Ambush

As soon as they were in sight, the creature began to circle around the six while they discussed the nature of blue signals. I was actually expecting it to attack as soon as it saw them, but it did not seemingly feel the need to strike immediately with all of the power at its disposal. Mind you, that was actually a rather sensical decision. After all, why risk such an obvious frontal assault when its initial battle against Ithicos was so clearly a failure? But by that very self preservation based logic, one would also ask why it was bothering to attack at all, given it’s poor performance earlier, and how it had seemingly done nothing to give it the ability to actually wound Ithicos, but I should mention if it was not yet clear that this creature existed on a plane of logic very different from our own. Not based on life or death or personal feelings, but on a goal given to it, whatever that goal may be is not something I could even bother guessing. But as strange as this may be to read, the most truly surprising part of this to me was that it was even taking the cautious path at all, rather than simply going in with all force and no fear. As I had said, it was smart not to do earlier. Perhaps it had some sort of reason to safeguard its life more than that of the average abomination? Was it the remnants of the original being not yet corrupted? Or the goal necessitating a long life? Either way, given how it’s body was seemingly poising itself to strike, and slowly but surely sending tentacles through the dirt, it was absolutely set in it’s next goal it was probably going to have to ask the question.

What did it attack first?

The one it did not know?

Not likely, after Ithicos had beaten it so soundly, and since its life was seemingly of some value to it, the creature likely now decided to be wary of these beings. Especially one the size of Armos, who clearly possessed a strength beyond the average person. Actually, was it possible that the creature recognized Armos from his time on the corrupted isle? If that were the case, then surely it would know Mairi and Shari as well? Would that influence its decision? Or would knowing them not affect its actions in the slightest?

Either way, it continued circling, as its numerous eyes continued to survey its potential targets. Preparing more and more for some sort of strike.

If Armos was not a possibility, how about the little girl whom had stayed back during the first battle?

Twas a similar issue to Armos, though in a different capacity, in this world of ours, assumptions based on instinct can have their place, especially in a pinch where time is of the essence, but one must always be wary of deception in all forms, after all, regardless of a being’s strength, intelligence and talent. Even the greatest of them can be deceived in a truly fatal manner, and what is a more classic deception than those of a deadly persuasion pretending to be harmless?

If not two strangers, why not those it knew? Like those it had attacked earlier? Barring Ithicos of course.

I actually assumed it would do this at first, but it seemed to ignore them. Maybe it wished to keep Ithicos in a position where he was trapped having to guard them rather than giving much reason to charge towards it in anger and little reason to not start indulging recklessness?

While the main large term goal was likely unparsable, what was its goal in this particular attack?

These individuals' deaths?

If it were that simple, it could have waited longer, until after they were separated and less cautious, so it could pick them off one by one.

Their forms?

While corrupting beings of such strength could be a truly worthwhile venture. But given this creature's general attachment to life wholly unlike its average brethren, the risk involved was likely deemed by it too much to be worth it. I assumed as much anyway, some blue signals admittedly have more… unique methods of corruption1. So perhaps this one had some sort of convoluted strategy to corrupt these mortals and add them to its ranks?

Whatever the case may be, I believe what it wished for must have been far more… tactical in nature, and I believe it was at this point of pondering that I realized what it was the creature may have been aiming for, or at the very least, I had an idea of what its strategy would be.

This was confirmed in mere moments for me, because its target, as it turned out, was not a person, but a thing, more specifically, the artifact used for communication. As several of the creatures' tentacles pierced it from both the side and below, in an almost surgical fashion. And to further destroy any hope of repairing the thing…

*BOOM*

Perhaps indicating the power of the artifact, it exploded the moment a tentacle pierced its center.

I of course must wonder whether it even knew what the artifact was, but that is a mystery not within my current purview of taletelling. After all, the effect of this action was so immediate and over the top, it absolutely sucked away any interest I had in inquiry.

The first thing which occurred after the explosion should be obvious, all of the individuals in the group jumped. Then, Ithicos and Armos turned towards the explosion on instinct, as both seemed to have a body which could survive a direct hit by it, while Mairi grabbed the little one and began to carry her away in a sprint. After these short couple of moments, Shari and Miyo turned to scan the area, searching for the cause of the tentacle, only for Miyo to have an… unexpected issue, as she spotted said cause in the corner of her right eye.

“AHHH!”

She doubled over, and her right eye began to bleed, the blood itself was strange looking however, an eerie blue as opposed to the expected red.

“It’s the blue signal! Don’t look at it!”

Shari shouted immediately, her voice tense as she began casting.

“Are you alright?!”

“It’s… just its very existence… it’s… it’s evil!”

“Yes… they often are, but that matters not, for if they are allowed to continue living… disgusting or not, the world burns.”

“NO! You do not fully understand Shari! That thing… if it gave up any and all ambitions… or even if it were to never touch another sentient being for the rest of its days… this abomination's very existence is… is a blight against the world made incarnate! It must be slain, here and now! For each moment of life it continues living will make the world leagues worse than ever before.”

Miyo is acting strange… What did seeing it do to her?!

Raising her voice in a dramatic fashion, Miyo made her case, Shari thought she was acting strange and out of character, but given she could not see Miyo’s mind, she likely couldn’t realize that this was, if anything, an attempt at thinking of anything but the pain she felt as a result looking and finding the creature, similar to the phenomenon of those who make dark, strange jokes when met with an emotionally trying situation, though in this case, it was less a joke made at the expense of a terrible situation, and more an unconscious emulation of the play’s she had seen as a child, where those of evil were judged by some sort of monologue condemning them to ultimate punishment. So here, she simply channeled all her pain into righteous anger towards the creature which had harmed her so, and communicated that anger in the only way she could think of that would truly get it across.

What was that shouting? It sounds coherent, rather than panicked, so I suppose that at least means things aren’t all lost yet, but it also sounds angry enough that I’m pretty worried anyway.

Mairi, on the other hand, had finally found a place she could place the little one without some amount of danger, it was not quite what she would have liked. As it was on top of a rather large group of rather large stones, surrounded by an extremely large group of smaller stones, but the last battle had indicated the creature's tentacles could not go through rock quite as easily as dirt, so it had to do.

Armos ran towards the cave, probably thinking of which weapon he should use in this particular encounter.

Miyo… was still doubled over, in Shari’s arms, as the pain from her mere glance of the creature was enough to actively take her out of the fight.

“I… I think the pain is starting to fade.”

It was absolutely still extremely painful, even with that being the case.

By this point Ithicos had run in front of them, and after hearing the good news, picked her up with his mouth, and placed(or more accurately, lightly tossed) her on his back. Where she grabbed onto his scales for dear life. One must wonder why Mairi had not chosen to place the little one here as well, but I suppose it would be somewhat more dangerous for a child to be on the back of a dragon as it went to kill a creature, and would lead to a few to many proverbial eggs in a proverbial basket.

Gotta find it without looking directly at it!

Ithicos was now frantically looking left and right for the creature, with his gaze somewhat downturned in the hopes of catching the edges of the creature to focus on, while not letting it fully into his vision.

“Don’t bother, just a glance did that much to Miyo.”

You could tell?!

“You could tell?!”

Both Ithicos and Miyo were both taken aback by Shari’s seemingly instant knowledge of the situation. In some sense even more shocked with this than they were the explosion.

“I shall use my dark flames to burn the area where Miyo was looking, they’re even hotter than the guardian's sword so they might be able to burn through its heat resistance somewhat!”

After saying this, she began chanting, compared to the last chant, which was almost akin to a plea for assistance, this chant was more akin to a plea for destruction, with a repetitive beat ominously preparing for a dangerous result.

“You hurt my friend, you destroyed my honorable elder sister’s home… prepare to burn you heretical beast of unfathomable ruin!”

Perhaps she was following Miyo’s lead and erring on the side of dramatic? Regardless, as she said this, purple flames began to spew from her staff, and directly towards the area the creature had been as Miyo had spotted it. Of course the creature had moved at this point, but it is always important to start with the most obvious place first, as ignoring the stupidly obvious in front of them has led to many a fool meeting their untimely end2. And besides that, the flames were still spewing from her staff, even after the initial burst, so it was not like she could not still burn the rest of the area until the creature was killed.

I gotta get there! I gotta do something! But…

Feeling a similar anger at the harm the creature's very appearance had caused to his friend, Ithicos wished to charge towards that area as well, despite the flames now burning through the ground, but could not due to fear of causing more harm to Miyo. Even using his flames came with risks, as his came with the nasty chance of illuminating the creature could result in him or Shari getting hurt from gazing upon it as well, or worse, could result in Miyo seeing the creature once more, and considering how glancing at it once had affected her? Odds were a second look could be deadly… or not. Again I must emphasize the inconsistency of these creatures.

“Armos, you take her!”

Armos, who had just exited the cave carrying a club, sighed as he ran towards Ithicos, and in a single, fluid motion, jumped over Ithicos, while grabbing Miyo.

“Where do I take her?”

“Into the cave! We can’t let her see the blue signal again!”

“Got it.”

Despite his clear distast for not joining the battle, he did as told, and began to run towards the cave, before he could get there however, multiple tentacles began to burst from the ground. If Armos had not jumped back just in time, the tentacles likely would have sliced both he and Miyo in half.

“Going for the weak one’s first huh?”

“HEY!”

Miyo protested Armos’ statement almost immediately, despite her earlier stupor.

“If you can complain, can you move?”

“If I could do that, I would already be attempting to face the creature! And then kill it for existing”

“Ha! You really are an interesting kid!”

It must be noted that while this banter was occurring, Armos was jumping backwards in bounds to avoid the rising tentacles before they pierced him. It was such a brain dead solution to this problem that I was almost impressed by its effectiveness, until perhaps the most basic and lauded of all aiming techniques immediately dismantled this strategy, slicing through Armoses side, though not completely bisecting or piercing him or Miyo. Said strategy was, aim where they’re going to be, not where they are, by the way.

“Are you alright?!”

“Bad news, the cave won’t work.”

At this point, Shari had rushed over, black flame still pouring from her staff. In order to ensure the creature could not pierce her as well, she sent the black flame through the holes created by it’s tentacles, as she did this, small black flames began to slightly peek out from all of the other holes, though they produced no light, they were still visible by the light of the moon shining upon them.

“That should slow it down now… give me a moment!”

Now dispelling the black flames from her staff, Shari began a new chant, one with a tone of elegance and calm as opposed to the somber and dread brought about from the tone of the last. It seemed there was a bit of difficulty however, as Shari had a hard time with finding the mana necessary for her spell.

This is bad… There is very little nature mana here! And the amount of dark mana was dissipated greatly! Well whatever, at least there’s enough to-

Before she could form a more powerful healing spell, many tentacles burst from the ground, to make matters worse they seemed to be going straight through the dark flames without issue. Fortunately Ithicos was able to quickly get in the way, causing the tentacles to stop, and immediately go back from whence they came.

So this blue signal thing is entirely fire proof then? Guess it really is a good thing I didn’t use my fire breath… Well whatever, I wasn’t planning to depend on that anyway. What about Shari? Is her spell going to get through properly, even if there was an interruption.

Despite these worries, she was able to cast a root of life spell, which took the form of various roots of different sizes and appearances pouring out from her staff, as they did so, they reached and pooled together towards Armos’ wound, and began to seemingly use themselves as string to tie the wound shut. Finally, once the wound was properly closed, a root adorned by flowers covered the wound, before disappearing into nothing. Where this flowered root was, there was now no wound.

“That little nature mana huh?”

“I could have done better if it weren’t for that surprise attack, but I suppose my dark flames scared most of the nature mana into vacating…”

This would not be an issue if she were using a different method, as the method she was using was the equivalent to assuming people with different moods were somehow different species, each of which were incapable of doing more than one thing their entire lives. In other words, the mana which she assumed was now gone, had merely either been used up by the dark flames, or changed it’s mood due to the situation, meaning she couldn’t see it as nature mana3, and as such couldn't see there was actually more usable mana around, not as much as any competent witch would like, but still a decent bit.

“Don’t bother using it on me then… I once trained m’ chi for a little while to heal my wounds.”

“How long is ‘A little while’?”

“HA! Roughly three hours! Give or take.”

Shari and Miyo both stared blankly for a moment, before Shari simply replied.

“It took you that long? I must say I never fully realized such things were so difficult.”

That’s a long time?!

Much to Miyo’s shock of course.

“HA! How long did it take ya to learn those grass magic’s of your’s?”

“I will have you know it is called nature magic! But fair enough… Now enough jokes, Miyo, are you feeling any better?”

While she appreciated Armos’ clumsy attempt to cheer her up, there was a time and a place, and at the moment, it was certainly not either. Besides that, his wound had already begun healing rapidly, making any concern more moot.

“I… can’t see from my right eye, but the pain is mostly gone now.”

“Do not worry, I am certain if we kill the creature, your eyesight will improve, for now Armos, the both of you will protect the child, if you find honorable elder sister tell her to come here to support me.”

“You think the coward will?”

“Quit calling me that Armos.”

Just in the nick of time to salvage her reputation, Mairi ran over, quite obviously annoyed at Armos’ remarks.

“I managed to hide the child somewhere the tentacle can't strike easily, do you think the same should be done with Miyo and Armos?”

“I can bring Miyo to that spot, but after that I'm coming back here, I ain't hiding around with nothin’ to do till the day I die!”

“Got it… if you do come back, try and circle around that back area, see if you can find the creature.”

“Will do… WHEN I come back.”

Not enjoying even the Implication that he may not return out of cowardice, Armos ran with Miyo still cradled in his arms.

“Unrelated, but where is Ithicos anyway?”

Shari paused to consider Mairi's question. It was true, when he handed Miyo over to Armos, he had seemingly left, without making much fuss, though I suppose not being able to talk would make stating his plan difficult.

“Last I saw, he was running towards…”

As Shari pointed towards the direction he had headed, both of them paused. Realizing what may have occurred.

“Does he… know what close contact with a blue signal could do to him?”

“He saw what looking at a blue signal did so… maybe? No, he must know, Mr. Dragon could not make that-”

“His name is Ithicos, Shari. Do you just have an issue with peoples names? Well whatever, the point is, he isn't a dragon, so while a dragon might not make that sort of mistake, can you be certain this mortal wouldn't?”

Shari shook her head for a moment, before responding. A small smile barely visible as she explained her own judgment.

“His original form being draconic or not does not matter, when I saw his eye's I could see the true magnificence of a dragon within them, this one is no liar, he is a true in and out dragon already… though I would not be shocked if he still can't accept that himself.”

“I suppose it would be difficult to accept such a change so easily, but what would it take for him to accept such a thing to begin with? I am not sure many normal mortals could, even with all of the personal strength it comes with.”

“Self acceptance is admittedly a rather difficult process, but I would not worry… because while lazy, cowardly souls may not be very capable of it, souls like Ithicos’ and honorable elder sister’s without question truly are.”

“Huh? What do I have to do with this?”

Shari gave a knowing smile and merely said…

“I wonder…”

“Hey! If you have something you want to tell me, just say it to my face!”

Shari laughed a bit, but that smile hid a hint of sadness and hope, that her friend may one day realize an unfortunate truth about her origin.

“Well, whatever the case may be, it seems to be targeting us once more.”

“I guess so huh? Well at least this time we can kinda see where the awful thing’s strikes are coming from.”

“Quite! Compared to last time, where many hero’s fell to ensure the corrupted isle’s fall, I doubt a single one of us will die tonight.”

“Hopefully you are right Shari… by the god’s, I truly hope you are right.”

As they spoke, Mairi pulled out her bow, while Shari pointed her staff at the incoming tentacles.

“Also, this may sound strange, but I think you should stop using that dark flame spell, use one like the guardian’s sword again, it seemed to have a greater effect despite not being as hot.”

“Understood, honorable elder sister!”

Happy to receive a clear order, indicative of her honorable elder sister coming up with some sort of plan, Shari began the familiar chant for the guardians blade, as the familiar light from her staff actually did seem to cause the tentacles to freeze up for a few more moments.

Thought so.

Happy her deduction was on the right track, Mairi pulled back her bowstring, which now had an arrow ready, and fired at the nearest tentacle.

1: Some basic examples of this include and are not limited to: getting a living song stuck in peoples heads, thus leading to a seemingly unstoppable spread (though it turns out that some people were simply immune if the living song was not within their taste of music, and tone deaf people had a far harder time spreading the corruption); making food which people had to eat to become corrupted, which can obviously be difficult; corrupting all who fell in love with the blue signal and those it corrupted, though once again, this meant some people were simply immune if they had no taste for those corrupted; spending exactly between forty two and forty three minutes in the same room with the blue signal, any more and you become immune, any less and nothing happens; and many many more.

2: One example of this can be seen in the tale of Gale the immovable, who specialized in fire magic, and looked everywhere he could for the creature Albedor before its curse could kill him, everywhere of course, except directly behind himself.

3: In the slim chance someone without at least amateur knowledge of mana reads this, they may be confused how one could confuse mana changing with mana disappearing. The unfortunate fact of the matter is, that mana sensory, like all other senses, does not always show an entire image of what is actually transpiring, it is just as fallible to biases and tricks, and it is also important to note for those still training in mana sensory that, unlike how many illustrations may portray, mana cannot quite be seen in a visual sense, after all, can one see sounds or smells or touches or tastes? So when one is ‘searching’ for mana, they often find themselves either with the general amount of mana in the area, or mana which fits what they are looking for. If one is in an angry mood for example, they may find themselves finding more mana in an energetic mood accidentally, and will not notice the rest of the mana around them. It is for this reason that many mana user’s tend to learn some of the basics of soul magic, as it gives a greater control of one's own feelings and perhaps more importantly in combat, a greater control and read of your opponents feelings. But to get back on track, in this case, Shari was effectively looking for mana which fit the mood of what she considered normal nature mana, while casting her dark flame spell she could only see the mana which fit the mood of what she considered normal dark mana, so to her, the dark mana was depleting, and when she checked for nature mana, that was low as well. To an similarly ignorant onlooker, it would appear as though the general amount of mana went down, while the flame mana was depleted, and the nature mana seemingly left, or disappeared to somewhere else seemingly only because a different mana type was being used. Those who use Shari’s method call it mana vacating, and it is the process of mana seemingly disappearing from one location to the other when it is not used or moving from place to place naturally. Mana vacating, if you cannot guess, is just mana depletion, aka what happens to mana when it is used for a spell. In Shari’s case, even if she could not notice it, the other mana in the area was still being called for her spell, but her unawareness of this meant the conversion was especially sloppy and most importantly… wasteful, causing a large amount of mana she deemed as nature mana to no longer be around. It had been used by her spell. This is especially important for moods of mana which especially contrast, such as the moods for light and dark spells, due to her spell use, there was a large amount of mana depleted which she could have used with her spell method for the light element. When using mana, a good technique is to watch the general mood of the mana around oneself, and either convert the mana of more useful moods to the spell of one’s choosing while keeping the mana of less efficient moods away from conversion to more efficiently convert later, or simply exert enough force to get all the mana into one general mood for easy use, it is the more wasteful but faster of the two methods. Shari’s method could be considered a poor man's version of the second method, as it essentially only followed and did whatever the mood of the mana around her allowed her to do. Which is fast granted, but startlingly inefficient, and effectively handicapped its user if they didn’t know how to work with certain moods well. And since she only looked for the mana as though each mood were completely different from the last, she did not have the capability to notice the mana changing, because she did not know such a thing existed, she could not see it happening before her.