Do a barrel roll!

[Falling With Style]

Closed to Ballantyne.

And, apologies for the title. *Runs.*

An old monk hobbled quietly through the Citadel’s entrance hall. To a challenger he would have gone unnoticed, and indeed he did as the various bloodthirsty types strode haughtily through his hall. A seven-foot bladed demon glared all around, daring anyone to take it on, while a dangerous-looking young wretch clothed only in torn pants looked ready to do so. Nobody bothered the aged monk as he went about his rounds.

The one who did emerged from the crowd quite suddenly, though with none of the murderous intent of her colleagues-in-line. She moved with a purpose, striding up to the man with a brief greeting.

“’Afternoon.”

The monk turned around. Ah, it was the girl who’d stepped so gleefully into that excellent arena he’d cooked up for the unpleasant young man Jolex. He smiled, showing surprisingly good teeth for his advanced age.

“The young wizard, she who works the star magic, I presume?”

“Call me Alcyone,” replied the wizard. “I’ve got…I’ve got this thing, bit like a compass. Won’t leave me alone. Here, take a look for yourself…”

She produced a meteorite, scorched and pitted from its fall to earth, shaped like a caltrop lacking the top point. It balanced itself upon the wizard’s open palm and, compass-like, pointed the way.

Directly to the old monk.

The man smiled, again with the surprisingly good teeth. Alcyone made a mental note: Learn healing magic before you get old. “Aha,” mused the monk. “But what is it?”

“It opens,” she said tiredly. “Yet another riddle/correspondence from Mizar.”

“The gnome?”

“My professor, the gnome,” replied the wizard resignedly. She grabbed the forward spindle and twisted it clockwise, whereupon the front spindle unscrewed and slid out. A quick shake dislodged the parchment inside, a yellowed scroll which the monk's eyes devoured gleefully. Alcyone was impressed; the gravity runes upon this scroll weren't easy at all to read considering they distended as you read, always pulling your eye back towards the center.

“Aha,” replied the monk finally. “Very simple.”

The wizard Alcyone ran a hand through her curtain of rust-colored hair. “I was afraid you’d say that. Please tell me it’s not another fight.”

The old monk’s face adopted that irritating sereneness he wore after her embarrassing battle against Jolex. “And why would you think that?”

A rhetorical question; the monk couldn’t possibly expect her to take that question seriously when she was standing in the middle of the Citadel, home of the grandest gladiatorial combat in Althanas. Alcyone blinked unamusedly at him.

“Look, all I want to hear are a few simple words – ‘here’s your menial errand.’ Please. Something that doesn’t involve a blasted Citadel battle.”

The monk still wore his poker face. “Fine. Here’s…”

…the scrap of parchment fluttered to the floor…

“…your menial errand.”

Before the wizard could react, the scroll lit up. The gravity runes twisted into a dot of blackness in its center, then vomited up a column of stars and black velvet. And then Alcyone was falling, falling far faster than nine point eight meters per second, falling through a tunnel and when she looked up that blasted monk’s grinning mug was looking down at her, she looked down and holy shit blue sky-

Whoosh!

Alcyone fell into the wide open blue sky, yelling all the while.

“….Mizar, youuu bastaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrd…..!”

[Ballantyne]

Evan hid behind a glass of blood red wine and a low tipped fedora hat as he sat in a pub booth surrounded by five of Lilith’s new girlfriends. If there was one thing his sister was good for it was making new friends fast. It was just a shame she never chose people Evan liked. He was not to be confused with a man who didn’t like being surrounded by women. Evan loved women, especially beautiful women, but these were grown girls and Evan didn’t like girls. The Southerner had endured at least thirty minutes of purely shallow feminine conversation. They spoke of concepts that bore no relevance, and laughed at punch lines that weren’t even present. It annoyed him.

“Get it Evan? She was stuck… He’s absolutely gorgeous and he’s very mean. I think I’m going to give him a shot… I need more sugar in my tea.”

It hurt his ears to hear.

It was only a few weeks ago that Evan Uno Ballentyne made the decision to leave his home in the Great South and permanently relocate to Radasanth. Southerners like he and his sister were a part of a very well balanced society where things like war, hunger, and crime were very rare. Instead they made games of these social plagues and would often take vacations to conflict ridden countries like Raiaera and Corone just to experience them first hand. He wanted to experience the game for life so he decided to move. Over the past week or so he had seen the sights of Radasanth, met fun and interesting people, and done things he had never dreamed of. However, he saved one spectacle for last, for that very moment he would grow bored.

It was finally time to experience the Citadel.

“Excuse me, ladies, I’d love to stick around and chat but…” Evan kept a dry face as he stood up from the table. “Aw, Hell. I don’t need a reason.”

There was a lady on both sides of him blocking his way out of the booth, so he chose an alternate route and walked straight across the table delicately placing his feet between the plates and cups. Lilith’s friends yelped statements of objection to Evan’s rude behavior. Evan dropped from the table, wine still in hand as he gave his hat to his sister.

“Headed to the Citadel, Baby Boy?” The otherwise articulate Evan nodded his head in silent ambiguity. Lilith knew his plans and intentions. She batted her blue eyes jokingly. “Aw, did we annoy you that much?”

“No, Sis. You ladies just bored me that much.” He took a last sip of his wine, placed the empty glass on the table, and made his way out. “Lunch is on you.”

Locating the Citadel was simple. Evan only need be look up into the earth tone skyline of the city and find the only ziggurat structure towering over it all. There it was to the west.

“Pardon me.” A young bald man and archaic draping for clothing approached the Southerner. “Might you be Evan Uno Ballantyne from the Great South?”

He looked around suspiciously then looked back at the bald man. “No. Who are you?”

“Excuse my forward thoughts, but you might want to practice on your tools of deception.” The bald one said with a chuckle. He extended his hand with a piece of old fashioned parchment on it. “You have no need to fear. I am a monk from the Citadel sent to offer you this invitation to battle.”

Evan took the parchment and examined it. Nothing. The only thing that graced the slip was a flurry of ridges and folds. He narrowed his eyes in confusion and suddenly all was black. Evan’s stomach lurched in a feeling only experienced by a man who could fly. He was falling, and he had to figure out which way was down or he wouldn’t be falling for long. The Southerner twisted and turned his body until he could clearly discern which way was down by visual and kinesthetic indications. Visually his eyes had adjusted. He could see the blinking stars within the obsidian blackness and where that blackness turned into a blue sky. Kinesthetically his stomach, now filled with tenderloin and cabernet sauvignon pushed and pulled back into the rest of his body depending on whichever direction he faced.

Ballantyne had only been this high up once, and he knew the further he fell the faster he would plummet. In order to conserve energy and land safely he’d have to slow himself down every few minutes without bringing himself to a complete halt. He knew good and well that it was never the fall that killed, but the immediate halt that did. He could easily do that to himself, and in experimenting with this power he had often hurt himself with sudden stops and twists. It was a good thing he knew what to do now for an enemy was on the loose and looking for him.

[Falling With Style]

The wizard Alcyone fell through the sky. Clouds zoomed away above her like sheep flung from a catapult and wind clawed at her face. She knew what she had to do. Scrambling for her goggles, she yanked them -and a large contingent of hair- over her eyes. The wind howling in her ears, Alcyone fumbled with her magestaff and pulled down a small panel of polished brass.

It wasn’t parchment, but it’d have to do. Out went the charcoal, where she mashed a hurried sigil upon her writing space. It’s a good thing you do this by memory, girl, the wizard told herself. Considering her goggles were still in poor shape and her hair was everywhere, trying to jot down a free-fall sigil by sight would be a nightmare. Her heart whirled inside her, a furious pulsar. Alcyone scribbled madly to get her sigil down.

Finally, the forces all aligned and convinced gravity to look the other way. The screaming winds backed off and the clouds slowed their mad retreat, coming first to a jog, then a stroll, before finally halting. Alcyone let out the breath she’d been holding. Phew.

A breeze ruffled her plain green robe. Alcyone seethed quietly inside it; the professors’ constant meddling in her tasks was very quickly getting tiresome. Falling from idiotic heights was something she could certainly handle, but Mizar and his cronies were fast passing out of her realm of patience. A wry eyebrow quirked at the thought.

Nevertheless, Alcyone had work to do here whether she wanted it or not. Her sharp eyes scanned the blue sky, passing over clouds and looking for an opponent to vent some steam upon. The breeze ruffled her rusty brown hair, kicking it unhelpfully around her goggles.

A black speck appeared in the vastness of the sky. The wizard followed it, watching it approach by minute increments of inclination and declination on the celestial dome. Her heart, still beating quickly from the fall, picked up in her chest as the unidentified object flew nearer…

[Ballantyne]

A turbulent as flight initially seemed to be for the body; once it caught up with the velocity, flight was a very soothing experience. On numerous occasions Evan found it to be an adequate stress relief. Within a moment his stomach had calmed down, his sense of direction had been restored, and he had regained his mental composure. Alas he was still falling, but judging by the fact that he was high enough to see the stars and it was clearly daytime just went to show how long he had before that became a real concern. What concerned him foremost was the fact that someone else was up here. At the speed he was dropping Evan couldn’t use his eyes. He had to slow himself down to take a look around.

The Southerner turned his back to the distant ground and tightened all the muscles in his body. His drop became wobbly as the mysterious forces of the universe came under his control. It was imperative that he make this a gradual slowdown. Halting himself immediately would be just as deadly as hitting the ground. It was a slow process one that would take a couple of moments, but he would need to do it if he were to be able to perform the proper evasive maneuvers.

By the time Evan brought himself to a manageable speed he was surrounded by corral reefs and mountain ridges made of white cotton. The air was pure and crisp. It wasn’t stuffed with the scent of imposing perfumes, vermin or sweat. There was no ambient choir of screaming babies, rolling carriages or blasting furnaces. All he could hear was the moving air and the bass thunder of the giant anvil cloud in the distance. This was a nice little break. Evan made a note to do this more often as he slowly scooped up and focused on the task at hand.

Even as he was reorienting himself with his surroundings the Southerner had easily put two and two together. This was a battle, and at least one other person was up here. The air above him was clear. He would have seen someone against a solid background even as the starry black sky faded away. No smart flyer would have gone anywhere near the storm cloud in the distance. All that lightning would be too big of a risk. Surely enough, a black projectile was moving along a ridge of clouds below him, and it lacked wings.

Ballantyne couldn’t help but smile as he opened his right palm to his opponent. Only moments ago was he sitting in a booth surrounded by gossiping girls. Now he was about to begin the time of his life fighting someone in the clouds! Tension built in his wrist and it was released as a hot blue beam aimed at his new opponent.

[Falling With Style]

Shoom! The energy beam sizzled through the wizard’s sleeve, bringing with it a column of hot air.

“Grand,” snarked Alcyone, “more blue energy.”

Blue energy beams; the last thing she wanted to see after her fight against the man who called himself “Jolex.” A nightmare that had been – one blast of energy after another slamming into her thin frame while the scorching sun beat down upon them. She’d had to pull some dirty tricks to avoid being turned into a putty that day. Jolex - he called himself a "saiyan," whatever that meant - nevertheless had a very particular energy signature, and something about today's opponent reminded her of it. If only she could put her finger on it...!

“Fine,” the wizard admitted. “I’ll play.”

Alcyone concentrated and swept the magestaff in an arc to shift her glowing sigil; gravity bent immediately and yanked her across the sky. She’d improved her skill at freefalling; instead of the usual erratic tumble the wizard now managed an unsteady upright stance in her flight.

But instead of returning fire just yet, this wizard had something else in mind: theatrics. She closed her eyes, feeling the cool wind whipping hair across her face and buffeting cloth robes, and stuck a hand out. Her fingers clenched into a fist, which she pulled back, dragging the space with it. The air before her shimmered and distorted as space funneled itself back into a cone that moved with her. Alcyone took a breath.

“’Afternoon!” The vortex gathered air and launched her voice broadly across the sky. “Can I ask just who the hell’s shooting at me?”

Theatrical liberty with the Gravity Pummel power, if it's not apparent. Not actually going to attack with it.

[Ballantyne]

Evan missed, as was expected from this great distance. It was simply a warning shot, and if it happened to hit his target good for him. Being as he was in the middle of a Citadel battle and knowing that he would be revived; there was no harm in ‘introducing’ himself to his enemy. That made the battle that much more honorable if he’d cared. He just thought it might be more fun and challenging to let the enemy know he was present.

Now he was close enough to make out a few details about his enemy. Whoever it was, their cross section was narrow and they had flight appropriate apparel, unlike Evan. Flapping fabric was not aerodynamic, and a black tunic and trousers in a white and blue sky was not proper camouflage. His attack clued him in on how his opponent flew through the air… erratically. It was almost as if they weren’t falling, but using a source of propulsion in bursts of energy that blasted them one way. That had to have been torture for the inner organs as they were yanked in all different directions.

The opponent redirected herself into an upright position and hailed the Southerner, asking for his name. He thought it best to be polite for now and introduce himself as “Your opponent. I’m pleased to meet your acquaintance.”

Perhaps Evan pissed his female opponent off enough to provoke the following action or she was planning on doing it all along. He would have liked to think it was the former. She extended a limb and the space between the two of them distorted into a concave abyss as if she was able to bend reality itself to her will. If that was the case then the two of them had something in common, and she was way ahead in that commonality than he was. Nevertheless he had to avoid it her.

Evan broke his own cardinal rule of flight by bringing himself to a halt. He even made a spectacle of it by pushing his heels forward as if he were coming to a sliding halt on the ground. If this girl was more powerful than him he’d have to use stealth and the only thing that could hide him up here was a cloud. His closest refuge was a wall of smoky condensation about fifty yards away at his right. It was only the atrium to a vast ridge of cotton that wrapped around like crescent coral reef. It would be an ideal place to try out a plan that he had concocted years ago but never had the opportunity to experiment with. Evan turned himself with a gesture resembling a breast stroke and accelerated towards the cloud.

[Falling With Style]

Gliding to a halt, the wizard let the staff hang in midair while she rubbed her sore upper arm. That display of power had cost her in energy and her lungs pistoned hotly inside her chest.

From the looks of things, she had him scared. It’d been worth it.

“Cheeky bastard,” Alcyone panted. “I’ve got him running.” Indeed, the tiny black figure of her opponent had turned and propelled himself through the blue sky, accelerating himself towards a cloud. She studied his movement, watching how the arms sculled backwards in the turns like a swimmer’s, briefly convincing air into water. The wizard narrowed her eyes. Swimming through the air like that, her opponent would outmaneuver her easily at close range.

But, noted Alcyone with a corresponding grin, he wasn’t fast. Whoever he was, clearly he hadn’t realized the three-dimensional nature of this fight just yet.

The witch’s eyes closed in concentration behind her goggles, snatching the staff and thrusting it forwards. Gravity’s hand closed around her, accelerating her upwards and out like she’d jumped off an Escher painting.

The cloud loomed larger as Alcyone zoomed towards it, tacking diagonally up its slope. Bits of wispy wool blew past her as she ascended. The man in black sped along below her, arcing into a large cavity in the cloud’s mass. His odd style of flight made it hard to put an estimate on his approximate mass, and she’d need that for her calculations.

Finally, Alcyone crested the top of the cloud, looking down into the floating atoll of water vapor. Hovering there with parchment in hand, she began to scribble down a few incomplete diagrams…

[Ballantyne]

Evan closed his eyes for a quick moment as the thick moisture of the cloud smacked him in the face like an angry ex. Funny he should make such a familiar comparison. When he opened his eyes all that filled his vision was a muted silver mist. Although visibility was cut down to less than a few feet it was always wise to check one’s surroundings. For all the Southerner knew the lady bird could have pursued him into the cloud and was right behind him. At such a startling thought Evan once again came to an abrupt halt rotated his body every which way to make sure his opponent wasn’t on either side, above, or below him.

That’s what amused and frightened him about this aerial battlefield. All his life he had been the only man in the air. None of his family or friends possessed the ability to fly, the people who did take flight were only acquaintances and they rarely enjoyed it like he did, and the most dangerous thing he ever had to deal with was his own mistakes and a couple of angry birds of prey. Flight was often a method of retreat or an element of surprise, the prologue or epilogue of a tactical storyline, but never the full body. Needless to say this was a first for Ballentyne, but he had imagined this day on several occasions and the first part of his plan had been carried out.

First he had to find a cloud to take cover in, check. Now he had to force his opponent to play dangerous version of ‘find the mole’. Ballentyne accelerated forward again with both his hands balled up into fists. At certain intervals of distance or time within the cloud he opened up a fist and a small sphere of light would expand ever filling that hand. The spheres grew in heat until he could no longer hold them, at which point he would release them to float freely where they were left. He ended this phase after leaving four of these spheres behind in random points inside the cloud, and then he made sure to take a sharp dive just for good measure.

The four spheres slowly grew in heat and luminosity inside the cloud, and Evan made sure to keep his distance.

[Falling With Style]

The man in black fled across the sky, and the witch…didn’t follow.*

He’d cruised into the cloud’s fluffy mass, the one place she had no intention of going. For one, she had no method of echolocation, being neither bat nor shrew. (Disregarding certain ex-boyfriends’ comments, o’course.) Perhaps more pressingly, though, she’d stupidly etched her sigils in charcoal. The wizard cursed her lack of foresight; the watery mass of a cloud would eat at the dry diagrams, causing them to run and prove dangerous for her.

“Hell of a game of cat and mouse,” Alcyone mused. Disconcerting though, that she couldn’t yet figure out which was which in this fight.

The wizard Alcyone wondered if she was more experienced in aerial combat than this opponent. After all, there was the encounter with those damned birds in high Salvian airspace, but she’d been charged full of lunar –lunatic?- energy, freeing her from the restrictions of sigils and diagrams. That battle hadn’t really represented her normal ability, but damn had it felt good. Something primal inside her relished the sight of those ravens crushed by the thousands and incinerated in pillars of light as fiery hot meteors rained down all around.

She released her clenched fist, which still burned from her theatrics’ effort. If only the celestial sphere was cooperating with her! Neither full nor new moon sat in the sky; there were no planetary alignments to speak of nor any odd comets or novae. Without any of this to augment her power, the wizard Alcyone was on her own.

“Ugh, on my own indeed,” she reminded herself. Above her glared a blank blue sky in the rapture of late afternoon, while below her the massive cloud stretched downily outwards. It glowed from within like a childbirthing nebula; apparently her opponent had come up with some tactic involving simulated stars within the fluffy expanse.

To be honest, it was beautiful as hell.

“If he’s some kind of stalker,” Alcyone admitted, “he’s the best one I’ve ever had.”

The wizard glided gently above the glowing cloud, looking down through the tinted lenses of her scorched Alerian airshipman’s goggles. Four such stars burst forth inside the cloud; to what purpose she couldn’t fathom. Perhaps he had expected her to follow and catch a burn from them?

No matter. Alcyone could come up with a deception of her own.

She ticked the last few rays on some of her incomplete diagrams, and collected the sun. A column of sunlight, six inches in diameter and uncomfortably hot to the touch –sadly, not exactly damaging- stabbed into the cloud. It moved erratically around as if a wizard were using it to ferret out her quarry.

Which she was, but not directly.

The sun-beam came from a point fifty meters to her east, still moving like a searchlight. The intent wasn’t necessarily to hit him with the beam (honestly, it wasn’t very powerful, and she had the uncooperative cosmos to thank for that), but to provide a decoy, a phantom light source for him to shoot at.

Meanwhile, the wizard Alcyone hid behind a tuft of cloud rather the same size as a small house. She waited.

*With apologies to Stephen King.

[Ballantyne]

Evan stopped his descent once he’d passed through the bottom of the cloud. It was a thin cloud, but it was miles in length, and judging from the speed of the wind it rode on he had a comfortable amount of time before it would pass them. Hopefully he wouldn’t need it for cover too much longer. He glanced down and saw that they were high enough to see the entire Corone island from here. It was then that the question occurred to him. Why does every landmass look like a foot from up here?

The Southerner brought himself back to attention as he looked back up at the battlefield. By this point his spheres had become so bright that they rivaled the sun in their combined luminescence. He would have to dispose of them soon because their heat would start to dry out the cloud and his cover would be blown. However, if they were bright enough they would cause flair in one’s natural vision, and if he maintained a position directly under them he still wouldn’t be seen. He needed his opponent to make a move… and she did.

A concentrated beam of golden sunlight pierced through the clouds and scanned an area relative to his sapphire beacons. It came down at an angle not matching that of the sun’s rays, which cascaded directly downwards. Evan raised a hand as the solar powered spotlight moved about, revealing the location of its source with every move it made. Its warmth was almost comforting as it slowly grew closer to him, but just before it could unveil him, he waved his hand forward, launching all four spheres in the predicted location of its source.

That was about it for Evan as far as fancy spheres and burning beams went. To use another such attack would take from the reserve energy he would require to safely land. If the lady bird survived the attack he would have to finish the battle with his xiphos. Evan ascended into the cloud once again to locate his opponent.

Sorry for the wait.

[Falling With Style]

With the cold burn in her lungs subsiding and the wind gently buffeting her robes, the wizard’s mind began to drift…

...bones ached from the battle earlier that day. The Angry Man’s roar of laughter still echoed in her ears, and endlessly his glowing fist smashed her jaw in. What had his name been – Rolex, was it? No matter what it was, he still hurt like hell, and he’d thoroughly beaten her. Alcyone rubbed her face instinctively, searching for a seam in her jawbone and finding none.

The blue night found Alcyone perched atop a green hill outside Radasanth, watching the stars and drawing lines in the dirt. She retrieved a small vial from her pack, crusted upon the inside with viscous dark blood courtesy of the Angry Man. Her brass-capped magestaff had torn a jagged wound in his face, just before his energy shield materialized and threw her across the square. The metal flanges hadn’t relinquished all the blood despite an hour of disassembly and cleaning, but they’d yielded enough.

Enough for a single experiment, at least. Alcyone uncorked the vial and held it over her incomplete meteor sigil. Slowly, deliberately, she shook a line of dark red powder into a trajectory. A line that weaved through planets, dodged asteroids and arced into Althanas’ atmosphere, sizzling into a certain familiar corner of Fallien, where students and professors alike would collect and study her results.

WHOOSH!

Alcyone snapped out of her daydream. One after another, the glowing stars accelerated massively out of the cloud toward the tiny sun-lens focus she’d conjured. The noise was incredible: a harsh roar of air superheated by the blue-hot masses, churning aside cloud mass and creating contrails of steam behind them. One, two roared past her at a fair distance, while a third one tore by too close for comfort, bringing with it a blistering sirocco. That left…

The wizard’s head snapped around, a brief centrifuge of rusty hair. “Ah, sh-”

The last (and largest) star thundered towards her, rapidly filling up her entire field of vision. Alcyone’s curses were drowned out by the roar of superheated wind. She dropped the scraps of parchment instantly. They’d be some work to replace, and it’d kill her solar lens but it was her or the sigils. Easy choice. Sweat beaded upon her face as the glowing ball closed, practically upon her. The wizard grabbed her magestaff by the farrell at the bottom and practically threw it upwards as if chincracking some invisible monster.

Gravity grabbed her just as violently and catapulted her upwards as her parchments vanished, consumed by the roaring star. Immediately, the searching beam to her east winked off. And then, the fireball rolled into her. Blue flames clawed at her robes and singed her hair as the wizard held onto the magestaff for dear life.

It occurred to her briefly, incongruously that she’d seen this sort of thing before, in her fight with the Angry Man Jolex. And in that fight, every sphere of crackling energy he’d fired hadn’t resonated like normal magic. As a wizard, she could detect regular magic, but as an astromancer she could feel the infinitely subtler cosmic energy present in the Saiyan’s blows.

As the rather singed wizard fled out of the stampeding star, trailing cinders and burnt parchment behind her, she realized something. This guy’s magic, or whatever it was, resonated the exact same way as Jolex’s. It buzzed of plasma and infinitely subtle alterations of space and time and long derivatives expanding infinitely inwards upon themselves.

Alcyone also realized she’d been a colossal dunce this whole time.

“Mizar, you crafty bastard,” she hissed, a slow grin spreading across her pallid face. “You wanted a sample.”

And if it was a sample her professor wanted, it was a sample he'd get. Alcyone's eyes roved the clouds below her for prey.

“Let’s collect.”

[Falling With Style]

Going to use this one as the setup for "Falling Slowly." As we're ten posts in, it'd be a shame to just waste them. Sucks that Ballantyne's left, but I figure he'd have wanted it to end some way or another.

One and a half hours had passed since Alcyone's opponent had launched the stars at her. To her, it was an eternity.

Alcyone's quarry had long since disappeared. She hovered there, miserable as the kingfisher watching the fish get away. Her mind ran over all the experiments she could have conducted with merely a sample of hair - or blood, or skin, or even a trinket, saturated as it would be in the cosmic energy that ran through him.

Cold and stiff from flight, the wizard let her staff hang in midair while she removed the correspondence-meteorite from her pack. Like most meteorites, it was mainly composed of iron ore, but this one had a cavity embedded within it to store parchment and messages.

Might as well put this to some use.

The wizard had etched a good half-dozen astronomical sigils in ink as she waited, complete save for a line here or a number there. She stored them inside Mizar's meteorite. It likely had some sort of enchantment on it to protect its contents against atmospheric reentry and impact, considering it originally contained the scroll that sent her here in the first place.

Speaking of which, just where exactly was here anyway? Alcyone noted, with some disappointment, that the stars hadn't come out yet. She would have to wait until they did if she wanted to navigate. After all, the chances of a passing airship were slim to none, considering this certainly wasn't Alerar.

Alcyone sighed.

Well, at least I have some time to reflect. That's more than I've been granted lately.

She was beginning to tire of Mizar's games, for one. Everything that her professor did was completely obtuse - the little riddles, the convoluted labors, and now this. Why wouldn't he just tell her what he wanted, and leave the rest up to her own good judgment?

Perhaps he thinks I'm incompetent, thought the wizard, and a tang of annoyance went through her.

At the very least, he could have said he wanted to study these cosmic-empowered individuals, like Jolex, who called himself a 'Saiyan,' whatever that meant, and this guy, who'd fled as he had her on the ropes.

The wizard sat there in the sky, her inkwells and spare parchments making lazy orbits around her. The burn of exhaustion was gone, replaced by a general feeling of resignation and annoyance. She would have more than a few choice words for her professor on their next correspondence.

And I'm keeping your meteorite.

*****

Again, not the way I'd hoped it to end, but it's been the better part of a year, and this gives me a really good excuse to segue into the next aerial battle.

Minor spoils requested:

-- Mizar's meteorite: Iron meteorite, approximately the size of a large potato, tapered at both ends with small nubs sticking radially out from its middle. One end unscrews to reveal a cavity capable of transporting small objects like scrolls and parchments. Protects its contents against the heat and stress of atmospheric reentry and impact, and as such used for correspondence by Alcyone's professors at the academy.

-- Incomplete diagrams: A half-dozen or so diagrams prepared by Alcyone while waiting on Ballantyne to show up. They're no different than the ones she usually draws, though they might function a bit better because she took her time and did them in ink, rather than the usual charcoal scribbles. Stored inside her meteorite.

-- Slightly improved her skill at freefalling - while still clumsy compared to true flight, she can somewhat manage to keep her orientation steady rather than her usual erratic tumble. Can manage to freefall objects the volume of a cantaloupe at her uniform rate of 5.5m/s^2.

[Taskmienster]

{{Will finish this as soon as I move to the other computer.}}


Do a barrel roll!


For a citadel battle I tend to put the comments in when I feel them necessary, and instead of splitting the two of your up into two different rubrics I’ll put them together. It will look like this: [FwS score] | [Ballantyne score]. If you have any questions feel free to PM me and I’ll help you when I get the time.

Story [18] | [17]

Continuity [6] | [6]

[Falling with Style]

~ “Ah, it was the girl who’d stepped so gleefully into that excellent arena he’d cooked up for the unpleasant young man Jolex.” [1] ~ I know you were trying to set up a bit of background experience within the Citadel with the character, but a little more elaboration and previous reason for joining the battle place, as well as a small blip as to why you were there now would help a lot. It could easily be put in this area and work well for the background story as a whole.



~ “Southerners like he and his sister were a part of a very well balanced society where things like war, hunger, and crime were very rare.” [2] ~ What is a Southerner? Southern Corone denizens? Or is there something beyond Corone to the South that is where you are from? Things like that would help explain who your character is and where they come from, as well as help out with Persona, when it comes to how things like war[/]hunger[/]crime affect the character.

Setting [6] | [6]

The setting was generally well done by both of you, I would have liked to have more than just blue sky and clouds, but there’s not a whole lot you can do with that. I liked how you both incorporated the sensation of falling and the winds pushing against you in the beginning, and a few times when Ballantyne’s descriptions stood out well… such as the shape of the land and such.

Pacing [6] | [5]

It was rather difficult to really get into this thread. The main problem I had wasn’t that it was bad, or poorly paced, but that the overall flow of the battle was slow. It was the strategies you both adopted that made it seem dull, but at the same time more realistic. I’m not going to be docking this for the nature of the battle, but I would like to suggest that if you take the chance to do this form of fighting again that you not invest dubious amounts of time into the beginning. A lot of what you both posted for the first few posts, each, seemed to take up a good bit of time that was, in turn, the reason it was slower. I’d suggest that you get to the heart of the battle quicker.

Or, finish it. Lol. The fact that it was not necessarily finished by both parties was a shame, since I wanted to see what was going to come next. However, since it was not completed, it made it seem that the introduction part of the thread was overly long for such a short spurt of writing that followed. I know that both of you are low level, which would have probably made the battle rather short anyway up to the point that you both had. All in all… it seemed like a very long opening for what was a promisingly short battle, a fact that made me comment all of this. Hah.


[b] Character [15] | [18]

Dialogue [5] | [6]

Both of you had good dialogue in the beginning, Ballantyne’s being a little bit better though neither of you strayed from the realistic interpretation of your character’s. I would suggest that if you don’t really have a lot to say, in regards to what is going on, that you could probably have put in a bit more internal dialogue. Something more as to how it felt, how it was going, stuff like that. You don’t need one-liners filling the entire thread.

Action [5] | [5]

[Falling with Style]

~ A daydream in the middle of an aeria battle? Doesn’t seem too realistic..

Persona [5] | [7]



~ Your opening post, the dialogue and personality, fucking awesome. It was realistic, cocky, funny, and very well written. I not only got a feel for the personality of the character though the dialogue, which is why it’s not just written there, but I also got an amazing dynamic feel for who he was through the way you wrote out the entire series of action and reactions between the brother and sister.


[b] Writing Style [20] | [21]

Technique [6] | [6]

Overall a good show of advanced technique, what little there was. My only suggestion is that you put in more, and that you make a good show of it. All in all what you both used was interesting, and caught me, but at the same time was just a small line in an entire post… one that wasn’t exactly amazing by itself.

Mechanics [7] | [8]

[Falling with Style]

~ “The one who did emerged from the crowd quite suddenly, though with none of the murderous intent of her colleagues-in-line.” [1] ~ This is two dependent clauses put together, as if just after the comma you were supposed to have another part of the sentence that was just forgotten. Could be easily fixed the way it is though: “[ O]ne [] did emerge[] from the crowd [] suddenly…”

~ “riddle/correspondence” [1] ~ Slash? For srsly? This is at least slightly higher diction than text[slash]IM chatting. Slashes can be replaced by anything else, and it would make it more ‘professional’, so to say. I’m not suggesting that this is supposed to be all professional and perfect, but slashes aren’t supposed to be in the middle of any writing to be taken seriously.



~ “A turbulent as flight initially seemed to be for the body…” [4] ~ Should be “As turbulent”.

~ “Nevertheless he had to avoid it her.” [6] ~ The ‘it’ shouldn’t be in there.

Clarity [7] | [7]

[Falling with Style]

~ “The cloud loomed larger as Alcyone zoomed towards it…” [7] ~ Putting this here because while I was reading this, I thought to myself how awkward “loomed larger” was in the context. It’s a good attempt at alliteration, but loomed normally implies sitting out on an edge or in the distance, and looming larger as you get closer seems a strange way to explain what you meant.

[b] Wild Card [7] | [2]

2 due to not finishing.

Score

[FwS] ~ 60

[Ballantyne] ~ 58

Rewards

[FwS] ~ 525 exp | 100 gold

[Ballantyne] ~ 175 exp| 75 gold

[Taskmienster]

Exp and Gp added!