Hi, I started Flight Rising a couple weeks ago, and a friend gifted me a Nocturne egg with it. The other day I finally finished geneing him up, because I have fallen down a rabbit hole with this game.
"Translation error," Desmond repeats dubiously, staring down at him.
"Yes."
"Uh-huh. And that means what, exactly?"
So many things that he doesn't understand, it turns out. Stuff like how Animus code works and how badly it was originally designed, Abstergo trying to derive from the First Civilisation's work and how it was bungled up. Add into the mix human DNA - Clay's - being translated into Animus simulation which was then translated into whatever the Grand Temple had going on for itself which was then translated yet again into the background processing of the universe, plus the delightfully unstable addition of stray thoughts and the fact that Desmond has slight Piece of Eden infection and apparently the placebo effect is actual fucking magic -
"What?" Desmond asks helplessly.
"Stalk it up as a glitch in the Matrix, times a thousand," Clay concludes. "And don't worry about it."
"Um. No, I don't think I can," Desmond says, emphatically, and motions at him. "Clay, you're a dragon."
Clay looks down at himself, at his sinuous body of pale gold and burnished bronze. He's not a very big dragon, about the size of a big dog maybe, but he's still very clearly a dragon. Wings and tail and talons and all.
Clay looks up at him, and his voice is sardonic. "Wow, your Eagle Vision must be levelling up, Desmond, your observational abilities are off the charts!"
Desmond folds his arms. "I'm also observing that there's something wrong with the Grand Temple," he says flatly.
Clay swings his long necked head around this way and that, taking in the ancient volcanic cave around them. "Looks the same to me."
"All our stuff is gone, Clay. And I seem to recall that part having collapsed. It looks pretty uncollapsed to me. Also, the barrier is up again," Desmond points at the glowing Isu-tech barrier between them and the device Desmond is pretty sure he just activated. "Are you seeing the barrier, Clay, the barrier I spent the last week's of my life opening?"
"Don't be ridiculous, Seventeen, you're not dead yet."
"Clay," Desmond says, even flatter.
The dragon blows out an acrid smelling breath. "Okay, fine, I did maybe attempt a little bit of time travel," he says defensively. "You would've too if you realised what the Grand Temple could really do!"
"Which is… time travel?"
"Pretty much anything that your little mind can come up with, actually."
Desmond gives him another one over and folds his arms. "Like turning you into a dragon."
"Manipulating probabilities is one hell of a thing," Clay agrees and nudges his side with his nose. Snout? "But the dragon bit is definitely a translation error. I was trying to recode myself into an Isu," he adds, very quickly under his breath. "Not a winged reptile with an upset stomach."
"You - what?"
Clay avoids looking him in the eye and huffs out an embarrassed breath. "Also you're not dead. You're welcome for not being dead," he says pointedly.
Desmond stares at him for a long moment before letting out a sigh and letting it go. "Thanks. You have an upset stomach?" he then asks.
"It kinda hurts, yeah," Clay murmurs, shifting his weight a little, and just then there's an audible gurgle from somewhere within him, his draconic belly rumbling.
Desmond lets his hands drop to his sides. "You're hungry?" he asks incredulously.
"I haven't eaten anything in almost a year, Desmond, have some sympathy."
"Yeah, well, you were dead," Desmond says, making a face, and then hesitates. "I should be dead."
"That's what Juno wanted to happen anyway," Clay agrees and unfurls his wings tentatively. "Again you're welcome."
"Right. You… saved me. And brought us back in time," Desmond says slowly and frowns "When exactly are we?"
Clay spreads out his wings and shakes himself. "If I didn't mess up the calculations, maybe two hundred years back in time."
"Uh. Why two hundred years?"
"It's enough time to fast forward industrial revolution without breaking history too badly," Clay says almost flippantly and gives him a look. "And all your major ancestors have procreated and died and so if we mess up time, there's still a good chance you will be born."
Desmond blinks. "That's," he starts to say and then isn't entirely sure how to continue. It's not exactly comforting, not exactly worrisome. It's something in between with a little bit of existential horror thrown in. "Okay," he settles on saying, feebly. "And what are we going to do? Just cause an early industrial revolution?"
"That and some other things. I have some plans," Clay says, not quite modestly.
Desmond isn't exactly reassured by his tone. "And how does becoming a dragon feature in those plans?"
Clay hesitates and looks down at himself, shifting his weight on his taloned claws. "Well," he says and his stomach grumbles again. "I think it might change the first step. Get food, instead of find riches. Do you think we could get some food? I'm really hungry, Desmond. You know how to hunt, right?"
Desmond eyes him for a moment and then hums. "I know how to hunt, yeah," he says slowly and looks away, towards the entrance to the Temple. Or rather the exit from their point of view. "But, uh."
"What?"
"You know, we needed Minerva's Apple to get in here. The door was pretty well shut - and had been for tens of thousands of years." Desmond points out and nods at the sloping cave, leading away from them. "How do you suppose we're going to get out?"
Clay stills and then tucks his wings back in. "Oh," he says.
"Yeah. Oh."
-
What if Travel Winds but with Clay and more crack?
They do get out of the Grand Temple - thankfully it doesn't turn out to be that hard. Desmond sort waves his hand at the firmly sealed door and it opens, just like that.
"What was it that you said?" he asks, uneasily, looking down at his mismatched hands, one tattooed and one ashen black. It's not so different from the vault under the Coliseum, back then he could wave his hand at a thing too and it just sorta worked, but, still… "Piece of Eden infection?"
"Yep," Clay agrees, craning his long necked head to look up at Desmond. His eyes are grey and gleam like silver in the sunlight. "More important thing here is whether you can open the door from the outside now. Because I figure we might want to get back here, at some point."
"I - probably?" Desmond says and squeezes his hands into fists before lowering them, looking back at the door. Even slightly ajar it looks pretty damn solid. Definitely not something they'd be able to force open without a key. And it will definitely close the moment they leave. "Maybe we should prop the door open somehow, just in case."
Clay considers the door and then hums, also a little dubious. "Good idea."
They roll a hefty rock between the ancient door and its stony frame, and then step back to watch as the door begins to close, stalling as it comes to rest upon the rock. The rock snacks and buckles alarmingly under pressure and the doorway groans. A moment later, the rock snaps clean in half and the door smoothly closes like it wasn't even there.
There's near perfect silence afterwards. And it turns out that, no, Desmond can't open the door again.
"Well. Guess that's that," Clay finally says with a scoff and looks up at him, his narrow tail whipping back and forward. "Oh well. How about some food now? Think you can find me something to eat? Something nice and… lively?"
"Guessing you're a carnivore now," Desmond muses, sizing him from snout to tail. Shouldn't take that much - a rabbit or two ought to fill Clay up. Looking away, Desmond squints down the hill and at the forest. Man, it looks old - the trees got to be over a hundred years old. There's definitely not going to be any shortage of game around here. "What are you going to do in the meantime?"
"Wait," Clay says and spreads his wings out awkwardly. "I don't really know what to do with these things yet. Figure I'd just get in your way."
Desmond hums. He probably would, yeah. "Well, if you want to be any use at all, you can scrounge up some wood for a fire."
"Wood?"
"Or do you want to eat your meat raw?" Desmond arches his brows. "I mean I guess you're… a dragon now so, I suppose it makes sense - "
"No, no, I'll… find firewood," Clay says, making draconic faces at him and then ruffling his wings, tucking them back in. "Always loved a good barbeque. Do you have a lighter? Something to actually make fire with?"
Desmond sighs. He doesn't. "I'm sure we'll figure something out," he says with a shrug and nudges Clay's side with his foot. "Hey, maybe you can breathe fire."
"Maybe I can - " Clay starts mockingly and then looks down at his talons, flexing his - hands? - thoughtfully. "Maybe I can breathe fire. Huh."
"Just - don't cause a forest fire," Desmond says quickly, not quite liking the interested gleam in his eyes. "That would be bad."
"No shit," Clay says and sits back on his haunches, taking a strange sorta breath and then huffing out an experimental exhale. Nothing happens, not even a bit of smoke. "I'll figure it out," he says decisively and nods at Desmond and then at the forest. "Go get me some food."
"Yes, sir," Desmond says, shaking his head, and takes out a dagger. He doesn't have Connor's tools and hunting without so much as a proper throwing knife - never mind a bow - doesn't seem very efficient but, hell. He's worked with worse odds. And weirder ones.
Casting a glance over his shoulder, at Clay who's still trying to huff and puff and produce a flame, Desmond lets out a breath. Definitely weirder ones.
Thankfully his assessment on the forest is pretty much spot on - it's teeming with game. It doesn't take a master tracker to find some cottontails and though Desmond can't take them down cleanly at distance and doesn't have much to make traps with, it turns out fine. Nothing beats a good air assassination when it comes to hunting.
… bit of an overkill on a couple of poor bunnies, though.
Desmond cleans and dresses his kills in the forests, automatically cleaning his traces as much as he can before heading back - to find that Clay has got them no firewood. He's still busy wheezing, apparently.
"What? I was practising! Being able to breathe fire would be such a tactical advantage and I think I almost got it now," Clay says, guilty and defensive and then perks up. "Is that for me?" he asks, eying the skinned rabbits hungrily.
"Yep, and I guess you're eating it raw after all," Desmond says flatly and throws the rabbits at him. "Have at it."
A whining dragon is a pretty funny sight, and almost makes the whole thing worth the effort. Almost. Sadly it turns out Desmond is a complete sucker, and in the end it's up to him to make the fire and cook the meat too. Clay is not much help - and not only does he demolish what took well over an hour to prepare in about four bites, but the food knocks him right out immediately after, leaving Desmond with a dead weight of a dragon and all of the clean up.
It would end up being something of a theme, in the following weeks.
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