"Don't have a pouch of warm ashes on me, but if you do get to Anvil you shouldn't have trouble finding some - the Autumn realm gives them out like candy, mostly in trade for forest materials, not much grows there apparently," says Brys.

"Crystal fire, the Night vis, does the same kind of thing, but I'd generally think Autumn would be a better resonance for anything mechanised," contributes Gyna.

"There's only one volcano forge that I know about in the Empire and I'm not sure the owner would consider repurposing it," says Cerna. "It was a gift from Estavus - I guess she might make another one if you impress her."

"I'm probably going to stay away from Eternals for a while."

"Very sensible," replies Gyna approvingly. "They're less powerful than they think they are, but they can still ruin your day."

"Warm ashes and crystal fire come from Eternals originally, but there should be plenty on the market at Anvil, or I'm sure Gyna could source you some of you stuck around," adds Cerna. 

"Not a priority, more like something to suggest to crafter guys to uplift y'all. Come to think of it," BEEP! "Oh, suits are done. Do you have explosives, explosive powder?" She opens a panel on the fridge-sized fabricator and pulls out the two Hyperweave suits. A neutral civvie grey with faint hexagonal pattern rather than the brown and emblem-decorated version she has.

"Oh yes, the Brass Coast love their fireworks," says Gyna. "The best ones have a bit of Tempest Jade in, which does interesting colours."

"And the dramaturgists love their flash powder," adds Cerna. "I visit Tassato fairly frequently and they are very keen on those little ones you can just chuck at the ground and make a loud bang, or flash paper that burns spectacularly but mostly doesn't set anything else off."

"None of it works for industrial or military purposes though," Brys notes, somewhat more grumpily. "We've tried it for blowing up fortifications and for mining and for siege weapon, the best you can do is a thrown weapon that makes a startling noise and light show on impact that you can put a bunch of in a catapult if you want to annoy the defenders. Usually you'd expect a loud noise to come with enough push to do something useful, at least shake up some rocks a bunch, but it just... doesn't." Brys seems to be somewhat personally offended by this fact.

"Anyway, I'll want to get going with these soon - although maybe we should have a spot of lunch first?" says Gyna.

There are a number of curious onlookers who are very happy to offer options for lunch, although it is mostly Some Kind Of Stew again.

She is really unsure if she wants to explain modern explosives to these people. Some wandering around double checking is necessary first.

She thanks them for their time and has stew. Afterwards, she'll fly some Briars around! It might be uncomfortable but she's recovered enough to do it, now.

There is a great deal of demand for being flown around! From people of all ages, from tiny cute toddlers to a grey haired gentleman who starts off just watching but then allows that he might have a go if she's willing.

Not toddlers or little kids, the flight involves gripping them with her impeller field - which kind of feels like a very very firm hug from every direction at once. They can still breathe, and talk, but she asks them not to move too much. She takes them on gentle curvy routes above the village, up high enough to get a really good overview of the area. What's around, just forest and forest?

Aerial view of South East Miaren: mostly forest.

The forest ends a few miles to the west and starts to be somewhat irregular fields with hedgerows and the occasional copse, with a few indistinct clusters that are probably settlements and one obvious stone tower.

South of the tower the terrain gets hilly, and in the distance there is an oddly regular jumble that could be a reasonably sized town.

To the east, the stream starts to become a river visible between the trees, and eventually joins up with a really big nnw/sse river, at a place area where some sweeping ruined stonework pierces the tree cover.

Her passenger is mostly going "Whoa!" delightedly, and at some point tries to stick out her arms in imitation of a bird.

She can loosen up the field around her arms a bit. Swoop around nicely, give these people something of the joy of flight. Who's next? (This is fun!)

She'll have to get real high up to do longrange navigation, looks like.

Looks like someone the first passenger knows - they laugh and bid him good luck as he gets picked up.

This one's a bit quieter than the first passenger - until Lenora gets a bit of altitude going - at which point he starts panicking...

She tries loosening up so they can move more, so they'll calm down, but that just makes it worse and they wrench free of her field when she tries to turn.

They fall

And fall

And fall, wind whipping past them and the forest coming up quickly,

Until they're caught in that pressure from all sides again as she dives past, and rapidly pulls up, slowing the fall to a gentle descent into the trees.

"Hey hey, hey, sorry, are you okay there? You're on solid ground again, we're done."

He stops screaming by the time they land, and seems to mostly be incredibly embarrassed; he's moving a bit stiffly but if he has any actual injuries he's trying very hard to hide them.

"I know you said not to move too much, it was totally my fault, actions have consequences," he mutters when he's caught his breath. "Uh, how far from the Steading are we? I kind of had my eyes closed a little bit."

"It's that way, 1200 meters. Uh... Bit less than a mile, I think. Sorry." Navigation to landmarks is a primitive action, with the Core linked.

"No worries, that's just a nice evening stroll, that's fine."

He starts off in that direction, probably expecting her to follow or to fly back, but not really wanting to prolong the conversation with the scary flying lady he has just abjectly embarrassed himself in front of. 

Fuck. 

She's getting too comfy here, even without showers and coffee.

She just nearly killed someone. By accident.

"Time to go." She mutters, and looks at her photograph of the map she was shown. Brass Coast, was it?

Well, the fabber is integrated right now. Recharging off her reactor. She can just... Go. She shoots up barely disturbing the leaves.

Climb, climb, climb. Shed those earthly worries. Here there's nothing but air and the purity of thrust and lift.

35,000 feet, and she turns on a bearing that is her best guess from altitude.

It's probably that area over there? The hills get a bit more ochre-tinted, there's a lot of coastline, it pretty much matches up.

Old style map making isn't perfect, right.

It probably is.

She could go low and slow and sneak onto the road and walk in from far away. She doesn't really feel like it.

She flutter-stalls straight down from altitude maybe a mile out of one of those neat cliff cities. One with what looks like boat activity. She's still just person sized and you might miss her but there's enough eyes in a city and on a road that it's unlikely.

The people of the Brass Coast are not shy or easily frightened; someone pointing up into the sky and saying "What's that?" is swiftly joined by a small crowd, some of which with simple hand-held telescopes, pointing and exclaiming, but most of them are not on the road and are lost to sight shortly as Lenora descends.

The road is well-travelled and currently heading towards her is a caravan made up of several brightly painted and be-curtained wooden ox-drawn wagons, many of whose inhabitants have hopped off and are gawking unashamedly at her.

An older man and a woman in her 30s have hopped out of the lead wagon and have a brief glare at each other before the man heads back to corral the other caravan members and try to get them back on the caravan, while the woman approaches her.

She's wearing a somewhat impractical looking leather breast and back plate, with emphasis on the 'breast', and flowing heavily embroidered robes with strongly contrasting gloves, and a head-dress of coins. She doesn't appear to have any differences from baseline human immediately apparent; the older man has pointed ears.

"Hi there," she says. "I'm Yasmina i Ezmara i Erigo of the Brazen Parador; currently on the road since the trouble down in Feroz. Can we be of assistance? I'm sure our dhomiro would like me to charge you for the conversation, but given the popularity I suspect you're about to have, if anything you should be charging me."

"You charge for ordinary conversation around here? Serious advice, sure, but think of the transaction costs to ordinary negotiation or something like that. Consider me very, very foreign."

"Usually only a token amount, to ensure there isn't any lasting social obligation felt; it can sometimes be unclear even between us who owes it on the road, although you did somewhat land right in front of our caravan and disrupt our journey.

I insisted on being the one to speak with you because I have some experience of negotiations outside our nation, though, and have no intention of insisting on any payment to pass between us if you'd rather not.

Would you like to come in and have a seat and a drink? We can continue to talk out here if you prefer, but we should probably stand to the side and let the more impatient members of my family get on to their destination if that is the case."

"Oh, go on right past me if you like." She walks to the side of the road. "I'm not some dragon squatting on the road to demand tolls. And unless you can make change for a Throne I can't pay you a token amount, currently."

"Theoretically I could, but I suspect you meant that rhetorically," replies Yasmina, stepping aside with Lenora and watching the man who is presumably her dhomiro attempt to herd curious onlookers back into the wagons, with limited success - especially with the children, who gleefully hop back out as soon as they can to continue blatantly eavesdropping.

"I must admit I'm blazingly curious about your mode of transportation, and what you intend to achieve here, if you came with any intentions at all and are willing to divulge some or all of them?"

"I can't replicate most of it beyond myself, fair warning. Explore, figure out the Empire, maybe decide to help people. That sums my intentions up."

"Fair warning in return: I've lived most of my life in the Empire, was born here, was one of its generals for a few seasons, and consider myself quite good at investigation, and even I haven't figured it out. But I'd be very happy to answer what questions I can, in return for a chance to learn more about your capabilities, what might make you decide to help people, and perhaps what happens next - and, in part, just because I like to have a chance to talk about what I have learned in my life."