Clouds felt a lot like soft moss when you stood on them, that is of course only if you had your cloud runner boots active.
The annual Dawn light Cloud top race always started from the heights of the Everclast mountains, on an overcast day when not the slightest whisper of the ground 12000 ft below was visible.
It was Fahana’s first attempt at the 7th and final stage of the Race as she had finally met the full requirements by turning 21 last month.
It was an opportunity for her to bring renown to her clan Damos, and give her a significant boost within the clan’s hierarchy itself.
The only problem was that she had gotten a warning through the shadows that the Fikar clan would try something during the race, if not to try and outright kill her, then at least cripple her.
At the call of the Horizon Hawk, the raze began and nearly a 100 runners rushed over the cloudscape before them.
The beginning of the race wasn’t a problem, Fahana had been cloud running for a decade and at this point it was as easy as breathing for her. The amateur runner would focus on keeping their cloud running boots active the entire time as the fear of falling through was still present in them.
But an experienced runner like her knew that while that was safe, it would hamper their speed, manoeuvrability and even distance as they would run out of energy far sooner.
Seeing her end goal 7 km away, on the mountains at the other side of the valley towards the south, she knew that she would need far more finesse than safety. And so she vent skipping and vaulting off of cloud pillars to gain speed and once she felt she had enough momentum, she completely turned off her boots so that her body simply passed though any barriers or hurdles in her path as if they were…well… clouds.
Re-emerging from them, she activated her boots again and kept running. She could see a forest of massive cloud columns approach and once within its folds, she was no longer within view of the judges that had been flying slightly higher on a giant white cloud weasel.
If the Fikar clan was going to try something, now would be the time to do it.
As if on cue, a whip-like tendril shot out from within the clouds and hit her right in her gut, sending her tumbling over, the sudden pain caused her to barely loose focus on her boots and fall right through the clouds.
Gaining her bearings in the last minute she activated the boots and caught herself before she fell all the way through the cloud to her death.
She could see the shadows of many people running above one the surface of the cloud, she was losing her lead rapidly.
Trying to keep hidden, she started running within the cloud, maintaining the effects of the shoes only on parts of the body and shifting them rapidly, so that she could move through the cloud instead of above it. It was a lot harder to do, but not impossible.
Just then another tendril grabbed her and wrenched her out of the cloud, tossing her into the air.
Now that she could see the thing clearly, she saw that her assailant was a brown and white Sky catfish the size of a bison.
Something was off, sky catfishes didn’t live in this region, nor were they violent towards humans; but this catfish seemed exceedingly angry at her, to the point of wanting to chase her down through the clouds, it seemed almost in pain.
Fahana landed on one of the cloud mounds with a soft thud as she saw the catfish begin to advance again; She had to be careful or broken bones would be the least of her concerns.
Looking carefully into its spirit body, she saw some kind of a centipede-like structure pulsing within it, with each pulse, the catfish seemed to get more violent.
‘…a Geas construct!’ a spirit parasite designed to control something or someone, she had heard that some people down in the planes used cruel spells like those to control animals and even other humans, but seeing it with her own eyes, she could almost feel the compulsion and pain it was spreading within the catfish’s spirit.
Fahana took a deep breath and channelled power through an empathy construct within her own spirit, hoping to channel its effect directly through the tendril the catfish was using to grab onto her leg. ‘I want to help you…Please, let me help you…’ she channelled her intentions through the empathy construct as clearly as she could, hoping that even through its pain riddle state it could still understand her.
For a moment it’s eyes looked lucid as it looked at her
She focused harder
‘i can help you, but it’s going to hurt’
The catfish’s eyes looked resolute and she felt a faint affirmation through her construct.
Letting the catfish drag her closer, she reached into the catfish with her mind and grabbed onto the geas construct, it started squirming and attacking her in response.
Nodding towards the catfish, she activated another construct within her spirit that resembled a a thunder cloud bound within rotating rings of steel, the cloud pulsed as she sent a shock of lightning directly into the catfish’s body and spirit. The catfish froze, as its muscles locked in places, so did most of its spirit, including the Geas within.
Pulling with all her might she wrenched the construct out of the catfish’s spirit.
Once it was out in the open, she channelled the full power of her lightning into it, annihilating it instantly.
The catfish’s spirit had gotten damaged but not too badly by the whole process. Beast spirits tended to be made of stronger stuff than that of humans. As she watched, its spirit began repairing itself almost immediately.
She could sense that it was still quite angry, specifically towards those who had done this to it.
As she looked south towards the mountains that were still a good 2 kilometres away from her she got an idea. Sending it to the catfish, she pretty much immediately received an affirmative signal from it.
She channelled power through another one of her constructs, a failsafe that reinforced her body significantly in case she fell from the clouds to the ground 12000 ft below.
Now she channelled as much power she could into, reinforcing her body so that it was as hard as steel, this made it difficult to move her limbs properly, but she didn’t have to.
The catfish grabbed around her waist with its tendril and raised her into the air, as if to throw her over the cloud, towards the valley below. Instead, it sped forward and launched her reinforced form directly towards the South mountains, her destination.
Having deactivated her cloud walking boots, no cloud impeded her path as she shot like an arrow just below its surface.
Just as she started to feel herself begin to arc downwards, she activated her boots once more, causing her reinforced body to crash through the clouds and slow down until she could run the rest of the distance with her own strength.
In a large alcove in the side of the mountain, surrounding a tree with vibrant red leaves, waited several guards, monks and onlookers as a form blasted through the mid layer of the clouds in front of them and landed in front of the tree, breathing hard, but with a wide grin on her face.
Looking up Fahana could see that she had made it to the finish line and not only that, she was the first one there.
The monks greeted her with a smile, holding the Amber fire fruit that had been the prize for this race. The onlookers on the sidelines however greeted her with a thunderous applause. Her own little cousin being held up by her father as she shouted.
Only those from the Fikar clan remained silent, some even looking dumbfounded as others among them started whispering to each other.
Later it was found that the Fikar clan’s participants had been attacked by a sky catfish and had several of their bones broken, making them incapable of running, as such taking them out of the race.
On an investigation by the elder council, traces of the Fikar clan’s own Geas technique were found within the catfish’s spirit, this combined with a witness of the catfish’s transportation, easily led to the Council concluding that the Fikar clan had been planning to somehow cheat using the catfish but had the plan disastrously backfire on them.
The Fikar clan were required to pay reparations and deal with the consequences of its own mess that according to the elder council, they rightfully deserved.
Fahana was just glad that the catfish got what it wanted and had been even allowed to leave peacefully by the elders.
She still wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about the fact that there were people she lived with that were willing to go so far to weaken her, instead of strengthening themselves.
She had to take measures to make sure that something like this wouldn’t be repeated, that those of the Fikar clan, her own clan or anyone else in the future would think twice before going against her. Her now higher position within her clan certainly helped.
It wouldn’t be easy but for now she was going to start with biting into the sweet sweet Amber fire fruit she had won thanks to her catfish friend. Who knows, maybe she could even give the catfish a position within her clan.
That thought certainly made the future seem a whole lot brighter.
