[Hlaeth] Ch 19 - Eternal and Falling Answers

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            “If you want to be the Ranger Lord who hunts evil across the cosmos and the planes, then become it! If you want to be the Warden whose lands are a whole continent, or a world entire, then become it! If you want to be the Archer who can spit a manticore through the eye from the horizon, then become it!” I continued confidently.

            “The Road Eternal is not restricted to bloody spellcasters!… although being a Caster certainly doesn’t hurt when trying to get there,” I added in a calmer tone of voice, catching them all off-guard, and eliciting belated chuckles from them for it.

            “Master Aelryinth, why did you list our ability to fly among our magical abilities?” Brass Laufengel spoke up brightly. “You do know we have wings, right?” he said jokingly.

            “Is that a serious question, Elder?” I asked back in a calm voice. “Or are you trying to be humorous?”

            The lighter expressions of the dragons, thinking to have caught me in an error, fell away as they regarded me again.

            “Well, there are dragons who have no wings, it is true,” Laufengel admitted cautiously. “But those of us who do…”

            “...fly about as well as those who do not?” I interjected calmly, and she fell quiet again at the logic. “One might wonder why that is, if one thinks about it. Have you never experienced a Stillflight Field, Elders?” I asked calmly.

            They glanced at one another narrowly. “That is not a spell that I am familiar with,” Gold Coronus answered for all of them. “What does it do?”

            “There are two versions. The first version is more complex and powerful, and does not allow anything to leave contact with the ground. It thus shuts down jumping, throwing things, shooting things, and any and all forms of flight. Nothing can leave contact with the ground.”

            I flicked up the Holo showing someone throwing a spear, only it would not leave contact with his hand and drove itself into the ground, still touching his fingers. An archer shot an arrow, and it stopped at the edge of his bow, feathers still touching it, then dropped down his fingers and along the ends of the bow until its end touched the ground and it fell flat normally.

            A bird tried to hop, flapping its wings wildly, and only stirred the pebbles and dust on the ground, but raised not a hint of a dust cloud.

            “The second version merely prevents all magical forms of levitation, flight, aeromantic movement, telekinetic motion, and other means and methods that defy gravity, up to and including ethereal movement, phasing, shapeshifting into something that should be able to fly, and the like.” I inclined my head slightly. “It may interest you to know that no dragons can fly in a Stillflight Field. We have used mass deployment of Stillflight Fields to bring down whole flights of dragons, as well as render them unable to take back to the air and flee. Many dragons are not even strong enough to glide stably as they fall, and their landings tend to be horrendous, with wings snapping, bones breaking, and the like.

            “Of course, once they are on the ground, their movement capabilities are heavily curtailed without use of flight, and they can be encircled and brought down with relative ease compared to a three-dimensional fight.”

            I could sense quite a bit of disquiet about them at my claim, but they couldn’t bring themselves to doubt me. “Would this be something you could demonstrate, Master Aelryinth?” Bronze Clangrill asked with definite interest.

            “Are you going to return to your natural form to test it out, Elder?” I asked archly. “Also, you four elven guards floating in the air to escort us while thinking you are Invisible, you’d best get very close to the ground if I Cast this spell,” I added in Magevoice.

            The dragons did indeed smile slightly at that, having noticed the guards long ago but saying nothing. It wasn’t like they were truly a threat.

            “I would be interested in testing out this spell,” the Bronze Wyrm admitted. “Against an unprepared foe, it sounds impressive.”

            We’d come to an open meadow, perfect for picnics and spontaneous parties. “As you wish, Elder,” I invited him with a wave.

            He didn’t so much walk over there as expand out in that direction. The seemingly tanned sylvan elf with bronze skin and green and brown robes flowed up and out into a thickly scaled dragon of immense size, over a hundred and twenty feet long, with his broad tail nearly as long on top of that. The bronze of his scales was gleaming as if polished, even as the edges were stained green with the verdigris of age, and more than a few scars and jagged badges of battle crossed them here and there.

            He was a big fellow who’d seen a lot of tooth and claw fighting, and wasn’t afraid to endure more of it if needed.

            His emerald-green eye was watching me carefully, but I was unaffected by his draconic Aura at all, and he only projected it for a moment, wary of the elves about who might be overwhelmed by it. He did spread wings that had also seen some fighting and never healed perfectly, creased and crossed by old scars that didn’t seem to have any effect on his ability to fly.

            “Initiating a Stillflight Field,” I announced, and tapped Mortus Dius down for emphasis.

            It startled even the dragons that I didn’t need to gesture, or say anything, and the tapping of my Staff was symbolic. They all watched the field of force spread out, and their lips pursed as they read just how high the Caster Level was on this spell as it flared out to over five hundred feet in every direction.

            I could have Widened it without cost, but had no reason to do so.

            There were shouts of surprise as startled elven guards who’d ignored my words fell out of the sky abruptly, crashing to the ground below awkwardly. It only cost them some Soak, but it was clearly embarrassing to them, and I let them drop as a lesson that polite spellcasters generally aren’t lying when they announce warnings.

            The Wyrm in front of me, head forty feet above the ground, eyed the elves to make sure they were only humbled and not harmed, then lifted his wings and beat them, springing into the air.

            Quite the gust of wind was generated, blowing back the clothes of those around me, although Primus sniffed silently on my finger and utterly refused to let even a strand of my hair be moved. The mighty Clangrill left the ground… and came crashing right back down to it, rather marring the green of the ground and soil, and even uttering an exclamation in surprise.

            The dragons watched in growing concern as he leapt and beat his wings multiple times, furiously, and simply wasn’t able to sustain even a moment of real flight, barely even able to slow down his jumps into the sky. Like a great bronzed cat, he poised and pounced and tried to beat his wings long enough, hard enough to gain some altitude… and simply could not.

            At last he stopped, panting a bit, and turned a wary eye on me, standing there leaning on Mortus Dius, unruffled by the winds he’d thrown up, the meadow rather torn up and shredded underneath his weight and claws. “I concede your point, Master Aelryinth. I am unable to fly in this Field of yours.”

            I pursed my lips together and warbled a tune to the air.

            A moment later, a score of songbirds had converged upon me and were flying about me, landing on my shoulders, my head, my arms, and even Mortus’ cap fearlessly, chattering and fluttering without any difficulties whatsoever.

            Another warbling sent them on their way, and they flitted off, watched by every eye present, clearly unaffected by the Stillflight Field.

            “A Stillflight Field has no effect on creatures that can naturally fly,” I repeated calmly. “Dragons fly using magic to offset their great mass and weight. Your wings would have to be at least four times the size they are to generate enough lift to get you off the ground, Elder, and your strength correspondingly greater to move them.” A minor Illusion to his spread wings, and translucent representations of them expanded to over double the length, each of them longer than his entire body and proportionately wider, too. “Also, you’d have to be constantly working at it, much like a bird, as gliding would be precarious at best, and so flight would be very taxing, as your wings are not feathered and thus are quite heavy. Certainly you’d have none of the grace and power in the air that you claim now.”

            The revealed elven guards had also tried repeatedly to resume their flying via magic, and were unable to, everyone had noticed.

            “The area of this spell is quite large,” Coronus observed quietly.

            “That is the quick version of the spell, ten foot radius per Caster Level. The long form of it is ten paces per Caster Level, and the Ward-level, permanent area-denial version of it can be a hundred paces per Caster Level, able to prevent flying and jumping shenanigans across an entire battlefield or city with little problem. The quick casting version lasts a minute per Caster Level; the long form ten minutes per; the Ward form hours, until dawn, or it is made permanent.

            “We don’t have problems with flying monsters or individuals in our cities. You want to fly, you start outside the city. Dragons coming in to dive-bomb us with breath weapons or spells fall out of the sky, crash into the ground, and lose their heads… as have at least a hundred other kinds of flying things that thought they had a good thing going.”

            Bronze Cangrill flowed back down into his elven social form, his expression thoughtful as he walked through the ravaged meadow to rejoin us. I didn’t see any of the dragons making motions to fix the damage, probably confident the elven gardeners could handle it easily, so I just sighed to myself.

            Shape Stone Downcast was Shape Dirt, after all.

            The damage to the field rippled and straightened itself, thrown dirt shuffled back where it belonged, bringing the grass and roots with it as it moved, smoothing out craters and furrows from immense footprints and great talons, and in a visible wave of motion, restored the entire meadow to pristine condition, only some bent grass stalks here and there.

            Elves and dragons watched the ten-second show in some surprise and consternation, since I hadn’t Cast any obvious spell, and yet the restoration was accomplished with smooth control and speed.

            “Is there any counter to a spell like this?” Silver Styllaris asked carefully, obviously considering the ramifications of being limited inside one.

            “Counters? No. The spell is an instantaneous reinforcement of natural laws that resist magical attempts to bend them. There is nothing to Dispel, only to wait for the natural strengthening to fade away and end.

            “Tactics, yes. The only quasi-magic that will affect flight that works inside a Stillflight Field is Feather Fall, which works on the basis of dispersing mass out into the surrounding area, not with aeromancy. You can initiate a Featherweight, start to glide, turn around, and remove yourself from the area of the Field.” I gestured up a Holo of Elder Cangrill plummeting out of the sky, murmuring the spell, and suddenly slowing down to a mere foot per second drop. He spread his wings and rapidly turned to glide in the opposite direction, beating his wings and shooting away once out of the area.

            “Alternatively, you can summon up a Gust of Wind or similar effect, and blow yourself quickly out of the area of effect. Be prepared to go tumbling.” The same scene repeated, but this time the great and mighty Featherweighted Wyrm was blown away like a stray leaf, tumbling end over end in a hasty attempt to get out of the area.

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