The bed monster leaps at Emily, its skin crag as it does and revealing the writhing grey flesh beh. Emily drops into a slide, passing uhe creature and hitting it with a bolt as she goes. The spell smashes into the monster, ripping into its flesh and drawing out a pained screech.
They bht themselves and turn to face each other before sshing out. Their cws meet, gng off each other and causing sparks. Emily presses the attack, sending violent swipe after violent swipe at her oppo while preparing another bolt, notig the creature’s attacks speeding up as it goes.
Sweat drips down her cheek as she narrowly avoids a stab to the face, lifts her d sshes it down the inside of the monster’s forearm. Its arm quickly retracts, whipping past and sshing a deep groove into Emily’s shoulder. Emily quickly backs away, releasing her bolt on the back step and smashing the creature in the leg with it. She es to a halt a few steps back, panting as she tries to ighe many pains now c her body.
The creature moves back, slowly cirg her with a slight limp. She g her system resources while taking a breath to calm herself.
ˉˉˉˉˉ
[Health:] 173/190
[Stamina:] 204/320
[Mana:] 279/3600
[Maa:] 343/3600
_____
My injuries aren’t that bad, but I’m running low on resources. I o finish this soon.
The monster leaps forward, and Emily steps to the side, driving one of her Cws deep into its shoulder as it passes. The Cw gets lodged deep in the creature’s flesh, and Emily is pulled backwards by the force, twisting her arm awkwardly.
“Fuck!” she cries, retrag the Cw with a spark of maa and tumbling to the floor.
The mourns back to her, p blood on the ground as it limbers over. Emily tries to stand up, but it reaches her and sshes at her face before she . She quickly rolls to the side, raising her mostly uninjured arm to point at the creature as she casts bolt again, sending a crag beam of psma into its jaw. The blow rips the monster’s lower jaw off, sending a flood of blood down its ned exposing the roof of its foul mouth.
The monster gargles out a screed slowly hobbles closer to Emily. It raises its cw slowly to strike at the same time as Emily retracts the her healthy right arm and quickly drives it up towards the monster’s head. Her palm makes forceful tact with the creature’s teeth, splitting open her palm as its arm starts to swing down, and she fills the Cw with every st drop of maa she has before releasing the extension meism.
The bde rockets out, breaking its housing and shooting upwards in a bze of maa. It rips through the scorched, softened skin and fries the creature’s brain in a fra of a sed before blowing out of the back of its head and tinuing into the cave roof above.
The creature’s arm falls limp on Emily’s chest, nding heavily and pressing the metal ptes hard against her skin.
“Urgh, that’s gonna bruise,” she grumbles as she lets her arms drop beside her, closing her eyes and basking in the pain and tired ache of her muscles, a mad grin pstered on her face.
The cave goes quiet, the pealy disturbed by the gasping breaths of her groupmates and the quiet shuffling of the first circle mages as they approach the battle se again. After a couple of seds tain her calm, Emily opens her eyes and pushes the monster’s corpse aside as she stands. Fionn approaches her with as she rises.
“Are you alright? Sit back down a me help.”
Emily gnces down at her injuries before nodding aling down on a nearby rock
“Thanks,” she says as Fionn crouches o her, celling his spell illuminating the cave and pg his hand on her bleeding leg as he starts elling a golden spell.
She tunes out his ting, turning her gaze on the scorched bck corpse of the monster, just visible in the dim illumination of his spell.
Time to see what you are.
ˉˉˉˉˉ
[Wendigo]
[Rank:] E
[Description:] A twisted creature born from a human mage falling to ibalism on cursed nd. They prowl the cursed nds they inhabit, gathering s to further the spread of corruption.
_____
Cursed nd? Are all of The Waters cursed? Or is it just part of it? Also, ibalism? Does that mean it ate the st group, or was it formed from them? How long have The Waters been cursed? They should have a record of it if it’s been here for a while, right?
As Fionn slowly knits together Emily’s wounds, their groupmates start to gather, rec slightly from their exhaustion. They stand around the corpse uhe light of Oscar’s dle, staring listlessly at the creature that tormehem and killed some of their rades.
“How repulsive,” Oscar ents dryly, kig the corpse before turning to the two living luggage carriers. “ you two pack this into a bag please.”
They quickly get to work, lifting the corpse and carefully l it into the opening of one of the spatial stes.
“Are you okay?” Oscar asks, turning his attention away from the corpse towards Emily, jolting her out of her thoughts.
“I’m fi’s just a few scratches.” She waves off his , wing slightly as Fionn moves his hands to press against her twisted shoulder.
Osods before turning to address the rest of the group.
“We lost some people today,” he says calmly, a hint of sadness in his toheir sacrifice will be remembered, and they will be given a proper send-off once we return to i safely. Now, as unpleasant as it may be, let’s up the area a little a up camp. I think we could all do with some sleep.”
The tired mages quietly separate and follow his orders. Matteo, Dante, , and Callum use small fmes to find their way to the smouldering corpses of their groupmates, pig them up and dropping them into the flowing water. Everyone else, bar Emily and Fionn, take sleeping bags from the ste packs ahem up in a small, tight formation ihe sound barrier Oscar sets up.
Their setup soon finishes, and Oscar looks over the exhausted faces around him.
“We’ll switore traditional watches for tonight to let our scouts rest.” He gnces pointedly at Emily, allowing no room for discussion. “, Callum, and Maeve will take first watch.”
He hands Callum his magidle before walking to his own sleeping bag. Everyoakes that as their cue, moving to get some sleep themselves.
“There we go,” Fionn says, stopping his casting and wiping his brow. “That’s all I do for you. The flesh wounds have been closed, but that shoulder may take a few days to go bapletely normal, and the deeper parts of the shrapnel holes will have to heal naturally.”
“Thanks. Will my healing potions help at all?” Emily asks, gesturing to the vials on her belt while realising she was too focused on fighting to drink them whe hurt.
“Unfortunately not. They would have dohe same thing as my spells – stopped the bleeding and closed the flesh wounds – but you’d need something stronger for deep wounds.”
“I see.” Emily pushes herself up, ign Fionn’s offered help.
She walks over to ay sleeping bag and crashes down. Before sleeping, she opens her system and checks her progression requirements.
ˉˉˉˉˉ
[Progression]
[Circle/Stage:] Sed
Requirements:
-Intelligence 60/75 (Not plete)
-Create 4/5 unique E rank maes (Not plete)
-Learn internal casting (plete)
-Create 2/3 sed circle spells (Not plete)
-Sy 1/1 third circle beast (plete)
_____
Jackpot! It was a third circle beast.
With a happy smile, she rexes, shutting her eyes as she lets one of her cores shut down for the night, still refusing to sleep pletely.
***
Emily meditates for six hours before joining the final watch of the night, her exhaustion pletely gone. She sits with Dante and Fionn, quietly chatting in the dimness of the cave.
“If you don’t mind, could I ask you a question?” Fionn says to Daer a lull in the versation.
“Sure,” Dante responds while impatiently tapping his foot.
“How did you cast such a rge spell? It felt far more powerful than a normal sed circle spell.”
“Oh, that?” Dante respoedly with a grin. “That’s my family’s signature spell, Hibiscus Burst. While the version of it I cast is teically sed circle, it’s based on a fourth circle spell my dad made. It’s desigo work as a group ritual spell, like Oscar’s airspace cim, that big spell he used in training against fog cats, but I used it alone by p all of my mana into it.”
“Iing. I wonder if there are any ritual healing spells,” Fionn mutters.
I’ll have to look into ritual spells when I get back. It’d be a great on if I could use my sed core to prepare a massive spell like that in bat.
Light slowly starts to fill the cave as the daytime glow returns to the glistening water, and the crystals e back to life, beating back the shadows. Daedly looks around and starts to stand up as dawn breaks.
“Are we going to start waking people now?” he asks.
“No,” Emily responds with a judgemental stare.
“What?”
“We set up camp te st night. Those who took watches have only slept for four and a bit hours so far. It’s only right to let them rest more, so we’ll set off te today,” Fionn calmly expins.
“Urgh,” Dante groans, dropping back to the floor dejectedly. “But I’m so bored.”
Emily rolls her eyes at him, turning away and runniheion. She’s surprised when she feels a flurry of movement approag them from some dark side tunnels.
I guess the wendigo was the reason we haven’t seen any groglers for a while now. Are they lio this curse too?
“Look alive, buddy,” she says, patting Dante’s shoulder and standing up. “We’ve got pany.”
Dante shoots up to join her with a grin.
“Finally!”
They both move upstream, following Emily’s s and leaving Fionn behind to watch the camp.
“Try not to make too muoise.”
“Got it. Burning not exploding!”
Emily drops her dete as she feels the groglers approag the cave and jures flying lightning, spinning the dart beside her in anticipation. The sound of hurried footfall fills their ears and soon the small grey monsters burst out of the darkness.
Flying lightning fshes forwards, ripping through the first enemy’s head with ease, a split sed before a rain of fmials smashes into the front row. Emily whips the dart around, pig off the creatures screeg in pain as their skin sears bck. Dante casts his spell twice more before Emily finishes slig and puncturing those that are left, leaving the dark cave entratered in brownish-red blood and littered with half-burnt corpses.
“What a fun way to start the m. I hought I’d be so happy to see grain.” Dante chuckles, turning to look at Emily with a satisfied grin.
Emily makes eye tact with him, uo hold back her own smile.
“It certainly gets the blood pumping. Although, this was a lot lers in one go, sidering we haven’t seen any for days.”
She looks over the piled-up bodies and ts fifteeures. Her grin morphs into a small frown as she turns back to the camp.
“e on.”
***
An hour ter, they wake everyone up and prepare breakfast. Sitting around a small campfire eating, Oscar rearrahe moving formation.
“Maeve and will still carry a bag each. However, Callum and Fionn will also o take a bag from now on. Ivor will join the front, and Erin will join the back: there’s no point leaving you at the sides until we leave these caves.” He pauses and looks around, but nobody disputes his arra, so he takes a deep breath and then tinues.
“Now, I know st night was stressful, and we lost some good friends.” He pauses to look around again, taking in the mixed reas of the group, m from a few, but indifference from most. “But we still o move onwards. We’ll tinue downstream for three more days, then turn around and head back.”
The rest of their meal passes quietly, and after eating they quickly pack up, tossing out the excess tents they no longer o create spa their bags, and leave to tinue downstream. They follow the river, stig left at another fork, and after two hours of moving, Ivor’s s returns something.
“Over twenty, small, behind,” he quickly fshes out some hand signs, and everybody starts preparing for battle.
“Groglers?” Emily asks him while juring flying lightning and turnihermal vision upstream.
She sees him nod out of the er of her eye, and starts walking around the group with Ivor and Dahey reach the back as a small grogler bursts out of a side tunnel. A single nce of fire shoots forward, impaling the monster and burning its torso to a crisp.
A flood lers follows, filling the cave with grey. Emily spins up her on as the monsters close the distance, and the moment they step within range, several spells fly out.
Heavy rocks, bdes of water, spears aals of fire: the groglers are pelted by the elements, while Emily’s glistening silver dart fshes through them, ripping them apart. The enemies are quickly dealt with, c the cave floor with their dirty blood that slowly flows into the river, temporarily dyeing the water red before sinking below the fog, o rise again.
With the groglers dead, they take a break, to harvest their eyes, then tinue marg downstream. They’re attacked twice more before lunch, and awo times after. By the time they stop for the day, the attag mages are running low on mana and exhausted again.
Emily settles at the edge of the camp alone, returning to their normal watches now that the wendigo is dealt with. She sits upstream of the camp, having noticed all the grogler attacks during the day came from that dire, as if following a pn.
We’re definitely being pushed further in by these grogler attacks. I guess it ’t have been the wendigo coordinating them. Maybe we’ll find out what it is as we go deeper? If not, it’s going to be a pain to fight our way back out through hordes of coordinated groglers.
Emily sighs as she stares into the surrounding darkness, excited by the idea of a new discovery, but starting to grow bored of fighting the small grey irritants.
“I miss Jules.”
