The mossy rocky formations are completely unlike anything Garrus has seen in Palaven. At least, one expects that he would remember rocky formations that float off the ground. Directly in front of him there is a boulder three times his size that is lazily spinning around his axis. Off to the west and in the distance there is a village that's completely covering a rocky floating hill (One assumes it's rocky, it is very  thoroughly covered by clustered buildings).

He is atop a rocky hill. He can see a grassy plain beneath him dotted by rocks. Beneath the village there is a cluster of farms.

This definitely isn't Palaven.

He checks if his omnitool can ping a location. Nope.

Assume zero resources. He sets his 'tool to survival mode immediately and has it scavenge the trace eezo from the smoking wreckage of his bike. Then he uses the built-in defab unit to turn the wreck into several manageable bars of pure metal, a fist-sized diamond, and a block of dense plastic, all of which he stows in his backpack.

He unfolds his assault rifle and holds it across his chest; it'll serve him better than a sniper rifle in a pinch, and if he's in a position to use a sniper rifle at all, he'll have ample opportunity to switch weapons. As an afterthought, he sets it to reuse thermal clips, rather than fire-and-forget. Sustainability is more important than speed, at this point.

Investigate natives. He could probably get a grappling hook onto that floating hill, but he's not sure if that would be seen as hostile. Better to investigate the farms. He sets out at a steady, sustainable jog, his rifle held at the ready, and sets his field of view to 360 degrees. (Wide-open spaces like this give him the creeps. He's not letting some sonofabitch sneak up on him.)

There are barely any constructions on the ground and the ones that are appear to be... wide and very low. They look like some kind of storage given that the farmers bring food to them. It's possible that the storage is actually underground.

Eventually, he is close enough to take a good look at the natives. Most are humanoids with feathered wings sprouting from their backs. Sometimes their feathers cover their scalp and other parts of their bodies. Sometimes they have claws. There is at least one other kind, maybe two: he spots people with purple-skin and white hair and people with bright red skin and dark hair too. Astonishingly human-looking all of them.

(He's close enough for a good look sooner than he might be. That visor isn't just for show.)

...huh. Maybe... genetic engineering? That'd be a fucking nightmare. Or maybe this is like the Asari, just another example of how completely fucking arbitrary evolution turned out to be.

He gets close enough to flag down an avian. "Hello! Do you know where I am?" he tries in English.

The "avian" does not approach, but turns toward him. Several other do the same. No one, is obviously hostile. His appearance causes mild curiosity.

The one avian replies in Non-English.

Alright. Looks like he has to jury-rig machine translation for an unknown language. What fun.

He nods to the assembled aliens, then takes a seat on a nearby rock and pulls up a coding program on his omni-tool. Holographic code scrolls rapidly as he begins to splice a generic VI-aided learning algorithm into his translator's corpus.

This could take a couple of hours.

People give him confused and suspicious looks. And startle a bit when the holograms pop-up, but after nothing more dramatic happens they elect to resume work. Someone, who might be some kind of supervisor or security, positions himself to watch Garrus from behind. He thinks Garrus can't see him. There is no further hostile behavior.

Time passes, people go about their business, which includes preparing for the arrival of small hot air balloons which are subsequently loaded with cargo. This is how Garrus will learn that red-skinned people can breath fire. Which they use to give lift to the balloons back into the village.

People have settled on a status of mostly ignore him, so he will have his hours without any incident worse than the occasional staring.

Garrus sets up a recorder as well, to accumulate a corpus for the new language from the passers-by. 

After a couple of hours, he thinks he's got something. His fingers twitch rapidly.

"Hi," says a surprisingly realistic voice from the glowing orange glove on his arm. "Can you understand?"

A purple-skin blinks and answers. "Hi? Yeah, I understand," he says tentatively.

"Cool! I speak this now. Where are we?"

"Minorus town!" Says the person, apparently delighted at Garrus' contraption. "If that's what you wanted to know."

Garrus' mandibles click thoughtfully. "No. What-" he points at the ground. "What this are we on?"

Head tilt. "I don't know- you mean the East-hills plain? The road? How far away are you from? I don't recognize you form."

"I am from very far away. You can't get there by walking. You could fly there... I think... but it would take a long, long-" he gestures expansively. "Long time."

Purple-dude listens to the translation. "Oh, okay. Are you looking for directions?"

His mandibles vibrate in the negative, and the synthetic voice becomes clipped and neutral. "I can't get home, if those balloons are how you get around. It's hard to even explain how far away my home is. At this point, I'll probably have to learn to live here or somewhere else nearby."

"Ah, sorry for that. I think you could go to the Ventari temple and ask for help there?"

"How would they help me, do you know?"

"I don't know. I think they run soup kitchen and give shelter sometimes? They could help you find a job. Though, maybe it would be better if you went to the Mage Guild office instead." He waves at the holograms, like this is self-explanatory.

"...this isn't magic. You have magic?"

Blink. "You mean it's an artifact? And yeah, of course we have magic. It's not common where you are from or something?"

"It's... kind of like an artifact, I guess. I've never heard of real magic, unless you're talking about- picking things up without using your hands, moving things without touching them, that sort of thing."

"Yeah, I am talking about that. I don't know what you mean with that not being real magic."

"Oh. We call that <biotics> where I'm from - we don't think of it as magic, because we know too much about how it works. I can't do it, though."

Purple dude thinks for a second and shrugs. "If you can do useful things with this," he waves at the hologram again, "or other useful things then the Mage Guild is a good place to look for a job."

"Thank you, then," Garrus says. "Where is this temple?"

"You can't see it from this angle, but if you fly up above the city the rooftop is a square-ish garden," he makes a shape with his fingers, "you can tell for the yellow-golden flowers."

"I can work with that."

Garrus takes out the block of plastic and fabricates a basic video drone. Purely mechanical, no eezo; he doesn't want to waste any resources, even if he'll probably just defab it afterwards anyway.

"Fly, birdie, fly," he says in untranslated Turian as he releases the drone to capture an overhead view of the city.

Someone shouts to keep the thing away from the balloons, possibly unnecessarily so.

"Wow, that thing is amazing."

Presumably, the drone will easily send back the overhead view. The temple is easy enough to spot. Some people fly closer to the drone, but no one disturbs it.

The drone stays well away from the balloons. It sends Garrus an overhead minimap of the town for his HUD, then returns to him for defabrication.

He folds the drone back into the block of plastic and returns it to his pack. "So, how would I get passage on one of those balloons?"

"Not sure, do you have any coin? They might just let you cling to one if you're not too heavy," he says this looking at Garrus' heavy self.

"My skin is made of metal. I'm very heavy. Um... do you value gold?""

"Yeah... wow, you must be from very far. A golden coin would be overpaying it though. Uh, hold a second," he turns ald calls. "Ciru!"

Ciru, a winged fellow, comes closer.

"Do you know how much a ride to the city would cost in gold?"

"Gold? I guess this much." Ciru gestures a minute amount. "Unless, you can't fly and it's getting dark. They will have someone fly you up."

Garrus notes the stated amount. His supply of gold is extremely limited, though; there's only so much circuitry in a hoverbike. "I could always climb up instead. Would they mind?"

They blink startled. "You can't fly?" Ciru asks.

The unnamed purple-guy is looking uncomfortable and trying not. "It would be a good idea warning someone first, but I don't think they would shoot you down. If there was an easy way to prove they would absolutely give you a ride for free."

"I can't fly," Garrus says patiently. "I mentioned I don't have biotics, right? And I don't have any wings. Unless there's somewhere I can rent a pair."

"They don't have anything to rent," Ciru says, "but the mage guild controls a Ventari pool if you want to put in the work. And assuming you didn't lose your Ventari form."

"Lose my - what is a Ventari? Are you saying I could grow wings?"

"Where did you find this guy, Bal?" Cirus asks.

The finally named Bal replies with a shrug. "He just show up. Ventari is this kind of shape." He points at Cirus. "If you get it gives you wings, yeah. How... they don't fly without help where you are from?"

"No! So- you can change shapes, is what you're telling me?"

They have a reaction similar to when they realize Garrus can't fly, but more. The guy that was watching Garrus from behind comes closer to hear better, but does not do more than that.

"Yes," Bal finally says. "Wow, this is explains some things. I guess."

"No one back where you are from can change shape... do they just... get old and die?"

"Yes, Cirus, that's what happens when you only have one shape."

"...yes, they do. Spirits. If I ever somehow get home I'll be the biggest accidental hero since Shepard. ...unless everyone got eaten by the Reapers. Whatever. I want wings, where's this mage guild?"

Directions, pretty much right in the village's center. Bal can point it in Garrus' map. They are still being awkward around him but Ciru says. "I can be your guide. Partially, because I want to see this through even if it turns out you're pulling our leg."

"The guild is going to demand some kind of pay," Bal warns. "It's not a matter of walking in and coming out bewinged half a day later."

"I'll pay a pretty significant amount of gold for wings. Or a diamond, are diamonds valuable here too?"

They nod slowly, like they find that question weird. "Uh, gemstones in general, silver, platinum..."

"They would pay a lot for that thing you used," he points where the drone was consumed.

"I have both gold and diamonds, but I can actually get more diamonds much easier than more gold. I could give them a drone, but it wouldn't be much use to them with your general technology level, I don't think. I'll probably just give them a diamond, it's easiest that way."

"Neat." Ciru declares. "If you have a spare diamond I wouldn't mind."

"Heh, I will come along if you are going to. Just give a second to tell my uncle where I am going and to shift."

"I do still need to try to conserve my resources," Garrus says drily.

He turns to face his observer. "Are you going to want to come along too?"

"As long you keep not being my problem, no."

After a minute Bal reemerges from around a corner, he is putting his shirt back on and his hair is a bit damp.

"I am ready to go."

Garrus heads off towards the mages' guild, humming under his breath. (He's going to get wings!)

They take a balloon up.

Halfway through Bal says. "Oh, fuck. I forgot. If you don't have shapes then you don't know, but getting a shape hurts a lot."

"The mage guild offers those flowers that make you sick afterwards, but reduce the pain."

Garrus shrugs. "I got half my face blown off last year. If it's worse than that I'll be surprised. Also, anything you can eat is poison to me, so that's a no."

"Ah, okay. The pool will take care of your face too."

It's not really a long flight. Most of it's about going vertically, they are soon docking.

Garrus steps out carefully. "You guys just lead the way to whoever I need to talk to, and I'll talk to them."

"Okay, I think the mage guild might be easier and they might give you room or something."

They get moving. The place is really not meant for people constrained by walking. At some point they ask to go through someone's house to avoid a long detour.

The mage guild is very obviously distinct by the fact it's main entrance is adorned by glowing symbols. There is someone purple-skinned at a desk.

Garrus reaches into his bag, fabricates a decently sized diamond from the monstrous stone within, and pulls it out with a friendly click of his mandibles. "Hello! I'd like to use your Ventari pool."

The clerk drops the book they were holding and blinks at the diamond. "Okay. I will talk to the scheduler. Is this an emergency? Ah, we need to get someone to evaluate that first. Hold on a second." They poke their head through a door and then a woman emerges from it.

She is very obviously a previously unseen kind of shape, dark-blue skin with bright yellow eyes, her contours seen to blend to the shadows. The purple-skinned individuals has a quick chat and then goes to talk to people.

"I am mage, I prefer not to disclose my exact power, but you can guess it's something that will let me know if you're trying to trick us. Is that stone real? Did you steal it?"

"The stone is real and I didn't steal it," Garrus says dutifully. "It's not precisely an emergency, but I'd like to get it done as soon as possible, obviously."

"Mmhmm," she says noncommittally. She touches the diamond with her thumb, very obviously not trying to take it. She might or might not getting some information. "So, what do you do for a living?" She asks in a very casual tone.

Garrus sighs. "I... was a cop. Then my vehicle exploded and I landed here with nothing but my backpack and these." He gestures to the guns. "So... I don't know what I do for a living now."

"Heh, tough day. If you were a cop maybe you could pick a similar job? How do you feel about killing monsters?"

"...depends on your definition of monsters? I don't kill people unless they deserve it. Animals I'll kill. Anything in between, case by case basis."

"Man, you don't have monsters?" Bal says, they have been watching this whole exchange.

"Monsters, are this abominable deformed things that look like dozens of body parts melted together, they roam the surface, are hard to kill and often have unstable magical powers."

"Oof. Yeah, I can kill that."

"Neat!" She says running her fingers lightly through a gun. Either she is getting some information out of it or she is bullshitting him hard. "I would recommend you to offer kill one for the mage guild in exchange for a form and keep the diamond. Or get the form first and let the mage guild keep the diamond as a collateral as long they sign a contract overseen by the local church. They hate each other enough that they won't try pull something on you." She says this very brightly.

"Wow, employer of the year."

Garrus twitches as she touches the gun, but he doesn't move it away; he doesn't want to piss off a local biotic-or-whatever-she-is. "Sure, I can do that. Do you want a specific monster killed, or should I just go out and shoot one?"

At least she isn't touching anything that's dangerous to touch.

"Specific one, though it's more the guild that wants to kill it for the bounty. You could probably get some reward over a random carcass though."

Garrus wonders internally if he could just claim the bounty himself, then pay the guild out of it. Then he decides this is complicated enough already. "Alright then. I formally offer to kill this specific monster for your guild in exchange for a Ventari form. Just tell me what it looks like and what approximate direction it's in, and I'll bring you its head. If it has one."

"The last report claimed it had three, actually!" She says brightly, "it was the day before yesterday, so it's probably still accurate," she proceeds on describing a very... unusual configuration of anatomy, "...and the feathers come out of the black carapace. Deal?"

"Deal," Garrus says brightly. It's been a while since he hunted something.

He walks out of the guildhall and looks over the edge of the island. He locates a clear spot to land and steps off the edge.

Turians are heavy. He falls like a bullet. Just before he hits the ground, there's a flash of blue light, and he lands lightly on his feet.

Those two dudes decide not to join him in his hunt for a monster. No one is bothered by his apparently suicidal jump.

The monster roams an area surrounded by creeks and the occassional cluster of trees. The rock formations are rarer here but more jagged and with more spaces to hide.

Garrus treads lightly, his tactical cloak concealing him from view. Just in case the thing has echolocation or thermal vision, he carries his assault rifle instead of the sniper rifle; if the sniper rifle turns out to be a better fit, he'll have time to switch. His visor maintains the 360˚ vision effect, even though he's starting to get a headache.

He keeps an eye out for monster tracks.

He finds monster tracks, noticeable for how they look more like someone dragged a rock through the earth than anything as sensible as footprints on the ground.

The tracks become... less dragged through and there are breaks, like the monster learned how to jump.

Without his 360º vision the ambush would've been inevitable. The thing was hiding on a floating rock and it leaps at him from above. It uses it's asymmetrical wings to control it's fall and aims an uneven number of claws to render through him.

Fuck!

He dives forward and rolls a few yards away, then whips his gun around and fires in three short bursts.

Mass Effect technology has done some truly miraculous things to weapon design. Garrus Vakarian's Phaeston-class assault rifle fires flecks of metal not much larger than a grain of sand, but each "grain" carries enough kinetic energy to blow a hole through steel plate.

Chunks of rock-covered skin blow up in a explosion of blood and gore. The creature shriek sounds like thousands voices at once. It lifts a leg and a pale blue glow emanates from a claw before being hurled at Garrus.

Biotics. He dives to the side, flashing back to taking down a Geth Colossus on foot. (What he wouldn't give for a Mako right now.)

He continues harassing the beast with carefully-timed assault fire; clearly it's got some kind of armor plating, but low damage is better than none.

He dearly wishes he could disengage long enough to take out a couple of those heads with his Widow. Wishing, however, is unhelpful to survival.

The creature moves erratically. The "biotics" or whatever it's using causes whatever it hits to float away in spiraling trajectory.

The superficial damage is wearing it down, but the thing appears to have an endless supply of blood.

Yep, that's biotics alright.

If the damage is wearing it down, he'll keep ducking, weaving, and shooting. All things must eventually die.

All men things must die! Sometimes things hit him square on the chest with a glowing beam and he is sent orbiting away into the sky.

Or maybe not.

On his way up, his right arm flashes out and embeds a piton into one of the floating hills that dot the skyscape. He clings to it until the aura around him dims and his personal gravity returns to normal.

Then he pulls out his Widow-class anti-material sniper rifle, lines up a shot, and fires a near-lightspeed bullet through two of the monster's heads at once.

Well, that's one way to get a dead monster, the thing is not even twitching and all the bits of landscape it caused to float are abruptly on the ground.

Excellent.

He saws off the remaining head with his omni-blade and carries it back to town.

Some of the blood gets on his skin, it's not... quite acid, but it does irritates a bit. Despite this, he won't have much trouble finding his way back to town.

As soon as he notices the irritation, he has his omni-tool decontaminate the affected area and cauterize the head's stump. He is not fucking around with biohazards here.

Once he gets back to town, he uses his grappling hook to climb onto the mage guild's floating island and walks in through the front door, still holding the beast's head. "Hello! I slew the beast and would like my turn in the Ventari pool."

The receptionist from earlier slowly drinks from her drink. "That was fast. Where is you group?"

"My group? The guys with me were just showing me the way to the guild, I killed the monster on my own."

They look at the slain monster's head. "Wow, okay... come this way. Have you ever used a pool before?"

"I have not."

"Okay. We will keep all your stuff in a locked box. Including your clothes. Here we don't let people out once the process starts. It hurts like your first time shifting, of course, but it's better to just go through the process and have a new shape once it's done. If you want painkillers of any kind this is the time to take them. Questions?"

Garrus shakes his head. He strips out of his armor and underclothes without modesty, revealing a lean, scaly body with no visible genitals, just a thin slit at the crotch. "I won't be able to speak or understand you without this," he warns, pointing to his omni-tool.

The employee is apparently professional enough to not look down. "Do you think it would survive the pool? You still shouldn't wear it, sometimes it interferes with the change."

"I just wanted to make sure you understood," he nods. He takes off the wrist-strap that attaches the 'tool to his arm and bundles it with the rest of his possessions.

He chirps and clicks wryly as he offers the bundle of armor, weapons, and backpack to the attendant.

The employee puts everything in a box and makes a show of locking it closed and putting a seal on it. Then he guides Garrus towards the pool. There is a chair that can be lowered into the pool. The place is packed full with the water bubbling around fully submerged people.

Garrus will sit in the chair and wait to be lowered in.

He is dropped rather abruptly. He might even wonder if it's so people won't flee.

It hurts. It hurts so fucking much. The moment the liquid touches his skin the cells give a shout of pain and keep screaming without ever getting hoarse.

It hurts. It penetrates deep into his skin and through his blood and everything is cold fire and agony.

It hurts. It feels like being twisted into a thousand directions and penetrated by needles that reach inside his nerves and inject Pure Pain.

Wow, this sucks.

Stuff has hurt before. He did have half his face blown off last year; that hurt. He's been shot more times than he can count; those hurt.

He's never going to see Shepard again in his life, probably.

That hurts.

This is kind of petty in comparison.

He clenches his mandibles together and he waits.

If he had his omni-tool in here with him, he could listen to an audiobook. Exarch Alcinus' account of the invasion of Shanxi, maybe. As it is, he'll spend twelve hours in agony trying not to think too hard about anything specific.

Very, very distantly, from somewhere beyond the pain, he feels movement and a sudden chill. Then his entire body spams and it's like every muscle is turned inside out... it's painful, but remarkable in how different the pain is.

And then suddenly he is on the floor, someone is throwing water all over his body, the pain is finally over and he can move his arms, legs and wings freely...

...he has wings.

Wings!

He refrains from flapping them, because there's a lot of magical acid lying around. But wings.

The guild worker helps rinse off some more and get Garrus up. "Feeling okay?"

He clicks his mandibles wryly and gestures to his wrist. 

Right. They collect his things and unlock his box. The seal is unbroken.

He reattaches his omni-tool before anything else, then starts on his armor. He leaves the torso piece off for now, given it's not designed to accommodate wings; he can edit it to fit later. "Well, that was certainly unpleasant. But I have wings now, so all's well that ends well."

The worker nods. "Is it true that you killed a monster alone?"

"I did," Garrus says without modesty. "I have very powerful technology that I can't replicate."

"Where are you going now?"

Garrus shrugs. "Any suggestions?"

"If you're that good at killing things..." The worker shrugs.

"If I'm that good at killing things what? I have zero cultural context here, help me out."

"You could go somewhere busier and kill more monsters. Or people. Please, don't become an assassin on my say so."

"I'm not gonna become an assassin, don't worry." He pauses. "Unless they really deserve it, I mean. But it does sound like monster-killing is kind of my niche here. Are there often bounties like that for specific monsters?"

He nods. "Here is rather quiet so it's just one every three months, but most places with any surface activity or too close to open water have an attack per week or so. Some bounties are for specific monsters or require more of the carcass, but everyone wants to get rid of them."

"Huh. Maybe that'd be fun. Where's the nearest big city like that?" 

"I think Delphira is closer? Might be Descen, traveling there depends a lot on the wind."

"I guess I'll head to Delphira then. Thanks for the advice."

"How are you planning to travel?"

"Um. Walking? Probably?"

Blink. "What are you gonna do about the rain?"

"...is there some kind of problem with rain?"

"Just the usual..." The worker says slowly, then he amends. "it's acid like the pool, but it does not give you a shape. It just kills you."

"Oh. Well, that's unfortunate. Um... is there a hot air balloon route?"

"Yeah. They will likely send a caravan soon, now that the monster is gone. One that follows close to the ground, but still."

"Sounds good. I guess I'll probably pay with that diamond I was going to spend on the Ventari form. Unless there's a jeweler's in town where I could exchange that for actual fiat currency?"

"Not a jeweler, but there is some that can trade your diamond, yeah."

"Cool. Thanks for all the help."

He modifies his armor to fit his new wings. He leaves the mages' guild and sells off his diamond. He buys a balloon ticket to Delphira.

There, he kills a couple of monsters for pay. It's... alright. Not particularly fulfilling. He was never big into vorcha extermination, back on Omega, and that's what this feels like.

He's picked up the idea that he needs a second form if he wants to be immortal. He's not sure he does want to be immortal, but he'd at least like to know how to do it. So he goes to the local temple.

"Hello," he says to the nearest person. "I'm a traveler from very, very far away. I only have this Ventari form; where would I get another one? And what kind of forms are there?"

The temple person is wearing a brown robe with black accents and using his Umbra form. He might be young, most people look fairly young in this world but he acts like it. He has that reaction that people have when they learn of his current mortal status. Alarmed with a whole lot of pity.

"Oh, of course! Blessing from the gods. This is a temple to Umbra," he points to a pair of statues, one he already might recognize as the Ventari deity, meaning that the other is the Umbra deity, "we have an Umbra pool to which you can get in on the waiting list. Do you mind sitting while I talk about the other forms and where you can get them?"

"Certainly," Garrus says. He folds his wings and sits. 

The young cleric explains that Ventari is the form granted by the god of the same name who saved them from the machinations of the evil Voragera deity that caused the water to harm people. He is probably going about a bit much on the mythological side of things, but he does explain that Voragera forms resemble fish much in the same way that Ventari resemble birds. Umbras follow the underlining humanoid pattern - some people compare them to nocturnal animals but the cleric says they are incorrect - with the marking traits of deep-blue skin, vivid usually-golden-eyes, fine black hair, sharper senses and make immediate shadows more pronounced.

"I definitely want an Umbra form."

He's kind of curious about Voragera forms, too - the Turian inability to swim has bitten him in the ass on more than one occasion. But he gets the feeling that this priest is not going to be a great source on that kind of thing.

"What are the other forms besides those three?"

There are many! He has seen a lot of people with the Brontos form (purple-or-blue skin often-white-hair, often-yellow-eyes and capable of shocking people with a touch) and Aestes form (red skin, fireproof and breath fire), because they are pretty common around the region. There is also Petram form that comes with small plates around their bodies and horns made of stone-like material, they are quite durable. Adamets have iris, hair, nails and scars that look made of metal. Hiberas have white-or-blue skins with white fur around their bodies and elongated canines.There is various art around the temple that provide some visual aid. Those are the common forms that he can find in this broader region, but foreigners have their own different forms some of which he has spotty knowledge. There is a gray-ish one that's supposed to be anti-magic and generally resistant. Far up north they have a plant-themed form. There is supposed to be a light-themed form that compliments Umbra's form, but it might just be a legend.

"Huh. And- this might be a strange question, but are these forms - discovered, somehow? Do the pools occur naturally, or are they created?"

"The gods created the pools and gave up a piece of themselves to do so, which is why the forms are the same as the gods," this is said with the self-assured wisdom of someone that's part of a clergy in a pre-industrial society. "Though people debate if the gods are still creating new pools or if we are finding them in places no one checked before."

"I see. And- one last question, if that's alright. Are people born with magic, or do they gain it like forms? If the latter, where would I get some for myself?"

"Oh. A bit of both? Individual forms can die and when they do you automatically shift into another. If you do it right, and it isn't that hard to do it right if you're careful, the form that died is 'feed' to the form you shift into and become a mage power tied to that form. There are also people called shift-dancers which are born with some magical power that usually affects all their forms and is often, but not always a meta power. There was someone who could broadcast their pain no matter what form they were and someone who can retain the sensory aspects of a power regardless of their form. Sometimes it's negative, like Nana Yana, who didn't get the de-aging aspect of shifting but her aging was slowed down and her magical powers got stronger as the form got older. Shift-dancers can shift forms faster and less painfully and they are born with their abilities."

"Sounds like a pretty good deal for them. I don't suppose you can reacquire forms you've sacrificed?"

Headshake. "It's not impossible that someone got a mage power for that, but I haven't heard of it. That's the sort of thing only a shift-dancer with the right dance can do."

"Inconvenient. Still, I think I like the sound of this magic. Are there temples of Brontos and Aestes in town as well, or would I need to find pools on the surface?"

"Not in town, but most pools have temples," he gives the location of some sufficiently close pool-temples for the relevant shapes.

He gets on the waiting list for the Umbra form. Time passes, as it does, and he spends 24 hours sitting in a pool of acid, as he must. (To pass the time, he sets up a program for his omni-tool to remotely play an audiobook over his auditory implants. He gets through the first three Harry Potter books, which Shepard had occasionally referenced. He kind of likes them.)

He loves the Umbra form. He's a sniper at heart; flying is nice, but enhanced senses and the ability to accumulate shadows is just delightful. If he ever gets back home, he'll be an one hell of an assassin.

If the Reapers haven't killed everybody already.

Even that thought can't dampen his spirits for long. He wants to see about getting magic. He takes the hike to the nearest Brontos temple and asks about their waiting list.

This temple accepts donations for people to get higher on the waiting list. Which otherwise takes month. He can make the money with a couple of monster bounties. Helping him with sacrificing the form to get magic is free.

Bribery! Excellent. Reminds him of good times on Omega, of which there were none.

Most bounties are easy, now that he's gotten the hang of using a sniper rifle while flying. He makes a generous donation to the temple.

"Just to clarify," he asks before he goes into the pool, "how's this sacrifice business going to work?"

"Once you have the form you're going to take you to another room. In this temple we prefer using a magical poison that's easily burned off by shifting into another form, but can kill a form if left unchecked for a few minutes. It causes paralysis which can be disconcerting but changing will fix everything. Remember to shift into the form that you want to empower or the power is going to be stuck to whatever form you didn't mean to shift into."

"So, wait until paralysis sets in, then shift Umbra. Got it. Will I know right away what power I got?"

"Yes. You might not be good at using it right away. Don't test it inside the temple."

He strips and enters the pool for another 36 hours of searing agony and pre-spaceflight Earth literature. (He likes this Harry kid. Kind of reminds him of an adolescent, male Shepard. Mostly the chronic inability to obey direct orders from authority figures.)

Once he emerges from the pool, looking very purple and feeling faintly ridiculous, he gets dressed, goes into the adjoining room, and drinks the poison. Paralysis sets in pretty quickly, and he shifts to Umbra as he feels death approaching. 

The change is meaningfully different, not painful, but he feels something inside him wither and melt away. When he takes the Umbra form it's like the broken pieces off the last one came along and burn inside his veins... and now he has a power. There is a sensory component, which tells him about the flow of electric currents and their location relative to him. But that's not all, the currents feel like something he could pull without touching.

Hell yes.

He thanks the temple staff for their help and heads out to test this power.

There aren't a ton of electrical currents to work with in this world, which is moderately inconvenient. But he's got enough copper in his backpack to construct a basic circuit to test out this "pulling" thing. So he sets up a current, and he pulls.

The pull attracts nearby ambient electricity and it burst out and through his basic circuit.

It's like having Overload back! Except it can probably target organics!

He reclaims the copper, then checks in with the Aestes temple. Do they also take, ahem, donations?

What an offensive to propose!

(Yes, under the table.)

Convenient. He apologizes, then bribes them appropriately.

How does this temple handle sacrifices?

One of the most traditional!

(They bleed him up and his body's own survival imperatives will do the rest.)

"Direct. I like it."

Back into the acid. His 48 hours in the pool gets him through most of the rest of the series, leaving him a couple of hours into Deathly Hallows. He's almost disappointed when it's time to emerge from the pool.

(That's sarcasm, of course. The pool still fucking hurts.)

He allows the priests to stab him with something resembling equanimity. I'm dying with anticipation, he thinks, and giggles slightly from what is probably blood loss, then shifts Ventari. 

It feels much like getting a power to his Umbra form, except with details that could very vaguely compared to "change of texture".

His new power is the ability to absorb heat, it works on organic things, but not as well as inorganic things. It can freeze water in less than a minute. The really fun part is what it does with the heat, it nourishes his body reversing hunger and tiredness.

He will never have to eat those fucking awful dextro protein bars his omni-tool makes out of miscellaneous plant life ever again.

He very nearly does a happy dance. Only the judgmental gaze of his ancestor spirits stops him.

Once he gets back to Delphira, he finishes Deathly Hallows and thinks about what to do next. He's got money. He's got magic. He no longer has to worry about food or sleep. The only thing he does have to worry about is, well, boredom. He doesn't think he can live forever just hanging around his apartment reading books and hunting another monster every few weeks. He could dedicate himself to wiping monsters off the face of the planet, but that sounds both boring and impossible.

Maybe somebody's going on an adventure and he can tag along. That's worked out for him in the past. He puts out feelers: are there any expeditions going out, looking for new pools or the like?

Expeditions are harder to come by and he is going to need to talk to some very obviously reckless and desperate people that don't come off as particularly capable or useful.

Eventually, someone from an actual mage guild wants to meet at a local tavern. He is sitting on a stool (they have less proper chairs in a world with winged people) at the corner, but his current shape is Umbra.

Garrus splits his time between Ventari and Umbra; Umbra's heightened senses are nice, but he does sometimes want to fly, and he can only do the heat thing in Ventari, so sometimes he's Ventari.

Right now, though, he's Umbra. (His Umbra form mostly just looks like a black-carapaced Turian, though with purple eyes from the Brontos magic.) He walks up to the gentleman from the mage's guild and sits down across from him. "I hear you wanted to meet with me."

He looks up. "Hi, I am Tempus! I heard there was someone that wanted to go to a pool finding expedition and was apparently an extraordinary monster hunter."

Garrus nods. "That would be me, yes. My name is Garrus. Are you also interested in finding new pools?"

"Yes, me and my mage guild. Well, I guess everyone wants to find new pools. Regardless, we have the impetus to try. And clues. And personnel. I am a shift-dancer capable of people's powers when there is a match between sacrificed forms. How about you? I heard some interesting stories."

"I have the Aestes-derived power to go without food and sleep as long as I can consume heat in Ventari form, and the Brontos-derived power to see and disrupt electrical currents in Umbra form. My advantage over the monsters, however, is this." He taps the barrel of his sniper rifle. "I come from somewhere very, very far away. Technology like this was common there, but here it's unique. With my guns, I can kill a monster from half a mile away."

"Ooh, I want to try out your Ventari power when I have the chance. Your technology sounds fascinating. And useful. What's the particular kind of skill set that requires to make them? I figure if the rumors about you not having shifting being true," Tempus is literally the only person Garrus has met that didn't react to this with pity, just curious fascination, "then it would explain why no one here managed to replicate the feat."

"It's not just a matter of skill, or I'd have already started uplifting your society. My technology requires resources your world simply doesn't have - most relevantly, Element Zero, or 'Eezo'. Without Eezo or another sufficiently powerful energy source, I'm effectively starting from square one."

"It's not something that magic can easily replicate?"

"Unfortunately, magic seems very individual. It's possible something could be done with Brontos forms' electricity manipulation, but I don't get the impression that it has enough output to power the kinds of inventions that would really help your society. Unless I made everything battery-operated, but even that would require large quantities of rare minerals that would have to be mined from the surface."

"True enough. Well, we digress. Do you have any..." he waves his hand vaguely, "hidden ambitions or goals about finding this pool? Are you searching for new forms? Adventure? Fame?"

"I'm bored. I wouldn't turn down a new form, certainly, though I might wind up sacrificing it. But mostly I just want to do something."

"Relatable. I am in it for the form as well. My guild is planning to create an outpost there if we find anything."

 "That's fine. I imagine you know more than I do about this type of mission; what should we do to prepare?"

"The main problem here is that it involves exploration through wilderness and any group with enough supplies will attract attention. We should be very efficient about what we take and the fact that you - and by extension me - can eat heat is a great boom. I have not actually gone through one of those, but everyone with the experience I've talked to, including our guide, talks a lot about practical patience and planning. We go to the area we pretend to explore with a search plan. We look for what we are looking for methodically and get out when it's time. ...I have confidence on my clues and also I am sure that we are going to fight monsters a long the way though." He taps his cheek thoughtfully. "What exactly can you do with your technology? Do you have anything for weaving?"

"My technology can do a lot of things, most of them hard to summarize. But yes, I can make something very much like cloth."

"I ask because it's more expensive to weave sufficiently large cloth for hot air balloons and the balloon for the expedition is still in the designer stage."

"Ah. I can do that easy, just give me the dimensions."

"Great. I can take you to the hangar then."

Garrus will follow where he is led.

Temple leads.

"So, before we get there. A little about my personal history: my dad is a shift-dancer with a dance that made all his children shift-dancers. The mage guild is not literally our family business, but we are over-represented there. My sister is coming along on the expedition."

Garrus nods. "What's her dance?"

"Sensory aspects of her mage powers are shared between forms. There is also some sensory boost to them too. Though her only powers are a danger sense that we have not tested against monsters and flight in Adamet form. Her flight comes with a proprioception that makes her very dexterous."

"Nice. If that danger sense does apply to monsters, it'll be very helpful." He hums quietly to himself. "Do you have to be a dancer to qualify for mage guild membership? What're the benefits of joining?"

"No? We are just shiny and extra and unique. We are desirable. And the benefits of joining a guild is that they help you find steady work, keep you safe and also give you credibility to what powers you claim to have."

"Ah. Nothing I need, then. I was just curious."

"A sentiment that I wholeheartedly approve. Still, if you ever feel like making a career change look us up."

They soon reach their destination. A place that could've been easily mistaken for a inn but with the clear markings of a mage guild in glowing lights.

"Sure."

Follow, follow, follow.

Tempus leads inside to a room with various pieces of paper unfolded across the table or hanging from strings. Balloon designs of various types. It's extremely spartan. A means to transport supplies and cover from weather. From the sketches there was apparently a lot of debate between using the type that's pulled by animals on the ground.

There are two people in the room. Both are Adamet shaped. "Hey, Tempus. Is this the mysterious monster slayer?"

"It is," Garrus says drily. "You're Tempus' sister, I imagine? Who's your friend?"

"Half-sister," she corrects. "But, yes, I am. Auria Blacksword at your service!" She removes a lock of silver hair out of her face and offers a hand.

"I am Hanan," says the other slowly and with an accent, "Hanan Favour. I am the Engineer," he waves at the drawings, "you coming to the expedition?"

"Are you going to the expedition?" Auria corrects.

Garrus shakes her hand. (His hand is more like a talon, with two long fingers and a thumb. He knows how to shake with humans, though.)

"I am going with the expedition," he affirms. "I'm told you need a large sheet of cloth."

"I do. Is that something you're capable of helping with?"

Garrus nods. "Just give me the dimensions, and I can make it in a few minutes."

His eyebrows raise slightly. He names dimensions. "Do not do it just yet." He adds. "I mean to ask, could you do something of that size in a few minutes? How?"

"He has a weird artifact thingie."

"Technically not an artifact," Garrus notes. "Just very advanced, irreproducible technology."

"Okay..." he thinks, decides not to be pushy, but ask. "Anyway, could you do that in a few minutes if I gave you the materials? Do you have anything to make things lighter?"

"I'd be making it out of materials I already have," he clarifies. "The cloth will be very light. If you want, I can make a very light basket out of the same materials, but I can't make existing materials lighter without resources I don't have."

Well, that's going to lead to Hanam making more questions and also calculating somethings. Muttering to himself in a foreign language.

Garrus cooperates. He knows an engineer when he sees one.

The two siblings observe, but don't add much to the engineering. At some point Tempus asks if he can copy Garrus' powers.

"Sure."

He pokes Garrus for a moment. Squirms like he just got shocked, but steadies himself immediately. Neither of the other two comment on this. "Hmm, I will go change into Ventari to check the heat absorption."

He does that and returns with a candle. He happily plays with the power for a few moments.

Auria pauses the engineering for a moment. "I guess it's pretty much official that you're in. Do you want to draw up a contract or you prefer to work informally?"

"I'd prefer a contract, just on principle."

In that case, they wrap up the talk with Hanan (who is busy calculating things) and go to their guild's scribe to draw up the contract's details.

Garrus hammers out a contract. It's pretty basic.

Soon enough, they are ready to leave. Only Tempus knows about the exact details of their plan and their destination (Auria complains this is too much secrecy). But the first leg of their trip is done by following a trader caravan.

The caravan is headed towards Minorus Town.

"Oh, hey, that's where I landed on this planet," Garrus comments idly.

"Really...? How far away from the city proper?"

He shrugs. "Couple of miles, I think. Walking distance."

Tempus nods thoughtfully, but does not comment.

Various people attempt to make conversation with Garrus during the trip. Including the other members of his expedition.

He's not much of a conversationalist, but he answers questions truthfully and responds to small talk with appropriate noises. 

He isn't the first mage-for-hire without social gifts. The journey proceeds mostly quietly.

They need to cross a ravine as a shortcut. It's not complicated, but a bit tedious process because the beast of burden have to be through the air carried and calmed down. This takes long enough that the sun sets.

They attackers use this as a cover. Starting with a wave that blurs everyone's sight. Auria dodges the effect, Garrus doesn't. Hard to tell who did.

Garrus takes to the air immediately and sees if he can get around the blurriness with some quick visor adjustment.

The blurry doesn't go away, but changing visor settings target tracking. Auria is helping people flying down without hurting themselves. She suddenly dodges something that Garrus couldn't see, but came from one of the attackers.

...oh yeah, target assist. That's a thing. Garrus usually leaves it off these days, because monsters confuse it. But right now, it seems like a good idea.

Garrus isn't 100% comfortable just killing people, even if they are bandits. So he sticks to crippling shots with concussive rounds, blowing out an ankle or a knee at a time. Fuck you, and fuck you, and you in particular, he thinks, catching the man who threw something at Auria directly in the kneecap and rendering his leg digitigrade.

Well, now their attention is on him. Notably, there is a spherical volume of increased heat around one of the attacker's hands.

Now would be a bad time to find out that he can't eat that.

Unfortunately, sniper rifles are not super great at taking out multiple enemies quickly, or swinging around rapidly to target someone who is currently throwing a fireball at you, especially while flying and relying entirely on target assist. He misses.

He can eat some of that, enough that he survives and doesn't lose a shape (he is hurting a lot). And he can't eat the shockwave when the thing detonates. He thrown away.

As a slight piece of good news, whatever was happening it had a range limit. He can see now.

Ow.

He cloaks and returns to the sky. With a twinge of conscience (and significantly more of a twinge from his broken shoulder) he shoots the mage in the head. Too dangerous to leave alive and crippled, with a power like that.

Still cloaked, he starts in on the remaining bandits. The increased distance means nothing in the face of a high-powered sniper rifle. Shoot, breathe in, breathe out, shoot, breathe in, breathe out. It's not long before the entire raiding party lies on the ground in various stages of ruin.

When you shoot a shifter in the head their body tries to save itself by shifting into other forms. The wound opens again and it's like seeing the person being shot multiple times.

But the important thing is that the man is down. And so are his fellow bandits. One appears to survive without a head for two seconds, but then his body burst into flame, which shocks everyone for a second. But soon the party is just a pile of remains on the ground and people pick themselves up.

Garrus flies back in and decloaks. "Everybody okay?"

People are picking themselves up. Many are removing their clothes, forsaking modesty to change into less harmed forms. Auria is dressed and unharmed, she managed to get some people out of the way.

"I am okay."

"Fuck these bastards," Tempus says, he is mid transformation and it's hard to figure out how hurt he is, given that half of his skin is melting away.

Some people are variously injured: a total of two lost limbs, three lost forms, and one new mage with the power to create telekinetic tethers. Also a lot of damaged goods. The less hurt travellers are trying to calm down the scared animals.

"Bandits are the same everywhere. Next time I'll be quicker on the trigger."

Garrus has no particular facility with animals or medical care, but he can take a look at the damaged goods and see if he can make some repairs.

There are various bits of cargo-holding objects that would benefit from a bit of glue here and there. Some are sufficiently hard to salvage that he really shouldn't bother and no one holds against it for not doing anything about it (Nor they are aware of the option).

People pick up their pieces and make their way to the town's shelter. Tempus' mage guild is going to have a chat with the local mage guild. Garrus can tag along, though Tempus would rather they didn't mention anything about their little exploratory mission.

Garrus will defer to Temple. “Is this just a temporary setback, or more of a ‘good show everyone, better luck next time’ deal?”

"Temporary setback."

“Good to know.”

Garrus dutifully tags along on the trip to the mages’ guild.