For the next few hours or so, you fly across the skies at a mediocre speed. The wind blows through your hair as you travel, and you feel a kind of freedom wash over you that you've never quite experienced before. Throughout your life, you've been content to remain settled upon your own island, never venturing out into the skies around you. Right now, however, you feel as if you can literally go anywhere. Any island, any port, above the clouds, down to the ruined surface…The sky's the limit, so to speak. You feel as if you could fly like this forever.

You're not going to do that, of course, because you're still wary that the effect of the scroll will wear off before long. You will have to land somewhere soon, because ultimately you want to find a new island to settle upon. A new home to call your own. A place where you can start again…

Within the hour, you pass the remains of several islands floating in the sky, broken chains dangling uselessly into empty space. As you approach, you realise that these are parts of bigger islands which have already fallen towards earth. Nothing remains there anymore. They have all suffered the same fate as the place you used to call home.

It's some time before you finally see one island which still remains intact. From here, you can see that there's a considerable number of inhabitants; numerous houses, roads and streets stretch out below you. Why, it looks like there might be a town down there. There's definitely some kind of community. The question is, will that community approve of you?

You ignore it and keep going

You continue to fly through open skies, unable to rest anywhere for fear that the scroll's power will suddenly wear off. Hours pass by, and still you see no other inhabitable islands or places where you can land. You encounter a few passing airships – active ones, thankfully – but they are only merchant ships and pay you no heed. You dare not stop.

There are numerous lightning storms in this part of the sky, and you are quick to stay away from them. Many an airship has fallen victim to the fierce and unpredictable weather conditions escalated by the deadly situation on the surface far below. As it is, a single strike would probably send you plummeting out of the sky. You need to stay airborne at all costs. You saw what the surface is like now: nobody can survive there anymore, and the people who remain there now have no future.

Nightfall comes at last, and you are exhausted from flying for so long in one go. It is too dangerous to keep going in the dark, anyway, so you absolutely need to rest soon. You decide that the next inhabitable island you see will just have to go. You should change your angle of ascent, too, and see what you can find. Up or down? There has to be something here. So many islands have fallen now, so many lives have been destroyed…

You choose to ascend

You fly upwards for over twenty minutes more before you spy a small fragment of an island, almost invisible to the naked eye from this distance. It seems to have broken off from a greater land mass, possibly another victim of the chaos on the surface. The island looks to be too small to offer you many favourable options, but you're in no position to pass up the opportunity. You've been flying all day long now, with limited food to keep you going, and you're extremely tired. As things stand, you'll just have to take a chance on this.

Hoping that you won't regret your decision, you disembark upon this small patch of island. Immediately, the glow fades away from the soles of your feet and the power leaves you. So that's how it is: the scroll's effects last as long until you touch solid ground again. In theory, you could abuse such a power, but you don't want to push your luck.

You proceed

The island you stand upon seems eerily similar to the one you lived upon previously. It seems strange to suggest such a thing, but you feel almost as if you've been here before. You take a few steps forward upon the crisp, yellowed sand under your feet, and walk towards a cluster of primitive-looking huts in the distance. A dusty path runs towards the centre of a peaceful-looking village, and there is hardly any wind here at all. It's all very quiet.

Unable to shake off the feeling of deja vu, you continue walking up to the village square. It's quite dark now, but you can see lights up ahead. A small group of people are sharing a bite to eat over a roaring fire, chattering away excitedly in good humour. They are not talking in Common Tongue, like the Auvahrs of the Gahl'vuhr Sehn. They speak your language fluently.

You approach the fire, and the people turn in surprise to look at you. Their skin and body composition is very similar to yours. You realise, then, that they are the same species as you are: they are nameless. For an instant, you feel almost as if you are back home again, but you push the feeling away on the grounds that it must be some illusion. Your home has already been destroyed, and surely nothing can replace it.

"Hello," you say to the people here, unsure what to say.

A man and a woman look curiously at you and smile, before offering you a leg of meat. There is no suspicion or aggressiveness in their innocent faces. It's as if they've been expecting someone like you to arrive after all this time.

"Sit and eat," the man says in a friendly tone as you accept the food. You haven't eaten all day. "You look tired."

"I am," you say, sitting down by the fire with him. "I...I'm so tired." Your words feel slurred and inconsistent from heavy fatigue, but you feel that it's important to get this off your chest. "What...what's the name of this island? Do you have a name?"

"What kind of question is that?" He smiles. "We do not name ourselves. Names give power to other people. Why do you ask these things? Do you have a name?"

You shake your head. "I do not."

"Then it is of no consequence." He gestures to one of the huts behind you. "Feel free to use one of the rooms out back. Our brethren will not mind sharing their bed with a fellow nameless one, but we do not receive many travellers this way. Are you passing through?"

As it is, you currently have no way off this island. You are stranded here, but somehow you don't see it that way. You look around you with tired eyes at the friendly people here, inviting you inside to share their food and drink with them. It looks so much like the village you used to call home. An island so small and seemingly insignificant that nobody else even knows it exists. You doubt that any airships even come this way. It's a tiny part of the world, isolated away from everything else.

You could settle here. You feel it in your bones. Start again, rebuild, reconnect with people, contribute to a living community, help each other out and start again...The thought brings tears of happiness to your eyes, and you have to look away for a moment. You didn't think this would ever happen, but you feel...as if you are finally home.

"No," you answer. "I'm not just passing through. I'm returning home."

You see in his eyes that he understands exactly what you mean. This island has not fallen. It is too high above the rest of the world, too isolated in its own little share of the skies to be affected by all the chaos going on at the surface. You hope that things will remain that way. It is true that you cannot predict the future, but you feel optimistic about what's waiting for you out there.

After falling from a great height, you have finally found your way back home.