Turn 70

More time passing in the Flow (follow the braided timestreams if you can....):

    After a few minutes of this, ibn Fadil is moving more freely than at first (despite newly acquired bruises). Hiro can tell that it has certainly been some time since he did any training, yet not so long that his body has forgotten how. He is not up to Hiro's standards, of course, but he is probably not completely hopeless.
    Then the Zakharan signals for a pause. "Now," he says seriously, "what I would like to do is try devoting all my efforts to keeping you from reaching me, while you try your best to do so." He smiles a bit. "Just try not to break anything, please; that could prove inconvenient."
    What ensues bears little resemblance to a normal swordsman's bout. The half-elf jumps, twists, and even tumbles across the floor as if having his feet planted on it is quite unimportant, and uses not only the bokken but a variety of loose objects that he picks up and sometimes throws in attempts to unbalance the attacker. The result is unpredictable and frequently effective -- though far from completely. Ibn Fadil does not call another halt until he is out of breath and gets another solid thwack across his shoulder.
    "Enough!" he says, grinning and rubbing the soon-to-be-bruised spot. He is sitting on the floor, looking up at Hiro. "Very helpful," he goes on. "I should do that more often than every six years or so."
    "Interesting. In my homeland such a fighting style is typically employed by spies and assassins."
    "Really?" the half-elf says easily. "I simply do not care for staying in one place while larger, heavier opponents come after me." He gets up and wincingly stretches a few sore muscles. "Also, I had an opportunity to learn acrobatics from a professional. Adapting that to fighting is not easy, but I consider it worthwhile."
    Hiro nods. "Impressive."
    "Oh, it is more a frame of mind than anything else. An acrobatic performance is always timed and practiced to perfection. Learning to improvise with the same skills was the hard part. Ouch," he adds. "I should have remembered I would get no hot bath out here."
    "Perhaps Brother Pham has a balm...?"
    "I can hope. Of course, my aggravating aunt used to insist that the best treatment is more of the same."
    "Aunt?" Hiro lifts the sword again and motions with his hand for ibn Fadil to begin anew.
    "My father's sister," he says, raising his own wooden blade and finding his balance. "One day she decided I should learn to ride 'properly,' and that was the end of a lot of my free time." Several nimble dodges later, he adds, "I was clumsy in my teens, but elves are nothing if not patient."
    "And how many moons have passed for you since then," Hiro asks as he surprises ibn Fadil with a feint and a snap kick.
    The Zakharan suspects he will have a footprint on his ribs after that, and takes a moment to catch his breath. "Which moons?" he asks humorously. "I count it as twenty-seven years, more or less. And about twenty since I left. How long have you been out among the spheres, yourself?"
    "Not long enough. Kara-tur still haunts my dreams. Or perhaps too long, since I still draw breath."
    "I miss home too," ibn Fadil sighs. "I think it about it more and more, of late." He ducks hastily. "That may have something to do with getting myself into *this*!"
    "I think you misunderstand. I do not wish to ever see my homeland again."
    Hiro's subtly dire tone causes ibn Fadil to pause. Then he recalls Hiro's mad eyes and dangerous charges in battle. Does he have a death-wish?
    "Oh," he says. "What --" gets out before his common sense manages to pin his curiosity. "I am sorry." Whether he is sorry for bringing it up or for whatever happened is not clear even to him.
    Meanwhile, having reluctantly realized that he can make no further headway with the egg on his own, Emmett approaches Alais to take a look at it.
    "Of course," the young wizard nods upon hearing his explanation. Under Emmett's anxious eye, he then conducts a battery of tests on the egg. He weighs it, listens to it, taps it gently with what looks like a hammer made of amber, looks at the shell through a variety of lenses. Detect magic once again reveals a strong aura; continuing to study it with unwavering concentration, for such a length of time that Emmett is getting very nervous, at last he looks up and says, "I do believe that this egg has been placed under a spell that suspends the effects of time's passage. Why anyone would wish to do so is of course a considerable mystery in itself."

* * *

    Exploring the spheres:

    Alais is clearly excited about their findings, and wants to spend considerable time on each world. "There are tests to be done! We must enter all possible atmospheres so I can cast Spectrometer and record the readings! Natives must be contacted, or at least sighted! Major features drawn! For science!"
    Needless to say perhaps, most of the others are not quite as enthused; only Yestin appears to approach the wizard's keen pleasure at the advent of the unknown. Val concedes that there should be *some* detail in the mapping, but not at the cost of depleting supplies and/or the patience of the crew. He is somewhat listless while the surveying takes place, but he does his fair share of exploring and mapping as well. Val charges Yestin with drawing up a duty roster to split exploration duty to help things along, which the giff does with good cheer.
    Skimming the surface of the water world [and you guys can name these places if you want :-) ], with off-duty crew crowding the bridge to watch the light sparkle on the waves and occasionally venturing onto the opened to deck to enjoy the air, much as Val may miss the ships of his home it is difficult not to feel at least a little caught up in the thrill of a new place. For all anyone in the crew knows, they are the first spelljammers to visit this place. Curious dolphins follow the ship's shadow on the water, and vast schools of fish shimmer like abandoned silver hoards.
    After several hours of searching, everyone is somewhat startled to see the horizon broken--there is a solid component to the place, after all, a series of tall spires of some dark rock thrusting up toward the sky, with a pebbled shelf of beach sloping down to the water all around. The tops of the spires are solid with bird nests, some variety of albatross, which can spend nearly all its life on the wing. They're rather shockingly noisy after the predictable, quiet months aboard ship, and show absolutely no fear of either the ship or its crew.
    Though the ground is rough, there is enough room to set the ship down amid the spires. The water is quite cold, and quickly grows deep when Yestin ventures into it. Alais casts his spells on a sample and finds that it is not very salty compared to the seas most of them know, though he advises them not to drink it just the same. The spires are perhaps volcanic, remnant of some ancient convulsion of the world's deep-buried core. Bones of fish and birds and something that might be a kind of seal litter the beach, but there is no sign of anything very large in the vicinity. There is also no driftwood at all, but large desiccated humps of seaweed at the high tide line.
    The crew is happy to seize the change for a meal of fresh fish--Nyala does not think it sporting to kill birds at their nesting ground--and a night of real rest with only a brief turn on watch. Just before sundown the birds fall quiet. The remains of the cooking fire die rapidly, leaving only the stars, as this place has no moon.
    Shortly after sundown, the world starts to sing.
    Or at least, that is the first thought to run through many minds, as the sound seems to be coming from all around them, an eerily beautiful chorus of human-seeming voices. At times clearly wordless, at times the song hovers tantalizing on the edge of understanding. Wound around it is a decidedly inhuman but harmonious series of whistles, groans, and less identifiable sounds. The spires all around them ring with whalesong and mer voices, the sound carried up from the deeps by the stones.
    "So much for getting any sleep," Emmett grumbles, but no one suggests they leave. Inez puts her hand in his. There is no compulsion in the song, nor even it seems any awareness of the visitors, only beauty that partakes equally of joy and sadness.
    Continuing their survey the following day, the _Distraction_'s crew finds more vast stretches of ocean broken at wide intervals by small, abrupt scatterings of islands so far apart that to map them is nigh-impossible, having no points of reference. From the continued lack of wood or any creatures that look primarily ground-based, it seems likely that there are no large land masses anywhere, discounting the polar ice. They fly for hours over an immense sargasso where hordes of birds and other small things have made a home in the floating wrack, while in the distance a storm darkens the horizon.
    Later, "What's that?" Nyala wonders, pointing over the side at a lighter green, barely visible shape either on or just under the water. It seems to be getting bigger.
    "More kelp?" ibn Fadil guesses with a shrug. He's a bit distracted by how beautiful she is under real light, with the wind in her hair.
    "It's moving." A few moments later they have their answer as far below the sun glints from silver tracings and gold spines and what is quite undoubtedly a large dragon turtle surfaces. At this distance, it is possible to appreciate its beauty--and to be grateful that they are not in a surface vessel.
    Knowing now that this world is inhabited by at least two intelligent forms of life, and having some idea of its landscape and creatures, the ship moves on.
    Passing the dark ember of the flat fire world--Inez dubs it Sleepy--the _Distraction_ moves on to the next orbit. Thoroughly exploring a world that almost completely circles the sun would of course take years, and mapping is quite difficult where there is no ground; the damselfly vessel must content herself with a brief look about while passing through. Everything seems massive in scale; they see towering cloud formations, tangles of floating plant life the size of a city, wandering mountains, vast pieces of ice that may have floated in from the world's rings or be on their way out to join them through some unknown process. Given the size of everything they've seen up to that point, Val orders caution when some flying creatures are sighted in the distance, and they are never near enough to identify.
    There is no night on this world. Passing at last beyond the outer edge of the atmosphere, the rings glitter, far brighter than the distant stars.
    Next stop is the jungled world, where Alais can map to his heart's content, as this place at last has decent land masses. It is also *very* warm and stickily humid, and there are insects. Lots of them. Also other animal life, it is quite clear from the variety of cries echoing through the sticky air. All in all it's quite a change from anything the crew has seen recently, or for that matter anything they've seen at all except for Pham, who is reminded of home. It is hard to tell if they are flying over a river delta or a hundred tiny islands separated by narrow channels, but at last the ground seems to grow more solid, a heavy green carpet half-shrouded by mist as the day wears on. In the afternoon it begins to rain, not terribly hard but steady, as if to say that it means to keep at it as long as it can. Following the course of a river inland, the ground begins to rise slowly and eventually snow-capped peaks of staggering height appear in the distance. They are approaching one of the corners of the world, still many long hours if not days of travel away, but so large as to dominate regardless.
    In the end they spend several days on this world, mapping the continents to a rough extent and finding that the lands on the pole sides are drier, almost steppe-like, but there is no ice. Many kinds of folk could certainly live in this place, and there are hints here and there that some do--breaks in the jungle that do not look entirely natural, tracks across the steppe that may have been laid by travelers.
    The _Distraction_ is at this point already becoming rather cluttered with weeds, leaves, nuts, shells, fruits, bones, butterflies, and rocks gathered as souvenirs or samples by the intrepid crew. Yestin's paper supply is raided for notes, sketches, and maps. Nyala adopts a small lizard after observing its appetite for insects; some pest control might be useful once they get back into space. Emmett finds himself adopted by a bright red bird that seems irresistibly attracted to all the metal gear about his person. Every time he turns around he finds it perched on his shoulder, sidling down his arm toward the hook with a gleam in its beady little eyes and a sort of coaxing croon in its throat. Having stowed away for their departure, it adapts to shipboard life in a matter of hours.
    The intervening air world being clearly and thoroughly dull, Rigol lies ahead.
    Over the past several months while the _Distraction_ was in the Flow, Val has been growing steadily more quiet. He practiced dutifully with the shortsword, remembering the wound he received at the hands of the boarding giff. He has practiced other skills as well, brushing up on his lock-picking and whatnot as often as he can. The exploring has given him a chance to stretch his legs a little, even though he feels more at home on the damselfly. It seems the closer they get to Rigol, the more silent he has become.
    Now it is finally in sight.
    Memories of the journey to Janik have weighed heavily on his mind, and he looks now at the disk of Rigol. This is where Ginevra came from. This is where the Victor has a hold over her family. This is where he could do something more for her... A smile slowly spreads across his face.
    With an unusual cheerfulness, he sets about preparing the ship for landing. His sudden change in mood a mask, he throws himself into his work. The devil-may-care Valarin has returned as he climbs rigging to secure lines and ventures about the ship bow to stern to inspect everything. Anything to take his mind off the task ahead....
    

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