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."

"Ooh. A general. I might have some tactical questions. Don't want to get overconfident. Is that armor magic? It doesn't seem great as armor, shaped like that. I'm mostly trying to see whether the politics of the empire can fit into the way my homeland works, and I'm happy to defend the innocent. It's just that I can't be confident that the Druj, for example, are the baddies without seeing it first hand."

"This particular set isn't magic any longer - it had artisanry on it once, but it outlived its enchantment and I haven't really needed to get it replaced, since I don't actually do much fighting any more - it's mostly for show, it's what people expect of me. Anything that's over three millimetres of hardened leather will turn the most common of lethal enemy attacks into a less immediate danger, though.

The Druj are pretty much the only group of our enemies that everyone can absolutely agree are the baddies, including all of our other enemies, or at least those who have a mind to make that determination with; their entire society is built around fear and torture. If you can freely scoot around like you did just then, it shouldn't be too hard to get an eyeful of the fences of impaled prisoners they like to leave wherever they think someone might be upset about them - although do be careful of the Druj miasma, I don't know how you are against supernatural auras of hopelessness and despair, they're not much fun - it generally doesn't stop people leaving the area if they're not otherwise prevented, though.

Everyone else is at least somewhat ambiguous - even the Thule, whose hobbies include necromantically enslaving anyone they can get away with, are currently not on the kill on sight list because we've made an alliance of convenience with them against everyone else who's trying to kill us. I suppose the Vallorn is not so much 'ambiguous' as 'more dangerous when provoked' - but that also means it's a bad idea to poke it without knowing what you're doing.

If you really want to defend the innocent - I suspect the best use of extreme mobility is rescuing Druj prisoners, and providing an early warning system to border settlements. If you've got anything else up your sleeve and you tell me about it, my recommendations might change. Do get anointed before you go Druj hunting though, or at least pick up a Banner of the Bold or something if you're morally opposed to anointing for some reason.

Sorry, I am absolutely prattling on, which is a terrible habit that I have whenever I see an opportunity. Do you have anything more specific you'd like to know?"

"How much is that Banner? Know anyone who can make extremely precise small metal objects? I have a railgun that propels five millimeter needles at two point three miles per second. But I only have so many rounds."

"Couple of crowns if you're in a hurry, you could get it for less if you shop around, I don't think we have any in stock but if you keep following this road in the direction we were headed you'll get to a town in about a mile or so which will have them for sale in the market.

Extremely precise small metal objects... you'll find jewellers in every town in the Coast, needle-makers in most large-ish villagers, but Siroc will house the very best.

Or if you're talking clockwork kind of precise, which it sounds like you might be, then while you might find a few craftspeople who can do it in Siroc, you're really looking at Holberg - which is right over the other side of the Empire, one of the cities of the League, right on the doorstep of the Druj. There might be some in Sarvos, another Leaguish city that's much closer - but like those you'll find in the Coast, they'll be more into decorative work than batch production.

You might be in luck and a needle-maker will do the job for you though - that is something we do in batches and in quite considerable variety for sewing needles, the Coast gets through a considerable number of embroidery needles!"

By this time the caravan has just about got underway again; Yasmina seems supremely indifferent as to whether she gets back on it or not, entirely focused on Lenora.

She appears one in cupped hands with a little flash of shimmery blue. It's subtly pointed, some kind of steel alloy, with three thin, short fins protruding from the length of cylinder. "The flukes here are important, they're what the rails grab."

"That is a neat trick... I'm no artisan but I've done my share of Timeless Hammer Rhythm, uh, that's an Autumn ritual for crafting a magical item overnight, and that definitely looks like a jeweller could do the shape - it'd have to be a fairly experimental one with a really good forge to get it done in, what is that, an orichalcum and greensteel alloy? Probably not in this town, definitely in Siroc or Sarvos but they'll do each one by hand, they might be able to cast that in Holberg. Or I guess up in Wintermark, but I'm not as familiar with runeforging work and they do tend to work bigger rather than more intricate."

"Tungsten-steel-molybdenum-chromium. I can probably get away with slightly imperfect shape, or a different alloy. It'd take experimenting. And if they could be mass produced that would be great. I might be getting confused but I heard you had electricity down here. There's a lot of promise in that."

"I'm not sure we mean the same thing by the word then - you get static electricity which is good for a kid's trick of sticking things to other things, or setting up to give someone a small shock, and I hear in Siroc there's some kind of grand entertainment where someone makes a whole load of it, makes your hair stick up on end, then makes a huge tamed lightning bolt for show? I mean, I think it'd be dangerous if you got in the way of the tamed lightning bolt, but I don't think they can shoot it at people like an arrow, it takes a lot of setting up."

"Not as a direct weapon, no. You can run machinery with it, do some neat chemistry. Make lye from salt. Make fresh water from the sea. All my stuff is electric. Oh, forgot to introduce myself. Lenora Wilson. Of the United Nations Earth Defense Command, I suppose."

"I've given you my name, but not explained the parts of it - Yasmina is just my given name, Ezmara is my family, Erigo is my tribe - the Brass Coast are of three tribes, Ezmara, Guerra and Riqueza, the three sisters who founded our nation. I am of the Brass Coast, one of the Freeborn, although I lived for a time in the Commonwealth and I learned my magic there in the great university of Volkavaar.

We make lye from wood ash, but fresh water from the sea would be incredibly welcome, especially if you could fit the device to a ship; even if not, Madruga has many islands which have to get fresh water from the sky. If you are willing to make the attempt to build such a thing with our materials, I can introduce you to some innovators on the shipyards of Siroc who would make it their ambition to realise such plans, and consider having been able to facilitate the attempt as payment for the introduction.

Although if you can travel much faster than walking pace, you might want me to send you with a letter, which is not quite as guaranteed as a personal introduction to work, but would be much quicker, unless you can convey multiple people.

And you might have more questions before handing us such an advantage, of course."

"Oh yeah, much faster. I can print pressure membranes, but manufacturing everything locally would be a lot harder. Mostly it's fancier methods of thermal distillation. Probably more efficient than whatever's been tried. But reverse osmosis rigs can be compact, though they still need you to, like, power a pump somehow. Little windmill or something? Probably doable, but I'd have to make critical components of those."