Ragged Fibi [Fibi/Arcadia]

Mission details:

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So, to join the guild, she had to travel to another world, and prove she could survive in a harsh environment? She had to go out of her way to go to an exotic locale? She got to travel and see a NEW WORLD? Fibi immediately agreed to do such a thing with a great sparkle in her eyes. Slamming her fists down in the table in such excitement that even her spirit possessed book questioned if she was of sound mind from that twinkle in her eyes in such an uncharacteristic manner. But, it came with a caveat, she had to have someone follow her and make sure she was really roughing it. They would not provide her help, they would not give her supplies, they would not save her if she was in trouble. She would be on her own aside from her magic.

That was just fine with her. one of her ancestors that wrote in the Hoenheim Journal was able to survive a year on their own in the wilderness of Joya without any sort of contact with others for the sake of their research, but, Fibi was more excited to be the first Hoenheim to see another world, she could finally compile her own writings in the book on to the notes of another person as great as Frederica Hoenheim. She had steeled herself and her resolve for this.

"Are you sure you want to do this Fibi? This, isn't really like you, normally you need me to push you along for this." Ferris spoke to her through the book, to which she looked at the glowing portal that would lead her off to Testukazu, and her trial would begin. "Y-yeah, I can handle this, I gotta do this, I have to show them I can do this. I'm going to do this! I can do this. Yeah, I, I can do this, right?" Her voice was a little shaky, but, it sounded like nervous excitement.

As soon as she stepped through the portal, she was in a new world, it was relatively the same atmosphere as Earthland, such that she was able to breathe, the sky was nice and bright. Except, it looked like she had come in on the precipice of a large valley, it looked like it stretched for a thousand feet across, and the bottom, well, it was hard to see the bottom, waterfalls collected in to pools which overfilled and went down and down.  One giant tree stretched up from the bottom of this particular valley.  Turning around, she saw trees spread out scarcely, but, based on their size, they must have provided nutrients and shelter to a microcosm each.

This was so exciting! Even Ferris was floating up, the pages open to show an ink drawing of himself in a cartoon manner going bright eyed and drooling over unexplored land. A trait that every Hoenheim family member shared, eager to see new things, eager to see the unexplored, interested in filling out the journal with a story worth telling your next of kin, to add to this great story book that served as the be all end all primer of the Hoenheim's family history.  Ferris was so attached to it that instead of passing on, he clung to the book.

Now, they just had to wait for whoever was proctoring this exam before the exploration could begin, and her trial would truly start.

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WC: 574

A portal opened up a few tens of meters from Fibi and her ghost-animated book.  A little girl, only apparently five or six years old, but resembling a younger Arcadia stepped through.  Not quite the at least teenaged Ace they met back at the guild hall.  

Little Arcadia:

The littlest barefoot slayer smiled and waved. The portal closed behind her. In her left hand were a pair of whimsical, red scissors.   "Whew!  The scissors finally found you! They musta taken me to five different places before getting me here."

Her sparkling, faerie green gaze took in the alien landscape, the enormous valley below and its singular giant tree stretching up from unseen depths below.  All the waterfalls that dotted the  valley walls and other great trees scattered beyond the valley. "Whoa. This place is hella awesome and pretty! At least we get to stay and enjoy it awhile! This place os def not as strange as that world that was just... llama.  One world-sized llama or that world filled only with cats.. And I don't mean Exceeds, I mean cat cats with four legs, but they had not-kitty-like, normal human faces. But who am I to call those places strange. I guess Earthland would seems strange to anyone from those worlds. Uhhh, anyway glad I'm here!  I love seeing new places! " The little pale blonde slayer had a love experiencing new things and places of her own.  She slipped her scissors away, only to pull her little sky blue iLac from its pocket. She snapped a few quick photos of the valley below, the trees in the distance, and a selfie or two of herself with the valley in the background. A selfie with Fibi and Ferris the book would be taken too, if allowed.  

She coughed and smiled sheepishly as she got back to business, slipping her iLac back in it pocket.  "Sorry about that. Right. If you're wondering why I don't... looks as old as back at the guild hall, it's 'cuz I felt that even though I can only observe, it wouldn't be fair for us to do something I'm not willing to do myself. So I left my own trinkets at home, except my scissors and iLac of course.  Including the trinket that has the side effect of canceling this de-aging curse when I wear it... around my ankle.  The scissors I won't be using again until it's time to go home, and my iLac I will be using to document your progress. And this awesome world too! Never been here before."

Little Arcadia smiled warmly to the Fibi and Ferris, "This is your trial, so if you'd feel more comfortable with no one watching, I can go off on my own exploration. I only have to check in every so often really.  I can even do it so you never see me. Or I can check in visibly too, or I can back with you two, though I still can't help really if I stick around. For now, just give a shout if you have any questions or find something amazing. I'll be in earshot, and I got myself familiarized with both your scents." Arcadia tapped her small nose on her last few words.

The little slayer giggled and started jogging toward the precipice, "Right now, it's totes time to catch a little air!" She charged the edge and leapt straight into free fall. Arcadia allowed herself to fall a couple hundred feet with her arms outstretched, before she transformed into an elephant-sized juvenile ice dragon, literally made of living ice.

Arcadia as Juvenile Ice Dragon:

She spread her wings and pulled out of her dive, up into a loop and roll. Laughing, she allowed herself a couple minutes of using the valley and tree as an obstacle course to fly aerobatics around and through.

WC: 639
Combine WC: 1213

Wait, what? Arcadia? The book just opened up while staring at the presence of the new person before them. Their exam proctor. Ferris could tell it was Arcadia, it was hard to mistake her for her looks, but, her age?  He was certain, now, he might be a nearly century old ghost, but, he was fairly certain, she was much older than this when they first met, so, he had to ask, "How'd you suddenly turn in to a child? Are you actually a child? What's your secret for looking younger? I could certainly use it, if I had a body! Also, Fibi, what does 'hella' mean?" The book's echoing voice joked before the explanation was given.

Fibi just pinched the bridge of skin between her eyebrows, Ferris' age showed sometimes, in the sense that he didn't keep up with lingo, despite being a veritable thesaurus, glossary, dictionary, and appendix! A magic one at that! She rolled her eyes before listening to Arcadia, "Yeah, I like it out here, it's literally a new world to see. Not just leaving home and seeing a new world in the sense of a new piece of land you have never set foot on."

"It's actually a new world. And I wanna see what it has to offer!" She said with a cheeky grin on her face, an arrogant look of superiority that she would uncover every nook and cranny to find all the secrets of knowledge this place had to offer, a look of haughtiness that was shared by every member of the Hoenheim family.

After getting several pictures with Arcadia, Fibi would smile and stretch her arms up over her head, "No, I should be good, thank you though. If you want to check in on me every three days, that should be fine. Besides, I have Ferris to tell me stories and, he can do this neat trick. You should see--oh okay bye." She said, waving as Arcadia jumped off the cliff, and turned in to a dragon. Wait, turned in to a dragon? She just turned in to a dragon?

"Did she just turn in to a dragon? Also, 'totes'?" "I, you know what, let's just get going. We can go to the bottom of the valley, and then make our way back up when it's time." SHe said before getting badgered for more questions on the lingo of today's youth from Ferris, which she would beat the cover of the book, only for the book to fly around and bonk her on the noggin.

They had a special relationship those two.

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At the cusp of the cliff, she decided to start climbing down along the ivy, the book swooping through the air, opening up to catch her butt if the slick vines proved to be too much for her to maintain a good grip on. After doing this, Ferris would comment on the size of her rump every time, making the girl get frustrated at the book and tell him to stop being a jerk, and a pervet, to his own great granddaughter!

At the bottom of the vines, they came to their first stop, a small lake on a trapezoid jetty like protrusion from the cliffs. All of the rain water had collected here, and even had a system of collecting more of the moisture from the vines and rocks as it had a drain down to other sources of water down below. That could explain why, in this little pond, there were three things swimming around in it.

"Well, we need to start getting food. Right?" Fibi nodded, and braced herself as she walked up toward the pond, only for a jolt of electricity to be fired out from the pond by one of the eel like things! Fibi leaped to the side while Ferris started to target the pond with his innate ability.

Ferris' comic script magic let him throw out a series of fists and feet with the words 'BAM, POW, BIFF, WHIZZ' etc, shaped in to the body parts while pummeling the snake like things in the shallow pond.  Fibi herself braced herself and called out a spell, "Freccia! Magica!" One of her go to spells whenever she encountered a multitude of enemies, she would summon the words, splitting in to three arrow shaped projectiles that arced through the air, and pierced through each of the eels. With her and Ferris, they had rendered all three of the Greererptons half dead, of course, they were crawling out of the pond and weren't going to take it lightly. Uh oh.

WC: 765
TWC: 1339
Combined WC: 1978

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spells used:

mana:

Swooshing and looping all through the valley, the juvenile ice dragon almost forgot why she was here. Since Fibi and Ferris wouldn't need to be checked up on for at least three days, Arcadia had some time on her hands... claws. So after getting her fill of aerobatic flight for the time being, she climbed into the sky well above the valley floor. She banked to the left, soaring to explore a little of what may lay beyond it.

Arcadia locked her wings of ice, finding a thermal up over the opposite side of the valley. She circled around, using the rising warm air to climb higher still, only needing to flap every so often, despite her icy bulk. 15 metric tons of nearly solid ice soaring effortlessly through the air. Once she felt she was high enough, she turned out of the thermal, beginning to her little tour of Tetsukazu. She took her tour, gliding from one thermal to the next, wheeling her way through the sky. It was quite easy to while away the hours up in the sky, kept aloft with minimal effort by the thermals. It was quite an amazing view of the alien world below.

It was these many hours later that the young dragon felt her stomach rumble and complain of hunger. For a short while she managed to ignore it, but it would be dark soon. It would be best if she started looking for something to eat. She swooped down closer to the ground, to see if she could better pick up the scent of something anything to eat.

Arcadia would have settled for a few berries at this point, but it was not the fruity scent of alien berries that caught her dragon senses. It was something meatier. Perhaps if she hadn't waited so long to eat, Arcadia would not have lost control so easily to the feral nature that came with her dragon form. Usually easily kept under control, given the right conditions it could grab hold of the young slayer.

Her sparkling faerie green eyes faded into frosted orbs carved from ice. The wild ice dragon scented the air again for her prey, banking toward the direction it was strongest. In less than a minute, a group of about 10 lizard-like creatures, Colosteus, came into her view below. If Arcadia had been capable of conscious thought, she would have compared them to pictures of Earthland's Komodo Dragon she had seen.

To the feral dragon she was now, she only saw days worth of food. Swooping down upon them, sent the big lizard's scattering. Her roar of whirling frosty doom and razor ice caught six of the creatures. Those fell over frozen stiff and would never move again.

She landed on a seventh one, adding a bite to finish it off. Now that she was on the ground, the three remaining Colosteus regrouped and disappeared back into the nearest pond. The feral ice dragon let them go, she had more than enough for dinner. Icy jaws made quick work of the Colosteus she had landed on. The other six she gather one by one, and carry in her jaws to a nearby shallow cave. The feral ice dragon froze each one to the cave wall for later.

The juvenile dragon then turned and paced a circle in the cave, much like a cat hunting a place to sleep. Finding a suitable spot, she curled up on the cave floor, and went to sleep. A gentle localized snowfall marking the area.

WC: 590
Arcadia WC: 1229
Combined WC: 2568

After another series of spells and fighting with the damn eel things, Fibi was left, huffing and puffing, while sitting on the edge of the little pond, three floating bodies of animals on the surface of the water. She had heard the dragon's roar and the fighting going on down below, and, she had to guess it was Arcadia, mostly based on what Arcadia looked like last. But, what did a dragon sound like? Fibi never heard one, it could be another beast native to this planet? Whatever, she had to sit back, and think for a few minutes, while her book hovered over the edge of the miniature outcropping they were on, looking down in to the ravine.

"You know, we should probably get to setting up a camp for now. I'll get the fire going if you get the stuff for it." "Really? You're a book, or, you're in a book, and you want to start a fire?" "Point taken, fine." The book said before turning over to the vines, and produced the word SWORD from the center of its pages, and swung through several vines, while it hovered back over to the bodies in the water, the word turning to ARM and HAND, so that it could fish them out of the water with a giant hand, and get to drying those things off.

Fibi meanwhile had to focus, she couldn't really do this too well, but, she could at least get some sort of an elemental script out of her damn book, if only to start a fire. She grabbed Ferris, and flipped through his pages, going back and forth, looking for something in particular. "Can I help you?!" "Just, bring up Fiona's notes on elemental script magic please."

Script magic took a lot more than just knowing a word. You had to understand the formulae that made up various elements of nature. Fire had to have an ignition point, some sort of a gas, or an accelerant.  While she flipped through the pages, she wished she could understand these better, but, she felt she understood enough. Enough to at least get a fire going on the pile of vines she had gathered up in to a small pit on the ground set up by stones.

"Realize the source, terra firma. Ignitius. Come to actualization, flames of the pyre." SHe spoke aloud while pointing her left hand at the vines. From her hand, a small magic circle appeared, while the word Fire shot out three times from the circle, and lit up the vines. Just a little bit, but, with her getting down and blowing on to them to encourage the flames, they started to light up.

Ferris meanwhile was producing SWORD and KNIFE from his pages, to start skinning and preparing some meat. Every Hoenheim at least knew the basics of field stripping beasts, for the sake of making some food. When your whole family went out with wanderlust, tricks of the trade were passed down, but, none of them were master chefs!

WC: 508
TWC: 1847
Combined WC: 3076

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mana:

With a store of food, the feral juvenile ice dragon did not really need to leave her little cave. Lost as she was in a feral state, she remained in dragon form and would be staying in dragon form as long as this feral state of mind persisted. Arcadia was still in there somewhere, laying dormant. She had lost herself to a feral state before when she first discovered she could become an ice dragon, but never for this long.

On the up side, ice dragons do not need fires for camping the same way a human Arcadia might. In human form for one, she would never dream of eating any of those lizards she had frozen to the wall without cooking them. Once it was dark out, the juvenile ice dragon awoke from her nap to tear one of the lizard creatures down from the cave wall. She laid out on the fave floor and proceeded to gnaw away half of it as a midnight snack. When she was finished, the ice dragon froze the remaining half back to the cave wall. After a quick patrol around the area in front of her cave, and marking up a few nearby trees and even a cliff face or two with deep gorging claw marks, feral Arcadia returned to her cave to sleep out the rest of the night.

Arcadia would spend the next couple days this way, turning her cave more into lair or den than a camp. The snowfall that persists around her, unless actively suppressed, had turned her cave into an ice cave, and covered the immediate area all in a couple feet of snow. The snowfall really picked up while she was sleeping. The lizards she had fought gave more than enough food to get her through those days, she didn't need to hunt again while she had them frozen in her lair.

That did not keep her from heading out and flying off in search of prey one or two times in those couple days. The ice dragon just did not put as much energy and effort into it as she would with no food stores back at her lair. She might have been visible up in the sky a couple times from Fibi and Ferris' camp, but the feral ice dragon was not hungry enough to go around stealing food either, so she did not land.

In the early morning of the third day, the feral ice dragon went out flying on the hunt again. She had three lizards left frozen on her lair wall, so it was mostly a taste for some variety that sent her out again. She found a small lake a couple valleys over that would prove to hold what she was looking for. Spying an eel-like creature close to the surface. She swooped down, snagging it out of the water with all her foretalons closing in around it.

The eel-like creature was still squirming by the time she got ti back to her icy lair, but not long after. The ice dragon deciding to have fresh eel rather than frozen. Her breakfast was interrupted by what sentient Arcadia would have called giant scorpions, feral ice dragon Arcadia only saw a threat to her newly claimed territory and the food she had gathered together in it.

Arcadia rose to all fours, spreading out her great ice wings in a threat display. The feral juvenile ice dragon hissed at the trespassers, but the alien scorpions had numbers on their side. There came to be at least ten all spread out in front of her lair. It was a tense stand off for a few moments as a few of the giant alien scorpions responded in kind opening their claws and holding them spread wide and raising their abdomens to present their stingers. If there had only been three or four of the creatures the ice dragon might have attacked straight away. With a pack of ten though, she was forced to relent and take off.

A frontal assault on these creatures was out of the question, but once on the wing, Arcadia would circle back and rake them all with a blast of her frosty roar, followed by conjuring a localized blizzard. Between razor-like bits of ice and even more biting cold, the alien scorpions were more than disoriented enough for Arcadia to land among them and devastate the pack. She had torn and ripped through half of them before the remaining five managed to scatter in different directions. Arcadia did not bother chasing any of the remaining five down. She had made her point. This was her territory and her food.

Sniffing at the alien scorpions that did not survive their encounter with her, almost flinched with an dragon approximation of a grimace. Something did not smell right about them. They were definitely not food, so she dragged the broken carapaces away from the entrance to her shallow ice cave lair. The feral ice dragon then returned to her eel as if nothing had happened.

After finishing up her breakfast, Arcadia curled up for another nap. It was during this nap that the human girl trapped inside finally fought her way back to conscious thought. Her eyes regaining their sparkling faerie green as she started awake, as from a very long and disturbing dream. Except as she looked around the little ice cave lair she had made for herself, she realized, none of it had been a dream. It had all been quite real. She immediately suppressed the snowfall around her, and slipped back out of her cave.

Going back over what she had thought was a rather vivid dream, Arcadia belatedly realized she was overdue to check in on Fibi. Not quite really overdue, it was still the third day after all. She had promised to check in every three days, so she hurriedly took to the skies. She'd forget about the living nightmare for now.

Arcadia followed her nose to find Fibi's camp, where upon landing, she was all too happy to resume the shape of a little human girl again. It was good to be Little Arcadia again after all that. She smiled and looked around to see how Fibi had gotten along in those days.

WC: 1048
Arcadia WC: 2277
Combined WC: 4124