Skybound - Chapter 19: Quoth the Raven

Morgan Mackenzie was having a very nice day. Her week had not started out so nice in the beginning. A side effect of proximity to the Titan was a potent drain on ambient mana, limiting her regen and making it difficult to maintain her fire to keep the air around herself warm. It worked out for the best, however. A few days of enduring the bitter chill of the Wildlands winter led to more resistances, and by the end of a week she could endure the biting cold without spending mana to drive away the chill with her flames. [Cold Resistance] seemed redundant at first, with her already having [Frost Resistance], but after it continued to level and become more effective she came to the realization that it helped with natural cold temperatures while the frost version fended off the magical variety of ice and cold effects. A most welcome boon as they travelled east and north and the winter grew ever harsher.

The trek back across the Wildlands went very different from her usually frantic wandering battle. The Titan's lumbering pace ate up the miles, and he didn't slow or stop. She didn't see very many familiar creatures either, the Tyrannorabbits and Murdersquirrels must have burrowed down to hibernate in safety. She did notice wolves from time to time, massive shadowed forms keeping well away from their path but picking at leftovers discarded in their wake.

And a veritable feast that was for any lucky scavengers. Doomturtles, an Ice Hydra, and several dozen beasts that looked like a Rockmaw but armored in massive plates of magical ice littered their trail. Or at least pieces of them. Anything that did not flee fast and far enough to escape was dragged into reach by thorny vines. Most things did seem to have a sense of self-preservation, or at least enough of one not to challenge the Titan's appetite.

Ice Wights, on the other hand, were stupidly suicidal orbs of frozen magic held together by either hatred or stupidity, and Morgan wasn't sure which. Dense fog rolled into the valleys from the mountain peaks, always bringing swarms of the annoying creatures as the temperatures dropped to sub-arctic and visibility neared zero. Aside from the numbers, they weren't truly a threat to Morgan or Lulu, and didn't even register to the Titan. 

His presence seemed to drive them to a frenzy, and they would swarm like a living frozen storm encircling the pair. When hundreds had gathered, the swirling mass would collapse inward…

And die. Their bolts of raw frost magic were absurdly ineffective against Max's ogrish presence, and once they got to close their magic just unraveled as he inhaled it to release a massive belch of temporarily sated hunger. The rest simply splattered across the pair of travellers, although Morgan --perched comfortably on a shelf of crystal protruding from the Titan's shoulder-- kept a barrier of air around herself and Lulu. Several of  Scrubbie Matriarch's brood tended to the rest of the residue, and any other detritus that bedecked the Titan and his massive frame. Resembling more than anything a massive lumbering tree stump sprouting vines and crystals, the Titan shambled along at a leisurely pace like a mobile apartment tenement. His ape-like gait left giant foot and knuckle prints crushed into the frozen dirt, but the result was more of a slow swaying from Morgan's seat. 

That swaying ate up the miles, and the return trip back across the Wildlands was happening much faster than her months of wandering. She even recognized some landmarks, like a series of jagged peaks resembling fingers that stuck up above the cloud layer in the distance. At one point they even passed by one of her stone shelters. An early one, not nearly as refined as the intricately detailed domiciles she could now sculpt from raw earth and stone almost at her whimsy.

The land itself was vastly different as well. On the higher slopes the evergreens were coated in thick layers of hoary frost that would have been beautiful if not for the danger that radiated from the heavy boughs. Avalanches were frequent, both distant and frighteningly close, although no real threat to the Titan as he simply turned to face the threat and broke the walls of snow like the bow wave of an ocean liner. When they passed through the lower valleys the deciduous hardwoods, witchwood and near-oaks and other almost but not quite familiar trees were bare and grasping, thin brittle branches like limbs reaching for prey. All gave way to the Wanderer's passing.

It was as harsh and cold as it was beautiful, but despite the dangers Morgan's greatest enemy was simple boredom. Nothing could threaten the Titan in this frozen landscape, and he was hardly a verbose travelling companion. Things being as they were, the highlight of their travels ended up being her radio calls with Dana and the crew of the Are We There Yet?

The Skyship had been forced to launch early, and Morgan had worried for days when Dana did not respond to the initially planned check-in until the third day after. She took the magical mana-tablet out of her storage runes every morning, though she did not always receive a response. Lulu seemed infatuated with the device, wurbling happily every time she activated it and trying to scrub the already polished stone.

"Silly thing," sighed Morgan as she plucked the plucky scrubby off the tablet and returned the puffball to her shoulder.

"Are you still making good time?" Dana's voice was tinny and distant but clear, Morgan's elevation giving her a decently reliable signal strength to communicate with the ship.

"Dad never stops, so yeah, we should be getting close to the Roost any day now. Exactly where that is I'm not sure, not without modern mapping," she paused to return an inquisitive Lulu back to her shoulder, the scrubbie purbling in protest. "I recognize a lot of these landmarks though, at least when the mists clear. Have you got any of your own navigational issues sorted?"

"Nada," replied Dana. "We're still drifting in the upper layers of the fog. If we go lower we get swarmed, and if we go higher the wind shear spins us around. The altimeter's busted, but we figured out 'Miros can just reform after we throw him overboard for an altitude measurement."

"How'd you talk him into that?"

"We didn't, Foz just tossed him when he complained about the food."

Morgan tittered, unable to keep the laughter in and setting Lulu to wurbling excitedly along with its mistress.

"So what do you do, just wait to see how long the screams fade?"

"Nah, Kels can always tell how far away 'Miros is thanks to whatever his shadow copy skill is. We're creeping east and south, over the lowlands you described. It's eerie, a sea of total white. At least we're able to avoid the mountain tops."

"Are you still getting the other signal you mentioned? I'm not picking up anything like that…"

"The tablet isn't as sensitive as the scanners on my suit. There's definitely a repeating signal, and it's not naturally occurring. It's too regular. I'm working on a new rudder to replace the one that snapped when we took off, and then we're going to head in that direction to see who is out here saying hello."

"How are Marjie and the cubs handling being on a flying ship?"

"Hibernating! They totally ditched the storage hold where we first put them, and I found them all three in a big furball in a crawlspace under the engine room!"

"That's so adorable it hurts!"

The Titan suddenly lurched, changing direction without warning and almost throwing Morgan off her crystalline seat.

"Whoa! Something's up," she said, peering into the fog with her magically enhanced vision as they began moving up a gentle slope.

"Be careful!" came the reply. "I'll keep my suit's receivers online all day, give me an update soonest."

"Ten-four," answered the sorceress before hastily stowing the tablet back inside a rune on her belt tattoo.

The Titan didn't seem unduly agitated, so Morgan wasn't worried overmuch. On the other hand, lessons hard learned had taught her to trust nothing in the Wildlands. She peered into the fog as they slowly ascended, using her other senses as much as her occluded sight. The trees here were looming shadows in the icy mist, thrice again as tall as the Titan as he picked his way between them.

He paused in a large clearing, what would have been a gently rolling meadow any other time of year was a barren scape of wind-smoothed snow and gentle dips where drifts had piled up. The mist seemed to thin, and in the unsettling quiet that descended when her father went still, she heard faint rustling.

CAW!

The sound startled her but the Titan remained motionless. The fog continued to fade away, leaving starkly outlined trees lining the clearing. And, lining the trees, starkly outlined ravens.

Thousands of them. Even as she watched, more rustling of feathers and muffled wingbeats heralded the arrival of yet more ravens, claiming what little room remained to perch on limbs dry and twisted in the frigid winter air. Black eyes with a glint of red, the ravens all stared at the trio, and Lulu huddled closer to Morgan's neck with a clearly frightened wurble.

The silence held for several tense heartbeats, until the Titan began to shake with a rumble. Morgan clung to the spike of crystal that protruded from his shoulder, ready to flee instead of getting caught up in a titanic battle.

Until she realized the Titan was laughing.

Terrible, ground shaking laughter that set the forest quaking and scattered the ravens in a storm of outraged caws and squawks. The rumbling faded and Max continued forward, parting the trees as the last of the mist faded and stepping onto a familiar stone path. The ravens swirled overhead, voicing their irritation at his mockery but he ignored them as he paced steadily forward.

The stone roadway, made from repeating patterns of geometrically interlocking pavers, was not the moss covered and detritus strewn pathway Morgan remembered from her original travels to First Raven's Roost. These stones were perfectly clean of any debris, or snow or ice, and her guess was proven correct as she noticed several scrubbies shuffling along where snow had fallen in their passing. The broods seemed to have found a niche to fill in the wilds, content to scrub away at the polished stones. It lent an eerie cast to the abandoned city as it loomed into view, with all the dirt and stains of millenia scrubbed away. Marble and slate and once rusted iron now gleamed in the cold winter atmosphere, though the pitting and many other types of damage still scarred most surfaces she could see as the Titan shambled casually up to a massive gate.

The gate itself was open, but shadows wreathed the arch above the path. The ravens settled on every rooftop, every post, and the crenellations along the remains of the outer wall. The shadows over the gate intensified, shifting from a blur to a solid form, not a raven but a Raven.

A Raven that blurred once more, as a woman stepped out its shadow and the corvidian shadow collapsed inwards. Moghren stood upon the gate, leaning on her cane with one hand, staring intently down at the Titan and Morgan. Down, but not by much, as Max stood nearly tall enough to clip the gate with the crystals protruding from his head.

"So ye've returned, to High Avalon."

Morgan looked back at the elder witch, and her ancestor. "You said getting wings would wound my soul, back then, not that you couldn't do it. You said I needed to level and grow into my class first."

"Indeed I did, but I spake not unto thee."

The Titan gave an amused rumble, nodding his massive head. Gently, without dislodging Morgan.

"Ye've come to claim payment then?"

He simply stared in silence.

"Wait, what do you mean payment!?" demanded Morgan.

"Payment for bargains made child, and though he be blood kin tis not my tale to tell ye."

"That's bullshit! What kind of bargain?"

"A task needed doing, and so did Maxwell Mackenzie set himself to the work. His duty demanded more than a mere man could achieve, yet he has never failed in that duty even as it changed him."

Morgan's anger rose with her worry and concern, fire tracing flickers across her tattoos. "Changed him!? Did you do this to him!? I swear I'll-"

She managed no further words before she was encased in vines, more growing even as they burned away. The Titan gently pulled her from his shoulder, lowering her to the ground and turning her to look up at him as he shook he head.

"He has the right of it, girl-child! Swear no oaths this night! Lest ye be bound unto tasks ye be unable to complete!"

The Titan growled up at the Witch, a low, rumbling emanation that conveyed threat and resolution, and shook the grounds enough to startle the ravens back into flight.

"Yes, Moghren keeps her word!" said the old woman. "But you want me to repay by gifting to the lass. Ye be knowing as well as I, the refusal hides behind her lips lest she think I can restore you."

"I'm right here," said Morgan. "Don't talk over me like I'm not. He said you never lie. Can you not make him like he was?"

"T'was not I that made him like he is," Moghren said flatly. "What he chose for himself cannot be undone by the likes of I. But to pay what is owed, a gift I shall give unto thee."

With that the old woman flickered, shadows spreading out as she vanished back into her avian form. She winged her way back towards the middle of the gleaming, frozen city without another word.

Morgan looked up at the Titan angrily, with one hand on her hip.

"You have some explaining to do."

But he remained silent.