Tanya's new altitude is 2200m - Weather is now heavy rain, hot, and the terrain appears to be a coastal jungle.

There is a magic signature nearby, at 2 o'clock low- Plausibly flight and shield, but an unfamiliar configuration - distance 600m - appears flatfooted, but accelerating to gain altitude now

What the hell! Tanya is of course accelerating up as fast as she can herself, but - what the hell?! Rain out of nowhere and her altimeter just jumped a thousand feet!

600 meters is medium range in a dogfight, close enough that many mages wouldn't dodge a rifle shot, and before Tanya can properly process what's going on she's sent a couple rounds on the target's current course. She doesn't know what it'd take to knock them out, so she'll have them explode in big clouds of smoke to hopefully buy her a few seconds.

The Rift spat something out! This is interrupting her data collection!

She doesn't even have to react, half a dozen contingency spells activate, tingling in the diamonds in her piercings, under her skin, and mostly worn as braided cords deep under her hair. Three types of shields, a reflexive tracking spell that will try to attach to the source of the incoming magic, a distracting bundle of illusions set on the same return course, a jitterwarp that teleports her fifty feet in a random direction (restricted to open air), and active camouflage including blurring of arcane energies.

A magic signature flies in at impossible speed and now it's sitting right on top of her but she can't see anything!!! 

Tanya twists and jukes frantically. Triggers an omnidirectional optical spell. It's not strong enough to kill, used like that, but maybe it'll help her find the attacker? ...it must be a new type of magic decoy, the spell isn't doing anything and it's moving with her no matter what - she doesn't know which of the other mana signatures to shoot at - is she at least getting higher than they are, she can fly higher than any enemy mage if she has to but enemy mages can't do whatever it was that made her entire battalion disappear -

There's a bright flash and a loud noise around her for a moment, but just a moment. The new signature follows her unerringly and without any kind of delay.

She is getting significantly higher than the other magic signatures. In fact, they don't seem to be maneuvering at all now, that one that she shot at has gone back to hovering a few hundred meters away from the other one- The writhing, uncanny, difficult to examine storm of high-energy magic spawning dozens of signatures fading in and out in a fuzzy mass.

There clearly isn't another mage stuck onto her but Tanya is really not sure what is! Hopefully if this spell could do something other than being a decoy it would have done it by now?

Normal visibility is low because of the rain. There weren't even any clouds a minute ago. This isn't a novel spell, this is - she doesn't know what it is. She can map the topography below her with the flight spell and it doesn't seem right either - it's as if she's been transported to a different place entirely, leaving her men behind? And someone was waiting for her, except - it wasn't an ambush exactly (on this end), just this mysterious spell that's unexplainably stuck to her. She'd think something's was wrong with her magic detector, making it report a bogus reading at zero distance, except she felt that spell approach her before it landed!

Attacking the other signatures is too risky when she has no backup and doesn't understand what's going on. She'll keep climbing until she's above the clouds (assuming they're at a reasonable altitude) and far enough from the other bogey. Her first priority is to orient. If she can shake pursuit (and if this spell goes away) then she can look for landmarks, or at least for somewhere it's not raining?

It's a pretty stormy day down low, and clouds obscure much of the local terrain. In the distance, northeast, there is an ocean, or at least a large stretch of water. West, looks like a lot of steppe and hilly highlands. The lakes and rivers aren't ones she recognizes. South, lots of green jungle.

The unfamiliar signatures don't pursue for at least a few minutes.

The closest jungle is in Africa, but if she accepts ?instantaneous transportation? from Ildoa to sub-Saharan Africa then she might as well accept that she could be anywhere at all.

She needs to find a population center with people she can ask. ...which won't fire on an unfamiliar aerial mage approaching, her orb can do short-range radio IFF and traffic control communications but she's isn't sure if compatible systems are used worldwide and it's not as if she has a civilian ID or a registered flight plan. So ideally a more rural area where she can at least check what country she's in, before approaching a big city that might have long-range magic detectors.

So: not the jungle, not the open ocean, lakes and rivers are better than steppe. Off she goes. (Will this spell slash detector malfunction go away. She'd reboot her orb but she'd be falling helplessly for a few seconds and she doesn't feel secure enough for that yet.)

The weird signature will not go away!

She can approach a lake and then identify a few villages on its shores, but around that time - about seven minutes after she emerged - she might detect most of the other signatures in the distance vanishing, and then the other one ascending to a high altitude - maybe 20,000 feet? - and pursuing her at quite a fast pace, due to the lower air resistance up there.

Someone has invented either a way to completely spoof her magic detector or supersonic, super-high-altitude flight. Neither bodes well in a fight.

She can't hide in time (by, e.g., landing in a city, turning her orb off and mixing with the population). She can't call on backup. She isn't going to just surrender and she doesn't even know who she'd be surrendering to...

She transmits over unencrypted radio. They can detect her anyway; maybe they'll be courteous enough to identify themselves. "Salamander 01 to incoming contact at 20,000 feet. Please identify yourself. This is Salamander 01 out of Bozen."

There is no response on the radio. The other contact is clearly angling for an intercept, descending slowly once they get closer.

...And is not wearing any flight equipment visible from this distance, or any recognizable uniform. They have a long blue robe with white trim and lots of pockets, bright white hair, a long white tail, and pointed ears. None of it is flapping in the wind as it should.

Mages' shields prevent the wind from affecting them and that is the only part of that makes sense!

It is presumably a visual illusion, either on a real bogie or on a decoy, except that it's a very weird illusion?? What is... the tail... supposed to accomplish?

Tanya can't stop someone with much greater speed and a higher flight ceiling from catching up with her. If that was all, she would still bet on herself in a one-on-one encounter. There are too many unknowns here and if a fight is forced on her she'll prioritize defense and not assume any direction is definitely safe when she can't entirely rely on her detection, but that doesn't mean she's all out of tricks.

She applies maximum acceleration in the opposite direction. Once she's streaking towards the bogie rather than away, she creates another cloud of smoke and emerges out of it surrounded by five visual illusions on top of magical decoys that plausibly replicate her mana signature. (And a matching illusion on herself, of course, she's not a rookie.) They keep weaving and juking as the fly, but she's generally the one on the left edge. Does the target alter course to match the real her?

Actually, she pauses to study the illusions carefully. And pulls out a paper notebook to take notes.

...Tanya aborts her attack. She can always start again and she doesn't necessarily want to fight.

They could be calling backup, in which case she should attack now to defeat them in detail. They can always refuse to engage or, worse, keep shooting at her from an altitude she can't reach or fight at. One-on-one, this isn't winnable if the they won't close to a dogfight and she can't find a friendly base.

Tanya could blast them with overpowered optical spells, those don't care if she's aiming up or down, but she hesitates to shoot to kill if they aren't unambiguously attacking her. They were present when she was transported here (???) and that is presumably not a coincidence, but if this was enemy action they'd have arranged a more appropriate ambush instead of calling for backup ten minutes later. Besides, who on Earth could have a computation orb supporting supersonic flight at 20,000 feet? Did she end up in a secret military testing zone run by the Unified States somewhere in South America? If she knew that for sure, she would surrender to them, and the States at least use compatible radio bands...

She turns around again and flies in search of settlement. Maybe she can get into a city and lose her trail there, high speeds and altitudes don't help with urban flight.

The illusions are too expensive to maintain forever; she has them and herself converge on a random point before dismissing them, which may or may not help obscure which one she was in case she has to use them again.

Oh, okay, Sinnah will go back to following along again.

She approaches a lake. This lake has three fishing villages around it, plus a larger town of perhaps a few thousand on one side. People are sorting and gutting fish. They have stone walls and wood palisades and a surrounding ring of farmland. There are a few intermittent magical signatures down there! One is coming from that warehouse on the docks every few seconds like clockwork.

Also, there are some people with bird heads and actual wings flying around, sub-1000 feet and less than fifty miles per hour. Or maybe those are just weirdly humanoid very large birds.

Sinnah will try to close to shouting distance, if the otherworlder will let her.

She can't very well not let her, what with how Sinnah is much faster than she is! 

...if she's willing to approach slowly and at Tanya's own altitude, then she will let her approach; if she tries intercepting her from above at high speed, Tanya will rush her again.

As much as she hates wasting time, she is capable of eventually making the connection that she needs to approach in a friendly style.

Sinnah shouts some things in several unfamiliar languages. One of them... Is sooooorta a little bit like English?

'Vaguely English-sounding' language is promising! Tanya has Germanian, Francois, English, Ildoan. Enough Ispagnan, Russy and Lebadonian to get by on. ...and Akinese, of course, and some very rusty Hànyǔ from her first life?

Hmm. Okay.

This language has some Francois-ish words? A few are sorta recognizable at least? The rest are weird.

She seems to be asking for permission to approach, and give... Something?

Can she show the something beforehand? 

A small bundle of herbs and flowers wrapped in linen around the stems.

She wants to give Tanya flowers? Did she end up in Hawaii or something? ...even Hawaii presumably doesn't have an aerial welcoming patrol equipped with state-of-the-art secret military orbs and illusionary fox tails.

She wants to approach her (at non combat speed), and she won't or can't explain why. Tanya honestly can't think of a reason to do that other than assassination. She will politely decline and head towards the town with the unfamiliar magical signals, while being maximally alert for any sign of the other mage attacking her or charging anything big.

But landing in a populated area with a possibly-hostile mage flying overhead is going to be very dangerous. She could do it at maximum speed with evasive maneuvers and decoys, but that would interfere with questioning people...

Can she find any written signs in the town, and thereby determine the local language or at least alphabet? She can do optical lensing to magnify anything she sees as long as she knows where to look.

The written signs in town indicate that this is a character based language, not a phonetic one. Some of the characters look kinda-sorta familiar? A few signs are also labeled in a phonetic language. That one has a not-quite-Francois word for 'bank'!

...Sinnah is totally going to follow her yeah. People seem Concerned about the pair and they chatter in one of the languages Sinnah tried earlier. Some are clearing the street. Some of the people have cat ears, or fur, or wings, or similar.

She shouts something and holds out a gold coin, addressing people on the street.