Test Flight Number Two

The area here has been cleared for a few hundred yards, with an actual longship in a cradle in the center of everything. A gas bag, or rather two air bags, are fully inflated above it, and is tied down by stout ropes to the gunwhale of the boat itself. The central mast, between the fore and aft airbags, has a sail, but it's furled at the moment, so not catching air. There are propane-based heaters for each air bag keeping them inflated with hot enough air that it offsets the weight of the ship.

The ship is packed with supplies under the benches, a long journey is planned. A couple weeks is estimated, and while it's conceivable to go hunting, or fishing, from the ship, that's a backup plan, if the main supplies run out for some reason. Schneider is checking things over one last time, again, and pacing back and forth as we prepare for the test flight.

Uta has no reasons to take part to this mission except for very advanced skills in Air Magic, a built-in parachute, medical skills that can always come in handy in such situation, having actually helped with the project to create the original balloon, and an utter obsession with flight.

Okay, she might be a passable fit for this mission, after all.

She just stands there, transfixed, observing the majesty of the airship. "My goodness, it's beautiful."

    Setsuna had been waiting for round two of this experience , the last time well it went better then the guys who invented the airplane. Really. " Ok so we got all the kinks out this time? Like no evil monsters that live on the outside of the tower that wants to destroy anything that enters their territory? " Setsuna asks as he just casually walks on to the airship. He didn't even question if he was going or not. " Ok lets do this. "

Prophylaxis is naturally present for the first (second) maiden voyage of the Scale Emblem's airship program. The other first launch doesn't count due to interference by powers beyond anybody's control.

The doctor is already aboard, checking over boxes full of supplies deep in the belly of the ship's hold. Everything has to add up properly, or the ship's weight would be off, or they might need to resupply early, or all number of other things could go terribly, terribly wrong. Of course, he's arranged for a ship to follow them at a distance to perform rescue operations at sea, but he hopes that it's unnecessary. Soon they'll be soaring skyward, and with any luck they won't be coming down for a couple of weeks.

"This is going to be either a magical marvel.... or a glorious disaster to put the Hindenburg and the Titanic to shame, at the same time."

Kauchemar plucks the strings of her lute a few times. "Either way, could be ballad worthy. No one writes historical disaster pieces anymore." That and it's convenient to keep an eye on just what Scale is up to, considering almost everything they do do eventually points them back towards the Tower.

    Perhaps someone here knows Fukaziroh is an Enchanter, not just a decent caster of air magic and explosions. Or perhaps Fuka just followed a friend. Nevertheless it seems her amazing, nay legendary, skills at enchanting magics aren't really needed. The airship has been built already. If there are explosions, well, maybe Fuka can help out. With the rebuild that is, not creating explosions. Probably.

    Besides, if there's one thing Fuka loves about this world, it's massive displays of magic. Two of her favourite casters are here already. It's only natural Fuka might join in. Think of her as a little fan club member of those who wield vast powers and detonations.

    Fuka strolls onto the airship as if she belongs. Which, probably, she doesn't. "One way or another, this is going to be amazing." she agrees to no one in particular. What could possibly go wrong? "Hey, how long is this going to take anyways? An hour or two?" she asks innocently. "A three hour tour perhaps?"

Schneider beams at Uta's praise, and he nods, "It is, isn't it. This will get us back in the air, so it's pretty cool." He's wearing a parachute, himself, and there are parachutes for all the potential crew members if they wish. They may remember his test tower, jumping down from a hundred-foot scaffold until he could manage it and reliably achieve a soft landing. That's the backup if things go -very- wrong.

To Setsuna, he says, "We're in Westeland, the Tower is a week away. I'm thinking even if those monsters show up, they won't get to us before we get where we're going." Schneider nods to Doc up in the modified longship. There isn't /much/ to 'down below' other than the storage for supplies, any shelter will be a tarp pulled over the top, though that's not expected to be necessary as the weather is clear. There are a few narrow pallets for sleeping on laid across the tops of the supply crates. It'll be a bit like camping rough, but not unlike the old vikings did in the 1400's.

Schneider is pleased to have Kauchemar along, because the XM reception here is garbage. He winces at the mention of disaster, though, and says, "I hope it doesn't work out that way!" He's pretty sure the parachutes will work even for people as large as Kauchemar, though that's past where actual testing was done.

He looks up as Fukaziroh shows up and says, "Er, welcome aboard! A bit more than a three-hour tour," he explains. "It'll probably be a week to the coast and another week over water." With Doc's charter shadowing us in case we have to ditch.

Schneider will show all the non-winged people how to put on and use the parachutes, "In case of disaster," but then again, once everyone's on board, he will cast off.

"Indeed, Kauch!"

An enthusiastic Uta points down to the rescue ship following at a distance. "We have barely achieved flight, and we already are in the position to cause the first accident where a dirigible crashes into a sea vessel! It would beat anything we know from Earth! As soon as they invent cinema in this world, they're going to make so many movies about us, and- hm. Wait." She frowns, and rubs her chin. "Thaaaat's not really a good thing, now that I think about it."

She coughs, and directs her attention elsewhere. Mainly following all of Schneider's explanations and instructions -- and even paying attention to when Schneider explains to the non-winged Adventuers how to put on parachutes. "People lost limbs in the past - " She politely does not turn towards Fukaziroh at this point - "it's best to be prepared if, you know, something were to happen to my wings," is how she justifies it.

That said, she moves to her designated place, ready to soar to the skies!

    Setsuna hears the answer to his comment and looks over at Schneider, " I suppose that assumes they don't fly faster then a swallow." With that he leans back in his chair and motions to Schneider, " Full ahead Schneider. Second star to the right and straight on to morning. " Yep once again the necromancer is pretending he is the captain. One day he should really invest in some captain skills if he is going to keep doing things like that.

Kauchemar's 'bigness' makes straps a little awkward to start with, but in the end a parachute it's strung to her all the same. Plus she's got wind magic and a few other tricks if the worst came to worst.

And Uta goes farther than the tangent than her initial smarminess. "Moon's sake girl, you're getting way ahead of yourself." Oh well, she's here for a reason, she may as well get to it, leaning back against a post with her instrument.

o/~ Be my guest, the Captain says. Let's drink to the Impossible.
Take my word, you'll beg to stay, the weather is unpredictable.
Don't play this one by the book, and don't you trust any clock.
You've got the spirit, you've got the look! It's just a time warp to unlock.

Welcome aboad, it's nice to see you. Now you're part of the crew.
Let's give to this century... A Steampunk Symphony o/~ "

Technically speaking, they /probably/ have enough in the way of resources to allow for a few extra hands on deck, but probably not more than that. For everything else, someone (probably Setsuna) would need to hunt seabirds and other such creatures to supplement their diet.

Technically, they could also fish overboard, but who even has the fishing skill??

"I see we've got a few stowaways," the doctor says as he emerges from below decks. He looks over the additional crew and cants his head toward the backpacks set along the rails of the top deck. "Good, we've got enough in the way of spares. Everything down below's basically ready as well, but I do hope our guests have brought at least a few meals worth of food and drink for the trip."

    "A WEEK or two?" Fukaziroh nearly curses. Then she shrugs. "I'm going to miss my appointment at the salon~" she claims, waggling her fingers and showing off her fingernails. Which... don't need any particular attention. Not especially since her body, like everyone else's, is rather static. Maybe she's looking for a manicure and gold paint or something like that. Or maybe she's just claiming something silly for dramatic effect. Yeah, probably that.

    Besides, given the people on board, if they're spending weeks at sea (or at air as the case may be) she might be able to learn something ludicrously powerful and deadly. And speaking of which, "Oh hi Prof!" she grins shamelessly as he mentions stowaways. She'll contribute of course. If nothing else, she's a decent singer and would happily accompany Kauchemar. But she also has some ranged skill and could bring down some birds or something *without* actually turning the entire sky into a sheet of flame or rain of sharpened shards. It's not as much fun, but it's somewhat more appropriate at this particular point in time!

    She turns to peer at Uta dubiously, then abruptly laughs. "Think big!" Fuka claims. "BIG EXPLOSIONS! BIG DISASTERS!" she cheers. Ah yes, what a delight! "At least if we die, we die in good company! To us!" she mimes raising a mug.

Schneider explains the arrangements as everyone boards. "So, I'll be conning to start, then Proph, then Setsuna. We'll rotate through. The rest of you will have to keep lookout for flying hazards. We don't know what birds or dragons or flying things there will be. We won't go very high, both for navigation, so we can see on the ground where we're going, and so we can land if anything bad happens. If we have to land on water, well, as you see, it's an actual boat I bought and had brought here, so it'll float if we hit the water right." No nose-dives.

Schneider goes on to explain, "Lift is by heating the air with these propane burners, using Fire is far too hard to control for something like this, but we will be using Air for propulsion. The boat's sail will give us something to push against. If we /do/ come against anything bad, I'll take the helm since I've got the most experience with it, and you guys I'm sure can take care of it."

With everyone settled in, parachute equipped, and ready to go, Schneider will pull lose the latch that keeps the ship in the cradle, and it rises slowly to about a hundred feet. Reaching our planned cruising altitude, Schneider begins a slow channeling of air that pushes us along, but the channeling is slight enough that he'll be able to keep it up.

"If this is anything like the last boat trip I was on we won't hit 'trouble' until a couple of hours in, so don't get too excited." Kauchemar has set the mood, now for the moment she's stopped playing. Don't want to accidentally disrupt the very touchy process of getting them airborne. She's assuming it's touchy, at least. She may be here for entertainment and preventing madness from boredom, but she's got two weeks to cover, don't want to expend all her good material at once.

\tSetsuna yawns and adjusts in his seat a little as he looks in to his inventory for something and retrieves...a hat. A nice fedora as he puts it on his head and tilts it downward to block out the sun. " OK well look just wake me when we get there. " It's a nice breeze and really fresh air, warm sun, it was all perfect. " Unless, did someone bring some cards? We could start the longest game of Old maid if we start now. "

    Fuka nods along with Schneider's explanations, taking assurance in his sensible precautions and intents. The part of her that's not a thrill-seeking maniac approves of the precautions and his choice to use air magic rather than fire. The small manic part that delights in explosions however... well, that part is the tiniest bit disappointed. Schneider's just so *good* at ludicrously powerful destructive spells! Fuka's a small fan of such things as previously mentioned. Well she's actually a big fan of such things but also small.

    It seems to go well, at least for now. The blonde sylph looks over at Kauchemar, groaning. "Do *not* remind me of that trip!" she complains. "Ugh, that was terrible! I can't believe I got on a boat AGAIN after that!"

    Ask her. Go on, ask Fuka how terrible that trip was. She'll go on in excruciating detail about it.

    She glances over at Setsuna. "Huh? Did you say you're an old maid?" she asks, too casually. "Well, I suppose you can clean things then. I need to watch the sky for dragons and ... uh... birds I guess. And other things that might think I'm tasty!"

"I have packed my inventory with nutrients that pack the highest amount of nutritional value per volume. I had to dump most of the items I usually carry with me." She taps her lips. "...I have just realized that I have never packed so much grease into my inventory. I hope my staff and the phonograph will not be all smeared when I materialize them..."

Uta tests her theory at once, by materializing her staff, which, thankfully, is completely unsmeared, and after a sigh of relief, she clutches it, ready to cast some air magic if needed.

The first hour is uneventful as we all get settled and the initial excitement fades into the realization that this is going to continue for /days/. Kauch's 'couple of hours' raises a bit of tension, but after five or six hours, that tension fades a bit. The sun goes up, the sun starts back down. Such entertainment that is provided is entirely welcome. Setsuna's fedora, alas, lasts about fifteen minutes before a sudden crossbreeze threatens to blow it away. He wants to ask Fuka about their trip, now, but that's got to be a jinx, and airmen are a notoriously superstitious lot, and he's damned if he'll threaten our peace with stories of bad travel. He smiles to Uta as she mentions her nutritious inventory. He should have coordinated with her, she's uniquely placed to provision our trip! Luckily, she's here with us!

As day turns to evening, maybe eight hours after liftoff, and just after our evening meal, something is spotted on the horizon, in the direction of the Tower, away on the Isle of Beginnings, and it looks like - oh no! - it's the same creatures that attacked the ship before, and they're flying /incredibly fast/. There'll be one chance to attack them before they're on top of us!

    Setsuna last about 2 hours, beore he is bored. So bored. So he begins to play games o tic tac toe all over the damn boat. At some point he even begins to document everything that happens and writes it in his jurnal. ' I have lost track of how long itt has been , who knows if we will ever see land again, or if there is still land anywhere...' Then as he hits the two hour and 5 minute mark he takes another nap. The problem with these naps is that he is going to be up all evening. So suffice to say he is up when they are attacked by the creatures, " I told you they fly as fast as swallows." Fortunately Setsuna had a plan this time as he slashes the air and claw marks of dark energy hit the creature.

There's a brief pause, a flicker in her eyes, and then Kauchemar stands up from where she was reclining. "See, what did I say? A few hours." Sure enough, here comes the airborn threats. She shrugs, lacing her fingers together and stretching her arms forward to crack them. Got to limber up the Magic Artes gesture muscles after being at ease for so long. "But let's see. Most aerial predators hunt by eyesight, soooo..." A few quick gestures and then she points towards the inbound threat, releasing a wave of darkness with her gesture to not just blind the creature, but thoroughly Curse it's perception and precision as a whole. Enough to make it lose control of itself and crash into one of the others of it's kin.

Uta does not waste words. She gets to chanting ominously, to get writhing tendrils of darkness to convulse on her staff, focus into the gem, and when she hits the final note of the the finale, discharge at the approaching monsters. An Omen, to attract misfortune on them.

Misfortune which will conceivably take the shape of the other Adventurers' attacks.

    Fuka moves up to stand with the other casters. This will be their moment to shine. She glances down the row of them. Sure, fireball seems appropriate. But that spell, while effective, is liable to be utterly trivialized by the monstrous attack spells from some of the others. And Fuka *does* love to stand out.

    Gripping her axe below the monstrous heads, she raises it up to the sky like a staff. "Lord of Thunder, god of the skies, hear my call and strike down my foes! Let them feel awe and SHOCK!" she cries, shooting forth a forked lightning bolt at maximum range. It probably isn't enough to kill, but the power will cause the targets' muscles to sieze up for a brief time. And ... well, things are flying a hundred feet up. It only takes a few seconds to fall that distance. What happens next will shock you.

The incoming predators, gargoyle-esque flying abominations are devastated by the fusilade of concentrated ranged fire from the airship, and one by one, but fairly quickly, they're swept from the sky, falling, or simply exploding into pixels. Schneider, on the helm, looks intensely relieved as the last of them drop away, and he nods grimly to Kauchemar, who had called it, indeed, and to Setsuna who had worked out their speeds pretty well. "Looks like we'll have to remain alert, then," Schneider says. "We can sleep in shifts, and keep a good lookout at night. With moonlight and starlight, we ought to be able to see them coming easily enough."

That attack is the last interesting event that evening, not counting supper, and Setsuna's naps during the day prove fortuitous as he'll be the one steering through most of the night. Schneider wakes just after sunrise and will take over again, and breakfast may be had.

But it's a good thing we've kept watch, because there's another wave, it looks like 10-12 hours later, and this one is much larger, consisting of more monsters than before. And they look mad. As much as anyone can tell from a mile off.

    Setsuna was let to steer all night ? This seems like a recipe for disaster but it appears luck is with him as he managed to stay awake and not turn them around at any point. How fortunate. So what does Setsuna do the moment he is relieved of steering duty. He finds breakfast of course, he ahd been up al night. However that just means that by the tim ehe is ready to go back to sleep more of those gargoyles are attacking. So what does he do at this very moment he throws black fire at the damn things, " I'M TRYING TO SLEEP!"

    Seeing the new wave of gargoyles incoming, Fuka grits her teeth. At this point, thoughts of showing off are pushed aside. This is a *lot* of enemies, so naturally this has to call for her most powerful offensive AOE. And that means only one thing!

    Fukaziroh reaches deep, closing her eyes, calling upon every ounce of power she can channel. And while she's not actually a mage-main, that's still a respectable amount! "The night is dark and..." full of terror? Nah, that sounds lame. Fuka doesn't want to sound like she's afraid! Even with this massive wave of enemies inbound, Fuka wants to keep her cool. That's it, cool! "The night is dark and cold. So let my spirit conquer! FIYAAAHBALL!"

    The fireball is pretty impressive, but if Fuka had kept her eyes open, she'd have realized the enemies weren't *quite* in range yet. The blast explodes and, while it probably inconveniences some of the fliers, it's largely ineffective compared to a direct hit.

"Oh no, you don't!" Uta exclaims, and flicks her menu open. She materializes a glob of... oh goodness. What is /that/?! Some sort of oily butter-lard-spam-dripping-sausage?!

Uta grabs pulls a vial of toxic-looking liquid she had dangling from her belt, and after she pours a few drops on the ball of fat, she yells "Eat THIS!"

She performs a flawless baseball pitch, with the leg rotation and all; the glob of food flies in the air towards the flying creatures, while Uta shields her eyes with one hand to look in the distance. "If the poison doesn't do the job, that glob o' fat is bound to insta-clog its arteries and stops its heart."

Kauchemar is a creature of the night, so she has little issue with being up most of the night, providing a bit of background music to keep the evening shifts awake and active. Maybe catching a powernap and chomping down some food in between sessions as she can. Her journeys as a Messenger are much the same, alternating between travel and eat/sleep as one can, so she's got the routine to an art.

So she's still well awake by the time the next attack comes. "Ugh, really? Couldn't it be some kind of variation or something? At least a palette swap? Fighting the same thing over and over is borrring," she chides, even as she swirls water around herself to summon up... large bubbles with small jellyfish in them. Which she sends adrift towards the assault like airborne mines. Mines that pop when neared, depositing their poisonous payload upon the popper!

It would of worked better, if gargoyles didn't have such tough, almost rock-like hides. But points for creativity, maybe?

Schneider winces as Fukaziroh mistimes her fireball. That's the problem with long ranged attacks against fast-moving enemies. Setsuna demonstrates the wrath of a man denied sleep, sweeping enemies from the sky, though some of them get disturningly close, but that only puts them at point blank range of Uta's Arthereosclerosis spell. Well, that's how Schneider's going to think of it from here out. Sadly, Kauchemar is too unappreciative of the sky guardians to appreciate the main difference, which was the much larger swarm, and her attack is not able to take out more than a few. Schneider, meanwhile, is steering away from the monsters, giving the party that last moment to finish off the last of them before they can shred the ship. "Ugh, that was close," he remarks.

Luckily, with the last of the monsters driven off, the party is able to consult the charts and maps and Schneider once again steers a course southeast toward the coast. The day turns into night, and it's close to midnight when Fukaziroh notices the shadow of something large against the stars in the distance. Large? That's a /giant swarm/ of the same flyers, apparently each failed foray triggers a much larger response than the last, and it simply takes them time to fly from the Tower.

When night falls it gets a bit hard to keep track of just where Kauchemar is on the deck. Her natural colors blend into the nocturnal setting so well, unless one catchs a glimps of those psychedelic lavander eyes, to which most people often have a 'did I just see that?' response to. But she's here, and the waves of monsters are getting... well not predictable, but they cycle instead of immeadiately following each other, so one has time to prepare.

Prepared she is, as Kauchemar plants a hoof against the railing of the ship, bracing herself as she opens her mouth wide. And wider. It's not as monsterously wide as her feral counterparts can, but still much wider than one creature -should- be able to. It is part of what helps amplify her voice to devestating levels, unleashing a bellowing blast of face melting, ear splitting, mind numbing sound infused darkness at the incoming swarm!

Air sickness is an absolute monster of a thing. It's not like riding in a plane, being aboard this airship. Planes are nice and enclosed and have isolated, atmospherically controlled cabins and it isn't painfully obvious to the monkey brain even when looking out the window just how far off the ground you are. Prophylaxis has been woefully miserable in the lower storage deck for the past couple of days, so it might come as a surprise when a vast globe of frost abruptly consumes the incoming swarm of gargoyle-like beasts.

"Guhhh," Prophylaxis groans, his breath frosting on his lips. "Stupid sky monsters. If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be feeling /this/ sick...! All of you can go drown at the bottom of the sea!!"

Uta is already at it, chanting a bouncy J-Pop tune, summoning slimes out of circles, and projecting a broadside of slimes towards the monsters.

Alas, looks like these gargoyles barely felt the attack -- and managed to avoid most of the projectiles anyway.

    Mana regenerates, but constantly pumping out the same high-end spells has another drain entirely on an Adventurer. And her effectiveness notwithstanding, Fuka's not actually a caster main. Her biggest spells would probably be ineffective now, not to mention she's a little afraid of wasting mana on a big spell right now. Instead she chooses to spend her energies a little more wisely, casting smaller spells more frequently.

    Reaching deep, the little sylph brings forth a relatively weak spell at least compared to the typical battle magic. She floods electrical energy into the air, causing tiny flares of lightning to pop up in a random cloud between the ship and the incoming horde. Closer to the horde than the ship, naturally. The arcs of electricity do no damage but they're bright, bright as flares. She hopes it's enough to blind them, to make some of them miss or possibly crash into each other. A cunning move perhaps, but there's just so many of them! She's unlikely to be effective enough to contribute to stopping the horde.

    Setsuna looks at the damn swarm of creatures, " Fine , lets see how well you do frozen in mid air." Tying a rope around his dagger he spins it a few times and then launches it out towards the creature, it is perfectly aimed. It is flying straight and then the rope goes taunt and the dagger never even hits. Setsuna is just standing there , frozen in disbelief , as they continue to fly in mid air.

Schneider acks as the gigantic swarm attacks, and the party fends them off as best they can. It's a pleasant surprise when a globe of frost slams into them - it seems Doc is awake! And not a moment too soon! Kauchemar's magnum opus hits like a magnum 44, and takes out a large group of the attackers as well. Uta is not able to affect a large number of them, unfortunately, nor are Fukaziroh nor Setsuna, and several of the Gargoyles slam into the gasbag holding the airship up, or else into the ship, itself, slashing and biting at the cloth of the gasbag, tearing gaping rents in the fabric and damaging the hull as well.

"Abandon ship!" shouts Schneider, since at this point, there's no saving it, and he'll help Doc get up to the main deck, since he was having trobule. "When you jump," he advises, "jump away from the ship, so it doesn't land on you. Air can push you away, but don't push too hard or you'll foul it up."

The gargoyles, luckily for the players, seem more interested in the ship than the crew, though they're mencing face to face, and Schneider will urge everyone to bail, then bail out, himself.

The chutes are a slowfall at best, allowing non-winged races to fall without killing themselves, but there's no real control, whereas the winged races can at least guide their descent.

Welp, there goes another airship. It was nice while it lasted.

Except not really. Ugh, flying without an actual fuselage.....!

Prophylaxis drifts down from on high, his parachute gently carrying him towards the earth not far below. The parachutes, at least, work wonderfully, so that's a plus. And they know to expect those monsters pretty much everywhere, so that helps too.

Now the question is how to actually deal with them. Perhaps getting to the top of the tower would help...?

Kauchemar glances up as some of the gargoyles get through the defense efforts and, thankfully, go after the ship's airbag rather than it's passengers. "I'll be honest. This got a lot farther than I predicted it would, and I'm the one with Divination." She shrugs, and already having one hoof on the railing it's not hard for her to quickly step up onto it. "Watch the first step. That's the killer." Then flops over to tumble into the air, away from the airship.

Once she's fallen far enough away she opens her parachute... and as an extra precaution casts some light Air magic into it just to make sure it properly opens and floats. She's not worried about the water below, she and water are in an extensive relationship.... but that doesn't mean she wants to have a reunion at terminal velocity.

    Setsuna watches the gargoyles tearing into the ship and frowns, " We just fixed this." With a heavy sigh he looks at the sky and then at the gargoyles. " I swear I am going to amass an entire army of wyverns , wyrms, drakes, and all the other cool flying animals and they are going to eat your face. " With that said he blinks off the boat a good distant from the falling ship and tosses a bird at the gargoyles. Setsuna isn't annoyed, nope, not at all. At least the trip down is nicer then last time, a slow uncontrollable decent is better then oh hey thats the grou..ow. WIth a thud he hits the ground and then looks at the sky, " COME DOWN HERE AND FIGHT ME YOU DAMN THINGS!"

Uta doesn't need to rush -- the ship tilts so badly to send her sliding across the bridge, kicking and screaming, until she slams against the railing at an angle, and bounces over it, to falls overboard.

There is more screaming until she spreads her wings with a FWHOMP, floating gently downward in the wind.

"That ship... it was such a great ship..." she says, looking up. It might be hard to tell from a distance if she is tearing up or not, but the sad expression is there alright.

    "I'm too young and pretty to die!" shouts Fukaziroh with a tear in her eye. Not one of fear though, just frustration. She got caught up in the voyage and can't help but feel the failure and take it more personally than she probably should. There's some additional frustration because in her own mind at least, she didn't measure up to the opposition. Didn't pull her weight. Screwed up.

    Still at the last moment, her thoughts go to others, not herself. Summoning up determination she raises fingers to her lips. "Kaumare!" she cries out, her gaze fixed on the nightmare. Yeah, two syllable nickname. It's a thing. She blows a kiss towards the singer. "AERO!" she adds, directing a shield bubble around her target, in expectation that the werehorse is the largest and most at-risk party member. Besides, she's a friend. If a bubble of air helps keep her buoyant and protected from various threats on the way down, it's well worth the few seconds it takes to cast the protection spell. Fuka herself has wings and air magic and small size. If anyone's going to make it down safely, it's her and she can well afford to ride herd over the others, aiding them if it becomes necessary.

    Hey, Fuka may not be the strongest of battle mages, but she'll look after her friends to the end!

Schneider has tested the parachutes pretty extensively in the development process, and so it's entirely with confidence that he jumps clear and plummets. The chute opens almost immediately as he clears the ship, and the canopy opens with a whoomp sound, letting him drift down gently. The now-briefly-flying people draw glances from the gargoyles, but the drop is too short, seconds literally, for them to intercept. That's the other reason they were flying low. If they were parachiting from 10,000 ft, they'd have been sitting ducks the entire trip down.

Luckily everyone is able to land safely as the gargoyles savage the air bag of the crashing ship. Schneider picks himself up and begins chanting, "Kaizard, aruzard, kisk! Hansay Glossik! Unleash total destruction! Sage of Hades use the seven keys to open the gates of Hell! ... HALLOWEEN!" And that's it for the remaining gargoyles, who are obliterated in what may seem like thermonuclear armageddon. It's not, but it's close enough as makes little difference. Unfortunately, that's also it for our ship and supplies, apart from what we're carrying with us.

Schneider calls out to everyone, "Are you all OK?"

    Setsuna responds to Schenider over the chims, "Was that big explosion over our head the ship? Does this mean we have to rebuild our ship? " Setsuna is not enjoying this day, if only there was an upcoming event he could pour all his frustrations and annoyances into through pointless violence. If only such a thing existed. Setsuna looks about and begins to work his way towards the others while asking, " Any chance any of you know where we are?"

"For a reasonable comparison to OK, yes!" Despite whatever distance she landed from the others Kauchemar can be heard almost as clear as if she was standing right next to you. Behold one of the few times you might actually see Telecommunication in action.

That and how quickly she catchs up to the rest.

Telecommunication is a myth.

Prophylaxis mercifully lands in the midst of the rest of the party, relatively speaking. "I swear, I want to scale the tower /just/ to punch the assholes responsible for those gargoyle things in the face. Ruining a perfectly good airship like that is just criminal...!"

He seems to be alright. No worse for wear than usual, anyway, other than the mild airsickness he's still wrestling with.

    Fukaziroh naturally lands well, given her inherent skills. She dusts herself off, though probably she doesn't need it. "Just hurt in my pride." she says with a perhaps-insincere grin. Tried to make it a joke, but one that falls a bit flat. She's still smarting after all. "You don't think this is deliberate? Like, in the game, I'd say these monsters were here to make sure no one can fly to the top. Of course here, whatever set up those towers could be doing exactly the same thing I guess."

"What is the point of giving us /wings/ if we cannot... /wing/?!", Uta spits out in frustration. "C'mon, first the curse, then, /those/!" She sighs and groans and makes lets out annoyed vocalizations that could fit the definition of 'annoyed Spriggan noises'.

Schneider snorks to Setsuna and responde by shouting, "The ship wasn't going to survive the landing and the gargoyles were. I didn't want to take a chance on whether they'd go home or stay for a snack." As to where we are, he says, "On the ground? Westeland?" He points to the stars, and says, "Northwest is Breg Epona. But southeast is the ship waiting to shadow us. My vote is to find them and make them sail us back." He chuckles at Proph's ire, the Doctor is probably more upset than he is. On the other hand, now he's on the ground, the airsickness should clear quickly. "It wasn't cheap, but we could get more, if we had a way to avoid the anti-flying game limit, which is what it seems like now." He says to Fukaziroh, "We weren't anywhere near the tower, though. It must be a generalized anti-flying thing."

But the Rune Knight can show everyone how to fold and stow a chute ... later. It's the middle of the night, and ideal for desert travel. "Let's go until daylight, then make camp as best we can. It can't be more than a few days, I think." The airship wasn't -that- much faster than walking.

"Welp, guess it's time to hoof it." So to speak. Hardly the first trek she's been on through a desert, though she most definately has a name.

Kauchemar does give Fuka a pat on the shoulder though. "Thanks for the assist. My air magic isn't as strong as my darkness."

    Kauchemar's response does seem to cheer Fuka. She did something right at least! "I figured you'd be fine. But, you know, just in case!" she grins.