They Made Sra Come Up There!

## Part One

"You are absolutely certain that I cannot simply lift the Bememoth up, then toss it into the ocean?"

*Sra frowns in disbelief. She's invested so much into her ability to lift things, why would that **not** be a viable strategy? Akkonaa huffs, realizing that he didn't get through to her when warning her about this sort of thing before, when she was in the process of spending their hard earned money on silly things like a Load Bearer.*

"I already told you this when you were thinking about spending all that money on your ability to lift things. There is a diminishing returns phenomena. If you were to lift something that weighs a trillion pounds, and, let's say you were in your big Sky Dragon form and were coiled such that you had one hundred square feet of contact with this thing that you were lifting. The trillion pound thing. Pressure is force divided by area. Assuming sea level, one pound force is one pound mass multiplied by the acceleration of gravity. One trillion pound force over one hundred square feet. That's ten billion pounds per square foot, or... eight hundred thirty-three three, repeating threes, million pounds per square inch."

"Right, but I can take that."

"... Okay, sure, maybe. But the point is, and this is what I was trying to explain to you before, contact forces are reciprocated. The area you would be lifted would also have that pressure being applied upwards to it. There is no material that I am aware of that the Behemoth could possibly be made of that would be able to withstand that pressure."

"What if I had a big net and carried it from above?"

*Akkonaa puts his talons together and takes a deep breath. This is what he gets for having a Lizardfolk wife. Karmic justice.*

"So, that pressure would then appear as strain in the ropes you are carrying it with. I don't know of a material with the tensile strength that could accomplish that."

"Ask Luna."

"Luna? Why Luna?"

"Uh... she seems that good with materials."

"I am good with materials."

"Darling, I am sorry, I don't want you to be jealous."

"I don't want you to be discouraged or anything. And I also don't want me to be jealous. Now, Miphau is making us lunch. Let's head in. We can visit the place in your letter later."

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*Sra lands upon the shores of Meita, just outside of the staging camp the opponents of the Behemoth raiders had set up. Sra lets Akkonaa hop off of her back and removes her harness as Akkonaa takes off his flight mask and jacket. A short walk later, and the two were amidst the agents within the camp. Sra gives her lovebird a hug before he heads off to speak with the quartermaster about supply considerations. Sra finds the mentioned delegate and offers some information that she had attained independently.*

* The behemoth raids have been focusing on progressively more southern targets, approaching and likely passing through Wahi'ala.
* An unusual number of victims of the raid are being captured. It seems normal for some to be captured for slave-taking purposes, but Sra fears this increase may indicate sacrificing may be afoot.
* Destructive raids are occurring, where no survivors are left. Sra finds this strange, as her understanding is that most raids are not meant to raze a town to completion so much as to smash and grab valuables and slaves.
* The Behemoth's Iron Tyrant is reportedly participating in these raids. Sra finds this strange, and wonders who is managing the city on the beast's back while he is away. Then again, maybe the society isn't managed to begin with.

*The delegate records this and discusses the matter further for some time. Sra has, unfortunately, not been able to intercept or thwart a raiding part hitherto, so she cannot speak beyond relaying the firsthand accounts she had heard from survivors. There is a brief conversation where a somewhat confused delegate informs Sra that no, she probably cannot lift the Behemoth up and throw it into the sea, then the two politely disengage the conversation.*

## Part Two (WiP)

*Sra tears another wing from the back on a raider and lets gravity decide the creature's fate. Blimey, what a mess the Paladin has found herself in. She careens about, intercepting the counterattack as best she can given the scale of the sortie and doing her damnedest to push the monstrous host back with the help of the Coalition forces. She wipes some blood from her brow between scraps (how this blood got there, she is not totally certain), and looks about to find many of the magical craft about her give out, their buoyancy lost as they begin to plummet! She briefly goes about catching her compatriots, glad that there are so many technological crafts that appear unaffected. Those who lost their flight recovered, Sra soon spots the source of the nullified magic, and she gives it a firm squint as she examines it. Blood and ashes, did that thing look like a pitched fight, but Sra's hands are full! She looks about for a dirigible or flying machine to place the folk she had rescued, but is interrupted by a retreat being sounded! Blast it! Sra really wanted to fight the flying thing! She realizes that it would be very much unwise to place her charges somewhere safe, then return to engage the Skyterror on her own, so she begrudgingly takes up the rear of the retreating strike force, warding off any hooligans that attempt to harry them as they attempt to disengage.*

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*Sra looks through the loop she makes with her hand as she hovers a quarter mile above and ahead of the Coalition's remaining force. Now that the monstrous fliers had either been exhausted or their commanders had decided to stop wasting their underlings, she has some time to make sense of this situation. With her Telescope lens conceptually placed within her claw and her Sniper's Eye sense, she puts members of each hostile front into view, twirling a spell engine in her free claw as she concentrates on a Divination. She reviews the targets, trying to gauge their weaknesses, their proficiency, their size (both individually and as a front), and the extent of the barbar's fleshcrafting. She wonders to herself of the extent of this terrible work. Could it be that the forces that they lose here could serve to supplement their opponent's army? That is likely the intention behind the rampant kidnapping that characterized the raids they had been performing. How quickly it could the process be done? The Lizardfolk squints more. Could she possibly make out any characteristics amongst the fleshcrafted opponents that she would recognize from the coalition forces? Sra sees no great weakness amongst the hostile forces, and so she returns to her army, producing her Cornicopia of Plenty in the hopes that they would have enough time to make use of it.*