to the side as Gellya takes the ship into a dive and turn to arc toward the cultists. Instead of crying out in surprise, the crew just adjusts their balance and keep firing their attacks, used to the sudden changes of the ship.

More explosions of cannon fire blast from the airborne ships as the cultists continue fleeing. All of the shots race above you as Gellya takes the ship further down, out of the line of fire. She pulls you as close as she can to the cultists, them being about eighty feet above you. Any closer and the cultists have easy access to your ship and the crew on it.

With rope in hand, Drallic leaned over the edge of the ship and quickly went to work tying one end of the rope to the reinforced rail. He forgot that they didn't actually have a proper grappling hook, or even a hook which could've sufficed as one. Simply rope would still work, he'd just have to be more careful about losing his grip. After all, they were above-

He looked over the railing. They were already away from Argenta with nothing but the skies below, and the deathly old world even further down. A part of the minotaur wondered exactly what he was thinking when he had this idea, as it seemed better in his mind than here.

With a heavy huff from his snout, Drallic put one heavy foot on the railing with the other end of the rope wrapped heavily around his left hand. "EL'LANS!" He shouted, with all the hellish fury the minotaur could muster. "THE BRIDGE IS YOURS!"

And with that command, Drallic leapt off the railing and off the ship, diving hooves first downward at the giant cluster of cultists to both break open their barrier and to snatch the gem-thing they're desperately defending. Harriers were seldom trained for aerial... mobility like this, but no one said one cannot move through the air as well as they could on land!

"Are you in-" And that is the last you hear as you leap into the air. Now, the only thing keeping you from falling down to the world below is a piece of rope attached to a ship. You have a brief moment of pure panic, as any rational person would, but it does not matter any more, as it is too late to change your mind.

With one hand on the rope, you can only use one hand and your legs to propel yourself through the air. An eternity seems to pass as you fall, the calculations running through your head. Eventually, though, you land on a cultist, the cultist letting out a cry of surprise and sinking down from the weight. But, from pure desperation, they use more power to raise themselves back up to level.

Looking around, you eventually find the creature holding the shiny object up and to your left.

Drallic felt like his hooves hit water, hitting and sinking into something lighter than paper, yet not quite air. He had calculated as much as he could with what to do upon 'landing' and hadn't expected to sink, albeit briefly, into the construct of cultists. To be surrounded by them was, quite frankly, terrifying; the minotaur would sooner face the greatest terror in Hell than find himself surrounded by so many creatures made of air.

The putrid air they spewed from their very existence didn't help. It was as if there's barely any breathable oxygen within in.

With his one good eye on the specific cultist, Drallic kept the rope tightly in his left hand as he swiftly leaped off the cultist and then to another, then jumping off, swift as any harrier, onto the next cloaked menace. It was as if he's moving on water, slamming his hoof down upon the rippling surface and then leaping off before he sinks through.

And in no one, he found himself at the creature. The minotaur lets out a burst of steam from his snout before quickly4dF+4 was rolled to get 4 ([-1, 1, 0, 0] + 4) reached to snatch the shiny object into his large hand.

It is a strange sensation to leap onto the cultists. The analogy of hitting water is close enough for your mind to comprehend currently, and is enough for you to be able to move across the air like you are. You know that years of experience of moving swift, sure, and confident, is the only thing keeping you from falling.

The object glints once again as you approach the creature holding it. The creature, like the cultists, is made of pure air, the constant whipping of the wind in its form showing you its shape. It looks as if a tornado could gradually become human.

It spins to look at you as you reach out. The vastly unexpected approach and confidence of victory makes its motions just late enough for you to snatch the object out of its hands.

With a roar, its hand shifts, forming into one long blade that thrusts downward4dF+4 was rolled to get 6 ([0, 1, 0, 1] + 4) into your torso.

Drallic didn't have any time to savor his piracy of the odd object, not that he would have, as he noticed the creature roaring and retaliating with its blade of air. Standing and hopping around on, effectively, a bunch of living air made for unstable footing. As a Hell-Blooded Devil of the Skies, Drallic had his fair share of taking risks and working on shaky, uncomfortable, or ever-shifting terrain. But he didn't have the agility to evade attacks while standing on cultists. So the creature's tip caught inches into Drallic's heavy, moving form. A quick-but-painful lick of blood draws from the attempted stab, skewering downwards through his brown fur.

The wound reminded him further of what a bad idea this was, even for him. And someone with as many wounds as he already got had to get back on an actual ship.

Without even looking at what he pilfered, Drallic leaped up ahead on top of each cultist until seeing the actual skies above him. With the rope still held tightly in his left hand, the minotaur began climbing back up towards his ship. Every time his right hand reached upward, he got a look at the object he snatched. What did it look like?

Then, he had another thought. Those cultists, desperate as they were, wouldn't just let him leave unless they were so scattered and confused by the flurry of cannon fire from the other ships. Actually climbing back onto his ship may not be an option. For the moment, however, he'd keep climbing and see how they react.

It is difficult to climb the rope with an injured torso. The muscles on your back and arms scream with each movement. Add to that, you are trying to climb a rope, which is only attached to a moving ship, during a massive aerial battle. It is nearly impossible to climb back up. As the wind whips around you, sending you flying this way and that, it takes most of your concentration just to hold yourself onto the rope.

However, you do have a chance to look at the object in your hand. The first thing that catches your eye is the swirling orb. It is within an elegant gold and silver frame and is ever-turning within it. There are runes shining along the frame, and just by touching it can you feel the massive amounts of energy held within it.

Your attention is thrust back into reality as a gust of wind sends you flinging in the air, helpless to the mercy of nature. You do realize, though, a great benefit to your erratic movements: the cultists cannot hit you.

When you took the object, all of the cultists redirected themselves to charge right for you. Not your ship, which you are still attached. But you, specifically. And they are not able to get any kind of solid hit on you.

But determined, you keep climbing, taking whatever chance you can to pull yourself closer to any kind of steady ground.

While the minotaur had always felt a sense of power and powerlessness throughout his life, today felt like the unusual fusion of both. For one, he was tugging for his hellish life on a rope, tied to the ship he had jumped off of, while chased and attacked by gusty cultists swinging and charging at him from everywhere, while having a cut torso and a large series of small bleeding holes across his body.

And yet, there was something exhilterating about diving recklessly into danger and snatching a prized object off the hands of another. And more-so that none of the cultists have been able to strike at him as thoroughly as before. Were he less aware of his own limits, he'd likely consider himself able to fly if he let go of the rope.

His one good eye, however, struggled to take it away from the strange orb in his large hand. This thing was power in a sphere, of some kind. But... what?

Without anyone to give an answer, Drallic kept climbing, as best as he could, while red trails seep down his fur and what's left of his clothing. He kept looking up in the distance, but every now and then he saw some of the cultists coming for him, somehow always out of reach of him, though often close enough to be worrying. And in a desperate effort to speed up, he kicked his hooves out as one got too close, stomping on its body as if it were a weirdly-fluid platform and kicking off it for just a little more height. Anything to get back on the ship. If they aimed for him, and him alone, then maybe he and his crew could find a way out of this alive.

It is hard to believe that it could get worse for you. While exhilarating, the logical part of your brain keeps telling you, _This is stupid. You are going to die. DO NOT LET GO!_ and your body listens as you are starting to find it hard to open up your hand to climb the rope. But your hoof is another matter. A quick lash and one of the cultists charging for you, who would have managed to get a hit in, is sent tumbling down to earth.

But as you fight the wind, cultists, and your own brain, you at one point manage to look up and see El'lans looking over the railing at you, firing off more arcane and lead shots at cultists surrounding the ship. You can't hear what he says, but he yells something to someone else on the ship. A few seconds later, you start feeling two things.

One, the ship is moving away from the battle. Avoiding the continuous firing of cannons from other ships, who don't seem to have noticed or care about you, your ship starts tilting away from the side you're on and down. This reduces the movement that the wind causes on you, which helps your climbing, but also allows for the cultists to get some well aimed strikes in.

Two, you feel the rope start pulling you up, seemingly on its own, aiding your climbing. It is not too hard to figure out that someone on the ship is trying to pull you onto it as fast as possible.

The sudden relief of calming wind gave Drallic one less thing to worry about as the ship, likely thanks to El'lans commanding it and Gellya's piloting, swerved and moved away from the field of battle. The crew's rope lifting was another relief, though perhaps not the best one; the minotaur's sheer bulk and size made him heavier than most people. He'd have a lot of thanks and especially a lot of apologizing to give after this.

If he got out of this alive, as his one good eye saw cultists coming at him from all sides.

No time to think, just act.

He loosened his grip on the rope and drops downward, ducking under various cultists as they slice where he'd once been. He tightened his grip a second later and kept himself from free-falling down to the world below. He mentally reminded himself to not look down as the teeth-grit bull leveraged some motion by swinging his body back and forth. Carefully4dF+3 was rolled to get 4 ([1, -1, 0, 1] + 3) he used the rope swing to make himself A Moving Target; swift enough that he'll move back and forth unpredictably, but not so much that he'd lose his grip, his focus, or the crew having an already-hard time pulling him up. He'd be less concerned about his precarious position if he can just get on top of one of the ship's lower cannons...

It is not easy to constantly move up and down the rope with everything going on. There is not time to react and counterattack the cultists, but your movements prevent any of them from landing a sure blow. You are _A Moving Target_ after all.

You can feel the rope still pulling you up, but you see that the cultists are starting to understand your predicament. Hand firearms and magic start flying from the ship as the cultists start targeting the rope. But you are not able to do much about it as the rest continue their assault4dF+4 was rolled to get 4 ([0, 0, 0, 0] + 4) on you.

As much as before, Drallic gripped tightly on the rope and used his moving frame, and some quick swerving and adjusting, to avoid the rushing assault of the cultists coming at him. For once, he felt like the world had become light, as if he can control his movement as fluidly as he could this morning. That said, it might just be the adrenaline rush. As exhilarating as he felt, the minotaur felt a sense of embarrassment at his own predicament, swinging on a simple piece of hemp while avoiding being carved apart by air-constructed beings, while his own crew was slowly pulling him up.

And this really was a situation all his making. That gem better had been worth it.

With the cultists targeting the rope, Drallic wanted nothing more than to get off it. Thanks to his crew, he was just within vertical alignment with one of the cannons below deck, where he could try to climb up the rest of the way without relying on a small piece of hemp at risk of being sliced apart. In an attempt to overcome his current predicament, Drallic waited until he was close enough and then quickly4dF+4 was rolled to get 8 ([1, 1, 1, 1] + 4) leaped over to the cannon, landing on it with a metallic THUD on his two hooves.

Your movement is fast, fast enough to inadvertently dodge two cultists that