Chapter 41- Soar and plummet.
"Alright, let's do this." I mumble to myself as I manifest the magic I have prepared.
Immediately a pillar of hot air starts manifesting beneath my feet and promptly starts lifting and propelling me up higher and higher into the air as the magical tube of hot air continues pushing me ever higher into the air.
It only takes about half a minute before I am flying through the air at speeds that make my eyes hurt just from the wind, making my eyes water up and making it hard for me to see properly.
As the distance between me and the giant bird quickly shrinks and I come within a 100 meters of the bird that is even larger than I initially thought.
It almost immediately notices me however, and after lets out a high pitched shriek which quickly grows increasingly deep as the magical whirlwind quickly pushes me ever closer to the enormous bird.
As I come within 50meters of the giant bird, it lets out a sharp shriek before doing a sharp 20 meter dive down towards the ground before sharply turning and flying in the opposite direction in an attempt to get as far away from me as possible.
The game of tag continues on for a minute longer where I come increasingly closer to catching up to the gigantic bird. As I am just a few meters away and just about to be able to reach and grab onto the bird the magical effects of my spell starts wearing off and the bird starts once again to open up space between us.
As my magic breaks down, my forward speed noticeably starts reducing.
The giant bird that is in full on retreat mode however, is still doing its utmost to open up as much space between us as possible; And unfortunately for me, it is also quite successful in its attempt, and the space between us grows at an exponential rate as my forward momentum is equally quickly lost.
As the gap widens, I am left with the realization that if I don't come up with something fast then I will fall right back down, likely ending with my death.
'Shit! What now?!' I exclaim in my mind as panic starts building in the pit of my stomach as the gravity of my situation slowly sets in. 'Do I focus on figuring out how to land? ...No. I will just be back where I was before, with no way over the damn cliff. I need to use that damn bird as a stepping stone and get over that God damn cliff.' I decide and get to work figuring out how to get on top of the giant bird that is fleeing from me and is now almost 50 meters away once again.
Taking a split second to confirm my destination, I exclaim "Blink!" as I decide to bet my life on the gamble of successfully being able to designate the coordinates to end up on the quickly retreating birds back.
As I reappear, I am once again beset by the feeling of free falling, and I panic for a moment as I continue falling for a brief moment before I land onto something solid which elicits a very loud high pitched shriek from the source. Dropping down, I grab hold of whatever I can and do my best to hold on to the giant bird as it immediately starts wiggling and shaking itself in a bid to get me off of it.
Fortunately, I manage to hold on, and the bird gives up trying to shake me off. Instead, it decides to climb higher up into the air and does a steep ascent which almost causes me to lose my grip as I suddenly have to hold up all my weight as well as the sudden wind pressure hits me as the bird quickly flaps its wings and ascends ever higher up into the clear blue sky.
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It doesn't take many moments of desperate struggle to hold on before we begin passing through clouds before I start feeling the air temperature dropping rapidly. Less than a minute had passed, yet we are already so high up now that trying to breathe in the cold air makes me cough and sputter, causing me to lose my grip on the bird as my focus is broken.
As I begin free falling I spread out my limbs as best I can to slow down my fall as I look down to spot the damned cliff so I can steer my way over the edge of the damn oversized rock.
It only takes me a moment to spot the cliff edge and quickly steer my fall towards and beyond the edge, aiming towards the treeline with the hope that the fauna will help break my fall.
'YES! God! Finally! I'm over that damn cliff!" I exclaim happily, until I remember that I am still free falling towards a hard rocky surface.
'… Now I just need to stop myself from crashing into the hard rock ground below and becoming tomato paste.' I narrate unhelpfully to myself as I start gathering Mana to form a whirlwind around me to help combat gravity's pull.
Moments pass and the ground exponentially grows increasingly detailed as the distance between me and the ground quickly shrinks and I continue picking up speed thanks to lil' old gravity. It only takes a few seconds before I'm falling way faster than I'm comfortable with and all of my nope sensors go firing at maximum alert.
'Need to slow down!' I exclaim in panic as I manifest the magic in a hurry.
A few moments of panic continues as the magic manifests until a whirlwind forms and pushes me upwards.
Which does nothing, as my built up momentum simply tears right through it and that's that.
'Shit shit shit!' - Panic now threatens to take over my mind but I force myself to calm down and start gathering Mana once again. The ground is getting closer at an unnervingly fast pace now and I can only hope that my next attempt is successful.
'Ok, so directly opposing the downward momentum clearly didn't work. What now?' I ponder as I continue staring down towards the quickly approaching ground below. 'Blink channels momentum, so there's that. But at the speed I'm moving I'm not sure I can time the spell well enough. I also can't just chain Blinks, I have to stand on something physical to be able to do it again, for whatever reason that is...' I think frantically as I try to decide what magic to try next.
I REALLY don't want to become tomato paste, but I also don't want to break my bones and lie defenceless in the middle of freakin' death forest either.
Neither is a very fun option, so I'll have to go with option C. As soon as I come up with whatever that entails.
'Alright; How do I avoid outcomes A and B?! Think!' I scream in my mind as gravity once again accelerates my fall downwards towards the ground mercilessly. As I frantically look around in search of an escape, I notice that there is a decently sized lake somewhat close to where I'm currently falling towards. "... ! Ice ramp! It could actually work!" I shout as I begin preparing an ice spell to make an ice ramp to slow and convert my downwards momentum to vertical momentum so I may wear it down to manageable levels.
After gathering, condensing and focusing the Mana I immediately begin forming my ice ramp by drawing up water and freezing it solid, slowly building a huge L shaped tube with a large opening that slims down as it goes downwards. At the bottom I make it go upwards slightly once again, in an attempt to reduce my momentum just a bit more.
As I am halfways through the upward curve I realize that I don't have enough time left, so I instead focus on my descent and form the opening so I fall directly into it without hitting any of the sides. At the last moment I realize that I need to make sure that the ice is smooth so I hurriedly set to work smoothing the ice, so that I don't become a cut up, misshapen bloody mess by the time I reach the bottom of the tube.
As I arrive at the top of the tube I fall straight into the tube, as planned. What I didn't plan for however, is that once my back hits the wall of the tube, it hits the ice so hard that my breath is knocked out of me and sets me to painfully trying to breathe all the while I continue to whirl down through the tube and hit the sides again and again.
After a long minute of having my body painfully slamming into the side of the ice tube, I am sent flying out over the water below me at high speeds, still trying to catch my breath as my lungs continue doing what it can to regain its ability to breathe once again. My feet first superman act continues for long seconds as I fly in an arc above the water, but as the seconds pass, I realize that impact with the water surface is imminent.
Forcefully taking a deep breath, I forcefully gather what Mana I can and form a bubble around me to absorb as much force as it can and brace myself for the coming impact.
End of chapter 41.