[Player Log Start]
[Log Holder: Michael Kapok]
[Level: 2]
When Asadullah had called out the warning and jumped clear, it was Michael who had taken initiative. His reflexes had kicked into gear, and he used Sorcery to cast a floating spell before he was even swallowed up by the nothingness the ground had been turned into.
He bobbed above it untethered, looking down at the pit his friends had been taken into. It wasn’t like any pit trap he had ever seen before. It was wide, so wide that even Asadullah, who had attempted to jump clear had been swallowed up by the pull of gravity.
There was no panel or bracing which had kept the ground solid for so long as far as he could see. If it hadn’t been for Asadullah’s superhuman senses, no one would have realized the danger they were in.
Whatever good that realization had done to anyone outside of Michael was… uncertain.
Speaking of where Michael was now, he wasn’t sure he was doing too hot either. All around him, there were birds, circling him more intently than any buzzard had in Wayside. He gulped, taking in their sharp beaks and claw tipped feet, perfect for ripping and tearing.
They spoke in little chittering noises, once again completely indecipherable to him without Terry. He could do nothing but float there, stationary ten feet above the ground, wishing desperately that he had spent more time trying to get that Flying Ability.
Finally, the crows broke their conversation to turn to him, and ask in throaty English, “Can any more of you fly? Other than you and the other boy?”
“Speaking of the other boy, why didn’t he fly again?” Another crow asked, sounding almost genuine. Though it could still be making fun of Michael. It was hard to tell.
“Because that one makes rocks fly for it.” Another one supplied, and the resulting chortle made it clear that it was indeed a joke.
But the two birds in charge did not echo the laughter. They looked at each other for a few troubled seconds before pressing Michael again, “It is very important that you tell us this, have they not properly broken out their flying yet?”
“No.” Michael frowned, “We’re human! We can’t fly.”
“You’re flying right now.”
“Yes, but that’s not the norm. It’s really weird of me to be doing. And my friends cannot fly.” Michael snapped, quickly gaining courage with every second that passed with himself still unharmed, “What made you think that humans could fly?”
“It said so in our history books!” The raven snapped, affronted, “You stop judging us and tell us whether they’re coming out of the fledgling hole.”
“What’s the fledgling hole?!” Michael asked, “Are you feeding them to your babies?” He asked, with a feeling of dawning horror.
“No.” The raven that had brought Ben here replied, feathers puffed up, “Why would we do that? Meat is not prevalent enough for us to encourage the young to gorge themselves on it. We were trying to get them to fly, using this pit, where we throw children down to teach them to fly.”
“You all are crazy.” Michael announced, not believing them for a second, “You could have just told us, you know? I thought you were going to kill us! They think they’re going to die down there!”
“The surprise is what will urge them into taking flight!” The crow replied, before doing a quick loop in the air, “That is to say, if humans could fly. Which they cannot, if this human is to be believed.”
“They’re going to die when they hit the bottom.” Michael whispered, breath catching his chest as he realized the severity of the problem.
“No, they won’t. They’ll die when they hit the top.” The raven rushed to assure him. It didn’t help. And judging by the way it rushed to explain it to him, his expression was enough to tell them that, “The fledgling pit is a misnomer, because it is in the shape of a oval of sorts, with artificially maintained wind currents. You fall, then get turned around, and spat into the sky, and at some point in that journey, the young is expected to get the hang of flapping its wings around. Having failed that, your human flock will be shot out, and die on impact of the islets. Or possibly meet a grisly fate at the hands of a squid.”
Even the silent crows that lingered in the background shuddered at that.
“We can’t let that happen.” Michael swore, his mind already running a mile a minute as he gaped down at the pit, trying to think of some solution, some way to grab them all in time.
“What do you expect us to do? Even our ravens are not nearly big enough to support their weight.” The crow pointed out. And Michael didn’t have any spells to help here, either. Again: Should have worked on his flying more.
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Nothing could be done about it, though, as he swerved wildly to the side, his friends bursting out from the hole, just as predicted, at a speed faster than he could imagine. In his eyes, they looked like nothing more than smears in the sky. Soon to be smears on the ground. If he didn’t do something. Of course, that was the exact time the green box flashed across the screen.
[Rapid Fire Round!!!!]
[Objective: Stop Party Members From Touching the Ground]
[Time Limit: 1.5 minutes]
[1:29…1:28…1:27]
Shit. Okay. Think fast now. He needed… he needed… what exactly? His mind was summoning help from the Console before he could consider the question seriously, and a helpful popup presented itself.
[Tip!]
[Long Range Spells Work Best With A Conduit to Point And Aim!]
A conduit. Like a wand. Or a staff. That he could use to shoot them with Flying Spells. But where was he supposed to find things like that?
Something hit his head. Hard. He nearly fainted when he recognized Verity’s gun. But then the thought struck him. If Verity’s things were falling in this area, then Jared’s most certainly was, too. He was using a lot more mana then he had since… well, the Boss Battle, really, but he still stuck out his hand, and cried out with a commanding air, “Crutch!”
[Applying Sorcery!]
The metal stick went flying into his hand, nearly knocking him to the ground, but Michael held solid, taking the hefty stick by both hands and aiming at the closest person to him, which was Terry. There was no trigger to pull, but the recoil was as intense as any gun. From the end of the stick, a bolt of light went shooting out, spearing the boy in the chest and stopping his descent without even a broken neck.
[1/6 Teammates Saved!]
[0:34…0:33…]
Michael wished that he could celebrate in the victory, but there was no time for that. He swung around, and readied his aim again, first getting Ben, then Verity, then Asadullah, until the only people left, with seconds on the clock were Jared and Tench, and he. Kept. Missing.
“Goddammit, lemme over there!” Verity screeched after another wasted spell, swimming through the air as if it was thick liquid, and latching onto the stick. She disrupted his balance, nearly sending him spinning into the ether, but it was okay, because her seething rage was a solid anchor for once, giving him a precious thing to latch onto and be guided by.
She wrested the staff into a direction, her steady breathing metronomic against his ear. Michael gathered his wits and fired. It rang true, pulling Jared up like a lasso had been thrown over his midsection. Then they shifted over to repeat the trick again with Tench, but the man was barely inches away from the ground. He would be mulch before they could even aim. It was too terrible for him to look. Michael squeezed his eyes shut, unable to bear the truth of his failure.
Someone clapped, sharp, demanding, and then the Game chimed victoriously. Michael opened his eyes cautiously, surprised to find the islet below devoid of viscera.
Tench was lying there, fall broken by a swathe of plants that hadn’t been there before. His gaze naturally slid to Terry, who grinned nervously, and signed out, “Was that good?”
“Yeah.” Michael agreed, grinning, “That was really good. Thanks, man. He would’ve died if you hadn’t stepped in.” Terry looked disbelieving at that, but then again, his self-esteem was never the greatest. They still needed to get him to take basic compliments like that.
“He might still be dead.” Ben interrupted, breaking the celebratory atmosphere, “A fall like that? All the trees in the world couldn’t stop that from pulverizing someone. Let me down, Michael, I need to go see him.” Her voice was soft, balancing on the line between being demanding and breaking down.
Michael let her down, let them all drift down as steadily as he could manage, even as the energy drained out of his body. Verity helped him lean against her, half dragging him to a rock as Ben and Terry rushed over to check on their healer.
“You’re telling me how you managed to get us out of the hole, right?” She asked, “And how you managed to fight off the damn birds?”
“I didn’t get you out of the hole.” Michael told her in his half-asleep haze.
“And he certainly didn’t fight us off.” The raven sniffed from above. He fought down the urge to scream, but it was a close call. Verity jolted away from him, leaving him to sprawl into the sand, if not for the crutch he had taken from Jared.
He couldn’t see what was going on, his mind spinning as if it had been days since he had last eaten, but he heard Verity patting down her coat, and the curses that followed. They painted enough of a picture.
“No guns on you, huh?” The raven let out a wheezing laugh, “Yes, they fell out during the scuffle. I know that humans were greatly reliant on those nasty things in a fight.”
“Like you knew that humans could fly?” Michael asked, vision finally resettling itself. Verity scoffed beside him, even as the flock squawked in shame and outrage.
But this was good, couldn’t she see? They could make use of this blind spot. Turn the smack talk into a knife of its own. Maybe they had a little bit of Jared in them, after all!
Or, well, maybe that wasn’t the case with Verity. But she did have a nose for blood. And when she smelt it, it was guaranteed to be a bloodbath.
“See, the guns are just a tool like any other.” She announced boldly, twisting her head to make eye contact with every single corvid around as she spoke, “Humans are just naturally inclined to slaughter. Tools are well and all, but our best work has always been done with bare hands. Wanna get a closeup look?” She bared her teeth and curved her hands into sharp claws, nails ragged but still trimmed to points.
Maybe it was from the fall, or from clenching her teeth, or a deliberate bite on the inside of her mouth to draw blood, but the slight trickle that went down from her gums and streaked across her teeth did a fantastic job of making her look more threatening than ever before.
The flock retreated slightly, conversing amongst themselves, even as Verity hovered below them, as dangerous as any squid.
The others hadn’t come back from checking on Tench yet. He hoped they were okay. He hoped they would have enough time to get out of here while the birds were killing them both.
Because he knew they weren’t going to escape this. And sure enough, after much hushed chirping, the birds turned around and descended, beaks gleaming with copper yet to spill.
[Player Log End!]