02-05-2018, 12:15 AM
Flying to the Perseus Caverns
What I wouldn’t give to be in two places at once, Mistral cursed mentally as she kept her body pressed low against her wyvern’s back. Her hands were buried deep in the velvety fabric that had formerly been her dress--now substituted as a makeshift collar around Symphora’s neck so the rider had some means to stabilize herself.
They were flying just above the burning city--high enough to be out of range of most things on the ground, but low enough to avoid attracting needless attention.
Regardless, the carnage down below was evident from the aerial view. Buildings had been reduced to smoking rubble. Monsters roamed the streets and skies alike, and the city was quickly emptying of visible, human life as civilians sought out what refuge they could or were cut down in the streets. Even despite the inky blackness of winter night, the still burning bonfires cast enough light to see everything she needed to.
However, almost instinctively, Mistral found her gaze drawn from where it had been fixed below as she felt the hair on the back of her neck prickle and rise. Her eyes shot upward, and widened in surprise as the slit-like pupils of her eyes narrowed to near lines.
“Symphora, bank!” she shouted as she tugged hard on the band of fabric.
The wyvern screeched as she turned sharply, darting out of the path of a beam of energy that was fired from the unblinking eye of a mogall floating overhead, almost invisible against the night sky had it not been for the fiery reflection in its eyes. Mistral buried her fingers deeper into her handhold and hugged Symphora’s neck with her legs as the force of the sudden movement threatened to send her sliding off the wyvern’s side.
“Looks like we have company, love,” she said as she scanned the smoke-strewn, black sky for the glimmer that distinguished the mogall. Her hair, windswept and bushy now that it had been exposed to the force of the upper altitudes, shifted as a small breeze started to whip around the woman, though she refrained from launching the spell she had prepared at the aberration.
If other encounters had been any indication, the tentacled monstrosities were more than capable of handling magic.
They were not so resistant to claws.
Or fangs.
Despite the surprise, and the dire straights of the city below, the wyvern rider couldn’t stop the small smirk that tugged at her lips even as she became aware of more spherical shapes drifting out from the blackness.
“Get ‘em.”
Symphora hissed as she circled around, her yellow eyes locked on the mogall that had dared to attack her. It slowly turned, its largest eye fixed on the scaled beast, and its eyelid started to peel back further as dark energy began to once more coalesce before it.
It was struck from the sky with the speed of a viper as the wyvern descended upon it in a flurry of claws in fangs, the fragments of its body disintegrating as they fell to the earth below.
Mistral watched it for a moment with a satisfied smile before she became aware of the prickling on the back of her neck again, and she whipped her head around--suddenly aware of the numerous eyes that had locked on their target. Magic hummed in the air as the aberrations started to draw upon the dark energy they utilized.
“DIVE!”
The wyvern responded instantly, folding her wings against her sides as she began to plummet--narrowly avoiding the sudden barrage of dark energy as the floating creatures continued to loom en mass from the smoky darkness.
The scaled beast snapped her wings open again to catch a thermal rising from a burning building, and quickly banked to prepare for a counter strike on most recent threat, but her rider tugged hard on the fabric-collar and urged her out of the strike--and out of the path of another beam.
“Blast it,” Mistral cursed as she turned her head back and forth, appraising the present situation. More mogalls were materializing, ominous shadows drifting into view as the air grew almost suffocating with the mixture of smoke and magic.
There’s no time for this.
The woman twitched her free hand, urging a breath of wind to begin coalescing beneath her wyvern’s wings. Symphora growled deep in her throat, a threatening rumble that precluded what would have been another vicious strike.
Her rider didn’t give the command.
They were too outnumbered.
“Time for a ride, Sym!” Mistral called before she jerked her arm upward. The pair were promptly propelled a sizeable distance into the sky as the winds shot up in a sudden, furious gale. Symphora screeched, momentarily caught off guard by her rider’s action, but she regained her bearings quickly as she adjusted the plane of her wings and arched her back to circle back in the direction of the Perseus Caverns and away from the quickly amassing threat.
Mistral spurred her forward, twisting her hand in the air as a breeze began to swirl around her fingertips. She turned around to fire the spell in the direction of the cloud of mogall, ambient green light dancing in her eyes as she started to will a wall of air into existence to slow any potential pursuit.
Her concentration was interrupted by a screech from overhead, but her response came too late.
Symphora squealed in pain as a flurry of bones and claws barreled into her, forcing her to drop several feet before she wrenched hers wing free of the grasp of the skeletal wyvern that had flocked to her call. Mistral was bucked from the wyvern’s back, scrambling to find a handhold on the twisted collar. The rough scales tore at her clothing as she slid off Symphora’s side, scraping fabric and skin before she was able to find purchase on the cloth.
The wyverns snapped furiously at each other, fangs bared and snarling as claws raked at flesh and bone.
“Sym! Break!”
Mistral shouted the command at the beast as she swung her body around to reassure her grip on the collar, but the jerking movements unseated her hold again as she attempted to pull herself back onto her perch. Symphora continued to screech, buffeting her attacker with her wings as she kicked at the skeleton’s ribcage, breaking off individual ribs with the force of the strikes. She curled her head forward to protect her throat, her yellow eyes momentarily rolling to look down at the tall woman that was dangling at her side.
With another snarl, the wyvern struck, tearing at the vertebra as she forced her attacker to flip in the air, giving her a more advantageous position as she kicked with her hind legs--successfully shoving the beast down so that she could put some air between them.
Her rider grunted as she again scrambled to secure her hold again and heave herself back onto the wyvern’s back. Mistral breathed heavily, her chest heaving as she took a moment to catch her breath. Her reptilian eyes darted up from the skeletal wyvern as it started to regain its air, to the mogalls that were still looming in the dark.
“Blast,” the woman hissed as she ran a hand quickly through her hair, pushing her sweat-slicked bangs aside. “We need to get some distance between us.”
The comment was more to herself than anything else as she once again urged Symphora to abandon the fight and seek out safer skies. The wyvern hissed, but obeyed, gaining air with a few powerful beats of her wings.
Mistral turned in her seat as the skeletal wyvern shrieked again, its ragged wings beating rapidly as it took off in pursuit of its living target. The woman’s eyes narrowed, the ambient energy glimmering in them as she hurled a blade of wind at the fleshless target. The wyvern squealed as the blast struck just below its wing joint, causing it to momentarily falter.
“Keep going, love!” Mistral called as she prepared another blast. Symphora started to trill in response, though the sound swiftly escalated into a bark of warning as a mogall fired off another beam.
The energy that Mistral had been gathering to fire was redirected up her arm as she shifted her focus to the more immediate threat, her eyes wide as she attempted to assess the situation in the span of a second.
There was no time.
On an impulse, the gathered energy was expelled into a blast of swirling, electrical force. The dark beam connected with a screeching crackle, exploding against the barrier the rider had hastily erected.
Mistral felt a burning sensation flare up in her extended hand and race down her arm as the remnants of the beam broke through, and her eyes darted down to the crackling, black energy that burned at her flesh.
It subsided quickly, fading away as the magic dispersed and left thin thin lines of inflamed, burnt skin in its wake. It was far better than it could have been.
Symphora roared, quickly eviscerating the attacking mogall, before she rounded on the skeletal wyvern that had taken advantage of the brief pause to close the gap.
However, Symphora was waiting, her jaws open wide as her opponent once again connected. Mistral braced herself, sheer adrenaline numbing the pain from her injury as she pushed herself close to her wyvern’s back and tucked her feet under the joints of the beast’s wings.
Claws tore against bone as Symphora fought to lock down the skeletal wyvern’s talons, snapping and snarling as she blocked any attempts at ripping her rider--her sister-- from her back.
Despite herself, the corners of Mistral’s lips tugged up as she noted the chest cavity that was well within her reach. With another flurry of energy, the woman thrust her injured hand into the gap between its ribs, and a whirling vortex erupted inside just as Symphora found purchase on her opponent’s lower body and jerked down.
The blast of green, swirling vortex of energy expanded, striking at bone and sinew as it weakened animated joints, and allowed the sheer force of Symphora’s motion to tear the wyvern in two at its vertebra.
The red light in the skeleton’s eyes died as the bones crumbled beneath Symphora’s claws, and the animated corpse fell to the earth.
Mistral breathed a sigh of relief as Symphora righted herself and continued her flight, quickly increasing the distance between them and the cloud of mogalls and closing the distance to the Perseus Caverns. For a moment, they flew in silence, Symphora’s mouth partially open as she caught her breath from the exertion.
And then there was the start of laughter. Soft for a moment, but quickly escalating--expelling the stress and tension of the situation--as Mistral tenderly clenched and unclenched her injured hand to acclimate herself to the dull pain in the burned flesh.
“Well, love,” the woman said with a small sigh as she patted the side of the wyvern’s neck. Her hair had completely lost the curl from the evening, now windswept and fly-away, and the material of her pants had several holes worn from the friction of her wyvern’s scales--exposing scraped and raw areas of her legs to the cold winter air.
She subconsciously raised her hand to her throat. There was a brief moment of panic as she felt her bare skin, only to remember that she had given the necklace that had hung there to her son.
“All things considered, that could have gone far worse.”
What I wouldn’t give to be in two places at once, Mistral cursed mentally as she kept her body pressed low against her wyvern’s back. Her hands were buried deep in the velvety fabric that had formerly been her dress--now substituted as a makeshift collar around Symphora’s neck so the rider had some means to stabilize herself.
They were flying just above the burning city--high enough to be out of range of most things on the ground, but low enough to avoid attracting needless attention.
Regardless, the carnage down below was evident from the aerial view. Buildings had been reduced to smoking rubble. Monsters roamed the streets and skies alike, and the city was quickly emptying of visible, human life as civilians sought out what refuge they could or were cut down in the streets. Even despite the inky blackness of winter night, the still burning bonfires cast enough light to see everything she needed to.
However, almost instinctively, Mistral found her gaze drawn from where it had been fixed below as she felt the hair on the back of her neck prickle and rise. Her eyes shot upward, and widened in surprise as the slit-like pupils of her eyes narrowed to near lines.
“Symphora, bank!” she shouted as she tugged hard on the band of fabric.
The wyvern screeched as she turned sharply, darting out of the path of a beam of energy that was fired from the unblinking eye of a mogall floating overhead, almost invisible against the night sky had it not been for the fiery reflection in its eyes. Mistral buried her fingers deeper into her handhold and hugged Symphora’s neck with her legs as the force of the sudden movement threatened to send her sliding off the wyvern’s side.
“Looks like we have company, love,” she said as she scanned the smoke-strewn, black sky for the glimmer that distinguished the mogall. Her hair, windswept and bushy now that it had been exposed to the force of the upper altitudes, shifted as a small breeze started to whip around the woman, though she refrained from launching the spell she had prepared at the aberration.
If other encounters had been any indication, the tentacled monstrosities were more than capable of handling magic.
They were not so resistant to claws.
Or fangs.
Despite the surprise, and the dire straights of the city below, the wyvern rider couldn’t stop the small smirk that tugged at her lips even as she became aware of more spherical shapes drifting out from the blackness.
“Get ‘em.”
Symphora hissed as she circled around, her yellow eyes locked on the mogall that had dared to attack her. It slowly turned, its largest eye fixed on the scaled beast, and its eyelid started to peel back further as dark energy began to once more coalesce before it.
It was struck from the sky with the speed of a viper as the wyvern descended upon it in a flurry of claws in fangs, the fragments of its body disintegrating as they fell to the earth below.
Mistral watched it for a moment with a satisfied smile before she became aware of the prickling on the back of her neck again, and she whipped her head around--suddenly aware of the numerous eyes that had locked on their target. Magic hummed in the air as the aberrations started to draw upon the dark energy they utilized.
“DIVE!”
The wyvern responded instantly, folding her wings against her sides as she began to plummet--narrowly avoiding the sudden barrage of dark energy as the floating creatures continued to loom en mass from the smoky darkness.
The scaled beast snapped her wings open again to catch a thermal rising from a burning building, and quickly banked to prepare for a counter strike on most recent threat, but her rider tugged hard on the fabric-collar and urged her out of the strike--and out of the path of another beam.
“Blast it,” Mistral cursed as she turned her head back and forth, appraising the present situation. More mogalls were materializing, ominous shadows drifting into view as the air grew almost suffocating with the mixture of smoke and magic.
There’s no time for this.
The woman twitched her free hand, urging a breath of wind to begin coalescing beneath her wyvern’s wings. Symphora growled deep in her throat, a threatening rumble that precluded what would have been another vicious strike.
Her rider didn’t give the command.
They were too outnumbered.
“Time for a ride, Sym!” Mistral called before she jerked her arm upward. The pair were promptly propelled a sizeable distance into the sky as the winds shot up in a sudden, furious gale. Symphora screeched, momentarily caught off guard by her rider’s action, but she regained her bearings quickly as she adjusted the plane of her wings and arched her back to circle back in the direction of the Perseus Caverns and away from the quickly amassing threat.
Mistral spurred her forward, twisting her hand in the air as a breeze began to swirl around her fingertips. She turned around to fire the spell in the direction of the cloud of mogall, ambient green light dancing in her eyes as she started to will a wall of air into existence to slow any potential pursuit.
Her concentration was interrupted by a screech from overhead, but her response came too late.
Symphora squealed in pain as a flurry of bones and claws barreled into her, forcing her to drop several feet before she wrenched hers wing free of the grasp of the skeletal wyvern that had flocked to her call. Mistral was bucked from the wyvern’s back, scrambling to find a handhold on the twisted collar. The rough scales tore at her clothing as she slid off Symphora’s side, scraping fabric and skin before she was able to find purchase on the cloth.
The wyverns snapped furiously at each other, fangs bared and snarling as claws raked at flesh and bone.
“Sym! Break!”
Mistral shouted the command at the beast as she swung her body around to reassure her grip on the collar, but the jerking movements unseated her hold again as she attempted to pull herself back onto her perch. Symphora continued to screech, buffeting her attacker with her wings as she kicked at the skeleton’s ribcage, breaking off individual ribs with the force of the strikes. She curled her head forward to protect her throat, her yellow eyes momentarily rolling to look down at the tall woman that was dangling at her side.
With another snarl, the wyvern struck, tearing at the vertebra as she forced her attacker to flip in the air, giving her a more advantageous position as she kicked with her hind legs--successfully shoving the beast down so that she could put some air between them.
Her rider grunted as she again scrambled to secure her hold again and heave herself back onto the wyvern’s back. Mistral breathed heavily, her chest heaving as she took a moment to catch her breath. Her reptilian eyes darted up from the skeletal wyvern as it started to regain its air, to the mogalls that were still looming in the dark.
“Blast,” the woman hissed as she ran a hand quickly through her hair, pushing her sweat-slicked bangs aside. “We need to get some distance between us.”
The comment was more to herself than anything else as she once again urged Symphora to abandon the fight and seek out safer skies. The wyvern hissed, but obeyed, gaining air with a few powerful beats of her wings.
Mistral turned in her seat as the skeletal wyvern shrieked again, its ragged wings beating rapidly as it took off in pursuit of its living target. The woman’s eyes narrowed, the ambient energy glimmering in them as she hurled a blade of wind at the fleshless target. The wyvern squealed as the blast struck just below its wing joint, causing it to momentarily falter.
“Keep going, love!” Mistral called as she prepared another blast. Symphora started to trill in response, though the sound swiftly escalated into a bark of warning as a mogall fired off another beam.
The energy that Mistral had been gathering to fire was redirected up her arm as she shifted her focus to the more immediate threat, her eyes wide as she attempted to assess the situation in the span of a second.
There was no time.
On an impulse, the gathered energy was expelled into a blast of swirling, electrical force. The dark beam connected with a screeching crackle, exploding against the barrier the rider had hastily erected.
Mistral felt a burning sensation flare up in her extended hand and race down her arm as the remnants of the beam broke through, and her eyes darted down to the crackling, black energy that burned at her flesh.
It subsided quickly, fading away as the magic dispersed and left thin thin lines of inflamed, burnt skin in its wake. It was far better than it could have been.
Symphora roared, quickly eviscerating the attacking mogall, before she rounded on the skeletal wyvern that had taken advantage of the brief pause to close the gap.
However, Symphora was waiting, her jaws open wide as her opponent once again connected. Mistral braced herself, sheer adrenaline numbing the pain from her injury as she pushed herself close to her wyvern’s back and tucked her feet under the joints of the beast’s wings.
Claws tore against bone as Symphora fought to lock down the skeletal wyvern’s talons, snapping and snarling as she blocked any attempts at ripping her rider--her sister-- from her back.
Despite herself, the corners of Mistral’s lips tugged up as she noted the chest cavity that was well within her reach. With another flurry of energy, the woman thrust her injured hand into the gap between its ribs, and a whirling vortex erupted inside just as Symphora found purchase on her opponent’s lower body and jerked down.
The blast of green, swirling vortex of energy expanded, striking at bone and sinew as it weakened animated joints, and allowed the sheer force of Symphora’s motion to tear the wyvern in two at its vertebra.
The red light in the skeleton’s eyes died as the bones crumbled beneath Symphora’s claws, and the animated corpse fell to the earth.
Mistral breathed a sigh of relief as Symphora righted herself and continued her flight, quickly increasing the distance between them and the cloud of mogalls and closing the distance to the Perseus Caverns. For a moment, they flew in silence, Symphora’s mouth partially open as she caught her breath from the exertion.
And then there was the start of laughter. Soft for a moment, but quickly escalating--expelling the stress and tension of the situation--as Mistral tenderly clenched and unclenched her injured hand to acclimate herself to the dull pain in the burned flesh.
“Well, love,” the woman said with a small sigh as she patted the side of the wyvern’s neck. Her hair had completely lost the curl from the evening, now windswept and fly-away, and the material of her pants had several holes worn from the friction of her wyvern’s scales--exposing scraped and raw areas of her legs to the cold winter air.
She subconsciously raised her hand to her throat. There was a brief moment of panic as she felt her bare skin, only to remember that she had given the necklace that had hung there to her son.
“All things considered, that could have gone far worse.”