[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/5r7OTIh.png[/img] [b][color=Aquamarine]wordcount:[/color][/b] 1,643 (+3) [b][color=Aquamarine]Midna: level 7[/color][/b] EXP: [color=Aquamarine]////////////////////[/color]///////////////////////////////////////////////////// (20/70) [b][color=Aquamarine]Location:[/color][/b] Sandswept Sky - Baur’s Reach [/center] Before they met the giant in his tree, the team had passed through Baur’s reach. Well, to say the team passed through was a bit of a misnomer, as Midna had found out. See she had been nose deep in one of her looted books (nothing fancy to be honest, on basic camping guide and small set of paperback novels) when her mount, who had been carefully picking its way around all the obstacles on its own accord, suddenly leapt to the side without warning. [color=Aquamarine]”Hey what the- ack!”[/color] she cried as a wave of snow washed over the two of them, causing her to drop and lose the book she had been reading. [color=Aquamarine]”Hey I was enjoying that! Who the fuck let us get ambushed!”[/color] she shouted as she shook of the snow, only to realise that she and her ride had ended up on their own, in retrospect maybe they had not enjoyed her yammering on about the somewhat steamy book she was reading, and now she and her mount where alone and face to face with one of the peak’s beasts. The Pendran’s wide flat body had allowed it to cleverly hide under the snow in ambush may have almost dashed them to pieces with a swipe of its mighty tail club, but now that it was exposed it wasn't that big (literally) of a threat. Or so she thought. [color=Aquamarine]”That was the biggest and last mistake of your life, you frozen pancake!”[/color] she shouted at it before spurring her mount forwards while drawing the smaller of her two new knives. The draconian swung again at her, but the princess halted her ride’s charge just in time, casing the swing to sweep just in front of the poor wolfos as the princes herself leapt off of its back, over the sweeping club and then half flew half dropped down onto its back, before proceeding to slash the blade across three of its six eyes. It screamed and tried to claw her off, only for that claw to be grabbed and crushed by her shadow hand. [color=Aquamarine]”Die you little- oh shit”[/color] she swore as it swung its massive club tail above its head. She leapt off of the head and back onto the back of her mount, but rather than accidentally brain itself in an attempt to get her off the beast started to slam its tail into the ground behind it repeatedly. [color=Aquamarine]”Huh?”[/color] Midna said, confused momentarily right before a wave of snow sloughed off of the branches of the tree’s around the draconian and, more important, above her. [color=Aquamarine]”Damnit move- bl-eh”[/color] she demanded of her mount, only to get showered in snow as it tried and failed to get her completely clear [color=Aquamarine]”Urgh whyyyyy?”[/color] she complained, dusting herself off as best she could, feeling some of the snow melting and joining the first wave in gradually soaking her clothes. Unfortunately that wasn't even the end of it The hammering brought down a swarm of [url=https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/phantasystar/images/6/69/Pso2id_deegalla.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/256?cb=20200408091356]Deegahla [/url], kin of the Pendran who had been roosting in the trees. Despite their diminutive size, they were not anywhere close to harmless. The spear nosed beasts had been driven into a fury by their land born cousin’s hammering and began diving down like arrows to try and skewer the princess. [color=Aquamarine]”Fuck fuck fuck”[/color] she yelled in a panic as her mount fled from the living arrows, weaving its path and causing one or two to slam into the snow, which softened their landings enough that they simply fluttered up again afterwards. Those that didn’t miss the princess did her best to guard them against, a small shadow hand snapping out slapped one down and then grabbed and crushed another, while the princess parried a third away with her shield. [color=Aquamarine]”Buzz off sky rats!”[/color] she demanded of the others, stabbing at the air with the knife she had charged while the initial volley was coming in, shooting a thin beam of lightning that struck another out of the sky. Yet even after that there were still more than half dozen left, and their larger landborn kin was now charging after her. A frustrated princess growled in frustration before snapping her fingers and uttering a [color=Aquamarine]”Wait, ha, got it!”[/color] before standing and jumping off the back of her mountain again, then dismissing it a moment before it got skewered. Then she used a shadow hand to draw halfway up a tree and then hauling herself all the way to the top in a flash, while summoning her vibrava in the wolfos’ place. It was better suited for fighting the aerial foes, but with 1 vs 7 it wasn’t going to be an even fight. For them [color=Aquamarine]”Come and get me idiots”[/color] Midna taunted as she clung to the top of the tree with dragon clawed gloves and boots, while raising her shadow hand up and channeling a dark energy zone around her. The quickly expanding like field or orange and shadow warded off the flyers for a moment, weary of this unknown effect, but a dragon breath from vibrava striking down one and another braving the field and finding nothing brought them all charging right into her trap, at the exact same time as the Pendran came in to try and club down her tree. [color=Aquamarine]”Gottcha”[/color] Midna elated, snapping her shadow hand’s fingers and unleashing the field, momentarily stunning all of the fliers and letting her vibrava dart to and fro, crunching the skulls of the immobilized and marked for death deegahla. As it swooped to and fro in a flash, the princess formed a twilight gate on the trunk of the tree and pulled out the massive and unwieldy spiked ball on a stick that was the Clubba Club, which she promptly casually dropped down on the head of the head of the Pendran. The plummeting club bashed in the brains of the poor draconian, causing it to sway once and then burst into ash as the spirits of the smaller deegahla drifted down around it like falling snow. The princess sighed in relief that that was over, taking a moment to sit and rest on a branch, before shivering as the damage done by the battle caught up with her. Namly being showered with snow twice, which left her clothes damp and unpleasant. [color=Aquamarine]”Ok. Fine. No more reading,”[/color] she told to herself, before drifting down to collect her fallen club and the spirit’s of the fallen. The lost book could stay lost for all she cared, this was all its fault after all. [hr] Later, the team grouped back up (Midna found them again by following the light on her friendship bracelet while being much more watchful for ambushes and avoiding any other fights) and found a giant imprisoned in a statue that was bolted to a tree. [color=Aquamarine]”Then we’ll deal with that when we deal with it”[/color] was Midna’s response to Jesse’s very mild paranoia about the trapped figure being a villainous one. The princess wasn't exactly fond of eye for an eye punishment, so if this man had done something so terrible as to deserve this monstrous fate, then in her opinion it would be best just to kill him rather than let this travesty go on. Unfortunately someone who did think this kind of punishment was just fine and dandy was the victim of it, of all people. As she drifted close and tried and failed to find a simple opening mechanism the man told her to lay off and leave him to his fate, a request that shocked the princess enough for her to back off and let him say his piece. Once he was done and would speak no more, Midna floated down to collect the little thimble and then drifted back to look up at the literal giant of a man, sealed in iron and calmly awaiting his fate. In any world where the dead did not turn to ash, it would have been hard to tell if he still even lived. [color=Aquamarine]”Goddesses, what kind of mad place did he come from?”[/color] she asked with a half whisper, before looking up, up and up towards the peak of the mountain they were climbing to where the place he had spoken of must rest, and knew that there they were now destined to find out. [hr] They kept going until they found a frozen keep, perched upon the side of a cliff. Though from the outside it looked quite vacant, upon entering they found it occupied by a small cadre of silent old men known fittingly as the greybeards, along with one who spoke for them, a Master Arngeir. He advised them against ascending in such great a number, and offered them a different way up the mountain, one free from snow, if one no less freezing cold. [color=Aquamarine]”Given a choice between cold, windswept and wet and cold and dark I’ll take cold and dark thanks,”[/color] was a temporarily mask-less Midna’s opinion on the matter as she took advantage of some of the fires to deal with some of the outside’s worst aspects, namely all the snow that had been dumped on her and had soaked her X-naut uniform. Her faithful wolfos meanwhile did as the canines did and shook itself clean of snow, though not before being directed outside again so as to not soak any nearby friends or old men in the process. While her clothes were drying out she did some spirit management. She got her hands on the awful mimic hat, and while wearing it crushed the spirits of the stinger nest and the small spear nosed Deegahla, while the Pendran she infused into the wolfos she had ridden while fighting it. It had been a decent opponent, and she suspected her mount could do with some cold resistance if they were to keep climbing higher.