in absolute betrayal before splashing into the water below.
I sat there giggling like an idiot while she resurfaced, coughing and sputtering.
“I am wearing leather, you ass! Jackanapes!” she yelled up at me once she had caught her breath. “Do you have any idea how long this will take to dry?”
I shrugged innocently. “Is it worse than being covered in vomit?”
She turned to one side and tilted her nose into the air, though since she was soaking wet, it somewhat spoiled her intent. “I am quite certain I have no idea what you are referring to, sir.”
I smirked but decided it was best to leave it at that. She would find out soon enough that vomit was the least of my concerns. “Hold out there for a minute. I need to check something.”
As quickly as I could, I recast the levitation spell on myself, then like some sort of astronaut on a spacewalk, I began pulling myself down to open the door. Once I passed through, I was careful not to touch the floor until I checked the clock. There was no need to repeat the previous day’s misadventure if I could help it.
Hmm… 3:45 in the afternoon? Already? Somehow, without my noticing, over twenty-four hours had passed since I had last been through here. Obviously, a lot had happened since then, but I had not thought it had taken that long.
But then I shook my head. I was still pretty spent from getting the two of us to the door, and here I was speculating on lost time… coincidentally wasting my own.
With some care, I positioned my feet over a pair of mid-gray tiles and let the spell drop. Then, when nothing else happened, I exhaled in relief. For a few moments, I leaned against the clock, just trying to get my breathing back under control. I had not really wanted Lynnria to see me so vulnerable, but once I got her up, I was going to need a substantial breather.
“Donum?” I heard faintly from the door. “Don’t leave me—Ack! Something just touched me!”
“Oh, not again,” I muttered weakly before toeing my way back to the open door. One of these days, I was going to take a week off, rent a room, lock the door, and shove some wax in my ears. Then I might actually be able to get a decent night’s rest. “Please, don’t be another tentacle…”
When I looked out through the portal into the open daylight, I found Lynnria frantically thrashing about in the water with a panicked and wide-eyed expression, as if her gaze could somehow pierce through the murky depths if she stared hard enough. I could sympathize.
“Hurry, Donum!” she yelled. “Grandfather never got around to water combat.”
I quirked an eyebrow. That’s a thing? But then I supposed it would have to be. James Bond had done it in that one time. Which movie was that? Thunderball? For Your Eyes Only? I shook my head. I was getting distracted again.
“One second,” I called. “I’ll have you out of there in a jiffy.”
Of course, it’s one thing to say that. Spells are slippery at the best of times, and new ones were doubly so. However, despite the confluence of incoherent screaming going on below me, I had the spell up and running again in fairly short order. It was possible I was getting a little better at this whole spell-casting thing.
Not that it helped much. Lynnria was practically out of her mind with panic by the time she finally lifted out of the water, and she was flailing about with the knife I had given her as if she were fending off an army of ghosts.
“I’ll kill you!” she screamed. “Every last one of you!”
“Lynnria,” I called, though it was more like a pained grunt. “Please… hurry. Getting tired.”
She glanced up at me just long enough to start drifting my way, but then she abruptly crossed her arms defensively in front of her chest. “Ah! Fiend! You dare!”
That exclamation was followed by another bout of air-fencing and a subsequent drift out and behind the door.
“Dammit, girl! Eyes on me! Eyes on me!” I shouted. My legs were already starting to feel weak. The lack of rest between spells was taxing me to the breaking point.
“Ack!” Another outraged squeal sounded somewhere behind me, which was disorienting to say the least. Behind me was the stairwell. But also… the ocean? “Donum, help! I can’t see it, and something keeps—ah! Hahaha! They keep poking me in the ribs.”
I frowned. “You mean something’s tickling you?”
“Don’t be absur—ah!” Another peal of outraged laugher rang out, this time somewhat overhead, and as I leaned forward, I just caught her form starting to drift into view. “I am a proud warrior trained! I am not tickl—ahahaha! Oh, you beast!”
Invisible… tickle-monsters? Either this was the single most unusual thing I had yet faced—which was saying something—or we were falling victim to more Faen antics. And at that particular moment, I could not say which was preferable.
“Down here, Lynnria,” I called, straining upward with my hand. “Grab hold. I’ll pull you in.”
She did not seem to hear me. Instead, the young warrior attempted some sort of fancy-looking spin kick. Of course, since she was currently all but weightless, not only did the move fail spectacularly, she barely even began to rotate—for which I was grateful. How she planned on stopping again was anyone’s guess.
With a shout of exertion, I just managed to snag the heel of her boot and draw her toward me. The sudden shift in her momentum must have startled her, because she instantly lashed out. However, when she actually managed to make contact—with my face—she seemed surprised.
Though that might have been more a result of the impact shattering my concentration, precipitating a sudden reassertion of normal gravity and her own rapid acceleration downward. Or, in layman’s terms, she dropped like a rock.
While I was trying desperately to maintain my own balance, Lynnria let out a sharp squeak. Cat-like, she swiveled mid-air, just managing to slam onto the balcony, torso-first. Right in the middle of a cluster of mismatched tiles.
My eyes had just enough time to widen in alarm before the whole platform launched the pair of us through the air. We traced a graceful parabola up and over the railing, slammed into the handrail to the staircase, and rolled the rest of the way to the floor. Naturally, we set off every trap along the way.
While I laid there, wheezing in pain and bleeding, I felt certain I could hear a flurry of hushed conversation from overhead.
“Wasn’t that just delicious?”
“Oh, you were right! So right!”
“…just love this one to bits.”
“So tasty…”
“…find it?”
“…get in trouble…”
“No way! It was a proper rewa—“
“…can see why you…”
“Delicious man…”
Then a gossamer kiss caressed my cheek, and just before I passed out, I heard one last whispered word.
“Pocket…”
Seleroan The Patreon is good... The Patreon is life...
The next half-hour of my life was simultaneously—and in no particular order—disappointing, enjoyable, frustrating, amusing, and exhausting. It turned out that flying by means of a levitation spell, while technically possible, was far from ideal.
Go figure.
For one thing, maintaining the effect long enough to get anywhere was its own can of holy-shit-this-sucks. But for another, even with no set top speed, the spell’s acceleration factor was so limited that wind resistance put an effective ‘terminal velocity’ on the thing. I had no idea how to calculate that, but from what I could tell while zipping over the waves, it was somewhere close to a horse’s gallop.
At least, until I assumed ‘the pose.’ You know the one. And despite not having read many Superman comics, I was too much of a fan of the old Christopher Reeves films to resist. To my delight, flattening out my body was the key ingredient for more speed.
Which was terrific fun, but once I drew nearer to the door, I had to figure out how to slow down again before I blacked out. I did not want to experience a completely uncontrolled splash-down if I could help it.
I had also seen quite a few Mythbusters episodes, and I had no plans on acting out the part of Buster that particular day.
Fortunately, spreading my body out for the wind to catch combined with a quick about-face burned off speed sufficiently enough that I was soon able to work my way over to the door and tiredly perch on the frame.
Lynnria’s flight was a little less… successful.
Targeting the girl, even from way out on my perch, had been as easy as pointing my finger, but once the spell had taken hold… Well, the best I could describe her flight would be by reference to an old Russian video I had once seen on the internet called ‘cats in zero gravity.’
They do not take it well.
“Will you stop screaming and listen to me?” I yelled up at her once she finally got close enough to hear. “You keep flailing around like that’s going to help. Down is wherever you’re looking!”
“What in the—hurk! Oh, Mercy! Donum, get me… get me d—urragh!”
I winced as a substance best left undescribed was forcibly ejected from the girl and splashed into the water below. Coincidentally, that was the day I discovered that even acid rain can make a rainbow.
“I guess some people just can’t handle weightlessness,” I muttered with a decided green-about-the-gills grunt.
Closing my eyes for a moment to settle myself, I swallowed back my gorge. The 400-pound gorilla on my back had decided to start sympathetically kicking at my gut, but I had long experience in dealing with that. It was a waste of calories.
“Lynnria, just look at me!” I shouted again, and when she shifted about, I called out encouragingly. “That’s right. Keep focusing on me.”
Slowly, her flight-path began to stabilize. And eventually, she was again headed in the right direction.
“Good girl…” I said, coaxing her along. “You’re doing fine. Just a little bit more.”
“Donum… Donum, I think I’m getting it!” she shouted, breathless. Excited now, she stretched out her hand to join with mine.
That was when I dropped the spell.
“How dare you!” she squealed in absolute betrayal before splashing into the water below.
I sat there giggling like an idiot while she resurfaced, coughing and sputtering.
“I am wearing leather, you ass! Jackanapes!” she yelled up at me once she had caught her breath. “Do you have any idea how long this will take to dry?”
I shrugged innocently. “Is it worse than being covered in vomit?”
She turned to one side and tilted her nose into the air, though since she was soaking wet, it somewhat spoiled her intent. “I am quite certain I have no idea what you are referring to, sir.”
I smirked but decided it was best to leave it at that. She would find out soon enough that vomit was the least of my concerns. “Hold out there for a minute. I need to check something.”
As quickly as I could, I recast the levitation spell on myself, then like some sort of astronaut on a spacewalk, I began pulling myself down to open the door. Once I passed through, I was careful not to touch the floor until I checked the clock. There was no need to repeat the previous day’s misadventure if I could help it.
Hmm… 3:45 in the afternoon? Already? Somehow, without my noticing, over twenty-four hours had passed since I had last been through here. Obviously, a lot had happened since then, but I had not thought it had taken that long.
But then I shook my head. I was still pretty spent from getting the two of us to the door, and here I was speculating on lost time… coincidentally wasting my own.
With some care, I positioned my feet over a pair of mid-gray tiles and let the spell drop. Then, when nothing else happened, I exhaled in relief. For a few moments, I leaned against the clock, just trying to get my breathing back under control. I had not really wanted Lynnria to see me so vulnerable, but once I got her up, I was going to need a substantial breather.
“Donum?” I heard faintly from the door. “Don’t leave me—Ack! Something just touched me!”
“Oh, not again,” I muttered weakly before toeing my way back to the open door. One of these days, I was going to take a week off, rent a room, lock the door, and shove some wax in my ears. Then I might actually be able to get a decent night’s rest. “Please, don’t be another tentacle…”
When I looked out through the portal into the open daylight, I found Lynnria frantically thrashing about in the water with a panicked and wide-eyed expression, as if her gaze could somehow pierce through the murky depths if she stared hard enough. I could sympathize.
“Hurry, Donum!” she yelled. “Grandfather never got around to water combat.”
I quirked an eyebrow. That’s a thing? But then I supposed it would have to be. James Bond had done it in that one time. Which movie was that? Thunderball? For Your Eyes Only? I shook my head. I was getting distracted again.
“One second,” I called. “I’ll have you out of there in a jiffy.”
Of course, it’s one thing to say that. Spells are slippery at the best of times, and new ones were doubly so. However, despite the confluence of incoherent screaming going on below me, I had the spell up and running again in fairly short order. It was possible I was getting a little better at this whole spell-casting thing.
Not that it helped much. Lynnria was practically out of her mind with panic by the time she finally lifted out of the water, and she was flailing about with the knife I had given her as if she were fending off an army of ghosts.
“I’ll kill you!” she screamed. “Every last one of you!”
“Lynnria,” I called, though it was more like a pained grunt. “Please… hurry. Getting tired.”
She glanced up at me just long enough to start drifting my way, but then she abruptly crossed her arms defensively in front of her chest. “Ah! Fiend! You dare!”
That exclamation was followed by another bout of air-fencing and a subsequent drift out and behind the door.
“Dammit, girl! Eyes on me! Eyes on me!” I shouted. My legs were already starting to feel weak. The lack of rest between spells was taxing me to the breaking point.
“Ack!” Another outraged squeal sounded somewhere behind me, which was disorienting to say the least. Behind me was the stairwell. But also… the ocean? “Donum, help! I can’t see it, and something keeps—ah! Hahaha! They keep poking me in the ribs.”
I frowned. “You mean something’s tickling you?”
“Don’t be absur—ah!” Another peal of outraged laugher rang out, this time somewhat overhead, and as I leaned forward, I just caught her form starting to drift into view. “I am a proud warrior trained! I am not tickl—ahahaha! Oh, you beast!”
Invisible… tickle-monsters? Either this was the single most unusual thing I had yet faced—which was saying something—or we were falling victim to more Faen antics. And at that particular moment, I could not say which was preferable.
“Down here, Lynnria,” I called, straining upward with my hand. “Grab hold. I’ll pull you in.”
She did not seem to hear me. Instead, the young warrior attempted some sort of fancy-looking spin kick. Of course, since she was currently all but weightless, not only did the move fail spectacularly, she barely even began to rotate—for which I was grateful. How she planned on stopping again was anyone’s guess.
With a shout of exertion, I just managed to snag the heel of her boot and draw her toward me. The sudden shift in her momentum must have startled her, because she instantly lashed out. However, when she actually managed to make contact—with my face—she seemed surprised.
Though that might have been more a result of the impact shattering my concentration, precipitating a sudden reassertion of normal gravity and her own rapid acceleration downward. Or, in layman’s terms, she dropped like a rock.
While I was trying desperately to maintain my own balance, Lynnria let out a sharp squeak. Cat-like, she swiveled mid-air, just managing to slam onto the balcony, torso-first. Right in the middle of a cluster of mismatched tiles.
My eyes had just enough time to widen in alarm before the whole platform launched the pair of us through the air. We traced a graceful parabola up and over the railing, slammed into the handrail to the staircase, and rolled the rest of the way to the floor. Naturally, we set off every trap along the way.
While I laid there, wheezing in pain and bleeding, I felt certain I could hear a flurry of hushed conversation from overhead.
“Wasn’t that just delicious?”
“Oh, you were right! So right!”
“…just love this one to bits.”
“So tasty…”
“…find it?”
“…get in trouble…”
“No way! It was a proper rewa—“
“…can see why you…”
“Delicious man…”
Then a gossamer kiss caressed my cheek, and just before I passed out, I heard one last whispered word.
“Pocket…”
Seleroan The Patreon is good... The Patreon is life...
