There are two known sapient races that have the inherent ability to fly arising from their physiology. A little magic is involved yes, but, their bodies are so well adapted to it that it is second nature. These are no other than the Avensi and the Vespertine, the birdfolk and the batkind respectively. They have been around as long as other races, almost keeping to themselves as their homes were for the most part, Aerlands. Out of reach of the land bound monsters and other calamities below, one of them has flourished so much that it has three known kingdoms under its wings; aptly called wingdoms; these are the Avensi. As for their counterparts, relegated to nocturnal activities they still remain largely composed of brood clans and have no known polities to speak of. Excerpt by Valerith Quillworth in his book: An Exposition on the Genesis of Races

“[ Raise Dead]!” Thaddeous incanted almost in a whisper. The verspetine corpse twitched and spasmed as Mors affinity mana, derivation of Nox gathered upon the body. To Arthur’s mana sense, it felt rather cold and dry as it brushed against his skin.

He stood back watching as the Vespetine’s skin desiccated at the speed visible to the naked eye, cheeks became sunken, skin grew pale and taut as its vitality was sucked to fuel the corpse’s reanimation. Then with a bone popping sound, the corpse rose, first by its forearms then shakily its legs. Its eyes snapped open showing orbs of swirling black—an undead.

Umbra bristled, growling towards the horizon—silhouettes of many vespertine rose out of the faraway hills with a cacophony of angry screeches

“ There,” Nora said, “ That’s where we go; they won't know to look for us if they have no idea we’re coming to them.”

“Thaddaeus, can your spell work independent of you?” Arthur inquired, getting ready for what was going to be non-stop shadow ports. Thaddeaus turned to regard him with his orbs of black. His brow was scrunched in concentration as sweat beaded on his brow. His reanimation spell was fighting the Mark of Sklaven for control of the corpse. Nonetheless, Thaddaeus still had the leeway to nod and say and nodded, “ I should be able to animate it for fifteen pars, no more no less.” in a shaky breath

“ Good, we’re moving— send it towards the goblins,” Arthur said as he got up from his crouch. “ Umbra you’re with me, Nora you take Thaddaeus.” Nora nodded grimly, approaching the necromancer.

Thaddaeus flicked his wrist like an orchestra conductor and the vespertine corpse, following their controller's commands, crawled towards the hill rise on all fours. Then it threw itself off, gliding towards the goblins. The glen was dyed in the crimson glow of the Mark of Sklaven growing brighter much to the alarm of the goblins; by then it was too late.

Nevertheless four on the rise did not even wait to see what would become of the spectacle as they were already on the move. Their next shadow ports brought them into a shallow musty hollow, right beneath the noses of the vespertine as they flew overhead. There, they heard the ear grating screeches of the vespertine, louder and more distinctive before they ported again one more time before Nora tapped out to drink the Mana potion.

“You don’t seem like you’re the sort to carry around Potions of Mana?” the necromancer whisper-shouted at the two while they'd pressed themselves against the cavern's walls. Nora shook her head; until now she’d never had to use them. Judging from the grimace as she swallowed the electric blue potion, it was her first time. Thinking about it, the only other potions Arthur could remember having in his [Inventory] were Potions of Rejuvenation and Potions of Healing which for the two of them were already overkill.

“Monsters,” Thaddaeus whispered enviously as he slid down back against the wall. His eyes had regained their normal brown instead of the orbs of black they were when he'd first raised the dead.

To those sentiments Arthur could only agree wholeheartedly. Both of them could recover from anything short of a cut and both inherently possessed prodigious amounts of mana; Nora a given because of her half Vampire heritage.

Arthur never had to wring his mana well dry, and he'd only needed to use Potions of Mana on Aldmoor's walls against the monster hordes; potions which had been supplied by the Guild.

But he did know what getting close to overtaxing his thaumovascular system could do; it felt like hot iron in your veins with each consecutive cast after reaching a certain threshold

'Maybe I should put in an order with Edel; at least I remember his tasting like electric blueberries.' Arthur mused.

”We should keep moving, ” Nora suggested as pushed off the wall whilst massaging a migraine that’d bloomed due to mana overdraw—her reserves were somewhat topped up relating the headache to a dull throb. ”Hiding in here with no other exit won't be good,” she added, looking towards the mouth of the cave.

“Yeah, besides...who knows what the big bad is up to now that they've detected interference? We're on the clock.”

Umbra whuffed in agreement as she padded towards the mouth of the hollow and sniffed the air.

”Ah, as the madame says so,” Thaddeus said, dusting off his robes.

“Wait, I need to send a [Message],” Arthur said, stalling their movement. The necromancer cast furtive glances out of the cave, like Nora he seemed to have Dark Vision going for him. Arthur tapped his Arcane watch and tried to send the message again, but halted,

‘What are the odds that—’

Instead of sending a message he whispered, ”Psia do you have any new [Messages] for me?”

[Negative]; presence of telepsychic anomaly has been detected in the vicinity; all outbound and inbound communication may not be possible.

’Damn so it wasn't a matter of waiting at all, all the [Messages] I sent did not make it’

Arthur grimaced, hissing through his teeth.

“What are you doing?” Thaddeus whisper-shouted, “We have to move before they fly this way. Who knows if they've sent the grunts on the ground?”

“One moment,” ‘this is just a shot in the dark’

”Psia, what is the telepsychic anomaly?”

“Who are you talking to?” the necromancer asked again. Nora shushed him and told him to keep it down.

“[Analysis ]; A Telepsychic anomaly refers to a region of telepsychic interference where all communication skills and spellcraft that rely on the Psi affinity might have a chance of failing. The presence of a telepsychic anomaly might allude to; one, presence of raw telepsychic crystals, two, anti-scrying wards, three, proximity to a translocation gate.

[Notice]; pattern resonance of telepsychic anomaly is consistent with close proximity to a Translocation Gate.

[Suggestio—”

Arthur cut off further narration

”Let's move, hopefully the rest will know something is wrong if they haven't received any communication from us,” Arthur sighed, rubbing at his face. ‘I should have known.’

“What in the Pits was that artifact?” Thaddaeus stubbornly enquired. Umbra rumbled warningly; Nora suddenly grasped him by his spindly arm and jerked him towards the cavern walls while her other arm muffled the rest of his words against his mouth.

Arthur went still as the sounds of wing beats entered their hearing range, getting louder with every passing breath. A blur soared in front of the cave mouth, trailing screeches in Verspetine tongue, then another and another. Sweat beaded down Arthur's back as they waited—Then the hubbub was gone. Thaddaeus stumbled away from Nora hissing indignantly, “ Vesper’s knell woman, I’ve heard enough kinkly bondage for one night,”

“ That was a close one,” Arthur remarked as the tension bled out from him.

“Enough dithering,” Thaddaeus snorted as he back-walked towards the mouth of the hollow.

“Thaddaeus— “Arthur warned. “Wait, we’re not in the clear yet.” The necromancer seemed somewhat incensed; ignoring him and talking to Nora instead. There had been tension between Nora and Thaddaeus and then again between Thaddaeus and the grimalkin.

“No, you hold on. I don’t remember when I said you could tell me to do as you say, “ Thaddeaus forestalled Arthur’s words. “ I’d rather walk the rest of the way—your flagrant use of translocation magic is— “he suddenly grasped his stomach retching “…giving me motion sickness,” and ran towards the hollow’s exit, hurled whatever he’d last had for dinner before he was well clear of it. Which, as far as things went turned out to be a big mistake—one of the vespertine had been above the hollow’s mouth sniffing at the air and Thaddaeus just happened to walk into their line of sight.

The vespertine thumped into the cave’s entrance, startling the necromancer who bit back a yelp of alarm as he fell back on his ramp and scrambled back on all fours. Umbra growled and the rest of the trio unsheathed their weapon’s.

It was just the one scout who’d found them out and from the looks of things, just like they were assessing him, he too was assessing them. Nobody moved as the vespertine’s gaze loomed over them almost indifferently, nose twitching as if scenting the air. Umbra bared her teeth, raring to have her mistress’ command to rip into the vespertine’s throat

Unlike the earlier encounter however, this vespertine was a sinuous specimen. It loomed over the necromancer as he slowly backed away from them, the rest of his retch forgotten—no, swallowed in a gulp of surprise.

The musculature on him seemed impossible, yet, there it was—building triceps and biceps flexed underneath a leather vest laded with the same bone knives as the ones Arthur had seen earlier. They were ostensibly meant to be thrown like kunai and then retrieved via the length of string if Arthur’s guess was right.

Tension continued to mount as the individual took one step then two on their elongated feet. They sniffed the air, as if looking for something yet, the necromancer was only a few paces from them.

‘Surely the vespertine are not blind? ‘

No sooner had that thought crossed Arthur’s mind than the vespertine’s sniffing came to an abrupt halt. Then their head whirled toward’s Arthur’s direction and they all but stepped over the necromancer who flinched away into a corner. Thaddaeus’ fingers twitched as they started casting their spell matrices. But Arthur had no mind for him as he too was running through his list of options of what spells to use.

Thunderbolt was out of the question as the space was too small and too close to the rest of the party, Air Cannon would sooner displace all the air and disorient them with sudden changes in air pressure. Water Vortex was…passable, but Arthur did not know how it’d fare against the hulking bat-person besides he thought it so slow. As for his Zweihander, Arthur chanced a glimpse at the height clearance and and internally cursed—there was hardly any way to swing the damn thing. He was in the backfoot in the worst way possible

From the corner of his eyes he saw Nora size up the verspetine daggers already drawn, Umbra was stalking the vespertine’s opposite side. It was too easy; they just had to shadow port to bring him down , it was just one of them—but why did Arthur feel like they were the ones being cornered?

By then, the batkin was now in the middle of the four. Their ears tracked the sound of every little crunch of the rocks, and every drawn breath—their nose? It was hung up on one thing and one thing alone. Something they thought to be on Arthur. But what? They didn’t have to find out as the vespertine hissed a guttural shriek,

“ Kinslayer!”

Nora and Umbra tensed as they prepared to port. Thaddaeus seemed to have drawn himself up, Nox mana wreathing his arms and ready to go. Despite that, the verspetine did not pay then any attention whatsoever, and no sooner had Arthur blinked than plumes of gravel and dirt bloomed where the vespertine had been a casion ago.

Danger sense sang just in time for Arthur to bring up his sword in a guard. The kinetic pushback had him dig divots on the ground until he was backed up against the furthest wall. Two hooked claw weapons, like japanese tekko kagi screeched against his blue mithril sword as the vespertine pressed him to the wall. He felt every crag that poked against his back, driving lances of pain into his ribs and spine. His muscles groaned as the vespertine loomed over him, a hot rank breath almost made his eyes water.

Arthur suddenly ducked, dematerializing the Zweihander into inventory—he let his legs drop from under him as the Vespertine found resistance gone and slammed into the wall—Arthur had already tumbled into a roll between the vespertine’s legs. The sound of bone weapons meeting rock rung out detritus and rock cascaded from the cavern ceiling raining all over the batkin who screeched incensed by the turn of events.

Arthur drew his dagger wanting to capitalize before they could turn around but— find himself rebuffing a reflexive kick too fast to track that sent him sprawling as claws shod in metal came for his face—the hastily put up guard almost sent his dagger skittering as it jarred his wrists and socked him in the nose for his troubles.

In the same instance the batkin sheared their claw weapons out of the wall sending more dust and a shower of rock into the path of Thaddaeus' [Death Bolt] hiding himself in the cloud of detritus. Nora, who'd gone porting into the obstruction, cursed as she changed tack and switched to a wall run hoping to get above the Vespertine—but she only saw swirling debris where the air had been displaced from movement.

”Arthur, watch out he has a movement ski—” Nora's words were cut short as the vespertine reappeared right behind her, clawed weapons going for a rake of her back, she twisted around to guard, halting the advance of one from reaching her ribs and bit back a scream as one got through her guard—Umbra had neither been one to be idle been too appeared right above the attacker, tentacle claws screaming through the air. Nora disappeared in a backwards shadow port. Arthur watched in dismay as Umbra's attack only met the dissipating after image of her target—the vespertine was too fast.

The hair at the nape of his neck rose and he was again forced to scramble out of the way, only to realize to his horror that he was not the batkin's mark.

”Thaddaeus!”

“Deathbol—Ghurk!” The necromancer's went wide as he vespertine bowled him over in half with a well aimed blow to the stomach, voiding him of the retch that he hadn't managed to rid himself of. The errant spell sizzled on the cavern's roof while the vespertine's fist, with an audible, unmistakable crack of bone punted the half keeled over necromancer outside the cave.

Silence reigned, punctuated by Nora's painful wheezes, Arthur's heavy breaths, and Umbra's sawing rumbles as she put herself in front of her Mistress. ”Umbra, ”Nora patted the grimalkin's fore-shoulders, ”Go after him.” The grimalkin snorted in affront. ”Go!,” Nora insisted...and the grimalkin sank into the shadows as she would through water.

All the while the hunched over vespertine watched them with indifference with his milky white orbs. Then with a joint popping exertion he drew himself up, unfazed and barely winded. He turned his claws this way and that, as if contemplating.

Even against his dusty gray scale sight of obsiderite goggles, he saw the two scars crossed over the eyes. Their eyes had neither sclera nor pupils, yet they blinked as if they could very well see them; their bat-like ears , clipped at the edges and adorned with studs flicked to and fro, unhindered by the metallic embellishments. Then they laughed as if mocking the altercation,

“Necromancer, Assassin of shadows, Mageling who plays with blades and void magic...hmm,” the vespertine muttered to no one but himself. As he turned his head to face them, Arthur realized at all along, the vespertine had been blind. ”Hahaha poor excuse for a fight you pups,”

Arthur felt his half draconic blood simmer with righteous fury, pushing against the cold clarity of [Eye of the Storm]. He wiped away the blood that’d bled from his nose as [Regeneration] set him right as rain, all the while watching for an opening. The vespertine had their back open, and Nora was also out of the way.

With Thaddeaus was out of the picture, he could get a handle on things; the less chaotic elements he had, the better it was for him—if Arthur could just get them with a [Thunderbolt]—his matrix was already slotted in his consciousness and alongside it, was [Windshield] just in case things went south. However, the longer he held both matrices, the more it taxed on his psyche; he could almost feel the ache bloom on his frontal lobe. And though his breath had evened out, the frantic movements had left his calves sore.

“ Psst, Nora, are you okay?” Arthur whispered to the dhampir through his arcane watch ; Nora stymied her surprise when she realized where Arthur was speaking from and nodded.

”Pathetic—” the vespertine muttered out of the blue. Arthur almost blanched thinking they’d been found out— and almost immediately felt relieved relief show when he realized the vespertine was still monologuing as he shook his head, “You couldn’t have not slain kin,” Then they grinned, showing their front teeth, one chipped canine and four metal capped incisors peeking from a cleft upper lip. “ Your aura is almost intoxicating yes—

“ I’m fine, just a mild paralytic,” she winced, soothing the back of her ribs where the bone claws had gotten through, “ I think he’s waiting for one of us to drop from it. Little does he know I am immune—”

“ — whoever your mother was, no doubt sired the pick of the litter—”

Arthur almost let his elation show; the vespertine was simply too overconfident for his own good. “ How many ports do you have left?”

“ Unfortunately…” the vespertine spread their wings as if in challenge.

“ Mana’s recovering slowly, one or two I think,” Nora replied as she circled, trying to keep to the vespertine’s blindspot. Arthur did likewise, keeping the 7 foot something beastkin in their centre.

“ a pup is all you’ll ever be—” the batkin continued, voice falling as if they’d come to a realization.

“ Kinda bit off more than we can chew eh?” Arthur whispered, as he waringly, watched the claw weapons attached to the vespertine’s free digits.

“ Sands blast it, yes. I think I am way out of practice,” came the reply.

“ I think we got what we came for,” Arthur grinned ruefully behind his mask. “ Think you can save one port for when I bring the cave down on our heads?”

“Mmh; tell me when you’re ready,” then both were in a straight line. Nora to the left, vespertine in the middle and Arthur on the right, there was a straight shot out of the hollow. All he had to do was send the signal.

“ All screech and no fang,”the vespertine suddenly hummed.“There's some noise in the air,” they said. Then they whirled towards Nora's direction, blinking, their eyes the creamy white of blindness. “ Kind of rude to blather when someone's talking— are you psionics too? No…impossible.” Arthur's's eyes went as wide as Eryth just had to give bat’s a preternatural magical perception too, but he hadn't any time to care.

‘Feck it’ “[Thunder Bo—], [Wind Shield]! “ but faster than Arthur could release his spell, the vespertine had blurred in front of his face. ‘Hmmrgh, too slow,’

“Arthur!” Nora shrieked in warning as she shadow ported way too late.

The spell managed to just divert the clawed weapons slightly to the side, just—missing his Adam's apple by a hair's breadth. Arthur felt the gap in the spell shield as the vespertine shredded it, and then a backhand too fast to follow clipped him in the chin. Nora dematerialized and caught him in the air and the two fell onto the wall in a tangle of limbs.

“ You were not worth it after all, little pup,” footsteps receded into the opening of the cave. “ Still my broodkin are rather restless ,” Arthur’s vision was swimming, his left ear was whining; Nora was groaning beside him as she tried to extricate herself.

“ Perhaps I should invite them to play—”was the last thing he heard before the vespertine screeched a cascading wail—A wail that seemed equal parts physical and equal parts telepsychic that rang from his arcane watch as white noise. It rolled through his bones and rattled his body. Nora tried to port them out but; she met resistance in a wall of telepsychic ripples that manifested in the air. Arthur could almost swear there was a couple of g-forces compressing him from all sides—

“Ugh what is that atrocious whine?” Thaddeus groaned. Rocks, sticks and uneven surfaces dug into his back as he was dragged against the ground . Tepid liquid ran down his face, sticking to his hair; his hood was off and bits of grass and dust were getting into his air and lashes.

He flinched and apathetically he tried to lift his upper body with one arm while trying to wipe off the liquid with the other— his arm gave away in lancing pain that brought him out of his torpor in a hiss; awareness flooded him all at once, the events that had transpired way before that.

Then he remembered, and thanked the primals that he hadn't screamed in pain. Years of breaking and fixing his own bones had given him some tolerance for it. His relief was short lived however as the sounds of low growling and a familiar itchiness on the roof of his nostrils manifested—he sniffled. As if reading his mind, Umbra appeared from the darkness as his Dark Vision adjusted. He blinked the stars from his eyes and found the grimalkin face to face with him,

”You...yo— again, what do you want?” Thaddeus scuttled back away from the faerie-beast, hissing as he put weight on his fractured arm. The faerie-beast snorted. Thaddaeus almost thought he'd seen Umbra roll her eyes at him.

He cradled his fractured hand and shakily got onto his feet , “Wait, how did we get here?” He checked the surroundings. They were quite far from where he expected to have fallen; the hollow they'd been hiding was nowhere to be found.

He flinched as the sound of wing beats passed overhead, then relaxed when he saw where they were. Back before the goblin's camp, further away from the danger.

”Your Mistress must've sent you to get me huh?” he rasped; his ribs were rather sore— his eyes went wide when he recalled that he'd been bent over in half from the vespertine's blow. He gingerly checked his torso, almost slumping in relief when he saw that the patchwork armor he'd fashioned from grizzly boar bones had held up well

”Pits Knells' that's going to bruise,” he hissed in pain as he gingerly pulled down his tunic. Feeling for his fractured arm, he drew a deep breath and then incanted, “[Mend Bone]” He felt the sensation of bones beneath his skin and he bit his teeth as the bone finally set into the fractures—Not hairline fractures mind you; it was almost to the extent of the wrist bone breaking the surface of his skin—he didn't need Dark Vision to know he had a welt the size of his thumb.

Umbra's tail flicked him in the nose as if asking him whether he was done.

“What?” he sniffed again, holding back a sneeze—the sneeze that got them into all of this in the first place. ‘No, everything after the first batkin was none of my fault.’

Umbra motioned to the direction of the village,

“But your Master and Mistress?” Thaddaeus pointed to the other direction where the echoes of a screech were still bouncing around the hills.

Umbra growled in warning,

”Alright alright...I get you. They want us to get help...? Wait, there were more of you?!”

Umbra whuffed and snorted, sounding both vexed and scorned, as if she'd been saddled with Eryth's dumbest human.

“Fine you lead the way, ” Thaddaeus raised his arms in pacification. The faerie beast rounded on him. “Hey, wait, easy, not the cloak, not the cloak—”