MSF High Stories: Drew, Chapter 3

It's me again, book I've been using like a Diary.  It's been another week, and I still haven't really properly figured out the year format they use here, so I'll just leave it at that.  I've been doing a bit better in my classes, it almost seems like the early stuff was to either scare us or prepare us for what we'll eventually have to be dealing with more normally.  I've actually been learning a lot, getting better at moving myself around, and I even picked up a weapon to use in case we have to do any fighting practice.  I kinda went for what I thought looked cool at the time, so it's a scythe.  Turns out, it's great for harvesting grain, but really awkward to use in combat.  The only thing it's got going for it is that the handle's long enough and the hooked end is a little hard to block if I'm swinging it right, but the practice dummies in the Martial Arts class don't seem to care much about that.  What I did get really good at, though, was gliding.  Turns out the wing-arms weren't the only changes that the pendant made.  I'm also less than half my original weight, which helps with the whole staying in the air thing, but I'm still just as strong as I used to be.  Not that I was really that strong to begin with.

Anyways, the feeling I get when I'm in the air, especially when I'm able to catch an updraft, it's hard to describe, but it takes away all my worries.  It's easier to think in general without any stress, and the only times when I'm on the ground and feeling quite that nice is when I'm hanging out with Shanla.  We don't share most of our classes, but we've been making up for it by doing stuff together after school nearly every other day.  It's been a string of very interesting encounters that's lead up to the reason I decided to write in here again.

The second time we went somewhere, it was to the battle arena.  A pair of scientists had built giant remote-controlled robots to fight in their steads.  After four rounds of them pummeling each other mercilessly, however, the two robots suddenly started to ask themselves why they were doing this, and both independently came to the conclusion that senseless violence was wrong, as was being subjugated by a remote control.  There was some sort of binary discussion between the giant robots, and while the audience was expecting them to turn on their creators, they instead merely scolded them in monotone, turned towards each other, and began an impromptu poetry jam.  I didn't understand any of it.  Shanla was clearly disappointed by the outcome, but when I tried to console her and suggested we find somewhere else to watch a fight, she replied that their use of meter was completely lacking in any syncopation to make the poetry terribly interesting.

Something else happened then that it seems like I should mention.  Instead of her full-body suit, which is apparently some sort of biowarp-sensitive military uniform--and I can't even start getting into what biowarp is, just that it's sort of like a spellcaster except they power devices instead of doing weird gestures to make spells--, she was wearing a tank top and shorts with leggings underneath.  When she brushed her hair away, I was able to spy the tattoo she was talking about when I first met her, on her back.  I pointed it out, curious about what it was for, and she explained that she'd gotten a good picture of it and that it was a popular symbol for her tribe, and that it represented the only remaining part of a legendary book that belonged to that tribe.  
According to her historians, someone with evil intentions tried to steal the book, and when one of her tribe's heroes tried to stop him, the good guy ended up with just the cover, ripped off from the rest of the book. The cover only had that symbol, and it's said that the book contained the rituals that would return the tribe to prosperity, and the one that absconded with it disappeared, never to be seen again.  Kind of a neat story, and she explained that she wasn't sure exactly how true it was, but since then apparently her tribe had copied the symbol onto anything that was important, as they felt it was a good luck charm that kept stuff from being stolen.  We came up with a few theories as to why it would be on her back, ranging from her being some sort of precious treasure that will someday be returned to the tribe to it simply meaning that she was assigned to stop other people from stealing stuff.  In the end, we both figured that the meaning would make itself clear at some point during her schooling, so concentrating too much on it right now wouldn't likely do anything but drive both of us crazy.

The third time, which was earlier today, she asked where I wanted to go.  I'm not sure why, but I asked if there were any bookstores that she knew to be worth checking out.  Maybe it's because I felt like earlier I had stereotyped her and wanted her to think that I didn't assume that sort of thing because they were an Orc, or maybe it was just because I actually did want to read up some more on some of the things I've since encountered at the school.  Maybe it was because of the story she'd told the day before.  In any case, thankfully, she was perfectly down to do that, but she didn't know of any herself.  Instead, we walked around the city's shops until we found a bookstore, checked around inside it, and went on to find another.  We visited about half a dozen bookstores that day before we found one on the west side of town with some of the oldest stuff we'd yet come across.  Some of these books were thousands of years old.  Most were old spellbooks, with a few of those nasty demon summoning rituals that no one bothers to use anymore because it literally just summons useless screeching monsters that do nothing other than annoy the person that summoned them ever since the formation of the Galactic Anarchists, but we'd found a section that was full of some ridiculously outdated anti-Orc propaganda.  We must have spent nearly two hours pulling out books with titles like "What to do When Your Daughter Brings an Orc Home", reading random lines from them with the stuffiest voice possible, and laughing over how ridiculous it was.  It was only interrupted when Shanla's cell phone went off.

I was a little surprised that cell phones were even a thing here.  With magical telepathy being a thing, it seemed a bit anachronistic, but apparently the phones are really useful, and for those of us unable to mentally link to our friends, it's incredibly convenient.  I'm considering picking one up just for calling her.  Well, that and any other friends I might have.  Anyways, she had her phone conversation, and while I wasn't wanting to pry I could detect some tones of concern in her voice.  After she finished, she hung up, explained to me that her science project was giving off some readings that she needed to deal with as soon as possible, apologized, and ran out of the bookstore.

Holding the racist book didn't feel quite as right without her there to laugh at it with me, so after standing there for a minute to make sure that she wouldn't come running back, I put it back on the shelf.  It was then that I noticed something that we'd both somehow missed.  On the exact same shelf, just a few books over, was an extremely old book with a symbol on the spine.  My memory wasn't perfectly accurate, but it looked exactly like what I had remembered the symbol looking like on her back.  Needing to check, I pulled it off the bookshelf, and to my extreme surprise I saw that it was missing its cover.  I knew this had to mean something, so I took it to the counter, paid for it (Once I convinced the cashier that I hadn't pulled it off myself, I got it for a pretty reasonable price), and ran what I assumed was south back towards the dorms.

I assumed wrong.  It seems as though my ability to navigate the city is still not all the way there, and I had instead been running to the west, towards the lovely Vista Cliffs.  I didn't realize this until the alleyway I had ducked into gave way to a sudden drop-off.  As I turned around to head home, however, a sudden gust of wind caught me and swept me over the side.  I wasn't nearly as concerned for that, though, as I was for the fact that the current had also snatched the coverless book out of my hands.  Even if I wasn't already headed in that direction, my first concern was for grabbing that book before it fell into the water below.

It was almost unbelievable how far the wind had taken the old tome, and as it tumbled down to its watery doom, I made the decision to dive after it with all of the speed I had learned to gain from practicing with my feathery wing-arms.  My first attempt to grab it failed, but I quickly swung around in a large circle and grabbed it the second time, already halfway down the cliff and dozens of yards out over the water.  With my claw-hands, it was also incredibly hard to hold onto the book, and as I sailed towards the nearly sheer cliff-face, I came to the realization that the only ends of this scenario were either that I would slam into the rock and fall into the water below, or that I would slowly glide into the drink, soaking the book in either case.  Without much else to do, I adjusted my course to the south and hoped for a miracle.

Though I couldn't see it at the time, I'm fairly certain that this is when another of the gems on the amulet lit up.  This time, it was accompanied by a feeling unlike any of what had previously happened to me.  My arms felt almost like they were being stretched out, growing wider and flatter until, suddenly, they split in two.  Not two complete sets of arms, however.  The first, inner set, still had my claw-like hands, but lacked all but the surface feathers.  The second set had no hands at the ends, but instead were decked out with a much broader surface.  The base of this second set of arms pulled up, shredding open the armholes of my shirt and pulling the remainder away from me, then flapped into huge open wings.  As my shirt was completely obliterated, a patch of feathers burst from the center of my chest, covering a large part of my upper body.  This time it was easier to feel that I had lost even more mass, and as I had suspected during the change, it seems that my hair's gotten longer, my face has gotten thinner, and my shoulders have slimmed down considerably.  I swear that my nose has gotten bigger too, but the best evidence I have to put towards that is that during the change my glasses fell off my face and into the water below.  Thankfully, it seems as though my eyesight's been corrected, as I haven't needed a new pair since.

My first reaction upon realizing that my arms were now separate from my wings was to pull my arms to my fluffed-out chest, clutching the book much more securely.  With its safety more assured, I began to flap my wings with all my might--and, somehow, I was able to move them independently of my arms with no difficulties.  Though my descent was further slowed, I still wasn't able to gain any air, and for a while, this worried me.  However, I managed to completely stabilize my altitude just a few feet above the water, and maintained this height long enough to make it to the beaches half a mile south of where I had fallen.  From there, it wasn't too hard to get to the southernmost road and hike back to the dorm rooms.  Still holding the book as though I might drop it into the water, I walked up to Shanla's door...

...and did nothing.  I have no idea why, but I couldn't bring myself to knock on her door.  This book, I hoped, was important to her, but I needed to confirm that it really was the same symbol before I tried to get her hopes up, and it had to be after she dealt with the shock of seeing me changed yet again.  Deciding that I could do a better job of presenting it to her, I headed to my own dorm room on the next floor up.  As I'm writing this, The book is sitting next to this one I'm writing in.  I hope books don't get jealous, because one of you might get annoyed that the other one cost so much, while the other's sore that the one still has its cover.  In any case, I'll figure out something to wrap it in after I draw a picture of that symbol so that I can compare it to the one on her back.  I also need to figure out how to casually ask her to let me see it without sounding like a complete weirdo.

There's something else I've just noticed, now that I've gotten a good look around.  I know that all my clothes that aren't magical are going to be harder to wear, especially if my new hunch that this thing is going to keep transforming me until all the gems are lit bears out to be true.  That pretty much leaves me with just my student uniform, so I put it out to wear tomorrow.  It looks different than it normally does, and not just because it has holes for my wings.  The top part is a lighter color than the bottom, with some sort of a scarf around it.  I wonder if that's for flying.  The pants are also shorts now.  That will probably help me get a running takeoff, but I figured I'd need to be better insulated if I have any hope of reaching upper altitudes.  On that note, the next time I get any chance, I need to try seeing if I can get any height, or maybe if I can coax the pendant into pushing me into whatever the next stage is.  Wish me luck, book, if that's a thing that you can do.