Hyalopterous Lemure

A free flying-granting ability that taxes the body for using it: each activation shaves a point of power, so the moment this Spirit takes to the air it stops being a 4/3 and starts swinging as a 3/3. The design is a self-throttling evasion engine. With no mana cost on the ability, you can re-grant flying every turn at will, but the very act of going airborne applies the -1/-0, and because the modifier resets at end of turn rather than persisting, it never quietly grinds itself toward zero across multiple turns. This is the early-era answer to a recurring tension: how do you give a fat black creature evasion without simply stapling flying on for free? The friction is the cost. Reaching into the red zone through the air costs a point of damage off the top, so the card curves from a hard-hitting ground threat into a slightly thinner aerial one, and a second activation in the same turn drops it further. It also doubles as a defensive lever, letting the Spirit block fliers on demand for the price of a single power point that turn. A clean piece of cost-as-keyword design from a period when activated abilities were still being explored as a tuning dial rather than a payoff.