To start, Nora flapped her wings a bit, and as she does so she feels a little bit lighter.
'Hmm, this isn't enough…' she thought, now a bit frustrated.
Nora looked around, spotting a nearby tree. Her eyes widened. 'Right! Baby birds learn to fly by being pushed out of the nest, I should try and replicate that'
She rushed over to the tree, and was temporarily stumped by how to get up. Thinking briefly, she remembered that she had a beak, so, by slowly using her claws and beak to climb the tree like how those hikers on Mount Everest used ice picked to get up tall cliffs, she finally was able to get to the lowest branch on the tree… after about 30 minutes of struggling.
Getting to the branch she laid down, panting very heavily from the exercise. 'I am not a strength based creature.' she thought, trying desperately to slow down her breathing.
After a few more minutes she was able to calm down enough to stand, and begin to plan her first flight attempt. Standing up near the edge of the branch, Nora felt her confidence waver, she looked down and immediately regretted it, the ground looked so much farther from up here.
Taking a deep breath she gathered her remaining confidence and took a step off. As she fell she spread her wings and flapped them desperately, but all it did was seem to slow her fall down a little bit.
'Oh shoot, oh shoot, oh shoot.' She thought, speeding up her flapping
Thud!
Ding!
HP - 10
'Ouch…' Nora felt like the wind had just been knocked out of her, looking at her system notification she saw that she had lost 10 points of her health.
'okay so fall damage is a thing, maybe there's something that I need to understand about flying…'
'Right! Wings or birds have specific physics behind them, I think there's something with the tail feathers…' Nora's thoughts trailed off as she looked behind her, still slightly adjusting to the new body.
'Perhaps I should focus on figuring out the mechanics of this body first.' deciding to try and practice her walking around, the lighter bone structure of birds was probably throwing her off.
After she had walked around for about 2 hours, Nora finally felt confident with her ability to walk, she was even able to move quickly enough that she could kind of evade predators while on foot.
'It isn't enough though, I need to learn to fly.' Nora thought. 'I remember that when I flapped my wings earlier, I felt lighter, so that worked a little bit. Maybe I need to get the technique down a bit more before I try to fly off the tree again, I don't want to lose more health unnecessarily,'
'Although…' Nora looked back at her stat block, noticing that her health had slowly ticked up 7 points within these past two hours, 'it looks like I have some sort of passive regeneration, so that's good.'
.
.
.
Standing on the ground, in a slight clearing that she had found, she unfolded her wings and began to flap then, placing focus on her body and the technique as she was flapping her wings. This made her feel a little bit lighter.
'Oh my god oh my god it's actually working…' Nora thought, 'well, kind of…'
She stopped flapping and thought about how that worked. How each flap generated a certain amount of lift. But if she positioned her wing in just the right way, it would generate more than other positions..
Nora spent the next two days practicing and learning the intricacies of flying, she hadn't eaten at all during this time and barely slept, dedicating all of her time towards her learning.
'Hahaha yes! Finally, that took forever!' Nora cried out in her head. Trying to focus on changing the position of her wings so that she could turn.
Ding!
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Quest Complete
Rewards:
Passive trait: Basic Flight, Aerial Dodge
EXP: +200,
AGI +10
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Ding!
Level up!
Instantly she felt that flying became second nature, the wind was no longer an obstacle and she felt like she could understand the movement of it much more in depth.
'Oh that's good,' Nora thought, 'even though I've learned how to, it was really hard to keep up with all of the small details that come with flying.'
Landing on a nearby tree branch Nora decided to open up her system stats once again to see what her passive ability and the new skill aerial dodge did. As well as to look at what she got from leveling up.
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Name: Nora
Species: Crow
Class: Crow
Level: 2
EXP:100/150
Stats
HP: 120
MP: 30
(STR): 12
(INT): 17
(DEF): 10
(MDEF): 10
(DEX): 16
(AGI): 36
(VIT): 12
(LUK): 16
Elemental Affinities
Weaknesses: Lightning, Fire
Resistances: Wind
Immunities: None
Abilities & Skills
Peck,Caw
Passive Traits
Basic inspect, Basic flight, Aerial dodge.
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Basic flight: gives the host the ability to fly
Aerial Dodge: 25% chance to evade ground-based attacks.
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'Okay interesting, so it looks like all of my stats increased a little bit more after leveling up, and now I'm able to fly with ease and I have better dodging capabilities', Nora thought with satisfaction.
'This is good, I'm more likely to survive now, it's a really good thing that I haven't encountered anything too dangerous until now.'
I think I'll try and rest somewhere for a little while before trying to look around, Nora thought, looking for a suitable tree to perch in. After finding one pretty quickly, she perched in the tallest branch, near to the trunk and mostly hidden from view.
Once she determined that she was safe her body relaxed, and all the exhaustion from the past days finally caught up to her. Closing her eyes, Nora decided to simply rest for a little while.
.
.
.
Slowly opening her eyes again, Nora felt groggy, the lighting was different now, and the air felt colder. Everything seemed quieter somehow. After a few seconds of processing, Nora finally remembered where she was, how she had landed in this tree to rest for a little bit, and how now it seemed like it was very early in the morning.
The forest looked pretty much the same, everything was dark, the sun had barely started to rise and there was a faint mist covering everything. Thinking back to her human life, how she had seen similar scenes before, but how they never looked quite like this.
'It seems like birds have different vision than humans, I guess I haven't noticed until now since I've been so busy surviving, but now that I can fly, maybe I can focus on other things, like how hungry I am now.' Nora thought, noting the hunger pangs that she had felt from her stomach. The sensation was similar, but somehow slightly different, more primal than what she was used to.
As she was thinking about how hungry she was, she heard another faint ding! Coming from her system. It looked like she had gotten a new quest.
The quest read:
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New Quest: Scavenge for Food
Description: like all animals, you need to eat. Luckily, you are an omnivore, meaning you can eat anything that is edible with little repercussions. Find something to eat and eat it.
Rewards: skill: Greater sight
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Nora smiled slightly, the system seemed to read her mind, she now just needed to find the food. 'Easier said than done' she thought, as she spread her wings and took off, looking for food might be a little difficult.