Chapter 232: The Northern Night (2/2)
Another drain to her health and mana and if she didn’t get out of there soon, she’d be left dry and dead before the night had ended. Blinking up, she rammed her hands and ashen limbs into the stone before the next message resounded in her mind.
‘ding’ ‘You have heard the song of a mighty creature – Your body is paralyzed for two seconds.’
‘ding’ ‘Veteran reaches lvl 5’
Her plan had worked and she hung limply at the side of the cliff, the ghostly monsters unable to fly up to her as they grouped up, sucking out her health and mana even from the distance of nearly thirty meters.
Let’s see if this works. She thought and used the split second of available movement to dig herself even deeper into the wall. Carefully looking over her health and mana, she frowned and decided it was a shit idea to try and level here, already reaching below half of her mana.
‘ding’ ‘You have heard the song of a mighty creature – Your body is paralyzed for one second.’
Already down to a single second? Ilea blinked up again, digging into stone before another message came up.
‘ding’ ‘You have heard the song of a mighty creature – Your body is paralyzed for one second.’
This time her skill didn’t level but with a single second in between, she could blink up again. The mana and health drain started to vane by then, the distance too high for the monsters’ magic to affect her. Mist continued to pour down when she reached the top of the crevice.
‘ding’ ‘You have heard the song of a mighty creature – Your body is paralyzed for one second.’
‘ding’ ‘Veteran reaches lvl 6’
Looking down she found dozens of white eyes staring at her, unblinking before soon they started moving away, twirling in the mist as the visibility down in the crack became less and less. All her hair was standing up as she fell down backwards, sitting there as the mist continued pouring into the hole. It came from the air it seemed, like the wind carrying a white sheet before it poured down over the country. Ilea found some distant moving sets of six eyes even up here but none of them had noticed her so far and it looked like the mists congregated in deeper areas like the crevices. The humming continued from below, the fact that it didn’t sound like there were dozens of them there made it even creepier to her. She moved a couple steps back, still sitting and breathed out.
A couple fewer levels in Veteran at the start and that could’ve been it. Days since the last near death experience… still zero. She shivered and stood up, letting healing mana flow through her, meditation quickly returning her lost mana. “Terrifying little buggers.” Ilea looked out towards a pair of them twirling in their own sea of mist but decided to observe more before she landed in another fight. Who knew if they could multiply or something.
Looking over the cliff side, she found it had turned completely white. She couldn’t make out a single one of the creatures. The flow of the mist had nearly stopped as well. I should find another place to hide. The storms are too dangerous to… Ilea’s thought process was interrupted when she looked out over the lands. Dark mountains loomed all around her, cracks and crevices visible even far away, some reflecting the starlight on a white sheet of mist. Not a single purple light was visible. Not a single black cloud either.
Ilea spread her wings and flew up a couple dozen meters to get a better view. Other than seeing a little further, it was the exact same result. She saw a couple clouds but they looked either gray or white, not that that was an indicator of their safety. Still, there was no purple lightning. It was quiet. Seas of mist had congregated in various areas where the land seemed to form into valleys. Ilea assumed most if not all crevices were filled with the stuff and likely the creatures that followed.
Miststalkers was it? She couldn’t identify a single one of them. Flying closer to a small mountain, she landed on its peak, standing on black stone. A thin sheet of ice glimmered in the moonlight, crunching and splintering when she stepped over to the other side. Lakes of mist and cloudy mountain tops showed wherever she turned.
‘ding’ ‘Arcane Magic Resistance reaches 2nd lvl 2’
“Erm, what?” She blinked her eyes, watching black furry creatures run in the dark before they vanished again. “Hello. Yes what please?” Looking up towards the sky there was neither a god nor demon replying to her questioning.
...and natural occurrences of the true arcane. Does that mean there’s magic in the air here?
Figuring she’d learn about what the hell just happened in time, she tried spotting the running creatures again. Four legs and a tail. They were only visible because of the absence of light where they ran, at least it felt that way to Ilea. Spreading her wings, she jumped off the mountain and glided over the lake of mist where she could see at least a dozen of the mist creatures, too far below her to affect her with their magic. Landing on a hill overlooking the lake, some of the creatures nearby quickly advanced on her, their eerie melody sung but not affecting her anymore.
“What are you going to do now mist bitches?” The answer was of course to drain her health and mana. They stood far inside the mist, too far for her to try and engage, just in case they were just luring her in there. Training her resistances against the spells was certainly a possibility but she didn’t feel safe enough to run around with half of her mana and health missing.
Turning away instead, she continued her observation rounds from the sky. Not too high up as she saw things moving through the clouds. More of the leathery birds that moved in big murders. That doesn’t look safe. She wanted to fight one of them alone before rushing into a while group of the creatures. At least it seemed they either didn’t see her or didn’t care about her presence. Landing on an elevated position devoid of mist, she spotted a big skeleton. A lizard like head and four limbs. The tail was missing but checking a couple dozen meters behind the creature, she found its skeleton lying on the stone. The bone wasn’t completely dry, a little blood and tissue still sticking to it indicating a more recent death than she had assumed at first.
Identifying the bone gave her the name of the creature.
[Kalamon Bone – High Quality]
Ilea grabbed one of the ribs and pulled hard. It cracked after a while, the woman stumbling back a little. Putting it below her foot, she stomped down and found it cracking with the first hit, breaking on the second. Not better than my stuff.
Moving on through the dark, Ilea glimpsed more of the mist creatures and deadly looking birds but other than that there was nothing moving in the night. Nothing visible to her at least. She spent the night rushing from mountain top to mountain top, hiding from swarms of birds from time to time. A loud hissing sound made her jump into a crack, tremors of something moving by could be felt but looking over the edge, she couldn’t see anything. Neither had there been a paralyzing effect but Ilea didn’t really know what that meant. It was possible her Veteran level was high enough to counter the effects or certain strong monsters simply had the ability, like a skill of her own and could use it at will.
Ilea couldn’t tell the mountains from each other, constantly moving between their high peaks and the valleys beyond, the cracks in the earth leading down even deeper. With the mists it seemed unwise to travel them by night but there were certainly enough hunters around above ground as well. Birds and flying drake like creatures occasionally dived down but she could never see what exactly they hunted or killed. It made her more vary of the skies, making sure to stay as invisible as possible to them. Her black armor barely reflecting light and mostly her small form compared to the beasts she had encountered so far helped her in that regard. Or it was pure luck that none of the animals had dived to kill her. Ilea didn’t know. What she knew was that by the time the suns were rising on the horizon, the cracked and mountainous terrain now expanded further than her eyes let her see in all directions. A smile formed on her face as she stretched and summoned a meal, sitting down on a stone atop a mountain peak. Her legs dangled, bumping the stone from time to time as she enjoyed Keyla’s cooking in silence. I’m lost as fuck.