Roleplay

@Kaleidostrophic and here it is! First post to come shortly

Wurm rarely found himself venturing out into the Southern Icefields and he was beginning to remember why. The spiral had been flying north back towards his home in the arid plains of Dragonhome, when the snow and unforgiving winds had set in. When he'd set off earlier in the day the weather had been milder, the skies clear and the sun shining brightly on the tundra below and he had been truly unsettled by how rapidly the weather had turned on him. The small dragon twisted though the air his flight pattern distressed from the strong buffeting winds from the south.

He descended quickly, approaching a small copse of windblown trees from above. The spiral wrapped himself around a crook in one of the weathered tree trunks, trying to shield himself from the cold winds beneath the layers of pine needles. Now that he was out of the wind the temperature was a little more bearable, he thought to himself shaking his head and trying to dislodge the snow and ice that had began to form on his horns and scales. He probably wouldn't freeze to death for a while at least in his little makeshift shelter, hopefully the wind would die down eventually and he would be able to start a fire. Wurm sighed and wrapped himself tighter around his tree settling in to watch and wait, making a point to himself to never find himself on the Icefields again if he can help it.

Everything was in place: six beakers of deadly substances, a jar of imperial scales, another jar full of pearl shards--stolen from an unfortunate pearlcatcher, a device crafted from Golem Workshop automaton parts, and a grapefruit-sized capsule beside it. These items sat atop a flat stone in a random part of the tundra. A colossal shadow was cast over them, and it moved back and forth as the ridgeback attached to it paced beside the stone.

The first phase of Magia's experiment was finished, and now she had reached the most troublesome part. She needed test subjects. That alone would have been simple enough, but her criteria was not so easily fulfilled. First, she would need one specimen of each breed. Second, she couldn't use someone who would be missed too much. If her creation didn't work as intended, they would most likely die. If it did work... someone would definitely die. Third, weak and frail dragons were preferred. She couldn't have them fighting back, now.

Of course, there was also the issue of where she could perform her tests. Maybe it was wisest to handle it one by one, so she wouldn't have a boatload of corpses to hide at once. And that brought her back to finding a dragon. She went so deep into her pondering that she failed to notice the weather had gotten worse. It wasn't much of a problem for her anyway. She warmed herself from within with light magic. Light produced heat, after all.

As her mind ran in pointless circles, she became frustrated and took it out on a tall tree. With a growl, she swung her tail with all her strength and knocked the whole thing down. It fell in slow motion, crashing through the branches of other trees before it hit the snowy ground. The very top of the tree landed near a spiral that she didn't know was there.

This wasn't helping her progress, so she decided to return to her device and create more of those capsules.


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@Bungees Adding a ping because I don't know if you saw this. ^^"))

Wurm jumped, startled at the loud crash as one of the surrounding trees fell to the ground next to where he was resting. Well maybe not so much fell over as met a violent end, he thought to himself noticing the shape of the large Ridgeback still mostly obscured by the wind and snow as well as the debris of the fallen tree littered on the ground. The small Spiral watched curiously as the dragon turned and returned to whatever she had been **** before making her presence known. He uncoiled himself from where he perched around the tree trunk, taking to the air again as he considered this new development.

Curious but apprehensive Wurm slowly approached where the large dragon trying his best to remain unseen. As he got closer he began noticing the jars and bottles of various strange substances laid out before the mysterious Ridgeback at what appeared to be some sort of workstation. Well that looks... ominous... He wasn't quite sure what to make of this yet but he was equal parts wary and intrigued to find out what this strange figure was working on alone here out on the tundra.

Well it's not like he was going anywhere soon, at least until the weather let up, he thought to himself letting his curiosity win out over what little self preservation instincts he had left. "You seem to have dropped something there." he called out mischievously to the mysterious dragon, raising his usually soft spoken voice to be heard above the blowing winds while also making a point to stay out of range of her tail and claws. Maybe this trip would turn out to be more interesting than he had anticipated.

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Magia almost ignored the voice. At first, she thought it was just an echo on the wind--someone calling from far away. It had to replay itself in her head before she considered that someone had entered her presence. She fanned out her wings to conceal her work and craned her neck to look about, easily spotting the dark spiral on the pure white backdrop.

The wind and snow partially obscured her vision, and her heart fluttered as she mistook him for a different spiral. Luckily, before she could embarrass herself by speaking, she recognized the coloration of his scales. Shimmering coal. Not sparkling twilight. With a near-silent grunt of irritation and disappointment, she squinted at the stranger, ready to chase him off.

'No! This is actually perfect!,' she thought, relaxing so she would hopefully appear less agitated. The spiral would now have the honor of testing out her first prototype. If he would just come closer...

It was best to play friendly for now. "I'm terribly sorry, did you say something? I was so focused on my work, you see." She gave it a pointed glance, as if she hadn't hidden it from his view. "That's just how we scientists are."

A scientist, alone, in the middle of nowhere? Not what he had been expecting to hear, although to think of it he also wasn't entirely sure what he had expected to hear.

And had he imagined an ever so brief glimmer of agitation coming from the ridgeback? If her destructive treatment of the tree a minute ago was any indication then probably not? Still wary but also still desperately curious the spiral weighed his options. It would probably be wise to keep distance still, Wurm wasn't much of a fighter at the best of times, especially not against a dragon this much larger than himself, but he was fast and that had served him well in the past. It wasn't like he was a stranger to getting on the nerves of much more formidable dragons, he did enjoy causing a bit of agitation after all.

But still, something was going on here and this was far too interesting to pass up. Things had been getting a bit boring lately.

Wurm tilted his head in an exaggerated fashion, making a bit of a show of himself taking in the whole tableau. "Seems to me like this is a bit of an odd locale to be conducting experiments." he replied, with an ever so slight playful edge to his voice. "I was merely inquiring as to what a scientist such as yourself is doing felling trees in the middle of a blizzard?"

The spiral made a fair point--it was not the ideal location for scientific endeavors--but Magia ignored that for now. "Oh my... Did that tree almost crush you?" She gazed down at it, eyes scanning along the trunk. "I ought to be more considerate in my outbursts. This experiment of mine is proving difficult, but that's no excuse if someone else pays for my rage. Do forgive me."

He didn't seem like an authority figure, so there was probably no reason to keep hiding her materials. Unless he was a thief. With that in mind, her wings remained outstretched.