M.D.Syl
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Chapter 44 colorless
🕑 Added 2023-01-28 16:20:45 +0000 UTCChapter 44 the hunter.
People of talent make for very good servants.
Make sure to flatter their ego.
Make sure to show care for their wellbeing.
And they shall serve you with unending devotion.
Rakisha, mother of all demons.
The farms disappear on the next day, replaced by taller hills, while wilder fauna take the place of the domesticated herds. We can already see the mountains towering over us in the distance. The lower parts of the tall mountains are covered in green lush forests, which turn white the higher it goes. The snowy peaks above are partially hidden by a thick belt of clouds.
On the third day, we are already very close to the mountain. I see the white patches glittering in sunlight that isn’t there on the mountains, and can’t help but wonder what the source of that glitter is. I can only guess that the name "Shimmering Tops" had to come from somewhere.
{27} Mayan (December) the 16th
“To hunt magical beasts, you should try going off-road. If you want to keep up with us, you’ll have up to three or four hours.” Salik approaches me late in the morning of the fourth day. The road is already climbing into the mountainous forest by now.
There is nothing in the direction he points at, just overgrown greenery and a lush forest. The road we tread splits this forest in the middle.
This place has too much green, with a few yellow tints as the sun lights up the place. I look toward the deep forest, nodding my head. I am going to get lost in there alone… “Berthold!” I move Loyal near the short scout who just returned from the road up ahead. “Mind coming with me on a hunt?”
“I…” He eyes Salik worriedly. His boss nods his head in approval. “Ok. But if we see fairies or the fae, you tell them all!”
Sorer barks a laugh and pushes Berthold’s back as he passes.
“I don’t have an issue with that, but I don’t think they’ll take my word for it either.” I get off Loyal and lead him into the green.
Berthold follows and overtakes me with a sure step. “Don’t step on these leaves see these? With the pointy end? They’re called elf ears, and they sting. The needles will get under your skin and they’re really hard to get out later…”
Now I have myself a guide. Despite the fact that he's overly chatty and boastful, I notice that this short guy is one of the three men Salik always counts on to scout the road ahead. I don’t need him for his fighting prowess or his bow, I only need his knowledge of the land, and the ability to get back to this group after my hunt is over.
Walking into the forest, the voices of the mercenaries behind us fade away, replaced by the sound of buzzing bugs and chirping birds.
I ignore most of Berthold’s awkward chatter as I look around. This place is full of life. I can feel it in the air, it is pure life, almost as if it’s another type of mana. It emanates from everything here. From the grass beneath my feet, the bushes and trees to my side, and the birds at the treetops.
This place has an unnatural tint to it. It should’ve been cold here, especially since we’re in the middle of the winter. Yet the place is warm. An earthy scent enters my nostrils, and the sunrays entering between the leaves only enhance this feeling. This place holds some sort of magic in it, a type of magic I hadn’t encountered before.
“Say Marisha… Can I call you Marisha?” Berthold’s voice breaks the magical moment I have.
“Sure…” I answer, distracted, trying to regain the sense of life I felt from this place, but to no avail. Couldn’t he wait with this stupid question for later? Like the camp at nightfall or something?!
“Windy... Are you… are you really half Fae? You weren’t just saying it to be nice to me?”
“Quarter.”
He snickers awkwardly. “Quarter… I see… did your mother also have butterfly wings?”
“No.” Did she? I don’t remember… why can’t I remember? I need to remember! Remember what? I was five years old when she left… I don’t remember much… I wish I could talk to her and ask why…
“You are just being polite like Sorer says right? You don’t… like me.” He fidgets over the word and his face changes to a deep shade of red.
“I like you. You’re funny and nice to be around, but I barely know you. So I don’t like you that way, no.” Sorry if I hurt your feelings. But I’m not going to promise you something I don’t intend to keep.
“Is there a way to get you to like me?”
I roll my eyes. Oh, come on! I am trying to feel the magic here! I want to hunt a magical beast! Not have a romantic picnic! Can’t you give it a rest?! “Can we please focus on hunting? We have four hours. We can discuss romance after we finish the hunt.” I don’t hide the annoyance in my voice. If he’s dissatisfied with me then so be it.
He turns his back to me and takes a giddy step forward. “Alrighty then. Hunting is what I’m best at! What kind of magical beast are you hunting?”
“It doesn’t matter, as long as it’s a magical beast. I need to kill as many of them as possible…”
He pauses for a moment, letting me walk by myself. “May I ask what are you hunting them for?”
“I am collecting their souls,” I reply without thinking.
“Alrighty, creepy magic stuff. So any will do? You’re not trying for the big game right?”
I turn around. He’s still standing there, slowing me down again. “Yes! Any will do!”
“Good. You’re speaking to the best hunter in Axero city! If I hunt magical beasts for you, will you consider liking me?” He looks at me with a mix of affection and awe.
Ugh… this guy is hopeless… Sure… whatever… I’ll give it a shot… I can’t spend my whole life waiting for Kolag… Time to move on… “Yes. But I need to be there when you kill them. If I can’t touch their corpse within a minute or two of their deaths, it’s all rather pointless.”
“Say no more! Let’s go! Come on! What are you waiting for?!” he moves in a different direction, motioning me to follow him.
Oh now I am slowing ‘you’ down huh? Rolling my eyes, I follow his lead, I’ve never been to this forest after all.
It doesn’t take long, after five minutes he taps my shoulder pointing at my right. A small animal chews on a bush. It seems like a brown rabbit, with a large fallen tree behind it. I would’ve missed the little thing if he hadn’t pointed at it. Observing it, I notice that unlike a normal rabbit, this one has a small curled horn on its head.
Since the creature is out of range of my ‘pull’ spell and I don’t want to risk alerting it to our presence, I take off my crossbow, aim while holding my breath, and squeeze the trigger against the stock.
Even after all of my training, the bolt misses the little creature by a narrow margin. It’s a very small target and there are at least thirty meters between us. The rabbit raises its horned head, and runs deeper into the thicket.
*Woosh* Bethold’s arrow pierces the rabbit’s hind leg. It still attempts to run, limping toward a large hollow tree trunk.
I’m already glad I brought him with me…
I run toward the rabbit closing the distance between us in a flash. “Myrsha!” <Pull!> The rabbit gets pulled toward my hand. “Latsa” <Lift> I float it to my hands avoiding its sharp curled horn.
I hold the creature by its neck, and take out my bronze dagger to finish it off. “Don’t!” Berthold shouts in alarm.
Please don’t kill me! Please! I beg you! I’m cute! I don’t do any harm! I just want to live! You want to live too! You understand right? Right? Please let me live! Please!!! The voice within my head almost sounds like my own thoughts. Yet I can tell it isn’t, it’s this rabbit’s. It’s staring at me with large black eyes, its body trembling in my hand.
Oh, come on! Why did I have to find a sentient animal that can communicate with humans?! No way I am giving this up! I need your soul you stupid rabbit!
Please! My soul isn’t tasty! It isn’t big! Please don’t kill me! I beg you! If you let me live I’ll bless you with good luck! A lot a lot of good luck! Just don’t kill me! I didn’t harm anyone! The rabbit answers my thoughts as if it can hear them. I am stunned for a moment.
Good luck… HA! Luck! My luck is pretty shitty… I forge my own luck ok? But I have to admit you are pretty cute… maybe I should keep you as a pet… y…
“Marisha!!!”
Berthold yells in my ear. “Whatever you’re seeing or hearing isn’t real! Let that thing go!”
Wait… he’s right! This is an Atkol rabbit… I’ve read about this creature when I prepared to hunt. This thing isn’t telepathic, it just causes people to feel sorry for it. These are my own thoughts, not the rabbit’s.
But he's so cute...
So this is how you defend yourself uh? Empathy? With this realization, I stab my dagger deep into its throat.
The moment my dagger enters its throat, I deeply regret it. Bad human! I hate you! You're fae, how can you do this to me? Shame on you. I hate you you stupid cunt, I curse you! Your luck will only get worse, I promise you! I curse you with my dying breath, I hope the one you love will kill you like this! a dagger to your throat! I curse you! I curse you, I curse you...
For a moment it feels as if I am the one dying, cursing, and hating this strange human for ending my life.
I’m dying. This tall mage had used some magic to render me immobile, now she’s choking me, there's a dagger in my throat! She takes an obvious pleasure from choking me! I can’t breathe! No! I will live! I have to live! I have to find my sister! I have to find my way back home! I have…
I gasp as the momentary hallucination disappears. It’s over.
I sigh heavily. Only now do I notice that I’m shaking like a leaf, tears are flowing down my eyes. Wiping the unwanted tears off my face, I take out the glassy bottle from the leather wrap. Stop crying! That’s the defensive mechanism of this stupid creature! Appealing to my damn sympathy. Probably stimulating it somehow… maybe it also stimulates some stuff in my brain… making me see weird things… ugh…
It’s either killing this thing or killing humans… the choice is obvious! I put the diamond stopper in the rabbit’s mouth, and channel my mana into the diamond.
A whitish gas flows into the glassy bottle. It swirls inside filling the bottle up little by little, forming different round patterns and shapes. It’s oddly beautiful, I can’t take my eyes off the gas in the bottle. A minute or two later, the gas turns into a clear liquid, filling a tenth of the small bottle.
So little?! I was crying so much for such a tiny soul?! Venomous snakes!!! I’m going to kill these stupid rabbits wherever I see them! These pieces of rot! All of this emotional turmoil for something that is barely a tenth of a human soul! Holy venomous rot!!!
I take a deep breath. Calm down… avoid these… or at least don’t kill them up close…
Unlike the human souls I’ve seen so far - which usually took a viscous silvery color - this liquid looks no different than water, or maybe a clear alcoholic liquor. It’s a little hard to believe this was ectoplasm, magical soul essence.
“Your first time hunting that thing is it?” Berthold approaches, putting his bow back in its scabbard on his back.
“Yes, thanks for that shot by the way.”
“Don’t mention it. Let me take the shot next time. I’ll show you how it’s done!” Rolling my eyes, I take a bolt of cloth from Loyal’s saddlebags and wrap the rabbit with it. This is a magical cloth the hag gave me, it’s supposed to keep my kills fresh. I have no idea how its magic work, only that the hag said to wrap my kills with it and she’ll do the dressing when I come back.
“I appreciate your offer, but I need to take the shots myself. You won’t always be around to help me hunt, and I need to learn how to hunt by myself.” I explain.
He nods “Ok! Want me to give you some pointers about shooting then? I’m decent with crossbows.”
“Thanks! That can help immensely!” I smile at him. Smiles don’t cost money and I know I have an effect on him. Which might help me to keep him as my pawn for a longer period. Stop it! He’s not a pawn! He’s a human being! I’d still appreciate a free good lesson on firing a crossbow…
“You can get a good price for that horn you know…” he nods with his chin toward the wrapped rabbit.
“It doesn’t matter. My master will be getting the rabbit, that’s the deal I made with her,” I answer as I put the put the rabbit in the hag’s magical bag. “I only need the soul and some of its meat anyway.”
The moment the rabbit touches the bag, it turns into a miniature size, almost as if it’s a tiny toy rabbit. According to the hag, this would only work on dead beasts and nothing else.
“Is the soul in that bottle? Can I see it?” Berthold takes the bottle from the ground near my kill and examines it up close.
“Give it back!” I shout angrily.
“I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to offend.” He hands over the bottle. “I just wanted to see it. I’ve never seen anything like that…”
I snatch it out of his hands and wrap it back in the leathery scales. “If this bottle break because of you, I’ll kill you and fill the next bottle with your soul got it?” I threaten angrily. That rabbit messed with my head… Berthold didn’t mean any harm… He was the one who both found the rabbit and shot it, maybe I should let him take a look? No! This is my future power! If I fail, I’ll have to eat humans or give up, I am not risking this for anything!
“You’re not joking are you?”
“No, I didn’t mean the threat. The rabbit… messed with my head I think. But you have no idea what this thing means to me, so hands off ok?”
“Ok! Ok!” he backs off showing me his empty hands. “Should I find you another animal?”
I nod in relief.
Ten or fifteen minutes later, Berthold points at a two-tailed fox, moving slowly between the trees. It’s twice the size of a normal fox, and its fur has weird green patterns on it.
This time when I reach for my crossbow, he holds my wrist and motions me to be quiet. He takes off his bow, notches an arrow on the string, and aims at the animal.
I stop him and shake my head. I have to be the one taking the shot, I already explained that I needed to train!
He shakes his head again.
What does he want now?! Fine! If you want to take this shot so badly then take it! I can practice with the next animal! I shrug and gesture for him to go on ahead.
He nods and draws his bow again.
Absorbed in his target, he releases the arrow. The fox drops like a puppet without strings. When I get closer, I see the arrow had penetrated the fox’s eye. The realization that this isn’t just a lucky shot has me in a daze for a moment. I was sure this guy was all talk. But with this accuracy… he has every right to boast the way he does...
“What’s wrong? Cat got your tongue?” he asks smugly, taking his arrow out and cleaning it on the fox’s fur.
“Actually… yeah! I didn’t…”
“Didn’t think I could hit my target? Most people don’t, then they get to see my arrows up close.” He chuckles. “As I’ve said! I’m the best archer in Axero city!” He cleans and puts the arrow back in his quiver, gesturing at the fox with a smug face. “All yours, sweetheart!”
Rolling my eyes again, I take out my crystalline soul container, filling it up with the gassy content. This time, when the gas turns to liquid, it fills half of the bottle.
Two bottles and a half left… “I still need to be the one taking the shots, I need to learn remember?”
“Oh, gladly! But you don’t want to mess with a twin tail. It’s best to avoid them if you can’t kill it with a single shot.”
Right… I’m glad I didn’t stop him then… Haven’t read about them yet… wouldn’t hurt to expand my knowledge… “Why are they so dangerous?”
“Their teeth are poisonous, and they can also spit a paralysis poison pretty far. It’s how they hunt their prey. So, if you can’t take them out in one shot, just avoid them. If a little bit of that spit gets on your skin, you’ll be paralyzed for ten minutes or so. But they generally avoid people and won’t attack if they aren’t threatened.”
“Good to know, thanks.”
“You’re welcome! How many more do you need?”
“I need to fill these bottles. Four or five foxes like this, possibly six. It depends on how much of a soul they have I guess…”
“Ok, let’s go!”
The next animal we spot is a very large badger. It’s about the size of a small bear. This time Berthold catches my arm and motions me to follow him. “That one is too dangerous, let’s not risk it ok? It’ll not attack if we won’t bother it…” he says when we are far enough from the creature.
I bet it can fill a whole bottle by itself… time for some magic I guess…
*~*~*
Power level: 2nd stage apprentice.
Mana pools status:
Crown-knot: Affinity 10: formed: 1 gem replenished per five minutes.
Neck-Bridge: Affinity 6: formed: max amount of gems drained per day: 66
Abdomen-storage: Affinity 5: formed: 6 gems. Conversion ratio: 6:1
Air: Affinity 4: formed: 18 gems
Fire: Affinity 2: formed: 9 gems
Light: Affinity 3: formed: 14 gems
Water: Affinity 6: formed: 27 gems
Earth: Affinity 1: opened: 3 gems
Wood: Affinity 2:
Gravity: Affinity 9: formed: 40/41 gems
Cantrip known:
Air: Shavi’s Breeze. Shavi’s Sword. Shavi’s Hair Dryer. Aria’s Enhanced Hearing.
Fire: Nuriss’ Flame. Effrat’s Firefly. Effrat’s Fire Breath. Sorladika's Lesser Heating.
Light: Noxi’s Light. Lako’s Blinding Light.
Water: Water Evocation. Water to Ice. Ice to Water. Water to Vapor. Vapor to Water. Mayan’s Icy Spike. Ayla’s Water Jet.
Earth:
Wood:
Gravity: Lumina’s Kinetic Burst. Tukado’s Repulse. Tukado’s lesser shield. Imari’s Minor Telekinesis. Imari’s Jump. Leo’s Pull. Leo’s Grounding. Alino’s Light Body. Alino’s Heavy Body.
Spells known:
Gravity: Alino’s weightless bodyb.
Focus capability: 10 patterns
Social status: apprentice to the maven of mysteries.
Wealth: 909 gems. 1287 gold coins, 13 silvers, 47 coppers.
Items:
Two simple healing potions.
Two potions with unknown effects.
An enchanted belt with eight pouches, the enchantment keep the pouches’ content fresh.
Fresh rose petals, 11g
3 soul containers size 1. (Burrowed item. Ownership: Maven of Mysteries.)
Roll of magical cloth, any carcass wrapped fully in the cloth will not rot. (Burrowed item. Ownership: Maven of Mysteries.)
A magical pouch, any carcass attached to the pouch will shrink in size. (Burrowed item. Ownership: Maven of Mysteries.)
Companions:
Berthold.
Languages:
Toml’a <People’s tongue> Fluent
Sinteo <Speech> 9/10
Myrsha <Gravity> 5/10
Injuries and scars: Back, lightning scar.
