This is an ocean, much like any other ocean. Salty. Wavy. Big. Blue. Full of monsters.

Whatever he was expecting, this wasn't it.

He lets out an undignified noise that is not at all a squawk as he splashes into the water.

He's not much of a swimmer, but fortunately this can be remedied in several ways. He elects to conjure a small fogbank and climb atop it (cloudwalking: a feature of his species that he's quite fond of), then launch back into the air. At least, that's the plan. 

Not much of a swimmer? So, hypothetically, he wouldn't notice anything in the water beneath him if something large far below noticed him and began to approach?

That depends on whether it takes more than, say, six seconds to reach him on the surface. Any slower than that and he'll be in the air, with much better situational awareness. (Another silver dragon perk: seeing through fog.) 

It takes a little more than six seconds for the bulk of it to get that close.

But then, very, very fast, a black tendril extends itself out of the water to wrap around his hind ankle.

That gets his attention. Several things happen in rapid succession. 

Ipaxalon starts to radiate cold, his immediate vicinity chilling to well below freezing. It's not enough to immediately hinder a large or powerful creature, but it's cold enough to kill an unprotected human in under a minute. 

His head whips around and he breathes. Everything in the tendril's general direction is blasted with enough supernatural cold to snap-freeze a rhinocerous into a brittle statue, out to about sixty feet. 

If there's anything still moving after that, his front claws make a rapid arcane gesture, he barks out a word, and his movements quicken. 

(If any of his foes were subject to mind-affecting fear effects, they may also notice Ipaxalon is suddenly very scary.) 

His foe is not subject to mind-affecting fear effects but is subject to cold. Much of the blackness breaks off, dead.

That which was far enough below the water to be out of range surges up, though, torpedo-shaped and then winged afterwards as it swims around its discarded frozen parts and shapeshifts into something that can breach and fly.

What. What kind of creature is that. He's never seen or heard of its like before. Is it a Netherling? It doesn't match the description of any of the invaders he knows, but they are new to the world and famously diverse. Is this their world? That's a horrifying thought. But aren't most of them land-based?

Not the time. He's not sure why this thing picked a fight, but he intends to win. He dives, tearing into the creature with several rapid bites, each one powerful enough to crush a horse. His claws and wings rip into its body, somewhat less destructive but aimed with precision. His tail lashes out at its center of mass.

It tastes really bad. The substance of it parts easily enough between his sharp bits, but while he's clearly doing some damage to it that way - flecks of black shear off into the air and don't reintegrate, including the bit that tries to burrow down his throat - it doesn't seem too fazed. It reforms, woundless, wherever he isn't actively harrying it.

He wants his tail to be in its center mass? That suits it fine. It shlorps around said tail with a grip like high water pressure.

...this is not a normal creature. Some kind of Elder Thing? What is going on. 

His attacks don't seem to be doing much, but neither does the creature seem able to penetrate his armor. His scales don't protect against constriction, though. 

In retrospect, engaging an unknown creature in melee on its home turf without adequate preparations was a mistake. He could attempt a spell, but it seems likely this monster can make him regret that in the middle of a grapple. Instead he lets loose another blast of supernatural cold along the length of his own body, towards the beast and his entrapped tail. Then he attempts to wrench his tail free and take flight. His leverage isn't great, but if he can freeze the part of the beast that's holding him and push off that...

Once it's frozen it shatters away conveniently from his tail. There's some of it left still moving, and it forms fresh wings and gives chase.

Between the innate flying speed and the haste, Ipaxalon can get nearly three hundred feet away in six seconds while still going slow enough to cast. 

He glances upwards. It is generally considered inadvisable to attempt a teleport spell to a place you haven't studied closely. But if you can literally see where you're about to go, and don't particularly care if you're a few hundred feet off target, the standard concerns do not apply. One spell later, he is several thousand feet above the water. 

Rule number one of fighting a dragon (or any spellcaster, really): do not give them time to cast buff spells. 

If the creature that attacked him is still inclined to pursue at this range, Ipaxalon will likely have time to cast several. And recharge his breath attack.

(He could continue fleeing, but he's disinclined to put his back to this thing while still unaware of its full capabilities, and very disinclined to be herded by it.) 

The creature loses track of him when he teleports. It reforms into a slim lozenge shape and dives back under the water, disappearing into the darkness.

Anticlimactic, but that's fine with him. A cure serious wounds takes care of his slightly crushed tail while he takes stock. 

Sky, water, single sun. The air smells crisp and clear, though there's something about it he can't quite place. It seems like he's still on the Prime Material. His best guess is that he's been somehow moved to an unfamiliar part of the planet. Given the climate, it's probably well out of teleport range of Jotenaugr. But if he can figure out where on the planet he is, he should be able to make his way back eventually. Or, if the Netherlings are invading here as well, he can lend his aid to whomever needs it.

...there's no way it's that simple. The Wish didn't outright fail; it must have done something that had a chance of turning him into a great wyrm. He's not a great wyrm yet, so the other head has yet to turn.*

If this isn't the Prime Material, if he's somewhere else entirely, then getting back to the war will be a bit more complicated. 

Step one: Find land, or someone he can talk to. He picks a direction and puts on speed. (In local terms, he's doing about fifty knots.) 

*Northlands colloquialism akin to "the other shoe has yet to drop," with a more bitter flavor. Originated during the Burying of Linnorms, a nasty war against cursed, two-headed monsters that look an awful lot like dragons from afar.

He is quite in the middle of the ocean and it's big.

But flying for a while and looking around will catch him a view of some sails, over there.

Sails! Sails mean people, unless he's even more lost than he thought. Either way, it seems more promising than the grabby tendril monster.

Ipaxalon slows and begins to glide down towards the sails, keeping his auras of scary and fuckoffcold tucked away. As he closes, he'll gradually curve down on a trajectory that brings him beside rather than right on top of the ship(s). He doesn't want to alarm the sailors, and he is a thirty-foot-long dragon.

The sailors observe his existence and don't seem... alarmed literally at all? They seem kind of pleased to see him. Some of them wave but none of them try to say anything.

Oh good, no harpoons.

He glides a bit closer, casts tongues. "I greet you," he says in fluent whatevertheyspeak. "I am Ipaxalon of the Northlands, recently restored to life. I believe I've been misplaced by magic, and seek to reorient myself. May I know from whence you come, and whither you are bound?" 

Hmm. As he suspected, the language seems completely novel. 

"Whoa! She can talk!" exclaims a crewman. "I didn't think they could talk!"

It doesn't look like anybody thought "they" could talk. They all agree on "she", though.

???

Have they...only...met...female...dragons? Who...couldn't talk? Or never bothered talking to mortals? But also didn't try to eat them, like chromatics or primals might?

"You have perhaps mistaken me for something I am not. I am a male dragon," oh they do have a word for dragons, weird connotations though, "and we can, as a rule, all talk."

They contemplate this statement, then somebody says, "I guess there's no reason a magical girl couldn't?", very tentatively, and another says, "I hear the pegasus in Ireland sometimes speaks..."

He flaps once to maintain a gentle glide to their starboard. 'Magical girl' maps more or less literally to 'female sorcerer', also with some weird connotations he's too distracted to probe. Something about beauty? That's fairly normal for sorcerers, though.

The (almost certainly human) sailors think he's some sort of...shapeshifted sorcerer? Perhaps from a prominent matrilineal family? Possibly not dragonblooded, if they also take pegasus form. It wouldn't be the strangest bloodline, not by a long shot. 

"I am magical, but not a girl..."

'Ireland' is a place, but not one he recognizes. 

"...I don't suppose you have a map aboard that I might peruse?"

"Can you, uh, turn back into a magical girl for a bit? I don't think we're meant to bring it out on deck."

They're really hung up on this girl thing, aren't they. "I can assume humanoid form for a time, yes." He loops around to angle more directly towards the deck in a spot where his wings won't hit the rigging, and in one smooth motion lands and —

— is now a barefoot, shirtless, silver-haired human wearing grey woolen pants. 

(Getting clothes to cooperate with an alternate form is a bit of a trick, but many dragons who regularly interact with humanoids find it worth their time to master. Ipaxalon is one such, but he's been too busy since his revival to bother with more than the bare minimum. It's not like he needs to dress for the cold. His form is strikingly handsome, though.) 

They find that really confusing, but it was already pretty confusing. "Where's Rebecca?"

"Asleep, she was up in the night three times with swarms."

"Hunh. I'll let the captain decide whether to wake her, I suppose."

He's curious — is Rebecca one of these sorcerers? — but not enough to spend time prying. "I can only maintain this form for a few minutes at a time," he admits. "Might I see this map?" 

"- not if you might turn into a dragon again indoors if you get distracted!" someone exclaims, while someone else runs off for (presumably) the captain.

"Distracted? No, it requires no ongoing maintenance on my part. It merely has a limited duration. A bit over ten minutes, to be precise. I can triple that time if necessary, though I'd rather not." 

"Now I know that isn't how anything works," comes the irritable reply.

The captain bustles back, accompanied by -

- a shockingly beautiful young woman with feathered wings, wearing a thoroughly impractical dress and sandals themed with snowflakes and frost patterns.

A bit of irritation flares at the implication that he would lie. He allows the feeling to fade without reaching his face; it is he, not they, who is a stranger here. Misunderstandings are to be expected. 

He can wait for the captain to return. 

...is that an angel? Or perhaps an azata? (Did that mad beautiful Emissary send him to Elysium?) 

Regardless, they have impeccable taste. And very nice wings. It's not very often that Ipaxalon feels under-dressed. 

He's not sure of the proper etiquette for greeting a sorcerer/angel/azata/??? in this society, but he can do his level best. "Favored of the Light, hail and well met." He smiles warmly. 

He's hot and those are not two words she ever expected to think consecutively ever again!!!

"I - I'm the ship's magical girl, my name is Rebecca Arden," she says, curtsying with a bit of wingflare. "Are - you not a - I suppose I've never tried turning into -"

"It is an honor and a delight to meet you, Rebecca. I am called in the mortal tongue Ipaxalon, of the silver flight." She seems considerably more confused about his identity than he expected an azata to be, but he's too confused himself to answer the half-questions.

"A-and what might an - immortal? - be doing visiting the Shotley -?"

"Dragon, to be precise. Due to a magical mishap, I am unfortunately very lost. While seeking a means by which to navigate, I saw your vessel from afar. Your Captain and crew were most welcoming." Which reminds Ipaxalon, he has a task to accomplish. He is here to orient to an unfamiliar and potentially dangerous environment, not get distracted by ✨wingflares✨. "They were kind enough to offer me a look at the ship's map. Perhaps you would accompany me?" Okay, maybe a little distracted. 

She looks at the Captain, who has been murmuring to one of the crew. The captain says, "There's some concern that - he? - can't be sure to stay small and not dragon-sized, in the map room."

"I have assured the good Captain that there is no substantial danger of my accidentally exiting this form. Unless your map room is home to an antimagic field, which I very strongly doubt." Or unless they intend to physically restrain him from leaving for half an hour, which (a) would not work and (b) would leave him much less inclined to avoid putting a hole in their boat if it did.

"It is not a kind of magic that requires ongoing concentration to maintain." Wait, why is that such a long phrase in this language? Do they not have...? "Captain, I have the utmost respect for the integrity of your vessel, and would not propose a course of action which needlessly endangered it or your crew."

The captain considers this, then finally sighs and nods. Rebecca leads Ipaxalon into a room which contains maps.

He follows politely, and observes said maps. 

Oh. 

Wishes, he knows, can send people pretty much anywhere. He appears to have been anywhere'd quite remarkably hard. 

"I do not recognize these continents," he murmurs. "I fear I am very lost indeed." 

"- that's America, there, and we're headed for England, here."

"Thank you, Rebecca. I think — I expect I may be missing a great deal of context. I will not know many things that seem obvious to you, and I will need to ask what must seem like very basic questions. I beg your patience in this.

"Ships and those who sail them, these things I knew. Yet much of what I have seen and heard here is alien to me. A creature of shifting blackness attacked me from beneath the waves without provocation; I had never seen its like before, and know not its nature nor its motives. The Captain, and crew, and yourself, all seemed surprised by some aspects of my appearance. I seem to have been mistaken for a 'magical girl', and I do not know why. Of Ireland, America, England, I knew nothing before I came here. I do not know the name of this planet, if it has one, nor what plane it inhabits. Could you...explain these things as best you can, the way you might to a child?" 

As he speaks, his eyes flick across the map she indicated, attempting to commit its contents to memory. 

"Gosh. Uh. The planet is Earth. The black things are monsters. They just - attack, they don't seem to want anything besides to attack people. Uh, here on Earth, all the magic is girls. Only some of us, but only girls. And then we can change how we look," she gestures with her left wing illustratively, "and what we're wearing, and we get other powers if we're pretty enough. And if we change how we look too much then our souls leave early and some kind of benign creature runs around in our place fighting monsters, so if you showed up looking like a dragon I guess they'd think that happened, and then it turned out you could talk, so..."

That is even more strange than he was expecting after several instances of updating towards expecting strangeness!!!

...but still no Maelstrom. He'll cope. 

"That does help quite a bit, thank you." Even if it does raise Many Additional Questions. Pretty enough? Their souls leave early? Did they think he was some kind of benign undead? No, still too many assumptions. "By 'all the magic is girls', do you mean, only biological women inherit spellcasting, only they can learn it, they are the only ones chosen by the gods, something completely different...?" 

"There's only one God, let's start with that!"

Curious. "Are 'magical girls' Their chosen clerics? Are Their domains and ethical-orientation known?" 

"...His domain is all the world and He's all-loving and all-good? I don't know if He's picking magical girls though, the Church thinks it might only be Him the same way everything else is."

"...hmmm. Where I come from, there are many gods, each with different but sometimes overlapping areas of interest. Farming, healing, war, fire, knowledge, destruction, law, and the like. They can be good or evil or somewhere in between, depending on their interests, and often carry out their conflicts through mortals. Many, but not all, choose some of their followers who are most aligned with their interests to become clerics, shaping their souls to enable them to perform a particular brand of 'divine' magic. Your magic does sound different. Clerics in my world know when they've been chosen; being contacted directly by a god is fairly unmistakable."

He's still skimming maps, moving the loose ones with care. 

"There are also arcane spellcasters, whose magic is usually learned or innate, and creatures with innate magic of their own, including dragons like myself. How do magical girls originally receive their magic? How did you come by yours, if I may ask?"

"Oh, uh, girls get a - vision, sort of, of ourselves, and stars behind us, and then we can change the us part, and then we look like that, however we changed it, to everyone else too. That's how it is for everybody I think but I haven't met many others. I'm pretty sure pagan deities are all demons or something. If they were angels they'd explain that they were working for God."

"That sounds like quite the experience. Somewhat reminiscent of a cleric-choosing, but not enough to be decisive.

"'Demons' where I'm from are a kind of being from the fiendish planes which takes nourishment from mortal suffering and generally seeks to cause more of it. Among my previous duties was fighting them and opposing their influence on the Prime Material. Only a handful of the most powerful self-style as gods, but they have few worshipers among the living. 'Angels' were in many ways their celestial counterparts and longtime foes." A pang of absence, acknowledged and allowed to fade. "They would usually say which god they serve, but in a world with only one Good deity, that might be unnecessary."

A pantheon of Evil gods could perhaps explain why the Good one hasn't squashed the monsters yet, but he notes the differing connotations between "one God" and "pagan deities" and suspects there's still a communications gap. He asks a few follow-up questions.  

"Would you consider 'monsters' to be 'demons'? Do you know of any demons by name? Approximately what fraction of the population gets a vision? And to be clear, it is uncertain what force prompts the visions?"

"I don't think the Church's said about monsters being demons or not either. Like they might be but normally you'd expect demons to like, tempt people to sin and stuff, not just chew them up. They might be more like magic bears or something. I know a few demon names like, uh. Beelzebub? Mammon? ...I think I know more than that but not off the top of my head. I don't know the fraction, it's not most of us, it's like... there was a girl at the nunnery who said she got the chance but didn't take it, and... I heard a rumor that the butcher's third daughter took it but she didn't have wings or anything so I don't know how she would have hidden it, maybe she had scales or something all over under her clothes?... and there was the spinster who lived all by herself and people came to her when they needed magic, she had four arms... but most people don't. And yeah, it's just the stars and ourselves, no - explanation."

He doesn't recognize the names, but he commits them to memory.

"Magic bears? And are the extraordinary physical traits mandatory or merely popular?" 

"There aren't magic bears, I just mean, if bears were magic, they'd magically bite people and wouldn't be demons. No specific thing is mandatory but you have to do something, or it goes away."

How curious. A Chaotic Good god of beauty, maybe? Granting suitable mortals power would be in character for some. The existence of a Church without clerics who know themselves to be clerics is also very strange. Two different gods, one Lawful, one Chaotic? "I see. I would like to speak to a representative of this Church at some point, I think. You also said you can do magic if you are pretty enough? Could you elaborate on that?" 

"Like a priest? Sure - I mean there's different kinds but whatever kind will probably be able to answer your questions. Uh, my magic is this," she appears a hailstone in her palm. "And I couldn't do it if I were dressed in rags and had... soot on my face or something? I have to look nice and the nicer I look the more of it I can do."

"Ah." He looks up from the maps and smiles. "You must be quite powerful, then." 

She giggles. "I had a stylist help out a bit before setting off with this ship."

"They did an exquisite job. I particularly appreciate the frost motif." 

"Yeah, I was doing the fabric in like, a marbled pattern at first, but that was dumb of me."

"Learning the particulars of a new skill is rarely easy, even for those with an instinct for it. I had terrible taste in humanoid clothing for decades." 

A small exertion of will renews his human form, but the act reminds him he's on a time limit. 

"I'm going to try out a weak spell for identifying magic." He flicks a tiny thread of soul to cast detect magic, and pauses. Then: "It tells me you are strongly magical, but not made of magic like a summon would be, and that your clothes are magical conjured objects." 

...huh. The hailstone doesn't appear to be magical. It's just ice. That could have...implications. 

"The ice isn't, though. Is it common to be able to create objects out of nothing? And may I ask you to make another hailstone?" 

"Oh, sure," she makes another one. "I think most magical girls don't make new things? I mean besides clothes and stuff, we can all do that."

"Thank you. Hmm. That doesn't look like any spell I've ever seen. More like an unstructured supernatural ability." And all their magic works like this? Curious. 

He's still on a time limit though, so he checks another map. "May I ask you to explain America, England, Ireland, the other places I see here? Are they regions or political entities, how are they organized and governed, and such?" 

"Oh boy. Uh. England colonized America but then America rebelled and they're on their own now, a bit before I was born, I forget when exactly..." The rest of the geopolitics lesson proceeds gappily at about that quality level.

He seems delighted anyway. He notes the gaps, but it's still way more information than he had before.

After about twenty more minutes: "Thank you, Rebecca, this was enlightening. I would repay your kindness, and that of your Captain and crew. For all aboard the Shotley, I can offer healing to the sick and injured, favorable winds, and protection on the way to England, if you believe such an offer to be wise. I am in your debt as well, if there aught I may offer you personally in thanks."

"Gosh, okay, there's some men laid up what with one thing and another and I haven't got the slightest bit of healing myself and I'd love not to go it alone against a sea monster if we run into one."

"To the sickbay, then?"

"I guess so!"

She knows where that is and leads the way.

He introduces himself to those present. "I offer magical healing to any who choose to accept it."

About how many patients are there, and what proportion of obvious injury vs disease?

There's a man down with ten lashes, some of which are threatening to become infected. Everybody else has garden variety issues like diarrhea or a nasty cold or a twisted ankle or a broken finger.

A handful of cure moderate wounds takes care of the injuries. He doesn't have remove disease, but he does have the positive-energy sledgehammer that is heal and there isn't much that it can't handle. Three for the worst of the diseases, he'll reserve one for emergencies, and one to the...lashed man.

"Those don't look accidental. Disciplinary action?" He's seen plenty of harsh discipline before, but it's still slightly alarming they'd risk infection over it. 

"Yeah. I don't recall what he did," says Rebecca.

"Drunk on duty," supplies someone else.

That doesn't seem horribly disproportionate, and he's still a stranger here. He doesn't comment further, and instead excuses himself to return to the upper deck.

As he prepares to depart: "Rebecca, would you convey my offer of escort to the captain?" 

"Yeah, okay - are you going to be a swimming dragon or a flying dragon or what -"

"Flying dragon! You'll see." 

"Mm-hm." She runs off to find the captain.

And he makes his way to the aft deck, leaps into the air —

— and is a dragon again. 

He banks around to resume gliding and wait for Rebecca and the captain. 

The captain gives the all clear while Rebecca giggles softly to herself.

He can't resist showing off a little. He does some aerial acrobatics a safe distance from the ship. (He may be cheating somewhat by redirecting the wind around him. Silver dragons are unusually agile, for giant flying lizards, but not that agile.) 

As long as it doesn't foul the sails he will not receive any complaints. Rebecca takes off too, does a bit of a spiral around the ship low to the water, gets ahead of it a bit, and then, apparently satisfied with the results, sees how chaotic the air near the dragon is.

Chaotic? Him? Perish the thought. The air is perfectly well-behaved by the time she arrives. 

"Flying dragon. I see your own wings are as functional as they are beautiful!" 

"They'd be pretty silly if they didn't work, they get in the way something awful when I'm on my feet!"

"They suit you well. An excellent choice of appendage. I mistook you for a celestial when I first saw them." 

"I like them too! And they're very warm at night."

"How very convenient! A little too convenient, perhaps. I would not impugn your honor, but I feel the strangest desire to test this alleged feature." 

"Well, you'd scarcely feel it right now, would you, I've got only about twice as much wingspan as armspan."