Exploring Felarya

That naga might need reminding, if she's planning to slither the entire way, Rylee thought. Unless the naga represented a paradigm shift in dryland adaptation, she belonged to a temperate forest species. Still, though, introductions were as good a place as any to start; Rylee already had more than enough data files lacking a name to catalog them with. The bunnygirl Julie Ultimus was no longer among those, and apparently she was a fellow knowledge seeker. Rylee wondered what knowledge she was seeking. If Rylee had it, she had several ideas of what she'd ask for in exchange. And the small monochrome elf could fly, she noticed as he removed himself from the group and started reading. He apparently wasn't one for even business courtesy introductions, unlike Rylee. "Greetings, Julie. I'm Rylee Sandoval, explorer and archivist–and I must admit, I've not seen one of your race before." Her voice was flat and unemotional, but not unfriendly, and if it weren't for the head of the bird blocking their view, any members of the group fluent in Vishmital hand signs would have seen a polite but reserved greeting in her hands, before she quickly, almost imperceptibly, switched to a sign of the combination of superiority and exasperation used often by teachers when dealing with inattentive students that lasted only a split second as she turned to the naga. "These birds, commonly known as sand walkers, are Akaptor natives and boast natural resistance to the harsh desert environment and some of the dangers that lie within." Given that the naga was the only of the group to not have a bird, Rylee was guessing the other three all knew of the time-shifting sands...though it was possible they had just identified the birds as useful mounts regardless.

"Oh, I'm a Viera. My race comes from a world known as Ivalice, but I am from Alara."

Julie blushes. She had to admit the truth sooner or later. So, she might as well do it now.

"As for the knowledge I'm after, it's...where I can find quicksand. I already know about the Sea of Sinking Sand, but that isn't the only place I can find some, I'm sure."

(That order is for A. When things get out of control. Or B. Combat scenarios)

(I'm really excited to see how you're gonna take this 20 foot long naga with you.)

Gil makes his bird "rev up" if you will. "The other guy's right. We should get a move on. I don't see any harpies and I would like to go before any show up. After all, five morsels...nine of you count the birds...just standing around is a good hunt. Speaking of which..." he looks at the naga, "How exactly do you plan on riding in this desert, you're bigger than the birds."

Beryl tilted her head while putting her right index finger in her mouth, listening to the humans' explanation of why the birds. So they were safe from the dangers and acclimated to the desert?

She took her finger out of her mouth and held it up in the air, attempting to guage the wind as she spoke. "I guess they sound pretty useful. It'd be nice to get my scales off this hot sand, at least. Hold up a moment, I'm gonna' make one for me."

(I'll need you to tell me what the wind is currently like, Tep. :3)

Nyaha wrote:

Beryl tilted her head while putting her right index finger in her mouth, listening to the humans' explanation of why the birds. So they were safe from the dangers and acclimated to the desert?

She took her finger out of her mouth and held it up in the air, attempting to guage the wind as she spoke. "I guess they sound pretty useful. It'd be nice to get my scales off this hot sand, at least. Hold up a moment, I'm gonna' make one for me."

(I'll need you to tell me what the wind is currently like, Tep. :3)

There's a slight breeze, just enough to pick up some grains of sand and move them, but other than that, it's perfectly fine.

Make one? Rylee prompted her visor to focus on the naga. Summoning magic, while not exactly common, also wasn't unheard of, but most summoners didn't call their craft "making," and the translation charm didn't tend to translate summoning as such. If the naga wasn't just an airhead misusing language (her visor had that probability at 12±4%), she was about t show off some decidedly uncommon magic. Rylee didn't join the rogue in trying to hurry onward; she wanted to see this.

Julie looks at the others, surprised that nobody commented on her mention of looking for quicksand...

Gil raises his eyebrows as the naga talks about making her own mount. "Well, I suppose I can see how this plays out. " He hovers near the area where the naga would begin to draw, "Besides, everyone is watching, and separating from the group is probably a dumb idea."

Seeing that everyone's eyes were now on her, Beryl smiled sheepishly. She wasn't used to having an audience, though she didn't particularly mind it either. That had always been more Exilon's thing, though.

But she didn't waste time with words. Instead, she pulled up the flap of her art bag under her poncho and pulled out a book of canvas paper. She began tearing pages out of the book of blank paper and laying them on the sand, holding them down with sections of her tail. She made sure to place them in a way so that the ones on the outside would hold down the ones on the inside, that way she only needed to hold down the outside ones with her tail. Once she was finished, with a very wide spread of paper in front of her, she stored the book back in her bag and took out a jar of black paint. She unscrewed the lid and dipped her fingers in. She then began whipping lashes of paint across the many pages, then dipping her fingers, and lashing more paint out before her. After a few moments, what resulted was a crude-looking outline of a bird-like creature not quite as tall as the ones the rest of the group had, but sporting a longer body and a second pair of talons - almost like some kind of all-avian griffon.

She then closed the paint jar and put it away, before raising her hands out in front of her. "Hear me, my creation! Accept from me the gift of life, and in return, grant me your loyalty, your courage, and your ease of use! From my power you will come, and by my power you can be erased! Now awaken, and obey my word! Please and thank you!"

In response to her words, the paint on the pages began to rise up off of them, taking the shape in real life as a hollow outline of equal crudenes as the image it was born from. Being now in three dimensions, the shape of the outline would change depending on the angle it was viewed from, but it would remain an outline just the same. Now that the pages were once more bare of ink, Beryl began gathering them back up with her tail, occasionally asking the paint creature to lift a leg so she could access the page it was standing on.

As the naga got out the paper and started to paint, Rylee saw why she had used the wording she had.  "Make," huh?  She sure doesn't look like she's summoning anything.  And, as the painting took shape, Rylee became more and more sure that it couldn't be summoning, for she had never seen a creature of the sort being painted.  Rylee's visor was humming with data as the naga painted and then animated the new creation, and Rylee herself was definitely impressed.  Artistic animation magic was certainly rare, and Rylee felt she may have just gotten the best recording of it to ever be added to the Vishmital databanks.  And what a magical construct it was.  Despite its outline of an appearance, Rylee's visor was flagging it as a fully-formed 3D object, transparent everywhere except for the edges where the boundary of the magical creature ran tangent to the line of vision.  Of course, as an archivist, Rylee needed one more piece of information.  "That was impressive.  I've never seen a...bird?  Is it some sort of avian?  That looks like that.  Does it have a name?" she asked the naga mage, her hand signing genuine interest.  As she finished the signs and went back to holding the reins, though, she had a thought: She doesn't seem to know about the time shifting; she probably just thinks the birds are well-adapted to normal desert conditions...not that they aren't.  Is this mount of hers immune to the time shifting?  Are her constructs alive enough for any of them to be subject to it?  The trip had just begun, and already there were plenty of interesting questions to explore.  Even if there wasn't a temple to be found, Rylee would consider the trip more well-spent than most.

Gil gasps in surprise as he sees the new mount peel up from the paper. "Wow, now THAT's a neat ability. Is it actual flesh and blood? Or is it still paper? And how does it work? Can you just summon another drawing at will? I know it seems like I'm flooding you with questions, but I'm just trying to determine how practical this could be to us in the long run."

During the trip, Julie uses a Geomancy spell to scan the ground as they went. She would take breaks from time to time since this is a pretty big drain on her mana.

(^^; Wow, I didn't think all the characters would be THAT impressed by that. Lke, a little bit, yeah, but not to that degree. Now I feel like a spotlight stealer.)

Beryl went wide-eyed in surprise as several of her new companions took interest in her creation, slinging several questions her way all at once. She felt like she at least managed to catch them all - luckily they spoke one at a time - but it was still a bit overwhelming. Sure it was neat, but was animating a crude drawing like that really so impressive?

"Uh, um, well, it's, like, a double bird, because I'm, y'know, double-wide? And, uh...Name? I guess I could name it...how 'bout "Geoffrey"?" she said, trying to respond to the human woman's questions. She then turned to the blue-haired elf to answer his many questions. "Uh, no, there's no blood or flesh in it, just paint and magic. And it works by, uh...How did it go? "Infusing the ink with a portion on one's spirit, granting it something akin to life." And, uh, yeah, I probably could, but not too many or I'll get a headache."

Once she felt confident that she'd answered everyone's questions, she approached the side of her solid paint creature, Geoffrey, then turned around and began pulling her tail towards herself with her arms. Once she got to the tip, she gripped it at about the place where it began to narrow, swung it around, then tossed it up over the back of the fourteen foot-tall quadrupedal avian. Once she had a good grip on it with her tail, she used it as a rope to pull herself up onto it with her arms. Once she was situated, she sat comfortably on Geoffrey's back, with several loops of her tail hanging off either side of his back.

"Uhh, is that everything?"

(Sorry if I left you in the lurch, Lock. I'm not certain if you're implying you'd like me to provide the info Eredor is scanning for or if you're just describing what he's doing and the actual information he's getting isn't important. If it's the former, let me know and I'll edit this post. ^^; )

(Oh boy, but how's the paint bird gonna get over the sands of time? Shoulda added some dna to that creation?)

Tepman6 wrote:

(Oh boy, but how's the paint bird gonna get over the sands of time? Shoulda added some dna to that creation?)

(According to http://www.felarya.com/wiki/index.php?title=Akaptor_desert#Mirages_of_the_past

"[This] is why travelers of Akaptor use stilts or ride sand walkers."

This implies that the temporal effect doesn't affect either non-living things or non-living material - not sure which. But if we assume the latter, the fact that Beryl's mount isn't made of organic tissue means to me that it won't be affected; she's basically riding a self-moving set of stilts. Does that make sense?)

Nyaha wrote:

Tepman6 wrote:

(Oh boy, but how's the paint bird gonna get over the sands of time? Shoulda added some dna to that creation?)

(According to http://www.felarya.com/wiki/index.php?title=Akaptor_desert#Mirages_of_the_past

"[This] is why travelers of Akaptor use stilts or ride sand walkers."

This implies that the temporal effect doesn't affect either non-living things or non-living material - not sure which. But if we assume the latter, the fact that Beryl's mount isn't made of organic tissue means to me that it won't be affected; she's basically riding a living set of stilts. Does that make sense?)

(Forgot about that, apologies, but then why can't people just walk across with thick toed shoes? XD)

Tepman6 wrote:

(Forgot about that, apologies, but then why can't people just walk across with thick toed shoes? XD)

I think I've asked that very same question before. XD I don't know, maybe it has to do with distance from the sand?)

Creating new entry: Specimen name: Geoffrey.  Specimen species: double-bird (tentative).  Scanning for matches in database.  Rylee's visor swept through a few dozen avian four-legged creatures in half a second before displaying its verdict: Highest match: upscaled juvenile tylian griffon, 37%.  That was pretty conclusive; whatever kind of 'double-bird' this 'Geoffrey' was, it wasn't a pre-existing creature being summoned or reproduced. Rylee wasn't sure if she should be more impressed at the naga's magic or amused at the naga's seeming inability to grasp exactly how rare a magical talent that was.  The girl had just created a brand-new creature design out of raw magic, and it was somehow as dexterous and sure-footed as a real summoned being.  Perhaps the infused spirit part is how a complex magical construct manages such dexterity?  Rylee made a mental note to see if headaches corresponded to the symptoms of any other known spirit-infusion magic...though she was pretty sure they did; headaches were an absurdly common symptom of magic overuse of almost any type.  As the naga girl mounted Geoffrey, though, Rylee wondered how safe she'd be; if she had to haul her own tail like that, she'd be at risk from some of her tail falling off that creature and touching the sand unless it was significantly less smooth than the psionic constructs Rylee had occasionally had the opportunity to touch.  She gave a slight wry chuckle.  "I think that's all the questions for now; I'm fine with just seeing this Geoffrey in action."  She wondered if it actually walked, or magically floated and just moved its legs to look like it was walking.  And, as she noticed out of the corner of her eye, she wasn't the only one so interested; the monochrome Hissan was also studying it intently with a focus that Rylee recognized as someone using more than just normal vision to gain data; it was a type of focus common among Vishmital scouts and scientists, among others Rylee had known well.

((On the topic of if the "double-bird" can safely cross the sands of time, I think it does matter if it's considered alive or not.  I don't think the sands distinguish between organic and inorganic material, since I think the nomads use wooden stilts; I'm guessing it instead has to somehow work based on if a non-resistant living creature is close enough to the sands, and since the time nabbing doesn't leave victims naked, it must somehow grab their equipment too; that might explain how thick-soled boots wouldn't help, since they're close enough to the wearer's body to count as part of them for the sands.  That does suggest that, were a nomad to fall and get timewarped, their stilts might get cut off and a portion of them left behind.  As for how this applies to Beryl's mount, that depends on if the spirit used to infuse it makes it count as living for the sands.))

Gil shrugs, his interest having waned after finding out that it was not made of flesh and blood. "Well, that's impressive, but I guess I was expecting too much. Welp, let's ride!" The rogue motions for everyone to set off into the desert as they had been standing around long enough already. He feared that if they stayed any longer, predators might notice that a group of them were standing alone and as an elf, Gil was concerned about being the first to get eaten.