Baer 18th, 4288: 79 Days in the mortal realm
And here I wait in a tree, hoping my party will find me. How might I have ended up in a tree by myself you might ask? I suppose having wings would make it seem obvious, but it was rather an unfortunate accident that lead me to sit tight as I wonder where my companions are.
The morning had started off fairly calm and uneventful. I was rested and in quite a good mood. The fortress continued to travel and it appeared as though we were traveling over water. It took a good portion of the day before we recognized land under us. We stopped the contraption, figuring it’d be a good idea to see our where abouts with the Marauders map. Before taking us back into the mortal realm, Isaac melded the fortress into the ground once more to avoid drawing attention to ourselves. Once the controls were left, Isaac poked another button to which the controls compacted into a small cube that could fit into Isaac's pocket.
We were then transported to the mortal realm. Out of the haze of the Ethereal plain we could see clearly it was night. The sounds that accompanied the night were haunting. Yowls, growls, hissing and snarling. The jungle we were in was very much wild. We quickly went back into the Ethereal plains to avoid any immediate danger. We waited the night out, I catching a nap before we entered the mortal realm once more.
The sky was beginning to glow with the red and oranges of a beautiful sunrise. Isaac pulled the marauders map out to see our location. We were on the south part of the continent, just north of an island I didn’t recall ever seeing in my mortal life. We ended up having to continue in the mortal plain. The gloves Isaac had was what he used to take us in and out of the Ethereal plains. However their magic had fizzled out, or so he said. At least we'd be able to follow our progress on the marauder's map without overstepping my home town. Traveling via Ethereal proved to be a very fast way to cross the world and now it was going to take an extra month to travel the last little bit to Rehm. There was a moment that I worried the fearsome creatures we heard last night would hinder us, but then I recalled that the fortress was equipped with a force field and that soothed my worries some.
Isaac then informed us of two more things. The creatures we heard last night, he was able to see their aura’s, meaning they’re all magical. He also needed a couple of hours to meditate. I would have volunteered to steer, but I didn’t trust myself to navigate the fortress. Rekka was the only one daring enough to attempt steering the contraption. She was nervous herself, but she managed the controls quite well and without crashing us into a mountain or whatever it was Isaac crashed us into on his first try. This is said also considering the large birds that attacked the fortress on occasion.
Seeing Rekka had everything under control I went over to Raæin. There was some kind of nostalgia wanting to set in knowing the land was once my home, despite how different it looked. As I stood with Raæin I wondered once more about his memories. Maybe something about the land would trig them. So I ventured to ask.
“Raæin, this may be a dumb question, if not tediously annoying, but by chance does this land remind you of anything? Any past memories remembered?” Raæin pondered for a moment. He then shook his head slowly.
“No. I’m afraid not Araja,” he said, his voice forlorn.
I went to the top of one of the buildings in the fortress to observe our travels.It appeared the further North we traveled from the island, the less aggressive the animals became- at least the less attacks we encountered on the fortress by those bird like creatures.
While we traveled I pondered about Rehm. I was curious if we’d find it or if answers would come of it. As I thought about it, part of me worried this would be a pointless trip.
At one point in our travels through the jungle, Jessica pointed out a clearing of trees that were all broken down. We regrouped to spectate the uncertain scene. Rekka steered the fortress towards it to see if we could spot anything distinct. As we got closer, Raæin suddenly said, “There’s a giant laying there.” Rekka immediately began to maneuver the fortress away. We all could see the giant after Raæin pointed it out and unfortunately for us, the giant spotted us too.
The giant stood up in one continuous motion. Now, when I say giant, I really mean giant! That sounds funny I'm sure, but this was by far the largest giant I had ever seen! He must have been at least 40 feet tall! As I watched him, I felt the fortress jerk forward. I looked to Rekka and saw her, with Cortanna, struggling to steer the fortress. We were moving faster than I thought possible for the fortress. The giant was long behind us when my senses finally regained. Despite our lead in fleeing from the giant, a thumping sound could be heard and soon the giant was within sight. He was shouting something, but I couldn’t understand him.
“Let me speak to him,” Jessica called out, “maybe he knows a thing or two about this place and he could be of use.” Or maybe he’ll eat us, I thought. However Rekka stopped the fortress and soon the giant was leering at our contraption with much confusion. He appeared harmless and kept speaking some kind of gibberish. Jessica began to chat with him.
“Wow, he thinks we’re baby giants,” Jessica relayed to us. Jessica kept talking with him and from their body language, it would seem Jessica was getting no where and the giant wasn’t comprehending a thing.
“Jessica, how old is the giant,” I asked her. I can only assume Jessica relayed what I asked to the giant. He squinted his eye, seeming deep in thought, before reaching over and uprooting a tree. He snapped it in half and after a moment of careful studying points to a ring out of the hundreds of rings in the tree. Jessica looked intently and I could see she was counting fervently.
“Well over 470 years old,” she announced after several minutes. I was hopeful. If he was that old, then he had to know something about Rehm! As I got ready to tell Jessica to ask him about my home town, the giant puts the tree back together, mends it, and replants it in the ground. He then walks off.
“Where’d he go?” I asked.
“Beats me,” Jessica answered. Luckily the giant returned a moment later. Upon his return, I could see in his hand a current of water as though he had picked up a river! It flowed up and through his grip, though clearly he was hanging on to it.
“What’s he doing with that?” Isaac asked.
“Oh! He had mentioned that us ‘babies’ needed to drink water,” Jessica informed us.
“Well tell him we’re just fine,” Isaac said. Jessica began to speak with the giant but it was obvious she wasn’t making progress with him still. Isaac joined in waving his hands and trying to tell the giant that none of us needed the water. Despite his attempts, the giant then poured the river onto the fortress. We watched as the water hit and tumbled around the force field. It was rather pretty actually. Something I would have enjoyed just watching while drifting to sleep.
The giant was perplexed by what happened with the water. He pulled the river back and carefully placed it back down on the jungle floor.
“Jessica, try asking if he knows of the town Rehm,” I finally told the bar wench. Jessica talked to the giant again. Still her attempts of communicating weren’t getting through to the giant. His large hands reach out for us and grabbed onto the force field surrounding the fortress. His eye showed how very intrigued he was by us and it didn’t look like he was about to let us go.
The fortress then launched away from the giant, well rather attempts to.
“Hang on!” Rekka called out. She and Cortanna once more were working together to try and steer the fortress. With us still in the grips of the giant and Rekka trying to put more force into our fight to break free, I took to flying to avoid being jostled around on the floor of the fortress.
I remember a crashing and sucking sound ringing in my ears and the next thing I could recall was feeling like I was being pulled through a vacuum by a great surge of air. Once I collected my where abouts I realized I was a couple hundred feet from the giant. I flew as fast as I could back toward my party. I was nearly there when suddenly the fortress disappeared from the giant’s hands.
Quickly I halted and changed my course of flight. I was about the same level as the giant’s shoulders when this happened. I figured I would be better off flying straight up to get out of reach of him, but the giant looked around, seeming confused by the sudden lose of my party, and spotted my frantic attempts to get away from him. Before I knew it, I was caught in his large hand. He was gentle enough to not grab me too tight, but I knew I was trapped. I thought about stabbing him with my halberd, but I figured being nice would be best for that situation...
As the giant brought me right in front of his face I began to tremble and cry. If I was to die by being eaten by a giant, that was truly terrifying. Being eaten seemed so... awful... and being completely separated from my party, the thought of dying alone was equally scary.
The giant talked to me for a moment and through my hysteria, he did seem gentle enough. He had a grin on his face, but maybe it was a grin of ‘I just caught me some lunch.’ I don’t know, and I suppose I’ll never know. He then placed me in a bag. Once freed from his grasp I casted some lights and could see berries and other vegetation surrounding me.
Scared out of my wits and desperate to make an escape, I prodded the edge of what felt like a leather bag but had no success in piercing it. I was more hysterical than I thought, for my attempts to cut the bag open were feeble. I sat down and hugged my knees and cried some more, all the while trying to calm down.
I’m not sure how long I cried for, but I knew the giant was still walking somewhere. Once I could feel my sanity about me, and after taking a moment to be thankful that I was still alive, I stood up and swung with my halberd 3 times at the leather wall. I bit of hope returned to me as a good sized tear formed in the bag. I poked my head out of it to see where we were heading.
The first thing I noticed was the trees moving out of the giants way, like a cat or dog that would get out of ones way when walking through or toward them. Then there were the animals that followed suit. From what I could see there were other Unicorns, Dryads, Giant Eagle and various small Fey creatures I couldn’t make out.
I looked off into the distance the giant was walking in and could see a mountain. The direction was more west from where my party and I were headed, so without further delay I hopped out of the bag. I fell a couple of feet before catching myself with my wings. I then silently glided to a large tree and made myself comfortable on a large branch near the top.
The giant continued on his way, unaware of my departure. The animals in the jungle continued about their own business, none taking notice of me. I did camouflage myself as a safety measure for I haven’t a clue how long I’ll be waiting here. But here’s hoping my party will find me shortly.
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