gifKINO - The hope of the MUTOHI [chp1 | The fall]<div align="center"><u><b><i> "That which is man-made neither seeks, nor wants enter the land of the forgotten and unknown…" </i></b></u> . . .</div> They could feel their blood curdle and burn around them, wind whipping past their ears as they descend further and further. Someone was screaming, but they couldn’t figure out who through their own pain; It felt as though their spine was being broken apart, skin ripping and tearing off of their shoulder blades. Curling their legs closer to themself as they snapped and stretched in unfamiliar ways. Their descent seemed to happen in slow motion, wind resisting every atom to keep them in this limbo; If they closed their eyes maybe they could convince themselves that they were soaring, that the swooping feeling in their stomach wasn't foretelling of their future as a stain on the ground. Blearily they looked at the sky, the stars their only reprieve - <i> Had the moon become red or was the blood finally tainting their vision? </i> The fleeting thought soon vanished with their consciousness, the last thing they saw was the foliage obscuring their eyes, not unlike their brain and senses were being obscured by <b> pain. </b> Looking upon a star as it slowly crashes from the sky. <i> CH’NOR </i>of the human skyship, the first to pass the veil since it’s creation. Would this be the sign of their prayers being answered? or an omen for those who dare to martyr the <i> KI </i> for their selfish desires? <i> ENERUY </i> will soon be put to judgement regardless of the outcome, of this she was sure. For now, she will ensure that they live, then see what time will hold for them.<div align="center">. . .</div> They felt like crap.<i> Where the hell were they? </i> Groaning with the strain of, apparently, being alive. Their senses came to them agonizingly and slowly. First they could feel something dry and sticky coating their fingers, though thinking on it more, it seemed to be an all encompassing feeling. Luckily they couldn’t feel the same ripping and tearing pain of before - in its place was a dull ache, like they had done a whole a week of strenuous exercise and are really feeling it the next day. They also felt like they were under a heavy blanket, though consciously thinking of the weight on their back they were met with the dizzying feeling of something <i> moving, </i> stretching upward at their unwilling command. <i> What? </i> Groaning again they slowly forced their limbs to lift their weight from their prone position, finally braving the task of opening their eyes to assess the situation. The light of the sun was bright, only obscured slightly by the canopy overhead. At first the world was a blur of colour, and light. Rubbing their eyes was probably not the best idea, considering their hands were a distinct colour of brownish red - Instead blinking hard to help clear their vision, willing the world to come into focus. Finally able to confirm visually that not only are their hands, and whole body for that matter, covered in blood, but they did not look anything like how they did before. Claws adorned the ends of their scaled fingers, and the scales did not stop there. They spread across their entire body - clumsily they moved to look at their feet, tail getting in the way of their efforts - <i>Tail? </i> Contorting their body to look behind them, spine protesting with the action they saw it, <i> them. </i> A pair of small membrane like wings and yes, a tail; Scaled as the rest of them, with a tuft of hair on the end, not unlike the hair on their head. Despite their better judgement, they reached up to touch their face, <i>I’m already covered head to <b> tail </b> in blood what did it matter? </i> - Feeling their features they note that not only had they gained a snout, their ears seemed to have grown substantially, they had a couple of small pointed horns near the start of their hairline and their teeth had become a lot sharper as well. <i>At least they still had hair? Small wins they suppose… </i> They shook away the somewhat hysterical thought and focused on the world around them, they found that their senses were a lot sharper than before, due to… <i> whatever </i> transformation they had undergone. The forest they were in was seemingly peaceful, the only sounds making up the space was the breeze rustling the trees that surrounded them and the occasional call of what they hoped was a bird or frog. There was a mossy ledge that they could see nearby, the shafts of sunlight opposite it shining through the leaves, the area itself was aglow with distinct fungi even in the morning sun. The whole area was overgrown with flora they had never seen before, a magical sight conflicting with the war in their mind. <i>What happened to the airship?</i> They could only remember the chaos and fire, and the strange iridescent light… Well it’s not like they had many people to miss them they supposed. But they still worried for everyone on board, there were some nice people among the dregs. <i> What am I supposed to do now? </i> … Probably… Find water to wash off all this gore and find something cover themself with, if they are gonna be afraid anyway they would rather not be naked, thank you. <i>Seems like turning into a strange beast did more of a number on my clothes than my body</i> Huffing at the thought and slowly getting to their feet, which was more of a challenge than it had any right to be. Looking around again, they resolved themselves to walk in the direction the sun was raising from, surely they will find something eventually to wash off? “<i>CH’NOR,</i> I would not go this way if I was you” Startling at the sudden voice, they fearfully turned to its source, only to trip over themself and land as a heap on the floor, scrambling to distance themself from the new presence. “Such dramatics, <i>AYOR…”</i> The feminine voice of the large creature says, almost sighing out the last part of the sentence. “Is this still language you, <i>paa…</i> Humans! Humans use? Many <i>SOLUS</i> have passed since this language was used, I was unsure” They seem… nice? Nice enough anyway. This woman? creature was standing on that mossy ledge, looking down at them; which did nothing to ease their anxiety at her imposing size. She seems to be a similar creature to what they were transformed into, though with notable differences - obviously there was size, she was large and quite plump - body almost camouflaged by her forest green scales. She had large horns that curved backwards behind her small ears, framing her long face - Her snout was definitely longer than theirs, her face held wrinkles that told of being wizened by time, though not enough to be considered <i>old</i> old. She was wearing some sort of burnt-orange shawl, poncho type of fabric on her neck that covered a large part of her upper body, the cloth was mossy and held various trinkets at the hem of it, <i>was that a bird nest?</i> Remembering to answer her question they croak out “Ye- Yeah. We um, still use this language.” voice hoarse from what was likely their whole transformation ordeal. “Good! This one is <b>NISHA,</b> a historian in my people. You fell from your skyboat, this one saw the whole thing, quite interesting and <i>paa…</i> horrific.” That felt like an understatement, they thought, as the creature they now knew as Nisha, approached and slowly crouched in front of them, her chestnut hair coming into view as she lowered the hood of her shawl. ”Your <i>FIUN</i> seems to have helped you survive, we find such <i>MUTOHI</i> artifacts rare in this era.” She punctuates by softly pointing at their chest, where, luckily their necklace still hung. With everything that happened they had almost forgotten about the only object in this world they held with any sentimentality. “My… <i> Necklace?”</i> they address holding the charm of the object up to their sight. “Mutohi?” Had they died and somehow gone back in time? they vaguely remember hearing something like that when trying to quell their boredom at a local library. They were called dragons in their language, though they couldn’t remember much else about them, hadn’t they gone extinct a thousand years ago or something? Nisha huffs and looks at them worriedly, perhaps their confusion and dread was showing. She gently offers her hand to help them stand, which they take thankfully after some hesitation. <div align="center"><img src="https://file.garden/ZnGZOv7aF21WeO00/Sheezy/Nisha Image.png"><small> Sketch Illustration of Nisha and Kino. </small></div> “This one will take you to safety. See that you are bathed, there is a <i> SHA, </i> next to my home. The <i>S’HE</i> is not safe as it appears.” Though they didn’t know what the words in her language meant, she didn’t seem to house any ill intent - not that they really had much of a choice in this situation, which the look she was giving them they were certain she would drag them there even if they protested. They nervously nod in agreement and begin following her through the forest, Nisha clearly slowing down her pace as they work on adjusting to their new limbs. The whole situation could be a lot worse, they suppose; they would take Nisha over a bear or whatever else is found in this fantastical forest any day; She had a caring but stern aura about her, it reminded them a little of a primary school teacher in that way. There were so many swirling questions plaguing their mind, though for now they will chose to ignore them all in favour of finding a semblance of safety. Thankfully thanks to Nisha, that task will be taken care of easier then anticipated. Yeah, they just need to trust this large, surprisingly nice, dragon women he just met… <i><b> What is my life? </b></i> <div align="center"><img src="https://file.garden/ZnGZOv7aF21WeO00/Sheezy/Kino Concepts.png"><small> Some concept sketches for Kino, to give you an idea what they look like. </small></div>trophyA veteran Flight rising user's negative reviewTerrible service, unfair bans and theft of money, there's a LOT wrong with Flight rising. I've been playing flight rising almost daily for about 11 years, ever since I created my account back in april 2014. I was immediately drawn in by the colourful dragons, beautiful art and the (at the time) friendly, generous and humorous community, but that's all surface level and there's a lot of nastiness going on underneath. I am absolutely distraught and devastated to find that my account which I poured so much time, effort, love and some money when I had a little cash to spare into was suddenly and wrongfully banned completely out of nowhere under the false pretences of 'multi-accounting' and the friends who used my computer to access the site and send gifts among our friend group in the past also had their accounts banned for the same reason around the same time, even though they've barely touched the site in several years. This is extremely unfair and a massive middle finger as I've been a long time, loyal player who abided by the site's (quite frankly draconian) rules and supported them monetarily by buying their overpriced premium currency and that paywalled girin familiar that was only available for a limited time. They have robbed me of 11 years of my time AND about £35-£40 when they suddenly and unfairly decided to cut off my access to the things I paid real money for with no refund or any other form of compensation. Their official terms of service claim they don't ban on the basis of players sharing devices or internet networks with other players and sending gifts to each other, but that's a bold faced lie as they've been falsely banning innocent users on shared devices/networks for supposed 'cheating' via 'multi-accounting' and refusing to correct their mistake and unban the negatively affected players again ever since the site launched back in 2013. Kindness and generosity is something positive that should be encouraged, but flight rising sees friends sending gifts to each other as 'cheating' or 'gaining an advantage over other players' and unfairly punishes their userbase for their kind acts of generosity and desire to help other users complete their goals instead. I submitted a ban appeal within moments after I discovered my account had been unlawfully closed, however it has been several months (I think 5, maybe close to 6 months now?) since then and the staff still have not corrected their mistake and lifted the false ban or offered any form of refund or compensation for the mistreatment, years of time wasted and the money they've stolen, my account is still inaccessible. I refuse to make a new account and start over from scratch as the result of the staff's disgusting levels of incompetence (ironically, making a new account and starting over because of this situation would be a genuine violation of the 1 account per player rule.) But really, I have no desire to return to the site since they're running it into the ground and making it a frustrating, disappointing experience anyway, at this point I just want to be fairly compensated/refunded. There is A LOT wrong with flight rising and how the site is handled on top of their long history of falsely banning users for 'multi-accounting', here's some more reasons why you should stay away from the site, or at least refuse them financial support if you do choose to play, there are much better and more worthy things to spend your time, energy and money on than a pet sim game that mistreats their players: The staff team has proven time and again that they're not fit to run and manage the site, they still keep making a lot of the same mistakes as they did during the game's early days, it doesn't matter how many times they promised to be transparent and do better, the admin's poor decisions and scummy behaviour never improves, they just fall right back into their old negative habits. It's all just empty promises made to get the dissatisfied userbase to stop complaining after their mishandling causes yet another instance of community uproar. Even after well over 12 years of site operation and multiple instances of huge community uproars and backlash due to their mishandling of the community, they still haven't learned their lesson, just stick their fingers in their ears and continue like there's nothing wrong. If they do anything to rectify the situation, it takes them a very long time to do anything and their idea of a 'fix' usually doesn't solve original problem and instead creates a new issue that riles up the userbase again. You can't even have a discussion on site with the rest of the community about the issues and concerns or criticisms with moderation and how the site is handled, the staff are very anal about users not discussing the topic and it gets shut down very quickly, even the volunteer forum moderators like to throw their weight around, abuse their positions and will go as far to remove anything they don't like from user's personal profiles. If you're an artist and you want to make and submit your own custom skins/accents to use on your dragons, good luck getting them approved. The moderators who deal with the skin approval process are very inconsistent with what does and doesn't get approved, no-one's on the same page and they all seem to operate on their own personal interpretations of the existing guidelines instead of being held to the same rules and expectations as the userbase. The community is tired of being messed around and has been asking for clearer skin submissions guidelines and more consistency with approvals for over a decade now, but nothing has ever come of it and discussions on the subject always get shut down. If the skin/accent you made has anything in it that vaguely looks like or could be interpreted as blood or a fresh injury, even if it's not red or isn't supposed to be blood or an injury, it's not getting through the approval process unless you change or remove the parts the mods don't like. The mods don't like anything showing so much as a hint of blood on it (even if it's meant to just be a red paint splatter) and consider it a depiction of 'dragon suffering', however they allow other, much nastier depictions of suffering on official monthly festival contest skin entries in the form of fungal infections, dragons covered in huge, painful looking infected boils, or being taken over by plants growing through their skin, rotting flesh/zombification etc. but it's allowed because there's no red stuff. (there are official items on the site that depict a little bit of cartoony blood (eliminate battle stone, bloody bandage apparel item set), but apparently items featuring a little bit of the red stuff is only ok when the admins themselves make them.) The problem isn't 'no blood allowed ever', this issue is one of hypocrisy and inconsistency. A rules for thee but not for me kinda thing. New features and art assets often release in a broken or unfinished state. (usually new gene releases or genes for new dragon breed releases. They claim to have a 45 day window after release to apply corrections to broken assets that weren't caught before release, but they don't stick to it.) The devs make unnecessary changes on a whim just because they feel like it. They try to pass off needless changes for the sake of change such as changing parts of finished and released art assets as 'technical issues' even though the thing isn't bugged/broken and is as advertised on the release anouncement. cough female fathom wings cough The site is rated 13+ but the staff has heavily sanitised some things right down to toddler levels over the past couple of years, removing a lot of the humour, references to media, cultural representation and even some mythology/folklore representation (the very backbone of a site about dragons and fantasy creatures,) stunting their creativity for their world building all for the sake of appeasing the loud, delusional minority who subscribe to the dangerous and destructive 'everything is offensive' mindset while ignoring feedback from the rest of the community. Your dragons won't stay looking the same way you left them. The art assets for genes and apparel items you've already paid for and applied to your dragons can suddenly get changed weeks, months or even years later just because the devs feel like it, even if there was nothing wrong with the original art, forcing unwanted changes on and ruining your existing dragons by completely changing how they look. Premium currency items aren't safe from these sudden, unneeded/unwanted changes either, if you bought their premium currency with real money, you don't get a refund or any form of compensation when the art assets for premium items you paid for suddenly changes to a worse version without your consent and you don't have any option to revert your dragon back to it's old art. Horrible accessibility and lacking in accessibility features to make the site usable to disabled players and users with health issues. If you have carpal tunnel or some other painful hand/wrist issue like myself, you're in for a bad time. FR is unnecessarily click heavy to extreme levels and it gets even worse with every new feature they add, however relisting items in the auction house is the main offender here. You can't relist everything in one go and there's no option to relist items in batches either to help cut down on hand strain, people keep asking for these accessibility improvements but nothing ever comes of it. The game is overly reliant on RNG mechanics, making getting anything done or achieving a goal a mind numbingly boring and overly drawn out slog. Weird and inconsistent treatment of monthly festival items. The early year's festival items are retired and almost impossible to get, they're treated as something with a weird 'protected' status only the richest players are able to get their hands on, while newer stuff that is gotten the same way is not retired. People have been begging for a re-release or some other way to make these items more accessible and fairly obtainable for many years now. Instead they added a gambling mechanic to the site to slowly trickle in these old items back into the game's ecosystem, but again, this isn't a fair system and doesn't make these desirable items more accessible, the only users who benefit from it in any way are the ones that are already rich enough to throw their ingame currencies away at it and then resell for overinflated prices that only other rich users can afford. These old fest items shouldn't be treated any differently to the more recent stuff that was released the same way just because of when they were originally available, either retire everything from each festival cycle, or make all it easily and readily available. Players shouldn't be expected to pay the equivalent value of a house deposit in premium digital currency for a bunch of pixels on a screen, and the prices are always increasing so they're moving goalposts for anyone attempting to save up for them.