A flame elemental flying through the sky. Watch out, birdies! Image copyrighted ©2014 by Eposic. All Rights Reserved. Rendered using DAZ Studio 4.7 Pro. No postwork. Click on the image for a larger version.
In this installment of Khayd’haik the Troll Mystic’s series on elementals, he discusses how elementals can interact with air, gases and empty spaces. Khayd’haik refers to empty spaces as voids. You may know them better as vacuums.
Check out the introductory installment on elementals if you missed it or any previous installments, or just want to refresh your memory on what has come before. Yes, it has been over a year since the last installment.
Interactions with Air, Gases and Voids
Not all elemental types can fly. Some can travel through both air and voids, while some can only travel through air, unable to travel in a void. “Air” in this context includes any gaseous environment, even a toxic one. Some elementals would be harmed by passing through a toxic cloud, however. It depends on the type and strength of the toxin as to which elementals would be harmed and how badly they would be harmed by passing through the toxin. There are too many variables to list all conditions.
Wind elementals can naturally fly fast through the air, making all sorts of tricky, acrobatic moves. They cannot fly in a void, though they can propel themselves into a void and allow their momentum or gravity to carry them through. A wind elemental can survive indefinitely in a void. If you want to survive in a void, wrap yourself in a wind elemental.
Stone elementals cannot fly. They can propel themselves into the air or a void. It is then up to gravity or the lack thereof to determine how far the stone elemental will travel. If a stone elemental spreads itself very thin, it may be able to glide through the air, but even that tactic won’t help it in a void. A stone elemental can exist in a void for a few days before it starts to deteriorate, after which its survival time is based on its mass. The more massive, the longer it can survive, though it will continue to shrink until it exits the void. Touching solid matter of any size larger than the stone elemental will halt the deterioration. Touching solid matter of a smaller size will not help. The survival of a stone elemental engulfed by air or other gases varies from one world to the next. In some worlds, this situation would cause the stone elemental to deteriorate as though it were in a vacuum. In other worlds, the stone elemental might survive indefinitely, unless the gas is toxic and harmful to stone.
Flame elementals can fly through air, even performing acrobatic moves. The hotter the air, the better. Flame elementals cannot fly in a void, but can propel themselves into it and let their momentum or gravity carry them through, provided they exit the void quickly. Flame elementals cannot survive longer than a few seconds in a void. They can survive for years completely surrounded by air of a temperature at which water boils, or hotter. If the air is of a lower temperature, the closer it is to the boiling point, the longer the flame elemental can survive there. The presence of a flame elemental will heat its surroundings, which may help raise the temperature enough for the flame elemental to remain in an area that would otherwise be too cool. If completely surrounded by freezing cold air on an extended basis, a flame elemental can survive for perhaps a day, and even less than that in extremely frigid temperatures.
Water elementals can fly through air for a few seconds, after which they lose mobility and fall in the direction of gravity. If there is no gravity, they can fly indefinitely through air. They can perform acrobatic moves if they have objects nearby to help them maneuver. As long as they have nearby objects or surfaces to spring off of, they can appear to be flying for an extended period. Thus, they can appear to be flying up alongside a vertical wall, though in actuality they are climbing the wall, even though their movements might be too fast for a casual observer to notice they ever touch the wall. As for traveling through a void, a water elemental is similar to a stone elemental, able to propel itself but unable to glide. A water elemental in a void is able to survive about as long as a stone elemental would. Touching a body of water larger than the water elemental will halt a water elemental’s deterioration. The survival of a water elemental completely engulfed by air varies from world to world, as it does for a stone elemental.
The rules governing shadow elementals in the air or in a void depend on the presence of light or gravity. Whether they are flying through air or a void makes no difference to shadow elementals. In the absence of both light and gravity, a shadow elemental can fly freely through the air or a void, changing direction and speed as it desires, up to the elemental’s personal limit. The limit for many shadow elementals is the speed of light. When entering a gravity field, whether lit or not, the shadow elemental will move in the direction of the gravity’s pull, though the elemental can glide. A shadow elemental cannot go against a gravity field to enter the air or a void, but a move laterally or in the direction of gravity may allow such entry. For instance, a shadow elemental can’t jump up into the air, but it could climb the shaded side of a building to push off the wall and glide through the air. In an area that is lit but has no gravity, the shadow elemental will move only according to its momentum. A flying or gliding shadow elemental can’t change its direction or speed upon entering a lit area. A shadow elemental has no particular problem with surviving in either air or a void as long as the area is not brilliantly lit for long. A shadow elemental caught in the air or in a void will begin to deteriorate when subjected to bright light on an extended basis, at a rate similar to that of a stone elemental in a void.
In the next installment, Khayd’haik discusses the ability of elementals to hop between dimensions and the practice of summoning elementals.