99 Luftballons

Schneider is here with what seems to be a flat bottomed boat with some scaffolding above holding the furled balloon. A flow of air is started, and the bag begins to fill and take shape, inflating, though the propane heaters, standing ready, are not fired up until the bag is mostly inflated, though with room-temperature air for the moment. But once the bag's shape is inflated into it's normal position, the propane heaters are lit, and the air inside the bag begins to warm.

"So, the reason I've called you all together today," Schneider begins, then asides, "I love saying that," continuing, "is to test whether flying was disabled entirely, or whether flying in violation of normal physics is disabled. There's arguements for both cases, so we're simply here to find out which case it is. If it flies, good, then we've got a fast, fairly easy transportation method. If not, well, then we know. This is about the equivalent to the real-world late 1800's in terms of technology, so it's in advance of the normal state of affairs, and that might also cause an issue, but I'm hoping it's not too far in advance."

As the propane heats the air, it begins to fill out, and then to strain at the ropes tying it to the small gondola. That gondola is about the size of a ship's dinghy, though with a flat bottom, and he goes on, "We were hoping one of the flying races would be our pilot, and I'll copilot, because if I didn't, it'd be like not having faith in my plan. The bag, as you can all see, is tied down firmly to the ground by ropes, and the ropes with slack in them will allow the gondola, itself, to rise about twenty-five feet in the air. Hopefully." And that said, he climbs into the gonola and smiles at the assembled allies.

    Setsuna had come out of the tower for this, not something he had actually done of lately due to well it felt like he almost understood something aboout dark magic. Maybe it was the right something or wrong something but it is something. However he wasn't going to miss this. As he stares at the contraption that was made to perform this feat and looks around the crowd he takes a large step forward. " If no one else is willing to pilot the thing I will!" Was that eagerness in his voice? No couldn't be. Without waiting for anyone to argue he gets in the flying gondola, once situated he looks at his feet and then at Schneider. " When I said airship, I was thinking something bigger personally. "

SpritesHero is not wearing an aviator's outfit. It is not for lack of trying. He's got a fitted cap, with ear-flaps that tie under his chin. He's got a heavy-duty jacket and pants. He's got gloves. He does -not- have goggles, but this is likely more due to technological limitations than anything else.

Whatever hesitations he may have had about being on this craft's maiden voyage have evidently been addressed long ago. He steps forward with nary a pause, and makes his way straight for the gondola hard on Setsuna's heels. "I'll join as backup," he declares, vaulting on in and mercifully not ending up in a tangle of limbs with the pre-existing ocupants.

He may die. But he will die happy and warm.

Prophylaxis is here! He does not look like he's dressed for flying, though, which is probably because he's not actually going to be /doing/ any of the flying.

Why, you might ask?

Because Prophylaxis is the damn medic, and he has to be on-hand to make sure that they can put the flight crew back together if they come crashing down to earth.

"Good luck, everyone!" Prophylaxis says, cheerfully, from atop a distinctly heavily-armored grunty. "I'll be following you all from down here. If anything goes wrong, I'll hopefully be in a position to pull you all from the brink."

    They're going... TO FLY! (Hopefully)

    Mizuki waits in the gathered crowd (surely a crowd of people want to see this, right?) her tail twitching excitedly as Schneider gives his explanation, and then equips a different outfit; Put together as best she could from basic garments and maybe with a little help from Gwen, it calls to mind an old-timey pilot's outfit incorporating a yellow jacket. She strides up to the balloon, stepping in after the others and giving SpritesHero a thumbs-up and a grin for his similar fashion attempt. "A zeppelin *would* be amazing, but doesn't it make sense to build something small like this *first* to make sure the principles of physics involved even apply in this world?" She grips the edge of the gondala excitedly even though they haven't taken off yet. "Ooh, how cool will it be if it does work though? Maybe we can build *planes*!"

Schneider chuckles as Setsuna casts aspersions on the size of his airship. "It's just a test, really. We have no idea what's going to happen, so we just built the smallest we felt would get us into the air. It's no Hindenberg, it's not supposed to be. It's just enough to see if it's going to work at all." He smiles when Sprites steps forward also, and in an amused tone says, "I see you have at least dressed for the occasion. I do not expect to get to an altitude where we'll need the cold-weather gear, and if we do, I expect I'll see you all at the chapel where I rez." He chuckles, smiling as Mizuki, similarly attired, joins us. "Glad to have you aboard," he tells her, and nods about biulding it small first, "Precisely." And he grins about planes. "Though we'd have to develop much better fuels."

Proph gets a nod, though he says, "Aviation mishaps tend to have survivability issues. Hitting the ground at terminal velocity being what it is. On the other hand, if there's a cap to falling damage, then it may be survivable after all. I had intended to work on a paraglider, that will have to be in the future." When everyone has boarded the gondola that's going to, and the balloon's actually pulling upwards on he ropes, Schneider will cast loose the first set of restraining lines. The balloon starts to rise, and the ropes holding it to the gondola take the strain. A moment later, and the gondola is rising also, and lifts to about twenty-five feet in the air. At that point, the looser ropes are now taut, holding the gondola to heavy stone blocks arranged on the ground around the launch point.

The balloon rises. Those within the basket can feel the pressure beneath their feet. No doubt many of those here have never been in a hot air balloon before. It takes some spews of fire into the balloon itself, with ropes keeping it just fine. Twentyfive feet, it clears with ease. Fifty feet, everything is going just fine.

SpritesHero inclines his head towards Schneider in something between acknowledgement and amusement. "Better safe than sorry," he comments, quirking a grin in the other man's direction. His hand reaches out to grap the edge of their gondola, in order to stabilize himself as the balloon begins to rise. "Wasn't sure if we'd get kidnapped by dragons or not." Way to jinx the voyage, Sprites. Way to jinx it.

"So, Schneider," he continues, oblivious to any incoming dragons, "what were you thinking to do, as far as putting her through her paces?"

    Setsuna is giddy , "Oh man we should have invented cameras. This would have been a hell of a time to take pictures. " Is the boat bouncing due to turbulence, no it is Setsuna who is bouncing up and down just a little. Either he is very nervous or very excited. They pass the 25 ft mark and continue up, up and away. " I mean do you think we could do a lap around the tower and back?" Looking over he sees they have no real way of moving forward but he does take the time to cast some magical flares to let the ground know they are doing ok and to help track where they are.

It's okay you guys, Prophylaxis has PLANNED THIS OUT. Kind of. He might be in kind of a state right now, but even he knows that there's no point to trying to resurrect a corpse. Instead, he's brought along a number of Divine Dragon personnel, several of whom were probably involved in building this balloon and have a vested interest in having a successful test flight. "Stay underneath them," the doctor instructs his fellows, who are all equipped with... Large tarps, cushions stuffed with hay and cotton, and all manner of other useful life-saving equipment.

Setsuna is helpfully marking their position in the heavens, so Prophylaxis leads the way, shuffling his iron grunty under the airship's shadow.

Syx has shown up, fashionably late as ever, and has opted to stay on the ground, "So you think I could catch that thing if it falls?" He wonders aloud to everyone else who's still on the ground. After all, he is pretty strong. He bets he could catch it.

    Mizuki's tail twitches wildly as she watches the ground fall away. "Ooooh..." She smiles, "We're doing it! We're doing it!" She throws up her hands in victory when the rope first goes taut at 25'.

    "Dragons?" She looks at Sprites. "Have we even seen any real dragons yet?" She scratches her chin. "Although, I suppose it'd make sense to have some sort of... sky leviathan to stop us from sequence-braking past the sea leviathans..."

    She smiles at Setsuna. "Cameras... that'd be something, but..." She briefly slumps. "I guess we might be in here long enough to reinvent all that chemistry, huh..."

    Seeing Prophy's aviator-catching squad, she ooohs appreciatively! "What a great idea Prophy! Thanks!"

Schneider is actually pretty excited as this is starting to look like it will work. He was half expecting an unloaded gondola to rise, and players to cancel the effect. So when we rise to fifty feet, with things looking good, he's ecstatic. He admits to Sprites, "Actually, even /this/ far totally fulfills my test objectives for the flight. But since we're all here, I suppose we can do a bit ..." He prepares to channel, but then nods to Setsuna, "Yes, let's do that lap. Also, no channelling if we can help it. I'm going to give us a little push with air, but no fire. The propane is much more controllable than magical fire." Schneider's known for his magical fire, it'd probably decimate the balloon. But he can channel a bit of air to push it along. Not too fast, he's more interested in control than velocity at this point. He'll call out to Proph and those on the ground by Guild chimlink, it's better than two-way radio, "So far so good. I'm going to push us very slowly along. Planned route is slow trip around the Tower." And he begins to channel the air. He doesn't have a lot of strength with it, but it'll take a little wind to overcome the airship's inertia as well.

"Roger that," Prophylaxis says over chims, before gesturing for his LOYAL HELPERS to follow the proposed route. "Just keep an eye out. I can't imagine the world would appreciate it if we even looked like we were trying to cheat the tower climb. I think you should be fine up until you hit the equivalent height of the tenth floor, but don't quote me on that."

Also, that'd be some /incredible/ falling damage they'd all have to take, if the worst comes to pass. Hopefully it doesn't.

Calling this balloon an 'airship' is a bit of an overstatement. It's a propane driven air balloon. It's managing just fine, but redirecting it is hard, even with magic. But taking a go around the tower seems like it'd be difficult to execute, what with the wind that flows around it.

It continues to rise. Beyond fifty feet, it goes to seventyfive... approaching a hundred. Rising further and further. And further, with ease. This high up, they're well over most houses along the slope of Alne. At which point SpritesHero spots something on the tower. Black 'masses' appearing to fall from the side of the tower.

    "You know... this may not be an airship, but it IS the first means of flight we've found within the game! And that means we ARE missing something..."

    She grins and throws up her hands again, "Flying music!"

    And then she starts humming the song that plays in popular CircleSoft action-RPG when you fly over the worldmap -- albeit on the back of a dragon rather than a ship or balloon!

So far, so good. Robert's mostly just chilling at this point, though he does acknowledge Schneider's plan with a nod of confirmation. That said, his gaze does flicker watchfully over the heavens as best he can, searching for anything out of the ordinary. Dragons. Clouds. Flying pink rabbits. He hasn't got the slightest idea what to expect, but evidently appears to be under the impression that -something- will get tossed at them.

He's not wrong, either. He pauses for a moment as his gaze sweeps across the tower, and stares. "Something's going on with the tower," he announces, his tones as pleasant as if he were a flight attendant. And then he glances away once more, continuing his search. Though he does occasionally glance back at the tower to see if those black splotches are, indeed, incoming.

    Setsuna looks over at the tower when it is called out but Setsuna frowns and looks over at Robert and tilts his head. " Are you seeing gremlins? Is there something on the wing ? " He is skeptical as he can't see what the other is seeing but looks around the group and sighs. " Lets go higher then , if we go higher we can maybe get a better look and see something else. " This may just be that Setsuna really wants to put the balloon through it's paces, or is trying to conquer a secret fear of heights.

Prophylaxis likely doesn't see this strange, churning black mass. At least, not with the naked eye. But the spyglass he's using is trained on the balloon itself, not the tower. Not until after Sprites makes mention of something weird, that is. "What do you mean something's going on?" He asks over the chim. "You guys bring a telescope with you? I won't say to get closer, but you might be able to get a better look."

No. Not just going on. Something's falling /off/ the tower. Prophylaxis' expression darkens as he looks to the rest of the rescue crew, "We'll try to intercept it," he says, before guiding them closer to the tower's outer perimeter-- toward where Sprites would indicate-- before looking back up with his spyglass. What the heck is Aincrad doing now...?

    Sadly, Mizuki can't hum polyphonically nor speak at the same time, so she has to stop to speak. "What? Where?" She turns towards the tower and looks, starting to hum again and then snrking when Setsuna makes that reference.

    She pauses thoughtfully. "Wait, this IS a fantasy world. There really *could* be gremlins..."

Schneider is pretty sure tenth floor is wildly outside his test-flight parameters. As far as cheating the tower climb, he chims, "They hate that we're doing it the /normal/ way, I'm not sure if cheating would be better or worse. They might foam at the mouth. They practically do that as it is... I would be amused if we could get to the /top/ of the tower, but I'm not even thinking about that. I'm /sure/ that'd go horribly wrong." Mizuki's flying music cheers him, though, calming and centering him a bit.

When Sprites calls out that he's sighted a target, he squints in that direction also. "Fell off the Tower? Is it /incoming/, or just falling down?" Because if the Tower's crumbling, that'd be kind of bad.

Not that falling down is great, either. But more importantly, he chims, "Something's intercepting whatever's falling down, or we'd know about a circle of rain around the tower. I'm not keen on getting closer, but ... I dunno, teleportation magic could send the spyglass up here, though I'm wary of magic around the airship. Or, we could lower a rope, you tie it on, and we reel it back up?"

The balloon continues to rise, as unrest starts to fill the air. SpritesHero trying to get a better look, while others are having trouble tracking what Robert spotted. It's only after a few moments that SpritesHero picks back up on the figures...

The black figures approaching the balloon rather fast. But far more notably, the Alliance Radio suddenly stops working for those on the balloon, and the standard combat restrictions go into effect.

"So far, they're just falling," Robert offers with a shrug. He doesn't seem to be -particularly- concerned just yet. Though he's doing about a 50-50 split between the Tower-bogies, and anything trying to get a jump on them while they're distracted. "Nothing really to worry about."

A few moments go by, during which he returns his gaze to the tower. He stares. Cants his head to one side. "Maybe something to worry about," he reasses, drawing something from his inventory. "Definitely something to worry about. We've got incoming. Some sort of mutant gargoyle....thing."

    Setsuna was not very good at the whole tracking things with his eyes at long distance. In fact as they continue to climb it feels like Setsuna may wish to investigate in a pair of glasses, can someone become near sighted in game if they weren't out of game. That would be interesting but maybe if your brain thought you were suppose to be losing your vision... Either way it really wasn't important right now he still can't see anything that Robert is seeing. Maybe if he would look towards the tower instead of away from it. Then Setsuna notices the alert that he is in combat and Setsuna tries the comms and nothing. "Ok I believe you about your gremlin now, just point where to shoot or shield."

Sadly, at this point, Prophylaxis gets cut off from his friends in the air! What is a man without radio contact to do now that the worst has come to pass?

Simple. He launches an emergency flare into the air, a wordless signal to begin dropping altitude immediately.

Hopefully it'll be enough.

    Mizuki gives Robert a 'where?' expression when he talks about the falling things.

    And then the chimlink cuts out. She stops humming. "How can this game have AIR COMBAT if we aren't supposed to fly?!"

    Of course, running away doesn't occur to her. She's a gamer, she's been presented a challenge, she'll take it head on! She looks around, considering the structure of the balloon and gondola and how much room she has to maneuver and use spells. But are they even in spell-targeting range yet? Ah well, maybe she can hit them with...

    Leaning over the edge of the balloon facing the oncoming monsters, she opens her mouth and a little ball of energy gathers in it before spitting out one, two sweeping thin fire lasers like a miniature kaiju! This... is probably less useful in the air than on the ground since she'll have to hit directly, but oh well!

SpritesHero does not seem particularly inclined towards launching his own attacks just yet. What he does do, however, is place one hand on Mizuki's head, and the other on Setsuna's. He then rotates them towards the oncoming bogies. "There you go," he announces, -very- helpfully.

Schneider when he finally picks up on what Sprites noticed, when he turns Mizuki and Setsuna to face the target, he looks that way, too, and he's just in time to notice that the comms are out also. "Ah, crap, we're in combat, chim's out. We should have partied up, or joined a raid group or whatever, raid chim works in a fight. On the other hand ... this could all be over really fast and I'll see you back at the church?"

Schneider will put a bit of down-angle on the fins and vent a bit of gas, besides, hoping to lose altitude expeditiously without endangering things, he'd have done that even without Proph's signal. Though since this is all completely experimental, he's entirely winging the flight controls.

On the other hand, fighting is a thing Schneider knows pretty well, and if these things want a fight, he'll give it to them. "Kaizard, aruzard, kisk!" he chants, and those that know him know exactly what is coming. It's the big one. It might be a bad idea with tanks of propane aboard, but on the other hand, better to use it when the foe is farther out than close in! "Hansay Glossik! Unleash total destruction! Sage of Hades use the seven keys to open the gates of Hell! HALLOWEEN!"

And indeed, the fires of hell seem to have been unleased from the gondola, lancing out towards whatever's flying in. Proph will probably notice /that/.

With SpriteHero's aid, Mizuki manages to catch a glimpse just in time of the creatures approaching! The thin flame-like lasers zip through the air as she uses her magic from her maw, trying to blast them, but the black things in the distance zip around them with utter ease! Then suddenly...

A sea of fire detonates in the skies against one of the creatures. Blasting its body apart with an incredibly fully charged attack from Schneider, aiming to protect their balloon! The creature plummets down towards the ground. But a second one is still well on its way. And it is moments later that everyone on the balloon can see it.

Its awful wings. Its crooker appearance. Its maw which is just a hole with teeth in it, as it attaches itself to the balloon above them - outside of their ability to see it, aside from the shadow through the fabric of the balloon, as it begins to rip into the fabric with utter ease. Tearing it, and causing the balloon to jolt as it begins to suddenly drop in height...

Fast.

    Setsuna watches the thing as it tries to tear into the balloon and Setsuna begins to act before he even finishes thinking about it as he calls down light tring to hit the daman thing. If nothing else the thunder and lightning would provide a level of atmosphere to the fight. Setsuna shouts to the others, " It is a minion, so whatever this thing is, it's not the final boss. " To think there is a beast that was on the outside of the tower.

Well dang nabbit, that thing's less fun than a barrel of mosquitos. It's ugly, to boot. It's like a gargoyle decided that tapeworm-heads are aesthetically pleasing. For Sprites's part, he's not -particularly- concerned about losing altitude. He's got wings, after all. But others do not. And this balloon took quite a lot of effort to put together. So he decides to slow its destruction as much as possible. He winds up, squints at the critter's open maw through the lower opening in the balloon bag, and belts that coin (hard) towards the back of its throat. Take that! Choke on Capitalism, ye wee stinker.

So, even Schneider isn't foolish enough to hurl fire at a monster clinging to the balloon. Which in any event we've got more urgent matters, coming at us entirely too fast for his liking: the ground. Rather than attacking the monster at this point, he channels the air, trying to create the mother of all updrafts to slow the gondola's rate of fall as much as possible. "Air Supply!" he shouts, channeling for all he's worth. Hopefully he can reduce the crash to only horribly mangle him rather than killing him outright. That -is- why they left Proph on the ground after all.

    Okay, that was (literally) a long shot. Would've been cool to hit though.

    Damn, Schneider just blows one away! Mizuki stares in awe for a split second, then starts conjuring chunks of stone and flinging them with magic at the approaching Minion, but to no avail.

    Sam never was very good at shooters... -_-

    There's a minion on the wing! Or rather, on the... air envelope? That sounds like the technical name for the 'balloon' part of this craft, sure.

    They start falling.

    They're quite possibly going to die now, but... Maybe if she can distract the monster, the others will find a way to keep them in the air? It's kind of reckless, she might die, but...

    ...Wasn't the point of playing all these games to be the hero he never could be in real life?

    Steeled with resolve, Mizuki grabs one of the ropes and prepares to climb up and--

    Oh, the monster let go.

    Well, damn.

    Mizuki looks down at the rapidly-approaching ground and all that comes to mind is the old idea of jumping right before the elevator hits bottom. Didn't Mythbusters or someone prove that won't work, though? Oh well, hopefully it will with magic! Especially magic that lets you quadruple-jump!

    Mizuki leaps from the lip of the gondola and starts forming hand seals. Fortunately she uses this skill a LOT.

    It may even give her enough time and air maneuverability to aim for the softest part of whatever emergency measure Prophy has ready!

SpritesHero's coin zips with thunderous might against the creature, blasting it off of the balloon and sending it up for a bit. Dazing it, but notably, its health does not drop very far at all. And the lightning that follows a moment later seems to barely even daze it further. It just takes a moment to watch them as they drop, before it swoops and begins to fly away, as if it recognized what was happening and had completed its singular task. It is followed by the other one, having recovered from being blasted by such a magnificent blast of Schneiders and coming back up from the ground - returning towards the tower!

With that said and done, Schneider is working his best to try and create an updraw benath the gondola. This creates an awkward effect where the gondola is pushed into the balloon itself, causing their sight lines to be cut off by all the fabric around them. Some of it flailing around them eratically. That deep fearful sensation of falling gets deep into their stomachs! They are being slowed down, but is it enough!?

Being this high up, they've got a bit more to fall. And luckily, they probably won't reach terminal velocity before reaching the ground. But if they can't clear the balloon that is now being pushed around them thanks to the airbraking, things may end up pretty bad for them. That hole above them fluttering. Large enough for a person.

Aaaaand the monster's started ripping into the balloon. Wonderful. Perfect. The controlled descent has become something of a 150 foot plummet directly into the ground with three (minus a mizuki) personnel onboard and a tank full of highly explosive fuel in prime position to potentially go off like a bomb.

"Spread out! Get ready to catch them!" Prophylaxis orders, the assorted members of the Divine Dragons scrambling to deploy cushions and sheets and more, but the chance of that being enough to save anyone is... Somewhat slim.

And so Prophylaxis takes one additional measure.

He drives his palm into the earth. The ground rumbles as an oversized plant unfolds out of the ground. It's a thing of dense, tangled branches and ropey vines that loop in over one another, creating a massive cushion of plant matter directly underneath the falling vessel!

Hopefully he was fast enough...!

Syx has been doing his best to follow along below the balloon, but he can't exactly do much to stop it from falling down. After all he's not up there, and he doesn't have any air magic to use. And he really doubts fire magic will work at this moment.

So he'll do the one thing that he is good at it. He jumps up into the trees that Prophylaxis has created, and then uses them to spring up towards the basket, "Hold on!"

His plan once he's in there air isn't really very clear, as he tries to grab hold of the bottom of the basket and use his upward momentum to slam against it and slow it down as much as he can. Maybe if he resets their momentum it'll keep them from hitting the ground too fast.

One more trick. The magus rises, lifting his staff into the air. The gem set into its headpiece flashes as a mighty wind begins to howl. With a sound of physical and mental exertion, Prophylaxis bids the wind to blow upward toward the falling airship. Using /wind/ to slow the descent might be a tiny bit difficult, but if he can arrest its fall for just long enough...

Then they might just be slowed down to the point that a safe fall into one of the many cushions laid out across the ground might still be possible...!

SpritesHero looks annoyed, eyeing the retreating minions for as long as he can. Which isn't very long, for the balloon's fabric both literally and metaphorically draws the curtain on that act. Well, only one thing he can really do to help, at this point. That's right, he'll just remove his weight from the equation. Climbing out of the gondola and positioning himself so that fluttering hole is just above him, he deploys his featherfall ability.

Schneider calls out, "Don't worry about the air bag! It's not going to crush us when we land." It's the sudden stop that does all the trauma. So how is it that cliff divers don't die? Landing in water! The US astronauts did it, too, splashing down changes the stop from one abrupt motion to a drawn-out process, the time it takes lessening the stress from moment to moment. Total stress is the same, but spread out over time, that might be survivable!

Putting that plan into motion, he conjures a watery shield -below- the gondola, hoping that it can ease the impact of landing a bit. It will certainlt splatter water over everyone, no matter what happens.

    Setsuna watches the creature fly away and frowns for a moment but they are crashing now and down they are going. It will be better to focus on living for now. Setsuna can see the balloon beginning to get them tangled in it and Setsuna is realizing a horrible truth. Without his monster's or being on the earth he is lacking in abilities. Without another thought all he can do is try to burn away the ropes holding the balloon. IF he can manage the balloon will go free and may be retrievable later.

A forest of greenery forms from nothing, draining Prophylaxis' mana rapidly as he tries to keep it up beyond its normal duration in order to air the balloon in breaking its fall. Those within have to contend with the fabric that keeps trying to grab at them. Syx climbs the greenery to try and grab at the basket itself, and lower their descend at the last moment. A massive wind then begins to rise, and Prophylaxis is lucky that it doesn't send the thing off-course and away from his vine trap!

SpritesHero gets away from the mess by using their featherfall ability, spreading their wings and being lifted from the basket and thorugh the hole. Mizuki is out, but it's going to be a most harsh of falls. Schneider tries to further set the bet by creating a waterbubble beneath it all, and the balloon which was at least causing some bits of drag suddenly is pulled away as Setsuna burns the rope! The basket comes loose from it and jolts down...

CRASH. Stumble, splash. The blasket shatters as it hits parts of the 'trees' below, even with it being slowed down. The water splashes apart all too fast. Those who did not featherfall end up slamming down onto pieces of bark or tree. Syx missing the basket, but catching Mizuki as their airborn steps fail!

Setsuna and Schneider end up worst for wear, falling and eventually breaking their legs and arms in their attempts to break their falls! Their health rapidly dropping, but luckily nobody's health reaches zero!

    Mizuki winces at the sight of the others trapped in the balloon. If she'd waited, she could tear them a way free with her claws... So much for being the heroine, her rash action made it difficult for her to help the others...

    Well, she used up her jumps. She could try raw air magic, or maybe...? Water's an interesting idea. Can she just conjure up a glob of water to cushion her fall? Ehh, that doesn't seem like it will combine well with Prophy's plants! Maybe she could--

    Oops, out of time!

    ...And so a cat falls out of the sky and is caught by the big strong salamander-man.

    When she realizes what happened, embarassment and joy at being alive and some other things mix into confusion. Still, once set down, Mizuki gives him a brief hug. "Thanks..." And then runs to check on the others, ears blushing. Not that she has any healing magic, only potions...

SpritesHero , being a total jerkwad of the highest caliber for the moment, neatly and elegantly descends in a controlled float. The sole redeeming feature is he didn't wear anything that would billow dramatically. That, after all, would be a bit too much. Even for him.

He alights at the very top of Prophylaxis's tree, surrounded on every side by rubble, debris, balloon fabric, and the injured. At this point, clean-up is really something far more up Prophylaxis's alley than his own. So he just stays where he is, lording it over everyone else present while keeping an eye out for any returning bogies. Well. That's his excuse anyhow.

And the words that come to Schneider's pain-filled mind are, "Any landing you can walk away from is a good one." Well, on the one hand, he's not walking away from this. He's damned well going to lay here and suffer in a twisted heap. What he won't do is bleed, at least not too much. For all his faults and lack of flying skills, he's helluva tough, and his inherent regeneration is a thing. So, as long as his health hasn't gone to zero, he's .... well, he's not dead yet!

"So," he says, wincing. "We found -something- out, anyhow..."

Syx saves Mizuki, which isn't his original plan but at least he managed to save somebody! He lands hard, but he puts Mizuki back down once they're safely on the ground, and quickly goes to try to help with the wreckage of the others.

Nobody dies! Or comes close to dying, HP-bar wise.

Hoo...ray?

Prophylaxis sighs and sags into the ground as what went up finally comes back down. "That was close. That was way too close..." Sprites is still on top of his tree, this is a problem considering the state of his mana pool. With a soft grunt, he plunges a couple of syringes full of pale blue potion into his arm, temporarily arresting the further depletion of his MP bar. "Someone get them down before my spell wears off," he instructs, before conjuring a number of medical implements to hand-- including a couple of gems that he hucks at both Schneider and Setsuna before their HP can fall further.

More of those Emergency Crystals, it seems. Not that this really counts as an 'emergency.'

A few broken limbs, though, is still far better than what could have happened.

    Setsuna hits the ground , he is in pain. Lots of pain. He also can't really move, laying in the dirt seems to be the best plan. He does suddenly start laughing outloud though as it is all positive things. " It worked! We can do this!" There was success and then more pain and then Setsuna shouts again, "MEDIC!" Yes he needed a doctor and as he looks at the broken skeleton leg he looks up into the air and sighs heavily. "Not again."

SpritesHero struggles. Really. His face twists this way and that, lips tightening to bite back a comment. Or at least a worse comment. He loses. "Yes. Yes we did," he agrees, from atop his perch. "If you have a parachute, don't cut the ropes." Yes, he's being smug. No, he doesn't know that this tree is currently sustained only by Prophylaxis's mana pool. Somehow it just hasn't registered.

    Mizuki can do that. It's something to focus on. She scampers up the tree, then picks up SpritesHero in a princess carry and adroitely leaps branch-to-branch back down to the ground to deposit him.

"....." SpritesHero can do little more than stand there in numb silence for around a good twenty seconds. Was he just princess-carried? Was he just princess-carried, out of a tree, by a -cat-? The errors persist to register, tying up his thoughts. Luckily, his autopilot is perfectly capable of taking over. "Thank you," he answers Mizuki, in oddly distant tones.

    "You're welcome!" Mizuki cheerfully beams, unaware of the confusion *she* has now caused in someone else!

Syx looks around at the rest of the group, helping folks down to the ground, as best he can. "So what did we learn from all of this?" He asks, as he looks around to the group. He can't exactly help heal them though.

With little else he can either constructively, or unconstructively, offer at present, Sprites does what Sprites does best. He gets out of the way. Pulling his fitted cap off his head, and ruffling his hair with his fingers, he turns around and heads off deeper into Alne.

    Still beaming, Mizuki raises her hand. "That we *can* fly, but we need to be higher level and have more resilient vehicles to kick those monsters' asses!"

As Schneider's health climbs back up from single digits, he clarifies his claim that we learned something to Syx. "We learned falling damage works. Also, that if you fly close to the Tower, /that/ happens." He means, what just happened to the airship. "Next experiment will be somewhere on another continent, I think. To see what happens there, of course." He is, at least, not discouraged. And he also found out what'll happen if we try and fly to the top of the tower.

    Setsuna feels the healing of the crystal take ove and his bones knit enough that he can sit up and retrieve a temporary leg from his inventory. The older one, the pieces of the new one are put back into the inventory. " I need to invent duct tape at this rate." Standing up he sighs some relief , it hurt but he could move and make it to Tolbana. " I want to know what was a minion of. " He looks back in the direction of the tower as he works to regroup with the others. " I have weakness I need to figure out how to resolve too. "