The Chained Watcher

Exploration

~~~

Brief question before the chapter.

So sometimes I sketch in my free time, and I have a couple of sketches I made of my version of Grian. It's nothing lore or plot relevant, and I wouldn't call them canon, but I thought they were kinda cool and was wondering if anyone would want me to start posting some of them alongside the newer chapters.

I don't consider myself to be at the level of a professional artist, but I'm not terrible at it. They're only sketches too, so please don't expect full-colored artwork. My ability to pick shades and tones is... lacking.

~~~

Spinning through a cloud bank, Grian relished the feeling of flying in the open air again.

There's nothing inherently wrong with staying underground, but he's always enjoyed taking some time every now and then to just stretch his wings without worrying about anything. And sure, dropping his transformation isn't an option right now, but playing around darting through clouds doesn't have any minimum strength requisites or fancy magic requirements.

He's not just out here just to goof off, however. Something had been bugging him since he'd seen the wyvern riders, and he's determined to figure it out. Sure, wyvern riders weren't unheard of, nor were they actually all that rare on worlds with enough magic, but very rarely did they appear alongside a Tech-based civilization at this stage of development. One of them, Magic or Tech, would almost always outstrip and overwhelm the other.

But in this case, both sides were clearly developed to be their side's modus operandi, with no overlapping magitech for either of them. Their languages were also drastically different from each other, which doesn't usually happen with two civilizations on the same planet. Not impossible, of course, but improbable.

This brings him to his current location, dancing through the clouds over a beach bordering another ocean. He's getting very tired of flying over oceans.

He doesn't want to have to fly across the ocean again, not when his speed is so terribly limited, but he'd seen some of the repelled wyvern riders retreating that way. It's not been all that long since he watched them pass, but if he wanted to avoid losing them he'd have to set out soon. Across the ocean.

It takes him another ten minutes of waffling before he finally gives in, leaving the shoreline behind and venturing out after the wyvern riders. He needs to figure out exactly what has caused this weird situation of very magic-oriented troops doing battle with very tech-oriented troops.

Hopefully it's not something too worrying.

~~~

A sigh of relief escaped his mouth as land came back into sight.

This particular stretch of ocean wasn't as wide as he'd feared it might be, only taking an hour to cross at the wyvern riders' speed. He could have pushed faster even without magic, but then he'd pass his unknowing 'guides' and have to figure out which way their base is on his own.

But now that he's got a point of reference, he doesn't need to worry nearly as much about losing track of them. He'll still tail them, even if just to find their specific base, but now he actually has something to look at that's not ocean and clouds and, hey look, ocean. Just a bit tired of the ocean.

His first impression of the land ahead is of one that's fairly common in environments with high magic. You'd think that with all the convenience afforded by magic, the baseline level of comfort available to the common folk would be amazing, but no, of course not. If there's one thing technological civilizations almost always do better than magic, it's providing for their lower castes.