first the calm news
bell can fly now!
aaren helped her with the schema and she worked through most of the night to modify her wings
she's so happy! and i'm happy for her
i'm also happy because this saves me some work down the road when i build medya's new body
on the topic of the road
we borrowed an autocarriage from aaren to help bring the three children home but even with that it's taken us most of the day to reach the "alderheart" where they live
along the way we saw signs marking areas as unsafe due to residual land effects and wild magic
a reminder of what the place has been through
so that added to a sense of foreboding well before we entered the woods and we had to walk from there on in
it was rainy and while i don't mind mud it was cold and that was kind of annoying
it was amidst this that we suddenly heard the hooting of lots of owls and then the woods went quiet in a way woods simply shouldn't be
it's important to mention that orash is a crow-like person
he dropped to a knee and said "they're here" followed by the sound of every bird in the area making as much noise as possible all at once
rabbit-like mala panicked and started to run into the forest before zer' calmed them and put all three kids in a protective bubble
as if possessed medya – who is halfway birdlike herself – got a blank expression and said to relic "you're not afraid but you should be"
we soon figured out what was controlling everything avian in the area
merrix d'cannith 2's experiment 14 "cirrus"
they were a giant mechanical-looking owl that arrived with a taller bird-like person and several flocks of smaller birds including one that reminded me strongly of mags
then i acted in my own unusual way – i was so concerned for medya that i didn't let zer' cast anything to protect her because i felt that was my duty
i'm a bit embarrassed by that now
i relented when zer' opened the pocket dimension we usually use as camp and we got medya and the kids in
then we fought cirrus and the other birds
and cirrus fought dirty – they did something that overwhelmed me with fear and left me open to a lightning bolt from one of the smaller birds...!
it hurt
a lot
and i was kind of a wreck but i managed to keep focus enough to hold cirrus in place until relic could end the fight
so now we have another experimental core
all the birds quieted down then and zer' opened up the pocket to let medya and the kids out
the bird-person is the children's mother "nashira samadi" so they had a happy reunion!
i asked the mags-like bird if they know mags – if they could even understand me – and they responded by coughing up a little crystal cube that stored a memory of some people singing in reidran
what were they doing with that? probably just found a shiny thing and decided to keep it?
is it for teaching the song? is it a gift for distant family? is there more to the song than we can hear?
who knows?
the important part is that everyone came through this alive and well and none of the controlled birds were seriously injured
and when we got to the samadi household we enjoyed a wonderful dinner together
though my butt is still a bit tingly from where the lightning hit me
i'm sure i'll be fine by morning and then we travel back to mossmantle